Susan Hull, Susy Blue, Northcote Social Club, 18th May 2011

Susy Blue – the collective name for a group of performers headed by songwriter Susan Hull (right) launched their latest album Curly Girl (you can get hold of it over at http://susyblue.net) at the Northcote Social Club, supported by Melbourne 4-piece The Nymphs.

With a style that’s hard to pigeonhole to a genre (there’s elements here of folk, gypsy, latin and even more recent chill-out sessions type stuff), the group of musicians led by Susan herself and Louise Goh on the keys gave the crowd at the NSC an intimate and personal night of eclectic music.

Multi-instrumentalist Michael Hanley added his ukelele and banjo work to a sound grounded by Hugh Rabinovici on the drums and the double bass of Max Flander, and Susan added her own skills as a flautist to a number of tunes throughout the hour long set.

There’s identifiable influences here (if I were to guess I’d imagine there’s an album or two in Susan’s collection by Bjork), but the sound is Australian and certainly not like many other artists plying their trade around Melbourne at the moment, although I was reminded of the quite brilliant Woohoo Review at times throughout the set.

Susy Blue

Susy Blue

Susy Blue