Tweed: High-Brow Blues (Southbound)

 |   |  1 min read

Evacuee
Tweed: High-Brow Blues (Southbound)

Although this Auckland-based trio bill themselves as alternative-folk, grey-haired Anglofolk followers will hear in them something which was once mainstream acoutsic folk, back in the days when Steeleye Span, Amazing Blondel, Fairport Convention and others were right at the centre of the frame.

About 1972, I guess.

The difference is that while these young people -- who assuredly might not get those references and don't need to --  have a similar acoustic energy as the aforementioned, they have pleasingly taken to exploring another branch of that tree.

References to Crosby Stills and Nash (as fronted by a more brusque woman vocalist where the harmonies are more sandpaper than smooth ) are not amiss at all.

And then the male voices take backseat, the cello comes in for appropriately dramatic effect on something as compelling as the turmoil which drives the multi-part and outstanding (and timeless) Shifting . . . and . . .

And this becomes a very different conception.

Very alternative folk, but still connected to the lifeblood of villages, dining room tables and conversations around an open fire when people feel alienated.

There are archaisms here (of music, arrangememnts, lyrics) but a song like Lost is of the immediate present: "How do we construct our lives . . .mapping wastelands never lived before . . .they promised us that fighting fair wouldn't disadvantage anyone . . . we are a generation of collective isolation . . "

That is smart writing coupled to impassioned singing, and it winds down to "last night I had the saddest dream . . ."

And after that you are on your own. As they are.

There are many lighter and more conciliatory songs here -- the metaphorical dolphin song adds nothing to the breadth of human experience -- but at their best Tweed (awful name) really do have something to say in an alt-folk/trippy way (the expansive and again multi-part Evacuee with an unexpected but elequent electric guitar solo by non-member Rowan Uhe).

Can't lie. Did not get this first go round, but then . . .

TWEED NZ TOUR DATES

tweedism

Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   Music at Elsewhere articles index

Troy Kingi: Year of the Ratbags and Their Musty Theme Songs (digital outlets)

Troy Kingi: Year of the Ratbags and Their Musty Theme Songs (digital outlets)

The sixth installment of Kingi's self-imposed 10.10.10 project (10 albums in 10 genres in 10 years) finds the musical polymath – again co-writing with Delaney Davidson on the banging single... > Read more

Joe Henry: All The Eye Can See (digital outlets)

Joe Henry: All The Eye Can See (digital outlets)

Although singer, songwriter and producer Joe Henry hasn't won as many Grammys as his sister-in-law Madonna (three for his production work, to her seven), he enjoys wide acclaim from illustrious... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

EPs by Yasmin Brown

EPs by Yasmin Brown

With so many CDs commanding and demanding attention Elsewhere will run this occasional column by the informed and opinionated Yasmin Brown. She will scoop up some of those many EP releases, in... > Read more

Joe Louis Walker's Blues Conspiracy: Live on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (Stony Plain)

Joe Louis Walker's Blues Conspiracy: Live on the Legendary Rhythm & Blues Cruise (Stony Plain)

That this was recorded on a Caribbean cruise might tell you all you need about its crowd-pleasing nature. But Walker's guests (guitarists Johnny Winter, Tab Benoit and Duke Robillard, Watermelon... > Read more