Lean in close and listen to 'The Kiss that Lasted All Weekend', the debut album from Sydney-based singer-songwriter Luke Russell. Full to the brim with cleverly crafted melodies and wry tales of unrequited love , 'The Kiss that Lasted All Weekend' is a little bit pop, a touch alt-country, with a dash of folk and blue-eyed soul.Luke is a member of a musical family - his little sister grew up to become New Buffalo's Sally Seltmann. Surrounded by angel-voiced child prodigies, the young Luke was notably a-rhythmic and tone-deaf. While his sisters sang in choirs and went to ballet classes, Luke read novels and worked on algebra, thinking there wasn't a musical bone in his body. But the Go-Betweens did the trick, and before long he was playing along to a cassette recording of 'Cattle and Cane' and singing, quietly, out of tune. At university he turned his mind to the serious business of philosophy, but never stopped writing songs about girls. What followed was year after year of painstaking study: by day, Aristotle and Hume, Wittgenstein and the Vienna Circle; by night, the Beach Boys and Belle and Sebastian, the Supremes and the West Coast sound. Once Luke's knowledge was complete he graduated with a PhD in philosophy, started lecturing, and decided to make a record.Armed with a bunch of instruments, a classic pop sensibility, and a polished turn of phrase, he retreated to his bedroom and built up these songs, track by track, working alone late into the night. There were times when, banging on a glockenspiel, or singing the fifth falsetto harmony, he thought it would never be finished. But here it is. A heartfelt, handmade gem of an album. What does it sound like? Listen ... a toy piano chimes over a glittering bed of tremolo-soaked guitars, and the counterpoint of the bass swings deep and slow beneath handclaps, finger clicks and reverbed tambourines. Piano accordion and pedal steel press gently against a Byrdsy jangle and a Motown beat. And draped over this beautiful mess are glowing sheets of vocal harmonies, piled up to the sky. Even at full tilt, the sound is delicate. If you put too much weight on it, the whole thing will fall to pieces. But the songs shine through. Sad songs that make you smile. Songs that change key in the middle of a verse. Songs with informative and helpful titles. Songs about love, songs about dancing, songs about what might have been. Luke wrote them all, except for the final track, a gorgeous reworking of Stephin Merritt's tearjerker 'I've Got New York'. These songs are sung from the heart. These songs are this record. This record is 'The Kiss that Lasted All Weekend'.
