Everything Sings Tonight is the newest offering of Australia’s most strikingly poetic songsmith, Lucie Thorne.
What is it about your chemistry with Hamish Stuart that just works – are there other people you have this with?
I feel like a pretty lucky kid having Hamish Stuart as my band, that’s for sure. We’ve been working together for about seven or eight years now, and it feels like the chemistry and connection in the way we play together just keeps expanding. It’s definitely my favourite combination.
How did you manage to get so much recorded in just two days? Does this time frame put you under pressure to not make mistakes, or maybe just learn to live with them?
There wasn’t really any pressure because we came in to it just wanting to make a start on recording these songs and see what shaped up. We knew that however it came to be, we wanted this next album to be focused on the ‘live’ duet sound, that freedom and energy exchange of us playing the music, live, in a room together. So that’s what we did. And then at the end of the two days, as it turns out, we had all the guitar, drums and vocals done for ten songs, shaped like a record!
Tell me a little more about the other artists on the album?
We invited some of our all-time favourite players to add their musical magic on this album: Chris Abrahams and Dave Symes (both who’ve played on our last two records, too); then there’s the Iowan contingent! – Bo Ramsey and Pieta Brown, and Greg Brown – who does a spoken-word passage on the title track, alongside my dad Tim, and Chris Parkinson (from The Yearlings), who makes a beautiful cameo appearance on one song.
How has your poet father Tim Thorne influenced your development as a lyricist – did it help you be freer with your writing or were you more self-conscious?
I feel pretty lucky to have grown up so surrounded by books and poetry and poets, and music, and a love and appreciation for the arts in general. And music and poetry have certainly remained my two enduring loves. I’m sure a lot of my love of language, and of playfulness with language, has been inherited from Tim, along with so many of my other favourite poets and writers. And while I do think of lyric writing as a form of poetry, for me it’s always connected to the music; I only ever really write in song form.
What was the feeling you wanted to capture in Everything Sings Tonight?
I’m a bit old-fashioned in that I really do love to make records as ‘whole’ things: a little body of work that has its own shape to it, its own journey; one that you can lean in to, from beginning to end. Obviously each song needs to be able to stand up on its own little pair of legs as well, but I love that process of ‘shaping up’ an album. Hame and I are really proud of this piece of work… in some ways it perhaps covers a more adventurous sonic palette than previous albums, while also creating a lot of space.
What and whom should we expect for your upcoming Mullumbimby show?
Mullum is always such a favourite for us! Feels a bit like a second home. Hame and I will of course be playing a whole lot of the new songs from the new album, as well as a bunch from the back catalogue. And local treasure, troubadour Jimmy Dowling, will be doing us the honour of opening the show!
Lucie Thorne and Hamish Stuart at the Ex-Services Club in Mullumbimby on Friday, and Sunday 5 July at Bello Winter Music Festival in Bellingen.
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