Midnight Oil

Subject: Malcolm Burn - Breathe producer
From: Aliester Crowley
Date: 28/07/2009, 7:55 am
To:


 For me "Star of Hope" is one of their best 90�s songs. Great guitar sound and spirituality...
 
And the "Oh the wrecking fields are a terrible place..." part of "Common Ground" is awesome.
 
Also I love "Gravelrash" and "Barest Degree". And after reading Mark Dodshon�s book, I really appreciate the meaning of "Home", it is more than a song 
 
 
 

 
 
 

To: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au
From: blackwood_michael@hotmail.com
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:04:24 -0200
Subject: RE: [powderworks] Malcolm Burn - Breathe producer

 
 
Hi, Todd

Yeah, for me Star of Hope is one of the many "If Only They'd..." tracks on Breathe - a lot of potential, but weird choices marr the recording.  Surf's Up isn't a favourite of mine, but it does seem a kind of love song to the band's surfing roots, and seems somehow to be one of Breathe's essential tracks.  I have similar feelings about Underwater.
 
It's funny you mentioned b-sides.  I remember looking at the 5-track Underwater single in the shop and wondering if I should risk paying import prices for a single with two songs on it that I already had on Breathe and wasn't blown away by...  I bought it, of course, hoping that the 3 unreleased b-sides would be songs left over from previous albums, or so different from Breathe that they didn't fit with the album and were therefore relegated to b-side status.  It didn't turn out that way...
 
I See You was another disappointing "If Only They'd..." track, experimental and oddly produced. 
 
Moginie singing on the much-better track Smash The Wobbleboard made me ultimately glad I bought the single, even if I thought the song also wasn't produced quite as effectively as it could have been. 
 
My girlfriend (now wife, and nearly as big an Oils fan as me) was listening to the single with me, heard Kingdom of Flaunt, and in the face of my stunned & disappointed silence, said something to the effect of "If that was my CD, I'd scratch it so that song wouldn't play again"!  (She shared my disappointment with Breathe, and would tweak the stereo to boost the treble when it was on, which seemed to help most of the tracks.)
 
It's hard to believe that, 13 years after its release, Breathe is still capable of provoking this kind of discussion!  I put the Underwater single on as I was writing this, and my impressions haven't changed much.  I was suprised to discover that the single version of Underwater was 30 seconds shorter than the album version, though...  Anyway, two years after Breathe, Redneck Wonderland blew me away and restored my faith, so no harm done!
 
Mike
 

From: TheOilman@new.rr.com
To: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au; blackwood_michael@hotmail.com
Subject: Re: [powderworks] Malcolm Burn - Breathe producer
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 14:22:17 -0500

Mike, I'd take the EP you suggest but I'd drop Surf's Up, my least favorite Oils track of all time (next to One Too Many Times) and I would add Star of Hope, I love that song, although the live version is far superior than to the messed up Breathe sessions. Sins of Omission was pretty cool live as well but should have been an omission on the album, it just seems like many b-side like tracks made the disc and I am not sure why and would really love to know what other tracks of this period were, remember that we had heard rumors of whole white boards of tracks hanging out there and that they toyed with the thought of a double album, did many of those wind up left for Redneck??????
 
In my dreams Martin would stop over for a beer and a chat and fill me in.
 
t.
 
 
 
----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Blackwood
To: Oils Powderworks
Sent: Monday, July 27, 2009 1:38 PM
Subject: RE: [powderworks] Malcolm Burn - Breathe producer

 
Well, I have to say I can see a little of your take on Breathe when I think of my favourite tracks from it.  I've had other Oils albums underwhelm on a first listen, then grow to become favourites (once I got over the shock of them not being what I expected), but Breathe does continue to disappoint me every time I try to listen to it.  However, I do think the album finishes strongly.  E-Beat, Bring On The Change, & Barest Degree are all fantastic songs, though I really don't think the production on the album does them justice.  For example, the live version of E-Beat from the 1998 Redneck Ramblings bootleg is, to me, a far truer representation of the song's potential than what was on the album.
 
