A
mid the comfort of books
stacked floor to ceiling in one of
Bondi Beach’s local haunts, Celia
Pavey, AKA Vera Blue, recalls
how she learned to wear her heart on her
sleeve. “There’s definitely been a shift from
thefirstEP.IsaythingsIprobablywouldn’t
have said two years ago.”
Pavey’s debut record,Perennial,moves
beyond the tropes of a classic break-up
album, sliding between ruminating on love
lost and parsing emotional contradictions.
Telling lyrics aren’t disguised in metaphor,
nor are they snuck into the ends of vers-
es. Lines such as “Don’t need nobody that
much/Don’t need no regular touch” and “I
justwannamakeyoufeelgood”arethem-
selvesweightyhooksandlandwithathud.
Therecordisorganisedintothreechap-
ters that chronicle Pavey’s emergence from
theashesofabreak-up.Thefirstiscutwith
rawedgesinsongslike“FirstWeek”and
“Said Goodbye To Your Mother”; the sec-
ond is a teething period of new feelings and
fresh crushes (“Private”, “Fools”); while the
third settles into soft reminiscence. The
final song, “Mended”, looks back on the rela-
tionshipandswingsforwardtowherePavey
stands now.
“That’s why the word ‘perennial’ works
really well,” she says, “because feelings,
emotions and memories, lasting and pass-
ing, always coming back, is OK. It’s OK to
be vulnerable.”
At17,PaveymovedfromForbestoSyd-
neytopursuemusic.Afterstudyingat
theAustralianInstituteofMusicforsix
months, she caught a break, appearing on
The Voice.“Television’swild,butIfeellike
I cruised through it without being pushed
around.Ididn’treallythinkmuchofit.I
waslike,‘I’mjustgonnabeme,let’sdothis.’”
After her startling rendition of Simon
and Garfunkel’s “Scarborough Fair”, Pavey
becameknownasthefolk-sirenwithan
old soul feel, and finished in third place.
An outpouring of public attention followed,
but the momentum swiftly fell away. She
released an EP,Bodies, as Celia Pavey, and
wasleftgrapplingwithquestionsaboutthe
kind of artist she wanted to be.
But Pavey is endlessly optimistic. Even
now,elbowsperchedonthecoffeetable,
sheseeslevityinmelancholyandspeaks
of heartbreak with irreverence. In those
twoyears,shesays,shelearnednottoshywith Mak moulding the production around
her voice. By the end, the bones of Vera
Blue’s first EP,Fingertips,wereinplace.
Mak and Pavey continued to work to-
gether, with his brother Thom signing on as
co-writer, and sound engineer Jackson Bar-
clayjoiningsoonafter.“IfeellikenowI’ve
gotsuchanamazingteamwhojustknow
who I am, and we have such an understand-
ing of each other,” says Pavey.
Perennialis an extension ofFingertips,
with bolder colours and elastic rhythms.
It’s sophisticated, without sacrificing
youthful electricity. “I think there was a
lot more sadness in this record,” she says.
“WhenImadethefirstEPIwasinlove.In
this album, there’s such a development of
strengthandofwhoIbecameasaperson.I
want to let people feel what I’m feeling and
letthemmakeittheirown.”away from vulnerability and appreciated
the space to hone her craft. She challenged
her single-minded folk repertoire and dis-
covered new sounds.
“IwasstuckintheSixties.Iwasalit-
tle hippie. It gave me time to listen to other
artists– electronicmusicthatevokedemo-
tion and angst. And it didn’t take me away
fromthefolkystuff,ifanythingitmademe
want to experiment.”
Listening to alt-J, Banks and F.K.A.
Twiggs carved a niche for Pavey to con-
template her own blends of electronica and
emotional nuance. In 2015, Pavey was in-
vited to independent music publisher Na-
tive Tongue’s annual songwriting camp,
where she met producer Andy Mak. In
theirstudiosessionswithMelbournebased
singer-songwriter Gossling, they recorded
thefragmentsPaveyhadbroughtwithher,HOT ALBUM
September, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 25The singer-songwriter has had a big two years
BY LUCY SHANAHANVera Blue’s Growing Pains