Mick Harvey - One Man's Treasure / Two Of Diamonds (2LP) - Gold Vinyl

Mick Harvey’s third and fourth solo albums feel like they were made to sit together on a turntable. One Man’s Treasure from 2005 and Two Of Diamonds from 2007 were the moment he stepped out of the shadow of his Gainsbourg translations and into his own slow-burn world, where a voice like weathered leather carries stories across low-lit rooms. Collected here as a double set on Mute, they read like two sides of one long conversation. One leans inward, the other looks up at the street, and both show a songwriter and arranger who knows exactly how much to leave out.

If you know Harvey from The Birthday Party and Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, this is a different kind of intensity. He still has the keen ear for atmosphere, but he swaps the Bad Seeds’ dramatic surge for something quieter. On One Man’s Treasure the arrangements glow rather than roar. Brushed drums, murmuring bass, a ribbon of organ or piano, a guitar line that hangs in the air, that is the palette. He treats other writers’ songs like found photographs, framing them with care rather than repainting the whole image. His take on Mano Negra’s Out of Time Man is the most famous example, a sly, clock-ticking shuffle that later landed in Breaking Bad and sent new listeners hunting for the source. It is emblematic of the set, respectful yet stamped with his tone, as if the song had always been waiting for this particular baritone to tell it.

Two Of Diamonds keeps the same restraint but lets more light in. The tempos nudge forward, the guitars pick with a little more daylight, and the song choices widen the map. Harvey’s gift is curation as much as composition. He finds corners of the repertoire that fit his voice and writes his way into them, or writes originals that sit so neatly beside them you forget where the join is. Across both records you can hear the long apprenticeship of a producer and multi-instrumentalist who has learned to trust silence, to let a cymbal decay, to leave a vocal dry so that a single line lands with the weight of memory. The sequencing across this combined edition makes that patience feel deliberate, as if the two albums were designed to meet in the middle.

Harvey has spoken often about inhabiting a song rather than simply covering it, and that approach defines these recordings. He tends to sing just behind the beat, which gives everything a late-night pull, and he uses harmony sparingly, often letting a single counter-voice arrive only when the lyric turns. The effect is intimate, like a conversation at the end of a long evening. When the arrangements expand, they do so with purpose. A swell of strings, a tremolo guitar shiver, a piano figure that answers the vocal, each choice feels tied to the words.

You can also hear how these albums bridge his catalogue. The Gainsbourg projects gave him the translator’s tools, the habit of drilling into mood and metre. Later albums, Sketches from the Book of the Dead and Four, would lean harder into original writing. One Man’s Treasure and Two Of Diamonds sit in the hinge between, and that is part of their charm. They make a case for Harvey as a song whisperer, someone who can walk a piece from one room to another without losing its temperature.

On vinyl this pairing comes to life. The mixes breathe, the low end blooms, and the small percussive details, a stick click, a tambourine scrape, stand up in the stereo field. If you are hunting for Mick Harvey vinyl, this double set is the one that always seems to disappear first from the new arrivals bin. One Man’s Treasure vinyl and Two Of Diamonds vinyl turn up as a handsome Mute 2LP from time to time, and if you prefer to buy Mick Harvey records online, it is worth pouncing when you see it. Fans who already own his earlier translations will find this set an easy step. Newcomers who have only heard his work with the Bad Seeds will get a clear picture of the songwriter behind the arrangements.

These records also sit neatly in the Australian story. Harvey’s sensibility, dry-eyed and unsentimental, feels very Melbourne, where shadows and streetlight live side by side. Walk into any Melbourne record store and you will spot at least one staffer who will talk your ear off about these albums, how the restraint draws you closer with each play. For anyone browsing vinyl records Australia wide, this is a reliable blind buy, a late-night companion that rewards slow listening.

Taken together, One Man’s Treasure and Two Of Diamonds show how craft can be its own drama. No fireworks, no posturing, just songs kept at the perfect temperature, every element placed with the calm confidence of a lifer. That is why this set endures, and why Mick Harvey albums on vinyl keep finding new homes on shelves that already look full.