Spawned in the Gadigal swamps and dried on the harbour breeze, these songs rumble in from a timeless space. A whisper of paperbark, the crash of a rainstorm and the sparkle of antipodean stars.
With an instinct to kick against the tin, Swaggerland takes risks, makes adventure and runs amok with the taste of danger.
“Like children, we pale strangers dance about this country as if we own it all. We do not, yet on we go. A blithe nation. Cavalier.
Careless. Unconcerned. This is Swaggerland.”
First set at 9:30, second set at 11pm
Swaggerland
9:30PMArt rock with a twist – atmospheric, poetic and provocative.
This music was developed over a couple of years and recorded at the end of January 2024 with the brilliant engineer and producer, Tim Kevin. Bronwyn Eather’s fifth recording, this album marks a stylistic shift from her earlier records. Swaggerland celebrates a darker, more dynamic atmospheric rock sound captured live on one 40-degree weekend in Tim
Kevin’s Marrickville studio.
Eather, who writes the songs and leads the band, calls on several threads for ideas - her theatre training, an academic background and years of linguistic fieldwork on Indigenous languages in remote parts of Australia. Her creative practice involves gradual development of an audiovisual montage (songs, soundscapes and videos) evolving to a dynamic shape-shifting live sound in performance, as well as in the recording studio.
Paul Vassallo (with whom Eather also has a post-rock duo project, Aether + Vassallo) is a slide guitar specialist and usually the first to hear the songs and add his enhancements. This band has evolved through several line-up changes in recent years, and at the time of recording consisted of Paul Vassallo, Reuben Alexander on drums, atmospheric percussion and harmonica and Chris Carrapetta on bass. All band members bring their creative skills to the music and contribute to the arrangement of the songs.
Paul Vassallo’s slide guitar soars and swirls, anchored by Reuben Alexander’s anthemic drums and Chris Carrapetta’s melodic bass lines. Bronwyn Eather’s vocals take you to the edge, down to the depths and swing you back up to the high wire.
The songs are reflective of this land, often epic, with a strong dynamic perfectly suited to the intensity and versatility of Eather’s performance and to the skills of each of these musicians. Eather muses, “There is no music industry for us. There are no longer any rules. We have just lived through a global pandemic. Making music in these times means forever adapting, listening and trying new things, taking them to the edge and seeing how far, how deep we can go. It is both a challenge and a luxurious freedom.”
“Our process comes from a certain restlessness and deep yearning to reflect the time and place in which we live. These quasi-apocalyptic times are not exactly light-hearted, and while there are millions who would create fun for the last parties on the planet, Swaggerland depicts these scenes with poetry and cinematic soundscapes of dark antipodean
beauty.”
Yes, the music is Australian spiritual art rock with a unique twist – atmospheric, poetic and provocative. Underground, post-punk alternative music made for performance