The Green Pieces: “What Does Comprising Mean?”

DNRC056 | LP | 2005 | DELETED

Husband and Wife team Vim and Janet Prenderghast were responsible for what one critic called – without any apparent irony – “the saddest evocation of happiness I’ve ever heard”. Their nine tender Fender-driven dirges about marital bliss and its antecedents may not have garnered them anything in the way of chart success, but the tour of Australian Territories (Northern, Antarctic and Australian Capital; Ashmore and Cartier, Christmas, Norfolk, Coral and Cocos Islands; and Jervis Bay) that accompanied the launch of this album was noteworthy for the rapport that Vim and Janet established with the crowd. Many of the shows were attended by the same group of fans, who flew from concert to concert, claiming that full appreciation of the life-advice embedded within the lyrics of The Green Pieces’s music required repeat exposure. Over all nine tracks Vim’s steely baritone accompanies Janet’s haunting melodic keys in a solid and – to be fair – predictable manner, intertwining harmonics in a manner evocative of the oscillating sounds of Tuvan throat singers, but with much more Spector-esque melodic interpretation. ‘What Does Comprising Mean?’ may be a homogenous listen, but it still manages to disprove the notion that chocolate ice-cream for dinner every night would soon become intolerable.