Words by Selin Ruby Kaya
After enduring the world’s longest lockdown, there’s a sense of weariness amongst fellow Victorian’s. But sometimes, it’s during these moments of high pressure when diamonds escape the rough. This was the case for Naarm based duo, Norwood, comprising Olivia Bolmat and Nathaniel Peacock. Drawing upon the genres of classic folk and country, Norwood have created a melancholic soundscape full of sliding guitars and twangy banjos.
The pair met by chance through Olivia’s dad, when Nathaniel served him drinks at a 50th birthday party. Olivia’s dad proceeded to ask if Nathaniel would like to sing and strum with Olivia, which led to them producing a six-track EP and a double single.
As the duo enjoy both folk and country music, they were able to hit the ground running, making the art of music-making look effortless. The two gain inspiration from Gillian Welch and Neil Young, where they’ve been able to build upon Welch and Young’s simplistic methods of songwriting.
“From my perspective, I like the simplicity of their writing in a lot of respects: the bare bones of all of their songs is just chords and singing, which I really like, and I think it’s really important that a song can be played with one instrument and a voice, because it just means that it’s a solid song,” Nathaniel said.
“So that’s something that I’ve taken into it.”
“I think we talk about that a lot in terms of when we write songs, we always start off with a base of guitar chords and a vocal line, and I think they do that really well,” Olivia said.
“I think just learning how to write a good song at its very core has been really helpful for us, and I think I definitely learnt a lot from those artists.”
Despite their international influences, there is something distinctly Australian about their sonic landscape. This is more closely reflected in their recent release, a double single containing ‘Affairs’ and ‘I Know, It Looks Bad’.
Perhaps it’s the imagery of the regional country dirt road on their album artwork, drenched in sepia tones which kick-starts this visualisation of ‘Affairs’. The rolling rhythmic guitars and swirling banjo sounds add to this Australiana feel of the track, which is something Olivia was thinking about upon writing ‘Affairs’.
“I think we did sort of talk about driving in regional Australia and those kinds of images and it was something we were definitely thinking about when we were writing the songs,” Olivia said.
Speaking about the song itself, Olivia found delving into the storytelling nature of songwriting allowed her to write a track Dolly Parton-esque, if you will.
“At the time I was listening to a lot of Dolly Parton and those kinds of artists, and there’s that country trope that’s always about a man cheating on a woman and the woman being upset about it, and I was kind of like ‘what if I reversed that a little bit?’” she said.
“I took it from a woman’s perspective and [so] she’s having an affair and the thought process behind that. I thought it was an interesting practice in adding more of a storytelling element to a song which I hadn’t really done too much before.”
Their second single on the double release, ‘I Know, It Looks Bad’ features a vocal chorus of family and friends whilst simultaneously addressing themes of existentialism and 21st century cynicism. As music always does, this track serves as a form of medicine for our, dare I say it, unprecedented times.
”Music is always something that people can fall back onto or into, when you’re feeling any kind of emotion, there’s always music that can kind of complement that,” Nathaniel said.
“So when you’re feeling really happy you’ll be listening to happy music, if you’re feeling really sad people put on sad music.”
In the future, Norwood have hopes to continue performing shows, starting with their postponed gigs which may one day lead to a regional tour. Now that Victoria’s restrictions have eased, you can allow Olivia and Nathaniel’s soothing voices to guide your long winding drive home along the country roads.
You can find Norwood here:
Sounds of the Suburbs 