Antony Milton
'Sirens' & 'And Where The Coloured Planes Are Rafts'

[Click here for audio sample]

 

An essential CD for those into the outsider NZ 'pop' scene--you know, the one that includes the likes of This Kind of Punishment, Pin Group, Victor Dimisich Band/Terminals, Wreck Small Speakers on Expensive Stereos...in fact, if you know the Xpressway sound (that label Bruce Russell ran back in the day) you should know what to expect here. That SHOULD translate for most of you as:  Really fucking great.  Buy now.  Add to cart.  Etc.  But not everyone thinks like I do.  Milton's music comes just half a decade too late to be part of the classic Xpressway sound, but it is totally there.  In my world this is what pop music would sound like!

"This isn't at all like the Antony Milton we've come to adore, which in no way is a bad thing. Milton has bestowed upon us record after record of sublime drones and experimental ambience, all of it pretty darn amazing. But this is a whole 'nother side of Mr. Milton, a more lo-fi, home recorded, bedroom folk side. And quite a nice side it is. Originally Recorded in 1997 and 1998 the two records that comprise this disc are intimate folk pop songs, lots of strummed guitar, simple percussion, and Milton's quavering almost-falsetto sadboy vocals. Drifting and delicate, simple and insistent, sweetly innocent but with haunting otherworldly filigree. Certainly in the tradition of New Zealand bedroom songsmiths Alastair Galbraith, Peter Jeffries, Roy Mongomery, but with definite shades of the US four-track underground (Sentridoh, Iran, Supreme Dicks, etc.). Towards the second half of the record, the freakout factor definitely picks up, with stretches of wild guitar and slabs of almost-noise, but at it's core this is still a ultra personal, super lovely slab of folky pop lovliness!"
--Aquarius Records

Here's a short write-up from Antony about the origins of Sirens:

Sirens was recorded in an old cobb-cottage on an orchard in Central Otago. I was working there and would record after picking and on rainy days (which were quite frequent that season). I spent most of my teenage years in Central Otago and had returned there because it loomed so large in my own personal mythology that it felt as though the place was somehow hardwired into my identity. Despite all the rain Central Otago is renowned for being dry and hot. Its like a mini Arizona or something (I'm guessing having never been to Arizona...)- a high plateau in amongst the mountains of the South Island. The whole place is a golden colour from the tussoch, with turquoise blue rivers threading through rugged hills and weird rock formations like the bones of the land exposed.

At the time of recording Sirens I had been living in Christchuch, the largest city in the South Island, playing and recording music, working for a potter. I'd also been reading too much and going to too many art galleries. I was ready for one of those hard swings back toward a kind of feral mysticism (a terrible pendulum to be caught up on) and that was one of the reasons why I had chosen to go work on the orchard. I cycled there with my 4 trk and violin in my pannier bags and my guitar on my back. 

One (sunny) day-off I went for a bike ride away up into the hills. There had been an intense edge to the day from the moment I'd awoken. For some time I'd been trying to address the issue of 'faith', faith in self, faith in the appropriateness of unfolding reality- whatever... That day in the hills was one of only 2 times in my life that I have succeeded in 'surrendering to the moment' in anything even approaching a complete way. I stepped off my bike and walked without questioning wherever 'impulse' dictated. I climbed rocky bluffs crawled through thorny briars. The 1st thing I found was a hawk feather that had somehow imbedded itself to grow like a flower out of the dusty ground. The next thing I found was a ring of psilocybe mushrooms that I collected (but didn't consume..). It was very hot and the sun was glaring down. I was out there for hours and it was only when a hunter opened fire on me as I was crawling on hands and knees through a rosehip briar that I really came back to myself. He had thought that I was a (big..?) rabbit and got as much of a shock when I yelled out and stood up as I had when he started shooting at me. We were miles from anywhere and such a meeting was remarkably unlikely. After that I 'came back to myself' (got sane?) and climbed on my bike for a speedy descent back toward the orchard. When I got there I went straight into my room and recorded the trk 'I was almost killed'. So thats kind of the (psychogeographical) context for the Sirens release. 'And Where the Coloured Planes are Rafts' was recorded a year or so later on Stradbroke Island in Australia. A lot of that is about dreams of New Zealand, but some of its about Australia as well.