By The Book

"The whole thing took me nearly two years and it was a labour of love, really,” veteran singer, songwriter and saxophonist Joe Camilleri says of the new bumper three-CD collection of music, Crooked Little Thoughts, he's recorded with The Black Sorrows. “Just before I started recording, I knew that I wanted to have that wonderful thing where art and music and poetry, they can kiss each other and they have a beautiful connection and synergy, and it's cinematic and it's all these different things.

“You can see so much and so little, but also it opens up if you want it to,” he continues. “You look at it from just listening to the music, looking at the paintings, trying to see if there's a connection between the painting and the song, or seeing something else in the painting; reading the lyric while you're listening – all those different things were kind of what I used to love about albums.”

The result is a beautiful hardcover art book containing three CDs of music, the lyrics to the 24 songs on those CDs and a series of paintings created by Australian artist Victor Rubin in response to those lyrics and songs, along with various sepia photographs of the band and individual members performing and recording. There's even an introductory essay by Camilleri telling the story behind it all that includes a potted history of the band.

“I wrote and recorded 33 songs for that project and used 24 because I felt eight songs per CD were enough, like a side of vinyl, where you have to turn it over if you want.”

Each CD presents a different aspect of the band, with the first more traditionally Black Sorrows, the second mixing it up with a little more reggae, recalling his Jo Jo Zep days, while the third is more jazz. “I thought the paintings were fabulous, but I didn't like every painting and I figure he didn't like every song!”