I first encountered Chris Hearn – a.k.a. Alps – at an instore performance he gave in the late, lamented Sound And Fury record store in Surry Hills, Sydney. What I encountered were waves of mouldy distortion emanating from his ancient keyboard punctuated by rudimentary glockenspiel banging, mini disc backing beats and buried vocals. It was a warm and inviting. It was new folk music made on the cheap refuse instruments of the new century. I’ve seen him a few times in the years since, as have accumulated thousands on his almost never-ending world tours, and am always left with the same feeling and a huge smile on my face.
His recorded work, which I’ve also almost managed to keep a complete track of has, by comparison, been a slight disappointment, but I think this is mostly due to differing expectations on the function of a recording as opposed to a live set. Masked under washes of all things lo-fi, the sounds on his recordings are, by definition, detached from the listener. They have offered other cerebral pleasures, and important ones at that, but not the womb-like envelopment his live shows offer. Which brings me to his newest album, Alps Of New South Wales.
From the outset, ‘White Whale’ delivers something that comes very close to the feeling of Alps’ music live. The stereo spectrum is opened up, sounds are distinct and everything is enveloping. Fear not – this is not really a concession to anything commercial. The sound of whatever arcane machine was used to record is still present, the keyboard is still buried under 3 or 4 layers of warm overdrive, and there’s absolutely no risk of being able to decipher what is actually being sung. ‘MInke Whale’ offers a melody reminiscent of pop music buried under heavy delays and pulsing waves of synth. ‘North Atlantic Right Whale’ is built on a synth arpeggio that The Knife would be proud of and ‘Narwhal’ echoes Joy Division post-punk. Actually, what is most striking about this album is the breadth of styles explored and new techniques employed (are they live drums I hear clattering away on ‘Goosebeak Whale’?). Where previous releases have generally been explorations on a theme, there’s a breadth to Alps Of New South Whales that continually surprises and holds attention.
All of this might make it sound like some sort of gentrification of Alps’ sound. But it is not. It’s still resolutely lo-fi. What is different is that Hearn has learned how to make lo-fi work for his music, rather than be a slave to lo-fi as an escape clause. Where much noise/drone/improv pop can seem to hide off-the-cuff laziness behind a curtain of fizz, Alps Of New South Whales is a carefully crafted, hazy gem.
Adrian Elmer
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