If you were downstairs at the Oxford Art Factory (OAF) last Friday night, you were knee-deep in an ocean of leather jackets and berets. A crowd as full as it was well-dressed, an inner west scene transplanted directly to Darlinghurst like a visual from God Help The Girl (2014). One could very easily, for instance, elbow someone in a penny lane jacket or knitted scarf, and the apologies were succinct. In fact, unbeknownst to them or not, all four members of The Afterthoughts (Ruby and Oscar Firmstone, Alfie Jellett, and Martin O’Flynn,) were in button-down shirts. Très chic. This was perhaps, subconsciously, a nod to the pursuit of connectivity that these musicians sang to us about, for when the time came for The Afterthoughts to grace us with their new single, lead woman Ruby Firmstone made a dedication.
Their new single, ‘Horses and Courtney’, was dedicated to the great female musicians who have inspired Firmstone’s creative process. Horses, in reference to Patti Smith’s eponymous 1975 album, and Courtney, directly referencing Australian musician Courtney Barnett. More than just collective inspiration, Firmstone mentioned that these musicians were among the many that her mother had introduced her to. She spoke with me briefly after the set, explaining how the song was written about a year ago for her mother’s 50th birthday, a piece of love.
And was it not just that? The song itself was big enough to reach everybody in the room — a dance-worthy number recalling sounds of classic Australian indie pop meets the sly soundtracked nature of a Belle and Sebastian song. Suffice to say, it was a tune that had character, a character that had the whole band smiling, and us smiling astride them. There was a softness to the whole set that evoked a kind of nostalgia for the sound reaffirmed by the band’s cover of Stella Donnely’s ‘Tricks’ halfway through the set.
Having both Firmstone and Alfie Jellet on vocals is, arguably, what grants The Afterthoughts their own sound. The masculine and feminine vocals make for a conversational, two-way creative interaction rather than something of the unilateral kind. It is not just one thing or another: many coexisting simultaneously. This is clear from the cover art for ‘Horses and Courtney’, by Evan Salmon, which lends itself to a semi-cubist, curious, and childlike image halfway between a painting and a collage.
It seems as though The Afterthoughts are always the in-between. Do they have a masculine or feminine sound? Childlike nostalgia or adult misgivings? Painting or collage? Even the abstraction of the ‘Horses and Courtney’ cover gives the song and sound a type of liminality. Perhaps a kind of Pandora’s box? Giving away nothing if the interior. Salmon’s semi-blended thick paint strokes recalling jovial finger painting, while frequent attempts are still made to maintain some form of perspective… is this not what an afterthought is?
Memory obscured by the means of heady, truth-wielding finger painting over what we knew, what we know. Ultimately, The Afterthoughts are a band who know what they are doing and what they sound like. And when a band knows what, or who they are, the audience can connect to them. It is conversational. It is colloquial. It is the woman I overheard in the bathroom saying “I don’t know who they are but they sound great,” and the front-row veterans and myself committed to dancing in a too-cool-to-show-I-like-the-music-beyond-a-head-nod crowd.
Want to hear more of The Afterthoughts? You can listen to their new single, ‘Horses and Courtney’ here.
