It’s been nearly three years since Caiti Baker released her solo debut, “Zinc”, and that time of fermentation has provided a heady brew in the form of her second full-length LP, “Mary of the North.” Caiti and her creative partner James Mangohig have been honing their craft together for over a decade, from the now-defunct duo Sietta in which they created sultry electro/soul jams that sounded just as at home in a seedy underground club as they did on daytime commercial radio, through “Zinc” (as well as the ‘B6’ and ‘Dust’ EPs that chased it), to arrive now at their most fully-realised, cohesive and accomplished work to date.

Right from the get-go Caiti has always had one of THOSE voices: it’s like oak, like bourbon. It effortlessly glides and rises, smoky and strong through the expansive, future-primitive sonic landscape conceived solely by producer/musician James Mangohig. The duo’s ambitious music draws on blues, jazz, electronica and R&B to build something which refuses any attempt at easy genre classification, a unique fusion of electronica and acoustica with a lush production that instantly raises the bar for all original recorded music to come from the Territory. And on that note, the songs on this exceptional record could only have been come from the Northern Territory; unique sounds from a unique part of Australia, born of the NT’s vistas and the people who populate them. Caiti and James have stated this music was written while watching from afar as the nation was on fire in late 2019 and early 2020, and it does surely resound with a strong vibe of beginnings, endings, and an overall sense of something happening and things never being the same again afterwards.

The nine-song collection opens with “No More”, establishing the mood with dusty trip-hop beats, tremolo guitars, and a lyrical narrative about deserting everything one has ever known to go careening off into the unknown in search of some elusive grail. “Mirror” marries Manhattan jazz-bar piano and brushed drums with Caiti’s singing as playful as it is commanding, leading up to an anthemic and instantly-memorable chorus. “Walk with Yourself” is pure Lynch/Tarantino-soundtrack in waiting with its layered vocals, waltzing rhythm and spectrum of guitar sounds, while the upbeat single “Green Eyes” is a perfect dry-season soundtrack, all hand claps and whistle solos and upright bass and metaphorical-unless-they-aren’t lyrics about wanting a cup of tea
with Mary.

The mood audibly darkens as the album progresses, as the listener arrives at “Worth It” with its clanking industrial percussion and found sounds from within the walls of Darwin Correctional Centre, Caiti joined on the chorus by 15 of the women who occupy the facility to chilling and thrilling effect. Then comes the gorgeous acoustic hymnal “Carry You”, the solemn and ominous lowdown of “She’s Cruel”, and the I-will-make-my-home-here resolve of “Last Stop”, which rang particularly true for me on a personal note as I write these words on the 23rd anniversary of my own arrival in Darwin. Not since Dave Garnham’s “This Town” has the experience of arriving in and adopting this city been so wonderfully immortalised in song.

It all leads inexorably towards the album’s finale and centrepiece, “Welcome to the Aftermath.” Here we have a dark, melancholy melody, one of Mangohig’s sickest-ever beats (shades on for this one, seriously), Caiti’s vocals at their most formidable, and a sweeping, bass-heavy arrangement that properly imbues the piece with a grandiosity worthy of a Bond theme. “What a time to be alive,” Caiti sings, again and again, and you can interpret that sentiment any number of ways: as I sit here, it can’t help but feel relevant to the time of unprecedented fragmentation we’re currently living in. It ends the album dramatically and beautifully.

Caiti Baker’s “Mary of the North” is an engrossing record of richness and passion that deserves to be heard and owned by anyone with both speakers and an appreciation for poetic, soulful music that goes bone-deep. An album born of the classics that seems destined to stand alongside them.

Fletcher Kane Bowman
Darwin - May 31st 2020