Live Review: Hatchie just wants to be 'Adored'

As we approach retrospective-end-of-year-list time, it’s kind of impossible to look back on Australian music in 2018 and to not immediately think of 25 year old Brisbane artist HATCHIE. That’s because, simply put, it’s hard to recall many other artists - Australian or otherwise - who’ve enjoyed such a self-assured, fully formed, consistently excellent freshman year. Her new single, ‘Adored’, which was shared as part of Adult Swim’s ongoing, weekly Singles Collection comfortably falls under each of those three aforementioned categories, as Hatchie readies her debut album for release next year.

Of the track, Hatchie says that: “‘Adored’ is a song that’s been floating around for a few years now so I’m really excited it’s finally found its place with this release. I’ve been playing it live since my first show but didn’t feel it fit on either my EP or album. It’s about always wanting more than what you have, even if it’s perfect”. In this way, ‘Adored’ does what tracks like ‘Sure’ and ‘Try also do so well, which is to work in the margins, the in between spaces of a relationship.

Aesthetically, ‘Adored’ also revisits much of the same, guitar-drenched, dreamy styles/style? as Sugar and Spice, although it maybe buries her Natalie Imbruglia-baiting pop sensibilities a little further below the shoegaze sheen than something like ‘Sleep’ does. That’s fine though, because one thing that I think I’ve really come to appreciate about Hatchie’s music this year - and I think ‘Adored’ is probably the best example of this in her growing catalogue - is how loud it is.

I don’t mean loud in a rupture-your-eardrums kind of way, but loud in how the wall of sonics that flood your ear as a Hatchie song opens can feel so lush and widescreen and invitingly warm but excessive and blown-out at the same time. Hatchie’s wall-of-sound, the thick, layered guitars, cloudy rhythms and swirling synth line undulating underneath it all, is mixed to be played loud but still leave room to breathe.

It’s mostly because of how much space her music seems to take up, but also how much space is infused into the music - it’s a beautiful, paradoxical balance that she strikes that reminds me a lot of how it feels to listen to someone like MY BLOODY VALENTINE. If her remarkably consistent output in 2018 has established anything it’s that Hatchie knows how and where to locate that peculiar quiet loudness that makes a record like Loveless or even THE CURE’S Disintegration feel so sumptuous and romantic and all-consuming. Just try this: close your eyes and listen to the first minute of ‘Adored’, before Pilbeam’s airy vocals kick in, and try and tell me that you couldn’t imagine the sweeping intro as belonging, in another place and time, to a My Bloody Valentine track.

IMAGE: Supplied

Words by KYLE FENSOM

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