A CONVERSATION WITH... FAERY
Accompanying our first Off The Record episode, experimental Australian artist faery introduces us to their vision, their activism, and their debut album, rising.
Credit: Max D’Osorgna
When did you fall in love with music?
I grew up in a family that sang a lot of songs like a lot of ancestral songs. And so I think without realising, I was in love with music. Like if I couldn’t sleep, my mom had a breast-feeding song she made up and I’d hum that to myself. I was in love with storytelling and the music helped me remember the stories. But I didn't have a very musical household. Like my dad played the same CD's two CD's over and over. A Norah Jones CD and then a mix CD with Chuck Berry and Drops of Jupiter. I think they played a lot more music to be fair before my dad got really sick with a disease, so we had a very quiet household. As I got into my teens, I started discovering my own musical tastes. I know a lot of people who were in bands, and I would play instruments with them. But I think I had a lot of blockages to me making music myself that people could hear. Like I always made my own music but didn't share it.
when you're recording or writing in the studio, do you find that creating the music calms you?
For sure. One day, Will, my co-producer, and I were working on this one song where I'd been playing singing bowls. We were editing and adding layers and different sounds to it for half a day in the studio but we both were about to fall asleep immediately. We both were so relaxed, we could barely talk to each other. One of my favourite things about music is the words, I see them as spells. I enjoy the relaxing aspects of writing lyrics and being able to create these spells so that we can collectively sing a new way of being.
if someone were to discover your music and you for the first time, where would you direct them?
I always direct them to the music video because I think it helps drop them into this realm, and that's also been going around and having some success at different awards. So I think a lot of people are also finding the music through that. Otherwise, my favourite songs were the ones that make me the happiest like ‘anam cara’ and ‘beltane’. The whole album was written through a break up I had, like a six-year relationship that broke up a week before my wedding. It was very dramatic. My dad had died. My life was exploding and music was the one thing that helped me through it. You know, people can find it anywhere. But I think I would want people to find it when they're looking for some guidance and something to anchor them. Personally, I love finding new music when you're walking into a space like a cafe and you hear something amazing. You play Shazam and you feel like you've just discovered this little gem. That would be my most desired way for people to discover faery.
you mentioned the day that your father passed away and you hopped into the studio, creating through that grief. what guided you to go into the studio and say “I want to sit down and create today”?
I think death is such an important aspect of being alive that we should become uncomfortable with. It was my first full day in the studio with Will, who really is my musical (and platonic) soulmate. I turned to him and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, I can't believe that. I've just recorded my first song.’ We're having a little cheer and my phone started to ring. It was my mother, and I answered because I was in Cornwall and she was in Australia where it was 4 am. She's like, ‘Your dad's dying. I thought you might want to say goodbye.’ I was in denial cause he'd been sick for 22 years of my life. Since my mum and I were his carers, so very integrated in that disease and his journey through it. He was a tough one and he'd choose when he goes. He was a very strong individual. After about 20 minutes, I finally realized that I wasn't going to be there in person. So, I got Mum to put the phone on his chest, so with my mum, sister, and auntie, we sang him into the next realm. It was so powerful to offer him that. He couldn't talk at that point, but you could hear in his breath he had that that death rattle coming on. When we were singing or telling stories, you could tell it’d put him into a relaxed state. It was a celebration of his life and a celebration of him. He passed away on the final line of this song, which is about the Sun God going to the heavens, which was perfect timing. He always had great timing.
He did have about three or four moments when he kind of came back to life, but it was so comical. It was like having to be hooked off the stage because he was an actor as well. That just made me want to make healing music even more, because it had been such a gift to me, to him, and to everyone in our family dynamic. We were able to remember him with songs that he already knew. I saw the power of healing through this experience. And we’ve been aware of the power of how healing music is, especially through science and a cellular level. There’s a really beautiful practice, a birth practice in Māoritanga in New Zealand. It's a Maori tradition. I met with one of the elders in it and he was training me in how you do this. From about month four of the pregnancy, the mother role and the father role (any gender), make up a song together that's then sung for all those months as the father massages her. The song will start to activate that dopamine and serotonin release. When she goes into birth, they sing the birth song. The only people that know it are the parents and the baby. I thought that’s such an effective gift of life and honouring it.
We’ve lost connection in Western society. I think that's why so many people are cherry-picking and trying to grab cultures that aren't theirs without permission and appropriate because we haven't had these wisdom keepers. Imagine how different we would live in the world and connect to each other if there was that intention. If we had this clarity and knowledge that we're becoming future ancestors and creating them. That’s why I really love faery, because it's such a celebration of the lineage that I've been taught the most. My mother and auntie raised me with a lot of Celtic, Irish, and Scottish traditions. My father was very Cornish and those things were celebrated and remembered. They were connected to the earth and the Pagan practices that just makes life better.
Would you say that that's an album that you want people to always listen all the way through? Or do you think it's an album that people can pick and choose, almost like a prescription? how do you envision people enjoying it?
I love that you sent the prescription because the the physical record is coming out at the end of this year and on the back, we have like songs to listen to for… ‘suffering from a broken heart’, ‘self care’, etc. They’re all the ways to jump into it because it's art, right? You put it out, people do what they want with it and connect with it. That's the thing that excites me the most. I don't mind if people don't want to listen to the whole thing.
To learn more about faery and her art, listen here.
For more information about the practices faery mentioned:
Traditional birthing practices, Te whānau tamariki – pregnancy and birth.
Kuku Yalanji language pronunciations here (madja) and here (river) with a Yalanji woman speaking in her language.
The organisation faery spoke about in the podcast: Rainforest Rescue.