Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with Divide & Dissolve's Takiaya Reed. On Friday 14th April, Divide & Dissolve will release their fifth album, Insatiable. Festival dates have recently been announced in Sydney and Hobart, with a larger tour scheduled in June -including Black Bear Lodge in Brisbane on June 12th. Find out more about Divide & Dissolve -and purchase their music- via https://divideanddissolve.bandcamp.com/music

Nick's Pick of the Week is Sarah Mary Chadwick's Take Me Out To A Bar/What Am I, Gatsby?. You can hear the whole album in all the usual places, or purchase it here  https://sarahmarychadwick.bandcamp.com/album/take-me-out-to-a-bar-what-am-i-gatsby and my review can be read below.

Sarah Mary Chadwick: Take Me Out To A Bar/What Am I, Gatsby? (Kill Rock Stars)

Released 4th April 2025

Sarah Mary Chadwick’s music can be a gut-wrenching and heartbreaking experience. Never one to shy away from her emotions, Chadwick’s records are almost always a challenging listen —if only for their sheer emotional weight— and her latest, Take Me Out To A Bar/What Am I, Gatsby?, is no exception.

Take Me Out To A Bar/What Am I, Gatsby? was recorded by Chris Townend at MONA’s Frying Pan Studios in August 2023. The album’s liner notes indicate this period was particularly volatile and difficult in terms of Chadwick’s mental health and this struggle can be heard in the strain in her vocals, and in the overall tone of the album. Seeking a change that would alleviate some of her inner darkness, immediately after the record was completed, Chadwick —who has battled alcohol use disorder for much of her adult life— decided to get sober.

Booze and barflies occupy a significant amount of real estate within the songs on Take Me Out To A Bar/What Am I, Gatsby?, in particular the residual impact that numbing your emotions through intoxication has on others. Take Me Out To A Bar details the need to anaesthetise the guilt of an illicit love affair with alcohol, whilst She Never Leant Upon A Bar is a catalogue of human behaviour, told from the perspective of a tavern regular. 

The pub also provides the basis of a metaphor that likens a difficult birth to a drunk violently trying to regain entry to a venue they have been barred from. “The moment I was born / I turned my head, mother said / And her vagina was torn / Like after being forced to leave kicking in the pub’s door.” Taken from I’m Not Clinging To Life, it’s a construct that could only come from Chadwick’s pen and some of the finest lyrics I’ve heard in ages.

There is a lot of darkness to navigate within Take Me Out To A Bar/What Am I, Gatsby?, but occasionally the light creeps in, providing hope for something better ahead. In Fade Like Rain, Chadwick sings, “That every day living is better / Though I’ve nothing to compare with that / And I watch the others fold under / Beyond relieved that I’m not one of them.” While not exactly full of hope it does speak to a desire to continue, to push through blackness and —most importantly— to survive.

Once again, Chadwick reasserts herself as one of the bravest and boldest songwriters of her generation. Her commitment to mining the deepest recesses of her psyche, alongside her refusal to sugarcoat even the bleakest moments, reminds the listener that —at our core and as humans— we are all deeply flawed. Her music may not be easy to listen to, but it is vital, not just for its honesty, but for its humanity.

Nick Stephan