Ned Collette - Our Other History (2024)

Berlin-based Oz avant-folk musician Ned Collette returns with another LP unfurling and impressionistic songs for Sophomore Lounge!

There are hints of the lush arrangements and guitar playing of the 70s UK folk scene (Nick Drake or John Martyn in particular) here but not in a way where you can imagine Ned dressing up in a tweed jacket and singing about the rolling hills of England. Sure, the subject matter is similar (songs of longing, love, songs about characters you meet in bars or wandering the streets), but the language is updated: colloquial but precise like hearing someone wheel off a story that they’ve told so many times that the language is exact but still riveting.

This is all backed by a crack team of musicians—Jim White and Mick Turner of Dirty Three Fame, Chris Abrahams of The Necks, Elisabeth Fuchsia of Footings, and Leah Senior, among others—who’s playing takes the record out of the usual singer-songwriter realm into that rarified space of writers who don’t rest on their musical laurels (thinking of Jim O’Rourke’s song albums here, or label honcho Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band’s LP). Just like the words, the playing is incredibly intricate, layered, yet precise.

Another one of those close listen slow burner records that the more I listen to, the deeper I fall into it! -Mitch