Sometimes your music just has to find the right ears. And so it was that, at the age of 17, Warrnambool’s Jackson McLaren found a fan in Josh Pyke, who would produce McLaren’s self-titled debut. A move to Melbourne and a breakthrough hit with ‘A Whole Day Nearer’ would follow. Now McLaren, along with his band the Triple Threat, welcomes their debut full-length album, Songs to Greet the Dawn. “I took the title from the Philip Larkin poem Aubade, which is such a lovely word,” McLaren explains on his website. “It translates as something like ‘love songs to the morning’ and I thought ‘that’s a nice place to start your first album’ … Over the last few years I’ve had opportunities to make an album, and there have always been plenty of songs, but I’ve really wanted to keep pushing myself further and further to see what else I can do and get some other ideas in there.” The album, produced by John Castle (Josh Pyke, Washington, Gossling) represents not just recent material, but songs written as far back as 2008. It has been a long time coming, but sometimes you just have to make sure things are right. The Bridge, Castlemaine – July 31. With Soda Eaves.
