Jackson McLaren’s debut album Songs To Greet The Dawn
Warrnambool’s new favourite son Jackson McLaren has just released his debut album Songs To Greet The Dawn. The first single, the driving Here’s a Memory is a huge, jubilant celebration of escape and experience that should show Of Monsters and Men a thing or two about how to do big folk-rock crescendos.
The album’s been a long time coming, but that’s because McLaren knows you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
At the early age of 17 Jackson McLaren’s folk-inflected songcraft had caught the ear of Josh Pyke, who produced Jackson’s debut self-titled EP. A move to Melbourne later, the breakthrough came with A Whole Day Nearer from 2011’s Mirrors and Strings EP.
In 2013 it was followed by the haunting single Some of My Friends - a waltz-time tribute to the way that life changes us all, driven by an insistent fiddle and a melody Mumford & Sons would have killed for - and now McLaren and his trusty sidemen, the Triple Threat, present their debut full length album: Songs to Greet the Dawn.
The result, produced by John Castle (Josh Pyke, Washington, Gossling) maps the development of one of Australia’s most exciting young songwriters. “I think the earliest song is from 2008, and others are from only a couple of months ago. I just wanted my first album to be a big, cohesive picture of what has been happening for the last few years.”
“I took the title from the Philip Larkin poem Aubade, which is such a lovely word,” McLaren explains. “It translates as something like ‘love songs to the morning’ and I thought ‘that’s a nice place to start your first album.’”
The result is hard to pigeonhole - is it country? Roots? Folk? - but easy to describe: it’s a collection of stories from a gifted observer of human experience.
Sound familiar?
“Oh yeah. That says it all nicely.”
The album’s been a long time coming, but that’s because McLaren knows you never get a second chance to make a first impression.
At the early age of 17 Jackson McLaren’s folk-inflected songcraft had caught the ear of Josh Pyke, who produced Jackson’s debut self-titled EP. A move to Melbourne later, the breakthrough came with A Whole Day Nearer from 2011’s Mirrors and Strings EP.
In 2013 it was followed by the haunting single Some of My Friends - a waltz-time tribute to the way that life changes us all, driven by an insistent fiddle and a melody Mumford & Sons would have killed for - and now McLaren and his trusty sidemen, the Triple Threat, present their debut full length album: Songs to Greet the Dawn.
The result, produced by John Castle (Josh Pyke, Washington, Gossling) maps the development of one of Australia’s most exciting young songwriters. “I think the earliest song is from 2008, and others are from only a couple of months ago. I just wanted my first album to be a big, cohesive picture of what has been happening for the last few years.”
“I took the title from the Philip Larkin poem Aubade, which is such a lovely word,” McLaren explains. “It translates as something like ‘love songs to the morning’ and I thought ‘that’s a nice place to start your first album.’”
The result is hard to pigeonhole - is it country? Roots? Folk? - but easy to describe: it’s a collection of stories from a gifted observer of human experience.
Sound familiar?
“Oh yeah. That says it all nicely.”