Teskey Brothers – Half Mile Harvest (2017)

2021-04-06T10:23:10Z

Teskey Brothers – Half Mile Harvest (2017)


A1		Crying Shame
A2		I Love A Woman
A3		Pain And Misery
A4		Shiny Moon
A5		Reason Why
B1		Louisa
B2		Til' The Sky Turns Black
B3		Hard Feeling
B4		Honeymoon

Bass, Backing Vocals, Percussion, Guitar – Brendon Love
Drums, Percussion – Liam Gough
Lead Guitar, Backing Vocals – Sam Teskey
Lead Vocals, Rhythm Guitar, Harmonica – Josh Teskey
Trombone – Nathaniel Sametz
Trumpet – Reuben Lewis
Organ – Ruben George, Sam Lawrence
Backing Vocals – Tom Pearse, Sam Lawrence
Handclaps [Claps], Backing Vocals, Body Percussion [Footstomps] – Harmony Byrne, Raphaella Phelan, The Scrims

Australian-band The Teskey Brothers – brothers Josh and Sam Teskey, and their friends Brendon Love and Liam Gough – recently announced that they signed a major label deal with Decca. Influenced heavily by 60s American soul music, the band have been together since they were teenagers. Following a sold-out show at London’s Omeara earlier this year, the four-piece have just released their debut album Half Mile Harvest.

Half Mile Harvest was recorded live to tape in a bid to capture the band’s raw talent and to give their music authenticity. It works like a charm and the 10 songs on Half Mile Harvest song like lost gems from yesteryear. Vocalist Josh Teskey isn’t dissimilar in sound to the mighty Chris Stapleton, who has been bringing some grit back to modern Country music. The passion and the soul pours from his voice throughout the record but one of the standout moments is Say You’ll Do, which showcases the magnificent power he possesses.

The album opens with the riff-driven Crying Shame and it sets you up nicely for what to come. The band has clearly drawn from their influences and there’s a mixture of soul, R&B, country and Americana present across the record. Pain and Misery sounds a lot like Stapleton’s version of Tennessee Whiskey as it has the same lilting beat and intermittent guitar riffs. That’s not a huge problem but you can sing the latter over the former.

Elsewhere on the record Shiny Moon is one of the moments where the band steps outside of their comfort zone. The vocals are produced differently and the music is a little more in the country wheelhouse. Reason Why is a showcase for the band’s musicianship, offering little in the way of vocals, while the hand-clap led uptempo track Louisa is a rousing anthem that will be a huge hit in a live arena.

The moody Til the Sky Turns Black is a strangely affecting five minutes of foot-stomping deep south Americana and Hard Feeling is a laidback song that features tight harmonies and a loose vocal from Josh. The album comes to a close with the 12-minute epic Honeymoon, which turns into an addictive jam session that you don’t really want to end before changing into an orchestral outro. Advertisement. Scroll to continue reading.

Half Mile Harvest is the kind of debut album that makes people take notice. The Teskey Brothers are already picking up awards back home in Australia and they’ll be collecting them in other parts of the world very soon I’m sure. If you’re a fan of old-school soul and/or strong vocals, then this album is one you should definitely pick up. I get the feeling the album is only half of the story for The Teskey Brothers and I imagine when they announce live dates for 2019, they’re going to see their star rise even further. ---Pip Ellwood-Hughes, entertainment-focus.com

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Josh Teskey & Ash Grunwald – Push The Blues Away (2020)

2021-04-04T15:24:23Z

Josh Teskey & Ash Grunwald – Push The Blues Away (2020)


A1		Low Down Dog	3:39
A2		Hungry Heart	3:21
A3		Thinking 'Bout Myself	3:41
A4		Push The Blues Away	3:30
B1		It Rained	4:55
B2		Something With Feel	3:07
B3		Preachin' Blues	3:21
B4		The Sky Is Crying	4:03

Performers: Josh Teskey & Ash Grunwald

The formidable musical pairing of Josh Teskey and Ash Grunwald makes for an exciting release day today. In the past year, both artists have kept busy: Ash Grunwald released his critically acclaimed new album ‘MOJO’, along with his first book, “Surf By Day, Jam By Night”, while The Teskey Brothers followed up their ARIA Award-winning and Grammy nominated second album ‘Run Home Slow’ with the 2020 release of ‘Live At Forum’, which earned them their first ARIA chart #1.

