Kate Miller-Heidke's "Curiouser," and Concert with Ben Folds (April)

I picked up the album to your left during her tour with Ben Folds, a concert that I was very abruptly and very happily invited to at the House of Blues. More on that in a bit. In a bit of boredom, I threw a few albums together in a now playing list wtih this on it (also including Evelyn Evelyn's "Love Will Tear Us Apart" track which continues to blow my mind and The Avalanches' "Since I Left You" which is just perfect to play for friends and is not well known despite being lauded a thousand times over by Kitchfork and Antony's "The Crying Light" which is just too self-indulgently melancholy for me right now and Sufjan Steven's "The BQE," which continues to FUCK MY BRAIN but anyway). I've gotten a few chances to listen through it and I guess I'd like to say some things about it.

The album is a vein of gold. There's so much clear strength and power, and yet impure or...unrefined wouldn't be the right word, since the album's production sheen is flawless.

Despite her trademark voice abilities, I'm disappointed with the melodies she uses, which range from the unimaginative ("I Like You Better When You're Not Around") to the trite ("Caught in the Crowd"). Yet as an instrument weaving in with other, it gains an incredible amount of power ("God's Gift To Women"), catchyness ("Can't Shake It" and "Motorscooter"), and just presentation effect ("Politics in Space") . I say without irony that she would make an incredible backup or group singer, as I even saw with Ben Folds on "You Don't Know Me."

Lyrically, the album is very mixed. Her style tends to torrent along a theme or a rhyme scheme, and the effect is either stunning or falls flat on its face in a magical explosion of trite pop (..."Caught in the Crowd"...) . She's never just saying things, but she does get caught up in how smart she's doing, maybe? Or less venemously, getting caught up in the momentum that you get when you have a really good riff you like, or a pattern, and just throw it out as much as you can because you're excited. A lot of great excitement, and honesty and clarity, I don't feel bullshitted. But at the same time...I wish she listened to fewer of her pop bands and heard the songs the sex pistols made. She could focus more on energy and less on her really nice articifice.

In terms of grooves...again, mixed. There's a lot of invention going about, especially in chord progressions, song forms, and choice of instruments. But she gets caught up in it, despite all artful manipulations, and certain songs are just doomed to fail (..."Caught in the Crowd"...ok, another example: "Last Day on Earth"). But sometimes she's spot-fucking on, and the groove aligns with the words and the melody doesn't detract and and and and and the results are fireworks, "Politics in Space" and "God's Gift to Women" and "Can't Shake It" (my copy of the album also has "Words" and "Are You Fucking Kidding Me," both of which are mindblowing and were played live).

And live? She tours with an acoustic guitarist and uses a keyboard occasionally. And I think that's AMAZING. Without the tools to create a full pop artifice, she strips down the the pure energy and focuses on her strengths: insane torrents of words, radical manipulation of tone and pitch, inventive and surprising song structures over focused grooves. Kind of like Amanda Palmer touring vs. Amanda Palmer recording these days.

To sum up: I would love a panel of very, very deliberate artists and musicians and arrangers to come together and listen to this over and over, and put out a cover album of it. Mean title for it? "We Make Kate Miller-Heidke Songs Better Than Kate Miller-Heidke Can." Nice title? "We Tap Into the Inspiration and Genius of Kate Miller-Heidke."