Between Light and Dark
By Penelope Swales
Launch: Friday September 17, 8:30 p.m. The Old Troubadour Upstairs, 388 Brunswick St, Fitzroy
Reviewed by Lachlan Anderson
The long-awaited follow-up to Penelope Swales' album Songs from the Borderline clearly shows that she is a performer in motion. Parallel to the first release in strongly opinionated lyrics and driving folk guitar, Between Light and Dark differs in that it was studio-recorded — which has allowed for experimentation and the branching out of her musical style.
"I produced it the way I wanted it to sound, instead of taking into consideration what's fashionable", Swales told Green Left Weekly.
"There's a lot of that sort of stuff that goes down in music, and it's hard to know where to jump on and where to jump off again. There are a lot of beautiful sounds that can be made, but you've got to be careful because if you subscribe too much to that sort of approach then you become a fashion item, and that's the end of you. I don't consider myself to be in too much risk at the moment."
The album weaves its way through topics like environmental sanity, the plight of indigenous peoples, injustice against women and living life against the status quo.
"Footprints in Your Flesh" is about how uncomfortable it is to be a white person talking to Aboriginal people and knowing that white settlement devastated their lives. Joe Geia, a Koori performer, plays didgeridoo on that song.
The songs were written over the last five years. "I've been writing for several years but in recent years I've been writing a lot of political stuff. I find that a bit more difficult to write than about personal situations, which is what most of my earlier stuff was about", said Swales.
"When you write a song, sometimes you just write it with a guitar and that's the way it is. Sometimes you write a song and think what it needs is this and this and this." Four of the songs were recorded last year, the rest were done this year. These were her first recordings done in a "real studio".
"There's more instruments on this album, it has more texture. I invited a lot more other musicians to play on it as well."
The album's line-up features other Melbourne independent performers such as Irene Vela, Ross Ryan, Geoff Hassall (of the Stephen Cummings Band) and members of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
"Classically trained musicians are very different to work with compared to self-taught musicians. Classical players have a much better grip on a wide style of music, but they might actually be less spontaneous when it comes to making music", Swales says.
This is also Swales' first CD. "If your going to get anywhere now, you've got to be on CD — radio stations won't play tapes any more. It's this whole 'broadcast quality' thing. Tapes aren't broadcast quality, whereas they were five years ago.
"They hassle you because your music production isn't up to standard, but half the stuff you hear on radio is from the '60s, '70s and '80s, when this technology wasn't around and production was as rough as bags.
"Producing is a very complicated process and there is a place for engineers and producers, but I'm a bit of a creative control head when it comes to my own music." So she produced this album herself.
"It's amazing how much you can change sound with production facilities. In a way it's problematical because those sorts of things are bloody expensive. For people like me to access that sort of gear is prohibitively expensive."
While Swales concedes that production is a big part of recording, at the end of the day she says it comes down to whether people enjoy listening to a song or not.
"If people like the song then they like the song. If they like the song then they'll like the album. If they like the album then they'll play the album, and they'll play the album if you record one. Basically I'm happy with the sounds on the album."
The launch of the album coincides with the national Boycott Mitsubishi tour organised by Swales and members of Lismore's Rainforest Information Centre. This will be held in all major cities and several smaller towns during October and November. The album can be bought by sending $12 (tape) or $18 (CD), plus $3 for postage and packaging, to PO Box 136, Emerald Vic 3782.