The words of Australian artist and cartoonist Michael Leunig inspired Katie Noonan to write an album with her band, Elixir.
It's called A Small Shy Truth, and it's the fourth studio album released by the trio: saxophonist/composer Zac Hurren, guitarist Benjamin Hauptmann and ARIA, AWMA, AIR and APRA award-winning musician and singer Noonan.
A Small Shy Truth also features the talents of double bassist Jonathan Zwartz, a string quartet, and Leunig himself reading his poetry. Noonan took the time to answer a few questions from Weekender about the album.
What was it that attracted you to Leunig's words, and inspired you to base an album on them?
I believe Michael has an innate ability to capture the human spirit, the human struggle in a beautiful and succinct way. His words are quite child-like in their honesty and yearning, yet are profoundly mature and reflect the knowledge of a septuagenarian elder. I believe Michael's words bring a great spiritual succour and provide a meaningful connection with the natural and spiritual world. I think the sign of a great writer is if you yourself really wished you had written the words yourself, and I feel that way about his words all the time! He manages to sum up the complexities of life in a gentle and very true way.
Walk us through the songwriting and composition process for A Small Shy Truth.
A lot of these songs started as sketches at the piano by my husband Zac. Zac and I have been performing in Elixir for our entire partnership (24 years!) so it's an integral part of our relationship and really nice to connect in that way again. Basically Zac and Benny would jam on the chordal structures and then I would come in with about 10-plus of Michael's books open at various different pages and see where the muse took me. It's a very special process and it's great that Zac had such strong musical ideas to start with, and then we could take it from there as a trio. Luckily Michael gives me freedom to do small edits/repeats and he also written some extra words when a couple of the poems were a little too short!
The recording process must have been interesting, with Michael himself reading his poetry, a string quartet, and a handful of additional composers!
I am very much a collaborator and love working with different musicians from different vernaculars. I really wanted to return to the organic world of acoustic guitar on this album - the last two albums have been mainly electric guitars but I felt with this album I really want to get back to that organic folk space of non-amplified sounds like our very first album. I also could hear a choir on a couple of tracks (the wonderful Adelaide Chamber Singers) and lush string quartet. Basically we would record a demo and then send it to our mates to write string/choir arrangements for us. We worked with three wonderful composers for strings - Steve Newcomb, Iain Grandage and Joe Chindamo - the incredible Stephen Leek did our wonderful choir arrangements and then we also enlisted the help of two amazing musicians, Jonathan Zwartz on double bass and Fabian Hevia on percussion. We recorded the trio live in the one room ( Zac Hurren's Rainbow Room Studio) and then sent the rough mixes to our mates to add their magic. The Adelaide Choir we produced remotely from our home studio in Eumundi via an app called ListenTo and with Jonathan and Fabian we left them to it - they are seasoned pros and I just had a quick chat with them and then they laid down their tracks.
How is the album being translated for the stage?
The live gigs will be the trio, but Zac will be playing piano and saxophone so it will be a nice lush sound. Elixir is all about intimate quiet moments of reflection so the trio is the perfect sound world for these songs.
Katie, how is Eumundi Music School going?
It is AMAZING! Each year the kids get better and better and it is such a rewarding experience to watch these young souls strutting their stuff and finding their tribe. Music is the greatest maker of friends and it is an honour to watch these kids find their confidence and grow so much throughout the four-month process! I have been running the school pro-bono for eight years now - it is a huge amount of unpaid work, but it is so rewarding each year - it fills my heart like nothing else can! Our teachers are incredible and I'm really proud of the caring and supportive community we have made here.
Elixir performs at Warners Bay Theatre on Friday, November 3, at 7pm. The support act is Charm of Finches. Tickets are on sale now.
IN THE NEWS:
How you can help police make inroads in property crime crackdown
Paul McCartney was great, but one thing on big night let us down
Alleged arsonist pleads not guilty over Hunter grass fires
Driver clocked going 224km/h barred from roads for two years
Women to 'reclaim the night' in Newcastle and Lake Macquarie
