BEAUTIFUL THINGS FORMER PERTH LADY CATHERINE TRAICOS’ LATEST ALBUM GLORIOSA IS SETTING THE BAR FOR EXCELLENCE WITHIN AUSTRALIAN MUSIC, WRITES TONY MCMAHON.
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s singer/songwriter Catherine Traicos the best new talent this country has to offer at the moment? There was her delightful debut, Gone, as assured a first album as any in recent memory. Then there was her stunning follow up, The Amazing, which pushed the limits of the possibilities of the singer/songwriter’s art, garnering an album of the month gong in The Age and album of the year in this very publication. And now we have Gloriosa, somewhat more of a band album than Traicos’ previous work, utilising the prodigious talents of semi-supergroup The Starry Night. Drum opens with the question of whether or not Traicos felt any performance anxiety making Gloriosa. But it seems, oddly enough given what a superstar she is, that the anxiety was all about other things. “It always really comes down to my own opinion. I think that sometimes we feel anxiety because we know we can be good. I’m also convinced that we need a bit of anxiety to get us motivated. I was kind of thinking that I needed to move away from what I’d done before, particularly in the sense of getting a band together. That’s something I’ve always had stage fright with. Dealing with instruments is much easier than dealing with people. But people have been encouraging me to get others to play with me, and the band kind of formed from that.”
…AND IT HAS A SMELL. IT’S SO MUCH MORE ALIVE.”
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Gloriosa was produced by Paul McKercher, who has worked with Augie March, You Am I and The Cruel Sea, just to name a few. Interestingly, though, Traicos says that it wasn’t his status as a bigtime producer that attracted her so much as some telling personal interaction. “I was studying audio production and he came and lectured us. He’s so inspiring as a lecturer. I just thought, ‘I think I might ask him to produce my next album’. I asked him how much he charged and he was way out of my price range. Then a few months later I sent him a copy of The Amazing and a few songs I was working on. He emailed me and said ‘the songs are growing on me. I’d like to work with you’. So, that’s how that happened. He was so inspiring to work with. He even came along to rehearsals: that’s just above and beyond for a producer, really.” Despite the fact the man is obviously a wealth of knowledge, Traicos reassures that he is still willing to learn. “When he was giving his lecture, he said something about how musicians should always try and avoid scraping the strings on their instruments and how much he hated that kind of thing. I kind of stood up and took issue with that and said that I thought sometimes string scrapes could add to the charm of a song, like with Elliot Smith, for example. He immediately took back what he’d just said and conceded that sometimes they can really work for a song. He’s just someone who’s constantly brushing up on his knowledge. It’s so great.” But it’s not only McKercher’s skills at the desk that were responsible for the magnificent warmth of this record. The instrumentation on Gloriosa is as well thought out as any in this writer’s recent memory, making adroit use of the delicious balance between electric and acoustic guitar, cello, pedal steel and Wurlitzer, among others. Traicos explains that there was also another decidedly old school aspect to the process. “We recorded it to tape, which was quite difficult at times. The tape machine kept overheating. But it was unbelievable how much better it sounded, how much more of a wonderful warmth it gave it. It’s going to be released on vinyl; we just got the pressings last week. So that’s exciting. Vinyl is a much more engaging experience, and it has a smell. It’s so much more alive.” This, of course, begs the question of how Traicos and her band will go about reproducing this warmth on stage. It seems that the singer/ songwriter has supreme faith in the outfit she has assembled, and that she thinks the wildly different animals of live and studio music will present no barrier. “That’s always a tough one, isn’t it? I think that recreating the studio sound comes down to that ability to have pretty sharp ears, to be able to hear stuff and to follow suggestions and to give each other helpful advice. Then, it’s like we just have to work together to create it. We did have a keyboard player who filled in a lot of the sounds that we created in the studio, but unfortunately she’s moved back to Tamworth, which is pretty sad because she was fantastic. So, we kind of mix it up a bit. I play a bit of keyboard and we have an amazing guitarist who can switch pedals really quickly.” Gloriosa is being released through Traicos’ and her manager Gawain Davies’ own independent label An Ocean Awaits Records. Traicos makes the important point that, rather than the digital age being a bad time for music, opportunities for worthwhile musicians abound verily. “Gawain and I are braving the high seas in a trusty row boat. Our first release was The Holy Sea’s Ghosts Of The Horizon and we’ve just signed The Marlon Winterbourne Movement. It’s an exciting time for everyone in the music industry at the moment and I think it’s important for independents to both realise and utilise their power. “You don’t need a big label to (eventually) have a sustainable career as a musician. If you want fame and glitz, I guess that’s a different game, but if you want to get your music out there, you can. We’re placing an emphasis on releasing albums as opposed to more commercially viable singles and EPs, largely because we personally prefer the experience of an album and believe that there are many out there who do as well.” WHO: Catherine Traicos & The Starry Night WHAT: Gloriosa (An Ocean Awaits/Fuse) WHEN & WHERE: Wednesday 10 August, Malt Market Bar, Dunsborough; Friday 12, Settlers Tavern, Margaret River; Saturday 13 The Bakery, Northbridge; Sunday 14, The Bird, Northbridge
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THE DRUM MEDIA 4 AUGUST 2011 • 19