Rolling Stone Australia - May 2016

May, 2016 RollingStoneAus.com|Rolling Stone| 95

Ben Watt

Fever Dream Caroline

★★★★

Briton distances himself from DJ

booth with folk follow-up

Apparently feeling a bit long

in the tooth for nightclubs –

see “Young Man’s Game” on

2014’s Hendra – on Fever

Dream veteran producer Watt

furthers Hendra’s rek indling

of his first love, the ambling

jazz-f lecked folk of his 1983

solo debut. These are mature

male musings on ageing and

relationships, set to subtle,

pretty acoustic strings and

smoky electric riffs. Across

gorgeous hushed backing vo-

cals on “Gradually”, undulating

Jackson Browne piano chords

on “Between Two Fires” and

bossa nova rhythms on “Faces

of My Friends”, Watt’s search-

ing bray and a steady gambit

throughout serve as anchoring

constants. Clubland’s loss is

Mum and Dad’s gain. A.R.

The Weeping Willows
Before Darkness Comes
A-Callin’ Ind.

★★★★
Australian gothic-country is in
good hands

Album number two from this
Melbourne red-dirt country
duo, Before Darkness Comes
A-Callin’ is a gorgeous cut, all
warm and dark and fl owing –
both Andrew Wrigglesworth
and Laura Coates have grown
a tremendous amount, their
connection with the genre
strong. Recorded in L.A. with
a fantastic session band who
lend pedal steel, fi ddle, man-
dolin, banjo and upright bass
to the duo’s core guitar, auto-
harp and vocals, their gothic-
country sound is fl eshed out,
free to wander down a vari-
ety of paths – the toe-tapping
“Fallen Ring”; the mournful
Appalachian wail of “River
Of Gold”; the fl oating “Valley
Of Darkness”. Australian alt.
country at its near-fi nest. S.J.F.

Graham Nash

This Path Tonight Wa r ner

★★★

CSNY idealist faces abyss with

shoulders sagging

You don’t hear much trium-

phalism from the Sixties coun-

ter culture these days. “Where

are we going?” is the plea that

opens Graham Nash’s first

album in 14 years. Plaintive?

More like bereft. “This Path

Tonight” leads to some truth

that’s more resigned than re-

demptive. The elegiac likes of

“Cracks In the City” and “Be-

neath the Waves” fi nd him spi-

ralling inward from “a world

that really doesn’t care if we

live or if we die”. “Golden Days”

is a bitter appraisal of crushed

dreams and “Back Home” stoic

preparation for the old man’s

last journey. There’s comfort in

other tunes, and in Shane Fon-

tayne’s tasteful, woody fi nish.

But for the most part, the con-

fessed seeker has found himself

in shadow. MICHAEL DWYER

James

Girl at the End of the World

Liberator Music ★★★

14th album from Madchester and

Britpop survivors

Destiny called James to re-

unite in 2007, and they’ve been

delivering albums of perfectly

pleasant, if not ground-break-

ing pop since: a mature band

making mature music for their

now-mature fans. While Girl

at the End of the World lacks

the pop anthems James de-

livered in the early Nineties,

it trades in comfortable af a-

bility and execution. At times

it’s like your 50-year-old ‘hip’

uncle discovering Temper Trap

and keyboards (“Catapult”,

“Attention”), and at others it’s

genuinely interesting to hear

James lean on their experience

and apply it, as on the swell of

“Surfer’s Song” and the gentle

brush of “Feet of Clay”. Tim

Booth still delivers the pithy

with the profound, and so

James continue apace. J.C.

Lush

Blind Spot Edamame

★★★★

Beloved UK band reconvene

and bliss out

Lush’s fi rst new material in 20

years plays like a natural ex-

tension of the English quar-

tet’s back catalogue, which

spanned gauzy dream-pop and

driving post-punk. These four

slow-burn tunes seem fl eeting

at fi rst, but soon reveal many

divergent layers. Miki Bere-

nyi’s voice is as soft and airy as

ever, yet her lyrics are decid-

edly dark: the bullying-themed

“Rosebud” simmers with whis-

pered menace while “Out of

Control” pairs a blissful guitar

strum with painful snapshots

of adolescence. Most haunt-

ing is “Lost Boy,” recounting a

dream Berenyi had about orig-

inal drummer Chris Acland,

who committed suicide in ’96.

Beneath its delicate surface,

Blind Spot teems with intoxi-

cating textures. D.W.

ACT

TO

WATC H

On 2013 debut LP Nonfi ction,

Williamsburg-based electronic

musician James Hinton took

what on the surface smacked

of hipster pretentiousness – tak-

ing vocal samples from obscure,

unwatched YouTube performance videos – and

created a lush and deservedly lauded LP. Hinton

refi nes the technique on skilful follow-up Poten-

tial, the sampled amateur voices painstakingly

sourced from all corners of the globe – a Jamai-

can dancehall artist, a UK grime MC, a teen singer

from the U.S. – adding a vulnerable, raw heart to

his elegant electronic compositions and creating

an emotional thread that solidifies the album into

a cohesive, rewarding whole. By turns meditative

(“Regular”) and hands-in-the-air jubilant (“Flor-

ida”, a rework of Ariana Grande’s “You’ll Never

Know”), it manages to connect disparate strang-

ers via the seemingly impersonal medium of the

internet and have them inject a very human soul

into music made on machines for an emotive,

quietly profound album. JAMES JENNINGS

The Range

Producer builds electronic music

around YouTube vocal samples

Potential Domino ★★★★

HOMETOWNBrooklyn

BACKSTORYHinton

grew up in rural Penn-

sylvania with a music

teacher mother. Stints

DJ’ing in college led

to producing music on

his laptop, birthing the

Range.

SAMPLE FRIENDS

Hinton reached out to

those he sampled, and

was heartened by their

response: “I’m surprised

[everyone liked] the

music and the way their

voice was, everyone’s

KEY TRACKS: “Florida”, “Five Four”, “1804” really excited.”

KEY FACTS