Chloe Hall

September 2009

Chloe Hall, Outside

***** (five stars) How much praise can you heap on one album?

Melbourne based Chloe Hall is one of those rare singer/songwriters who can make even the simplest of songs sound so beautiful and emotive. Chloe’s music is delicate yet extremely powerful. Listeners to this new album will literally want to dive in.

Chloe’s song writing talents marvel those of Mary Chapin Carpenter and Lucy Kaplansky. Her vocals remind me of Nanci Griffith at times and Lucy Kaplansky at others.

OUTSIDE is full of wonderful harmonies and gorgeous music. In Australia Chloe Hall is a household name amongst fans of contemporary/alternative folk and has been compared with the likes of Beth Orton, The Corrs and Dido. The album begins with title song Outside, engaging and beautiful. It highlights perfectly Chloe’s gentle musical style. I’m Still Here has a real folk sound to it, despite being modern in style, there is something strangely old-fashioned about it. I am reminded fleetingly of Mary Black. Dance With Me is a slow dreamy song sung with passionate vocals. Each song on the album is perfect in every way possible. The final song on the album is entitled Born In The Morning. This is an amazing song sung with great passion. The lyrics are very sentimental, a simple song that will bring a tear to the eye.

Overall this is a fantastic album brimming with possibility.
- Maverick Magazine (UK)

September 2009

**** (four stars)

Heart-on-the-sleeve poetics, songs about time's passing and love's mutability, yes it's another young female guitar-toting singer-songwriter – but this time she's one of the leading voices from the Australian scene. Hall handles piano too, crafts an individual line in catchy melody and has an expressive way with lyrics. Chugging cello leads the bass and percussion that is taking the former folkie to another level.
- Norman Chalmers

November 2009

“Joyously refreshing… [Chloe’s] outlook is both mature and yet vulnerable, worldly-wise but never world weary, emotional but not gushy… You only really need to listen to the first few tracks to begin to appreciate the strength of her song writing”

If it was the New Year I would be making a New Year's resolution. Okay, I usually blow these well intentioned promises within a couple of days or some in cases I have even had to make grovelling excuses after just a few minutes. However, this New Year's resolution (made in October) is one that I shall do my damnedest to keep.

This year I will do my best to see Australia’s Chloe Hall in concert. However, having just visited her website I found her musical diary of her recent dates in nearby Paris. I quickly realize that once again I have probably blown it. In fact, she has just toured the U.K., Ireland, Canada and a host of other places, and guess what? Yes, I missed the lot. If only I had heard her new album Outside earlier.

Chloe is a busy lady taking her beautifully engaging, gentle, and poetic folk style through a diary crammed full of engagements. As a result the word is spreading and she has built up a worldwide fan-base as more and more people get tuned into her exceptional song-writing, charismatic nature, and delightful music.

There is a joyously refreshing honesty to her well written songs. Her outlook is both mature and yet vulnerable, worldly-wise but never world weary, emotional but not gushy. It is a fine balance that makes her music both engaging and intriguing. She has the ability to paint potent scenes within a few lines that are delivered with a gentle sensitivity.

Her last album White Street heralded something of a breakthrough. Now the highly talented Chloe has served up another treat with Outside, her latest release, a nicely presented collection of ten original songs that underline just why her music has been used on Australian television, and the soundtrack to the film The Caterpillar Wish.

You only really need to listen to the first few tracks to begin to appreciate the strength of her song writing. The album opens with the title track, a song that is guaranteed to get under the skin of any lovers of acoustic music. Her ability to create a scene within a few lines is also immediately apparent as the song gently unfolds.

There are occasional shades of Joni Mitchell, and I mean that as a high compliment, but even stronger elements of an inspired songstress in her own right.

“Shipwreck” has Chloe asking, “Are you the rose or the thorn? Are you the teacup or the storm? Are you the one worth waiting for? Are you the shipwreck or the shore?” The memorable “I’m Still Here”, a beautiful “Dance With Me”, and an infectious “It’s Not Too Late” all maintain the undoubted quality on offer.

