Chloe & Jason Roweth – Light Another Fire

Record Review by Ian Dearden

Chloe & Jason Roweth’s extraordinary and sprawling album, “Light Another Fire”, has been the soundtrack to my commute to and from work last week and this week!! This double CD album checks in at 130 minutes – a triple album in the old money!! As a project, it brings to mind the Rolling Stones’ “Exile on Main Street” – but unlike the Stones, there was (as far as I’m aware) little or no bad behaviour during the recording process, it was recorded in a modest home studio in Millthorpe rather than a chateau in the south of France, and Gram Parsons did not pay a visit, although his ghost may have walked softly through the studio at some stage! However, like the Stones with “Exile on Main Street’, Chloe and Jason have produced a masterpiece – a magnum opus of amazing proportions!

Let’s start with the template – although accompanied only by Bill Browne (kit drums and percussion) and Baz Cooper (accordion and piano), the broadranging multi-instrumental talents of Chloe and Jason ensure a full band sound throughout 32 songs (some segued into tunes) and one (musically accompanied) poem. That ‘band’ sound is based squarely on the folk rock model of Fairport Convention, Albion Band and Steeleye Span (in the UK context) and The Bushwackers and Redgum (in an Australian context). Interestingly, though, the album reminded me most of that glorious period of Richard Thompson’s career when he sang as a duo with then wife Linda Thompson, and John Kirkpatrick’s accordion, plus bass and drums, fleshed out the band sound. With a palette that includes electric and acoustic guitars, bouzouki, mandola, mandolin, banjolin, concertina, electric bass and percussion from one, other or both of Chloe and Jason, there is a delightful and varied mix of instrumentation across the two CDs (titled, incidentally, “Light Another Fire” – CD1 and “Boil Another Billy” CD2). Special mention should be made of the extraordinarily tasty, but always sympathetic, and never overpowering electric guitar playing from Jason. At the same time, with lead vocals switching regularly from Chloe to Jason and back again, there is a unified vocal as well as instrumental “sound” to the album which is inescapably Chloe & Jason!! And they harmonise exquisitely.

The album liner notes pay particular tribute to the spirit of Henry Lawson and John Dengate, two towering figures in Australian bush music/poetry and folklore. Between them they contribute fully one third of the album’s songs, and imbue the passion of all the rest!! With so many songs, and such a variety, it seems a little unfair to single out favourites. That being said, the two “Molly” songs, Lovely Molly and Molly Darling, each sung exquisitely by Chloe, really pulled my heartstrings, and piqued my interest, given that I had not heard either before. Take Me To The Harbour, another song unknown to me, pays tribute to the charms of Sydney town and harbour with a classic music hall feel. There are funny songs (The Shit Flung On The Floor, Frankie and Jonesy, Billy Sheahan, The Fatal Wedding), bushranger songs (Bold Jack Donohoe Lament, Three Fine Sons, The Last of the Kellys), battler songs (Freedom On The Wallaby, Battler’s Ballad, The Peach Picker’s Song, Moving On) and a range of other songs that fall within the broad (and rubbery) rubric of “bush music”. This is, in short, a magnificent tour de force, even more so than Too Many Bloody Songs About Shearers By Far! Vol. 1, which I described in similar terms in a recent Trad and Now review. It’s a grand achievement by a duo who stand at the forefront of contemporary Australian bush music, reinvigorating it for the 21st century in a fashion that is truly inspiring!! In case it’s not clear, I love this album, and you will too – find out more at www.rowethmusic.com.au where you can buy a copy of the album, and read the extensive and detailed liner notes and lyric sheets, which would not, I suspect, have fitted in the packaging (which, BTW, is also gorgeous!!)