Kes band pic by Lauren Bamford

Kes on Myspace

MP3: Gentle Elf (from Kes Band)

MP3: The Bruise (from The Grey Goose Wing)

Video: Kes Band live at Northcote Social Club

NEW KES BAND CD OUT NOW! Available on mail order for $20 including postage worldwide.

“One of Melbourne’s best live bets, a powerful folk-rock revue in the vein of late ’60s Bob Dylan or English oddballs the Incredible String Band… A tour de force, alternately hushed and dynamic and already one of 2008’s best.”
- THE AGE (EG’s list of hot Melbourne bands to watch out for)

“Kes Band is the work of a deeply idiosyncratic songwriter who is nonetheless maturing rapidly. There are moments of daft pleasure succeeded by passages of moving instrumentation. The album has a framework but it’s one that requires repeated listens to define and comprehend. Once you do, its appeal becomes tangible.”
- SYDNEY MORNING HERALD FEATURE REVIEW (four stars)

“Kes Band is a statement by a songwriter ready to move away from being the “weird kid” in the Aussie music class and step up as a real contender for the world stage worth following to the very edges of his fantastic ideas.”
- INPRESS

“It’s the Kes album we’d all hoped for - a collection of cute pop gems, gorgeous instrumentals and ’60s-inspired rockers… (Kes Band) will surely be one of the year’s most loved Australian records.”
- MX NEWSPAPER (four and a half stars)

“The band’s odd-ball take on classic folk is what makes this band so endearing and exciting… It’s no wonder Kes have been tagged an Australian act to watch”
- MUSIC AUSTRALIA GUIDE (four stars)

“Kes has honed the more accessible pop elements of his songwriting… The result is a collection of songs that are more narrative than metaphor - quixotic little stories from quite another different point of view”
- DRUM MEDIA

“There is such a special unique flavour to Kes, that in this humble reviewer’s opinion, he now needs to be celebrated and revered”
- BEAT

“Kes Band offers a unique blend of jagged electric folk, explosive jams, sweet melodies and medieval flourishes – all wrapped up in a progressive pop framework.”
- WIRELESS BOLLINGER

“Karl Scullin has a tender, unique voice that tiptoes curiously but self-consciously across whimsical, complex instrumental arrangements which underpin it all. His lyrics are fittingly warm invitations to each listener, asking them to quietly reflect, play or just sit with him a while in the intimate, shy universes of his mind.”
- THROW SHAPES (four stars)

“A gentle mind-bend of a record… Kes has a vision to sustain his every venture – the guide to a trip always worth taking” - THE VINE (Fairfax digital)

The extraordinary new album from Kes is simply called Kes Band. Recorded by James Cecil of Architecture in Helsinki fame in his Super Melody World studio, Kes Band is a stupendous leap forward from “The Grey Goose Wing”, with the same adventurous spirit but with a more concise and accessible pop sensibility.

Whilst each member of Kes Band is a multi-talented instrumentalist, the basic lineup of the band is:

Kes - vocals, guitar
Julian Patterson - drums
Laura Jean - bass, vocals, recorder
Biddy Connor - viola, vocals
Lehmann Smith - guitar, vocals, mandolin

Sydney Morning Herald Feature Review (four stars):

Kes Band
Craig Mathieson, reviewer
May 30, 2008

IN ONE way, Australia’s alternative scene is more conservative than the mainstream in the acceptance of genuine individuality. The mainstream can embrace the sometimes haughty self-belief of Silverchair’s Daniel Johns or the Sleepy Jackson’s Luke Steele but the independent wing tends to embrace bands whose members struggle to distinguish their individual personalities.

In such a set-up Karl E. Scullin, who made his first solo album as Kes and has expanded to Kes Band for the second, is both a circuit-breaker and an infiltrator. Kes Band is the work of a deeply idiosyncratic songwriter who is nonetheless maturing rapidly. There are moments of daft pleasure succeeded by passages of moving instrumentation. The album has a framework but it’s one that requires repeated listens to define and comprehend. Once you do, its appeal becomes tangible.

“A soulmate and testosterone have sometimes escaped me,” Scullin sings on Eventually, his voice high and the phrasing peculiar. The record revolves around that mix of longing and admission but it has a curiously everyday tone at times, as if it’s advice from one good friend to another. Granted, there is also a piece titled Gentle Elf, which could be considered autobiographical given Scullin’s fey demeanour and folk inflections.

Kes Band was impeccably produced by James Cecil, formerly of Architecture in Helsinki, who unobtrusively intertwines the threads of pastoral pop, ’70s rock and singer-songwriter melodies. The band - Julian Patterson on drums, Laura Jean on bass, recorder and backing vocals, Biddy Connor on viola and backing vocals and Lehmann Smith on guitar and mandolin - are deployed with some empathy for the material, as the opening View You demonstrates with its painterly progression from strummed guitar and flute verses to a chorus swelled by mandolin and accordion.

Elsewhere Don’t Wear Too Many Hats is rustic folk, while Kids of Ecuador has the off-kilter charge of Space Oddity-era Bowie. Indeed, to further the unpredictability, the album is also home to some extended guitar workouts that are, in the case of Eventually, imbued with Led Zeppelin’s electric grandeur.

Despite this diversity, Kes Band remains comparatively brief. It’s the last surprise, of more than a few, from the underappreciated Scullin. “Come into my house” is the first line on the album - nine tracks later it feels like home.

From The Age (EG’s list of hot Melbourne bands to watch out for this year):

KES BAND

Karl Scullin is a striking figure on stage, reed thin with waist-length hair, a sharp profile and huge limpid blue eyes.

As solo artist Kes, he was similarly distinctive over two albums of angular, eccentric folk (2005’s Jelly’s In The Pot and last year’s Grey Goose Wing) his high, stabbing voice matched by a pecking guitar style strangely suited to the moniker cribbed from Ken Loach’s 1969 film.

Kes Band next formed as an occasional adjunct to Karl’s solo work, but has quickly become one of Melbourne’s best live bets, a powerful folk-rock revue in the vein of late ’60s Bob Dylan or English oddballs the Incredible String Band.

The self-titled Kes Band album, released last week by local indie label Mistletone and produced by former Architecture In Helsinki member James Cecil, captures the band’s live dynamics perfectly.

It’s a tour de force, alternately hushed and dynamic and already one of 2008’s best.

