{{short description|Gareth Liddiard album}} {{Use mdy dates|date=July 2019}} {{Infobox album | name = Strange Tourist | type = Album | artist = Gareth Liddiard | cover = File:Strange_tourist.jpg | alt = | released = October 1, 2010 | recorded = "Winter of MMX" | venue = Blackburn Castle <small>(Yass, New South Wales)</small> | studio = | genre = *Contemporary folk | length = 67:32 | label = *Shock Records <small>(2010)</small> *ATP Recordings <small>(2011)</small> | producer = *Burke Reid *Gareth Liddiard | prev_title = | prev_year = | next_title = | next_year = }}
'''''Strange Tourist''''' is the debut studio album from The Drones and Tropical Fuck Storm frontman Gareth Liddiard. The album was recorded inside Blackburn Castle in New South Wales over the first half of 2010, and was produced with the help of Burke Reid. Its minimal, "austere" and "meandering" acoustic songs instrumentally consist entirely of Liddiard's guitar-playing, and are topped with his versatile and heavily-accented vocals. Exploring themes such as isolation, jealousy, guilt, colonialism, wartime collaborationism, radicalism and many others, its detailed, narrative-based lyrics have been characterized as "dark and grinding", and are set in various periods of time as well as locations.
Released through Shock Records and ATP Recordings, the album received critical acclaim from the Australian press, and (despite being scant) a very favourable critical reception outside of Australia. Its closing track "The Radicalisation of D", in particular, garnered a lot of praise and has been called the album's magnum opus. The album earned Liddiard a nomination for an ARIA Award for Best Male Artist at the 25th ARIA Music Awards, and was itself nominated for the Australian Music Prize.
== Recording == ''Strange Tourist'' was recorded at Blackburn Castle in New South Wales over eight weeks<ref name=":1" /> during the first half of 2010. According to Craig Mathieson of ''The Sydney Morning Herald'':<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|date=2010-09-30|title=Not just made in a Minotaur so|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/not-just-made-in-a-minotaur-so-20100930-15ysq.html|access-date=2021-05-28|website=The Sydney Morning Herald|language=en}}</ref><blockquote>Liddiard gorged on written material, spending five days taking in literature, magazine articles (including ''The Monthly'' and ''Soldier of Fortune''), internet curiosities and the news. After that he spewed out ideas, sometimes in point form, before replacing coffee with alcohol and repeatedly rewriting and crafting the content into lyrics.</blockquote>
==Content==
=== Style === Daniel Baker of ''The Quietus'' called the album "a deceptive subversion of rockist dogma." He describes the tracks as "sprawling venom inflected dioramas existent in their own haunted ecology."<ref name=q>{{cite web|url=https://thequietus.com/articles/05594-gareth-liddiard-strange-tourist-review|title=The Quietus – Reviews – Gareth Liddiard|website=The Quietus}}</ref> "With his first solo album," wrote Bernard Zuel of ''Sydney Morning Herald'', "Liddiard puts aside the physical presence of the Drones, forgoing that capacity for movement as well as variation in favour of none-more-bare presentations of voice and guitar. These are in effect spoken-word pieces with minimalist backing or, given their lyricism and focus, books on tape "read" by a man whose nasally, insistent voice is never going to be mistaken for that of a choir boy."<ref name=smh>{{cite web|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/strange-tourist-20101008-16bsj.html|title=Strange Tourist|first=Bernard|last=Zuel|author-link=Bernard Zuel|date=October 8, 2010|website=The Sydney Morning Herald}}</ref> Tim Dunlop of ''Crikey'' characterized it as "dark and grinding [...] ''Strange Tourist'' consists of [...] long songs with clever lyrics documenting the political and the personal."<ref name=cr>{{cite web|url=https://www.crikey.com.au/2010/11/05/album-review-gareth-liddiard-strange-tourist-dark-and-grinding/|title=Gareth Liddiard, Strange Tourist – dark and grinding|date=November 5, 2010|website=Crikey}}</ref> "Liddiard's characters and their world are invoked with such eye for nuance and detail [...]" writes Zuel, "that you feel covered in the tangy sweat of fear or frozen in the same miasma of indecision and enervation as his protagonists."