New teen sensations The Spirit Levels have arrived back in Australia after an exhausting eight hour tour of Tasmania, where they recorded what they hope will become both sides of a double a-sided single, prospectively entitled “wood chip monks/ girder”.
“Yeah,” opines lead flautist and bush-bass player Bailey, “we needed to get out there, get down to the timber mills and basically let the music flow, you know.”
When asked to describe the reaction of local timber millers to the band’s self-confessed “Sylvia Plath-melancholy”, Bailey laughs and simply states: “Well, that’s going to have to be the subject of our next single. But I don’t know what the label is going to think of a song called “You fucking hippies.”
The band’s three members all hail from Melbourne, though Bailey is the first to admit the band’s focus is rather split at the moment. “Well, Ormond and myself are both architects, but Davey, who knows what he does the rest of the time. He was the one who actually suggested I pose with my bush-bass in that promo photo. It got me into a lot of trouble in Tasmania, that broom handle.”
When asked why the band decided on such a short tour, Davey (whose last name is “Dreamnation”, apparently) shouts: “Don’t answer that one Bailey! It’s a trick question!” Then turning to me, he snarls: “I’d like to see you last five minutes in Tassie, man. That place is one giant mosh pit!”
Which kind of explains everything. Possessing no recognisable rhythm section, the Spirit Levels might be said to be pushing shit uphill, in terms of audience impressions.
“Not so,” opinies Ormond, the group’s only trained musician. “We ask the audience to tune in via the stereo in their souls. If they can’t get any reception, that’s not our fault.”
Indeed. But if they want to get anywhere, the band will surely need to come up with more than two songs. And as for the instruments – just don’t bother. These guys might turn out to be quite good one day, but then again, they probably won’t. One star.
