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THE Church, a part-time place of worship for power pop disciples, is back with its 12th album.
The band has gone through various states in recent years, with bassist/vocalist Steve Kilbey and guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper juggling solo, duo and other band commitments.
TD
After Everything Now This is an all-new album which follows a best-of compilation and Box of Birds, a collection of cover versions.
The band, which formed in 1980, reached an international peak in 1988 when Under the Milky Way became a hit in the US and Australia, pushing sixth album Starfish into the Australian top 10 and selling more than 600,000 copies in America.
But while subsequent albums such as Gold Afternoon Fix and Priest = Aura failed to sell as impressively, the band continues to attract a devoted following around the world.
That is despite band members taking extended breaks from Church duties leaving Kilbey to team with Go-Between Grant McLennan (for two releases as Jack Frost), make solo albums and produce artists such as Stephen Cummings, Willson-Piper to issue solo albums and Koppes to tour with UK band All About Eve as well as his own band, The Well.
Drummer Tim Powles produced the band's current album.
Respect for The Church is such that a recent US Today review of After Everything Now This said the album proved "maturity in pop music need not lead to decay and irrelevance", calling it a "soundscape that manages to be both subtle and theatrical ... taking ambient music from microscopic to kaleidoscopic".
The Church brings new songs to the converted around Australia on the heels of successful European and US tours.
Governor Hindmarsh Hotel on Friday, May 3, supported by Goldentone.
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Document stames0020020508dy510000a
HD PART-TIME CHURCH STILL MAKING CONVERSIONS.
WC 298 words
PD 1 May 2002
SN Weekly Times Messenger
SC WEETME
PG 19
LA English
CY (c) 2002 Nationwide News Pty Limited
LP
THE Church, a part-time place of worship for power pop disciples, is back with its 12th album.
The band has gone through various states in recent years, with bassist/vocalist Steve Kilbey and guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper juggling solo, duo and other band commitments.
TD
After Everything Now This is an all-new album which follows a best-of compilation and Box of Birds, a collection of cover versions.
The band, which formed in 1980, reached an international peak in 1988 when Under the Milky Way became a hit in the US and Australia, pushing sixth album Starfish into the Australian top 10 and selling more than 600,000 copies in America.
But while subsequent albums such as Gold Afternoon Fix and Priest = Aura failed to sell as impressively, the band continues to attract a devoted following around the world.
That is despite band members taking extended breaks from Church duties leaving Kilbey to team with Go-Between Grant McLennan (for two releases as Jack Frost), make solo albums and produce artists such as Stephen Cummings, Willson-Piper to issue solo albums and Koppes to tour with UK band All About Eve as well as his own band, The Well.
Drummer Tim Powles produced the band's current album.
Respect for The Church is such that a recent US Today review of After Everything Now This said the album proved "maturity in pop music need not lead to decay and irrelevance", calling it a "soundscape that manages to be both subtle and theatrical ... taking ambient music from microscopic to kaleidoscopic".
The Church brings new songs to the converted around Australia on the heels of successful European and US tours.
Governor Hindmarsh Hotel on Friday, May 3, supported by Goldentone.
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Document weetme0020020510dy510000a
HD MUSIC.JAZZ Between Two Moments.
BY By Ashleigh Wilson, Sandra Bridekirk, Lynden Barber, Deborah Jones.
WC 1171 words
PD 2 February 2002
SN The Australian
SC AUSTLN
LA English
CY (c) 2002 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd
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JAZZ Between Two Moments Peter Knight Quartet Newmarket Music * * * 1/2 LIKE some first novels, it's believed that debut CDs can sometimes reach too far and include too much in one hit. Not Melbourne flugelhorn player Peter Knight, who has here a recording guided by a single temperament, a warm sound common to every tune without sounding repetitive. Comparisons to renowned ECM flugelhorn player Kenny Wheeler are inevitable; indeed, Knight acknowledges Wheeler's influence on the opening track My Gnu Idea where, like Wheeler, he can be heard searching for his gnu high. Knight's compositions are thoughtful and subtle, particularly the wistful swing of the e.e. cummings-inspired "my sweet old etcetera" and his duet with pianist Colin Hopkins on Waltz #2. And the laid-back colourings of drummer Tony Floyd, sitting comfortably beneath Knight's understated playing, are perfect for this setting.