To me, Breathe's production hobbles the best songs, and makes the rest hard to even listen to.  I could cut Breathe back into an EP consisting of Underwater, Surf's Up Tonight, E-Beat, Bring On The Change and Barest Degree (and Gravelrash as a bonus track), and honestly not miss any of the other tracks.  However, I am struck when I listen to my bootlegs by how songs I can't enjoy on the album make much more of an impression live.
 
Still, if "They released an album that only had 5 songs I liked on it" is the worst I can say about the Oils, they're obviously doing pretty good, and my views of Breathe only look harsh in comparison to my love of the rest of their albums.  But I would really love to hear a remixed version of Breathe, with production values more in line with the albums produced by Livesey and Launay.  Still, it says a lot for the Oils, I think, that the album that turned off some fans with its experimentation also endeared the band to some other fans with those same experiments.
 
Mike B
 

To: powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au
From: scissormansnip@yahoo.com
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 09:02:02 -0700
Subject: RE: [powderworks] Malcolm Burn - Breathe producer

 
I know there are a number of you who won't agree with me, but for me for what it's worth, "Breathe" for me is the best of the best. Before anybody sends me any hate mail, I know it's really a subjective matter. It's no secret that Rob Hirst didn't care for his experience making the album, but in the interviews on the "20,000 Watt" DVD, he also says that "Breathe" reflects the mystery, emotion, and ambience of New Orleans (which I'm sure remains there to this day, despite all that's happened there). I didn't like, honestly, the things I read about what Malcolm Burn did when he produced the record, but still it remains that I have a totally different take on it than Michael Blockwood (nothing personal of course), it doesn't feel "flat and muddled" to me at all. I put it this way in my amazon review:


"For me, the impact that the tracks have on me shifts (sometimes "Home" and "E-beat" sometimes the first two)as the ones that affect me most deeply change from time to time. It is never the same way twice whenever I play it; it feels like it's always in flux, and has a remarkable afterglow that lingers when I'm done hearing it. IT gradually grew on me in that weird way where the sound and lyrics of each song crept up into my consciousness, and before I realized it, I found that it blew me away. Only two or three other CDs have ever given me this sensation."
  
some people say it doesn't feel like the Oils at all to them, and I know it's just me, but I felt the heart and soul of the band pulsating in it throughout. 

ok, so my question for Mr. Burn would be:
IS there any chance you would work with any of the members of the Oils again, in their other projects? (likely not Rob, at least I would imagine) and if so, would you do any of it differently?

--- On Mon, 7/27/09, Michael Blackwood <blackwood_michael@hotmail.com> wrote:

From: Michael Blackwood <blackwood_michael@hotmail.com>
Subject: RE: [powderworks] Malcolm Burn - Breathe producer
To: koala.sprint@gmail.com, "Oils Powderworks" <powderworks@yahoogroups.com.au>
Date: Monday, July 27, 2009, 10:14 AM

 

1) Why is the mix of Breathe so flat and muddled?  Rarely does any one element of the instrumentation "pop" and catch your attention, which seems an antithetical approach to mixing when compared to the mix of every other Oils album, and to the way the Breathe tracks were played live as well.  (I hope this phrasing doesn't seem rude, I just lack the musical vocabularly to describe my impressions any other way.)
 
2) Have the original recording tracks survived, and would you be curious to see how one of the Oils "traditional" producers like Warne Livesey or Nick Launay would approach the songs?
 
Mike Blackwood


To: powderworks@ yahoogroups. com.au
From: koala.sprint@ gmail.com
Date: Mon, 27 Jul 2009 08:59:31 +0200
Subject: [powderworks] Malcolm Burn - Breathe producer

 
Hi all,

Malcolm Burn has agreed to answer some questions about his time with
Midnight Oil, producing Breathe in New Orleans.
Breathe is the one album that divides fans. It seemed to have brought
a different audience to the Oils, especially from the US, due to it's
more mellow, acoustic tones.

If you have any questions for Malcolm, let me know and I'll put them to him.
My questions are
How did Emmylou Harris became involved?
How did you end up as the only external person ever to co-write an Oils song?
Why did you end up playing so many instruments on the album?
Was Rob so against this more acoustical musical direction?
Where there lots of discarded songs from the sessions? If so, what
happened to them?

He is on vacation this week but will respond next week, so if you want
to email in questions this week, I'll compile them and post his
responses.

Cheers

Stephen



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