Broadcast 2025-01-27

There is so much to say about this song.

I can hear the tambour behind them, only emerging as a solo instrument at the finish – a very folk instrument.

The instruments playing over that beat are light, disciplined and beautiful.

Then there are the voices of Mabel and Ivy, their tonality perfect, their harmony incomparable.

An American reviewer called their work “Chamber Folk” and that’s a wonderful description.

The song is about the ending of a relationship, “making a clean cut.”

“Strangers we’ve made now
The chains we have laid down”

And yet, a memory comes into the second verse of a better, a pacific time.

You can make a clean cut, you can live the future separately after the cut, past memories can contain a different cut.

Charm of Finches are currently touring Australia and New Zealand and will be down our way at the Port Fairy Folk Festival and Trentham’s Cosmopolitan Hotel, on 25 May. 

They will be performing songs from their latest album ‘Marlinchen In The Snow’ as well as exciting new material.

Charm Of Finches - Clean Cut - Tempo Review

Weekly uploads of reviews and interviews from the program, "Tempo". "Tempo" is a weekly radio program presented by John Lamp, highlighting a wide range of music and music reviews on 94.7 the Pulse in Geelong, Wadawurrung country. John has been involved in community radio since 1976, initially with a music program "Parcel of Rogues" on 7CAE-FM in Hobart, Tasmania. After moving to Geelong, he joined 94.7 the Pulse on the program "Folks Alive", which morphed into "~meanderings~." John then spent a decade on the station Boards of Management before returning to the air in 2022 with his new program "Tempo." Full programs can be accessed at the link below.

Charm Of Finches - Clean Cut - Tempo Review

Tempo on the Pulse