Many of us can link a certain album to pivotal moments in our lives. Whether it’s the first record you bought with your own money, the chord you first learnt to play on guitar, the song that soundtracked your first kiss, the album that got you those awkward and painful pubescent years or the one that set off light bulbs in your brain and inspired you to take a big leap of faith into the unknown – music is often the catalyst for change in our lives and can even help shape who we become.
In this Love Letter To A Record series, Music Feeds asks artists to reflect on their relationship with music and share with us stories about the effect music has had on their lives.
Coterie – Kings Of Leon, Aha Shake Heartbreak, (2005)
My Dear Aha Shake Heartbreak,
You know you’re not my first love, but my longest, most consistently inconsistent, love.
We met in primary school, but you were too cool for me at that point. All I wanted was to be like you, but my nylon string acoustic and reggae household didn’t make that very easy. You were so unfamiliar, but for some reason, I’d play ‘Milk’ and know exactly who I wanted to be. I’d listen to ‘Taper Jean Girl’ just to feel it rattling out through my bones, but of all the obsessions – ‘The Bucket’! The addictive distorted guitars, the lack of any restraint in the drumming, and the Terrance Trent D’arby style vocal permeated my heart forever.
You were my ice breaker for making mates on the waters of West Coast drive, and my ticket into the local spots. Acting like we were the lords of Dogtown, driving our mates’ mum’s wagon all while blasting ‘Pistol of Fire’ with nowhere to be and nowhere to go. You were the soundtrack of our youth; you were the romanticised anthem that pushed us to stay close to the coast. ‘Where Nobody Knows’ – the song that closed the record – we ached to have written ourselves but were stoked to have had you at all.
You shaped a culture that we told ourselves was sent to us from all the West Coast that had been here long before us, but in fact, you’re just the bloody perfect album that we all created “those memories” to. We haven’t hung out much recently, we’ve actually been writing our own. I didn’t want to recreate you, but just so you know – you inspired this one, a lot.
Coterie x
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Coterie are a Perth-based indie-pop quartet who’ve just revealed their feelgood new single ‘Good Morning’ – produced by Robby De Sa (MAY-A, Gretta Ray, Sahara Beck) at Ralph Street Studios. It’s a sophisticated slice of indie-pop, bursting with charm and an explosion of sunshine.
Frontman Tyler Fisher explains: “The concept behind ‘Good Morning’ is pretty simple – when it feels like the whole world is falling apart, we’re gonna smile through it all.”
Take it for a spin below!
