Kate Hennessy : Freelance Writer

First published on Mess+Noise, here.

Last time I saw solo guitarist and singer Kirin J Callinan (Mercy Arms/Jack Ladder) he tried to sell me a two-track cassette tape for $40 (ONO) at the merch table. In a display of effeminate pique onstage, Callinan had flung his nylon jacket over a stage light and speculated, “I wonder if you’ll all still be standing here when it bursts into flames?” The coat steamed angrily until an unimpressed security guy plodded over to pluck it off. And somewhere amid the silliness and the eccentricity, Callinan delivered a performance of fitful incandescence that even won over the non-committal early crowd. Me included.

Goodgod crowd (Photos by Rafaela Pandolfini)

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Most tourists who visit Peru’s Sacred Valley will whip around its famed capital, Cusco, then beeline it for iconic Incan ruin, Machu Picchu. Both are wondrous sights and tourists looking for photographs and souvenirs will return home satisfied. But for seekers rather than sightseers, the Sacred Valley also offers ayahuasca: a potent, hallucinogenic, shamanic healing medicine.

My experience begins a month before Peru while visiting a friend in California. At a dinner party I mention I’m interested in shamanic healing. A guest says he’s just returned from an ayahuasca retreat in Iquitos in Peru’s Amazon jungle. Humid and buggy, Iquitos is the centre of Peru’s ‘psychedelic tourism’ boom but he warns me Iquitos is intense for first-timers.

“Go to the Sacred Valley. It’s gentler there.”

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Goodgod is hellishly hot and fire-trappy. The ceiling, always imminent, feels even lower and bodies shine with sweat. Flanked by a bassist and a keyboard player, Geoffrey O’Connor materialises onstage in a wizardly billow of smoke and lasers, his guitar draped Springsteen-style from his shoulder.

Geoffrey O'Connor. Image C/O Chapter Music: chaptermusic.com.au

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Just dug this one out – forgot to re-publish back in ’09, but it remains one of my favourite records of the past few years…

The Brag, December 2009

The idea of the album as a collection of songs bound by a sonic narrative is growing ever more antiquated. But it’s equally as persistent, quietly championed by musicians who choose to ignore the commercial realities of pay-per-song downloading and opt, instead, to create albums instead of singles. Ray Raposa is the 28-year-old Portland-based singer and songwriter behind solo project, Castanets, and a believer in the album.

Ray Raposa, image C/O http://rcrdlbl.com

“I’m still pretty old-fashioned and stick-in-the mud in that I want records to make sense as records and prefer people to listen from start to finish,” says Raposa. “I need [the record] to be a cohesive thing. Mainly it comes down to establishing a sonic narrative for the record that I admit may be more important to me than to someone paying 99 cents per song on iTunes and getting stuck with a 50-second synth snippet.”

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First published on Mess+Noise.

Ex Tropical’ – the debut album for Lost Animal – is nothing short of breezy, seedy brilliance from a nonchalant savant. Words by KATE HENNESSY.

Lost Animal is the solo project of Jarrod Quarrell, previously singer and songwriter in St Helens. St Helens broke up in 2010, just a year after their acclaimed debut LP Heavy Profession was released. Reportedly the band split so Quarrell could focus on Lost Animal, and now comes Ex Tropical, the fruit of that premature divorce.

On a first listen, it’s a weird ride. Ex Tropical takes the balmy island vibe of dub reggae and ices it way down, re-locating it somewhere urban and mean. It layers the mid-tempo schmaltz of ’80s funk-soul ballads with morose horns a la Morphine and the chic Caribbean groove of Grace Jones. There’s washes of dubstep warble, mawkish keys and several echoes of early Eno. Tying it all together is Quarrell’s voice, that same worldly, windswept drawl that made St Helens fans swoon. What he lacks in range he bleeds in cool, managing to fuse nonchalance with intensity; insouciance with intent.

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