Good Or Shit: Ben Caplan & Vance Joy

It's funny, not funny ha-ha but an 'isn't that sort of interesting' kind of funny, that we occasionally enter phases where we feel as though we have no music. Yes we might have extensive record collections and terabytes of music files on numerous devices and still somehow feel as though we have no music. It's like looking in the fridge and seeing there's bread, cheese and salami and then whinging that there's no food in the house when the reality is – you just don't feel like a salami sandwich.

I've had an appetite for a certain musical something this past month or so and it hasn't been in the fridge. I wanted something with lots of guitars, good vocals, a little bluesy and a little folky. Something with a sense of optimism accompanied by a deep longing because, I am on a journey of self discovery that has taken me far away from my home and I am feeling optimistic ... as well as a deep and painful longing.

I got out my Matt Corby Into the Flame EP, skipped Brother, and got stuck in to the remaining three songs. And for a while, this was enough. Like a line of good cocaine it hit the right spot. But, also much like a line of good cocaine, it left me wanting more, and with Matt Corby taking so long to bring out his album, there really isn't much more.

So I went online and looked at the Byron Bay Blues and Roots festival line up. Scrolling through I picked out a few random artists – artists take note, there is something to be said for a well written bio – and this was how I discovered Canadian musician Ben Caplan. 

Ben has it all; a husky gravelly voice that easily fluctuates between anticipation and cheer, bittersweet and mournful. His debut full length In the Time of Great Remembering makes brilliant use of a range of genres; folk, blues, jazz, soul and, always a favourite of mine, gypsy folk. If Tom Waites and Leonard Cohen had a baby, that baby would grow up to be Ben Caplan. One of the greatest albums I have heard in a long time, I played this album relentlessly for two weeks and felt temporarily satiated. And, as I do with anything in my life, and have done since I was a two-year-old, I shared it with my aunty-who-is-the-same-age-as-me. Because I knew she would love it too.

Her and I have been sharing everything from secrets to underwear for many years. We went from singing We're Going on a Bear Hunt in the back of the family car to singing Powderfinger in the front of her car. Neither one of us has gone through a period of listening to something without sharing it with the other – except for her techno stage, I never got into that. Music defines memories of a lifetime spent as sisters rather than aunty and niece. Just the other day her Facebook status said: Triple J has been playing the hottest 100 of the past 20 years. Makes me miss you Liz Galinovic. Too many memories...

 We are, for the first time in our lives, on opposite sides of the world to each other; experiencing the longest period of physical separation from each other that we have ever experienced. And far from diminishing our bond, this separation has a lot to do with my deep sense of painful longing.

She loved Ben Caplan. Over the course of a few days we sent messages to each other about the tracks we loved the best, the lyrics that touched us the most. And in return for Ben Caplan, she sent me Vance Joy's track Riptide because she knew I would love it.

I did. The plate was passed to me again and the drug was pure. A clean folk with pop structure that still, at times, manages to hurt you like a Bon Iver song might. It's not even about Riptide for me anymore, it's about Emmylou and From Afar. And I'm high, 'cause it's hitting the spot, and I've had too much, like I've been on a binge and I haven't slept and I'm overcome by emotion because I miss her, and I realise that missing her is what sent me looking for the drug in the first place. The spot I was trying to hit. And when I listen to From Afar, I don't even care what the song is about – a torturous account of unrequited love that I don't feel for my-aunty-who-is-the-same-age-as-me – it's how the music makes me feel. And when the final part of the song explodes with drums and guitars and banjos and whatever other instruments are in there, I can't stop crying.