FEATURE ALBUM REVIEWS

CHARLES JENKINS RADIO SKETCHES 2 – THE DEATH OF STARS

Independent/Bandcamp

What’s the saddest song of all time? Split Enz’s ‘I Hope I Never’? Sinead O’Connor’s ‘Nothing Compares 2 U’? Eric Clapton’s ‘Tears In Heaven’? Anyone who has listened to the Icecream Hands can attest that Charles Jenkins knows how to write a nifty pop tune. But the Melbourne songman is also adept at tugging on your heartstrings. For proof, just check out ‘Autumn Fall’ on his Blue Atlas album, which he often introduces as “the saddest song ever written”. Jenkins’ new record – his 21st studio album – opens with a track called ‘The Many Moods of Love’. I listened to it on repeat for a whole afternoon. In the end, I wasn’t quite sure what the lyric was about. But I was moved by its sadness every single time. It’s a melancholic minor masterpiece. For those not familiar with the concept behind the Radio Sketches records: Jenkins does a segment on Jonnie von Goes’ Sunday afternoon show, JVG Radio Method, on Melbourne’s Triple R – “a thematically blended hotchpotch”. The host provides the week’s theme; it’s the singer’s task to write – and record – a new song that will be premiered on that week’s show. As a prolific and professional songwriter, Jenkins relishes the challenge. “And,” he explains, “JVG provides the two essentials for songwriting – the idea and the deadline.” The second instalment in the Radio Sketches series sees Jenkins tackle a diverse array of topics, including moods, directions, radio, ponies, my head, my soul, chaos, and “things you were previously unaware of”. This is a set of songs that’s all about the joy of creation and hearing something on the radio for the very first time. In less-capable hands, these tracks would brighten a Sunday afternoon and then disappear into the radio ether. In ‘The Death of Stars’, Jenkins sings, “I’ve never been the sharpest knife in the rack.” Don’t believe it for a second. Even when faced with a demanding deadline, he never fails to deliver a gem. And a shout-out to Jenkins’ not-so silent partner, his Icecream Hands compadre Douglas Lee Robertson, who augments Jenkins’ acoustic recordings with drums, bass, guitar, keyboards, strings and backing vocals (check out his glorious gospel choir in ‘Found Me A Highway’). “He’s got the hard job,” Jenkins acknowledges. “The most exciting part of my week is when I get a text from Doug on Saturday that will say, ‘Sending song now.’ I could be in the middle of a major operation, but I’ll say, ‘Doctor, we have to stop.’ That’s the biggest kick I can possibly have, being able to hear what Doug has done to the song.” If these guys were Swedish, they’d be churning out chart-topping hits and living in mansions. As it is, they’re churning out pop hits – and all we have to do is switch on the radio on a Sunday arvo. A highlight is ‘Early Evening Shenanigans Again’, a nostalgic romp celebrating the hi-jinks of young men. “We set out to mess about,” Jenkins sings. “Who knows where the time goes?” Long may they run. During directions week, Jenkins came up with ‘So Many Directions To Choose’, which succinctly documents the eternal songwriting dilemma: “Gonna go left, gonna go right … gonna get lost and get the blues – so many directions to choose.” Yep, a songwriter can be crippled by choice. But Jenkins always seems to make the right call, delivering songs that sound simple and instantly familiar while also surprising with a subtle twist or an unexpected turn.

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“I know that the greatest songs will always have an element of surprise,” he notes. “When you think about your favourite songs, there is always some little bit in there that you weren’t expecting.” From the mournful majesty of ‘The Many Moods of Love’ to the classic guitar pop of ‘Early Evening Shenanigans Again’, this album gently sweeps through the gamut of human emotions. In the end, Radio Sketches 2 is an understated triumph. A sequel that’s just as good as the original. A happy – and sad – 21st .

