Padma "A Real Grower" All Gigs Review

‘Here’ isn’t instant. It’s a bit like a stranger :takes a bit of getting to know. You’ll either like it or not. There’s no halfway. I like it.

Mood will probably be the determining factor as to whether you’ll enjoy, or even listen to Padma’s Here.. bare with it though.
We all know, there’s a fine art in creating great melancholic music like Nick Drake, which he could be compared with.
Padma hasn’t totally cracked it as yet, but there are fleeting moments (not enough for my liking) on Here, so it’s worth persevering with, because the more rotation you give, the greater the effect. Interestingly enough, Padma means ‘lotus’, a plant that apparently works its way out of a muddy pond towards the sun light and opens its petals, as a kind of celebratory reaction. Remember that. There’s a great danger with this type of template: it can become totally self-indulgent not achieving its aim – to reach out and actually, touch somebody. Some, like Duffy write sad songs, but offer some kind of hope, whereas Amy Winehouse, as great a writer she is, offers little. It’s pretty obvious that bohemian Padma is a thoughtful and deeply spiritual and philosophical sort of guy, and there are, some profound reflective moments to relish. One major plus in his favour is there’s no pretentiousness, and he appears to be totally open about his thoughts and feelings in the Ray Lamontagne / Damien Rice mould.

The opening isn’t too promising though – Half A Person. The morbid organ and harmonica doesn’t exactly help either, though his rich voice and the duet (with whoever) lift the song from its drone like quality. Single Seafood and Balloons (released May 5) is a drastic shift with acoustic guitar and quirky spatial effects as the feature. Jewel on the album is the simple and gorgeous Song For An Entryphone, again, sometimes duetting. He gently picks at his acoustic, occasionally dropping in some electric chords. Not breaking sweat, he delivers a masterful beauty on I Don’t Think So, which right out of Drake’s songbook. It’s quite striking, even for its simplicity. Again it’s the simplicity of Waiting For Dolma that hits you – hushed voice, acoustic picks and spatial effects drifting in the distance make it entrancing. There’s a bit more pace on Dawn, but the format is as bare as you can get, with birds happily chirping in the background. True to his nomadic spirit (he’s slept on roadsides, woods and wherever), chirpy Firelight Dance has probably been knocked together on a lonely night in (or near) his tent. Surprisingly, he concludes with reggae stylings on the Devendra Banhart-ish communal chug of Buddha Energy.

Now back to the lotus, as an analogy. This Padma has only partially surfaced out of the murky depths and not quite turned his music into a celebration. He is getting there, so I wait for the next instalment while he writes more music in his yurt somewhere in the Spanish Pyrenees.

File under: A real grower, if you’ve got the time. Find it.

See the full review here