Kim Churchill

The story behind Kim Churchill’s latest record Weight_Falls is utterly compelling not just in regards to its creation but for the insight into creative processes which it provides.

The creation of Weight_Falls initially sounds like a complete disaster with Churchill scrapping 18 months of work on the record at the very last minute in order to start over but when Churchill explained his reasoning to City Hub it became clear that was the only decision he could have made.

“I probably could have stopped work on that album after two weeks but I’d put a lot of money and time into writing the material before even starting the 18 month recording process. So naturally I was insisting that it was right and that it was good and that it was what I was meant to be doing. If anything I just gently told myself to work harder and ignore the little doubts that I was having, which was what I did for 18 months. When I did realise scrapping it was the right decision it was incredibly easy and oddly liberating because when you’ve worked on something for so long that it’s become dry and dead to cast it out of your life is kind of nice.”

Making such a drastic decision late into the records production cycle meant that Churchill was then under a much more condensed timeline in order to meet his deadlines but he believes this actually helped with the creative process.

“What can really fuck with good art is having too much time to think about it and over analyse it. You’re ego starts infiltrating the art which makes you reconsider things that naturally felt right so you lose track of the process.” he explained, “That odd quasi-liberated mind frame that I had when I made the decision to rewrite the record was perfect because there wasn’t enough time to think about it.”

Over-thinking can be the bane of many a creatives existence which is why Churchill says doing some of life simplest of tasks such as “washing the dishes can be so rewarding for an artist because when you do the dishes they’re clean and they’re done so you know you’ve done them right because they’re clean.”

Having completed the record Churchill didn’t rest on his laurels though as he then set about reinventing his live show entirely.

“The new live show has two drummers on either side of me as well as my stuff. It’s taken a lot of work to get this show up and running. I always liken it to three people trying to walk in a horse costume because everybody has percussive elements, harmonic elements and melodic elements. Now that it’s all up and running it’s pretty exciting, it’s just a sense of bring on the shows.”

Oct 20. Factory Theatre, 105 Victoria Rd, Marrickville. $30+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.kimchurchill.com