King Curly - Lullaby

Tue 15th Nov, 2005 in Music Reviews

As far as I’m concerned, when Paul Kelly sits down and writes a note urging Australia to pay attention to your music, you’ve made it. There may not be piles of cash couriered to you daily, desperate groupies lining up outside your backstage door or a cover spot on next week’s NME lined up, but you’ve bloody well made it.

‘Their name should be shouted from the roof-tops, their records playing in the cafes, their songs on the radio,’ wrote Kelly, back in the early summer of ‘04, back when Lullaby was released. For a band like King Curly – that is, a songwriter like Steve Appel – who play such perfectly crafted tales of half-hopeful sadness and suburban yearning, praise from a writer like Kelly couldn’t be more fitting.

Of course, Appel – and those he plays with – would have made it without the laudatory proclamations of Australia’s true poet laureate; Kelly’s kind and true words just help the cause. Appel has, after all, supported Tex Perkins, Dave Graney and Jimmy Little, three of the best performers Australia has produced, so he’s not doing too badly on his own. No surprises there.

Indeed, Appel is a songwriter that deserves to be heard, his lyrical aim true, his young voice comforting, and his music a wondrous blur of cabaret, jazz, folk and pop. His is music crafted from Blue Mountains air and sky, all crisp and cool, the grey of acoustic guitars splashed upon by colourful trumpets, sensual accordions and rivers of double bass lines. Lullaby is a rich, evocative work, intensely Australian in all the best ways.

Which all sounds a bit airy fairy, but it’s not. It’s melodies that you don’t notice, but remember on the bus later that day. It’s lyrics that shouldn’t work, but do (‘I have danced to the beat played by monkeys in suits with wings on their feet / Took advice on the subject of quality job retraining’). It’s a song (A Good Time) that begins with mariachi horns and ends up a folk polka. It all just makes sense. It works. It’s just the right soundtrack to either cold, grey autumn days, with leaves falling, or blazing hot summer afternoons spent sweating and relaxing in the backyard.

Lullaby is an album with an emotional weight, and a sincere, sometimes self-conscious charm. Appel sings of swimming in the moonlight, smoking cigarettes inside and getting away with it, and beautiful days; it all sounds like genuine experience condensed, like emotional, sincere, heartfelt music should. Thankfully, Apple never errs towards sulky emo-ness or the overearnestness that’s currently experiencing such a renaissance. A man with sincerity, wit, a sharp eye and a fine ear is a potent mix. Appel, it seems, has it all. (He also has cuteness down, closing the album with a cover of Teddy Bears’ Picnic which is almost irresponsibly likeable).

Lullaby is now a good year old, but it clearly hasn’t yet garnered the attention it deserves. It’s not the first King Curly album – that was 2002’s Familyman – but it’s as fine an introduction to the band as you could ask for. The production – by Appel, naturally – is superb, and every song hits the mark. King Curly aren’t quite the institution on the local scene that they obviously deserve to be. But that will happen. Appel’s talent will make sure of it.