Songs about death, drinking, friendship and happiness collide on the recent album Bloom from Auckland band DIRT.
Bloom - a tribute to the band's singer Malcolm Black who died of cancer in 2019 - is a gem that deserves to be heard, says Trevor Reekie.
Barry Blackler, Malcolm Black and Nick Sampson of DIRT Photo: Supplied
The members of DIRT go way back.
Nick sang with Malcolm in the Kiwi pop band Netherworld Dancing Toys who had a massive hit in 1985 with 'For Today'.
Barry Blackler, a drummer who has played with The Starlings and The Jesus and Mary Chain, first met Malcolm at high school in Dunedin.
When the three men started working together on a music project, originally with the idea it would be weekends-only, Malcolm knew he had bowel cancer.
Writing and recording songs was a way for the three of them to process Malcolm's illness together, Nick says.
A "very pragmatic and humorous man", Malcolm talked a lot about mortality and what constituted a good death in his final years.
"He talked about dying well … he used to say 'you punks, I'm showing you how to do it'."
Some nights Malcolm couldn't sing at all, Barry says, and other nights he could perform a song in one take with an intensity that would appear suddenly.
"It was quite sad in some ways, but we managed to get through it. Malcolm would just turn up, so we did as well."
Bloom includes guest vocals from Annie Crummer, who stepped in to take Malcolm's place on the song Dreams and Happiness after his death, and the sound of one of Malcolm's MRI scans on the final track 'No Sense at All'.
"[This album] is very much about our friend and mortality."
Bloom was released in November 2021 and went straight to No 11 on the NZ Music Charts.
Related listening:
- Malcolm Black talks to Jim Mora about the Netherworld Dancing Toys hit 'For Today' (2009)
- Malcolm Black talk to Jesse Mulligan about his life as a musician and entertainment lawyer (2017)
- Anthony Healey reflects on the life of Malcolm Black (2019)
- Songs for the Family - a posthumous album from Malcolm Black (2021)
