THE EDITED PRESS RELEASE: “Springtime is the new Australian group comprising Gareth Liddiard (The Drones, Tropical Fuck Storm), Jim White (Xylouris White, Dirty Three) and Chris Abrahams (The Necks). Springtime is the culmination of three renowned, multidisciplinary musicians each known for distinct styles and sounds — a new endeavor that is as much a tonal experiment as it is a meditation on modern-day absurdity. Their self-titled debut combines elements of art rock, experimental noise, poignant lyricism, free jazz and improvisation to craft austere portraits of a world paralyzed by shellshock.
The lyrics for their first single The Viaduct Love Suicide were written by Liddiard’s uncle Ian Duhig, who became a full-time writer after working with homeless people for 15 years and has since published eight books of poetry, most recently his New and Selected Poems, a Poetry Book Society Special Commendation for winter 2021. Duhig has won the Forward Best Poem Prize once, the National Poetry Competition twice and has been shortlisted four times for the TS Eliot Prize. He is a Cholmondeley Award recipient and fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Duhig shared the tragic origins of the poem: “I wrote this in the style of the Japanese love suicide genre (the first two lines quote Chikamatsu’s The Sonezaki Love Suicide) partly because it is a tradition more forgiving of this desperate act, but mainly because the events inspiring it were so heartbreaking they overwhelmed my attempts to treat it more directly. Where I was working recently an NHS employee, married to another NHS employee, was trying to raise their autistic child. Despite being at the heart of this vast care organisation, the pressures of caring destroyed their marriage, and led eventually to her jumping to her death with her child in her arms, who also died, at a beauty spot already too well-known for such sad departures. I have met many women NHS staff in danger of, or actually being on, a treadmill of caring at work and at home with their own needs crushed, sometimes with tragic results. This poem is dedicated to them, and to the memory of Helen Rogan.”
