Orville Peck: a masked singer before The Masked Singer.
BRONCO, by Orville Peck
With a desperate baritone sometimes akin to a young Johnny Cash, coupled with Chris Isaak's moulded falsetto - and his face shrouded in a veil like a concubine in a harem - Orville Peck was always going to attract attention: a masked singer before The Masked Singer.
Add melodrama - think Bruce Springsteen's album Western Stars for Kalahari Down and Let Me Drown on this, Peck's second album - and the man calling himself Orville covers broad, commercially familiar country music.
Peck, who was supposedly born Daniel Pitout in Johannesburg and started a musical career in Vancouver punk bands, is also gay, although most wouldn't discern that from his songs, which don't announce it.
Often on Bronco, he defaults to easy country tropes, as in Outta Time, which namechecks the Pacific Coast Highway, Denver, old blue jeans, Reno and Elvis.
Denne historien er fra May 7 - 13, 2022-utgaven av New Zealand Listener.
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Denne historien er fra May 7 - 13, 2022-utgaven av New Zealand Listener.
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