Music reviews: Remi; Jordie Lane; Pavlov’s Dog; Riebl; Kristen Berardi
Australian hip hop artist Remi Kolawole has made an intensely personal album that tackles some difficult issues.
HIP HOP
Divas & Demons
REMI
House of Beige/Independent
4.5 stars
A popular creative maxim suggests writers should write what they know; no point in making stuff up if what you’re going through in your life might help others when they see it on the page or, in this case, hear it in a song. Remi Kolawole showed signs of adhering to this maxim two years ago on an excellent debut album, Raw X Infinity, but on the follow-up, he has taken it to heart. Kolawole and producer Justin “Sensible J” Smith are the two members who comprise the core duo of REMI — stylised in capital letters; in sum, Divas & Demons benefits from the input of more than 12 musical and vocal collaborators.
The central narrative belongs to Kolawole, though, and in plain terms the album is an account of the depression, oppression and relationship troubles that the 25-year-old Australian of Nigerian descent has experienced since the breakout success of Raw X Infinity, which won the Australian Music Prize in March last year.
An intensely personal album about mental illness, social isolation and drug abuse, among many other topics, Divas & Demons is a compelling and surprising spectacle from beginning to end. If the debut suggested REMI as a key Australian hip-hop act to watch, this one solidifies its perch near the top of the tree.
Stylistically, Smith’s drum loops, chopped beats and varied instrumentation keep things interesting, while never sidelining the groove and bounce that hip-hop audiences expect. Kolawole’s songwriting and vocal flow have both hit new levels; his distinctive voice, coupled with Smith’s production, more often than not achieves that key-in-lock feel to which all hip-hop artists aspire. His descriptive, observational mode of storytelling is reminiscent of the genre’s greatest young artist: Compton-born rapper Kendrick Lamar, whose 2012 major label debut was a concept album that depicted a day in the 17-year-old’s life, prior to his international fame. Divas & Demons is not rooted in the same conceit, but its overall feel is comparable, fraught as such comparisons may be.
As with Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d city, to single out individual tracks is to do it a disservice, so intertwined is the narrative thread that runs through it. “This is ashtrays for the stress / This is nights that you’d rather forget / This is emotional texts / That you didn’t need to send, but you don’t regret,” Kolawole raps in the first lines of the album opener, D.A.D. What the MC and his 37-year-old offsider have captured will resonate with many young Australians who hear this potent, passionate document of artistic expression.
The title of mid-album track Young and Free is taken from our national anthem, but the reality it reflects is one distorted by media bias, rampant racism, social inequality and bigotry in the guise of free speech. Sound familiar?
Andrew McMillen
*
ROOTS/POP
Glassellland
Jordie Lane & The Sleepers
Blood Thinner/MGM
4 stars
Jordie Lane jetted home to Australia from the US recently carrying a retro-sounding new DIY album that promises to catapult his career from journeyman status to the upper strata of the local singer-songwriter ranks. From temporary, self-built studios in Los Angeles, the Melburnian and his co-producer, fellow Aussie songwriter Clare Reynolds, recorded and played every instrument and sound on his first album in five years. Glassellland has a kaleidoscopic quality that extends Lane’s musical scope and range of vocal expression.
There’s a psychedelic Beatles’ Sgt Pepper feel in the alternating rhythm and tempo changes of In Dreams of War; a kind of Fab Four meet Chris Isaak ambience in the arrangement of the equally expansive America, Won’t You Make My Dreams Come True, a vocal duet with his collaborator. Stripped back to acoustic guitar and harmonica, Lane’s closer to 1960s Dylan in Better Not Go Outside and Time Just Flew, spitting out lines such as “try not to obsess over symmetry / accept that death is history” and “I wake when the day is done / I do my living without the sun” with laissez-faire attitude. There are shades of Neil Young in the folk-rockers Black Diamond and Frederick Steele McNeil Ferguson. In the latter, Lane’s gruff singing and grungy electric guitar riffs intensify a song about guilt and a grandfather who “killed a man in World War I”. In Dreamin’ the Life, the dynamics and opening gambit are reminiscent of Jeff Lang: “Thornbury tram to a London tube”.
