Erin McKenzie: A Shining Example Of Adelaide Bedroom Pop & DIY Production

We live in an age of unprecedented levels of art creation, in all formats, boasting all kinds of people from diverse backgrounds emerging as exciting new artistic talents. There is perhaps no medium where this is more true than with music.

Once completely inaccessible to those without industry contacts or hefty funds, recording and producing songs is now something that, hypothetically, everyone can do. All you really need is a phone, maybe a pair of headphones, and a quiet place. Anyone can try their hand at bedroom pop, anyone can make their best attempt to be the next Billie Eilish.

So, yes, everyone can do it, but not everyone can do it well. Those select few who can elevate their homemade music above the general mediocrity that proliferates on the internet deserve some special attention, and Erin McKenzie, the Adelaide-based singer-songwriter, is a tour de force when it comes to DIY production and recording. 

Not yet twenty, McKenzie has already made a name for herself in the local music scene as a member of Perfect 50, the three-piece folk rock band. Towards the close of July, she released her solo debut album, stylised as SUN BEGIN, under the moniker Swan Reach. At a tight twenty-five minutes, the ten-track album is warm and intimate, and immediately made me feel at ease, knowing that the future of the local music scene is indeed in good hands. 

Erin McKenzie, when playing as part of Perfect 50 or when going solo, stands out to me partially because of her strong lyrical bent - she is a natural storyteller. It is easy to find a certain strain of popular local music exhausting at best, uninteresting at worst. Many bands focus on inciting chaos, on engaging attention spans that have been fried by constant phone usage, but without any stories to tell.

Often in Adelaide, it is all about being a live act, it is all about the performance, and capturing the audience’s attention in the moment, only for the music itself to be quickly forgotten about. McKenzie’s music has a lasting appeal because it is constant and it is thought-provoking. Only nineteen, she is already an inspiring artist in a scene where people quite often don’t prioritise the preservation of art itself as something worth coming back to and dwelling on, and instead see music as a quick physical high, over so soon. 

This is why the unexpected and sudden release of SUN BEGIN was, even if on a small scale, such an event. The album is dreamy, introspective, touchingly romantic, with the kind of simple, timeless lyricism that makes you think, “Of course. Why haven’t I phrased that sentiment like this yet?” Listening to the album feels the same as having a giddy, silly little crush.

In fact, I’ve never seen the stupid, blind intensity of really liking someone better expressed than on the song Knees, when McKenzie sings, “I’m in the shower and / when I cut my knees I’ll kiss them better / and tell them that I care/and let the water run / over my numb disbelief/ I’m clenching my teeth / ’cause you are so lovely.” She retains her Australian accent when she sings, lending her voice that Stella Donnelly bite.

The album is amazing on a technical level, but it is also an important piece of media because it speaks to the significance of DIY production when it comes to preserving the sound of the local music scene. McKenzie literally recorded the entire project on her phone using GarageBand, in her room.

When I asked her to outline the process for me, she said, “SUN BEGIN was really easy for me to make production-wise, all I did was use the headphone mic of a pair of wired Apple headphones to record everything, drums, guitar, bass, vocals and a little bit of piano and banjo. Everything was in my room so I just got to sit on my bed or on my floor next to an amp and record with my headphone wire trailing down to my phone on the ground next to me.”

For one who is only just emerging into the local scene, Erin McKenzie’s drive to write and record meaningful songs is impressive and inspiring. The next step, hopefully, will be for SUN BEGIN to see some sort of physical release - even if just in a DIY context - so that all of that lovely music doesn’t merely exist in the ether, in danger of being lost, but can be concretely held onto and protected, and continually listened to as the years go by.