– GUY BLACKMAN

Wireless Bollinger review:

‘Kes’ is an acronym of Karl E. Scullin, as well as the name of his band. Or are they now Kes Band? That could be just the record title. Anyway, whether as band name or album title, Kes Band as is an apt descriptor for Scullin’s third solo-like effort. It is an album reflecting both his idiosyncratic vocals and song writing, and the interplay between the members of his fine band. This band is made up of various members of the Melbourne music scene who are artists in their own right, including songstress Laura Jean and ambient composer Biddy Connor. In keeping with this dualistic Kes/Band dichotomy, the nine tracks move between lyrical songs and outright instrumentals. Far from being a hodgepodge of structures and styles, however, Kes Band winningly retains a conciseness throughout its 45 minutes. Seldom boring and mostly exciting, it’s the product of a band working both together as well as around its key creative force in Scullin.

There are moments on Kes Band that provide reference points for the attentive aficionado; the psychedelic take on folk-structures of Love, the simple and direct poetry of Joni Mitchell, Devendra Banhart, Desire-era Dylan. These are merely ways of describing the sound, however, because Kes are a rare band that sound as though they have learnt the lessons of the 60s the hard way, from the source. And through every nuance in their sound, which ranges from psych-folk jamming (‘Eventually’s breakdown is pure prog goodness) to soft classical mandolin and viola (‘Dm Instrumental’, ‘Kids of Equador’), they are never self-conscious about this diversity.

If you see them live, you will know they are “not about the haircuts” as Scullin put it to WB in a recent interview. Another aspect of this natural approach is Kes’ voice, which is extremely histrionic but solely his own and like a sonic extension of his trademark scathing guitar. For a vocalist with such a potentially off-putting squeal, Kes unexpectedly projects not just pathos, but humour too. On ‘Gentle Elf’ he sings: “what’s a knife fight between two brothers/what’s a nice kiss between baby and mother?”. On ‘Don’t Wear Too Many Hats’, when he lets go of his chosen affected squeal and speaks we hear a lovely Australian accent in a musical landscape of cultural cringe: “once I woke up feeling oh so rugged, I had a look and I was buggered”.

Opener ‘View You’ sets the mood for the twists and turns to follow. Beginning with a Celtic recorder melody (rescuing the instrument from Celine Dion’s Titanic clutches), the song slowly works into a folk-rock groove, with Kes softly telling us to “come into my room, all I want to do is to view you”. This intimacy is a standout feature of Kes Band. Throughout, the lyrics are warmly interpersonal and gently touching. With the introduction of mandolin and Connor’s viola, ‘View You’ reaches emotive heights totally belying the soft sentiment of the song. It’s a great surprise.

Where bands like Midlake or Arcade Fire rely on folk or classical instrumentation for grandeur, Kes Band have a more organic touch- pay-off for the hard-work put in over many years’ collaboration. ‘Gentle Elf’ is the album’s most touching track, but at the same time is Kes Band’s most upbeat pop moment. The intro and verse are classic head-bopping stuff, with an insistent beat, flicks of electric and acoustic guitars and rhythmic backing vocal ‘bom, bom bom’s. A chord change signals the chorus and brings the song into a wholly new affective mode. Kes’ reflective summary of the relationship with the eponymous creature is beautiful stuff: “gentle elf, how about I knew you so well, maybe too well, even better than I knew myself”.

There’s a lot going on across the record as a whole, but compared to previous effort The Grey Goose Wing, Kes Band is somehow much more uniform. Despite the breadth, the majority of songs have a similarly reassuring lyrical tone. Thus, while the troughs of The Grey Goose Wing have been evened out, so too have the adventurous peaks that came with the experimentation of that record. In its nine tracks, almost half of The Grey Goose Wing’s sixteen, Kes Band successfully attempts succinctness, a theme hinted at by Scullin himself in his recent WB interview. However, for a band as boldly exploratory as Kes, treading the pop line may obscure the genius that can only come out of the potential failures inherent in experimentation.

Inpress review:

Opening with a recorder that sounds like the broken instrument that accompanied Leonardo DiCaprio’s freezing scene in Titanic (damaged after whoever played that original tune was beaten unconscious with it) is perhaps not the easiest way to invite listeners into an album. But then, Melbourne’s Karl Scullin, aka Kes, has rarely chosen the easiest path on which to guide audiences to the heart of his skewed, sometimes pretty and often aching folk.

Kes breaks up his delicate acoustic melodies with untimely pauses and grating violin and guitar diversions, condensed screams and, yes, naff recorder, and doesn’t bother much with keeping his cat-like voice in key. But that’s always been part of the Kes experience, and when the genius hooks in these ’60s commune-ditties kick in, those other elements seem to make perfect sense - Kes understands the tension between melodiousness, eccentricity and substance like few other musicians, particularly those working in “folk” sub-genres who can all too easily get lost under their own doilies.

The third album from Kes is the proper recorded introduction to the fulltime band he’s been dragging around venues for some time now (including singer/songwriter sidekick Laura Jean, the culprit behind the recorder) and, as such, is a much more “outward” affair than the intimate and innocent production of his last, 2007’s The Grey Goose Wing. Songs like the viola-tweaked psych bopper Eventually and the garage-rocked Owner Has Control are opened right out through crisp recording without losing any warmth, and throughout the album Scullin opts for gentler (ie less insane) vocal intonations than we’re used to while still clutching onto the wild spirit of his words. It proves that it’s always been the songwriting, not the presentation, which has been at the centre of Kes Band’s charm - and that Scullin is more confident of that than ever.

And it’s confidence that is most clear here. Kes Band is a statement by a songwriter ready to move away from being the “weird kid” in the Aussie music class and step up as a real contender for the world stage worth following to the very edges of his fantastic ideas.

- Adam Curley

From mX newspaper:

From Music Australia Guide (four stars):

Off-the-wall, psychedelic folk is what Kes trade in. The band’s odd-ball take on classic folk is what makes this band so endearing and exciting. Strings on the opening track add layers to the collection of sounds that start the record well. The album then moves into a more whimsical groove that I love the most. The ’60s inspired rock is crucial to the overall effect of Kes Band, with trippy instrumentals and interludes of plucked guitar and violin. It’s no wonder Kes have been tagged as an Australian band to watch; their skewed pop-folk breaks free of the ordinary.

