Melbourne-based Grace Cummings travelled to Los Angeles to work with producer Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty) and dreamed up a lavishly orchestrated sound that fully accommodates the depth and scope of her vocal prowess. This album `Ramona` was the Australian singer/songwriter`s third studio album and is a primitive reflection on grief and self-destruction and emotional violence. The album’s title and title track was inspired by Bob Dylan’s 1964 song “To Ramona.”
We are led gently into the album with `Something Going ‘Round“ which has a guiding bass line and drum beat with keys, soft harmonies and orchestrated strings that give the number a fairly gospel like texture. It reminded me of when Elvis recorded `How Great thou Art` where there was almost a tangible sense of anguish shared in the vocal delivery. A rhythmic rolling beat underpins `On And On` a song written about watching a friend play with their little boy and thinking how beautiful it was. There are gentle keys and brass tones throughout, and the vocals shared are almost utterly overwhelmingly exquisite.
`I’m Getting Married To The War` had initially as sense of Sam Cooke`s `Wonderful World` about it with clicking hand percussion before drifting into a more dreamy introspective piece that becomes wonderfully mesmerising. We have in `Love And The Canyon` a number written about Topanga, California, where the album was recorded. It`s a fairly stripped back piece with bass, piano keys and vocals that really draws you into its heart.
`Work Today (And Tomorrow)` is pretty melancholic with what sounds like a cello, orchestrated strings and piano that adds a further desolate feel to this track. There was a kind of bluesy ballad or torch song feel to `Everybody’s Somebody` with a deep organ sound and brass shared throughout. A kind of resolute show of strength or defiance to a former lover possibly to say I survived without you and i`m sure you`re missing me. The track really soars in the last minute where the vocals and brass almost compete and challenge each other.
I read that `Common Man` was about both conformity and freedom, which seems fairly contradictory. Of the song, Grace says “This song is about being a colourful bird and never, ever wanting to be a pigeon. Somebody I used to know wrote a song called common man about working nine to five and coming home and having a cup of tea and going to bed and it made me want to have a fucking panic attack. I wish I could tell people it was about riding off into the distance on the back of a white horse with a Cowboy in Austin Texas, but it’s not.” The number itself has that superb “brooding, sorrowfully conflicted” tone that for me artists like Chris Isaak have perfected. There`s more introspection and reflection on the tender `Without You` where the vocals are achingly enticing with what sounds like an accompanying picked banjo, piano, stand-up bass and strings adding a further poignancy to the composition.
`Ramona` the album’s title track was inspired by the Bob Dylan song “To Ramona” and “If I Were King of the Forest” from the film The Wizard of Oz. In a previous press statement, Cummings said her song was her way of putting on a mask to be brave and true. “That’s a big influence on me, that song,” she says of “If I Were King of the Forest” in relation to “Ramona.” “It was really fun to do. It’s nice and heavy and layered and makes me feel things in my chest. I like it a lot..” A song written on Christmas Eve in 2022 follows with `A Precious Thing` an expansive submission that appears to be thankful for how life has transpired and being grateful as it can be precarious. The singer has shared that the song used to feature the screech of an eagle, but they decided to take that part out and replace it with a Timpani.
The album closes out with the stark `Help Is On It’s Way` which although quite minimal leaves us with a positive message.
`Ramona` was/is my introduction to Grace Cummings and it was a pretty extraordinary listen. It is a mixture of happy / sad songs with some that have a truly emotional and haunting quality. At times there`s a real vulnerability in what`s shared but by the same token a deeply underlying strength.
An album that will share something different each time you return to listen.
Rating 8.5 /10
