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Avalon Cassettes

by Jamie Hutchings

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  • Compact Disc (CD)

    Jamie Hutchings
    Avalon Cassettes CD
    (Laughing Outlaw 2011)

    1. Invisible Coat
    2. Slack Magic
    3. Smoky Dawson
    4. Ned Kelly Indoors
    5. Man vs. Train
    6. When It'll Blow
    7. Gimme Failure
    8. New Vagabond 04:31
    9. Ways to Fall
    10. Cicada Symphony
    ships out within 7 days

      $18.99 AUD

     

1.
INVISIBLE COAT It’s not up for discussion Not that we talk that much You catch me mumbling in Russian But I swear you’ve been cussing in Dutch well… What have you been doing to yourself? You look shot like a school child left behind I’m heading out in my invisible coat I’m heading outside I get sick of lighting candles to look impressive in the dark And I’m tired of braking for orange lights Of vertigo, long shadows, of always swimming with sharks You say “If you keep doing this to yourself you’ll turn to ghost Am I right Mr Cellophane?” Yes that I am And I ride the subways for free And I sleep on the tracks of those - phantom trains Well I’m heading out In my invisible coat You can all set yourselves aflame And I’ll watch the keys dissolve in my hands And I’ll help the register In erasing my name I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming with sharks I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming with sharks I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming I’m swimming
2.
Slack Magic 03:33
SLACK MAGIC Well I parked my car at Taylor Square Despite it being near impossible to fit into a spot there And I chipped a little bit of paint From the car behind me I was nervous I was running late And we got on a roll cracking funnies Being generally unkind But before we knew what hit us Time had bolted we were running Chasing minutes down the street With you leading Me not far behind Then we crept into that cinema Geoffrey Rush was playing an idiot savant I felt breathless alert And that feeling turned to solid air Then it put it’s shackles around me And I felt my body turn to dirt Like being woken from a dream Where everything is rosy Just as you’d idealised it to be And people always told me ‘Nothing in this world can ever come for free’ But I thought I’d found a loophole It couldn’t possibly apply Not to you or me To you or me To you or me To you or me And you said on the way home “Well here is good enough Just drop me at the curb” But your silence cut me like a knife I knew something wasn’t right You were disappearing down the road I felt like I had seen a ghost So I got back to Taylor Square Found that car proceeded to write a note I said “Hey I’m just so sorry Tell me how much will it cost? Just give me a quote Give me a quote Give me a quote Give me a quote” And in the end I guess that it was nothing At least I never heard from them It was like some kind of slack magic Some reoccurring dream That I awake from now and then That I awake from now and then
3.
Smoky Dawson 05:00
SMOKY DAWSON Chained up and beaten with a lamp By a father who fought with distinction You could have let it turn you to ash Ah but you wouldn’t now would you? So you found yourself a Stetson hat And though by your own admission You were a small man actually A giant you grew to be And put an axe to your captivity You left a ghost by the Yarra creek bed Where your mother eternally rests her head But you wouldn’t stay alone No Us dirtbags we don’t ask much Just our little vanities and such And something to call our own Our own When Herb tried his first cigarette Well he very nearly coughed himself to death And from then on he was ‘Smoky’ To everybody He became a hero on a palomino And he could split an apple with a whip And write songs on a golden guitar About riding the range Don’t it seem so strange how Somebody can loom so large Even having their own membership cards And then just fade like anybody? Yeah like anyone It’s true about you I don’t know much Maybe some footage in Tamworth once Some faded pictures A home movie We’ll I’m glad to hear you fell for love Way back in 1943 And you stuck to it eternally I’ve put my kindness and my courage to the test Oh but I always or mostly come off second best Things are changing around here No doubt you have seen How we let our attics fill up with dust A room can only remember so much Before it just becomes somebody’s It could be anyone’s I see the clouds heavy with rain On our hands the tired earths stain Let’s have ourselves a Jamboree
4.
NED KELLY INDOORS And I’d forgotten how my sense of smell was over That chrysanthemum could well be a rotting corpse Now that I’ve come back with the eyes of a soldier Wet and leaden heavy weighed down with remorse Oh and honey don’t you ever get to thinking? Or are you one of those who never thinks at all? It stole something from me I just can’t remember How it is to feel a cold rain’s about to fall So I take you to the pictures on a Monday And on Tuesday we go to your sister’s place We go blanker and its winter and then one day We both vanish into thin air not a trace And if someone locked Ned Kelly in his bedroom Or left him out to sea and weighed down in a dress Would he try to paint a picture break it to you? Us down in the trench one soldier to the next In the frontline on the coal face and the rest How am I to know a cold rain’s about to fall Or how to name a speck waving at you from ashore?
5.
MAN VS TRAIN Wheels were a’ blurring A dancing of spokes As my tyres turned to powder And ground to a halt And what once had beat torpid Now thrashed through my chest As my idiot vehicle Came to an unwelcome rest And the sky looked amused In it’s mute sullen way At ground not built for feet But the tracks of a train And I waved and I waved and I waved… At that spectre a’ heading my way Well I’d left the city A ghost of a mess With you raving and ranting And me doing my best To turn you into a speck A distant dull roar Like the sea beneath a cliff top Or traffic from the top floor And when I burst from the seat Ran to the top of the road Swivelled at the impact That impossible load And that train it was a’ flaming All fire engine red As it ran through the forest A metal torch around the bend And it sang beneath that funeral moon Like a match in a cavernous room You’ve been unwilling To lay it to rest And I am unable To comprehend this All of your violent feeling Shadowed on the wall When to me it don’t make Much sense at all
