by Cameron Adams
FIRST Nations musician Tasman Keith has revealed how he approached his new album like an athlete.
Linda Marigliano has called Tasman’s album A Colour Undone one of her favourite albums of 2022 so far.
Tasman started creating the record earlier this year when he was joining Midnight Oil on their Makaratta Project tour.
The concept for the record came when Tasman was alone in a hotel room. Listen:
“I was down and out, I wasn’t in a good place. What this is is a bunch of stuff I haven’t taken the time to address. So I sat in that hotel room with no distraction, no phone, no TV and whatever was gonna come up right now I’m going to allow to come up. It’s cool I’m on stage with Peter Garrett in front of 15,000 people but my cousin ain’t here to see this, my aunty ain’t here to see this. The realisation that every time the highest of highs for me is always met with the lowest of lows… I wanted the album to be a representation of that middle ground, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows.”
The album was created in six days, on the back of a rigorous training regime.
“I would wake up, I would go to the gym and work on cardio and weights, I’d come back and try and do bit of mediation or yoga and come back and go into writing drills. Which is as soon as you put your pen to paper you don’t take it off, you can write whatever you want, it can be the worst things you’ve ever written, it doesn’t have to make sense as long as you’re clearing out your thoughts. I’d come back in the afternoon and try and write a chorus, write a song. Amongst all that, reading books, getting my knowledge up.”
A Colour Undone is out now. Search ‘New Music’ on the LiSTNR app to hear the full interview.