Possible Humans: Everybody Split
On April 1st of this year Melbourne, Australia’s Possible Humans released their debut album Everybody Split on indie label Hobbies Galore. The initial release was limited to 200 LP’s, which sold out. Enter Chicago label Trouble In Mind Records stepping in for a “Reconstruction Of The Fables” of sorts, extending a wider reach as far as distribution and pressing numbers go and recently re-releasing Everybody Split to a wider audience.
Upon first stepping into Possible Humans’ world held within this tightly wound debut album, the room’s light is dimmed by indigo hues, and mystery rests behind ever piece of furniture. This album isn’t merely kneeling at the alter of past heroes R.E.M., Guided By Voices and the Feelies among others, but is currently filling out the paperwork to join the club.
Aspiring To Be A Bloke marries the sound of Forever Since Breakfast era Guided By Voices and Fables Of The Reconstruction era R.E.M. The Thumps, could have been an out-take from the Feelies second album The Good Earth, swirling in the dizziness of its circular guitars fiffs while Orbiting Luigi recalls Robert Pollard before retiring from his day job. The aptly titled The Stinger connects the antipodean tissue between The Clean and Total Control. Born Stoned is the odd one out on Everybody Split, trading in the economical guitar riffs for a loose and rambling lead and stretching past the eleven minute mark.
Samuel Tapper, Leon Cranswick, Stephen Hewitt, Adam Hewitt & Mark Hewitt have managed to create a debut album that effortlessly displays the intangible “otherness” that every band putting song to wax strives for. The fluidity as a listening experience can’t be denied, from the inner ear tension of album opener Lung Of The City, to the longing jangle of album closer Meredith, Everybody Split’s pace is a sequencing wet dream, this may be partly due to the band’s instincts to have Hobbie Galore’s founder Alex MacFarlane (ex Twerps) produce the album and Aussie wizard Mikey Young (Total Control, Lace Curtain etc… for mastering duties.
Everybody Split has become a a daily ritual, like sleeping, eating and brushing one’s teeth, it’s rhythms and melodies now existing outside the listening experience, the songs echoing in my head in times of silence, beckoning for another play through.
