Dave Graney & Clare Moore- Hashish & Liquor

Thu 28th Jul, 2005 in Music Reviews

Unless your first name is Snoop or, like Lou Reed, you prefer your “wine in the morning and some breakfast at night”, I’d advise you steer clear of hashish and liquor until at least lunchtime. Lest you be one of those oddly balanced people, or one self-righteous enough to abstain in the first place. To you I say well done. Would you like some dessert wine with that stigmata?

For the rest, however, who prefer a little light relief to ease the general shittiness of life, you may find some of that calm dizziness of the chemical of your choice in Graney and Moore’s latest work. One disc each.

Graney’s may be the name to get bums on seats but it is Moore’s side – full of liquor-licked tragedies – that will dazzle most punters. I say that not as a reflection upon the quality of either disc, but simply to note their accessibility. Dave Graney’s Hashish side is a spiralling, reflective, hazy lounge act. It’s the type of rock album that happily accompanies vibes and flute and bells and with its tautological take on one of drug culture’s greatest lyrics (herein known as I Will Have Always Been Here Before), of course you know I’m gonna love it.

Upon a time Clare Moore was working on a project of town bike songs (shame on you if you don’t know the concept of The Town Bike; what, are you un-Australian or something?). Presented within the Liquor album – and let’s hope the tipple of choice is some kind of passion pop, just to make it all the more poignant – it’s pretty sad stuff. Even if it shouldn’t be.

The Graney/Moore show has always been as much concept and high drama as it is fine fine music. Let’s not forget, their first ever gig together, post-Moodists, included something like seven lesbian saxophonists (and one stoned man up front in a safari suit). So for them to follow through two decades later with an actual Concept Album(s) is no wonder whatsoever. How much was moulded to fit the themes, rather than written for them, is always an unwinnable debate. Let’s say some, they say none, and let’s call the whole thing off.

If you’re looking for a Night Of The Wolverine or a You’re Too Hip Baby then you’re only about a decade too late. Whilst not having ditched the whole midday show circuit shtick of previous albums (immaculately summed up in the title of one of the songs on Hashish; My Shtick Weighs A Ton), there is certainly no need for elevated collars and lime green jumpsuits this time round. It ain’t no dark night of the soul but it certainly seems to smell more confessional than anything the pair have done in a good long while. I get the feeling the glass is half empty, not half full, when they look in the mirror. Judging from these songs anyway, with their morning-after tone of regret.

Gorgeous self-mordant stuff, baby.