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File: This is BEATRIFUL Sessions.

Host: Episode fourteen: All I Wanted Was to Eat My Sushi, disc two, the half called Locked In. If you haven't heard disc one, go back. It's the same two people, and it matters what they have already been through. SizzleC, where are we?

Sizzle: Melbourne, mostly. Disc one was airports and borders. On disc two the world shuts, and the two of them are stuck with a city, an apartment, and each other. And there's a new arrival.

Host: The dog.

Sizzle: A little black Pomeranian. She's called Tina until she's called Sushi. From here on she's the third voice on the album. She can't talk, so the songs do it for her.

Host: Ten more incidents.

Sizzle: Ten more, told flat, same as before. A quarantine hotel, a bathtub, a curfew, a seagull, a stolen laptop, a courtroom on a screen. And then it ends, quietly.

11 · Quarantine Suite (Flushing Salmon Down the Drain)

Sizzle: Hotel quarantine in Melbourne, day seven of fourteen. Three thousand dollars for a room with sealed glass. A paper bag of cold food outside the door every morning at eight, a nurse with a clipboard, a big plush bear in the corner chair. Slow and dark, piano and cellos. She's whispering.

[song 11 — 11-quarantine-suite-flushing-salmon-down-th-take1.mp3]

Host: She flushes the salmon.

Sizzle: Every day. And the microwave eggs go straight in the bin. The bridge is the loneliest thing on the album. A seagull comes to the window ledge and stares at her for an hour, and she says: I think he's the only one who knows I'm in here. Remember the seagull. He comes back, and he is not as kind.

12 · Tina's Bathtub Leap (Black Pom Splints)

Sizzle: Three in the morning. A black puppy, a little cloud of fluff, in a marble bath. She gets scared of the drain, takes one leap through the steam, and breaks both front legs on the tile. Eight thousand dollars on the credit card, a surgeon in scrubs, two pink splints. Baroque pop, harpsichord and plucked strings.

[song 12 — 12-tina-s-bathtub-leap-black-pom-splints-take1.mp3]

Host: It's a sad story, and it's played like a cabaret number.

Sizzle: Tragicomic. It's the only honest way to tell it. You blamed me for the slippery floor, I blamed you for the tub design, while the puppy whines. They're arguing over whose fault it is with the patient in the room. And then the small line in the bridge. She didn't mean to jump, she was just afraid. That is about more than the dog.

13 · The Five-Kilometer Bubble

Sizzle: Melbourne's hard lockdown. You could go five kilometres from your front door, and there was a curfew at eight. So: a red circle on the map, cones across the highway, a forged letter on a letterhead, a helicopter spotlight, an empty tram on an empty street. Post-punk, a motor beat at a hundred and thirty. She's driving.

[song 13 — 13-the-five-kilometer-bubble-take1.mp3]

Host: Does she make it home?

Sizzle: Seven fifty-eight. Two minutes before the siren. Made it to the basement, turn the engine off. I like this one because the city turns into a game board. And notice where she is racing to. Gotta reach the Docklands anyhow. Everything on this disc bends toward that one address.

14 · Seagull Swallows the Rat

Sizzle: Noon, on a timber pier at Victoria Harbour. A seagull on a mooring post, a limping rat with nowhere to run, and one snap of a yellow beak. Head first. No chewing. Hard industrial techno at a hundred and thirty-six, the heaviest thing on the album. And then she turns to him and asks the question.

[song 14 — 14-seagull-swallows-the-rat-take2.mp3]

Host: Who's the bird, and who's the prey.

Sizzle: That's you and me in this lockdown game. She calls it an omen, out loud. Everything gets consumed here. Nothing survives without swallowing someone whole. And her last line is for him. Down in one, just like you. After that, the album can't go back to being funny about the two of them.

15 · 915 Collins Street (The Ghost Penthouse)

Sizzle: The Docklands, level twenty-two. Eleven thousand dollars up front, three months in advance, because they don't believe her. A mattress on the floor of an empty apartment, flat-pack boxes against the wall, a view of the yacht dock. Neo-noir electro pop, cool and controlled. She is alone in this one.

[song 15 — 15-915-collins-street-the-ghost-penthouse-take2.mp3]

Host: He's only a voice on the phone.

