"Even in a holding pattern, the sweet strength of Chambers's voice and songs find room to soar."
What Roy Kasten meant by a "holding pattern" in a sympathetic review of 'Wayward Angel', a third album by young Australian folk singer Kasey Chambers released this year, I don't know.
She was new to me until I remembered hearing and being captivated by a couple of songs from 'The Captain', her first record in 1999.
Though at 29 today, Kasey may think "Hmm, young?", she can cultivate the child in her voice in a CD of assured and mostly gentle songs -- young heartthrobs, youthful delights and do, in a line that Kasten quotes,
"If you were a river run dry,
well I'd sing you sweet by and by"
a quick caring role reversal in a tribute to her mum. A fellow called James at Amazon UK saw her live -- "by accident", he says -- in 2000 and decided he liked country music on the spot.
 Kasey's no stunning lyricist, but doing an iPod "who's next?" with poetry in mind after the last entry, my finger stopped here to find more of just that kind of honest songwriting I so appreciated.
Kasey told 'AskMen' -- a mishmash that doesn't know what kind of site it is -- she'd planned a life playing small pubs and staying happy that way, but what struck me was the clear sense of this:
"I really don't consider myself to be a crossover artist because the way I approach music hasn't really changed. When you think about it -- it's the audiences who are crossing over."
They are indeed. A mainly orchestral wind player friend has begun a tough-looking Open University advanced music course, on catching sight of the curriculum over his shoulder, I said, "How much crossover is there, what do you get?"
"What do you mean by crossover?"
Kasey's one answer, she does the bluegrass, has the folk roots, and then in the album's title track and others, I heard repetitive, catchy riffs, went back to listen again and thought, "Goodness, Arabic music ... from Australia."
Not quite, but it's crossover.
"Beej the drummer" contributes to the online journal at the Kasey Chambers site, whence the picture. This year in Europe, he says, "one of us got pick-pocketed by a gypsy in Dublin, got lost in the back streets of Paris"... who knows, maybe I was the other side of the back street to set them on track. They don't need that musically. On an unpretentious, fine album, deceptively easy listening, the man at the back helps give her songs with a tightness and subtlety that can also take two hearings in a day.
By "young", I'm writing of unforced innocence, a fresh delicacy you'd not like to shatter. Powerful hits like 'Stronger' get loud and punchy, but the strength wouldn't be there without fragility.
What a contrast from last night's sign-off about Madonna.
The aim was to sit and watch 'Dangerous Game' finally, the Abel Ferrara autobiographical film in which she, Harvey Keitel and James Russo rip Hollywood and each other apart. At 'Rotten Tomatoes', most critics rip the film to shreds.
I wouldn't myself, but many American critics get very snotty when you've got rude things to say about certain "ways of life". It's a tough grainy film about dishonesty, a bit muddled and not ideal pre-bed viewing.
Never mind.
There is plenty of new stuff on the iPod, put there in recent months and unmentioned as Kasey was. Perhaps it's time for more of this since to be poetic and graceful, as she is, you don't have to be a great writer.
Keeping it straight and true, that'll do now for a "holding pattern".
9:04:47 PM link 
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