Home Is Where The Art Is

"I went to Tassie just by myself to purposefully get lonely and depressed to write some new material, so I went down there and got lonely and depressed but didn't write anything," Croome sniggers. "It was just a learning experience; now I know that I can't be by myself for that long. I just missed friends, and I didn't have the internet ‐ I missed the internet. It took me until when I got back to Melbourne to write the bulk of the material."

Of course, those creative hurdles are well and truly behind the emotive songstress. Calling in from New York City in the middle of the CMJ Music Marathon, Croome says it's now all about sharing the songs, and although recent crowds have been eerily silent, it's been in a good way.

"Playing a venue with 100 people and they're dead quiet is a lot more intense than playing a festival stage," she says, reflecting on her initial two performances at the showcase. "You've got to stop those thoughts of, 'Wow, these people are really listening to everything I'm singing,' and then the, 'Don't stuff up the lyrics', 'What's the next chorus coming?' ‐ that type of thing. It definitely adds another level of intensity to the gig, but that's the biggest buzz I get in life.

"I've been waiting for a long time to be able to play some new material live, so I've kinda been gagging for it, just to put these new songs in ‐ it's totally changed up our set," she adds. "Not only because it's a different sound but now there's more songs to choose from. [It means] we can have a different set depending on the gig, like a festival show compared to a more intimate show."

After her false start in the Apple Isle, Croome put Harvest Of Gold together in her Melbourne hometown, working autonomously with the exception of a few co-writes that "helped things get moving in [her] brain again for other things to start flowing". None of these tracks are more striking than Songs Of Summer, which features the unmistakable vocal tone of Sparkadia's Alex Burnett.

"I wrote that song for the album and it really needed a baritone, low male voice ‐ it was quite a low part," she tells. "But, yeah! We sent the track to Alex, he liked it and he was in London, so I'd actually never met [him] until last week when he came to one of our [UK] gigs and said, 'Hi, I'm Alex'. It was all just via email. It was a pretty different experience, but that song is one of my favourites on the album ‐ I'm really happy with how that turned out."

Following a trio of EPs in the years leading up to Harvest Of Gold, Croome admits that she was more than prepared to make her full-length debut. But never in the past did she find herself in a rush, revealing that since 2009's If You Can't Whistle she's been happy biding her time, and saving her pennies, for this moment.

"It was a combination of being an independent artist and not being able to afford to make a whole album," says Croome. "Also, I wanted to take my time. I was really intimidated by the process of making a full album and having ten-to-12 tracks work together ‐ I found that quite intimidating and I felt like I was more in control with just trying to get five or six tracks down and make them fit together nicely on a record."

Since those first forays, however, it's clear Croome has found the knack. The album showcases her as a fully formed artist, one who isn't afraid to move away from the expected. But although there's some more pop hooks ‐ and a little bit of abrasion thrown in ‐ the songs that are closest to her heart are still the ballads, like closing number A Lover's Spat. "I hope people listen to those tracks as well as the poppier stuff like Harvest Of Gold and Never Expire and [are] able to experience both worlds," she muses.

And far from being a moniker, Gossling now stands comfortably as a four-piece band, allowing all the intricacies of Harvest Of Gold to be brought to life on stage. "It's been a challenge working out how to play the album material live because I've got a new keyboard and I'm playing a lot more synth to get it working, so it's been a fun challenge," Croome explains. "I knew when we were making the record that it was going to be hard, but I didn't want that to stop me from keeping on going and making the record that we ended up making."