ADELE & GLENN
CARRINGTON STREET (Indie)
Album of the year? Possibly. It’s modesty probably counts against those kinds of big accolades. Lets just say that Carrington Street represents a perfect little gem that exists outside a music scene drowning in its own irony. Adele & Glenn is Pickvance and Thompson respectively. Brisbane bred, he drummed for Custard, she played the bass for Dave Graney and together they were the final Go-Betweens rhytmn section. Inevitably comparisons will be drawn with the Go-Betweens and there is indeed some of that striped sunlight sound to be found on these tracks but they thankfully avoid the archness of Bobby Forster or the dry sentimentality of Grant McLennan. I’m hearing a lot more Robyn Hitchcock and the Riptides myself.
Most of the songs on Carrington Street are drawn from the not-very-mean-at-all streets of Sydney’s inner west. The most Go-Betweensy is the lead track ‘I Dreamt I Was A Sparrow’ and that’s for me the weakest cut. ‘Aunty Nellie’, a kind of 21st century version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ is a nice example of their ability to find stories in the most unlikely of places. ‘City of Sound’ is a delightful punk rocker, flimsy and thrashy, Farfisa-ish organ and handclaps and driving bass line. ‘Earthly Air’ which starts with sending a text message to a dead friend becomes something more elegiac and really quite beautiful. Spooky guitar, soaring vocals and a lyric that brings something new to the eternal subject.
Carrington Street is the sort of record that, being timeless, fails to fit into any of the current trends and it may well fall between the cracks. But that’s okay because it will be here forever just as good waiting for you to find.
[rating:4/5]
Toby Creswell
