The Mythology of the Bush

Until a couple of years ago, the only song I knew of The Church was  – as you can all guess – “Under the Milky Way”. And I loved it. In Belgium it was a radio hit, it still is today and the song is quite often played on pop stations. I remember singing along whenever it was played on the radio while driving my car, turning up the volume. I don’t remember ever hearing another song by them played on a radio station here. So when a fellow Nitsfan (Nits are a Dutch band) urged me to listen to some of their albums, I really didn’t know what to expect and I had no idea of the enormity of the discovery I was about to make. Did I know I was about to be introduced to an exquisite specimen of musical mythology?!

A couple of years of devoted exploration have passed now and after reading the man’s – who is like a Zeus on bass guitar – autobiographical “Something quite peculiar” I started to call it The Mythology of the Bush.
To tell you the truth I was very moved by Steve Kilbey’s account of his younger years leading up to the formation of the band The Church. I can still picture it all : the scenes of a cosy home life, his school experiences and some of the teachers he cherished, his adventures playing with friends as a kid in the Australian bush, his first infatuations, his growing love and obsession with music, his sheer determination and will power to become a song writer. All narrated with such candour, warmth and humour. It all felt so genuine. Written by someone who is very aware of both his strengths and his weaknesses. Those first chapters will stay with me forever, like a sort of movie of what childhood means to all of us. I fabricated all the images in my head of young Steven finding his way in life. I feel the heat of this continent I never visited, I see the houses and streets, the schools and playgrounds. The archetype of the beginning. The seeds of what we are to become are first gathered there in those early days.

The love for his mom and dad, his family, his world which was once so little, fitting into the nutshell of a kitchen, living room and a couple of bedrooms, which then expanded and expanded into this incredible musical universe. To me – whose experience of The Church came in two parts: part 1 the radio song “Under the Milky Way”, part 2 this unrivalled musical mythology of an uncountable number of songs telling the tale of man and woman in order to try and find some meaning or order in this world – “Under the Milky Way” will always sort of capture the feeling of the innocence of a beginning, of wanting to reach out as far as possible, as far as the human voice and hand can reach. The song is like a bait thrown out at the fish, trying to seduce them with something there for the taking, something easily digestible. Well of course it was not intended that way and sadly I was one of the fish feeling happily satisfied with this sweet candy song. But I guess this peculiar Milky Way just like any other kind of universe doesn’t reveal its most beautiful secrets so easily. You have to look for them.

So I did, hour after hour, just listening to it all. And I found the classical type of mythology – the knowledge of which impressed his teachers when he was still very young – with its universal scope, characters, stories, its intellectual side on the one hand and its raw, sometimes even brutal morals on the other – all of which are elements of the work of Steve Kilbey – beautifully combined with the adventure of the exploration of a wide and uncharted territory. The human psyche is so beautifully mirrored in the expanse and the reach of the guitars whose intricate sounds are always accompanied by this feeling of fondness of and familiarity with an “unknown whole”. The lyrics know no borders; they encompass the entire expressiveness of language, creating beauty or meaning or both, wandering from melancholy and via the finest sense of the absurd or surreal, towards the pointlessness of it all. Nothing scares Steve Kilbey. He takes everything in his stride. He conquers. But there’s also something compassionate and merciful in his voice. Some goodwill in the sound of the Church guitars. Always in touch with a universe they are in awe of. A guitar band rarely boasts this kind of gentle demeanour. There is a strong sense of sentiment, a deep rootedness present in the songs of this band. A knowing and a sort of relatedness-to-it-all that you find in any mythology. The Church is this vast romance of life and music combined.

Know thyself. The beginning of all wisdom. Also of the wisdom of the musical kind.

Joke Roelandt, July 2022