INTERVIEW: Gretta Ray announces debut album 'Begin To Look Around' and releases new single 'Human'/'Passion'

Interview: Jett Tattersall

Melbourne singer-songwriter Gretta Ray today announces her debut album Begin To Look Around will be released on August 27th with pre-orders available now.

The album consolidates the new era of Gretta Ray which has seen her shift her sound from indie-folk into the world of lushly produced pop music, beginning with last year’s single ‘Passion’. The album reflects her journey not only sonically but lyrically as it explores her coming of age and growth as a woman.

“This record is a documentation and celebration of the lessons I have learned about love, life and my unremitting passion for music as I’ve stepped into my early twenties,” Ray says. “It is beautiful how much you change your mind throughout those formative years; things can always be seen from a different perspective, and when you’re immersed in incredible opportunities that see you travelling the world, falling in and out of love, and losing your sense of independence only for it to return stronger than ever before, it is only natural that your view of yourself and the world will be refined when you wake up, and begin to look around.”

Today also marks the release of the second or Ray’s duologies, which sees two tracks with a similar theme but different musical styles paired together as a double A-side single. Duology 2 features ‘Human’ and ’Passion’ and follows on from Duology One ‘Bigger Than Me’/’Readymade’ released earlier this year. "‘Human’ and ‘Passion’ are both very much songs about an intimate relationship," Ray says. "It's been so interesting to write about this concept, one that I've unpacked in every possible way since I was much younger, and to feel as though my feelings surrounding it have grown up with me over the past few years."

The music video for ‘Human’ is also released today and was directed by Ben Develin of MUDE in partnership with PATTERNITY. “Making the music video for Human was so much fun, because it’s a collaboration with so many dear friends of mine,” Ray says of making the video. “Ben and I wanted to find a way to incorporate evocative natural imagery into the video to amplify the lyric in ‘Human’ “your body is a landscape”, and with the creative input from the incredible Patternity based over in the U.K, we were able to do that in a really special way.”

First bursting onto the music scene in 2016 when she won Triple J Unearthed with the song ‘Drive’, Ray has developed into one of Australia’s most unique, talented and impressive artists. With her new sound, it is clear there is so much depth and layers to Ray’s music and there is a sense she is only just finding her path which promises even more exciting music to come.

To celebrate the upcoming release of Begin To Look Around we recently caught up with Gretta Ray to find out more.

Hey Gretta so good to be chatting with you. I want to talk to you about your Duologies. Can you talk me through the project?
Over the past couple of years I've been working on a lot of new music. I used to write all of my songs by myself for the most part and then I wanted to push myself a bit more and challenge myself as a writer. So I got into co-writing after going to this song writing camp in Nashville with a lot of young Australian writers. In terms of how I wanted people to receive it I had been thinking about the fact that with my last release which in 2018, there were two songs on the Here and Now EP I used to say that they were sister songs when I was performing them live because they were discussing the same situation but they were kind of coming from different angles. I realised that in the new work, despite the fact that I was co-writing, I was still doing that in a lot of my work. I was creating these unintentional little pairs because I would go through one thing, write a song about it then, whether it be a week or six months later, I would write another song that was very clearly linked to the one I had written previously. And that's how I wanted people to receive the new music and I called them Duologies.

I remember catching on your Here and Now tour and you made a joke about the amount of songs that you have about love and being quite young when you were writing about love. How has your approach to writing changed now that you’re 22? I guess the relationship perspective has changed as well and do you hear that in your music?
Yes, very very clearly. In fact, to the point where when it came to working on a lot of this new music, I would often go back to tweak songs and just turn verses, entire verses on their head conceptually and re-write it from a different perspective because i changed my mind about that certain feeling or way of thinking that much. When you’re in your early 20s you have some pretty pivotal formative relationship experiences. When I was touring the Here and Now EP I sang this song called ‘Dressing Gown’. I love the song, but lyrically there was not really any sense of self. I think I was just so captivated and moved by something that I was feeling at the time. I was quite co-dependent in my romantic relationships, I was young I was really naive. It's hard to imagine me writing a song like that now just because I would approach the lyrics totally differently because I know myself better and I also just approach my romantic relationships very differently. I have more of a sense of self and self-worth. all of those things.

On that note, how do you feel your musical style has grown and changed since your debut EP? 
A lot. My voice has changed. My approach to melody writing has changed. When I wrote [debut EP] Elsewhere I was pretty much solely listening to Blake Mills and Laura Marling who are artists I still totally love and think are incredible. but I was only really listening to alternative and folk music at the time. so those were the kinds of songs that I was making. Whereas with the new music I’ve been so fixated on how to write a really great pop song because I realised it was really, really challenging to do so. One thing that has probably stayed the same despite a genre shift is I really prioritise and always have and always will is my use of sophisticated language. I really love literature. i really love being able to use words that maybe are not traditionally used in pop songs. And finding ways to say things that are slightly different and authentic to me in terms of my choice of wording. That's not something that I would say that I’ve changed. In fact, I’ve just tried to strengthen that in the new music. 

You are stepping away from one genre and into another and unfortunately with female artists, even Madonna or Gaga can't do anything different without the world going ‘she's changed, we don't know her anymore, what is this?’ Whereas with male artists they’re like, ‘that's brave, he’s experimenting, well done.’
Oh my gosh, totally. But by the same token, do you see a long term massive female artist fronted project that hasn't changed or been reinvented so many times? Taylor swift says in her documentary ‘we're constantly needing to reinvent ourselves, otherwise we'll be out of the job’. I do think that is a massive pressure in the industry. That's not why I did any of this obviously, this is just a sound that I feel my artist project belongs in right now. But at the same time I can totally acknowledge the fact that it always seems to be a really big deal when a woman changes her sound or look or whatever. I remember really vividly when Dua Lipa released her sophomore record, everyone was so impressed because she's clearly done a lot of work and learning to dance after she's just kind of been a meme of someone who couldn't dance. And now she's a totally different performer, as much as that's really impressive to me to see that kind of work ethic and it's really inspiring, at the same time, I’m like well, she shouldn't have had to do that, that shouldn't have happened in the first place. It was already doing so well to the point where it was kind of like...it's really necessary that this is fixed, altered or changed or bettered. You don't really see that with any male performers.

New duology today, debut album on August 27 what else is coming up for you?
I’m so excited that this campaign is finally up and running. I’m looking forward to finding ways to connect with my audience. It's something that i want to do a lot more of. I really missed being able to play live because I love to be able to meet and connect with people who come to the shows and love the music. So finding more ways to connect with them is something that I am really excited about, and hopefully playing some shows. That's been a very compartmentalised part of the overall conversation for a long time because of the circumstances of the pandemic but i am looking forward to stepping back into that space because I just want to sing. I just really want to sing. 

Begin To Look Around is out on August 27 via EMI Music. You can pre-order here now.

‘Duology 2 - Human/Passion’ is out now. You can buy and stream here.

Begin To Look Around track listing

1. Becoming
2. Bigger Than Me
3. Passion
4. Happenstance
5. Human
6. The Brink
7. Paris
8. Cherish
9. The Cure
10. Readymade
11. It’s Almost Christmas In Philly
12. Worldly-wise
13. Learning You
14. Love Me Right
15. Care Less