THE FUTURE IS NOW
42 | Rolling Stone | RollingStoneAus.com September, 2017SOUNDS LIKE:Moody, introspec-
tive indie rock that gets right
under your skin
FOR FANS OF: Elliott Smith, Neu-
tral Milk Hotel, the Flaming Lips
WHY YOU SHOULD PAY ATTEN-
TION: Championed by taste-
making label I Oh You (home to
Violent Soho and DZ Deathrays),
Brightness is the solo outlet
of Alex Knight, who suddenly
found himself back in his native
Newcastle after years in London
drumming for English/Australian
act Kins. Recorded on borrowed
instruments and gear just before
he left the UK, his debut album
Teething is the culmination ofhome recording he s been doing
since he was a teenager. Sloshing
between intimate musings and
thorny distortion, the richly lay-
ered record echoes the extremes
of his own diverse taste, which
fi nds him listening to everything
from Nails and Code Orange to
k.d. Lang and Sade. That’s clear
in the organic contrast beneath
unguarded ballads (the romantic
“Waltz”), exploratory instru-
mentals (“Blow Fly”, “Reprise”),
dreamy pop (“Surrender”, “Holy
John”) and brooding rock-outs
(“Silver Birch”, “Queen Bee”).
HE SAYS: “I learned a lot about
the craft during that time,”Knight says of his run in Kins,
which included tours of the US
and Europe.
Apart from some pedal steel
and bass, he played everything
on Teething himself, though he’s
since assembled a four-piece ver-
sion of Brightness that honours
the album’s textured blend of
acoustic and electric guitar.
As for the personal rawness of
certain lyrics, which track the
diffi culties of getting through
everyday life, he saw no reason
to shy away from it at the time.
“I honestly didn’t anticipate
that many people hearing it,”
he admits, though he now feelsbetter “for having these things
on record”. With another album’s
worth of songs already written
and demoed, he’s ready to work
with a producer in a proper
studio next time. And while he
had doubts about returning to
Australia, Knight acknowledges
that the move has worked out
nicely for his one-time bedroom
project. Laughing, he says, “This
is the most seriously I’ve taken it
since high school.”
HEAR FOR YOURSELF:
“Oblivion” unites all of Teething’s
varied impulses into a roughly
pretty earworm that both lilts and
lurches. DOUG WALLENBrightness