.

.

THE REAL WORLD
The brand new long-player
from Australian
cosmic country outlier
FREYA

.

.

Josephine Hollick has been a hard time coming. During the wait, The Real World that Freya had written about faced dire challenges. The very real effects of the dying planet began to impact heavily upon humanity and the planet was plunged into pandemic chaos. The resulting satellite of dense karma cast an undeniable tidal pull over her 3rd full-length album, a record that had unfolded in the desert with a future so clear, was now going to have to be fought for.

But before we get there, let’s go back to the beforetime…

In 2019 Freya journeyed to the Californian desert to record a new body of work at the famed studio Rancho de la Luna. With Lucinda Williams’ band Buick 6 and renowned guitarist Greg Leisz (Eric Clapton, Beck, Sheryl Crow, Emmylou Harris et al) in on the sessions, Freya cut the tracks that make up the colourful landscape of The Real World.

Looking back Freya shares, “I ended up there in the Mojave desert, like the universe had called me there, to be there with those people. It wasn’t a place I chose, the place chose me, the wonderful people I worked with chose the band, chose the studio, chose the place, and I showed up.”

She continues, “The indescribable feeling of playing with musicians I had listened to since I was a child, singing into a microphone and sleeping in a bed recently sang in and slept in by Iggy Pop, I pinched myself every day. It was deeply emotional, I found myself on the cusp of tears at every turn. That desert is a powerful place, with a powerful history that stretches so far back before the capitalist machine put its devastation there. The death place of Gram Parsons and a good place to go looking for Aliens, I felt so at home, I can’t even explain it.”

With those studio takes still resonating, Freya experienced an awakening in the Mojave Desert. In that ancient conductive place, the singer’s new-found peace through meditation revealed a road forward that made complete sense. It was her future, her sanctuary from the chaos of the outside world and the most powerful message she felt was worth sending out through her music. Armed with this lucid resolve she returned to her home in Australia to commit to a new and determined course.

‘Nobody’s No Better Than No One’ was the first taste of Hollick’s new work. Arriving clad in cosmic desert dust, the single was heavily influenced by Gene Clark’s hallowed 1974 album No Other, it was added readily to Australian national radio and picked up a sync on the HBO TV drama The Flight Attendant. A landscape blending synths, affected vocals and dusty rock guitars, ‘Nobody’s No Better Than No One’ is an anthem for the underdog and an introduction to an album of songs that challenge the existing condition.

Then life got quiet…

.

.

As the world fell into the grip of pandemia, that future road Freya saw so clearly back in the desert began to throw detours and cul-de-sacs, both physical and spiritual. In the apart time globally endured, Freya was confronted with the inescapable reality of her past and the painful decision to free herself from it. Realising that, for her, to pursue the life and career she hoped for, she needed a clean slate and to let go of the things that no longer served purpose in her life.

Looking back on those early days of the pandemic Freya admits, “For so many 2020 was just a write off, for me it was the great revealer. Everything just became so undeniably clear. Things I had let slide for years, came face to face with me. I sat in deep reflection for months, walked 10km a day, listening to meditations, sitting in the bush and singing to the water, and listening to the trees.”

Even though she was largely cut-off from human interaction in her isolated country town, Freya felt part of the change that was taking place, “It was transformative,” she elaborates, “and I felt as though I was existing in a new dimension, one where people’s intentions were so obvious, where my path was so obvious. I felt connected to an eternal hum, like my power cord had been plugged into a new socket, and I needed to let all the dead weight fall off.”

After waiting on others for the answer Freya realised all the information needed to move forward was already contained within, “My emotions became the guidance system for my soul’s vibration, and how to know what I needed to let go of, and what I needed to find, a loving disconnection that could help me do what I was put here to do.”

In the gap between 2020 lockdowns Freya issued forth ‘Impossible To Love’, a reclamation of sound and purpose. This short, sharp spark of a song saw Freya embracing her youthful, raw outlaw heart, and national radio again embracing the new single with high rotation. Leaping forward with an electric country scratch, the artist looking to push the much loved 70s inspired vibe into meaning for these complex times.

