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Breathe |
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Breathe
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Breathe |
I said I'd never listen to Midnight Oil again. Yes, their last album, Earth and Sun and Moon, was a great piece of pre-John Howard pro-republic, combined with enviro-passion and ever-growing spiritual consciousness. But even then, and certainly now, their political awareness (overtaken by the brilliantly bombastic political angst of Rage Against the Machine) and distinct lack of grunge or self-seeking angst surely left them with nothing to say to the younger, postmodern generation...
And that is how many critics dismissed Breathe, Midnight Oil's late 1996 offering. But as Peter Garret sings on the album we live in an age where "the critic is king". I guess you have to have ears to hear-or ears not to hear-when the critics of popular culture are steering you from works of art in any discipline that may feed the spirit.
While Breathe won't appeal to the grungesters or the gangstas or the techno tripsters, those who can "open their ears" to this album's muted but nonetheless powerful message should do so.
Call it sacrilegious, but I have worshipped to "Common Ground" and "Time to Heal" as I've driven in my car-hands in the air, eyes closed. Now, of course, "if you worship and drive you're a bloody idiot", but, hey, I wasn't over the limit.
When on "Time to Heal" Garrett sings "where is the town that we lived in, brother, where is the sound of the church bell, sister?" in one sublime sentence he gets to the heart of the pillage of community which has occurred largely because of economic rationalism, and the crater in the Australian soul caused by our often irreligious outlook. It's the voice of the prophet crying succinctly in the wilderness.
Breathe contains a bumper crop of one-liners: "Where is the hope of a clean tomorrow? Hope only offers when justice is coming" - "It's hard to stay human and stay in the ring" - "Lift up your eyes, look to the heavens, could be a sign or a Seven Eleven, one day we'll see all the things they've been selling" - "The land lives longer if we listen to the earthbeat, our lives move forward if we listen to our heartspeak."
Gone on this album is the sloganeering and most of the anthemic thunder of '80s Midnight Oil. It has been replaced by a spiritual thread which weaves throughout, accompanied by a musical framework which throbs and undulates rather than crashes and clangs. This musical departure is due largely to the influence of producer Malcolm Burn (U2 producer Daniel Lanois's right-hand man).
Environmental awareness remains a welcome factor on Breathe and a growing personal honesty, especially about spiritual matters, permeates the album. "In the Rain" and "Home" represent Peter Garrett's (if they were penned by Garrett, which one would assume to be true) most open discussion of his personal spirituality to date. While the rest of Breathe has a niggling pre-apocalyptic feel, these two tracks give room for a particular vision in this tenuous spiritual landscape.
On "In the Rain" Garrett sings: "Sorry I am for the hurt I caused. . .as I move freely to another place the debris I left behind comes back into my day. . .I plunged my hand into the motherload of love, in the rain calling on his name. . ." The song provides the individual platform of repentance that Breathe so subtly asks us all to consider.
The spiritual thread running through Breathe sews a garment of reconciliation: between God and humanity; humanity and itself, and humanity and the environment. And the second last "thread" of Breathe , a track called "Barest Degree", points to a master Weaver. The track appears to be written in the divine first-person: "Remember nothing you've been told, means anything to me, and everything you hold is mine in the barest degree"-could it be the Spirit of God, hovering over the face of a ravaged earth, whispering for his children to come home?
Reviewer: PM