- MIRIAM KAUPPI

From Drum Media:

From Wireless Bollinger:

Kes - New Albums, Recordings and Side Projects

by Thomas Mendelovitis

Talking with Karl E. Scullin (Kes) is as natural and unrushed an experience as the course his music takes. When he asked me whether I called his mobile from Sydney, I thought he wanted to postpone our chat but instead he asked me to call him on his landline; it’s easier and cheaper that way.As the main man behind Kes (his initials form the acronym), as well as a core member of Mum Smokes and formerly of Bird Blobs, Scullin has just released his third album Kes Band on Mistletone. Following in the vein of 2007’s The Grey Goose Wing, but with an approach more orientated to band dynamics (hence the album title), Kes Band offers a unique blend of jagged electric folk, explosive jams, sweet melodies and medieval flourishes – all wrapped up in a progressive pop framework. WB had a chat with Scullin about recording the new album, recording another album, his approach to music and his side-project Mum Smokes. The overall impression was of a musician more about process than results, and dedicated to the collaborative function of his band. How did your approach to recording Kes Band differ from The Grey Goose Wing sessions?For this one we recorded everything live, with little things like vocals and recorders overdubbed – this is definitely more of a band [record], the Kes Band do gigs as a band and all the material has been rehearsed together as a band. The Grey Goose Wing was just me recording and getting people to do overdubs. There was a band with Lewis [Boyes, of the Alpha Males] and Julian [Patterson, Mum Smokes] playing drums for all the basic stuff, but the songs were coming together as we were recording them, it was more just off the cuff, whereas these Kes Band songs, we’ve played them live a lot, we know them really well, everyone’s got a little solo to do.The Grey Goose Wing had a lot of different kinds of songs on it. This record continues in that vein, but seems more refined…Yeah, it was a natural thing for it to get more refined. It’s definitely more accessible, and more kinda poppy. It came out of playing with the band more and knowing people musically. The Grey Goose Wing is really just a series of trying things out, lets try band stuff, lets try something sparse and instrumental, but this Kes Band record is more like a – not to compare ourselves with The Beatles! – but a Beatles record, as a bunch of pop songs all with their own personality.Unlike other bands, who seem to add strings and woodwinds for a tacked-on orchestral feel, the viola and recorders really seem an integral part of your sound. How did you arrive at this sound? Do you have a classical background?It’s just something we experimented with. I don’t know anything about classical music, although when I’m driving I always listen to classical music… it’s more pure or something.So it came out of just jamming with your band? Who brought it to the Kes sound?It was because I was playing with Laura Jean [bass, recorders], and Biddy [Connor, viola] plays with Laura Jean a lot too. It was a natural, friend thing, to introduce it and have a few rehearsals. It’s not like it was decided that it would be in [the record].I’m totally open to trying stuff, I’m not really going for a ‘sound’, I’m not listening to The Velvet Underground everyday and thinking, “I really want to sound like The Velvet Underground”. I’m more like ‘if there’s people around and you can try stuff, then it’s worth doing’. I’m more into melody than trying to get the haircuts right. When I see a photo of us, to me it seems there’s a vibe, like we’re a high-school band, people who grew up in a country town, people thrown together via circumstances, like we’re not all the same. We’re all very different people who make up the band, we’re not like-minded except that we just want to be musicians. Every one’s coming from a different place, which I’m really into.You’ve expressed reservations about your voice before. Is this still something that concerns you? I really enjoy singing in phases, but listening to the Kes Band album, I like ‘Dm Instrumental’ the most. My voice, it’s a bit…[pauses] some people are into it, some people aren’t…Well, all interesting vocalists do their own thing. Do you cringe when you hear yourself?[laughs] Sometimes, but not really, I’m pretty used to it. I like the fact that on the new stuff it’s getting closer to my talking voice, but as a live thing, it’s getting more hysterical, with the energy that naturally happens. But if it was to be in this more hysterical direction, the music would have to get more extreme, go all out or just not have it there at all.The new stuff we’re working on is mostly instrumental. It could be a really beautiful, accessible album, lots of rolling through the hillsides kind of instrumental songs, put it in your car and drive and really enjoy it, a CD you can actually kinda use.So you’ve already started working on the new album?Yeah, well, this album was finished almost a year ago. We recorded it with James in January, but Architecture in Helsinki had to go on tour, so we had to wait to mix it, which was in July, and there’s always a delay in getting it out. The Grey Goose Wing only came out last year anyway. I’d like to do one a year, and this one is out now so we’ve gotta record another Kes Band one now for next year. Do you have a lot of material? Yeah, lots of material, it’s just a case of organising people to rehearse it. It might be all instrumental maybe. What’s happening with Mum Smokes? We’ve got to mix an album. We put out that one album, it died off for a bit, but then we were asked to play All Tomorrow’s Parties [UK Festival, curated by The Dirty Three]. So we played more, did a recording and got an album together, which we were going to release before ATP. But the track listing was not to the guy’s [who was going to put it out] liking, some songs were stronger than others and we were just a bit ho-hum about whether it was finished or not. We ran out of time, came back from overseas, did more recording, which became two albums worth of material. Now we’re trying to mix it all together and work out whether it could be released as one or as two separate album. You could always do a double-album…? [laughs] A double-album could be too much. We could always do it over a long-weekend, just get together and mix it, but with Mum Smokes there’s a lot of hanging out and talking about Beatles’ records. Things move pretty slowly in Mum Smokes world. At least it’s not too rushed… But there needs to be a balance of being overly rushed and not finishing it at all. We’ve just got to mix it. We have a deadline of 2010, which has become a joke. I asked Jon Michell [who has his own project with The Ancients] once about what was happening with Mum Smokes, and he said it could be a really good band… It could be a really good band, but like some of those bands it seems we need to fall back into stuff. We just need to do a few small things and then we’ll get these really big opportunities, like ATP…Our first gig was supporting Jim White and the guy from the Avalanches, on the roof above Cookie and the Toff. This was before the first CD came out. It feels like there are lots of opportunities going around.

The Vine review:

Melbourne’s Kes – Karl E Scullin – is a self-made enigma. Androgynous in appearance – all delicate features and silken long hair – and elfin in voice, he’s an anomaly in a scene of sound-alikes and look-alikes. He’s moved from folky bedroom arranger to rock-band bass player to raucous solo guitar whig-outs to gnarled twee pop to who-knows-what-next. With Kes Band he has delivered the most coherent and accessible expression of his current musical vision – a record at once sumptuous and tattered, besotted with vintage 70s rock and leftfield freak-outs yet diverted through a brown-panted indie aesthetic. The wonderful production by James Cecil (from Architecture in Helsinki) pits the classical rock-band sounds against curling arrangements from the assembled talents of the Melbourne indie scene’s leading lights. Clarinets, viola, mandolin and recorder flutter around, battling like the lashes of big-eyed band-leader Kes.

