STACK #141 Jul 2016

MUSIC NEWS

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Closer I Thought I Was A Ship channels the eerie beauty of James Blake, and Grace is a moving tribute to Emma’s best friend. “We met the first few days of Grade 8,” the musician says with shiny eyes. “We slept over at each other’s house all through high school. We went to Italy together. She’s a total angel in person. I still can’t really listen to that song when I’m delicate or I’ll end up crying, ‘cause she’s the real deal.” As a solitary person, Emma has tried to “break out” of the feeling that she can’t be creative in front of people; Grace is one of the few who have known for longer than the rest of us that Emma adores painting. It’s her own pieces that make up the album and cover art. “This has actually been quite a big thing over the past few months,” she says shyly. “I loved painting but I never really knew how to do it, I felt like I fluked it every time. When I paint I just go into this peaceful kind of place and I’ve been craving that more and more. I wouldn’t classify myself as a painter really, I’m just trying to learn. And I f-cking love it.”

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INTERVIEW EMMA LOUISE

W hen she relocated to Melbourne at the end of last year, the first thing Emma Louise did was head straight for a coveted treasure she hoped was still waiting for her. “Eight months before [I moved] I saw this piano and I was like ‘F-ck man, If I move to Melbourne and it’s still here I’m going to get it,'" she says. "It’s a really old one: 1908.” It's an extension of the determination that returned after a long period of fatigue, following the release of her acclaimed first album vs Head vs Heart . “In the time that I took off a lot of things ended at the same time,” she explains. “I didn’t know what I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I wasn’t planning on making an album at all. I just wanted to write. And my manager said 'Okay, there’s this guy called

Pascal Gabriel. He lives in France in a castle.'” To the castle our gal went, and so began a transformative journey. “There was a tower outside of the studio that you would stand on top of and just look over the whole of the south of France. It was so chilled; I only knew music as this super stressful thing that totally destroys me – my confidence was whittled away – but this was just so much fun. It’s really changed things for me so much, in a really good way.” Living with Pascal and his wife (“who’s the best cook in the f-cking world”)

for two months, Emma re-built her purpose and wrote the tracks which make up Supercry . Piano is a major player, from the lilting chords on single Underflow (which also features a sample of the huge church tower bell at the centre of Pascal’s village) and the almost biblical toggle between major and minor chords in album opener All We Ask Is Time . Everything Will Be Fine is a stand-out of uniquely elegant samples and Talk Baby Talk includes Emma’s own hambone-type mouth effects, which she demonstrates for me by deftly tapping her cheek.

MUSIC

Supercry by Emma Louise is out July 15 via Liberation.

TRAVIS BARKER BLINK-182 INTERVIEW

T here was a time there, back in early 2015, when every other day you heard another sour story about Blink-182; the iconoclastic pop-punk trio were apparently in-fighting, and their position as perennial bros was suddenly shaky and confused. “It wasn’t like anyone was Twittering, ‘so-and-so sucks,’” drummer Travis Barker tells us. “It was just trying to explain to the fans what was going on.” What was going on was that vocalist and guitarist Tom DeLonge had left the group, and the reasons were murky even to his former bandmates. “It was hard, but everything happened for a reason,” Barker explains. “At that time when Tom took his hiatus from the band, I honestly think he needed a break and he really wanted to pursue other things. I talk to Tom; I’m friendly with Tom; I respect Tom and any decisions of his – but all we did is, we continued on. We had a couple of

shows booked. We followed through with them. We kept our commitment and then decided to experiment with getting in the studio and that’s how California came about.” Those shows Barker is describing featured the talents of Alkaline Trio’s Matt Skiba, who agreed to fill in for DeLonge. “I was surprised how great he sounded singing Tom’s parts,” Barker says. “He has kind of the same register as far as his voice, and he just killed those parts. It was really great.” When the chemistry kept rolling, Barker and third bandmember Mark Hoppus asked Skiba to join them in songwriting, and the return to Blink form – which Barker says had been hampered by DeLonge’s interest in Coldplay and U2, bands he insists he is not “dogging out”, but which nonetheless are a definite shift away from the Blink style – resulted in 30 tracks spilling into the studio,

California by Blink-182

is out now via Liberator.

from which the group picked the best 14. “We play fast, melodic, energetic music,” Barker says.”It was kind of easy to just do what we naturally do on this album.”

JULY 2016

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