ahem.
after a small glitch in my understanding of the works, i will now attempt number one entry, take two.
hi, and welcome to the hyphen.
this is it, i have finally broken down and become myself.
there is so much to tell, i don’t know where to begin, so i guess i’ll just cut the crap and get started.
most recently, actually as of yesterday, i am a full time musician again. i finally gave up on trying to pay my rent through the slow and painful, sensible method of a ‘9 to 5’ job and am now sitting here with my guitar waiting for an enormous wad of cash to fall from the sky and knock me unconscious. i believe i need to commit to the music, in order for the music to give the same attention to me. it’s my life and i can’t waste it being careful and mild. what’s the point in that? lots of ramen noodles in my already high-gourmet home cooking diet and perhaps i’ll switch to a lighter beer, the stronger and darker it is, the more it costs.
most of you know by now that i have (drum roll) four bands! i am extremely proud of this fact. it’s a high point in my rollercoaster ride of a career. i am now me, frente, holidays on ice and a devotional project, that will be known as black and white dots until we coin a name for it (can you coin a name for it or cycanfi).
as i still have not managed to get the dark, destructive ways of love out of my system, you can expect some of that on my solo effort. though i have every intention of spreading some optimism and light on the earth, it just doesn’t seem to be coming out through the pen as yet.
that is where the b and w dots come into play. this is a project that i am doing with my friend and the producer of hyganfi, craig ross. if ever i was lacking in compassion, light and love, i find it here. our main aim is to make a devotional album, created from the genres of music we come from and in our honest voices. we won’t be busting out the far east any time soon and i don’t imagine us adding any sitar, tablas or gamelan to the jangling of layered guitars, vocals and folk-style percussion that sound through our western-woman mantras. you never know, as it progresses, that might seem completely appropriate………………but, i doubt it.
i am going back to austin, texas in a week’s time to continue this project. funny, i didn’t think i’d be spending so much time there this year. it’s been nice to see the town with my own spin on it, just as, at this point in time, it’s nice to go home to melbourne and make it my own again. oh, the process is a strange and windy one. it takes on many forms. some days it is dull and disappointing, others, it is liberating and free, other times, lonely and desperate, sometimes, it is just calm and crystal clear. i feel it mellowing out somewhat from when i first became a solo ms. hart again. i think i’m sadder right now, than i was then. i felt a bit wild and stormy in the intitial phase. i think the sadness is a sign of a more realistic perspective on the whole experience. they don’t lie about break-ups being a reservoir for songs, boy, am i getting some corker songs out this!
for an added bonus on the light and breezy side of life, i am also going to oz in august to launch the holidays on ice album with dean and naomi. it’s been so much fun and so full of ease, it’s a true gift. i love the songs and the sounds.
dean and i have been hanging out here in l.a., doing a bit of writing and we even attempted a show, even if we did happen to fall into that one by accident. i’m sure you’ve heard about simon austin’s identification dislocation, but if you haven’t, he misplaced all of his id and couldn’t board a plane to make it to our last frente show. luckily for me, dean was in town and willing to give it his best shot. so, with only three hours rehearsal on a project that has never flown live before, we got up on stage, lyric sheets and all, and sang some songs and had a laugh.
i must say, we’ve done some pretty intense bonding over the last six months and i am looking forward to touring with he and naomi very much. looks like the shows will be quite eclectic, with some interesting blends of instruments and special guests. we all know how fond i am of such combinations. yay!
while i’m in oz, i plan to meet with j.walker of machine translations to work together on some tunes for my solo project. i’ve been wanting to do this for a while. his mixes of the splendid songs were so stunning, then i worked with him on the sime nugent duet, ‘trees’, which was such a natural, relaxed collaboration. i knew it could only be a good idea to see what we might come up with if we set aside some concentrated time and let loose.
september sees me heading to nyc to meld minds with si a. we plan to crank out a frente offering fairly soon. the ep was well received, which has been of great encouragement and an incentive to get a move on and get something out there of the long play variety. the shows in oz were amazing for us, such an intense support from both the public and the industry. in l.a., kcrw gave it a really good bash and steve jones, of jonesy’s jukebox fame, just discovered blt, much to our delight. what are we waiting for?
a pleasant surprise to add to this list, is the splendid sophomore and final album, which is being mixed as i type. jesse and i would like it to share with you all, as it would be a shame not to. i’ll let you know when it gets closer to master and press. sad, but beautiful.
i think that’s a fair chunk of information. hope it wasn’t too newsy. there’s just a lot to catch up on before i get back to public navel gazing entries. i have some lyrics/poems to share, i’ll get them into the blog section over the next few days and some pics to give to matt so that you don’t think i’ve turned into a tree…….a beautiful elegant tree, but……..
love and peaceful thoughts, ang x