Kate Fagan and Lucie Thorne live @ The Basement, Sydney April 15 reviewed by Bernard Zuel in the Sydney Morning Herald 17/04/08 'Sound of music all about pluck'

Confidence is an odd creature. Before she released her first solo album early last year, Sydney's Kate Fagan had been playing with her family's folk band for many years and had established a name for herself as a poet of genuine talent.

She had a richly textured voice, a gift for lyrics and a deep understanding of folk and country's roots. What's more, her first album, Diamond Wheel, picked up an award or two.

Yet the most striking element of her performance on this impressive double bill at the Basement was the leap in assurance and adventure she has made in the past year. What was tentative last time I saw her was now certain; what was hinted at was being realised.

There was bite in that impressive voice. Not aggression, but she grabbed her songs vigorously, bringing them out of her record shells as Robbie Long described fluid electric guitar lines around her acoustic and her voice.

[T]he intersecting of her folk elements (the resonant voice and the traditional-sounding melodies and modalities) and the more country and blues-based structures made for fascinating blends.

On the evidence of new songs such as Breathe For Me, a graceful and quietly moving number sung at the piano, this fresh confidence promises even more rewards on the next album.

Bernard Zuel

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Diamond Wheel reviewed in the Sydney Morning Herald 13/07/07: 'Welcome to a major new Australian talent...'

The Fagans are this city's pre-eminent folk music family. Beyond the parental core of Margaret and Bob there are James, who spends most of his time playing bouzouki and guitar with Nancy Kerr, and Kate who, until this release, has devoted most of her career to the family group.

With this solo album Kate, with superb assistance from Rod McCormack (guitars), James Gillard (bass) and John Watson (drums), has demonstrated that she is a gifted singer and poet with the talent to become one of this country's enduring singer-songwriters.

Her music hovers between country and folk (think Shawn Colvin, Mary Chapin Carpenter) and her lyrics are lucid, emotionally persuasive and evocative.

Her palette of musical styles ranges from touching ballads such as Highway of Rainbows and through the backwoods folkiness of One More Drive and Dollar Bills and Diamond Towns to songs such as Roll You Sweet Rain, which sounds as though it is part of some ancient folk tradition. And, well, Clear Water sounds like a song Joni Mitchell forgot to add to one of her early albums.

Seriously, Diamond Wheel is that good. Welcome to a major new Australian talent.

Bruce Elder

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Diamond Wheel reviewed by Peggy Seeger (US):

What a treat, an album made by a poet who is a musician - or alternatively a musician who is a poet. Steeped in folk music all her life, Kate Fagan is coming into her own on her first album, Diamond Wheel. Her high range is now delicate now commanding, her low range glowing and precise. She is musically literate and the songs are very singable, the accompaniments excellent. The melodies are memorable and varied. She combines her education in literature with her knowledge of folksong, giving not only a solidity but a fanciful creativity that makes you listen to every line.

     There's a story for every road
     And a riddle for every rhyme
     Every high mountain once was a cold sea,
     Shall I go your way or will you go mine?

The texts are sometimes straightforward, sometimes almost mystical. Kate the Poet expects you to fill in the holes in the logic that lead you from the beginning to the end of the song. Kate the Musician provides variety: one or two songs are bleak and harsh (O Janey Janey), others begin solo and draw you in as the harmonies develop. Then there's the plain old passionate love song: 'Love me now, love me now'... 'my door is open' - and she wants the key to yours. A thoroughly adult album, where the music speaks for itself and the singer is content to facilitate. These songs have been carefully crafted - no filler lines or easy get-out endless repetitions of the same words. Best of all, not a 'yeah yeah' anywhere. The album held me from beginning to end. Only twelve tracks - and then you put track 1 on again and go with her down her 'highway of rainbows'.

Peggy Seeger
Asheville, NC
April 14 2006

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Diamond Wheel reviewed in the Canberra Times 19/05/06:

The world is full of entirely too many songwriters, most of whom write little more than self-indulgent twaddle, so when a really good one like this pops up every now and again there is an extra pleasure to it. This is a CD full of well crafted songs from the youngest of Sydney's well known Fagan family and which received the National Film and Sound Archive Folk CD of the Year award at this year's National Folk Festival. The songs have real tunes with subtle melodic hooks and lyrics full of evocative imagery, all sung with that rare skill of the great folk singer of being totally involved in the song. It is recorded in an acoustic folk/country style which slips around the songs like a glove.

Graham McDonald

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Diamond Wheel reviewed in Country Update 30/08/06:

Steeped all her life in storyingtelling traditions, Kate Fagan has managed to discover a niche somewhere between older folk forms and a more impressionistic poetic language that sits musically and lyrically somewhere between Lucy Kaplansky, Natalie Merchant, Suzanne Vega and early Joni Mitchell... What struck me on first listen was the assuredness of her delivery. This is her first venture into the world as a solo artist and you don't detect an ounce of self-doubt. She knows exactly where she's going and what she's trying to achieve... With a distinctive Australian voice and poetic skills beyond the range of most contemporary popular music she gives the material a depth that sometimes takes a few listens to appreciate. It's a welcome change to hear lyrics that go beyond the current rhyming schemes of the day.

Kim Cheshire

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See also Kate Fagan interviewed for ABC News Radio by Demetrius Romeo