Premiere: Felicity Groom returns with Backwards Forwards, teases third album

Header image by Penny Lane.

Over the past decade, Felicity Groom has built herself a name as one of Perth's legendary acts in the indie-meets-pop-meets-folk world, blossoming into a defining act within our live music scene particularly thanks to her break-out 2011 debut album, Gossamer. In the four years that followed, Groom's twist on hook-incorporated indie has seen her only grow and evolve; her 2014 second album Hungry Sky an example of how her experimentation and drive for authenticity as a musician has seen her adapt to the ever-changing music industry and its surrounding climate, taking her across the country in the process.

The time since then has been rather quiet on Felicity Groom's front in a musical sense, taking a "pregnant pause" on her career to raise her family and eventually, learn how to strive creatively in the face of having children and the chaotic energy that brings, as she explains: "It’s not easy making music with new babies. For one whole year, you’re so sleep deprived that you can’t think... let alone think creatively. I really got into the swing of things when my children both settled into long mid-day naps. I’d ignore all household chores and work like mad until they woke up. If you solo some of the tracks, you’ll hear the children in the background... playing and running down the hall. Some of those sounds I harnessed and turned into beats and percussive elements."

Backwards Forwards, however, sees this change. It's the first taste of her long-awaited, returning album Magnetic Resonance Centre - due for arrival at a later date yet to be announced - and sets Groom back on top, fleshing our her multi-faceted sound to create an ambitious take on her indie-pop that flourishes with that Felicity Groom touch, but interpreted in a slightly different way. It's catchy and accessible, centred around Groom's hazy vocal which swirls amongst a percussion-dominated instrumental as sings about life and its complexities after finding inspiration in a road trip. "There’s sounds of outside life woven into in this dream pop tune. The melody flew in the window of my car while driving from one thing to another," she says on the track. "Imagine cats in roller-skates. Life can sometimes feel like that. Then there’ll be that one little thing that makes the rest of the crap melt away with the effect of a reverse ice cream. Driving is a big place for melodies to pop into my head... sometimes it’s a tad hard to capture them... and they fly out the window just as quickly as they flew in. This one I caught."

It arrives with an official video - above - and a new audio-visual experience titled Galactagogue, which will take her forthcoming third album and contrast it amongst work from some of Perth's best digital artists - Poppy van Oorde-Grainger, COMBS, Dominic Pearce and Curtis Taylor among them - at Fremantle's St Johns Church on July 13. Grab more info on it HERE.

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