Precluded by the dreamy single Repeat, Athena Joy has just released Blue, her debut EP and a fantastic entry into the Australian dream pop lexicon.
Eager to dive into the release a little further, we reached out to Athena Joy, who was more than happy to tell the stories behind each track on her EP for us.
Been spinning Athena Joy’s Blue EP? Find out how the artist’s debut EP came to be, from writing under pressure to impromptu studio sessions.
Blue
Written by Athena Joy, produced by Anthony Lycenko.
The first song is Blue which is obviously the title track of the EP. The writing process was super quick, and my first hand at writing to capture a specific snapshot moment, which was the basis of writing each of the songs for the EP. I had spent a weekend in my hometown Coffs Harbour and I drove back to the Gold Coast the morning that we had this thing at uni called “project week”.
Long story short, I was supposed to write three songs in three hours but I was late, disorganised and having a lot of trouble getting into the vibe of things. I think I ended up writing the first song in two hours and only had half an hour left to write something so I just was like “screw this, I’m writing whats on my mind”.
The song was written to tell this story of meeting someone over the weekend, and that feeling of it potentially turning into something special. I don’t normally like to go into the story too much because I feel like everyone I’ve spoken to has kind of created their own story for this song which I love, so that’s the gist of what inspired it anyway.
Luckily for me it was chosen by one of the producers at uni and we ended up spending the next two days recording it.
I think the whole experience really opened my eyes to how much fun the actual recording and production process can be when everyone’s in the right flow, when everyone is just invested in the mood of the song. It kind of amazes me, especially when I never even told anyone what the song was about but everyone just captured it so well.
It’s so visual to me and I’m so happy with how it turned out. I think what I loved the most about working with Anthony too was that we work very similarly as producers, which I didn’t know at the time. He would really just play and experiment in the studio and wanted to try everything before making a decision, and to him I feel like it was never about making sure anything was technically perfect or the correct way of doing things just as long as the mood and feel was right. It was honestly a really inspiring and creative environment to work in.
I decided to call it the Blue EP for him honestly, I feel like in a lot of ways he completely changed how I view music and I genuinely feel like if I hadn’t have had the chance to work with him, this EP wouldn’t exist.
Repeat
Written and produced by Athena Joy and Jordan Pineda.
This was one of the first songs where I ever personally had a hand in the production process. It was actually partially produced during the writing process, I had just gotten Logic for the first time and was playing around with synths and guitar sounds and loved that I could really take all the instruments I would hear in my head and bring them to life, or at least partially to life, right then and there.
I was kind of frustrated at the time in my life, just with myself about certain situations and making the same mistakes over and over. This song honestly just came up out of the production ideas and the lyrics were really built around that and the angst of the guitars. I then brought it to Jordan to bring it to life basically and just said to him “please make it better” haha… there’s only so much you can do with fake instruments on a computer in your bedroom.
It took a while and a few tries but we played around with different guitar tones and feels and hardware synths and just had a lot of fun making weird sounds. When I first played it for one of my mentors he just got super excited and was like “that’s a single!” so I was like “Okay!”
I have always had a soft spot in my heart for a bit of angst, so I think I also wanted to show that side to me as an artist as well. This song captures the angst of being stuck running away from things that could potentially be amazing because you’re more afraid of being hurt by others.
I Don’t Wanna Fall In Love
Written and produced by Athena Joy and Jessica Kirkham.
This one was another that began as a Logic project and grew into something bigger and more meaningful. I wanted this song to feel incredibly intimate and introspective, so all the lyrics kind of roll off as if they’re just the thoughts in your head. The title’s a bit self-explanatory, but this song toys with the fear involved with falling in love rather than being straight up afraid. It’s like ‘I do but I don’t’.
All of the production ideas from the guitars and the synths are super dreamy sounding to paint that idea. We ended up doing a few different versions of this song – one we did as a live track for a project at uni but it just didn’t really feel right in the end. I think mostly because of the vibe of the musicians, and the whole process was for an assignment so it was mostly surrounded by chaos which translated into the final recording.
Jess and I then had another version where we tracked everything individually, but again it just didn’t have the right feel to it. It almost felt too structured.
The opportunity came up to record at Heaven’s Gate studios, where initially we were going to record a different song but there was this huge part of me that just wanted to give this one another shot. Thankfully recording there with a couple new musicians just gave the song such a fresh feel. As a studio as well, Heaven’s Gate is like being inside someone’s house out in the bush so it was such a calm, cozy and inspiring place to work in. I think it made such a difference in the final product.
Let Go
Written by Athena Joy, produced by Guy Cornwell.
This song was actually what made me want to collect these songs together. It was a really weird moment, I just wrote it and was like ‘okay this is what it is, this is what I want to do’. This song was about a moment I couldn’t really describe in any other way. It’s like that moment when you’re both moving on and you know that it’s over and you don’t want to go back to how it was exactly, but you know it will always still be remembered to you as something special and something worth remembering.
I gave Guy some reference tracks but I kind of felt like I didn’t want myself to have a huge hand in the production on this one. I feel like sometimes when I’m so invested in the lyrics of something I need to separate myself from the production side of things because I end up not wanting to do anything. I always want the focus to just be on lyrics, which is still true but I think the production always needs to find a way to compliment the lyrics.
Sometimes it can even make the lyrics shine even more and I think that’s what Guy ended up doing an awesome job at.
Faces
Written by Athena Joy, produced by Guy Cornwell.
This is my personal favourite of the EP… I’m probably not supposed to have a favourite but this one is my favourite. This one is about all my friends and family and was inspired by a boozy night in Brisbane where we went around the table and just talked about where we’d like to be in the next five years, what we love, and all our dreams.
It reminded me where I’ve been and I guess how when I’m with these people, when I’m with those that mean the most, it doesn’t matter about the mess or drama because it feels like anything is possible. It was actually really cool because about a year later I ended up getting a scholarship to go to Nashville with one of those friends that inspired the song, so the lyric “we’re going on a jet plane” became quite literal for both of us.
Ultimately I wanted this song to be the last impression of the EP. These people obviously mean everything to me and again this EP would have never happened if I didn’t have those people in my life. Guy did such a good job at capturing the emotion behind this song and Anthony did so well with the mix, it gives me all the warm happy vibes and colours that inspired this song and this EP and I hope it does for all those who listen.
Blue is out now.
