Getting Intimate

here is a sense of intimacy that flows from Katie Noonan not only through her music but also her public persona. She uses the word a lot in conversation and says a sense of intimacy is vital in order for her to be able to create music.

“Music has to come from a place of complete honesty, otherwise I don't really see the point in it actually,” she opines. “As a maker of music, I need things to be as honest and as unedited as possible because, for me, that makes it feel real and it makes it get through to my – like, when I'm listening to music I want to hear achingly honest lyrics because that's what gets through to me, so I guess I try to do the same with my lyric writing. And it is very exposing and it's quite scary at times and you have to be in the right headspace to let that stuff out.”

Noonan's sense of the dynamic of a live gig is also based around intimacy. “The people in the audience are equally as important as the people on the stage to me, and one can't exist without the other. So I try to keep things as relaxed as possible, and try to make it feel like just a group of like-minded friends hanging out. Because that's the thing about music, it does give you that feeling of belonging and intimacy straight away so I guess I try to extend that with the way that I chat and talk onstage as well.”

Boasting a voice so pure that it's often described as being perfect, Noonan doesn't seem comfortable with this adjective: “There's no such thing as a perfect voice. In fact some of my favourite voices would probably be considered quite imperfect, like Tom Waits or Björk – voices that are perfectly imperfect.”

Lately, Noonan has been working on classical music – an album with Karin Schaupp and a performance with Sydney Symphony Orchestra and Sydney Dance Company that will open at the Opera House in August, and she describes this as a “kind of exciting but scary challenge to get [her] classical chops back into gear“. 

Noonan has collaborated with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, photographer Bill Henson and circus company Circa in the past, and says of collaborating with artists from different mediums, “[It's] one of my big motivations moving forward, as well as continuing my evolution as a student of music. It's inspiring to work with artists who have a different language because it challenges you as a creator and I'm constantly seeking challenges.”

Her most recent project is Songbook, a retrospective album of sorts that Noonan describes as “a reimagining” of major songs from all her landmark records of the last 15 years. “It was a little bit of a taking-stock moment for me. And it was a practical thing as well because I've done so many different projects with different things, I kind of wanted to have one record that could reflect the simple 'just me' and my different songs in an intimate setting.” 

"I wanted to distil all my jazz stuff and my rock stuff and my stuff with an orchestra into one project that reflects all those projects, but in a new, intimate way.”