Of Sound Mind | Tash Sultana’s “Terra Firma”

Tash Sultana plays more than 12 instruments with a particular mastery of the guitar, has a six-octave vocal range and puts on one of the best live shows of any artist alive.

After teenage years where they described themself as a “complete drug addict” and recovering from a drug-induced psychosis, Sultana built a name for themself busking on the streets of Melbourne, Australia. In 2016, an incredible video of them performing their song “Jungle” went viral, and their career took off.

“Terra Firma,” their new album released on Feb. 19, still feels like the Sultana of yesteryear, but it’s much more pop- and folk-influenced. The songs get right to the point. The choruses are catchy, the verses are interesting and Sultana’s absolutely virtuosic playing is channeled into grooves rather than solos. In short, it’s everything I wanted from Sultana (or most artists, for that matter, but that’s a tirade for another day).

Sultana’s first album, 2018’s “Flow State,” almost felt like you got to listen in on a polished-up version of what their busking and live performances must be like. It has an improvisatory feel to it — loops of guitars and drums layer over each other before each song inevitably explodes into a guitar solo. It’s a great album, but the structural ambiguity can be exhausting at times, and I was excited when singles from “Terra Firma” teased a more focused songwriting ability.

The singles feel like a mix between Sultana’s and John Mayer’s songwriting sensibilities. “Greed” has a fantastically catchy chorus over beautiful guitar riffs and a groovy rhythm section. “Pretty Lady,” the first single, gets right to the chorus, which is a nice little ode to their recently wed partner — “Pretty lady, where you going so fast? / Tryin’ to make a moment last / Oh, come and take my hand why don’t you,” Sultana sings.

“Sweet and Dandy,” the last single released before the album dropped, addresses both Sultana’s genderfluid status as well as a theme that pops up over and over again in their music — finding happiness in a rejection of society’s oppressive nature. “And I don’t have to define by the sexes, oh / and I don’t have to get down with none of that bullshit / XY’s and exes, no,” they sing in one of the more clever lines on the album.

“Terra Firma” is much less predictable than Sultana’s first album in its intensity, and the result is a more full experience. “Flow State” has essentially two types of songs, the first type being buildups to explosive guitar or synthesizer solos. “Terra Firma,” by contrast, has nice little fadeouts. The second type from “Flow State” generally involved, too-long acoustic guitar breakdowns under Sultana riffing wordlessly, but “Terra Firma” is both more concise and pointed in these acoustic, emotionally driven songs.

“Maybe You’ve Changed” is almost certainly what Sultana is talking about when they claimed Bon Iver influenced the album. As one of Bon Iver’s biggest fans, I would claim that Sultana’s lyricism and melody writing doesn’t quite soar as high as Bon Iver’s in that particular song, but it’s a great blend of their style with a piano-driven mourning.

I was pleasantly astounded by “Let the Light In,” which actually does live up to my wildest dreams of what Tash Sultana would sound like if they wrote a Bon Iver song. The guitar hums in time with their vocals, the backing vocals are wonderful and the lyricism is that oh-so-satisfying mix of specifics making up an abstract whole that Bon Iver is known for.

I really appreciate the way that Sultana revolves around similar themes on this collection of songs. I don’t find them to always be the best lyricist (“It’s not about the money / Money, put the money in the bank / Money breeds greed and greed is really bad,” they sing in “Greed,” which is about the lamest indictment of materialism I’ve ever heard), but they sing from the heart.

“Blame It On Society” isn’t nearly as cliched as the title sounds and introduces Sultana’s scorn for traditionalist structures and their materialist tendencies. The other main theme on “Terra Firma” is Sultana’s solution to the ills of society, which often sounds like a mix of tuning in and dropping out, taking psychedelics and maintaining a general don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff attitude. While that can sometimes come off as a little too vague and hipsterish, given Sultana’s history of busking for money and exploring nontraditional modes of being (read: drugs), it feels authentic.

Many of these lyrical themes are carried over from “Flow State,” but there are some really charming, heartfelt and sometimes racy love songs on “Terra Firma.” “Willow Tree” falls into the more risqué category, and “Vanilla Honey” into the sweeter one, if you’ll pardon the pun.

While some songs (“Dream My Life Away,” the outro to “Pretty Lady”) can still feel a little long and repetitive, some lyric writing isn’t perfect and some songs, like “Coma,” aren’t particularly noteworthy, “Terra Firma” represents a shift for Sultana. Their second album is more focused in songwriting and more wide-ranging in genre, and the virtuosity shines through in grooves rather than solos. I highly recommend planting your feet on “Terra Firma,” and give the album a 9/10.

//Lucas DiBlasi is a music composition and digital narrative and interactive design double major. Suggest the next album to review, critique this review or send anything else to LND28@pitt.edu.