Rufus Du Sol retains euphoric, celebratory air on fifth album
A sense of restless creative energy pulses throughout the newest set from these lords of the dancefloor — a truly world-beating band flying the flag as Australia’s biggest electronic export.
Album reviews for week of October 18 2024:
ELECTRONIC
Inhale/Exhale
Rufus Du Sol
Rose Avenue/Warner Music Australia
By announcing an ‘‘intimate’’ live performance on Sydney Harbour to launch its fifth album, Rufus Du Sol couldn’t have escaped the irony. Tyrone Lindqvist, Jon George and James Hunt have championed emotive and heartfelt electronic musical connection since breaking out with debut album Atlas (2013), but the trio’s global success since has made the idea of smaller performances – outside of occasional DJ sets – increasingly fanciful. And so at sunset last Thursday, about 3000 fans clamoured around the Botanic Gardens, on boats on the harbour, to catch a glimpse of a hometown group that now sells out famed venues like Red Rocks Amphitheatre and Los Angeles’ Hollywood Bowl, and which is headlining South America’s Lollapalooza festival next year. Add multiple Grammy nominations – and one win, in 2022, for Best Dance/Electronic Recording for the ‘‘heavy but hopeful’’ Alive – and Rufus Du Sol now sits alongside the likes of Flume, Alison Wonderland and Cut Copy as one of Australia’s truly world-beating electronic exports. From early singles like Desert Night and the near-10-minute classic that is Innerbloom, to Treat You Better and gems like Surrender – the spine-tingling title track to 2021’s fourth album – the trio’s musical output has steadily, methodically evolved alongside its black-clad aesthetic and blistering live shows. On Inhale/Exhale, Lindqvist, George and Hunt appear more assured, focused and committed than ever – to more of the same.
That’s not a dig; the album is sonically rich, the songwriting is strong, and Lindqvist’s raspy pipes continue to enthral. But much of the album sounds exactly as rusted-on fans would hope; any recalibration of what is obviously a tried-and-true formula isn’t immediately apparent. And that’s OK. There is a sense of restless creative energy pulsing throughout; tempos rise and fall, and synth lines pierce with a razor sharpness that, when combined with big, rumbling beats and yearning vocals covering themes of love, heartbreak, despair and euphoria, make for a captivating listen. Opener Inhale builds atop moody, swirling production, hazy synths and Lindqvist’s vocal promising “brighter days to come”; but the drop never arrives, instead morphing into the thumping, ominous Lately. Music Is Better hits right where it should, celebrating music’s connective nature via Hunt’s crisp drums and a euphoric chorus. Pressure, meanwhile, strikes a defiant tone as Lindqvist promises “you’ll never break me down” amid snarling, distorted synths and a mid-tempo, chugging beat. New York is one of a handful of slower, contemplative numbers that eschew dancefloor kick, propelled by a restrained, heartbeat-like thump and Lindqvist’s longing, alongside rich backing vocals, to be taken “back where I belong, back into your arms”. Closer Exhale brings the sensory loop full circle as his high-pitched vocal spars with delicate keys. It’s a tune dripping with intimacy, one perhaps destined to find greatness on big stages. As for any more ‘intimate’ performances, well, their just-announced Australian tour for November 2025 suggests you shouldn’t hold your breath.
Tim McNamara
COUNTRY
Born on the Road
Two Tone Pony
Checked Label
A half-century before “nepo babies” entered the cultural lexicon, David Kirkpatrick grew up travelling around Australia with the royal couple of country music: his parents, Slim Dusty and Anne Kirkpatrick. It’s to his credit he didn’t cash in on these credentials until later on in his adult life but, as this debut from his band, Two Tone Pony, attests, good graces only get you so far. Born on the Road is a polite morning-tea affair of a country album; full of Hallmark card lyrics, basic acoustic strumming and faint attempts at rollicking backbeats – as though drummer Greg Richardson is barricaded behind walls of Plexiglas lest he busts a nearby hearing aid. Across 12 songs and 50 minutes, Kirkpatrick has inherited his parents’ subject matter of rural travelling and outback life, but not either one’s award-winning ability to write about them with detail, intrigue or even memorable choruses. Neither he nor co-frontman Ian Rhodes can carry much of a tune, either. When it comes to Born on the Road, the lights on the hill are on – but nobody’s home.
