[Cover photo credit to Sarah Mary Chadwick]

Born in New Zealand of Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Pākehā descent, and currently based in Naarm/Melbourne, producer, songwriter, vocalist and visual artist, Sarah Mary Chadwick has announced her ninth studio album Take Me Out To a Bar / What Am I, Gatsby? due out April 4th, 2024 on Kill Rock Stars.

She has also recently released preview track “Not Cool Like NY / Not Cool Like LA”. The piano-led composition “describes fragments of a far away mystifying childhood, colliding with the desperate and dissociative present in which the artist precariously exists.”

Each of Chadwick’s records marks a moment in time. This new collection “signals the beginnings of control and self-renovation.” After a lifetime of alcohol use disorder, she got sober immediately after recording this record.

Chadwick shares:

I can hear it. The desolate desire for change, the goodbyes, the fading romance, the memories. And the pain- that’s different but that never leaves, it’s part of me.

Take Me Out To a Bar / What Am I, Gatsby? was co-produced by Chadwick and Chris Townend at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art’s Frying Pan Studios. To create the “dreamy and cinematic feel of the record,” Townend screwed contact mics to the piano’s body, played the entire album back through it with the sustain pedal held down by a sandbag, and recorded that.

She says:

These days the most  punk thing you can do is be resourceful. Making choices is free.