What is it about the piano? That particular magnetism that sees anyone who passes a lonely baby grand sit down to bang out a few rudimentary chords or a late-career revival of Chopsticks? The guitar might have become the mainstay of popular music but the piano always remained its heart and soul. Points-scorers and aspiring air-guitarists may dispute this point, but even a cursory listen to Andy Bull's debut record We're Too Young will reveal to even the most one-eyed six-stringer that it's the piano - and keyboard, and organ - that can most efficiently find a direct line to your heart.
We have Bull's keyboard-collecting father to thank for providing the early conditioning by leaving his keyed charges lying about for young Andy to explore. That, coupled with the gradual discovery of a fistful of classic albums, laid the foundations for the seven-year musical journey that has culminated with the release of We're Too Young. They say you've got your whole life to write your first album, and in Andy's case, they're not far off.
"A lot has happened along the way, quite a lot of living goes on in seven years. I won't go into all the details here," Andy offers, semi-cryptically. "All the while I have tried only to do my best as far as I can, to perform to the best of my ability. Some music really has a kind of magic in it, and all I have ever wanted was to make music that had a little magic in it too."
There's plenty of magic sprinkled throughout We're Too Young. Take the mid-record couplet of Girls! and Do You Recall. The former, driven by a charging piano line and storming drums, says "Stiff Records in the summer of 1978" as much as it does "Sydney in the winter of 2009"; the latter is a gorgeous, deceptively upbeat lament for a lost love, gilded with Mellotron (there's that piano-phile upbringing again) and soulful horns.
The songs, like much of We're Too Young, deftly navigates the divide between what has been and what will be. Much of this is thanks to the close working relationship between Andy and producer Tony Buchen. "We started off with the idea that we would record the album in a manner faithful to the style in which many of my favourite classic recordings were made," recalls Andy of the recording process, "Luckily for me, Tony, the album’s producer, had both the skill and the interest in vintage recording techniques to make this possible."
This is no back-patting retro-fest, though - what strikes you most about We're Too Young is how fresh it sounds (hey, that title isn't just a bunch of words thrown together). Andy was determined not to fall into the well of vintage sound-alikes while recording. "I was concerned that the recordings should sound 'timeless' rather than overly nostalgic. We didn’t go through all that work just as some kind of exercise in self-indulgency either; we actually just wanted to make it sound right."
And "right" is, well, right. We're Too Young is the sort of debut record most artists dream hungrily of; self-assured yet vulnerable in all the right places, suffused with as much emotion as it is drenched in the sorts of melodies that hook their way into you.
Who knows which genius of musical pigeonholing invented the phrase "blue-eyed soul", but somewhere between Len Barry counting "1-2-3" and Steve Winwood unplugging the synthesiser the phrase dropped out of favour. Andy's songs pick up where the artists he admires left off, with the open-hearted, open-mindedness of the greatest soul singers, blue, green, brown or black-eyed.
"I really love being able to feel the personalities of the artists through their music. Acts like Shuggie Otis, Ben Folds, Kanye West; the essence of all of these people can be intrinsically felt in their music," Andy says. It's hard not to feel you get to know Andy over the course of We're Too Young's eleven songs. His keys effortlessly dictate a mood; his voice a clarion call or a soothing whisper, depending on the situation. Ah yes, that voice.
"Between that 'blue-eyed-soul' feeling and my high voice, I sometimes feel like a bit of an outsider; an anomaly, especially in a very indie, guitar dominated scene," Andy offers. "How do you consolidate a love of Ben Folds Five and The Jackson 5? You’d be amazed at how divisive my voice and songs can be, and I never thought they would cause such a stir."
"But I look at the artists that I love," he continues, "and it makes me proud to be a little bit of a square peg. Each of the artists I love may be 'different', but they also make tremendous music that, provided you approach it with an open heart, is very magical."
If you approach We're Too Young with an open heart, you'll feel that magic, too.
Online Now!
x
