Out now: Peggy Frew – Dial-Up

Best-selling, prizewinning novelist and member of legendary sadcore band Art of Fighting, Peggy Frew shares her debut album Dial-Up. It drops just ahead of her launch show in Melbourne at the Bergy Bandroom on 9th November.

Dial-Up is Frew’s first solo album. Luminous and ominous, the songs on Dial-Up are full of both vulnerability and bravado. Silver days, thunderstorms, broken-down cars and lonely winter train rides. The fraught sweetness of looking back. “I started writing these songs at the beginning of last year instead of working on a novel,” says Peggy. “It filled that hole in my life, I guess. I imagined the characters for the songs and told their stories. But they’re also deeply personal.”

The record features a string of songs which carve out an intimate world. Produced and recorded in one week by Marty Brown at his Standalone Studios in Coburg, the album features Frew’s fuzzed-up keyboards and naïve piano, anchored by sombre bass and earthy drums, and layered with spacey guitars. Brown’s percussive flourishes (singing bowl, gongs, clapping sticks) scatter themselves here and there – and right in the middle is Frew’s fragile but insistent voice – telling stories. Rich in imagery and bold in its world building, Dial-Up holds a mirror to what it means to be human.

Listen / purchase Dial-Up + album launch tix here.

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