One of the mainstay TV programmes of my late teenage years and early twenties, (when you had more time and inclination to consume such rubbish), was Australian Soap Neighbours. A phenomenon, both in its homeland and the UK, it initiated the Pop careers of Kylie Minogue and (rather more regrettably), Jason Donovan among many other things. It also brought no end of vaguely colloquial Australian slang to the British shores. Among all of this was the term 'dag', unfortunately originally a reference to faeces dangling from a sheep's rear end but then in time coming to indicate someone with eccentric or inept social behaviour.
Wisely or not, Dag, (a Queensland originated band, focused around Dusty Anastassiou), have chosen to go out into the world under this name. Although on the surface, this may indicate a lack of ambition, there's little further evidence of that on their outstanding debut album Benefits of Solitude. Quite the opposite in fact. It's a record that's plays like a fine novel or collection of short stories. It's all highly redolent of the thoughtful, literary, and landmark albums produced by their great Australian forbears The Go-Betweens and The Triffids thirty years ago. That's as high a compliment as I can give and its to Dag's immense credit that they're not shamed by either comparison. They remind me of these two great bands, not so much in terms of their sound, (though there is an occasional nod to the former in this respect), but more in terms of their scope.
Where they resemble The Triffids meanwhile is in terms of their content. Like Born Sandy Devotional and In The Pines, that band's finest records, this is an album that evokes the desolate vastness and risk of the Australian outback. Anastassiou was raised on a remote cattle farm in Queensland and Benefits of Solitude from its title and sleeve to the essence of its music, evokes all that loneliness, space, alienation and strange beauty. The record has enormous variety of mood in its favour too. It has a set of melodies and lyrics that don't give themselves up too easily, demanding considerable input from the listener in order to fully appreciate it, something of a rarity nowadays. Altogether, a very fine record indeed and one I suspect which will be high on the list when I come to compile my favourite albums of 2017 towards the end of this year.
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