Nat: there might be something – I’m not sure if it’s in the water or in the air in Yorkrakine but its certainty had a wonderful effect on a bloke called Ambrose Nock. He is a fantastic artist and he calls himself Target archery I was lucky to catch up him earlier and I began by asking him, as our unearthed artist this week, a little bit about his musical journey and where he got started.
Ambrose: So Target Archery is a recording project that basically happens in my garage in Yorkrakine & I’ve finished the second album there. Before that I was in a band in Perth called Apricot Rail that kind of fizzled out as things do. So (Target Archery) is kind of a continuation of that in terms of songwriting and stuff but without the live shows.
N: So tell us about your musical career, when did you start getting into music?
A: Fairly young I guess – I got forced to learn piano which was good & all I wanted to do when I got to high school was start a band so we managed to do that. And then I played around Perth in a few different strange original bands, which was fantastic.
N: Can you tell me about the types of music you’ve enjoyed & enjoyed playing over the years?
A: Your listeners might not know a lot about Post Rock but it was [forgive me here] kind of a sub genre that emerged out of Chicago in the 90’s and it was about dismantling [the structure of] rock songs, expanding into very long songs and focusing more on the music than the singing. So that was kind of the background there. And then my kind of take on that is that I do enjoy the instrumental side of things but also enjoy fairly obscure pop music with lots of dense treble: bands like Stereolab and ninetynine. Things like that.
N: And you’ve spent some time in Yorkrakine farming, and also in Perth – have any of those locations had an influence on your music at all and have you found it easier or difficult to play music in either location?
A: Well Apricot Rail started basically at the farm. I wrote some songs and some friends living in Perth really liked them. So we turned that into a band and put out a couple of albums. I’m sure a few of your listeners would understand that being on a farm is a great place to write music. There are no noise complaints, there is lots of space to set up your instruments & there are a lot of bleak landscapes, especially this time of year which plays into the inspiration a lot. And when you’re a musician you just find a way of playing wherever you are & whoever you’re around. And personally I enjoy the process of songwriting more than the performing aspect of it. So it works out well for me to have my own studio and I can just write and record over a long period of time.
N: Clock of the Long Now was the album you released in 2017. This album that you’ve released just last month – the Nomenclature of Kites – can you tell me about and give me a bit of understanding about your first album and how different or similar it is to your most recent release.
A: So COTLN was a bit more instrumental and with very spacious arrangements and I was learning to play a few instruments during the process of recording it. So I did all the woodwind and things like that myself, and opened up the arrangements for those songs [meant to say parts] where as with the new album what I trying to do is pack as much treble – not shrill treble – but just in terms of density of parts into the songs. Because that’s something I really like but don’t hear that often in music.
N: The name of the album is the Nomenclature of Kites. It’s his second release and came out just last month. The song we will be hearing is ‘we’re not in Kansas Now Dorothy’ – its definitely a memorable song title & I’m getting flashbacks to Dorothy and the wizard of Oz. What can you tell me about this track?
A: Amongst the first half of the album a lot of inspiration is from middle America for instance there’s a song about the Flat Earther who built his own rocket ship and unfortunately met his demise. So we’ve got a mate down the road who’s a storm chaser by the name of Mr Simon York. And I loved the fact that he’d travel on his holidays to the tornado belt to track these incredibly powerful weather systems and I loved the image of that & love of that power and found some inspiration there. So that’s where the inspiration for that song came from. Living out here as well you kind of romanticize a bit about what Middle America might be like because its wheat fields as well but obviously quite different culturally. Also being a 35-year-old white male there’s not much for me to write my songs about but you do look for things like that just to hone in on a particular theme. And sometimes the music itself sounds like something as well. So here the key part that is looped sounds to me a bit like a gentle twister building momentum if that makes sense.
N: Lets have a listen to it now.
The Wine Accomplice 