Yesterday Martino Gamper cooked lunch at Now Idea Bookshop. It went for four hours and i enjoyed it. Gamper is the man from the ‘Total Trattoria’ and ’100 Chairs in 100 days and its 100 ways’ books. He was helped by the Maki and Kajsa from Abake and it was all chaos and limited space. After eating in the sunshine, with fresh air and easy talk, i had a strong desire to sleep but i’m sure that would have been rude. Sleep is usually hard to find but when it comes knocking uninvited in the middle day it is my body’s way of thanking me for eating a proper meal with nutrition. While i was leaving i noticed the selection of recommended publications which Hiroshi has put up in the shop. Jeff Burch’s small booklets were on display. Jeff is a good friend (and snorkeling enthusiast) from Sydney, his publishing house is called ‘The Spring Press’ and it releases documents and sounds; a real labor of love, and worthy of praise as one of Australia’s most important independent labels for it’s very high production standards and amazingly restrained sense of ‘content’.

Jeff recently sent two albums he recorded in the mail. One is of his solo work: lots of metallic ringing and unrhythmic clanging, coupled with natural melodies that wane between the tense and the familiar. It’s a good release. But he recorded it almost two years ago and i think he might be a bit tired of it now. Jeff also plays in ‘Songs’ with three other people; they are making Australian music critics happy. A band of unrepentant modernists who are maybe just a little bit jaded. While many other bands are trying to find the ‘new’ sound between old genre’s and musical anomalies, Songs are semi-content to extrapolate from what they consider to be modern music’s highpoints: the Flying Nun golden era and New York no wave. It’s not often you can describe a band as equanimous, so i am going to enjoy saying that Song’s are genuinely equanimous. I think they actually sincerely want to make ideal pop music. It’s simple and strong music.

Video of Bruce Russell from Jeffs Blog (HERE). Bruce is a member of the Dead C—seminal New Zealand noise from the late 80′s—and will soon release a solo album on Jeff’s label. Bruce sounds like a farmer; lots of bad jokes and self-deprecation. It is all brilliant.