When songwriters Hana Brenecki and Kate Alexander decided to record their debut album Don't You Have Better Things to Do? their vastly differing musical ideas and tastes could settle on only one thing: harmony.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Throughout Don't You Have Better Things To Do? the record stretches its arms so broadly around popular music of the past hundred years that it's impossible to describe.
At times it's delicately yet classically poppy, à la the Everly Brothers, at others a grungy onslaught of distortion and yet at others, a mournful and sparse country offering, replete with the mechanical clunks of an old church organ.
Through it all, the harmonies of these two distinct voices murmur and howl together, melded so closely at times that the lines blur as to who exactly is singing what.
Hana and Kate will showcase the album in all its glory at the Grand Junction Hotel this Friday, alongside Ben Leece & Left of the Dial.
Released independently on March 29, the first single lifted off the album was the infectious I Was Trying Not To Think Of You.
The song starts with an ethereal reverb drenched guitar and dual vocal harmony that intricately weaves together along the melody, before snapping straight into a pop hand-clap rock 'n' roll dance around the lounge room beat, whilst still carrying that parallel harmony the whole way through.
After meeting in a Melbourne recording studio in 2016 (having been both asked to sing on a mutual friend's record and politely fighting over the same vocal part), the pair quickly bonded over their shared love of singing old pop and country tunes.
It was seemingly inevitable that they start sharing song ideas, emails flying thick and fast between their hometowns of Adelaide and Melbourne. Since then, they have played a number of duo shows between Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane, including recent supports for the Kill Devil Hills, Ben Salter & Mick Thomas, and in their separate bands for artists such as The Peep Tempel, Cosmic Psychos, Cash Savage & the Last Drinks, Cold Chisel and Kasey Chambers, gracing a variety of festival stages and touring Australia, USA and Japan.
Related: New life for old favourite pub
Separation has not deterred the pair, concreting their signature woven harmony style through stories conjured together and apart, pouring their narratives out to audiences with a discernible on-stage connection that often feels like they are singing only to each other as the room falls away.
