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EP Album Review: Over The Earth, Under by Gailla

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If I had to say a single thing about Australian folk musician Gailla’s debut EP, Over The Earth, Under, it’s that it shows she has a clear understanding of what makes the genre special. With gorgeous musical arrangement, poignant and sweet lyrics, and a concept that ties everything together, Gailla’s introduction to the recording music scene is something to be paying attention to. The keyword here is ambition, as Gailla not only effectively gets her point across, in just over 17 minutes, but also lets us know she is an artist with much more to say.

Over The Earth, Under could simply be described as a protest EP, one centered around the current climate crisis, but Gailla and her band decided to take the concept even further. The first track of the project, midden, is a quick thirty-second invitation to the universe she is setting up, with nature sounds that eventually get overshadowed by  protesters chanting: “We will not stop, we will not rest.” This mirrors the final track of the EP, pippi, another interlude where nature sounds seem to be the focus, as the vague presence of people can hardly be heard. These two tracks alone already give the EP a conceptual feel, as the longer and lyrically focused songs are contextualized within them. In a way, with this structure, it almost seems as if Gailla is attempting to capture the essence of a real protest, with a clear focus, a striking beginning, and a somewhat fleeting conclusion.

Adding to this idea, the EP’s middle part also feels like the stream of consciousness someone would have in a real-life protest. We know the cause is just, we know that the fight is bigger than ourselves, but we can’t help but think of how this affects us, the people we love, loathe the people that brought it to be, have doubts, hopes, and more. Take, for example, the song Shape of Change, where Gailla sings about people whose “shape of change” necessitates that folks like her are poor, estranged, hurt, or even dead. Considering the context of the EP and the explicit mention of these people’s desire for other countries’ oil, we can easily imagine which power structures the song is aimed at.

I could go further with this concept, like with the songs 536 and Running on our own, both of which show Gailla embracing different feelings around the climate crisis, like doubt, collective strength, hope, etc. However, I would like to bring attention to the songs Run to and its partner Run to (the water), as these tracks show Gailla’s chops as a folk musician. On the first one, Gailla ponders where she’ll run to if the crisis reaches critical levels and, almost as importantly, if the person she loves would come along. With sharp writing, and a pinch of humor though overall a gloomy perspective, the song ends with unanswered questions about what this future would hold for them. In its partner song, Run to (the water), the nature imagery becomes vivid, as this running away with someone turns into a poetic and hypnotic metaphor about embracing nature. “We can just go anywhere she takes us/ Over the Earth, under dark blue mud”. Like the great folk musicians that came before her, Gailla amps her fight for nature by almost becoming one with it, making us connect more fiercely with every single one of her words.

In conclusion, Over The Earth, Under is a fantastic, short, and to-the-point, EP about the current climate crisis and the way it affects us. It shows that Gailla and her band deeply understand the genre and that they will use this talent and knowledge for a just cause moving forward.

As for us, we can only wait to see what she’ll do next.

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News, Review

EP Album Review: I Ain’t So Blue by Emmy Ryan

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I Ain’t So Blue is Australian folk musician Emmy Ryan’s debut EP, and it’s an incredible showcase of her inner world, which is inevitably influenced by the world outside her. Comprised of seven songs and with a runtime just shy of thirty minutes, the EP is delightful, straightforward, topically relevant to the world at large, and, above all, honest. And it’s precisely this, Emmy’s honesty as a songwriter, that allows I Ain’t So Blue to feel like a unique display of talent and a promising sign for the music she will compose in the future.

As it is only fitting to start from the beginning, the EP opens with two tracks that effectively introduce us to Emmy’s sensibilities: Solo, So Low and A Place to Call Home. On the first song, we’re shown the meditative side of Emmy, as she is reminded of a past relationship, prompting her to reflect on the loneliness she is currently feeling. On the second one, she brings these meditative feelings to the world outside her mind, as the track is focused on the rise of interest rates on land, and how folks like her struggle to find a place to call home in the face of landlords’ monetary desires.

These two songs’ core elements can be found in many of the tracks on I Ain’t So Blue, as Emmy is capable of drawing us into her mind and the thoughts that inhabit it; but she can also get us to rally behind a just cause through the same process. The songs In My Dreams and How Many are great examples of this, as one is about navigating the insecurities around love and attraction, and the other is effectively a protest song that, thanks to the cover image used in the single version, we know is about the ongoing conflict in Palestine.