Throughout Outside Chloe delves further into that golden seem of creativity and as a result the album is a consistent, nicely produced excursion through her music. Further highlights include the beautifully painted “Walking After Midnight”. Meanwhile, “Nothing Really Matters” would have done Woodstock proud and arrives with Beatlesque orchestration.

“I Won’t Let You Down” sums up exactly what Chloe has achieved here with a solidly impressive set, delivered with her now familiar vocal strength that leaves you wanting more. The wonderful “Born In The Morning” is music to watch the shapes in the clouds as you fly away to some sunny place.

If any of the above rings your bell then you really shouldn’t miss out on Chloe Hall. Please have a listen by visiting her official website.
- Jeff Perkins, Blogcritics

September 2009

“Chloe is a generous free-spirited soul… it’s very easy to warm to her music”

Chloe hails from Australia, and Outside, her fourth album release, is targeted as the one that will break her through to audiences in Europe (where she'll be touring during September). It takes what's described as the 60s-70s singer-songwriter aesthetic of her third record (White Street), and marries it to an eminently approachable brand of new-millennium acoustica. That entails gentle and engaging (but at the same time highly assured) vocal work, pleasingly mature songwriting and appealing, carefully conceived small-ensemble arrangements.

The musical style I still find more often than not very redolent of the late-60s, and it's undoubtedly more acoustic-pop than folk, but it doesn't ever insult your intelligence, while Chloe's songwriting makes a virtue of simple expression of undeniable truths, expressed with a graceful acceptance of adversity, and this charming simplicity is matched by a comparable quality in her melodic invention and in her vocal performance and delivery. It's good that Chloe's singing is refreshingly free of mannerisms (except perhaps for the pronounced aspirant on some tracks and an over-tremulous fragility on one or two songs eg Dance With Me).

The album's highlights for me are the delectable uke-flecked Born In The Morning, the chiming opening title track and the bolder orchestrations of It's Not Too Late and Nothing Really Matters (nice production by Greg Arnold). While admitting that not every one of the disc's ten songs will necessarily score top marks for memorability or longevity, there are more than enough delightful experiences to encourage the listener on to make further discoveries.

Lest my words cause you to feel I'm damning with faint praise, I must say that subsequent playthroughs have revealed deeper pleasures beyond an initial impression of slightly lightweight. Chloe's a generous free-spirited soul, and it actually proves very easy to warm to her music.
- David Kidman, NetRhythms

“Together with Chris Mildren on bass and Teal Bain-Roben on his tea-chest drum kit, the Chloe Hall Trio enthralled us from start to finish with their beautiful melodies and spine-tingling 3-part harmonies… you could feel the love in the hall!”

A Night to Remember with the Chloe Hall Trio

12th September will stick in our minds and hearts for years to come after a truly magnificent Letham Night with the Chloe Hall Trio and Vivienne Bern.

It was written on the stars that Chloe Hall and Letham Nights would come together. From the moment we received Chloe’s first email from the other side of the world in Melbourne, Australia, asking to ‘take a punt’ on our venue, we knew she was a woman of great taste and discernment, not to mention talent and OH! how right we were!

Together with Chris Mildren on bass and Teal Bain-Roben on his tea-chest drum kit, the Chloe Hall Trio enthralled us from start to finish with their beautiful melodies and spine-tingling 3-part harmonies. Chloe’s lyrics tugged at our heartstrings, made us sigh wistfully, smile, sometimes laugh out loud and when combined with the stories behind each song well, – you could feel the love in the hall!

For her first set, Chloe went straight into a series of songs from her new album ‘Outside’ including the title track and ‘Shipwreck’ (Are you the one I’ve been waiting for? Are you the shipwreck, or the shore?”) and ‘Walking after Midnight’.
After this first set, Vivienne Bern from Glenrothes took to the stage and sat down with her acoustic guitar. She was nervous about having to follow on from such a great performance yet as soon as she began to pick out the introduction to ‘Your Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’ by Bob Dylan, we knew we had another great performance to look forward to. Vivienne’s voice and guitar playing were effortless and she continued with a series of covers and self-penned songs. In ‘Forgive You’ she slipped effortlessly from a fragile, cracked style to gutsy blues. A cover of the Beatles’ ‘Help’ gave a great song new life and her rendition of Nina Simone’s ‘I’m Feeling Good’ left us all breathless. What a great talent she is and we look forward to hearing more of her own songs next time she plays Letham Nights – there WILL be a next time!