SAMANTHA FISH FASTER

Rounder Records

If you saw Samantha Fish at Bluesfest in 2019 you probably don’t need me to tell you what a dynamic performer she is; her shows were spectacular. The good news is that Samantha is on her way back, with the recent album Faster and an exciting collaboration on the way. “I was pretty nervous,” recalls Fish who is at her home in New Orleans when we talk via Zoom. “I’d been looking at that lineup since I was a teenager and every year it would come out and I’d go, ‘God, if I could only get on Byron Bay, that would be quite a pat on like that, that would, that would let me know that I’m doing something that I’m supposed to be doing, doing something right. That’s a great festival. It’s awesome. Every, every year I look at it and it’s like knocked it out of the park again.” Fish’s latest album Faster is produced by Martin Kierszembaum who has worked with Lady Gaga, Sting and Sheryl Crow, amongst others. That in itself should tell you the serious intent of the album. To add to that, Fish is backed by drummer Josh Freese (Guns N’ Roses, Nine Inch Nails, The Replacements), and bassist Diego Navaira (The Last Bandoleros). You would have to think that after eleven albums since 2009, Fish is ready to reach an even bigger audience with this huge slice of blues rock that could just have easily been titled Louder! Ironically, there is a song titled ‘Loud’, but the other side of Fish also makes an appearance on the four ballads that highlight Fish’s powerful voice. Samantha Fish grew up in Kansas City, Missouri and started out playing the drums, but when she was 15, she switched to guitar, citing Bonnie Raitt and Stevie Ray Vaughan as influences and hearing the Stones album Sticky Fingers as a lightbulb moment. These days Fish lives in New Orleans which is where I first saw her years ago during Jazz Fest. “I feel very fortunate that they invite me back to these things because it’s pretty massive,” says Fish when I mention that some friends had phoned me to tell me that I had to see Fish. This year she was on the main stage, and she also features in the recent documentary JazzFest: A New Orleans Story. “It’s a really special, it’s a really special event.” “I went to New Orleans, JazzFest before I moved here,” recalls Fish. “I was living in Kansas City the first time I came down. New Orleans to me has been a place that I’ve always wanted to put down roots in it really. Because when I look at like the great American cities, New Orleans is just full of romance, it’s poetic, it’s art. There’s a rich culture here. There’s history here and there’s a love of the arts. I find constant inspiration here. I think it’s just one of those places that keeps giving to artists in a way that’s emotional and inspirational.” “It’s definitely a place that encourages living loud as you can and as loud as you want,” she continues. “We play pretty loud. People say I seem pretty extroverted. I don’t know. It’s weird going on stage and having that connection with the audience. In my life I’m probably more of like a shy person than would be let on by what I do on stage - but I guess it just depends on the day.” Fish will be back for Bluesfest and other dates with her four-piece band that includes her bass player Ron Johnson, keyboard player Matt Wade from New Jersey, drummer Sarah Tillek. “They’re pretty loud, when I suggest that they could be called the Louder Band. “I’m probably the, they would probably be rolling their eyes right now at me because they probably think I’m the loudest one up there.” “I’d say even the album before that got obscured by Covid, Kill or Be Kind,” says Fish when I mention that Faster probably didn’t get the attention it deserved because of the effects of Covid. “It [Kill Or Be Kind] came out in September of 2019, and then by March of 2020 we were done supporting it. Normally you give an album two years. I guess so it got kind of truncated as well. But Faster? This is just the new world we live in. It’s gotten a lot better but we’re still dealing with complications with Covid, even in the manufacturing side of things, like just, just the physical process of making a record is so much more difficult now than it was three years ago. I’m realising it’s like we just have challenges.” So, what can we expect on the Australian tour? Will Fish be highlighting the last couple of albums, or will she dig deep into her catalogue? “Because I grew up in the age of the internet and a lot of people have found me through videos on the web, we, we do have a good deal of fans in Australia that have never really gotten to see our show,” she says. “So, my plan is of course we’re going to showcase material from Faster being that it’s the most recent release and Kill Or Be Kind because again it’s another really recent release. But I want to showcase material from all of my records, and I just want to put on a great show that. I want to take people on trip. My priority in Australia is going to be just putting on a good show. I think people will know and recognise something that’s exciting and danceable and gives them something they won’t forget about.” As for Fish’s forthcoming album? It has been recorded with Texan guitarist Jesse Dayton (a visitor here in late 2022) and is produced by Jon Spencer. “It’s really special and incredible and I can’t wait for people to hear it,” says Fish. We can hardly wait either. In the meantime, you can catch Fish at Bluesfest and other dates next April.

Faster by Samantha Fish is available now through Rounder Records.

CHRIS WILSON LANDLOCKED: FAITHLESS & FREE (30th ANNIVERSARY EDITION)

Cheersquad Records & Tapes

By the time he left us in January 2019 Chris Wilson had become a dominant figure on the Victorian music scene and one of the most important musicians on the national panorama. While the recently re-released Live At The Continental and the bonus live track included here are ample evidence of Wilson’s dynamic live shows, Landlocked also attests to Wilson’s command in the studio. Landlocked, originally released in 1992, was co-produced by Wilson, engineer Doug Roberts and guitarist Shane O’Mara, who was to later feature on the landmark Live At The Continental. Musicians included Chris Rogers on bass, drummer Peter Luscombe (these days with Paul Kelly’s band), Jen Anderson (Black Sorrows, Weddings Parties Anything) on violin, ‘Evil’ Graham Lee of the Triffids on pedal steel and Rebecca Barnard (Rebecca’s Empire etc) on backing vocals. Listening now, Landlocked seems preternaturally mature for a debut album; yet, by the time of its recording Wilson already had vast experience in bands such as Harem Scarem and Crown of Thorns and had recorded with Paul Kelly and Hunters & Collectors. There has also been a recent reissue of Scatter’s Liver an album he made with the short-lived Pub Dogs. So, when he walked into the studio to record this album, that amazing voice was fully formed in its power and range. One of the remarkable aspects of this album is how accurately Wilson’s voice is captured in all its glory. While you can hear Shane O’Mara’s adventurous excursions on the guitar, the instrumentation enhances the voice rather than obscures it. So, O’Mara is given free rein on a song such as ‘My Little Pony’ but his guitar acts as a counterpoint to Wilson’s voice. Four years later Wilson was to achieve huge success with Diesel with the album Short Cool Ones, consisting mainly of blues covers; but, after the Long Weekend album in 1998 he was an independent artist. Perhaps this was because commercial radio changed and became less accommodating or because he wasn’t willing to compromise. But it remains commendable that Landlocked was released via a major label’s subsidiary (when major labels could take a few risks!). I suspect that in its new guise it will do even better than in its original incarnation. While Wilson is most often associated with the blues the musical scope on Landlocked is much wider. The blues influences are obvious, but you can also hear country and rock ‘n’ roll in there as well on songs such as ‘Hard Land,’ ‘Big Mouth Baby’, ‘Tits and Feathers’ and, even on a song that sports the word blues in the title, ‘Alimony Blues.’ These are just some of the really great original songs here. You can add to that list: ‘Wolves,’ ‘Rose Tattoo’, ‘Wreckage’ and the title track which stand out as ‘classics’ in Wilson’s catalogue and extraordinary examples of his craft. Landlocked - nominated in 1993 for two ARIA Awards (Best Male Artist and Breakthrough Artist, Album) has now been re-packaged as Landlocked: Faithless & Free, a special 30th Anniversary reissue that

