posted 11/03/2008 (Mon) @ 07:56 pm
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Josh Pyke - Memories & Dust (2007)
Pop / Singer-Songwriter / Acoustic
Hatchling
- Lines On Palms
- Memories & Dust
- Forever Song
- Mannequins
- Someone Else’s Town
- Fed And Watered
- Sew My Name
- Covers Are Thrown
- Middle Of The Hill
- Buttons
- Vibrations In Air
- Monkey With A Drum
Echoes of Paul Simon bounce and swirl in the air like autumn leaves. Equal parts rustic and reflective, the jangling fervor of Memories & Dust, spiced by Josh Pyke’s weathered, quintessentially Australian brogue and a charming knack for storytelling, is a breath of fresh air for addicts of well-tempered, earthy singer-songwriters. “I can be cold, I know, I know,” he admits on the opening “Lines on Palms,” “But a woman is a warm breath on the back of your neck/ And a warm belly pressed against yours.”
The hooky title track’s sparse guitar strum, accented by playful handclaps and timpani, strives to make it impossible not to tap a foot and sing along. “No, there won’t be time for all of us,” he admits in the midst of the song’s nostalgic verses about faith, love and loss. The tune’s bootstrapping Aussie ‘tude is both easy-going and infectious. As first introductions go, it’s tough to beat.
Pyke has the gumption to bounce around, too. The gallop-paced “Fed and Watered” slings around five dollar verbs—few songwriters fashion a hook from a single word, let alone a word like “extricate”—barebones White Stripes drumming, and yahooing falsetto turnarounds. Pyke manages poppy flutter and good humor, all without sacrificing lyrics or personality, or miring the listener in sunshine.
Putting humor and light-heartedness aside, though, Pyke’s prowess is best observed on numbers like the older, but impossible-to-forget “Middle of the Hill,” which pieces together many different shards of memory from his upbringing into one crystal clear, mirror reflection of childhood. Accompanied by wonderful vocal touches which kidnap the listener’s imagination for a bit of time travel, among other things, Pyke literally makes the train talk:
My mother knew the words to a lot of different songs
And we’d always sing the harmonies, yeah we’d sing along
She had cold, cold hands when the fever hit
And then the noises that the trains made sounded like people in my head.
“Not the top, not the bottom, but the middle” as a kid, Pyke’s efforts as a songwriter have—criminally—gone mostly unnoticed outside of the Land Down Under, but Memories & Dust deserves its spot as a critical darling. Pyke starts us with a palm reading, and leaves us with an extended hand—solitude and banjo plinks coax along the closing “Monkey With A Drum”: “Maybe a monkey with a drum I am to some, but know I’m not that to you.” Cover to cover, this is solid storytelling and inventive songwriting fit for back porches worldwide.
RIYL Paul Simon, Matt Costa, The Shins, heavy Australian accents.
“Memories & Dust”
“Middle of the Hill”
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Tags: acoustic, folk, josh pyke, pop, singer-songwriter
