Graham Reid | | 1 min read
This short, elegant, somewhat world-weary third album by Auckland singer-songwriter Tom Cunliffe turns down the tempo and mood of his previous, mostly pop-oriented album Template for Love to find a thoughtful, poetic place between Leonard Cohen and Jim Croce.
His pre-Covid travels come through in the oblique mysteries of string-enhanced title track which references Venetian tides, marble walls and Christian imagery to conjure up a moment of rapture and release when “every beast will sing”. Only to be undercut by the defeat of “those days are gone”.
It's a beguiling opener on a collection where the listless We Had It All has a European ennui, They Only See the Scars rides a stately piano part with a guitar solo adding sting to the sardonic lyrics and the spare Andolina taps the spirit of Cohen on the Greek island of Hydra.
Refusing the Wave gets buried by its accumulation of images (“fear is the sparrow refusing the sky, love is the husband refusing to die, wisdom is knowledge refusing to know”) but the sensitive The Hours Before the Ground (which recalls Peter Sarstedt) comes with a lovely George Harrison-like slide part. Both A Distant Wind and the philosophical Call off the Search remain just the right side of melancholy before they tip into the morose.
Secret Exhibition is an intimate collection by an artist who has made his way from folk clubs and the public bar moods of his 2016 debut Howl and Whisper to this, an album for the attentive salon.
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Tom Cunliffe's Secret Exhibition is out now digitally and on limited edition vinyl through bandcamp here.
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Tour dates (with Ebony Lamb): October 8, 7pm. House Concert Cannon Heath, Wairarapa; Oct 9, 3pm. Vogelmorn Couch Sessions, Wellington; Oct 15, 8pm. Taranaki Pop Up Gigs, New Plymouth; Oct 16, 7pm. Freida Margolis, Auckland; Oct 28, 8pm. Space Academy, Christchurch; Oct 29, 7.30pm. Grainstore Gallery Tour, Oamaru
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