SEJA VOGEL & RICE IS NICE
There are many reasons why musicians make solo albums. For some, the delicate artistic temperament simply cannot bear collaborating with or being around other people. For others, collaboration is a truly wonderful experience, but a time comes when they just want to test themselves and see if they can make something special alone. Seja could never belong to the first example.
This debut solo album, We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares, does not sluggishly lumber from extreme isolation. Emotionally sophisticated, what reveals is the sort of mixed euphoria astronauts, or pilots, may feel when an affair begins mid-flight… or whenever joy is tempered with survival doubts.
If it doesn’t sound like a debut, it’s because Seja has spent years playing synthesizers in Sekiden and Regurgitator, two of Brisbane’s finest ever pop bands. Late last year Seja found herself wanting, curious to discover if she could make an album alone. So she stayed home a lot, writing songs, recording lots of old synthesizers, and using her beautifully clear voice more than she ever had before.
An artist constantly wanting to push her own creative boundaries, Seja has also lent her keyboarding and singing skills to touring buddies such as SPOD, David McCormack and The Polaroids, and The Mess Hall on an ad-hoc basis.
There are a few collaborators: Saul Jarvie sings, having turned an instrumental that was emailed to him into one of the album’s best pop songs, Regurgitator’s Quan Yeomans and Spod assist with some structural suggestions and beats, and Cameron Bruce lends a hand in providing some beautiful piano playing for the album’s final track.
Seja’s brother Mirko produced, mixed and mastered the album, allowing its wide spaces to be further opened, and amplified the instrumentation is virtually all vintage electronics (Seja is known for her loyalty to vintage synths), and it’s with a simple, neat song structure we hear the stuff of classic pop. But the context is modern, and lyrically a touch hard-nosed, too busy living the present to be looking over its shoulder, ala ‘80s fans and alumni M83, granted it’s always in a dream. Crumbly, hand-crafted synth tones evoke such dreaminess, but the thematic focus of We Have Secrets But Nobody Cares never loses its way. Despite what Seja may tell you in a song.
WE HAVE SECRETS BUT NOBODY CARES IS OUT MARCH 27th
www.myspace.com/sejamusic
ALBUM LAUNCH TOUR WITH OTOUTO – APRIL 2010
Friday 16th at The Metro, Adelaide with Otouto and Clue To Kalo
Saturday 17th at The Northcote Social Club, Melbourne with Otouto and special guests TBC
Thursday 22nd at The Troubadour, Brisbane with Otouto
Friday 23rd at The Sando, Sydney with Otouto and Ghoul.
TRACKLIST
01. I’ll get to you
02. Through the backstreets
03. Framed you in fiction
04. Fire this fuel
05. Delay
06. A million wheels
07. One year later
08. Sing me the song like you said
09. Silver in my eye
10. We can’t see past our hands
11. We begin
12. Wir haben geheimnisse
13. Between a slur
