SINGLE OF THE WEEK

CARRY NATION – Phil Spector

(El Nino El Nino / Inertia)

It was a few years ago at a conference at Brisbane’s inaugural Ladyfest event that rock musician Kiley Gaffney recounted the story of being told by Triple J’s music committee that they wouldn’t play her latest record because they only had room enough for a couple of female singers with a similar sound, and Katie Noonan’s george was currently in full swing. It’s a prospect that seems (a) small-minded in its principles; but also (b) hard to reconcile with the same station today, given the depth of Australian female talent on current regular rotation, many of whom sport a very similar demeanour. Carry Nation is the alias of Brisbane songstress Jessie Warren, a vocal minimalist with a coy sensibility, whose everyday-dreaminess floats around this ‘us-against-the-world’ song, in a style not unlike that of Washington/Blasko/Miller/Throsby, but even closer to locals McKisko or Fi Claus. Warren’s delivery remains slender and touching throughout, even when the band’s gusto builds, though never to the Wall Of Sound phase that the tune’s namesake would preside over. Even for folks who have started to register some element of Ingénue Fatigue, Warren as Carry Nation strays far enough from the emerging template to remain unique.

ROMY – Sleep

(Independent)

You can never be too confident in what you’re going to find when a new bundle of Romy Hoffman arrives. She started her recording career as a youngster back in the ‘90s along Ben Lee in the brat-punk-ish Noise Addict, before coming into her own last decade as free-flowing and occasionally vitriolic MC Macromantics. Now she’s just Romy. As anyone who caught a Macromantics show in the last few years would know, behind the brash motormouth is a self-proclaimed Britney fan, so perhaps we shouldn’t be so surprised to hear the new flashy dancefloor direction of Sleep. There’s actually more of a Cut Copy vibe, with a murky, droney electronic backing giving isolated melodies the chance to sparkle from time to time, though it never rises to the anthem-like quality that defines that aforementioned group. Still, it brings up such a vivid picture of clubs and neon-strewn streets that it seems wrong to listen to Sleep during the day. Romy’s singing voice has never been her strength, and it’s only a little more than adequate here, but in all this transition to the realm of dance works because she’s chasing sleep-deprived clubs, rather than pop stadiums.

SKIPPING GIRL VINEGAR – One Long Week

(Popboomerang / MGM)

It’s about bloody time. Go back through your Mine’s On The 45 archives and you’ll see it was way back in 2007 that we reviewed One Chance, an all-too brief blast of pre-Mumford banjorific stomping from what would be the first Skipping Girl Vinegar album. The Melbourne four-piece had worked on that record for a number of years, so you couldn’t begrudge them taking the opportunity to milk non-stop tours from its run of songs, but it’s a relief to see that finally a new album is in its pre-release. The first step: the single. One Long Week is far less idiosyncratic than Sift The Noise – while there are horns and a bouncy piano (maybe even a cello?) adding to the usual guitar/drum combo, it feels more evened out, like an entire mature song that holds together, rather than a cheeky showcase of different instruments. Having Greg Arnold as producer makes sense, as the veteran nice guy from Things Of Stone & Wood excels in creating radio-friendly folk music that is immediately listenable, but reveals quirks and oddities as it sinks in. Oh man, just imagine what it would be like having tea with Arnold and frontman Mark Lang, two of the nicest guys in folk-rock – even Josh Pyke would feel like a poor-mannered arsehole by the end of his first Tim Tam. One Long Week sings of sun shining on weary bones, but by the sounds of this there’s more enough spring left in their joints to keep creating some of the loveliest guitar pop around for a while yet.

SAINTS OF INDIA – Mothership

(Yep! Records/MGM)

Singles are usually not complicated things. They’re immediate. They’re blatant. They’re like a shot of some mystery liquor that you grab off someone else’s tray, throw past your gullet, and decide if it was a good idea once it’s down. You generally don’t read the fineprint first. But if ever you needed backstory to a single, it’s this one. For this debut record, producer Stu McCarthy (Kim Salmon, Itch-E & Scratch-E, Southend) researched the writings of 16^th century English woman Mother Shipton, who was burned at the stake for witchcraft in 1561. Her writings included a range of prophecies, many of which have already come to pass, and are described on the press release as “chilling” and “amazing”. With a dark electronic setting and load of squidgy bass, like an Antipodean Stereo MCs, Mothership is basically setting itself up as pop music’s beacon of mysticism. So what key events in history has Mrs Shipton eerily predicted? And, dare we ask, what can she tell of our future?? Well, here are some examples of the kind of spooky insight she had. “A king shall false promise make / Talk just for talking’s sake”! Oh yeah, remember when that happened? When that leader didn’t tell the truth? Uncanny! How about this one… “Christian 1 fights Christian 2 / You think it’s strange, it will come true”. OH COME ON. You don’t have to be a skeptic, or even listen all the way through the ironically predictable prophecies of storms, earthquakes and the end of mankind, to realise that McCarthy is pushing a tired cliché up a very familiar hill. He’s tried to instil some life into these deadweight generic rantings by employing a singer who sounds a little bit oooooooooh – myyyyyysticaaaaaaal, but instead whose pretentious over-annunciation makes her sound like a mix between the humourless academic on Q&A whom you wish Tony Jones wouldn’t direct any more questions towards, and the woman from those annual Psychic Expo ads. Mothership is fine as slow background electronica, but as soon as you listen to its guff, I can only predict frustration.

SIMON TOPPER

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