Words / Interview by Kate Lockyer
Brisbane/Meanjin folk artist and songwriter, Sarah Irvine, today releases her Creative Scotland-funded debut album ‘Painted Light‘.
‘Painted Light’ is a deeply personal, vulnerable and poetic anthology. It came together in the margins of early motherhood, as Irvine was desperately trying to gather together her creative life while simultaneously capturing this distinct chapter with her daughter.
Circling the transformative journey into motherhood, ‘Painted Light’ moves through the peaks, troughs, and layers of beauty and agony that becoming a mother brings.
Backed by Creative Scotland, the album is a defiant, beautiful recognition of the ways we can all be cracked open by love.
Our very own Kate Lockyer had a chat with Sarah about her new album and a whole lot more!
Sarah, you’ve had a fascinating career, from playing in Australian circus clown band to recording as part of the duo Weird Cousins – how has your sound been shaped by such interesting musical influences?
Thank you!! The circus clown band days were really just a fun side project from back when I went to circus school – which is actually where I figured out I wanted to pursue music.
My music has always been shaped in part by collaborative partners, and I’m definitely happiest when I’m playing music with others, rather than on my own. With this record, I was in a season of limited capacity as a new parent, so I was pretty open to seeing where my collaborators Dan Abrahams and Moteh Parrott could help take the music. While my previous band Weird Cousins was focused on close vocal harmonies, that wasn’t really possible on this record. It was exciting to lean into fuller band arrangements and woodwind textures, moving away from a stripped-back acoustic folk sound and seeing what happens when you let trusted collaborators carry some of the weight.
How do you find the process of deciding what to keep and what to shed, or is it more intuitive and less intentional than an outright decision?
I think it’s a bit of both, but mostly it comes down to a feeling. With songwriting, it usually becomes pretty obvious when a song has a life of its own and wants to exist out in the world, versus a song that is just a stepping stone – something I needed to write and get out of my system to move on to the next idea. Usually when I feel excited about a song, I will share it with a trusted friend or collaborator to see how it lands. Feedback is an important part of the process.
That same intuition applies in the studio too – deciding whether an arrangement needs a rich woodwind layer or if it needs to be stripped back to its core idea – we definitely experimented with a bunch of sounds and ideas on this record. It was very playful and intuitive but also very much defined by the parameters of having a small and definite window of time to work on it.
It sounds like your life at the moment is heavily determined by those around you as a caregiver and mother. How do you feel this new rhythm of life has impacted your music?
It’s felt and continues to feel pretty challenging. Because I’m looking after my daughter most of the time, there isn’t often much scope or energy left for practice and writing. It has also definitely felt a bit more isolating, in that it’s been more difficult to get out and see other music, or art generally and so inspiration comes from different places.
That said, it has at times forced a kind of hyper-focused discipline. When you know a tiny window of time is all you’re going to get, you learn not to wait for some romantic muse and just sit down and get on with it. I think it is teaching me to be less critical of myself and to lean into what moments I get for creative play and process. I know it will change again soon and I’m definitely grateful I was able to make this record during this time of limited capacity.
Obviously there must be lots of challenges – were there any unexpected ways it has benefited your creative practice?
Honestly, the biggest, unexpected benefit was this sudden, fierce sense of clarity. Even though I have had so little time, I have had so much I suddenly wanted to write about and say. It’s been a hugely creative time, just in terms of having to think creatively and problem-solve constantly and it’s reframed a lot of my priorities. There is also so much I want to document, and I’m learning quickly that things I think I am going to remember, I just don’t. Making this record offered a way to capture a little bit of this exact moment – who I am, who my daughter is, and who we are together.
The idea of “matrescence”, or the way women’s minds and bodies change when becoming a mother, is gaining more recognition in today’s discourse. You’ve described your album ‘Painted Light’ as being about motherhood. How did you express this change in yourself through your music?
Yes, absolutely – it is very much about motherhood, and I’ve definitely described it that way. I think the thing about “matrescence” is that it’s not a destination; it’s an ongoing, daily process and I’m still undergoing it every day.
The album naturally tells a story of motherhood, because of the circumstances it was made in and because at its heart, it’s about love – different glimpses into what love asks of you, how it reshapes you, and what it leaves behind in the process.
Why do you think it is unusual to see musicians singing about motherhood?
I’m not sure I have any grand insight into why it feels unusual. I think there are definitely lots of women writing, recording, and making art about motherhood, and as mothers – whether that work gets amplified in our broader culture is a different question.
I think a huge part of it comes down to capacity. Motherhood brings a massive increase in both mental and physical workload. My own experience was that once I became a parent, it just became immensely harder to carve out the space to continue a creative practice. When you’re constantly caregiving, finding the energy to make art, let alone put it out into the world, is a huge hurdle.
You’ve spent time in the traditional folk clubs of Glasgow and locations across the world, how do you find Brisbane as a place for writing and performing original and folk music?
I lived in Edinburgh for 12 years and I’m still partly based there, but we’ve come back to Australia to be closer to family and get a bit more support with my daughter. So I’m still very much trying to figure out the Brisbane scene.
They are such different places, and I’ve actually been reflecting a lot on how weather affects my creative practice. Brisbane has such a strong, outdoor-focused culture, and I often find myself feeling distracted and drawn outside when I’m here. Coming from Edinburgh, where the long, cold, dark winter naturally forces you indoors to hunker down and make things, the shift has been really interesting. It turns out my creativity is quite weather-dependent! Probably the hardest shift is not knowing any other musicians here and finding it hard to get out to spaces to meet folks. It’s not really been ideal timing with releasing the record!
How did the Creative Scotland funding come about, and how important is support like that for independent artists?
The funding was quite critical to this project coming into existence and to my creative practice continuing. Before that, I had lost a lot of my ambition and I hadn’t really been able to figure out the next step after my band dissolved and COVID happened. I had this lingering idea that I wanted to make something new and so I applied to Creative Scotland for some funding. The application process itself is a massive undertaking, but it forced me to sit down and really clarify what I wanted to create and where I wanted my career to go.
The support means a lot more than just the money that makes production possible. It’s also about having a respected organisation look at your work and say, “We think this is worth making”. That kind of institutional backing is deeply validating and gave me the psychological push I needed to actually keep going.
You’ve decided to only release your music on ethical platforms that support artists – it’s tough for artists in this algorithm-fuelled streaming scape – how did you come to that decision?
It has really come down to a clash of values. Culturally, I think we’ve drifted into treating music like a convenience, and there’s a real passivity that can come with algorithm-fed playlist listening. For me, it goes beyond how we listen, it’s about where the money and power actually go. When major tech companies and streaming leadership are pouring hundreds of millions into automated surveillance and military AI, while independent artists struggle for fair compensation – all alongside an industry-wide rush to harvest and scrape creative work for AI development – it doesn’t align with my values. I want my music to live in places built by people who actually value culture, not tech monopolies trying to automate it out of existence.
What would you like to see change in music distribution?
I’d love to see a move away from the winner-takes-all streaming model toward something much more decentralised and equitable. User-centric models – where a listeners subscription fee goes directly to the artists they are actually streaming, rather than being pooled up to pay massive pop stars – make a lot of sense, but they require a massive shift in how tech giants operate. I’d like to encourage listeners to support artists directly where they can, buying on Bandcamp or directly from artists at gigs. Responsibility is shared but listeners can make choices that really help artists and their ability to continue to make music!
‘PAINTED LIGHT’ IS OUT NOW – LISTEN / STREAM HERE
With thanks to Sound Story
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