Dustin Tebbutt"It's like a full-on spring vibe today," singer-songwriter Dustin Tebbutt begins. "I want to maybe get out and do some gardening. But I don't have a garden. I'm going into the neighbour's and dig around in there. Get some herbs."
The desire to raid and tinker with a stranger's garden bed is kind of symbolic of the importance environment holds for Tebbutt. The Sydneysider proved that with his debut, The Breach, in 2013, which saw him lauded for its title track, claiming an impressive #44 in triple j's Hottest 100. The EP was penned during Tebbutt's sojourn to Sweden, where the bleak winter inspired the woody, minimalist folk under his falsetto croons. His latest, Home, is again a product of his surroundings, this time back on Australian soil.
"The environment was a very big part of my imagination as a kid I think," Tebbutt explains. "My brain has always been very adherent to responding to things in that kind of way, and then when I started writing music it was kind of inevitable. And moving to Sweden I was just overwhelmed, really, in a nice way, with all the different colours and sounds and the snow.
"Moving to Sweden I was just overwhelmed, really, in a nice way, with all the different colours and sounds and the snow."
"I feel like I can't really escape the effect it has. When I do try and write something that's not about that, I do find it hard to find as powerful ways to say things. It just doesn't feel as authentic to me. So I think in one way it has put some bounds on what I'm doing at the moment, and at the same time it just feels natural."
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While Tebbutt's acute understanding of his surroundings has an anchoring trait in his music, the production of Home was physically adrift. Between tours with Missy Higgins, Hozier and The Kite String Tangle, various collaborations and playing at this year's Splendour In The Grass, the troubadour wrote, recorded and produced the seven-track "mini album" in his parents' house, grandparents' house and his Sydney home.
"Which is kind of strange because it's all about this idea of home, and it's kind of the only thing I haven't really had over the course of the recording," he laughs. "Coming back to Australia and writing all those tunes about that concept was one thing, putting it all together in a state of not being in a home was pretty weird."
Tebbutt credits the more celebratory sound of Home with his upheaval, and some of it to songstress Thelma Plum, who lends her forceful but fragile voice on Silk.
"This song came up and it just felt like I was trying to tell two people's stories. When I was singing it didn't quite feel like all the words I'd written were mine. And so I started thinking about whose voice would say that part really well and her voice fits in really well with mine. So we did it and it was beautiful. It's amazing to record her. I'm used to spending a whole day doing vocal takes and she just walked in and smashed it. It was good fun."
