Kasey Chambers and Shane Nicholson: Rattlin' Bones (2008)

Chambers -- daughter of the very great singer-songwriter Bill -- is one of Australia's finest alt.country/roots artists and for this album she teamed up with her husband Nicholson for their first album together.

Oddly enough although they played together in their casual side-project The Lost Dogs covers band they hadn't previously written together -- yet the evidence on this album is that they are rare, kindred musical spirits.

This album, recorded in a week, debuted at number one in Australia (Chambers' third debut number one) and the earthy honesty about it should have had equal international appeal.

Chambers' and Nicholson's voice lock together seamlessly and Paul Kelly said recently "lonesome and loving haven't sounded this good since Gram and Emmylou".

High praise, but the evidence is in these musically spare and emotionally bare songs which aren't so much duets but, as Chambers says, "an album that sounds like a band with two singers in it".

Songs like Sweetest Waste of Time, Monkey On A Wire and many others sound like classic American roots music and the arrangements for lap steel, fiddle and mandolin are understated.

There are dark turns in the lyrics -- I believe Chambers and Nicholson separated for a period before this album, they would split up in 2013 -- but there is also something life affirming in its unalloyed emotion.

Chambers had more songwriting success however her personal life was often troubled, but we'd have to concede it made for experiences she could translate into songs which often sound like country classics.

. 

(There is an interview with Kasey and Shane at Absolute Elsewhere here, you can hear this album at Spotify here) 

.

These Essential Elsewhere pages deliberately point to albums which you might not have thought of, or have even heard . . .

But they might just open a door into a new kind of music, or an artist you didn't know of.

Or someone you may have thought was just plain boring.

Jump in.