STACK #163 May 2018

MUSIC NEWS

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save the scraps for later. “Ninety-nine percent of the time I wouldn’t use songs from a previous [era of writing for a new album] because they’ll probably be about different things, that I’ll hopefully at least have processed ,” she laughs, “to where I’m kind of a better person!” She may, she says, use some material for an upcoming project/performance on the 90-year-old pipe organ at Melbourne Town Hall, but Sugar Still Melts In The Rain is (like her previous three albums) a project about the emotional now. Opener Flow Over Me , single Sugar Still Melts In The Rain and the wonderful Bauble On A Chain are all stand-outs, but closer Felt My Heart is next level. "I use pretty obvious chord progressions, so maybe I’m a little bit into the practice of having to work a bit harder to make the melodies more interesting," she says of the track's absolutely beautiful, repeated, dropped vocal interval (during the line "I felt my heart fly like a dart, through the dark"). "That was super annoying to sing! There was a point where I was like, 'This song sucks, why am I even bothering?'" she laughs. "But I'm glad it worked out." ZKR

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SARAH MARY CHADWICK S arah Mary Chadwick’s vocal delivery is one of the most convincing you’re ever going to hear – there’s almost no distance between her self and her singing voice, and her spare (but not thin) arrangements mean you feel every little papercut her heart-twisting voice inflicts. The pianist-singer-songwriter says she’d written around 40 songs from which to assemble new 12-track LP Sugar Still Melts In The Rain , but she’s unlikely to

Sugar Still Melts In The Rain by Sarah Mary Chadwick is out May 11 via Rice Is Nice.

SLOWLY SLOWLY Melbourne's Slowly Slowly are led by the impassioned, vulnerable, rock knack of frontman Ben Stewart. Read the full Q&A with Stewart about the four-piece's second album St. Leonards at stack.com.au. Words Tim Lambert

reason (and I haven’t felt it with anyone else ever), when I listen to a piece of music with him I know we are hearing the same thing. We both consume music in exactly the same obsessive way, and for the most part have the same taste, so I guess because of that we don’t really trust anyone else or want to include anyone else in the life cycle of our music. It is a rare situation that you have two people that can get along so well, but can also keep each other in check. The album sways between those big tracks like Ten Leaf Clover and Alchemy and then more delicate and intimate songs likeThe Butcher'sWindow and St. Leonards .Was that balance something you were conscious of when writing? We didn’t go into the process thinking we were going to create something with so many peaks and valleys, but at the same time our ears were tuned into not messing with the stories for the sake of it. We didn’t want unnecessary effects to pull you out of the moment. They were written in quiet, retrospective moments, and we wanted that translated. The Butcher’s Window and St. Leonards are exactly unchanged from their initial form. [They’re] some of those lucky moments you live for as a songwriter where you just conjure a song out of the air and it is given to you all finished.

This being your second album, what lessons did you keep in mind going into recording? In the months after our first album Chamomile was released, the first batch of new songs I wrote had a real sense of confidence about them which I hadn’t experienced before. It took some time to wrestle with the idea that we had something to live up to, but Alex [Quayle, bassist and producer] and I worked

through all my different phases of creativity, and tried our best to pull the gems out when they appeared. I think I am a little more tuned into that feeling of ‘This has something special about it’ now – when to manipulate an idea and when to just step back. Especially in regards to recording. You kept the recording process mostly DIY; how important was it for yourself and Alex to keep it in-house? Alex and I are two

people with very different skill sets and approaches to recording music, but for some strange

St. Leonards by Sowly Slowly is out May 11 via Unified.

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MAY 2018

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