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NEWS
MUSIC
ALI BARTER
S
everal of the songs on Ali Barter’s
A Suitable
Girl
begin with a simple drubbing electric
guitar and a driving hi-hat, almost like the idling
of a car before it takes off. Barter’s voice joins
the fray, delicate but powerful – her especial
distinction – and the song charges, even if
it’s slow, headlong and strong. “I have a very
simple guitar-playing style,” the
singer-songwriter explains. “It’s kind
of a chuggy thing. I usually start with
a simple chord, and that’s my base. I
experiment with other guitar-playing
styles, but I wanted this record to
be sort of pop-punk. Really kind of
energetic. I wanted it to be upbeat.”
And it is, from the spry and
sardonic anthem
Girlie Bits
through
to the apologetic lament of
Please
Stay
– they’re the two sides of the
same coin. “Both of those songs
are the most honest things I’ve ever
written,” Barter says. “I think
Please Stay
is
way more personal…
Girlie Bits
is about a
day I had [where] I was frustrated about how
uncomfortable I felt in my femaleness, so it’s a
bit more of a concept than
Please Stay
. But it’s
always come from how I feel.”
A few months ago, Barter launched her The
History Grrrls playlist on Spotify, which she
initially conceived as an addendum to
Girlie
Bits
; it’s a compilation of tracks from all the
female artists who inspire her own work. But
a confluence of events really ignited it into
being: during a History of Music course at her
Uni, Barter questioned her professor as to why
there were no female musicians amongst the
artists the students were studying. The Uni
pushed back, Barter wrote an Op Ed piece on
E
lated and bawling, the cover girl on
Hole’s second album
Live Through
This
is clearly living her best life…
isn’t she? In the year of its release,
Hole frontwoman Courtney Love
told MTV she “wanted to capture
the look on a woman's face as she's
being crowned... this sort of ecstatic,
blue eyeliner running, kind of 'I am, I
am – I won! I have hemorrhoid cream
under my eyes and adhesive tape on
my ass, and I had to scratch and claw
and f-ck my way up, but I won Miss
Congeniality!”
The model is Leilani Bishop,
captured by photographer Ellen von
Unwerth, who has snapped the cover
images for several albums by notable
female musicians including Janet
Jackson’s
The Velvet Rope
(1997),
Britney Spears’
Blackout
(2007) and
Rihanna’s
Talk That Talk
(2011). The
Hole logo, appearing for the first
time on this cover, resembles that
of Mattel's Barbie doll. The artwork
reflects
Live Through This
’s themes
of motherhood, beauty standards,
violence against women, and anti-
elitism; ironically, Love has fielded
accusations that the album (and
subsequent Hole releases) was
actually written by her late husband
Kurt Cobain – the record hit the
shelves just one week after Cobain’s
untimely death.
Live Through This
reached position 13 in the Australian
and UK charts, but its sales eventually
reached Platinum status in Australia,
Canada and the States, and Gold
status in the UK.
ZKR
WHAT'S THE
STORY?
We have a look back
at the fascinating tales
behind some of our
favourite album covers.
This month:
Live
Through This,
Hole (1994)
I
'm as excited about this month as that chick on
the Hole cover over there, clutching a bouquet
of all the brilliant releases out. Interviews include
Ali Barter, Polish Club, Steel Panther, Northlane,
and our cover queen Tina Arena – who is,
I'm sure it's clear through the write-up, an
incredibly gracious woman – and a total
caboodle of reviews including Father
John Misty, The Smith Street Band, Julia
Holter, Little Dragon, Colin Hay, Body
Count and Ben Wright Smith. Don't
forget to look out for super swell
prizes too, on page 10.
Zo
ë
Radas (Music Editor)
the incident, and the playlist was born. “I still had
this idea rolling around in my head: if school’s not
going to teach me about these incredible women
then
I’m
going to learn about them," explains
Barter. "It’s been really great for me because I
get to learn about these amazing things! And
the response has been so nice.” The list includes
Hole, PJ Harvey, Bikini Kill, Erykah
Badu, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Madonna
and many more.
Meanwhile,
A Suitable Girl
(named
for Barter’s mother’s favourite book
by Vikram Seth,
A Suitable Boy
– a
beautiful, episodic tale revolving around
an arranged marriage) was being pieced
together by Barter and her producer,
husband Oscar Dawson (Holy Holy). The
pair have worked on Barter’s previous
two releases, and it's a dynamic which
requires ongoing navigation, Barter
says. “Is it tricky working with your
partner? Always,” she confirms. “But we are
really honest with each other, and I think that’s
the best thing. Sometimes I work with other
people and I realise I don’t talk back much to
them. We obviously have real mutual respect for
each other in what we do.
“But you have to know when you’re saying
something because you really think it, or because
you want to be right,” she smiles. “Which I guess
often happens in a relationship, or a friendship
– any partnership. We had this record mixed by
somebody else, ‘cause it’s helpful to have a third
party. Then Oscar and I gave our opinions, and
sometimes it was that situation. So that was an
interesting process, and probably the hardest part
of making this record – but one that was really
great to go through.”
ZKR
A Suitable
Girl
by Ali Barter
is out now via
Inertia.