6.
WHEN IT’LL BLOW “Would you meet me in the middle? You’re one magic sailing ship But it’s one marathon long paddle And I’m not up for the trip Because you leave me reeling With your feather blows Well you’re my glass ceiling And God only knows when it’ll blow” “Don’t offer no surprises Go on being half a man You say you don’t want a Delilah Well I don’t want no Peter Pan Because you leave me reeling With your feather blows Well you’re my glass ceiling And God only knows when it’ll blow” “Don’t turn this into a rock opera You know there’s no reason to shout” “Well I’ll make all the noise I want to And you can shut your mouth” “No I won’t!” “Yes you will!” “I’m not your Jack!” “I’m not your Jill!” “You think you’re perfect never wrong!” “And you refuse to get along!” Because you leave me reeling With your feather blows Well you’re my glass ceiling And God only knows when it’ll blow Let’s take it all for granted Let’s act like there’s nothing wrong Let’s feed each other silence Let’s pretend to get along Because you leave me reeling With your feather blows Well you’re my glass ceiling And God only knows when it’ll blow
7.
GIMME FAILURE Gimme failure Why lie awake? Over thinking Staying up late Like the time I saw it Looking down up in its booth Like a spectre in the rain Up there pale and strange And I’d been making headway Getting out in front For it’s all I’d ever wanted All I’d wanted to become Some stranger told me “You and I’ve been fooled” I said “Well speak for yourself I don’t dance to those rules” He said “uh uh I can see how You’re just like everybody else It’s just you’re stalling in the right lane And not wanting any help You kid yourself you’re noble Saying ‘Man this ain’t a race’ When you and I we both know There ain’t no second place” Oh it’s like the world’s a giant wedding You sit where you see your name Be you wild or be you tame It’s like your conscience is a bride She takes you into town She drags you all around I should have seen it coming I should have let down my own tyres Sometimes in the long run It’s best to cut off what you desire Then I dreamt I was skating On the thinnest ice Paving something new Digging up my roots And in this secret country I was the subject and the king And I could laugh at my own jokes Sniff up my own smoke And I’d been making headway Getting out in front For it’s all I’d ever wanted All I’d wanted to become It’s like the world’s a giant wedding You sit where you see your name Be you wild or be you tame It’s like your conscience is a bride She takes you into town Where she drags you all around
8.
New Vagabond 04:31
NEW VAGABOND She hit me with an umbrella She said “Is that you Harry?” I thought- ‘Well surely this sad woman She’s deranged!’ Carting several plastic bags Blocking up the sidewalk Whilst I stood feeling sorry for myself A prime target for the rain She said “Don’t you remember me? Hey it’s Louise! Back in 1973 after the war? At Deakin university I’d loved your principles I recall you as a great man Though I don’t quite remember what for” I gazed into her watery eyes It was around then I realized That beneath this bag of bones This wasted frame Was a girl who’d filled me with such lust Lust that’s long since turned to dust For me I’m sixty nine years old And I look like her Well much the same And then she grabbed me by the arm Her putrid breath against my face She said “We’ve got a lot of talking yet to do” While me I’d just got out of jail I’d once been hard as nails Oh but it’s funny What a little bit of punishment can do And my faded suit was getting wet It was the only one I had left As she dragged me Down an endless flight of stairs To a place made out of cardboard covered junk As the trains rattled above Serenading us With their broken voice Down to our cold arthritic bones She said “My heart it’s given out I thought there was nobody left There’s a fight that I just can’t keep kicking on Oh but now that you’ve arrived I surely am alive well I knew Somebody just like you would come”
9.
Ways to Fall 03:49
WAYS TO FALL Take it from me There’s a smorgasbord of ways to fall I chose gracelessly Arms akimbo Back against the wall Try this Just count the seconds As you light a match Come to light A flame A spore A damp thumb and forefinger Puts it out to lunch Ash on the floor Time won’t wait you see? I asked the sleepy sea As it washed a box up on the shore Do you have something for me? Could it be what I’ve been waiting for? She said “Is that some kind of joke Exactly what is it you take me for? You can shove your sonnets Where the sun don’t shine And shout ‘Man overboard!’ Time won’t wait you see And I sleep easily Time plays darts with me” Oh I won’t make believe
10.
CICADA SYMPHONY Well the Rocks and the Quay Secrets of the city Come on and help me out Dig me up a little history Bottle mossy greens Cicada symphony My friend wed and I danced Faked a reverie My arms around the waist Of a girl too large for me And when I held the door What were you waiting for? Demon girl said “Hey porter Now you’re doing exactly what you oughta” And when I winced it rained And I was staring At that blurry wretched bridge again Those lights were drunk and shaking Under the rains caress Like liquid needles Like a strangers tenderness Spittle from a window Or sleeping by a river Legs were jelly aching Squelching balminess Some chorus of bats Leading me into this Hot mess All these rotten weeds Into the earths damp seed Oh come on and to and fro me Steal some magic carpet ride Honey roll me Into moss Into moss Into soot

