Sympathetic Stupid

Sunday, August 14, 2005

New Buffalo: New Buffalo EP

I've become quite smitten with Sally Seltmann, the voice and mind behind New Buffalo. This is their new EP, which they'll be launching at the Northcote Social Club in a couple of weeks. It doesn't quite match the relentless brilliance of the album, but is a great fix for New Buffalo junkies.

The standout track is a new arrangement of I've Got You And You've Got Me. An almost empty mix with just the gorgeous vocals over a sparse, fuzzy guitar line gives the song exactly the space it needs to shine. Trigger is a new track, an understated ballad with double-tracked vocals over vibes and trombone, which works well. Sally's voice is the band, and these arrangements give it space to shine. The remix of Recovery is again a quieter, cleaner electronic mix of what was already a great track. This makes the upbeat original into a wistful piece.

Inside becomes a moving, jazzy track with sax and piano over drums. The lowlight of the album is the appearance of a male voice in the chorus; I'm assuming this is Jens Lekman as credited on the cover. His voice is fine, but it suffers in contrast to that Sally's pure, languid vocals. The Beginning Of The End takes the disc down to the ground to finish off. It's a country-tinged girl-and-her-guitar track in the vein of the greats; think maybe Lucinda Williams although more alt.

Can't wait for the concert, on the 24th of August.