KASEY CHAMBERS – STORYBOOK

Kasey Chambers’ new album is a collection of covers and duets, drawing upon songs and singer/songwriters that have inspired her. The already familiar Cindy Lauper cover of True Colors is included, as are songs that were regularly performed by her family band The Dead Ringer Band. Storybook features her husband, Shane Nicholson, Jimmy Barnes, The Lost Dogs, Ashleigh Dallas and Paul Kelly. The Paul Kelly song Everything’s Turning to White that was inspired by the Raymond Carver short story of the same name, which in turn was the basis of the 2006 Australian film Jindabyne, which he recorded the soundtrack for, also gets a look in. Another highlight is the Suzanne Vega single Luka: here, Kasey manages to balance the contrast of the sweet melody and the dark content of domestic violence. The idea of this album is to complement Chambers’ recently published autobiography A Little Bird Told Me, a tale of growing up in the dust of the Nullarbor and beating the challenges in her life. Generally an album of covers could be considered lazy, but she has bundled the effort in with the writing of her book and also being heavily pregnant with her third child, Kasey Chambers isn’t just burning the candle at both ends. She’s microwaving it.

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