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Track by Track:
Snowy Band - Audio Commentary
Snowy Band - Audio Commentary
With almost a decade of music to put his name to, Liam ‘Snowy’ Halliwell has reinvented himself with Snowy Band and shared Audio Commentary, perhaps his most carefully crafted and charming record to date, out now now via Spunk Records and Osborne Again.
There is much debate currently surrounding what art we should be consuming in our depressingly locked-down conditions - to revel in the wide vistas afforded by a Spaghetti Western Epic perhaps, or to quietly be comforted by the nullifying instrumentation of classical music. Nothing triggering, essentially, or nothing that would cause too much yearning for old outside life. Lucky, then, for Snowy Band: their new album Audio Commentary arrives like an inviting whisper from your own living room - musician and listener may not be able to be together in person anymore but it matters not when the warm intimacy of a record like this exists.
The latest excellent offering to Melbourne indie from Liam Halliwell - of The Ocean Party and No Local, to name just two outfits - the 11-track album is a smoky and intoxicating collection of gentle guitar-pop and minimalistic folk. At times it recalls the less extroverted output of Devendra Banhart or Sufjan Stevens (in particular the former’s indie-folk album Rejoicing In The Hands). Halliwell’s acoustic playing is backed throughout by the complementary work of Emma Russack, Nat Pavlovic of Dianas, and Dylan Young of Way Dynamic who were invited to join him on Audio Commentary - their shared comfort and intimacy with each other is expressed in the captured performances. Halliwell’s lyricism is also never afraid to reach for daunting issues - it touches on everything from love and grief to the passing of time. There is the sense that he’s managing to find hope in the struggle to survive.
Things start on a surprising jazzy note with ‘Edge Of The Weekend’, filled with Halliwell’s contemplative saxophone signalling us in. There are many similar sombre songs that follow - ‘Grown Men’ is the only song written by someone else (Halliwell’s friend Jordan Thompson) but its folk ballad fits perfectly, the line “it’s the fear of doing nothing that is harder to forget” resonating. It feels like a sister piece to the raw single-plucked notes of the minimal folk of ‘East/West’, which equally lends itself to isolated introspection.
Halliwell allows for more upbeat moments, though, particularly on the guitar-pop single ‘Never Change’ that juxtaposes noticeably with its ponderous and uncertain words. ‘The Rest Of Your Life’ likewise bounces with a fuller hi-fi sound.
On the album’s most beautiful recording, ‘Love You To Death’, Halliwell tenderly sings “it’s hard to explain, it’s hard to describe, it’s hard to explain, but I’ll try.” As hushed vocal harmonies rise, it’s hard not to consider those lyrics as being achingly relevant to us all right now. Everyone may be a little lost but Audio Commentary is a profoundly intimate moment of empathy and optimism.
To give some more background on the album, we spoke with Halliwell and his thoughts on each song are below.
The latest excellent offering to Melbourne indie from Liam Halliwell - of The Ocean Party and No Local, to name just two outfits - the 11-track album is a smoky and intoxicating collection of gentle guitar-pop and minimalistic folk. At times it recalls the less extroverted output of Devendra Banhart or Sufjan Stevens (in particular the former’s indie-folk album Rejoicing In The Hands). Halliwell’s acoustic playing is backed throughout by the complementary work of Emma Russack, Nat Pavlovic of Dianas, and Dylan Young of Way Dynamic who were invited to join him on Audio Commentary - their shared comfort and intimacy with each other is expressed in the captured performances. Halliwell’s lyricism is also never afraid to reach for daunting issues - it touches on everything from love and grief to the passing of time. There is the sense that he’s managing to find hope in the struggle to survive.
Things start on a surprising jazzy note with ‘Edge Of The Weekend’, filled with Halliwell’s contemplative saxophone signalling us in. There are many similar sombre songs that follow - ‘Grown Men’ is the only song written by someone else (Halliwell’s friend Jordan Thompson) but its folk ballad fits perfectly, the line “it’s the fear of doing nothing that is harder to forget” resonating. It feels like a sister piece to the raw single-plucked notes of the minimal folk of ‘East/West’, which equally lends itself to isolated introspection.
Halliwell allows for more upbeat moments, though, particularly on the guitar-pop single ‘Never Change’ that juxtaposes noticeably with its ponderous and uncertain words. ‘The Rest Of Your Life’ likewise bounces with a fuller hi-fi sound.
On the album’s most beautiful recording, ‘Love You To Death’, Halliwell tenderly sings “it’s hard to explain, it’s hard to describe, it’s hard to explain, but I’ll try.” As hushed vocal harmonies rise, it’s hard not to consider those lyrics as being achingly relevant to us all right now. Everyone may be a little lost but Audio Commentary is a profoundly intimate moment of empathy and optimism.
To give some more background on the album, we spoke with Halliwell and his thoughts on each song are below.
