RADICAL SON
Bilambiyal (The Learning) (Wantok Musik)
IT IS ONLY 45 SECONDS and could not and should not define anything really, even as it is sung with a mix of lived-in certainty and unbroken expectation that suggests a life that has been remoulded any number of times.
But it tells you something – it tells you a lot – when someone can begin an album with the implied notion that a long life, a good life, is in ways most of us will never understand something of a lottery and not wholly in their hands, and we listening nod along unsurprised and certainly not shocked. And it tells you something with equal force when that opening song – actually, a “reprise” of a track which appears later in the album – is also a declaration that maintaining heritage and history as part of any meaningful future is worth pursuing, culturally and personally, and we might finally understand.
But it tells you even more when door those 45 seconds, segueing into a track called How Long Must I Wait – which ties personal, social and political reformation into a rock spiritual giving equal weight to Memphis, Redfern and Parramatta – makes you want to dive in deep and stay immersed in what will follow. And then delivers. Comprehensively. Very satisfyingly.
Radical Son – Kamilaroi and Tongan man, David Leha – addresses us from a position of long experience across these songs, messages condensed in brief spoken word interludes but permeating everything with soft insistence. The “Learning” comes from a litany of his own mistakes as well as observation, frankness being a default, raw in its openness but sophisticated in its application. The music, by Leha and Marcus Longfoot, reflects a similar approach, drawing from soul, reggae and classic rock, as well as traditional forms, country and some intense pop.,
The most impressive aspect of Bilambiyal isn’t even this fully exposed personal perspective and its directness about what it really means when we glibly say this or that experience will leave its mark. What really pushes this album on to the top shelf is the way Leha makes dramatic music in keeping with its subject matter that isn’t florid or overdone, that doesn’t lean into worthy and capital S serious as an alternative to effective and memorable. An album that can incorporate the complex vocal arrangements of A Golden Age (think Philly soul filtered through Jamie Woon) and cross-border foray of Only One Life (a herbal Jamaica lope, some Doobie Brothers vocals and a Clapton-esque guitar play out) comfortably without losing its tight grip.
Elder, for example, is solemn and intense, its pace pulled back to measured walk, and the spare arrangement is built around a heartbeat drum pattern. His voice is gruff and unadorned, and the arrival of Jida Gulpillil singing in language is startling initially for breaking the hold that singing has had, and then, in a brief stay, Gulpilill quite hypnotises in his own way. But that’s it for elements: no slowing it down to make it even more portentous; no thickening out of the voice to enhance dramatics; no need to overplay anything.
Similarly in the title track – a slice of Walk Across The Rooftops-era Blue Nile in its slow funkiness that seems burdened but not weighed down – the guitar rubs against the song like a cinematic undertone that rises to just below the surface without breaking it, the piano never gets swamped even when the waves of sound threaten it, and Leha picks up the soulfulness as a cloak not a bear rug.
But you can hear it too in the way he walks a narrow path in Dhuwan Baraay Yyligi between solemnity and beauty, between tension and atmospheric, and how How Long Must I Wait’s potential for grandeur – it’s an excellent piece of craft that might bring to mind both John Farnham and Coldplay – is touched on (those strings; that slight escalation into the chorus) but is left alone to win you naturally.
Good records do that, of course. Though not all good records end by telling us that “It’s our turn, hear the words, live in love”, and mean it as more than a platitude. That takes a bit more, and Bilambiyal does that bit more.
HEAR MORE:
BANDCAMP: Listen to Radical Son - Bilambiyal
SPOTIFY: Listen to Radical Son – Bilambiyal
APPLE MUSIC: Listen to Radical Son – Bilambiyal
Comments