STACK #230 December 2023

MUSIC REVIEWS

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FEATURE ARTIST

Kylie Minogue Kylie (vinyl reissue)

Dami Im Christmas Songbook Dami Im has had quite a year. After releasing the EPs In Between and Live Sessions – Bluesfest Byron Bay, she then won The Masked Singer. Now she’s releasing her first Christmas record: a seven-song seasonal set featuring a new original, the sweet Baby’s First Christmas Day, which she wrote with producer Rick Price. With his pop smarts and sensitive, warm production, Price is the perfect collaborator for Im. The emphasis here is on family and fun, with Im tackling Santa Claus Is Coming to Town , The Little Drummer Boy, Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (featuring James Morrison), White Christmas and Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas. Dami Im’s Christmas Songbook will be a festive favourite for the whole family. (ABC) Jeff Jenkins

Sam Fischer I Love You, Please Don’t Hate Me Sam Fischer is a fine pop songwriter – but he doesn’t write shiny, happy songs.

As soon as you heard The Loco Motion, you knew it was going to be a hit – it was such a clever cover and clip. However, the odds were still stacked against the young soapie star having an enduring singing career. But here we are – 36 years and 46 Top 40 hits later. Kylie was the album that started it all, spending six weeks at number one in the UK, peaking at number two locally (fun fact: Kylie didn’t have a number one album in Australia until her seventh studio record, Light Years , in 2000). Originally released on July 4, 1988, it certainly wasn’t Independence Day – that wouldn’t come until 1992, when the singer split with Stock, Aitken and Waterman after four albums. But credit to SAW for laying the foundations for a remarkable pop career. This neon pink vinyl reissue will conjure some

Fischer’s cup is not even half-empty, it’s broken: ”Can’t fill it up no more,” he confides in Alright. His eagerly awaited debut album – which comes seven years after his first single and four years

after his breakthrough hit This City – shows an artist battling his own mind, uncomfortable in his own skin, and confronting his insecurities. ”Nothing’s ever enough for me,” he notes in Hopeless Romantic . ”I’m broken and manic.” He looks at the world around him and sees people who seem ”like they’re happier than me/ Seems like they’re where I wanna be”. From the outside, it looks like Sam Fischer is living the dream – landing in LA after growing up in Sydney, doing high-profile collabs with Demi Lovato and Meghan Trainor. But ”I’m all f-cked up out in LA,” he reveals in What Other People Say. Even Landslide – ostensibly a love song – is a bit of a downer, with the singer believing, ”This could be the end of the road/ This love is like a landslide.” But just when the record needs it, Amy Shark arrives and High on You offers some much-needed hope. ”Am I getting closer to knowing where I belong?” Fischer asks in This City. By the end of the record, you sense that he’s no closer to his destination. But it’s quite a trip, and it’s going to be fascinating to see where he goes next. (Sony) Jeff Jenkins

fabulous flashbacks. (BMG) Jeff Jenkins

FEATURE ARTIST

Glass Animals How to Be a Human Being (vinyl reissue) Prepare your ears for a kaleidoscopic journey into sonic innovation – and the bewitching visuals of limited edition zoetrope Being is a genre-defying marvel, seamlessly blending indie pop with experimental nuances. Each track, from the infectious Life Itself to the dreamy Agnes , tells a distinct, character-driven story (and you can find each of those characters in the album art). Richly textured production, intricate beats, and Dave Bayley’s evocative vocals combine to cook up a hypnotic atmosphere which makes How to Be a Human Being more than an album; it’s a musical odyssey, which invites listeners to explore the intricacies of human existence. (Universal) Jacqui Picone vinyl. Originally released in 2016, How to Be a Human

Hole Live Through This (vinyl reissue) Hole’s second album Live Through This revolves around a core of visceral grunge, in a muscular evolution from the band’s more disorderly debut. Its energy is commanded by Courtney Love’s furious force of a vocal, but is still a reminder of the cacophony of chaos surrounding the band during this era; Love’s husband Kurt Cobain had died one week before the album’s release, and Hole bassist Kristen Pfaff passed away two months later from a heroin overdose. An album that always seems to be underrated despite gargantuan classics like Doll Parts and Violet , Live Through This barrels in with untamed charm, offering both a satisfying trip down memory lane and a beckoning hand to new listeners to experience Hole’s enduring impact on the artists of today. (Universal) Jacqui Picone

Chris Stapleton Higher Almost three years to the day since Chris

Stapleton’s last studio album (2020’s Starting Over ), we welcome the country icon’s fifth record, Higher . For fans, it’s an eagerly anticipated release; the Nashville-via-Kentucky artist has given us tasters with single releases over the last few years, and they’ve only whet the palate - it’s time to devour

this record. Opening track What Am I Gonna Do is lyrically vulnerable but instrumentally astute: this man knows what he’s doing. With 45 years under his belt, he has lived, and he has felt, and in the great principle of a good country ballad, he’s going to tell us all about it. However, ignore the ’staple’ in Stapleton, because Chris expands his country genre by alternating soulful bluegrass shanties with hip-swinging rock anthems. Earlier single release It Takes a Woman will make the eyeballs sweaty. This is a love song, and although far from unique in its sound, it has a wee guitar solo that floats us to the islands before bringing us back to euphonious vocals. Think I’m in Love With You has all the components to notch it up as an all-time classic. Imagine Tom Waits singing Bonnie Raitt, while riding bareback and dressed like a cowboy... and it’s even cooler than that. Chris Stapleton, we think we’re in love with you! Higher is country that thinks it is blues. It’s bluegrass hanging with rock and roll, and it’s dripping in swagger. Shake those booties my friends,

because this album will get you moving. (Mercury Nashville) Trista McConville

36 DECEMBER 2023

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