Edge Of The Weekend
At the end of 2018, I bought myself a nylon-string acoustic guitar which is the sound at the core of this whole album. Once I got the guitar I started playing and writing more music than I ever had. On my own and for myself. I realised that I could fill my days almost entirely playing over and over a small fragment of a melody or a single chord until it turned into something else - not rushing to squish an idea into a structure; verse / chorus, etc, or even into a chord progression - not so much discrete musical moments occurring in order, but a continual flow in all directions. In a weird way this song ended up being at different times the most simple and most involved song I think I’ve ever written… Definitely the shortest for how long I spent figuring it out.
Love You To Death
I wrote this song for my friend Mark (Crowman). One time, while he was getting the 12-hour train from Sydney to Melbourne to play a show with the Ocean Party, he passed the time by writing reviews of the entirety of my musical back-catalogue. All of my stupid “albums” online as well as some rarities that would only have existed on his hard-drive. Scattered through the written thoughts on the music were a few little personal messages to me. I read the whole lot once and then decided to hang onto re-reading until I felt like the time was right. That time turned out to be five years later and I wrote this song.
It had no dynamic or real structure to it before I brought it to the band, just that one chord over and over. Thankfully I have the best group of natural musicians who play with me and it became this lovely, gradually shifting piece that doesn’t seem to take the easy way out and give in to its own sentimentality.
At the end of 2018, I bought myself a nylon-string acoustic guitar which is the sound at the core of this whole album. Once I got the guitar I started playing and writing more music than I ever had. On my own and for myself. I realised that I could fill my days almost entirely playing over and over a small fragment of a melody or a single chord until it turned into something else - not rushing to squish an idea into a structure; verse / chorus, etc, or even into a chord progression - not so much discrete musical moments occurring in order, but a continual flow in all directions. In a weird way this song ended up being at different times the most simple and most involved song I think I’ve ever written… Definitely the shortest for how long I spent figuring it out.
Love You To Death
I wrote this song for my friend Mark (Crowman). One time, while he was getting the 12-hour train from Sydney to Melbourne to play a show with the Ocean Party, he passed the time by writing reviews of the entirety of my musical back-catalogue. All of my stupid “albums” online as well as some rarities that would only have existed on his hard-drive. Scattered through the written thoughts on the music were a few little personal messages to me. I read the whole lot once and then decided to hang onto re-reading until I felt like the time was right. That time turned out to be five years later and I wrote this song.
It had no dynamic or real structure to it before I brought it to the band, just that one chord over and over. Thankfully I have the best group of natural musicians who play with me and it became this lovely, gradually shifting piece that doesn’t seem to take the easy way out and give in to its own sentimentality.
Never Change
This is one of the more overt pop songs on the album. Heart-on-sleeve stuff. I wrote it for my friend Lachlan.
I wanted to write a song that addressed and paid tribute to my experiences and friendships in music over the past decade, without wrapping it up into a neat and conclusive package. Without a simple explanation for what has been and for what comes next. I think that while creative processes shared with other people often appear to conclude with a tangible and digestible product (an album, a Final Tour, etc), for myself, the passing of time and gained perspective always sheds new light and meaning on art made collaboratively. The underlying sentiment is that the friendship and shared experience at the foundation of it all is the reliable constant that will never change.
This is one of the more overt pop songs on the album. Heart-on-sleeve stuff. I wrote it for my friend Lachlan.
I wanted to write a song that addressed and paid tribute to my experiences and friendships in music over the past decade, without wrapping it up into a neat and conclusive package. Without a simple explanation for what has been and for what comes next. I think that while creative processes shared with other people often appear to conclude with a tangible and digestible product (an album, a Final Tour, etc), for myself, the passing of time and gained perspective always sheds new light and meaning on art made collaboratively. The underlying sentiment is that the friendship and shared experience at the foundation of it all is the reliable constant that will never change.
Grown Men
My high school band was called “Ian”. We were the greatest band in Wagga Wagga. Hands down. I don’t care what you hear otherwise, we had the best original songs. We wrote more considered and carefully constructed songs than the other bands on the scene and Mark was definitely the best singer. Sure, Jordan and I weren’t necessarily as technical (read: fast) as the other guitarists around, but the interlocking, interweaving and dynamic parts we wrote are at the heart of the signature “Ian” sound. I know that Ben and Riley are great drummers but Damo is too, just in his own way. Once we got him to replace Taylor on drums we really started to make our mark. In 2006 we came 2nd at the state-wide “YouthRock” competition.
The Rest Of Your Life
This one was originally the title track from a solo record I released through Bandcamp in 2018. It was one of the first songs that we played together as a band and I loved the way it subtly turned into a new song with a different vibe. It’s a pretty simple one, all-based around the repeated manta of not getting too wrapped up in the present. You’ve always got more time for the trivial things in your life. Or if you don’t then the trivial things matter.
Coast Road
This is my favourite song on the album. It’s a conglomerate of separate experiences I’ve had travelling the South Coast of Victoria and NSW - that area recently ravaged by bushfires. It’s a collage of all of these thoughts and feelings on solo drives to and from Melbourne, melded into some loose, imagined, dream-like story. Despite the sort of fictional content, it’s weirdly the most personal song of the lot.
