Collette, Ned

***"Our Other History is a wonderful new LP by this wandering Berlin-based Melbourne expat. Ned's last album, Afternoon Dusk was an avant instrumental trio outing with James Rushford and Joe Talia, but Our Other History is a return to the delicate, sophisticated song craft of his 2018 masterpiece, Old Chestnut. Ned's approach to lyrics, vocals and music shares a melancholic beauty that is both haunted and haunting. His words are often more impressionistic than overt in their storytelling, but his vocals carry hints that recall those of the legendary Roy Harper. But where Harper's attack was often Dionysian, Collette's approach is Apollonian, and the tracks often have a compositional feel with a distinct taste of Canterbury. The players this time include old hands, like drummer Steve Heather and pianist Chris Abrahams (of The Necks), but there are a bunch of new players on hand, including Melbourne mates Jim White and Mick Turner (of Dirty Three fame) and the folksinger Leah Senior. All these elements (and more) are fitted together with elegance and allowed space to breathe. Collette's music is hard to classify. It exists inside a dynamic flux made up of equal parts post-rock, folk, jazz and avant prog, but it manages to remain plain-spoken and uncluttered regardless of how complex its structure can be when you start parsing it. But why bother? With a record as throughly lovely as Our Other History, the best idea is to just relax and let the music flow. Beautifully.”—Byron Coley, 2024