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Gelbison.
 Just
before the release of Gelbison's fantastic second album, Nadav
Kahn ran through the rain with a cup of coffee to get to the
phone and talk to me about music, politics and the state of
the world. For one thing, he sure knows a hell of a lot more
about Greenland than anybody I've ever spoken to... but to start
with, he was simply ecstatic about having the finished product
of 'See The World' that I could almost feel a huge smile across
his face. If only we could have videophones for these things...
"It's almost at the point now where everybody gets the chance to hear it, and you start to get feedback - positive and negative. I'm just excited to be putting it out into the world. People generally tell you good things, [particularly] your friends, but then I've also gotten some quite honest responses, and they've been generally positive. But the truth is I'm happy with it, so I don't really care."
One of the big surprises/drawcards is the great Poets, a quite blatantly political rant set to a thumping drum track. Kahn is quite happy to elaborate on his position. "Well, it's fucking bullshit, the way the world is at the moment, where it's at, and it's kinda like, 'C'mon, people! If we can't say something and do something about it, we're going to keep voting for fuckers like Howard.' That's just my approach, anyway."
Would it have been better to have the record out before the federal election? "Yeah, but ultimately life continues. This is one election and there are many elections to go. I was hearing before the election there were some radio stations here playing all these political songs, and some were blatant and some were a little more subtle. You convey your message in different ways but if it's understood then it kinda works, it doesn't really matter when that happens."
Kahn says he wouldn't want to actually get involved in an active political life, partially because he doesn't see himself being "well-versed... especially in the politics of this country." When I weakly attempt a joke about whether he'd be better off in Norwegian politics, to my surprise, he agrees. "You know I spent a bit of time studying Norwegian politics, and then I went to Greenland and I actually thought it was fascinating, the way people really responded to the new prime minister there." Some people just have more interesting lives than I do, apparently.
The band collaborated with two producers for this record - Melbourne electronic artist Ben Frost, and Ian Ball, member of the brilliant English band Gomez. I couldn't think of two more dissimilar people to work with, but Kahn explains "It was a very interesting situation. We met Ben several months before we were going to start writing, and we liked him and his vibe. He was off to Iceland two days later, so we gave him a copy of our record, and told him to listen to it and that we'd chat when he came back. Two days later I get a call from Ian, I think we were driving back up from Melbourne, and he said, 'You won't believe what just happened to me.' He was at a show in Los Angeles, and this guy standing beside him asks, 'Hey, are you Ian Ball?' It happened to be Ben Frost, who had seen his photo in our album, recognised him, and before they know it they end up spending the next two or three days hanging out non-stop, became great buddies and Ben ended up staying with Ian in the UK a few weeks later... it was ridiculous! It was kinda like providence, I believe."
Ultimately, though, Kahn says that 'See The World', for all its creative virtuosity, is not the record he always wanted to make. "No, there are many more things I'd like to have done within this record, but you always have to stop at a particular point in time, and you take the songs that you've got and that's what an album is. An album is a representation of a particular slice of your musical evolution. And I think it's great, I'm really happy with it for what it is, but there are many more ideas I would have liked to have been executed, and things I would do differently - if you gave me another month..."
Ben Revi
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'See The World' is out now through EMI and Gelbison play the Gov on Sun 21 Nov with End Of Fashion.
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