Photo: Giovanna Ferin
Elliot Smith – Figure 8
I learned about musical solitude from Elliot Smith. It’s an album I’ve spend a lot of time with. It delves into heartache and loneliness and awkwardness, all the while making you a friend. And the melodies oh my!
The moments I really connect with, are when it’s just him and a guitar or piano, grappling with himself, like on ‘Everything Reminds Me of Her’ or ‘Everything Means Nothing To Me’, the lonely piano in the corner of the room, then it hits you all at once with the Lennon-esque drums and synths.
I didn’t actively seek to mirror any of this album, but there’s no way it hasn’t lodged itself into my musical consciousness and blossomed through my new album.
This YouTube clip captures him beautifully.
Suzanne Vega – Solitude Standing
Leonard Cohen – Songs of Leonard Cohen
Probably no surprises here – Cohen, the enlightened father figure of introspective, brooding folk music; the righteous keeper of lyrical mind-fuckery and shrewd observation.
Another album I actively sought to emulate in some way or another, I had been reading the brilliant and inspiring A Broken Hallelujah by Liel Leibovitz, whilst recording the album, and took definite cues from his bare-bones recording style. Equally inspiring, as it was frustrating learning of how this album came to be: his intolerance for accompanying instrumentation, as well his incredibly resolute vision for his own music; his focus and quiet confidence.
The simplicity of the album’s instrumentation inspired me; the combination of beautiful finger-picking and rollicking bass-line swimming around his melodies. And then there’s all the evocative imagery and sharp-witted observations that prompt the listener to obsessively keep up with his intellect and religious obsession.
Another connection: my orthodox Jewish schooling and religious reckoning later on, helped me into his music. And reading about his own profound relationship with Judaism and Jewish literature was deeply inspiring and incredibly relatable – a topic I broach on The Weightless Hour.
Kevin Morby – City Music
An album I constantly return to and in return have been inspired by creatively. It’s beautifully grounded and clever and wry. His knack for balancing conviction with nonchalance is wonderful. Lyrically he nods at John Prine, musically at times, it draws on The Velvet Underground and Townes Van Zandt.
He marries old-fashioned American rock ’n’ roll and roots Americana. I definitely have that musical backbone in common – I adore rock ’n’ roll, equally I adore Americana. I live half in the clouds and half on the dirt track. Maybe that’s having grown up in a no-nonsense Australia but with the Eastern European folklore hanging around in the ether. Either way, the sound and soul of this record has definitely inspired me.
