KILLED in CARS

Alastair Galbraith - Talisman (Next Best Way, 1995)

Alastair Galbraith’s albums are about as consistently un-ambitious as he has been consistently indifferent about ambition, specifically in terms of musicianship. Responding in an interview, Galbraith mentioned that, “To me, my musical career is not as important as my life itself, and that was something I’ve found very difficult about touring. I am always ‘Alastair Galbraith: The Musician,’ and it’s hard to feel like you’re still a painter, or a person who likes walking around picking up driftwood or whatever else you may be.” Somewhat like driftwood one finds on a rainy beach, Galbraith’s work has the feel of something molded by aimlessness and wandering. Happening upon one of his album’s for the first time feels as though one is among a lucky few who’ve touched it, that it could have been collecting dust in a record store for twenty years, waiting to be handled by you and you alone.

Raised in Dunedin, New Zealand, Galbraith formed his first band—The Rip—with his high school buddy Robbie Muir after seeing The Clean play in the early eighties. Without the kind of global communications infrastructure we’ve enjoyed with things going digital, New Zealand might as well have been at the end of the world. Much of the influence musicians were toying with at the time was up to two years out of vogue by the time they’d get to touring. That compounded with what could have been an inferiority complex among the New Zealanders and/or a superiority complex among Londoners, manifested a sense of necessary self-sufficiency in the minds of many coming out of the scene; in some ways, there was nowhere to go but home—one of the key ingredients to a potentially excellent milieu. Interviewed by the Guardian a year ago, Martin Phillips (of Flying Nun Record’s The Chills) commented that, “From our perspective it was, ‘We are those of you brave enough to jump on rickety little boats and head off into the darkened seas to set up brave new colonies because we didn’t want to be part of this class system. But we are still part of you.’ The British perspective felt like, ‘They have the nerve to say they’re part of our ongoing history when they ran out on us at a crucial time.’ And they’ve given New Zealanders minimum publicity ever since.”

Following a number of line-up changes and two EP’s produced through the late eighties, The Rip eventually disbanded, and by 1987, Galbraith was producing his own records. Influenced by Peter Jefferies (of This Kind of Punishment), who had advised Galbraith early on that, “recording in a professional studio and paying a lot of money was a very bad idea,” Galbraith perfected the 4-track aesthetic, mixing Velvet Underground elements via his cello work with bagpipe drone gleaned from his Scottish ancestry, and injecting it with his preternatural lyrical poise.

In 1995 Galbraith released his third LP, entitled Talisman. The album was produced after a year of living about an hour south of Dunedin near a small fishing village called Taeiri’s Mouth. Not totally secluded, Galbraith apparently used the Taeiri River gorge to his advantage, canoeing downstream every day to his friends’ house to play and record. One can see how that kind of lifestyle came to influence the music, not just on this album but all of his works: the specifically kiwi ethos of a 4-track in one hand and a canoe paddle in the other.

The album has the dynamism of a mountainous landscape, where ridges fall to valleys and crumple into gulleys that fold into lakes that rise again to mountains: a cyclical sense of change that’s not unlike a fugue. It’s fast paced and constantly changing—only a few of the tracks are longer than a minute and a half. Beginning with one of Galbraith’s signature sounds, mingling backward looped guitars with his double-tracked vocals thrumming a lullaby, we’re led to the caustic chant of Yuhahi, a Cherokee recitation to frighten storms. From there we’re led back to Galbraith’s superb, lyrically tuned pop-sensibility with Carlos, and just as we’re about to get comfortable, switches gears again with the metalloid drone of Xtra 1, prefacing the incantarory Black Flame, a turbulently contoured anthem colored black with snare splashes. This oscillating pattern in the first four or five tracks continues as the modal direction through the rest of the album, repeating itself as necessary. Liquid loops transform into combustible reveries as breezy lyrics segue into earthy drones, articulated with unintelligible spoken word. It achieves what a series of charcoal sketches can that oil masterpieces cannot.

Talisman is a good start if you haven’t heard Galbraith before, but only because it comes at the middle (of the beginning) of his project. As I wrote above, Galbraith’s work is incredibly consistent, so if you like Talisman, definitely check out his other albums—he’s coming out with a new one just about every three seconds.

Travis Meyer