(Popboomerang)

A relocation that’s an interesting career move to say the least

Melbourne musician Tamas Wells spent a few years on the music circuit fronting his self-named band and serving up a gentler, airier antidote to rock’s prevailing heavier mood of the day. But that all changed when he moved to, of all places, Burma’s capital Yangon in early 2006 (which could be seen as one reason for this album’s title, although there’s actually a conceptual basis to these ten songs). He’d been to Burma before and wrote his last album there, but this one was also recorded in the country, with Wells doing everything but the viola. But, if you didn’t know that, it wouldn’t show in this finely prepared collection. It begins amiably enough with the impossibly light lilt of Fine, Don’t Follow A Tiny Boat For A Day and though the mood darkens towards a death (The Day That She Drowned, Her Body Was Found) and a funeral (Grace And Seraphim), Wells keeps things restful, delicate and quite warm. And, in the end, it’s these more inviting feelings that carry the day. Every album Wells has recorded so far, either with a band or solo, has quietly won more converts and I expect no less of this one too.

BILL HOLDSWORTH

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