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Ticket giveaway: Mahurangi Matters has a double pass to giveaway. Email news@localmatters.co.nz with the subject line: Ha the Unclear. Include your name and number. Competition closes October 2 at 3pm.
Have you ever wondered what your furniture might be thinking about you?
That’s one of the many offbeat questions explored by Auckland-based band, Ha the Unclear, in its debut studio album Bacterium, Look at Your Motor Go.
The four-piece band is playing at Leigh Sawmill on October 2 as part of a national tour.
Singer/guitarist Michael Cathro says he is driven to write about material that goes beyond the well-worn themes explored by other songwriters.
“I write about things that interest me. I over-think a lot of things and I don’t stop myself from thinking about things in a strange way,” Michael says.
This takes the listener into a range of unique perspectives. The song, Secret Lives of Furniture, written from the perspective of a coffee table that has developed an obsession for its owner, is an example of this approach.
“I had writer’s block and, as a writing exercise, I started to wonder what my coffee table’s life was like. If it could talk, what would it say? In the song, the table’s owner has died and it gets thrown away and it’s recounting its life from the tip.”
The band also explores more conventional themes, but told with a twist. The song Growing Mould deals with the much-mined subject of a break-up, but written from the perspective of someone talking through an intercom at the door of his girlfriend’s apartment after finding the door’s security code has changed.
The lyrics are carried by the tight rhythm section of bass player Paul Cathro and drummer Ben Sargeant, with lead guitarist Theo Francis adding texture to the music. All this is served on a generous helping of back-up harmonies which often sounds like The Beach Boys at their most melancholic – summer’s over and it’s time to go home from surfing safari.
Michael describes their sound as “stories set to alt-pop ditties”.
The band will be joined by Auckland power-pop artist, Dictaphone Blues, who will play solo.
Info: hatheunclear.com