Luxuriating in the simple pleasures of the classic blues sound, this album starts off with Low Down Dog, a tantalisingly soulful track. Feisty harmonica and an insistent, slow paced guitar riff accompany the whole song. Achingly raw vocals from Grunwald spell out a difficult relationship – “I ain’t gonna apologise / But I’m sorry just the same”. The burning intensity of the music continues right to the last line, Teskey and Grunwald joining to sing “I gave you my all / Though I never knew your name”, then finishing with scatting over scorching guitar.

Hungry Heart, penned by Teskey as a love letter and ‘Part Two’ to his song Push the Blues Away, is, as Teskey explains it, “the happy ending, the moment I stopped running away and found and accepted love”. It feels like a song you could sing with family around a campfire, capturing the warmth and comfort of finally coming to love. As Teskey takes the lead on vocals for this track, we get the chance to hear his lyrics shine as he sings, unpretentiously and sincerely, “Searching to feed this heart of mine / But it’s you I was searchin’ for”.

You may have caught their debut performance of the first single from the album, Thinking ‘Bout Myself on ABC’s ‘The Sound’. A track that is filled with bluesy angst, it is complemented by the slight distortion in Grunwald’s guitar. Thinking ‘Bout Myself isdriven along by back-to-basics percussive clapping and electrifying harmonica. With Teskey and Grunwald sharing the vocals and alternating lines, it feels like each builds something on the line before. The contrast between Teskey’s husky tones and Grunwald’s deep, soul-shattering vibrato adds to the bubbling turmoil of the lyrics.

Push the Blues Away is another stellar track on the album, a gentler song, but by no means less impassioned. There is something very magical about listening to the album, recorded live, capturing the untouched musicality of Teskey and Grunwald’s songs. Push the Blues Away, the second track written by Teskey,features softly-picked guitar that diverges from the intensity of some of Grunwald’s tracks. The song feels like a sigh of relief at the end of a long day, as Teskey sings “Hey now baby, can you see I know I went wrong? / There’s a river in me, it’s pulling me away / It’s trying to float me away / But there’s nothing in the water gonna wash these blues away”. Grunwald says “a lot of the stuff I bring to the table is very much in a minor key and sad blues, but the two tracks Josh has bought bring the folky lighter flavours”.

The two artists work together so well because of the massive mutual respect and appreciation they have for each other. Grunwald says that “Josh Teskey is the most exciting voice in blues and soul I’ve heard in, well, forever,” and likewise, Teskey says of his collaborator, “Ash has a wealth of knowledge of obscure old Blues artists and we spent a bunch of time listening to these records and getting a feel for some of this stuff”. The influence of classic American blues is clear in Grunwald’s track It Rained. Itfills the air with southern humidity in the first bar of music, with ‘oh’s in the vocals, sparsely-included guitar strums and harmonica chiming in at the end of each bar. This desperately slow tempo carries you through the song, like a river making its way through the city.

Something with Feel might be the highlight of the album for me, incorporating all the best bits of blues – infectiously catchy riffs, cheeky lyrics, and vivid vocals filling the song with colour. The guitars simmer under the harmonica as it explores a new dimension of soul. They sing, “I’m tired of reacting, I need something that’s real / If you want my dimension, give me something with feel”. The next track, Preachin’ Blues, is a cover of the classic blues tune by Son House, and boy, do Teskey and Grunwald do gospel well. There is something spiritual about the way they play, fully devoted to every lyric they utter and note they play.

The final song is the song that kickstarted the whole project, a cover of The Sky is Crying. While the Teskey Brothers were featuring in a video clip for Grunwald’s song Ain’t My Problem, they had a jam to the old Elmore James tune in between takes. “Somebody filmed our little jam,” Grunwald says, “and it became the seed of a great idea: Why don’t we do an acoustic blues album? No bells and whistles, something from the heart.”. And so, the idea for the album was born. The song is absolutely thrilling on the album, so it doesn’t take much to understand why they decided they needed a whole album when they first played it. Teskey and Grunwald breathe new life into the soul of the song. It feels like a conversation between the two, as first Teskey, then Grunwald, sing that “I saw my baby as she was walking down the street / Oh same thing happened to me, I woke up early one morning, and I saw my baby walking down the street”.

‘Push the Blues Away’ is an electric collaboration between two fantastic Australian blues artists. Drawing on the tradition of the many artists to come before them, they have infused their music with gutsy guitar and plenty of soul. As Ash explains, “This album was made how any good blues album should be in my opinion. Spontaneously and instinctively.” ---Kate Lockyer, gclive.me

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