Gentle, intimate and shimmering sounds from Nashville via Melbourne.
There is so much music in the world today, it becomes harder and harder to keep up. With ‘Tropical Depression’ Aussie artist Jordie Lane is on to his fourth (or 7th, depending on how we count them) well-crafted and eminently listenable LP and yet he remains mostly under the radar. Sure, there has been the odd glowing review over the years – we enjoyed his last record, 2018’s Glasselland – then there were support slots with big(gish) hitters such as Old Crow Medicine Show, Billy Bragg and Kim Richey as well as the odd early afternoon festival appearance. But his work has created only a very minor impression on all but the most dedicated followers of the roots music firmament and, almost 20 years in, his recording career could be in danger of stalling.
This would be a damn shame because Lane makes gently trippy, folky Americana music with echoes of Whitney, Jonathon Wilson or maybe Sam Burton. This is a familiar, ever-popular sound and one that clearly evinces his current Nashville home base, where the album was recorded. Lane’s current setting – which is explicitly addressed in the droll examination of artistic imposter syndrome that was his last single ‘Biscuit House’ – is a long way from his roots in Melbourne and his earliest years travelling with the circus and his comedian / clown parents. Such an idiosyncratic raising appears to have left some kind of impression on Lane as an artist, with his latest carrying on his fondness for slightly off-kilter songs that are more mood-inducing than storytelling. On ‘Tropical Depression’ the lyrical realm is intriguing, funny and engaging, even striking yet it is rarely explicit just what Lane (and on two songs, collaborator Claire Reynolds) are alluding to.
‘Tropical Depression‘ wrestles with a diverse range of issues, through which perhaps the overriding theme that emerges is one of a sense of struggle. Lane grapples with extreme weather circumstances, faces questions of personal identity and even wrestles with concerns about his own mental health. This is not a heavy record in any sense though. He tackles all this with a lightness of touch and a turn of phrase that melds seemingly humble chronicles with a wry sense of humour and cutting reflections on the world as he experiences it. The end result of which is that we are left simultaneously beaming at the playfulness on offer yet grimacing with furrowed brow at what, really, to make of it all.
This is a puzzling yet also energising affect, one that is supported and amplified by the psych(ish) update on cosmic American music on offer. Lane once played GP in a stage musical and his own music has a clear but subtle endowment of Parson’s own attempts to merge the rhythms and vocabulary of country and rock. It has been suggested* that the cosmic American music that emerged “brought together the past with the present and provided a musical and cultural point of epiphany, an American gospel of popular music”. The idea that the purpose of this was to “musically heal the separation and increasing divisiveness of late modern life… the embodiment of a musical and cultural reconciliation” may be a stretch but it is also something that Lane would undoubtedly identify with.
‘Tropical Depression’ is certainly roots-based but it’s not really roots music. It is cosmic in terms of its cutting-edge essence, but remains rooted in the tried and true. There is a definite ‘West Coast’ vibe to it with a defiantly analogue mixture of ingredients that surfaces a sparse yet compelling beauty as the record grows. The gentle, intricate songwriting can slip by almost unnoticed until you find it seeping into your musical bones. The resulting effect is sophisticated and immediate in a way that brings to mind many other references: Jonathon Wilson on ‘It Might Take Our Whole Lives’, the lustrous sound of Polica on ‘New Normal’, even a whimsical Jimmy Buffet on ‘Internal dialogue’. The final, gorgeous ‘Been Lucky’, is a five minute breakdown of Matthew E White’s lustrous Spacebomb sound that closes the LP with a tender but resoundingly hopeful payoff.
There is so much music available right now it is also difficult to craft something that stands as unique and apart from everything else. With ‘Tropical Depression’ Lane has fashioned a record that pays homage to a range of influences but sounds like nothing other than himself, it would be a real shame if this lovely, soulful record got lost in all the noise.
* Michael Grimshaw in his paper “Redneck Religion and Shitkickin’ Saviours?: Gram Parsons, Theology and Country Music”
