Image: Georgia Mulligan by Bee Elton – supplied
Author: Bradley Cork
Self-reflection within change is inevitable and yet it is difficult to piece together in real time. For Georgia Mulligan, it was towards the end of 2019, leading into 2020 that her life was changing and feeling fairly chaotic. ‘Life context: I’d basically left a long-term relationship, moved house, new everything, started a new role at work, the country was on fire.’ These differing pieces came into focus in her writing over time, making songs like lead single ‘Omissions’ all the more poignant. ‘I met someone new very soon after while I was still sort of grieving the previous relationship, that old chestnut…so it was like all of this chaos, excitement and sadness and all of these things had been rolling along and I sort of just kept going and had been doing shows with the Julia Jacklin band, so I was travelling around and was able to keep physically moving as well, and then right when I was in the thick of that, everything stopped… That self-reflection was forced upon me in the way it was forced upon everyone. I was lucky enough that it was the time in which it was able to come out in my writing.’ The process of Georgia’s songwriting was guided by being able to take these fragments of what was going on in her life and re-contextualising them into her lyrics.
“I use song writing as sort of diary entry, scrapbooking. Like no frills, tearing everything apart, and looking at it…I’ve got this urge to go ‘okay, what’s that, and why did that lead to that, and why is that like that and why is that person like that and why am I like that’, just trying to pull out all the strands of something and then tie them back together.”
There are particular moments of real tenderness on debut album Nothing Wrong which feel like the songs are being played right in front of you. One such moment is ‘Magic Words’, a stark and down-tempo number that unfolds over time. The song was written with the notion of needing to carve out space for oneself in order to feel replenished. ‘It just arrived all at once, it was just one of those songs that was a straight transmission. It’s kind of a plea and an invitation – see me, hear me, let me exist…and again, it’s this back and forth little kernel you have inside you and the sort of battering that it can take from the outside world. The feeling is ‘if I just had enough time, space and everyone left me alone, I would be okay.’ It feels like a song with a real empathetic core of being able to read the signs of burnout and yearning for self-care. When the volume of the world goes up too loud, it just speaks to that feeling that I get and maybe other sensitive people get too, of just being like ‘just give me a minute and let me reconnect.’’
The title track and penultimate song from the album Nothing Wrong feels like a more intense inner monologue with what Georgia describes as being at odds with oneself but ultimately being able to talk oneself down from a heightened state of emotion. ‘It was the first one I wrote in this period of demoing during the first lockdown and I guess it’s directly about that conversation of that little voice in your head trying to stick up for yourself that says ‘you’ve done nothing wrong, you haven’t done anything wrong’ but it’s also about the hugeness of the battle that was happening for me and for others…it’s about this big swirling battle that can be going on internally. It’s about falling into the hole but acknowledging that it’s about continuing to stay open, vulnerable and finding strength in getting hurt but also hoping you develop the strength to keep going on.’ When asking her about the album title, it would seem that sometimes things just come together naturally and when coming up with a title, the record was automatically being given the name Nothing Wrong via technology.
“When I was first demoing, I was using a free version of Ableton with an interface, I didn’t really know how to use it and every demo I would save would save under the project name I first demo’d…every track I demoed after would have ‘Nothing Wrong’ next to it…that’s probably the real answer…that’s just the file.”
Produced by Blain Cuneen, the album was recorded partly at best kept secret Rancom Studios in Botany and then partially at Blain’s home. The process was long and drawn out due to Covid as well as life’s changes but it was through perseverance that the album came to completion. ‘It took us so bloody long doing it in chunks around work and other things. Good things happened like Blain got married but then I had a breakdown and was recovering from that. There were all these things happening so we would come together whenever we could and we’d go to his home studio, drink lots of coffee and get done what we could get done. He was an amazing force in not letting anything get in the way. We were both determined in getting it finished even though it took so long.’
One of the other factors that made the album meticulous was getting into the swing of vocal takes. You can hear in Georgia’s performances of songs like the jubilant ‘Paper’ or the devastating ‘Like Water’ that the work put into getting the nuance of her performance is just as integral as the instrumentation. ‘The actual vocal delivery and words and sentiments were pretty intense for me at the time. I think I was kind of a mess for part of it. It was this full circle thing where when the songs were written, I was in this transitional period and by the time the vocals were being recorded, to be honest I was completely heartbroken and a total mess again. The state I was in when it was time for me to record vocals allowed me to tap into the state I was in when I wrote the songs even though it was so long ago. It was like a little pain portal. A lot of the takes on the record are super raw and I actually couldn’t listen to them for a while, but now I’m really glad they were the ones that made it on. Often you can end up chasing the perfect take…I think that’s something that Blain and I were on the same page about, the perfect take is not necessarily the right take. There’s a few rushed bits and a few crusty bits but I think that’s all part of it.’
The inevitability of life’s misgivings and upswings has yielded for Georgia a wonderful debut record that any songwriter would be proud to have their name attached to and this feeling does seem to cut across for her. When I ask her if she can enjoy listening to the album with some rear-view mirror distance, her answer is honest yet unsurprising given the difficulty of the album’s conception. ‘Almost…These songs are the first foray of a new sense of self trying to fight back. That sense of self has grown over the preceding years, it still hasn’t completely taken back its territory but it certainly has more space than it had before. It comes from pretty extreme darkness and an acknowledgement of that, while committing over and over to the light.’ For the time being, Georgia can enjoy the moment of her album coming out in spite of it being a tricky piece to manifest. Her home of Gadigal Country/Sydney has a launch date of December 7th where her audience gets to experience the celebration of Nothing Wrong, an album that requests a quiet place for contemplation.
Georgia Mulligan will launch her album Nothing Wrong at Waywards (The Bank Hotel) on Thursday, 7 December 2023 with special guests Julia Why? & Sarah Levins. Tickets here.
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