The Church: The Hypnogogue (digital outlets)

Among the many hundreds of albums Elsewhere lost in the January 2023 floods were a few much loved Australian albums, among them two terrific double albums by the Easybeats taking them from chart-toppers to the decline into psychedelic music and a compilation of the early Church which carried them through their Paisley Underground years.

These were albums which were the domain of obsessive possibly. But still, personal losses.

The Church have long been a passion even though their subsequent post-Paisley career was uneven, but their magnificent opium-infused album Priest = Aura (which followed the more popular Starfish and Gold Afternoon Fix) has long been an Essential Elsewhere album.
These days they have been the vehicle of founder member Steve Kilbey – interesting guy, see this fairly recent interview – but the loss of former fellow-founders and songwriters Marty Willson-Piper and Peter Koppes has meant a narrowing of the band's meld of guitar-jangle and more exploratory spiritual-psychedelic style.

But Kilbey remains nothing if not ambitious and The Hypnogogue is, by his account, a concept album about a rock star of the future and his love interest, a Korean scientist who has invented the “hypnogogue” which extracts thoughts and turns them into sound.

You may need a lyric sheet (which doesn't come with the CD version) and Kilbey's explanatory notes to follow all that but the album certainly manages to remain true to the space-pop end of prog-rock where driving rhythms and the guitar jangle of Ian Hague (formerly of Powderfinger but a 10-year Church-goer) pull the songs relentlessly forward.

There are standalone, melodramatic Bowie-esque songs here (Thorn, No Other You with a nod to Pink Floyd) and nods back to classic Church approaches on the smart pop-rock of the slightly defeated I Think I Knew and the six minute dream-pop – an uneasy dream however -- of the title track flips back to Priest = Aura and Seventies keyboard-based prog.

Regular Church attendees know that Kilbey lives in a world of esoteric art and literature so are prepared to for deep immersion in their albums.

This one is both their most demanding of attention of recent years but also one of the most rewarding in a long time.

Very much a case of turn on, tune in and drop what you're doing for at least an hour.

You might be no wiser about the storyline, but you'll know you've been on a head-trip.

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You can hear this album at Spotify here.