The Stars My Destination

It’s been nearly five years since the release of Ben Salter’s debut album The Cat in 2011. Since then, Salter has been anything but idle, as you would expect from a man who has performed on over thirty albums and EPs and written over 200 songs in over fifteen years of service in the Australian music industry, both solo and with bands such as Giants of Science, The Gin Club, The Young Liberals and The Wilson Pickers. In winter last year Salter decamped to Prior Park, the cattle property in central Queensland where the last three Gin Club albums were recorded. He bought with him Dan Luscombe (Paul Kelly, The Drones, Courtney Barnett) as producer/guitarist/keyboard player, as well as fellow Gin Clubbers Adrian Stoyles and Gus Agars on bass and drums respectively. Over the course of seven days, Salter’s vision slowly came together, the band playing a large part in which songs ended up making the cut. The results speak for themselves, a selection of tracks very much rooted in the melodic head-space of good pop music, but each with a somewhat unconventional sensibility. Songs like ‘Boat Dreams’, all jagged electric guitars and thunderous drums, sit alongside more introspective pieces like ‘I Gotta Move’, with its slide guitar and stirring string fugue; the oddly time signature and blistering sax of ‘Vile Rat’; the haunting acoustic balladry of ‘Parrot Day’; and the epic Velvet Underground-esque space-rock of the title track. It is Salter’s most ambitious statement to date.