Album Review: The Opposite of Everything

I reckon it’s quite rock-n-roll to arrange for a bunch of international artists to make an album of cover versions of your own songs, something The Infinity Chamber did in 2021 (Reflections of the Infinity Chamber by Various Artists). It reminds me of the idea to form a tribute band to my own covers band of a decade ago (which is itself a variation on the successful approach of Creedance Clearwater Collective, a covers band which seems to trade internationally as if they were members of CCR, but actually none of them were ).

Anyway, The Infinity Chamber (ostensibly Dylan Paul Ware plus a revolving door of international players) are back this month with a new album proper, assembled from six EPs and singles recorded and released since 2023. It follows a catalogue Ware has been assembling for a while now: Dark Wind Songs (2004), Wolfsongbird (2012) and The Infinity Chamber (2016). The Opposite of Everything is thus his fourth album, with the Various Artists covers album a terrific addition.

Ware famously has diverse musical interests and background. He has cited his favourite influences as widely as Atom Heart Mother (Pink Floyd), Bayou County (the aforementioned CCR), Master of Puppets (Metallica), and Rain Dogs (Tom Waits). Before settling in his current Istanbul he travelled the world more adventurously than most of us would (sleeping in abandoned buildings and cemeteries etc.) and lived in Bulgaria, India, Romania and elsewhere. He reminds me of ex-Neutral Milk Hotel drummer turned Eastern European multi-instrumentalist Jeremy Barnes, who formed A Hawk and a Hacksaw with Heather Trost and abandoned Albuquerque to live and record folk music in Romania.

The Opposite of Everything isn’t, therefore (perhaps to state the obvious), a record that is rooted in Aotearoa. This is rock music (Moonfrog, Highway), it’s somewhat pastoral in parts (The Lonely Gnome), it has raging guitar solos by Ware (Get Down, and the closing title track) (he’s an excellent guitarist), folksy foot stomping balladry (No Honey) and double-kick bass drums and blast beats (sparingly – on the opening Get Down). If that sounds like as a wide a mix of genres as Ware’s list of influences (and that was only a partial list), you’d be right. But contrary to what might be expected; that a diversity of genres might equal an incoherent mess, this is not what we find here.

Don’t forget Ware has been occupying this space for a while now, and it seems he knows exactly how to produce something coherent yet unusual, mysterious even, and a record that demands (and rewards) repeat listening. “I am a man who tears down veils for you / Cuts his face, yearns for grace / Combs his hair, makes repair / I am the man who cooks his heart for you,” he sings on Man Shaving. It’s a unique take on some version of domestic existence. On the acoustic piece The Lonely Gnome he sounds like Roger Waters on In the Flesh? – his voice twisting and sinister. “Sunday, you may say my soul is dead and gone away / But you’d be wrong / Walk along, shshshshsh! / Turning falling leaves into song / Sun and rain / Around again, we’re drawn.” It’s beautifully haunting and obscure, but it took several listens to arrive in my mind fully formed, like a song created in some dank woodland, but too compelling a place to want to run away from.

On first listen, you might say I was a reluctant listener. The opening of Get Down, whose acoustic guitar initially sounds out of tune, reminded me of an old friend who could never get past the first 20 seconds of Airbag, Radiohead’s opener on OK Computer. He coped with it so badly he that never listened beyond that point, and forever missed out on a masterpiece. Don’t adopt that sort of mindset with The Opposite of Everything. I urge you to listen to it and study it. Is this one of the best albums of the year by a New Zealand artist? I’m not sure I’m qualified to answer, but there is something uniquely creative and appealing about this record once you get to know it and snuggle into its warm creases. Something excellent about it. I said this about Ringlets and I’ll say it again here: this is the sort of music we should be making and celebrating. Put it on repeat and see where you get to.