Dustin Tebbutt and Lisa Mitchell’s collaborative 'Distant Call' tour is quite an anomaly; two artists who, in the prime of their careers, voluntarily shared a spotlight they could quite easily have basked in on their own.
By uniting, the duo of ethereal songwriters created an experience that was distinct and that may never be replicated.
There is a common strand to the music of both artists. They each whisper melancholy secrets in soft falsetto. It is not a given, however, that fans of one will necessarily be fans of the other. While they both paint landscapes with their words, they prefer different seasons.
Tebbutt, based in Sweden, produces atmospheric slow-burners that melt and drift gently like a winter glacier. Mitchell, although similarly prone to introspection, releases bursts of pop splendour that epitomise the freshness of spring.
Throughout the shared set, the two stylistically divergent artists alternated playing perhaps four songs each and then a duet while transitioning. Because of the constant climate change, the audience, like migratory birds, didn’t really know when it was time to fly south.
It was still a night where precious moments abounded, but within a context somewhat unfamiliar to gig goers. The harmonising of the heavenly voices of Tebbutt and Mitchell on ‘The Breach’ and ‘What Is Love’ was overpowering. Indeed, Tebbutt related that during their performance of the latter song in Brisbane, an audience member fainted with him speculating that it was caused by an overdose of “feels”.
Tebbutt similarly displayed his sense of humour when he fluffed the opening riff of Mitchell’s 'Pirouette'. He joked that if it was his song, he would have just kept going but that as it was hers it wouldn’t be respectful. It was his birthday, so all was forgiven.
When it was Mitchell’s turn, she gave a bare and fragile rendition of the tender prayer ‘Josephine’ and unleashed triumphantly on ‘So Much To Say’. Together, their cover of RÜFÜS’ ‘Innerbloom’ bloomed outwardly closing an evening that began with the quirky and endearing Alex the Astronaut.
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Alex, a recently graduated astrophysicist, has a brain unlike most. Her lyric: “There’s billionaires for presidents and parking fines at hospitals” from ‘Already Home’ received perhaps the most enthusiastic audience response of the evening. She can encapsulate such complex truths within simple couplets.
While Tebbutt and Mitchell are already in the stratosphere, Alex the Astronaut should join them there soon.
