Padma: Here

Elly Roberts reviews

Padma: HereDistributed by
Just Music

• Released: June 2008
• Rating: 6/10
• Vote and comment on this album:

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Nomadic musings from prolific wander.

‘Here’ isn’t instant. It’s a bit like a stranger: takes a bit of getting toknow. You’ll either like it or not. There’s no halfway. I like it.

Mood will probably be the determining factor as to whether you’ll enjoy, oreven listen to Padma’s Here.. bear with it though.

We all know, there’s a fine art in creating great melancholic music like Nick Drake,which he could be compared with.

Padma hasn’t totally cracked it as yet, but there are fleeting moments (notenough for my liking) on Here, so it’s worth persevering with, because themore rotation you give, the greater the effect. Interestingly enough, Padmameans ‘lotus’, a plant that apparently works its way out of a muddy pond towardsthe sun light and opens its petals, as a kind of celebratory reaction.Remember that.

There’s a great danger with this type of template: it can become totally self-indulgentnot achieving its aim – to reach out and actually, touch somebody. Some, likeDuffy write sad songs, but offer some kind of hope, whereas Amy Winehouse, as greata writer she is, offers little. It’s pretty obvious that bohemian Padma is athoughtful and deeply spiritual and philosophical sort of guy, and there are, someprofound reflective moments to relish.

One major plus in his favour is there’s no pretentiousness, and he appears tobe totally open about his thoughts and feelings in the Ray Lamontagne/Damien Ricemould.

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The opening isn’t too promising though – Half A Person. The morbid organand harmonica doesn’t exactly help either, though his rich voice and the duet(with whoever) lift the song from its drone like quality. Single Spacefood andBalloons (released May 5) is a drastic shift with acoustic guitar and quirkyspatial effects as the feature.

Jewel on the album is the simple and gorgeous Song For An Entryphone,again, sometimes duetting. He gently picks at his acoustic, occasionally droppingin some electric chords. Not breaking sweat, he delivers a masterful beauty onI Don’t Think So, which right out of Drake’s songbook. It’s quitestriking, even for its simplicity.

Again it’s the simplicity of Waiting For Dolma that hits you – hushedvoice, acoustic picks and spatial effects drifting in the distance make itentrancing. There’s a bit more pace on Dawn, but the format is as bareas you can get, with birds happily chirping in the background.

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True to his nomadic spirit (he’s slept on roadsides, woods and wherever),chirpy Firelight Dance has probably been knocked together on a lonely night in (or near) his tent.Surprisingly, he concludes with reggae stylings on the Devendra Banhart-ishcommunal chug of Buddha Energy.

Now back to the lotus, as an analogy. This Padma has only partially surfacedout of the murky depths and not quite turned his music into a celebration. He isgetting there, so I wait for the next instalment while he writes more music inhis yurt somewhere in the Spanish Pyrenees.

File under: A real grower, if you’ve got the time. Find it.

Weblink:padmamusic.com

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The full list of tracks included are :

1. Half A Person
2. Spacefood And Balloons
3. Pilot
4. Song For An Entryphone
5. I Don’t Think So
6. Throw My Drugs Away
7. Waiting For Dolma
8. Dawn
9. Funny
10. Ballad Of G & Eva
11. All The Fish
12. When You Don’t Really Like Yourself
13. Firelight
14. Buddha Energy

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