Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer continues to carve out her own unique place within a solo framework
Dresden Doll Amanda Palmer continues to carve out her own unique place within a solo framework, and you wouldn’t expect anything less of a lady who once felt compelled to release a whole disc of Radiohead covers on ukulele. Simultaneously sexy, fun, earnest, gracious, indignant and many, many other non-musical descriptions, Amanda Palmer Goes Down Under is an unlikely sophomore album, consisting mostly of live recordings with a painfully acute theme: these songs are either tributes to Australia (except for the written-on-the-fly New Zealand), were written while she was here, or are live takes recorded on an Australian tour. More often than not though, they are all of these at once.
From an Australian perspective, it’s touching to receive such an intricate thank you from such an obviously talent-laden songstress (does anyone know a better word than songstress? Hell, I’ll settle for a shitter word at this stage), and the tongue-in-cheek double-entendre title is a pretty exact indication of the trademark rogue-cabaret attitude you can expect from Ms Palmer.
I can’t say this release isn’t all over the place, but that probably goes for its creator as well. She could be bleeding solemnity over a piano one moment, then leading a massive sing-along to We’re Happy Little Vegemites the next ("You guys are weird!" she bleats over the crowd’s cheers at the song’s end). For the record, Amanda, I’m with you re: Vegemite (The Black Death): "It tastes like sadness / It tastes like batteries / It tastes like asses / I cannot hold a man so close / who spreads this cancer on his toast…".
Throw in the cheekily-titled studio recording Map Of Tasmania and an inspiringly adroit live rendition of Nick Cave’s The Ship Song for an album closer, and you have one of the strangest albums of the year (yes, it’s a safe call), but you also have one of the most adventurous albums from one of the boldest women to grace a stage in my lifetime. Amanda, if you ever read this, can we hold hands some time?
Best track: Fittingly, Australia, a winding piano musing on listlessness, which is more a plea for escape than a tribute to our lovely country.
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Liz Phair, Kimya Dawson, any number of smart, strong, verbose women. I’m swooning as I think of them.
In A Word: Affrontalicious
Label: Liberator
BY MATT PANAG
