Alps’ Chris Hearn is a curious creature, full of fierce opinions and conflicting ideas about the music that surrounds him. LUCY HEARN caught up with him to discuss his latest LP 'Alps of New South Whales' and his thoughts on the Newcastle music scene.

Chris Hearn is drunk. The man behind Newcastle’s Alps sees me at the same time that I see him and holds out his arms for a chuffed and cheerily beer-soaked hello. It’s 1am on the night of the Newcastle album launch for Alps of New South Whales. I am well over three hours late and I’ve missed his set, but Hearn is unconcerned. Four years ago, when we first met, he decided (on account of our shared surname) that we were probably related, so tonight, given we’ve been out of touch for six months, “family” appears to outrank experimental music. Of course, there’s never been any proof, but Hearn always refers to me as his cousin and, more recently, in a twisted understanding of a family tree, as an aunt to his son Wolfgang Ra (born in May this year).

This disregard for the rules of genealogy speaks, in a tangential sense, to Hearn’s attitude towards music-making: something along the lines of I will make things the way I want them to be, and fuck you. This occurs from inside a strange dichotomy, for Hearn is somehow capable of repudiating something while championing it. Despite calling Newcastle home since 2001 and putting on hundreds of shows there, he seemingly despises its music scene.

“Newcastle has been said to have the highest band per-capita ratio in the country, but it’s 99 percent fucking rubbish bands … It’s a cultural wasteland, made up mostly of nu-metal, Creed rock, and bad versions of every genre played by people who like to hang out in guitar shops.”

In person, Hearn is by turns self-effacingly hilarious and sullen. He is part frontiersman, part wounded bear; sometimes a hero, sometimes a victim, always able to get what he needs with fierceness.

In 2006, he needed out of Australia. He won a grant from the Australian Arts Council to travel the world and record an album – eight songs in eight countries, which became Alps of the World. While in these eight countries, and various others, he played shows – lots of them. He was gone for over a year, and when he returned, he accrued not only a wealth of music contacts and experience, but the first three songs recorded for Alps of New South Whales. Hearn has divided the past year-and-a-half between running local club night “SPRING BREAK!!!”, which he founded and helmed for nine months; curating events for the 2008 This Is Not Art festival; and completing the Whales recording.

“Artistic or musical expression is important, and so is community. In an ideal world, in which Vice Magazine, for example, never existed, these things marry up in the form of independent music scenes,” Hearn says.

“In person, Hearn is by turns self-effacingly hilarious and sullen. He is part frontiersman, part wounded bear; sometimes a hero, sometimes a victim, always able to get what he needs with fierceness.”

Here, the contraction-in-attitude of Hearn’s approach to music in Newcastle is evident again. As a regular attendee of SPRING BREAK!!!, I remember his quiet mocking of some of some scenester kids who showed up and then his equally quiet pride when it became apparent they deeply admired his efforts. When I put this contradiction, in general terms, to Hearn, he seems unperturbed.

“I suppose I have a fairly separatist attitude when it comes to Newcastle music circles, but I think most people are guilty of this.”

From the end of last year, Hearn put the regular promotion of shows on hold to concentrate on his own music. It’s been a process, he says, that has been difficult right up until the end. He suffered about 18 months of complete writer’s block, but even when this passed and the album was finished, he wasn’t ready to release Alps of New South Whales.

“I finished the record about six months ago, but I didn’t realise it until a bit later. There were 10 songs recorded and I was really happy with them, but something didn’t feel right.”

Now that it’s finished, Hearn is supremely happy with the end product. “The difference in the name corresponds with the difference in the music,” he explains. “It doesn’t actually sound like a CD of whale sounds, like you might find in a new age crystal store, however ironically hip crystals and the term new age may be at the moment. But there is a distinct effort to use reverb, flangers, phasers and tape echos to create an allusion to the underwater and the odd tribute to the sound of the whale song is thrown in here and there”.

This idea holds true when listening to tracks from Whales. Hearn’s is a distant voice underneath waves of lo-fi beats and organs. His melodies are deep and melancholic, and perhaps it’s the power of suggestion but the songs seem to emit subtle hints of dark blue.

Hearn says the concept for Whales – a collection of 10 new songs each named after a different whale – comes mostly from a desire to place restrictions on himself, which he feels benefits his creative process. “I like wanky music and wanky ideas,” he jokes. Apart from this he doesn’t like to give too much away.

“A couple of the same concepts are carried on from the first record, including using pseudonyms for the song titles and keeping the real song titles to myself,” he says. “There are a lot of secrets there actually. I don’t like to give everything away. I would like to hope that my listening public is intelligent enough to take a decent amount from my music using their brain rather than me shoving it down their fucking throats. The next record will be called Alps of New South Wails. I’m not going to reveal much about it yet though.”

As we finish talking, I try to make plans with Hearn to meet up in the morning. When I suggest coffee, he offers another trademark display of ambivalence in manner – his reply as reluctant as it is inviting. “Just come over. You know where I live,” he says “I’ll probably still be in bed, but come over.”

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Alps of New South Whales is out now. Visit myspace.com/alpsalps for tour dates and more info.