Sizzle: Asking who's going to pay for it. And she answers him in the bridge. I'm turning twenty-two in an empty room, ordering the sushi in the afternoon. Don't tell me how to spend what I earned myself. I don't need a saviour, I don't need a friend. It's the first time on the album she isn't asking him for anything.

16 · Possum Trap (The Midnight Scan)

Sizzle: The suburbs. A back sliding door slips open in the wind, and the dog is gone. Four days of searching through storm scrub. A metal possum trap hired from the council, a can of tuna by the fence, torchlight on a drain. Slow trip hop over a fingerpicked guitar. She's whispering again.

[song 16 — 16-possum-trap-the-midnight-scan-take1.mp3]

Host: Tell me the dog is all right.

Sizzle: At dawn there's a shadow in the cage, and it isn't a possum. Green eyes, wide. The microchip number matches the certificate. Then she's crying in the clinic car park, against the steering wheel, and the lyric says relief was the only thing she could feel. She was shaking, Chris. Covered in burrs and mud. She ate three cans in ten minutes.

17 · The Stolen MacBooks of Docklands

Sizzle: A courier leaves a brand new laptop by the mailboxes. A stranger signs for it. Thirty minutes later it's gone. Then a tracking app bouncing between towers, a locked account, photos syncing to another country, and a recovery key written on a napkin in Berlin. Acid house, a hundred and twenty-six, the bass line squelching. He does the talking. She sends voice notes.

[song 17 — 17-the-stolen-macbooks-of-docklands-take2.mp3]

Host: The napkin is gone.

Sizzle: The napkin is gone. Then bypass the cloud. You can't bypass the cloud. It's the comedy number of disc two, and it is also the two of them exactly. He's buried in a technological avalanche, trying to fix it. She says: I don't care about the computer, order me another one, I have an assignment due tomorrow.

18 · The Hague Protocol (No Smiling on Camera)

Sizzle: A video call. A mediator in The Hague opens with the rules. A quiet room. No music. No third parties. And no smiling on camera: this is a formal court procedure. Six copies of a settlement, initials on every page. Minimal techno, dry and clicking, like a clock.

[song 18 — 18-the-hague-protocol-no-smiling-on-camera-take1.mp3]

Host: This is the end of the marriage.

Sizzle: Crossed the border as a husband, leaving as a friend. Billed at thirty minutes. She's in her nightie at eleven at night, biting her lip so she won't laugh. Signed with a click. Faster than an argument, faster than a drink. Six years of emergencies, and the ending takes half an hour, and nobody is allowed to smile.

19 · Mochi & The Trump Bear

Sizzle: Two soft toys. A plush called Mochi, and a novelty bear with a red tie and golden plastic hair, bought as a joke at a gas station. They went through customs in a carry-on bag. They sat on hotel floors while the angry words were said. A lullaby, a warped music box, sixty beats a minute.

[song 19 — 19-mochi-the-trump-bear-take1.mp3]

Host: He tried to throw the bear away.

Sizzle: In a lobby bin. She pulled him back out and brushed off his chin. Two little witnesses, made of polyester. We broke all the promises that humans like to make, but toys never hurt you, toys never break. When she moved out, she left the furniture, the dishes, the keys on the bench. Mochi is still in her bag.

20 · Dream Realm (Dead Numbers)

Sizzle: Twenty twenty-five. He sends a few silly words to six disconnected numbers, just to see if anything goes through. And then a message arrives from a new account. She had a dream about an old photograph. A slow ballad, strings and a celesta. It ends on a borrowed verse: he speaks the words of Enjoy the Silence, the Depeche Mode song.

[song 20 — 20-dream-realm-dead-numbers-take2.mp3]

Host: How does it end for them?

Sizzle: She's twenty-seven, looking at the bay. The puppy they dreamed about is sitting by the door. The bear he tried to throw away is on her bookshelf. We survived the fire, we survived the cold. The long chaotic race is finally won. Nobody gets back together. They both just made it.

Close

Host: Twenty songs. What do you want people to hear in it?

Sizzle: That it's all small. A corn cob, a bath, a napkin, a plate of sushi. Nobody on this album does anything grand. Two people get each other through a strange few years, badly, and then they let go. I think that's most love stories. They just don't usually come in this many genres.

Host: All I Wanted Was to Eat My Sushi.

File: The album, the covers, and the videos as they finish, are at beatriful dot com. This has been BEATRIFUL Sessions.