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Water of Life – Duncan Taylor

If you are remotely into whisky, especially the finer end of the spectrum, chances are that you will have crossed paths with the emissions of Duncan Taylor, an entity that has channelled its alchemy for the last eight decades in diverse realms such as blending, bottling and maturing whiskies to both pioneer and create new expertly curated expressions, which run the gamut from blends via single malts to grain whiskies.

One of the first Duncan Taylor variants I have had the pleasure of tasting was its accolade decorated Black Bull. The premise behind the Black Bull blend is to not interfere with the true characteristics of the source whiskies to allow them to unveil the breadth of their depths.

The entry Black Bull 12 is a blend of malt and grain whisky, which on the nose combines the best features of both, i.e. a sweet, lemony nuttiness that is accentuated by toffee, spicy and fruity highlights.

A nicely textured creamy thickness tickles the top of the mouth to unfold the flavours that the aroma promised, with specifically the fruity, vanilla nuttiness being pronounced and seamlessly transition to a sweet and lingering finish.

Given that this variant is clocking in at a comparatively high ABV of 50%, especially the maturation in sherry casks shines through and making a smooth, moreish drop.

Let’s dial up things a notch or two, shan’t we?

With a name like The Big Smoke is does not prove to be difficult to colour me intrigued and as the name suggests, the origin is the island of Islay. Given the limited number of the distilleries that the geographical indication hints at, one was curious as to which one it could be.

The variant I tried is the tame 46% ABV one, which on the nose lives up to its name, i.e. woody smoke tickles the nostrils before giving way to oaky, syrupy saline and nutty notes.

On the palate things get interesting as peat takes on a prominent role, framed by meaty, briny and oak undertones, with counterpoints of sweet and spicy notes shining through.

I specifically like the elongated finish which marries the idiosyncratic maritime climate of Islay’s coast with woody, oaky ash notes.

A wonderful expression with a name that is not misleading and one that makes me long for the cask strength version.

Now, just when I thought that I had reached the pinnacle of lip-smacking goodness, I was offered a glimpse into the much fabled about The Dimensions Collection from Duncan Taylor Scotch Whisky, all of which have the common denominator of having been bottled at cask strength with a focus on the curation and selection of casks they matured in.

Being a lifelong fan of Laphroaig, I was over the moon when proffered the opportunity to sample the manna that is the light golden 16-Year-Old, bottle at cask strength of 55.7%.

With a bonfire tickling the nostrils, the complex aromas of maple syrup mix with Laphroaig trademark antiseptic, band-aid notes, which do not fail to elicit a Pavlovian response from me.

On the palate, the saline, seaweedy peatiness is married with salty ashyness, which culminates in warm, elongated leathery finish that reverberates warmly.

It is testament to Duncan Taylor’s craft that his is the closest it gets to having sampled close to two decades old Laphroaig straight from the cask and it set me on a path to explore Duncan Taylor’s version of distilleries I might have not given a chance in the past.

I hope that we will have the opportunity to zero in on Duncan Taylor’s Octave Collection with a future instalment of this series.

Anselm Kiefer - Gallerie Thaddaeus Ropac

I was recently asked what I like so much about Anselm Kiefer.

A simple question, yet not that easy to answer: Ever since I first laid eyes on Kiefer’s Wege der Weltweisheit: Die Hermannsschlacht, I felt his art reverberate deep inside the nether regions of my DNA in a manner that resembled a feeling of connectedness. A connectedness that I am now able to indulge in on a weekly basis after my runs as the woodcut is being exhibited in the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

I felt a charge, was intrigued from the get-go and throughout my travels and stints on different continents made sure to pilgrimage to wherever I could experience Kiefer’s multi-faceted, sometimes melancholic and often confrontational emissions in the flesh.

Experiencing Anselm Kiefer’s artwork in the third dimension is akin to unlocking atavisms inside of me – it provides a veil to give form to incomprehensible abstract concepts that make perfect sense, yet I would find myself hard-pressed to put into words. This includes not only adding depth and dimensions to the significance and effects of historical events but also phenomena that might sound odd to the uninitiated, e.g. experiencing the cosmological aspects of sunflowers or receiving information radiating from within the materials used for his art.

It would be difficult to recommend a starting point to venture into Kiefer’s cosmos as in the past forty years, his artistic endeavours could not be more varied, layered and symbolic and some meant to remain literal “works in progress”, i.e. the materials being highly textured and tactile with the underlying intent for the individual components to interact, disintegrate and eventually dissolve.

Born in 1945 and having been a student of Joseph Beuys, the exploration of Germany’s post-war identity has been a major theme throughout Kiefer’s work. However, what he channelled through his lens did not just stop with Germany’s fraught history but eventually started to encompass human history and rituals of memorialisation at large, which branched out into the artistic interpretation of cabalistic and religious concepts as well as channelling his deep connection with books and literature through his art, often using hand-written references and quotes to either accompany or juxtapose his artwork.