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see the album released on vinyl for the first time and expands the original 1992 album into a double LP/double CD with the inclusion of tracks from the EPs The Big One and Alimony Blues. The new vinyl double album contains sixteen tracks: the original CD release of twelve tracks, plus covers of The Saints’ ‘Ghost Ships’ and Albert King’s ‘Born Under a Bad Sign’ (one of the best covers of that song ever). There are also two live medleys. There is a fabulous version of Sly & The Family Stone’s ‘Thank You (Falettinme Be Mice Elf Agin)’ with Junior Walker’s ‘Shotgun’, a reminder also that Wilson used to perform an incredible rendition of ‘Nutbush City Limits’ (True!). Add to that Memphis Minnie and Kansas Joe McCoy’s ‘When The Levee Breaks’ with John Lee Hooker›s ‘Burning Hell’. The double CD also adds four extra tracks: a live recording of ‘Wreckage’, which is quite different to the studio version plus studio recordings of George Gershwin’s ‘Summertime’, a haunting rendition of Bill Withers’ ‘Ain’t No Sunshine’ made even more so by Wilson’s harmonica playing, and the jazz standard ‘Bye Bye Blackbird’. This revisiting of Landlocked shows what a good re-release can be. The original album is supplemented by enough interesting material to make you want to search out other recordings by the artist. In this case, it is a motivation to go and hunt up some of Wilson’s other solo releases - The Long Weekend (1998), Spiderman (2000), King For Day (2002) and Flying Fish (2012) – as a comparison and to see what other great songs are lurking there. Those who saw Chris Wilson perform at local clubs or at festivals around Australia were left with an unforgettable experience - if not for the power of his voice and his masterful presence and harmonica playing, then for the challenge he gave audiences to get up out of their seats and get involved. In fact, Wilson’s live shows were so impressive that their memory tends to overshadow the fact that he also had a substantial recording career that stands amongst the very best of our local talent. Landlocked is an absolutely essential addition for fans of Chris Wilson – and one of the best re-releases of the year - but it should also add substantially to his legacy which is being kept alive by his family and Cheersquad Records.

By Steve Bell

SIMON JULIFF STARS

Dog Meat Records

In the third instalment of Francis Ford Coppola’s revered The Godfather trilogy, newly reformed Mafia kingpin Michael Corleone famously quips, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in”, a maxim that could easily apply of late to Melbourne singer-songwriter Simon Juliff.

With a stop-start career tracing right back to his short-lived early-‘90s outfit The Evil Dead, followed by a stint fronting rockers The Roys in the mid-‘00s, in recent times Juliff had pretty much relinquished his musical dreams to focus on career and family. He hadn’t given up music entirely as he was still writing songs, but he’d essentially given up on sharing them with the wider world. Until one day he received a phone call apropos of nothing from veteran Oz rock music identity Dave Laing, who had a more than decent proposal for his old friend. One which involved not only reviving Laing’s long-dormant indie imprint Dog Meat Records - back in the day home to legendary underground guitar bands like the Powder Monkeys, Hoss, Bored! and Splatterheads - to release the album, but also roping in that scene’s most venerated alumni Joel Silbersher (God, Hoss, Tendrils) to produce the affair. “I was still writing songs a little bit, but I was fairly busy with my family and just life commitments,” Juliff remembers, “but one day Dave Laing contacted me out of the blue pretty much and said, ‘Are you doing any music?’ And I said, ‘Nah, not really, but I’ve got heaps of songs’. Then he said, ‘Why don’t you ask Joel to produce a solo record and I’ll put it out?’, and I said, ‘Are you drunk?’ And he said, ‘Nah’. “Dave’s always been really supportive and kept up to date with whatever I was doing even if it wasn’t much - and he’d write really nice reviews and articles whenever I did put something out - he was like one of my very few fans, but a good one to have.” And in particularly perfect timing, this opportunity came right at a stage when Juliff’s family commitments had started to ease and the songs had started to flow again. “Once the call came and there was an album to make and Joel agreed to produce and helped put the band together and everything, I had to make sure that it wasn’t going to be me that fucked it up,” he laughs. “I finished all the songs really quickly - the ones that were half-finished - and made a bunch of demos and sent Joel 25 songs. “It was a great feeling actually, having just drifted along missing making music but not really doing anything about it, to have someone make a proposal like that was both surreal and amazing.” And from these humble beginnings the Simon Jolliff Band was born, the frontman joined by a cast of Oz rock stalwarts to construct their debut album Stars, a powerful collection of songs marrying the classic pop-rock sensibilities of forebears like Big Star and T-Rex with a dirtier, more roughshod aesthetic entirely befitting the Melbourne scene it stemmed from. “I could have made quite a different record if someone else was choosing the songs, although Joel’s choices were unsurprisingly excellent in that he chose the ones I probably would have chosen anyway,” Juliff smiles. “It could have been an album of ballads and electronic noises if someone else did it. “Even in assembling the band as he did - Jim Sfetsos from Hoss on guitar, Greg Bainbridge from Kim Salmon & the Surrealists on drums and Joel on bass - there was a lot of scope for the guitar solos and things. Jim wrote little ‘bits’ for each basic solo that I’d included on the demos, and it really suits where each song was going, almost as if it was meant to be. “Once Joel was the producer I knew it was going to be a ‘guitar-y album’ - which is my kind of album anyway - and we just talked about how say on [1975 album] Tonight’s The Night Neil Young’s approach was to keep the mistakes and just focus on making it feel good.” Importantly Juliff explains that while he was able to rely on Silbersher’s extensive experience in the studio, it was never at the expense of his own artistic vision. “One thing that’s important that Joel does is just encourage me in the right direction,” the singer reflects. “There’s no disagreement, because I trust him and I trust his ear. He knows what I like. “When I called him to ask him to do the project - I hadn’t spoken to him for a while - he answered the phone in the pub and said, ‘Oh yeah, I’d be delighted. I will make sure that you come away with something that you really like’, and I said, ‘Okay, that sounds like a good plan!’ “And he was true to his word. He’s got a really good ear and we let him be the ‘boss’ so to speak and have control across all areas of the recording and even into the mixing, but I didn’t feel in the least bit pushed around - more just ‘helped around’.”

“Stars” is out now on Dog Meat Records. Simon and band launch the album March 4, a Saturday matinee show, at the Workers Club in Fitzroy, with special guest True Sound.

PETER FARNAN HOME

Independent

Even for a craftsman as experienced and successful as Melbourne artist Peter Farnan, there’s still an intriguing aura of mystique surrounding the art of songwriting.

