Bart Cummings has reunited with his former Shapiros bandmate Pam Berry and enlisted Louis Richter, Mark Monnone and Stanley Paulzen (The Lucksmiths, Mid-State Orange, Fred Astereo) to help out on this 8-song EP; his first recordings in almost a decade. As underground indiepop icons go, Bart is certainly one of Australia’s most enduring and best kept secrets. A founding member of The Cat’s Miaow and later of Hydroplane and Pencil Tin, he has spent two decades warming the hearts of wistful bedsitters the world over. Intimate and conversational in style, Bart’s songs are something of a cross between Yo La Tengo, the Go-Betweens and Felt. And with his inclination for brevity and knack for spinning the most ordinary of situations into something to hold dear, he may also be the pop world’s closest link to Raymond Carver. Over the years, Bart has stayed true this formula; Make You Blush heralds his first new recordings since Bart & Friends’ I Was Lonely ’Til I Found You mini-album of 2001, and (thankfully, to these ears) he is showing no discernible deviation from the music he was making in the mid-90s: dreamy, jangly and sublime.
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