<ref name=smh/> Liddiard's vocals have been described as a "snarling Ocka drawl [...] He sings with a half-spoken, often crowded cadence, elongating or truncating words and hinting at hidden meanings through sudden flights of possessed semi-wails. While the music remains crystalline and austere in its unhurried strums and cliff edge teetering, Liddiard's voice is capable of a more satisfying versatility".<ref name=q/> Musically, Everett True wrote that the music reminded him of Joseph Spence's "killer early Folkway [sic] Recordings" and "John Fahey's more muted work", noting also that Liddiard had been listening to Toumani Diabaté around the time that the album was made.<ref name=":0">{{Cite web|url=http://www.collapseboard.com/oh-lord-the-shortlist-for-the-amp-2010-has-just-been-announced/|title=Oh Lord. The shortlist for the AMP 2010 has just been announced.|website=COLLAPSE BOARD|access-date=28 April 2019}}</ref> A ''Sputnikmusic'' staff reviewer compared the "collection of stripped-back, meandering acoustic songs" to "post-Red House Painters Mark Kozelek", albeit "decidedly more abrasive and more dogmatic", with Liddiard presenting himself "as a thoughtful, meditative minstrel – offering his subjects the space they needed to go about their rituals unencumbered by a scorning, the space to make their mistakes freely (“I swear I did not know, you lay with dogs, you catch their fleas”). And on the off chance he did inject himself into the narrative, he was just as flawed as the flaw itself, just as complicit in pushing the cart past the point of no return."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sputnikmusic.com/review/80104/Tropical-Fuck-Storm-Braindrops/|title=Review: Tropical Fuck Storm - Braindrops|author=owl beanie|website=Sputnikmusic|date=26 August 2019|accessdate=7 May 2020}}</ref>
=== Songs === [[File: David Hicks.jpg|thumb|"The Radicalisation of D" is based on the life of David Hicks]] The track "Blondin Makes an Omelette" is "an existential rumination on the nature of the public's adoration for Charles Blondin, [...] [w]ritten from the perspective of his faithful assistant". It has been described as "an often ambiguous interpretation of the psychology of those who gawk at risk takers [...] [j]ust enough information is withheld yet it's tenderly methodical and filled with enough pathos for it not to collapse under the weight of didacticism."<ref name=q/> Zuel notes a "carny bitterness" in the track.<ref name=smh/> In an interview with ''Polaroids Of Androids'', Liddiard stated that the song was a metaphor for colonial inferiority, where "Blondin is the colonizer and the guy complaining is the colony."<ref name=":1">{{cite web|url=http://polaroidsofandroids.com/articles/interview-gareth-liddiard-strange-tourists-honest-/5859.html|title=Strange Tourists, Honest Music and Samurais|date=17 May 2011}}</ref> "You Sure Ain't Mine Now" shows "Liddiard's voice [as being] capable of a more satisfying versatility [...] during which he delivers the refrain in a canine falsetto."<ref name=q/>
The "arresting" title track features "fizzing rough hewn picking and yearningly apocalyptic imagery" and has been singled out as being the closest to Liddiard's work with The Drones. The "75 per cent autobiographical"<ref name=":2" /> lyrics describe "one man's experiences with destitution, smack, war, arrest and Scientology"<ref name=q/> whilst the track itself has been described as "Stilnox-and-speed-jacked".<ref name=smh/> "The Collaborator" highlights the albums "once removed, personalized microcosms of anger [...] with a brusque politicisation" where the "lurking paranoia of [a] wartime populous attempting to unearth evidence of those who aided the invaders, accusations and defensive rebuttals crowed back and forth" is "carried along by Liddiard's flinty, nasal declamations."<ref name=q/> The lyrics of the song are set in 1941 France and it "explores decidedly non-pop territory of accommodation and justification, of guilt and evasion and anger".<ref name=smh/> An "epic tale of public corruption and personal obsession",<ref name=":2" /> "Did She Scare All Your Friends Away" is "not much less intense [...] weakness is paramount in a man who had "retired into a well of sweet vermouth", a rorting defence lawyer who's a "liberating angel with a clothes peg on his nose" or the narrator, whose explanations are rough and double-edged."<ref name=smh/>
