Paul Kelly/Gerry Hale: Silent Partner<br> Various: One Night the Moon

By GRAHAM REID

(Herald rating: Silent Partner * * * * )

(Herald rating: One Night the Moon * * * )

Kelly is busting out all over the screen. Silent Partner is the soundtrack to an Australian flick of the same name and finds Kelly and multi-instrumentalist Hale (banjo, fiddle, mandolin) of the bluegrass outfit Uncle Bill (with whom Kelly recorded) on a series of mostly instrumental tracks.

They roam from the brooding Silver's Theme and Silver's On the Line through lively knees-up material and some bluesy stuff. With only a couple of vocal tracks — the underwhelming Be Careful What You Pray For opens proceedings — this is hardly an essential Kelly album. Although enjoyable in an undemanding way, it will mostly appeal to those of a country/bluegrass persuasion.

One Night the Moon is a soundtrack featuring Kelly (but mostly others) who appears in this tele-movie as a farming father in the 30s whose child wanders off one night and is lost in the bush. He won't have an Aboriginal tracker on his land to assist in the search.

In the absence of pictures we have a moving collection of music which has its own narrative thread (Kelly's daughter, Memphis, sings the lullaby about the pull of the moon) with alternating sonic landscapes of Celtic melodies and digeridoo.

Kelly's wife, Kaarin Fairfax, sings the part of the farmer's wife, Kelton Pell that of the tracker (songs written by Ken Carmody), and the whole is evocative, dramatic or reflective when required, and makes perfectly good sense in the absence of the images if the bare outline of the narrative is known. Let's hope someone picks up the ABC production, it "sounds" terrific.

Labels: EMI