Sarah Mary Chadwick – Flipped It: New Song Of The Day

Sarah Mary Chadwick releases Flipped It, the title track to the new EP by this ex-pat Kiwi, now based in Melbourne.

Here’s the blurb with details:

To listen to Sarah Mary Chadwick’s music is to be a quiet observer to her thoughts on love, death and mental health. Sometimes anguish bears itself in sullen, dreamy vs dreary moments, but more often torment manifests at the break of Chadwick’s voice as she sings painfully vulnerable, self-aware lyrics.

Flipped It is the EP’s title track and no exception to vulnerability. The video follows Chadwick across the beach in Sydney, Aus, and the song itself places the listener in the ominous feeling of desolation – “I feel like someone’s ripping off my wallpaper inside, making piles of shredded memories that flit across my eyes..”

On the video, director Stephanie Jane Day says,

The concept for ‘Flipped It’ was born in an interesting way. I was in France earlier this year filming like a mad archivist on tape, with a mini dv camera, and no real project in mind. I was just constantly taken by the light of the long summer days, and the slowness of everybody’s ideal summer, and I wanted a visual record of it forever. Beyond the obvious romance of summertime, deinterlaced tape footage is immediately nostalgic and wistful.

After meeting Sarah at Phoenix and filming a live recording of ‘Only Bad Memories Last’ on 16mm, which was such an inspiring, life giving collision, it only felt right to work together again, and ASAP.

When Sarah sent me ‘Flipped It’ I was immediately inspired by the visual poetry, I couldn’t help but find a way to make all these beautiful visions of Biarritz work – the conch allegory helped a lot. Sarah always manages to capture the human condition in such a pointed way and I find it rather magical, or I guess explicitly illuminating, contrasting these heavy existential musings with seemingly mundane or simple experiences, like being at the beach.

In somewhat of a backwards process, I thought it would be interesting to edit the footage I did have and write a story around this, with a pick up shoot in Sydney. It was inspiring and energising to write from a place of incomplete provenance. Fast forward a couple of weeks and we were giving Sarah the royal tour of the East Coast, traipsing from Bondi to Coogee picking up shots with her to complete this international, oceanic production.

Riffing on Sarah’s trademark irreverence the flipped it music video juxtaposes the luxury of spending time at a beach setting with her self-flagellation. Through the course of the song we meet Sarah and sit with her as she passes time at an overcast beach. In somewhat of a sliding doors moment, another beach goer (Victoria Maxwell) stumbles upon the conch Sarah has been whispering to.

I’m so grateful to have been able to work with Sarah on this from the first message Sarah sent me about it to now, it’s been something that’s brought me joy every day since starting work on it. I hope it reaches others in the same way.

Sarah Mary Chadwick is a singer/songwriter and visual artist, based in Melbourne. After moving to Australia from New Zealand to pursue a career in music, Chadwick spent a decade fronting the grunge band Batrider. In 2012, she shifted focus to her now prolific solo career. Essentially, Chadwick’s work is basic reportage of events and observations from her own life, creating something exactly realized yet completely relatable.

Chadwick’s performance remains singular and complex as she simultaneously savors and is repelled by the podium that her creativity affords her, acknowledging that “it’s a position of power being on a microphone” and how “..it’s a desperate demand to be seen. It’s funny and really sad. These days, I just want to be an entertainer.’’

Kill Rock Stars and Sarah Mary Chadwick’s traditional home, Rice Is Nice Records, are thrilled to team up and share Chadwick’s latest collection of songs. The EP, Flipped It, is out now across all platforms. Two songs are on a 7inch white vinyl, available here

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