Tony Hillier
*
PROGRESSIVE
House Broken
Pavlov’s Dog
Rockville
3.5 stars
Pavlov’s Dog was one of kind: a seven-piece prog-rock outfit with a mellotron and a violin, backing a lead singer who made Robert Plant sound like a baritone. David Surkamp’s unique voice was instantly recognisable and pitched so high that it cut through like a crystal shard.
The St Louis, Missouri, band’s 1975 debut, Pampered Menial, has never been out of print and is now considered a prog-rock classic, one that has been nicely remastered by Esoteric. Like Jeff Lynne’s Electric Light Orchestra, however, the number of original members fronting for the newly released double live album is roughly one. Luckily, that one is Surkamp, and his passion appears unabated, even if the same cannot be said for his voice, although his mellower tones still sit pretty well with many of the songs.
Surkamp has put together an accomplished team — including wife Sara, violinist Abbie Hainz Steiling and talented young guitarist Amanda McCoy — to pump out vibrant live versions of classic songs from the first and second albums, as well as from lesser known releases such as Echo & Boo and Lost In America.
Recorded last year, much of Pampered Menial is there, including a rollicking version of Song Dance, and a good cross-section of the band’s subsequent output features a powerful version of Valkyrie. This warts-and-all performance, played with verve and featuring some blazing guitar and fiddle, serves as a well-recorded homage to some exceptional music. Surkamp may have been better served in ending the encore with something other than Julia, a song with impossible vocal gymnastics, but overall he manages to bring back the good old days.
Steve Creedy
*
POP
Paper Doors
Felix Riebl
Kobalt
3 stars
The voice of Felix Riebl, immediately recognisable as the lead vocalist from one of Australia’s pre-eminent ska, pop and jazz bands the Cat Empire, has gone solo once more. The Melburnian singer-songwriter has been the architect behind most of the Cat Empire’s catalogue, his songwriting clever and his performances radiant with infectious energy. Following the success of the band’s latest album, this year’s Rising with the Sun, Riebl has released his newest solo material, 10 tracks and 37 minutes long, which traverses an impressive range of styles and instrumentation. At first, on opening track Paper Doors, it is jarring to hear the voice so often accompanied by raging brass lines and vinyl scratches singing softer, more legato vocal lines. But once accustomed to how Riebl softens his tone, it’s hard to imagine him singing any other way. A highlight is the stunning accompaniment of the three featured female voices: Katy Steele, Emily Lubitz and Martha Wainwright. Steele, who possesses another of Australia’s iconic voices, accompanies on strident ballad Wasting Time with mild harmonies that give the track a gentle lift. Lubitz assists on Snowflakes, an undulating song reminiscent of Gotye, complete with glockenspiel, and Wainwright features on In Your Arms, a track that sounds cheerful but contains weighty, emotional lyrics. For the most part Paper Doors is a departure from the jazz/ska genre, but All I Can Say and Shadows, which ring with choir-like vocals and are punctuated with staccato keyboards and punchy brass lines, offer a flavour of Riebl’s Empire roots. Overall, this album is more subdued and intimate.
Emily Ritchie
*
JAZZ
Just as You Are
The Kristin Berardi Band
Planet
3.5 stars
A problem for jazz vocalists is finding new material to perform, given all the standard songs with the best music and lyrics have been recorded dozens of times, often by top performers. On this album, the 10th from Brisbane-based, multi-award-winning vocalist Kristin Berardi, she has tackled the problem of new material by writing nine of the 11 tracks.
An important contribution to the collection is the quality backing quartet from Sydney, led by pianist Greg Coffin, whose accompanying work and improvisations are features.
One of the non-originals is a swinging rendition of Just Squeeze Me, where Coffin’s piano solo and Berardi’s vocals, including occasional scat phrases, are underpinned by Carl Morgan’s guitar and a thriving rhythm established by Brett Hirst’s bass and Tim Firth on drums. The other standard is the ballad Body and Soul, given ultra-slow treatment and a moving vocal interpretation, recorded live at a concert.
The original pieces are mostly about romantic love and breakup; two exceptions are Sara’sSea Song, with a lilting rhythm and mystical story, and Mr Jackson, about an ageing eccentric encountered in a laundromat. Better Day has Berardi scatting and a strong guitar solo, while a brisker tempo drives Memories of You. In most of its lyric content this album has a sad and doleful atmosphere, although the accompaniments are often sprightly.
John McBeath
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