“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.”

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

The post Oscar Lush – Out of Sight, Out of Mind appeared first on Various Small Flames.

“The songwriting is very strong (it came as no surprise to discover he writes poetry in his spare time), each track spinning stories of love and loss and fear and isolation and all those other things that really good art tries to deal with”

Lush is back with ‘Nightmare Song’, the lead single from a forthcoming EP. The song was written following the deaths of Michael Brown and Eric Garner last year, exploring violence by white men and officers of the law against people of colour both in the US and in Lush’s native Australia. “The song [also] explores my own country’s history with the mistreatment and death of Aboriginal peoples in police custody,” Lush explains, “particularly the death of John Pat. I’ve always felt strongly that music and art is something that can be used greatly to bring about awareness and from awareness hopefully we can achieve change and equality.”

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 crimes are described simply and without flourish so that nothing clouds the plain simple truth of matter. These men and boys were murdered by people in authority.

“How can you walk free
knowing what you did?”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TOgpJf9DK3A

Oscar Lush’s new EP, Out of Sight, Out of Mind, will be released on the 1st February on Hawk Moth Records (check out the artwork below). If you missed The World Is Round so I’ll Go Round when it came out, then grab a copy here.

Art by Jane Lush

The post Oscar Lush returns with new single ‘Nightmare Song’ appeared first on Various Small Flames.