Don’t Waste It
I wrote this one while bailed up at my Dad’s house in Wagga over Christmas. It was over 40+ degrees every day I was there and in order to enjoy any fresh air and time outside I’d make a habit of waking up while the sun was still down and go for a walk over Willan’s Hill - the hill in the centre of town where my friends and I used to hang out, chat, drink and smash up old TVs as teenagers. The song is just a simple meditation on making the most of the time while you have it.
More Than Enough
This one, like quite a few on the album, came from a bedroom demo - one mic, acoustic guitar, sampled and pitch-shifted and chopped around into an unrecognisable state. A lot of the original demos made their way into what would become the final recording. The little bits and pieces of those bedroom demos became the sonic glue that holds all of the full band recorded parts together. This song, more than any of the others, explicitly features those lo-fi, pitched-down bedroom moments, switching between the murky verses and the wide-screen sections of the full band. This one is both really fun and really hard to play live.
East/West
I wrote this song as a present for my friend/bandmate/girlfriend Nathalie’s birthday last year. There’s not much to say about this one that’s not already in the song. I don’t normally do this but I recorded about ten different arrangements of this song before I finally landed on the one that’s on the album. I think it’s pretty nice and I like playing it live with the band, it’s really fun to be able to ebb and flow in and out of time, but it’s pretty scary and exposing to sing in front of them, let alone an audience.
Don’t Want To See You Again
This was the very first thing I wrote when I got the new nylon-string acoustic guitar that was the catalyst for starting this band. It was a train-of-thought musical and lyrical improvisation that I recorded in one take, chopped and twisted into something new and then re-learned with the band. I like the idea of throw-away, spontaneous creation - mistakes and all - becoming a sort-of rigid source material, really committing to ideas that you would have otherwise thrown away because they are “wrong”. The full-band jam at the end is my favourite part of the whole album. I like that there’s this tension that never gets resolved.
My high school band was called “Ian”. We were the greatest band in Wagga Wagga. Hands down. I don’t care what you hear otherwise, we had the best original songs. We wrote more considered and carefully constructed songs than the other bands on the scene and Mark was definitely the best singer. Sure, Jordan and I weren’t necessarily as technical (read: fast) as the other guitarists around, but the interlocking, interweaving and dynamic parts we wrote are at the heart of the signature “Ian” sound. I know that Ben and Riley are great drummers but Damo is too, just in his own way. Once we got him to replace Taylor on drums we really started to make our mark. In 2006 we came 2nd at the state-wide “YouthRock” competition.
The Rest Of Your Life
This one was originally the title track from a solo record I released through Bandcamp in 2018. It was one of the first songs that we played together as a band and I loved the way it subtly turned into a new song with a different vibe. It’s a pretty simple one, all-based around the repeated manta of not getting too wrapped up in the present. You’ve always got more time for the trivial things in your life. Or if you don’t then the trivial things matter.
Coast Road
This is my favourite song on the album. It’s a conglomerate of separate experiences I’ve had travelling the South Coast of Victoria and NSW - that area recently ravaged by bushfires. It’s a collage of all of these thoughts and feelings on solo drives to and from Melbourne, melded into some loose, imagined, dream-like story. Despite the sort of fictional content, it’s weirdly the most personal song of the lot.
Don’t Waste It
I wrote this one while bailed up at my Dad’s house in Wagga over Christmas. It was over 40+ degrees every day I was there and in order to enjoy any fresh air and time outside I’d make a habit of waking up while the sun was still down and go for a walk over Willan’s Hill - the hill in the centre of town where my friends and I used to hang out, chat, drink and smash up old TVs as teenagers. The song is just a simple meditation on making the most of the time while you have it.
More Than Enough
This one, like quite a few on the album, came from a bedroom demo - one mic, acoustic guitar, sampled and pitch-shifted and chopped around into an unrecognisable state. A lot of the original demos made their way into what would become the final recording. The little bits and pieces of those bedroom demos became the sonic glue that holds all of the full band recorded parts together. This song, more than any of the others, explicitly features those lo-fi, pitched-down bedroom moments, switching between the murky verses and the wide-screen sections of the full band. This one is both really fun and really hard to play live.
East/West
I wrote this song as a present for my friend/bandmate/girlfriend Nathalie’s birthday last year. There’s not much to say about this one that’s not already in the song. I don’t normally do this but I recorded about ten different arrangements of this song before I finally landed on the one that’s on the album. I think it’s pretty nice and I like playing it live with the band, it’s really fun to be able to ebb and flow in and out of time, but it’s pretty scary and exposing to sing in front of them, let alone an audience.
Don’t Want To See You Again
This was the very first thing I wrote when I got the new nylon-string acoustic guitar that was the catalyst for starting this band. It was a train-of-thought musical and lyrical improvisation that I recorded in one take, chopped and twisted into something new and then re-learned with the band. I like the idea of throw-away, spontaneous creation - mistakes and all - becoming a sort-of rigid source material, really committing to ideas that you would have otherwise thrown away because they are “wrong”. The full-band jam at the end is my favourite part of the whole album. I like that there’s this tension that never gets resolved.
Audio Commentary is out now via Osbourne Again and Spunk Records. Catch Snowy Band launching the album with an intimate set from home, livestreamed to Instagram and Facebook at 7:30pm tomorrow, Thursday April 2nd.
