Greg Arnold , APRA and ARIA award singer-songwriter behind folk rockers Things of Stone and Wood is back with a new solo album: “ Lost Marie” .
It is a collection of story songs:
As Arnold says: “I've been banging on about myself for about twenty years…I thought it was about time to make something up.”
And so, a cast of ex-cons, car-jackers, philanderers, disaffected Sydney émigrés, elderly musicians, delusional romantics, and conspiracy theorists are wrapped together in a warm blanket of acoustic instrumentation.
Arnold is ably supported by his band including Ian Kitney (Tim Roger's and the Temperance Union ) on the drums and long time musical comrade Pete Haydon - who delivers an extremely versatile brass, percussion and vocal performance.
In “Lost Marie” , the narrator waits for the gal, who is never going to leave town with him, to the soundtrack of a banjo and a saw.
In “Whisky Tango” , the muted trumpet and cabaret piano accompany a sin-bent loner into “the club at the end of love”.
A sad brass band is the fading sonic wallpaper for the central characters of “Bookish Boy” and she wants the world to end.
Arnold makes a brief unhappy cameo as the guy who is car-jacked - the album's only true crime moment.
“Lost Marie” is a moving collection melodic short stories, cohesively bound by a singer-songwriter who has learnt to keep it simple…and let the songs do the talking. |
