PJ Harvey? No. Georgia Knight? Who? You’ll soon find out. The Australian singer-songwriter Georgia Knight’s debut record, Beanpole, is a dark, introspective meditation on desire—the Lacanian kind: desire rooted in the Other. Always is, isn’t? In some sense, we’re actors waiting to be seen and chosen, as if by a film director (where are you, Antonioni? Dead. Oh.). You won’t be hearing Knight drawing these conclusions—as the narrator, in the throes of an all-consuming desire, can barely think, let alone think critically.
Desire is about escaping yourself; this is why, on Beanpole, you will hear of a character wanting to be a “rockerbilly”, and, although it might seem silly, transcendence is at the heart of desire and, thus, the record.
Recorded between Knight and Andrew “Idge” Hehir at Northcote’s Soundpark Studios in 2023, Beanpole is purposefully incongruous. Knight, seemingly unconcerned with endowing the listener with a false sense of security through thematic consistency, finds greater sustenance in bringing together disparate songs—sonically, at least—and seeing what happens to them when they are in proximity to each other.
That being said, Beanpole could be defined as a scrappy collage of gothic, trip-hop numbers with an autoharp (yes, autoharp) to boot. Above all, though, Beanpole has a singular identity through the deployment of the autoharp—not only is it the driving force behind the album, but, even when it’s not played, it’s conspicuously absent.
In the first couplet of the opener, “Mingle”, Georgia Knight gives the record away: “I am looking to start fresh / I am looking to start anew.” Yes, Beanpole is about transformation and, inevitably, losing oneself in someone’s flesh, or the fantasy of it. “Let’s mingle,” Knight intones with a sultry voice, trickling like beads of sweat.
“Mingle” is a spooky, gothic tune, abetted by a scratchy autoharp, that, with a sense of déjà vu, leaves you wondering if this is White Chalk? Or Harvey‘s Australian waif child with Nick Cave? Either way, you haven’t heard this before, especially the blaring synths. Moreover, as a listener, you don’t know if you will be kissed or killed, or taken down to hell, not knowing which one is for the best.
With a spectral, trip-hop aesthetic indebted to Harvey’s Is This Desire?, comparisons to Harvey are inevitable but restrictive. Knight is an artist in her own right, as well as seeming to be a heir to Australian musicians Courtney Barnett (for her witty wordplay) and Julia Jacklin (for her wistful vocals).
The post-punk number, “Rockerbilly”, finds Georgia Knight speak-singing not unlike Hannah Merrick of the duo King Hannah, a drawling style that accentuates the juxtaposition and surrealism of the imagery, complete with skittery guitar lines, echoing the Fall by way of the Brooklyn art-punk band Gustaf. The third track, “Everybody Knows My Business Now”, is the apogee of Beanpole; an emotional ballad, which, with a sweeping and luscious chorus, brings to mind Sharon Van Etten‘s finest hour, Tramp (2012). Meanwhile, the acoustic guitar-led “City Gone to Seed” is a voyeuristic tale of a neighborhood from the narrator’s bedroom.
The strength of Beanpole, and what makes Knight stand out, lies in the trip-hop-laced numbers, wherein pulsive and gothic loops are set against her breathy vocals, complete with her diaristic lyrics, which seem profoundly shallow, or just shallow, with neither separate but merely a reflection of desire itself, an emptiness that cannot be assuaged or fulfilled.
The real highlight of the trip-hop songs is “Desire”, which cements the idea of desire as transcendence, where you hear and feel the narrator become invisible to the world and to herself, falling through the bottom end of the track; there is no end, no hell, despite its gothic sensibility. If this isn’t enough, Knight’s crystalline vocals echo Beth Gibbons of Portishead.
The next track, “Fix My Car”, aptly begins with the sound of a car radio changing stations. Of course, Georgia Knight is using the rock ‘n’ roll image of a broken-down car as a metaphor for a broken heart; the song goes nowhere, as if the vehicle is parked on the side of the road, building to, or, more accurately, reducing itself to reveal the chassis of a singer deeply, if not wholly, engulfed in inertia, abetted by a listless, jazzy snare roll (as if played by Jim White of the Dirty Three).
While “Not Bad at All” is guttural blues, complete with autoharp and percussion that again mirrors White Chalk, “Cut You Loose” is a lo-fi number, seemingly sung via a telephone line, which finds a narrator trying to expunge a lover, desire itself, their own self—a chain that must be broken.
With little room for other themes to percolate, the preoccupation with desire occasionally runs thin, but surely, this is Beanpole’s point: desire is unrelenting, a seductive fantasy that wraps itself around you like a lover’s or a phantom’s embrace. Furthermore, like desire, Beanpole can never fulfill itself, but it still tries and fails, and tries again. Whatever Georgia Knight’s intentions, Beanpole‘s failure to grasp desire is its success in showcasing desire.