Dreaming of Spaces Down Under

Pop | Review of: Under the Town

By BRET McCABE
August 1, 2006

The songs of Holly Throsby sound jettisoned from an unknown passing ship that hails from some bygone time. Against hesitant, stark melodies Ms. Throsby's hushed, breathy voice sculpts shadowy scenes of loneliness fueled by memories of happier times. It's folk to be sure, but vastly different from contemporary freak-folk that embraces oddity as its organizing kernel. Throsby's acoustic fare is equal parts American nostalgia for a rustic simplicity and is imbued with a mysteriousness vaguely reminiscent of traditional Eastern European songs.

Ms. Throsby isn't from America, however. The petite brunette hails from Sydney, Australia, a country with its own peculiar branch of folk. But Ms. Throsby, who is scheduled to play the Knitting Factory on August 4 with David Pajo and Damon McMahon, doesn't make music that is merely a combination of various ideas. A singular vision runs through the 10 songs on "Under the Town" (Spunk), her recently released sophomore effort.

An otherworldly vibe permeated Ms. Throsby's 2004 debut "On Night" (Spunk), which spotlighted the dreamlike power of her voice. A forlorn guitar was her primary accompaniment throughout, its skeletal, gently strummed or picked melodies gently backing her throaty caressing of the lyrics that plumbed various forms of isolation. This remains on the new album but is more richly drawn and complex.

The addition of drums, bass, and piano find deeper spaces in Ms. Throsby's melodies on "Under the Town," creating a more powerful backdrop for her transfixing, haunting presence. It's a tone she establishes from the opening title track. A guitar threads together a simple melody out of two sad notes, which are joined by a few equally despondent piano chords slightly sustained to fade out like a long, drawn out exhale. Ms. Throsby's reedy voice cuts through this anxious mood with the image of a buried dead dog, "Without a sound my old hound sleeps in the ground / under the house under the town,"stretching out the first syllable of the first "under" as if struggling to complete the sentence. She then seamlessly moves from this image to the song's narrator, who sings matter-of-factly, "My heart's an apple, red, round, and you shut it out," before asking a question the song never answers,"And what do the shunned dream about?"

"Under the Town" is an album strewn with inchoate pictures of the living forgotten, riding music equal parts Dirty Three contemplative and Rosie Thomas sprightly. From the candid honesty of the reluctant "I Worry Very Well" to the resigned "What Becomes of Us" — a gorgeous song that asks the titular question even though everything else about the song admits that the relationship is over — Ms. Throsby traces scenes of fragile intimacy with the economic power of an Amy Hempel short story, each lyrical line a hard-earned lesson like the creases running around worried eyes.

All that naked emotion would make "Under the Town" a depressing experience if Throsby didn't manage to make everything feel so jauntily serene and pretty. The pain of rejection chronicled in the title song is immediately followed by the reluctantly upbeat "Making a Fire," another one of Throsby's threadbare melodies hung on a few guitar notes. But a casual drumbeat gives "Fire" a skipping pulse, and Throbsy practically smiles the beguiling line "It's cold outside but I don't mind / I'm making a fire / Out of what I might find here, the old and the dying."Taking lemons to make lemonade is one of those dead-horse songwriters' metaphors, but Ms. Throsby's carefully observed ideas and startling voice make the old feel new enough to make neck hairs stand on end, rapt.

August 4 at the Knitting Factory (74 Leonard St., between Broadway and Church Street, 212-219-3132).