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The Yearlings.
The gentle and delicate songs of Robyn Chalklen and Chris Parkinson
will be familiar to anyone who has seen The Yearlings live.
Their timeless songs about love and loss, played on old guitars,
are collected in 'Wind Already Blown' their new album which
is shortly to be launched at The Bakehouse Theatre; an unusual
and appropriate venue which will enable the audience to properly
listen to their delicate county folk songs, rather than struggle
through a crowd of voices.
"We saw a friend of ours in a play there about a year ago and thought 'this would be such a great place for a launch'," explains Parkinson. "Because our music is so quiet, it can be challenging if you are a listener if in a pub; where there is talking it is hard to really focus on the music. It's good for us to have a quiet environment when we play so that we can hear each other. It is a very low dynamic, and if it is quiet and you can't hear yourself you tend to overplay and rush."
"Our first launch was at the Jade Monkey, which brings a really attentive audience and it's a gorgeous place to play," Chalken adds. "It can fit only one hundred people, so we thought we would go just a little bit bigger. I think The Bakehouse can fit 150 in."
Such an environment is also a lot better for the audience. I did struggle to hear the Yearlings on a Saturday night in the main room of a CBD pub (let's just say the feeling in the room was more 'Saturday night' than 'gentle harmonies'). Since then I managed to see and hear The Yearlings support Jay Farrar during winter, but they have laid a little low since then, heading to Melbourne where they did a month's residency at the Rob Roy Hotel.
"Melbourne is a really lovely little friendly city for our kind of music," explains Chalken fondly. "They have a great punting audience and they seem to really love the kind of music we play. So we are going to launch it there in April."
Their sound "comes from the blues," according to Parkinson, "from the nineteen twenties and thirties, when those blues guys just played acoustic guitars and then the banjo came in, and it all grew from there." Their new album 'Wind Already Blown' harks back to that sound, and begins with an example of the power of that honky blues music: the dark dirge Trouble Some More. The next track, the delightful plod of Dirty Wings, sets the flavour for the album; each track a whir of steel strings and dusky harmonies.
"Chris was saying this is going to confirm my ranking as the bummer queen. I wrote all the dark songs and he writes all the happy ones!" Chalklen laughs as she outlines the duo's song writing dynamic.
"Each of us comes up with the main chords and toward the end we play together on it," Parkinson adds. "My favourite of Rob's is Send All Your Kisses, and Fallen Star. And Wind Already Blown. And Trouble Some More, because it is so great to play live. They are all brilliant!"
It is an intimate music, perhaps because of the timeless or familiar sounds. "They are really old guitars that we are playing, and banjo, so it is an old sounding thing: they are just miked up, nothing is plugged in, no electronic stuff, so that all adds to the feeling of it," Chalklen explains.
"It is all recorded onto tape, absolutely no computers at all, no overdubs, it is all live," Parkinson nods. "I think all that adds to the ambience and flavour of the sound. Mick [Wordley, producer] is great because he loves that kind of thing too, loves big juicy two inch tape. He was involved in the first one as well, and [studio engineer] Brett Taylor has done us twice now and so it is getting all very family, which is real neat."
So is it country or folk music?
"Someone stated at the National Folk Festival that the difference is that in country music everyone focuses on the singer, and in folk music everyone focuses on the song," Chalklen suggests.
Parkinson concurs. "And it is the song that matters."
Narelle Walker
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The Yearlings launch 'Wind Already Blown' at the Bakehouse Theatre on Sat 26 Feb.
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