Gabriel Lynch

Passerby Chorale [Independent]

This Melbourne crooner’s balmy voice bears a striking resemblance to fellow troubadour Tim McArtney. Could they be non-identical twins separated at birth? BMA demands answers! Seriously folks, operating below the threshold of popular radio, singer-songwriter Gabriel Lynch possesses one of the best Aussie male voices you’ve never heard. Written during an international tour, his songs capture much beauty in their words and music and his lyrics show he’s man enough to admit he’s been beaten up by girls! Gabriel is a man of many colours, as exemplified by Missing Parts which entrances with the complexity of its mixed rhythms. In Jordana his soulful voice combines with rising keys like the swell of the sea, with a power that’s understated, yet irresistible. This powerful voice rings out in a fury of drums and violins in Last December. This is Love injects a funky edge to the song by sleight of hand, with a little downplayed guitar shenanigans that is kept lurking in the background. His songs often have a touch of the melancholy about them, while always remaining tinged with hope. This album theme comes through clearly in the track highlights The Final Thread and Beside Your Pillow in Your Attic, with the message that it might all come good, if only we change our minds. Don’t despair, just hold on! If you missed his recent performance at The Front, you can tap into Passerby Chorale through iTunes. - BMA Magazine

Gabriel Lynch is a local singer-songwriter who sets his wide-eyed lyrics to robust, pumping indie rock. The vocal melody for The Way I See is almost Belle & Sebastian-esque, but the pop and bounce of guitar and piano has a distinct Australian folk flavour. Really lovely, really honest music with a buoyant heart.
- BEAT Magazine

GABRIEL LYNCH – Passerby Chorale
MONDAY, 23 JANUARY 2012
(Independent)
A poignant record from a poetic Melburnian
On Passerby Chorale, Gabriel Lynch floats and haunts with his gentle, penetrative voice and alluring songwriting talent. The Melbourne musician sings with grace and melancholy over rich arrangements that, despite the sombre tone, suggest an inspired hopefulness on Lynch’s part. The tracks have a tendency to build before falling away with an almost tidal motion. Beneath The Sand, the release’s seven-minute centrepiece, puts an Australian twist on Sigur Rós-style sensibilities with layered vocals and crashing cymbals. Occasionally, however, the production is overdone, with a surfeit of strings and percussion engulfing Lynch’s delicate touch, which is where his strength lies. Passerby Chorale is most arresting when tranquil and the heartfelt, ghostly style lends itself to the permeating themes of loss and resolve. Listening to the album is like being regaled by a solemn bard with a series of absorbing tales; it is well worth doing if you have the time.
DAN DIXON
- Rave Magazine

Music Monday: ‘Passerby Chorale’ by Gabriel Lynch


Is it possible to be listening to an Australian singer/songwriter, and be reminded of somewhere across the globe like Ireland? Perhaps. If it is possible to be inspired to write a song about Florence, somewhere in the deserted attic of Iceland, why not?

There is an interesting story behind Lynch’s debut studio album, Passerby Chorale, and strangely enough, while listening to the album, it is as if we have bought an extra ticket to wherever his jetsetting feet decide to bring him next. Like we are getting the firsthand experience itself, being tourists in all the cities Lynch has once found himself in.

There is a lightness in Lynch’s voice that seems to carry his written words so effortlessly immaculate, with a tinge of Irishness in the subconscious slur and subliminal music compositions. His voice, sometimes solemn like a hymn of quieter cities like Reykjavik, sometimes proud and aviating like a gratifying soldier standing erect, bleching his national anthem from the depths of his patriotic heart.

Going through Passerby Chorale is like passing by the many unfamiliar cities Lynch has been to during his travels around the world. Those distinctive and idiosyncratic sounds each cities have. Those traffic noises and bustling crowds that melt into a kind of music in the songwriter’s head. Yet. As a foreigner, try as you may to live like Romans do, you cannot seem to do it the right way. Like you don’t belong to this chorale. So, you compose your own chorale, a passerby’s chorale, chronicling those moments when you don’t fit in, and those when you do.

Passerby Chorale as a whole is pretty much like that. The chord cadences and note arrangements Lynch composed, were unlike the run-of-the-mill sequences you would hear from the usual singer/songwriter. Sometimes, the scurry of the notes across the piano keys that turns unexpectedly like the moody tides in the ocean. Other times, the phrase switches so suddenly that you feel uncomfortable in your skin just listening to a song about love. Like falling in love with a new girl so effortlessly, yet at the same time, scared that she might disappear and leave your heart wringing red on your sleeves.

Sometimes, it’s a solitary walk along the Firenze Santa Maria Novella railway station in the wee hours of the morning, thin films of snow giving the buildings around you a light glaze. So eerie. So wrong. Yet somehow, it feels so right. Other times, it’s a skip instead of a walk across Central Park, watching joggers struggle with their dogs outrunning them down the pavement, and families on plaid blankets sipping wine and eating cheese crackers. And that burst of energy called hope at the center of your chest that beats with the quick witted guitar riffs: “Then maybe, just maybe what you’ll do / Is start singing to yourself when you’re thinking about me too.”

Sometimes, it’s standing at the edge of Ireland, the ocean breeze against your face as the violin moans towards the waters, echoes thrown back that speaks of the same sorrow. Other times, it’s the slow rock of the chair on the sweltering porch in West Virginia. The cornfield as far as the eyes can see, but not far enough to see if the mirage of the love of your life is moving closer back to you, but instead walking farther away from you. You pluck on the banjo strings in your arms to the rhythm of the rocking chair, your mind filled with gentle love, as your voice calls out feather lightly: “Sweetheart, please come back to me.”

It goes without saying that there is versatility when it comes to Lynch’s music. Sure, he may just be a man with a guitar singing lovesick love songs. But in his heart, there is also a traveller, who has been to the ends of the world, and transpired what he has felt, and somehow what he has seen, into this album. - Backseat Radio