Quiet Blue’s debut EP — his “love letter to the night”
This avidly awaited debut EP from Melbourne musician Quiet Blue is nothing short of immersive. From start to finish, Before Dawn propels you through the enigmatic phenomena of night-time reflection.
We spoke with Nic, the face behind Quiet Blue, about the inspiration for this EP.
The new EP Before Dawn is out now on all your favourite streaming platforms <3
What was the initial inspiration behind Quiet Blue?
When I started off, I wrote a lot of my music in that time just after sunset when everything is sort of quiet and the intense colours of the sun are leaving to make way for the night. I think this was really reflective of the sort of songs I was writing at the time and the sort of sounds I was looking to make. You can definitely hear this in my first song 'For A While', and since then, even with my sound getting much bigger I have carried the name to sort of ground me in my songwriting process so I don't get too carried away.
And what resulted in the birth of Before Dawn? Has the process been different to your existing work?
Before Dawn came about because from as far back as I can remember I’ve been an incurable night owl. Especially in the past couple of years I’ve done a lot of my writing at night and now a lot of my songs are ‘set’ at night time (at least in my mind) and so the soundscapes I’ve created with these six songs are a lot darker and subversive than I had ever attempted before. In each song there are little pieces of an overall message that I’m trying to tell the night, both recounting the perils of this time like loneliness and isolation but also my deep appreciation and understanding of this time in the formation of what I consider to be myself. It was an absolute joy working on a body of work rather than doing what I’ve done since I started, which is creating a bunch of things and picking something cool to release. I think my project was getting into a bit of an eclectic mess in my mind so it’s been more freeing to put my mind to a collection of songs that tell one story which is definitely going to be how I approach my songwriting from now on.
How have artists like Sufjan Stevens and Bon Iver (to name a couple) informed your music?
Both of these artists are perhaps the most important in my development as not only a musician but as a person. I first heard ‘Skinny Love’ when I was just discovering music and same with ‘To Be Alone With You’ so these artists have sort of been with me through my whole experience of music. I think as far as informing my music, Bon Iver and Sufjan Stevens have shown me how fine the line is between folk music (the genre that brought me to loving music) and electronic music really are. Their blending of folk sensibilities with electronic soundscapes and production is something that I want to reflect with my music and carry as a distinct aspect of the Quiet Blue project!
What have you personally been listening to lately?
Wow, this is a tough one. My music taste has been eclectic to say the least lately. I’ve been in love with an artist called Rostam for a while who was originally in Vampire Weekend and recently he posted a playlist of all his production credits in which there are some absolute bangers from artists like Clairo, Haim, Frank Ocean, Charlie XCX, Maggie Rogers and Hamilton Leithauser. I pretty much put that on repeat a lot of the time.
Some of my all time favourites still get a good rinsing like Leif Vollebekk, James Blake and Sufjan Stevens! I’ve found I used to listen to music a lot to directly get inspiration for my own work but now that I spend so much time with my music I love finding music that is just totally different to get my head out of the gutter and really ‘enjoy’ music again!
And what does the future hold for Quiet Blue?
I think the biggest thing on my horizons is touring! I feel like my sound is something that could work over in Europe and that is really my absolute dream, to be able to travel and play for people around the world (COVID dependent of course). I got to work with a lot of really talented artists on this EP and it was an amazing experience so I think moving forward I want to keep working with amazing people and making things that I didn’t even know were possible.