The final track, "The Radicalisation of D" is based on the life of David Hicks with several details incorporated from Liddiard's own childhood. Characterized as a ''bildungsroman'',<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=m6KsDwAAQBAJ&q=the+radicalisation+of+d+bildungsroman&pg=PT30|title=The 'Imagined Sound' of Australian Literature and Music|first=Joseph|last=Cummins|date=September 20, 2019|publisher=Anthem Press|isbn=9781785270932|via=Google Books}}</ref> it has been called "a superbly engaging quarter of an hour" and "the album's magnum opus".<ref name=mon>{{cite web|url=https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2012/june/1343260101/richard-guilliatt/sensitive-souls|title=Sensitive Souls|author=Richard Guilliatt|date=June 1, 2012|website=The Monthly}}</ref> The song "brims with a novelist's attention to character-forming minutiae, winding through a life of oppression, abuse, and social ostracisation, culminating in a damning cultural cadence as Liddiard howls over and over 'you are living in a nightmare'."<ref name=ab/> "The grim horror of what is about to unfold," writes Parker, "[is] humanized implicitly by Liddiard's unhurried use of authentic Australian motifs (hills hoists, ging's). It's a piece of songwriting that genuinely attempts to understand why some people become susceptible to extremism. More uncompromisingly, it suggests that they may have a point."<ref name=q/> "[T]he vast expanse of the" song's "perspective on a home-grown terrorist burns you."<ref name=smh/> Manish Agarwal of ''Mojo'' finds Liddiard's "demand[s]" of "the listener's full attention" to be rewarded "most notably" on this track, which he describes as "feel[ing] all too real".<ref name=mojo/>
==Release==
The album was released on CD through Shock Records in 2010,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.moshtix.com.au/v2/event/gareth-liddiard-strange-tour/44112|title=Buy Gareth Liddiard 'Strange' Tour tickets, SA 2011 | Moshtix|website=www.moshtix.com.au}}</ref> and on both CD and double LP through ATP Recordings in 2011.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.atpfestival.com/recordings/news/view/1010041622|title=GARETH LIDDIARD (THE DRONES) TO RELEASE DEBUT SOLO ALBUM 'STRANGE TOURIST'|publisher=ATP Recordings}}</ref> The latter label released the album in the UK.
===Touring===
Shortly after the album's release, Liddiard embarked on a solo Australian tour.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.theaureview.com/music/gareth-liddiard-to-engage-on-a-strange-tour-with-dan-kelly/|title=Gareth Liddiard to engage on a Strange Tour with Dan Kelly|date=January 16, 2011}}</ref><ref name=sme>{{Cite web|url=https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/music/drone-still-baffled-by-his-popularity-20110208-1akix.html|title=Drone still baffled by his popularity|date=February 7, 2011|website=The Sydney Morning Herald}}</ref> The ''Sydney Morning Herald'' observed that the shows "sometimes went on until Liddiard ran out of material or the venue turned on the lights". In March the following year, he'd embarked on another 12-date national solo tour supported by Dan Kelly, and proceeded to play a few dates around Europe.<ref name=sme/><ref name=rev/> According to ''Reverb'', these performances were also very well-received, noting that most of the shows on the East coast had sold out.<ref name=rev>{{Cite web|url=https://mickdaley.com/2012/05/06/gareth-liddiard-interview-published-in-reverb/|title=Gareth Liddiard interview, published in Reverb|date=May 7, 2012}}</ref>
===Videos===
Videos were made for different versions of both the title track and "Blondin Makes an Omelette", and were released on YouTube through ATP Recordings' channel.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.atpfestival.com/recordings/artist/garethliddiard/video/view/52|title=Videos – Gareth Liddiard|website=All Tomorrow's Parties}}</ref>
