New Zealand-born, Melbourne-based singer/songwriter Sarah Mary Chadwick’s previous effort, 2020’s “Please Daddy”, if you were feeling fragile, you could almost insulate yourself from her painfully honest song writing style, training your focus only on, say, the soaring horns on “When Will Death Come,” the blues-rock boogie of “Let’s Fight,” or the wistfully jazzy flute of “The Heart and Its Double.” But there’s no hiding from the broken heart of Me and Ennui Are Friends, Baby—Chadwick fully embraces emotional catharsis, stripping her songs back to solo piano and vocals only, and you have no choice but to follow suit. Just as she worked wonders on a 147-year-old pipe organ for her 2019 record “The Queen Who Stole the Sky”, Chadwick crafts an album of untold power not in spite of her focus on one instrument, but because of it. With “Please Daddy’s” diffuse textures out of the equation, the songwriter can only take a fearless inventory of her interior turmoil, turning a truly harrowing series of events—after the deaths of her father and a close friend, and the dissolution of a long-term relationship, Chadwick attempted to take her own life in 2019, just weeks before the Ennui sessions began—into an album that will knock your heart on its ass.
Chadwick’s unusual vocal delivery and unsparing, darkly funny song writing combine to make Ennui’s stark sensibility unforgettable, and Chadwick never flinches, wondering of her struggles at one point, “Is it all for this song? / If it is, is that wrong?” It will take all of your inner fortitude to answer her.
‘Every Loser Needs A Mother’ is the first single to be lifted from Sarah Mary Chadwick’s forthcoming 7th LP ‘Me And Ennui Are Friends, Baby’ out February 5th 2021 via Ba Da Bing Records & Rice Is Nice Records.