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FEATURE MUSIC

DID YOU KNOW? The opening track on Trent Reznor’s first band Option 30’s self-titled album is a cover of Icehouse (although Option 30 styled this song title as two words: Ice House ).

Exploring Great Southern Land If Great Southern Land ’s vast opening synth drone doesn’t give you goosebumps, you’re truly dead inside. Of penning this iconic track – one of Australia’s fave unofficial anthems – Iva has said, “I was

Above: Iva Davies in 2022. (Credit: Cybele Malinowski) Right: Davies fronting Icehouse live in 2020. Image credit: Serge Thomann.

trying to write the anti- Down Under [by Men at Work]. Capture a spirit rather than paint a picture.’’ During another interview, Iva remembered “deliberately choosing phrases” while coming up with the lyrics for Icehouse’s stirring signature song (from 1982’s Primitive Man album): “I wrote down a lot of three-word phrases, cut them up and put them all over the floor. I went through them and picked the ones I thought had the most possible meanings that could be interpreted in more than one way. Really, it’s a collection of three-word phrases that aren’t complete in themselves, but that possibly trigger any number of ideas, not just any single idea. I don’t think I’ve ever written another song like that.”

Banned from Countdown The Russell Mulcahy-directed music video for Icehouse (the track), which was shot in London and cost a pretty penny, was deemed “too macabre” for Countdown ’s family-friendly 6pm Sunday timeslot and was therefore banned from being played on this career-making TV show. “Russell had the maddest ideas,’’ Davies has said. “A knight on a white horse, a barrow full of bodies – he never had a plan, just stuff that looked great.’’ The Icehouse film clip was the first of many that Mulcahy directed for the band. Glacial inspiration The song was inspired by a very old, unbelievably cold flat Iva lived in at the time in Lindfield, NSW as well as the beautiful but-dishevelled house across the road inside which the lights were never switched off. “It had a very strange vibe about it,” Iva recalled

during an interview. “I couldn’t work out what was going on. It wasn’t until after the song had been recorded that I found out it was a psychiatric halfway house.” A long-time fave opening number during Icehouse’s live shows, this song also opens the Flowers album, and Icehouse Plays Flowers – Live .

ANNIVERSARY ALERT! Last year marked 40 years since the release of Great Southern Land , with Icehouse embarking on a national tour to celebrate this milestone.

GRAB A COPY WILSN Those Days Are Over A fusion of modern soul, pop, jazz and Motown, with production that’s both nostalgic and contemporary, Those Days Are Over has all the hallmarks of an instant classic. Out February 3. JB UNCOVERED AT

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