TARA SIMMONS

LOOK OUT for this girl, Brisbane! Tara Simmons has been sitting right under our noses for quite sometime now and has seemingly appeared from nowhere, armed with her debut EP Pendulum, and is set to shoulder her way to the forefront of BrisPop.

But Simmons explains that this excellent little introduction to her world almost didn’t see the light of day because she didn’t really like it.

I worked for so hard and for so long on the tracks that by the end I had lost perspective on it, she says. So I put it in a cupboard and pretended it didn’t happen. I eventually used it for a successful OzCo grant application so I thought ‘Maybe it’s all right after all’. And then I sent it into Triple J and I started to get some airplay. Then I pressed it. That was about 15 months after it was completed!

Championing a unique sound that she can call her own, Simmons doesn’t play music by the books. Instead she fuses electronic samples and beats with more organic instruments – like cello, piano, clarinet, acoustic guitar and drums – to triumph a new, original and still, ultimately accessible sound.

I really like interesting sounds so they usually form the bed for most of my more electro kind of stuff, she says. A lot of good ideas often come from my stupid mistakes or out of pure frustration. If I’m not writing on the computer I will write on either cello or keys – if I get the shits with one thing I can just go and hang out with another instrument for a while.

I did most of the recording and production on the tracks myself. There was a lot of me swearing at the computer and long, lonely nights in the uni production studio. It pretty much sent me insane – but I learnt a hell of a lot!

Tara Simmons plays The Globe Friday Dec 8 and Ric’s Tuesday Dec 12. Pendulum out now independently.

CHRISTOPHER HEALY catches up with TARA SIMMONS – the up-and-coming local singer-songwriter who exchanges the expected acoustic guitar and piano for a cello and laptop, and sounds impressively fresh as a result.

Amongst the current crop of Brisbane singer-songwriters, one name comes up again and again in conversation – Tara Simmons – the artist behind the sterling 2006 EP Pendulum. Comprised of an ingenious mix of heartfelt folk and skittering sample-based electronica, Pendulum managed to sound completely unique amongst the wide output of local singer-songwriters last year. Now on the verge of her second release, All The Amendments, Simmons is gearing up for a busy year with more performances, collaborations (with Topology), and a determined effort to get her music heard by as many people as possible.

Epitomised by Everybody Loves You, Q Song finalist in the Alternative category, Simmons has a forward-thinking manner of building melody from sampled sounds and odd rhythms, an approach favoured by artists like Matmos, The Books, and The Notwist (the latter two acts she freely admits to admiring). Coupled with her lilting vocals, the final product is much greater than the sum of its parts. But it wasn’t necessarily a natural thing for Simmons to write this way. Initially a fan of Ani Difranco and Fiona Apple, it took exposure to a variety of influences during a university music production course to free Simmons from the restrictions of traditional arrangements.

“It was really confusing for a long time,” she admits. “When performing, I would either perform acoustic-style with a band, or I would go and do a laptop thing with other instrumentalists. And I had a lecturer saying to me, ‘why are you separating them?’, and I’d be like, ‘They can’t go together,’ and he’d be, ‘No. They can go together.’ Finally I did put them together, and I don’t have a problem with it now. But it did take a long time to get over that.”

All The Amendments looks like garnering Simmons even more attention, both locally and nationally. Already Next Cropped by Triple J, listeners are gradually becoming more aware of her singular talents. And it’s all the more impressive for the way she went about putting herself on the radar.

“I spent so long in the studio I feel I went almost the opposite way around to how everyone else does things,” she says, identifying something that has almost certainly worked in her favour. “Everyone else gigs for a long time and then records, and I spent a long time recording and defining my sound, and then came out gigging.”

On the flipside, this means Simmons is still somewhat an unknown quantity in the local music community. “The whole way the industry works, and how the Brisbane music scene works, I’m still just engaging with it,” she reveals. Then adds, “But everyone has been really supportive. Other bands and singer-songwriters are quite happy to sit down with me and offer me advice, which is great, because I am still feeling my way around and going, ‘how does this all work?’ (laughs).”

With three February shows coming up, the EP release, and a plan to do a national release and tour later this year, Simmons will have no shortage of opportunities to learn more about ‘the biz’, and she’s quite happy about it. Describing the change in her life since Pendulum, she is both amazed and very positive, and all signs suggest she’ll be feeling that way a lot more this year.

“It’s like going from doing next to nothing to doing everything, and not even having a spare moment to breathe even! But it’s really good. I’m not complaining at all.”

Tara Simmons performs as part of the Beatles Tribute Night at the Troubadour on Saturday Feb 10, then launches All The Amendments on Friday Feb 16 at the Judith Wright Centre. She rounds out the month with a gig at Ric’s on Feb 27.