Music fans who know the name of singer-songwriter-guitarist Quint Starkie will, more than likely, associate said name with another singer-songwriter-guitarist of some musical and lyrical note, Francis Dunnery, for whom the Swedish based Starkie plays with in Francis Dunnery’s It Bites.

The associations don’t end there; Quint Starkie is a major fan of Francis Dunnery and influenced by his acoustic based songwriting style and use of melody
(heard to not just fine but outstanding effect on Starkie’s 2016 solo album Ghost in My Heart).

While the Dunnery-isms are evident there’s self-made musical art and lyrical craft to Quint Starkie’s material, as heard on latest solo offering Quintessential (I see what you did there, Mr Starkie), an album that is lyrically personal but musically light, airy and pleasant as a cool breeze or coastal drive.

Perhaps not coincidence then that the album opens with ‘Mr Maxwell,’ a “car song” about a Sunday drive shared between father and young son. Carrying a delightful feel-good vibe, the song also offers up a nice correlation between drive-time and your favourite song/s on the radio (“push the pedal to the floor, try to squeeze a little more… Bowie’s on the radio (floating in a tin can!”)

‘Mr Maxwell’ is one of two songs featured that first appeared as singles in 2020, better known as the year it all went pandemic-pear shaped. ‘Mr Maxwell’ and ‘Endless Summer’ (a reflective, smile-on-the-face song to love) were the better times ahead antithesis to the negativity of 2020; both deserve their Quintessential place here.

The newer material makes itself known across tracks such as the dreamy soul-pop of ‘Just Like You,’ which features delightful guitar remarks and lovely harmony & backing vocals (Tania Doko, Jule Wiegand, Dorie Jackson and Michael Kleimert all make themselves vocally known across various tracks) and the pop-bounce of ‘Hollywood,’ which is not without its poignancy (“LAX is the loneliest place in the world to find yourself when love takes off and leaves you…”).

There seems to be a similar LA (dis)connection (Quint Starkie lived in LA for a time) in the ballad ‘Fear of Flying’ (“I’m conquering this fear of flying, but taking off without you is frightening”) while the acoustic-led ‘Home Again’ is a lovely, re-grounding oneself number on the benefits of returning to where you truly belong (“thank you for the blessings of my family tree, my home is where my heart wants to be”).

There’s more pop-fun (with a soupçon of 70s era Stevie Wonder circling in the background) to be had with the simple but ridiculously engaging ‘Falling For the First Time’ before ‘Something I Couldn’t Be’ (a Bonus Track for Japan, where the album has CD release – global release later this month) closes out the album in the most moving of hard-choice circumstances (“When ambition finally hit me there was nothing I could do, California was there waiting and she chose me over you”).

Deeply personal in places it may be but this album is, as the title so emphatically states, Quintessential singer-songwriter listening.

Ross Muir
FabricationsHQ