4 posts
Billed as an EP, but at nine tracks Hetta Falzon’s debut is really an album. The twenty-one-year-old has Norah Jones’s vocal warmth and the writing to match—confessional, wry, occasionally cutting on ‘Belly Laugh’. She’s at home with spare piano (‘Freckles’) and the fuller build of ‘Switch It Off’ alike, and ‘I Hope You Notice Me’ is the one that makes the case for both her melodies and her voice. A perfect Sunday morning record.
Eisenberg’s experimental instincts haven’t gone anywhere: the melodies still take unexpected turns and the guitar work still catches you off guard, but here they’re folded into something closer to the 1970s singer-songwriter tradition. Folky, with jazzy touches. The avant-garde scaffolding of earlier records gives way to songs that breathe differently, and Eisenberg’s voice sits at the centre in a way it hasn’t quite before. The lyrics circle memory, time and youth without tipping into overt nostalgia. If you’ve bounced off their more uncompromising work in the past, this is the way in.
The story goes that Flea, having learned trumpet as a kid, devoted two hours each day for two years during the most recent RHCP tour to re-learning the instrument, with a commitment to recording an album at the end of it. This is it, and it’s great. Some good originals as well as covers—Nick Cave singing ‘Wichita Lineman’ isn’t something I knew I needed.
www.latimes.com
I’ve listened to Flea’s new album “Honora” several times since its release. The backstory is great: he played trumpet as a kid, then devoted two hours a day across two years of RHCP touring to re-educating himself on the instrument, promising to record an album at the end.