NGAIIRE | PYRAMIDISLAND.COM |INTERVIEW 07.2016

Ahead of the release of her second long player Blastoma, Ngaiire chats to Amanda Van Elk about the benefits of songwriting in a share house, collaborating with Paul Mac and the glory of Tasmanian pies.  

A: Congratulations in advance for the forthcoming release of Blastoma this Friday. It’s going to be really exciting to see your first performance as part of Tassie’s Festival of Voices next month. Can you let us in on any little teasers in terms of what you have planned for your Voicebox live performance?

N: Thanks so much. I think the major change in terms of performance is the set up, we’ve been touring with our bass player and a drummer for the last two years and we’ve now got a guy called Chris Port on the kit for this tour which I'm really excited about because it means we can create more dynamics on stage. My backing vocalists are both singers in their own right so they always bring something special to the live performance as well.

A: I was lucky enough to catch your Hobart performance for the Lamentations tour in 2014 and I’ll admit that the sheer strength and power of your voice saw me shed a few tears. When you were initially writing Blastoma was the process more about capturing your ideas and getting them down stream of consciousness style or were you also envisaging how the live performance of the material would take shape while you were writing?

N: Ooh good question. Yeah that was a fun gig, definitely the live shows would come to mind as you’re writing because obviously when you start dabbling in ‘electronica land’ you kind of have to think about bouncing down the stems for mastering and mixing and whether you're going to do the same thing for your live shows and whether or not that’s an easy thing to do.

You also think about whether you should record your backing vocals a certain way to make it easier to cut up samples. In that sense we did definitely think about it but in terms of conceptualising the album as opposed to the first album, it was a more collaborative process in terms of bringing in other peoples ideas and trusting their input and creative ideas in what I would usually do in a very insular way.

A: For me Blastoma is a beautifully intimate album with lots of references to vulnerability, scars and triumphs over adversity and I found tracks like I can’t hear god anymore and Once particularly poignant in this respect. After writing your first album on your own, how different was the experience of collaborating with Paul Mac in both the writing and recording of Blastoma?

N: It was quite scary because Paul I’ve known for many years so our relationship changed over the last 3 to 4 years with us finding out where we stood. I’d always known him as an older brother basically and as me just being someone who was learning from him and I guess embarking on this project together we learnt to respect each others opinions. I don't think he ever didn't think that I had opinions about things but I was always scared to speak out and tell him about what I actually thought because I was so wary about what he thought of me.

So it was a lot of letting go for me in terms of letting other people in… in terms of trusting their opinions because I have a very particular way of how I want things to sound and what I want to say and if it’s not me I kind of pull the plug on it. But this time it was very scary for me to say “Yes, were gonna release Once as a single, OK!” It was something I was against initially but I’m glad I said yes.

A: Fall into my arms has a great church hall live gospel sound and in I can't hear god anymore your vocals take on a very moving Nina Simone/ Joplin-esque husky falsetto. I’m not much of a singer so something I’ve often wondered is whether a vocalist like yourself feels like they kind of witness new parts of their voice emerging while they’re writing about challenging times in their lives?

N: Definitely. When I did I can't hear god anymore I wrote that song while I was house sharing and I was really wary about people hearing me sing and write and record stuff in the back room. I was experimenting with singing quite quietly out of default and I started to discover elements of my voice that I had never used before. It’s always nice to expand on learning about my voice.

A: You’ve got a month long Australian tour about to kick off of Friday. Are you one of those musicians who gets inspired to take out the old voice recorder while you’re on the road to jot ideas down or do you tend to focus all your energy exclusively on performing?

N: I focus mostly on performing, but it depends. If we’re overseas it’s not as easy to kind of do what you do here in Australia where you would play Melbourne on the weekend and then come back to Sydney and then go to Brisbane the next weekend. I did a lot of writing when we were on tour in the UK because obviously you can come back and get a lot of spare time to chill between gigs. But usually I'm writing lyrics a lot, I'm not usually recording. I may occasionally have an idea in my head on tour but it’s mostly lyrical.

A: Finally, seeing as you’re coming down to Tassie' for Festival of Voices in July, do you have a favourite memory from visiting Tasmania you can share with us?

N: I really loved playing MONA FOMA. Apart from a little festival we played called The Hills are Alive that was my favourite festival to play. Only because I'm bit of a snob when it comes to music and I don't usually come out and check out other peoples music when I'm at festivals. MONA FOMA was probably the first festival I went to (apart from Glastonbury) where I really wanted to go out and see other people’s performances and MONA FOMA really tend to bring out people that you don't normally see at other festivals. This is the kind of thing that people in the U.S or in Europe have exposure to much more easily, so I think yes, that was my favourite moment in Hobart.

And that bakery that you guys have….what’s it called?

A: Jackman and MCross?

N: YESSSSSS. OH MY GOD!

A: They make really good pies there.

N: Yes oh GOD I know! I always go there for one every time I’m in Hobart!

A: You’re a woman after my own heart.

Ngaiire performs at Voicebox, City Hall for Festival of Voices on Wednesday July 6th, 2016.

-Amanda Laver