STACK #195 Jan 2021

MUSIC FEATURE

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BILLY PINNELL

SIMON WINKLER

Lachey Doley Double Figures Hammond Organ virtuoso Lachy Doley – who honed his craft as a session player with Powderfinger, Jimmy Barnes, Glenn Hughes and more – celebrates his tenth anniversary as a solo artist with the release of this new album, which includes eight remastered versions of songs from previous releases and two mind-blowing covers. His re-arrangement of Jimi Hendrix’s Voodoo Child provides a showcase

Miiesha NyaAringu Nyaaringu … draws upon gospel, R&B, hip hop, soul and spoken word poetry to create something unique, universal, and profoundly personal. “ Nyaaringu is a collection of stories that I feel I wanted

for the rare Whammy Clavinet, an attachment to the Hammond Organ that sounds eerily like a wailing, screaming guitar. What’s equally impressive is the cover of the Spencer Davis Group hit Gimme Some Lovin ; rather than copy Steve Winwood’s R&B feel on the original recording, Lachy channels Brian Auger for this jazzy reinvention. (Only Blues)

HONOURABLE MENTION: Nina Simone, Fodder On MyWings

Battling with a number of personal problems, [Simone] dealt with her despair by expressing herself through the music on this extraordinary album that captures, with startling intimacy, the pain of this period. This is contemporary music in its most powerful form. (Verve)

BRYGET CHRISFIELD

Tame Impala The Slow Rush Simultaneously retrospective and prospective (“Eventually terrible memories turn into great ones”), Tame Impala’s fourth album opens with One More Year and closes with One More Hour – the passage of time closing in. When Tame Impala premiered lead single Borderline on SNL last March, we were instantly hooked. “We’re on the borderline/ Caught between the tides of pain and rapture” – those harmonies! Is Kevin Parker a long-lost Bee Gee? And do we detect synthesised shakuhachi (bamboo flute)? (One synthline calls to mind Peter Gabriel’s Sledgehammer intro.) This song’s melodic beauty is staggering (warning to listeners: tears of joy will flow). It’s impossible to focus on anything else – even Insta scrolling! – while digesting The Slow Rush : an elegant, inventive masterpiece that conjures up sonic stardust with added ripple-dissolve flashback effects. Parker is in a class of his own. (Universal)

to tell or that I needed to speak on,” Miiesha says about the album. “For me it represents my journey and where I’m at now coming from Woorabinda. The interludes in the collection are recordings of my Grandmother speaking. For me she was and always will stay with me as the strongest voice in my life, so I felt she had to be a part of this with me.” We’re deeply fortunate to share in this wisdom across these recordings. ‘Nyaaringu’ itself is a phrase meaning “what happened” in Pitjantjatjara, and through these vibrant tracks Miiesha offers stories of her life as a proud Pitjantjatjara and Torres Strait Islander woman, exploring subjects of identity, family, history, politics, survival and knowledge. (EMI) HONOURABLE MENTION: Ela Minus, Acts Of Rebellion Ela threads together a rich range of sound, connecting ambient electronic, breakbeat, deep house, techno, and synth pop. It’s a timely reminder of the euphoria of a dancefloor, matched with reflective, more meditative moments. (Domino)

HONOURABLE MENTION: Róisín Murphy, Róisín Machine Róisín Machine should (finally!) propel the artist formerly known as the voice of Moloko way beyond that particular electronic duo’s reach. (Skint/BMG)

JAKE CLELAND

Cut Copy Freeze, Melt Where 2017’s Haiku From Zero focused on the disorienting dazzle of modernity, Freeze, Melt takes a relatively inward turn. The nervous and restless energy is gone, replaced by fully encompassing and more reflective walls of sound. Despite the relative nudge towards calmness, Freeze, Melt is deceptively loud and busy, conjuring all the claustrophobia of being stuck and hurting for freedom. It weaves from one beautiful contemplative track to the next, and in places where old Cut Copy might have led to an epic breakdown and release of tension, instead the tension continues to mount. It’s a stunning inversion of energy for a band most known for their dance-it-out hits, but shows they’re not afraid to find new territory. (Cutter Records/The Orchard)

HONOURABLE MENTION: Willaris K, Full Noise Willaris K’s second EP this year… feels like the artist breaking free, eschewing the softer and almost cautious build-ups of earlier tracks to launch straight into a bodily bass crunch, working out the tension of those earlier deliberations like a high intensity workout. (Soothsayer)

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JANUARY 2021