Noonan worked with author Trent Dalton on an album about love and grief.
There are some creative projects that are rooted in deep deliberation and conceptualising. Then there are those that bypass the intellect and simply demand to be made. Katie Noonan’s new solo album, Alone but all one, belongs in the latter category.
“I never meant to make this album,” says Noonan, who’s chatting to Beat over the phone from New York City.
Katie Noonan at Melbourne Recital Centre
- Saturday 1 August
- Elisabeth Murdoch Hall
- Tickets here
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Noonan has been making records for more than 20 years. She’s a member of the bands George, Elixir, and AVÉ (Australian Vocal Ensemble), and has released several albums as a solo artist. Alone but all one is her most personal album to date.
“My father died in March 2024 and then my marriage died in November 2024,” Noonan says. “No one ever goes into a marriage thinking that you’re going to not stay married. So, half the record is about that grief. 26 years of marriage at age 48 is pretty wild because it’s pretty much my entire adult life.”
As Noonan says, she didn’t exactly plan to write an album about the end of her marriage. Nor was she eager to make the details of her divorce public knowledge.
“I was really shit scared of it, to be honest. It’s the most honest and vulnerable I’ve ever been, questioning my entire sense of identity and my entire sense of worth,” she says.
But, says Noonan, the experience of her marriage ending was so all consuming that she couldn’t not write about it.
“I can only ever write from my point of view and try not to edit myself and just let the feelings flow, and these songs literally fell out. And then I shared them with my coven of 10 fabulous women, and they were like, ‘I can feel myself in these songs.’
“That’s the ultimate goal of a songwriter. I really hope that people listen and find succour knowing that they are not alone.”
There is, however, also a somewhat conceptual bent to Alone but all one. While half of the album is about Noonan’s grief, the other half is about new love. It features lyrics written by author Trent Dalton.
“My dear mate Trent gifted me 156 pages of exclusive, unpublished texts that he wrote between 2000 and 2006,” Noonan says. “I actually asked him to be the muse for AVÉ, my a cappella classical quartet, and I just was inexorably drawn to these beautiful vignettes of words about the absolute wonderment of new love and how much he was falling in love with his beautiful now-wife, Fiona.”
The 2000 to 2006 time period was a very magical time for Noonan as well.
“I was falling madly in love with Isaac [Hurren]. I put out my first record, [George’s] Polyserena, in 2002 and then Elixir in 2003 with Isaac. We got married in 2004. I birthed Dexter in 2005 and then we had Jonah in 2006. So, they were the golden years of our love.”
Noonan describes herself as a natural collaborator, and working with Dalton added a whole extra dimension to Alone but all one.
“It was beautiful to remember that absolute wonderment and joy of new love, and that brought great comfort to my very lonely heart,” Noonan says. “So, it’s quite a dichotomous body of work. It talks about what love is.”
Noonan will take Alone but all one on tour around the country this month. She’ll perform at Melbourne Recital Centre on Saturday 1 August.
“I love that room,” Noonan says. “It’s honestly my favourite room to play in acoustically. It’s just divine.”
Songs from Alone but all one will feature heavily in the set list, as well as favourites from Noonan’s 30-album back catalogue.
“My beautiful friend Sarah King is coming on the tour with her River Suite string quartet, and I’ve actually got a bunch of really beautiful string arrangements of my other tunes, like Breathe in Now and Special Ones and Bluebird and different ones from across my relatively extensive discography.
“So, I’ll be doing some by request. I’m open to anything. I’m always up for a challenge.”
Get your tickets to see Katie Noonan at Melbourne Recital Centre here.
This article was made in partnership with Melbourne Recital Centre.
