Reviewed by: Alastair Collins

Published: 1 September 2011

lp: 30 minute songs

I’ll be the first to agree that undergoing a regimen of song writing over a period of time is good for you; you get in to the habit of regularly writing, you learn in what circumstances you write the best and, under pressure, you may produce some higher quality work than you would otherwise and be able to use it in more considered songs, further down the line.

I’d be a little more cautious, however, in agreeing that a selection of songs written for no discernable reason other than to write them and linked by no common factor apart from their length, should be released as a CD. Adelaide singer-song writer, Palky, is doing just that with his new CD ’30: My Minute Songs,’ which is a collection of, as you may have guessed, 30 songs which clock in at around a minute each.

When I took this review on, I was told to scale back my usual ‘in context of a long running career’ tone, because Palky’s objective was just to have fun, not pursue this full-time, which is entirely fair enough. Unfortunately, knowing that really puts a dampener on any merit this CD may have had. The collection’s quality of songs is not sufficient, in and of itself, to warrant a purchase, and there is no greater collection of material to add this on to, even if just in the interests of completion.

Overall, there are some good ideas and riffs and the production could certainly be a lot worse, but I’m struggling to find a reason to actually recommend it.

Opening instrumental track, 'Mindfulness', is interesting and builds nicely, but without the rest of a song to flow in to, seems incomplete. 'Blood Red Moon' has a nice feel to it, 'The 9 of Diamonds' has a good rhythm, 'Elliot Smith @ The Oscars' really suits Palky’s vocal style, 'Letter from Katie' has a good idea behind it, and 'C is the Key', although rough, is a good example of concise melodic writing in an instrumental track.

The biggest stumbling block in these songs is that, although Palky experiments with a wide variety of styles and sonic landscapes, few of them actually suit him as a vocalist and that immediately puts a barrier between him and his audience. Considering the non-career outlook towards releases, perhaps taking more time with a song collection and whittling out the core ideas, then fleshing them out in to solid tracks of longer running time would be a better idea, because even with a ‘just for fun’ project; if you’re asking people to pay for something, isn’t it worth a little time making sure they’re going to be satisfied with it start to end?

Overall, I can’t really recommend this as a CD to buy. It has some good ideas and Palky is certainly a versatile performer, but as a release it’s disjointed, rough and it feels a little unnecessary.

EDITOR'S UPDATE: Palky has made his LP "30 Minute Songs" available for FREE DOWNLOAD at http://palky.bandcamp.com/.