After more than 40 years honing his skills at assembling a song - from the outset of the ‘80s with esteemed post-punks Serious Young Insects, through a lengthy stint pumping out hits for multi-platinum ‘80s/‘90s outfit Boom Crash Opera and then into his ensuing solo career - he’s still never quite certain where his muse is going to take him. His sterling new solo album, Home, for instance, ended up a beguiling batch of charmingly off-kilter art-pop, but Farnan happily attests that he’d approached the record with a totally different stylistic ambition altogether. “You start a project with a kind of idea, and this time I thought I was going to start by building beats,” he laughs. “I’d been reading the Beastie Boys book and listening to Rick Rubin’s podcast and I thought, ‘Right, I’m going to build beats, do what Talking Heads did and kind of find the song later on’. I started like that but very quickly that went out the window, and I ended up holding a guitar and writing songs on a guitar. “It ended up being very traditionally-written, either on a guitar or on a piano, finding the chords, vocalising and finding an angle pretty quickly. I was working pretty quickly the whole time - that’s a great thing about getting older and being a little more confident, just getting the germ of an idea and running with it and then refining rather than second-guessing and questioning. “It’s ultimately a balance between delivering a satisfying form to the listener, but also putting in surprises or the odd twist and turn. If you completely satisfy expectations it’s boring, and if you completely subvert expectations it becomes art music, something else that isn’t a song. That’s fine too, you can go either way.” And after years of penning chart hits the singer-songwriter far prefers writing for art’s sake, with the aim being primarily to please himself. “I found worrying about commercial considerations crippling back in the day, it was just awful,” he admits. “There was a later Boom Crash Opera record where I threw all of that out the window and it was liberating, it opened everything up again and I felt like I was back at the Crystal Ballroom where there was no commercial imperative. Of course that record stiffed! But it was a real artistic turning point for me and for that band. “I’m a lot better now because I’ve done so much composing for theatre where there’s a deadline and an opening night - I’ll often be required to come up with something at really short notice - and I’ve found writing really quickly and working to a brief really liberating. It’s actually easier to write that way than trying to write a megahit for some enormo corporate rock monster! “Another challenge with this record has been trying to work out what I’m going to say and how I’m going to interface the broader world - which is really tilting on its axis at the moment - with the personal, and how do I make it moving without it starting to proselytise? How do I get those political and personal aspects working together? “I look at those songs now and recognise that it’s very much what I think and feel about myself and the world at the moment. It’s all rolled into the title track ‘Home’, which is about domestically where I live but I’m also concerned about other people who don’t have a home, or who are trying to find a home or fleeing because they have to flee. Once again it’s trying to weave what I think about politics with just the life I’m leading and the fact that I’m older and that time is constantly rushing ahead”. Throughout Home Farnan achieves that wonderful dichotomy of broaching serious issues lyrically but framing them in fun, sometimes even whimsical, song structures and arrangements. “I just have this feeling that good songs and good art has to have woven into it this sense of humour and playfulness as well,” he smiles. “There is heavy stuff on the record - that song ‘Holy Water Cross Myself’ doesn’t pull any punches, it’s not jokey - but I love humour and feel that there needs to be a sense of self-deprecation, that I’m aware of my own shortcomings. “Like on the song ‘Asteroid’ I take the piss out of my own songs - “How many sins will you admit? Your feeble wit, your ‘80s hits?” - but I’m not trying to write novelty songs. The problem with novelty songs is that you hear them once and they’re hilarious, and then you don’t need to hear them again because it’s like knowing the punchline of a joke. “One guy who does it really well, in my opinion, is Tom Waits. His funny songs I can listen to over and over again, like ‘I’ll Take New York’ from [1987 album] Franks Wild Years breaks me up every time, I think he’s a scream.”

“As much description as you can, in the least amount of words,” is a sentence scrawled in one of my notebooks. I found it the other day, finally, as I flicked through the handful sitting on my desk trying to find my initial notes for this story. I didn’t utter these words, Jimmy Dowling did. The reason they’re in my notebook is because the interview was finished but we’d retired from the open and sun-dappled front beer garden where I’d been recording, to the slightly less salubrious smoking area out the back of the Bruns pub but Dowling had kept on talking and so I scrambled to capture the bits and pieces he let slip now we were, for all intents and purposes, off the record. Although not really. One gets the impression Dowling doesn’t think about the record. “A very special album,” is also written on the same page, and this is a quote, via Dowling, from Don Walker. Dowling had sent Walker a copy of his latest record, The Water, and Don had said it was a very special album. “That’s about the bar right there,” Dowling said after he’d mentioned this, looking out into the carpark as he said it. Walker had played piano on a couple of tracks off Dowling’s last release, 2021’s Sociable Sounds. He’d not appeared on this one, but Dowling, for obvious reasons, values his opinion. The Water came together quickly and easily. Like the movement of water, perhaps, although much like any movement of water, there’s always more to it than what’s merely in front of you. “The water always wins,” Dowling had said earlier as we looked over the Brunswick River from our vantage point at a shiny wooden table pressed against the pub’s leafy front façade. This was another quote from elsewhere, one mentioned to him by an old mate, back earlier this year when the floods came. It was supposed to be the title for this record, but Dowling shortened it at the last moment to The Water. “I didn’t want to be preaching to anyone,” he says as he sips at his light beer and watches the condensation oodle down the bottle green glass. The Water is a collection of ten songs. Ten brief moments in time that capture far more than their brevity suggests; a lot of description in very few words. It was recorded in Melbourne over the course of a weekend at the studio of Roger Bergodaz, who not only afforded his space to Dowling, but played drums too. Also in attendance were Matt Walker (with whom Dowling has had a solid association), Steve Hadley, Garrett Costigan, Dean Drouillard and Reuben Legge. Says Legge of the album (relayed to me via a text from Dowling, who in turn had received it as a text from Legge):

JIMMY DOWLING WATER WORLD

Independent

With his latest release, The Water, Jimmy Dowling lets the songs do the talking.

