You can tell a lot about a person's artistic quality by the way in which they respond to a personal crisis or any period of radical change with their chosen medium. Do they descend into self-indulgence and wallow in their own misery by creating stuff that excludes their audience through focusing on their own problems? Or are they able to find the language that allows them to use their own experiences as the basis for creating material which speaks to more than just themselves? The break-up album, the album a pop singer writes when his or her relationship goes south, has become almost a cliche by now as everybody from heavy metal rockers to country singers have written "she/he done me wrong" songs.
Thankfully there are performers who are able to transcend the cliche and write songs expressing more than the typical sentimental garbage about crying in the dark while drinking their way through acres of beer. Change of any sort is difficult to deal with, and when it involves the sudden dissolution of a long- term relationship the impact is even more profound. Yet change is the key to artistic growth, and it's only through embracing it that an artist is able to prevent their work from stagnating. It doesn't matter what the change is, it's what the artist does with it. So when you listen to Xavier Rudd's most recent release, Koonyum Sun, you can't help but be impressed by his success in creating material which not only reflects changes in his personal life, but which is significantly different from anything he has released previously.
During an interview I conducted with him in July of 2009 he was already talking with excitement about heading into the studio the following fall with his new bandmates, Izintaba — bass player Uncle Tio Moloantoa and drummer/percussionist Andile Nqubezelo. For the guy who started out as basically a one-man band playing behind a bank of three yirdaki (didgeridoos), a slide guitar cradled on his lap, keeping beat with drums controlled by his feet and hiring musicians as needed for studio work and touring, working with even this modest sized band represented a significant change in how he'd have to approach his music. So while I anticipated Koonyum Sun would have sizeable musical differences from his earlier recordings, having no idea that his decade long marriage had ended as well, I wasn't prepared for the sudden maturity in his song writing.
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Article comments
1 - AudioDog
I've tried many times to enjoy Rudd's music. He's a very talented fellow, but I often find I really can't listen to his albums all the way through because his voice becomes more annoying the longer I listen.
2 - Maggie May
I found that the concert in Madison, WI last night was completely self-indulgent. The sound was HORRIBLE - way too loud. Never was able to hear a single lyric - only heard the bass. Too bad. Although the theater is not known for it's grand accoustics (and that may be an understatement), I was able to understand and enjoy all of the lyrics to the warm up band, Good Old War - who have a fresh, retro kind of vibe.