Live Review: Arthur Wimble ‘I Love, My Love’

Who the heck is ARTHUR WIMBLE? That’s what the tastemakers and club partakers of this sunburnt land are soon to be asking. Unfortunately, we don’t actually have an answer for you, as the chap is more mysterious than the most mysterious episode of a Miss Marple Mystery, but we DO have his new song. And it’s very good.

The first thing you notice, and what becomes the stand out feature of the track, is the pitter-patter rainfall keys and twinkling synth glockenspiel. They are soothing and down tempo, but rush enough to lift the track into become something quite touching and memorable – I’ve never heard a sample used like this to create, structure and sustain the rhythm of a song. It’s inventive and captivating.

Equally, Arthur Wimble’s voice (if that’s even your REAL name sir) is another point of interest – here, we hear it distorted, croaky and husky almost as if the late great jazz singer Louis Armstrong had decided to time travel forward to 2015 and release an on trend emotional-electronica mix.

The vocal loop is built around a small handful of words, and the repetition and layering hints to a sense of uncertainty and fragility as he ponders that "I don’t know, I love, I love…my love, you". It’s ever so slick. The subdued drum patterns and pitch-altered vocals make it sound a little like Tirzah’s 2014 track ‘No Romance’.

Boutique Sydney label TEEF have been keeping busy, not only releasing music by the classically trained and rhythmically minded Anatole and donating all the funds from their Imperium In Imperio exclusive album to the recent Nepal disaster, they’ve also just signed up Wimble as an innovative producer to add to the label’s burgeoning portfolio. Even TEEF’s announcement that they’d signed Wimble includes the admission that "we can’t tell you who he is or where he’s from", although reports from Triple J Unearthed, where the elusive singer/producer’s track has just been posted, suggest that he hails from Brisbane. Phew, mystery solved. Still no visuals on the guy though.

He’s only got 48 likes on his Facebook page. FORTY EIGHT. Go and give him a thumbs up. My mum has more likes than that on Facebook, for goodness sake. If she understood social media that is, and would stop calling it Book Face.

We’re promised a few more releases from the Brisbane Man of Mystery in the run up to what is surely going to be a highly sophisticated debut EP, but for now revel in the intricate details and pacifying instrumentalism of ‘I Love, My Love’:

Words by Katie Rowley

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