So when Dust decided she wanted her next record to be bound together by a narrative theme, space was the natural inspirational place to go. “I’ve also recently got into British television composer Barry Gray, who did Space 1999 and The Thunderbirds,” Dust says. “I wanted to write a theme for the album, and I wanted to have a narrative.”
The result of Dust’s fertile imagination is Space Odyssey Part 1, the new album from Jane Dust and the Giant Hoopoes. Made up of three separate, but interlinked suites, Space Odyssey Part 1 tells the story of an explorer visiting the planets of Venus, Earth and Mars in search of ‘The Creature’, a particularly nasty and threatening ‘space menace’. Dust’s quest was to create a record that would entice the listener to sit down and listen to the record in a single session – an experience often ignored in these days of ephemeral entertainment events. “This is the first instalment of a double vinyl record that I’ll be putting out eventually,” Dust says. “I wanted people to sit down and listen to the record, and the next instalment will cover four more planets.”
For the record Dust enlisted the same basic lineup from her self-titled record from 2010: bass player Stu Thomas (Kim Salmon and the Surrealists, Dave Graney and the Lurid Yellow Mist, Stu Thomas Paradox), drummer Clare Moore (Moodists, Dave Graney, SALMON) and Will Hindmarsh (Go Go Sapien) on keyboards. Casey Rice (Dirty Three) provided the production touches to bring Dust’s vision to realisation. “Casey is able to take the raw ingredients and makes it sound like a finished product,” Dust says.
The major addition to the previous lineup came with Louisa Trewartha on trumpet, augmented by strings and horns. “She’s a musician who really levels minds,” Dust laughs. The use of strings and horns to fill out the sound was something Dust did last time around, and was keen to pursue again. “I really enjoy writing the string and horn lines,” Dust says. “I liked the interaction between them last time around, so I wanted to do that again.”
The concept of Space Odyssey: Part I was already planned out and conveyed to the members of the band before recording took place. Like concept records of yore, Dust visualised each song in sequential order, matching the tracks to the narrative forming in her mind. “A lot of it is spontaneous, “ Dust says. “I wrote every song in order in order, and I visualised the song as I was writing it. It was pretty much a case of ‘this song has to be about this’,” Dust says.
With such a high concept and fertile narrative territory – tracks on the album include Tessera Terain, Ishta Terra, Valles Marineris and Vastitas Borealis – there was always the risk that her band might baulk at the idea. Back in the early ‘70s, The Who’s Pete Townshend laboured over his Lifehouse project, confusing everyone in his artistic circle – including the other members of his band – before he was effectively told that no-one could understand the narrative floating around in his mind. Dust laughs at the comparison. “No, it wasn’t like that,” she laughs. “I’d send them demos in the mail, so they had plenty of time to work the smirks off their faces by the time we started recording!”
Dust admits she was the controlling influence in the studio, though tempers any suggestion of dictatorial control. “Yes, yes, yes, I was a dictator!” she laughs. “Everybody has a hard time with me! Actually, I’m pretty good, most of the time.” While Thomas, Moore and Hindmarsh were able to come in and put down their tracks in standard rock’n’roll style, additional attention was required for the classical musicians. “Classical musicians need their music written out, so I’d have to do all of that, and then given them their parts to play,” Dust says.
For her upcoming launch at the Northcote Social Club, Dust and the Giant Hoopoes will play Space Odyssey: Part 1 as it’s presented on the record. “It’s definitely going to be performed in the same order as the record,” Dust says. And Dust doesn’t have any qualms about having the album tagged as a ‘concept album’ – even the comparison with Emerson, Lake and Palmer doesn’t worry her. “I like those references, even bands like Renaissance. I really like the idea of being taken on a journey,” she says.
After the launch, Dust will put her mind to Part 2 of her Space Odyssey (though she’s likely to stay clear of involving Pluto, the distant planet sadly deprived of its planetary status a few years ago by the international astronomical community). And there’s always the prospect of finding a truly bombastic setting for the record, and its successors. “If the London Philharmonic Orchestra, or the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra wanted to do something, that that’d be great,” Dust says. “And we’re talking – their people are talking to my people,” Dust laughs.
BY PATRICK EMERY
