Lost In The Tropics

The band St Helens seemed to be building momentum the Melbourne music scene for the past few years, culminating in their acclaimed debut Heavy Profession, so their sudden demise in 2010 was widely lamented. Frontman Jarrod Quarrell wasn't mourning however, as he felt that St Helens has reached its logical conclusion and was just the end of one chapter of his musical trajectory. His latest project is Lost Animal, and Quarrell uses the solo guise to free himself of certain constraints and let fly with his inner id.

“I have always been the primary songwriter in the bands I was in, so (being in another band) felt a little like going back to the future,” Quarrell muses. “It just seemed to make more sense to go down a more 100 percent solo route, even though I end up playing with other people, just present it as this solo thing. That way I can lead the way and I'm not tied down to a particular band or a particular sound in any way. It allows me to do whatever I want from album to album and get people in as I see fit. I operate as a solo artist, a conductor, rather than a member of a band.”

Whilst Quarrell is the mastermind of Lost Animal, there is a core brace of musicians that have helped to flesh out his essential ideas and are conducive to the shifting sands of his vision, most evident in the musical aesthetics that remain the driving force of debut album Ex-Tropical.

“Shags [Chamberlain – Pets With Pets, Pikelet and a plethora of other acts] is a bit of a mainstay, but I have a few people around me that come in to augment what I have already done with the songs,” Quarrell opines. “Shags is a definite fulltime member of the band, having a massive impact on Ex-Tropical and on the forthcoming album, but the writing process remains the same. The difference with Lost Animal is that I never sit down and think about how I will be able to play this music live. That is not the initial focus at all. I develop things in the studio at the time and leap forward from there.”

Whilst Quarrell states that there was no direct connection between the Lost Animal moniker and the themes that his songwriting continues to be drawn to, it is evident on Ex-Tropical that there is an emphasis on isolation and displacement, themes that as a freshly-minted solo artist he is familiar with and believes are inherent subjects that deserve to be explored.

“As far as I know it was just a happy coincidence. [The album] does have that vibe of displacement, and only three of the songs on the album were written when I came up with the name, so that is a possibility that I subconsciously pulled it together from that. I mean, that name has been floating around in my head for a few years and I had used it for other things, song titles and such. The name Lost Animal and the imagery that that represents does flow through the work that I've done even before this project. Again, nothing has been pre-determined, but the link is there and always has been.”

Ex-Tropical received some high end-of-year plaudits in 2011, despite from title down being in many ways the antithesis of genre conventions that hold an affinity with the term “tropical” that were forming the zeitgeist of musical artistic integrity of the time. The musical world is a fickle beast though, and it was the juxtaposition of the sunny conventions and pop hooks within the album with a heady seam of cutting humour and deceptive darkness that brings about much of its appeal.

“There is an immediate association with anything that could be labelled 'calypso' that is actually quite negative,” Quarrell explains. “The titled of the album isn't a direct tie in with the sound, but there is a certain play on some of the musical decisions I made with those songs. I found that some of the songs refer to my childhood when I lived in the tropics, so there is also that element of displacement from that that sometimes feel “ex-tropical”, that feeling of once being of a place, but not anymore. There was no obvious reaction in my mind to certain genres, because I tend to write in the moment and feed off that given moment. Pre-meditation isn't as much a part of the process as people may think.”

Despite the recent vinyl release of Ex-Tropical offering renewed interest in the record, Quarrell has been busy writing new material. However due to his writing process, we may not hear them anytime soon.

“They're just songs!” he laughs. “I don't mean to be dismissive about it, but there is no direction that is clear. I'm writing, I'm liking what I'm writing, but the only way I can see what those songs are really like is by getting people together and recording it. The stuff from Ex-Tropical has taken time to develop in that fashion, so it's stuff I'm really proud of and love playing every night.”

Being a relatively new enterprise for Quarrell, it is difficult to gauge an overall audience response to Lost Animal in the live arena. Nevertheless a couple of slots in recent boutique festivals (Sugar Mountain, Golden Plains) have given him hope that in his solo guise he is capable of holding his own.

“It certainly feels like there is an audience out there that is totally with us,” he asserts. “It's early days yet, however so far it has been totally comfortable out there with this material. Melbourne feels more at home, obviously, so it's when I travel outside of that that it gets a little daunting.”

Whilst being on the same stage of the likes of Roky Erickson would certainly have many with sweaty brows and furtive glances, it's the new boutique festival Happy-Fest, of which Lost Animal is the unofficial headline act, which has Quarrell incredibly excited.

“Queensland has been on the cards for a while, actually,” he confirms. “There were some cost issues, and other things that always pop up and get in the way. We got to talking to Michelle [Brown, local community radio station 4ZZZ's  co-manager] to play Happy-Fest, which is a really good thing. I had been trying to get up there since September, and then all of a sudden I'm playing two shows in eight days after supporting the Dirty Three.

“I much prefer seeing a pub show and playing a pub show, no question. There is a lot less to take in. When I'm playing a bigger show it can be a distraction. With a big line-up it can border on an overload, and I struggle to take everything in and give it its due. Then again I don't have a huge thing going on, so I won't have to worry too much about playing festivals like that!”