Live Reviews

C-Minus Project (With Warmer & Jamie Hutchings)
@ Sandringham Hotel, Sydney 2/8/03

To go quietly is to go against the prevailing rhythms which drive the world. It's a tough art to perfect when reflection gives way to the furious sturm und drang of the workaday. Stepping into the small upstairs room of the Sando to find the venue appropriately seated and dimly lit therefore feels like stepping into another world.

With the C-Minus Project's Sam Shinazzi the evening begins as quietly as possible. Playing a number of songs from his band's forthcoming record as well as some old standards, Shinazzi presents his songs with plaintive strums of acoustic guitar. The performance at times seems so small and quiet that the absence of a larger, more powerful presence places the music in tension with the all pervading silence that surrounds it. At times the silence can overwhelm the songs, and Shinazzi's take on going quietly equates with resignation and defeat. It can be heart-breakingly poignant, as on the desolate ‘Birthday', but it can also render the songs so limpid that a brisk winter breeze could sweep them away; going quietly by way of disappearing completely. However, Shinazzi rallies with enough ballast to stand his ground, holding the silence back. Like photographs of all the suburbs you left behind and the people and shadows that haunted them, Shinazzi's songwriting has the ability to moor you through the traces of memory to a present that can seem all too bleak, lonely and desperate. In response the small audience offered generous encouragement, much appreciated by Shinazzi on stage...

Tim (Oz Music Project)