Behind The Scenes Of “Incredible” Aussie Collaborative LP ‘Vast’

Some of Australia’s finest songwriters joined forces in WA’s stunning Pilbara region for the Vast project, a special collaborative album that celebrates the unique landscape in which it was crafted.

With the album out today (featuring an all-star line-up of Bernard Fanning, Sally Seltmann, Paul Dempsey), we caught up with some of the artists featured to get some insight into how things came together.

Here’s just a glimpse of what went down when the artists packed up their swags and camped out in a ghost town some 1,500km from Perth to make the album.

ALEX GOW (OH MERCY)

I had the experience of writing music, jogging, sleeping, drinking, swimming, laughing and fishing on and in an Australian landscape of which this Australian had never had the pleasure of witnessing. 

Vast was an ambitious project with a solid philosophical foundation, executed to creative perfection. And with that setting and those people, how could it have gone any other way?

SALLY SELTMANN
I loved being a part of the Vast project. When I arrived at Cossack I was immediately overwhelmed by the beauty of the land. The red earth, the huge sky, and the small buildings made of stone - gathered together on the edge of a wide river - all played a part in inspiring the song River River I wrote and recorded. Collaborating with the other musicians in such a school camp-like fashion was so much fun. I’ll always remember this special adventure.

JAE LAFFER

The coolest thing about the album is all the tracks are written and recorded in the spirit of the moment with whatever friends were keen to jump on it. I can hardly remember putting my song together because it all happened in half a day - I wrote some thoughts down in what I think was an old pantry with no roof and strummed it out of there.

It's a proper record in that respect - the record of a moment in time, no one had time to over analyse their work, we just kept at it and everyone found the creative atmosphere contagious. By the last day, no one had a problem asking whoever was walking past to get involved in their work. It was all very spontaneous, another week out there and we all could have written an album each - that's how it felt.

NICK SHEPPARD

I find it impossible to convey how moved I was by the Vast experience - so much support, collaboration, endeavour, celebration and validation… but the example below hopefully captures the essence of the experience.

I was sitting in an ancient stone warehouse on a crystal clear day, trying to write some music that reflected my friend Stormie Mill’s painting of Qynn’s son on the side of the Cossack Water tank. 

Josie Alec was in the same building, working on her own painting.

She said, “Is that your music?”

“Yeah, it is.”

“I’ve just written some words for it. Do you want to hear them?”

“I’d love to!”

And together we wrote a song. A song absolutely plucked out of the Pilbara’s red dust. For that, and many other incredible moments, I am eternally grateful.

You can check out Vast here.