Katie Noonan Opens Up About Depression On Her New Album

Gone, for the moment, are those famous red curls that cascade ebulliently around Katie Noonan's face, replaced by a bleach-blonde cockade, quite the contrast, and something the singer, who recently released her first crowdfunded album, Transmutant, felt was all part of the statement of intent.

"I've come out the other side stronger for the process," Noonan explains of the making of the album, "and the white hair is a physical manifestation of the transmutant, you know, that accompanies that change reflected in the record. When I was making Quicksand, the video, I always imagined Charmene [Yap — Sydney Dance Company] and she's got jet black hair and is part Asian, so very different looking, and I knew I wanted to do it in black and white, so I thought I should just go with really white hair and have that real juxtaposition."

 The white hair is a physical manifestation of the transmutant that accompanies that change reflected in the record."

Aware of the strong, independent and optimistic image she presents on stage and off, people might be surprised to hear Noonan opening up about her occasional battles with depression in a couple of songs.

"Yeah, it's definitely been a thing. It's hard to write happy songs, it's got to be said, but also just getting a bit older I'm less afraid to say I have struggled some days. I have had I guess what you would call peaks and valleys of emotional stability. And I guess I'm a little less afraid to talk about it. Mind you, this is also the journey of a lot of my dear friends, which I think is a good snapshot of life in general. I mean, I hang out with rad people, but there's been a huge amount of introspection and facing shit that's not been easy, and I'm just less afraid to say it now. Shit can get hard but in the end it's a magical mystery that we're in and it's certainly more good than bad."

Released as Katie Noonan's Vanguard, the very diverse song collection that is Transmutant also sees Noonan take on the role of producer for the first time.

"This is still a band album, but more driven by me I guess," she explains, "and I play a lot of things — I play bass and drums even and most of the keyboards and wrote my first string arrangement, and French horns. I love French horn. My first French horn arrangement was on [george's 2001 single] Special Ones. And it's funny, Quicksand feels a little bit like Special Ones, but the grown up version, in that it is about a breakdown of trust with someone really close to me, and rather than letting it mess me up, kind of going, 'Ok, I'm drawing a line here — things are different now in how we relate to each other.' So it's a bit like a slightly less angry version of Special Ones."