Stella Donnelly shares reflective new travelling single ‘Flood’
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Credit: Press
Stella Donnelly returns with the stunning ‘Flood’
Stella Donnelly - 'Flood'
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Australian indie queen Stella Donnelly has returned with her long-awaited second album, Flood. A marvellous record that sees her take a more cerebral artistic angle than her debut, she gets incisive across its nearly 40-minute run time, with flecks of her Australian contemporaries Courtney Barnett and Julia Jacklin wedged in alongside the more emotive flecks of Blur, Badly Drawn Boy and Stereolab, with the increased use of more varied instrumentation augmenting Donnelly’s talent to the next level, a more mature one that investigates the idiosyncracies of relationships with verve.
This writer means it when they say it, in terms of vocal style and observant lyrics, Donnelly is the Australian and much better version of Sleeper frontwoman Louise Wener, with her sincerity touching. There’s comedy and honesty here, and Donnelly is fast becoming a personal favourite.
Donnelly described Flood as the result of “months of risky experimentation, hard months of introspection, and a lot of transition”. She explained that the songwriting on the record is centred around “relationships, be them familial, romantic or platonic”, with her interest in “observing human dynamics” coming to the fore here. She’s removed herself from the middle of the discussion as she was on her 2019 debut Beware of the Dogs, and taken the backseat ole, watching humanity go about its daily business, and it’s been a stroke of genius.
Per the press release, Donnelly was so inspired when writing Flood that she wrote 43 tracks for it whilst moving around Australia and visiting the rainforests of Bellingen in New South Wales. During this time she reconnected with her “small self” and took up bird watching, which accounts for the heady, relaxed sentiment of the album.
Flood is, at points, so dreamy as on ‘Medals’, that you feel like you’re being beckoned into space by J. Spaceman himself. The saxophone on the track is a welcome addition, reflecting Donnelly’s desire to become “a little bit more comfortable with the unknown.” She’s pushed the boundaries and it’s worked resoundingly.
Interestingly, Donnelly wrote the album on piano, which adds to the sense of departure from her debut. Wanting to become more comfortable with the unknown she also started writing with her band members, Jennifer Aslett, George Foster, Jack Gaby, and Marcel Tussie, as well as co-producers Anna Laverty and Jake Webb – the latter of the band Methyl Ethyl – which has given the record such an expansive sound.
She explained: “They all brought themselves to the record in such a beautiful way. A lot of us were playing instruments that weren’t our first instrument: me on piano, Jack doing all these synth sounds, George trying a bunch of stuff out, Marcel sang! It was quite vulnerable for all of us.”
Released in summer, Flood is likely to be a point of comfort for many as autumn and winter beckon, and as a credit to Donnelly, the band and her producers, the group effort is so stellar that the album is without a downside. As soon as the first notes of opener ‘Lungs’ hit, you might think that this is to be just another forgettable indie-pop album. However, as the track builds into a semi-motoric trance, it quickly alerts you to the fact this record contains a density that many artists in the genre often forego. The bassline is also a killer.
Highlights include ‘Lungs‘, ‘How Was Your Day?’, ‘Restricted Account’, ‘Underwater’, ‘Flood’, and the closer, ‘Cold’, which features some of Donnelly’s best lyrics to date. For all the stunning musicianship, it is important to note that Donnelly’s vocals have improved markedly, as her ethereal notes take us to another dimension, and for anyone wanting a comedown album after a heavy night, this is the one. Her work on ‘Restricted Account’ is so moving, and the roar of the reverb-drenched horns brings the song to its climax in an unexpected, but more than welcomed way.
The future looks incredibly bright for Stella Donnelly, and with her heading out on tour in September playing some of the world’s best-loved intimate venues, she is not to be missed, as it’s not going to be long before she’s playing much larger venues.
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