SALLY SELTMANN’S NOT ALWAYS WISE CAREER OPTIONS LINE WIND BACK WEDNESDAY
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This Friday sees the release of Sally Seltmann’s latest album, called Art School Reverie and already preceded by both the sartorial Shirt With Pussy Bow and the historical Do I Want Fame?, as singles and tasters for the reminiscence-laced set of new songs.
You’ll be able to read exactly what that’s about on this site soon when Ms Seltmann sits down for a chat. But in the meantime, Wind Back Wednesday goes into its own reverie, not as far back as Seltmann’s to her art school days, but a decade ago when Silverlake was swapped for Newtown.
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SINGER, SONGWRITER AND PRODUCER Sally Seltmann – yes, that one, the one who wrote 1234 with the Canadian Feist that was a huge international hit, a loved filmclip full of bouncing people in bright colours and then an even better remunerated iPod ad – is back in Australia after two years in Los Angeles. And feeling pretty good about it, thanks for asking.
Set up in the inner Sydney artist colony/alternative creative universe which used to be called Newtown, she’s surrounded by actors, filmmakers and more musicians than you could poke an ARIA Award at. Those include her colleagues in indie pop “super group”, Seeker Lover Keeper, Sarah Blasko and Holly Throsby, with whom she is planning a second album, some five years since their top 5 debut and a few months/year, respectively, since that pair joined Seltmann in the parenting club.
Her former home in LA, Silverlake, was also an artistic enclave, though Seltmann confesses she is very grateful the Australian version doesn’t have the pushy pressure that comes from being surrounded by James Franco a few houses away, a French film director next door, and Beck as a previous tenant.
"It’s the inspiring thing about LA, that it’s all these creative people from around the world have had a bit of success, that energy and feeling like you’re around a lot of people who are really good at what they do,” says Seltmann, who moved to LA to build on her suddenly in-demand songwriting-for-hire after a decade releasing music as, firstly, New Buffalo, and then under her own name.
“But also that can be exhausting and you just think, I just want to meet someone who is a nurse and not someone networking. Which is fine, but I like how in Australia it feels real.”
Its shortage of nurses-who-aren’t-also-pitching-a-script aside, southern California’s major city was exciting for being a town where creativity and especially writing – of all varieties – is appreciated. And a professionally rewarding place too, with Seltmann co-writing the current single for American top 10 act Rachel Platten, as well being halfway through an album she is co-writing, here and in the USA, with former Bangles singer/guitarist Susannah Hoffs.
As it turns out, being “the one who co-wrote 1234” opened plenty of doors. Perhaps too many, with the accommodating Seltmann being asked to do so much that “it was very overwhelming", especially when it came to writing for herself.
That was one of the reasons for moving back to Australia, having established her strong contacts in Los Angeles over the past two years: to give her psychological as well as physical space to write for herself.
"I was doing so much writing for people and I thought, hang on, I'm actually an artist myself and I was neglecting that a bit and it was making me feel unhappy. When I live here, I'm a bit more away from that but I can go there and write with people there and then come home and feeling like I can work more on my solo projects and Seeker Lover Keeper."
There’s a new solo song out now, the almost spectral but also strangely buoyant Dancing In The Darkness. It was written and produced with her husband, producer and former member of the groundbreaking electronic act Avalanches, Darren Seltmann, as part of the soundtrack to one of the ABC’s comedy pilot series.
There will be more songs, and more shows, this year. That Seeker Lover Keeper album will kick off sometime in 2016 too. And flying back and forth to LA will be just another part of the job, especially if she gets that call from Rufus Wainwright looking for a songwriting partner for the first time ...
… just sayin’.
It all suggests coming back home was a good decision. Not that you could say that about all the decisions Seltmann made in this transition.
"When we were thinking about coming back to Australia – and I’ve done this my whole life - I was thinking maybe I want to be a librarian or something, do a massive change of career,” Seltmann says, a little embarrassed. “It’s a really romantic idea of that as a job but a friend said why don't you just go and hang out in libraries more ..... I’m not going to be a librarian.”
Not a librarian, no. But a happier and settled songwriter.
“You want to feel good in your life creatively and in your day to day living," says Seltmann, and the solution is to set things up so that you are “doing things you enjoy, saying yes to things that make you feel good and then allowing enough time for your own projects”.
Sounds easy.
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Art School Reverie is out February 20.