PureVolume

It’s taken Josh Pyke a bit of time to find his true voice. Actually, it’s taken Josh Pyke a little time to finally become Josh Pyke. Until earlier this year, “Night Hour” was the guise for his one man band - a name to perhaps hide behind while Josh worked out where it all might lead.

It didn’t take long before Josh’s unique voice and song writing style, influenced by the likes of Elliott Smith, Evan Dando, and Sparklehorse, began to find favour amongst music tastemakers, critics and Triple J listeners. The first taste, the assured ‘Kids Don’t Sell Their Hopes So Fast’, found high rotation on JJJ and soon ‘Silver’ and the gently sweeping ‘Doldrums’ followed to similar praise and airplay.

Earlier this year Josh signed to Ivy League Records and shortly afterwards travelled to New York for some further writing, performing and demoing and upon return set about recording what will be his debut release under his own name, a mini album entitled “Feeding The Wolves”.

“Feeding the Wolves” signifies a great deal more than a change in name: It reveals a huge step in the development of Josh as an artist and songwriter. The subject matter is as broad as titles like “Beg Your Pardon, Private Education, Middle Of The Hill and Goldmines” suggest, however it’s Josh’s lyrics that draw this collection of songs together into a complete package. He cleverly dissects human emotion and feelings and shows them for what they are: complex, abstract, fascinating.

There is hope in the opening track ‘Beg Your Pardon’ and in ‘Fill You In’ there is emptiness and longing. The first single, ‘Middle Of The Hill’, is a near-stream of consciousness of a suburban childhood - family affection coloured by those sometimes darker, sometimes trivial details that for some reason stay with you. ‘Goldmines’ a vision of a land, or maybe a talent, stripped of its riches - but here and there a flash of colour survives. A relationship that seems to be an ongoing test is at ‘Private Education’s’ centre. The title track finishes it, with Josh quick to point out the Wolves are not those wanting a piece of you for whatever reason - but those uncontrollable, irrational, emotions inside yourself that you have to keep in check.

With production by the much-lauded Wayne Connolly (You Am I, Underground Lovers, Youth Group, just about any Australian act of note...), ‘Feeding The Wolves’ has the artist now rightly known as Josh Pyke letting his talent flow without constraint. The words seem to tumble out of him: honest, evocative, and emotional all at once. The playing - again mostly all Josh - is one moment sweetly melodic, then turning urgent and insistent as needs be. This range of feelings, packaged so they bounce around inside your head like good songs do, and given so generously, go together to make ‘Feeding The Wolves’ the sound of an artist beginning to realise an enormous potential.