Woodes Finds "Honesty" In New EP 'Kingdom Come'

Today, Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Woodes unveils her new EP Kingdom Come, out now via Nettwerk Music Group.

Coming out of the pandemic, Woodes felt like her life had flipped upside down. She found herself at the end of a long relationship, so she departed Melbourne for Brisbane, where she collaborated in the studio with friend Danny Harley (Performs as The Kite String Triangle). 

Speaking on the EP, Woodes shares, "This is a very pure version of me. I was making music with my friend, and I was completely independent. I knew I had to stand behind it with a ‘ride or die’ energy. I moved interstate for a bit, and that was very special, too, in that time. It felt great when I came out on the other side of everything."

She continues, “I love when I find music that inspires me or becomes my own soundtrack. I hope I can write songs to accompany your soundtrack in life. If the music becomes part of your memories, there would be nothing better.” 

Below, she delves into the process of making each song on Kingdom Come and the inspiration behind the EP. 

Forever After 

This song was written about reconnecting after time apart & the idea that love never goes away, it will always be a part of you. 

I really wanted to do a song with some call-and-response ‘Ooohs'. In particular, a haunting 'oooh' that was doubled and panned super wide. That was the starting point for this song… just a structural concept, and it grew very quickly. 

Lifetime

So during the writing of my new music, my dog of 16 years passed away. It delayed me getting back north because her health took a big dip. We had a ceremony for her & buried her in the yard. My folks live in the country, and it was lovely to be able to say goodbye to her in their living room, the vet came over, and we all gave her lots of pats. Her name was Olive, so we planted an Olive tree in memory of her. I remember reading a comment on a post about my friend’s pet passing, with someone saying ‘‘What a beautiful lifetime you gave them”. I wrote it down on my phone. 16 years is actually a very long dog lifetime. 

I was thinking a lot about borrowed time, the length of a life and making up for lost time. I was thinking of how coming out of the pandemic lockdowns, it felt like we would never travel again in the same ways. I was thinking of all the family and friends I still wanted to visit and things I still had time to do. 

Magic

I kept the initial vocal from day one on this track. I didn’t want to erase that feeling by re-recording and making it perfect. I had a lot of friends reach out after this went out, which was lovely. I guess when you outline it specifically, there isn’t a lot of grey area. One friend said, “You obviously still just felt so much love, it just didn’t work."

Kingdom Come 

This was the first song we wrote for this chapter. It was originally called Undone. 

This song started as a little percussive loop. We sampled some dried flowers in a vase, and it eventually merged over to the piano and became more of a driving ballad. The horns are where it really came to life. In the final chorus, I wanted the horn part to sound like a princess arriving back at her castle. Tristan nailed the reference. 

The Girl

I cried a lot while writing this track. I sat in a different room to Danny, and I wrote it, I came back in and sang over the loop he was making. I finished the vocal and said, “I dunno…. That’s all I’ve got…. what do you think” 

He took off his headphones and gave me a hug. We left the recording there and came back to it the other day. It's been a favourite of ours due to the honesty.

Kept trying to find a chorus to turn it into something more structured, but it didn’t need one. It is what it is. 

Rescue

This has one of my favourite sounds on the EP. A Flugelhorn at the end. This song is a little different thematically. I did all the writing in Brisbane and would walk the bridge back to my apartment each day after the studio. I found myself drifting back into distant memories of visiting the city when I first left high school. It was beautiful to put life in these parallels and recognise how much life had happened in-between visits. I loved living in Brisbane whilst making this EP, it’s such a beautiful city.