Back in late July, Wollongong based artist India Sweeney dropped her super smart, joyously defiant and personally deep new single, ‘Go Try It’. It’s a track that reflects her battles with depression since her teens and her ongoing determination to break free of its interminable hold. It is also reflective of her considerable musical talents both in a compositional and performance sense. To these ends, Sweeney’s need to break free of convention and take a punt on life and the knowledge and abilities gained from her jazz background have been put to work to produce this out of the box slice of pop gold.
Somehow simultaneously both minimal and dense in form, it’s a track that defies convention. Every musical element, and there are many, is working overtime but doing it so effortlessly and in league with its surroundings that the hyperactivity is barely noticed. It can be seen in how Sweeney utilises her dulcet toned vocals alongside alternation of piano, synth and licks of guitar as both backbone and embellishment. And also in the restless off kilter beats and outlandish percussion so closely played they form grooves that actually feel disciplined and compact. If that’s not enough in a breezy three and a half minute pop song, throw in those unobtrusively lush horns and strings and that disarming chorus and you have a pop song of great sophistication.
Sweeney has said that her move into pop was brought on by the need to break free of the austere seriousness that surrounded her as a jazz student and have some fun. ‘Go Try It’ represents her search for that sentiment and despite the lyrics being written while she wasn’t in the best of places, there is a joyous sense of freedom that flows from its overall tone and feel. And it is recorded proof that pop music can possess its complexities and doesn’t have to be rendered simple to be fun. ‘Go Try It’ is out now on Stoney Roads. Get it digitally here.
Go Try It
India Sweeney (AUS)
From the single, ‘Go Try It’, Stoney Roads.
Audio Stream