September, 2017 RollingStoneAus.com | Rolling Stone | 27NEW ALBUM
I
t’s a chilly evening in sydney’s
inner east, and Jen Cloher is sitting in the
corner of a small beer garden, tapping out
a quick message on her phone.
“I’m so sorry,” she says politely, firing off the
text and tucking her phone back in her bag.
“We just put out the first video clip from the
album today, and I’ve been in interviews all
day too, and it’s just been full on.”
You get the feeling that “full on” is just
a normal day for the Mel-
bourne-based musician, who
juggles a solo career and nu-
merous other projects with
running Milk Records – the
imprint she and her wife
Courtney Barnett started
back in 2012 – full time.
“I’m a bit of a time manage-
ment nerd,” she admits, sip-
ping on a cranberry soda. “It’s the classic Aus-
tralian story of being a full time musician,
and also having a full time job. I have to be
cautious that I respect my time as an artist.”
The heavy workload goes a little way to ex-
plaining why her latest album, Jen Cloher (due
August 11th), had such a long gestation. Clo-
her began writing around two and a half years
ago, not long after the release of 2013’s Austra-
lian Music Prize-nominated In Blood Memory.“I like to ruminate,” Cloher says. “Probably
moreonthisalbumthananyother.Iwanted
tohaveapointofviewonthisalbum,Iwant-
edtosaysomething.It’sveryfrank,andquite
challenging.”
It’s also powerful, open, raw, stark, and
unflinchingly personal and honest. Within
the10musculartrackstherearepainfulad-
missions of loneliness and isolation (“Forgot
Myself”) alongside searing indictments on
Australia’s current political
climate (“Analysis Paralysis”).
“I went through a period
last year when I just felt re-
ally depressed,” Cloher says.
“I looked at everything that
was happening around the
world, whether it was climate
change, refugees, senseless
wars... Every day we’re faced
with another terrible thing. I wanted to write
about that experience of being helpless, of
being useless.”
Coming out the other side, she remains
doggedly optimistic.
“We live in a time where we have to be gen-
erous. We have to care about other people, we
have to care about what’s going on out there.”
She smiles.
“We have to stay sane somehow.”Jen Cloher’s Confessions
The Melbourneartistgetspersonalonher
most honest and revealing album yetBY JULES LEFEVREBatpiss’ Sad,
Brutal Songs
Near the end of the clip for Batpiss
single “Weatherboard Man”, the
Super 8 movie camera pans to
a white horse with a broken leg,
stood in a front yard. Filmed by
guitarist Paul Pirie’s grandfather
after Darwin’s 1974 Cyclone Tracy,
the frame holds resonance. “That
yard was Paul’s grandfather’s
house,” says bassist/vocalist Thomy
Sloane, who is in Upstate New York
on a two-week artist residency.
“The horse had blown in. It was
Christmas day and Paul’s mum
walked outside and thought she’d
been given a pony.”
Bleak themes stitch together
the Melbourne trio’s third album,
Rest In Piss. Death of close friends
recurs. “Weatherboard Man” etches
the hardship of disadvantaged rural
areas, with self-hatred tacked on in
“Tell Them My Name Is X”. Pirie’s
cover art, trowelled in oils, depicts a
man being hanged.
A tribute to those departed, the
title also farewells belligerence.
While the noose of punk still tugs,
the LP’s 10 tracks broaden Batpiss’
desolate Australian sound. “I’m not
really that angry anymore,” says
Sloane in relation to the abrasion
of 2013 debut Nuclear Winter. “I’m
more sad. I’m sick of yelling, so
I’m trying to find different ways to
express myself vocally.”
Key to nuance is the Drones’
Gareth Liddiard, who produced and
recorded Rest In Piss in his Nagam-
bie living room studio. Guitar ped-
als were trialled, vocals critiqued.
“It still sounds like us,” says Sloane,
“but it’s gone in a slightly different
direction. The first two albums were
recorded live, as we wanted them
to sound the same as when we play.
This time it was like, let’s make an
album. We’ll worry about playing it
live later.” ROBYN DOREAINThomy Sloane on confronting
new album, ‘Rest In Piss’“We live in a
time where we
have to be
generous.”Cloher: “I
wanted to write
about that
experience of
being helpless.”