[Cover photo credit to Sarah Mary Chadwick]

Producer, songwriter, vocalist, and visual artist Sarah Mary Chadwick was born in New Zealand of Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Pākehā descent and currently based in Naarm/Melbourne. She has just released her ninth studio album, Take Me To a Bar / What Am I, Gatsby? digitally via Kill Rock Stars.

The physical CD & vinyl release will follow on May 30, 2025, as well as some special remixes coming soon. Chadwick has also shared final album single “Soundtrack”. The new song represents the moment that she started to think about writing music for other people.

She says:

This song is what I wanted the record to be, a mood under everything. I like giving presents and giving a song is nice, I think. Or art, my paintings. TAKE MY ART, TAKE IT PLEASE!

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.

Take Me Out To a Bar / What Am I, Gatsby? is an album that emulates the feel of a “dive bar jukebox.” It is “intended to be less demanding for the listener” and “something that you can dip in and out of, phrases that tilt the room for a moment but allow space for the listener to inhabit or leave.”

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 resonating, a natural reverb.”

She comments:

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