From Julia Jacklin, Princess Chelsea, and patten
Aussie Julia Jacklin’s soaring indie-folk debut has the sound of Lyttelton about it.
Julia Jacklin likes to see herself as a “creepy observer of all things”. And certainly on her debut full-lengther, Don’t Let the Kids Win, the star of the show is her ability to tell stories that feel personal while remaining somehow universal and sympathetic.
And the Aussie singer-songwriter from the Blue Mountains does it openly and honestly: from opener Pool Party, about losing love for a stoner boyfriend – “You are the land and I am the dove/My heart is heavy when you’re high”; to LA Dream, in which she wonders why a departing boyfriend goes shopping and leaves her with too much food; and the closing title track, in which she warns against a cheap holiday in Thailand when your grandmother’s dying and talks about her brother’s first girlfriend and sister’s first kid.
For inspiration, she goes to Fiona Apple and Leonard Cohen. There’s wry observational humour peppered through the album, but she’s also learnt from her muses not to worry too much about sounding perfect.
“It’s more about the songs and the performance,” she says. “That was a big turning point for me. I don’t have to sing high and perfect; I can use a lower register and have much more power. When I changed that, I became a much better singer because I was able to communicate the songs much better.”
As a classically trained soprano, though, Jacklin still has the confidence to let her vocals soar around these indie-folk tunes on tracks such as Sweet Step and Hay Plain, in the same way as Kiwis Aldous Harding and Marlon Williams might.
And it’s no surprise that these names come up, because Don’t Let the Kids
Win was recorded by Ben Edwards, the producer behind both those artists, in Lyttelton last year and bears all the hallmarks of yet another great album from the heart of New Zealand’s Americana scene.
DON’T LET THE KIDS WIN, Julia Jacklin (Liberation)
Kiwi indie pop queen Princess Chelsea (aka Chelsea Nikkel) is renowned for her simple but effective lyrics – internet hit Cigarette Duet and last year’s wonderfully hooky Too Many People being prime examples – as well as her swirling, spacey synth arrangements. But by making her latest outing, Aftertouch, a collection of covers, she ensures that it’s her arrangements that come to the fore. Of course, by playing around with the likes of Nirvana’s Come As You Are, Elvis’ Can’t Help Falling in Love, Marianne
Faithfull’s Morning Sun and the Beatles’ And I Love Her, the lyrics are a done deal.
There probably aren’t as many hooks as Nikkel’s poppier fans might enjoy, but she’s again proven she’s comfortable creating beautifully fragile and layered pieces of electronic music that add as much impact as the words they support.
AFTERTOUCH, Princess Chelsea (Rhythmethod)
At the other end of the approachability spectrum is UK underground experimental electronica duo patten. But by naming their third album after the Greek letter psi and remaining deliberately obscured behind the minimal pseudonyms A and D, patten ensure all focus remains on their bustling, confrontational and warped beats, twisted synth-stabs, textural tones and buried, dark vocals. The effect is to borrow the sounds of clubland and cast them headlong into the gallery where tracks such as True Hold, Pixação (inspired by Brazilian political graffiti) and the anthemic glitch of The Opaque become brutal, stark works of art.
, patten (Border)