EXCLUSIVE: Jack Grace Takes You Track-By-Track Through His Debut EP, 'River'

Following last week's release of his stunning debut EP, River, Sydney artist Jack Grace is giving fans an intimate insight into the work with a track-by-track rundown, which you can read exclusively right here at theMusic.com.au.

River is out now via Create/Control — click here to listen.

intro

A couple of years ago I was spending a lot of time in a studio up in Brookvale with my buddy Spirit Faces. We were mixing the BUOY ep, tracking pianos and keyboards for other local Sydney projects but mainly just fucking around with an ARP 2600, making hours of stuff that will never be used.

There’s a really nice Rhodes up there and I was just making stuff up because it sounded nice in the room and Pete hit record. A year or so later I found it on my hard-drive and it became an intro for Nice To Meet You. Then I chopped it off last week and it became more of an intro for the EP.

nice to meet you

This song is about having a moment when someone holds a mirror up for you and you see yourself for a second, and then that second is gone and you're left trying to remember what you looked like.

hills

This song is all about perspective, the lack of it that I have, and how when I’m in the mountains or when I’m in or around anything that makes me feel small, I get moments of peace.

In one particular moment it really hit me that I was just going in circles - that’s where the hook came from. Putting it in another voice kind of opened the narrative up for the track but it wasn’t initially intended. I worked on the beat for this while I was in the UK with Ngaiire.

For me it sometimes takes being on tour in a foreign place to just indulge a whole day tweaking a beat like that. It’s a fiddly process.

save you 

This song came from a moment where I realized that I couldn’t help.

I realised that I only knew how to help destructively and that there was so much ego tied up in the way I interacted with the people closest to me. Looking back now there’s a naivety in this whole premise which bugs me.

stop your asking

This song came about when I was thinking about the fact that questions force answers, and often the validity of the answers becomes overshadowed with emotions and then decisions get made off those emotions.

at the river

When my Pop was critical and in his last days in hospital, there was a period of time in which he slipped into a coma and lost consciousness. He was medically deceased. He ended up actually coming back and regained consciousness.

When my mum asked if everything was OK he said with a very calm and relaxed tone 'Everything is great, please don’t worry I’ve just been to the river and Joe, Ivy and Alice are all there and everything is fine.'

He passed away later that night.

all lost

This song is trying to explain the actions around trying to cope with or accept a reality that’s difficult like losing someone.

I thought I’d finished the EP but it was kind of bugging me that it didn’t have a lot closure or a place for it to end, so one day I found this beat and piano idea I’d made when I was overseas. I loaded it and just listened to it on a loop for ages.

It had this hypnotic thing that I wanted to preserve. It was originally six minutes long with another few verses - it got an edit or two and I added a little synth, then played it to Pete (Spirit Faces) who was adamant that it just needed a mix and it was done.

I tend not to get really attached to arrangements/recordings. I’ve deleted a lot of music and not regretted it, for me the fun is always in the process so I don’t mind dragging that out. I think had I not had that mix of it I probably would have not put it out.