Freya Josephine Hollick – The Unceremonious Junking Of Me
Future Popes
The music of Freya Josephine Hollick distils the nostalgic sounds of a damned and grand century into a bold retelling of country music. She returns with THE UNCEREMONIOUS JUNKING OF ME, her new album steeped in old world charm and dark folk of the past. Teased with the release of debut single, ‘My Sleepin’ Body” earlier this year, THE UNCEREMONIOUS JUNKING OF ME follows on from 2014’s Beauty And Sorrow, and is out November 11 on Heart Of The Rat Records
The second single to come from Hollick is “A Man Is The Water”, a hypnotic introduction to the delicate and meandering soundscape cultivated by Hollick, it’s “an ironic love song about the reliability of men I have found myself entangled with” explains Hollick. Inspired by early blues songs, it follows a repetitive form with no real chorus, but rather mournful fiddle solos and wordless sorrowful moaning. “The premise for this song came to me one day as I was walking along a creek by my house and I came upon a man up to his waist in the water plunging his hands in deep and pulling up debris and rubbish, he was humming and had a cigarette hanging from his bottom lip. As I wandered away I began singing and when I got home the whole thing came out in one.”
On her forthcoming album, THE UNCEREMONIOUS JUNKING OF ME, Hollick sings sublimely. She explores her experience of love, pregnancy, childbirth and a deceit of the mightiest degree with haunting obliqueness and sophisticated grace. Between the subtle quiver in her notes, we feel the texture of her voice. Hollick embeds her song in a harmonic gauze of her own guitar, Kat Mear’s (of Cash Savage and the Last Drinks) fiddle and Pete Fidler’s (Bill Jackson, Bluestone Junction) dobro and mandolin, all the while drawing inspiration from Appalachian, cajun and early blues recordings.
Love and deceit balance together in suspended alchemy on THE UNCEREMONIOUS JUNKING OF ME. Captured live on 1 ½ inch tape by Myles Mumford (Rolling Stock Recording Rooms) over three sessions in Ballarat’s historical Main Bar, the album maintains a raw fragility reminiscent of evenings Hollick has spent singing on the porch of her country home.
These are not typical love songs or protest songs; they are painful, poignant riddles that celebrate the ambiguity of love. Hollick explains, “the album is from me to you, the story of how people treat one another, the lies we tell and the ones we want to believe, the folks we hurt and the trail left behind us”.
THE UNCEREMONIOUS JUNKING OF ME is a documentation of true and honest heartache, of relationships past and present. It is ‘Appalachian inspired country music’, vast, yet dense—sparse and lush.
Freya Josephine Hollick’s THE UNCEREMONIOUS JUNKING OF ME is available for pre-order on deluxe 180g vinyl and CD now.