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Number 4 – Obscura Hail – Penumbra

 

Penumbra isn’t the most common of words. Astronomically, it’s most used to describe the shaded area of the earth or moon when experiencing a partial eclipse. But it can also be used to describe the indeterminate. It is therefore extremely rich in poetic and lyrical possibility, and serves as an evocative title what I think is one of the most poignant and Australian songs of them all.

 

Released by the band, Obscura Hail in 2020, it’s the only song on my list where I am certain of my whereabouts when I first heard it. I was driving to work, listening to it via the streaming and music retail site, Bandcamp. A double release of the band’s two EP’s – Siren (the one containing ‘Penumbra’) and Zero (first released in 2017) – had just been made available. I knew the song was extremely special before I’d heard it in its entirety.

 

The song rides a meditative cushion of strummed notes that sound like they emanate from a slightly fuzzed steel guitar. Then a soft beat kicks in just before the vocals. If you grew up in the late 80s or early 90s as I did, the lyrics are like a long-forgotten smell assailing your nostrils, bodily dragging you back in a sketchy memory now illumined in technicolour.

 

The imagery is dazzling in its time-stamped authenticity. StarCraft, Doom 2, Gameboys, ‘the long-dead franchise, Sanity’, and on and on. It didn’t matter that I didn’t have all of these; I played them, I knew them, in some cases coveted them. The line ‘skateboard tricks that I still can’t land’ takes me to a friend’s house, watching him and another mate try and fail to do just that. The last time I saw a Gameboy was in the Boola Bardip to museum. Boy, did that sting.

 

The vocals are combination of flavours: the male voice of Sean Conran and the female voice of Tamara Issa are variously double tracked singularly, combined, and counterpointed. The blend of aural notes and melody lines is enrapturing, with the line ‘Doom 2 paused, I’m gonna play it later’ delivered at the same time as ‘what on earth’; ten rapid-fire syllables juxtaposed with three languid ones. Together, they resonate in a deeply affecting way that reflects the time-fluid experience of memory sensations.

 

These details exist within a broader context – one that is foreign to me, but no less evocative. Within the song’s narrative there are siblings and foster siblings, ‘fifteen houses, seven schools.’ The veracity of these details sits adjacent to the impact they have in framing the very notion of youthful memories. As the song itself says, ‘All time stretches when you’re younger’. Ain’t that the truth.

 

‘Penumbra’ is an ode to an Australia that’s past, save for the memories of those who lived in it. No phones, no internet, so anti-social media. No post-truths, covid, Trump, or any of that shit. We had no idea that we were what now feels like the final analogue generation. What this song does is offer me a portal back into that world by offering an almost tangible re-imagining of it. It’s a stunning piece of music that deserves to be known and embraced by those who were kids when zinc was a thing. This song, I can assure you, can glow even brighter.

 
 
 

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