Landing On Her Feet And Getting Where She's Going

What you see is what you get with Chan Marshall. In conversation and on stage the 44-year-old is chatty and rambling, often starting down one garden path only to finish on another, though she's generous in her curiosity, insightful and magnetic too. She's real to the point that her presence is often awkward, in a wonderfully human way. Ahead of her solo theatre tour, the genre-straddling singer-songwriter reflects on the aftermath of her last record, 2012's acclaimed Sun, on which she turned to electronic instrumentation with gusto.

"I think I killed off half my audience when I released that but I had pressure from my record label to put out a hit record or whatever. And then they said I needed a producer but I just decided to play everything myself and produce it myself and try to make it as good as it could be with a vengeance, so in that way I kind of bit off more than I could chew sonically. Now, I dunno if I wanna face that amount of work that I did before..." says Marshall, acutely aware of the growing impatience for a follow-up to her most commercially successful release.

"I'd say every week I'm learning a new thing that I didn't know the week before, so it takes up a lot of my headspace."

"There is [pressure] on Instagram a little bit, but it's good, it's sweet — it's direct messages of nice fans wanting more music which I wish, my goal originally was to have a record out already but when I got pregnant I kind of just focused on my health. I think it's pretty common for mothers to do that, but yeah I do have pressure to put out more product from the label."

In April 2015, the generally private Marshall quietly revealed via Instagram that she'd become a mother. She joyfully admits that her baby boy Boaz is her most extraordinary project yet, and though she's back on the tour circuit, she's not rushing to write the next record.

"I'd say every week I'm learning a new thing that I didn't know the week before, so it takes up a lot of my headspace — how to adapt, how to the do the right things, and how to exercise my ability as a human to be as patient and positive as possible," she says of first-time motherhood. "Kids learn, whoever's raising them, they learn body language and spatial signals and that sort of stuff, so that's kind of where my head has been at for the minute. It's pretty magical because it's this little angel/alien being that lives with me you know, that needs me so much, that laughs at nothing and just tears all the pain away... But it's good, it's a lot of time to reflect on the-person-I-want-to-be type of energy, which is empowering I guess."

Right now she is international touring artist Cat Power, stripped bare — a form she's quite used to after nine albums of what the Florida local accurately declares is "pretty honest" songwriting.

"I was trying to move to Australia to have my baby there. Nobody knows that."

"A lot of people don't know but I've always done [solo shows] since I was young, I mean not young, when I first started or whatever. But yeah, I guess if I were writing pop songs I'd probably be more happy doing it." Pausing briefly she offers a barely discernible "That's a little joke," with a wry chuckle. Known for raw and tempestuous solo performances that feel like one has stepped into an intimate rehearsal in which Marshall chats awkwardly, often to herself, while switching between guitar and piano, the songstress confesses that she's still uneasy about the stage. "...There's always a place I'm tryin' to get to... It's not like digging a hole, it's like digging an inverse universe or somethin'... It's hard, I'm always questioning 'Is this good enough?', or whatever. Blah, blah, blah," she mutters, then simply, but with weight: "Sorry."

Marshall's enduring love affair with Australia dates back to 1997 when she recorded fourth record Moon Pix between Melbourne's Sing Sing Studio and the bathroom of Dirty Three drummer Jim White, a time she wistfully recalls as "magical".

"[I'm excited about] everything I always look forward to — the people, the sky, the sense of humour, the sunsets, the experience of just — I've always said Australia feels kind of like home. I wanted to actually — nobody knows this, a couple of my best friends would know — but I was trying to move to Australia to have my baby there. Nobody knows that, but a few of my best friends, they begged me not to go. But I fucking never see 'em so it's like I fucking could have done it! So I had this whole plan and anyway it didn't work out, but that's ok — maybe baby number two..."