STACK June 2016 Issue 140

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The “partly instinctual and partly
intentional” sense of space amid Emma
Russack’s slow, salt-flecked and honeyed
In A New State puts the Narooma-born
musician’s tracks in their own spot, right
at the top of the 'soft-breathed singer-
songwriter' pile; little electronic touches
span what is essentially a really anaglogue,
elemental-sounding album, which Russack
created with the support of producer
John Lee. “John helped me to see that I
was totally capable of it,” she says of the
ethereal melodies she plays on electric
guitar. “When I was a teenager I would
record songs to GarageBand and play
all these gnarly guitar solos with some
seriously sweet effects. This album felt like
a return to that time.”
Along with Lee’s Kawai organ, Liam
“jazzhead” Halliwell’s intricate basslines,
Lee’s 200-year-old Collard & Collard piano,
and lofty, uncluttered drums, all the little
signs of life are preserved right down to the
click of the drumsticks as they’re laid
down at the end of the heartbreaking
belter If You Could See Me Now. “I
love it when you can hear Neil Young
cough in On The Beach. I love it when
John Lennon says ‘cookie’ in Hold On.
I love it when Cat Power’s voice breaks
in a lot of her early stuff,” Russack says.
“It’s like a tiny window into what’s
happening in the studio and an insight
into what the artist is experiencing
– and the artist’s imperfections.”
In A New State ends up an utterly
entrancing piece of art, which allows
your own imagination to meander
through its tracks. “I never like to over-
do things, and I appreciate and have
been inspired by artists who follow the
same philosophy,” Russack explains.
“I like lyrics [and guitar solos] that give
the bare minimum, but in doing so,
leave the listener wondering.”
visit MUSIC NEWS
06 JUNE 2016
MUSIC
In A New State by
Emma Russack is out
June 10 via Spunk.
window; there’s not
much more than that.
You get to a point
where you hear that
squeal of brakes and
feel the train slowing
down, and then you
see a wooden hut or
something, and it feels
like the most exciting
thing that’s ever
happened to you. I just
love that thing where
your brain really starts
escaping from all that
nonsense that you
throw at it every day.
You’re just there on your own with a newborn
brain, with nothing going on in it, and you start
thinking about bizarre things.”
That intensive writing time and Hince’s new
studio have given Ash & Ice a powerful,
reverberant feel which the musician credits to
some kind of consistent thread that’s knotted
around himself and his partner-in-musical-arms.
“I just love that about programming and drum
machines; that no matter how lug-headed
your guitar sounds, you can make your music
sound like anything. One record I wanted it to
sound like The Cramps, the next record Cabaret
Voltaire, and then I wanted it to sound like
Massive Attack. I always wanted that for my
band, to be able to make totally different music
that somehow is held together by me and
Alison. Even if the song is like a string quartet,
it still sounds like The Kills.”
J amie Hince is remarkably buoyant for a
professional guitarist who almost lost a
finger to gangrene. “It went really dark red,”
the sweet Brit explains to us. “The weird thing
was there was just no definition on my finger.
There were no knuckles or anything, and it
just became this cylindrical, painful, throbbing
thing.” Although he’s recovered from the deep
infection that “rotted [his] whole tendon”
(the result of a cortisone injection into a badly
broken bone), he can’t play guitar – at least
not like he did on The Kills’ previous albums.
But that’s OK. “Something like this makes
you really stop and re-think everything,” he
muses. “I was at a point where I was a bit
disillusioned with guitar music. I felt like it was
so referential and not doing anything new. I
decided I was going to spend more time being
a producer, so I put a studio together.” Inspired
by the dub methods of iconoclastic Jamaican
producers Lee “Scratch” Perry and King Tubby,
Hince bought a 1968 mixing desk with "old
JAMIE HINCE
THE KILLS
Ash & Ice by The Kills
is out June 10 via Domino. They're on
tour next month; go to for
details.
compressors and echo chambers and reverbs",
and started experimenting.
But writing the songs for Ash & Ice – his
fifth record with bandmate and vocalist
Alison Mosshart – occurred far away from
that environment. A fan of Russian art and
literature (shout-out to Bulgakov!), Hince spent
two weeks penning ideas in a carriage on the
notoriously barren, almost 10,000 km-long
Trans-Siberian Railway, which traverses the
entirety of Russia from Moscow in the west
to Vladivostok in the east. “You’re so starved
of anything f-cking interesting,” he presses.
“Really, it’s just silver birch trees out the
INTERVIEW
EMMA RUSSACK
continued
INTERVIEW