Shona Laing "Shona" 1993

...“‘Highway Warrior’ was written from personal experience: I came across a three-car head-on collision on State Highway One, which was awful. So they’re usually from some kind of real experience, or just from saying something in conversation that sounds out of the ordinary.”
You manage to get the message across in your songs without laboring the point. Is that difficult?
“Once upon a time I suppose I was fairly pedantic. There’s an album I did in England which is probably going to be released in Australia soon. It’s called Tied to the Tracks, and EMI have re-discovered it and are talking about releasing it. So I listened to it again, and found that vocally and lyrically it’s a bit table thumping. But I think there’s this urge I have had to be positive as opposed to highlighting all the negative stuff going down. Also as an individual there’s not a lot you can do, you can only attempt to inspire a positive attitude.”...
...The only traditional political song on the album is the jaunty ‘Neutral and Nuclear Free’. But being vocal about one’s pride in New Zealand’s stance doesn’t always go down with the establishment, Laing found:
“That was written quite a long time ago. I’d actually tried to sing it on Telethon but wasn’t allowed to. They had a production meeting and there was to be no politics. So I felt sick when Jim McLay was on, I thought, typical TVNZ – celebrating New Zealand’s anti-nuclear stand is political, but having the Leader of the Opposition on television isn’t.
“It struck me when New Zealand became nuclear free that we became a bit scared about it, whereas it should have been something to celebrate, with a huge nationwide festival of peace, say. Instead we were hiding our light under a bushel.”
The song is the only lighthearted touch on quite a serious album. Do you find it hard to write lighter songs?
“Yeah, I do, I’ve written songs in my time that would probably be censored – that’s my lightheartedness! They’re a bit grubby! I do enjoy my music, but I suppose it’s the elevation of writing something. It’s almost trance-like. When I listen back to them I get a sense of elevation, which is my enjoyment.”
There’s a joy in musicianship on South, with its carefully crafted production and innovative use of vocals and instruments, from electronic to orchestral.
“We did a lot of acoustic gigs over here promoting the album, so a lot of people have said it should have been acoustic, which is kind of disappointing. Stephen and Graeme [McCurdy and Myhre, producer and engineer] and I went in and it was like the last-ditch stance when we were recording it. We thought, bugger radio, we’re gonna do what we want to do, and really went for it.”
The backing vocals on the LP have quite unique arrangements, ranging from choral to, on ‘Bishop’, a Māori karanga.
“Stephen and I decided we’d use a greater than normal proportion on the budget on singers, as New Zealand has so many great singers, and songs like ‘Bishop’ and ‘Soviet Snow’ kind of lent themselves to choirs. It seemed like a good idea, and for the singers too – they don’t often get to sing with more than two others, they had a really good time.”...to be continued... - Murray Cammick and AudioCulture
trax:
01 Rome 02 Kick Back 03 Heat And Smoke 04 Man With The Wild Name 05 Hard World 06 Heartless Bones 07 American Friends 08 Cold Country 09 It's True 10 Decent Thing 11 Hard And Fast 12 Andrew Said 13 Harmlessness
…served by zigzagwanderer + Gaius…