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Lawrence Arabia – Absolute Truth

A listing from my quarterly Guardian column 'Music You Missed', October 2016


The lyrics of New Zealand musician Lawrence Arabia (James Milne) are snort-out-loud funny but they ring true too. “I was so fresh and foolish/Bold and bullish, kind of toolish,” he sings on Brain Gym.

Milne’s fourth album of wry symphonic pop is out on seminal Dunedin label Flying Nun. On his last (excellent) record, Milne made genres like ragtime seem easy and he’s similarly breezy here. There’s a hint of Lambchop’s mid-afternoon languor on The Old Dancefloor and Yo La Tengo’s poised mid-tempo rock. Elsewhere, Milne tosses yacht rock overboard in favour of shameless cruise-ship schmaltz. On Another Century you imagine him as the performer on a late-70s liner, singing for passengers in puffy bathing suits with bronzed leathery skin. Its syrupy swooping strings, fresh-faced falsetto and “shooby do wop” choruses stroll dangerously close to parody, but like Beck circa Midnight Vultures, if you embrace the role-play it’s fun as hell.


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My name is Kate Hennessy. I am a freelance arts and travel writer and music critic. I contribute to Guardian Australia, The Sydney Morning Herald/The Age, The Saturday Paper, The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, The Wire (UK), NME and more.

Latest posts

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    February 19, 2022
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    February 17, 2022
  • A gentle hidden gem: a visitor’s guide to the NSW far south coast

    January 8, 2022
  • ‘An inscrutable and open-ended riddle’: the life and art of Jeffrey Smart

    December 11, 2021
  • Trekking the Great Ocean Walk: ‘Stand with no land mass between your sweaty skin and Antarctica’

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