Track By Track: Adalita

On her second solo album, ‘All Day Venus’, Magic Dirt icon ADALITA SRSEN embraces fuller backing while still stripping back. Lyrically, meanwhile, she was preoccupied with “completely dismantling my whole self.”

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.]

‘Annihilate Baby’

I wanted to keep this record raw and essential like the first record. Same minimalist aesthetic but with distorted guitar and full band. I didn’t want to overdo or overcook anything. I think this song is pretty representative of that rawness and distillation. The song is essentially a howl. The woman betrayed here has transformed from a pale, bloodless, comatose waif into a fully-fledged gorgon out baying for blood. This is one of the most incendiary moments for me on the record.

‘I Want Your Love’

I’d written this one around the time I wrote the first solo album and I’d been playing this a lot during my last solo tour so it was time to nail it down with a band. It’s commenting on the highs and lows of being tempted into an extramarital affair, marital here not strictly pertaining to a married couple but any committed couple. I’m paying respect to the erotic connections we all have with different people in our lives. You can’t deny it. But what you do with it is the interesting part.

‘Warm Like You’

I very much wanted to make a danceable record. Not like a disco record but just so it hit all the centres: the head, the chest, the guts, the loins, the feet. This was an interesting one. It’s kind of the only song on the album that has that dance-y vibe. I love a simple kick beat, always have and the electronic clap. I had a crazy, very low, detuned guitar for this track ... was just mucking around one day, which turned into a 10-hour session that stretched until 5am and I finally came up with the chorus, which I was really happy with. I vacillated a little about committing this one to the album but it was just so undeniably bouncy and thick and melodic that I had to run with it and once I did I didn’t question it. It’s mostly a song about freedom and liberating oneself from toxic friends, relationships and generally things that are very bad for you. The subject of the song, the serene Queen, exudes a reptilian type of demeanour. Seemingly cold but in actuality she is calm, assured and committed to maintaining her freedom. Not freedom from relationships or connections necessarily, just a freedom to be her true self.

‘Trust is Rust’

I wanted this album to also be really meaty and serious, vibrant, stimulating and full of life. And it’s about pleasure as much as it is about the deterioration of intimacy. And a relationship may not just stop when people break it off. The psychological ripples can potentially continue until a lesson is learnt, if there is one to be learnt, or until the next time the lesson might present itself again. So ‘Trust is Rust; is one of my most serious and probably one of the most sophisticated songs I think I’ve ever written. It’s a painful story. Lots of grief. Lots of sadistic and masochistic overtones. The protagonist is torn between a dangerous seduction into the false promise of love and her emerging awareness and resultant anger that she’s being deceived.

‘All Day Venus’

This was such a tender moment in my songwriting and I was so in the moment that it wasn’t until after I’d actually demoed the song that I looked back upon the lyrics and realised what it was about. Initially I was writing the story of a little Venus coming out of her clam shell, sitting there admiring her reflection and stroking her hair and really enjoying her femininity and her budding sexuality. But the song now feels like it’s grown into a song of worship of the female body as creator, nurturer and lover.

‘He Wrote’

I have never been married myself but have experienced great loss in romantic relationships and essentially I see this as my divorce song. Sad, deep grief; in the end there’s nothing to do but mourn the change and move on. Jim White came on board and played drums for this one on the album, which felt just amazing.

‘Blue Sky’

This is one of the very last songs I wrote. It’s an upbeat track and I wanted some tough sunshine on this record. I had the motherfucker line first and everything else centred around that. For me, the drum pattern and the lead break really lifted this song. When we recorded the drums for this at Birdland, I had to put down a lead break so Lee [Parker, drummer] could play along to it. I had no idea what notes they were and I’m shit at doing technically good lead breaks so, anyway, I just went in there and fumbled around finding the notes and then after a couple of false starts Rob [Long, engineer] rolled the tape and I just fluked it and out came this really cool lead break. I was so fucking happy. And I told Lindsay [Gravina, producer], “That’s it. That’s the lead break. It’s staying on the record.”

‘Too Far Gone’

Same with ‘Too Far Gone’. I had to put down a lead break so Hugo [Cran], the drummer, could play against it and I just fluked it. I used my new Lee Ranaldo blue Jazzblaster and it was slightly out of tune but I liked that. And at the end of my guide lead break Lindsay started to say, “When it comes time to record the actual lead break...” I was like, “no, that’s it. That’s the lead break. I will be the first to admit that I can get lazy sometimes with stuff like that because it feels too hard, but I couldn’t believe that I’d fluked two lead breaks – and the most important lead breaks for the album – in just the guide tracking stage. Ha! So happy.

‘Homesick’

I’m really happy with this song. For me it feels like it’s in the same league as ‘Trust is Rust’, just a bit different and a step up from my normal songwriting. I don’t know why but I always thought it had a bit of that Rolling Stones country-rock-song vibe. I remember at the time I was staying in this big dark Tudor-style apartment in Sydney and just working on this song the whole day; just completely focused, adrenaline pumping, frothing at the mouth, couldn’t eat, too excited, just completely absorbed in getting it all down. I’m really satisfied with the crafting of the lyrics here; it feels like a really adult song.

‘My Ego’

This one was just one guitar, vocal and a kick drum in the demo. Then I showed it to Lee Parker, who came up with the amazing drum pattern. This totally elevated the song for me and I’m so glad it made the record. I love that this song isn’t about love or relationships with other people. It’s talking more about my relationship with myself. I have lots of questions about the ego and I’m very curious about what it is and what does it do and where does it reside in us exactly. I’ve been going through this whole thing lately of completely dismantling my whole self ... I’m just curious about who I really am: who is this person and what do I really want?

‘Heavy Cut’

My first official songwriting session was in the Lola Room at Bakehouse, where people like Paul Kelly have jammed and where this song was born. And it was actually one day when I was housesitting for Paul Kelly that I finished this song and showed it to a good friend of mine. She loved it so that confirmed it for me that I had written a pretty good song. And it was one of those songs that came out really easy and, like the first solo record, didn’t want to be put to a band. I tried it and tried it with different drummers but it just refused. My best friend’s kids love this song and they got their little best friends together and made up a dance to it and then did the dance to their class at school. You know you’re onto something when little kids love it.

‘Rolled in Gold’

This is one of my most favourite songs on the record. I get to really open up and sing. The “Here comes your girl” chorus bits were written a few years ago and then I added the verses very recently. This is actually the original demo but with Willow [Stahlut]'s violin added at the end and Hugo redoing the drum parts. The violin part that Willow played for this song just kills me ... it adds even more luminosity to the song and intensifies the emotional impact.

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‘All Day Venus’ comes out today through Liberation. Launch tour dates below, all with support from Laura Jean (except Adelaide).

Thurs, Oct 3 – Grace Emily, Adelaide, SA
Fri, Oct 11 – Barwon Club, Geelong, VIC
Sat, Oct 12 – Karova Lounge, Ballarat, VIC
Sun, Oct 13 – The Corner Hotel, Melbourne, VIC
Thurs, Oct 17 – Transit Bar, Canberra, ACT
Fri, Oct 18 – The Annandale Hotel, Sydney, NSW
Sat, Oct 19 – The Great Northern, Newcastle, NSW
Thurs, Oct 24 – The Zoo, Brisbane, QLD
Fri, Oct 25 – Kings Beach Tavern, Caloundra, QLD
Sat, Oct 26 – The Cooly Hotel, Coolangatta, QLD
Fri, Nov 1 – Republic Bar, Hobart, TAS