Ned Collette - Jokes and Trials LP

"What a pleasure it is to bring you the first vinyl version of Jokes and Trials, the 2006 solo debut by Melbourne's Ned Collette, whose incredible song cycle Old Chestnut (FTR 362-2LP, 2018) and brilliant instrumental album Afternoon-Dusk (FTR 468LP, 2019) have been widely and correctly lauded as classics. As Mark Harwood explains in his excellent liner notes, Ned emerged from the Melbourne improv underground along with people like Will Guthrie and Joe Talia. Indeed, it was Talia who turned Ned onto Jim O'Rourke's 2001 classic, Insignificance, as a way of demonstrating possible connections between pop song form and avant-garde strategies. Ned's own first moves in this direction built around loops. But by the time he was ready to cut Jokes and Trials, he was eager to try more traditional musical structures, infused with subtle tendrils of experimentalism. The songs on this album use elements like pedal steel, cello, and a vocal chorus to create a set of music with a timelessness rooted