Years have passed since The Beautiful Girls hit the road, but the drought is over with the announcement of Mat McHugh’s new album, Dancehall Days.
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To celebrate, The Beautiful Girls are dancing their way around Australia, bringing back the live music celebration that fans have missed during the last few years of the band’s hiatus.
Performing the songs of singer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer McHugh, The Beautiful Girls became one of Australia’s most recognised roots music monikers, resulting in over 250,000 albums sales and nearly a decade of touring, both here and abroad.
Since the act’s last activity in 2012, McHugh has been busy exploring a life and the world to find inspiration.
He also released a solo album.
But McHugh started working with the close collective that formed the core of The Beautiful Girls and wrote the songs that eventually became Dancehall Days.
“I started writing the next album with the intention of it being a Mat McHugh album but the songs started taking on a life and sound of their own,” McHugh says.
“When I stood back from them I was able to see that I was being steered into a particular direction.
“They all sounded like The Beautiful Girls.
“It’s hard to explain it but I know it when I hear it.
“Spooky, dubby, digital, dancehall-tinged, rootsy, punky, reggae music mashed up with some mellow acoustic sea songs.
“In some ways it’s about reclaiming my musical identity.”
Having used the crowd-funding website Pledge to make Dancehall Days, McHugh is keen to get back on the road to perform the new material and thank fans.
“To me, music is far too precious to exist in a box, I think a song is born and dies in a moment and in that, becomes a new definition,” he says.
“Playing live, I never know what’s going to happen and that’s exactly the way I like it.
“As long as there is love there, though, everything will be OK.”
The Beautiful Girls play the Cambridge Hotel on Saturday, October 18.
Tickets are $30 from Bigtix.com.au.
Doors open 8pm.