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Alastair Galbraith |
Capital of the minimal |
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BiographyAlastair Galbraith began his career as leader of The Rip, who recorded two EPs for Flying Nun. He then joined with Peter Jefferies, David Mitchell and Robbie Muir to form the extraordinary Plagal Grind, whose self-titled EP is regarded as ‘a masterpiece’ (whatever that term means given the consistent quality of Galbraith’s output). More recently he has alternated between solo projects for the Emperor Jones label in the USA, performances with Bruce Russell and Peter Stapleton as A Handful of Dust, and collaborations with Matt De Gennaro (with whom he uses piano wires to produce a celestial cacophony). His whispered lyrics are often framed by angular modal violin, bagpipes, organ and treated guitar, with slow chord changes that create what American writer Bill Meyer describes as 'otherworldly lyrical miniatures'. In May 2004 Galbraith talked briefly about his development:
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Discographyhttp://www.emperorjones.com/galbraith.html THE RIP
PLAGAL GRIND
SOLO
[with Matt De Gennaro] (Emperor Jones) 2002 A HANDFUL OF DUST (with Bruce Russell and Peter Stapleton)
LyricsScreaming E [When I was five, my maternal grandmother took me to the Dunedin Botanical Gardens on a day when she knew there was going to be a massed bagpipe band playing. She got me to stand right at the front of the path before they played. They came marching past and stopped almost directly in front of us, maybe thirty or forty bagpipers and the drums and everything, and as they warmed up and blew all the air into those horrible big leather bags, she said to me 'this will boil your blood', which was just a terrifying thing for her to say to me at that age, because I really believed that sound that happened just a few seconds later was going to actually, physically cause my blood to boil in my veins. She obviously meant that if you had Scottish blood in you, this will cause you to feel strong emotion, but that wasn't obvious to a five year old!] I'll scream an E [Morse & Gaudylight, Emperor Jones, 1996] Cry and i saw there was a good clear world [from the sleeve of Cry, Emperor Jones, 2000] Walking X scorpio is rising
all the greygreen greyblue eclipse this wintry evening is again eternal mood swings by
the dimming out of the day has sunk to a line of lights [Skin, OUSA, 1994]
© Alastair Galbraith 2004 |
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Comments
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My parents tell me that as a baby I would struggle to lean out of their
arms in the car (before the days of infant car-seats), and try to rest my
head on the gearstick knob! listening to the vibrations of the engine,
perhaps it was womblike in its envelope. I recall as a three year-old
pressing my ear to the carpeted floor of the car and HEARING THE ROAD. It was
sound as an imagined ‘picture’. There were hills and valleys of engine noise;
an endless plain - the song of the diff. Drones still appeal to me, and music
can "take" me in a closed-eye visual way. Angst and admiration got me started
and, over the years, my songwriting approach has gone from emulation to
aleatoric, with automatic trance beginnings. On tape the writing is the
recording. Sometimes the pictures develop with images/lyrics, sometimes just
abstract fields. I’m most proud of lucid branches, high & fired, bellbird &
from the empire. 
