Guppy is the new moniker of Benjamin Shaw, who not only makes great music, but also wrote about it for us too (check his review of Camp Cope’s debut album). For his latest release, One Day We’ll Laugh About All This, Shaw has adopted a new moniker, for reasons he describes succinctly, “because I am full of constant shame and crises”. But he really shouldn’t be ashamed, at least about the quality of his music, because his first album as Guppy is a worthy addition to his already proud catalogue.
The bright plinking on opener ‘That Went Well’ is enveloped in a buzzing drone, like the dark clouds of anxiety and unease, and the juxtaposition serves well as a symbol for the whole record. It sounds constantly unsettled and unsure, even the pretty bits played over ambience that’s nervous and twitchy or rumbling with dread. Shaw says the album was “recorded and mixed entirely at Preston Library in Melbourne when I should’ve been applying for jobs”, so perhaps it’s unsurprising that such a sound materialised. “I’m now working in a call centre”, he says. “Actions have consequences, remember that.”
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So despite this being an instrumental album, the themes are crystal clear. Shaw doesn’t need words to express existential anxiety, the constant (rhetorical?) am-I-wasting-my-life question that seems to hover over the best of us. Unsurprisingly for a song titled ‘Team Leader Funeral :'(‘, the second track is morose, the percussion skittering over a primary drone that has the air of a funeral dirge. This makes the jaunty panpipes of ‘Bluelight Surprise!’ all the more conspicuous, although they’re slowly overtaken by a creeping fuzz that’s thick like storm cloud static.
Elegant piano takes the lead on ‘Sell Dumb For Sunshine’, flowing over ambient recordings of people interacting and going about their day. The effect is one of isolation, of sitting alone in a crowded cafe, drowning in the bright and cheerful conversations of others. Indeed, one of Shaw’s triumphs is his ability to weave everyday sounds into his work. ‘Sell Dumb For Sorrow’ is something like the previous song’s twin, the piano again at the forefront, but this time haunted by the voice of a young boy. “Ohh its not going to work”, he says. “Ohh its not going to work”. See also ‘On Top of Turd Mountain (Microwave Dinner)’, underpinned by the beeping of a reversing heavy vehicle, surely one of life’s most banal and lonely sounds, and managing to make even splendid birdsong sound more annoying than amazing.
The penultimate track ‘Deep Vein Thrombosis Blues’ is a complete change of pace, sounding warm and rich and dynamic, before closer ‘Tram Sleep (Is He Dead)’ with it’s elegiac strings and minimal electronics, reminiscent of Lejsovka & Freund in its ability to wordlessly capture a mood. It hints at something beyond the present, the sound of thunderheads gathering at the edges, sliding off to rain on someone else for a while. Or maybe that’s just wishful thinking on my part. But you try listening to the song and then telling me there isn’t a glimmer of something.
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And that’s something that’s very important in Shaw’s work. Yes life can be a bummer, and he’s not afraid to run headlong at that fact, but he’s still making music, right? Even beneath the crushing weight of every day life, there’s space for these beautiful sounds and the communication they represent, still a small but unrelenting hope that things can get better. When they do, on that one, memorable day, we’ll laugh about all this.
You can get the album now via the Guppy Bandcamp page.