The Crate: The Triffids

We’re sorry, this feature is currently unavailable. We’re working to restore it. Please try again later.

Advertisement

This was published 9 years ago

The Crate: The Triffids

By Chris Johnston

The Triffids
Treeless Plain (1983)

I've rediscovered this in a big way this summer, the summer which now feels gone. Like the best rediscoveries it becomes clear I had never truly discovered it in the first place. I'm no Triffids expert or nutcase like I am no Go-Betweens or Bad Seeds expert or nutcase – there are plenty of those out in the world doing the hard yards, going deep so we don't have to – but I know what I like and I like soulful music. I also like music that isn't quite right. For example the song Branded finishes in chaos and disturbance but flows into My Baby Thinks She's A Train, drawn equally perhaps from Orange Juice and Hank Williams: the wayward heroine has "kisses like rain." The Triffids, somewhat famously from Perth, had made a couple of EPs before this but their east-coast record label, from the Mushroom stable, dropped them. Then a Sydney label called Hot Records picked them up and debut album Treeless Plain was made in 12 nights. Seemingly the band's singer, guitarist and pianist David McComb, who died young in 1999, wrote screeds of detailed notes about how he wanted each song and each instrument on each song to sound. The band were already using violin, viola, cello and organ extensively; bass player Martyn Casey has since become one of Nick Cave's trusted lieutenants in The Bad Seeds and Grinderman. Treeless Plain 's very title is Voss-like colonial Australiana, a theme mined again so historically in Wide Open Road from 1986, by which time The Triffids were backed by Rough Trade and had graced the cover of the NME (when it still set international underground music agendas). They cover Dylan here, another giveaway. Opening track Red Pony became a lovely calling card for years to come.

The Triffids' <i>Treeless Plain</i>.

The Triffids' Treeless Plain.

Most Viewed in Culture

Loading