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Ashleigh Wilson ROCK Rock Steady No Doubt Universal * * FROM the Billie Jean opening beat to the chintzy computer-game synth tracks it's pretty obvious that No Doubt have put on their red glittery dancing shoes, slung their pants low and kissed off trying to reprise their tear-jerker mega-hit Don't Speak. Rock Steady is modern chart fodder with a spring in its step; most of it derivative, slick and soulless - candy for the ears that pretends to some substance by spooning in a safe measure of hip-hop, fairly woeful rap, ska and reggae (and there are few things more try-hard than Californian reggae). A small number of songs drag it back from the abyss: the single Hey Baby veers quite bravely, if not memorably, from the mainstream; Making Out and Detective are pleasantly pure pop, reminiscent of early Madonna. Those living with 12-year-old girls can expect to endure this on high rotation for some weeks to come.
Sandra Bridekirk ROCK after everything now this The Church Cooking Vinyl * * * * ONE of Australia's most enduring and steadfastly non-mainstream bands, The Church have weathered the storms of fluctuating popularity and the stresses of keeping four people creatively and geographically together enough to produce 15 albums in 21 years (they ultimately succeeded with the nucleus of Steve Kilbey, Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes). Lauded for their debut album Of Skins and Heart and its hit single The Unguarded Moment, widespread commercial recognition pretty much eluded the band until 1988 when Under the Milky Way earned them a brief breath of international fame. The Church have been gigging sporadically and creating records of varying quality ever since (the best in the last decade being the wonderfully atmospheric marathon Priest=Aura) as well as pursuing solo careers. Their last few tours have revealed a band of unpredictable performance: dull and plodding on off nights; deeply thrilling at their best. They recently previewed much of the material on after everything now this during a short acoustic tour, and the mellow nature of many of the songs did not translate particularly well to the stage. Always complex, multi-layered and lyrically rich, few tracks in their extensive repertoire lend themselves to instant acclaim; rather it's stuff that slowly appeals to the senses, from Kilbey's warm, caressing vocals to the jangling guitars and subtle instrumentation. That said, the album opens with the powerful single Numbers, its chanting structure the most immediately engaging track of the 10. It's also the track that fits less snugly into the Church sound blanket: other songs, such as the lovely, expansive After Everything and the yearningly beautiful The Awful Ache are classic examples of their timeless, sophisticated brand of adult rock. Other standouts are Song For the Asking, the gorgeously haunting Invisible, and Radiance, which is rich with Kilbey's otherworldly tales of miracles and myth. Like any Church album, time in the CD player will ultimately judge after everything now this.
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Document austln0020020201dy22001ed
SE Metropolitan
HD Church Song Trilogy
BY Bernard Zuel
WC 466 words
PD 16 February 2002
SN Sydney Morning Herald
SC SMHH
PG 11
LA English
CY Copyright of John Fairfax Group Pty Ltd
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THE CHURCH
After Everything Now This
TD
(Cooking Vinyl)
Sing-Songs/Remote Luxury/Persia
(EMI)
Get a mega dose of '80s nostalgia, writes Bernard Zuel.
The roughly simultaneous release of a new Church album and a repackaging of three EPs from the 1980s on one disc offers a chance for old farts to gaze wistfully at faded paisley shirts and too-tight-to-wear-these-days black jeans at the back of the wardrobe and sigh "if only the Church still did pop".
For those of us who donned suede winklepicker boots at the time, the '80s were the golden years of jangling guitars, melodies and lyrics that were probably "deep without a meaning" but sounded enigmatic enough from this downright good-looking band. Of course, we're going to see anything else as missing that golden glow.
