Angus & Julia Stone
If she had her way, we might never see Julia Stone again. Instead, she would be locked away, feverishly writing and recording music to satisfying the craving in her soul. She doesn't know what brother Angus would say, but she believes that "Without writing the songs none of this would happen. I really enjoy just sitting in a room by myself and singing." Angus seems to do nothing but write - after the first Angus & Julia Stone album, 'A Book Like This', Angus followed it in 2009 with his Lady of the Sunshine project, and now 2010 brings 'Down the Way'. Before all this there were two EPs, including their effortless debut offering, 'Chocolate & Cigarettes'. It really is the sort of opening gambit that makes people sit up and pay attention. "When it came to getting it all together - in October (2009), we came to having to choose - we had twenty-five tracks and had to narrow it down to," she says of the making the second Angus & Julia Stone release. "We write separately, always very much independent when it comes to our songwriting so it's really a hard thing to get it all out there." "As a writer," she continues, "you really want to play the songs that you've just written because they feel like they're more relevant, or they feel more emotionally attuned to where you're at. It's a strange process to put out a record - a lot of the songs are really old now and we feel like we're ready to start singing new one." Julia's singing itself stands out on 'Down the Way' in that she seems much more assured. Gone are the vocal tics and mannerisms that dotted the duo's second EP and debut album, replaced by a smoother soulfulness. The influence of European tour partner Martha Wainwright is clear, and certainly welcome, adding a more relaxed style akin to how Julia sings when she performs live. "It comes down to that solid two years of playing shows every night. When we recorded 'A Book Like This', no joke, I was SO nervous. I still certainly get nervous when I go out on stage, but I was much more comfortable in the studio this time. 'A Book Like This' was pretty much all first-take, and some of the songs we'd only played once before, so it was very raw." Listening back to that album now, Julia says she can hear despite it being recorded in comfortable surrounds, the pressure of recording for the first time is evident in her approach. By comparison, 'Down the Way' sounds to her like an album that has been tweaked and nuanced. "I love it because it's exactly where we're at," she believes. It was recorded in a variety of places - studios in Brooklyn, London, and Queens, NY, but then stranger places still, including water tanks in Coolangatta. The band also headed to Sawmills, the studio that is only accessible by boat, with the building located on the banks of the River Fowey in Cornwall. "I suppose it looks like a big old sprawling mansion that's really old and dilapidated, but it looks quite unique," Julia recalls. "It sits right on the forest, and it's a tidal river so the river comes up and goes down really dramatically during the day and you have to wait for the tide to rise to get out there by the boat, and pack your gear in the boat. "When we first got there it was night time and the light was coming out of the house, and there was this beautiful big circular window that was all shaped by a spider web and the light from inside was shooting out of it, and I remember thinking 'Holy shit, this place is amazing'. It was kind of really rare and a little bit spooky. It had this feeling of being out in the middle of nowhere, very isolated." She says that they went into 'strange places' whilst at Sawmills, with the recording process bringing them closer and driving them stir crazy simultaneously. "I think when you're isolated and there's not very much to distract you other than your instant surroundings you have to really commit to the music. That's what we were there to do and it did make everybody a lot more focused." Recognising what they were there to do was important, but at the same times there'd be instances where they'd be recording in a hotel room in the middle of a city, and the same feeling of connectedness would be apparent. "It's a combination of everything," she believes. "All four people, plus the engineer, have to lock in to make it all work." Angus & Julia Stone's 'Down the Way' is out now through EMI.  |
Issue 491
Features
