"Together Alone holds a special place in the hearts of Crowded House fans and remains one of Neil Finn's boldest musical statements - and his favourite Crowded House album. Recorded amid the isolated Karekare wilderness, the album is drenched in mystery and atmosphere, with songs possessing special qualities that those on other Crowded House albums - as good as they are - do not. But why exactly are they so hypnotizing? Featuring first-hand accounts, from Finn and others, the book also explores the intense circumstances of its recording, its major players, and other factors including the influence of Maori culture"--
Intertextual, passionate and personal, combining poetics, psychogeography, music theory, lyric analysis and biography, Crowded House's Together Alone is a key addition to scholarship on this cherished band.
Fusing pop music with place and landscape, Crowded House's Together Alone was unprecedented in its Australasian context, and in the process of making this album, the group's sound transformed profoundly. Crowded House's Together Alone examines why Neil Finn took the daring decision to record amid the wilds of Karekare Beach, West Auckland. It considers how British producer Youth impacted the band's dynamics and places the album within a wider artistic context, expanding beyond pop.
The book also recounts author Barnaby Smith's visit to Karekare on the trail of Together Alone's atmospheric melancholy – a psychogeographic adventure exploring what it means to visit a landscape under the spell of the music it has inspired. A song-by-song critique further illuminates the fragile alchemy that produced the most poetic statement in the Crowded House catalogue.
Arvustused
This is an album where the land sings back and Smiths book listens closely. -- Laura Gordon * Happy Mag * A landmark addition Part music criticism, part memoir, and part landscape writing, Crowded Houses Together Alone is a must-read for fans of the band, scholars of popular music, and anyone interested in the interplay between place and creativity. * The Foundation For Australian & New Zealand Arts (FANZA) *
Muu info
A literary but accessible analysis of the much-loved Crowded House album Together Alone (1993), recorded in the Karekare wilderness and influenced by literature, the arts, philosophy and Maori beliefs.
List of Figures
1. The Little Phrase: Introduction
2. A Contrary Path: Context and Background
3. Stay on One String: The (Non-Finn) Key Players
4. Ancient Streams: At Karekare
5. Abstract Thought: Song by Song
6. The Alchemy Is Complete: Aftermath
Acknowledgements
References
Index
Barnaby Smith is an award-winning writer, editor, critic, musician and poet based in the Blue Mountains, New South Wales, Australia. He has written about music, art, literature and film for publications including The Quietus, The Guardian, Rolling Stone, The Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Book Review, NME and the ABC.
