STACK NZ Apr #72

MUSIC REVIEWS

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New Zealand songstress Hollie Smith returns this month with her highly anticipated third solo album Water Or Gold . She tells John Ferguson the recording process didn’t go quite as smoothly as the finished product might suggest. LEADING THE WAY

old school. Whereas this was the first time I have done the home studio thing, so going to NewYork was great because they have some really great gear, and that transformed the whole album.” Although rooted in soul/R&B, first single Lead The Way is an out and out rocker, while the title track faintly recalls the guitar-heavy grooves of early Funkadelic. Smith acknowledges the funk influences, but believes there a number of different elements running through the album, with each musician bringing their own flavours to the record. “I think the big difference with this record is that I wrote most of it on guitar, so there are a couple of songs that are definitely more riff-based. It’s more simplistic; when I write on keys, I do a lot more chord movements and there is a lot more room for me to move vocally, whereas this is more back to basics.” Water Or Gold is not without its heartbreak and includes the moving Helena , her tribute to her close friend and media personality Helena McAlpine, who died in 2015 after a long battle with breast cancer (she got to hear the recorded version just before she passed.) However the tone of the album leans more toward the upbeat – so is she in a happier frame of mind these days? “With music, I am a little less in my own bubble, a little less precious,” Smith replies. “It’s also good to add a little bit more energetic stuff to the live set. I’ve always been known for doing the slow, ballad-y shows, so it’s quite nice to have a bit of a rock out because I have never really been able to that. But the one thing I enjoy about this record is that every song is completely different. It’s quite cohesive but really different.”

T here’s a relaxed, live-sounding vibe to Water Or Gold , Hollie Smith’s eagerly awaited follow-up to her 2010 sophomore set Humour And The Misfortune Of Others . It’s a remarkable achievement, not the least because there was not a lot that was either relaxed or live about the making of the record. “It was a bit of a jigsaw puzzle,” Smith tells STACK from the offices of her record company in Auckland. “The core recordings – bass, drums and keyboards – were done down in Wellington at my drummer’s house in his little home studio there. And then we had a couple of extra musicians do a couple of sessions at their own places, and then I did all my vocals at home. So by the time we got to NewYork, I had never really heard it all put back together again.” And just to make things that little bit harder, she adds that everything that could have gone wrong in her studio did; while she did not end up losing anything, she admits it was a close run thing – near the end, she was sprinting to record parts and keeping her fingers crossed that they would turn out OK. She needn’t have worried: Water Or Gold is a rootsy, soulful slice of R&B that also finds Smith really rocking out on a number of songs. It’s a triumphant return for one of New Zealand’s most talented and powerful vocalists, who first came to fame in 2006 with the hit single Bathe In The River (taken from the movie No. 2 ). Her debut album Long Player was a double platinum-selling smash, although its success was soured by a costly dispute with Blue Note Records over its international release. She bounced back in 2010 with the aforementioned Humour And The Misfortune Of Others and since then she has kept busy with her Band Of Brothers collaboration with Mara TK in 2011, and Peace Of Mind , the 2013 release which saw her team up with fellow iconic singer- songwriters Anika Moa and Boh Runga. While Water Or Gold is much

other quite a bit”), including for Kiwi expat Aaron Nevezie (The Black Keys, Danger Mouse), who mixed the album with her at his NewYork studio. “That’s why I decided to do it in NewYork: because there was so much to be done in the post-production,” she says. “Normally I would be in a live studio and everything would be recorded as we wanted to hear it; a lot more organic and

I am a little less in my own bubble, a little less precious

MUSIC

more a solo effort – she also produces for the first time – Smith is full of praise for the musicians who played on it (“We bounced ideas off each

Water Or Gold by Hollie Smith is out April 1.

APRIL 2016

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