Missy Higgins

Missy Higgins
Image: Photo: Cybele Malinowski

Over the course of the past six years life has changed fundamentally for nine time ARIA Award winner and Australian favourite, Missy Higgins. During this period Higgins became a mother for the first time, dipped her toes into some creative endeavours outside of music and watched as popular music evolved.

Whilst the release of Higgins’ fifth studio album, Solastalgia, may be perceived by some as a return, given it’s her first original album since 2012, she doesn’t personally feel that way.

“I don’t really feel like I went anywhere because in that time I released my covers album Oz and did quite a bit of touring around Australia with that. At the same time though it’s really nice to have an album of original songs again because obviously they’re much more personal.”

With this new record Higgins recognised the changes which are occurring in modern music and wanted to challenge herself by blending “my more acoustic, folky background with a more modern aesthetic.”

In order to achieve this Higgins collaborated with a range of new artists and fundamentally altered her creative process.

“I’ve definitely been inspired by a lot of more modern music that is more electronic program based so I knew I had to try collaborating with people that write beats because I’d never done that before,” she explained before continuing, “In the past I would start writing a song by myself on piano or guitar but this time we started with the beat and bass line before I sang on top of that.”

Although this was a challenging process Higgins has become rather adept at conquering challenges over the past six years. She has done this by dipping her toes into a number of different creative fields ranging from writing music for film to performing on stage in a musical theatre production.

When asked what she learned from these experiences Higgins told City Hub, “Doing the musical theatre show helped with my performance confidence and style, in particular I feel much more confident singing without an instrument on stage now.”

The final, and perhaps most influential, change that happened to Higgins during the time since her last original record was obviously motherhood.

“Having a kid definitely unlocked certain parts inside myself that made me more aware of the passing of time, the fragility of life and the precariousness of the future,” she said.

May 7-8. Enmore Theatre, 118-132 Enmore Rd, Newtown. $79.90+b.f. Tickets & Info: www.enmoretheatre.com.au

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