DAVE'S DIARY - 2 AUGUST 2010 - VICTORIA BAILLIE CD REVIEW
2010
CD REVIEW
VICTORIA BAILLIE
START BRAND NEW (Shock)
VICTORIA BAILLIE VICTORIOUS IN VERSE
"So you're wondering why your key don't work/ and your clothes are
all over the yard/ someone smashed up all your DVDS/ and painted jerk
all over your car". - Stupid - Victoria Baillie-Jasper Somerville-Collie.
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Gippsland
coal belt town Moe has few major country music exports. Dead Livers singing secondary teacher Marty Atchison lived there for a few years between stints in St Kilda and Box Hill before finding shelter from the storm in Portland. Victoria Baillie, a four-time guest and talent quest winner on the famed annual Bunyip country festival, grew up beneath the shadows of towering turbines and infernos. But as music became her mistress she decamped from deep in the valley to Hillbilly HQ on the NSW Central Coast. The singer's new pastures at Wamberal might be somewhat greener than her former digs on Coalville Road on the pillaged brown mine-scape of the Latrobe Valley. |
But this
journey by Baillie, just 24, has been rewarding - especially with the
quality of her writing collaborators.
She teamed up with Felicity Urquhart, Drew McAlister, Lianna Rose, Jay
Collie and Jasper Sommerville-Collie to write the bulk of her debut disc.
She recorded it at Matt Fell's quaintly titled Love Hertz Studio
in Sydney - also scene of the rhyme for artists diverse as Jonah's Road,
Sara Storer, Paul Greene, Karl Broadie, Felicity, Troy Cassar-Daley, Jake
Nickolai, Shanley Del, Sam Hawksley, Lianna Rose and Graeme Connors.
Fell produced this disc with Baillie's guitarist and partner Rod Motbey.
So this should be happy love songs - wrong!
Sure, Victoria's vocals may sound sweet on positive love songs such as
entrée Melt but there's a vast vat of vitriol bubbling under
the surface of assertive romance tunes such as the title track and Stupid.
A
GOOD THING
"Yeah, I'm not the one to gamble/ and I don't care too much for a second chance/ keep my cards close to my chest/ and turn my back on cheap romance." - A Good Thing - Lianna Rose
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Unlike
some of the valley victims, Baillie hasn't dined out on the infamy
of pig's heads being thrown at the family bedroom. Yes, this is more the travels and travails of a strident young songbird blazing her own trail - sardonic self-discovery in songs that impact on an increasingly younger market. Titles such as Make Me, Too Bad, I'm Over It and A Good Thing are salient signposts to the meat on this bristling backbone. Melinda Schneider and Goulburn Valley born Tamara Stewart provide the assertive angst in Mr Yesterday but Baillie bemoans a slower body clock in the title track. Mr Yesterday features songwriter sister Barbara and Michelle Vincent in the video filmed on the NSW Central Coast. But there is gold at the end of the rainbow - the belief in a strong heart that triumphs over adversity in the fitting finale - Find Your Way. |
There's no
gin and whiskey soaked cheating and drinking anthems - just a reflection
of the puppy love that has bitten a bigger hole in the market for overseas
peers such as Taylor Swift and Carrie Underwood.
Baillie featured in recording of a live DVD on her recent tour with dual
ARIA award winner Troy Cassar-Daley who has 20 Tamworth Golden Guitars
in his trophy room.
Victoria tours northern NSW in August with fellow young guns Amber Lawrence,
Luke Austen and Luke Dickens as New Stars Of Country.
Victoria then joins a bigger and diverse cast at the Gympie Muster from
August 24-29.
She proves adept at promoting her version of a brand new start.