While Remote Luxury and Persia have been packaged as a full album before, the three EPs aren't quite a natural fit. Sing-Songs, which came between the second and third albums, is a thinner-sounding collection: the keyboards (which, despite the Church's reputation as a guitar band, would become quite prominent on the latter two EPs) are more primitive, and the balance is slightly out. Furthermore, Steve Kilbey's songwriting developed significantly in the intervening two years - as can be seen in the difference between Sing-Songs' A Different Man and Remote Luxury's Into My Hands. Both apply Byrds guitars and Dylan melodies but there's significant grace and finesse in the later song. There are, however, plenty of tunes to sing along with across the album.
The standard line among older Church fans is that from 1990's Gold Afternoon Fix the Church went moody, atmospheric, more smack than dope (in mood rather than consumption) and lost our interest. Not that this would surprise or worry the three long-term members (Kilbey, Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes) or drummer/producer Tim Powles: they gave up the pursuit of the perfect three-minute song happily. Instead they found - in pieces such as Ripple, from 1992's Priest = Aura and the title track of 1996's Magician Among The Spirits -a style that incorporates Eno/Lanois rich soundscapes, David Sylvian-like romantic darkness and the prototypical stoner rock of the early '70s.
After Everything Now This is a further refinement of this sound: another album that has to be absorbed rather than swallowed because to try too hard to understand it is to doom yourself to frustration. It sustains itself better than 1994's disappointing Sometime Anywhere, touches real beauty at times (Radiance) and, while it doesn't shift your perception (or nostalgia), offers itself as a come-down album that doesn't require an up in the first place.
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HD SPIN DOCTOR.
BY By Barclay Crawford, Sandra Bridekirk, Kevin Jones, Deborah Jones.
WC 1474 words
PD 23 March 2002
SN The Australian
SC AUSTLN
LA English
CY (c) 2002 Nationwide News Proprietary Ltd
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Have you heard of actor Jack Black? He plays the crazy guy in movies such as Shallow Hal and High Fidelity. Fast becoming a big star. But instead of discussing his burgeoning acting career in this month's Rolling Stone magazine, he spent about 500 words selling his band Tenacious D. Apparently Gwyneth Paltrow loves 'em. Black is just one of many screen idols who have taken part in the most common pop music crossover. Not hip-hop and electric guitars, not jazz mixed with electronic beats, but movie stars trying to metamorphose into rock stars and, often with more success, rockers trying their hand at acting. They do it because they can. At some stage in everyone's lives there are dreams of rock'n'roll stardom. It's just that superstars have the status to pull it off - and, most important, no shame. Just look at Russell Crowe (pictured). Does he realise how bad his band 30 Odd Foot of Grunts really is? He probably doesn't care.
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Rusty is guaranteed a huge crowd to listen to him belt out bad suburban pub ballads. Maybe there is an inverse relationship between the quality of the actor and their musicianship. Think Will Smith or Mark Wahlberg - respected actors both - who would be flat-out embarrassed by their dubious musical past. But the grand queen of all is Kylie Minogue. Who would have thought the daggy Charlene from Ramsey Street would rise to become the hippest, coolest, girl in music circles? Kylie, please don't go back there. Please.
Barclay Crawford ROCK Pretty Together Sloan BMG ** YOU know what rock'n'roll is about? Well, these guys from Halifax (not so rockin' a place since they now all live in Toronto) reckon they've got what you need. Trouble is, only 16-year-old boys looking for a soundtrack to their latest air guitar progression will get more than a spin or two out of this, Sloan's sixth, and possibly worst, release. Despite their reputation as craftsmen of superior power pop, Sloan have created a derivative, pancake-flat bunch of songs. The harder-edged tracks (such as If It Feels Good Do It and Pick It Up and Dial It) sound like Aerosmith or Kiss discards, while the lighter tunes come across as quite sweetly melodic (The Other Man, Who You Talkin' To?), but the lyrics are weak and unaffecting. In isolation, there are a few decent tracks here, but the combination of cock-rock swagger with wimpy, syrupy ballads is a serious aural turn-off.