Kes Band follows on from The Grey Goose Wing, a no less adventurous but definitely more obtuse record. Kes Band is the closest Kes has come yet to delivering pop songs. With two of the opening trio (“View You” and “Gentle Elf”) you get hooks snaring from within the folk-cum-rock-cum-pop undergrowth, plus catchy choruses and almost baroque instrumental flourishes cohabiting like they haven’t done since the 70s. It’s a gentle mind-bend of a record (see the duelling guitar riff of “Owner Has Control” weaving in and out of the milder sections), proudly displayed idiosyncrasies welcoming you into Kes’s strange world. Alongside the solo work of fellow band member Laura Jean, Kes shows the way back to beautiful, intricate production – the swirling stuff grunge’s simple chords were pitted against – without ever descending into soft-focus middle-of-the-road obviousness and mediocrity. Kes has a vision to sustain his every venture – the guide to a trip always worth taking.

by Ben Gook

From Throw Shapes (four stars):

Kesband is a completely astounding album in it’s own right, falling short of Kes’ sophomore The Grey Goose Wing only because this time around I knew what to expect. Karl Scullin has a tender, unique voice that tiptoes curiously but self-consciously across whimsical, complex instrumental arrangements which underpin it all. His lyrics are fittingly warm invitations to each listener, asking them to quietly reflect, play or just sit with him a while in the intimate, shy universes of his mind. Mostly, I love that there’s finally an Australian so daringly experimenting with folk and form - but hey, I’m pretty predictable when it comes to this type of thing.

Praise for The Grey Goose Wing:

“Skewed pop classics” - The Age

“He is one of Australia’s most intriguing musical adventurers” - Dazed + Confused

“Deliciously unpredictable… It’s safe to say that Kes doesn’t sound like any other Australian band around.” - Mess + Noise

“An ambitious collection of thoughts somehow comes across as a coherent and consuming whole… A perfect record” - The Brag

“A genuine artist… Experimentation that has an individual edge… Hugely unique” - Rave

Kes named # 3 in Mess + Noise 2007 Critics’ Poll of Australian releases:

Perusing the internet for critical praise of this strange bird, this wild goose, I came across four references to experimental, two for surreal, three for organic, one haphazard, two romantic; there were four mentions of its outsider status, two references to its sense of fun, three mentions of delicate and psychedelic, one mention of psychedelicate, two fresh, one playful, three timeless, two unusual, one esoteric, one out of the ordinary, one it’s so fucking warm, one weird, but not too weird, three said it was just plain weird, one genuine, two sincere, three chaotic, four beautiful, five unique, ‘one serious and silly and this juxtaposition works in Kes’ favour,’ said Richard MacFarlane in Brag Magazine. There were three funnies, one solemn, one high, two stoned, two yelpings and one loosey-goosey, there was one discovery of abandon, three pastorals, one off-kilter, two off-keys, five eccentric, one wobbly, two lively, one ungainly, one skewed, two enthusiastic, three mentions of adventurous, two happy, one unhindered playfulness, two easygoing, one child-like, two quirky, three enigmatic and one unusual soundscapes with rich filmic qualities. Of course there was.

Yet, no mention of Karl’s guitar (no frills, just his fingers and feeling) and how it cries out like a Princely purple dove to his Rumpelstiltskin voice (it does); or how the harmonica on ‘Irritating Gift’ sounds like it was pried from the grip of Stevie Wonder sometimes in the mid-80s, or nothing about Laura Jean’s lovely vocal turn on ‘Ghost’, or how Julian Patterson’s drums rock better than any album since BDP’s ‘Love’s Gonna Get’cha’ (and those beats weren’t even made by humans!) I dig the bum notes and studio mirth, the giddy retardation of vocals and what’s up with the absence of Satan on the songs that go backwards, I want to know! Also how ‘Only When Asked’ has the power to compel dorks at a Dungeon & Dragon’s convention to turn into happy hippies and dance like the punchbowl was spiked by Kes. You’d think Karl and Co. would have a stockpile of psychedelics, but no, they are dedicated tea drinkers, probably the maddest part of all.

- Shane Moritz

From Drum Media:

As freak folk continues to reconfigure America’s take on tradition and song writing, Australia’s been a little slow to follow suit. Finally we’ve got an appropriate response. ELIZA SARLOS speaks to Karl E Scullin, AKA KES about finding a new folk and rolling with it.

“Doing that Grey Goose Wing stuff there were some songs that I wanted to have some intensity in, like Paper and Pen, and songs like that. Structure seemed to be the thing that was the most intense,” Karl Scullin AKA Kes tells me down the line from his home in Melbourne. He’s amidst the recording of his third LP – the follow up to the recently released The Grey Goose Wing. Yes, already.

“I think a lot of people use guitar pedals, turn a distortion pedal on, and that equals intensity. But to me that just equals total banality, it’s just really boring.” He cites some of the nu-metal or retrograde rock fads that keep coming up as existing recipes for “intensity,” but the idea of constructing meaning through formula seems a little irksome. Instead, it’s about self articulation.

“I went in [to the studio] pretty open, I didn’t have that much preconceived idea of what the songs would sound like, I wanted them to sound like what the musicians were doing on the day. I want the people to sound like themselves as much as possible, because I want it to have its own sound and its own voice. The main mission is just trying to have your own voice and not sound like other music, I guess.”

For Grey Goose Kes had a number of musicians help out on the record (Laura Jean, Grand Salvo, Oliver Mann). For its follow up, the one in the making right now, a band’s been formed. In each scenario Kes’ own voice comes through these musicians, yes, but mostly it’s through his own own voice and the way that character takes form in his songs.

Having recently put together a solid band rather than just a ‘group of people,’ Karl maintains his role remains the same. I ask if it’s a bit like a composer of some mass orchestration, but Karl is quick to shift mediums for the sake of analogy: “I’m getting into more directing – the more I get confident working with other people the more I feel like I can be a director, like write a song and get people to do things over it and then scrap the original song and then just work on their parts [so that they’re] new songs.”

“If you can get yourself in the position of directing people you can kind of be more creative in a way,” he suggests, “cos you’re just listening to the bottom line in the overall picture, as opposed to worrying about your own performance and stuff.”

After several EPs high on the experimentation side of guitar wielder, his debut full length - The Jelly’s in the Pot – came in 2005. Much more of a solo affair than Grey Goose, it displayed the same focus and freedom of form. The link between recordings is sonically tenuous, but theoretically the ideas remain similar.

