Graham Reid | | 1 min read
Mountain and Me
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes in a matt carboard sleeve with an insert slip of credits and a surreal piece about what a rubricator is (most of which is bewildering and tangential!)
Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .
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Until we send experts to sample the water or embed sociologists there, we'll never quite know what effect Lyttelton has on songwriters or those who record there.
Maybe it's the ocean air, the seeming isolation, the old buildings and cold climate (which worked well for the first generation of Flying Nun in Dunedin) but . . .
Such a lot of talent and great music coming out of there.
Sam Bambery being another.
In a country which embraces idiosyncratic pop (from Split Enz to Tall Dwarfs, Tokey Tones and Voom), singer-songwriter Bambery should have an in-house audience for the melodic folk-driven pop on this intelligent second album.
Immediately appealing are the wide-screen, Pasifika-influenced The Burnout with a wash of slide guitar as counterpoint to his lyrical anxieties, the casual backyard strum behind the equally expansive Life in Tandem and the delightfully quirky Doctor.
The Burnout
Bambery's expressive and impressive vocal range -- from intimate (Spring, Tricks of Light) through the uneasy shapeshifting stalk of Parasite, to Jeff Buckley-like confessional art-rock on Mountain and Me and the dramatic Uncertain – carries these diverse, skilfully arranged songs which sometimes include seemingly random vocal samples.
The final song is the DIY home recording of the dark Myself, Vindicated.
He is.
On the tiny Under Underground Records run by his friend Hannah Everingham – whose recent Siempre Tiene Flores is also worth attention – Rubricator confirms the emergence of a real talent.
Vindicated
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You can hear and buy this album at bandcamp here.
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