For most artists, releasing music in 2024 requires a degree of untethering.
A piece of art, carefully, passionately made, is released into a world of smoke-and mirror algorithms and endless finger scrolls. For some, months-long PR strategies, and the production time of 10 different glow in the dark vinyl colourways are the real determinators of an album’s release. Making and releasing music is, on its face, more accessible than ever; but that desire to make an impact, to break above the noise, often requires such dirty deals with the devil(s). What do we lose when we surrender that initial creative impulse, and are separated from that thing we made that we care so much about?
A title and a mission statement, Courage to Detour and Patience to Wait is the first full length album by “transient ambient” band Worlds Only. A supergroup of Sydney musicians/creatives/friends, they unfussily write and keep to the rules of their own creation. Technically their actual first release was a compilation of one-offs, rarities and collaborations among the groups’ broader musical communities and ecosystems. Courage to Detour and Patience To Wait, however, was recorded in full during two back to back, largely improvisational performances at Phoenix Central Park in Sydney – their debut as a band.
It captures a sense of liminality that improvisational and live music uniquely can capture – what’s possible just in this moment now, where might we end up 30 minutes from now? Sonically, Courage to Detour and Patience To Wait reads like a series of testing pulses: the post-rock inspired, acoustic strumming of Alister Hill, the otherworldly, impossibly omnipresent vocals of Wytchings/Jenny Trinh and steady but cavernous bass vibrations of Reginald Harris all feel like consistent, slowly building waves.
You can feel those members of Worlds Only examining and building upon each other in real time – the spoken word of Darren Lesaguis, in fact often posed throughout the record in direct questions, “What even makes a mirror? / Is it Mercury?”. Vangelis-esque saxophone wisps of Tzekin/Justin Tam and the genreless electronic wizardry of T. Morimoto/Thomas William Smith help push the piece, slowly, gradually towards the concussive conclusion of ‘Mercury’ – as if the band has solved it, unlocked the question posed itself, collapsing each individual member into a thrilling, ascendant catharsis of united noise.
Courage to Detour and Patience To Wait was released via the Internet Archive – in the band’s words, “selected as the premiere digital distribution network that’s home to classics such as the DJ Screw mixology and Collarbones Waiting for the Ghosts.” Despite the tongue-in-cheek-ness of uploading your debut album alongside Criterion Collection WEBRips, there’s an ethos driving this, and everything Worlds Only do. Sydney’s a funny city – world class gems lay hidden in pages of dusty community radio websites, or in the chats of smoko areas at bowling club DIY shows. Maybe that’s actually ok. We can find something special in that immediacy, that transient and liminal space – especially when we bring each other along. The special energy of that overpacked night at Phoenix Central Park had a transcendent, electric feeling – but it was also just some friends jamming. Let’s capture more of that.
Words by Lindsay Riley