After five years of playing together, local lads A Little Province have released their debut self-titled album.
Band member Rohan Orenshaw believed the recording process very much reflected the band’s work ethic – spontaneous, energetic and prolific. ‘There wasn’t any primary vision to begin with,’ he said, ‘because we are always jamming – at least one or two times a week. We come up with songs and on the album we ended up choosing a collaboration of the songs that we think work best live.’
Recorded over four sessions at Brisbane’s Studio 108 with producer Adrian Moriconni, the boys approached each session a lot like their jams.
‘We were lucky that when we got to the studio a lot of things happened on the spot!
I guess it was a bit of spontaneous magic!’
While three of the four members of A Little Province hail from Bellingen, it wasn’t until they moved to the local region that they hooked up and started playing together.
‘Three of us were from Bellingen Shire and one from sunny coast,’ said Rohan, ‘but we didn’t really know each other that well in Bello. We all came up here for uni in Lismore and started jamming and it happened, and then we got more serious with the gear and then it evolved into Little Province.’
The band have developed a pretty dynamic musical relationship.
‘If anyone of has a riff or a line or a lyric, we get in the jam room and jam around it and then put structure around it; other times we jam and the song comes out! It’s definitely unpredictable; you get in there and bounce off each other.
Abe the drummer will stop the feel or drop it down and build it back up. We have a lot of natural drops. It’s kind of what defines our music.
‘After five years of playing together we have definitely got used to each other’s styles of playing.’
Rohan plays electric violin and electric mandolin. ‘My melodies soar,’ admits Yosir’s guitar. ‘I have my stand-outs and lots of harmony melodies as well.’
Yosir plays guitar and is responsible for so much of the chunky rhythmic melodic guitar that is the backbone of the whole sound of
A Little Province. ‘Drummer/singer Abe – well he’s just really angelic – he has that sort of energy that I don’t know how to explain – but he’s a bit of a spectacle, the drummer/singer is such a wow factor and he has such a great voice. And Rhys Edwards is the guy from the sunny coast; he has a good ear for all music in general and apart from that when he is on stage he does these crazy big moves, rocks in front of the crowd… you’ve got to see him!’
The self-titled album has been 18 months in the making and is a testament to how hard A Little Province has been working. It is complete with all the idiosyncrasies we have come to expect, including inspiring lyrics, undeniable dance grooves, and complex melodic tapestries that work.
They launch at the Hotel Great Northern on Friday 6 February.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
