Golden Girls

A hemisphere apart and two years in the making, Lucie Thorne (Aus) And Pieta Brown (US) have combined their musical prowess to form folk duo Love Over Gold. A majority of those two years were spent on either side of the globe, corresponding back and forth via the internet deliberating the potential formation of this international project. A little more recently, the distance between them diminished and allowed the pair to write, record and release their debut album, Fall To Rise.

The Love Over Gold story dates back to late 2010 at the annual Mullumbimby Music Festival where both Brown and Thorne were performing. Brown recounts the events leading up to their eventual camaraderie, citing that it all started after they played a couple of songs together at the festival. “After that, I saw Lucie do a solo show,” she goes onto explain. “I was just sitting in the audience and I had a flash or a vision - I'm not sure what to call it, but it wasn't even something I thought we should do, it was more like seeing it in my mind, like... 'Wow! I think there's some unspoken thing here and we should follow that!' When I got back to the States, I wrote Lucie a little letter through the internet, and I think - if I have this right - the first line was 'I hope you don't think I'm crazy, but I've had this whole idea...' and that was the start of it.”

Brown's concerns went unfounded. Thorne responded with equal enthusiasm, her response an immediate proclamation of interest. As Thorne retells it, the pair were on exactly the same page. “I can remember, as soon as I opened the email I was like 'I don't think you're crazy, I think that's a fucking great idea!'”

“I mean, we liked one another from the first moment we met, so there was a kind of ease in it and a sense of connection and friendship from the start. Then I guess it kind of unravelled into a musical connection about how we might try do some work together and then we started writing songs over the internet and brewing ideas.” Thorne, who had been planning a trip to Europe, spontaneously decided to travel to Holland via Iowa in order to make Love Over Gold a reality. Brown and Thorne spent two days in Iowa recording the album with Thorne returning only a few months later to put the final touches on the record. Following the completion of Fall To Rise, the duo took the project on its first live stint over in the US. Now, the duo are reuniting once more to offer Australian audiences a taste.