Riding on the coattails of two critically acclaimed full length albums, Jack Carty reintroduces himself to the Australian music scene with his new EP with producer Casual Psychotic, 'The Predictable Crisis Of Modern Life'.
This follow-up release to Jack's 2012 effort, 'Break Your Own Heart', shows an evolution in talent and production value. Jack took a creative risk by collaborating with Casual Psychotic, and spoke to us about his new musical direction.
“Casual Psychotic's really into heavy production,” Jack explains, “so there's a lot of synthesizers and electronic sounds and filters to really mess with sounds. Working with him was really eye opening and expansive in that we just sort of did whatever we wanted. It was like we were kids, exploring and playing around with things and trying to do things that would sound really interesting.”
While it may seem like fun and games to make music and experiment with new sounds, artistic decisions are not made lightly. Jack makes this clear as he recounts the uncertainty leading up to the release of 'The Predicable Crisis Of Modern Life'.
“I was interested to see how that was going to go because 'Break Your Own Heart's quite folky and organic in its sound. I guess there's a lot of acoustic instruments and it's not overly produced. So I was a little bit concerned — well, not concerned, but I was wondering how it was going to go down and how people were going to receive it but it's been really, really great. People have really jumped on board and there seems to be some really passionate fans of the EP.”
While the EP has been met with positive feedback, most Jack Carty fans are yet to experience the transition of the songs to the live stage. For the most part, Jack has toured as a solo act with very little additional production, which is not the case for his upcoming 18-date national tour.
“On this tour we're taking a full band out on the road. We've worked it all out, we've been rehearsing hard and got all our different elements together, and it sounds really, really great. I’ve actually been surprised at how accurately we've managed to represent the EP in a live show. It's really exciting.”
It seems fans can expect a different flavour of live performance from Jack on this run of shows, with the addition of complex production elements and a move away from standard acoustic fare.
“There's going to be a lot more electric guitars, a couple of samples. We've put a lot of effort into these live shows. There's going to be a fair bit going on but there will also be parts of the live show where I will bring it back down to acoustic again and play some songs off the old record."
With 'The Predictable Crisis Of Modern Life', Jack has broken away from his folk roots to produce a stunning piece of work that shows an eclectic ear for new musical fusions. But the process of writing the songs wasn't as different as you'd expect.
“I wrote the songs in a similar way to the way I wrote 'Break Your Own Heart',” Jack says, “it's just that we've produced them differently. But the songs are still there, so I think if people want to pay attention to the lyric or the sort of narrative arc of each song, that's still very much there. I guess people who really got into 'Break Your Own Heart' could take to this record.”
While Jack has been busy collaborating, his solo career has not taken a backseat. With his third full length record nearly complete, Jack is not slowing down any time soon.
“I'd love to keep collaborating! I tend to write a lot of songs and I find it really interesting to write songs and produce songs with other people, [but] the next thing that we're going to be focusing on is a Jack Carty record, it's not a collaboration. So that’s the next thing after this tour and this EP, but in the future, you never know what could happen.”
'The Predictable Crisis Of Modern Life' is available now. Jack Carty plays The Spotted Cow on Aug 30, Joe's Waterhole on Aug 31 and Black Bear Lodge on Sep 1.