Needless to say that I was elated when I learned about Anselm Kiefer’s current exhibition being dedicated to a series inspired by one of Germany’s most prominent poets of the Middle Ages, i.e. Walther von der Vogelweide.

With this series being multi-layered in nature, the densely painted surfaces pictorially decipher, decode and balance the dichotomy of beauty and decay with von der Vogelweide’s poems serving as the guiding principle, anchoring each artwork and through symbiosis and evoking associations connected to historic, mythological and cultural events.

Not unlike with his previous incarnations, Kiefer actively resists to create affirmative art, which is further elaborated on in Galerie Ropac’s comprehensive catalogue, released to accompany the Walther von der Vogelweide exhibition, including illuminating commentary along with conversation between Anselm Kiefer and gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac.

Gallerist Thaddaeus Ropac has a long-standing history with Anselm Kiefer and while I have unfortunately not been able to visit any of their exhibitions or their galleries in Salzburg, Paris and London, the wonderful books that are still available from Ropac are an experience in themselves and give a carefully curated impression of what I have missed out on.

An example par excellence is the book that was published on the occasion of the exhibition Fu?r Andrea Emo, which not only details the monumental canvases and sculptures, but also includes extracts of Anselm Kiefer’s diary, shedding light on the thoughts that inspired the use of boiling lead on canvases to create a palimpsest illustrating the concepts of regeneration and destruction – themes that were inherent in Emo’s nihilistic reflections.

The exhibition Im Gewitter der Rosen and the accompanying book brings this expose full circle as apart from Arthur Rimbaud’s absinthe-tinged poetry and Ingeborg Bachmann’s prose work, one of the main leitmotifs is the aforementioned Walther von der Vogelweide.

In his idiosyncratic manner, Kiefer uses the metaphorical poems to inspire his storm-riddled, multi-layered sedimentary paintings, which at times look more like they were “dripped” rather than formally painted. The sculptures of this series see the recurring incorporation of sunflowers and glass against the backdrop of the firmament, evoking connections between natural forces as well as micro- and macroscopic concepts and on a grander scheme, the cycle of life.

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image from gallery website

The Formative Years – Where the Cold Things Were in the Eighties

Apart from the new world, Germany, Japan and the UK, Northern European countries when it came to exciting and genre coining bands with the realm of punk and hardcore during the cold war period. Specifically in the Eighties, bands from Nordic countries held a special appeal as they were not only linguistically unique but their uncompromising intensity and originality of their respective emissions was unrivalled and often went on to have more than a subtle influence on the way underground music evolved for years to come.

I am not necessarily proud to say that it was through Rock-O-Rama Records’ mail-order that I got introduced to the second album of Appendix from Finland, which was a gateway to Suomi hardcore at large.

With Appendix not exactly being on the rawest end of the spectrum and actually being quite melodic and well-versed in songwriting alternating faster with catchy slower songs compared to the vacuum cleaner core a lot of their contemporaries produced, I went on to track down their first LP on Propaganda Records from 1983, which was even more to my liking: An instant classic whose influence on other bands from the region cannot be overestimated.

Hooked on the exotic factor that is the aggressive sounding vowel-heavy agglutinating Finnish language, I ventured on to check out and love Riistetyt, who were exciting as they took the essence of what their equivalents from the UK, i.e. Discharge and Disorder, produced, boiled it down and turned it back up to 11 while being much rawer, yet catchier and less monotonous in the process. The fact that in terms of aesthetics they looked like a fairy-tale version of over-the-top studded, mohawked hardcore punks was the cherry on top.

Another Finnish band that perfectioned the melange of D-beat inspired rawness and early US hardcore were Terveet Kädet, who took things to the next level not just in terms of speed and precision, but also in terms of their screamed vocal delivery.

It was through the Cleanse the Bacteria and P.E.A.C.E. compilations that I heard a band from Sweden that instantaneously struck of chord: Mob 47 is to this day one of my all-time favourite bands of the genre. They lead me to bands like Anti-Cimex, whose signature sound of their outstanding “Victim of a bombraid” and “Raped ass” 7”s became the blueprint that inspires crust punk bands the world over to this day.

Norway must be one of the more overlooked European countries when it comes to quality hardcore punk in the Eighties.

Case is point: Bannylyst.

While many of the Scandinavian bands focussed on competing in terms of “faster, louder, harder than thou”-ethics and attempting to create as much dissonant noise as possible, Bannylyst were musically far ahead of their time as they fused the trademark Discharge aggression with more melodic riffing to create their very own, dare I say, more “sophisticated” sound, which while being catchy was not devoid at all of the angst and immediacy that was inherent in other bands that were less inclined to weave a tune into their noisy emissions. 

