Happy Axe is Canberra-based multi-instrumentalist and musical polymath Emma Kelly, who weaves layers of vocals, violin and musical saw into a vibrant fever dream on debut album Dream Punching. You can stream/purchase Dream Punching now below or on any platform of your choice here.
Listening to Dream Punching is a hypnotic experience. Deft melodies and atmospheric loops cascade and fold themselves around you. Entrancing patterns form and then dissolve. Layers of vocals, violin and musical saw are woven into evocative landscapes that follow naught but their own internal dream logic.
“This music for me ties into memories of my childhood,” says Canberra-based multi-instrumentalist Emma Kelly, aka Happy Axe.
“I think my parents liked plants more than people, but that meant we always lived in these really beautiful faraway places – like Belmore Falls, a rainforest-like place way out in a national park. It was the most beautiful untouched place where you could walk to these amazing waterfalls and bits of forest that nobody else knew about or ever went near. It intrigues me to think about that time, and when I write music it often takes me back there. It’s a magical feeling to bring the past back into the now.”
“For me, this album is also about wanting to challenge the everyday patterns and expectations that are put on us by society and sometimes by the people in our lives. I want to invite adventurousness or even a kind of defiance – a confidence to break out of expectations and do or be something different.”
Dream Punching is out now on Spirit Level.
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