Pig City
SABRINA LAWRIE - Hush the Mountain LP
$29.95
Includes download code.
Australian music hasn’t thrown up too many genuine auteurs – figures whose creative vision and breadth of skills encompasses and infuses the entire process of making a record. Think of artists like Prince or Björk. Lawrie is one such figure. She is the rarest of the rare. Sabrina does it all. She is a great songwriter, a superb live performer, a crack guitarist (and pretty much anything else she wants to play), and a singer of enormous power and depth. It is hard to think of anyone else who does so many things so well and somehow remains the country’s best-kept musical secret. Sabrina plays a mixture of dark pop, brooding stoner rock and psychedelia, all of it topped by a voice that has no right to explode from such a tiny frame. Her shape-shifting songs, which rarely follow conventional structures, are by turns aggressive and restrained, mind-bendingly strange, and often eerily beautiful. We’ve been waiting for her first solo album (with her band The Hunting Party) seemingly forever, which she’s been recording with Darek Mudge at The Shed. It’s been brewing like a fine wine. Songs have come and gone, been written and re-worked and re-made. There’s also been a trip to LA, during which time she hooked up with the Silver Chords, played festivals with bands including the Black Angels and the Strawberry Alarm Clock, and made friends and jammed with Nick Oliveri and Dave Catching (earthlings?, Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal) until her visa ran out. Lots of real-life shit has happened, too. Her first child Quinn arrived two years ago. Earlier this year, with recording all but complete, a serious, near-fatal fall saw her hospitalised with a broken back, ribs and left wrist. With a plate of eight screws in her back, Sabrina will be setting off airport metal detectors for the rest of her life. Sabrina and Darek will be back in the studio in August, completing final mixes. Two albums’ worth of material have been recorded. The first will show off a gentler, more ambient side with electronic touches. The second will be a powerhouse of the hook-heavy rock which live audiences have come to expect.
Australian music hasn’t thrown up too many genuine auteurs – figures whose creative vision and breadth of skills encompasses and infuses the entire process of making a record. Think of artists like Prince or Björk. Lawrie is one such figure. She is the rarest of the rare. Sabrina does it all. She is a great songwriter, a superb live performer, a crack guitarist (and pretty much anything else she wants to play), and a singer of enormous power and depth. It is hard to think of anyone else who does so many things so well and somehow remains the country’s best-kept musical secret. Sabrina plays a mixture of dark pop, brooding stoner rock and psychedelia, all of it topped by a voice that has no right to explode from such a tiny frame. Her shape-shifting songs, which rarely follow conventional structures, are by turns aggressive and restrained, mind-bendingly strange, and often eerily beautiful. We’ve been waiting for her first solo album (with her band The Hunting Party) seemingly forever, which she’s been recording with Darek Mudge at The Shed. It’s been brewing like a fine wine. Songs have come and gone, been written and re-worked and re-made. There’s also been a trip to LA, during which time she hooked up with the Silver Chords, played festivals with bands including the Black Angels and the Strawberry Alarm Clock, and made friends and jammed with Nick Oliveri and Dave Catching (earthlings?, Queens of the Stone Age, Eagles of Death Metal) until her visa ran out. Lots of real-life shit has happened, too. Her first child Quinn arrived two years ago. Earlier this year, with recording all but complete, a serious, near-fatal fall saw her hospitalised with a broken back, ribs and left wrist. With a plate of eight screws in her back, Sabrina will be setting off airport metal detectors for the rest of her life. Sabrina and Darek will be back in the studio in August, completing final mixes. Two albums’ worth of material have been recorded. The first will show off a gentler, more ambient side with electronic touches. The second will be a powerhouse of the hook-heavy rock which live audiences have come to expect.
