From Gympie To Florence & Everywhere In Between

"We played this crazy show in Nashville, on this really 'mixed' line-up," recalls Jessica Mincher, vocalist/keyboardist of Sydney-based dream-pop outfit Noire. "There was a five-piece country harmony band and they were amazing. Then there was this metal band [that] got up and they were all dressed as dinosaurs, they were actually quite scary." 

Guitarist Billy James explains, "The singer had this crazy, high-pitched voice and was wearing a mask that covered his face. Then the guitarist, at the end of the set, threw his amp off stage. It went from one extreme to the other. And there we were, in the middle."

"And also," Mincher continues, "amongst all this, Glen Campbell's daughter [Ashley] played and she sang this beautiful song about her dad; he couldn't remember who she was anymore. I was in tears. That show had so many emotions. It was a wild rollercoaster, with such a contrast of people. And then we had to go on, and we were like, 'Should we even play? Or just leave?"

For Noire, 2017 has been full of travel. Mincher and James are in Florence as they speak, where they're in the middle of "part tour, part holiday" playing gigs in Paris and Berlin while travelling around Europe, marvelling at their luck as they, say, travel through the San Bernardino Pass in Switzerland.

Florence is a long way from Gympie, where Mincher and James grew up. Throughout his childhood, James played in his family band, cutting his teeth gigging at a young age. "I played keyboards and drums," James recounts. "We did covers, some originals, played in pubs. My dad would definitely say that we were '70s rock'n'roll-styled."

Neither found the local musical community particularly inspiring. "There was a hardcore scene, but those were the only gigs you could go to unless you wanted to go to the Gympie Music Muster," Mincher says. So they moved to Sydney. They formed Noire under the influence of emotional, atmospheric music - Jeff Buckley, Band Of Horses, Beach House, Air - and slowly worked at their sound." At first, we wrote a lot of songs that were really shit," James says. "But, when we wrote Pilgrims— that was the first song that we really just liked, that we were really proud of."

In 2015 Noire self-released their first EP, Baby Blue. To begin work on their debut LP, though, they felt they had "to get out of Sydney", retreating back to Queensland. "We went to this farm in Amamoor, which is close to Noosa," Mincher offers. "There's nothing there, except for some cows. There's no reception, there's no TV. You can't really get distracted. We spent two months there, just writing."

Some Kind Of Blue, the resulting record, officially mints Noire's moody sound. "We get a lot of 'hazy', 'romantic', 'dreamy'," Mincher says. With its release, the duo are hoping to be able to keep travelling. "It's so amazing to get to play your music overseas," Mincher enthuses. "I just love seeing new places, meeting people, hearing stories and telling stories."