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FEATURE MUSIC

minimalist song on the record, in terms of story and musical elements," he says. "It’s not a song for the easily distracted... My producer was like, ‘Yeah, but that’s what’s beautiful about it.' It’s a slow juggernaut of a song; it builds over time.”

Caught in the Act by Didirri is out Aug 4 via Liberation.

The singer-songwriter wrote the track at 2am in a “lethargic state”, struggling with sleep. It's also, he points out, the first song in which he's made a sexual reference, and mentioned the toilet. “It's nice to sing,

'As I walk to the seat in the night' with no irony at all!” he says. “It took a lot to trust that song." Now that he's up to the tour rehearsal stage, he identifies it as a track that'll test a live setting. “These are the songs that run the real risk of ‘doing the pretendsies’, or going through the

We were going a bit loopy in the

studio... Rob said 'No one will know – we'll just put it in...'

motions," he explains, "because there is no space for expression outside of the raw song itself." (Hold up – 'the pretendsies'? “I think that’s a Paul Kelly-ism,” he grins.) "If you have a song with a guitar solo, then even if you’re not committed to the feeling of the song live, you still have this other means of expression on stage that is still real, and still engaged. And I won't be surprised if it’s a song that, on tour, I will kind of say 'yes' or 'no' to on the day." On the darkly sauntering, Leonard Cohen esque Tonight , you'll find yourself starting to anticipate a bird's cry or an odd creak behind the harmonium. Didirri wonders aloud whether he should spill about one of those details... then goes for it. “The bird sound that you hear is actually my partner [fellow musician] Rowena [Wise] doing a magpie impression,” he laughs. “There’s a lot of ambience in that song; we were imitating chorale vocal tones, and Ro started doing her magpie impression – we were going a bit loopy in the studio. [Producer] Rob [Muinos] said, 'No one will know – we'll just put it in...'"

INTERVIEW

DIDIRRI MUSICAL MAGUS While his 2016 EP Measurements socked us with his candour – and spawned a cult following thanks to its gem I Can't Get Last Night Out of My Head – Didirri's debut longplayer gets its alt-folk tentacles deeper than we thought possible.We chinwagged with the singer-songwriter about Caught in the Act . Words Zoë Radas

S ome songs chuck you straight down the waterslide, with you protesting all the way. Some songs subtly command – but don't demand – a response, in a sort of cellular level transmission. Didirri's debut album Caught in the Act is in the second camp, and there's something a bit spooky about the way it grabs you regardless of each individual track's tempo or ornament.

You can hear it in the inertia of single Heaving Chest, which rolls resolutely forward and has you putting your faith in the movement of the music – and in Didirri himself. Didirri thinks that's amusing, because “ Heaving Chest was the one that nearly didn’t make it,” the Melbourne artist smiles. “I was trying really hard with that song to trust it, because it’s probably the most

Continue reading the full article online at jbhifi.com.au/stack

This month in 1993, we knew what we wanted and we wanted it now; German act Culture Beat's inescapable bop Mr. Vain was riding high on the sparkling wave of Eurodance's popularity. The band was initially established as a duo led by DJ Torsten Fenslau, but in the early '90s Fenslau decided to expand the line-up to include London-based singer Tania Evans – previously a backup vocalist for Neneh Cherry – and American rapper Jay Supreme, who'd recently moved to Germany after serving in the US Army. Mr. Vain topped the charts in 13 countries, and sits alongside Snap!'s Rhythm Is a Dancer and Real McCoy's Another Night (also both German acts) as a cornerstone of the Eurodance genre.

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Tania Evans in the clip for Cultre Beat's Mr. Vain (1993)

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