Hunted Haunted has to be my favourite album that I have been asked to review for Muzic.net! I adore it! Eden Mulholland has created an album that ticks all the boxes for me when I am on the hunt for some good tunes. People who know me, be it 10 years or 10 minutes, know I love dancing. I dance anywhere, I don’t care where I am, you play me some music I will be busting out moves left, right and centre, and all the places in-between, more often than not to the disappointment of others. For example, last week my mum and I were in Warehouse Stationery, some music came on and I started having a boogie, this led to my mum telling me numerous times to stop fidgeting then declaring she was going to disown me. Mum, I love you too (but let’s be honest, she loves my dancing).
What I like about this album, is that it is a collection of eleven songs that sound as though they have been written by eleven artists, not eleven songs by one artist. Each track has a unique sound that places it in a completely different setting to the next and definitely reveals Eden’s eclectic background in music. Mulholland has a gift for writing songs that have diversity and interpretive depth.
Favourites for me were River of the Heart, a tune I found myself singing very loudly and with great passion. Ever feel like someone has gotten on your nerves so much and you just need that outlet to let all the emotion out? Then this, my dear reader, should be your jam. If you need any convincing let me just inform you that the first sentence in this song is, ‘Don’t be such an arsehole’. Need I say more, I think not.
Another fav is The New Old Fashioned. A song that I can see having an adorable music video made for it. A song that my family became very familiar with as I could be found singing this delightfully charming sentence from the song ‘Everybody likes you, but I like you the most’. Even typing this down I feel the cuteness radiating off it!
Thoroughbred is another on my favourite list, a beautiful sounding song that seemed to float on a gorgeous mixture of piano, guitar and Eden’s wonderful voice. A song that you just let wash over you. Singularity was a superb song also, a chilled tune, a word to best describe this song I believe, is groovy.
It was so difficult for me pick songs to mention here, I could have written a piece about every track on this album. The emotion and energy that are in these tracks is contagious and has a song for whatever mood a person may be in. I have to say I am slightly distraught that I cannot go and watch Eden perform next Thursday at the Backbeat Bar in Auckland as alas, work and living in Hawkes Bay creates a problem, but I would recommend anyone who wants to listen to superb music, and who happens to be in the Auckland area. Go, go GO! Eden has music that you just know is going to sound fantastic. So, dear reader, go for me!
And to end this review…
Dear Eden,
Please can you put on another performance in the very near future.
I feel it is my destiny to dance, prance and frolic around in a gig setting to your music… Live.
Please and thank you kind regards,
Ria
When reviewing Eden Mulholland's music a certain peculiarity of composition stands out, and that is his refusal or inability to be restrained by genre. Whether writing an anthemic lullaby such as The Big Empty for his band Motocade (2010) or the hauntingly aggressive The Virus for the dance work Body Fight Time (2012), or the tender yet manic Body Fight Time on his aptly named EP, Jesus Don't You Get My Jokes, the juxtaposition of disparate entities seems to come naturally to him. This makes for a filmic quality to much of his music and it comes as no surprise that he is equally at home composing for dance or film as he is for his band and solo work.
In his music, as in life, anything goes. Sadness can be uplifting, desire be as impassive as a rock and memories be as suddenly vivid as the monitor lizards he occasionally sees on his runs up the hill behind his house. If all this sounds poetic then the cap fits. Even his take on pop music involves unexpected arrivals and departures, conventional and operatic voices, ripped apart rhythms and ethereal bridges, solidly resounding hooks and moody ascents.
It's a compositional approach that is enough, as one reviewer said in reference to his Jesus Don't You Get My Jokes EP, "to give you major goosebumps". But this goosebump inducing element, similar to 'duende' in flamenco music or or 'wairua' in Maori composition, also yields pop's signature 'earworms' as evidenced in songs such as I will Echo from his Feed the Beast album (2013), or Holy Moly from his Motocade album Tightrope Highway (2009), songs that enjoyed radio and video impact and longevity. Consequently his artistic reach embraces both a longstanding loyal niche following as well as commercial recognition.