GRACE CUMMINGS - Refuge Cover (Flightless Records)
Originally published in Rhythms magazine, May/June 2020 (Issue #299)
Grace Cummings - Refuge Cover (Flightless Records)
By Ian McFarlane © 2020
Listening to an album that’s so stripped back musically yet so powerful in delivery can be refreshing and invigorating. Melbourne singer/songwriter Grace Cummings’ debut album, Refuge Cove, is a case in point.
The album has been out a few months now and the original vinyl pressing of 500 copies sold out swiftly. It’s still available for download from Bandcamp and there’s talk of a second pressing.
Cummings’ music can be described as a mix of acoustic folk and blues. It’s tempting to draw parallels with other singers so for some reference imagine a blend of Tim Buckley melody and Johnette Napolitano vocal soul, with a touch of Jacques Brel fatalism, and you might be getting close. While unique might be an overused term to apply, the music does possess an otherworldliness that finds its own orbit.
The music hinges on Cummings’ gently strummed acoustic guitar and her astonishingly emotional vocals. Most of the tracks feature only one or two additional instruments and occasionally another voice. ‘The Look You Gave’ features subtle, bluesy electric lead and harmonica; ‘The Other Side’ and ‘Paisley’ add extra acoustic filigrees and backing vocals; ‘There Flies a Seagull’ features only ghostly harmony vocals; ‘Lullaby for Refuge Cover’ and ‘Sleep’ present piano and for mine are the standout tracks. The unadorned ‘Lullaby for Buddy’ and ‘Just Like That’, on the other hand, are so fragile musically they’re almost not there and then Cummings’ voice is a powerhouse over the top. The effect is mesmerising.
Lyrically it’s not all confessional, introspective angst, although there’s an element of that. There’s a wracked grace to be found and savoured: “I'll never be Meryl Streep / but someday I might believe in my own life” (‘Sleep’); “There flies a seagull / shoot it down so that you might smile / so that you might be happy now” (‘There Flies a Seagull’).
The album is only nine songs long, clocking in around 30 minutes, but by the last song, the piano ballad ‘In the Wind’, her voice is so world weary and cracked you feel she’s ready to expire. “Stop your pissing in the wind / it’s dark outside again” are her last words here but I feel we’ll be hearing more from Grace Cummings.
