Image: Ainsley Farrell by Ian Farrell – supplied.
Author: Bradley Cork
Life experiences, reflections, driving long distances and homages to the Queen of Soul conjures up a rousing and colourful second album.
Since making music under her own name in 2015, Ainsley Farrell has become a fixture within the Sydney music scene, playing alongside other great acts like Huck Hastings and Georgia Mulligan. Ainsley’s voice is powerful, rich and envelopes her folk-tinged rock songs in a way that makes you pay attention to not just the words she sings but also the way in which she sings them. The songs off her new album Dirt are a prime example of this, as the melodies and rhythms seem to follow the pursuit of the emotional depth that Ainsley’s voice carries.
The length of time between Dirt and Ainsley’s last EP, 2017’s Dark Hours was considerable due to the obvious barrier of lockdowns but also due in part to the period of culminating material to get it right. When speaking about the song writing process, Ainsley concedes that it’s a process of patience. ‘I wrote most of the songs over a three-four year span…I’m a bit of a slow writer and probably too critical of what I write. I write a lot of stuff but not a lot of it is shown to people so it took a long time to write and there were just delays and stuff due to Covid.’ It was within this culmination and collecting of material that Ainsley sorts between the ideas she wants to pursue and what is left on the cutting room floor.
Once the songs were selected and rehearsed prior to recording, Ainsley and her band picked a space familiar to them that felt like more of a comfort than a gruelling or deadened environment. ‘We recorded at my partner’s grandma’s house in central coast NSW in Copacabana. It was very nice for her to let us use her beach house and it’s something that I’m very lucky to be able to use if it’s free. It’s just a nice space…the band has been there before together so it’s just a great comfortable space to record it in.’ This change in scenery and recording in an unorthodox space gave way to moments of needing to be crafty and creative with getting a good sound. ‘Tim Harvey who engineered it drove up from Melbourne with all the gear and just totally transformed the upstairs area into the recording space and we sectioned it off with mattresses and blankets…It probably looked pretty crazy! I think he brought like a pop-up tent that we had on its side and all these blankets and things attached to the ceiling fan. I’m sure it just looked ridiculous!’
Escaping and creating with her band Tom Stephens and Arne Utiger in the central coast was the necessary place for letting these songs come out and afforded the luxury of time to experiment and try different things. One of those experiments included a completely different direction for first single ‘The Way Back,’ a song that feels like rejuvenation and finding your feet after a period of grief. ‘We had pretty much all the songs figured out coming into the recording and then there were a few songs that changed dramatically. ‘The Way Back’ was one where I originally planned for that one without drums or bass; I thought it would just be a slower pace with guitar and vocals and then Tim was like ‘what if you like sped it up like a lot! And added drums and bass’ and we tried that. That was a song that Tim had that vision for and we tried it and it turned out so well.’
One of the significant aspects that makes Dirt a great album is its track listing and order. It is an album that is most complimentary with a start-to-finish listen. The passion of a great track listing goes back to Ainsley’s making of mix CDs in high school. ‘I’ve always loved making music playlists, I’d make playlists for my friends, put them on CDs and work out the flow and order of songs so I love that process of picking where songs go.’ It was also through the songs already revealing where they needed to go from running them with Arne and Tom. ‘Some of the order we had kind of worked out just from playing live shows and from knowing the songs. Once I got them in that order, I was like ‘this feels great.’’
Towards the end of Dirt, there is a moving tribute to one of Ainsley’s musical heroes, Aretha Franklin. The song ‘Aretha’ evokes her spiritedness and talks about the comfort of her voice for Ainsley with lines like ‘when I heard your voice, you made it alright,’ it’s a song that feels both moving and empowering. ‘She was probably one of the artists when I was 12 or 13, I remember just driving somewhere with my dad and he had an Aretha Franklin CD on and the song was ‘Respect’ and I was just like ‘who is this?!’ just like mesmerised by her voice, the song and the power…Just a very vivid like first memory of hearing an artist that I was enamoured with. The power of her voice had a big influence on me and I just got more and more into her songs and I think she’s definitely had a big influence on my songwriting and my singing. I did a report on her in eighth grade, she’s just always been a great influence.’
The album’s epicentre is the title track, another song that changed dramatically from the initial version. It’s a first for Ainsley in terms of its length and its meditative pace but it’s a welcome one as the emotional groundwork it creates as it slowly builds is captivating. ‘I wrote ‘Dirt’ about the relationship I had with my mum but the composition has taken many forms, it just eventually took on the form that it is…we worked on that one the most and I think that one gave us all a headache trying to figure out how to make it work on the album. We tried it the way we would’ve played it live…we tried so many different things and then it just finally came together and the four of us had an ah-ha moment of ‘this is it!’’
Ainsley Farrell will launch her album Dirt at Low 302 on Friday July 14 2023 with special guest Nick Griffith. Tickets here.
Melody Menu 