Visit Wo!'s MySpace:

Gig Review: Catfish — Fictional Dilemmas

Sarah Malik takes a late-night stroll in Darling Harbour, which leads to unexpected discoveries, music and enchantment.

May 2007

I am in one of those reverie like moods and decide to take a late night stroll around the Harbour. The night is bitingly cold as I huddle on the seated groove outside the Opera House. I drink in the Harbour, its dazzling lights reflected in the black inky water swirling like confused thoughts. Then the most gorgeous jazz wafts over me and I am enchanted.

An unconventional opening for a review but necessary to depict the atmosphere of what precedes a fateful moment: the discovery of Catfish.

Catfish is a revelation for lovers of jazz. The band is made up of the powerful duo of singer/writer Angie Contini and Sydney jazz drummer Alex West. They are supported by a mixed ensemble of Sydney’s most gorgeous jazz players — James Brinkoff on keyboard, Adrian Cunningham on clarinet/saxophone and Stan Valocos on Double Bass.

After the set, I drift to the band, still recovering from Contini’s haunting melodies to thank them for giving me my epiphanic experience.

Contini is faraway with long wafts of cigarette smoke encircling her. I have a chat to drummer Alex West. The band is independent, still struggling to secure a record deal.

I buy their CD. It’s ten dollars. I listen. I love. All six songs are gems.

‘The Usual Things’ brims with energy and passion:

Why? Why you gotta make it so hard? I couldn’t love you more if I tried...Why you gotta go and break my heart?

‘It’s Only Everything’ is easily the CD’s most swaying and seductive piece, full of magic melancholy:

Deep inside I’ll never know I’ll be the kind of woman that you need Baby. I should have knew you much better by now. Deep inside I know i'm a kind of girl that rushes head long… things I never said I do I done...”

Contini’s voice soars and goes deep into pain, possibility and purification scaling blissful highs and excavating deep troughs of emotion.

‘That’s How It Goes’ is playful and mischievous, a bantering confessional. Contini’s easy lyricism and languor drip through every piece like thick honey despite an underscore of sweet bitterness:

I had a penchant for love. It made me so violently ill… A haystack needle in a haystack, where could he be…You go hunting for a good love and you come home with emptiness…

‘The Trouble With Love’ is a sad, sweet release:

The trouble with love when you rush in too soon- is how good it fools. Try as I might there just not getting over you… What am I going to do?

Contini has succeeded in bottling pain and releasing it as sweet and fragrant ether you could consume with strawberries and ice-cream.

The last piece before the glorious cover of Leonard Cohen’s ‘Take that Waltz’ is ‘Lady Barracuda.’ It is a rollicking jazz piece that slides and shimmers, dives and dances like the song’s femme-fatale. Drums, tap, percussion and clarinet all punch in with hot vitality:

That came from the South- that crimson painted mouth- boys all knew her as the Barracuda.

The play on the wild Australian fish is witty and theatrical — full of style.

Catfish is a must for lovers of jazz reminiscent of the old school — full of soul and languor — but also passionate and upbeat transforming traditional jazz with an innovative and distinctly Australian flavour.

It’s not only for lovers of jazz — but for lovers of love, passion, intoxication and lyricism. For music that will transport and transform. Catfish will take you there. 

Wo! Magazine encourages and support independent music. If you would like your music to be reviewed please contact Sarah Malik@wo-magazine.com.au