Love is a Dog is the fifth studio album from Tinpan Orange. The virtuoso trio pack a punch right from the breathtaking first single Rich Man. Singer and songwriter Emily Lubitz is looking forward to bringing their show to Mullumbimby, a place she has become very fond of.
‘I love to play Mullum,’ she says. ‘Gigs like that totally change and inform how you are going to play. There are some rooms or festivals or even certain crowds that actually make you play a better show. Mullum is definitely one of them.’
Ridiculously talented and fabulously modest, Lubitz admits to always feeling a bit behind the 8-ball!
‘I always think I am in trouble,’ she laughs, ‘even with the kids at school. I am sure I forgot something! I think someone is going to find out I am a fraud! I don’t feel like a competent person – just ask my family!’
Perhaps her vagueness is part of her artistic sensibility,
and that wide vulnerable canvas she presents so easily with ‘that’ voice.
Now the mother of two small children, with a musical husband (Harry Angus), Lubitz has learnt the fine art of juggling and time-sharing to make space for a career on the road. It’s also about finding new spaces in the day to write songs, something she really embraced with the writing of this album.
‘It’s not something that needs to be this huge experience; it doesn’t have to be a broken heart that leaves you tormented for months. You can be writing about a shoe! We are these wells of images we have it in us; all those experiences are in us already. If we have that little stimulus, and with the time and the circumstance, and using that as the anchor, you can find all these human connections. It’s nice to imagine that you are not alone!’
For this album Tin Pan Orange are touring as a trio.
‘It’s really nice. I am loving the space to be singing without a rhythm section. There is a lot of intensity in the trio – sometimes I think it is more intense. The dynamic we get as a trio is sometimes more because we have to think of interesting arrangements – they are more delicate to create and they build and fall and we have to think of interesting parts.’
So why the title Love is a Dog?
‘Love is a Dog – well, what I liked was the ambiguity of it. We are really proud of it; we squeezed it out of the corners of our lives, so it’s kind of a miracle that we actually did it. It was because of the determination to do it; we didn’t want it to fade away because we have kids and stuff. It was a labour of love.’
Catch Tinpan Orange on Saturday 14 May when they return to Mullum Civic Hall to play what is sure to be a jaw-dropping memorable show. Tickets available from www.redsquaremusic.com.au.
