Will Conner - Southern Hemisphere

Will Conner first hit my radar a few years ago, seen jamming with Beau Young in a documentary about the latter on cable TV. It wasn't until this year's East Coast Blues & Roots Festival at Byron Bay that I stumbled upon the Byron local again, this time playing a set on the smallest stage with among others, Jack Johnson sitting in, as seemed to become the norm for the Easter weekend.

That pretty much sums up what you can expect from Will Conner's debut album Southern Hemisphere. Simple beach-side acoustic grooves create an album that's exactly what we've come to expect from the contemporary surf music scene. There's no way musicians entering this scene will ever escape the Jack Johnson comparisons; at least not without escaping the scene altogether, a la Donovan Frankenreiter's 2006 release Move By Yourself.

The best they can really do is go with the genre and put their own spin on it and hope it comes off as their own unique contribution to the scene. This is what Conner has done with his debut effort. Fitting to its title, the album is undeniably Australian, filled with the kinds of colloquialisms that we'd hear if Paul Kelly were a 20-something Byron surfer.

The album takes a very low-key approach from start to finish. Conner's vocals are intriguing and inviting at first, but to bring the inevitable Jack Johnson comparison back for a second, where Jack succeeds with his strong vocals taking centre stage, here Will's voice doesn't feel quite energetic enough to keep a listener excited for the duration. It's perfect for the few choice singles of the album on their own but at 43 minutes, Southern Hemisphere is best served over the course of a few short trips between the house and the beach.

At 14 tracks, it's a hefty debut effort; most are around the 2:30-3:00 mark, as can be expected of the genre. Perhaps Conner could have been better served by being a tad bit more selective, culling a couple of tracks to improve the flow of things. Standout tracks include the opening 'Break Me Down', 'Home'. The final number, 'I Saw the Light', a religious number coming from left-field on an otherwise idealistically simple album was perhaps one of the bolder choices of the album, paying off in showing a different and more expressive side to the artist, showing definite influence by Ben Harper, complete with a backing slide guitar.