Hero Fisher is a very special kind of performer. I knew of her even before I’d ever seen her play, because her good friend Martin Solomon, who fronts the equally wonderful band WIM, would often rhapsodise over coffee and cigarettes that his muse was ‘the best singer on the face of the Earth.’ Certainly, the young and able Fisher is in a field inhabited by few other musicians in this country; a little bit folk, a little bit alternative-pop and ultimately just a girl with a guitar who really knows what she’s doing, she’s mesmerising to watch. Hero is someone I can pull a Joni Mitchell comparison from far more immediately than Laura Marling, perhaps not so much in tone as in her unique songwriting approach. It’s remarkably unconventional which is precisely what makes it – and her – such an alluring prospect as an entertainer. Often I’ve seen Hero perform with friends of mine; WIM, The Preachers and more, but there’s a reason the blonde chanteuse keeps getting called up on stage by her peers. You’re about to find out why.
‘Fear Not Victorious’ is the opening piece on Hero’s debut EP, which comes out this week and is pretty astounding. The reason I’ve chosen it is because it really demonstrates Fisher’s ability to take a simple motif and turn it into something hauntingly beautiful. A pedal octave acoustic-guitar part is a constant throughout the song, but it gives Hero a launch pad to ramble off into her lyrics in an almost free-verse, Jack Kerouac-meets-Patti Smith kind of way that just doesn’t happen anymore in pop music that isn’t by Conor Oberst. This sort of approach means that we get to hear Hero’s warm low vocal tone as well as her upper register, and sometimes you forget it’s the same person singing. More importantly, everything that comes out of her mouth sounds like poetry, and it helps that a lot of it is. Wonderful words couched by a wonderful voice is always twice as exciting.
Helped out by instrumentalists from WIM, Hero throws in dashes of colour – a snare march here, a cello there – but essentially the song is all about her. The intense power of the chorus here is undeniable, and again it’s done by making something monumental out of very little. To say that Hero takes a minimalist tack to folk would be a stretch, everything here is very ornate even though it may not seem like it. But what she does manage to do is arrange her work so that the only thing you are consciously listening to on the first few spins is her melody, and that melody sticks to the wall like Flubber. It’s the soundtrack to the last episode of the last season of a TV show about your life. The harmonies around the bridge at three minutes are when the rain starts pouring down and the significant other walks away forever. But as we all know, nobody ever remembers the characters after many years, but they sure as hell remember the song. Keep your eye out for Hero Fisher, she’s an authentic, breathing art form.
Hero Fisher – ‘Fear Not Victorious’ [Premiere]
(Sydney folk, Hero’s EP launch is tomorrow evening at Low 302, one of our favourite venues. See you there.)
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