Jack Grace – Australian born singer, multi instrumentalist, and producer. His latest EP release, ‘Rivers’, demonstrates an in-depth understanding of tension and release, for which Jack employs to shape not only his lyrical subject matter, but his distinct production technique. C-Heads is happy to have sat down with Jack to chat about the inspirations behind one of our favorite tracks of the EP, ‘Hills’
“My music is an opportunity for me to reclaim the protestant values I was raised on and re-interpret them into a secular context, investigating them within a new light and re-claiming them for mine and hopefully others wellbeing. For me it’s not as much of a protest as a re-embracing of the ideology and separating that from the flawed theology behind concepts of guilt, grace, redemption, sexuality and eternal life”.
Words by Jack Grace
Cover Photo by Caitlin May
1. Sydney can be quite suffocating. I find it a hard city to get physical perspective in. Recently I’ve found spots around the city that are more conducive to this but these places are in neighbourhoods i usually wouldn’t inhabit. They are often inhabited by people who are a few income brackets higher. Those higher brackets might get you a view of the bridge, the city, the beach or the harbour. But for the majority of Sydney dwellers, you can’t see much above 2 storeys of terraces. I hadn’t realised until living in Sydney for a few years how much I relied on physical space to get perspective. I love places that make you feel small, for some reason it makes me feel like I can think bigger and clearer. For the last few years I’ve gone to stay with my uncle and aunty in Vermont in the US for a few months at a time through their winter. They have this cabin that sits on a little rise in the middle of a valley. I spend most of my time sitting and watching the storm fronts rolling through, dumping snow and then leaving. It’s addictive and its where the idea came for Hills.
2. For some reason music out of Chicago has always resonated with me. It never really came from this intentional seeking out of what’s happening there. Just more I would hear something, love it, then find out it was from Chicago. I think it’s the way they do gospel/soul stuff and fuse it with beats. That sound reminds me of being at church when I was a kid but also its got the whole drum machine/mpc thing going on which is more where i am now. At first I got really down when I heard footwork. It was so beyond good and I really felt like i didn’t have anything to add anymore cause it was a conversation that was so far developed and it was so eloquent. I kind of tried to re-contextualise all this in the beat for Hills, but without all this heady process… I just started trying to do it.
3. Around the time i made Hills I was trying to translate surrealism into sound, I’d heard other stuff like it. It wasn’t like I was creating something new but I guess it was just a concept I could verbalise for myself and use it as a bit of a reference point. I’d started thinking about it when I was making the first BUOY EP (Immersion). Thats how I ended up with these starkly contrasted sections. I really tried to push each production idea within the track to its limit and make that the connecting thread. I wasn’t interested in smoothing stuff out. I really wanted to make everything feel like it was being forced on top of each other- but still make it listenable.
4. Thom Yorke has had a massive influence on me. I can’t deny it. Hearing the Eraser when I was in my late teens really had a huge impact on me. There was an emotional lo-fi quality it had that made me realise I had all the things I needed to make the music I loved. It was really liberating. I’ve really tried to add something to the story/sound that he started, as opposed to being a parasite.
5. Alright, I love re-harmonising stuff. It stems from my upbringing in church, It’s easily the best thing I learnt there. Having a congregation singing a chorus while you fuck with the harmony under it is one of my favourite sounds. The end of the track is just me having fun. I’ve got my own version of the track that goes on for another 3 minutes – just cause I can, its one of the few luxuries I can afford at the moment.
