BWW Reviews: TEMPEST: JULIA HENNING Launched Her New Single and Music Video

Reviewed Friday 24th January 2014

I first encountered Julia Henning some years ago when, at the age of seventeen, she was already performing in cabaret. I was impressed with her performance and have kept an eye on her career over the years. With the launch of her new single and music video, Tempest, a song is included on her new album, Fledgling, that is due for release in April, I took the opportunity to catch this live performance.

Two singer/songwriter/guitarists, Tim Moore, assisted on some numbers with vocal harmonies from Maggie Rutjens, and then Alice Haddy, each had a set, opening the evening as supporting artists for Julia Henning. Henning's set then began with a showing of the music video on a large screen, before she arrived on stage to sing all of the numbers on the Fledgling album, and a couple more. Watch out for her Australian tour to promote this album.

Henning was backed by her excellent band, consisting of Matthew Moore, piano, Simon Gould, guitar, Eli Green, drums, and Nicholas David Evans, bass. Good use was made of the many timbral opportunities that this allowed, with some particularly fine interplay to be heard between Moore and Gould on numbers where only the two of them accompanied Henning's vocals. Evans impressed as he contributed some very clean and melodical bass lines throughout, and Green offered far more than the usual boring rock beats heard from many drummers, switching to brushes and mallets, and even adding a little glockenspiel. This added up to an interesting set of very varied accompaniments, with the arrangements taking advantage of all of the possibilities.

Then, of course, there are Henning's songs, and her marvellous performances of them. Her lyrics and ideas are complex and intricate, yet expressed clearly and filled with emotions that she embodies as she sings each one, touching on the thoughts and memories of the members of the audience, who react accordingly. She draws them further into her world with each number, completely captivating each person by strongly linking her songs to their experiences.

Whether it is a driving rock beat, or a gentle ballad in triple time, each song has a narrative to which listeners connect, and Henning has just the voice to make it happen, rich and versatile with great control, and the bravery and ability to take it in any direction to bring out what she feels necessary to communicate the full meanings and emotions of her songs. Nobody left the Promethean untouched by her powerful performances.

One of her songs, If, and Only If, made it to number one on the ABC radio station Triple J's Unearthed Overall charts last year, and then it was used in season 4 of the television series, Offspring. This is a lady who is going places.

Not only is Henning a superb songwriter and performer, she is also extremely photogenic, as her album cover and posters show, and this is also a feature of her video, where her eyes tell as much of the story as her voice. This ability also transfers to her live performances where she does not simply sing the songs, but performs them with her eyes, facial expressions, movements, and postures. She gives an holistic rendition of her songs, investing herself completely in them.

Over the six years since I first saw Henning she has grown remarkably in artistic stature, her song writing, her voice, and her musical interpretations all maturing immensely. She has come a very long way already and, at only 23 years of age, it is clear that she is going to go much further and has a long career ahead of her. Luckily for those of us with a love of the genre, she has not abandoned cabaret, so we may hope to see more of her working in this setting in the future, as well as in concert.

The music video is available as a free download, and the YouTube video can be found here. There are more of her videos on YouTube and they are worth looking for. The Fledgling CD can be pre-ordered for only $20 from her website here.

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