Folk Bitch Trio have just released an enchanting little debut album Now Would Be a Good Time, and they lay it on for us.
A quite sizeable crowd are gathered at the Spark Arena’s boutique club venue, the Tuning Fork. The majority in their early twenties, but there are enough older folkies (in appearance anyway) who may have been attracted by the slightly irreverent name of the band.
The trio are Grace Sinclair, Heide Peverelle and Jeanie Pilkington. They are from Melbourne, maybe the most fertile area for contemporary music of a wide and diverse nature in Australia.
The great Seekers, Nick Cave, Birthday Party, Kate Cerebrano, Kylie Minogue are from there. This trio has also toured with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
The three are close friends from their early teen years. Sinclair and Peverelle were flatting together in recent times.
They came together as a formal band project in 2020. A formidable crucible, as Melbourne experienced the most restrictive covid lockdowns in the world, closely followed by New Zealand.
Fooling around with music as good friends, the name Folk Bitch Trio was a good joke which serendipitously stuck to them. As these things do.
From recent interviews, although they concede they are Folkies of a sort, we are looking to deconstruct the narrative that folk music has to be serious, sacred or uncompromising.
The three young women start the show with some heavenly high vocal harmonising, evoking the other famous trio of Dolly, Emmylou and Linda.
They can sing in close harmony like traditional family bands similar to the Everly’s, the Judds, the myriad Carter Family dynasty bands.
They want their music to be stretching the boundaries. There is Indie Pop with elements of Rock. Closer to the Everly Brothers than they may think.
They play most of the songs off Now Would Be a Good Time, released in late July this year. Material that they have been developing and working on for five years.
They give tribute to producer Tom Healy (Marlon Williams, Veils, Nadia Reid, Bic Runga) and it was recorded at Roundhead studios in Auckland.
Hotel TV has a traditional folk vocal on the record, which becomes folk Pop when the three voices stretch out. Had a filthy dream is a nice vocal hook.
Followed by The Actor which carries on in similar bright Pop fashion.
They slow the tempo down for Moth Song and That’s All She Wrote. Introspective lyric matter in tune with still waters run deep subject matter. Good interplay of acoustic and electric guitar.
All music comes from the three on stage. No other sounds save the interplay of the guitars.
Cathode Ray is one of the highlights from the album. Starts quite airy and ephemeral. Show me what it looks like/ When you come undone and it acts like a signal to become more percussive and aggressive.
Georgia Knight could also be described as coming from a Folk tradition. Another Melburnian, she is highly unusual in that she plays an autoharp. This forms the basis for her compositions.
Even amongst hard core Folk clubs, the autoharp is an unusual instrument to see.
It was played famously by Sarah Carter from the great Original Carter Family, but you would be hard-pressed to come across it anywhere else. It is buried deep in Roots Country music and Americana.
Primarily a percussive stringed instrument. Strummed rather than picked, and it does have a chiming ethereal quality to it.
Knight has been described as avant-garde and trip-hop, but the set of five songs she plays tonight are introspective Folk with a melancholy air.
That is certainly Mingle, a brand few single released just weeks ago.
Cut You Loose and she sings into an old-fashioned telephone hand piece she is cradling in her shoulder. A strange Pop melody, both odd and quite charming.
Well worth catching this artist again.
Folk Bitch Trio are quite compelling with the natural chemistry the exude from the stage.
Where do their songwriting influences come from? They have given a few hints in recent interviews. Rufus Wainwright has been name-checked, as well as Courtney Barnett and Jeff Tweedy.
Two more shots from the album. Sarah is high in tension, which is not resolved, and its great off the stage tonight.
God’s A Different Sword is the punchy album opener, and the trio give this one a rocking panache on stage.
Folk Bitch Trio end the night in exuberance and translate their close camaraderie to the appreciative audience.
Rev. Orange Peel
Photography by #marcpwphoto
Folk Bitch Trio
Georgia Knight
