RHODES’ LONG JOURNEY
Published: Music Australia Guide #75, April 2010.
UK songwriter and former Lamb frontwoman Lou Rhodes wrote her third solo album One Good Thing in the wake of her sister’s death. She tells Dan Rule of finding traces of hope in the darkness.
One Good Thing is really stripped in terms of its arrangements and dynamics. It feels like there’s no hiding on this one.
“That was a real priority for me. I guess I’m part of a long tradition of singer-songwriters and there is always a kind of cathartic element in what we do. Obviously, much of the record was written through a very difficult time and I think writing a lot of these songs got me through a that time. But I hope what comes through with this record is the positive end of that whole struggle – plunging into the darkness, but kind of coming through the other side.”
The songs that bookend the record reflect that. There’s a real darkness, but it’s more about peering back from precipice and seeing the potential and possibility for happiness and love and so on.
“Yeah, it’s true. I mean, a long time ago a really good friend of mine said to me, ‘Do you realise you write all these really tragic love songs? They probably had a profound effect on your reality’. And I had never really thought of it that way, that the way you write could really affect the way you live. I guess I thought about art impersonating reality, instead of the other way around.”
I found it interesting that you recorded One Good Thing with Andy Barlow, your former partner in Lamb.
“He’s got a lot of lovely analogue gear and he’s got a lovely space and we get along really well, obviously, so it just made sense in many ways. I had my concerns about it, because obviously in the past we’ve worked together on Lamb stuff and I wasn’t quite sure how easy, particularly for him, to just step back a little. But he was absolutely brilliant and really very generous in the way that he facilitated me making the record that I wanted to make.”
Was recording in that analogue environment really important to you?
Oh yeah, definitely. Like if you think of how Nick Drake recorded Five Leaves Left, recording as much as possible live and in one take and recording guitar and vocal together on tape, I just feel it gives a record a lot more integrity and a very different, softer fidelity. It’s almost like another world to working in digital.”
Do you feel that the Lamb’s music tied you to a time and place more than your solo material, which you could argue is far more timeless?
“Yeah, and I was yearning to do something really simple and ageless again. Lamb’s music is really powerful and dynamic, but the problem I found is that first and foremost I’m a songwriter and when it comes down it for a songwriter, the greatest joy is to be able to take your songs and perform it really simply with a guitar and know that it works.”
One Good Thing is out now through Motion Audio/Inertia
Visit: lourhodes.com
