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Reviews
of Heartdust
Jill Hayes
"It's not often a professional, fulltime musician
can realise his fantasy and record a selection of his
own songs. Pete McMahon has done this and has manifested
his dream, releasing the C.D.............HEARTDUST.
These songs evoke a time or a place with a clarity that
is underpinned with a deep resonance of experience and
feelings.
McMahon has produced a poetic spell that will enthuse
and endure, speaking from the heart with a voice everyone
will hear. Take a journey to the corners of your own
heart." 2003
Carrl Myriad
This CD could be subtitled "Another Side of Pete McMahon."
Pete is well known as a long-time stalwart of the Sydney
bush and folk music scene.
What he has given us here is a mini-album of five songs
that he wrote and recorded between 1977 and 1980. The
whole thing is a nice little time capsule really. It
has a gentle, long-ago feel about it. Listening to it
takes me to a dry, crispy-leaved uncluttered summertime
of memory.
"There are butterflies in the backstreets in
the wilds of Balmain.
I've seen them there whilst hunting something I couldn't
gain...."
(Butterflies in the Back Streets)
Several songs are concerned with time passing, in Heartdust-
"Time Flows The Years How They Go",and in
Post War and Comfy, "Time Passes, Passes Triumphantly".
The music is of a jazzy, folksy, acoustic pop style
evocative of the time it was written. Pete's guitar
and nicely laid back vocals are augmented, by just the
night amount of backing from percussion, mandolin, flute,
sax and piano, flaming the songs but never taking over.
There is some nice playing here.
A totally satisfying package from the appropriate watercolour
cover to the good clean recording sound.
If you can't remember the 70's because you were there
(ot weren't) get this CD to find out how it was - or
ought to have been. And get along to one of Pete's gigs
(with his new band The McMahon Bros) and make sure he
slips some of these songs in his next set. Cornstalk
Gazette March 2004
To
preview tracks
Abbreviated tracks for preview:
Heartdust
Ground cover of flowers, cicadas in recital;
A monastery of bees, they all seem to give me ease.
I'm here in the morning of a day before Christmas,
Living in the workshop of my own history.
Time flows, the years how they go.
Time flows, the years how they go.
There's heartdust on the floor and the walls have
their scrawls.
The year's bandage of experience, like all those
before,
Will wait in a stupor as the New Year burst's asunder
We'll set back the calendars, reload with dry powder.
Time flows, the years how they go.
Time flows, the years how they go.
Butterflies
There are butterflies in the backstreets, in the
wilds of Balmain.
I've seen them there whilst hunting something I
couldn't gain.
Shady backyards and dogs and lemon trees and ferns;
Outcrops of sandstone, that nothing seems to disturb.
I'm searching your eyes for a sign. It's something
I hope to find.
I'm searching my heart for a song, a search that
goes on and on.
Cause I Love
Well, I guess we tried for just a short while to
see,
If I liked you and just if you liked me.
But now its time to realise, my pride can't stand
to hear the lies
We give to him every time he comes on home.
So let me go on further to state with subtle fervour.
I'll drag you back here with a chain!
My bed's a mess, since you hit me with your hex,
And I love, love, love, love, love, love, love,
love you.
By this time I bet you're laughing at me.
But we'll just see, what we will see.
'Cause there's this Gnome, who seems to know,
I don't puff up my chest just for show
And I'll make lovely love to you if you want me.
To
purchase..
Heartdust is available for purchase at $15 plus post
and packaging ($3 in Aust, $5 overseas)
Contact Pete by
, by phone 02 9631 9533, by mail PO Box 4179 Parramatta
NSW 2124 Australia
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