It’s perhaps the abstract artwork that best sets the scene for Caitlin Park’s Milk Annual. A flower-breathing fox head carried in a basket by poppy-picking children in the dark of night.
Musically she is self-described as having taken the neo-folk genre and single-handedly pulled it to the left with abstract compositions and film nostalgia. No matter how it reads on the promo material, it’s how it sounds that matters most.
At the foundation Caitlin Park is a young, eloquent and earnest voice with an acoustic guitar. What the Sydney-sider then adds is loops, sound bites and samples from 1940s and ’50s films; weaving them every which way throughout the majority of tracks from her debut album.
How’s Your Wife! is a sonically-diverse, A.R. Rahman-esque, cinematic, instrumental opening. Baby Teeth lifts the pace to give listeners an insight into what Caitlin Park and co. may execute in the live setting. It’s textured with hand claps, percussion and cannoning harmonies. Much like the driving Warriors With Wild Hearts with its shakers, tambourine and looped child-like taunts.
Would You Let Me Back In and With No Strength To Defend, Be A Ghost could possibly be the most thematically introspective accounts on the record. “In his warm bed/ With no strength to defend/ Let the memories catch your breath/ Let your tight chest do the rest/ I hope I changed you some”. There’s no lack of sincerity throughout, whether this is indeed an ode to a rabbit or not, it’s moving.
Tracks such as Tic Tac Language Song could well polarise audiences as it adopts more samples and sound bites; conjuring up Frontier Psychiatrist styling. It’s adventurous in a genre that typically avoids such technologies and tricks, so kudos for standing out. Jack Where You At closes out the collection of works and is a divine folk song for the ‘pure at heart’ listener who longs for their back porch ballads and vast horizons. It demonstrates the purity of Caitlin Park as a vocalist and songwriter and will silence crowds.
Best Track: Jack Where You At
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: LAURA MARLING, THE BOOKS, BRIGHT EYES, GOSPEL DANCE, LAURA JEAN
In A Word: Tender
BY JOHN DONALDSON
