CLICK HERE TO SEE THE FULL CHARM OF FINCHES GALLERY BY ANDREW CALDWELL

Review By: Rob Harbers

Artist/Band: Charm of Finches

Venue/City: Te Awanga Hall, Te Awing, Napier, New Zealand

Date of Event: Wednesday 29th January 2025

Hot on the heels of last week’s season opener, the Small Hall Sessions are keeping up the momentum with 3 nights of the neo-folk stylings and beautiful harmonising of Charm of Finches.
A duo consisting of sisters Mabel and Ivy Windred-Wornes, Charm of Finches are poised on the edge of bigger things, with the buzz around them increasingly propelling them to greater notice. As such, the opportunity to see them in such an intimate setting is one to be treasured and appreciated. The joy of the Small Hall Sessions is that they allow us to do just that!
With the sheer beauty of their material, and the aforementioned sororal harmonising (as has been said by many “There’s no harmony like blood harmony “) the sisters mesmerised their audience from the first minute, and continued to hold them, enraptured, for the rest of the evening. This being their first appearance in Aotearoa outside of a festival setting, the closeness of the setting engendered a bond between the players and the payers. The type of thing that’s very hard, if not impossible, to establish with a bigger crowd, but is quite familiar to regular attendees of the Sessions.

Opening with ‘Temporary Home’, a meditation on the joys of the itinerant lifestyle of the travelling muso (more on this anon), the soaring beauty of the sound was evident right away. Maybe it’s a lazy comparison, perhaps inspired by the fact of the song being discussed as having been initially composed on a grand piano in Norway, but the next song, ‘Clean Cut’ gave definite vibes of Scandi sisters First Aid Kit. Or maybe it was just me...
‘Leave It All Behind’ offered further ruminations on the bittersweet nature of life on the road, as regards the enjoyment of seeing new things vs the concurrent homesickness inevitably arising. This is the sisters’ first visit across the ditch, previous ventures having seen them getting “as far away from Melbourne as possible” to England, Europe, Canada, America (still two separate countries, at time of writing!) and such far-flung climes. It was mentioned that this visit allowed them to make a (semi) pilgrimage to Mount Doom-and you can’t do that on the other side of the world!
A strong source of lyrical inspiration is clearly provided by the workings of Mabel’s mind, as in ‘Canyon’ being based on dreams, and ‘Miranda’, the murder ballad inspired by thoughts of jealousy and the outworking of the healing process. These were complemented by the “upbeat song about dying alone” that is ‘On My Own’. By now we were on a bit of a darker trajectory, (counterpointed by the sweetness of the voices that were delivering the imagery) and this was only to continue with ‘Marlinchen In The Snow’, inspired by the delightful Grimm brothers tale of ‘The Juniper Tree’. This song is the title track to their most recent album and was given its final inspiration by the frozen setting of the studio where the album was recorded. This also signalled the putting on ice of the performance, being the end of the first set and time to patronise the bar.

The second set saw tribute paid to one of the icons of this genre, Joni Mitchell, with a cover of her ‘River’. The seamlessness with which this fitted with the original material showed the depth of influence she has had. ‘Middle of your Mess’ was introduced by reference to the sisters’ love of op-shopping, some of the products of which appear in its video. Their main hobbies were described as music, op-shopping and making videos, the videos often featuring op-shopped clothing items. The between-song verbiage thus incorporated a request for op-shop recommendations in the area-not something one might expect at your average gig! But as may by now be apparent, Small Hall Sessions are anything but average-a big part of their charm-probably how they’ve managed to hit 200 events (a milestone passed last week).
The atmospheric and brooding ‘Human’ led in to a new song, only a couple of weeks old, with the working title of ‘Meteor’, before going back to an “old one”, being ‘Gravity’ from the ‘Wonderful Oblivion’ album, which was recorded during lock-down. Then it was time for what was described as a “really old one” (which sounded somewhat ironic from a pair so youthful!), ‘Paint Me a Picture’.

Too soon, though, came the end of the set, mercifully extended however by the obligatory, and loudly demanded, encore, which took the form of the “uplifting lullaby about death”, and tribute both to their love of ‘Six Feet Under’ and to their father’s career as an undertaker, the deeply reflective ‘Wonderful Oblivion’. And having thus concluded, the ensorcellment was called to a close, with an audience heading back to everyday lives at least a little richer, and fulfilled, for the experience! Looking forward, as always, to the next installment in the Small Halls tale, as the next numerical milestone comes into view. But there’s still a chance to catch this round, by taking a nice drive in the country to the sylvan setting of the Matapiro Hall on Friday night-you know you want to!