“One of the remarkable things about Jimmy’s music is how beloved it is by musicians. All of us have known Jimmy for a while and were keen to be a part of the project, regardless of the outcomes, just to hear what he would create next… It would be hard to pick a defining moment because the entire session was filled with excited creative energy, as several songs were written by Jimmy in the booth as the band improvised some swirling musical textures.” Dowling’s songs on The Water are like musings. On life and whatnot. Whatever enters his head. His delivery is Jimmy unique – it’s not sweet and fluid, but half spoken-word, half gravel-croon. It’s not pretty but it works and the lyrics are simple and full, a more laconic Tom Waits or a more sober Charles Bukowski. Or just Jimmy. Outside of his songs, Dowling doesn’t talk too much; he’s not bored or offended or arrogant or rude. I think he just isn’t that comfortable talking about himself. He’s made some changes in his life over the past few years and it seems he sees things as more important than himself now. Jimmy Dowling says more through his songs anyway. Later on, smoking over the carpark, I ask him, referring to the ‘bar’ that is the songwriting of Don Walker, if he ever writes to the bar. Does he think about someone like Don Walker singing his praises? “No,” he says after a moment’s thought. “It’s just gotta sound good to me.” “We tried to match his lyrical tapestry weaving with our musical choices,” Legge’s text message concludes, “and I think the end result was even better than I’d hoped.”

The Water is available in digital format only via www.jimmydowling.com through MGM.

MONIQUE CLARE SIGHT

Independent

When folk duo The Maes looked to replace their long-time ‘third string’ to their bows, Monique Clare fitted the bill like few others. The Queenslander laughs, “Their ‘Australian young female singing folk cellist’ had just left. It was serendipitous because I was free at that point. I’d started my own solo project and released my EP, so I was able to go on tour with them.” Clare is happiest when she’s busy. “It suits me well to go on a bit of an adventure. I handle that better than sitting in front of a laptop organising things... On tour with The Maes, we played nine shows in nine days in Ireland. I flew to Melbourne a few hours after our last show in Dublin and got driven halfway to Warburton. We had to go back to the airport because I’d picked up the wrong luggage. Then, back to Warburton for a teaching gig at Stringmania. As I arrived, one tutor had just finished a performance and I tuned up my cello and [went on].” Clare’s EP By The Stars was an intentionally stripped-back collection of cello and voice. In contrast, new album Sight is as “an explosion of everything onto this canvas I loved in music.” Between lush and layered tracks, sparse moments represent the side of Clare that recalls Joanna Newsome’s most serene moods. “No matter how big an audience or a stage, I love to feel very, very close to people, that intimacy. I wanted an element of that in the album.” Cello is an uncommon choice for young musicians. Perhaps flute would’ve been a less-cumbersome touring option. Clare laughs, “Thanks for identifying that. I sort of wish someone had warned me. Would I have changed? I don’t think so because I love the cello.” Growing up, she first played the trumpet. But her grandfather prompted the change. “He was a violinist. I think he really wanted his granddaughters to keep that tradition going. He bought some baby violins and planted them in the living room. I’d pick one up and put it down like a cello - intuitively drawn to playing that way. When I was young, my dad always had ABC Classic FM on the radio. I was immediately pulled into the sound of the cello. My parents made me learn the piano first. It makes you hungrier for [what you want].” Along with singing in choirs from an early age, it was an organic start to life in music. Clare sings and plays trumpet, violins and cello on Sight. Guests are drummer Locky Hawkins, Loni Fitzpatrick (harp) and Rob Davidson (double bass). Demonstrating that she can play cello fast, the track ‘It Works’ features Annabelle Swainston’s violin and Bec Meimaris drumming. “I went through my classical degree at the Queensland Conservatorium on cello. I wanted to work on a more modern, contemporary folk repertoire. But there was no folk academy here. Teachers would say, ‘This is a classical degree’. But it led to special pathways, like playing in the Australian Youth Orchestra. It was a privilege to be considered among the Top 10 cellists in Australian under 25.” Clare’s passion for richly textured composition extends beyond the classical. “I became aware of Björk s music and the kind of orchestrations she uses. Florence + The Machine and Adele have so much orchestral sound in their recordings.” Realising a need to selfproduce, she worked with sound engineer Luke Woollett. “He was very encouraging and facilitating. He allowed me to try my arrangements and be in charge, enabling ideas to flow.” The storytelling aspect of songwriting has grown to increasingly shape Clare’s songs. The title track speaks to the meandering path of mental health. Others poetically reflect on work/life balance, gratitude and connection to land, guilt and self-forgiveness, long-distance love and sharing belly laughs with friends. On ‘Young Girl’, she longs to reassure her struggling teenage self. Currently investigating a likely diagnosis of ADHD, Clare is starting to understand – and embrace – her drive for a myriad of experience to feed her creativity. From teaching cello in Afghanistan, accompanying Kate Miller-Heidke and Eminem on stage and mountainside sunrise concerts, she’s unafraid to take on the unexpected. She’ll soon travel again. “My partner is in America, so part of my life is there. I’m not trying to be someone jumping over, chasing an American dream.” But with her upcoming showcase at the Folk Alliance conference there, the possibilities are endless.

