FEATURE: Spotlight: Ali Barter — Music Musings & Such

FEATURE:

Spotlight

Ali Barter

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THIS year’s festivals are announcing their…

line-ups, and there are a few that have been in the press because of the lack of female representation – most recently, Reading & Leeds. My eye has been drawn to the ever-reliable The Great Escape which, down in Brighton each year, showcases the best new talent around. Make sure you catch Ali Barter at the festival alongside all the other great acts – a celebration of the finest rising artists and, with that, we get equality and variation in spades! Barter is one of these artists who can mix a more sugared Pop sound but provide deep and layered music with plenty of bite and edge; capturing you with her amazing voice and keeping you engrossed with her music, which seems to unfurl and reveal new things every time you listen. Barber was born in Melbourne in 1986. An internment childhood involved time in Lae, Papa New Guinea; the family then relocated to Cairns before ending up in Melbourne. Barter trained as a classical violinist and spend eight years singing as part of the Australian Girls Choir. Maybe that life and sound was too constrained, and Barber sound isolated herself from the choir – by her own admission, she did not contribute a huge amount. I have included all the Ali Barter social media links at the bottom of this feature – make sure you follow her and check out her music.

I will do a bit of a chronological look at her career so far, mentioning her two studio albums. Before her accomplished 2017 debut, A Suitable Girl, Barter put out the E.P.s Trip (2012), Community (2014), and the excellent AB-EP (2015). Although A Suitable Girl reached number-seventeen in the Australian chart, it did get coverage from media sources around the world. Singles like Far Away, Cigarette, and Please Stay are remarkable moments that formed part of a varied and personal album. Even before the album arrived in 2017, Barter was turning heads and shaping up to be a name to watch. In 2016, she was interviewed by Howl & Echoes. Barter was asked about her recording and preparation of her debut album:

“On Instagram, you have been sharing pictures from the studio. Is it ever a challenge getting your backing band on board with what you are doing musically?

I write all my own music, so I start off writing by myself and then I do some co-writing with other people before bringing it to the band. I’m lucky that they like what I bring to them, they are pretty chill. They just like to play music and they play with various other bands to so I’ve never had to deal with issues. They might think bad things but they never say it.

One of the highlights of 2016 for was collaborating onstage with Ecca Vandal for Triple J’s 10 years of Unearthed party. Are there any big collaborations coming up for you over the next 12 months?

I did some co-writing on the album I’m currently writing which was fun. Nobody is performing on the record, but Bertie Blackman and I did some co-writing, and I also some co-writing with Adalita which was a dream co-write, despite the fact that she had a horrible cold and was only there for two hours, with me feeling really bad that she had come such a long way just to write a song with me. She was amazing, though.

You’ve said in the past that “classic songwriting” is what you really love and aim for. How do you define this personally?

I grew up listening to Frank Sinatra, my dad and I would listen to him along with Cole Porter and Geroge Gershwin and all those old standard writers. When I think of classic songwriting I think of really simple structures, like “verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus.” Song. Done. I also love pop music so I love a catchy hook or a tag-line, similar to Sia in Chandelier. I guess they are two artists that I look to. Country music also has classic songwriting. Stuff that has a really nice melody and simple structure, plus a message”.

It is interesting reading Barter describe her influences and the combination of acts/sounds that influence her own music. Every artist grows up around different music, and it seems like Barter’s musical upbringing was a remarkably good and eclectic one.

PHOTO CREDIT: @charlesengelken

I stumbled upon Barter’s music just before she put out her second album last year, so I have been working backwards in a way and digging into her earliest material now! Although most of the reviews (by and large) for A Suitable Girl were from Australia and New Zealand, there was plenty of positive proclamation and support. This NZ Herald review is full of praise:

“Is it time for the grunge revival yet? What about Britpop? Ali Barter probably doesn't fit snugly in either pigeonhole, but the very notion should be enough to tell you where her sound is coming from.

The Melbourne-based singer songwriter's debut album is loud and proud, like Courtney Barnett turned up to 11.

But don't get lost in the catchy guitar hooks, Barter has a way with lyrics too. Her breakthrough single Girlie Bits details the treatment of women in the music industry: "Give us a smile, princess, it's better for business," she sings sweetly. "You don't understand what it's like to be a man," she repeats.

Another standout track is Cigarette, which asks questions about male superficiality, about the reduction of a woman to her looks. "If I shaved my head would you tell your friends you don't really care."

The album harks back to the 90s guitar pop era, with Barter's vocals a meeting of L7 and Veruca Salt, and the odd nod to Smashing Pumpkins in the music (she has cited Billy Corgan as an influence).

Beware: the heavy guitars can be a bit of an onslaught for the ears, but like all good rock music, that's what we're here for”.

I have scattered some songs through this feature, and you can see an artist evolving all the time; from her 2017 debut album to now, Barter has grown and gained new confidence. There was a lot of fascination from the media around the time of her debut album. Barter spoke with London in Stereo in 2017. Here, we learn more about her recording path and break into music:

“Her creative journey saw her develop first through open mic nights and then through a series of EPs. Tracing her songwriting lineage she describes a period of the latter as one where “at some point I thought I should be more creative and I should use more complex metaphors and it should be darker and moodier.” Listening to the songs that form 2014’s Community, there’s an undercurrent of widescreen nocturnal drama running throughout, a world apart from from the sharp bursts that have come to characterise the earlier offerings of recently released debut album A Suitable Girl. It’s a record that draws from personal experience to create a soundtrack to a romantic drama, and draws from a Barter wanting to write a pop-punk album. “When I was writing it I was listening to a lot of Weezer and I’ve always loved people like Katy Perry and Britney Spears. I just wanted to write in a pop style and for it to be immediate and ‘wham-bam-thank you ma’am’. Big choruses, big fun beats and short, sharp songs.” It also marks an about-turn in her songwriting practices, with Barter summarising her style as “closer to the ones I wrote when I first started, and in the middle. My work when I first started – as it is now – was built from a place of wearing my heart on my sleeve with simple chords and lyrical honesty.”

