On his fifth LP, Big Black Plume, Melbourne-based and Californian-born musician Michael Beach reveals the vitalizing power of connection in an often hostile world. Equally informed by the songwriting of Bill Fay and Peter Laughner, the minimalism of Tony Conrad and Terry Riley, and the rock and roll heart of the Goner Records roster, Big Black Plume provides deliberate compositions adorned with genuine madness. The songs on this album range from spare, textural ballads to spiraling psychedelic overtures connected to a propulsive cosmic pulse.
Building on Beach’s network from over twenty years of touring, engineering, and production work (in Melbourne, SF, and LA), and employment in independent touring venues, Big Black Plume features contributions from a murderers’ row of talent. Produced by Beach and Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm), the record includes Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner, The Necks bassist Lloyd Swanton, Tropical Fuck Storm members Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin, folk artist Leah Senior, Oren Ambarchi collaborator Joe Talia, and Comets on Fire’s Utrillo Kushner, among others.
Big Black Plume was recorded over four different sessions. Phil Manley (Trans Am) engineered the album’s two hardest-rocking songs, “Poison Dart” and “Sick Century”, at El Studio in San Francisco, with Kushner on drums. A second session at Sydney’s Golden Retriever (engineered by Tim Whitten) captured the album’s improv and avant-inflected ballads, “No One Knows Any Better” and “I’m Gonna Need Ya,” creating a special resonance through the interplay of Swanton’s subtly winding acoustic bass and Talia’s abstract but propulsive drums.
Beach is a masterful songwriter—he writes songs as seen from 10,000 feet, from 6 feet under—from every angle. The songs here aren’t stick-and-poke songs that will dry and fade on the skin, aimless prayers for jams; Beach has been making deliberate things for decades. Big Black Plume is a record about connections, mercurially curated, transforming individual contributions into something strikingly communal.
