The BEND is Fane Flaws (songs, guitar, vocals), Peter Dasent, (songs, arrangements, keys) and Tony Backhouse (songs, arrangements, vocals, guitar), who have been collaborating musically for over forty years, including Spatz, the Crocodiles, I Am Joes’s Music and Blessed Relief. While pursuing their varied separate careers (Fane: video and film director, visual artist; Peter: film and TV music, children’s music; Tony: a cappella quartets and choirs) they have meanwhile created a body of work that leaps genres and confounds expectations. The first Bend album was The Underwater Melon Man and other Unreasonable Rhymes (1999) — not just a CD but a children’s book and DVD (and NZ stage show).
The BEND’s 2021 album is We Disappear, our album of songs written from selected poems by legendary NZ poet Sam Hunt. This strange project begin 1987 with iconic NZ drummer Bruno Lawrence on the kit (his last known sessions), a very young Jonathan Zwartz, fresh from the Sydney Conservatorium, on double bass and guest vocalist the late, great Rick Bryant joining Fane, Tony and Peter in the studio, resulting in six songs in the can.
After that the wheels fell off and financial and personal issues meant the project was first shelved, then lost. Twenty-five years later, the tapes were unearthed by Peter during a spring clean. Another six songs were written and the original band reassembled (minus Bruno who had by then physically disappeared), with Sydney drummer Hamish Stuart becoming the new Bruno and part of the family. By this time Jonathan had become a standout musician/composer in the world of Australian jazz and his masterful playing is a highlight of the record. The album also includes wonderful contributions by notable Australian and NZ artists including James Greening, Virna Sanzone, Lisa Spence, Jenny Morris, Margot Pierard, Anton Wuts, Nick Bollinger, Ross Burge, Craig Walters and Andrew Delahunty.
We Disappear, lovingly designed by Fane and pressed at Pallas in Germany, comes in a double gatefold sleeve with:
1. a 10 track 12’’ album on white vinyl
2. a ‘double A side’ 10” single on black vinyl with its own cover art
3. a 36 page booklet with sleeve-notes, photographs and illustrated lyrics
— and is also available as a CD with 24 page booklet with sleeve-notes, photographs and lyrics.
The vinyl set is available in NZ from Rockstuff.
The BEND on Bandcamp: https://thebend2.bandcamp.com/releases
My White Ship from We Disappear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2lkMMNIIo8
The BEND: Unboxing the We Disappear set: https://youtu.be/_vgx3gI0-1U
Beware The Man single sleeve.
(Beware The Man was also the title track of the 1972 album of Sam Hunt poems by Mammal and Sam Hunt. Members of Mammal included Tony Backhouse and Rick Bryant. )