This is not to say that Emmy has a template when approaching music, rather, pointing this out shows how the fundamentals of the EP make it a cohesive and direct endeavor. Nowhere is this clearer than in the title track, I Ain’t So Blue, which is a fascinating song to choose to represent the project. The piece shows us a series of vignettes of Emmy’s world, intertwined with the chorus about how she’d tell the world she ain’t so lonely, that she ain’t so blue, but only if she’d convince herself that’s true. Considering that phrase is the first thing we see when opening the EP, there’s a sense that in the process of singing us these songs, with all the intimate feelings and worries attached to them, Emmy has in a way matured to tell us that, really, she ain’t so blue.

As for room for improvement, there is some space in the current folk music landscape that Emmy could use as inspiration for her next project. For starters, I Ain’t So Blue’s musical palette is perfectly suitable for the songs featured on it, but other folk musicians, take Mount Eerie as an example, have explored a diverse array of sounds that could also suit Emmy’s thematic ambitions in a more dynamic way. In terms of songwriting, Emmy’s intimate style could lean more into the vivid imagery already present in songs like Rainbow Trout, with artists such as Adrianne Lenker and Kara Jackson as possible guidance for this direction.

This is to say that Emmy’s future looks promising, as she is no doubt a talented and sensitive person who will continue to look inside and outside her world for inspiration. Hopefully, we get to hear more from her sooner rather than later.

News, Review

Album Review: NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD by Godspeed You! Black Emperor

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The new Godspeed You! Black Emperor album is not about Palestine, in the sense that for the band, nothing can be about Palestine. There is nothing to talk about. The evidence overwhelmingly points to a genocide, and that’s supported by UN findings on the matter. So, what can we do? What can we say? Every sympathetic person already knows about it, and the people on the other side won’t let themselves be convinced it’s happening. What good is awareness when people shut their ears? Posed with all these questions, the band decided to make the album about something specific: hope.

For decades now, the post-rock legends have embodied the spirit of the genre, helping to define what it truly means. There is rock, yes, but there is also what’s after it, before it, and everything in between. The band would create a powerful riff to symbolize a storm and then hit us with the calm texture of the rain and the subsequent static. Like a true post-rock classic, GY!BE’s new album aims to sonically capture what surrounds the ongoing conflict in Palestine, but in a way that feels respectful towards the people involved.

It’s not about musically recreating the atrocities at hand, rather, it’s about showing how the people there grieve, mourn, and admirably persevere towards a better future despite it all. Case in point, the second song on the album, “BABYS IN A THUNDERCLOUD”, where a melody is set up in the beginning, appears to fade away halfway through the song and triumphantly returns by the end. As the title effectively describes, in spite of the atrocities, there is something that endures in Palestine, something young and fragile, but with the potential to eventually overcome its obstacles. That something —an identity, an idea— has, continues, and will survive for as long as there are people standing with it.

In addition to this, the album also isn’t shy about bringing attention to the situation or denouncing those who choose to ignore the atrocities being committed. The official title of the album is “NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD” which immediately brings into focus the situation in Gaza, and makes you wonder where the numbers stand today. Besides this, the song “RAINDROPS CAST IN LEAD” features a poem written and recorded by Michele Fiedler-Fuentes, in which she talks about women and children who were murdered before they got to experience the beauty of sunrise. In other words, a better world was taken away from them, a world that was just within reach, and that is a tragedy everyone should know about.

Regarding its technical aspects, there is plenty worth praising the album for, like the production or the mastering, but relevant to the subject at hand is the structure. The album begins by bringing us into the situation, then driving us through the people living it and the way they react to what’s happening to them. Then, as the city appears to be completely dead, a pale spectator takes a photo and what remains, what we see, is grey rubble. But, among that rubble, there are some green shoots. There is still hope for Palestine, something can grow, but we must nurture it before it’s too late.

The message is clear then: Palestine will persevere, but it needs our help. As for what we can do, on a collective scale, we must champion policies that support Palestine and reject all of those that benefit the perpetrators of the genocide; on an individual scale, continue talking about the situation and not let the atrocities be forgotten.

At the moment of writing this article, there are 43,992 dead.