Hannah Everingham has been enjoying autumn in Christchurch, where she lives — just out of the Lyttelton tunnel on the city side.
And thinking about it, too.
"Because in Christchurch, I am, like, ‘wow, autumn is a really lovely time of year’," she says with genuine enthusiasm down the phone line from the Garden City.
And it occurred to her, she says, that this was a pattern, that each autumn was preceded by the previous and followed by the next and each was beautiful.
"And literally, yesterday, I was like, ‘wow, it just keeps going’, the seasons. It just keeps going on, time.
"And it’s lovely because the leaves are brown and start falling on the ground."
It’s an apposite enough observation, given Everingham is due to play in Dunedin just next week, in autumn, touring her debut album Between Bodies, which was recorded last autumn.
It’s a sparkling collection of songs of varying tempo, all sharing an ear for melody, momentum and narrative, wearing their playful experimentation lightly, wrapped around by Everingham’s warm and versatile alto.
There have been a couple of songs released from the album so far, accompanied by videos, the observational So Long Underground and the very danceable Go On.
Comparisons are problematic but maybe it’s fair to say that if you’ve enjoyed the likes of Tiny Ruins, Everingham’s output to date is going to spin your turntable in a not-too-dissimilar way. Singer-songwriterly, witty and generously hook-laden.
The album itself was recorded in the Ōtautahi home studio of Thomas Isbister, who now plays drums/percussion in Everingham’s three-piece and will accompany her to Dunedin.
"There’s something about that home recording thing that can be really nice because you don’t have the time pressure in the same way, I think," Everingham says.
It’s relaxed and open, and affords the opportunity to try things.
It meant each of the eight songs on Between Bodies could be treated quite individually, she says.
"There is a mix of different instrumentation. There are some strings on some of the songs, then there are other strange things happening elsewhere."
And the process of making those choices teaches you a lot about a song, she says.
"It is so funny because what I have learned is that the song itself, when you sit down to record it and you have to start making choices about what kind of things you want to give it, how you want to treat the song, what needs to be there ... me and Thomas are always like, ‘what makes it its best self, or something’."
Fortunately, Everingham appears to be happy with where her songs landed for Between Bodies.
"After having recorded them, it is like, ‘oh, yeah, that was the sound that I was looking for’. Or, ‘that was the thing’."
So, side-stepping predetermination appears to be part of the secret, and Everingham is keen for others to keep that in mind.
She’s been thinking about the way people might be considering her, as a singer-songwriter, on the back of the album. Wondering whether they might jump to conclusions, based on this relatively small data set, about the artist that she is.
"I guess it’s a debut, so it’s kind of that strange thing where you yourself know that you have got more music to come, but people listen to the debut and it’s ‘oh, this is what you make’. And I’m like, ‘yeah, this is what I make, I guess, sort of, along this line, something like this’."
It’s not that she’s not very happy with what she’s done, but wary of the way in which that can morph into a brand, when, as Everingham says, she just plays songs.
The gig
- Hannah Everingham plays Maggies Cafe, Stuart St, Dunedin, Saturday April 22, 8pm. Support from Robert Scott and Francisca Griffin.
