Melbourne indie-rock revivalist Cahill Kelly is set to launch his debut record 'Classical and Cool Jazz' this Wednesday at The Brunswick Ballroom.
Kelly’s burgeoning solo career will hit another milestone this Wednesday night in Brunswick with the official launch of his long-awaited debut Classical and Cool Jazz. Freya Josephine Hollick and Forever Son will provide excellent support.
Kelly’s showcase gig was originally slated for August last year. The Ballroom’s been hosting a plethora of these rescheduled launches lately, and they tend to have special resonance, especially with restrictions on live music venues finally easing last week.
What you need to know
- Cahill Kelly’s launching his debut album at The Brunswick Ballroom
- Doors open at 6:30pm, Wednesday 23 February
- Freya Josephine Hollick and Forever Son are supporting
Check out Melbourne’s most comprehensive gig guide here.
Classical and Cool Jazz was released in mid 2021 through local independent mainstays Cheersquad Records and Tapes. An album that features a slew of local performers including Grace Cummings, Harmony Byrne and long-term collaborator Lain Pocock. We interviewed Kelly about his debut album last year, noting that it was recorded in the height of Victoria’s lockdown, and spawned from home studio sessions with his housemate and renowned live sound engineer Stive Collins.
“We used John Lennon’s Plastic Ono Band’s stripped-back style of production as a reference for sound, simply because home recordings can often sound a little lo fi, we figured if we intentionally tried to keep the production sparse it could help the recordings sound convincing, basically trying to work with what we had,” Kelly told us at the time.
“In addition to the Plastic Ono Band album, some of the overall main influences for the record were Wilco’s ‘Sky Blue Sky’, David Crosby’s ‘If Only I Could Remember My Name’, Arctic Monkeys’ ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’, and Crowded House’s ‘Woodface’.”
While the era-spanning influences come thick and fast, Kelly says his album’s lyrical themes vary between explorative and personal. He dedicated ‘Beyond the Weathered Pale’ to introspective self-doubt, while ‘Milania’ is an ode to a lollypop lady whom Kelly spoke with every day.
‘Bluesday Chews’ and ‘Goldfish Bowlin’ reflect on drugs and comedowns, while Kelly explained that the album’s lead single, ‘World Upon a Shelf’, was an experiment that worked wonders.
“When writing ‘World Upon a Shelf’, I was trying to see if I could write a song about even the most mundane of subjects while still evoking some kind of narrative and emotion,” he says.
“At the time I had a number of sentimental trinkets from various countries on a mantlepiece above my desk. I ended up finding deeper meaning in the song, reflecting on the idea that everything we come across in life, be it places, people, objects, ideas, once you take a deeper look there’s always so much more to the story.”
Tickets purchased for August 20 and January 20 will be valid for the new date, however there will be a window for refunds. For tickets, head here.
