The Separation of Powers: “Church & State”

DNRC048 | 2LP* | 2004 | DELETED

Sometimes, in this technologically-anal age, it’s tempting to think that we’ve never had it better; that the present moment, or at least the one about to come in just a moment, is superior to all past moments, including the one just one second ago; that we wouldn’t ever wish to be alive in the past again, even for an hour or so; that we are always in that enviable position facing forward, near the exit doors, in first class, secure in the knowledge that our baggage has been sent ahead on a future plane, and that when we do arrive in that star-spangled magic moment, an attractive stewardess will be there waiting for us, holding a cocktail in one hand and a tray of Iced Vo-Vos in the other; that all life from now on will be a digital picnic, featuring various mp3 snacks, podcast sandwiches, plates of cold mash-ups and, for dessert, a fully-interactive multimedia presentation of our bandwidth-hungry souls; that all old musical technologies are laughable, though not yet old enough to place in a museum, along with other relics from the rape and pillage days we have all come to know and love; that any band who saw fit to record their debut double album straight to vinyl and then release it on a 120 minute cassette tape would be committing the worst form of faux pas, that is, the kind of faux pas you only hear about long after it has been committed, by someone else, in another century, on another analogue planet; that each copy would be dubbed to cassette individually, complete with the comforting christmas pudding sound of the needle hitting the vinyl, and the pork-fat crackling of the static and dust on the platter itself; that the band, after having named themselves The Separation of Powers, would then commit musical hari-kiri by filling the last few minutes on side two of the tape with individual songs by other, perhaps more famous, bands; that, despite this eccentric hearkening back to a dark fibre age, this record would come to be known as a classic in its time, that is, the period between recess and big lunch when your tummy grumbles loudly and the lunch box has not yet made its slow and lumbering way from the tuckshop to your classroom, and you can only dream of the salad sandwich and small sausage roll you’ve ordered with the $1.20 your mum gave you, because it’s Friday and that means sports day and that means not having to take your own lunch; that the band, far from recording a new album by conventional means, are in fact today still occupied with dubbing copies of said album, due to the amount of time it takes to flip four sides of a double LP, cue the tape deck and run through the exhaustive track listing; in short, that this magnificently barmy statement of intent will never be deleted. Sadly, however, it has, and The Separation of Powers are no more.

* released on cassette.