The Passing Scene: 'Everything Changes', Including Leah Senior

Leah Senior’s new album, The Passing Scene, is a joyous introspective on the constantly fraying relationship between humans and the natural world. It’s a fascinating mix of philosophical musings and effervescent folk-pop tunes, but for the rural Vic native, this new direction was a very obvious one.

“I suppose, growing up in the country, it never really leaves you,” she says of her relationship with nature. “I’m always dreaming about moving back there, and I’m sure that’s shaped how I view nature and the way I connect to the world.” 

Senior adds that while all facets of the world around her are constantly evolving, she can’t help but be compelled by it.

"You can’t really choose what you write about, to a certain extent. It’s all just a reflection on how I’m feeling about the world."

“It’s funny in a way, because a lot of what is on the album is about that exact thing. It’s about how everything changes and nothing ever stays the same forever, and I think that is just where we are in the world at the moment.

“Everything is being amplified and exemplified, but I feel like I don’t really have that much control either, you know? You can’t really choose what you write about, to a certain extent. It’s all just a reflection on how I’m feeling about the world and how we’re all becoming more and more disconnected from the natural world. There’s a track on [The Passing Scene] called Jesus Turned Into A Bird which is all about that exact thing. I think there’ll always be those themes of nature and the natural world in what I do because it’s just inherently what I’m drawn to.”

It’s a new direction musically, as well as thematically, for the now Melbourne-based musician, who has gained much critical acclaim thanks to her sombre and often heartbreaking folk tunes. The Passing Scene is awash with upbeat piano and jangly, major chord progressions - quite a far cry from Senior's previous LPs. Regardless, the singer-songwriter feels this evolution is as natural as her subject matter itself.

“I think it all comes back to that idea that you just can’t force it,” she explains. “My first two albums are quite straightforward folk albums and I did want to try something a bit different this time - but even if I wanted to write another folk album it just didn’t feel right. I had reached this point where I just had to experiment more: I  just felt I had more to say this time around and I needed new ways to say it. It’s a far more varied album and I think it encapsulates that mindset. Moving forward as a musician, it was really important for me that I found joy in what I was creating. And I think, as well, that it’s important now to still garner a sense of joy from these things.”

It seems that there’s an almost holistic approach to how Senior crafts her music. However, she herself admits that the interconnectivity is somewhat of a secondary thought. The Passing Scene doesn’t set out to weave a web and tie everything together, but its creator does acknowledge the synchronicity there.

“Looking back on it, you’re always surprised at the lines that come through and the way they connect things,” she says of putting the album together. “It’s hard to see that when you’re in it, but I guess it does have some natural cohesion to it. I wrote all the piano songs around the same time, for example, because that really opened things up for me musically. As opposed to the songs I was writing on guitar around the same time, it tended to open things up and explore avenues in songwriting I otherwise couldn’t access.

"I recorded it at home, and it was recorded over quite a long period of time. It was slowly teased out of a long line of a lot of attempted songs, and it eventually morphed into the album itself. I probably did subconsciously pick these songs to put together because they shared these particular themes, but it did sort of just come together in that way, too.”

It’s a particularly odd time for an album to come out - when tours and live appearances are well and truly off the table. For the time being, though, Senior is happy to put her body of work out there and just see what happens. 

“Life is so unpredictable. Everything is so unpredictable. I really have no idea about what I will write about next, but I like that what’s out there now is out there. I can’t go out and play live right now or tour the album, so people are just going to listen to it or they’re not. Weirdly, that does take the pressure off it a bit.”

The Passing Scene is out this month.