The Magnitude of Bondi Junction

The lost beginning, so typical of many a Church song – with, as an outset, only an intimation of the presence and passing of time. Steve Kilbey doesn’t feel the need to retrace it, this beginning; he is always already in the midst of the music and the words. And this is exactly how it should be, ideally. He has been immersed for the longest time in the voices that utter the words and in the sounds that constitute the music. Long before The Church created this song, Steve Kilbey had entered the conversation of mankind with words and music. His lyrics arise in the midst of an ongoing synthesis of perception and imagination and are voicing his very own way with language. A very strange spirit reveals itself through his voice and I’m intrigued. The song intrudes, but in the most natural of ways… A flow of an infinite flexibility takes over. Rising and falling with his breath.
Steve Kilbey heard the voices of the world long before he spoke his own words. And then he sings those endless verses for the guitars and drums to embrace; music and words encircling one another, enkindling each other with their forceful presence, words becoming soundful, sounds becoming meaningful. A perfect, intimate conspiracy between music and language as I have seldom heard one. A straightforward no-nonsense mystery of randomness and purpose.

The singer let go of his bass guitar so he could express the emotions of the words and music through his movements. It’s a song for the body. Steve Kilbey rhapsodises with his whole body. The call of the music is seductive, compelling, overpowering. It spirals its way down to the core of our bodies and minds. And Tiare waves her fan. With her golden hair as a goddess of femininity. The whole emanates a primal, erotic force of ruthlessness and elegance all at once. While I’m catching my breath, he whispers in a majestic moment of respite “You’ve got the strength of a lamb”. And it’s all natural like the music of the snow… He smiles, eyes closed. Listen to this moment, the poetry of it remained unsung in a bucolic and idyllic little valley protected by the music. 

And how it all falls down on its knees in a musical act of worship and awe, humility … only to rise up again in a ritualistic manner – waking early on an Easter Sunday – with a previously unheard strength as if borrowed from the universe itself. The nature you don’t know, you can hear it through the ice and fire of Anchorage. Everything about it is sublime… 

I listen to it and I regain my strength.

Joke Roelandt, February 2022