Beautiful Waste And Other Songs (Mini-Masterpieces 1983-1985)

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The release of 1983's Treeless Plain kicked off an extremely productive 18 months for the Triffids, the band providing an ever more fertile environment for David McComb's songwriting. Beautiful Waste and Other Songs chronicles this period, compiling the mini-albums Raining Pleasure and Lawson Square Infirmary and the Field of Glass EP (plus several stray tracks). Raining Pleasure boasts a wealth of ideas. Amid the title song's haunted Velvet Underground drone, Jill Birt's childlike voice triggers an unsettling frisson. By contrast, "Property Is Condemned" charges forward, McComb's insistent vocals underpinned by the rhythm section's earthbound, funky drive. While the eerie and ominous "Embedded" evokes the Birthday Party, it nevertheless emphasizes that McComb's vision of love and death was very much his own. Lawson Square Infirmary was an acoustic side-project, featuring James Paterson and then-future Triffid Graham Lee. Recorded live during a stealthy dead-of-night session at the Sydney Opera House, the material has a pervasive country flavor, thanks mainly to Lee's dobro guitar. The Triffids usually made inspired use of rootsy elements, weaving them into their own distinctive sound, but several of these numbers suggest rather rote exercises in a country style. Still, there are gems like "Mercy," with its simple piano melody and shuffling beat. Field of Glass comprises the Triffids' first John Peel session. Weighty, electrified and intense, it holds up a darkened, cracked mirror to Lawson Square Infirmary's lightweight tunefulness. Although McComb's work had previously displayed some fraught, dissonant tendencies, these numbers push deeper into such territory -- above all the epic title track, the Triffids' most powerful song. Beautiful Waste is among the last installments of Domino's reissue series, but these tracks are no barrel-scrapings: they chart a vital phase in the Triffids' development that would culminate in Born Sandy Devotional, the band's masterpiece. ~ Wilson Neate