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MUSIC FEATURE

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the classic songwriters she loved growing up: Chrissie Hynde, The Kinks, The Beatles, John Lennon, Prince, Holland-Dozier Holland. It’s also something David

Bowie explored, though it’s a different facet of that artist’s universe she points to in the way izzi – an album about ”regret, revival and renewal, and a love letter to life as a performing artist” unfurled: identity. ”The whole premise of being

I'm a very forthright person – I don't like to faff around

in the entertainment industry – being an entertainer, a performer, and

a songwriter, and a recording artist, and a touring artist – they are so many different identities within themselves,” she explains. ”I’ve already had the privilege of working for ten years in the biz. I get

it – I understand how they intersect, within myself. But I think what was great about having so much reflection time with this album was that I could really tease apart that alter-ego that was ’Izzi’ in The Preatures. I didn’t want

to be her forever, and I needed to create room for myself to be able to grow beyond her. ”It’s just like David Bowie did, with Ziggy Stardust,” she continues. ”He created that character to be the rockstar for a few albums, and then he had to pull himself out of it because he lost himself in it. If the last couple of years have given me anything, it’s a real grounding in who I am as a person, as a wife, as a mother, as a friend, as a daughter; I have responsibilities, people I care about, and a community. I need to get up and do the dishes. I can’t lose myself to a character, but I can be that character and I can envelop myself in her like a cloak – like a superhero – when I have to.”

izzi by Isabella

Manfredi is out now via Island.

INTERVIEW

Starry synth lines, melodies deep and butterfly-high, babbling sax, and the parallel vulnerability and boldness of classic songwriting: former Preatures frontwoman Isabella Manfredi has delivered a debut solo LP which glints with moxie.We spoke to the musician about her new album, izzi . Words Zoë Radas ISABELLA MANFREDI

On izzi , Manfredi found her solo groove in working with other women artists – Stella Donnelly, Alex Hope, Erica Ender and, most notably, Emma Louise. Manfredi’s connection with the Cairns born singer-songwriter becomes apparent via a cute story about track Only Child . In this stand-out cut, metallic counter-rhythms and tuned gulps of deep tom-tom are laced

O n her first solo album away fromThe Preatures – the band she built and loved within her heart’s cockles for 11 years – Isabella Manfredi makes us privy to a distillation of that thing the Vanda &Young Award-winning musician has always flung throughout her songwriting: her chutzpah in turning a melody or rhythm on a dime, pivoting quickly with a lightness of step. ”When my spirit is flowing in a session, I think that’s naturally what I do, and it’s a bit of a signature that I’ve never had an

opportunity to develop until now – until this this record,” she tells us. ”I like something that feels muscular, and… well edited. It’s the Mars in Virgo in me! I’m like, just get to the point! ”I’m also a very forthright person, so I don’t like to faff around. I like to just – give it to me in three minutes, give me three minutes-thirty, just bam! Bam! Bam!” It’s something that she appreciates in

Cairns-born, LA-residing singer-songwriter Emma Louise, who co-wrote three of izzi 's tracks with Manfredi

through with a beat based on a particularly feminine – and intriguingly off-the-cuff – field recording, created spontaneously one afternoon in LA...

Continue reading the full interview online at stack.com.au

68 SEPTEMBER 2022

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