Melbourne born, Berlin-based singer-songwriter Ned Collette has always had one eye on the weirder side of folk music.
Though he's too vocally reserved to ever be classified as freak folk, Collette's latest work, Old Chestnut, sees his fascination with lengthy tunes and sonic experimentation finally summed up in the broad setting of a double LP.
Collette should be praised for expanding beyond the usual songwriter style of writing lyrics full of spite or longing directed at an unnamed individual, usually known only to the listener as "you". The singer/songwriter world has enough "you" songs to make your average folk fan distrustful of the entire human race. Thankfully, Old Chestnut is packed with nuggets of interesting storytelling like Thanks Richard and Sacred Cats.
Production across the entire album is excellent, with Collette's friends and bandmates from Wirewalker showing up to add some droning cello and tinkling piano parts to spice up the latter half of these often lengthy tunes.
Whether or not you'll treasure the entirety of Old Chestnut depends greatly on just how much Ned Collette speaks to you as a listener. But if you treasure his words and voice as many do, then this one will keep you busy for quite a while.
