Reminder of how our Garden grew

Darren Hayes (front) and Daniel Jones in Savage Garden’s prime.
Source: News Limited

POP

Savage Garden, The Singles

(Universal) ***1/2

Darkness/light. Despair/hope. Pain/healing. That’s there in all our lives. It’s at the foundation of most great art and, if we ever stop to analyse it, many popular songs too.

Not that most of us ever stop to analyse pop music. We hear it, we like it, it makes us feel better, for three minutes, or a day, or a lifetime.

Which is why the listener might not have noticed the darkness and despair in some of Savage Garden’s songs, the way they take a sad song and make it better with those glistening melodies, the smoothness and sweetness in the musical settings and vocal delivery. The positive emotions that power so much of their music mostly boil down to this: we can make it if we try. Out of Logan, out of this job, out of this rejection, out of this place and into the light.

Take a close listen to their greatest song, To the Moon and Back.

“She’s taking her time making up the reasons/To justify all the hurt inside.’’

“She can’t remember a time when she felt needed/If love was red then she was colour blind.

“She’s saying, ‘Love is like a barren place/And reaching out for human faith/Is like a journey I just don’t have a map for.’ ’’

There is the emotional catch in Darren Hayes’s vocal as he delivers those verses. Then the emotional lift-off of the chorus, with one of those melodies that feels like it has always been around. Whoosh. We’re outta here!

People loved their story of course, a classic tale of victory against the odds, dozens, possibly hundreds, of rejections, and even when they had the backing of a manager who put them in the studio, a battle to find a record company to release their music. But when people heard them on the radio they got it, that positive force.

It was a brief flowering: Hayes was up for a public life and touring; co-writer Daniel Jones was not. Neither of them struck a commercial vein like their two albums together again.

They are mostly remembered as a singles band, and Australian bands with huge worldwide hits come along only rarely. Fifteen of these tracks were released as singles from their two albums. The other, the piano and vocal demo She is one of the few songs they wrote together never to have seen light of day.

There is more going on than you might remember, the kinda INXS rock of Break Me Shake Me, Tears of Pearls and Chained to You; the Bee Gees-like Universe, the do-I-really-belong-here ache of Santa Monica.

Their two albums, both now reissued along with this hits set, couldn’t have been made in more different circumstances. They recorded the first wondering if others would ever hear what they did, the second at the top of pop’s big wheel, with all the demands and expectations that brings. Unlike pop music today, there were no co-writers foisted on them, no drowning the songs in big money arrangements.

Even recording in the US with some of the world’s biggest session players didn’t alter the sound that much, and Hayes always had plenty he wanted to get off his chest. Getting people singing along with a line like “I believe beauty magazines promote low self esteem’’ was one of the little seeds his lyrics planted.

Sure, it’s pop music, for dancing, for singing along with, for forgetting our worries for a while. But many are called, so few are chosen, and only a handful of them from the suburbs of Brisbane. Call it a life lesson. If someone finally opens the door to the cage, you had better be ready to fly.

Noel Mengel

BLUEGRASS

Steven ’n’ Seagulls, Farm Machine

(Spinefarm/Caroline) ***

Eurovision has come and gone again but here’s a reminder of both Scandinavia’s love affair with Anglo-American hard rock and its offbeat tendencies. Steve ’n’ Seagulls (geddit?) is a bluegrass band reinterpreting some of the biggest rock songs in history. No, this is not your average Flock of Seagulls. Steve and his mates started out in their front yard playing AC/DC’s Thunderstruck. That classic makes it on to the album, with the familiar opening guitar replaced by twiddling banjo. Also reinvented are Acca Dacca’s You Shook Me All Night Long, Led Zeppelin’s Black Dog (complete with whistling break), Rammstein’s Ich Will, Guns N’ Roses’ Paradise City, Metallica’s Nothing Else Matters and Dio’s Holy Diver, among others. Over the Hills and Far Away, the Gary Moore one, not the Led Zep, has been covered by Steve ’n’ Seagulls’ compatriots Nightwish, but, at the hands of these guys, it becomes an Irish jig. The occasionally polka-like tempo recalls “Weird Al” Yankovic but, unlike many of Al’s tunes, these are worth a repeat listen.

