Album Review: Bending Spoons

Cricket Farm, the Auckland based three-piece indie-folk/jazz band, are proudly releasing their debut album with the enchanting name of Bending Spoons. It has been described by the band as “music for hopeless romantic conspiracy theorists”… a statement such as that is simply intriguing and led me on a wonderful journey through 12 tracks of the bands thoughts and feelings accompanied by a stunning and honest indie-folk, gypsy jazz soundtrack. “The album is odds and ends of our combined mental note taking.  It is very simple….just sifting through metaphysical gunk”.

It has also been said that Cricket Farm tell the hard truth in a soft voice, ain’t that the truth.

Delightful and enchanting this band has brought together a huge wealth of musical experiences and different genres gaining influences from jazz, punk, folk, afro/funk and dub/reggae. They are close friends who have pooled together all this eclectic musical knowledge and experience to give us a truly captivating album.

You may think I am going slightly over board in my gushy ramblings and perhaps I have, I think I am infatuated with the entire bands musical offerings. If this is what “singing you through the empty pockets of life on a transcendental journey through a musical soundscape of candy mountains and bellybutton lint”… sounds like then I am sold.  

Before I delve any further into Bending Spoons, I shall introduce the people which have given us this colourful transcendental musical delight. Cricket farm are made up of Hayley Robertson (vocal/ukulele/clarinet), Joel (vocal/acoustic and electric guitars) and Sims (vocal/acoustic guitar). One of them can even play some mean spoons as the opening track (Bending Spoons) can attest to. This was the first release for the band.

This is a charming album, soul food for a busy mind and tired body; it drifts around you with the warm tones of the clarinet adding extra depth to an already rich instrumental offering.

The combined mental note taking has provided some interesting, and thoughtful lyrics. My favourite track was number 10 Coastin “maybe we will go insane together – maybe we get lost at sea together. No is a place no-one goes”.

Cricket Farm has been a delightful surprise, and they continue to delight right down to the final track. For All We Know is spacey and futuristic and at that point I truly believed I was on a transcendental journey, (that or my herbal tea wasn’t just chamomile).

Candy mountains and bellybutton lint sound pretty good to me. I would totally recommend adding Bending Spoons to your music collection this summer.

_{Review written by Corinne Rutherford}