New Buffalo: Track By Track

In record stores this Saturday, the highly anticipated Somewhere, anywhere is the second album from New Buffalo, a.k.a. Sally Seltmann. You can check out two cuts here from the follow-up to 2004’s acclaimed The Last Beautiful Day, but to whet your appetite here’s Sally’s personal rundown of the tracks.

‘Cheer Me Up Thank You’

“A song for people to sing on a day when nothing is going right. I sampled my own voice, and programmed the ‘bows’.”

‘It’s True’

“I wanted this song to have contrasting sections, one where my light voice sings over just piano, and then the sections where the drums are blown out, and the synth comes in all crazy with delay. I was thinking about Minnie Ripperton’s album Come To My Garden when I recorded this song.”

‘City And Sea (Lady Nameless)’

“This is a fun song to play live. I wanted this song to be very sparse, but then to open up to subtle bird noise mayhem.”

‘Stay With Us’

“I wrote this song with my husband. We were staying at a friend’s house in Sydney, and they had a Rhodes piano and an acoustic guitar in the lounge room. We started jamming together one night, and this song was born.”

‘Emotional Champ’

“This song is an ode to any artist or musician who is passionate about the work they do, and who sometimes gives so much of themselves they nearly explode! The arrangement is all about patterns and loops, and I wanted it to sound like a kaleidoscope of ideas running around in your brain.”

‘You’ve Gone My Friend’

“I wrote this song for a friend of mine who moved to New York. I just started humming the melody one day, when I was doing my taxes!”

‘Versary’

“This is one of the first songs I recorded for the album. I worked on a lot of different arrangements for this song. I was inspired by a Laura Nyro song my brother had included on a mix tape he titled Salty Sadness.”

‘I’m The Drunk And You’re The Star’

“I initially wrote this song on guitar, and had been playing it live for a while. It’s a song about self depreciation and longing.”

‘It’s Got To Be Jean’

“A few songs on the album are inspired by amazing women who have come into my life and left an imprint. This is one of them!”

‘Misery And Mountains, Arrows And Bows’

“I wrote a poem in my diary while I was on tour in America. The tour went for nine weeks and as soon as I got home I used the lyrics from the poem and wrote this song. My friend Kellie Sutherland from Architecture in Helsinki sings harmonies on it.”

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