A Quick Chat With Hannah McKittrick

Tell us a bit about your new album The day has again bruised me - how did the album come to be, and what do you hope listeners take from it?
‘The day has again bruised me’ is a depiction of pursuing healing through gritted teeth. It is identifying the symbols in things that are intense and slippery, to transform their meaning into something I can better hold. When making this album I was viewing time as intimacy, days as containers, sensitivity as a torch, pain as currency, company as puncture, all the while feeling impressed at our capacity to move through a day that has the capacity to bruise us. I hope the music might feel like a detailed room to sit quietly in and become familiar with over time. Like a home, maybe.

What are you influenced by, and how does it feed into your songwriting?
I am influenced by notions of ritual, and treating my love for songs with a kind of serious rigor that facilitates a sacred relationship with the art form. Other things that influence my writing are; moving water, rest, feeling anonymous but linked to others in a cafe or busy street, being a witness to nature so deeply that you lose the point where the ocean begins and you end, Rainer Maria Rilke, Ocean Vuong, Maggie Nelson, Leonard Cohen.

What's your creative process like?
My process involves cultivating respect for the medium of performance. I am so moved by the gesture of singing, and gathering in a room to listen to songs. When I am writing I am thinking about the atmosphere the song carves out of the air between us all, and how it would feel to set it free into a room of people. I also spend a lot of time procrastinating by doing things that I can vaguely relate to songwriting, that are adjacent to the actual work but helpful all the same; walking while muttering lyrics to myself, napping, reading poetry, studying the way the light reflects on the Merri creek. When I am feeling creatively abundant, it is when I am enjoying being in attendance of all these peripheral facets of the process as well, not just the sitting at the piano part. Although I do love the sitting at the piano part, so much.

Your new single 'Big Plan' is just beautiful, I read that you included the metallic sounds to represent what pangs of hurt in a heart might feel like. How did the idea to include them come to you?
Thank you very much :’) I guess I was thinking about the effect of both my voice and and the felted piano I played on this song being quite warm and smooth, and I wanted to explore a wider palette of sound to map the stretching emotional landscape of the song. We thought by including some subtle metallic sounds (played by Ollie Cox) it would offset and unsettle the warmth of the rest of the song, lending a slightly more sinister tone to the atmosphere that it sits in.

Is there anyone you would like to collaborate with? (+ why?)
I love the writing and performances of Miranda July. The way she can make things so odd and so remarkably familiar is everything I love. Omg or I dream of doing something with my favourite designers - Paloma Wool for their heralding of beautiful/cursed imagery or Ramp Tramp Tramp Stamp, because there is poetry in every element of their process.

Who is the most interesting person you've worked with or met? (+ why?)
My friend Liv Satchell is a writer and director who invited me to sing at the end of her last play, ‘Let Bleeding Girls Lie’. Liv embeds rigorous care into every aspect of her work, and making something with her prickled with humanness. At every rehearsal Liv facilitated a check in with the whole team, inviting each member to share something (heavy or light) about where they were at that day. Some people spoke of precarious family situations, some spoke of breakfast items; irrespective of what we shared, the check in practice allowed everyone to begin working together knowing how each other were feeling that day. This permission to be as we were, and to have that held by each other was so stirring. I was in awe of Liv’s capacity to both take the work seriously, but to also allow each contributor to feel valid.

Upcoming shows

Sat 26 Nov - The Gasometer Hotel - Naarm/Melbourne, w/ Tom Snowden
Sun 27 Nov - Resonate @ Noisy Ritual - Naarm/Melbourne, w/Don Glori
Mon 28 Nov - Major Tom's - Taungurung Country/Kyneton w/Blue Divers
Tues 29 Nov - Tanswells Hotel - Baarmutha/Beechworth w/ Blue Divers
Sat 11 Feb - Townfolk Fest, Dja Dja Wurrung/Castlemaine, w/ Big Scary, Maple Glider, Phoebe Go