about

"It’s a feathery slice of Australia stalked by a looming shadow, at once as beautiful as it’s ever dark. Avalon Cassettes is a reminder of what’s been missed of Jamie Hutchings, a superb release by a prolific musician that isn’'t just a highlight within his discography, but a highlight for Australian music."
~ SOULSHINE


Letters and thoughts and emails about Avalon Cassettes...

Like a letter from a long-lost friend, the CD arrived in the mail. Unexpected. Unheralded. 10 tracks with hand-written song titles and album title Avalon Cassettes. It was accompanied by a short, friendly note in Jamie Hutchings' familiar scrawl. The package filled me with mystery and intrigue.

I had to pick up my daughter Anna from somewhere, which was perfect. I love listening to music in the car, uninterrupted. I had only got through three and a half songs by the time I got to my destination...and I was floating. I drove around the block and snuck in the rest of the evocative 'Ned Kelly Indoors'. Anna jumped in the car and immediately switched the stereo to a commercial radio network and I was plucked out of my dreamstate, into the real world. I couldn't explain to her all of the beauty and colour and warmth I was immediately hearing and feeling in these tracks - they actually sounded like stories and sounds written and meant for an old friend, intimate and personal they made me lean in and listen.

I wanted to play Anna Track 1 'Invisible Coat' and tell her about how the part at 2:31, where Jamie's repeats and riffs the line 'I'm swimming with sharks' for 37 seconds mesmerises me with it’s blend of rapture and repetition . I wanted to point out how Track 2 'Slack Magic' references streets in Sydney's inner-city and the actor Geoffrey Rush (playing an idiot-savant) and how rich this was, how the way Jamie again uses repetition ('to you or me/to you or me/to you or me/to you or me' and 'give me a quote/give me a quote/give me a quote/give me a quote') and how it again inspires rapture. I would love to have been able to play her the intro to Track 4 'Ned Kelly Indoors' and then play her Bluebottle Kiss' 'Now' or 'Stained Mouth' and show her why I fell for Jamie's songs and voice in the first place. But Anna's too young, too impatient.

I keep listening over the next two or three weeks (it's a listening-required album). The mystery, the intrigue only grows. I email Jamie, telling him I heard some Astral Weeks in there, wondering if the 'Avalon' in the album's title was referring to the legendary island from Arthurian legend that has captured and haunted Van Morrison. But I was wrong, it was a more grounded reference to the Sydney beach suburb where Jamie and friends/family recorded the bulk of the album.

