Simon Bonney - Past Present Future (LP) - Gold Vinyl

You can hear a whole life in Simon Bonney’s voice. It’s wind‑scoured and steady, with a kind of patient empathy that never tips into melodrama. Past, Present, Future gathers that voice in one place and makes a quiet case for Bonney as one of the great Australian storytellers who wandered far from home to find his sound. Released by Mute in 2019, it pulls key moments from his solo albums Forever and Everyman, then threads in six previously unreleased songs that had sat in limbo since the late 90s. The result feels less like a compilation and more like a long, unbroken road.

Bonney is best known to some for fronting Crime & the City Solution, the Berlin‑era outfit that turned up in Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire, all cathedral reverb and apocalyptic romance. His solo work tilts toward a different horizon. The noise falls away, leaving hushed Americana, brushed drums, soft guitar lines and violin shading, and lyrics that move like letters written at the edge of sleep. Past, Present, Future lays that out cleanly. You can drop the needle almost anywhere and find him building small worlds out of simple images, trusting space and time to do the heavy lifting.

The unreleased material is the real hook. Bonney had started a third solo record in the United States in the late 90s, working out of Detroit, then stepped off the carousel for years to do humanitarian work in places like Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Those sessions finally see daylight here, and they sit naturally beside the early 90s tracks. Eyes of Blue is the obvious entry point, a slow‑burner that moves on a gentle pulse while his vocal rides above it like a lantern. Annabelle Lee draws on Poe, but Bonney doesn’t lean on the reference. He just sings it straight, letting the melody carry the ache. You can hear the same restraint that marked his best work with Crime, only now it’s framed by country hues and a weathered calm.

What keeps this from feeling like a museum piece is the sequencing. The set moves between eras without telegraphing it, so the late 90s Detroit songs flow into the earlier Mute recordings as if they were neighbours on the same street. The arrangements are spare and tactile. Acoustic guitars ring with a dry warmth. Piano appears only when needed. Strings slip in like a change in the light. Nothing tries to wow you. It breathes. If you’re the type who lives for little details, there are plenty. The way a backing vocal ghosts the chorus, the shuffle of the snare just behind the beat, the quiet resolve he finds at the edge of a line.

Bonney’s writing focuses on ordinary lives in moments of pressure. People leaving town, people waiting for news, people deciding whether to forgive. He never punches the message. He just puts you in the room. That patience has won him a modest but fiercely loyal following, and this record makes it easy to hear why. It also fits neatly on the shelf next to other Australian expats who fell for American forms and made them their own. You can imagine a Melbourne record store staffer steering a Nick Cave fan to this and watching a whole new attachment form.

If you collect, Past, Present, Future vinyl is the way to live with it. The pacing suits a side A, side B kind of listen, where you let a set of songs take an hour of your evening and slow your breathing. Simon Bonney vinyl doesn’t flood the bins, so when you see a copy, grab it. And if you’re hunting around late at night, you can always buy Simon Bonney records online. It sits well among those of us building shelves of understated treasures, the ones that reward a second glass and a quiet room. For anyone searching “Simon Bonney albums on vinyl” or even browsing vinyl records Australia, this is a gentle, enduring pick that never shouts for your attention. It just holds it, and keeps holding it, long after the runout groove.