“Tinkerbox was something that I’ve really been wanting to create,” he says.
“Something that would have legs for lots of different situations: being in the car, chilling at home, in a chill-space at a festival, whatever. It’s just good listening music, which was the main prerequisite for the vibe.”
A 45-minute insight into the transformation of Spoonbill’s sound, the album cover is a two-by-three metre oil painting, done by his father Danny, a well-established painter and print maker and former head of print making at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. It features a red jalopy filled with a vibrant and detailed collection of colours and shapes, which Moynihan believes suited the music perfectly.
His musical alias comes, of course, from the long-legged wading birds found all over the world. It’s a nod to his global travels, among other things. “I wanted to choose something that was unique, unusual and not too trendy or cool,” Moynihan says. “I wanted something that was a bit kooky, a bit unusual, and I liked the name Spoonbill because you can play on the spoon cutlery word.”
Moynihan grew up playing drums and percussion in bands, and along the way met several musicians who would later appear in his work. “A lot of those dudes feature on my music, I record a bunch of stuff with them and treat them like samples.”
BY JESSE CHAFFEY
