Steve Lane‘s fifth album, Where the Rivers Meet, was informed by his work in remote Indigenous communities and bolstered by the input of his collaborators.
Steve Lane’s new LP, Where the Rivers Meet, is a solo album in name only. The Central Victorian musician’s fifth album features contributions from his adult kids, Kai and Neneh, co-lyricist John Holton, Augie March drummer Dave Williams, and more. Darren Seltmann, co-founder of The Avalanches, produced the album.
“I really live for musical collaboration,” Lane tells Beat ahead of his album launch at Brunswick Ballroom on Saturday 11 October.
Keep up with the latest music news, features, festivals, interviews and reviews here.
Lane’s collaborative tendency predates the release of his debut album, The Romance of Communication, with backing band The Autocrats, in 2011. Lane has been working in remote communities for over 15 years, and he’s been helping people tell their stories through music for around 30.
He’s done work in Bendigo, Cummeragunja on the Murray River, and in various communities in the Top End, Tiwi Islands, Fiji and Timor-Leste. Lately, Lane has been working in the closed community of Bulman Weemol in Central Arnhem Land.
“The community are keen to record cultural stories and write songs in their Dalabon and Rembarrnga, local languages that are not spoken by many these days,” Lane says.
After a decade-and-a-half of working in Indigenous communities, Lane has learned that by helping other people tell their stories, you will naturally tell your own. “The challenge is always about limiting your own influence on the song,” he says.
But these experiences have had a significant influence on Lane’s music, which can loosely be categorised as guitar pop, but encompasses rock, new wave and a folk singer’s eye for detail.
“I tend to record and produce a lot of country, reggae and hip hop in remote communities – styles that are very different to my own,” Lane says. “It helps me think outside my own limitations as a musician and push the boundaries a bit more in my own songwriting.”
All of Lane’s collaborators play a similar role, helping to expand the borders of his music. “Like most musicians, I get bogged down by my own limitations as a player and rely on others to break the mould of my playing and push me to new places creatively,” he says.
Where the Rivers Meet is Lane’s second consecutive album to feature input from his son, Kai Lane U’Ren, and daughter, Neneh Kai Lane U’Ren. “They are remarkable human beings, and I’m blessed to be a part of their lives,” Lane says.
Lane and Seltmann, the album’s producer, met in 1998 when Lane was playing guitar and Seltmann playing drums on The Steinbecks’ EP, From the Wrestling Chair to the Sea.
“He was really interested in a program I was running at the time called Real2Reel with at-risk youth and the Indigenous community in Bendigo,” Lane says. “He invited us to come down to his flat in Collingwood, where he was working on a new album that just happened to be Since I Left You.”
They’ve been good friends ever since, but couldn’t get their schedules to align until now.
“I’ve no doubt that many of the songs on the album would not have got to where they are without Darren’s careful dedication to finding the spark and pulse of the song,” Lane says. “He would also encourage me to try different recording processes and approaches.”
Lane’s regular co-lyricist, John Holton, co-wrote nine of the 12 tracks on Where the Rivers Meet. The single, Make the Trains Run on Time, is a three-way co-write with Lane, Holton and John Douglas.
“Collaboration is about trusting people to put the best part of themselves – their truths – into the circle for the greater good,” Lane says. “There is something so liberating about responding to other people’s creative expression.”
Lane is especially proud of the album’s lead single, A Song You Can’t Write No More, which is another song that was fundamentally altered by the input of Lane’s collaborators.
“I had a basic arrangement that I jammed and recorded with the brilliant Dave Williams, Dan MacDonald, my son Kai on bass, and my oldest and dearest of friends, Pete Slater. It’s Pete’s acoustic line that really gave the song its direction,” Lane says.
“It took quite a few re-writes and back and forth conversations with Darren. There was a time when the song felt like it might not make it. What flipped it for me was running Dave’s drums through an echo plugin and isolating Pete’s acoustic. I then sung it differently inspired by this new Stone Roses influence.”
The album title is taken from this song.
“John had some words he’d written about talking with a young person, ‘Where the rivers meet’, and I saw a young person who felt hopeless and scared about the future and powerless,” Lane says.
“The chorus line and melody seemed to be always there. It arrived pretty fully formed.”
Steve Lane is performing at Brunswick Ballroom on Saturday 11 October. Tickets are here.
