With vocals soaked in honeyed indie-folk roots, Thelma Plum has garnered an ever-increasing level of attention over the past few years.
At just 18 years of age, Plum has raced into public consciousness and won both a Deadly Award and a Triple J Unearthed spot performing at the National Indigenous Music Awards while at it.
Hopping onto the stage, Plum glowed with kind humility and immediately thanked the crowded room for coming. While her lyrics buckled under a devastating sincerity, it was Plum’s own modesty of character that charmed the audience into a respectful silence.
With close friend Andrew Lowden’s piano accompaniment building a barrier around the songstress, the tempo rose and crashed in accordance with Plum’s voice. Rolling over the notes with a liquid charm, Plum reached towards similarities to Laura Marling or Julia Stone, and fell gracefully back into her own deeper idiosyncrasies.
Streaming through her debut EP Rosie, Plum jumped between emotions with the catchier, more upbeat “Around Here” and “Dollar”, and the slower “Breathe In Breathe Out” and “Father Said”. Even going on to perform a bleeding cover of Chris Isaak’s “Wicked Game”, a tune fitting of Plum’s own musical direction, this Perth-born singer was angelic in her recital.
However, the highlight of the show was easily her heartbreaking “Apple”. Crying out a plea of tender desperation, the tune is drenched in a resounding desolation that is crushingly earnest. Within this piece, Plum radiates an understated talent with a natural ease.
However, this young musician rarely deviates from the archetypal focuses of artists from her age demographic – a constant bitterness bites the edges of the lyrics, which follow themes of teenage love affairs and the loss thereof.
Though her deliverance of this clinging animosity was performed at a level of startling musical professionalism, these topics became repetitive and the stories told became indecipherably tangled. Still, each song alone was heavy with an emotional depth and Plum’s enormous vocal range built layers of meaning upon the unrequited love discussed within her tunes.
With a sweeping gratitude laced by a youthful innocence, Plum chatted sweetly with the crowd between tracks. These moments of banter, though often one-sided despite her prodding, were pleasingly becoming of her set overall.
The anecdotal explanations preluding each number allowed Plum to emphasise the deep sense of loss in her lyrics, leaving the ballads in a more emotionally bloated state than the recorded versions. The comfortable confidence of her presence faltered within each song as she dipped into her heartbreaks and vulnerabilities.
In doing so, the impact of her set was shattering to the entranced crowd below. Ending with a cover of Jermih’s “Birthday Sex”, Plum left on a tongue-in-cheek high.
