Over a dozen years of performance explains a great deal about Melbourne artist Chloe Hall's exceptional poise and craft, but there's no accounting for her gift. Her new album White Street abounds with strong emotions and spare acoustic arrangements, the work of a mature and assured artist with an instinct for melody and subtle truths, one who knows her own voice and understands its power.
Chloe has been playing music all her life; she won her first songwriting award at 14. An early love of Irish folk music led her on a fruitful journey as a teenaged troubadour, from open mic nights in Melbourne to countless stages on the Australian folk circuit through the mid to late '90s. After studying voice and composition at Melbourne University's Conservatorium, she left to build a career as a contemporary singer/songwriter.
Independent and intelligent - this is an exciting voice in contemporary Australian folk. Chloe will be touring the album nationally later in the year, accompanied by multi-instrumentalist James Hazelden, perhaps best known as the front man and main songwriter for Man Bites God.
Since then, Chloe has built a reputation for her well crafted songs, warm and heartfelt performances and beautiful voice. 2000 saw the release of her impressive debut, White Sky. In the process of recording with producers RL Burnside and Drew Stansbury, it evolved from simple folk-pop to something more slick and electronic. She was nominated for Best Unsigned Artist at that year's Music Industry Critics Awards in Adelaide. A self-titled EP appeared in '02, with four new songs, produced by Things of Stone and Wood's Greg Arnold. Chloe has also written for four Saddle Club albums (three gold-sellers) and various other TV and film projects.
White Street is closer to home in every respect: musically, lyrically and in the warm, wood grain texture of Greg Arnold's acoustic production. She writes with rare insight, humour and feeling. From the first song of quiet determination, “All Or Nothing”, her voice has the purity of absolute conviction. “Amy” rings as true as an old friend, and “I'll Be Gone” has a melody that gets under your skin like a familiar feeling.
They can also be as languid and affectionate as the title track, “White Street”; as playful as “Fallen Angel Boy” and as plainspoken and unembellished as “Just The Way You Are”. And they're often as gorgeous as “Fall For You”, a love song that resonates with the unmistakable gravity of precious life experience.
“This isn't new for me,” she says, “I've been doing this for years and years but I feel like I've come back to my roots. I've realised that this is what I do best and this is what I love. It's the simplest record I've made. Early on, I wanted to say everything in one song. Years of live performance changed that. When you?re singing to an audience you lose yourself in one moment, one emotion, and hopefully they do too. The simpler the song, the easier that can happen.”
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