Brett Goldsmith
January 26, 2009 by Andrew Watt
Filed under New Artists Worth Knowing
Every now and then a new artist comes along who causes you to wonder where he has been all your life. The songs talk you in a language you understand and the voice singing them seems immediately familiar.
There’s something fully formed about the whole package that makes you sense that the artist is comfortable in his own skin and not the product of an urgent need to follow the latest trend or a desperate desire to seem different and to fit in at the same time.
Brett Goldsmith is one such artist.
With his solo debut album Brett has created a work of depth and quality. His songwriting already been likened to such pop craftsmen as Neil Finn, Paul McCartney and Elvis Costello and to the late Australian underground icon Matt Moffitt (of Matt Finish fame).
To the extent that Goldsmith writes and performs his own songs he is a ‘singer-songwriter’ – but that certainly doesn’t mean that he’s a dude with a battered acoustic guitar dreaming of being the next Bob Dylan. The album is a thoroughly modern work, combining intimate evocative vocals, sweeping panoramic production, exquisite pop melodies and some revealing, sometimes disturbing and often heart rending lyrics
The albums opener and title track Ordinary Life, sets the tone. It’s a song that is surely just waiting for the right film to close. It starts in a hushed and intimate way before blossoming into an uplifting anthem.
Goldsmith’s album is disarming in its lyrical honesty. The pulls no punches in songs such as My Junkie Friend and yet he has a sympathy and understanding of situations that can only have come from having lived a little and seen a lot. There’s a voice of first hand experience at work here and yet its not a voice that’s grown jaded. These are not songs that a freshman songwriter could have written!
Sleep is a remarkable song of obsession and insomnia whereas its’ companion I’m Always Near is another song with cinematic qualities and a dark beating heart.
Friends is another song that reveals a simple but intuitively insightful side to relationships, while The Divorce Song is a heartbreaker – a prosaic look at a sadly common situation from a couple of angles usually overlooked.
In a way it is typical of Goldsmith’s writing though – he avoids the obvious and the clichéd, either musically or lyrically, and in so doing has created something that sounds both fresh and familiar simultaneously – surely the mark of a great songwriter.
The name Brett Goldsmith is a familiar one in many circles of which ‘music’ is only one.
In the fashion world he’s known as a leading photographer whose work is in demand by agencies, corporate clients, hip publications and the elite modelling scene.
In nightlife circles he is known as a leading figure in the evolution of Melbourne’s club culture; part of the Goldsmith family famous for The Underground and Redheads and the creator of the first of the uber-cool clubs, the iconic Saratoga.
Ask the denizens on the Victorian Surf Coast and you will meet a different Brett Goldsmith – a trusted member of a fraternity where fakes are exposed in an instant.
But despite being a genuine Melbourne ‘renaissance man’ it is in music that Brett finds his talents best utilized. He operates from his own recording studio – that he regularly re-locates between a hidden creative space above Melbourne’s Chapel Street and a farmhouse in the bucolic Victorian country that is also home to sheep, horses and alpacas.
Despite his extensive portfolio of success in other pursuits Goldsmith is far from a ‘johnny come lately’ to music. From touring as a teenager with one of Australia’s most famous music exports to being responsible as a writer and producer and performer for a number of Top Ten hits with a late 80’s and early 90’s pop band, Goldsmith has never been far from music. He’s written and produced music for film and has placed pop songs with other artists. Under a pseudonym he’s even recorded an extensive repertoire of electronic and dance music, that has been virally distributed across the internet and from there played in clubs across the globe.
But this honest and pure collection of songs could only have been released under his own name. The album is a ‘solo’ work in the truest sense of the word. Goldsmith plays every note on the album and recorded, engineered, produced and mixed every take. The album in one sense was a labour of love and in another was the product of an artistic itch that had to be scratched.
Ordinary Life should see Brett Goldsmith recognised as a serious contributor to the fabric of Australian songwriting, as a creator of words and music that embrace and reflect an adult life.
There’s another great song on the album called Waiting For A Train. Its’ safe to say that the train has well and truly arrived and it’s time to get on board.
Brett Goldsmith will play two shows to introduce his album. These shows will see him perform the songs in solo acoustic mode.
Feb 26 : Manchester Lane, Melbourne
Mar 31 : The Basement, Sydney