Chloe and the boys then returned to the stage and we were carried off again on a journey with the songs. The highpoint was the achingly beautiful and inspiring ‘Dance With Me’, a celebration of the power of love in the face of great adversity. Hear Chloe tell the story and then sing the song.
As Chloe says – ”a rare and precious moment of real connection and love”.

Thank you to Chloe, Teal and Chris – and of course Vivienne for … well, as it says in the final encore song, sometimes you need no words….
- Letham Nights

"What [Chloe Hall] has done is create an album as warm as a summer's night and as earthily woody as the deep roots of an oak... Hall writes with insight of the everyday life and the events and emotions that transcend their surroundings."

More at www.chloehall.com.au. - The Age/Sydney Morning Herald

"Nothing prepared me for [Chloe's] stellar live performance. Hall has a free range voice, full of expression and her unique song stylings are truly little gems. She’s also a gifted song writer. I listened to every word of her original lyrics which are playfully witty, wonderfully wise or painfully true."

More at www.chloehall.com.au - Teresa Mallam, Prince George

"Chloe Hall is an Australian on her way to Nashville, but today the singer-songwriter is enjoying her introduction to Canada. This road trip... builds on her well-crafted third album White Street."

More at www.chloehall.com.au - Peter North, Edmonton Journal

"In Australia she's already made a career on the folk festival and folk club circuit. Here in Canada, she says, it's like starting fresh. 'I can't rely on my reputation - the music must stand on its own'."

More at www.chloehall.com.au - Linda Utting, 24 Hours Toronto

"Chloe draws you in… she sings with a crystaline edge and with syncopation… her storytelling is open and fresh… the best I could do is to say go and hear her, buy her CD’s and fall under the magic of Chloe Hall"

The Magic of Chloe Hall

Chloe Hall sang at the Loaded Dog in Annandale on 25th May 2008, and it was magic. I spent a good bit of time afterwards trying to understand what the magic was.

After all, Chloe is a songwriter who writes about her emotional life, and I find most singers who do this not to my taste. Many of them indulge in random melodic wanderings among complex chords which add boredom to the psychic sediment. Chloe is way beyond this stuff. What, then, was the magic that held the Dog audience silent and spellbound at some points, and singing softly supportive harmonies at others.

Granted, the Loaded Dog is Sydney’s premier singing audience, with a great proportion singing harmonies. There’s a well established magic in the context, but Chloe brought a magic of her own.

Let’s look at the guitar. She uses an alternative tuning and builds her chords around the moving bass line. Others seem to use block chords. The tuning she uses seems to generate a waiting, pregnant tension. It opens a space and keeps that invitation open. Chloe uses pedal point structures, a fixed note around which chords move through harmonies and the odd intense dissonance. That tension has a breathless, waiting feel that keeps expectation on edge.

Chloe laughs, she watches her audience and makes eye contact. Her storytelling is open, fresh and she verbally invites us into the space made by her accompaniment.

She sings softly, with a crystaline edge and with syncopation. She has a big range and uses it subtly but powerfully, and all the time there is this sense of expectation, tension.

Chloe draws you in. Us shanty singers reach out, we project to the back and through the wall. Chloe does not lack the resources, but she chooses to draw the audience in. Hers is an intimate, welcoming performance.

What was superb about the Dog on the 25th May was that Chloe was as moved and delighted by the Loaded Dog’s singing audience as we were with her. There was a definite feedback loop in which Chloe kept throwing us stuff to sing, we made a meal of it, and Chloe laughed and sang more.

I could celebrate the way that Chloe brought the 12 string out of her splendid Maton 6 strings, the elements of Indian Sitar that turned up in some of her modal instrumental breaks. I could jump up and down about her being one of those great people that can take one of the cliches we all know and put her own special spin on it, but the best I could do is to say, go and hear her, buy her CD’s and fall under the magic of Chloe Hall.
- Trad & Now Australia