Review of Amanda Easton's "Polaroids & Postcards" - an Independent release

Amanda Easton - Polaroids & Postcards – Independent release

Every three years we are treated with a new release from Sydney’s Pop Princess Amanda Easton. This year’s release was timed for Christmas and, like all of the previous releases featured on this blogspot, this one will not disappoint.

“Polaroids & Postcards” is an inspiration. It inspired me to seek her out for a full-on interview about the songs, the packaging, what’s been happening in her life between records, etc. But without the tech, the platform on which to post it or, at the stupid end of the year, the time, my curtailed written reaction to this new collection will have to suffice.

If you have an expectation when you hear the name Amanda Easton, forget it at once. Polaroids & Postcards retains some of these sounds / feelings but extends the lady more than ever before. Think Steve Strange in 1980 or Gary Wright in 1972. Think Peter Osborne’s 1998 soundtrack to Fritz Lang’s 1926 masterpiece “Metropolis”. Think Kraut Rock exponents Tangerine Dream’s “Ultima Thule Part 2”, also from 1972. There are some vintage synth sounds emanating from Amanda’s fingers which make this record as current and vibrant as anything else available today.

Man Who Fell to Earth had me thinking of Bowie even before putting the disc on. This is an outpouring of love for a man who affected so many of us “even though we never met”. The instrumentation harkened me back to the soundtracks of Eastern European movies of the 70s and 80s; perhaps even Japanese cinema from a decade or two prior? It’s a feature of the record which carried through Eye to Eye and Rockabilly Blue: the portable record player on which Amanda is standing on the cover suggests so .. or is it, like all art, all open to the beholder?

The other tracks include the dealbreaker I Saw The Message, which is also the first video from this record: love gone wrong, from (someone else’s) experience; the missive from mother to son Letter to a Small Boy: He may get it now, he may get it when she can no longer put her arms around him, but it is something anyone with a son would want him to know; and the title Postcards & Polaroids: the other tilt to Blue and Disco- a full-band sound with a hint of twixt-disco-and-chill beat. Fell could also be released or remixed in this vein.

This is an amazing record. Each song had me stopping what I was doing: taking heed .. taking it all in .. absorbing the emotion that went into it, came out of it; I was even welling up at some points! There are no adequate words to describe what this record did to me on the first hearing .. I should have been recording my facial expressions as the best way to express what I was feeling was each track unwound. The second, the third hearings: my words cannot convey what this collection did.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Decade from Amanda! «««««