New Album?

Little Phoenix // The City // Country

What’s your favourite work at this point in time?

Australian singer-songwriters who are singing in their own voice, about their own experience in stories and the place they live.  Good example? Jen Cloher’s song ‘Regional Echo’ from a deserved Double J album of the year 2017.

How would you describe your sound in food form and why?

A good grilled-cheese sandwich. Something that you’d find in the city or country. It’s delicious, easy to make and relatively healthy for the soul.

Tell us a quick, on the road or studio, anecdote.

Boris Hunt and I have a different way of working with each of our 6 albums together. It always starts with basic plan. This time, with Little Phoenix // The City // Country, we started with drum machine/bass loops from a japanese keyboard as song beds. This was then mixed together with played acoustic and electric parts created a unique sound. A definitive acoustic/electric sound emerged. We like to call it ‘Homefolktronics.’

What, or who, inspires you?

Emerging Australian song, and most notably Australian women singer-songwriters – Cloher, Barnett, Laura Jean, Blasko, Russack, Chambers, Storer, Higgins, on and on. They have an inclusive approach to supporting their own friends and neighbours to sustain their inevitable success. Women appear to be good at colonising local audiences with their songs as focus. It’s more of a family vibe, versus kings in high towers.

Which song do you wish you wrote?

Cattle & Cane – The Go-Betweens

What’s next for you?

Performing and promoting Little Phoenix // The City // Country, working up the next record, the future of work, teaching design, animation & games, writing my PhD at UTS on Australian song in the age of digital music. The standard portfolio career.

What’s your scene?

Currently, Alt-folk rock for the inner west of Sydney (eventually Melbs). People who still might have a supportive affection for local stories told in a local voice. Playing for/with people who are happy to leave home (and screens) to hear new local songs played live.

GRAB ANDREW BARNUM’s Little Phoenix // The City // Country

Website  

Spotify http://spoti.fi/2Ef2pDR – http://spoti.fi/2BOnBiH

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/andrewbarnumsongs/

 CONNECT: facebook.com/abarnumart | instagram.com/abarnumart | twitter.com/andrew_barnum

A N D R E W    B A R N  U M

LITTLE PHOENIX / /    T H E    C  I T Y    / /     C O U N T  R Y    / /     

Andrew Barnum is a singer-songwriter, whose musical style is a combination of folk-based Aus alt-folk and home-pop-tronic-rock. Welcome to a visually transporting road-trip of the Australian experience today.

The song-writing-performance duo of Andrew & Lissa Barnum, aka Vitabeats, had a national hit with ‘Boom Box’ (Hot/EMI) in 1985. This was followed by singles ‘Audrey’ and ‘Build it Right’ from the album ‘Spot the Spanner.’ The band stopped recording and touring in 1988. Andrew never stopped writing, recording and performing his own songs.

Andrew’s current sound is a blend of the acoustic and electronic arcane – forgotten analogue technologies, merging with digital interfaces and an array of musicians, including vocals from Lissa and Cayenne Barnum, all coming together in accomplished composer-producer Boris Hunt’s Black Rabbit Studio in Hartley, NSW. Boris and Andrew call this sound ‘Homefolktronics.’

Little Phoenix // The City // Country, reveals sixteen tracks that tell the story of the struggles and joys of navigating radical change, and the anxiety felt by all of us in Australia today. Conditions we are all going through. Creative career re-invention, moving house out of Sydney, family mental health, a long and proud marriage. These songs are all about dedication and determination to push through the everyday pressures of these times, with perseverance and self-belief. We all need to rise again from set-backs and sing our truth.

The songs are from a City and Country perspective. The tracks were written and recorded during Andrew’s PhD research into Australian song and songwriters (UTS). Through this lens, the two Little Phoenix albums contain unique observations of our evolving identity, this, in a time where the Australian music story is also in a state of reinvention. The songs reveal slow insights about all of our experiences today, offering up time and space to reflect on ourselves and our nation’s freedoms and the changes we all need to take on. As a snapshot, this double album brings unity, depth and levity to our own cultural experience. Key tracks: Little Phoenix, Andy on wire, Resist, All we have is change, Goes around, Why I ride, The more you run.

“I had a chance to have a good listen through. Overall the tracks and production are really great!” Dane Taylor, Shining Bird. “Sounds great” John Prior AIMA. Played on Stuart Coupe’s ‘Dirt Music’ 2SER Sydney

S  P  O  T  I F Y     The City // http://spoti.fi/2Ef2pDR | Country // http://spoti.fi/2BOnBiH

S  O  U  N  D  C  L  O U D     https://soundcloud.com/user-449903088

W  E  B  S  I T E   

I  N F O     http://medianews.foghornrecords.net