“I’m kind of like a director anyway, when I’m just playing guitar I’m directing myself to do things, so I just kind of feel it’s a natural progression to direct other people. I love directors as well, I love watching the Movie Show, stuff like that. I love watching directors be interviewed. I think they’re the most articulate people in the whole world, they’re amazing.” I feel the same way talking to this guy – his views of sound are so ruptured yet refined that music seems like a form of communication he’s well and truly mastered, an articulation he’s perfected. What this means for his work is structural labyrinths, where sounds play tag with other sounds and evoke portions of emotion that repeat infinitely, and then come to a halt.

In many ways Karl’s directorial role extends to a control over his listeners too. So while your rock maestros have their fallback formulas for intensity, Kes is directing his through a kind of anti-conformity. I think its called experimentation? And it’s not all structural – Kes tells me he’s got both mandolin and violin in his band now, snuggling up with recorder and vocal performances that “are bordering on spoken word, some of them are hysterical and high pitched and stuff.”

“It’s kind of folk,” he offers, “but the instrumentation is definitely not traditionally folk at all.” Like a palette of endless colours, or a film that splices genres, Kes is creating a new form of folk, and a fine form at that.

From The Brag, Sydney:

I got a bit giddy talking to Karl E Scullin. He’s Kes, and over the phone we spoke at a ridiculously fast pace about a lot of things. Inspiration and creativity were the underlying notions; they drove our half hour conversation, ideas lapping. It was inspiring itself, someone so avid about their music that words couldn’t sit still, they had to come out, these ideas, and when you’re listening to Kes’ new album Grey Goose Wing it sounds like that.

It’s not about genres or anything, I wouldn’t want to attach labels, not because it resists them but because it surpasses all of that. It’s a piece of art because it has a scope larger than its medium. He’s an outsider artist in that sense; outside most categorizations. That doesn’t mean much written in these pages but his artistic voice is, to me, extremely unique. I looked down my crumpled piece of paper with interview questions and ideas scribbled everywhere and thought that it looks like kind of how the album sounds: ideas spewing out (even if it all sound fairly subtle). Karl (and Laura Jean and Paddy Mann, who contribute lots to the record) have good ideas; amazing ideas, in fact. Most of all though, they’re Karl’s own because really, he’s interested in creating.

“I’m really into the base idea of being creative. I like the sound of people being creative. I just feel that it’s the most important and exciting thing for me to do. I like listening to myself being creative more so than just trying to do something that you want it to sound like. A lot of my friends talk about their bands and it’s like, ‘I want this band to be like this’ or to ’sound like this particular band’. I just want to find my own voice and things to sound like the little experiments that I’m doing.”

So with experimenting Kes opens a world of possibilities. The idea of experimenting seems really broad these days, in the sense of the word and in the sense of the idea. Karl is open to jamming as part of these experiments. He’s open to doing things structurally, but really, he’s just focused on hard work, and doing things a lot, trying out all the options.

“I think jamming can be a bit of a misnomer, really. You can jam and be doing the same thing over and over when doing it. I’m just trying to be open. When people come and work with me I’m more than happy to throw out the stuff I’ve done and replace it with new ideas, and be in the role of a director more I think.”

This group aspect is a big part of Grey Goose Wing and the way the band works. Still, it’s most definitely Karl’s project. Kes is just his initials.

“I just wanted to be a vehicle for me as a songwriter to do things. As time goes on, I’m more and more interested in just directing things. I’d like to get a band together that I don’t play in myself, but that I write some basic songs and tunes for and then stand back and let other people do all the creative stuff and direct it more from the outside. This album kind of had that feel a little bit, but it’s still my voice that’s dominant on the whole thing.”

It’s a huge voice, and physically unique, although Karl has garnered a few comparisons to Destroyer/New Pornographer Dan Bejar. It seems funny to me to compare someone’s voice to another’s; even if there are vocal affectations at work, it’s still basically just what comes out of your mouth; you can’t change that too much..

Production takes on a particular slant, too. The album’s recorded on 24 tracks on an old, old tape recorder, and even though it sounds fresh and new and spontaneous, brimming with ideas, somehow at the same time it sounds archaic and established. I wondered if it took a long time to perfect this aesthetic and yeah, apparently it did take a long time.

“I was recording with this guy called Dan Hawkins and he has this big analogue studio, a 24 track reel-to-reel classic top of the line old school, 70s recording technology. We tried to get it to sound as best we could with the equipment we had. He was just starting out so he wasn’t too expensive. So I had time to think about things, and go back and rearrange things quite a lot. I know what your saying about the sound, the spontaneity. It definitely wasn’t done on a weekend or anything like that, though.”

Their live shows, at the moment, are pretty rocky. They’ve got a five-piece band, different to that heard on GGW.

“We’ve got mandolin, viola, electric guitar and drums and bass. Everyone sings and everyone plays a lot of different thing like melodica and harmonica. It’s a bit of a rompous sort of band, but it’s also a little experimental. Like some songs we stretch out and we improvise in the middle of the song. There are possibilities on some songs that change each show”.

- RICHARD MACFARLANE

from Beat magazine:

Shane Moritz speaks to Karl E. Scullin about the high-flying goose wing

The Grey Goose Wing, the enchanting second album from the Karl E. Scullin (E is for excellent) band, wriggles into your ears and turns your brain into a happy place you want to visit as often as you can. It sounds like it involved men who are covered in so much hair they qualify as furry, hiding out in log cabin homes writing a secret songbook of bewitching tunes that speak directly to people on the street and higher beings who live in clouds. There’s a flagon of freak in this folk and spirited guitar solos that channel the exultant possibilities of a Silver Jews/Band hybrid. And what about the voice of Karl E how did it get so high, I wonder if he speaks like an ordinary guy (I know him and he does). Karl occasionally gets down like Geddy Lee or Destroyer Dan, cackling like some mad bird, kooky like a kookaburra, while packing his tunes with a Cat Power-like punch.

The leap from the totally sparse Jelly in the Pot to the phantasmagorical folk of Grey Goose Wing is gigantic, huge and mountain big. It was Jelly in the Pot that nailed Karl’s folk aesthetic and opened doors for him. “That CD was really the springboard for meeting other musicians, who have come up to me and spoken to me about it and wanted to play,” he says.

Karl formed a crew and they are an immaculate band of jewellers/ jam band practitioners. On Goose Wing, they shine like splendid medallions. The rhythm section (Lewis Boyes, bass, Julian Patterson, drums) can’t be beat, the recorder (played by Laura Jean) is like an invitation for prairie dogs to gather around and sing at a wigwam and Paddy and Oliver Mann contribute solidly (Oliver’s harmonica playing is so glorious Karl named a song after it). A 24-track production led to some inspired mucking around.

