<p><span>- In a time where everything with a hint of reverb gets called dream-pop I like Happy Axe’s bid for ‘dream-pop in the truest sense’. Her new album is a surreal, delirious trip through ...a mind? A time? A warped reality? It veers between darkly nightmarish tones and a fey prettiness. </span><em>Maybe It’ll Be Beautiful</em><span>? Maybe.</span></p>
<p><span>There’s an </span><em>Alice In Wonderland</em><span> quality to opener </span><em>One Morning</em><span>. Happy Axe’s </span><strong>Emma Kelly</strong><span> croons in her preferred, half-sleeping style: “</span><em>One morning I forgot to wake up / And tend to all the plants that were hatching / I was dreaming of a town all shut down / The chairs all upon their tables.</em><span>” Alice in lockdown, perhaps? Well, just because we can’t go anywhere physically, doesn’t mean we can’t take a bizarre journey inside our minds, as Kelly continues: “</span><em>Maybe I’ve turned around the wrong corner / Who else is here, in my dream? / What if I chose the wrong adventure / Who else is here in my dream?</em><span>” It begins to sound quite ominous, like being trapped in a maze with a monster. Or does it? “</span><em>...everything felt good in the neck of the woods / The trees all smiling on with indifference</em><span>”, she continues. As though the ending of this strange journey is, at least, unwritten; for better or worse.</span></p>
<p><span>The familiar elements of bowed saw, strings and electronics close about like the shadowy boughs of that wood and Kelly sets off on her weird journey. She says it “reflects on some of the connections and friendships in her life, writing songs that preserve and celebrate her interactions with the people closest to her.” Occasionally it’s a confident spirit quest: nebulous beings finding strength together, pulsing and revolving like a two-star system. “</span><em>With you, I am the open sky</em><span> / </span><em>With you I’m never asking why</em><span>” whispers Kelly, together with </span><strong>Braille Face </strong><span>on the softly powerful and propulsive duet, </span><em>Open Sky</em><span>. At other times it’s some kind of confusing, bio-engineered oddity, verging on body horror. “</span><em>The parasite in you that loves me, is meaningless and lovely / With her hands, we can shape gravity / The heart is just a meaty piece of machinery</em><span>” relates Kelly, eerily, on </span><em>Machinery</em><span>. I suppose, even moments like this have an emotionally upward arc, “</span><em>together we’ll be a formidable piece of machinery</em><span>” she concludes, presumably while applying the last organic staples that make this a permanent pairing.</span></p>
<p><span>Musically, the unusual instruments that make up the Happy Axe arsenal are here and made to serve a wide variety of purposes, especially the strings, which wax and wane from background chitterings and scratchings to lush orchestration, resembling a small chamber orchestra. It’s the most confident expression of the one-woman ensemble that Kelly has been doing for years, but, contra the iso-experience she worked with a lot of different people: alumni from the Spirit Level roster -including substantial input from label boss </span><strong>Tim Shiel</strong><span>- and others besides. The guests seem well worked -digested? Bio-mechanically sutured?- into the background fabric of the sound, but maybe it goes some way to explaining the diversity of approaches: ambience here, a piano-ballad there and several murky dance anthems. I’m not sure it means anything, but the increased presence of beats gives me regular echoes of </span><strong>Lupa J</strong><span>, another Aussie producer who used to flirt with a fiddle; at the very least I know I’ve got room in my heart for a substantial amount of music that sounds like this.</span></p>
<p><span>Closing with a final snatch of ambience, titled simply </span><em>Freefall</em><span>, it seems the future is left open - does the diaphanous string playing lead to a gentle awakening in bed, the jarring discovery of restraints in a psych ward, or even just sudden contact with the hard earth? This record is Happy Axe’s lushest, waking dream to date. For all the uncertain, half-formed figures and the gothic landscapes of </span><em>Bethany </em><span>or </span><em>The Shadow</em><span>,</span><em> </em><span>I think Emma Kelly finds a spiritual solace in the strangeness. </span><em>Maybe It’ll Be Beauftiul</em><span>? I think, maybe, I agree.</span></p>
<p><span>- Chris Cobcroft.</span></p>
<iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2208679629/size=large/bgcol=f…; seamless><a href="https://happyaxe.bandcamp.com/album/maybe-itll-be-beautiful">Maybe It'll Be Beautiful by Happy Axe</a></iframe>