Bon Iver, Could You Explain Your New Song, Please?

It appears the marketing department of music’s hive mind decided one of this season’s selling points would ‘eccentricity’. It seemed every other song flung at me this week wanted to revel in the artist’s oddities in mind and spirit. But the term itself apparently covers a range: from a nod and wink to let the consumer know they’re in on the joke, through people doing it their own sweet way as they’ve always done, to an almost Dadaist desire to see just how much you can push your audience away before they actually choose to go. But more on Bon Iver later…

And sometimes, a layering of eccentricity makes for a perfect fit. The dappled forest light filters down onto Florence + The Machine, although there might be darker shadows in the winds. That slight discomforting shudder makes perfect sense when you’re informed Wish That You Were Here (Island) is taken from Tim Burton’s new colour-drenched cinematic whimsy, Miss Peregrine’s Home For Peculiar Children. As it heads into a typically Welch-ian triumphal chorus of the sort she could knock out in an afternoon, all seems right in exactly the wrong way.

Devendra Banhart is a one of those kinder gentler variant of slightly obtuse characters. Go ask for a selfie, and you’re likely to get a hug and words of wisdom as well. Saturday Night (Nonesuch) is of his typical musing and meandering style, as the music woozily wheezes beneath. It becomes a swim through treacle, but in a nice way. Drugs may be involved.

In a family of big personalities, some of a particularly extravagant bent – hello Rufus! – Martha Wainwright has always been able to hold her own. Around The Bend (Gold VE/Inertia) is plaintive and emotive, but by her own admission she taken to holding a little back, to give the listener room to put their own interpretation as to what’s going on. That said, there still seems something slightly broken in her, as the feelings pour out with very little filter between heart and words. 

Now, Bon Iver, could you just explain yourself a little, please? No? OK, didn’t think so. The once Justin Vernon, after some time away, is offering music now dense and sometimes jarring. Even in the titles. This one is called 33 “God” (Jagjaguwar/Inertia), and yes there are some biblical references in there, along with some snippets of thought processes, and a Paolo Nutini sample among other things. It’s puzzling, almost deliberately obtuse and kinda like what Kendrick Lamar might sound like if he started life as a white folkie from Wisconsin. It may well be worth immersing yourself in to find what is driving him, but I just don’t think many would have the time right now.

Ah, the inherent dangers of the ‘charity’ song. Too often the worthy can just be bludgeoning a message into the listener, forgetting about keeping the pop sense and clarity of the artists involved. Neatly avoiding that potential pitfall, Josh Pyke’s neatly tripping melodicism is well present in Words Make The World Go Round (ABC). It could very easily be one of his trademark well-modulated song stories. Adding further charm, many people’s favourite televisual babysitter, Justine Clarke is the duetting voice as money is raised for the Indigenous Literacy Foundation in a manner that has you tapping your foot even as they try and prise open your wallet.

Another word of the week appears to be ‘skuzzy’. No, can’t really give you the dictionary definition, but if Heart Beach’s Brittle (Spunk) is an example of the form, colour me skuzzed. The Beach in question are from sunny Tasmania, there’s some hurt in Claire’s voice among the distinctly post-punk referencing shards of guitar which once might have been called ‘angular’ in their days of fashion but now can just be classed as good. And by golly it’s a pop song too, one that will stick in your head and be found on that Hottest 100 list in some months’ time. Terrific tune. 

Also placing themselves in this new wave of skuzz – I must have blinked and missed the first wave – the splendidly named Thigh Master. They be from Brisbane or environs, with a distinctly raggedly indie racket to them, while Canned Opening (Coolin’ By Sound) is a scruffy thought process, casting a slightly jaundiced eye on the great Australian tradition of needing rather than just wanting that beer as a ‘social’ lubricant. It comes at you in waves, and you’re left suitably battered by it, but perhaps just a little more aware. 

There’s a bigger drama from another era in Afterthought (Independent). Winter’s End make serious pop music, as the ‘80s-style synths roll in with serious intent to take it out of power ballad territory into something of grand but apparently honest intent. Marissa Pinto’s voice has a drama, but retains a human edge as she muses on existence over a rich backing which thankfully never quite tips into the overdone.