Jinja Safari's Latest Taste Of Farewell Album Is Full Of Flashbacks & Feels

In these days of diminished returns for your music, maximising the exposure takes some interesting turns. With The National back doing their moody and mumbled magnificence, the side project of singer and Richard Roxburgh doppelganger Matt Berninger with collaborator Brent Knopf, EL VY, goes on the a very unsteady hiatus. But who you know can sometimes be handy. Who you’re related to, sometimes even moreso. If you didn’t know, Matt’s brother Tom is a bit of a dab hand with a camera, as his nicely bent documentary Mistaken For Strangers proved. Thus, the sibling directs a suitably obtuse clip for Careless (4AD) – completing the full set of visuals for every track on the Return To The Moon album, thus giving you a keepsake and reminder of what a nice bit of business it is/was.

Other things reach a more natural conclusion. A band brand that will seemingly forever be prefixed with the odd term ‘festival favourites’ Jinja Safari have decided that lugging a sitar to every jam around a campfire isn’t maybe worth the effort for return anymore, so decide on the amicable farewell from each other, but leave you with the wave goodbye of So Much (Independent), a good example of their folkie style with a side order of world music which has proven so popular under the stars with the smell of jazz cigarettes wafting over the crowd. Video is of the classic flashback montage of memories, as firesticks are held aloft in salute.

The chance of getting that golden ticket of signing to a ‘major’ label has now reached Powerball-like odds, so congratulations Glades for signing on the dotted line. You can see the appeal, with their synth-based approachable modern pop being absolutely of its time, and Speechless (EMI) an appealing mix of reverb-drenched verses which burst into a rush of electro racket as the big chorus appears on the horizon. Karina Wykes’ voice is the main human element and does to express the inarticulate voice from the heart as it finds a new infatuation. It’s rather smart, rather polished, and not oppressively commercial – in short, everything the corporation probably hopes it might be.

On the other hand, some things can be too much of their time. That Richard Ashcroft was the voice of such anthems of the immediate post-Britpop era as The Verve’s Bittersweet Symphony and Lucky Man seems both celebrated and a little hamstrung by his history. Thus, his 21^st century solo career has been a little erratic, even if many – not the least himself – remain convinced of his importance. Thus They Don’t Own Me (Cooking Vinyl) has a touch of sourness to it, even as he moodily rides his motorcycle, and moodily strums his guitar in the woods. The bigger problem though is the ability to just about seamlessly sing the words of his previous band’s own The Drugs Don’t Work over this one. As ever, while the audience craves the familiar, do they really want exactly the same? 

With six albums in just over seven years, the work ethic of The Ocean Party is without question. From their straight out of Wagga Wagga days onward, they make pop music of some quality and atmosphere. Restless (Spunk!) is another example of what they can provide, its spaces and airy style being a drive to the beach followed by a long wistful look out to sea as the wind blows through your hair, before you remember you left the keys in the station wagon running in the carpark.

A band’s progress can be derailed in so many ways. In SMLXL’s case, one of the worst, as original drummer and co-songwriter Mike Barwick perished in a car crash. The remaining members went off made music in a variety of other combos to various degrees of success, but the core duo of Jarrod Murphy and Jason de Wilde get around to reconvening the brandname that suits their pop sense. Change To Survive (Independent) almost works as a philosophy as much as a song title, with echoes of such unimpeachable sources as Costello and a variety of Finns drifting by. Champagne tastes on a couple-of-middys-of-Reschs budget. It’s just good work to be enjoyed. 

WAAX had the more usual bumps and delays of shedding and finding new members and finally settle to diarise some of that frustration and aggravation in This Everything (Mucho Bravado). And while the new membership attacks with the necessary venom and thump, the band’s defining element is voice/yell/howl/scream of Marie DeVita who brings it to an even bigger level, while still manages to express some of the doubt and unease in her. One of those ones that demands to played loudly. 

There seems something strangely right in Cass McCombs’ upcoming album rejoicing in the title Mangy Love. His music always seems that bit ragged, shaggy, and frayed around the edges while retaining a perfect pop heart. Medusa’s Out House (Anti-/Footstomp) fits the profile, trying to appear nonchalant as he shrugs his shoulders stylishly, while his dismissal seems really more about trying to change the subject entirely than remember to forget. Idiosyncratic, individual, and likely to be loved and loathed in equal measure.