“We might have had 12 tracks down, then me, Laura and Paddy would add these ambient sounds, weird atmospherics on to the extra tracks, and then removing the song entirely, just leaving it out.” The closing section of the opener Oneseventeen is a prime example of this. The song, a jam off the Mum Smokes debut (where Karl plays Stephen Malkmus to Jon Michell’s DC Berman), is resurrected here thrice, with marvellous invention.

“Oneseventeen is my idea of a song where the chord progression stays the same, but the vibe changes depending on who I’m jamming with. The chords stay the same but the feel always changes. It’s like the blues really, people imposing their atmosphere onto the same chord pattern. Oneseventeen is really my version of theblues, but with a more melancholy chord progression.”

The current Kes line-up differs slightly from Goose Wing. No Mann brothers, for inst. Current crew jams as much as possible. They jam together and as individuals and because their such good musicians they sometimes achieve greatness straightaway. They are interested in exploring the mathematical possibilities of a song.

“We would take songs that would be really upbeat and turn them into really slow ballads. Some were really minimal chord patterns and then come out to these really big songs. I just want to be as creative as possible. You know endless rehearsing. Trying all the options before it’s locked down. I’m not really interested in banging a few chords together and saying that’s cool. There are so many other options that need to be tried before you lock it in.” An example of this is The Bruise, which starts like One Foot in the Grave-era Beck before lifting its other foot up into the astral plane. “The Bruise was this really kind of upbeat pop song, jaunty, but we tried it with a real lazy vibe and it came out sounding really fresh.”

“I sing and play guitar a lot sometimes to hit the notes. It’s easy for my brain to play a note on the guitar and sing it at the same time. My guitar playing is not totally unorthodox. It’s like handwriting it’s all pretty unique.”

From Rave Magazine:

Melbourne folk artist crafting amazing soundscapes

The Grey Goose Wing is the second full-length album from Melbourne folk artist Kes, recorded in analogue on a 24-track reel-to-reel tape at Melbourne Recording Salon. The songs are positively soaked with the warmth of the tape, starting from simple acoustic guitar and layered with lonesome recorders, wistful vocals and full-band break-outs. It’s reminiscent of classic pop records such as Pet Sounds or Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. While spartan in parts, the layering is masterfully subtle, quietly drawing the listener into soundscapes that are as vivid as they are unique. That originality can be found in such simplicity is a testament to Kes’ songwriting ability and the timelessness of the music. My only gripe is that the space between the tracks (up to 10 seconds) disembodies them to a degree, and disrupts the holistic nature of the work. But I’m being over-fastidious; this is an amazing piece of art.

- JAKEB SMITH

From Time Off magazine:

Kes is somewhat of an anomaly in the Australian underground, not a card-carrying member of the folk community and not angsty enough to be indie. Kes is outside our categorisation, just one of the many reasons why you should sit up and take notice. With 16 esoteric songs that seep out of a similar air to guitar-savant John Frusciante, this Melbourne lad feeds off of the strange and sublime sounds from his guitar, his equally unique voice skipping above the morphed and twisted melodies. Even when backed by a band, it’s really only ever Kes and his guitar you hear in ‘Paper+Pen’, ‘Limit Me’ and especially ‘Only When Asked’ - a stripped-back psychedelica flooding your imagination. Like being lost in the Octopus’s garden, The Grey Goose Wing probably won’t bring him out into the light but it is this album of secrets that are probably some of fringe music’s most special.(four stars)

- Alex Gillies

From The Brag:

It starts off with panpipes and moody guitars and experimental noodlings; very poignant, it sounds out of the ordinary. Then, a transition into soft indie rock and it’s so fucking warm; it’s fragile and heartrending (actually) and with these two tracks I’m moved more than I have been by music in ages, maybe because it seems really personal and this guy Kes seems a little weird, but not too weird, but just a genuine artist, that seems like a strange concept in music these days and it’s a shame. This experimentation has an individual edge: it’s all over the place, really. The Grey Goose Wing’s scope is broad and it’s afraid to show it. It’s not so eclectic and ‘arty’ that it’s conflicting, it’s just sincere, an ode to folk and indie-rock and electronic music and sampling and art and all things that are beautiful Its poetic and aware, enough so that the most serene lyrics and melodies shine through, his funny little high voice the perfect vehicle for this pop, it’s shimmering; and hugely unique. There’s a perfect balance between the serious and the silly, and this juxtaposition works in Kes’ favour; it sounds more interesting than much else I can remember lately. (four and a half stars)

- Richard MacFarlane

From Foxy Digitalis:

Melbourne, Australia’s Kes lives his everyday life as Karl Scullin. He pays his bills, introduces himself in social situations and generally, functions in the world as Karl Scullin. Outside this everyday persona, Kes makes songs that live in a world of the surreal and the playful. The Grey Goose Wing is Kes’ follow up effort to the jellys in the pot and sees Kes pushing into new territories in a band format as opposed to the rather more modest, stripped back sound of his first effort.

Songs take the form of rollicking folk-rock romps that evoke Television as much as Dylan, moments of down-tempo, simple beauty and backward piano and recorder drone. What makes all this so unique is its nod to the playful. The instrumentation (recorders are usually associated with Year 4 music class, in my mind), vocal dynamics and its interaction with the quite warped timing of the band gives the impression of a bunch of musicians playing with unusual freedom and joy. In that sense one can compare it with Maher Shalal Hash Baz but without the deliberate measures against precision.

Kes own vocals are something you can’t tear your ears from. An almost pre-pubescent brogue telling tales of the fantastic and the romantic would normally overpower everything else on offer here but it all sits together nicely. This is an album of a rare natural beauty and harmony, like Hansel and Gretel and the Witch sitting together over a cup of tea and discussing their day rather than all that killing and eating each other.

- Alex Kakafikas (9/10)

From VICE magazine:

It’s hard to know what to say when a guy that only owns two shirts and comes across all camera shy suddenly turns up on his album cover looking like a glamour model. Maybe it’s similar to the feeling people had way back when they discovered the world was round and not flat. Or when people found out that smoking, like, kills you and stuff. Excuse me, I’m going to the bathroom. (9 out of 10)

from melbs.org:

Kes + Band = Kes 2.0 by Elanor McInerney

Last year, I saw Kes twice. The first time, in January, he was a solitary bird-like man playing gently transfixing bits and pieces in the support slot for Brooklyn-based, opera-meets-playground sister act, CocoRosie. And, because I am an impressionable sort, this meant that I devoted a substantial part of the rest of 2006 listening to two things .. CocoRosie’s Noah’s Ark, and Kes’ The Jelly’s In The Pot. On reflection, diligence to this combination of albums has primed my brain for only one possible reaction to Kes 2.0 - joy. Watching him in December with band in tow and brandishing the new sounds of The Grey Goose Wing, well, it all made an immediate and exhilarating kind of sense from where I was standing. Indeed, I have convinced myself that Kes and I are kindredly like this in that our intervening months have been informed by the same realisation: playing what look like children’s plastic toy instruments and making barnyard animal sounds are exactly the sorts of things we need more of in serious music.

