We are very honoured to premiere the new single ‘Every Waking Hour’ from Australian troubadour extraordinaire Mark Moldre, ahead of the release of his new album ‘Nambucca Fables’ due out on 14 April 2023.
‘Every Waking Hour’ is a poignant missive filled with a sense of reflection and lightly touched with a self-deprecating sense of humour as Moldre sings every waking hour I’m just dying to get back to sleep. There is a jaunty lilt anchored by a yearning thread, an expansive horizon filled with glittering stars and an antipodean hue firmly planted in the red soil with dusty boots and a wide open road that stretches endlessly ahead.
The shimmering sounds get subsumed by a collapsing instrumentation to the end, emulating the descent into a slumber: the pace sparkles and crackles with a verve and effervescence that recalls Bruce Springsteen or Elvis Costello in delivery.
The creative forces behind Moldre were buried for a while in grief following the loss of his mother, compounded by the struggles we all have faced over the past three years with COVID, bushfires droughts and floods – biblical events that cannot help but frame our perspective on life. For Moldre, it eventually poured like water from a bursting dam into his songwriting, and ‘Every Waking Hour’ captures this creative renaissance. Moldre says:
‘Every Waking Hour’ almost threw itself onto the page when I took a notepad down to the beach. It came out in a messed up jumble of words, total stream of consciousness. That hardly ever happens and it feels surreal when it does. I barely changed a word afterwards. Melody and lyrics all arrived fully formed. The lyrical style felt different for me – it was more conversational and effortless. I was able to take my finger out of the dam after that day and thankfully the words/memories/love/loss began to flow.
The result seems to reflect a resilience and sense of acceptance and fortitude:
After grief, there is some kind of new balance…a new you. Damaged but somehow improved. A deeper understanding, more empathetic. Love finds new depths. Somehow you find you way out of that mist and into a new morning.
There is a graceful beauty in these emotions that seeps into the song, gathering all the collective immediacy and veracity of songwriters from Bob Dylan to Sufjan Stevens:
‘Every Waking Hour’ can be downloaded early through the link above and will be available on all the usual streaming and download sites from tomorrow.
You can pre-order the new album ‘Nambucca here – an album that came into creation on the back of a highly successful crowdfunding campaign. A reflection of the high esteem this valuable artists is held in.
Feature Photograph: Jared Harrison
