Each month Bass Player has a small column called "Unsung Bass Stylists", profiling, in their words, "underrated bassists who have developed highly distinctive styles, focusing on one record that contains some of the player's most inspired and memorable work."

This month it's Kilbey, and the album is Starfish. Here's the text (below a cover shot of Starfish in the mag):

STEVE KILBEY (with the Church) - STARFISH [Arista]

"Kilbey's bass lines perfectly complement the smooth, textural grooves of the Church. On the verses of 'Under the Milky Way', Steve accents the guitar-and-kick-drum rhythm with a repeated descending riff, using non-root tones that create interesting harmonic inversions. On 'Reptile', the bass and guitar each leave a lot of space; Kilbey carefully places the melodic figures of his line in between the vocal phrases. And on 'Hotel Womb', he uses common tones from chord to chord, making the changes considerably more subtle. This is Kilbey's signature: adding melodic fills and creating harmonic textures without ever spoiling the song with misplaced licks or showy solos."

(written by Eric Wise, Bass Player Magazine, October 1997; reprinted without permission but with the best of intentions...)

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