If you’ve watched the bizarre, engrossing and filmic video clip for the track Throat you’ll be aware that this trio occupy a creative space far removed from the normal world of rock and pop.
“That video we had almost nothing to do with,” explains Ben. “It was made by a guy called Dan Harris. He asked if he could use our music in a school project for his design course. I met up with him and he had already storyboarded it out and it looked amazing. The crazy thing is that it matched up really closely with the idea we had been having for a music video which was about having the three of us in this horrible fleshy blob. It was this crazy cosmic coincidence – it turned out amazing.”
Ah yes, the infamous blob which has featured in a couple of the band’s legendary and visceral live performances. According to Ben, playing inside a blob can be a gruesome experience.
“We have only done it three times and I’m not sure it will ever happen again because of the horrible experience of actually being inside this disgusting thing,” he says. “The second time we did it our singer Jonny puked into his mouth three times from the heat exhaustion from being inside this thing with three other heaving warm human bodies.”
Despite all this manly sweating and wall-to-wall vomiting, there is deep symbolic significance to be derived from the use of the blob. The blob symbolises “the idea that there are three people producing this sound but the sound is so unified it’s like it’s coming out of one creature,” explains Ben. “I guess that is what the blob really represents in a grotesque, over-the-top theatrical way. We like the idea of the music being produced by this one conjoined creature that is a unified entity.”
Like the blob, there is something decidedly slippery about the band’s refreshingly original sound in that it seems to elude categorisation. According to Ben, “In the early days of the band it was fully improvised. The thing I really love about playing in The All Seeing Hand is the disregard for genre and stylistic boundaries. We can go in all different directions but always with this intensity and underlying raw energy.”
Having an accomplished throat-singer spinning vocal magic certainly adds to this band’s fiercely original and otherworldly vibe. So what is throat-singing, I hear you ask? “My very loose understanding is that it’s like someone is able to sing a really low note and a really high note at the same time and control each independently of the other,” says Ben. “It’s like this low rumbling resonance and dancing high notes that are each playing a melody of their own. [Vocalist] Jonny spent a bunch of time in Inner Mongolia training in throat singing.
“He has practiced throat singing for years; he is really skilful. Jonny just sings into a microphone and doesn’t use any effects on his voice.”
To whet your appetite for the band’s upcoming gig in Melbourne, Ben says, “We have been working on some really heavy stuff. We are looking forward to playing a bunch of new material that no one in Australia would have heard yet, stuff that hasn’t been released [yet].
“Just for the tour we are putting out a tape. I think we are doing a run of 30 of these tapes – it’s a preview of what the next full-length album is going to be. We will be taking these over [for the tour]. We are looking forward to unleashing new music on an unsuspecting audience.”
BY GRAHAM BLACKLEY