But if a greater appreciation of women in music history needs a serious overhaul, Barter thinks the current situation has improved with “many [more] women in the Triple J Hottest 100 compared to years gone by. There’s so much more awareness about it now – it used to be where women could either be a rock chick or a pop princess. They can still be, those things still exist, but now we’ve got people who work in a folk style or with beats or people like Camp Cope being quite grungey. We have women who combine so many different aspects of their femininity to their music in an incredible way and it’s great to see. It’s not perfect by any means but it’s certainly better than it was.”

Not one to stand still, Barter has ambitions overseas. “I love playing in Australia but I definitely would like to go playing overseas at somepoint too, [but] the timing has to be right for that kind of stuff. If there’s interest, I’d love to go,” she says. “I think everyone wants to go overseas because Australia’s quite a small market and it’s very difficult to break through over here. I think deep down everyone has big ambitions and the internet has made it so easy for people to know who you are without leaving the country”.

It is interesting hearing Ali Barter talk about her desire to play overseas because, from April, she is in the U.K. and playing a few dates. I am sure there will be U.S. dates before long, but the fact there is a lot of interest in Britain shows how her music has translated and resonated far across the globe.

PHOTO CREDIT: Kane Hibbard

I am going to skip ahead and bring things up to next year and the run-in to her latest album, Hello, I’m Doing My Best. I want to pick out a couple of interviews from 2019; I also want to source from a review of the album. Barter is, as I said, an artist who developed and incorporated new aspects into her mix from her debut to sophomore album. By the time Hello, I’m Doing My Best was released last October, there was a fresh wave of attention at her feet. When she chatted with XS Noize, that question of upbringing and influence came up; she was also asked about the songwriting process for the second album – and whether she had ideas ahead of the recording:

“Hi, Ali, can you remember when you first discovered your love for music?

AB: There was always music in my house growing up. My mum loved Patsy Cline and Fleetwood Mac but it was really my dad who played the most music. It was usually Frank Sinatra records and musicals, so I have memories singing ‘On My Own’ from Les Miserables in the mirror when I was very young. Music has always been my greatest passion.

Who were your musical influences growing up?

AB: I loved The Spice Girls and Sheryl Crow as a kid and then I moved on to Oasis and the Foo Fighters in my teens. I loved music with a strong melody and big anthemic choruses. I later discovered Cat Power and Liz Phair and found female songwriters and performers that I could relate too and emulate.

You release your second album ‘Hello, I’m Doing My Best’ on October 18th. Did you go into the recording with any preconceived ideas on how it should sound and the kind of songs you wanted to write about?

AB: I wanted this record to be less polished than the first one. More ‘band in a room’ style. I listened to the Weezer record ‘Pinkerton’ and lots of The Breeders. I wanted to have more space and fewer tracks, fewer guitars, and vocals mainly. I was intentionally writing songs that were more fun but the subject matter remained very autobiographical and honest. More so this time. Some of the topics are very raw.

What is your songwriting process for this record?

AB: I started out alone, getting my new ideas and intentions out, then I wrote with Oscar, my husband, and producer of the record to develop the sound of the songs. I also spent some time overseas writing with people I have written with before. I enjoy being out of my comfort zone when writing. It’s when all my feelings come up. When I’m home with all my safety nets, I don’t really write. I need to be lonely or scared or stressed to write”.

When she spoke with Stack, Barter was asked about why, when writing the album, she was pushing against herself:

“You also said that during writing, you discovered the “thing [you] were pushing against was [yourself].” That’s a pretty massive detection. Do you suspect that more of these kinds of personal revelations are coming in the future?

Haha, yes, always. I’m a very introspective person, so I’m always looking in to work out why I feel the way I do. It helps me to move forward. I’m definitely writing about stuff for the third record that is spinning me out a bit! But it’s all good and I enjoy digging out my flaws and letting them go. Or just accepting them, because some fears or flaws never leave – they just become quieter”.

I think Hello, I’m Doing My Best was one of 2019’s most-underrated album, and one that warrants a lot of fresh ears and investigation. I will wrap things up soon but, just now, I want to quote from The Line of Best Fit’s review of Barter’s stunning second studio album:

“A remarkable singer, Barter’s vocal confidence and skill is handed a refreshing lease of life throughout, and there is no doubt it is the right course of action. Plenty of high-pitched notes are delivered, and a balance is achieved with some of the deeper vocal range of her voice. “January” is an obvious, irresistible winner on this respect.

In terms of themes, there is plenty of consistency, and Barter is able to make sure a healthy amount of ground is covered. With her natural gift for the observational and the tragicomic, she tackles previous relationships, sobriety and people she has known. Sounding quite girlie at times, it is a record full of self-assurance and side-tracked by a brave, impossible-to-find honesty and vulnerability. Similar records may well have been made in the past, but they don’t project the same heartfelt vibe as this one.

It is possible to be fooled by the compelling, sugary pop song layers that unfold on this record, but there is so much more going on underneath it all and therein lies some of the complexity and fascination”.

Barter is coming to the U.K. very soon, and go and see her perform if you can. I am excited to see where Ali Barter might go and what lays ahead. Her music is the kind that definitely impacts when you first hear it – because of her amazing voice and knack of getting under the skin -, but one is compelled to keep listening, as these are tracks that bury themselves in the mind and grab the senses. If you are unfamiliar with Melbourne’s Ali Barter, take some time to get acquainted with this…