Puppet Therapy
by Room
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About Room & the Puppet Therapy album
Room is based in Melbourne Australia and is the brainchild of Chris Hill. Chris has been producing original underground music under different guises since the late 1980s with Room being his latest project.
The Album
Puppet Therapy is Room’s debut album and was recorded, mixed and mastered entirely in the home studio.
The album is very eclectic, and each track intentionally draws from either a genre or artists, or both. From the Neil Young and Kurt Vile influence on Better Days to the Saints-like horns and toughness of Sucker Love, each track references that which has come before. That said, these references are sometimes buried somewhat (or fairly obvious), depending on the track.
“Musically, we are all puppets in a way… our arms and legs and hearts being pulled and directed by all that we have heard and seen before.”
Chris Hill
“Tex Perkins meets Tom Waits with a huge dose of extra weird!!! Love it”
Hilda Green
“A mixture of blues, country and punk… like it!”
David Stone
Lyrics & Liner Notes
History
The band has been known (or not known) under a few different names over the years, most notably The Living Room.
1980s
Under The Living Room, Chris worked with long-time collaborator and friend Mark Ewenson, recording a series of ground-breaking tracks on a reel-to-reel 4 track back in the late 80’s-early 90’s. These tracks were never released “officially” but can be heard in the Early Recordings section of this webpage.
Chris also played bass in post-punk band Sing Sing as well as double bass with various experimental jazz-type outfits.
1990s
In 1999 Nic Heraclides (Randy and JahRoots) joined the The Living Room on bass guitar and with Mark Ewenson the trio recorded a series of songs, some live and some on the trusty old 4 track. These tracks are fairly rough recordings but there is a quality in the songs and playing that stand them in good stead and we feel that they should be included in our history.
2000s
In the early 2000’s Chris formed another version of The Living Room with Vic Phillips (sadly passed away RIP) on lead guitar, Moondog on bass and Sean Raymond on drums. This unit recorded an EP at Pound Studios that can be heard in the Early Recordings section.
2020s
In 2020 Cherie Borwick came along as a lyricist, and an amazing new songwriting partnership gave the music a fresh, new perspective.
Chris says “I love the way I get to sing songs, lyrically written by Cherie, that are about me… singing a love song to oneself, so to speak. It’s kind of odd and yet feels totally natural and right.”
This ‘singing to oneself’ can be seen in Thunder Under My Skin among others. Another interesting aspect is how some songs are a combination of two poems by Cherie that Chris kind of cut and paste together, sometimes much to Cherie’s chagrin! An example of this is Someone Else’s Car.
Chris has also enlisted his daughter Stella, who at the age of 16 did her first vocal take on the track Better Days and also appears on Someone Else’s Car. Stella is an amazing songwriter and vocalist herself.
She is currently juggling working on her debut album whilst rocking her final year of high-school… watch this space!
With this latest transformation, The Living Room has become just ROOM… and the name is now going to stick. Room…
Influences
Stylistically, the album draws on elements from alternative, rock, alt-country, folk, stoner-rock, middle eastern music, 70s rock, experimental and electronic-based songwriting. Eclectic AF.
Growing up on Dylan, The Beatles, the Stones, Janis Joplin, Pink Floyd, Bowie and Led Zeppelin juxtaposed with Bach, Beethoven, Vivaldi & Handel, opened up the ears to The Velvet Underground, Pere Ubu, Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Don Cherry and the plethora of amazing underground bands coming out of Melbourne (and UK/Europe/US) in the late 70s early 80s.
Melbourne (and Australian) artists such as The Birthday Party, The Laughing Clowns, The Saints, Dresden War Crimes and Ollie Olsen (among many others) melded with the amazing and eternal Joy Division, Einsterzende Neubauten, Throbbing Gristle, Gang of Four, Public Image, X-Ray Specs, New York Dolls, Iggy Pop… oh shit the list goes on and on.
But wait… then came Townes Van Zandt, Gram Parsons, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash… and let’s not even get started on Kurt Vile, Sufjan, Four Tet, Caribou, Aphex Twin and all the other amazing stuff.
(I forgot about Nirvana, Kyuss, Mudhoney…)
I think you get the picture.
Specific influences for each track are listed on the liner notes.
See if you can hear it.
Production
Some tracks are totally electronic-based using heavily manipulated loops and synthesizers. Other tracks use the more traditional approach of guitars, bass guitar & drums. Some are a mix of the two approaches.
The entire album was recorded in the living room on a 16″ Macbook Pro using Logic Pro X and a Focusrite audio interface.
The only vocal mic used was a no-name SM-58 copy. The Electric guitar and Bass guitar are cheap copies… but hey! They do the job! That said, the acoustic guitar is a nice enough Martin though…
A lot of the instrument ‘takes’ have been deliberately left loose. Sometimes, if you separate the tracks and just listen to one instrument, the individual parts are sloppy and so loose they sound almost bad by themselves. But that gives the music a nice open, almost live feel.
The album was mixed by Chris and mastered using CloudBounce. Cherie also helped on the mix for Thomas Howard and Thunder Under My Skin.
A special thanks goes out to Terry McDermott & Renn Barker who gave a listening ear and some good advice on the mix.
(Not everything you suggested was done, but it really helped!)
Thanks guys.