Now, it must be admitted that probably, I am not intended as the sole beneficiary of The Grey Goose Wing. So, let’s consider what you people might like about it.

Firstly, it’s still a Kes album. So it retains his distinctive vocal tendency to slide into atonality and out again with purposeful precision, as well as his peculiar mix of sustained song craft punctuated by floating bits of musical bric-a-brac and those undeniable pop moments, like the latter singalong half of The Recipe (which reminds me of Come On Eileen by Dexy’s Midnight Runners), or the vocal riffs that stick in your head for days (currently, the squeaky “be-ware, be-ware, be-ware” from Irritating Gift is doing the rounds in mine). So it’s definitely for Kes fans, but it’s also Kes with benefits. The Grey Goose Wing differs from previous releases because it sees Kes embracing a sense of fun. And I don’t just mean the obvious fun stuff, like the yelping and goose-y “ha-ha-ha-ha, whatchoo wah” on Limit Me.

Even songs that would seem to fit just as well on The Jelly’s In The Pot are made distinct here for sounding like they’re sung by a relentlessly grinning Kes. And I put this discovery of abandon down to the band. Listed as “additional players” on the album sleeve but very much indivisible from Kes 2.0, its members include Laura Jean and make contributions with recorders, harmonica and, most importantly, experimental enthusiasm. Song titles helpfully track some of their specific work, see Paddy and Laura’s Vocals or Oliver’s Harmonicas, but it’s my view that playing well with others was vital to The Grey Goose Wing’s eccentric and convivial achievements.

from The Age newspaper:

Melbourne’s resident outsider-folk anti-hero Kes returns.

On mystic 2004 debut The Jelly’s in the Pot, Melbourne’s resident outsider-folk anti-hero Kes crooned of “evil twins” who made him too nervous to finish his “din-dins”. With little more than a soft-plucked nylon-string guitar and his off-kilter, off-key brand of pastoral whimsy, the former Bird Blob carved his niche in the ever-growing new-folk paradigm. In some ways, little has changed on new 16-cut opus The Grey Goose Wing. It’s filled with the same stoned, psychedelic intonations, the same odd, surrealist lyrical passages. But where Jelly’s relied on skeletal guitar arrangements and little else, The Grey Goose Wing has fuller, more lively arrangements and a new sense of ungainly pop flurry. Indeed, The Bruise and Only When Asked - with its wonderful vocal contributions from Laura Jean - prove a pair of skewed pop classics. But aside from a couple of lovely vocal parts by Paddy Mann, the record tends to drag a little by the end. Kes can only meander so far before even he becomes a little lost.

- Dan Rule

from InPress magazine:

Kes can’t cook an omelette but he can write one of this year’s early must-hear albums of kooky folk.

On a Thursday afternoon, I get a call from Kes. He wants to know what my time constraints are, because he hasn’t had breakfast yet, and wants to cook an omelette before the interview. I’ve never been a man to disallow another man his breakfast, so we agree to reconvene in half an hour or so.

When we do, we briefly discuss the omelette. I like my omelettes, so I’m quite curious. Bacon? Mushrooms? Maybe some ‘erbs and a bit of spice? It’s a moot point. The omelette was shit.

“Yeah, it turned out half pancake, half dog food,” he laments. I sympathise with him; whenever I make an omelette, it just ends up as scrambled eggs, no matter what I put in it.

“Yeah, pretty much,” he agrees. “The pan was too small and I tried to flip it and it broke into a million pieces.” Such is the woe of a man who gets a little adventurous when it comes to breakfast. However, as delicious (or not) as breakfast is, that’s not what we’re here to talk about. Speaking of getting adventurous, that’s what we’re here to talk about, and if you’ve heard Kes’ latest release, The Grey Goose Wing, then you’ll know what I mean by adventurous. Maybe that’s not the right word, perhaps experimental. Yeah, that’s the right word, experimental. Kes agrees, but only to an extent.

“I guess so, it depends on what your ears are trained for,” he muses when I note this album is far from conventional. “Like, I mean, I think it’s really pretty accessible really, like they’re kinda pop songs..maybe not pop, but yeah..I think it’s a bit erratic, but I just did the best I could really. I’m kinda thinking more about the songs than the listener, I guess.”

Kes, who truly is an “outsider musician” as his bio attests, has made an album here, half solo acoustic, half with a band, that challenges probably almost all of the listeners listening prowess. His One/Seventeen chord progression (an experiment of his) takes a number of guises on this record, including backwards piano and god knows what else to create a little universe of his own; a universe where everything, while seeming completely unconventional to you or I, fits so perfectly.

“One/Seventeen is like an experiment,” Kes explains, “where it’s one chord progression that I have, and I just kinda play it with other musicians, I just play it at different times, and every time I play it, it changes. So it was just an experiment of trying that chord pattern on the piano, then we tried it backwards and it just had an interesting sound to it.

“It’s a song writing project,” he goes on regarding his penchant for experimentation, “but I’m totally opening to experimenting as much as I can. I’m pretty open to trying things, really. I really like simple formats, like acoustic guitar and voice, but I’m not really into strummy-wummy kinda time, where you just strum up and down on chords and sing over the top of it..I just think, it’s pretty limitless what you can do with acoustic guitar, so I just try and open up as much as I can. Like, there’s heaps more experimenting to do, I’ve only just kinda started slightly experimental types of structures. And I think that’s the most interesting thing, to me, is song structures..I think a lot of people put experimental energy into sound, you know, trying heaps of different pedals and all that, but I think song structure is where it’s totally at, that’s where things can get radical. How the song can flow.”

Kes is currently laying down tracks for a band album, despite the fact The Grey Goose Wing has only just been released, and listening to him talk, it seems he never stops.

“I feel the more you build up your creative muscle,” he finishes, “the more creative you can be.”

- Sam Fell

from Beat magazine:

Imagination, exploration and experimentation can be a difficult road to travel. For every eclectic artistic performance, there’s a mind numbing, self-indulgent journey through mismatched time signatures, disjointed chord progressions, trying desperately to breaching the yawning chasm between a blindly idiosyncratic interpretation of melody and subjective enjoyment.