CHARLES MARSHALL TEARS OF THE MINOTAUR

Laneway Music

They’ve probably always been with us. Shamen, witch doctors, magicians, storytellers. Those who somehow tap into the desire of humans to transmogrify, to transcend our basic, at times tawdry, human existence and look beyond, or within, to the possibilities. Alchemists, stargazers and scientists tried to make sense of the world through trial-and-error, dreaming big, and sometimes uncovering a version of the truth. The rock and roll era brought new archetypes – the most thrilling and stirring of these resonated with their audience on an almost primal level, effectively losing control (or seeming to) in the service of their art. Think of Elvis, and the impact his persona had – and still has – on tens of thousands, losing control and skirting the brink of a delicious mania, threatening (or promising) to take the listener with them. Jim Morrison, James Brown, Nick Cave… there were many entry points to this ‘other’ world inside the music. For the young Christopher Marshall, that ‘door’, that catalyst, that call-to-arms was the appearance of Iggy Pop on ABC-TV’s pop bible Countdown, goading the host Ian Meldrum, then writhing and flailing with the pronouncement “I’m bored”. He was dangerous, he was physical, he was hilarious, and totally unexpected in the 70s suburban Australian landscape, for many at that stage without the context of his provenance with The Stooges. “It changed my life. Everyone at school the next day was saying ‘did you see that weirdo guy?’, and I was thinking, actually, that was really cool. It really opened it up for me.” Christopher Marshall, along with his brother Charles, grew up in a typical Melbourne suburb and were inspired to start creating music by the contemporary bands they heard, later mixing in other more obscure influences. “I remember seeing The Angels, Models, and Midnight Oil at Festival Hall and being blown away by The Angels’ sense of theatricality and Doc Neeson’s take-no-prisoners attitude. Rose Tattoo, wow. One of the first songs we tried to play was ‘We Can’t Be Beaten’. And The Saints – the journey they went through from being a punk band to exploring what punk could be with Prehistoric Sounds. ‘96 Tears’ by Question Mark and the Mysterians is still one of the toughest, coolest recordings of all time to my ears. It showed me what can be done, that there’s no usefulness in categorising things, labelling things – it’s just music and you can take it where you want to go.” The Marshall brothers formed Harem Scarem in the 1980s, quickly falling in with the St Kilda post-punk live scene, and impressing with their gutsy, impassioned performances and impossible-to-pin-down sound. They followed the mini-album Dogman by what many would claim as their finest moment, Pilgrim’s Progress in 1986. The music retains a timeless quality – songs written a number of decades ago sound fresh and alive. After Harem Scarem initially split, Marshall performed occasionally, and released a solo record titled Strange Waters, Small Mercies (featuring the sublime single ‘Kiss Me Ether’ which really showed off his vocal and emotional range). “My project in music, if you want to call it that, is to reconnect to the feeling of the blues on a very deep and primal level of emotion rather than to the actual formula of the blues in a more specifically recognisable stylistic level. It’s not straight blues. I love blues but I’m not interested in being a ‘blues’ musician. I hate all those little niche-y genres where people earnestly try to sound like other things. Because the original guys did it better. You can’t be John Lee Hooker. We learned that very early on – no one sounds like him, but maybe you could tap into the emotion and make something of your own.” Now, Christopher Marshall is back with a new band, The Christopher Marshall Predestination, along with guitarist Baz Turnbull, bassist Andy Papadopoulos and drummer Luke Collins. The fire and depth that characterised Marshall’s earlier performances is still in force, the physicality of the stage presence tinged with moments of humour, his gathering maturity a natural element of the complex evolving character. “I’m pressing reboot with this band. I’m interested in finding sonic light and shade, simplicity and clarity, bring it right down then turn it around and blow the speakers out, see what happens next. I’m playing with some of the best, including brilliant guitarist Baz Turnbull – he’s a bit of a man of mystery, and he has a beautiful clear but improvisational sound, a sound that I can sculpt. This band has the potential for classic simplicity and tonal shading that I really enjoy. Every live performance is so different and beautifully unpredictable, the weirdest and most interesting things can happen as a result of chance or mishap.” Where does the ‘predestination’ come into it? “It’s a name that conjures up quite a few of the things I’m interested in. Predestination is a weird theological position where God preordained where you would go, even before you were conceived. Why should God make so many flawed people and then not give them the free will to change? This is me being wilfully irresponsible and following my own path. I’m very interested in things that don’t make linear sense. I really like intuitive knowledge, the esoteric, the occult, the weirder aspects of religion, mystery not clarity. What I like about the idea is the past and the present are in relation to each other – they all come together. So, in that sense I am predestined to return to the stage, even though I left it a long time ago… or it could have just been yesterday.” The new songs take these concepts up a notch, melding mythology, history, surrealism, and psychology grafted onto a rock songwriting structure. “I’m not interested in writing conventional love songs. My songs contain a lot of characters and vignettes. I have one about the severed head of John The Baptist, one about Theseus killing but loving the Minotaur and being a little bit conflicted about that. I’m interested in exploring. Great songs don’t really make sense, but they do at a very deep level. The setting of the music to the lyrics creates a fourth space for you the listener, like a landscape that you sonically inhabit. The singer is the voice that takes you on the journey through that landscape. It’s not a linear, rational journey A to B to C, it’s leading you through moods, and the strange conjunction of words and music to put you into another headspace.”

Tears Of The Minotaur is released through Laneway Music

Christopher Marshall. Photo by Dominic Marshall.

CIMAFUNK EL ALIMENTO

Thirty Tigers/Terapia Productions

Charismatic prince of Afro-Cuban rhythms, Cimafunk generates a fiesta wherever he goes. An outdoor gig in Miami last October was no exception. Ticketholders were undeterred by hurricane warnings that day. Residents hunkered down at home. But fans of ‘Cima’ gathered to party on regardless. The evening culminated in a ‘stage invasion’ dance party, according to my sound engineer mate from the venue. (“So much energy!”) You really can’t stop the funk! Cimafunk (born Erik Iglesias Rodriguez) was raised in Pinar del Rio in western Cuba. From singing in church, he later experimented with reggaeton and Cuban-style trova. Initially training to become a doctor, he switched to focus on the healing power of music. Drawn to Havana’s funk scene, he joined various bands before going solo. His stage name honours the ‘cimarrones’, a term describing Africans who escaped enslavement in Cuba to form walled communities for protection. Undeniably a magnetic frontman, his story and his music are centred around community. With sizzling band La Tribu (‘the tribe’) it’s a collective celebration, from studio to stage. “It’s healthy. For me, great,” he says. “I grew up in a house with a lot of people around, so it’s being home. Sharing.” He ties fresh musical influences to the traditional. “At first, I felt a bit nervous being from Cuba, doing this music, singing in Spanish. People have in mind the Cuban music is [a certain style]. That’s a really crazy scene, when I think I arrived in the States doing funky music. But also, something I’m just going to enjoy. I feel like what I do is groovy, so I do the groove and enjoy the show. After playing two times, I realised everybody is the same – groovy too. Everybody was jamming everywhere, even if they don’t understand the lyrics. We go with the flow.” Soul, Rumba, blues and funk unite effortlessly through Cima’s work. “Mostly, growing up we listened to Cuban music. We know what we do when it comes to Cuban groove. You feel it. Feel safe. Many members of La Tribu arrived direct from school to my band. Even our trombone player Lydia was working with me before she graduated. So, getting into the vibe of sharing with the band but also listening to new music and paying more attention to the resources.” His latest album El Alimento brings together the funkiest of grooves from across generations. Breakout hits of the 70s and 80s gave the world a taste of distinctive Caribbean and Afro-Latin rhythms. Hearing pioneers

