Much-loved New Zealand troubadour Andrew Fagan is set to release a brand new poetry album It Was Always Going To Be Like This on Friday 20th April, filled with 44 new poems and noises recorded by Fagan himself while out on the deep sea.
Fagan will be taking his poems on the road next week with the infamous UK punk poet John Cooper Clarke on a nearly sold out New Zealand tour.
Just in time for Record Store Day, It Was Always Going To Be Like This will be available on CD in all independent record stores, and digitally via plus1.co.nz and fagan.bandcamp.com. Or purchase your copy onboard the four-date tour along with other special pieces of merchandise!
John Cooper Clarke (UK) with special guest, Andrew Fagan (NZ)
New Zealand Tour
CRYSTAL PALACE, AUCKLAND – APRIL 21
***LIMITED TICKETS STILL AVAILABLE FROM UTR HERE***
THE VIC, DEVONPORT – April 22 (SOLD OUT)
ST PETERS ON WILLIS, WELLINGTON – April 23 (SOLD OUT)
THE PIANO, CHRISTCHURCH – April 24 (SOLD OUT)
Photo Credit: Mark Derricutt
The sea has always provided clarity for Fagan. It is perhaps no secret that as well as a prominent New Zealand musician and poet, he is a longtime sailor too. The sea has always somehow made its way into his stories.
“At sea, I’m without the terrestrial distractions that bind us all to the usual emotional, social, and must cynically say “mundane preoccupations,” he explains. “If you’re that way inclined, you find the time to apply yourself to what sub-consciously really matters to you.”
Recorded over the recent summer on a ship hundreds of miles from land, this is Fagan’s first time recording spoken word to an album.
“I started going over my old and new poems trying to work out what would be best to read for the upcoming John Cooper Clarke gigs and realised the way I read them to myself might not be the way other people read them… thought I might as well document my read so there’s no future ambiguity about how I thought they should be read in perpetuity.”
So if this whole thing came together on the sea, surely it would have been rocky as all hell right? Fagan discusses the distinct advantages and disadvantages of recording on the open blue… something most poets are unlikely to do in their lifetimes.
Disadvantages… “The ship rolls incessantly, so the physicality of recording can become a challenge. It’s a ship without sails so engine noise, air conditioning noise and associated vibrations can also be a challenge.”
Advantages… “The benefits of physical and social isolation from mainstream society (when off watch) brings out the creative essence of everyone.”
It Was Always Going To Be Like This combines spoken poetry with ‘noise’. Andrew describes the whole process as a matching up of material content with sound texture to amplify the emotional impact of the thoughts and worlds.
“The whole process was trance-like. Every sound that presented itself seemed to force itself subconsciously on me. It was fun and felt entirely otherworldly, even though my immediate real world was rolling on the ocean swells at the time.”
The recordings include new material plus readings from Andrew Fagan’s earlier poetry books Overnight Downpour, Salt Rhythms, and Serious Latitudes. They touch upon everything from the subliminal turmoil of human emotional interactions to the eternal indifference of the planet we live on – all reoccurring themes in Fagan’s work.
Recently Fagan has been going through a major creative burst after performing two successful reunion tours with the legendary Mockers. This is certainly not the last of him we will see, with a promise of more headlining shows coming soon.
He says it himself, “this is just the warm-up.”
