Ecce Homo: (Self)Portrait of (a) Man

I Shall Not Want

The Hall of Counterfeits starts off not much unlike its hailed example and prototype of thirty years back by the name of Remindlessness, a gorgeous album by a man in his prime, inspired by a potent, male drive pulsating throughout the whole work. As a girl in Remindlessnessland “I needed a bit of time to get into this seemingly rather “primitive” and wilful, but brilliantly effective, vigorously storming urge”. But in the end I warmed to it and I now realise that it was perhaps some eager anticipatory foreplay that would culminate in something even more enticing.

The opener “Arcadia” is inscribed in the same dialogue of desire that runs through both these albums, as an idyllic spot of harmony and unspoiled wilderness, a longing that has stayed. This eden is personified as a quintessentially female goddess, looking beautiful and seductive, the music already under her spell. A very powerful, recurrent theme in the lyrics of Steve Kilbey. “Everybody wants you baby, I’m standing in a line”. It’s clear to all that this ravishing goddess Steve is addressing might be none other than the muse of lyrical and musical expression herself. The one we have come to adore in years and years of outstanding creative prowess. The stage is set for another dramatic, passionate encounter with a man whose passion is for ever sublimated, as an instinctive nature, in musical creation of the highest order, wild, free, untamed. It flows over centuries of different landscapes and civilisations; it has – as all Steve Kilbey’s albums – a fine sense of historicism overviewing the whole realm of an unbridled sensibility which roams around freely as an endless musical energy emanating from a body that collected vast amounts of physical, emotional and spiritual wisdom, and from a traveling mind that recorded all that seemed meaningful or relevant to it – and above all: all that remained a mystery to it, and all things which in their apparent irrelevance, only added to the mystery of it all.

I call his muse “Sophia”.

In Steve Kilbey’s universe the world is still on the shoulders of Atlas. His work is like an eternal beginning, each album a mythos made out of music and lyrics. He is a historiographer of a world, of music of course and – on this album especially – of his own person and his very peculiar musical expressionism. He is still an adventurer at heart. I am reassured.

The album feels like a meditation on the eternal power of desire, a reflection on man’s unstoppable urge to create, an unrest which proves beneficial in the instance of this hall of counterfeits. A desire that seeks to emulate, imitate, impress, fake anything and everything on its path in a language of a never faltering drive. Because, yes, Steve knows that music isn’t real, its nature is ungraspable. But somehow our whole existence is captured at its best in these ephemeral, fluid waves of sound which – like Plato’s shadows – are only mere imitations or representations of what’s Real. The title Steve Kilbey chose for his new album expresses the humility, the humbleness of one whose music boasts a hubris that wants to contain the world. This contradiction is what makes him so great and his work so inimitable.

From this major theme a whole strand of sub-themes enters the hall. The invisible phantom thread of music is woven out of some very basic strings of human facticity. The enigmatic appearance of music suits the expression of the human condition just perfectly. Steve and his conspirators play with it as if they were gods themselves.

The idea of desire is articulated in a whole range of hunkering modes from love (the story of Warren and Janice) and ardor (Euphoric Recall) over lust (Amorous Plethora) to perhaps its most despicable form of greed, the marketability of desire (Everything For Sale) and libertinism. Desire is almost present in every song in one form or another. As Theseus, Steve slowly draws in and follows the music thread of a sensual goddess who lingers throughout this hall of sighs, longings, aspirations, wishes and complaints and along the way he produces some of his best work, some sort of ultimate concept album of what keeps a man alive: his unwavering desire to create and understand. A self-portrait that opens up into a world of music at first, and then into a world thoroughly his own…

Amongst my favourite pieces are the many hypnotising, lustful, ritualistic, mantra like music fabrics consisting of meticulously interwoven threads of sound by the finest selection of indigenous and exotic music instruments of past and present times. Because Steve Kilbey has learned as no other how to surround himself with the very best “technicians” and visionaries of the musical arts. His Winged Heels offer no less than excellence taking off to the skies while staying true to and firmly grounded on the earth: the rhythm is of the earth, the beat is of the earth and then something flies away… In these songs there’s a heavenly, propelling agency at work, imitating the movements of desire. As in the mesmerising “Horizon” where the alluring rhythm as of a belly-dancing woman holds the promise that the far-away longings on the horizon might be realised on the grounds of the earth. The way Steve quenches his thirst on this song is just magnificent. The album is interspersed with lots of these spontaneous reactions of the musicians, making the songs sound particularly alive and organic. Steve Kilbey’s music practice is like a tantric ritual of creation and enlightenment that shines its light on man’s inner workings, covering the whole range between angelic intentions and demonic impulses and lusts, often spiked with a keen sense of humour. In “Bound in Servitude” e.g. we end up for a moment in a barren emptiness progressing into a Dantean threat of hellish fire…But over the years, the protagonist has learned to let go. Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom – Let it be…Under the dark beginning of a new moon, a song of freedom commences, “Unrule”: if a flower field were under our feet for ever, if the sun and stars were above our heads for ever, if our history were written in music, if guitars were caressers of the soul… life wouldn’t be a mistake. The album ploughs through burning, sandy grounds, stony remnants of ancient fortresses, now and then interrupted by fresh oases of a more compassionate, forgiving nature. “I Shall Not Want” is a marvellous translation of the Freudian notion of desire into a musical, confessional chant of bliss and escape, sublimation, interdiction and taboo: why can’t I just wander contentedly in the soft green paradisiac pastures of the blue crane, Eros asks himself? A song like a trance like vision, a ritual in se. Sublime. These musicians know the game of music through and through, how it can tickle all our senses, how it can answer all our prayers. In “A Temple” a shrine is erected for all our wants in a most fabulous, yet unadorned way. Its long-stretched lingering sound almost feels like a redeeming, sacrificial act reaching out for the skies in a drawn-out cry which is then immediately soothed by a sweet introduction to the “Beginning of Mercy” – I swear I can hear The Beatles singing “Let it be”. What a wonderful transition between these two songs. The whole album feels like a random alternation of a fulminating desire and quiet moments of peace and solace. Towards the end the atmosphere softens in an almost listless dream imagery with vague silhouettes as the only remaining reminders of a fire that once burnt fervidly . But then in a final bout of optimism, Steve Kilbey sets in motion a new story: “ Long time ago space was calling”. Where in the light of a fickle, but relighted desire, a lovesong remains untitled, waiting for ever … to be named… What an ending to this masterpiece! A biblical unmasking of our human fate.

“But now I want to say – I’ve been waiting for this moment” are his last words…

I’m reassured. Somehow.

Joke Roelandt, September 2021