Maxine Gillon
(she/her)
Singer-songwriter Maxine Gillon (she/her) unveils her powerful third EP titled Ultra Lounge to be released November 25th.
About two years in the making, Maxine Gillon invites us into the expansive world of a down-on-her-luck lounge singer playing in hypnotic echoed underground nightclubs. Within the six track EP, we enter a limbo atmosphere surrounded by smoke, only to be mesmerised by the clearing quality of vulnerable singer through catchy rock tunes and deeply introspective ballads.
Maxine: “I wrote Genuflect and it was one of those songs that came out of nowhere. I think that informed the sonic identity of the EP and production. It was all done in a period of lockdown where I was watching movies and reading a lot and it became an avenue to embody a character or get quite camp, and ‘pop’.”
“It is a concept album about a lounge singer, so I wanted something bordering on tacky production. I wanted to take this lounge singer idea of someone playing at a terrible pub just with a backing track, karaoke style, but make it expansive. Taking something quite ‘throw away’ and a disposable thing and making it really big and sonically interesting.”
“It was exaggerating parts of myself. Melodrama was a big part of it. My goal was to end up writing power ballads; something so emotionally resonant where the words are so simple, and everyone has a profound emotional impact. It wasn’t dissociating myself completely, it was more like an actor that portrays a character and uses their own life experience to inform that.”
Gillon’s lead single, American Coffee arrests the Americanisation of our own perceptions, and puts them on trial with its coolly, vacant melody. There is nowhere to hide within Gillon’s besieging yet catchy rock tune.
Maxine: “American coffee is about moving to Melbourne vaguely. That was definitely an inspiration. You really suck up the cultural identity of cities, even the most mundane things like, being on a tram instead of a bus, it’s a different experience. I didn’t even think it would happen or anticipate it, but as soon as I moved into this new area, I just had this whole creative burst.”
“That song is like a diary or journal. All the things in the song are things that I saw. The move to Melbourne to me, felt so Hollywood. It was like: ‘Wow! I’m from the suburbs and I’m moving to New York!’ and then I was like: ‘Why do I think about in this weird American way?’”
Image by Lucy Howard
The EP’s unflinching qualities are refreshing. Unwilling to underestimate her audience, Gillon provides a sonic escape for audiences ready to enter a concept album aching to sink their thematic teeth into. Influenced by 80’s New German Cinema and Nan Goldin photography, it is easy to spot the depth of the Ultra Lounge concept.
Maxine: “I was always interested in art when I was very young. All through my life really. It started with drawing, then I was interested in films. My mum was always so supportive of me being an artist, I guess because she is an artist as well. I was never really that interested in poetry, and then, I don’t know, I was getting into punk as a teenager and Patti Smith was doing poetry and rock music which was a big: ‘Wow that is really cool.’”
“I had all these formative books I started reading like Eileen Myles and Adrienne Rich and Jim Carroll. Poetry became very formative. I’m a big reader.”
“I’m fixated on this idea of frankness in art. You can really talk about anything, within reason obviously, but I don’t think there is anything you shouldn’t be able to say. There is no lifestyle that you shouldn’t be able to present. Someone like Lou Reed is a good example of that, who would talk about quite sweet things, or things that are perceived as sweet, with things that are considered ‘low life’. Nan Golding just presents things as they are, there are no moral implications to what she is presenting.
Ultra Lounge is embedded in poetically minded juxtaposition, with Gillon unafraid to introduce these opposing clashes and leave them vulnerable for listeners to approach themselves.
Image by Lucy Howard
Maxine: “I think a lot of the songs have a lot of hubris; they use a lot of idioms or phrases that are well-known. Genuflect, for example, is about wanting to connect to people but it is also about complete self-assurance and complete self-deprecation in equal measure. I’m always interested in juxtaposing opposing things.”
“It’s sort of like when someone writes a book or writes a movie, people don’t assume that every character reflects the viewpoint of the director or writer. With songs, if someone writes a song, people immediately think that it is exactly someone’s viewpoint, or the songwriter's view of the world. When it's like: I’m presenting ideas that contradict each other. Perception versus reality is a main neurotic compulsion of mine.”
“I view the lyrics I do as poetry… It’s my main consideration; how words interact with each other, how to make something you experience poetic or how to draw the emotion out of it to other people.”
“I think when I started song writing, I was definitely more interested in guitar, and I saw that as my main strength. Then, I would release things, and show people things, and they would always talk about the words and lyrics, so it was like: ‘Oh, interesting. So maybe that’s my main strength.’ I just built upon that and so now, that’s my main focus.”
Image by Siân Stacey
Ultra Lounge is available digitally and physically on November 25th.
Witness Maxine Gillon play in her upcoming shows: Ultra Lounge Launch: December 8th, Cactus Room, Northcote, VIC