Steve Vermeulen
Just caught one of your tracks on RTR FM, and the presenters chatted about this new album. Can't wait to hear your versions of these great songs
supersnipe
What a great album! An ingenious use of quarantine time by interpreting and recording a wonderful selection of their favourite Aussie songs from a hotel room. Emily and Lukas harmonize so well together. The album also introduces the likes of me to previously unknown artists. Okay, apart from Nick Cave!
Fourteen days in one room with no fresh air is not ideal by any stretch of the imagination, but in order to visit my family back here in Australia after almost two years away, my husband Lukas and I decided it was worth the time in quarantine.
We thought a good way to kill the hours would be to set ourselves a goal. Lukas suggested recording an album.
We crammed our suitcases with all the gear we would need and travelled with guitar and folding double bass. Just after we arrived, a friend dropped off mic stands and a keyboard at the hotel; we were set.
We hit the jackpot in the hotel lottery, finding ourselves in a large room at The Westin on Victoria Square in Perth city. Big windows (that don’t open) allowed the morning sun to fill the room and afforded us a view over St. Mary’s Cathedral where we watched people gather for weddings, funerals, christenings and Sunday service; there was a verdant park – a corner of which proved a popular meeting place with Indigenous families; a hospital equipped with helicopter landing pad; and a car park. It's a view now etched in our minds that we'll likely never forget.
For a while I’d been thinking of recording some covers of songs written by Australians and Lukas agreed that was a great idea for the album. Choosing which songs to record was tricky – there are so many great songs by Australian artists. For a while I had a playlist of potential tunes to record, but I hadn’t yet played them to Lukas nor thought about how they might fit together as an album. It was a process of simmering down to what songs felt right to present in a sparse way – songs that told a story and carried themselves without a big production. Also songs that felt right to sing. For example, Archie Roach is one of my favourite songwriters, but his songs are so unique to his life as an Indigenous Australian man and I couldn't find one that would work as a cover.
I found myself gravitating towards songs that meant a lot to me in my late teens growing up in WA – songs I would put on the tape deck of my yellow VW Beetle while driving to the coast with the windows down, singing at the top of my lungs. From that period we chose ‘Black the Sun’ by Alex Lloyd, ‘Mr. Milk’ by You Am I, ‘Tomorrow’ by Silverchair and ‘The Captain’ by Kasey Chambers. I also listened to anything and everything by The Waifs, and for obvious reasons, we chose ‘London Still’. The Church's 'Under the Milky Way' and Deborah Conway's 'Will You Miss Me When You're Sober' were staples as I was growing up. It was great to share these songs and artists with Lukas, and get his thoughts on them - turns out that he was also a big Silverchair fan as a teenager.
To complete the album we chose some more contemporary songs which we both knew. ‘Boys Will be Boys’ by Stella Donnelly we discovered when visiting a record shop in Fremantle a couple of years ago when we asked the retailer if he could recommend anything new. He was glowing about Stella’s EP ‘Thrush Metal’ which we bought on the spot. We then had the pleasure of sharing a stage with Stella at Billy Bragg’s ‘Songwriters in the Round’ at Glastonbury Festival in 2019. We couldn't not choose a Nick Cave song – after much discussion we landed on 'Push the Sky Away' – nor could we miss Paul Kelly, but rather than delving into his illustrious past, we chose one of his most recent songs, 'Sleep, Australia, Sleep', which shows he has lost none of his urgency and relevance as a songwriter.
Fighting through the fog of jet lag, we started recording on day two. We soon discovered some challenges recording in our hotel room: such as the amount of audio reflection from the big windows and mirrors; the constant hum of the refrigerator which despite all the pillows and instrument cases we piled up against it, can still be heard subtly in the recording; we had interruptions from choppers flying past, police and ambulance sirens, someone with a rowing machine in the room above us, and phone calls to our room from hotel reception letting us know our meals in paper bags were outside our door (we had to quickly put on a mask, open the door and grab our meal before it got cold).
Lukas, with bags of studio engineering experience and immense patience, overcame the setbacks and the days ticked by as he captured our performances. By day twelve, we had recorded ten songs by some of Australia’s finest songwriters and Lukas mixed the album over the final two days of a somewhat surreal, but productive stay.
credits
released January 13, 2022
Recorded by Lukas Drinkwater during hotel quarantine in Room 822 at The Westin, Perth, WA
Produced by Emily Barker and Lukas Drinkwater
Mastered by Ian Stephenson
Emily Barker is the award-winning songwriter and performer of the theme to BBC TV’s Wallander starring Kenneth Branagh. Her
music is an indie blend of influences from alt-country to folk via 60s pop, with comparisons ranging from PJ Harvey to Joni Mitchell....more
I was honoured to be invited by Merlyn Driver to contribute a track to this wonderful project. All proceeds go to support the RSPB and its work. Emily Barker
There's a similarity in song writing between Richard Thompson and Hugh Cornwell which maybe isn't surprising as they went to the same school at the same time, although Thompson is older.
Due to Thompson's association with John French of Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band I searched for his work on the Bandcamp app. French, Thompson and Cornwell all have albums on the app which I'm very pleased about. Only Thompson has released contemporary albums, much to his credit. yellowcakeuf6
John Drumbo French from Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band worked with Thompson on two albums along with Fred Frith and Henry Kaiser.
Those two French, Frith, Kaiser and Thompson albums led me to this.
Also, Richard Thompson taught Hugh Cornwell (of The Stranglers) how to play the bass guitar in a band when they were both at the same school (Emil and The Detectives?).
With a career spanning 50 years and playing with two of my heroes (French and Cornwell) Thompson has produced a fascinating EP. yellowcakeuf6
Irish singer-songwriter Oisin Leech's acoustic folk music is characterized by its muted beauty and intimate, solitary quality. Bandcamp New & Notable Mar 16, 2024
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