John O’Brien

CLASSICAL

Dmitry Shostakovich, Cantatas

(Erato) ****

How does an artist cope with being forced to live a double life? This question is posed by Paavo Järvi, who conducts these cantatas by Dmitry Shostakovich, the Soviet composer who had to tread warily between artistic freedom and obedience to the oppressive Soviet political system. Soloist Alexei Tanovitski’s dark bass tones capture the flinty character of Shostakovich’s 1964 choral piece The Execution of Stepan Razin, which relates to the 1671 execution of Cossack rebel Stepan Razin, but also reflects Soviet oppression in Shostakovich’s lifetime. His compositional skill rescues The Sun Shines Over Our Motherland (1952) from banalities that apparently caused him embarrassed anguish but pleased authorities. Both have texts by poet Yevgeniy Dolmatovsky, as does the Song of the Forests opus 81 oratorio from 1949. Järvi, conducting the Estonian Concert Choir, Narva Boys Choir and Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, pays earnest tribute to the complexities of its seven movements
.

Patricia Kelly

ROCK

Mark Sholtez, The Edge of the Known World

(Ambition) ***1/2

That California singer-songwriter thing is always there, even if those days in the early ‘70s when music from the Laurel Canyon scene would rise to the top of the charts feel like a distant dream. The likes of Milk Carton Kids and Norah Jones draw inspiration from that music and naturally those great records must have been on this Brisbane songwriter’s mind as he was writing these tunes while living in California. But the artist Sholtez most resembles is from the other side of the US; his voice has the same warm, mellow tone as Paul Simon. There is a light, jazzy touch to songs like Sink Me (The Ballad of a Fisherman) with its gospel-type backing vocals, and an old-time spirit to Hey Love (The River Song), while the tasteful Cold Here In The Water and Who Knows You Better reflect the wintry melancholy of life far from loved ones.

Sholtez was pitched as jazz balladeer on his debut album but he sounds right at home here, even if these songs are about longing to get back to the place of his birth.

Noel Mengel

ROCK

Harts, Breakthrough

(Offtime Music) ***1/2

There is a reason not many artists can handle comparisons with Prince. That mix of musical skills, songwriting smarts and funky backbeat is difficult to master. It’s an even tougher line to walk in Australia, where audiences seem happy to get their funk from a highly paid overseas DJ, rather than local practitioners who know what it’s like to lug their own amps. Still, one-man-band/producer Harts has the chops and the tunes to make an impact, helped to wider awareness via his turn on Daniel Johns’ Aerial Love, for Triple J. This five-tracker includes his Triple J faves Breakthrough and When a Man’s a Fool, which lands somewhere between Hendrix-ian stomper and Prince at his rockingest, with searing licks from Harts’ Strat and punchy horn stabs. Guitar solos seem to be out the door in modern production, although not if Harts has anything to say about it. A tough sell in these electro-happy times but Harts is shooting for the stars. If The Black Keys can crack it, so can he. Harts plays Elephant Hotel, Brisbane, on July 10.

Noel Mengel

ROCK

Ryan Adams, Live at Carnegie Hall

(Sony) ****

Adams as relaxed, genial and witty entertainer. Which might come as a surprise to those who’ve squirmed through some of his Australian shows. But this is Adams as we saw him on his 2013 tour, accompanied by his guitars and a two-hour set of some of the best songs anyone has written in the past 20 years. It is available in various formats, the “10 Songs From’’ version or the 42-song blockbuster on vinyl (but also available on streaming services and iTunes). The long-form is expensive but it also has the best between-song chats. Naturally the 10-song version feels like you are skimming, although it does include faves both vintage (Oh My Sweet Carolina,
Sylvia Plath and Come Pick Me Up) and recent (Kim and Gimme Something Good). Plus two new tunes including the superb How Much Light
. If you are new to Adams, that one song alone tells you what you’ve been missing. By the end, of either version, you’ve heard tunes from the top shelf plus some Ryan raps that are as much fun as the songs are serious.

Noel Mengel

POP-ROCK

Cooper, Cooper

(Mom + Pop Music) ****

Cooper is the solo moniker of former Brisbane singer-songwriter Kate Cooper, best known as vocalist and guitarist for globetrotting duo An Horse and Brisbane indie-pop band Iron On. This self-titled debut album — co-written and recorded with former One Republic bassist and songwriter Tim Myers — retains the pop sensibilities and lyrical hooks that were integral to the success of her former outfits, but the addition of multi-layered vocals and unabashed sing-along choruses arguably make this her most accessible release to date. Opener The Heaviest of Weights showcases Cooper’s deft ability to write and deliver relatable lyrics (Are you sure that, we bend until we break/Can we make sure we can stand up straight, the heaviest of weight). This Year is unadulterated pop, while Forward provides the album’s most infectious moment. The cinematic scope of songs such as Novocaine — which features her An Horse partner Damon Cox on drums — reveal a depth only hinted at in the past.

Considering her musical past, it’s no surprise Cooper has released such a self-assured solo debut. Available on iTunes.

Daniel Johnson

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