The Triffids - Love in Bright Landscapes

                                     

                                        'Music should be extraordinary. If not, what's the point.' 

 When I was 19 I went to Switzerland on my gap year. It was forty years ago. January to June 1985. I was just coming into life and felt I had it all laid out before me. 

I worked for six months at The Casa Locarno a hotel on the Lake Maggiore in Switzerland. Working in a hotel for The Swiss Council of churches.Set up to provide free accomodation for priests from all over Europe , mostly the Eastern States; Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Roumania, Bulgaria, The former Yugoslavia and East Germany. But also from Western Europe; 

'The Casa was founded in respomse to Post World War II needs. The human and other kinds of brokenness, and became a place of ecumenucal encounter between East and West.'

I remember guests from France, from the UK, from Holland , Austria, Norway and elsewhere. It was a place for reconciliation,  meeting and exchange. Built on wonderful ideals and principles. In a place that seemed looking back for me to be very heaven. It's difficult for me to describe the physical beauty of that part of the world. The magnificent view frim the Casa, perched low in the Alp hillsides in Monti down into Locarno and across the Lake Maggiore from there. Into Italy. You would need to go and experience it for yourself. Start saving your pennies in a jar.   

Of course I was young. I didn't understand the significance of this then. I'm still not entirely sure I do now. Casa Locarno was founded just after the Second World War on peaceful and honourable principles. It was a marvellous vision. The guests in the house stayed mostly for a month free of charge. Ate meals in the dining room . Went on excursions together. Gathered in the dining room in the evening.and talked, and played and sang together.Played boule in the gardens . Ate together

The hotel was run by a Swiss Director. The place itself on a day to day basis was managed by a fierce, particular but ultimately kindly woman, though she was tough as nails. The day to day work within the hotel was done by us The Casa Kinder. Seven young workers from Germany, Denmark, Switzerland. In my six month slot from January to June of 1985. Me and six young beautiful women. I was astonished by my luck, then and now.

My sister Alison  made a C90  cassette for me during my stay. The cassette was lovingly compiled by her and my father. They packed it in a jiffy bag and sent it to me with an accompanying letter. There were snippets from a BBC Horror Sound effects album I had bought. I remember some Springsteen songs. But most of all I remember the Triffids songs my sister recorded for me. Red Pony, My Baby Thinks She's a Train. Other songs from Treeless Plain whuch was making some inroads on British Indie consciousness.

I confess I didn't really know what to think of the songs at the time. They reminded me of The Doors who I had become aware of, buying all of their studio albums.the year before. But the songs were more diverse than that. Johnny Cash I realise now was was the most immeduate forbear. I didn't really know Johnny Cash then.

 The Triffids songs were thick with Australian and American literary, musical and filmic qualities and atmospheres  and slightly murderous, eccentric intent. But crucially their songs were also funny and frequently beautiful. I much preferred them then and now to Nick Cave's work. The Triffids I always felt did both lightness and darkness with far greater nuance. Their songs were brightly coloured and vivid. Like wild, burning landscapes.

 It took me a while to realise that I liked them and wanted to know more. So that's what I did over the next few years. Accumulated knowledge and experience. Buying the albums which came next. Seeing the band play in North London. Playing their records non stop.

I have very strong connections with Born Sandy Devotional particularly. I was very ill at university and had to take two years out to recoup. My dear older sister Sarah was terribly ill too. I remember going on holiday with my parents and Alison to Austria at round about that time and the plane descending  with the view of Austrian fields emerging larger and larger below us. Like a scene from a film. Like all the best moments in life. Wide Open Road. the Triffids signature tune was playing in my head. It's an astonishingly stark and vivid memory which will stay with me forever. 

On Thursday  I watched Love in Bright Landscapes the 2021 documentary about this extraordinary band and David McComb, their extraordinary leader. It's a wonderful document. It captures the colour and poetry and vivid forward momentum of the band. I was born in Zimbabwe and their music captures  my earliest memories.The light. The water. The beauty. I didn't experience the terror that The Triffids music also contains.All these early memories though  Before we came back to England when I was six. It brings them alive. Whenever I listen to the band's records.

It tells too of how ambition drives talented people to create. Not purely content to be 'a person propping up a barstool'. It puts forward the persuasive idea that 'modern is always out of date' and it's a good idea to dig deeper and search harder for meaningful art and culture than the readily given. I loved it and will watch it again and again. It's on YouTube. Thanks Darren, for drawing my attention to its availability.