That Sinking Feeling

DOOM — THE REAL WEALTH:
2011 to present

As the weather thawed in the spring of 2011, and with the satisfying denial recording session under his belt, Bollinger began jamming with long time musical collaborators Vis Ortis (Vocabularinist, John-the Band, Mekigah) and R. S. Amor (Mekigah, Myth Eaters). The project’s main catalyst was their mutual love affair with Doom metal, particularly Warning’s masterpiece Watching from a Distance, and a desire to evolve the slowcore arrangements that permeated the denial recording into a band setting.

What emerged was a kind of doom blues that was launched onto an unsuspecting audience, one fetid and sultry summer afternoon in late January at the Brunswick Hotel in Melbourne. In the week of their second gig (June ’12), the earth shook in Melbourne and produce fell from the shelves of supermarkets in the regional city of Moe. The elements must have known something was afoot.

With Ortis’ and Amor’s sympathetic backing, Bollinger’s songs have taken on a new dimension — a stripped back and sinister power that is pregnant with hidden menace — clearly suggesting that his love affair with the dolorous is far from spent.

In August 2014, the band released its first album, A Catalogue of Woe. Three years in the making, the base tracks (Voice, Guitar, Bass and Drums) were recorded live during the band’s weekly jams and rehearsals using a motley collection of digital recorders and a couple high end mics. These tracks were then painstakingly assembled by Amor each week, who cast his critical ear over the results and decided with the rest of the band whether the track was worth building on. The feel of the song was considered paramount, a bung note here and there would sometimes grudgingly be accepted in the course of choosing the track to work on. Overdubs were then applied, mainly backing vocals, effected melodica, sampled strings and guitar, by Bollinger, Amor and Chad Shields, who provided the frenetic pizzicato passages and the soulful lead in Rich Man’s Heaven. The artwork for the album was also created in house. The lyrics considered worthy of their own tome, have been printed in a limited edition hard covered chap book, the pages of which can be viewed here.

That Which Does Not Kill Me Gives Me Cancer

Video by Vis Ortis filmed March 2014
Filmed amidst the cast offs in the back shed at Ugly Separation Studios, the home and workspace of Vis Ortis and R.S. Amor, this is the 3rd song to be lifted from A Catalogue of Woe and treated to a visual interpretation.

I Hear Monsters Weeping

Video by t.k. bollinger filmed December 2013
This track is an ode to the odd balls. Those who choose to amble and observe, rather than race and compete. It is the second song taken from the album A Catalogue of Woe. In the same spirit as the band’s recording process this video was shot off the cuff by t.k. bollinger in one morning on an iPhone 4S and then edited the same evening.

Betting on Your
Dying Day

Video by Matthew Engert filmed October 2012
This is the first song to be taken from A Catalogue of Woe and given legs to walk in the visual realm. Filmed 2 years before the album’s release, it was shot in a day in the old dunny cart alleys in Melbourne’s inner northern suburb of Thornbury.