Jamie Hutchings - Avalon Cassettes (Album)
This album fits like my favourite shirt. That blue one. It sits on my shoulders snugly and no amount of sweating gives me patches. And the stitching around the collar is cool. Jamie Hutchings’s third album ‘Avalon Cassettes’ is so familiar to me that I knew each song on it the first time I put it on. For some albums this could be of great disappointment, and I guess there is a touch of that here, but mostly it just means that Jamie Hutchings, with seemingly minimal fuss, continues to succeed where so many others flounder despite how hard they try. There has been much written over the years about how Jamie Hutchings is one of Australia’s most ‘underappreciated’ songwriters (insert ‘woe be the indie musical genius never fully embraced by the evil album buying public’ cliché here) and yeah, totally true, but who really gives a shit? What you WILL know after listening to ‘Avalon Cassettes’ is that Hutchings is an incredibly gifted songwriter.
This album is never in a rush. Inside the cover it says ‘recorded directly to eight track cassette’ at some shack and that is pretty much what it sounds like. Track one ‘Invisible Coat’ creeps in with a single acoustic and a fragile voice and the tone of the album is set. Sure, there is plenty of colour added with bass, piano, percussion throughout: see ‘Slack Magic’ for a full sounding track and a nice duet with Sophie Hutchings on ‘When it’ll blow’, but this album is a stripped back, black and white picture that sits nicely in your dining room. Common knowledge for fans is that Jamie is a great guitar player (the guitar solo in ‘Smoky Dawson’ is off the hook) and there are many other interesting sounds, like the sad flute in ‘Man vs Train’, but this album is more about the storytelling. Jamie’s voice is both fragile, like a naïve teenager in love, and wise, like that uncle at a family gathering whom everyone gravitates toward. And one reason this album sounds so good recorded on minimal resources, with less than perfect production it has to be said, is because it mirrors the voice of the narrator. The voice that is always engaging and will occasionally give the skin of your heart goose bumps is also a voice that is imperfect, interesting and cracked. And, of course, therein lies the charm. And it is a shitload of charm.
My only problem with the album is with the fact that it ends too soon after letting its lazy charms have its way with me. And let me tell you, with the amount of times I’ve already listened to this album, pretty soon I’m going to get sick of pressing the replay button.
