Grace Under Pressure

The Advertiser: December 15, 1994

By Mike Gribble

  Jeff Buckley met his dad, 70s rock contemporary Tim Buckley, only once but in music both have been struck by a similar sense of love-sickness and devotion to raw, spontaneous passion. Jeff Buckley's debut album, Grace, is a soaring, unique mix of styles, without consistent or specific direction, but is underscored by lyrics pleading for understanding.

  Buckley's voice carries flecks of operatic strains, rock angst, and even reveals glimpses of child-like hesitancy. Captain Beefheart guitarist Gary Lucas paints Buckley's soundscapes with sparse and well placed caresses of strings.

  "A trademark of my presence has been that, at first glance, people either hate me and run away screaming, or we sit down and talk and get on with knowing each other," says Buckley, 27. "I've lived in bars since I was 14, doing gigs in southern California. I remember any gigs I did had a lot of range to them but I didn't do things with the same focus I have now.

  "Music is a force of nature; it's not really an art. The conventions built around music are art forms. I experience music as being like the wind, or ocean, or fire.

  "It comes perfectly natural to humankind. It gets into the bloodstream and you can hate it, or it can totally elate you.

  "Initially, songs come to me very easily but bringing them to full bloom takes a lot out of me. The way you see the song in your mind and the shape it takes...if you see any apprehension in the song, that's usually the way it came out when I first did it and I don't like to change it. I don't like to say it any better than that. I'm hard-pressed to find a different expression for it.

  "If it's a little rusty at the beginning, if it's like stars gathering in the galaxy, that's the way it comes out.

  "I love the place music takes you. It's like a whole other universe where all musics exist. Music takes time and it takes moments for people. It hovers like flies over a picnic before it goes in for the kill and you really...like, really experience it."

• Jeff Buckley will perform at the Big Day Out in Sydney and Melbourne. Adelaide fans should start requesting an SA visit through Sony Music.