New Zealand born, Melbourne based multi-instrumentalist, songwriter, vocalist and visual artist Sarah Mary Chadwick will release her eighth studio record Messages to God on September 15 via Kill Rock Stars. Executive produced by Tony Espie (The Avalanches) and earning acclaim, the new collection is composed of broad, brightly coloured spiritual strokes and consists of dramatic retellings of having your heart broken, existing, movement and growth. 

A jaunty bar room mess with long-time collaborator and close friend Hank Clifton-Williamson and Chadwick playing dueling piano lines, “Drinkin’ on a Tuesday” is a meditation on the inevitability of ‘failure’ and how one responds & repairs, how you make a framework to contain you when things break. Chadwick shares, “This is a reverse resilience song, cause essentially it’s about bouncing back, but in the most lonely blinding searing way possible. It’s like the interior of a drunk’s mind, everything is bright and tragic and huge and dark and silent and everybody is new and bright.  And all your jokes always land, every single one.”

Chadwick is a gifted and singular songwriter, uniquely attuned to the minutiae of human emotion, not unlike Phil Eleverum’s work as Mount Eerie and Daniel Johnston’s adventures on tape. A multi-instrumentalist and vocalist, Chadwick’s songs are unsparing, brutal, and absolutely lovely. A prolific visual artist alongside her songwriting, Chadwick’s cover art of this record mirrors the slight alteration in tone; whereas previously, self-portraits of herself alone fronted her releases, now she has pictured herself amongst a group around a piano. Still not looking at peace, but surrounded by people, nonetheless.

Messages to God is a beautifully realized record. It’s not happy but it is funny and optimistic. It is melodramatic, self-serving and generous. Sometimes, from way back in the shitty seats of the theater, you’re at your closest to god. That’s what this record is like, finding beauty in everyday occurrences. Because it’s there. You just gotta look really hard sometimes. And as Chadwick provides, “Because every day’s just one more day / trying to write messages to god’’.

Photo Courtesy: Simon J Karis