Buried deep in love, buried deep and resurrected over 13 years to a glorious nostalgia, LOVE IN BRIGHT LANDSCAPES – The Story of David McComb of The Triffids – is a labour of love made over a 13-year period. It is the highly impressive first film by Melbourne writer/director Jonathan Alley, who, through a collage of family photographic material, archival footage, music clips and talking head interviews, charts a cinematic cartography through the tragedy and triumph of McComb’s short, driven, passionate life.

David’s music, poetry, letters, and unseen family-archives lays claim to the legacy of a remarkable talent gone too soon, a result of congenital heart disease and the rock n roll life style of drugs and booze.

Featuring DBC Pierre, Martyn P Casey, Mat Snow, Adam Peters, Jill Birt, Graham Lee, Robert McComb, Alsy McDonald, Phil Kakulas, Paul Kelly, Stephen Street, Nick Mainsbridge, Lenny Kaye and Niall Lucy, LOVE IN BRIGHT LANDSCAPES is a compelling story of music and muse, the seeking of unattainable parental approval and the destructive side of the creative process.

In The Triffids’ 1986 masterpiece,Born Sandy Devotional, he proclaimed a new Australian voice: a poetically inspired vocabulary cast against desolation and broken hearts in the bright expanse. But McComb’s health faltered and after a heart transplant in 1996, he died in 1999, days short of his 37th birthday – leaving a slew of unanswered questions and unrecorded songs.

LOVE IN BRIGHT LANDSCAPES reveals the man behind the songs – via beautifully restored 35mm slides, delightfully evocative home movies and heart-rending interviewees with colleagues, family, and friends. McComb’s poetry and newly discovered letters are read by Australian-born Man Booker Prize winning novelist DBC Pierre, interwoven with excerpts from seventy-five songs.

A great way to discover or rediscover one of Australia’s most remarkable songwriters, LOVE IN BRIGHT LANDSCAPES is a fitting tribute to a maverick music maker.