The debut record from Alice Springs-based musician Joshua Santospirito, Is This A Desert, starts simply, but don’ let that fool you. Like the explosion of life surrounding the central Australian oasis, this album soon builds to a cacophony of polyrhythms.
Returning from an Alice to Darwin road trip, I found a copy of Santospirito’s CD (as boy Brightlulb) in my mailbox. Assuming it was from an Alice Springs mate, I expected something personal before I even opened the wrapper – read Bec Paton’ sleeve review from Issue 16 for a breakdown of the artwork – its hand-made case felt personal, and the poetic liner notes set the scene for the record with lines like:
Again I dreamt, this time of hurtling up the dirt track through the Tanami t’wards the Sandy. It takes ages on those long straight roads but finally – I see them: their bottle shapes looming, their arms out, their bodies upwards like sinewy smoke-swirls, bow-legged men squattin’ around a fire. Young boabs are wine bottles, old ones are flagons.
There’s a boab on the cover of the CD. You’d expect that kind of romatic notion to militate against the album’ minimal inspirations. But like everything up north, things are more complicated and simpler than you thought.
Alice’ population of around 30,000, like any town that size, feels like a cultural wasteland. But it punches above its weight as a regional hub that’s close to a major tourist attraction in Uluru. For the novice it’s all crappy backpacker pubs, confrontingly endemic Koori drunkenness and exploitative Aboriginal artefact shops. On the other hand, and again like any small town, there’ huge cross-pollination. Everyone knows each other: lawyers and artists hang out with journos and social workers; though racially the town, like the whole Northern Territory, is split down the middle.
There is no question that Santospirito’ debut is heavily influenced by Steve Reich’ use of repetition, and to a certain extent the minimalist composer’s polyrhythic architecture of layered repetition. Like Reich, Santospirito’s loops are strangely arrhythmic – this is not techno, despite occasional similarities with its minimal production. Actually it’s John Fahey that comes to mind rather than Reich’s chilly minimalist aesthetic; Santospirito allows each resonantly plucked guitar note its space before adding another looped note, a repeated cough (almost Dr Rockit sans rhythm), even a truncated bit of voice. Its resolutely low-fi production makes for a rich sound that feels live.
But it’s Alice itself that comes through most clearly. The long roads, the sparse desert environment that seems to stretch on forever, and yet every 100 kilometres or so changes just about completely. With titles that tie the songs down to place and time like ‘Dance Under Undoolya’ and ‘Zoe Buses to Darwin’ these songs are evocative, to say the least.
Matthew Levinson
