Kavisha Mazzella - Official website

What Paul Barr of Readings Books and Music Monthly (feb 2003) says about "Silver Hook Tango"

" Kavisha Mazzella, one of the brightest stars on the Australian folk scene, has produced a beauty with her fourth and latest enstallment Silver Hook Tango. Taking the masterstroke perfect musical settings to accompany her dreamy poetic word pictures. Mazzella's beautiful singing works so well with  Gerry O'Beirne 's ravishing impressionistic array of guitar sounds (6 &12 string,nylon and slide and ukelele). Kavisha's passionate musings on love, loss,travel, refugees and spirituality have never sounded this good and some of the more freeform tracks like "Rose in the Bones" and "Eagle Fying "show her heading in an exciting new direction. And Gerry's "Half Moon Bay"cd is an essential listen." Paul Barr

  ABC RADIO FAR NORTH

Tender, heart broken and hopeful –Kavisha Mazzella on stage, and on this album, exudes warmth and togetherness. A few days ago I revisited her new disc Silver Hook Tango, after a two-week break, and found myself swooning. I’d met again a dear friend. Her music is suffused with intimacy. I’m sure that this album will remain a firm favourite of mine.

Kavisha is Australian with a Burmese/Irish/Scottish mum and an Italian dad. She grew up in Perth and in the 1980’s was singing traditional Italian songs in cafés. She also sings superbly in English with a voice that emerges from deep within her.

She now lives in Melbourne where she leads La Voce Della Luna, an Italian community choir. She is also a firm favourite at Australian music festivals. Her beautiful voice and inclusive manner has her involved in many community projects.

The songs on her fourth disc Silver Hook Tango are intensely personal songs about love and lost love. The circumstances are often fraught. Passionate love is like that.

Fool That I Am begins with: “You didn’t have to raise a fist to hurt me, you just opened up your clever mouth to speak” and continues with: “Girl don’t rescue any lonesome cowboys, let no man waste your precious time, who’ll suck the life from you. – What good is love if there is not respect, passionate embrace, without tenderness.” Can’t argue with that.

I first heard most of this album on ABC radio from a concert Kavisha performed with an exceedingly expressive Irish guitarist called Gerry O’Beirne. It was exquisite. O’Beirne backs up on the album but in a band setting, which both adds and detracts from the superlative experience of Kavisha’s song writing and singing. Perhaps the ABC should consider releasing the concert on disc.

In the meantime consider buying this album. You might then consider the likes of Eva Cassidy and Norah Jones a little antiseptic in comparison. Kavisha’s music on Silver Hook Tango is very feminine, very motherly. Silver Hook Tango is soaked in melancholy, and with that is joyous.

- Steve Baker