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Hope Springs

by Gersey

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In the Woods 02:03
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about

The Japanese have an aesthetic concept called ‘mono no aware’ ; essentially, this concept expresses the linked experiences of beauty and transience, and can be illustrated by reference to our experience of the essentially transient yet continuing nature of the seasons — there’s a sadness born of the awareness that all things must pass, but also an acceptance that this is a fundamental element of our natural condition. Which is, I reckon, a neat way of explaining why it seems that we’re wired to respond to repetition in art, especially repetition which embodies some kind of cyclic progression.

Take Melbourne band Gersey’s rather fab 2000 debut lp, Hope Springs, for example. This is a record built on repetition — every song works the same template of repeated, cleanly ringing, rising and falling guitar lines (and sometimes vocals) over the background provided by some unobtrusive percussion and dreamy keys (amongst others, moog, melodica, glockenspiel and casio are mentioned in the liner notes, though they’re so well integrated, along with occasional mournful flourishes of trumpet and strings, that you’d generally be hard-pressed to pick them out in the record itself). There’s an oceanic feel to the music, and it’s basically introspective, melancholy, end-of-day stuff, but it’s also surprisingly comforting and uplifting, seeming somehow always to point to the possibility of a better tomorrow.

Although the overall sound is pretty strongly rooted in pop-rock forms, the album often drifts in the direction of post-rock, albeit only towards the more traditionally guitar-oriented streams of that genre. The guitars are always at the forefront, and they weep and chime throughout, sometimes in wistful, wispy half-tunes and lullabies, and sometimes in slowly building, fiery and ultimately rather cathartic crescendos (especially in 10-minute album closer “The Beautiful Look City Today” — I saw them close a show with this one a while ago, and it really did seem to reach a point which the band had been hinting at, and anticipating, for the entire gig). And there are vocals, too, delivered by bassist Craig Jackson with a sort of emphatic tenderness, allusively touched by half-felt regrets, memories, wishes, dreams, urban disaffection, &c — all very apt.

Importantly, the band isn’t afraid to take its time — while it doesn’t feel as if a moment is wasted on Hope Springs, both individual songs and the album as a whole are allowed to sprawl, and in this way to find their natural shapes. The music generally drifts along at something shy of mid-tempo, and there are minutes on end when things get very stripped back, the thread of the record carried along by a single, gently plucked guitar, lightly haunted by echoes and shades behind it, before slowly, yet seemingly ineluctably, recresting (take “So Long Silver”, another near 10-minute song, for example).

It also has to be said that an important part of Gersey’s music is melody — Hope Springs is filled with memorable tunes, sometimes carried by the guitars and sometimes by the vocals (or both), and the spaciousness of the record ensures that these melodies always come through clearly. Indeed, in many ways it’s the simplicity of this album which marks it as something slightly special, for in its unhurried, uncluttered, yearningly pretty fashion, it’s one of those richly evocative guitar records to which it’s possible to return over and over and over again.

credits

released August 1, 2000

Recorded and Mixed by Tim Whitten at Megaphon Studios, Sydney

Mastered by Don Bartly at 301, Sydney

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Gersey Melbourne, Australia

"You will never really pin these songs down. Without ever trying to be "mysterious" this music with its repetitions which blur and softly distort, the detached vague lyrics and voice which seamlessly becomes another element, is".

Steve Kilbey
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