Track By Track: Hein Cooper's Stunning Self-Titled Debut EP

Discovered playing in a small Sydney bar, the talented singer songwriter Hein Cooper is today premiering his stunning self-titled debut EP set for release April 10th via through Canadian/Australian indie label Indica Records.

Hailing from Milton on the New South Wales South Coast, Cooper was performing one of his regular sets in a small pub when manager of legendary rockers Half Moon Run, Franz Schuller stumbled upon Coopers’ set, blown away by what he was hearing, Schuller invited Hein to write and demo his songs in Montreal (Canada) and he was quickly signed to Indica Records.

After returning to Australia to continue playing shows (including national tours with Half Moon Run and Thelma Plum) and develop his sound, he headed back to Montreal in 2014 to play Canadian Music Week and record his debut self-titled EP with producer Marcus Paquin (Arcade Fire, The National, The Local Natives, Hey Rosetta).

Now ready to unleash his delicious blend of emotive indie and pop, out April 10th (pre-order via iTunes here) Cooper has given us a track by track run down of his beautiful EP, stream it and read the track by track below, and be sure to visit his Facebook page for all upcoming info.

The Art of Escape

This track has been with me for a couple of years before release. I had been demo-ing the track in lot’s of different ways, with different lyrics and structures, before I finalised the message and theme of the song. This theme has been something very deeply set in my personal life. I have always needed to have change and transition and escapism has become a big part of it. So ‘The art of Escape’ became my mantra for this. It is a call to all of the wonderful displaced beings I have found in my life and more broadly, everyone who feels alone in their own idealistic dreaming.

The Real

The Real is inspired by one of my favourite films ‘The Matrix’. I loved the trilogy’s message and feel that it relates to our world now more than ever. The idea of whether we are living in reality or in a simulated world created to control us is essentially what drives the song. So in the bridge for instance, I wanted to make the listener feel like they had woken from the simulation and seen life as it actually is, and give the impact of hard truths by tripping and twisting the groove.

Luna Sky

I wrote this song about a Chilean guy I used to live with in Sydney for a couple of years. Another person I feel (even more so than me) is constantly running away from something. At the same time, he is one of the loveliest people I’ve met and is very intelligent. We used to sit around till late at night listening to all of our favourite music and talk about it and life in general for hours.

Although one thing we never chatted about was his overall happiness levels. He seemed to have some deep pain buried inside and so I felt I needed to write a song as a kind of letter that I pictured reading to him on one of the nights we’d stay up late hanging out.

The Art of Escape (Tora remix)

I love hearing songs being cut up and glued back together with the vision of another person, especially when an acoustic song is morphed into a heavy groove. So I was really interested to hear what ‘The Art of Escape’ would sound like as a remix. My manager mentioned that he was talking to Tora about remixing the track and I was very excited! The ‘Tora’ boys absolutely transformed the song into a bubbling groove full of suspense and breezy atmosphere, and managed to hold on to the original emotion of the song.