"The polar caps are melting," croons Sabrina Lawrie. It's the opening line for the Brisbane alt-rocker's new single, 'System Collapse'.
Over a restrained guitar riff, she sings of child labour, rising sea levels, and the indifference of the powerful. It's a frightening vision of our times, but adding to the horror, Sabrina wrote and began recording the single back in 2017."That's the strange part about [the song], and that's one of the reasons why I pulled it out [to record]," she says. "I could have chosen from a few other tracks as well, but as a three-piece we were playing this in 2023 and after every set this was the song people would want to come up and talk about. I thought, 'Well, these lyrics are still resonating'."
A longtime fixture of Brisbane's alternative music scene, Sabrina began working on 'System Collapse' while touring her 2017 debut album, 'Hush The Mountain'. Alongside her new backing band, The Cosmic Shore, Sabrina will launch her new single at Stranded Bar in Brisbane (23 March).
'System Collapse' is the first taste of Sabrina's second album, produced and mixed by Sabrina and Jeff Lovejoy (Regurgitator, Screamfeeder, Custard), and mastered by Howie Weinberg (Nirvana, Pixies, Ice Cube).
Initially hoped to be released sooner, Sabrina had to take a hiatus from music to care full-time for her partner, the late producer Ben Kerswell.
"We went into the studio after the end of the tour [in 2017] and laid some beds for five songs with the plan to release them not long afterwards, but then my partner at that time was diagnosed with terminal cancer, so everything went on hold.
"Those songs all sat in the studio on [producer] Jeff Lovejoy's hard drive at Black Box Studios – where we tracked them – for nearly five years. Once I came out the other side of that and came back to music, we lifted the tracks and listened to what we had, and thought, 'Wow! This is a really great flying start.'"
During Sabrina's hiatus, her and Ben set up a studio in their home in Mount Pleasant. There, the couple began an electronic-based side-project, Bast N Move, allowing Sabrina to hone her production skills and became a form of therapy for the couple.
Performing again has been therapeutic for Sabrina. After touring with her backing band The Hunting Party, a group that could have as many as eight members onstage, Sabrina decided to use her return to music to simplify.
Now, she's backed by The Cosmic Shore, aka bassist Johnny Ahern and drummer Andy Davis. "I'm back to the three-piece just to get back to the heart of it, and just to reconnect with my guitar because I had to really put it down through those traumatic few years," she says.
"It's been quite the confidence boost for me after all that happened. I became quite depressed. It's helped me express myself, which has helped shift the depression a little. It takes time to overcome grief, but the music has definitely helped."
After returning to music in 2023, Sabrina Lawrie and The Cosmic Shore have been performing all across South East Queensland, playing any show they could.
The band's single launch at Stranded Bar will be their first headline show in a year, and will feature the gothic synth sounds of Sarah Stockholm and the roots-rock duo Salt And Steel, as well as Burnt Trash's Liam Huang joining The Cosmic Shore on second guitar.
'System Collapse' is only the beginning of Sabrina's new era. She plans to release more singles ahead of her second album. In addition, she has plans to release a hip hop project under the name Bast, having recently recorded with Dave Atkins of Resin Dogs.
"It's like, 'Let’s all go back to a new normal'," she says, "but I won't ever be that person who I was before. This is a different person carrying different experiences and different stories, and I suppose feeling more braced for whatever comes."
Sabrina Lawrie and The Cosmic Shore launch 'System Collapse' at Stranded Bar (Brisbane) on 23 March.