===Reissues===
In 2017, Poison City Records reissued the album as a double LP.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://poisoncityrecords.com/post/166094886886/coming-this-december-the-deluxe-vinyl-re-issue-of|title=Coming this December! The deluxe vinyl re-issue of...|publisher=Poison City Records}}</ref> In a Reddit AMA session held by Tropical Fuck Storm in April 2020, Liddiard stated his plan to reissue the album again towards the end of the year "coz theres fuk [sic] all else to do" due to the COVID-19 pandemic.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/tropical-fuck-storm-hint-more-collaborations-coming-2640875|title=Tropical Fuck Storm hint more collaborations coming|author=Josh Martin|website=NME|date=4 April 2020|accessdate=11 April 2020}}</ref>
==Reception== {{Album reviews | rev1 = ''Mojo'' | rev1score = {{rating|4|5}}<ref name=mojo>''Mojo'', February 2011 issue</ref> | rev3 = ''Rolling Stone Australia'' | rev3score = {{rating|4|5}}<ref name=rs>''Rolling Stone Australia'', October 2010 issue</ref> | rev2 = ''Mondo Sonoro'' | rev2score = 8/10<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.mondosonoro.com/criticas/discos-musica/strange-tourist/|title=Strange Tourist|website=Mondo Sonoro|author=Toni Castarnado|date=2 June 2011|accessdate=10 April 2020}}</ref> | rev4 = Sputnikmusic | rev4score = 5.0/5<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.sputnikmusic.com/soundoff.php?albumid=63273|title=Strange Tourist - User Opinions (contributor Tom Sheridan's score)|date=3 April 2020|website=Sputnikmusic|accessdate=21 April 2021}}</ref> }}
===National=== The album was acclaimed by many Australian critics. ''The Age'', naming it their "Album of the Month", compared Liddiard to Paul Kelly and Don Walker and called the album "really exceptional".<ref name=age>''The Age'', September 2010 issue</ref> ''Rolling Stone Australia'' called the album his "bleak solo masterpiece" and compared it to a Cormac McCarthy novel in that it "lingers long after the final note has been played".<ref name=rs/> ''Sydney Morning Herald'' called the album "compelling" and "[s]omething very special."<ref name=smh/>
Conversely, an article by Richard Guilliatt for ''The Monthly'' criticizing the modern "troubadour" songwriter (other examples included Will Oldham, Bill Callahan and Keaton Henson) picked the reception to the album as an example of the "unseemly [,] [...] profligate doling out of four-star reviews by rock critics, who, as a breed, are notoriously susceptible to any songwriter who brings a whiff of literary cred to their disreputable world." He writes of "The Radicalisation of D": "it doesn't actually have a chorus, or a tune to speak of. In an earlier era, some porcine record exec would no doubt have demanded that Liddiard go back and write a couple of songs for FM radio. I'm beginning to miss those days."<ref name=mon/>
===International=== The album also received very positive reviews from critics in Europe, where it was released in the UK through ATP Recordings. ''Mojo'' called the album "[s]uperlative", writing that it "reveals [...] [The Drone's] distinctively accented singer/guitarist [to be] just as potent in acoustic settings".<ref name=mojo/> ''The Quietus'' writes that despite the album not being "totally immersive" (citing the track "Did She Scare All Your Friends Away" as "cumbersome") and that the record "requires patience, demands concentration", the "mercurial" and "magnificent" "The Radicalisation of D" "more than justifies those efforts."<ref name=q/> Greil Marcus, writing for ''The Believer'', called the album "over an hour's worth of a man sitting in a room, hitting notes on an acoustic guitar, meandering through tales of one defeat after another, with alcohol leaving tracks on the songs like a snail. [...] Here, in a quiet, artless, shamed, constricted way, a person emerges: a fictional construction, someone without a flicker of belief or, for that matter, interest in redemption, cure, or another life, against all odds, especially across the more than sixteen minutes of “The Radicalisation Of D,” the final track, he makes you want to know what happens next."<ref name=gm>{{cite web|url=https://greilmarcus.net/2014/10/31/real-life-rock-top-10-0611/|title=Real Life Rock Top 10 (06/11)|first=Greil|last=Marcus|author-link=Greil Marcus|website=The Believer|date=October 31, 2014}}</ref> ''Muzikalia'' called it "a unique album" that could appeal to listeners who may not be familiar with The Drones, praising Liddiard's songwriting talent & "strange" guitar-playing style.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://muzikalia.com/gareth-liddiard-strange-tourist-atp-recordings/|language=es|title=Gareth Liddiard - Strange Tourist (ATP Recordings)|website=Muzikalia}}</ref>
