Indie pop songwriter and producer Edward R. is a swiftly-rising talent, having impressed early on with a string of singles, and culminating in the release this Friday of his debut EP Agrabah.
Having released three of the record’s five tracks so far, including a great clip for ‘Call Me Home’ self-produced in collaboration with Dane Falström, he now gives us a sneak peek ahead of its official debut, and it’s an impressive, spacious selection of uplifting and immaculately-produced slow-burning pop jams.
“I locked myself away for a year, in the small cabin on my parent’ s farm that was aptly named ‘Agrabah’,” Edward R. says of the record’s genesis. “The songs on Agrabah all came from a dire need to regurgitate everything I had on my mind and soul.
“These songs were the truest me I could have ever been at that point in my life. I didn’t have any preconceptions writing the material, I wasn’t even trying to write, I was purely enjoying unadulterated writing. No pressures, no time limits, no people in my ear hustling me to pay rent or petty life qualms. I could actually hear myself think.
“There is something about that place that was potently magical. I would spend all night into the early morning writing music with no disturbances, exploring textures and sounds, learning programs, learning production, listening to record after record, but, actually listening, not just putting a song on, but, actually hearing the air around the instrument, hearing the room it was recorded in, hearing the performance in the vocal takes… you know, that kind of thing.”
Agrabah will be officially released this Friday October 28th via We Are Golden/Create Control, but you can listen to it in full below as Edward details the process behind each track. If you like what you hear, you’ll be able to hear it live on a three-date East Coast tour (dates below), kicking off this weekend in Brissy.
Agrabah Track By Track
‘Time Will Tell’
Unbeknownst, this was the first song I ever wrote for Edward R. I was 17, in my bedroom mucking around with this really simple guitar line. The lyrics came straight away, from a place I’d never known before. I’d been trying to write for a few years now and by this point had only really strung together some pretty average stuff, so I was pretty chuffed that came so easily. The phrasing and structure just fell together, everything lined up so easily, I had a hard time believing it to be honest.
But, that was it, the song went on a five year journey. Through a couple of bands and evolutions. Until, one night, I was in Agrabah (must have been every soon thereafter I returned from the UK) and it all just made sense. The song has a very large spiritual connection with me and as crazy as it sounds, the lyrics I wrote when I was 17, they came to be throughout the years in London and then back on the Sunshine coast. The lyric became real to me, like me or the muse, predicted my own future without knowing.
In short, Time will tell represents a story of my youth. My own personal folklore, leading into a grandiose instrumental. Even know when I listen to it, the journey of the song, lyrically and musically makes a lot more sense.
‘Dance For Me’
This was the second song I wrote for Edward R. After finally finishing Time will tell, my friends helped convince me to write more music in this vein. It’s quite a melancholy song really, quite morose. ‘Dance for me now’ was intended as a sad love song, in all of its cheesy glory. This was the first song I really started experimenting with production on. The ending was a triumph in my ears. I would highly recommend being high, closing your eyes and going for a ride.
Definitely my favourite song on the EP, purely because I had so much enjoyment layering it all and figuring it out. It almost didn’t make the cut, but late in the release process I couldn’t bare the thought of it not being on the Ep, so, in order to please my ego I busted a nut and got it finished in time.
‘Wolves And The Water’
I had been mucking around with the 6/8 v 4/4 timing for a couple of nights until the structure of this song made sense to me. I happened to be up in the Montville hills with my folks having a coffee one day and the blurred line between the sky and the earth, what is more commonly known as the ‘horizon’, had this golden lining.
I had been missing that view, something that can really only be experienced on the coast, you know. The lyrics represent a longing to be home, whilst knowing you are in a place in your life that you never thought you would succumb to.
‘Call Me Home’
I wrote 90% of this song on the Coast before moving to Melbourne. Tracking everything in the lovely ‘Agrabah’ with nothing but my thoughts for company. It started out being very atmospheric, out of time but gradually over time I re-recorded most of sections in Melbourne by myself.
I added in the earlier beats after being unsatisfied with yet another ‘crescendo song’. This gave it a whole new flair. The percussion of the piano offset against rhythm of the kit flowed so much easier than what I had initially wrote.
Melody wise, I still maintained a crescendo-esque theme, mostly coming from the vocal delivery. It’s quite a baller to sing live. Definitely not a good song to sing early in the morning.
‘Who’s Going To Love You’
Happy accidents are always the best to vibe off. Initially, I started off writing with a very different song in mind, but a very early logic mixup put a whole new groove on the song. It then went through about 13 versions. Adding in different progressions and different sounds until reaching its final form, what you hear now.
Everything seemed to flow relatively easily in the early writing sessions. But, when you sit on a song for so long, you start to second guess everything you’ve created. Its an awful feeling. I think I reached a point recently where I hadn’t worked on it in so long and when I finally came to opening it up again and finish it felt like a whole new song again. I had fresh ears on it and completely revamped most of it.
Edward R East Coast Tour
Fri 28 Oct | Bistrotheque @ Empire Corner Bar, Brisbane QLD
w/ Pop Cult – Free entry
Sat 5th Nov | Gasometer, Melbourne VIC
Fri 11 Nov | Banquet @ The World Bar, Sydney NSW
