Broadcast 2025-01-20

Clean, crisp and clear are the three words that first spring to mind listening to this song.

The whole mix is balanced and allows each instrument, including the voice to come through without having to compete for some dominance.

There’s a great instrumental break ranging over the scope of the guitar.

I could fit a drummer joke in here, but I’m too polite.

This is a classic Australian hymn of praise to the very heart of our desires – the beach!

No seriously, it’s about getting out of the city to the beaches, experiencing the rolling waves, clearing your mind and drifting away.

Of course, the reality is that we leave that and return to the city.

But the paradise is still there for the next trip.

Brad Hunt - Paradise - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-01-20

This is definitely atmospheric in style.

It opens with the sounds of a sitar, irresistible to those of us with enough years under the belt to remember Beatles numbers using this instrument.

This is joined by some light drums, then a vocal. 

This all builds up to a wall of sound feeling, but not the rock style, but rather, instruments with a lead sound, providing an added background to the theme and vocals.

The vocals are relaxed but sufficiently prominent to rise above the background.

The actual lyrics are very interesting.

This song is a call to action, but couched in an almost introspective environment.

It opens with a description familiar to most Australians.

The beach, its sights and our feelings, some good and some bad – the colours, the birds, “the ocean is enticing.”

But there are also sharks and jellyfish mentioned.

I feel this is a metaphor for looking back and reflecting on the year, some things are positive, some things are negative.

"Memories wax and wane"

But beyond that, we are told tomorrow’s promised for no one, that there’s no time like the present, say goodbye to yesterday.

It’s a universal message, and one we need to keep reminding ourselves.

A Man Called Son - No Time Like The Present - Tempo Review

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

Broadcast 2025-01-27

A ghost note is a musical note with a rhythmic value, but no discernible pitch when played. There is a pitch, to be sure, but its musical value is more rhythmic than melodic or harmonic.

Having a band called Ghost-Note is a challenge, a warning to the listeners. This is something different, something special.

This is funk with a capital letter!

You might want to play this several times, especially because to many listeners, this will be something new.

There is no doubt that this track delivers a strong and punchy beat, right out in front.

There is a melody line, but it’s very much behind the punch emphasis.

If you lose focus for a second, the piece has moved on, you are still getting the beat, but the melody has moved.

This is not a common form in Australia, and we are all the poorer for that.

Ghost-Note will be appearing on Friday 21 February at the Northcote Theatre.

Ghost-Note - Bad Knees - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-01-27

Put me at the front of the queue when this album drops.

This is a spectacular track.

The first thing I thought of was The Church “Under the Milky Way,” but Earl has made his track more forceful, and more personal.

'Sienna' is a sunset-soaked cut of vibrant rock 'n' roll that blend radiating acoustic guitars, sliding bass lines and lead singer Earl Weir's crooning vocals.

As the track unfolds, it gathers momentum and crescendos towards rousing choruses featuring striking backing vocals, delicate piano riffs and resolute drums.

Musically the piece is excellent. The composition is elegant, and the arrangement is spot on. 

There’s great balance to the instruments used. A solid beat and a strong but clear melody line which stays above the instrumental backing.

To me this is a song about confusion and emotion.

The initial meeting, the self-sufficiency of the relationship, seeing everything through the focus of those feeling.

Then a change, which is not understood, “what are you doing to me?”

“You’re just not the one for me.”

But despite that statement, crying for an explanation.

This is really excellent material. Top drawer

Krystal Rivvers - Sienna - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-01-27

First line, and there’s that classical sax harmony, no question where this is taking us.

We’re talking soul, Motown, absolute heaven.

I haven’t got a full listing of the orchestra, but it sounds like a classic lineup – guitars, keys, bass, drums, brass and sax.

Their sounds is tight, balanced, and fluid, just as it should be.

Maddy’s voice complements this backing, providing a velvet tone.
Is that a clue to the name of the ensemble?

She has an excellent range, and sings strongly over that range.

In the song Maddy poses being lonely, against seeing the best in you.

She can still see the best, and for her there is no other.

It’s a beautiful sentiment, a beautiful line, but what if the best is not there.

It’s a wonderful thing to be young.

