“Once we got a hint of where the album was going, we were just the vessels for it arriving in people’s ears,” Kim explains. He speaks as if his mouth can’t keep pace with his mind. He’s recanting the story of DLC’s second album, The Catalyst Fire. Its beginnings are rooted in shamanism and wisdom as old as the Earth itself.
“At the end of 2010, the band and our producer Forrester Savell travelled to the Amazon and Peru,” Kim begins. “We went to a jungle city called Iquitos. We went right up the river and trekked into the jungle and we stayed at this retreat there with this tribe. I had this incredible experience there drinking Ayahuasca,” Kim says. For those uninitiated in tribal lore, Ayahuasca is a psychedelic ‘healing medicine’ discovered and used by Peruvian Amazon tribes. It ‘breaks down the ego’, giving insights into consciousness and beyond.
“I met the most incredible woman there, Klara,” Kim continues. “She’s a shamanic artist there and an apprentice shaman. She made this symbolic artwork and it has these lines and patterns that don’t repeat; it was the most intricate artwork I’ve ever seen. It was like seeing the language of an alien race. I told her what we sing about, and it was one of those ‘meant-to-be’ moments.”
Klara agreed to tattoo Kim’s chest with one of her unique mandala artworks. Kim, joining ranks of philosophers and psychologists, believe mandalas are expressions of a collective consciousness.
“I came back and showed the guys. We asked her to do our artwork for us. We started with Cameron Grey, our artist on the last album to create the DLC mandala. We wanted to tie it into the theme of the album. We wanted people from any walk of life, from the yoga guru to the bricklayer, to stand in front of it and have some kind of experience. That way everyone can know what our album’s about.”
The Catalyst Fire took three years to spark and catch flame. Taking swathes of time off to explore the jungle and themselves, they’ve dangled scraps of the record on their website throughout 2012. Ever the community builders, DLC kept fans in touch with their meticulous writing and recording process. By record’s end, they layered countless instruments atop an undulating ocean of sound. Did they cling to a raft of deadlines? Not likely. Making The Catalyst Fire took as long as DLC saw fit.
“We are of the persuasion that you don’t get through a shit bit to get to a good bit,” Kim notes. “If you’re trying to be deep and meaningful within the boundaries of rhyme and rhythm and a limited word set, it’s a mega challenge. We couldn’t force it; we just had to let it happen.”
Dead Letter Circus proudly wear their hearts on their guitar strings and keyboards. Their last album shot to #1 on the ARIA charts in 2010. This Is the Warning was Kim and the band’s “awakening,” a realisation an anti-nature, anti-human structure traps our world underneath its soulless veil. Kim thinks we should reject the roles society dictates for us.
“Three years ago, we tried to plant signposts,” Kim reveals. “We tried to say ‘look around you, there’s definitely some kind of construct at work here’. There’s something guiding us on a way to live. Bricklayers around a barbecue are even talking about it. They see what’s wrong but think, ‘What could I possibly do about it?’
If Warning tore blinkers off, The Catalyst Fire is DLC’s call to arms. It affirms that change is possible. “It’s not a Malcolm X, standing on the podiums, screaming at the masses kind of thing,” Kim says, putting the album into context. “It’s more like you’re the guy in the crowd, listening to someone speak or having that little revelation within yourself. That’s the way this album comes across.
“I’m not well spoken enough to do political rants between songs on stage,” he laughs. In our most paranoid delusions, we think the government spies on us. We have nightmares of earpiece wearing stuffed shirts tuned into our phone calls while they’re reading our emails. With Edward Snowden’s revelation’s about PRISM and the NSA, it turns out our inner Oliver Stone was right.
“I don’t think anyone trusts the government, I think we have to get over the thought that nothing can be done,” he implores. “Have you ever seen that movie, [Antz?] All these ants are controlled by a small group of grasshoppers. One of the ants is an awakened individual and he has a go of putting some positive thoughts into these programmed minds. He shows them there’s so much more to life.” He pauses to collect his thoughts.
“Everyone’s waking up to the fact we’re not separate. Right now if you hear someone screaming, you’d lock the door. In the old days, you’d come roaring out there to help. We’re becoming more of a community. As soon as that community spirit can happen again, we can all walk out on to your front lawn and stand together.”
BY TOM VALCANIS
