Chet Sounds

Sliding out of the Aussie enclave of mahogany-framed ‘70s slingers (Hot Apple Band, Winter McQuinn, The Bures Band), Chet Sounds is the solo guise of The Uplifting Bell Ends’ Chet Tucker. Like his contemporaries he’s locked into the smooth, single malt side of the ’70s, making space on the shelf with US contemporaries like Drugdealer and Wyes Blood as well. His earlier works blended a bedroom scruffiness with aims at AM glory, but on his latest album the sound hits crisp and clear, tumbling out of the speakers in Quadrophonic crispness. The third record under the Chet Sounds banner takes some admitted inspiration from the schools of Carole King and James Taylor, and there’s certainly a kind of solitude and solace that’s inherent in his inspirations. Something pushes Chet Sounds out of the singer-songwriter slipstream though; a slinking sense of funk that gives the album a kind of unbuttoned saunter.

Instrumentals like the centerpiece cool down “Wycliffe Well” and the title track have more in common with contemporaries like Badge Époque Ensemble than with the Canyon folk and AOR on aim. The mixture works well. Tucker knows how to hit the target just this side of department store melancholy, better lending the album to night drive highway contemplation rather than checkout lane laments. The buzzing keys keep the album toeing the line between nostalgia and an out-of-time modernity that’s constantly entrancing. Chances are if you’ve enjoyed any of the touchstones mentioned here, that Tying Up Loose Ends ought to be a comfortable companion over the next few months and beyond. Each spin through the set sinks a hook deeper into the listener, so keep it on repeat a while.

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