26 September 2023

Love and Other Crimes

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Reviewed by Ian Phillips.

By Liz Frencham, Independent, 2019.

Liz Frencham is a remarkable musical talent and her latest album, Love and Other Crimes, rates as one of the very best albums I’ve heard in recent times.

Liz is one of Australia’s pre-eminent upright bass players who has a heavy touring workload supporting a wide variety of local and overseas artists.

She’s a supremely talented and charismatic live performer who sings brilliantly and writes wonderful songs, and she has also set up her own recording studio, Dog&Bear Studio in Canberra.

I first came across her work in the early 2000s when I caught her set at the National Folk Festival.

She was a member of an energetic young folk band called Jigzag but she also popped up to back a huge variety of other artists at the festival.

Over the ensuing years I’ve watched her development through her performances with a number of artists including Fred Smith – as part of the Frencham-Smith duo – and, more recently, through her career fronting her own band and as a solo (bass and vocal) performer.

What makes this album so good? Firstly, the musicianship is exquisite. Liz is a graduate of the NSW Conservatorium of Music and she has surrounded herself with an outstanding group of extremely talented instrumentalists who provide virtuoso performances.

You would go a long way to hear better playing than that provided by Liz on bass and Pete Fidler on dobro and lap steel guitars, Josh Bennett on mandolin/guitar, Jacob McGuffie on guitar and Tanya Bradley, Lindsay Martin and Kat Mear on violins.

Secondly, Liz possesses a beautiful and expressive singing voice and the vocal harmonies from Liz, Kat Mear, John Flannagan, Carl Pannuzzo and Mary Doumany are a highlight of the disc.

Thirdly, Liz’s songwriting is deeply thoughtful, emotional and engaging.

The album is a wonderful mix of folk, country (the title track, Love and Other Crimes, blows away all other country jams I’ve heard), blues (the penultimate track, One And One, is a classic slow smoky-blues) with tints of jazz and even a smidgeon of pop thrown in.

Liz produced and recorded the album herself and also did the graphic design, incorporating delightful artwork by Cristina Bernazzani.

The sound quality is outstanding and a special mention must go to the mixing of Erick Jaskowiak – every instrument is crystal-clear.

This album deserves a very wide distribution. Look it up on Bandcamp, it’s great.

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