A debut album that traces her personal journey growing up in various small towns, Australian singer-songwriter Alana Jagt delivers a poetically powerful assortment of tender ballads as well as spirited tracks on 'Goodbye Grote Bollen'.
Across nine cuts, 'Goodbye Grote Bollen' traverses vivid, almost heavenly Australiana-soaked Americana melded to colonial lo-fi acoustic folk-punk and indie folk filled with bold acoustic guitar strumming, fierce bluesy electric guitar licks, and a rhythm section that at times meanders in an unhurried fashion while at other junctures waltzes through the melody with toe-tapping assuredness.The album's title was decided after a tragedy left Jagt's family home destroyed by fire; sifting through the 'cold black slush' debris, Alana found a discoloured photograph, depicting a mysterious cake that bore the words 'Goodbye Grote Bollen'.
"Turns out, my parents once worked in a tulip bulb sorting factory," she says. "When their time at the factory ended, they brought a cake in to celebrate.
"Grote Bollen translates to 'big bulbs'. . . there could be a Dutch pun happening there, I'm not exactly sure, but I eventually came to think of these songs as my bulbs and now I'm saying goodbye to them."
Ahead of a run of shows in South Australia and Victoria, Alana sits down to discuss each track in more detail sharing some of the stories involved in the making of 'Goodbye Grote Bollen'.
"'Goodbye Grote Bollen' is my first 'full length' release, and it's not really about anything, it's more a collection of works the band and I have been performing live over the past years that we've finally recorded," shares Alana.
"I've sort of done the opposite thing to a traditional album in that these aren't new songs to people who have seen us perform live (luckily they ARE new for most of the population though).
"It's really me letting them go, saying 'goodbye' to them. The songs were recorded live at Mixmasters in Adelaide with overdubs completed in various homes, and a lot of the songs are really as folksy as we sort of get.
"I feel like this release is almost a compilation in a strange way, even though these works have never been released before."
Stay In Bed
I am a very sleepy person most of the time. But the song is about comfort. Being comfortable where you are, with the person you are with, and not wanting to get out of bed, or feel guilty for not getting out of bed. I played all the instruments on this track myself.If We Had Some Money
Pretty self-explanatory really. It came from a Homer Simpson quote. I wrote the song on a four-hour car trip. 'If we had some money we could have flown. . .' and the lyrics flowed from there.Darkness Lies
This is a kind of a gothic-folk song? Darkness does lie if you listen too closely to it, as any child who is afraid of the dark knows.Imagining Life
Written about the seaside suburb of Semaphore where I lived for five years. 'You move with me,' directly references moving to the area. On the quietest nights, it was possible from the bedroom to hear waves crashing against the jetty. It's a rock song, but we added a string quartet bit to darken the mood even more.
Sarah
'Sarah' is a cover of a song by one of my favourite bands, Ween. It's an early Gener ballad, I started doing it in my solo sets and eventually it was picked up in the band sets too, resulting in this slightly jazzy version. Drums were by Kyrie Anderson (The Boys Club, The Maes) and the beautiful bass clarinet solo was played by David Blumberg. Check out his concept album, 'Gertrude'.Stars Of Napperby
An ode to the village I grew up in on the edge of Wangyarra (Mount Remarkable) National Park in South Australia's mid-north. There's not much there, no shops and almost no light pollution at all. So the stars are spectacular. The song is a reflection of my time there, in awe of the sky and the ranges and the beautiful Napperby Gorge, and my feelings looking back on it all.In Some Dream
A ballad written just before the end of the duo I was in, Buffalo Boyfriend. It's another classic folky waltz that has held on since the early solo gigs, to get a delicate treatment from Kyrie on drums again, and Dylan Paul on upright bass. But to weird things up, there's a traditional Chinese guzheng buried in the mix and a wonky mellotron choir at the end.Stirred The Dirt
The first line comes directly from an old, outdated medical tome about the human eye and the psychology of sight. Sometimes a single line from an old book can inspire a whole new song. . . This is another one that circles around my time growing up in regional SA.Reprise
We tied up the record with a reprise of the string quartet section that lifts the second half of 'Imagining Life'. This time I used the Mellotron again, which is an old, tape-driven keyboard famously used by The Beatles on 'Strawberry Fields Forever'.Alana Jagt 2022 Tour Dates
Wed 12 Oct - Ararat Live (Ararat)Thu 13 Oct - Shotkickers (Melbourne)
Fri 14 Oct - The Old Church On The Hill (Bendigo)
Sat 15 Oct - Macedon Railway Hotel (Macedon)
Sun 30 Oct - Folkloria Festival (McLaren Vale)
Fri 18 Nov - Three Brothers Arms (Macclesfield)* album launch
Fri 25 Nov - Grace Emily Hotel (Adelaide)* album launch