A seemingly forever period of global tumult and personal challenges on, Freya returned, again anew and renewed of purpose with the title track to The Real World. Crying to the bleak situation we find ourselves in, “The Real World” – which again was added to high rotation on national radio – laments a planet so sick it can’t breathe, where “the sky has turned to fire”. Aching and punctuated by her pure and fragile tone, the song orbits in an ether of sullen strings and bawling steel guitar. The palpable sense of loss permeates as it’s stretched across Hollick’s textured cosmic country canvas.

.

.

Arriving amid more pandemic complications Freya’s 4th single “Vivian, June, Dolly and Jolene” leapt into the waiting arms of radio where again it was added to high national rotation on ABC Country and received a 4th straight Double J nod and elevated editorial playlist support from Spotify.

“Vivian, June, Dolly and Jolene,” finds Freya dissecting the jealous heart of outlaw country folklore through knowing eyes. With her diamond-sharp Australian band relishing the chance to shine on this one, Freya delivers at her most transcendent. In her aching quiver you can hear the very moment the poor heart breaks, it’s hyper-real and breathtaking.

Written at the time Donald Trump was elected to office, “Me and Mine” the 5th single to be lifted from the album fixes on fortitude in the face of political ineptitude, where endless societal slings and arrows aren’t nearly enough to fracture a hard-won resolve. A show of strength from deep within a weathered heart, taking power from the commitment to the self-sufficiency of a community pressed under the thumb of authoritarian leadership, the refusal to carry the weight of colonialism and oppression forward.

Inspired by the late great Allen Toussaint, the rolling “Holdin’ on the Ones You Love” suggests a simple vision of utopia as worn lovers revel in the homely familiarity of each other, problems far from thought or if needed, problems shared. Freya’s breathy croon entwines with the smooth baritone of Alan Power, painting golden idyllic scenes while the band rolls on, pausing for an inspired nylon string and honky tonk piano break. The duo remind us to hold on to the good times, to give gratitude because “before you know it they’ll be gone.”

“Wilderness Tune” is an ethereal country ballad that floats on gull wings in the warm jet stream, free and spiralling up into the golden sunlit skies, it’s a fragile and tender moment among many others on a record that reveals the true depth and purity of an artist finding true voice and purpose.

The gas station torch balladry of “Spend Your Christmas With Rita” finds Buick 6 and various members of Freya’s Australian band in full Honeydrippers mode, painting in a mid-century faded drive-in diner hue. Freya playfully narrates the faded star story of Rita, a woman in charge of her destiny and in pointed refusal of the constant patriarchal dilemma.

.

.

“What A Tender Thing” closes the album and finds Freya in pure voice and heart, lilting against tender steel guitar and fingers sliding on strings passing from major to minor, and back home again. A warm embrace that tenderly whispers and then passes before the tears have a chance to roll down your cheeks. It’s a story of love’s letting go.

It seems now, and on the final journey toward the release, all this metaphysical change has elevated the songwriter, steeling her resolve to find her place in this new real world. Freya is embracing the privilege of having a voice that captures attention, using it to address situations of spiritual sustenance. Like all great artists she is making us think. The planet, the environment, societal unrest, the intimacy and complexity of our relationships, inclusiveness and empathy, the matters that continue to challenge our existence.

She continues, “I can feel this album as another preface to something of much greater scale and importance. I feel it is my duty here to send out a vibration, to invite people in to be a part of a community, to do away with the “country music is for rednecks” narrative, and try to initiate change in the only way I know how.”

Freya concludes, “Life without reflection and improvement is purposeless, so music must invite people to reflect, it should invite people to feel, and to feel seen and safe. The Real World is a collection of songs that have grown to mean a great deal to me, and that are intended to question everything.”

Freya Josephine Hollick’s The Real World is out on Cheersquad Records & Tapes September 30th 2022

.

Pre-Save ‘THE REAL WORLD’ HERE

.

Follow FREYA JOSEPHINE HOLLICK
Website – Facebook – Instagram

.

AMNPLIFY – DB