Jordie Lane: Blood Thinner (Vitamin)

With very little fanfare at all, this excellent and much acclaimed singer-songwriter out of Melbourne embarks on a New Zealand tour (dates below) and he seems definitely one to catch.

You can always be suspicious when a press release says an artist has drawn comparisons with Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Townes Van Zandt, Ryan Adams and others, but there is ample evidence here in these 12 spare, melodic and often quietly penetrating songs which vindicates the namechecking. And which have touchstones in Anglofolk as much as weary Americana.

Songs like Gram Parsons' I Just Can't Take It Anymore (the sole cover) and Waters Clear Here Dear are beamed in from Dylan around the time of It Ain't Me Babe (without the nasal drawl) and I Sinned Today sounds like one of those alt.universe Springsteen songs when he imagines himself into the Dustbowl (except with a more holy spiritual quality).

Lane has a strong voice which cracks with emotion in all the right places, couches his songs in finger-picked guitars or banjo, pulls you into a lyric (Feet Fall with its "early in the morning, you wrap your legs around me . . .") and like Van Zandt he gives the sense of being an outsider who sees more than most.

He has spent time in the US (Hollywood's Got a Hold Me is here, but it's a character speaking not Lane) and perhaps that is his emotional/musical home, however like fellow Australian Shane Nicholson it is a place he refers to but doesn't exactly inhabit.

And it's not all arcane either, here is On the Net Till Dawn about one of those sad, strange love affairs only possible in the 21st century. 

A solo show by Lane sounds like it could be persuasive. 

JORDIE LANE TOUR DATES

WITH MATT LANGLEY AND MEL PARSONS

November

29^th – The Wine Cellar – Auckland

30^th – Hamilton Acoustic Music Club – Biddy Mulligans – Hamilton

December

1^st – Happy – Wellington

2^nd – Fairfield House – Nelson

3^rd – Le Café – Picton w/ Luckless & Bond St Bridge

4^th – Nor’Wester Café – Amberley

6^th – The Church Café – Dunedin

7^th – Arthur St Café – Timaru

8^th – The Brewery – Christchurch

9^th – St Peter’s Hall – Paekakariki w/ The Unfaithful Ways

10^th – Eggsentric Café – Whitianga

11^th – Tabac – Auckland* w/ Katie Scott & The Miss T’s

*Mel will not play Dec 11^th