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| Delgirl and Sunley - Skirting the Fringes... Two of Dunedins more intriguing acts, Delgirl and the Sunley Band, are joining forces to deliver a littlesouthern gothic to their friends in Christchurch and Oamaru. While both bands have spent most of this year on recording projects they have managed to set aside a very special weekend in September to air some of their fine tunes as spring approaches and we come out of the darkness of the Southern winter. Delgirl: Three singers. Three songwriters. One voice . . . Ask Lynn Vare, Deirdre Newall and Erin Morton to describe the Delgirl sound and they'll scratch around for the right words. Jazz-tinged acoustic country-blues? Harmony-rich folk-reggae fusion? It is what it is, they say. Ask them to play, and their songs do the talking, revealing musical roots nourished by the warm waters of the Tropics, the cool mountain streams of North America and the fertile soils of their New Zealand homeland. These multi-instrumentalist singer-songwriters from Dunedin play roots music, bedded in tradition but speaking of today's laughs, loves and losses in one clear voice. As performers they slip quietly into the living-room of the soul, warming it with their unaffected charm. Fluid, luminous voices meld with guitar, ukulele, banjo and stand-up bass in songs that swing with sweet-tempered ease. In January 2009, Delgirl landed the Recording Industry Association (RIANZ) Folk Album of the Year 2008 Award for their debut long player Two, Maybe Three, Days Ride. Delgirl aren't out to change the world, but they don't mind leaving a few smiles in their wake. "The more you listen, the more little details become apparent; the kind of deliberate sonic punctuation marks that make the difference between a kitchen sing-along and a recording of the type you want to listen to over and over again – which is exactly what this is." – Nick Bollinger, Radio NZ National The Sampler, 13/11/07 Sunley: There's something mournful about Sunley's music. Even when it jumps up on a table and kicks your drink over, you're mesmerised by the odd gravity of it. Curdling beneath the harmonies of Sunley's debut album Apologies is a sadness that won't take itself too seriously, a passive aggressive humour that makes its deceptively simple folk-country rhythms hard to classify. Sure, they're love songs, but there's nothing trite there. Listening to a number like 'Song of Envelopes' is like watching a bar fight between newlyweds – the song slips between confession and hootenanny with barely a breath. Upswelling are offers of ass-kickings and hearts slapped by ice cubes, as if the only thing that could ever really protect pleasure is an equal quantity of pain. They're weird, compelling, contradictory songs penned by Evan Sunley James, a musician long-schooled in the Dunedin tradition of dark, gently forceful music, and performed in concert by some of the city's finest players. "... sounds like David Byrne fronting a country band, which is naturally a very good thing..." – Grant Smithies, Sunday Star Times write your comments about the article :: © 2009 Jazz News :: home page |