- Brissy girl and Gamilaraay woman Thelma Plum found herself in the spotlight last year after making a Facebook post detailing an altercation she’d had with Sticky Fingers’ Dylan Frost outside an inner-west Sydney pub. Online threats and abuse poured in when the post’s audience grew, and when Frost’s badly-executed apology drew further attention.
Rather than adding fuel to the fire, Plum has let her work speak for herself in debut full-length record Better in Blak. The album comes after two formative EPs, years spent training at a performing arts high school / industry college, and an upbringing rich with musical influences. Irresistibly good, unapologetic pop tracks like album opener Clumsy Love are the product of a woman cemented in her musical identity, and sure of words she wants to say.
On Love And War, Plum collaborates with Dave Le’aupepe of Gang of Youths on a message inspired by the treatment of minors at the Northern Territory’s Don Dale Juvenile Detention Centre. The lyrics here are carefully sharpened into a precise arrow aimed for the heart of the power centre which enabled the abuse. Thelly sings “They can lie and they can lock you in the dark/cause you’re young and you’re broke, but kid you’ve got heart.” The tides are changing, networks of resistance are forming, or as she puts it “There’s writing on the walls/but they can’t read it.” Le’aupepe and Plum are both master story-tellers who love to champion a cause and they pull no punches on this track.
Slotted in near the top of the record, Not Angry Anymore hashes out a stunning redemption arc whilst signalling that there’s more at play on the album than Thelma’s reckoning with others’ opinions of her. “Did I earn it? Did I deserve it? Did I push you way too hard, the way I always push too far?” She counts off thoughts of self-doubt and blame in succession before the chorus kicks in - the airy, sugar-spun declaration “I’m not angry anymore” serves to reject both the social media inferno she won’t fuel and the self-loathing her adversaries encourage. It’s carefree and a little sly, in the same vein as early Lily Allen hits.
Woke Blokes sees the singer-songwriter join Camp Cope in calling out those who would “kill the boy down the road who hurt the girl real bad/ unless he is [their] friend, or plays in [their] favourite band”. Her honey-voiced dressing down mirrors the trojan-horse critiques inside Stella Donnelly’s lyrics, but I do wonder if the sweetness is necessary insurance against the kind of backlash Camp Cope received after they spoke out against sexism within the music industry.
Better in Blak closes on a clear high. Made For You, penned with Paul Kelly and featuring Paul McCartney on guitar is a love song with the sweetness of Carole King and the velvety depth of Lana Del Rey. The hook, “I was made for you” is warm and clear; Plum’s voice soars like a phoenix from the ashes, then settles before a soft bed of strings welcome in a future of possibility.
- Aleisha McLaren.