Jamie writes back, saying Astral Weeks is definitely a good reference, "and perhaps (Big Star's) Third/Sister Lovers too. The brevity and semi impro nature of the sessions gives it that hazy, loose feel that's similar to way those albums feel. The title comes from the where and how of the recording which had a very strong impact on the end result. It was recorded in a run-down shack out the front of a property in Avalon that was lent to us. Thus the bleeding, spilly, haphazard non-studio quality. Secondly, it was all recorded mostly live to an 8 track cassette recorder by my friend Chris Colquhoun. It does sound kind of evocative and fantastic-like too though so I think it's apt. I like it's unanchored 'private reverie' kind of feel."

I email Jamie asking him about the albums strong sense of place, of Australia particularly on tracks like 'Ned Kelly Indoors' ; 'Smoky Dawson'; 'Cicada Symphony'.
He writes back: "I think there’s some of that fetid balminess you get from Sydney summers,
especially on ‘Cicada Symphony’. Heat, moisture, insects, etc. Kind of open and claustrophobic at the same time. That’s probably the main ‘Australian’ thing really. It’s not something I’ve thought about too much, it just finds its way into the way it sounds in the same way the beach shack did... I have a habit of taking characters and displacing them and watching what happens. I saw a Sidney Nolan retrospective which featured a lot of his Ned Kelly series paintings and learnt how it was a way for him to express his post war isolation via an outlaw. He’d come back from the war to normal family life and felt extremely estranged from everything. A lot of the situations/characters on the album are similar in that respect. Ordinary people finding themselves in an extraordinary situation or recovering from one. Same with 'Smoky Dawson' in a way. I read his eulogy in the paper and was thinking about his attitude and life in a modern day context. How sweet and foreign it read."

I signed Jamie's band Bluebottle Kiss to their first record deal, to the Murmur label, through Sony Music back in 1994. I was naive. I thought Jamie's brilliant, poetic songs (which were, by turn, beautiful and explosive), the band's powerful dynamics and Jamie's matinee idol good-looks were an undeniable formula. But the band's musical wanderlust and unpredictability (which were always there and I didn't yet appreciate or understand that) couldn't be hemmed-in, contained and controlled. For a million reasons it was a mistake to sign them to an impatient major, but it is a mistake I would immediately make again today if I had my time over again.

Jamie's musical journey, twisting through Bluebottle Kiss' albums Higher Up The Firetrails (1995), Fear of Girls (1996), Patient (1999), Revenge Is Slow (2002), Come Across (2003) and the double-CD masterpiece Doubt Seeds (2006), their countless EPs and his solo albums The Golden Coach (2002) and His Imaginary Choir (2008) is one the most interesting, passionate and singular musical odysseys in Australian music.

In an email I remark to Jamie that having lived with the album it really has a strong, singular sonic identity, "heavy mellow" is how I described it. Jamie writes back: "I always wanted it to be beautiful and ominous at the same time. Heavy mellow, like you say. I’d tried to get rid of that heaviness on the last album for something different, but now I wanted to let it back in but in more of a simmering, subliminal way as it’s a pretty intrinsic part of what I make. It just happens. Like a summer storm or something. I’d initially wanted to make it super bare, but with alien sounds falling in and out with lots of space for them to reverberate. It did change once we all started playing together, particularly with Scott and Jared both on traditional and found percussion. I rehearsed a lot with Reuben on bass but for everyone else it was like I was leading them through a dark tunnel with a torch. The others might not agree, but I don’t feel I over prepared them compared to usual. So there’s an intuitive ‘playing by the seat of one's pants’ feel to it and this feeling very much informed and guided the recording. There were 14 songs recorded but I culled it to 10."

After some more written toing and froing, Jamie concludes: "I think the main points are the format and circumstances of the recording. That it has a kind of ‘fever dream’, ‘heavy mellow’ feeling to it. I think I’ve let the tension of my previous work with Bluebottle, etc... seep under the skin of the songs in a way, the lyrical themes: the everyman taken out of his comfort zone and thrust into alien terrain."

- John O'Donnell

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MANAGEMENT & BOOKING:

Amanda Case
AIC Entertainment
info@aicentertainment.com

LABEL:

Stuart Coupe
Laughing Outlaw
coupe@laughingoutlaw.com.au
www.laughingoutlawrecords.com.au

credits

released April 15, 2011

All songs by Jamie Hutchings (APRA/AMCOS)

Jamie Hutchings - Guitars/Vocals
Reuben Wills - Bass
Jared Harrison - Percussion
Scott Hutchings - Percussion
Sophie Hutchings - Piano/Background Vocals
Erin Hutchings - Background Vocals
Lee Hutchings - Flute

Recorded on Eight Track Cassette in Avalon, NSW, AU
Recorded & Mixed by Chris Colquhoun

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