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of rocksteady, dancehall and reggaeton sounds, I certainly had no idea of the cultural roots behind them. “That’s what happens,” Cima says. “I didn’t know either. Then once I started to investigate, I got even more obsessed. These people were doing this, in this moment in history. Dealing with all the madness in the world at the time. Everybody was saying something. The music of that time is the music of today, just with different textures. We cook it in different ways. All the history of Marvin Gaye, Beny Moré… a huge universe of feeling, sensation and historical moments in the groove. Talking about love, politics, myself, society…everything.” El Alimento boasts a guest list as impressive as it is diverse: Producer Jack Splash (Kendrick Lamar, Alicia Keys, John Legend); US hip hop stars Lupe Fiasco and CeeLo Green; Jamaican dancehall singer Stylo G; Afro-Colombian hip hop group ChocQuibTown; Cuban jazz legend Chucho Valdes; Rumba group Los Papines and AfroCuban rapper El Micha. Opening track ‘Funk Aspirin’ features Parliament Funkadelic icon George Clinton. “In Miami, Chucho and George shared the stage with us. A dream come true. Having them jamming with me, supporting, advising about the music… it was a really special moment of my life.” Musicianship is top class and tight but the mood is loose and inviting. “The band is the family. We enjoy every single moment of being in the music.” “I’ve been on an amazing journey with Chucho, Lupe and all these guys. This album has been a real gift for me. If anyone told me two years ago, that I’d be working with Jack Splash, I wouldn’t believe it. He’s a really important producer. We have a lot in common. We started talking by phone before the recording. I shared with him Afro-Cuban music and he really got into it. We’ve heard these kinds of rhythms since always, the timba kind of mix Chucho is doing. You feel it, something familiar. Jack would send me a groove and I’d put in ideas for basslines, horns etc. He was super open to receive any creative ideas. I’d always produced my own music. I thought it would be hard, working with another producer being the head of production. But Jack is a special producer and musician but more than that, as a person. We got together and it was, ‘Yes Yes Yes!’ When you jam on stage and see the people in that moment when they get in that tribal state… That groove where you can elaborate rhythms, change the rhythms, based on the reaction in that high moment, it’s great.” “I can’t spend too much time without playing. That’s why the album is called El Alimento– it means ‘the nutrition’. I’m always making some noise.” He laughs and scats freely. “It never lets you go. Once we get together, there’s no fear. You’re just ready to enjoy. It’s the best moment of the week. I’m real excited to come to Australia. I’m ready!” he laughs. “Get ready! Get ready!”

DON HILLMAN DAYDREAMIN’

Independent

Afootloose road trip to the coast sets up the perfect backdrop for a daydream. Anticipation, memories and imagination flow as you approach a world away from the day-to-day grind. Singersongwriter Don Hillman finds peace, joy and inspiration from landscape and the elements. Surfing is a dominant passion in Hillman’s world. A resident of Victoria’s surf coast, he says, “It’s good for going over songs in your head.” His long-time band is called Secret Beach after a treasured location. “That’s what the song ‘Gypsy Station Wagon’ is about. We used to go to Southern NSW every summer to avoid the crowds at home. There’s a secret spot south of Narooma where the beach is deserted between Christmas and New Year.” The track ‘Rollin Waves Forever’ celebrates summer escapes, with plaintive pedal steel by Garrett Costigan evoking the longing to share carefree time with friends. Hillman describes the colours and sounds, the waves, wind and rain - all part of the inviting picture. Hillman is equally stirred by the outback. “I was doing a fair bit of landscape painting at one point and in 1995, I camped out in the Kimberly by myself for a couple of weeks. An amazing experience. When I left, it felt like leaving a friend. A sort of a taste of what First Australians feel, I guess. On country. It takes on its own personality. Where it’s more stark, you can’t be attached to any man-made structures. All you’ve got is the natural environment. In 2016, I went back to the spot I’d camped and couldn’t believe how emotional it was. You think there’s nothing there. But you stop and walk up a sand dune and see all these plants and animals and heaps going on.” Early on, Hillman was a fan of John Denver. “He sang about the environment, and I really liked that,” he says. “I was into The Beatles and Creedence. Then, before I really knew who Bob Dylan was, I won 10 albums off a radio show. [Each album] was like different people almost. In a bit of an overreaction, I gave away heaps of my Beatles albums because I thought they were rubbish,” he laughs. “I’ve changed my mind of course. But Dylan’s lyrics were so rich. I remember hearing ‘Hurricane’ coming on the radio when I was a teenager and used to change the station; this guy moaning away… But once you put in the lyric content, it’s a miracle!” During lockdown, Hillman revisited songs he’d written in recent years. “About trips to Europe when I was much younger, hitch-hiking around Spain and across America. I’d written a song about busking and the challenge of that. The idealistic hopes and dreams young musicians have starting out. When I was busking, you didn’t have to have a licence. I remember just turning up and competing with the Bourke Street trams. No amplification, playing Dylan covers with harmonica and guitar. In America, I played at Gerde’s Folk City, where Bob played his first gig. In Melbourne I was a bit of a novelty, but to go there on open mic night, three-quarters of the acts were Dylan imitators. I thought, ‘I’d better come up with something more than that!’ But you can’t help but be influenced.” Classic folk influences can be heard in tracks on Daydreamin but with a distinct contemporary Australian flavour. Like Hillman’s heroes such as Richard Clapton and The Dingoes, upbeat rock notes, and sprinklings of alt-Country blues bring the goodtime rhythms home. Somewhere in the paddock between Stars and Paul Kelly, ‘Invincible’ is made for dancing. Hillman’s voice echo that relatable, authentic local timbre. Following his 1998 debut release, Hillman has been joined by Secret Beach with Rossco Clarke (lead guitar), Keiran Dickson (bass, bvs) and Peter Mullins (drums, bvs). “I been playing live with them for 20 years now. They’re friends of mine and really fun to play with.” A different line-up was assembled for the new studio work. “For the last couple of albums, I’ve recorded with Marcel Yammouni” The bass player/guitarist co-produced and engineered Daydreamin. “John Salerno is on drums. He and Marcel played in Vanessa Amorosi’s band. Both are hot shot prodigious players and lovely people. Johnny’s played with Sting, in Jon Stevens and Richard Clapton’s regular bands and played drums with Robbie Williams at the AFL Grand Final.” Also on the album are Bruce Haymes (keyboards), Jeff Raglus (trumpet, flugelhorn) and Olivia Nathan (backing vocals). “Hopefully we’ll also have a new recording with Secret Beach out next year. It’s already half done.”

