Jackie Leven interviewed on 'Brain Massage' PBS FM 1999 (audio only)

A good 21 minutes of studio conversation with two live pieces, broadcast in Steve G. Mileham's programme “Brain Massage” on 3PBS FM Melbourne; the presenter uploaded the recording in 2022 under his stage name Owlsley Burroughs. Leven is on his second Australian trip, shortly after the first: by his own account he has come straight from a television programme with Bert Newton and goes back there afterwards, was at WOMADelaide and the Port Fairy Folk Festival, plays in Melbourne at the Continental and the Dan O'Connell, and travels on to WOMAD offshoots in Johannesburg and Auckland. He raves about Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham, says “Night Lilies” was made with “ruthless military precision”, explains the album title by the scent of night lilies on a Greek island that reminded him of a railway embankment in Scotland, and interprets the album as an arc spanning some 30 years of memory. He plays “Sick Harbour Lament” (the record company wanted to shorten the title) and, at the end, a second piece, tells the story of how “Elvis Green” came about (an American woman with a green vintage car, an interest in buying it on David Gilmour's part, her death the same night), describes the tension between dark lyrics and light music using Chet Baker as an example, and names John Cale/Terry Riley's “Church of Anthrax” as a model for “Carnival Dark”. Tone: relaxed promotional conversation rich in anecdotes; all stories are self-reports.