New music: Kasey Chambers, Geordie Greep, Joel Frahm Trio, Cuarteto Casals

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/10/2024 (357 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

COUNTRY/ROOTS

Kasey Chambers
Backbone (Essence)

On Cry Like a Baby, the first song off her 1999 debut, The Captain, Australian roots/country singer-songwriter Kasey Chambers sang “I’m not much like my generation, their music only hurts my ears.”

That might have felt like posturing, but Chambers is the real deal — the daughter of a nomadic outback hunter who learned to sing and play guitar around campfires under the starry skies of the Nullarbor Plain, a desert that runs across southern Australia. As a teen, she and her older brother, Nash (who produced that first album), played and recorded four albums of country music with their parents, Diane and Bill, in the Dead Ringer Band.

Twenty-five years on, Chambers is an Aussie icon whose 13th album is a musical companion to a memoir, Just Don’t Be a Dickhead: And Other Things I’ve Learnt, but its 15 songs are compelling stories and pieces of music on their own.

My Kingdom Come and Something to Believe hint at the seeking of one who has left the church but remains awed by and respectful of the natural world, while others, such as the yearning, bluegrass of Dart N Feather (a clever play on words) and the licentious, vamping folk blues of Little Red Riding Hood will impress with their sheer musicality.

When Chambers is at her very best, as on the beautiful ballad For Better or Worse, Broken Cup, a lament for the world, or Arlo, a birthday song for her teenage son, she cuts to the essence of matters with lyrical precision and palpable feeling. What more can we ask?

★★★★ out of five stars

Stream these: Backbone (Desert Child); Broken Cup; For Better or Worse

— John Kendle

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ROCK

Geordie Greep
The New Sound (Rough Trade)

Geordie Greep’s The New Sound is not going to be for everyone. Fans of his former act, the experimental British rock band black midi, which disbanded in August, has never been faint of heart. And Greep’s solo debut further pushes the envelope.

Reminiscent of Frank Zappa’s knack for bending genres and building worlds, The New Sound caters to those who can appreciate both a narrative-heavy showtune as well as a discordant progressive rock song.

Holy, Holy, the album’s lead single, teases the rest of the record — an all gas, no brakes musical trip across genre and around the world, that vacillates between euphoria and chaos. As the percussion, horns, saxophone, three pianos and Greep’s guitars compete for attention, he embodies a desperate, lustful character, shouting “holy” and intoning profane desires. It’s cacophonous, and somehow pleasing, evidence of Greep’s idiosyncratic skill.

Part of what accentuates Greep’s departure from black midi is its heavy theatrical flair, apparent through his emphasis on storytelling, such as on Through a War and As If Waltz.

But nowhere is Broadway’s influence more prominent than the nearly 13-minute The Magician — at least, until its final three minutes when Greep drowns his audience with harmonious bliss, masking the song’s descent into dissonant madness, and stealthily cranks up their tolerance for noise.

That choice, in some ways, reflects the full album, and proves that the ordered and earnest need not be at odds with the turbulent and irreverent.

★★★1/2 out of five stars

Stream: Holy Holy; Through a War

— Krysta Fauria, The Associated Press

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JAZZ

Joel Frahm Trio
Lumination (Anzic)

Saxophonist Joel Frahm has collaborated with a who‘s who of jazz luminaries and toured extensively with this trio.

On its second album, the trio continues the close relationship of ideas and mood that mark its best work. Along with Frahm, bassist Dan Loomis and drummer Ernesto Cervini, each contribute fully to the music and its message. There is a distinct playfulness in many of the tracks that is delightful. For example Frahm’s Disco Nern is a lighthearted tribute to drummer Cervini, and his Loomie Nation is not only a play on words of the album title but a vehicle for the melodic work of bassist Loomis.

The album opener is a Cervini tune called The Nurse Is In. The music bounces (or should I perhaps say dribbles) in a rhythmic romp that is also a reference to the former coach of Cervini’s beloved Toronto Raptors. Loo-Lee continues the cheerful and joyously rhythmic tone.

Frahm’s displays an emotional and peaceful sound on the ballad Moonface Lament. It is beautiful and gentle, showing the wide range of skill and emotion that Frahm has on all of his albums. His energy is always apparent, augmented fully by his colleagues.

While there are quiet moments, the strong element of the album is the barely disguised humour enjoyed by all three. Lighthearted and casual are not the same thing. There is nothing casual in the delivery or the musicianship on the album. These are serious and talented men who are sharing a completely enjoyable experience with us. A fine outing.

★★★★ (out of five)

Stream: Na Estrada; The Nurse Is In

— Keith Black

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CLASSICAL

Cuarteto Casals
Dmitri Shostakovich: Complete String Quartets, Vol. 1 (Nos. 1-50) (Harmonia Mundi)

Cuarteto Casals launches its complete Shostakovich cycle with this upcoming two-CD release featuring the composer’s first five string quartets penned in the wake of Stalinism between 1938 and 1952.

The Spanish group comprised of Vera Martinez Mehner, violin; Abel Tomas, violin; Jonathan Brown, viola; and Arnau Tomas Realp, cello, bring its thoughtful artistry to each of the works, from the more classically based String Quartet No. 1 in C major, Op. 49, through the larger-scaled String Quartet No. 5 in B flat major, Op. 92.

A stirring highlight is String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73, bristling with the intense grief and suffering of war, as well as Shostakovich’s idiosyncratic, acerbic musical lexicon. The players bring full attack to both its second movement, Moderato con moto, as well as the following Allegro non troppo. They then infuse the sombre funeral march theme underpinning the penultimate movement, Adagio, with requisite pathos that later resurfaces during the final Moderato to terrifying effect.

This same intensity is also displayed in String Quartet No. 4 in D major, Op. 83, defiantly steeped in Jewish themes as the Communist Party unleashed campaigns against “rootless cosmopolitans,” while the earlier String Quartet No. 2 in A major, Op. 68, recalling kinder, gentler Baroque forms only hinted at the dark storms to come.

★★★★ and a half out of five stars

Stream: String Quartet No. 3 in F major, Op. 73; String Quartet No. 4 in D major, Op. 83

— Holly Harris