Sandra Bridekirk ROCK Previews & Rarities Various Karmic Hit *** 1/2 NOT only has the internet made it easier for small labels to market music that would rarely make it out of the garage, but it has allowed long-time artists to exercise complete control over their output. The Karmic Hit label and studio is the offspring of the Church frontman Steve Kilbey and this taster resembles a Kilbey family album: there are plenty of tracks by the man, plus material from brothers Russell (ex-the Crystal Set) and John (the Bhagavad Guitars), and even Kilbey's twin daughters (with the impossibly cute Tricka Tricka Boom Boom Song). Some band names will be familiar, but most of it is a jumble sale of oddments from various times, groupings and places. Highlights include the poppy Bad For You (Jack Frost), the smooth and sexy No Contact (Us), the Lloyd Cole-ish Travelling Karma (JLK.) and Kilbey's playful Bossa. The few duds are cancelled out by nearly 80 minutes of playing time.
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HD HEADLINE: GOOD for goodbye Almost ready to give up, The Church realized there was more music to make
BY Dan LeRoy
WC 973 words
PD 18 April 2002
SN Charleston Gazette
SC CGAZ
PG P1D
LA English
CY (Copyright 2002)
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FIVE years ago, this Church was ready to shut its doors for good.
The Australian rockers had a religious following worldwide and enjoyed one of the most distinctive Top 40 hits ever, 1988's "Under The Milky Way," which perfectly captured the band's spacey appeal.
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But by the mid-'90s, they felt frustrated and irrelevant and prepared to administer their own last rites via a series of farewell gigs in Sydney.
"It just seemed to us that no one would care whether we were around or not, y'know?" recalls singer and bassist Steve Kilbey. "So we said sod it all - let's just do these last shows and drift off into the ether."
Onstage, however, everything changed. Kilbey and his bandmates realized "we weren't really finished with each other." The audiences agreed - including Kilbey's own 70-something mother, who had turned up to say goodbye as well.
"She said, 'It's just too good to stop.' And I thought, if my mum can see that - and she's not really an expert on rock 'n' roll," he says with a laugh, "obviously there's something going on."
The proof is evident in The Church's new album, "After Everything, Now This."
Although the band's members are now spread across the globe - Kilbey in Sweden, guitarist Marty Willson-Piper in England and guitarist Peter Koppes and drummer Tim Powles both Down Under - the disc offers the dreamy dual-guitar punch and haunting psychedelia of their best work together.
It's so good, in fact, that even Kilbey - a notoriously tough critic of his own stuff - thinks it's the group's finest moment, and he and his bandmates will appear Sunday on Mountain Stage in support of it. It will be a sort of homecoming for Kilbey, whose wife is a Morgantown native.
Not to say that the Church frontman is completely satisfied with the album, mind you: he reckons it "got halfway to what I was imagining. And I can't even really get it straight in my head what I want that to be. It's like when you buy a really fine bottle of wine, or a bar of chocolate, and it hits your mouth, and you just go, 'Ahhhh.' That's what I'd like to do, produce something of such obvious quality that merely hearing it produces pleasure."
Many might argue that with complex, gorgeous songs like the title track and "Radiance," a frightening meditation on a visitation by the Virgin Mary, "After Everything, Now This" easily meets that litmus test. And if Kilbey stays in America long enough, he might start believing it himself.
"At the moment I feel extraordinarily confident, because that's what an American tour does to you," says Kilbey, via phone from a tour stop in Seattle.
"An Australian audience won't go that extra mile, but an American audience, if they believe you could do something great, with a little help, they're more than happy to oblige."
He recalls the band's first tour of the States, in the early '80s, and chuckles remembering "the people there all going bananas, and we all looked at each other and said, 'Wow! We are all right! We thought there was something wrong with us!'"
Not many others shared that opinion after Kilbey, Koppes and British guitarist Willson-Piper joined forces with drummer Richard Ploog to create The Church in 1980.
