Sarah Mary Chadwick is back with a new album titled Please Daddy, a wretched exploration of a mind working against itself, begging for a taste of light in the overwhelming darkness.
Multi-instrumentalist and visual artist Sarah Mary Chadwick is not a new face to Melbourne’s music community. After moving to Australia from her native New Zealand to pursue a career in music, Sarah spent a decade fronting the grunge band Batrider. Eventually becoming tired of the collaborative requirements intrinsic to band life, Sarah shifted her focus to songwriting independently, drawing inspiration from “weird old New Zealand musicians” and the way they tinker away and work for decades for “little to no commercial success.”
This inspiration is obvious in Sarah’s performance as she simultaneously savours and mocks the pedestal that her creativity affords her, acknowledging that “it’s a position of power being on a microphone” and how “it’s a desperate demand to be seen. It’s funny and really sad.
To listen to Sarah’s music is to be a quiet observer to her thoughts on love, death and mental health. Sometimes this anguish bears itself in sullen, quiet moments, but more often torment manifests at the break of Sarah’s voice as she sing-shouts painfully vulnerable and self-aware lyrics.
Songs move slow as sludge, dragging along with hellish intent and tangible torment, bringing you through the trenches as you and Chadwick explore the tangles of a mind in misery.
There’s no cure, no balm, no potion for what Please Daddy is putting on offer here, you either suffer through it or walk away from it all in fear. The album is not for the faint of heart, it’s for the fighters. Those who have been through hell and have come back to tell the tale. Every heartache is visceral, every dreaded drawl is tinged with hurt, it’s truly Sarah Mary Chadwick at her most vulnerable, and it’s an incredible thing to hear an artist offer up.
You can listen to the title track ‘Please Daddy’ here
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Sarah Mary Chadwick’s new album Please Daddy is out January 24th on Rice Is Nice Records (AU/NZ) and Sinderlyn Records (US). Listen to the title track and see album info below.
