Ned Collette

One of the highlights of Deep In The Valley 2022 was the captivating set by Ned Collette. Blue skies instantly turned overcast, the sun a pale dot blotted out by Collette’s veil of sins and sorrows. With the viola of Elisabeth Fuchsia, the pair altered gravity, with hardly an ear not perked and hanging on each song’s sublime conclusion. His last recorded album skewed experimental — a knotted trio between Collette, James Rushford and Joe Talia, but for Our Other History, Ned returns to the winding tales, plaintive folk, and torn seams of his 2018 album Old Chestnut. Fuchsia brings her strings back to the studio alongside a few other notable names like drummer Steve Heather, pianist Chris Abrahams (The Necks), Jim White and Mick Turner (Dirty Three) and RSTB fave Leah Senior. It’s a return to form for the Aussie ex-pat, capturing the magic that kept us all enthralled in the fields that lost August day in ’22.

There’s a bit more levity on Our Other History, tying Ned to the winking tapestries of Roy Harper and the earthen ache of Bill Fay. Yet, even with a bit of sun peeking through, Collette still remains a master of gathering storms. The winds don’t howl, the downpour doesn’t slash, but the smell of rain hangs on the air and the pressure change creeps up the spine with each note. Ned seems particularly paired to that internal barometer, and it’s hard not to feel each of these nine tracks physically as the album spins.

Swung ever so slightly by the scented curl of jazz smoke, guitars race nimbly across “Endtimes Boogie.” Pianos gallop and gain speed on “Little Hans, becoming subsumed by their synth counterparts as the song wears on. There’s a more prominent sense of space on the new record, a solitude that wraps its fingers around “The Kitchen Tunnel,” “Shot Through,” and “Athens” with quite different results. Quietude and loneliness receive equal welcome in Collette’s world, but no matter the tenor, that shift in gravity remains. The studio doesn’t fade the magnetism that draws the listener in, we’re all transfixed and eventually transcended.

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