Photo credit: Jordan Wilson-Grell

Sulfate is a record about New Zealand from a distance. Most of the lyrical content was written while overseas while on tour with Wax Chattels. With lots of downtime sitting in vans/airports, and generally being in a worn-out state of mind, I noticed my mental health deteriorating – particularly on our first US tour, where I was very aware of my New-Zealander-ness. I came back with a bunch of lyrics and song ideas and wrote the music to them as a way to try and come to terms about why I was experiencing this. It formed a pretty cohesive set of songs thematically, as almost everything I wrote came back to aspects of NZ – being an island in the South Pacific far from everything else, with its own culture, climate, peoples.

This a DIY record, written, recorded and mixed by myself – along with all the being artwork my own woodcut prints. As someone who struggles to sit still, it was a bit of a test to see if I could see a project through from inception to completion. From the get-go I wanted the record to be very focussed sonically – a particular sound and energy from a particular time and place – so I didn’t labour over it – and for all, there is a large amount of sound that washes over you, the arrangements and instrumentation are very minimal. I didn’t want to spend six months finding the perfect synth tone to enhance the second verse – I wanted it to be raw.

So many of my favourite albums have mistakes, “questionable” mixing etc. but they still have this energy to them that keeps me coming back. Provided there is emotion in the songs, they’re winners. That’s what I tried to achieve with Sulfate.”

LISTEN TO ‘BUSH. FEAT HARIET ELLIS’ 

This song features Hariet Ellis (Na Noise, Vincent HL, Bozo). It’s about spiralling into a negative frame of mind, unable to really take in all the amazing things that occur around you because you’re focussed on being elsewhere.

“Growing up we had a family home in the hills north of Matakana (back when it was just a hardware store and a pub), with this expanse of bush leading away from the section down the hill. When I was about 6-7 I remember going exploring around here and very quickly getting very lost and panicking. I thought this was a nice analogy for the experience of touring – being exhausted, unable to find a way of making sense of what’s happening, overwhelming wanting to be back in your own bed, and despite all efforts being unable to see the beauty that’s around you.”

SULFATE 
Tour dates:

LISTEN TO ‘SPEAKING FOR OTHERS’ HERE