The band's debut album provided an international hit with the chiming, Byrds-y "The Unguarded Moment," and the group steadily built on that foundation. By 1986's "Heyday," The Church was a college radio fixture, combining ringing guitar licks with the deep-voiced Kilbey's poetic lyrics to create an instantly recognizable sound.
Then came "Starfish," and the breakthrough hit that nearly broke up the band. Kilbey, who once claimed his tombstone would read "This is the guy who wrote 'Under The Milky Way,' says he's never tried to imagine what life would have been like without that single.
"No...I can't," he says with a rueful laugh. "Or if I have ever thought about it, I don't remember what I thought."
At the time, however, the pressure it created was enormous. Prodded by label execs to create a follow-up that would make them "bigger than U2," The Church came up with 1990's "Gold Afternoon Fix," a commercial failure. The band wanted Led Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones to produce, but didn't find out until years later that their then-manager sabotaged the pairing.
"Our manager could see us becoming so under John Paul Jones' sway that we might go off in some ridiculously non-commercial direction," Kilbey says.
Actually, that didn't happen until the next album, "Priest - Aura," a psychedelic maelstrom now viewed as one of the band's best outings. But following a tour, Koppes and replacement drummer Jay Dee Daugherty left The Church. Kilbey and Willson-Piper soldiered on as a duo with "Sometime Anywhere," yet after a regrouping with new drummer Powles that produced 1996's sprawling, unwieldy "Magician Among The Spirits," Kilbey and his bandmates figured they'd had enough.
Which makes the rebirth of the current album even sweeter, vindicating the decision to keep The Church alive. And Kilbey hopes it might finally sever the group from its sometimes burdensome past.
"Yes, we have made three million other albums, and been around for 9,000 years," he says with a sigh. "But here's an album you just may happen to like on its own terms."
The Church will appear with the Turtle Island String Quartet, Caitlin Cary, The Roches, The Waifs and Sheila Nichols.
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Document cgaz000020020420dy4i0004d
SE Style
HD PERFORMING ARTS
WC 516 words
PD 25 April 2002
SN The Washington Post
SC WP
ED FINAL
PG C09
LA English
CY Copyright 2002, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved
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Pianist Ernest Barretta
Playing the piano immensely well is enough to get you to Carnegie Hall only if you buy a ticket. The Musicians Resource Council, which offers performance opportunities and other assistance for artists, presented a talented pianist, Ernest Barretta, Tuesday night at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. He played a new, beautifully regulated Bluthner concert grand.
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In Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition," the strain of a heavy ox cart had a sweaty, rumbling presence, and the gossip of women in the market at Limoges collided, fragmented and fused into a cacophony far more interesting than sense and sentiment. But the children's argument in "Tuileries" could have used more sass, "The Hut on Fowl's Legs" more shrieking terror, and the lantern light of "Catacombs" more mystery.
Schubert's Impromptus, D. 935, share an inner unity that Barretta's stylish but objective playing glided over. He was expressive within a usually compact dynamic range, though a larger framing of Schubert's creations -- more rhapsodic freedom, more lyrical flow, more vivacious color, more sheer fantasy -- would have opened the first three pieces and changed their character. The capricious spontaneity of the concluding Impromptu was exactly right and showed what Barretta can do when he puts everything on the line.
Baldassare Galuppi's meandering Sonata in C, No. 27, opened the program. Its first two movements are a snore but it wakes up in the third movement, which Barretta played with charm and character.
-- Ronald Broun
The Church at the Birchmere
The current tour by the Church is being billed as an "amplified acoustic" show, and though the veteran Australian band did rely mainly on acoustic guitars at the Birchmere on Monday night, it still managed to produce wave upon wave of the silky guitar whoosh that has been its trademark for two decades. The two-hour show's appeal was basic but often riveting. The acoustic guitars of Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes carried the mellifluous vocals of bassist Steve Kilbey into settings that evoked their dreamy titles: "Radiance," "Myrrh," "Magician Among the Spirits" and "Under the Milky Way."
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