Melbourne MP3 Of The Week: The Dark by A. Wallace

Like a young Neil Young with two feet in the grave, this big guy will really get you down with his high-pitched, aching voice that threads through The Dark like some very flawed and fragile porcelain.

Choosing to record most of his previous work in storm-water drains and rainforests, A. Wallace knows his audience. This song is taken from a 3″CD, the last of a trio of songs recorded in a day “on a mountain overlooking a valley of English oak trees in light rain.”

The Dark, like much of Wallace’s music, is very raw roots, just a single wavering voice and an acoustic guitar that plays almost like a bag of hollow bones was tipped over the strings, in a sort of unique rhythm where you imagine there’s a band in his head that he’s playing with but here he is, in the real world, out of context.

The song has some of the grandness of the valley it was recorded over, with an almost filmic defeat in its tone. The simple descending riff that stirs up in the last half could have been played by Hollywood strings. The lyrics too are as abstract and grand as you might expect.

A good one for winter-blues meditations.

Download here: http://m.soundcloud.com/a_wallace/03-the-dark

A. Wallace plays at Builders Arms
211 Gertrude St, Fitzroy
Saturday June 4 at 8.30pm