A few days in Melbourne at the time that the fires were engulfing Australia provided the wherewithal and opportunity for New York singer and activist Danielle Pounder and Melbourne’s cinematic soul troupe Karate Boogaloo the chance to deliver ‘Look Around’, a commentary of all that we face in the world right now.
Danielle says “Fires were raging through Australia and smoke covered the sky. It felt like all of our human sins had gotten the best of us and we were paying a price. I didn’t know that when I arrived back home in the U.S, the world would only get darker. I feel like my past self wrote this song for my future self knowing what was to come.”
Look Around starts as this arid, slow moving soul shaker, all hazy organ and picked conversation between guitar and bass as is moves inexorably forward. It’s as if it needed to mop its own brow, such is the deliberate nature of the track, until, all of a sudden it swings into life, the instruments suddenly pressing and pulling it onward. It has this gorgeous fluidity about it as well though, provided largely by Pounder’s smooth but soulful delivery, as she makes the track ache and nuzzle at you at first, before placing it in front of you, before the reigns are pulled into a brief coda.
Lovely stuff. Check it out, here