A more mixed response came from British journalist Everett True, who reviewed the album for the Australian magazine ''Mess+Noise.'' He compared the album unfavorably to Liddiard's work with The Drones ("Australia's greatest fucking rock band living [...]") and wrote that the songs "are not Drones songs. [...] These songs are Gareth Liddiard songs." He criticized the length of the songs as being "about five minutes too long", the lack of variety in them, and whilst he praised the lyrics, he criticized the music as being "rambling, unfocused, the guitar all plucked arpeggios and breaks for reflection, but not in a meaningful way", using the track "Blondin Makes an Omelette" as an example of the latter two. Despite this, he praised "The Radicalisation of D", "which has dynamics, and power, and the odd scream, and pretty much everything else you'd expect from The Drones’ frontman", as "16 minutes of genius that gradually sucks you in until you're tightly bound to what's unfolding in front of your ears [...]".<ref name=":0" />
===Awards=== The album earned Liddiard a nomination for an ARIA Award for Best Male Artist at the 25th ARIA Music Awards.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.ariaawards.com.au/history/award/best-male-artist|title=Aria Awards|website=ariaawards.com.au}}</ref> In response to the nomination, Liddiard stated: "It's just for wankers, snorting coke and getting drunk. It's just not on my radar and I'm just not interested. The ARIAs don't really mean anything to me."<ref>{{cite news|title=Liddiard: Arias a cocaine-filled joke|url=http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/the-arias-are-a-cocaine-filled-joke-says-musician-gareth-liddiard/story-fn6b3v4f-1226167518775|accessdate=November 8, 2013|newspaper=The Telegraph|date=October 16, 2011|author=Jonathon Moran|author2=Zoe Nauman}}</ref> The album was also nominated for the Australian Music Prize of 2010 (losing out to ''Bliss Release'' by Cloud Control), making it the fourth project involving Liddiard to have been nominated for the prize since its inception.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.australianmusicprize.com/2010-shortlist|title=2010 Shortlist|accessdate=19 December 2019}}</ref>
==Legacy==
===Accolades===
In November and December 2019 respectively, ''Junkee'' included the album on two different lists: "The 25 Most Underrated Albums Of The Decade" and "The 50 Best Australian Albums Of The Decade". The entry for the former reads as follows: "A Gareth Liddiard acoustic record almost seems like a contradiction in terms — this is a man who has spent his career wielding instruments like broken bottles in a bar fight. But ''Strange Tourist'', his singularly inspired solo record, has all the power and energy of his electric work. ‘Blondin Makes An Omlette’, a gnostic story of wire-walkers and alcoholics, might be the best thing that he's ever done."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://junkee.com/underrated-albums-decade/229127|title=The 25 Most Underrated Albums Of The Decade|website=Junkee}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://junkee.com/longform/best-australia-albums-decade|title=Sia, Flume, And Beyond: The 50 Best Australian Albums Of The Decade|website=Junkee}}</ref>
The following year, ''Double J'' included "The Radicalisation of D" on their list "13 of the best long songs ever recorded", calling it "[c]hilling, masterful songwriting."<ref name=ab>{{cite web|url=https://www.abc.net.au/doublej/music-reads/features/the-best-long-songs/12107696|title=13 of the best long songs ever recorded|author=Al Newstead|date=1 April 2020|accessdate=10 April 2020}}</ref>
===Influence===
