Smol Fish’s Hannah Coakley Re-Designs Her Favourite Album Covers

Smol Fish are blowing our bloody minds at the moment – ICYMI, they were featured in yesterday’s Underground Picks column – with not a single dud in their growing catalogue. Thus far, the Boorloo/Perth up-and-comers (who were just announced for this year’s BIGSOUND program) have dropped two singles in 2023: the emotionally charged Conditionally, which arrived back in May, and the singalong-ready Big Love, which landed just last week.

In addition to being four incredibly talented performers, the members of Smol Fish are all creative superstars in their own rights. Take for example bassist Hannah Coakley, who moonlights as a world-class graphic designer with her own visual arts business. She’s worked with massive companies like Audible and Grill’d, as well as the art for Smol Fish’s own releases, and those for bands like queer punk upstarts Body Horror.

To celebrate the release of Big Love, Coakley revisited four of her all-time favourite albums and redesigned the covers exclusively for TheMusic, alongside a personal breakdown for each one. Have a look at them all below, then jam the heck out to Big Love!

Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You

“With 20 tracks, Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe In You doesn’t grasp onto a singular theme but instead leads its listener through a wandering exploration of life and human connection. Adrianne Lenker creates vivid imagery in her songwriting through moving descriptions of human quirks, flora and fauna. Just as in nature, life is only perfect through its imperfections.

“It is the rough edges of these otherwise polished songs that create their undeniable charm. I worked with imperfect illustration, hand-drawn typography and natural imagery to capture the fleeting feeling of a sun-soaked day that this album evokes.”

Sorry – Anywhere But Here

“Sorry’s most recent album, Anywhere But Here, immediately stopped me in my tracks upon first listen. How did they manage to so aptly capture the evolving stages of a breakup that I was going through? In their track Key To The City, Sorry examine the angst of knowing that a person who was once so central to your life will continue existing elsewhere, moving on, out of sight.

“Further into the album, There’s So Many People That Want To Be Loved accepts the human drive for connection. Though this feels like a lonely solo mission, there will always be others on the same journey. In my album redesign, the solid chain heart illustrates the bond created in a relationship. This feels so unbreakable until, inevitably, as most things do, this ends. The ache and shock of heartbreak is then shown visually through the sharp-edged pang of a shape at that breaking point.”

Girlpool – Before The World Was Big

“Before The World Was Big by Girlpool is a poignant exploration of adolescence on the cusp of adulthood. This work is so firmly planted in past reflection that when lead singer Harmony Tividad sings of the future she notes feeling ‘nervous for tomorrow and today’. This uncertainty about what the future holds leads to a work which romanticises childhood naivety, ‘before the world was big’.

“This album evokes such strong nostalgia for a life I have not quite lived, yet still rings true of my personal experience with girlhood. Through design, I wanted to capture the feeling of growing up, testing newly gained independence yet yearning for simpler times when sticker collections were prized possessions and it still felt good to colour outside the lines.”

Indigo De Souza – I Love My Mom

“Listening to I Love My Mom by Indigo De Souza feels like reading through a diary full of unbridled desire, juicy secrets and painful regrets. Similar to the feeling of waking up in your childhood bedroom after a party and sorting through fuzzy memories to figure out how you might have embarrassed yourself. Perhaps by forgetting to stifle your true feelings and motivations in a careless act of revealing your genuine self.

“That is the scene I have depicted for my re-designed album cover. I imagine this to be the location Indigo might have scribbled down starting lines that evolved into the songs on I Love My Mom.”

Smol Fish will perform at BIGSOUND 2023, running September 5-8 in Brisbane. See here for more info on this year’s lineup.