Jarrah Ma is the solo project from Lachy Meagher who you may have seen over the past few years guitar-slinging with Donald Dank and the Naughty Boys and Sandy Dish, or cutting changes over jazz tunes around Melbourne. Whilst Jarrah Ma maintains plenty of the same personality as his other projects, Shaving Cream is undisputedly Lachy’s own project.

Shaving Cream is an assortment of seven addictive folky-pop songs with a lo-fi recording quality that enhances the EP's intimate charm ten-fold, as well as including bucketloads of melodies that could be captured via the voice recorder on your phone and still take up residence in your head for the rest of the afternoon.

Sparse, introspective opener ‘Happy’ sets the scene very quickly with a pulsing keyboard and lightly applied acoustic guitar, giving Lachy’s words full access to your attention and subsequently, your heart. The track falls away a little before two minutes, and ‘Like Lovers Do’ follows with its sweet and unassuming a melody before ‘World Keeps On Turning’ throws the biggest earworm of the whole EP at you with a fantastic, addictive effortlessness. As Shaving Cream rolls on, you find yourself completely absorbed by it and by the time you’ve finished blissing out to the slowly building EP closer ‘Ducks’, you’ll be just about ready to do it all again.

Shaving Cream - best served with that 6 o'clock glass of wine you've been waiting for and a cigarette, but would also make your night if you saw it being played in the back shed of a house party at 1am.

We got in touch with Lachy to talk us through Shaving Cream and what Jarrah Ma has planned for 2019.

Hi Lachy, Shaving Cream is a great listen! Tell us a bit about it and the new project. Has this one been a while in the making?

Hey Francy pants! Thank you. This is a small collection of tunes that are undeniably demos, or versions of songs at a point in time I guess. The songs have been written over the past couple of years. They were recorded over like 2 days right before last Christmas while on a whimsical trip to my hometown of Wollongong. Some are even incomplete but I just hit record and try and get them across the line. Thank you to Kyle Jory and James Andrews for all your help @ Angry Dog Records.

You’ve been playing in bands all over the place. What’s inspired the new solo project? How have your other projects informed this one?

I’ve found myself playing and writing for a number of bands and I’m still trying find my voice amongst it all and this is a step in that direction. I’ve been playing blues, country, metal, jazz, punk, folk - like all this different stuff. I love it and I love playing so much but I’m not satisfied entirely and I’d like to have this space where I can take my time and just do what I want.

Can we expect to hear hear these songs live anytime soon?

Ahh I have a couple of live shows booked which I plan to build up and collaborate with a number of different instrumentalists and eventually form a collective thingy. I’ll be performing the EP in its entirety this afternoon across from Barkly Square on Sydney Road near the rock climbing thingy at 5:30!

What else has 2019 got in store for Jarrah Ma?

I’m heading to Spain to play a festival as Jarrah Ma with two other musicians, Oscar Phipps and Nick Wright. We’re going to busk and perform around Europe and then I’ll head back here to Melbourne and keep on doing music things and see what happens!