Australian folk artist Didirri has released his second EP Sold For Sale and it’s something to behold.
Sold For Sale has been described as much a physical and metaphorical journey for the artist as it is a sonic journey for the listener. In other words, it is going to rock your world.
We had a lovely chat with Didirri about Sold For Sale and dug into a few interesting tidbits about his EP that you probably wouldn’t have expected.
1. The EP was recorded across three locations.
Recording “Sold For Sale” started in a house in Johanna, which is a tiny coastal town located about 3 hours south-west of Melbourne. We set up the house with all of our recording equipment and spent two weeks, with Dann Hume and Hayden Calnin, tracking songs that would become the end of this record. I then took a trip to Los Angeles and worked out of Sunset Sound, which housed the creation of so many of my favourite records, with Joe Chiccarelli where we finished another two songs.
I had plans to finish the record in Los Angeles with Joe as COVID hit, meaning I had to cancel my trip. I finished the record at The Garden Studios in Melbourne with Darius Kedros, while having a call with Joe in LA and my drummer Isaac in Geelong. I actually had an earphone underneath my studio headphones talking to Joe while I was recording vocals on the song “Sold For Sale”. Not exactly how I expected this process to go but I enjoyed every minute of it.
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2. Paradise is a real place in California, which no longer exists.
(Latitude: 39.7502 | Longitude: -121.633295) On the title track, “Sold For Sale”, I mention the “fires down in Paradise”. When I was touring in America in 2018, I had two days off over Thanksgiving and was staying in a town called Chico which is about 20 minutes away from Paradise. Paradise was hit with a huge wildfire that destroyed almost 95% of the town, which was put out just before I arrived.
Chico became a meeting place for those from Paradise who had lost their homes, and many were sleeping in tents in the Wal-Mart car park. I was inspired by those people who, after just losing their homes and livelihoods, were still celebrating Thanksgiving in that parking lot and being thankful for what they still had. I tried to capture the perspective this gave me in that moment. I thought of everything I had and how fleeting it could be.
Stream Sold For Sale:
3. There is only one Pianola tuner in Victoria.
The house in Johanna has a beautiful old pianola that we used on the record, which you can hear in “Raw Stuff” and “Don’t fight with what you’re fighting for”. After trying many options, we found one piano tuner who was happy to travel from Melbourne to tune it for us. We actually went back to Johanna to film the music video for “Raw Stuff” on this same pianola, so go check out that video to see what it was like.
4. While recording in Los Angeles I stayed at The Budget Inn on Sunset Boulevard.
I quite enjoyed the fact that, while I was recording at one of the most prestigious recording studios in the world, I was staying at the cheapest hotel that I could find for $90 a night. I remember having my money checked for counterfeit multiple times and hearing many strange things through the walls. The Budget Inn also inspired me to write in a way that I don’t think I could have if I were more comfortable. I wrote three songs while I was staying there.
5. I recorded all of the vocals for the original Sold For Sale record in one day and had lost my voice by the end.
At the end of the Johanna sessions, we had two days set aside to record vocals, which was rather ambitious to begin with. Then, during the first vocal day, we were evacuated from the studio due to a bushfire. The only things that we grabbed before evacuating were the hard drives that the record was saved on. Thankfully the studio was fine and we could get back to recording the following day. Because of this, I tracked vocals for 12 songs in one day and had completely lost my voice by the end of it. I also had my first drink in over a year when recording the final track at the Joanna sessions.
Check out the official music video for ‘The Critic’ from Sold For Sale:
