Bent. Snakes and Shapes. In words.

Last time I wrote about Bent, I complained. A lot. Let’s not do that again. Don’t want to get a rep. Bent are…

The reason I stopped writing about music is that I no longer gain a sense of community or participation from doing so. I do not need to be reminded of my isolation. So fuck it. Fuck all of you. This has less to do with the magic that continues to spew forth from my fingertips, an embarrassment the way it gathers I cannot stop it hard as I might try, more to the fact that I do not go out. However. Bent do not give me, have never given me, a sense of community or conjoining, but of a great yawning chasm between us and them, them and us, me and everyone, them and everyone, the underlying silence all the more scary because it is unsought, those small festering lurking creatures lurking festering beneath floorboards. Anguished voices. Anguished drums. Anguish. And plenty of fucking joy too, now I think on it. Attempts to make sense of a life that has no reason behind it, and laughing at the results. The greatest song on their second album (Snakes and Shapes) is the one called ‘Dingo Boy’ which advances the Petticoats/Wet Dog template onto another level, another game life altogether. It collects pebbles like a jar.

Bent are a trio (it says in my head) from Brisbane. Actually, Bent are a trio from Brisbane, and fuck man they’ve probably upped and moved away somewhere more comfortable, less challenging – Melbourne, say – years ago. No, I joke. This noise could not come from Melbourne, it feels too isolated and joyful. I like to think they created this album in a fit of dissolvement over the course of two dope-stoked hours but probably they practise and everything and all that. Stoned.

Last time I performed with Bent, I spoke the lines from Liz Phair’s ‘Flower’, the one about being a blowjob queen. I was sincere in my intent. I would love to be a blowjob queen, I just need the right training.

The reason I stopped writing about music is…where do I go from here? I know it can seduce. I know it can validate. I know it is an art above most of which it discusses. No one pays attention anyway, it’s all circular, it’s all mendacious and I felt I was adding too many layers most of which none were asked for. This music from Bent – big beautiful blowsy broken atonal Bent – is the stuff I want to be dragging and smiling into the mainstream (spread the burn) and once I could have managed it, but now? Let’s not complain. I have had a good life. I will get a rep. Spacious and resonant and full of the dust from those creaking corners you only find in rundown Queenslanders, and maybe not even all of those either. ‘Brix _ It’s Raining’ is bloody brilliant in a way very few are outside of Bek Moore.

‘Mattress Springs’ clatters.

‘Brick Brick Backyard Bit’ is filler, the way walls cannot stand without.

‘Brick Brick’ smacks of unease. This is not comfort music. This is no way comfort music. They sure got their wonk on. In places, Nina Simone unsettling.

Fuck I miss Brisbane. Damn it! See what I did there? Now my cover has been blown. Again. Now I can never sweep poetry from the rug and shake couplets. You want a link to this music? Go fuck yourselves you lazy bastards.

That’s it. I have no more to say.