Giant Sand, Yo La Tengo, Calexico, Smog, Melvins, Acetone, The Velvet Underground, John Cale, John Cage, Bill Callahan, Daniel Johnston, Latin Playboys, Tom Waits, Los Lobos, Francis Plagne, Elliot Smith, Wilco, Animal Collective, Sparklehorse, My Morning Jacket, The Mekons, Bird Blobs, Comus, Hanne Huckelberg, Francois Breut, Lindha Kallerdahl, John Zorn, The Magnetic Fields, Pere Ubu, Pink Floyd, Tortoise, Vashti Bunyan, The Beatles, PJ Harvey, Sonic Youth, Tindersticks, Serge Gainsbourg, Arto Lindsay, Gene Clark, Art Garfunkel, Irma Thomas, B.B King, Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Keb' Mo', Bonnie "Prince" Billy, Nico, Bill Frisell, Buddy Guy, Low, Neko Case, Al Green. I got a bit carried away, these are just things I like.
Not much.
Miscellaneous reviews...
"Freya Hollick sings with a voice that slowly gets under your skin. It's a haunting instrument. It soars and shakes, every tremulous break giving away some clue to what the singer is feeling. This singer is from Ballarat, Australia and she's bound for big things. I hear a lot of Marissa Nadler in her. Some fine tuning her spare songs would mean the world. The 21 songs here are near perfect in their conveyance of loneliness and heartbreak. Not adding anything big to the mix, just a lot of space for the chords and the vocals to weave into each other creating webs of intimacy and the occasional pain. This is an increasingly lovely album, ruthlessly lo-fi but unsettlingly pretty."- rate your music- bootleg/ unauthorised release (21 songs and not all of them are finished).
"Melbourne (via Ballarat) chanteuse Freya Hollick is sipping the brown liquor between quick darts around the room and bursts of vocal energy. She sits like a hummingbird caught in a web; unable to fully expend her energetic side in this quiet city bar. Freya is another of Melbourne's dazzling secrets; since the limelight is usually reserved for metrosexual indie rockers and burgeoners of bore, more interesting and creative of musical types are fit to create their own following. Freya has done this both with her solo endeavours (an otherworldly sound fixed with dreamy, spidery guitar and the occasional ukulele) and fronting improv-psych-rock band ANTS. A pixie in an op-shop dress, I find out a little more about her influences amongst other things..." - Lisa Dib, Dwarf mag.
"Freya Hollick is a young singer-songwriter originally from the country town of Ballarat, Australia. She records lo-fidelity songs and sings with a voice of ethereal beauty. The themes of her lyrics span from psychedelic imagery and fairytale characters to personal experiences and those of friends and acquaintances. Freya's music is largely influenced by The Beatles, Nick Drake and The Velvet Underground, while she also takes inspiration from Syd Barrett and more contemporary artists like The Eels and M. Ward. She is sometimes compared to Emiliana Torrini. Freya relocated to Melbourne, Victoria in February 2007, to start playing regular gigs and establish a reputation amongst Melbourne's indie folk circles. Also, Freya joined the band, Ants, a guitar drums duo (now trio with Freya) focusing on improvisations and guest players. She hopes to release a demo of recordings in the coming months."- Last.fm, Marko Bogdanovic.
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2008
Freya Hollick- 2007 (When Madness Overcame the Deer)
"Freya Hollick is a singer/songwriter from Ballarat and occasionally Melbourne, Victoria. Over the past few years she has been pumping gem after gem from her humble home studio while slowly building a dedicated fan base via word of mouth. With no official releases to her name, the quality of demo material is only tempting listeners of what is to come.
The deceptively simple guitar echoes throughout a quiet house, never too clustered, never too sparse. Coupled with a ghostly, spider webbed voice sometimes clear like the day and other times intangible as smoke rising from a still room the musical beauty resonates just long enough to tantalise. Around this floorboards creak, ceilings crack and distant voices bounce through hallways and living rooms. These two elements are nothing without direction and it is the position as a story teller that solidifies them. With unassuming charm Freya takes us through lo-fi stories of love lost, childhood fantasies, forests and the quiet lives of animals. For me it is the theme of challenging childhood innocence that is most enduring. "Costume" follows the story of how family turmoil can affect a child. When scared he is cloaked in ‘costume’, a blanket of security that protects him from the outside world. It is this idea of emotional protection from something as simple as clothing that reminds me of Maurice Sendak’s Where the Wild Things Are. Before the sobering realities of the world are yet to take hold escapism for a child can be as simple as wearing their favourite costume and turning in to somebody else. Ophelia also gives the impression of life through the perception of a child. The song follows an obsessive love story of a boy infatuated by a woman/a girl/a dream. This is an omniscient love from the perception of the child. Ophelia is commanding, controlling but it seems this way only because of his innocence and ignorance. It is not necessary to anthropomorphise Ophelia, she is an emotion, a state of mind, uncontrollable anomaly that is typical within the blamelessness of childhood.
In a live context Hollick is an incarnation of her songs. I was privileged enough to watch her play at Glitch Bar, one of her first gigs in Melbourne, where she presented material she had written over the past 2 years. It was something really special. Here are 8 demos from 2007 which is but the start of her back catalogue."-Dot Eyes Blog.
Freya dear, how have you been? I've missed you. I'd really like for you to sing on a song of mine at some point. Much fine-tuning to be done on my newly written tunes, but I want a whole community of friends to add some of their magic. And I want some of your magic. On tape. Keep in touch. xJames
Hello, the Custom Kings are playing their only Melbourne show this Saturday at the John Curtin Hotel, with special guests the Hello Mornings and Matheson.
Hope to see you there.
CK
Hello again, a couple of boys from the Custom Kings have a side project called Joe Neptune. Joe's debut album, "No Time To Grow Up", is in stores now. Bonus tracks are available in iTumes. Thanks
