Verse Chorus Verse: Kane Strang

Kane Strang gives us a track-by-track rundown of his new album, Blue Cheese.

 

Verse Chorus Verse sees local artists break down the stories behind their music. For the latest in the series, we asked Dunedin musician Kane Strang to explain the stories behind each of the songs on his just-released album, Blue Cheese.

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'The Web'

I wrote and started to record Blue Cheese while I was house sitting for my parents at the end of 2014. Up until that point I had been making really lo-fi/acoustic recordings so I put 'The Web' first hoping it would catch a few people off guard. I like that the album cover is kind of misleading too. It looks like the cover of some folk album but the first track is this bass-driven thing.

This song is an exaggeration of a situation I was in. I didn’t meet someone online but was always in touch with a friend who was in China on an exchange. It’s a strange thing - they’re there but they’re not really there. I guess I tried to take that concept to the extreme.

As a side note, the day I recorded this bass line, my computer completely died. I was dumb and hadn’t backed anything up so thought I’d lost my whole album for a couple weeks.

'Things Are Never Simple'

I had gone from a chaotic flatting situation to the complete opposite - living alone with my dog. One day I started singing this title over a nice chord that I don’t know the name of, thinking I would replace the lyric later on. It just kind of stuck and I made the rest of the song around that part.

I actually put together a video for this song with some old home video footage before the album was mastered. My 30 day trial of Adobe Premiere ran out before I could add the final version so I never uploaded it.

It’s a strange thing - they’re there but they’re not really there. I guess I tried to take that concept to the extreme.

'Full Moon, Hungry Sun'

This was the first song that I released off Blue Cheese. It was also the first song that I ever used synthesisers in. The full moon/hungry sun thing is meant to be a metaphor for any relationship where one person is content and the other wants something else.

'Run Rings'

Most of my songs are short but this is short even for me. I wrote it in honour of some musicians I know that were/are running rings around everyone else.

'What's Wrong?'

The only part of this song I like is the bridge really - the “What’s wrong (nothing, nothing)” bit. It’s sort of about not being able to accept that someone likes spending time with you/always looking for something wrong in a self-destructive kind of way.

'The Canyon Her River Carved'

This was the first song I wrote for the album. It’s a little bit slower and the chorus has my favourite lyrics from Blue Cheese in it. They are: “If you shiver in a river of all things nice, you’ll awake in a lake where you’ll beg for your life.” It’s something I wrote in Germany.

'It's Fine'

Something I’m starting to do a lot is write songs that have the same three-chord progression the whole time but change dynamically. 'It’s Fine' is one of these. Other examples could be 'The Web' or 'Run Rings'.

The first version of Blue Cheese that I self-released was just over 20 minutes so I wasn’t surprised when Ba Da Bing Records asked if I could extend it for the LP. When I was half-way through recording Blue Cheese I'd started hating it and writing other things, so luckily I had a few songs up my sleeve. 'It’s Fine' was the first and 'You Think' was the second.

'You Think'

I did most of the vocals for this really late at night in a flat with really thin walls, which is why they sound how they do. I’d given the good mic that I borrowed to record Blue Cheese back to it’s owner so there was definitely a lot more cleaning up needed once I finally got an ok take. I like how trashy the guitar sounds in the verses and the distorted octaves at the end. I always record different octaves of guitar parts when I want something to sound really full.

It’s meant to be some kind of soundtrack for shallow people. The guitars are as obnoxious as possible and the chorus is my ridiculous attempt at the blues.

'She's Appealing'

I wrote this the day after I wrote 'Canyon', so it was pretty early on. It’s the song I definitely spent the most time recording and there’s probably heaps of layers that only I realise are there. The “chorus” is an instrumental which I think makes it a little different to the rest.

'Never Kissed A Blonde'

This was something a stranger said to me as we waited for our drinks at a university bar here. I had a lot of anxiety about my sarcasm not coming through in the song and was really happy when an interviewer asked me about it recently. Like I told them, it’s meant to be some kind of soundtrack for shallow people. The guitars are as obnoxious as possible and the chorus is my ridiculous attempt at the blues.

'Scarlet Kind Magnolia'

One of my best friends Adrian Ng and I were walking around the gardens here and found a tree called the Scarlet King Magnolia. I think both of us wanted to use the phrase but I guess he let me have it, or I just used it first. The bridge in this song is probably my favourite instrumental part of the album and definitely my favourite thing to play live. We’ve started extending it at shows, which might be really predictable, but oh well.

I put it last because the demo I did before Blue Cheese ended with a song called 'Rhododendron'. I thought it tied those two things together somehow.

Kane Strang's Blue Cheese is out now via Flying Out.