Photo Credit: Geoffrey O’Connor
Sarah Mary Chadwick‘s album Take Me Out To a Bar / What Am I, Gatsby? released digitally April 4, 2025 on Kill Rock Stars is released physically today! The release comes alongside the new “Not Cool Like NY / Not Cool Like LA (Geoffrey O’Connor Remix)”. This is the third of the remix trio, joining Simon J Karis’ remix of “Soundtrack” and Various Asses’ version of “Take Me Out To a Bar”.
Listen / Share: “Not Cool Like NY / Not Cool Like LA (Geoffrey O’Connor Remix)”
Born in New Zealand of Ngāti Tūwharetoa and Pākehā descent and currently based in Naarm/Melbourne, producer, songwriter, vocalist and visual artist, Sarah Mary Chadwick’s new album has earned acclaim spanning Rolling Stone, Pitchfork, BrooklynVegan, Exclaim!, NPR “Into Music”, InsideHook, Guitar Girl Magazine, Northern Transmissions and much more.
Each of Chadwick’s records marks a moment in time. This new collection signals the beginnings of control and self-renovation. Words written unconsciously that are always five steps ahead of her own actual awareness. After a lifetime of alcohol use disorder, she got sober immediately after recording this record. ”I can hear it,” says Chadwick. “The desolate desire for change, the goodbyes, the fading romance, the memories. And the pain- that’s different but that never leaves, it’s part of me.”
Chadwick sees Take Me Out To a Bar / What Am I,Gatsby? as the elegant-aspiring sibling of ‘the tantrum record’ Me And Ennui Are Friends, Baby, 2021. It pivots like a broken lullaby around stop-you-in-your-tracks lyrics and a low lit bar. Glasses tinkling, smoky scattered laughter and the banal becoming beautiful as the pianist creates the mood, anonymous and as romantic as a streetlight under the gentle ebbs and flows of intimate chatter.
Take Me Out To a Bar / What Am I, Gatsby? was co-produced by Chadwick and Chris Townend at Tasmania’s Museum of Old and New Art’s Frying Pan Studios. To create the dreamy and cinematic feel of the record, Townend screwed contact mics to the piano’s body, played the entire album back through it with the sustain pedal held down by a sandbag, and recorded that resonating, a natural reverb — close, claustral, — that cradles each song the way a music box shelters its melody. “These days the most punk thing you can do is be resourceful,” Chadwick shrugs, “Making choices is free.”
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