‘The Three I’s’ by former Paradise Motel bass player Matt Bailey is part of an ongoing inquiry into the nature of identity, writes RENÉ SCHAEFER.

I had my dirty jeans on
With a suit jacket and tie
Caught my reflection in the shallow water near the river bed
Made me stop and wonder why
I don’t look like no one anymore
- ‘Lonely Little River’

Like the character in his song ‘Lonely Little River’, Matt Bailey is a man who decided to put the past behind him, set off on a raft down the river, and make his home in the wilderness.

As bass player in The Paradise Motel, he was part of a conglomerate that manufactured sleek, dark products that had much popular appeal. Over time, Bailey felt increasingly uncomfortable with his corporate identity, especially when the company’s headquarters transferred to London. As a result, when the market crashed in 1999, and Paradise Motel Inc had to declare bankruptcy, Bailey threw his few belongings in a duffle bag and disappeared into the remote mountains of Tasmania, where he spent several years living on berries and fish he caught with his bare hands. When he re-emerged several years later, few recognised him with his long, unkempt hair and bushranger beard. One night, a disheveled looking figure slouched onto a small stage in Fitzroy, picked up a pawnshop guitar and started to sing – or so the story goes.

The truth is somewhat more prosaic, but what really matters is the transformation Bailey underwent from playing a supporting role in another songwriter’s successful band to being a singer in his own right, with his own distinctive style. On stage, he transfixes audiences with his commanding presence, delivering his opaque first-person narratives in a resonant voice, accompanied by an insistently rhythmic electric guitar. Without fail, he has people hanging on to every one of his words, as they try to deduce the meaning of his tales.

“Nothing really happens in these songs. They are observational, or drawn from an inner-life that somehow intersects with the outside world.”

Pressed into the grooves of this vinyl album, Bailey’s songs take on another life altogether. Sparse, acoustic arrangements prevail, with backing added by some of Melbourne’s finest musicians, including Dan McKay (The Nation Blue) on percussion, keyboardist Jesse Shepherd (Sir, New War) and Jessica Venables (Jessica Says) on cello. The band’s restrained approach highlights the lyrics and grain of Bailey’s voice, while two untitled instrumentals only serve to reinforce the introspective mood.

A melancholy feel pervades songs such as ‘The Way’ and ‘Drawn Like A Magnet’, with influences drawn from folk and traditional ballads. Unlike those idioms though, Bailey’s tales are told in a fragmented, allusive fashion, rather than spelled out explicitly. Thus, the transgression of the protagonist of ‘Drawn Like A Magnet’ remains deliberately obscure, leaving it to the listener to imagine what motivates his plea: “I can still be a priest, mum/I can still be an honest man.”

Without making specific reference to Australian settings, it’s easy to project Bailey’s stories onto a familiar landscape. His imagery in songs such ‘Lies’ and ‘Papers’ is rooted in rural settings and domestic scenarios, but there’s nothing pastoral about them. Instead, they evoke an air of unease and underlying tension bred from isolation in a world untouched by the trappings of modernity. There’s something timeless and intimate in Bailey’s turns of phrase, the result of being deliberately void of drama or florid similes. Nothing really happens in these songs. They are observational, or drawn from an inner-life that somehow intersects with the outside world.

The writer’s language is entirely his own in sketching a world that’s private, but also part of a shared cultural experience. This puts Bailey in a class of songwriters that includes Richard Buckner and Gareth Edwards (Sandro, The Holy Rose), who twist country and folk music into new forms that serve as vehicles for highly individualistic expression. What these men share is not so much a style, but an attitude that embraces their status outside both mainstream and indie modes. While not entirely inappropriate, applying a label like “alt-country” to them would denigrate their artistry and originality of vision.

As the title of this album implies, Bailey’s writing and performance is part of an ongoing inquiry into the nature of identity. It’s part of everyday existence and an extension of the his personality, but it’s also a fiction, an artificial construct. When the result is an album as powerfully realised as The Three I’s, however, it’s worth taking note.