Music / Premieres
Premiere: Liam Beven -
(There's Either Life) Or There's Hiding
(There's Either Life) Or There's Hiding
Having spent the last few years balancing his music career between Melbourne dive bars and cruise ships, we’ve finally been able to lock Liam Beven down in the one spot long enough to premiere his stunning debut single ‘(There’s Either Life) Or There’s Hiding’ - an enchanting, masterfully composed dream-pop slow-burner that’ll make you think he’s three albums in by now.
A silver lining of sorts, Liam Beven’s debut single comes as he intended to be hitting the high seas at the beginning of a six-month cruise ship contract. Instead, he’s remaining in Melbourne and treating us to his stunning debut release, ‘(There’s Either Life) Or There’s Hiding’.
Whilst this is his first release as a solo artist, his smooth-as-butter guitaristry has already found its way onto Trouble Juice a handful of times, within Melbourne rock acts Primetime and Barcelos - which might go someway to explaining how a debut single can be this bloody well done.
Easing us in to the Liam Beven experience gently, ‘(There’s Either Life) Or There’s Hiding’ washes over you with with little more than a handful of chords and some light, effected drumming courtesy of Jim Rindfleish (Hardcoded Korean Subs, Mildlife and about a million other things), who also co-mixed and co-produced. As things coast along and mist around Liam’s warm, comforting vocals, you’re embraced by a refreshing lack of urgency that I relate to especially well at the moment - not unlike that of a long cruise. As the following four minutes roll on by, we'd recommend getting out of your cabin, finding a banana lounge on top deck, closing your eyes and basking in it like rays of sun.
Upon being asked what inspired the single and its intimate, inviting nature, Liam says, "it’s funny, I usually try to avoid hearing someone talk about music just as it’s released, cos it can be hard for me to not be affected by someone else’s opinions until I can fully process and try to make sense of it for me. So I don’t want to disturb someone else’s experience with stuff, that being said, context can be helpful sometimes too though, so I’d say this song is like a pep talk to myself. It’s a bit encouraging, a bit wishful and a bit of a resignation but also an acceptance.”
He continues, “there’s a funny line that goes “20 scary movies/And now I can't walk through the house at night”, which has to do with when I tried to watch a horror movie every night for a month. I remember at the end of each movie I’d be alone up one end of the house, and had to walk to the other end to get to my room. I’d end up turning on each light as quickly as I could between rooms to try to disprove my paranoia. I stopped at 20 movies for a few different reasons. Some of those movies still creep in my head in the dark sometimes, enough that I'll turn lights on so I feel less scared.”
‘(There’s Either Life) Or There’s Hiding’ is the first taste of an EP that Liam is putting the final touches now. He elaborates, “I haven’t got to playing shows yet, we’ll see how the EP goes and hopefully at some point I can put a band together. My dream would be to make music that gives people a similar feeling to how I feel when I listen to music I love.”
“It’s probably taken me this long to get enough of a small skillset and idea of aesthetic to put my name on it and think, this is sort of cool and it kind of sounds like me and I hope other people can like it too.”
Seems pretty well on the way to me.
Whilst this is his first release as a solo artist, his smooth-as-butter guitaristry has already found its way onto Trouble Juice a handful of times, within Melbourne rock acts Primetime and Barcelos - which might go someway to explaining how a debut single can be this bloody well done.
Easing us in to the Liam Beven experience gently, ‘(There’s Either Life) Or There’s Hiding’ washes over you with with little more than a handful of chords and some light, effected drumming courtesy of Jim Rindfleish (Hardcoded Korean Subs, Mildlife and about a million other things), who also co-mixed and co-produced. As things coast along and mist around Liam’s warm, comforting vocals, you’re embraced by a refreshing lack of urgency that I relate to especially well at the moment - not unlike that of a long cruise. As the following four minutes roll on by, we'd recommend getting out of your cabin, finding a banana lounge on top deck, closing your eyes and basking in it like rays of sun.
Upon being asked what inspired the single and its intimate, inviting nature, Liam says, "it’s funny, I usually try to avoid hearing someone talk about music just as it’s released, cos it can be hard for me to not be affected by someone else’s opinions until I can fully process and try to make sense of it for me. So I don’t want to disturb someone else’s experience with stuff, that being said, context can be helpful sometimes too though, so I’d say this song is like a pep talk to myself. It’s a bit encouraging, a bit wishful and a bit of a resignation but also an acceptance.”
He continues, “there’s a funny line that goes “20 scary movies/And now I can't walk through the house at night”, which has to do with when I tried to watch a horror movie every night for a month. I remember at the end of each movie I’d be alone up one end of the house, and had to walk to the other end to get to my room. I’d end up turning on each light as quickly as I could between rooms to try to disprove my paranoia. I stopped at 20 movies for a few different reasons. Some of those movies still creep in my head in the dark sometimes, enough that I'll turn lights on so I feel less scared.”
‘(There’s Either Life) Or There’s Hiding’ is the first taste of an EP that Liam is putting the final touches now. He elaborates, “I haven’t got to playing shows yet, we’ll see how the EP goes and hopefully at some point I can put a band together. My dream would be to make music that gives people a similar feeling to how I feel when I listen to music I love.”
“It’s probably taken me this long to get enough of a small skillset and idea of aesthetic to put my name on it and think, this is sort of cool and it kind of sounds like me and I hope other people can like it too.”
Seems pretty well on the way to me.
Check out ‘(There's Either Life) Or There's Hiding’ above, and follow Bevo over on instagram to keep an ear out for when his debut EP will be dropping.
