Exploring A Compulsion To Crystallise Moments

Alanna Eileen's first release, Absence, captured an alt-folk aesthetic, characterised by pure, breathtaking vocals and delicate finger-style guitar. Her new EP In Your Hands, released last month, continues down that intimate path with both eyes locked firmly on the larger picture.

Despite Eileen being based in Melbourne these days, both EPs were recorded "in Cairns, Queensland with producer Mark Myers (The Middle East)," says Eileen. "I chose to record the EP in the same location as I recorded my first release because I view them as companion pieces and wanted them to have a similar ambience.

"There is a thematic link between the songs largely because they all originated during a condensed period of time and thus share the same context, having been inspired by a specific clutch of moments that, to me, had enough intensity and poetic weight to spark an album."

This process, close attentiveness, and level of connectivity between the works is impressive but not especially surprising, seeing as the singer-songwriter was "inspired by a heightened awareness of the minutiae of daily existence and a compulsion to crystallise certain moments — in addition to an attempt to process the experience of longing or loneliness in a way that was both universal and specific".

It's an easy thing to nail down, but the singer was determined. "I want what I am making to adhere as closely as possible to my vision for it, and I tend to scrutinise the songs in detail, but I also like a natural sound that isn't heavily produced or constricted by a preconceived ideal."

Despite that, Eileen doesn't view the tracks as something rigid. Part of a song's beauty is its impermanence, the inspiration meaning that the recordings are a picture of her vision as it was, not necessarily how it always will be. "To me," insists Eileen, "the songs are fluid, not static — the EP captured them in a specific moment, but a live show would be an entirely new moment for them to exist in; they might sound similar or be quite different, all depending on the situation."

Eileen's attempts to capture the duality of the "universal and the specific", the solid and ephemeral, the now and then, is something palpable throughout the EP. Her near-molecular attention achieves results on a far wider scale, Blind Side in particular ensnaring an expansive view. It has a sense of distance in it and "in that distance there is the potential for a journey of release".