Graham Reid | | 2 min read
Come Down
From time to time Elsewhere will single out a recent release we recommend on vinyl, like this which comes in a gatefold sleeve with lyrics and a bonus seven inch single of her versions of How Bizarre (see below) and the country classic The Gambler.
Check out Elsewhere's other Recommended Record picks . . .
.
Those of us who have followed Reb Fountain from her early appearances in small performance spaces and on albums -- 20 years ago! -- were witness to the growth of an artist whose increasing confidence has made for a remarkable body of work.
Along the way she also let go of the protective shield a guitar can offer and, more importantly, unshackled herself from a standing microphone.
As we noted some while back, she now paces and prowls on stages, connecting more viscerally and emotionally with her audience which is often spellbound by the strength of her character.
In doing that she also liberated other women artists to do the same, to be confident and empowered.
As an important aside however, when the prime minister said on radio recently that country singer Kaylee Bell – who had a chart-topping album a year ago, a handful of local awards and has toured the nation – was very successful overseas but not so well known at home it was a forgivable gaffe from someone who has only passing contact with local music.
But it was also reminder that while people might enjoy a particular artist they don't necessarily follow their career as slavishly as those invested.
It's likely many who came to Reb Fountain's Taite Prize winning, self-titled 2020 album – which sprung her arresting Don't You Know Who I Am – were unaware of her three previous albums, the Hopeful & Hopeless EP, early singles and her peripatetic, often troubled, life.
They took Reb Fountain as the exceptional album it was, but may not have even followed her forward to 2021's multi-layered and genre-jumping Iris album, or her covers of OMC's How Bizarre (delivered like a walk on Lou's wide side) and the Lennon-Ono Happy Xmas/War is Over.
That her breakthrough was self-titled -- her first on the Flying Nun label -- suggested a kind of Second Coming for Fountain and it's interesting that in Nun publicity Iris has been described as her "sophomore" album.
Her journey to her new album How Love Bends – from her early country-folk stylings to more recent art music inclinations – has been as enigmatic as it revealing.
With her band of multi-instrumentalist Dave Khan (who co-produced it with Simon Gooding), bassist Karin Canzek and drummer Earl Robinson, Fountain here steps further toward seductively ethereal trip-hop on the opener Come Down ("just ride, thing's going to stop this tide" and with the appropriated Stone Roses line “I wanna be adored” slipping in seamlessly).
Forever explores spare incantatory funk, swooning 1980's synth-pop (“we'll live forever”) and a hint of prog-rock; the downbeat Drake ("carving out a place to hide 'til someone spoils the ride") is cinematically Gothic.
Everyday Fitness is a glorious ballad (which might have benefitted from a more restrained arrangement), He Commands You To Jump In The Sea. opens with spoken word over a steady pulse and on the six minute closer Memorial she again moves adeptly from a croaking world-weary speak-sing to a dramatic Patti Smith-like crescendo: "Follow me, follow me".
Everywhere Fountain is poised, letting the lyrics and musical setting convey a sense of mystery or heightened emotion as, by her own account, she deals with the fog of the past and a new relationship.
How Love Bends is another impressive milestone in this Second Coming.
Nothing Like – which arrives with the drama of a Bond theme – moves from references to exile, a bad dream, sadness and dying to “there’s nothin’ like new love to raise your head, nothing like falling for wings to spread . . . nothin’ like dreaming for cheating death”.
When Reb Fountain falls, her wings spread wide and creative dreaming begins.
.
How Love Bends is available digitally, on CD and vinyl at bandcamp here.
post a comment