Album reviews: Ali Barter, the Pheasantry, Nadia Reid, Conor Oberst and Bardo Pond.
The nice thing about classical musicians gone rogue – as one-time choir girl Ali Barter has – is they usually have the chops to do whatever they damn well want. The creativity? Well that's another question, but one Barter has a convincing answer to on her first album. The choir girl is still there in Tokyo's soaring vocal and the dance-in-your-bedroom anthem Light Them On Fire – that would otherwise sound at home on a Foo Fighters album. Barter's voice may pitch and soar with classical confidence, but its backdrop is a decidedly indie-rock conglomeration of gnarly guitars and snappy syncopated beats. Cigarette is uncomfortably relatable in its examination of female insecurity ("If I shaved my head would you tell your friends you don't really care?"), before the frustrated stab at misogyny that is Girlie Bits. The change of pace brought by Please Stay sounds uncannily like early-noughties Taylor Swift, but by the time loping Walk/Talk closes the album, the grungy, explosive choruses are wearing thin. Still, to work through the tumultuous ups and downs of one's 20s is one thing; to do it so unselfconsciously is quite another. Jessie Cunniffe
New tunes from Bardo Pond.Credit:Fire Records
Bardo Pond
UNDER THE PINES
(Fire Records/Rocket)
★★★★
Over 26 years and almost as many releases Bardo Pond has expanded and refined its psychedelic space rock to such an extent that no matter what characteristics differentiate each album, nobody can question the group's dedication to experimentation. Where Isobel Sollenberger's vocals are positioned in the mix hints at what they are trying to achieve. Placing her prowling voice in front of the band, or back among its sprawling drone is often an indication of whether the Philadelphia quintet is focusing on songs or atmospherics. For this release it is definitely the latter. Less pronounced flute and violin, fewer crackling guitar leads, and a retreat from the brow-beating production of 2013's Peace on Venus demonstrates a preference – in this instance at least – for more ambient spine tingle. Reprising some of the folk elements of 2006's Ticket Crystals helps to achieve this, but it's a desert countryside they're painting this time, replete with shimmering horizons and mirage-inducing heat. Through six songs over 41 minutes, with limitless layers of sonic details and free jazz arrangements, Bardo Pond once again collapse sonic boundaries. Sean Rabin
Conor Oberst's new album.Credit:Nonesuch
Conor Oberst
SALUTATIONS
(Nonesuch)
★★★
Cabin fever gives way to country-rock on Conor Oberst's new album, which finds the American singer-songwriter taking last October's solo set Ruminations and rerecording the song – plus an extra seven new tracks – with a laid-back backing band comprising members of the Felice Brothers and legendary veteran drummer Jim Keltner. Expansive instead of enraged, Salutations fills out the likes of Tachycardi and Mamah Borthwick (A Sketch) with melancholic sympathy and peals of pedal steel. The additions often come with more of a kick, especially Napalm which ties a hillbilly swagger to Dylan-like phrasing as Oberst recounts a "quixotic quest". Personal dissatisfaction flows through these tracks – "tried some bad meditation," is the very first line – as the 37-year-old measures his life against expectations. Yet he can still turn self-examination into wonder, as on Gossamer Thin, where the prickly privilege of a successful musician segues into details of an affair that crackles with novella's detail: "She likes the new Pope, she's not scared of hell, they meet once a week at a secret motel." Even when he's clearing the decks, Conor Oberst can't help keeping a candle lit. Craig Mathieson
New music from The Pheasantry.Credit:Pheasantry album cover
The Pheasantry
THE PHEASANTRY
(Pheasant Plucker Records)
★★★½
The Pheasant Pluckers have been a constant and welcome presence in Melbourne's country-bluegrass scene for more than 20 years. However, it seems they've finally decided the gag of their spoonerism/tongue twister name has now worn out its welcome (certainly not the first bunch of mates to outlive a band moniker intended for just a few shows for fun), so after five Pheasant Plucker albums – the last in 2010 – comes the debut release from the Pheasantry. Fans will be pleased to know that while the name has changed, the lovely, big-hearted, porch-perfect songs remain the same. Yet the great thing about this collection is its diversity, with every song taking you to a different corner of the country genre, due partly to songwriting being spread across four of the five members. It's Matt Campbell who remains the driving creative force with most credits though. He evokes vivid vignettes of his life on the wonderful Beehive, Forty Cars and album closer Simon. You'll also be won over by singer/percussionist Keith Ludekens' glorious gospel-tinged Let Me In.
The Pheasantry launch their album March 26, at the Toff in Town, Melbourne, with James Stewart's Four Door Shit Box. Jo Roberts
This albums haunts. There's a guitar clang, a ringing afterthought almost, that closes Te Aro – a song which already feels like the longest night of the soul – that hits me. Every. Single. Time. This might at first sound like darkness gripping, sadness holding you but this isn't despair, it's hope, clinging to it as the answer for now. Preservation feels at times like Tim Hardin with the Cocteau Twins, or maybe Antony/Anohni taking a Lou Reed connection to its logical conclusion: close and big; brutally direct and elaborately expansive; quiet but never anything as simple as hushed. But Nadia Reid also makes beautiful drifting music. I Come Home To You for one feels almost reverential, rising to a high ceiling like slow smoke; Richard has shards of guitars and rolling drums with Reid describing fractures in personality with something close to – but never really – forgiveness. The songs and the sound are superb, yet Reid's singing is something beyond that. It's right there, in reach, tangible, but not raw – that word doesn't suit the tone here, it's too harsh. Instead it has skin, so very fine skin. Translucent skin. That's where the truth gets in. Bernard Zuel
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