Victorian artist Freya Josephine Hollick, whose album Feral Fusion is receiving widespread acclaim, has revealed that she will be recording a new album in early 2019 with Lucinda Williams’ band Buick 6. The recording sessions will take place at Rancho De La Luna studios in Joshua Tree, California.
Buick 6 – drummer Butch Norton, guitarist Stuart Mathis and bass player David Sutton – recorded a short video to announce the recordings:
Hollick also revealed that the trip to the USA has been made possible by a grant from Creative Victoria. “We still have to raise some funds somehow to make it all work properly but that’s pretty incredible,” she said.
Hollick begins making demos for the new album this week in response to a request from Norton, who has asked for some guitar and vocal and piano and vocal and versions of the tracks so that the band can learn them while they’re out on tour. Hollick is set to arrive in Los Angeles on February 22.
“It was purely by chance,” says Hollick of her teaming up with the members of Buick 6. “I had started recording this Feral Fusion album with Roger [Bergodaz] and Shane [O’Mara] in Union Street Studio in Brunswick West and I was talking to my friend Sean McMahon about releasing a single and who I was going to release the record with. I’d been running my own through a local label in Ballarat that I kind of needed to step it up a little bit. He said, ‘Oh, come talk to my friend Tim [McCormack] at Blind Date. I reckon he’d dig what you do.’
“So, I put out a single with them and then I think it was within like, six months of having put out a single with them, Tim said to me, “Would you be interested in recording with Buick 6?” and I kinda fell over backwards. I was like, “Yeah, I’d love to do that.” It was just finding the funds to make it happen. So, it was really all through Tim and I’ve only really just personally started having contact with Butch now because Tim’s done all the organising, all the talking about money and organising dates and all that kind of thing.”
Rancho De La Luna is owned by Dave Catching, a member of Eagles of Death Metal and has been home to recordings by Kurt Vile, Queens of the Stone Age, Daniel Lanois, Dave Grohl, PJ Harvey, Mark Lanegan and many more.
“I can’t wait,” says Hollick of the forthcoming trip and mentions that her Shane Reilly, guitarist on ‘Feral Fusion’, went to Joshua Treet earlier this year to pick up a pedal steel and he stayed in a caravan there.
“He just said it was just magical. It’s a really special, spiritual place to go to,” says Hollick. “We’re going to be doing a lot of filming while we’re over there. Tim’s organising some pretty amazing filming stuff in the studio and we are going out into the desert and documenting it. I’m really excited.”
Feral Fusion is out now on Blind Date Records and is reviewed by Steve Hoy in the latest edition of Rhythms.