 "recalls the personal nature of PJ Harvey’s music, the naked id of Daniel Johnston and
the loneliness of Television Personalities. But it’s wholly unique to Chadwick" - Rolling Stone"Sustained chords, by turns implacable and triumphant, bring a magisterial
gravity to her cryptic but emotive lyrics" - The New York Times"The Queen Who Stole The Sky is Chadwick’s most plangent, resonant work" - The Guardian
Sarah Mary Chadwick is sharing the stark & beautifully shot video for her track 'Confetti' off of her recent The Queen Who Stole The Sky LP on Sinderlyn Records today. Watch it here.
The special album was performed and recorded live on Melbourne Town Hall’s 147 year-old grand organ. Originally built in 1872, rebuilt in 1925 and refurbished in the 1990s, the Town Hall Organ is the largest Grand Romantic organ in the Southern Hemisphere.
In 2018, Sarah Mary Chadwick was commissioned by the City of Melbourne to create an entirely new body of work, to be written and recorded in just three months on an instrument grand in size, sound and antiquity. A daunting task to some, but Sarah Mary Chadwick’s trademark writing style is one that instigates itself furiously - she feels and then begins to write, without ruminating or long periods of drawn out self-reflection.
What results from this process are songs that are completely undiluted in their spirit, and an ability to create vast volumes of work over relatively short periods of time.
The Queen Who Stole The Sky is a body of work that is undeniably commanding, yet punctuated by quieter points of intimacy. The songs have a narrative-like quality, unfolding themselves before their audience. Sarah Mary Chadwick's command of the grand organ is testament to her musicality – the sheer size of the instrument could so easily drown out the nuances of the songwriting – but not so for Sarah.
Sarah describes the songs as being mostly about rural isolation, death, and “the fact that I’m always waiting for life and it never arrives – it only ever leaves”.
The Queen Who Stole The Sky was performed live at Melbourne Town Hall in the winter of 2018. The album is a masterful production by Sarah Mary Chadwick, and in Sarah’s own words, is dedicated to “anyone who ever wanted a little bit more than what life had to offer them”.About Sarah Mary Chadwick:
Multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Sarah Mary Chadwick is not a new face to Melbourne's music community. After moving to Australia from her native New Zealand to pursue a career in music, Sarah spent a decade fronting the grunge band Batrider. Eventually becoming tired of the collaborative requirements intrinsic to band life, Sarah shifted her focus to songwriting independently, drawing inspiration from “weird old New Zealand musicians” like Peter Jefferies, Chris Knox, and Australia’s Pip Proud and the way they tinker away and work for decades for “little to no commercial success.” This inspiration is obvious in Sarah’s performance as she simultaneously savors and mocks the pedestal that her creativity affords her, acknowledging that “it's a position of power being on a microphone” and how “it's a desperate demand to be seen. It's funny and really sad.”
To listen to Sarah’s music is to be a quiet observer to her thoughts on love, death and mental health. Sometimes this anguish bears itself in sullen, quiet moments, but more often torment manifests at the break of Sarah’s voice as she sing-shouts painfully vulnerable, self-aware lyrics.
Sarah Mary Chadwick has previously released albums on Siltbreeze, Bedroom Suck, Sinderlyn, and Rice Is Nice.
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