Band Of The Week #215 - Jade Imagine
This week’s Band of the Week is Jade Imagine - who take us on a journey through dizzying, upbeat jams and melancholic retrospectives on their sophomore album ‘Cold Memory’.
Written and recorded between Melbourne, Warrnambool and Fremantle, Western Australia, Cold Memory offers ten songs that explore notions of connection – to self, to nature, and to others. Jade Imagine are Tim Harvey, Madeline Lo-Booth and Jade McInally with Marcel Tussie (Stella Donnely, Rolling Blackouts C.F) on drum duties for the recording. Together, the band offer a stunningly diverse collection of modern classics, blending the familiar with the fresh.
The writing process for Cold Memory began in early 2020, when the band returned home to Melbourne, Australia after an international tour with Australian psych outfit POND. After a period of intense work and travel, McInally was forced to slow down and make careful decisions around where her energy was best placed, to try and keep things simple and manageable. Ironically, the production of Cold Memory was anything but simple – on a writer's retreat away, for example, McInally’s bedroom was overtaken by a family of bats – and then came the global pandemic. Moving through these sudden and almost cinematic complications forced the band to simplify, and in doing so, allowed them to craft an essential, intimate portrait of connection.
They took a moment to talk to us about how the album came together.
Hey there Jade Imagine - how are you? So your album is out now - how does it feel to have it out there in the world?
Hello! Feeling great thanks, here in Melbourne we’re having our first proper warm and sunny day after what feels like six months of winter?! Having this album out feels awesome, scary, emotional, energizing!
It is called ‘Cold Memory’ - what is the meaning behind that?
Cold Memory was the first song we wrote as a band for this record. After the challenges of the past few years came and passed, the ‘cold’ became a memory, and the future started to feel warmer and brighter again. Thus, Cold Memory became a phrase which holds a lot of weight and meaning for us.
Where was it recorded?
This album was actually recorded in about fifty different places… haha. We started recording at Audrey Studios in Melbourne, then ended up bouncing around between Tunafish Studios in Fremantle, Western Australia, (we facetime’d our drummer Marcel from there) and then at our producers’ house in Heidelberg which is in Melbourne. When we started writing this album my whole concept was that I wanted to record an album in one studio, with the whole band, playing together. It became a running joke that the recording process basically became the polar-opposite of that dream. It forced me to focus on the songs though and push them to be the most ‘themselves’ they could be. Rather than relying on a physical space to bring the character to this album, it ended up coming from the performances; concentrated emotion and the intention being the driving force behind them.
Any behind the scenes stories from the creative process you are happy to share with us?
For my birthday I was gifted a subscription to Masterclass, an online learning platform. I dove right in and learned a lot - one of the classes I loved was led by Annie Clarke, aka St Vincent. One of the things she said that really stuck with me was that if you’ve got a line in a song that feels “clunky”, sometimes you need to lean into it and keep it in the song, even if it feels awkward, because it’s that feeling that might unlock brand new ways of working - nothing is off limits and embrace the feelings you’ve got even if they’re cringe AF! In that way, I began to write lyrics that I previously would never have thought of writing because I was scared that if I was too honest and direct, they’d sound lame. In the end a lot of the lyrics were taken straight from conversations I’d had or journal entries I’d written and I ended up leaving them quite unfiltered.
What are the key themes and influences on the album?
Connection, home, keeping it simple, sibling relationships, being there for your friends, mental health, optimism, prioritising healing over productivity (listening to your body), tuning out the things that bring you down, feeling safe, humour in dark times and being open to growth through conflict.
If the album could be the soundtrack to any film - which one would it be and why?
The Little Mermaid because I love mermaids hehe.
Do you have a favourite lyric on the album - if so, which one and why?
“If all you do today / is sit there in the sun / I want you to believe / every single ray’s a fraction of love” (I Guess We’ll Just Wait)
Now the album is out there - what next?
We’re working on so many things, lots of touring, some exciting merch collabs, and we’re currently in pre-production for a live film project that I’ll be able to talk more about soon… stay tuned :)
