When Broken Social Scene stood on the platform at the Junos and commented on the size of their group saying "Look at us, we're like an army!" they weren't far from the truth. And like any army, they're only as strong as their troops, and their troops seem stronger than an ox. New Buffalo proves this with her thoughtful and playful EP showcasing 6 of her beautiful compositions. After just one listen to this record I rushed to my computer to write this review. The record is not just a concoction of folk, jazz, indie - rock, and soul music, it seems to embody it completely. Like any perfect mix, the ingredients are inseparable from the taste, and by goodness, this tastes so good!



New Buffalo, Sally Seltmann, hails from Sydney Australia but has been gracing the continents of America and Canada with her music for quite some time now. It's really a wonder she's been left underneath the ever-undulating blip of pop-radar. It must be that she's one of those well kept secrets held by indie-rock sects, who decipher codes in songs, and hide cups underneath palaces? Either way, the album is no secret now and shouldn't be to all ears.



Opening the EP "Inside (The Corrections, Featuring Jens Lekman)" immediately pulls open the curtains to a stage of rolling ocean waves and clean blue air, all played out by a sparing piano, a lonely saxophone, and a fluffy set of dreamy drums. The two voices, that of Seltmann and Lekman, sounds as though you are dangling alone in the atmosphere, staring into the sun. The chorus features a sweeping harp and a male voice which opens like a cave and has Lekman and Seltmann singing "It's alright/ We're inside" with child-like innocence. The song gets underneath your skin with it's honest lyrics and vivid imagery.



A Social Scene remix "I've Got You And You've Got Me" showcases the dexterity of New Buffalo even in a very contemporary electronic context. The song displays a very simply guitar rhythm played on only a few chords but slowly the steam starts to build and an electronic voice is squeezed in, then comes Seltmann's angelic voice followed by wave-like crescendos of devastating strings and synthesized sweeps. The whole song rotates in a tornado fashion and pulls you into the center of it. At the song's peek it seems as though you are in the center of the twister, staring up into the vortex of wind. It's simply mesmerizing.



"The Beginning of The End" is a lullaby-esque track in which Seltmann displays her vocal virtuosity. Her voice is piercing and her notes cut into your heart, and cut deep. The whole thing is a gentle ride in a gondola underneath a clouded sky and a full moon as Seltmann sings like she may be the only one in the world. It all comes with such ease that it makes you think it was not made, but procured from the sands of creation.



The rest of the record deserves the element of surprise, which it encompasses, but to put it simply, I could listen to New Buffalo until I watch a comet fall to earth. Her music is a theatrical performance of the imagination and something that comes around only once and a while. People: start taking notice of these genuinely beautiful artists before the rest of the world takes hold of them.







Track Listing

1 Inside

2 Trigger

3 I've Got You And You've Got Me (Broken Social Scene Remix)

4 The Beginning of the End

5 Stay Here While You'e Gone

6 I've Got You and You've Got Me (Version Two)