The above excerpt comes from Kurt Wagner, of alt country band Lambchop and his Talkhouse.com essay on Brightly Painted One, the new album from Tiny Ruins, aka Bristol-born New Zealand-raised songwriter Hollie Fullbrook.
According to Fullbrook, the essay is her favourite piece of writing on the record, and it's an incisive meditation on spending time within the truth and honesty of Fullbrook and band's intimate and cosy world.
For Fullbrook, while her beautiful and restrained folk debut - 2011's Some Were Meant for Sea - ''feels like a hazy past life'' the world of Brightly Painted One ''feels like a dream [or nightmare?]'' she just woke from.
''One of the main themes of the album is a kind of strength or perseverance, that in itself has made me feel kind of fearless in putting it out,'' Fullbrook said.
Maybe it's her who is telling us that it will be all right?
Fullbrook is aware of what she calls ''dangerous singer-songwriter tropes'', and as a consequence her emotions are coded and storied but still identifiable, like those experiences to which Wagner makes reference.
She takes those concerns and projects them into a bigger playing field.
For this record, Tiny Ruins expanded to include drummer Alex Freer (Artisan Guns, the Eversons), and bassist Cass Basil (Paquin) as fully fledged members and both make measured and tasteful additions to the minimalistic arrangements throughout.
It's a beautiful and poignant experience listening to Brightly Painted One, and the band's three Otago shows this weekend are sure to be the same.
Lunch date
Just over a year on from double album Fandango, and a sold out Dunedin double-header, New Zealand rock mainstays the Phoenix Foundation are back to do it again in support of new EP Tom's Lunch.
The press release sells Tom's Lunch as ''short snappy tracks'' to follow up the sprawling Fandango, but this isn't really true.
Everything here is still over two and a-half minutes, with two tracks pushing over five.
But longish and jammy pop songs are kind of what these guys do, right?
It's all up to a pretty high standard and opener Bob Lennon John Dylan is fantastic: a pulsating one-two bass and drum groove anchoring floating piano synths, and some exhilarating guitar noise.
Be there
- Tiny Ruins, tonight at Taste Merchants Dunedin (Lower Stuart St). Early show, 5.30 doors, tickets $10 on the door; late show, 8pm with support from Dunedin baroque folk-pop troubadour Kane Strang, pre-sales sold out, very limited door sales.
- Tomorrow at the Gin and Raspberry, Wanaka. Doors 8pm, tickets online via undertheradar.co.nz
- The Phoenix Foundation Tom's Lunch EP release tour, tonight and tomorrow at Chick's Hotel, Port Chalmers. Doors 8pm (both shows), tickets $30 from undertheradar.co.nz
Get it
Brightly Painted One is available now on LP/CD/digital via Arch Hill
Tom's Lunch is out now on CD and digital from thephoenixfoundation.bandcamp .com/
