The Chapel of Ease made up of myself, JULIEN POULSON ,CHARLIE OWEN , MATT MOLLER and ANTHONY ROCHESTER are releasing our Debut album "When the Night Falls".... www.myspace.com/thechapelofease
Upon first listening to The Chapel of Ease’s album ..:When Nights Falls the group’s publisher described the music as something "achingly beautiful". It’s a good choice of words for When Nights Falls, the album certainly does take the listener on a dreamlike journey - perhaps to someplace slightly dishevelled but it’s a place of warmth and familiarity with just enough sepia-toned haze to conjure a drifting kind of timelessness. ..:
When Nights Falls was recorded in the springtime at a venue known as St George’s Chapel of Ease in Lachlan, Tasmania. Lachlan is a part of Tasmania where mountain streams and cascading rivulets swirl down from the island’s central plateau, etching the landscape and forming the beginning of the mighty Derwent River. As a venue The Chapel of Ease is itself quite special; its quaint Hansel & Gretel architecture makes it unique amongst the more commonly seen sandstone churches and gaols dotted about the Tasmanian countryside. It is also a place steeped in its own local history - once a venue for numerous marriages, baptisms and funerals - one eccentric former owner is even buried (at his own request) in the hills behind, standing straight upright in his grave so he may still look-out over his land!
Driving into the township of Lachlan for the first time, you get the slightly uneasy feeling that there are perhaps even weirder stories; it’s a sleepy, rural setting but you just know it’s not all, as it seems. No more than a half dozen houses, plenty of ruins, a hall and the mandatory closed-down general store. The signposts have names like Lower Swamp Road and Laughing Jack Gully… adding to the uneasiness - there’s no mobile phone reception! Yup, one definitely gets the distinct impression of having just landed in a real backwater" …err are those banjos I hear a twangin’?".
It’s in this setting that Tasmanian songwriter Julien Poulson (The Green Mist) choose to invite a few friends including Charlie Owen, Tracy Redhead, (also of The Green Mist) Matt Moller and Anthony Rochester to record for the first time. The brief was simple - come and hang out for a week, make some music, music inspired by and made in Tasmania. Poulson and Owen had earlier spoken of getting together to write music for a score based on a Van Diemonian narrative. Charlie’s Owen instrumental closing track on the album is a great example of this idea coming to fruition. The haunting A Piece of Pearce – inspired by the infamous convict cannibal Alexander Pearce, is one the most beautiful, haunting pieces of music ever composed on a Tasmanian theme. It’s also fitting that this final track should be considered first, as it really is where the story of this album begins. On When Night Falls the end-before-the -beginning notion recurs throughout the album’s journey.
Poulson, Redhead, Owen and Moller along with recording engineer Anthony Rochester performed and recorded all the tracks live, mostly playing acoustic instruments such as Dobro, Banjo, 6 and 12 string guitars, Wurlitzer piano, Hammond organ and the occasional electric guitar. They even purchased a 150-year-old Golden Tone Harmonium for sale in country antique shop spotted while en-route from Hobart to Lachlan and now the old instrument’s wheezing cough has become a highlight of the recording. If you really listen closely, on tracks such House Creaks, you can even hear the sounds of birds twittering outside the chapel’s windows and spilling ever-so-slightly into the microphones.