$10.00
Spunk Records is proud to present Team, the new album from Holly Throsby. This is her fourth long-player, following 2008’s internationally acclaimed A Loud Call, and it marks a progressive shift in content and sound. It is an album intrigued with working mechanisms and teams (co-pilots, miners, soldiers, police, bees, tables & chairs), and it presents its own little universe of cascading songs: explorations of companionship, separation, and the natural world.
Throsby’s reunion with long-time friend & producer Tony Dupé (On Night, Under The Town) lead the pair to a 19th Century sandstone church in Wildes Meadow, New South Wales. They first recorded See!, a wide-eyed and sound-effect laden children’s record, before beginning Team. To say it’s surprising that these two albums were recorded back to back is something of an understatement.
Both vocally and instrumentally, Team navigates inquisitive new territories. In songs like “What I Thought of You”, “Here Is My Co-Pilot” and “We are Glowing”, contrasting groups of overlapping vocals erupt and intertwine, thicker and more playfully than ever before. Experiential & impressionistic, the lyrics involve you like conversations – daily narratives, colloquialisms, dry humour, and tangential thoughts sit inside a world of unexpected images (falling pears, an excited crow, needles, comets, a night at the theatre). As with all of Throsby’s records, Team feels like a product of its environment: the reuniting of old friends, the particular sound of that church and the familiar scale of life, detailed impeccably. The arrangements move between eccentric (“It’s Only Need”), spirited (“When?”) and flat-out gorgeous (“To See You Out”). Teams of wooden instruments – cello, violin, upright bass, piano, pump organ – unite and dissipate in lush flourishes, anchored by a nylon string guitar.
Joined by her band, The Hello Tigers (Bree van Reyk on drums & percussion and Jens Birchall on cello, bass & mandolin), Team also features Tony Dupé (organ, string arrangements) and violinist Veronique Serret (of Joanna Newsom’s band). It was mixed in part by Burke Reid (The Drones, The Mess Hall) at Sydney’s BJB Studios and by J. Walker (Machine Translations, C.W Stoneking) at the old General Store in Jumbunna, Victoria.
Twice ARIA nominated for Best Female Artist (Under The Town & A Loud Call), Holly has toured extensively across the globe, releasing A Loud Call through Europe, Japan & the UK. Apart from music Holly is interested in 20th century literature, films about small towns, humour, naive art, and dogs.