Under the World - Harry Howard with David McClymont (Monorail Music)
Like many break-up albums, “Under The World” mirrors our fears and losses. Unlike most albums in this genre, “Under The World”effortlessly avoids mopey me-me-me whining. Its lack of self-pity raises the bar of such experiences to the magisterial, touching on aspects of memory and forgiveness. Simple, powerful stuff which you can instantly relate to.
No, I'm sorry, but this is one break-up albums which doesn't reference the bombastic and horribly overblown likes of Ronnie James Dio or Tina Arena. Because “Under The World” is like that David Lynch close-up of the white picket fence and the ideal home that you shudder at as soon as you see it.
But first, a little context.
Adept enough to play a few gigs in Europe with The Birthday Party when their regular bass player was in a low-security jail, and with the first overseas incarnation of Crime and the City Solution with his brother Rowland (two EPs and an LP), Harry Howard's light has mostly been under a bushel.
To say Harry has forged his own path is an understatement - when he decided to form his own band, with characteristic self-awareness, he called it Near-Death Experience. Sensibly, while indulging his primary passion of music, Harry also has a decent day job, helping people get well again. Which is better than being a drone on a production line, a JJJ broadcaster journo, or a dilettante on the dole, I'm sure you'll agree.
David McClymont may be a familiar name: way back, he played with Orange Juice and then with The Moodists. More recently, he's also made a slew of solo LPs which, on discovery, are a bit like diving into a wonderland - of his latest, “Centuries”, he writes that it was “recorded in a snug home studio, in a cosy country cottage, on the side of a sleepy mountain range, the sound of nature can't help but seep into the patina of the music - no vocal take is without the sound or a noisy parakeet, cockatoo or rogue frog colouring the recording”.
But to return to “Under The World”. Here are the background notes, as published on Harry's Bandcamp page:
Harry and David's paths have crossed many times over the years. Together, they worked on a track back in 2014, and David was so taken by one of Harry's songs that he made a video for it back in 2016. But in reality, their on/off friendship has its seed way back in the murky days of living in London in the mid-1980s – Harry as a member of Crime and the City Solution and David as an ex-member of Orange Juice then mixing with the London ex-pat Australian community and playing a stint with Australian band The Moodists.
Harry: I felt like David and I had enough in common and enough not in common to make collaborating an interesting adventure. From the first track ('6 Pints') that proved to be true, and I think we both really enjoyed the process of receiving little surprises via email and having to deal with the 'problem' within; the 'problem' of finding a way to leave the piece better than it was when you found it. David works in a way I describe as 'tidy', whereas I have to admit I'm quite 'chaotic', so I really liked how we were forced to meet in the middle, and would wind up with results we couldn't get on our own. Lyrically there's a break-up theme going on and I found I was able to express myself in different ways and perhaps less self-consciously because the music dictated a feel of its own onto something that could have been too personal.
David: While we'd never formally discussed it, it didn't seem a stretch for me to approach Harry with the idea of working on something together in late 2024. Essentially, the idea was that I would compose backing tracks and Harry would mould those disparate recordings into potential songs that I would then finish off in the production stages. I wanted to tease Harry out of his comfort zone and I was hoping that he might tease me out of mine. After a couple of tracks, a pattern was set, and we settled down to composing the eight tracks that make up 'Under the World'. In these recordings I hear music we could never have made as individuals – a thrilling mix that combines Harry's uncompromising punky aesthetic (barbed and witty), with my own slightly more muted, but still jagged-edged love of atmosphere, rhythm and repetition.
“Under The World” opens with "Underworld", a driving upbeat rhythm with swagger, swing and swag. McClymont has set himself as a excellent foil to Howard's arresting, commanding voice and spine-removing guitar. A steamer of a song, you'll be bopping around your bedroom, driving too fast in the car, wiggling your butt on another late Sydney train or in the Melbourne suburb they forgot to unlock.
By the time the second song, “Gone (my love has gone)”, hits, you're pretty much hooked. More, please. And more is duly delivered. You might notice an air of 1980s synthpop meshed with 1960s garage (is garage synth an algo descriptor yet?), but Harry's songs are less fantasy-based, and his voice is rougher, and we're follow the trail of breadcrumbs into Harry's space and time after his partner has left.
Now, I expect most of us have experienced situations like this, and the sheer physicality of the left-behind detritus can be overwhelming. I don't know that many songs which refer to this, this, bloody useless ordinariness, the weirdness of the silence and empty spaces, and the dreadfully cluttered spaces, all of which imply a future composed of hours and hours of sorting and searching and reordering, all the while trying to bottle up grief and despair, and the process seems so horrible, but also never-ending. A hideous trauma.
It's been a rough few years in the Brokenmouth cave, but I still think that grief is a kind of inverse of the love you shared or expressed... and, I find myself even more locked-in with "Under The World" because it chimes so well with my own experiences. I don't say this lightly, by the by; Howard's songs have always avoided the drabness of being maudlin and the ugliness of belting out angst; instead, he describes what's happening around him and what he sees, and the stark simplicity is arresting and profoundly moving. I refuse to quote the lyrics to "Gone"': hear them in context.
I don't want to spoil the ending either - but it's just magnificent. Yes, punters, you gotta be here, and even if you don't wanna travel, you should get in your stolen second-hand Holden and drive.
“6 Pints” is heavy pop, driving a dark drill while Harry's self-mocking vocal takes us further down the highway. Writing about music might be like dancing to architecture, but on the other hand, I can't think of another song which makes mathematical confusion a key element in a break-up song.
The first song here to begin like a Lynch soundtrack, “Spit” is a mixture of rage and grief - it's matter of fact, surrounded with a lush Hammer soundscape.
So many upbeat, groovy rhythms with such dark matter. “Treachery and Murder” is positively boppable. You'll trip over the sleeping dog and upset your milky cocoa. Laid back horror bop, even. And there's a streak of self-flagellating humour here; you won't laugh out loud but the tension and self-mockery is neatly balanced with the congas. This one even reminds me a bit of Alex Chilton, but you know, I'm old and no-one knows that name anymore.
“I Wasn't There” is the most direct address so far, and because it comes so late in the piece, it's that much more poignant and moving.
“Love's Mystery” is a loping, dry reflective piece, with David and Harry's twin guitars wrapping themselves sensuously all around each other. As with the entire LP, there's a stone groovitan throb going on here along with the deadpan delivery, which is surprisingly powerful ...
“So Long” closes off proceedings with a gentle melancholia, and an acceptance of the paths trodden and padded in the past.
Harry Howard and David McClymont are two musicians who have flown under the radar as far as the mainstream goes. Quite undeservedly; their songs and music plucks at the sleeves of our souls, and is more satisfying than the so very many 'popular' things we are obliged to endure when we go shopping, or slobbering from the next car in traffic.
“Under The World” has a quite astonishing cover image by Caesar Florence–Howard, whose work is damn fine; he'd be one of the few artists I'll have to keep my eye on. Here's a link to his last exhibition, “New Facts Emerge”.
“Near Death Experience”, the first Harry Howard and the NDE LP, contains some life-changing, life-affirming songs which absolutely tug at the heartstrings (as well as causing a few snorts of humorous sympathy). It also struck me as one of those left-hand turns we sometimes make in life. Hugely powerful opening salvo, with huge potential; I can only hope that 'The Underworld' is Harry and David's first of a big bad run of LPs. Certainly they both have the talent, skills and tunes. So, it's really down to you, isn't it?
