Louis Tillett
A Cast of Aspersions

Two months ago, on August 6, 2023, Louis Tillett went elsewhere forever to pound on his black and white keys. He was 64 years old. The man in black of Australian rock, the lone wolf of the Sydney independent scene, enriched with his keyboard the albums of Celibate Rifles, Died Pretty, Laughing Clowns, and New Christs; he collaborated with Leonard Cohen and Brian Eno; he worked with Charlie Owen, Tex Perkins, and Nick Cave (who described Louis as “a pioneer who has been an inspiration to many of us”).

Starting in 1987, perhaps tired of simply being the fingers on a keyboard in other people's records, he released seven albums under his own name. And from his debut album Ego Tripping at the Gates of Hell, he demonstrated his abilities as a composer of complex and intelligent songs, in addition to his already well-known skills as an excellent pianist and saxophonist.

A Cast Of Aspersions - A Series of Aspersions - is his second album and a strange collection of stories sung with his deep voice. It is a powerful mix of swamp-blues, rock, and jazz, and like all of Tillett's albums, it is a record where different atmospheres converge.

From “Carousel” - the opening of the album, a lively western ballad with a typical down under flair - to the poisoned blues of “Condemned To Live” (the only single in his discography), in which Tillett wears the hood of an affiliate and pours onto the listener the spite and bile of the Ku Klux Klan, lighting up the night sky with a white cross set ablaze by the flames of hatred. "I was pretty sure people would think it was a pro-Klan song,” Louis declared, "which of course it isn’t. Speaking in the first person makes this song much more powerful. It’s much more unpleasant to have a Klan member rant at you than someone singing that the Klan is bad.”

From the whimsical Julian Cope-style pop of “Dig It Up,” to the dark shadows of “From Me to You,” an elegant jazz-blues ballad, brightened by the ever-present brass section, which also lightens up the varied textures of “Liferaft.”

From “Long Walk Home,” classy Rock’n’soul, to “Children of the Cave,” an eerie murder ballad, made even more sinister by a possessed crooner-like singing, by steep guitar solos, by creaks and haunted house noises.

The grand finale is entrusted to “Midnight Witch,” a sumptuous R&B for great occasions.

A Cast of Aspersions is one of the highest expressions of Australian auteur rock, where, in this domain, if Nick Cave is Castor, Louis Tillett - as different as he may be - is certainly the twin Pollux.