How Lisa Hannigan's Musical Pen Pal Helped Her Out Of A Rut

Ever since she stomped her indelible mark on the Way To Blue Nick Drake tribute concerts here some years ago, Irish siren Lisa Hannigan has been winning over Australian fans with her plush voice and sharp songwriting. Her imminent fourth visit to our shores will be her first as a headliner, accompanied by a scaled down version of her touring band.

"Everybody wants to go to Australia," Hannigan says of her blossoming relationship with our audiences, "and it's so hard to get there obviously just because it's expensive to fly so many people there - and for this set we'll be doing the trio thing as opposed to the full band. It's a total dream to go... I've been there a few times not doing gigs and I just love being in Australia, and hopefully the more you go the more you can come back and play to more people."

"That was something that Aaron sent to me when we were in our musical pen pal phase. He would just send me things and I would just sort of warble into them and send them back to him."

Hannigan has an entire new album of material to present to us from her latest, At Swim, a stylistic detour from her previous work, thanks in large part, to the influence of The National's Aaron Dessner. "I think that song I actually co-wrote with Aaron Dessner, who produced the record," Hannigan responds when we comment on the creepy synths and beats backing new track, Barton. "He actually sent me, not the backing of it that ends up on the record, but that sort of strange, I think it's on the OP-1 he played that, which is a tiny little mad synthesiser the size of a pencil case. So I'll be bringing my OP-1 [to Australia]. But that was something that Aaron sent to me when we were in our musical pen pal phase. He would just send me things and I would just sort of warble into them and send them back to him. So that one does sound really different to anything I've done before. In the mixing stage Bryan Devendorf from The National put down that mad little fizzy drum pattern, and that just brought the whole thing together."

The Dessner partnership came out of the blue; an unsolicited email offering his assistance appeared in Hannigan's inbox right when she was struggling with writing new material for the album. Stunned by the serendipity, Hannigan took him up on the offer, although there was no guarantee the two would gel.

"I think, well, there's always that question when you're working with any kind of producer," she affirms. "But I was a fan of Aaron's production work, he had some made some records that I absolutely loved. For example, This Is The Kit's album Bashed Out, and that was so sensitively done, she has such a singular sound. Aaron brought so much to it without damaging her, for want of a better word, her self. And I think all his producing records are like that. I think he's a very, very sensitive producer in that way.

"And also I really wanted it to sound different," she laughs. "But we worked really well together."