LIGHT THE WAY

Fans of Holy Holy can dip their toes into a pool of exciting new music from the Aussie band, writes Amina McCauley

ACCLAIMED Australian indierock band Holy Holy are giving Tassie fans an illuminating early taste of their new album, My Own Pool of Light.

The album will be officially launched on August 2, but if you can’t wait that long to hear their new music, head to the Odeon Theatre in Hobart next week to see Holy Holy perform as part of the Festival of Voices.

Singer Timothy Carroll, who formed Holy Holy with guitarist Oscar Dawson in 2013, has been based in Tasmania for five years.

He co-runs the iconic music event A Festival Called PANAMA in the Lone Star Valley in the state’s North each year, and is also heavily involved with Dark Mofo.

Festival of Voices is definitely something new for Carroll. He said next week’s performance to showcase Holy Holy’s new album

would be a highlight for both the band and the audience.

“The Festival of Voices show will be premiering new works for the first time,” Carroll said.

“That is something pretty special for us and the crowd because it can only ever happen once.”

My Own Pool of Light has moved the band’s sound from a guitar and vocal base to more produced and experimental, while staying true to the constant pull between jubilation and melancholy.

“With this one we really wanted to explore what was possible with what we could do,” Carroll said.

“This time we stepped away from guitar and wrote a lot of melodies on keys and bass.

“It was less band members in a room and more about really engaging with drum patterns … and building songs around drum loops and using a bunch of different synthesisers.”

The music is one thing, but getting the lyrics right was just as important for Holy Holy.

“We wanted to make sure that each song had something to say and was a genuine expression of an idea,” Carroll said.

He said Teach Me About Dying, a single off the album that was released earlier this year, was the perfect example of this, exploring what he described as “the tiny experiences of living”.

The origins of Holy Holy can be traced back almost two decades, when Carroll and Dawson met in South-East Asia.

“We’d spend afternoons drinking Thai rum and playing music together,” Carroll said.

Nine years later they found themselves rekindling their friendship and their musical collaboration in Europe. At that time Carroll was living in Stockholm and Dawson in Berlin.

“We got together and we started a writing project and there wasn’t an aim in mind,” Carroll said. “We wrote an album and then came back to Australia and we kind of decided we’d record it properly in the studio.

“And that was the beginning of Holy Holy.”

Seventeen years after their first musical collaborations, Holy Holy are about to grace the stage of the Odeon Theatre in Hobart.

“We’ve just finished our third album and we’ve been together as a band for a while,’’ Carroll said.

“We’ve played a lot of shows on the back of our two albums, so it’s super exciting to have new material.”

After Festival of Voices, Holy Holy will embark on an album tour.

Holy Holy perform at the Odeon Theatre in Hobart next Friday (July 12). Tickets are $59 from festivalofvoices.com/ holy-holy/