The torch of Bannylyst and their influence was carried on through the fantastic bands the ex-members formed, of which I had the fortune to witness So Much Hate in a live environment. Norwegian punk and hardcore is a treasure trove and I recommend digging deep, especially if Turbonegro is the only band that comes to your mind when thinking of the land of the midnight sun.

The Formative Years – The “Drop”

Having been socialized with German punk rock in my early teenage years, the excitement and dangerous aspects I derived from the music I was listening to was to no small extent based on lyrical content and on how radical the messages were.

Long before the echo-chamber that algorithms of the internet provided, it felt easy to determine some simple genre-related guidelines, which minimized the encounter of unwanted surprises when it came to collecting punk rock records.

Things changed when I was exposed to hardcore and thereby bands that tore down the traditional, stale versus-chorus format.

While some bands merely indulged in the credo of “harder, faster, louder”, which was an appealing proposition in itself, the lion’s share of bands I discovered excited me with their more dynamic songwriting and focus on rhythm instead of melody, as it offered a new level of intensity, specifically when it came to unpredictable abrupt tempo changes and the abrasiveness of the vocal delivery.

Things got interesting musically, when hardcore bands incorporated thrash elements as far as high output pickups, bass heaviness and D Beast drumming components were concerned, culminating in the joy that put a smile on my face nearly every time I encountered it: The wonderful effect achieved by guitarists letting chords ring out,  halving the time signature, often accompanied by the trademark four clicked precursor and mayhem that ensued after, i.e. the glorious mosh part.

The mid-nineties saw a transition of hardcore bands infusing their musical emissions with lower tuning, percussive focussed pedal tones, double bass drumming, blast beats and slow passages that elevated the intensity of the mosh parts to new heights.

At around the same time, my musical horizons broadened and apart from delving into Kraut rock, hip hop and through my girlfriend at the time and much to the horror of my peers, I explored EDM.

I found it fascinating that what she referred to as the “drop”, was not only very similar in nature to the mosh parts I loved in hardcore punk, but through the opportunities that electronic music offered, the moment where tension was released  could be calibrated to perfection.

While the absence of a “message” was at first a deterrent in my juvenile hardcore punk mind, going to hip hop shows raves and experiencing the energy released when after monumental build-ups as bass and rhythm hit hardest, was a joy that was reminiscent of the glory of a well-executed mosh part.  No matter the genre, it was providing the sound to becoming ignorant in the best way possible.

Over the years, the “drop” has remained when it comes to finding music appealing after the first listen – no matter if it was the shuffling beat that follows a full bass line in dubstep, the bounciness that ensues when main melodies converged on the foundation of a syncopated bassline in house music,, when beatmatching tracks where lead towards a synchronised climax in DJing or the monstrous breakdowns bands of the metalcore genre these days fabricate.

Thus Let Us Drink Beer – Bodriggy

Bodriggy must be the newest Australian brewery we are covering as part of this series and it was unbeknownst to me until very recently. Thing is once you see the eye-catching designs that adorn Bodriggy’s cans, you would understand that one would be hard pressed to not investigate further and be intrigued as to what their brewed emissions would taste like.

Bodriggy Brewing’s Utropia Pale Ale is a tour de force in terms of tropical flavours resulting from the marriage of Mosaic, Calypso and Azacca hops, framed by a dry, slightly bitter finish.

An IPA on the more exotic end of things is Bodriggy’s Thundercloud Sour IPA, which sees coconut and mango uniting to a melange that is topped by a delicate tartness. While this won’t be making a regular appearance on my IPA rotation, it was quite a nice way to mix things up, especially as it counterpointed the dram of Octomore 10.3 I paired it with.

Bodriggy Brewing’s Fuzzy Dance Explosion is quite a telling name as it is a sour that sends your tastebuds on a hazy rollercoaster ride through tingling juicy, acidic territory, derived from Galaxy and Sabro hops, which are pierced by citrussy and mandarin-esque highlights caused by Norwegian kveik yeast.

Bodriggy’s collaboration with Birdsnake MandyMuck is not only a mouthful of a name but also in literally every other aspect as it sees the brewery joining forces with Melbourne’s Birdsnake, who provide their ethically sourced cocoa to create a mid-strength brew heavily infused with juicy mandarin and lactose flavour notes that rest on a foundation of chocolate. The collaboration also saw both entities embark on creating some limited, formidable looking couture, which can be ordered through Bodriggy’s online shop.

Bodriggy’s Hazy Indoor Plant Sale WCIPA lives up to the impressions that the name and the again exotic looking artwork on the can would have you think: Tropical hop aromas galore on the citrussy mandarin-mangoed end of the spectrum with barely noticeable bitterness that comes in a thickly hazy body.

Bodriggy Brewing’s Blinker Dark Ale is their homage to the traditional dark ales of the old world and provides a nice counterpoint to the overly sweet and citrussy expressions with a focus on stouty, nutty caramel notes that are bookended by a nice dry finish.