Pike is Hada To Hada s second turn around the dresser, and boy, do they know how to turn a corner with a flourish. The album is steeped in vaporous harmonies, stoked by a jazz sensibility that s more sophisticated than a season of haute couture collections, and stamped with the indelible ink of their three-dimensional worldview.
But, as Belinda Morris (vocalist, sax supremo and oboist) remarks, they re not a young trendy band, and all the sublime harmonies in the world do not a pocket line. Band mainman Kieran Duddy favours a more sanguine perspective, though, and is determined not to let the business get the better of him.
It s been ever thus in this country, you know, he offers, it s just not easy when you re at this level. When you look at the way that the traditional music scene goes, it has a life of its own. It s on the periphery but it s a self-sustaining thing. Whereas in rock music, it s got to be something new and fresh all the time, and if you can t be labelled, well, it just makes life that bit more difficult.
With a commendable eye for small enterprise, Hada To Hada have put Pike out all on their own, showing a healthy disdain for small print and exclusionary clauses. A less than content sojourn with Starc Records now behind them, they re intent on ploughing their own furrow, free of the contractual fetters that have stunted their progress in the past.
Necessity is the mother of embarrassment, that s what I say, Duddy, eh, says, with a smile, by way of explanation for his decision to go indie amid the tumultuous straits of the music industry. This business is full of fantasists and wankers and they all know what s going to happen, but they never come up with the money or the goods. That s why we do it all ourselves. We had the raw material in the form of the songs and the music, so we decided, to hell with it. We d put it out ourselves.
Pike is the Raymond Carver edition of the band, after the distinctly Faulknerian intricacies of their debut, My German Lover. Less lyrically dense, with a lightness of tone that hints at Duddy s happier camper state, Pike is a snapshot of a band jettisoning the epic in favour of the short story.
I don t know that it was intentional, Duddy remarks, but we definitely had the idea to make things lighter, and enjoy it more. There are no constraints on how we develop, or what we do, so we can have fun and that enjoyment comes across in the music too. I wouldn t want to lose whatever I invest in my lyrics either, but it must be accessible to the audience, that s important.
However distinctive the Hada to Hada sound is, they must surely have considered the easier route, the short sharp two and a half minute jingle that d guarantee airplay.
If we went into that mode, I think you just wouldn t know where to stop, Duddy smiles, just a tad ruefully. These days it s all down to packaging: two and a half minutes of staccato, allegedly emotional content and it s nothing, it s just pap.
It s like that gender thing: everything shifts to the right, and never comes back to the left. People compromise the other way all the time, you know. It s not that we don t compromise either. Everything about this business is a compromise of sorts. You ve got to pay the bar staff, the door staff, the soundman.
But the way I feel about it is that you make your own space, and you can sustain yourself musically, lyrically, intellectually, emotionally until someone offers us enough money to jump ship and go Wah-hey ! It s just that nobody s ever coughed up the money actually. That s all.
Hada To Hada s songs have evolved musically too. Duddy s recently acquired five-string banjo has helped shape the certain songs in a way that the guitar never allowed him to do.
It certainly changes the way I write, he nods, because it s a beautifully ordered, structured instrument. Musically it s a complete sound in itself. All kinds of suggestions come through it. Somehow you hear things in different ways.
Jimmy Trimble , Pike s closer, is a perfect foil for that independent banjo sound.
That s a story about Gore Vidal s best mate when he was a kid, Duddy elaborates. They both queued up to join the Marines, to go and fight the Japanese, which is interesting when you see that he s (Vidal) now preaching against the hegemony of the United States. But the most startling effect on his life was when Jimmy Trimble was shipped back home seven weeks later in a body bag. It s about how minorities get shoved out to bear the brunt of whatever the government decides to do. So the song is about that loss of innocence, and keeping it childlike and simple was important.
Another standout, Wreckage Forever , is a song with a colourful history worthy of retelling.
I was on a bus, going to Madrid a few years ago, Kieran recalls, and I met this woman who was in her 60s who wrote Mills & Boon stories. And her opening line was I hope you don t mind if I join you , so I lifted the line straight from her. Wreckage Forever comes from an American poem that I read a while ago called Cherry Log Road . It s one of James Dickey s, who wrote Deliverance . It was the last line of the poem and I just thought it was beautiful.
The sensual and erotic are no strangers to the Hada To Hada sound, and make a refreshing change from the cock-rock posturing that seems to have a monopoly these days.
I think the sax is a beautifully sensuous instrument, that lovely flowing legato style that catches and envelops you, Duddy nods. Most relationships evolve around that kind of sensual and sexual tension, but because of this culture of non-ideas in music, it s rarely tapped into. Pre-pubescent I love her/She loves me -end-of-story-we-got-an-album-folks. I think if your emotional and intellectual life mean anything, you ve got to explore these things. They present themselves to me anyway, and I can t just ignore them!
I mean, that beautiful sax on Ed Winter is just such a searing cry from the heart. There s no note or word that you could alternate in it. I don t think futility is the right word. Optimism, really, and ultimately it has to be so.
We all have a right to change, to move and progress and I feel that the album reflects where I am, myself. I feel a lot more comfortable writing now and we ve made this album ourselves so there it is. Now it s time to let people make up their own minds on it. But it s an album that I just love. n