ANTHONY ROCHESTER

reminds RK of Eggstone circa 1993: coming out of nowhere (Tasmania is Mr. Rochester's home) with a gorgeous sound; and almost completely unaware of the bands you would name when attempting to describe the music. So how did RK discover the Tasmanian? Why, through the Norwegians, naturally. Christoffer from Nice System/Remington Super 60 and Christer from Micromars put together a compilation to document the young Norwegian scene...making Anthony into an honorary Norseman in the process.

Our fave from Down Under is back with his fourth album and looking for a hit…or is he? Laughs, grooves, charm and a little sadness are the order of the day. File between Bertrand Burgalat and Darron Hanlon.

Two-and-a-half years in the tinkering, Anthony Rochester’s much-anticipated second long player is a producer’s album: densely layered melodies and sounds, sounds, sounds! Start with that classic bass sound of the French 60s (think Serge Gainsbourg or, more recently, Bertrand Burgalat). Add a truckload of keyboards (piano, Hammond, classic synths...the portamento button even gets a mention in the album thank-yous), guitars galore, strings, operatic “Star Trek” backing vocals, flutes, off kilter recorders, etcetera etcetera. Top with Anthony’s laid back vocals and wayward, shy-guy charm. Mr. Rochester plays almost everything himself, from drums to violin, but still pulls in a good handful of guests, among them Norwegian future-pop maestro Micromars (whose electronics soup up the album’s aching, dreamy finale) and the mezzo-soprano from next door.

Matt Jones of The Hepburns (who penned the lyrics for two of the songs) describes Anthony’s music as a “stained-glass window...It is music for interiors, bored Tuesday afternoons with nothing much to do but with a smouldering-cigarette desire to do something, music to fill the void like particles of dust illuminated by coloured light.”

Mastered by Jiri Adamik-Novak (Cinnamon), who never says more than a word or two about anything, except in the case of this album, where he used at least 30.

Reference points: Komeda, Bertrand Burgalat, Eno’s Another Green World, Remington Super 60, Shuggie Otis, Stereolab.

A return to the thriller-esque mode of 18fps’ debut The Flight of Everson K. Swedish artist Testbild! turns in a surrealist detective stomper in the form of “His Shadows are Green / His Shadows are Blue” which probably owes almost as much to band leader Petter Herbertsson’s obsession with writer Paul Auster as to postpunk and krautrock experimentation. A jagged, melodic tour-de-force. Flipside features “Special Delivery Agent Q-39,” the recording which got Tasmanian multi-instrumentalist Anthony Rochester signed to the label: twang guitar and stabbing flute spy instrumental, standard procedure. Except that Rochester kicks the genre sideways with a 5/4 time signature and an uncharacteristically wistful air... Both tracks exclusive.

The idea with the design was to have a pre-printed, generic poster small enough to fit in the a photocopier so that local details (guest artists, venue and date info) could be added on top. Of course, it took a bit of work to get the add-on text to line up with the pre-printed text. We had some extras left over at the end of the tour. Bug us if you really want one with Bart Davenport, Baskervilles, etc. on the poster. There were a few of those in mixed in the stack the last time I looked.