David James Young
CLASSICAL
Boccherini Chamber Works for Flute
Sally Walker
Avie
The works of Italian-Spanish composer Luigi Boccherini (1743-1805) are synonymous with the most stylish features of late 18th-century music, often ornamented with exquisite but purposeful filigree. Best known these days for his works for the cello, his own instrument, Boccherini also composed some deal of music for the flute. Canberra-based performer and scholar Sally Walker has assembled some eight chamber works around the flute, totalling almost 100 minutes spread across a double album. All were recorded in the sparkling acoustics of the new Baroque Hall in North Adelaide in January 2023. The result is sheer delight. This music bustles along, prancing and dancing with poise and vigour. The performances of Walker and her octet are almost intoxicating in vitality and absolute unanimity, alternating between refined elegance, intimate beauty and occasional cheekiness. A favourite composer of mine for decades, Boccherini binds the rococo and the early classical, and could do with a revival in this country. Walker’s enthusiasm and her inspirational performances would be a welcome start to that.
Vincent Plush
AMERICANA
The Four Seasons
Henry Wagons
Cheatin’ Hearts Records
There are precious few who have come to embody the gloriously esoteric nature of “cosmic country” as has Henry Wagons over the years. He’s a skilled blender of a genre as old as the hills, with swathes of western noir and Australian hillbilly cheek, the recipe to which he’s expanded with latest cut The Four Seasons. Interspersed with spaghetti western-infused instrumental shorts denoting said seasons – beginning with the shimmering and dusty Summer, culminating in the jaunty and horn-laden Spring – the album evokes images of vast and calcareous red earth landscapes while hugging one close and offering comfort in a world where, in Wagons’ own words: “Everything around you is going downhill, fast.” Elements of Louisiana swamp pop permeate My Lover My Companion; Hawaiian-style steel defines What You Need; an almost ‘60s pop feel embraces Park At the Station. But it’s his country roots that emerge strongest: duetting on a handful of songs with Queenie – Big City Blues, conjuring images of Jon Spencer “gone country” is the standout, their harmonies reminiscent of Conway Twitty and Loretta Lynn – Wagons stretches out over the album’s 14 songs. Expansive is indeed the keyword here, on a truly cosmic record.
Samuel J. Fell
ALTERNATIVE ROCK
Aghori Mhori Mei
The Smashing Pumpkins
Martha’s Music / Thirty Tigers
Cards on the table: this is the best Smashing Pumpkins record released in the past decade. It’s also not a good record. But credit where credit is due: Billy Corgan, the US band’s enigmatic frontman, has remained one of the most prolific “legacy songwriters” of the 21st century. It’s only been 18 months since the band’s indigestible triple-LP Atum landed, but Corgan is ready to go again, and he proudly has returned to the well of the band’s trademark alt-metal/grunge-pop sound. The result has moments of promise; the opening gambit, Eden, stokes a vicious collection of riffs, while Goeth the Fall does sound pleasingly Siamese Dream-esque. Sadly, these moments of nostalgic warmth are ruined by more of the band’s dreaded love for cheap-sounding synths — Pentecost is particularly phoned in — and, quite frankly, the worst vocal performance of Corgan’s career. Gone is any sense of malice behind his trademark snarl, replaced by out-of-tune wailing that even the most aggressive James Iha tone or the most dexterous Jimmy Chamberlin drum fill can’t disguise. Corgan has said that with this release the band has attempted to “move forward by looking back”. Looking back while moving forward can make you trip and fall, though, as has happened here.
Alasdair Belling
