"My last two records, with Steve Kilbey producing (1996's Escapist and 1994's Falling Swinger), were all atmospheres and soundscapes," Stephen says. "I wanted all that to change with this record. I really wanted to make more of an acoustic record. Simple and to the point. It's really the thing of the song and the singer, in-your-face and immediate, but also warm."

The best records are something like a knock on the door. You answer and find it's not the Seventh Day Adventists or the guy come to read the gas meter but a friend whose very presence lightens your load. You invite them in and, of course, they take advantage of your welcoming nature and stay around forever. This is one of those records.

Before he started recording "Spiritual Bum" Stephen Cummings stated (in the presence of reliable witnesses) "It's time to make another really great album." His past couple of records had been made in Sydney with Steve Kilbey and it seemed time to return to Melbourne (though he'd never really been away); quite literally to come home to a studio assembled in his back shed in Caulfield. Though the subject matter had not changed (in Stephen's words "love and the failures of mature life") these latest songs seemed to demand the down home approach - simple, emotional and direct; the kind of recording where the musicians and the singer sound like they're in the room with you, not in a shiny high-tech studio.

The twelve songs on "Spiritual Bum" range from a delicate ballad with backing from acoustic guitar and Wurlitzer only to full band workouts that recall the swagger of the Faces at their very best, and a song Stephen thinks of as "the White Album meets Al Green". They are populated by a range of characters (or is it just one in differing moods?) - the guy in the bar "drinking the heart out of the afternoon" who eventually realizes it's "such luck to be alive"; the person cradling his child (or lover, we're not quite sure) thinking "nobody ever could ever feel this way"; and in case we forgot "oh, and one more thing, don't talk to me about love".