(no subject)
oh could anything be happier than this?
Rolling Stone (Australia)
May 2004
The Dissociatives - The Dissociatives
Four Stars
It's a happy state of mind that has brought Daniel Johns and Paul Mac back together again. But, believe it - it's really not rock.
Daniel Johns literally whistles his way through one song here, as if he's reclining on a cloud, floating a million miles away from all his troubles of old. It's just such a god-damn happy tune, an instrumental with a silly title - "Lifting the Veil From the Braille". It's not the only moment of musical frivolity - nor the only instrumental - on The Dissociatives, the debut long-player collaboration between Johns, recently de-Silverchaired, and Paul Mac, a one-time Itchee & Scratchee. Yes, grey skies have cleared up. You're constantly reminded of that through joyous melodic flourishes, such as in the intro to the first single, "Somewhere Down the Barrel".
To anyone who heard Johns and Mac's first joint effort, the under-produced five-track I Can't Believe It's Not Rock EP from 2000, well, this Dissociatives' recording sounds nothing like that. There are no rough edges and, for that matter, hardly any heavy rock sounds, with the exception of a couple of seconds in "Aaängry Megaphone Man". Gone too is the melodrama which permeated Silverchair's last effort, 2002's grand and grandiose Diorama. Instead, each song is made up of many complex and contrasting parts. With scant regard for genre, it's almost like an electro-pop symphony - as apposed to a rock opera - with different sounds and new melodies swirling and gusting up unexpectedly.
Aside from the whistling, Johns also sings as if he's having the time of his life. But all this frivolity and grinning instrumentation is kept in check by the darkly stream-of-consciousness narrative that Johns' has spread across the top. Apparently the 24-year-old wrote all the words for this album in one session, during a night-long solo pub crawl through New York. Whereas you could almost hear the premeditation that went into every line on Diorama, there's a devil-may-care literary approach at work here, with hardly any rhyming couplets to be heard anywhere throughout the record.
The detail slowly emerges through rich, fragmented imagery that constantly refers to some personal torture - a great isolation - endured and ultimately overcome by the protagonist. It's a world in which "this hospital is my favourite church" ("Thinking In Reverse"). In the rather extraordinary "Horror with Eyeballs", a waltz (of all musical things), Johns sings: "I feel root vegetable. Am I dead? Or buried alive?...Limbless in bed, sedated experiment." No prizes for picking the inspiration to such themes.
But all's well that ends well. "Life is quite simply…a series of intrusions," the singer concludes. "Tonight, sleep well tonight." ("Sleep Well Tonight") And that's enough reason for anyone to whistle a happy tune.
Daniel Johns will tell you that meeting Paul Mac - who is well over a decade his senior - altered his very perception about what his own music could and should be. And it's clear that Mac's role in the Dissociatives runs much deeper than simply sprinkling inventive electronic arrangements into the mix. This is collaboration, 50/50, the sum greater than the parts, etc.
The result is music unlike anything ever produced by an Australian act. A pop/rock record for the ages, to be placed up alongside your Beatles and Beach Boys' discs. Some old Silverchair fans will probably struggle to believe this is so not rock, but those people are probably still struggling to accept Diorama too.
- Dino Scatena
Rolling Stone (Australia)
May 2004
The Dissociatives - The Dissociatives
Four Stars
It's a happy state of mind that has brought Daniel Johns and Paul Mac back together again. But, believe it - it's really not rock.
Daniel Johns literally whistles his way through one song here, as if he's reclining on a cloud, floating a million miles away from all his troubles of old. It's just such a god-damn happy tune, an instrumental with a silly title - "Lifting the Veil From the Braille". It's not the only moment of musical frivolity - nor the only instrumental - on The Dissociatives, the debut long-player collaboration between Johns, recently de-Silverchaired, and Paul Mac, a one-time Itchee & Scratchee. Yes, grey skies have cleared up. You're constantly reminded of that through joyous melodic flourishes, such as in the intro to the first single, "Somewhere Down the Barrel".
To anyone who heard Johns and Mac's first joint effort, the under-produced five-track I Can't Believe It's Not Rock EP from 2000, well, this Dissociatives' recording sounds nothing like that. There are no rough edges and, for that matter, hardly any heavy rock sounds, with the exception of a couple of seconds in "Aaängry Megaphone Man". Gone too is the melodrama which permeated Silverchair's last effort, 2002's grand and grandiose Diorama. Instead, each song is made up of many complex and contrasting parts. With scant regard for genre, it's almost like an electro-pop symphony - as apposed to a rock opera - with different sounds and new melodies swirling and gusting up unexpectedly.
Aside from the whistling, Johns also sings as if he's having the time of his life. But all this frivolity and grinning instrumentation is kept in check by the darkly stream-of-consciousness narrative that Johns' has spread across the top. Apparently the 24-year-old wrote all the words for this album in one session, during a night-long solo pub crawl through New York. Whereas you could almost hear the premeditation that went into every line on Diorama, there's a devil-may-care literary approach at work here, with hardly any rhyming couplets to be heard anywhere throughout the record.
The detail slowly emerges through rich, fragmented imagery that constantly refers to some personal torture - a great isolation - endured and ultimately overcome by the protagonist. It's a world in which "this hospital is my favourite church" ("Thinking In Reverse"). In the rather extraordinary "Horror with Eyeballs", a waltz (of all musical things), Johns sings: "I feel root vegetable. Am I dead? Or buried alive?...Limbless in bed, sedated experiment." No prizes for picking the inspiration to such themes.
But all's well that ends well. "Life is quite simply…a series of intrusions," the singer concludes. "Tonight, sleep well tonight." ("Sleep Well Tonight") And that's enough reason for anyone to whistle a happy tune.
Daniel Johns will tell you that meeting Paul Mac - who is well over a decade his senior - altered his very perception about what his own music could and should be. And it's clear that Mac's role in the Dissociatives runs much deeper than simply sprinkling inventive electronic arrangements into the mix. This is collaboration, 50/50, the sum greater than the parts, etc.
The result is music unlike anything ever produced by an Australian act. A pop/rock record for the ages, to be placed up alongside your Beatles and Beach Boys' discs. Some old Silverchair fans will probably struggle to believe this is so not rock, but those people are probably still struggling to accept Diorama too.
- Dino Scatena