DAVE'S DIARY - 31 AUGUST 2015 - JASMINE RAE CD REVIEW
2015 CD REVIEW
JASMINE RAE
HEARTBEAT (ABC-UNIVERSAL)
KITCHEN CHAOS FOR JASMINE
“Every image on the TV screen/ every other page in the magazines/ how to fit in, how to stand out/ telling you, you've got to be everything.” - Heartbeat - Jasmine Rae-Jason Massey-Josh Kerr
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Fawkner singer-songwriter Jasmine Rae has hit back at a not so-subtle foreign invaders in the title track of her fourth album Heartbea t. No, not the terrorists and drive-by shooters cutting a swathe through the mean streets of our suburbs and cities. “This song is about breaking through the noise”, Jasmine, now 27, revealed of the song that was accompanied by a video clip played on Nu Country TV on May 9. “We're bombarded now with self-help books and TV ads for gym equipment that will change our life. Well-meaning people who are more than happy to tell you how to be a better person. How to be more like them. I sometimes find that I lose the balance between listening to advice and listening to my own thoughts and that puts me on the road to doubt myself. But there's always going to be one person who disagrees, because we're all different and that's a good thing. |
“I sometimes find I lose the balance between listening to advice and listening to my own thoughts, and that puts me on the road to doubt myself. But there's always going to be one person who disagrees, because we're all different and that's a good thing.
“Heartbeat is about listening to your heart and soul, it's also just a song for you to dance to, whichever way you want to, dance to the rhythm of your own heartbeat.”
The clip was filmed by award-winning video producer-film-maker Robb Cox.
It featured Jasmine cooking up a storm in her chaos cluttered kitchen as both a performer and actress.
Rae chose Grammy-winning Nashville producer Luke Wooten whose other clients include Nashville artists Brad Paisley, Dierks Bentley, and Kellie Pickler and Van Diemen's Land exports The Wolfe Brothers .
It followed 2013 release If I Want To that was nominated for an ARIA Award and four Golden Guitars.
Her three singles included Bad Boys Get Me Good featuring Pickler.
ADAM BRAND AND JASMINE NOT QUITTERS
“Your love's like a cigarette, kills me one at a time/ it's a real bad habit to see all those friends of mine/ swear I'm going to put it down/ your love's like a cigarette/ I'm going to quit this time.” - Quit This Time - Adam Brand-Erin Enderlin
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Fellow Victorian raised singing restaurateur Adam Brand joined Jasmine on their duet Quit This Time - also on Brand's 12th album My Side Of The Street.
The duo - finalists in six G olden Guitars sections at in Tamworth in January - performed a live version on Nu Country TV on December 4.
Thrice wed Brand, now 45 and born in Perth , spent much of his adolescence in Rae's home state, and operates Brandy's restaurants in Townsville and Coffs Harbour as culinary passions.
Adam, raised in strawberry fields of Wallington near Geelong and dairy belt town Colac in Western Victoria by his mother and pastor stepfather, returned to Perth in his teens before selling his signwriting business and heading east in 1997 in his XF Ute.
Brand stayed in Sydney during his career launch, moved to Nerang on the Gold Coast near his three sisters and family, shifted north to Hervey Bay and had a two year stint in Nashville .
So far Jasmine has confined her Nashville invasions to recording, song-writing and live performance showcases.
“I'm very happy to see where this album takes me,” says Rae who wrote 10 of the 12 songs on Heartbeat .
“I love coming home but I'm also open to adventure. I've had a lot of opportunities in the States, including recording with Joe Nichols and Kellie Pickler, and working with Luke Wooten who really understands my music. So whatever happens in the future I'll embrace it with open arms.
“I really felt that I truly found my sound and purpose with the most recent album, and it has been my most popular so far. I wanted to get back into the studio and make another album that represents who I am as a recording artist and songwriter.”
TRAGEDY TRANSFORMS SONGWRITING
“Today I held flowers, and dressed in white/ I made a promise, my mother cried/ and every moment till this one right now/ fades in the shadow/ of the love that we've found.” - When I Found You - Jasmine Rae.
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Rae used song-writing as therapy on her previous album If I Want To after the death of her dad - a panel beating and motor industry business owner - at 56 from bowel cancer. She wrote First Song with fellow Victorian Briana Lee and Just Don't Ask me How I Am with Nashville hit writer George Teren. This time Losing You All Over Again reflected the collective grief of Jasmine and her widow mother who were his carers during his cancer battle. “Ultimately it helped me to establish a more fearless and defined musical vision,” Rae revealed. |
“I made a conscious choice that from that point on, my music should come from the heart. It needed to be very personal and very real.”