Artist Jason Benjamin - whose oil-on-linen portrait of Liddiard titled ''It’s not all Henry bloody Lawson'' was one of the finalists for the 2011 Archibald Prize<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/prizes/archibald/2011/28902/|title=Archibald Prize Archibald 2011 finalist: It's not all Henry bloody Lawson by Jason Benjamin|website=www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au}}</ref> - praised the album as being "fantastic" & claimed that he'd listened to it "over and over" on his way down to Liddiard's home in Havilah, New South Wales to make the painting.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://musicfeeds.com.au/news/portrait-of-gareth-liddiard-in-running-for-archibald-prize/|title=Portrait Of Gareth Liddiard In Running For Archibald Prize|date=April 11, 2011|website=Music Feeds}}</ref>
Rob Snarski (lead guitarist/vocalist and founding member of The Blackeyed Susans and Chad's Tree) cited the album as an inspiration on his solo album ''Sparrow And Swan'', commenting that "[h]e really lifted the bar on songwriting for Australian singer-songwriters."<ref>{{cite web|url=https://melodymenu.blog/2019/05/08/rivers-and-plains-with-rob-snarski/|title=Rivers And Plains: Traversing Musical Landscapes With Rob Snarski|quote=To be honest, I think Gareth Liddiard has fucked it up for all of us, because that album of his, ''Strange Tourist'', is just incredible in the in-depth detail that he goes into in those songs. I listened to that quite a bit, I think, before I wrote songs for ''Sparrow And Swan'', so that had a huge impact on me too. He really lifted the bar on songwriting for Australian singer-songwriters.|date=8 May 2019|accessdate=10 April 2020}}</ref>
In an interview with ''Short List'', British actor George MacKay stated that both the album and Liddiard himself were a big inspiration for his titular role in the 2019 film ''True History of the Kelly Gang'' "in terms of voice and look". “He did this one solo album called ‘Strange Tourist’" he continued, "which is him and an acoustic guitar and there's these kinds of noodling poems of songs. His way of talking is very easy, very cool, but he sits back. That's what we wanted with this version of Ned. He has quite a bit of power in being unreadable, it's a kind of defence [sic] mechanism, that thing of, ‘You're not gonna know what I'm thinking’ and that should make you feel funny.”<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/film/george-mackay-gareth-liddiard-inspired-version-ned-kelly-true-history-of-kelly-gang-2619130|title=George MacKay took inspiration from The Drones' Gareth Liddiard to play Ned Kelly|website=NME|date=2 March 2020|accessdate=2 March 2020}}</ref>
Griffin Award-winning playwright Mark Rogers named "The Radicalisation of D" as an influence on his play ''Superheroes'' and admitted that "a lot of the construction of ''Superheroes'' was me picking out bits from that song."<ref>{{Cite web|date=2020-10-28|title=In Conversation: Mark Rogers|url=https://griffintheatre.com.au/blog/in-conversation-mark-rogers/|access-date=2021-01-13|website=Griffin Theatre Company|language=en-AU}}</ref>
==Track listing== {{Track listing | all_writing = Gareth Liddiard | title1 = Blondin Makes an Omelette | length1 = 4:52 | title2 = Highplains Mailman | length2 = 8:22 | title3 = Strange Tourist | length3 = 7:24 | title4 = You Sure Ain't Mine Now | length4 = 9:24 | title5 = The Collaborator | length5 = 4:59 | title6 = Did She Scare All Your Friends Away | length6 = 9:48 | title7 = She's My Favourite | length7 = 6:31 | title8 = The Radicalisation of D | length8 = 16:12 | total_length = 67:32 }}
==Personnel==
*Gareth Liddiard – vocals, acoustic guitar, composition
===Additional credits===
Adapted from liner notes:
*Amy Burrows - design *Ross Cockle - mastering *Daniel Campbell - photography (cover) *Burke Reid - recording, photography (interior)
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== *[http://www.atpfestival.com/assets/press/atpr/garethliddiard/20110104-culturebullyUSA.jpg Liddiard explaining the lyrics to "The Radicalisation of D" line-by-line to U.S. magazine ''Culture Bully'']
{{The Drones (Australian band)}} {{Authority control}}
Category:2010 albums Category:2010 in Australian music