RIDE THIS LULLABY JOSIE LAVER

Available on all platforms

Behind every great songwriter is a deep reverence for those who came before, and more often than not, that begins with the music that was available in the family home growing up. Josie Laver might be being touted as the new, fresh voice of Australian country music, but there’s a lot more going on on her debut album, Ride This Lullaby, than the obvious country references. “I guess I have a really broad range of music that I like,” she explains, “and it doesn’t really matter where it comes from. One of my first gigs was in a jazz bar in Yass, so I’d learnt all these jazz songs and I don’t know if you’d call Norah Jones full jazz but she’s very much along that ilk but I’d sing her songs and I’d sing Eva Cassidy and Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch, Linda Ronstadt, Bonnie Raitt – I’d sing all those sort of covers – and then I’d go into things like David Grey. So, it never stops at one thing. Kasey Chambers – I cover her songs. Her song ‘Pony’, I sang that when I was ten or even younger. I had a full band behind me for the school concert,” she giggles at the recollection. “I was so little too. “Then Mum and Dad brought us up on Paul Kelly was really big in the household and Creedence Clearwater was big. We got introduced to the Beatles probably in our early teens and then I discovered the Rolling Stones. Dad loves Sara Storer. Lucinda Williams was another big influence and people like kd lang.” Josie grew up on a farm near Boorowa, up on the high plains of southern New South Wales – the family was lucky; their property was above the level of the floods that hit the area in November 2022 – and while she loved her music, it was horses and show-jumping that were her initial passions, prompting her to drop out of school to pursue showjumping professionally. Eventually, however, the music was always going to rise to the surface again and, as her press bio puts it, “burnt out from the long hours, hard work and injuries that come with the equestrian lifestyle, she moved back to her family farm, sold her horses and saddles to buy a guitar, and began working on what’s become her debut album. Now, life on the farm might be great for the fresh air and healthy lifestyle, but it means there aren’t a lot of likeminded people around to bounce ideas off when you’re writing songs. In fact, as you read this, Josie is still looking around for musicians, a scarce commodity out her way, to put a band together to take the album on the road. So, the catalyst for recording Ride This Lullaby was a singer-songwriter and expat New Zealander named Matt Joe Gow, based these days in Melbourne, more than 600 kilometres southwest of Boorowa. Gow, by the way, won the 2018 Music Victoria Award for Best Country Album for his second album, Break, Rattle and Roll. “It just sort of happened,” Josie admits. “We kind of met by correspondence and were planning to meet each other at a gig he had up in New South Wales and of course COVID happened and all that got called off, but we kept on talking. He liked my sound and where it could go and he asked me if I’d ever thought about releasing any music and pretty much offered his services.” So began the process of collaboration that saw the pair sending sound files back and forth as Gow helped develop and arrange songs while he and his former band The Dead Leaves’ guitarist Andrew Pollock, who also engineered and mastered it, laid down backing tracks. “He was the first person I ever shared any music with,” she explains, “and that was a bit scary for me because I originally thought I was baring my soul to the world! But then I decided no, words are words, and people write all the time and do it a lot more seriously than I do it. But he and Andy had similar music tastes as me, so I felt like I could trust them to understand the sort of sound that I wanted on the album. Matt more helped me structure them I suppose. I did all the heavy lifting with the writing on most of them – they all just came from my roots I guess. For instance, in ‘Honey Moon’ I originally wrote ‘we’re on our honeymoon’, but Matt changed it to ‘where are you Honey Moon’. ‘Dandelion White’, we wanted a Fleetwood Mac kind of vibe and it gives that off a little bit. Fleetwood were always a big influence for me too, that more poppy, dreamy sound.” Gow also joins Josie in a couple of duets on the album, ‘Little Blonde Devil’ and ‘Love Me Still’, the latter a song principally written by Gow. “He had ‘Love Me Still’ quite upbeat, and when he sent it to me, I immediately got on the piano and slowed it down and sent the voice memo back to him and he liked the slower style. I think for him it was always going to be a duet. ‘Little Blonde Devil’ is two people talking to one another so he always thought that was a duet. I started writing that during lock-down because he and I hadn’t met so I based it on the scenario of not knowing someone and imagining what they would be like, but then you meet them and maybe they’re not what you expect. “I wrote ‘Seeing Red’ a few years ago. I’d broken up with a boyfriend and I was mad. Anyway, this just came out one night and I wrote the rest of the lyrics. ‘Tangled’ was the first single that we released and was one of the first songs I sent to Matt down in Melbourne. It was very much inspired by ‘In Spite of Ourselves’, the song John Prine wrote with Iris DeMent. I really love that song. It always reminded me of mum and dad sort of. When I started writing that ‘Tangled’ song it was meant to be for mum and dad but Matt took the line ‘come on baby don’t be lazy, let’s get tangled all night’ or something and turned it into the chorus and then it turned into a bit more of a, like, ‘dirty love song’,” she giggles, “which to me is what ‘Tangled’ is a little bit.” The closest Josie gets to horses on Ride This Lullaby is ‘Mustang’, but that’s the car, not the four-legged beastie! But she’s already writing for her second album and assures me horses get a look-in on a couple of them, though maybe not showjumpers.