We wrote about Oscar Lush’s ‘Nightmare Song’ back in January, the track track from his new EP, Out of Sight, Out of Mind. The song confronted police brutality against black men in the US, as well as the mistreatment of Aboriginal people in Lush’s native Australia. As we said in our piece:
“Lush positions himself on the outside looking in, avoiding any danger of appropriating suffering by making the song very much from his own POV. The result is a track disbelieving but not surprised, a modern tragic ballad shot through with senseless loss.”
The rest of the EP continues with the theme of tragedy, like updated versions of classic heartbroken folk songs. ‘How’d the Night Get So Low?’ is gentle and haunting, finger-picked guitar ticking over behind Lush’s vocals, the words echoing ever so slightly, as if sung from an empty room. The track is reminiscent of Jesse Marchant’s writing, an intense regret clawing from below. ‘O’The Fire’ has more of a folk rock vibe, the instrumentation driving the song along, although the track is one of pain and loss. Here a mother wakes to find her house ablaze, her children lost within the halls. “There was smoke in the hallway,” he sings. “Smoke on the stairs/And a great bright light, like no other pain/Was it god or the devil calling my name?” ‘Bullet in a Broken Gun’ loses the percussion in favour of a country-style strum along, complete with Lush’s familiar harmonica. The tale here unfolds from a dense tangle of lyrics, the classic existential cowboy song of working hard and dying young, the narrator channelling all his doubt to ask if there is anything more to life than hard labour and liquor.
“So they turn to drinking and hoping to die,
Hoping god forgives them when they finally arrive.
But there ain’t nothing forgiving bout living nine to five,
Don’t take a man who’s seen the world to know it is a lie.”
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Closer ‘Miranda’s Birds’ is a beautiful song where the past is reduced to a series of nostalgic images and gesture, regret and loss and lingering love. The track is the perfect summation of Oscar Lush’s music – evocative and well-written and detailed beyond measure, timeless folk songs dated only by their strong root in the present, their hard gaze at the past.
Out of Sight, Out of Mind is out now on Hawk Moth Records and you can buy it from the Oscar Lush Bandcamp page, including CD and cassette options.
Artwork by Jane Lush