Who'd Have Thought A Cher Cover Could Be DMA'S Greatest Moment So Far?

Customers, it appears we’re in another season of that multi-headed hydra of variable quality, the ‘supergroup’. A convergence of talents that often as declines into a clash of egos, that makes music often less than the sum of its parts. It can be an indulgence and/or a distraction when the day job band needs a break, or is in a downturn or downtime.

Then there’s problem of how to name it – to distance it from those other credits, but still allow it to trade on their names. Thus, we dips our lids to Sufjan Stevens, The National’s Bryce Dessner, contemporary classical composer Nico Muhly, and Stevens’ regular drummer James McAlister – whose other credits include everyone from Dylan to Avril Lavigne – who take a most straightforward approach for their collective, by billing themselves as Sufjan Stevens, Bryce Dessner, Nico Muhly & James McAlister for their extremely outward-looking project, Planetarium, as they muse on the cosmos, often in literal form. Mercury (4AD) follows Saturn as tastes of the album, although the tune’s wistful tone is warm, rather than the hot of the closest planet to The Sun might suggest. It’s not really complicated, but certainly careful and tasteful. 

A more homogenous grouping is BNQT – pronounced ‘Banquet’, as is the way of these vowel-challenged times – which should have wide appeal to lovers of sardonic indie, with a touch of the hopeful romantic. The album to follow will have the singers of Midlake, Band Of Horses, Franz Ferdinand, Grandaddy, and Travis warble two tunes each. Fran Healy, of the last named there has his ticket pulled from the hat to be the standard-bearer, and his Mind Of A Man (Bella Union/PIAS) has him typically quietly ruminating on why blokes are such arseholes, coming to his usual shrugged-shoulders conclusion. 

And so things have to move along. Maestro, some travelling music please. And there a few things the speak of the distances of this wide brown land than that train trundling through the heat-haze on the longest straight stretch of track in the world across the middle-ish bit of the country. Indian Pacific (Independent) has its locality reinforced as the so-Australian voice of Adam Gibson & The Ark-Ark Birds rhythmically and laconically watches the world out the carriage window, noting everything from endless Coles and Woolies supermarkets, Mazda 323s, and even (ahem) “rub ‘n tug” joints through snippets of talkback radio. Stretching his usual semi-spoken word style, Gibbo – you’d just have to call him ‘Gibbo’, anything else would be un-Strayan – adds a somewhat hooky chorus to perhaps make musical radio understand him a little better. 

Across the Tasman, it can be a late night bus-ride home with attendant unexpected dramas. Halfway through the second verse of Big City (Independent) old mate across the aisle who looked a bit dodgy tumbles off his chair, perhaps heading toward choking on his own vomit to wide disinterest from most of the other passengers. This is somewhat of a culture shock to Ha The Unclear, whose only just moved from New Zealand’s answer to Athens, Georgia and/or Portland, Oregon – the transplanted Scottish university town that is Dunedin. The song has some of the wiry twang that has long trademarked the south island outpost, and a slightly detached observation of the human condition that also seems to murmur Aotearoa.

Whatever your music, and wherever you’re from, you’ve now often got to build your profile and audience however you can in this interwebbed global village. But on observation, you reckon The Hot 8 Brass Band would not be all that uncomfortable with having their international recognition rise via an ad campaign for bourbon. Bottom Of The Bucket (Tru Thoughts) rightly sounds like it comes from the environs of NOLA – that’s New Orleans, Louisiana for the uninformed – as the brass part of the combine appears directed by the ghost of Allen Toussaint goes from blurting to glide to swinging home with what actually sounds like a touch of ska amongst the racket.  

The cover version of a song a lot of people outside your normal constituency know is a more traditional way of broadening your base. When DMA’s trotted out their strummed version of Cher's Believe (I Oh You) for the national youth broadcaster six-or-so months back, many just smiled at the askance recognition of it, and went on with our lives. But three million views on the Youtubery and elsewhere finally convinces them there may be some bonus revenue to be made from their surprisingly sweet take on what really always was a helluva good pop song – even without the autotune.

A somewhat darker, but maybe even wider recognition point comes with Little Cub’s Death Of A Football Manager (Domino) – which is pretty much what it says on the tin. The English synth-based combo look and feel quite thoughtfully on the sad and probably unnecessary demise of Welsh great Gary Speed without being too sensationalist or too voyeuristic. It’s a difficult balance, but this actually does make a lyrical point that such a man isn’t immune to life either, rather than just having the machines drift along with the occasional electronic burp and/or fart. 

Also nodding to one of his heroes, although more straightforwardly, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy delves into the back catalogue of one of his obvious influences, country great Merle Haggard. Yep, there’s more trains here, too – as the outlaw-ish ruminations of Mama Tried (Spunk) unfurl, with a bit of Van Morrison sax for colour among the rustic rambling, which are further confused by this visual coming with 360-degree technology bonus if you have the right browser and technological thingammys.