Losing You All Over Again expanded on that grief.
“I've had so much change happening in my life and this song was written about the more desperate times. But I wanted to make it more universal - so it's about losing someone more generally, whether through death or the end of a relationship, or in some other way.”
But the singer wrote When I Found You for a happier occasion - a friend's wedding.
“You know how you have that one friend that you've been friends with for as long as you can remember?” Rae explained.
“She's that friend for me. We met when we were four years old and so I always imagined, when I was like five, that I'd sing at her wedding and it would be a song that I'd written. I just can't believe that that's actually the case! Myself and my piano player, who plays in my band, and his song writing partner, we wrote it the week before. We were getting to the point where it was like, 'Jasmine, if you're going to write a song you have to write it now' and I think sometimes when you're under pressure and you've definitely got a deadline, some of the best work happens. Hopefully. So it was cool. It was something I've always wanted to do but there was no pressure from her. She had no idea, actually. She didn't know I was doing it. She knew I was gonna sing something, but it was a surprise for her and she cried all her expensive make up off at the time! Even in my album booklet, it says that it's dedicated to Amber and Nathan, so that's definitely their song. She thinks it's cool.”
Rae also exhibited a little humour when she wrote entrée song Everybody Wants To Take My Money.
“It was inspired by my bank balance,” she joked.
She also revamped Brandy Clark-Mark Stephen Jones tune Hold My Hand that Brandy performed live on the Grammys with Kentucky born singing actor Dwight Yoakam.
“But my version is really different from the original,” Rae explained.
“It reminds me of a modern day Jolene and it's the kind of song that made me fallin love with country music as a kid.”
Equally down home is her animal farm bluegrass-laced stomper Eggs In A Basket with its humorous homilies.
ZOMBIE LOVE
“When's this love gonna die/ when are you gonna let go/ why is it so hard to say/ what we already know/ boy, I can't get a pulse/ all I get is a flat line/ don't think we're gonna bring it back to life this time.” - Zombie Love - Jasmine Rae-Phil Barton.
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Rae wrote Zombie Love - a tale about recidivist love with an uncontrollable boomerang - with fellow Australian tunesmith Phil Barton. “I have a habit of letting something really be over before I call it quits,” Rae confessed. “I don't like to waste things that are really good so I guess that's why I wait until something's clearly rotting before I get rid of it. Sadly this song is based on a true story.” Rae also explores ruptured romance in This Is Whom I Am In Love and Don't I Wish It Was. “It was meant to be a traditional country ballad but it ended up having a much more soulful, bluesy feel,” Rae says of the latter song. “It was really cool to see it evolved in that way.” |
The album finale Fly Away was a nocturnal jaw locking creation from Orpheus.
“That never happens to me, and I had been very worried and stressed, which always causes my jaw to lock up. But after I wrote this song I felt so much better and the thing with my jaw hasn't happened since. There's a real sense of freedom and hope in this song.”
Rae is a dynamic live performer - a skill she translates to her acting roles in videos.
So will she pursue the acting quotient?
“I would like to do that,” Rae says.
“I think with song writing. I don't always write about situations that I've necessarily personally been in, like I wrote a song for my best friend's wedding on this record and I've never been married before, so I like to become a different character sometimes when I'm writing, and acting has the same kind of experience. Like, it's definitely like an out-of-body experience. You're not yourself for that three and a half minutes or however long and acting has been something that I've always enjoyed dabbling in and I'd like to do a little more. It was fun to do that for this video and be a whole other character.”
Rae has opened for several major international artists including Georgian superstar Alan Jackson.
“Yeah, there was a few people who were put to him by his label or whoever does that over there,” Rae confessed of his request for her to be his support act on his Australian tour in March, 2011.
“He liked my songs and he liked my vibe so he chose me personally. I was like 'really? Oh my God, little me?' and he was really nice when we were on the road, very supportive and it was great to be able to meet him and be able to see his show. It was incredible seeing arenas of people sing every one of his songs word for word. It's cool.”
And Arkansas born Joe Nichols, with whom Jasmine performed at The Forum in the CBD of her hometown in May, 2011, and recorded I'll Try Anything ?
“I didn't actually write that song,” Rae confessed.
“I met Joe in 2009 now, it's quite a while ago when I toured with him. When it came to 'Would you like to do a duet?' I thought, 'Yes, why not have Joe Nichols on?' because I've always loved his voice. I thought maybe our voices would match. It was great to be able to perform that live with him, even though he's like 6.3 and I'm not quite that! I'm quite short too and the problem with being short is that you're always labelled as being short.”