From one Antipodean punk-survivor with an enormous back catalogue but little to show in terms of chart success, to another…
Former Saint Ed Kuepper is a much more mainstream artist than kooky Knox, but his output seems to occur outside the ‘industry’ of music in Australia.
It’s hard to understand why when you listen to this 1996 collect of his best tracks from 1992-1995 (I told you he was prolific). On a musical Venn diagram Ed sits at some intersection of the Go Betweens, Nick Cave and Dave Graney.
He shares a portion of the flair for the slightly twisted or flawed arty pop of Forster and McLellan, the atmospheric darkness of Cave’s less gothic works, and that irritating pompous vocal styling that Graney overplays.
There are some wonderful patches of vocal pacing and songwriting on this. I’m With You‘s “fogged up car window pane” is Joplin-esque. La Di Doh is catchier than I’d like, and the opener The Way I Made You Feel is what AOR radio stations should be playing:
At times Kuepper isn’t quite the sum of his parts, and this album lacks a blow you away moment. But when The Church, The Triffids and Died Pretty are winning accolades, so should EK.
File under: Not as intriguing as Winnie, or as refreshing as the beer
One Album a Day 