But in the right hands, and the right musical context, a bit of free form exploration is a very positive thing. Such is the case with the enigmatically titled Kes. Kes is clearly more at home exploring the disparate strands of pop and folk that permeates his mind; with his second album, The Grey Goose Wing Kes indicates he’s not finished travelling quite yet.

Sometimes the mood is happy .. in The Bruise Kes’ travels take him to the edge of the Beach Boys’ oceanic dreaming but with an acoustic guitar and a hessian shirt instead of a Malibu board and wood panelled station wagon, Only When Asked is a free fall through chaotic pop, The Ghost Got Caught is pop music seen through a Prozac lens and Change With Me is the sincerest of romantic odes. Sometimes the mood’s hard to pick .. the imagery of Paper + Pen is miles away, swaying between whimsical reflections and shards of guitar that fly through the lo-fit atmosphere like the remnants of a shattered relationship, The Grey Goose Wing (which appears in two guises, firstly with the generally chastised recorder, and secondly in a more obvious acoustic guitar incarnation) is Hawkwind doing medieval folk pop. After Oliver Mann turns up briefly on Oliver’s Harmonicas to break the mood, Kes settles back into psych-rock mode on Limit Me, a moment of normality before the indulgent sounds of One Seventeen (Backwards Piano) and on Irritating Gift the glint from Kes’ falsetto vocals are as confronting as the morning sun when you’re wrestling with a tequila hangover.

By the time Kes finishes his wandering you’re not much the wiser about where he’s off to next, or indeed what message he’s left you with to ruminate over. But, despite the rhetorical bullshit of pop spiritualists, there is no definitive explanation of what’s going on around us .. it’s all a journey of discovery, and all understanding and interpretation is subjective. So make of Kes what you will .. there’s plenty to get your teeth into.

- Patrick Emery

From Spark Online:

Melbourne artist Kes has released his second full length album called The Grey Goose Wing. I gradually found my way through this album, listening whilst cooking dinner and washing dishes and eventually discovering a folk atmosphere of inventive, unhindered playfulness, and unusual soundscapes with rich filmic qualities. Attitude in this album emerges like children taunting each other, with innocence that evokes curiosity. However, in the boundless exploration, I was sometimes left searching for accessibility and melodic clarity. Kes seems to rummage for the melody in a haphazard way, which heightens an unpredictable quality with exciting instrumentation. However, this capricious quality, when it appears in the vocals, can become dissatisfying and sometimes even detracts from the range and lucidity of the vocal expression. Nevertheless, the instrumental tracks on this album are truly beautiful. The Melbourne Recording Salon captured, on analogue 24 track reel-to-reel tape, an organic folk sound that lulls the listener into an easygoing aural landscape of plucked acoustic guitar, ethereal recorders and amplified alliances of full-band exploration. On my first listen I was immersed by the title track; the roaming melody swept down, like a goose, skimming the lake of its origin, after a meandering migration. The Grey Goose Wing.

- Stuart Bowden

from Mess + Noise magazine:

Kes. Named, presumably, after the classic Ken Loach film, based on the Barry Hines novel, in which a half-starved dreamy youngster has his hopes .. and his beloved kestrel bird .. strangled by the grim Yorkshire mining town that he’s growing up in.

And Kes (the songwriter, also the band) sound a bit like young winged hope, too: slightly wobbly on their feet, but more than capable of gusting upwards with delicious unpredictability. Sometimes there’s the bulk of an empty mountainside echoing back from between their blown recorder notes, like on opener One Seventeen, which is revisited as a melancholic, reversed-tape piano interlude at the album’s three-quarter mark. Or there’s The Grey Goose Wing (Recorders), where you can practically trace a gentle valley breeze. Other times those same instruments squawk with a surprisingly endearing, stubborn-faced confidence, in slap-dash harmony with vocals (including guests Paddy Mann and Laura Jean) content to wander far from any main melodic current.

Despite the folkish atmosphere, this isn’t a delicate record; it’s far more self-possessed than that. For those who display a habitual sourness towards open, joyful experimentation, The Grey Goose Wing will curdle your milk. For the rest of us, it’s safe to say that Kes don’t sound like any other Australian band around. They don’t sound bored, they don’t sound tired, they certainly don’t sound straight-jacketed by trying to catch their own reflections in the nearest mirror. And that’s a very good thing.

- Emmy Hennings

from InPress magazine:

It’s almost redundant to say that any music worth listening to holds more than the sum of its parts. It’s the basic rule that saw Julian Casablancas turn having nothing to say and a few annoying nursery-rhyme melodies into a brilliant Herman Hesse-meets-Bret Easton Ellis disturbance on The Strokes’ First Impressions Of Earth. Regardless, Melbourne curiosity Kes bleeds all over this rule with his second longplayer: each song is worth exactly the sum of its unobscured parts, and that sum is more than most songwriters can ever dream of ending at.

The Grey Goose Wing is an invitation under the former Bird Blobs bassists’ sheets: the fragility of his child-like and sparingly used voice; the simple, haunting guitar lines that weave in and out of each other, fucking with conventional song structures to sneakily worm their way to epic chaos; tinkled piano straight out of whichever early ’70s folk vinyl is under your bed (played backwards to form a hypnotic rhythm on One Seventeen (Backwards Piano), as well as recorder and a few found sounds; and lyrics that give him every right to share a name with the late ’60s English film (adapted from the Barry Hines novel, A Kestrel For A Knave) about a rejected loner who finds solace in wild birds.

“I went to talk to the moon/ But the moon’s not that easy to talk to/ So I threw some rocks at it/ Knowing that they may not hit”, he sings on The Bruise, before quirking up even more on The Ghost Got Caught: “A ghost is just one more thing to put up with/ And you won’t even know I’m there”. No, this isn’t particularly optimistic stuff, but it is intensely personal without hiding behind any false ideas of what “personal” songs should be.

Change With Me is an empty-bed plea of an album centrepiece; Limit Me is a fun diversion into rollicking Dylan territory, and the stark, solemn The Recipe could have been an alternate score to Brokeback Mountain, were Jake Gyllenhaal and Heath Ledger two Collingwood junkies who locked eyes at a methadone clinic.

Engaging and touching, The Grey Goose Wing takes a post-rock approach to psych-folk to create a kind of ‘broke folk’ and become a truly remarkable release from one of Melbourne’s most interesting solo songwriters. Don’t deny yourself the experience.

- Adam Curley