Posts Tagged ‘Grace Cummings’

Popular Posts Tagged ‘Grace Cummings’

RSTB Best of 2019
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Grace Cummings
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Grace Cummings – “Sweet Matilda”
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Grace Cummings on Buffy Sainte-Marie – It’s My Way!
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Grace Cummings on Buffy Sainte-Marie – It’s My Way!

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Features

Hands down one of the most engrossing records that I came across last year was the Flightless debut from Australian songwriter Grace Cummings. Her scarred and furrowed songs were only rendered more so by her sonorous voice. She has the kind of stop you in your tracks delivery that would leave most listeners agape until the last note left the air. She’s followed the album up with an entry to the Looking Glass series for Mexican Summer that’s serves as a proper epilogue to the record and naturally that had me thinking that Grace might have a gem in her collection that she looks to. Shoulda thought of this when I was writing up the album, but of course Cummings is a natural fit for the storyteller power of Buffy Sainte-Marie. She recounts the impact of the songwriter’s essential ’64 debut on her own works.

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Grace Cummings – “Sweet Matilda”

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Tracks

Grace Cummings’ LP from last year caught me late, but never really let go. Cumming’s voice has a quality that’s startling, but affirming. There’s a sandpapered rasp nestled into a richness that unfolds further with each listen. Her stories capture hurt and healing in a way that matches the assured delivery that drives out of the speakers with a powerful gait. She’s the latest in a long line of indelible artists that have found their way into Mexican Summer’s singles offshoot Looking Glass and like the other inhabitants of this world, “Sweet Matilda” stirs a deeper well in the listener. Atop a patient piano, Cummings lays out a tale of loss that fills in the fine details with a refined hand. Its a crushing, gorgeous song that fits in right alongside her previous LP like an epilogue. With so many songs entering the fray each day a lot of gems can get lost. Don’t let this one get away.





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RSTB Best of 2019

by on ·Bits & Pieces, Features

2019’s drawing to a close, so I suppose this is the place to tie it all up. I’ve mentioned in years past that ‘best’ is a hard line to draw around the music from the year. From a blog perspective ‘favorite’ seems more appropriate, but then for all intents and purposes my choices are qualitatively the best to me, if not necessarily quantitatively best in the sense of the zeitgeist. The drive to figure out what’s best seems to just consolidate consensus and we’re all treated to dozens of lists that cross over with each other, especially in the top spots. I’ve long been a proponent of niche. I say long live finding your voice and letting others find theirs – we can all compare notes and discover new music in the process. I don’t need anyone to sand the edges and offer up a list that’s all inclusive. I like the edges. These are my favorites from a great year, edges and all.

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Grace Cummings

by on ·New Albums, Reviews

The debut LP from Australian songwriter Grace Cummings snuck out last month and maybe it’s the end of year crush of content, but this one should be kicking up more dust. Cummings’ voice is raw, rankled, and electric – packed full with notes of stripped pine, floral gin, defiance and defeat. It’s no surprise that she’s come to the attention of her label with a cover of Bob Dylan. Her voice falls into that same ineffable, indefinable valley as his own, the kind of voice that divides a room but brings a community together in the right corners of culture. Now, if she were just to possess a voice on par with past idols like Dylan, Buckley, and Van Ronk, that would be notable but not necessarily transformative. Good thing then that she’s also a songwriter of the highest order and that makes Refuge Cove one of the year’s secret gems.

For a debut this hits incredibly hard, a record wrought with rifts as Cummings’ world seemingly dissolves around her in strands of celluloid. Feelings don’t slide in subtly on the record, rather they tear recklessly at Grace’s soul and in turn she exhumes the ghost of grief and glory and sets it to tape. There have been great records that gutted lately, but it’s been a while since one has set the humors on fire like this has. Grace’s songs can be felt traveling through the nerves, alchemically transmuting sorrow and sin to exhaustion in an incredible act of catharsis. The only sad capper on this is that the label (Flightless) only pressed this in an edition of 500 and they’re seemingly gone in a snap. Hopefully this one will return to the fold, though digitally it still delivers. Still some of the year’s best coming out, so don’t let the lists fool ya.




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