You Can Have It All

Adelaide fixture Stephanie Crase plays every instrument on her self-recorded first Summer Flake record. It’s as if she’s jamming with different versions of herself, writes DOUG WALLEN.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Stephanie Crase knows the beauty in brooding. It’s all over her debut album as Summer Flake, on which the Adelaide mainstay harmonises with herself via vocals and guitar. The songs are part low-key confessionals to the listener and part circular conversations with the proverbial mirror. It’s easy to imagine a slow succession of beers coaxing forth these therapeutic gems from the shrine-like setting of drums, guitars and four-track pictured on the inner sleeve.

There’s something of ’90s indie rock in that, and in the general low-slung uneasiness here. You might catch glimpses of Eric’s Trip-era Julie Doiron in several places, and a bit of Helium in the witchy tone and lyrics of ‘Just Fine’. Then there are those scene-stealing guitar solos, which wind themselves out into Mascis-style unspooled threads before burning out at just the right moment. That’s not to say there aren’t more eternal touches: there’s a Byrds-y twang to the solo on ‘Blue’, and on ‘Forever Here and Now’ you can hear the admitted source material of Smokey Robinson’s ‘You’ve Really Got a Hold on Me’. From its bashful reverb coat to its slowed-down ‘Be My Baby’ drumbeat at the start, the title track has a decided ’60s girl-group vibe.

“Crase turns her introspective tangents into a communion of competing emotions”

Yet it doesn’t feel derivative overall. Those are well-trodden roads, but Crase criss-crosses between them with an unmistakable honesty. From the opening ‘Don’t Be Shy’, her songs are so content to take their time that it can be quite emotional just listening to them do that. For all her hushed vocal presence, ‘Naked or Nude’ is more upbeat than most, while ‘How Long Will the Wind Blow’ quietly devastates with its self-harmonising exchange. Amid those warbling and ever-bendy guitar notes, ‘Dressed in Black’ puts her downy sigh to ideal use.

The heart of the record is ‘Drag You Down’, not just because it’s a hell of a guitar solo but because Crase puts herself out there more vocally. She doesn’t seem quite as reluctant to make herself truly known. Maybe that’s because her friend Matt Banham wrote the lyrics instead of her. Whatever the reason, it manages to be noticeably different from the other songs while summing up their shared, woozy affection for the electric guitar.

Crase is no stranger to collaborating with others, having played in Birth Glow (where ‘Die Trying’ originated), No Through Road, Fair Maiden, Hit the Jackpot and Batrider. It’s unclear whether or not the title You Can Have It All is partly a nod at her playing every instrument here, from bass and drums to acoustic and electric guitars. But by assembling an entire band for herself from herself – in contrast to the more solo-sounding two EPs before this – Crase turns her brooding, introspective tangents into both surprising musical lushness and a communion of competing emotions, no matter how rough around the edges.

It’s as if she’s helping to prop herself up with different versions of herself, jamming with the her of yesterday and the her of tomorrow until everything finally gels and out comes tumbling one of those solos, like a fever suddenly broken.

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‘You Can Have It All’ is out now through Rice is Nice. Launch dates below. Read Stephanie Crase’s Track by Track on the album.

Fri, Oct 4 – The Hotel Metropolitan, Adelaide, SA [w/Divine Rip + Body Horror]
Fri, Oct 18 – Grace Darling, Melbourne, VIC [w/Old Mate, A New Death + Palm Springs]
Sat, Oct 19 – Brisbane Hotel, Hobart, TAS [w/Naked, Heart Beach + Catsuit]
Thurs, Oct 24 – Croatian Club, Newcastle, NSW [w/Day Ravies, Unity Floors + Sadfaces]
Fri, Oct 25 – The Square, Sydney, NSW [w/Parading, Mope City, The Friendsters + Weak Boys]
Sun, Oct 27 – The Beetle Bar, Brisbane, QLD [w/ Cannon, Cured Pink, Screaming Match + Thigh Master]