Velvet Bloom - Best In You - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-02-03

I have heard Thndo live several times, and I am waiting on her new album, surviving on this drip feed of excellent singles.

This is an excellent example of the music which is keeping me tantalised.

The instrumental seems to be stripped back in the number of instruments, but still delivers a rich background for Thndo’s voice.

Her vocals range in all possible dimensions, flowing arpeggios, changing tempos, all of which mesh with and emphasise impactful messages in her lyrics.

The story in those lyrics is an all too familiar one, abandonment without being told that is what is happening, hoping against hope that you are mistaken, but realising that you will break. 

The only question is when. 

Even when that is now obvious, you’re still holding on.

Roll on the 14th of February, Valentine’s day and the release date for Thndo’s album, Lessons In Love.

Thndo - Holding On - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-02-03

“Where Many Rivers Meet” is the title track of Steve’s 8th album.

It’s easy to hear why, this is a strong, raw, passionate song.
Believe it or not, Steve never rehearses, he wants that spontaneity. He’s also been known for changing the lyrics on the fly.

Pulling all that together, if you have heard that 2021 album, this Memory Ghost version is different in many ways.

The tracks on this CD were recorded live, first take on the 16th of October in 2023.

In this 2023 recording, the Snakes of Desire were Phil Bradley (guitar), Chobby Chobanoff (drums), Hans-Aage Deberitz (bass), and Steve himself on guitar and vocals).

Together they provided a strong instrumental to Steve’s vocal.

It’s almost impossible to believe that this is a first take recording.

This recording of “Where Many Rivers Meet” has a stronger feeling to it, a solid and strong backing to Steve’s jangling guitar and vocals.

It might be a first take, but the musical rivers meet perfectly and without wavering in their consolidated sound.

It’s a declaration of passion and commitment “I’m not a stranger to the realms of passion.”

There’s an acknowledgement that this is not lightly undertaken, there may be risk, “dark clouds on every side.”

And, the declaration:
“Put your hands upon my heart
Come inside my heart
I will come to you, I will swim to you”

You will want to play this many times before you are done with it.

Steve Tallis - Where Many Rivers Meet - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-02-03

There is nothing, absolutely nothing, which can knock your socks off like a strong classical piece.

This is a chamber orchestra, not a full-blown symphony orchestra.

A chamber orchestra gives you a more intimate experience, clarity and interplay come to the fore, the emphasis is on a conversation between the instruments.

You can hear a single flute carrying a melody, before strings take it over. It is clear whether a trumpet or a trombone is taking the lead.

Equally, a section can come to the fore – brass, wind, or strings.
This piece gives me a feeling, not just for a storm, but for a Tasmanian forest storm. In Victoria, you can often see a storm approaching over the plains. There are no such plains in Tasmania, you know about a storm when it sweeps down on you.

The opening crescendo gives me that feeling of a storm’s arrival, unexpected, strong and emphatic.

This movement tracks all of those moods, and uses the different characteristics of each instrument or section of the chamber orchestra to contribute to those moods.

The storm can recede, and just as easily return as the finale reminds us.

This is another excellent piece by Steve, and well realised by the orchestra.

The orchestration was undertaken by Richard Vella, who has worked with Steve previously, and that previous collaboration has no doubt contributed to this performance.

It must have been no easy thing to assemble the musicians and produce this recording.

The result speaks for itself, it’s excellent.

Steve Crump - Forest Storms - Tempo Review

Broadcast 2025-02-03

If you needed to be convinced of the melodic nature of Reb’s voice, you have it now.

The production allows her light voice to come clearly over the backing, which is as it should be.

The lyrics follow an interesting pattern.

The song begins by looking at external circumstances and their impacts, it then switches to internal circumstances and their impacts.

The final verse is interesting, it rises above the previous verse in the circumstances it considers.

“There’s nothin’ like New Love to raise your head
Nothing like Falling for wings to spread”

Contradicting this, the rendering of the vocals remains the same as the previous verses. 

Is life then a contradiction? “Nothin’ like dreaming for cheating death.”

We are left with an enigma.

Reb Fountain - Nothing Like - 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.

New tracks tagged #TempoOnThePulse