Sophie Hutchings beguiles with spellbinding new album

NEW AGE INSTRUMENTAL
Sophie Hutchings
SCATTERED ON THE WIND (Mercury KX)
★★★★★

It’s difficult to ignore Sophie Hutchings’ affinity with water. To dive into this album is to be swallowed whole by an ocean of her creation: wild, fierce, beguiling and melancholy. Plumbing the depths of the piano’s melodic range, she creates undulating, post-minimalist soundscapes that are as fearsome as they are fragile. Olafur Arnalds’ haunting theme for the TV series Broadchurch immediately springs to mind: surely a close sonic cousin of these aquatic explorations. The spine-tingling soprano voices in Scattered on the Wind – Pt 2 and whale-call string glissandi in Your Heart are testament to the album’s stunning grace and poise: tasteful accents that heighten rather than clutter the experience. Bass lines with the gravitas of a Hans Zimmer score underpin sparkling top notes that play out hypnotic, rippling melodies. Sound engineer Tim Whitten captures the icy harmonics of the top notes and warmth of the middle range for an intimate, yet otherworldly, timbre. Only in the final couple of tracks do you get a sense that we have been in relentless motion this whole time, and yet, like the waves, it’s as soothing as it is restless. JESSIE CUNNIFFE

SINGER-SONGWRITER
Brendan Gallagher
RESTLESS CREATURE (brendangallaghermusic.com)
★★★½

Though an understated presence both on record and on stage, Brendan Gallagher’s contribution to Australian music should never be underestimated. Apart from the vast back catalogue of albums, his book The Open Tuning Chord Book for Guitar serviced a generation of drone-happy folk guitarists. To celebrate 50 years in music, Gallagher has created an album made up mostly of covers by artists ranging from the Beatles (You Can’t Do That) and Jimi Hendrix (Stone Free) to contemporary acts such as Ngaiire. Gallagher’s reinterpretations generally stay faithful to the originals (the Ngaiire track excepted), with arrangements embracing honky-tonk country, 1950s rock’n’roll and on to a moody, minimal version of Dylan’s A Simple Twist of Fate. But it’s actually the two Gallagher originals that are the most exciting performances: the beautifully melodic title track and Sweetie (originally recorded by Gallagher’s former band the Leisuremasters), an effortlessly atmospheric instrumental. While not the most important release of his career, Restless Creature is a comprehensive guide to Gallagher’s inspirations. BARNABY SMITH

JAZZ
Josh Bennier
MODULAR (joshbennier.com)
★★★★

Josh Bennier astutely builds improvising into the structures of his compositions, rather than just decorating song-forms with solos, so each player is given a context in which to carry the work forward on its multifaceted journey. The exceptional young trombonist bristles with so many ideas that he happily squeezes a swag of them into a single work, where many composers would have fashioned each thought into its own piece. From the listener’s point of view this is heaven, because the music keeps turning unexpected corners and revealing new vistas, whether of rhythm (often Latin-tinged), texture, harmony, density, velocity or simply exquisite melodies. To give the music the breadth he desires, Bennier has assembled a septet, but with only one other horn (alto saxophonist Zac O’Connell), otherwise opting for instruments to maximise the orchestral heft: piano (Stuart McGowan), guitar (Theo Carbo), bass (Patrick Fitzgerald), drums (Luke Andresen) and percussion (Cristian Saavedra). All are sophisticated improvisers who amply repay the trust of being able to determine much of the colouring of Bennier’s imaginative templates. JOHN SHAND

POP
The Magnetic Fields
QUICKIES (Nonesuch)
★★★½

Stephin Merritt of Magnetic Fields loves a concept and believes in truth in advertising. His masterwork, 1999’s 69 Love Songs, was exactly what it said; for 2017’s 50 Song Memoir, he wrote a song for each year of his life. His 12th album, Quickies, is a 28-song set of miniatures, with no song hitting the three-minute mark. Some last a matter of seconds. Many sound like dares or a lark. Can you write a sweet piano track called The Day the Politicians Died? How about one called Kill a Man a Week, but it has to be a sing-along and last less than a minute? Merritt, whose vocals seem to be getting deeper than the San Andreas Fault as he ages, shares the lead with the bright-voiced Shirley Simms and the smoky Claudia Gonson, while the backing is a junk-store of twang, pluck and zing, incorporating omnichords, autoharps, banjoleles and homemade cigar-box instruments. Is it quirky? Well, duh. And musically the songs are the equivalent of notebook sketches. It’s fun hearing Merritt wring gems out of a song about sex in a bathroom or dating Jesus, even if the use-by date on some of these quickies is short. BARRY DIVOLA