Album Review: Dime

Attempting to pin down the style of an artist’s work using the lexicon of ‘genre’ can sometimes pose quite the challenge, forcing you into using some kind of triple hyphenated monstrosity or inventing a musical portmanteau so linguistically foul that insults the very concept of words.

What Callum Mower, who goes by the artist name Serebii, has assembled for his sophomore album Dime is a wide ranging blend of styles, textures and instruments, each song sounding like a unique exploration of a spontaneous idea, yet all coming together to form a concept album with an overall distinct and coherent feel throughout.

Instrumentally Serebii juxtaposes a stripped back and minimalistic approach, often utilising little more than a gently plucked/strummed acoustic guitar, with wandering chord arrangements demonstrating a highly developed sense for composition and rhythmically complex percussion that draws the listener in and demands further attention.

Though the musical and stylistic elements may vary from song to song Dime is tied together by Callum’s layered vocal harmonies which he flawlessly delivers with a laid back gentle precision reminiscent of artists like ‘Iron and Wine’ or ‘Thom York’.

Dime opens with the song Lungs and features a blissfully melancholic vocal performance from Tessa Dillon, one of many such collaborations on the album, that guides you from ethereal arpeggiated guitar and into a trip hop esque beat with a rolling and mysterious plucked melody that draws to mind Mike Oldfields Tubular Bells which famously went on to become the score for The Exorcist. If you were to listen to the beginning and the end of Lungs separately you would think they are two entirely unrelated tracks, but at no point in the song is there a jarring shift or sudden change that signals where you will end up is far far away from where you began.

As the album moves along we journey through an eclectic variety of grooves and textures ranging from a Latin samba feel on Goji to more traditional folk on Telling Lies but regardless of the stylistic elements employed there is a familiarity and consistency of tone throughout that binds each song to the greater whole.

The Randan is a mostly spoken word piece delivered by Callum’s grandfather as he poetically and empathetically reminisces of the awkward socialisation and inner doubt of adolescence viewed through the eyes of his older self. The story that unfolds is one that while unique in his experience feels almost universally shared.

With Dime Serebii manages to balance the aspects of performance and production in a way that even as things veer to the latter, it never feels robotic or over produced, every note, every texture feels thought out and intentional. Dime expertly displays the kind creative originality that not only signals a Rising talent on the New Zealand music scene but one fuelled with an ambition to carve out a sound of his own and add something unique to the musical tapestry of Aotearoa.