Music / Reviews
Review: Felipe Baldomir, Exchange – ‘A deep breath out’
Felipe Baldomir plays like someone who’s found his rhythm and is in no rush to let it go.
Born in Uruguay, seasoned in Australia, and now roaming Europe for a few months, he turns the modest Exchange stage into a little coastal sanctuary.
It’s part jam session, part postcard from Bondi — complete with sun-bleached locks and bare feet clicking loop pedals.
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Baldomir’s brand of indie-folk is most captivating when it’s solely instrumental.
There are plenty such passages, and a definite blueprint at play: he starts with quick-plucking rhythms on his acoustic guitar, before wandering with a broad smile to thrum out chords on keys, then over to the drum machine, and finally he clips in his sax and lets rip with a sweet, meandering solo. A steady kick-drum bass underscores the whole pleasant affair.
It’s really impressive from a one-man-band perspective, and easy-listening fit for the quiet Monday night crowd.
Baldimor brings abit of Bondi sun to a gloomy Monday night Exchange
There’s weight and feeling in his voice, too. It has a raspiness reminiscent of Matt Corby or Jack Rollins (of Sons of the East), and he works in falsetto vocables nicely.
But for the most part, Baldomir’s vocals — especially live — are cursive and oblique, struggling to complement the brilliant instrumentation behind the lyrics.
Baldomir is touring in support of new EP Strangers, Lovers. The titular song has a catchy chorus and fun riffs, while In The Moment is a calling card for the carefree life the singer-songwriter promotes.
All four studio recordings come in under three minutes; he brings far more textural joy to them in live performance.
Both of Baldomir’s LPs — Tides from last year, and Only Light back in 2020 — equally lean on bucolic imagery and the call of the coast. It’s idealistic, airy, feel-good music, especially Colours — a sweet love song with a gorgeous, sonorous sax break from that debut album.
In Chasing the Sun, Baldomir chants a chorus that seemingly pays homage to Ben Howard’s iconic folk debut Every Kingdom.
Honestly, the themes across Felipe Baldomir’s growing catalogue don’t vary too much.
A cynical critic might point out a lack of nuance or allude to toxic positivity, but perhaps hope, warmth, love, and collective spirit — pillars of the sunny coastal sensibility — are calling cards more of us should get on board with?
Take the song Free, for example. You already know what you’re getting into: a call-to-arms of sorts, promoting the age-old soiree of following your dreams (Baldomir “quit everything” after studying Architecture to pursue music).
For that number, he deploys the harmonica to wonderful effect and is accompanied on stage by tour buddy Jordy Maxwell.
One man band: with “hands-on craftsmanship” Baldomir loops guitar, keys and drum machine, then adds sax over the top
Curating a mood rooted in escape, Baldomir isn’t reinventing the wheel — but he draws plenty of personality from all the instruments dotted about the stage.
His impressive, hands-on craftsmanship perhaps now calls for an expanded emotional palette. Still, he’s offering something many crave: music that feels like a deep breath out.
All images: Samuel Fletcher
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