HANNAH MACKLIN

GIG REVIEW: MU ALBUM LAUNCH | FRIDAY 11TH AUGUST | THE ZOO

Words: Keeley Thompson

Images: Macami (@macami__)

A palpable air of casual excitement and mutual respect warms my lungs upon entry as quiet conversations flutter around the room. The night is mild and welcoming with musicians and music lovers decorating the space with anticipatory joy and expectant awe.

With the debut of her album MU, Hannah Macklin (Supported by KRUNJ and Shamin) transforms The Zoo into a space to dance, reflect and honour the unknown. Gathering to celebrate and digest her new album, the night is fuelled by a display of impressive musical talent and inspirational spiritual presence.

To try and put the experience of this night into words is admittedly daunting - to adequately express its spiritual magnitude is to try and comprehend and explain a celestial enigma.

But I’m going to try anyway.

Opening the night is the prog duo, Shamin. Creating and carrying impossible stamina, Sophie Min (Keys) and Benjamin Shannon (Drums) produce experimental jazz that is deeply stimulating and energetically breathless. Like a steam train squeezing through liminal space, Shamin skilfully detour to and from their melodic trajectory to create music that pushes boundaries and defies expectations.

The crowd returns to their positions after a brief interlude in anticipation for the next musical chapter of the night. A mellow guitar chord floats across the room as the neo-soul, jazz-pop group KRUNJ begin. Throughout their set the band exude an ease and playfulness that the crowd eagerly absorbs and offers back as a sort of quid pro quo. With lush, dynamic guitar solos, riding drums, grounded bass, and warm vocals, KRUNJ bring light to the darkness and celebrate the joys that life brings.

Conversation fades as an invisible usher directs attention to the stage as the revolution (or evolution) begins. An intimate beginning, Hannah Macklin and the rhythm section (Brandon Mamata - Guitar/Vox, Lachlan Symons - Bass, Sam Mitchell - Drums/FX & Steve Newcomb - Keys) open with ‘Kissing in the Air’ and capture the audience in a welcoming trance.

Hannah Macklin is a vibrant collage of influences, combining neo-soul, with trip-hop and tribal elements. Travelling through each chapter, Hannah Macklin reveals herself as the mother and creator of this vivid story, while each musician joins and adds to the overall themes and trajectory of the narrative.

Blue motifs decorate the faces of the musicians and provide a visual reminder of the innate connection humans share through simply existing. Kimberley Hanson and Sachi Mehta join on stage for the next song Whatever Forever, an upbeat surrender to the inexplicable and a playful tribute to the simultaneous lack and abundance of concrete meaning in life.

Beginning the playthrough of her album, Hannah welcomes the string section on stage (Kaitlyn Bowen - Violin, Flora Wong - Violin & Danielle Bentley - Cello). Haunting and weightless, Mono no Aware is a folky track exploring the transience and fragility of experience - “it’s never gonna be exactly like that again” she reflects.

As the band begin the track Stars, I realise that this storyline is bigger than me, it’s bigger than us - but we all belong to it equally. Bringing her familiar siren vocals, Hannah Macklin sings of breaking from darkness by finding companionship with our celestial counterparts, with strings frittering around the track, then transforming to become equally weightless and enveloping.

The meditative track Mouth Full of Dirt is reminiscent of the tribal fusion collective Kaya Project as it pulses like an ancient forest swaying in the wind. Like falling and floating, the final track of the night The Torch suspends the listener in that place between awake and asleep. A peaceful resolution without a definitive ending, The Torch speaks for both the natural world and the world inside our heads.

To watch Hannah Macklin perform is to watch catharsis manifest into musical and physical form. Ready or not, her music reaches into the depths of the spirit and knocks on the soul to remind you that life cannot be answered in binaries.

Meaning is everywhere, but it’s also nowhere.

LISTEN TO MU HERE

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