Hark, is that the Skywhale song?
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You’ve cricked your neck in anticipation and eaten the commemorative croissant, but have you learned the words to the skywhale song?
“We are the Skywhales” is the latest release from Canberra-based musician Jess Green (aka Pheno), developed in collaboration with Australian artist Patricia Piccinini, creator of those two iconic hot air balloons that have the nation talking.
The song was conceived as part of Piccinini’s latest project Skywhales: Every heart sings, which united Skywhale with Piccinini’s newest creation Skywhalepapa and a gaggle of baby skywhales last weekend.
Patricia Piccinini, Skywhalepapa, 2020, National Gallery of Australia, Canberra, commissioned with the assistance of The Balnaves Foundation 2019, purchased 2020 © Patricia Piccinini.
“We are the Skywhales” is an uplifting, catchy, cerebral, mini pop-opera of a song that features pop synths, wild electric guitars, earthy saxophones, and delicate moments from the Luminescence Children’s Choir.
Turn it up here on SoundCloud.
Lyrics include “Fire down in our bellies, catching the wind in our tails, we sail up and up above you, we are the skywhales.”
Produced with long time Pheno collaborator Alyx Dennison, the song exudes their shared love for outside edges of Art Pop, with echoes of Talking Heads, Tune-Yards, St Vincent and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs.
Both Green and Piccinini grew up in Canberra and attended Narrabundah College, so Green was a natural choice when Piccinini decided a sonic experience would be critical to her new creation.
“I came to her with this idea for a song that would animate Skywhales: Every heart sings, but could also be heard around the world with the images of the project. I wanted it to be a pop song on the radio, and a song people could sing when the skywhales flew: a soundtrack for the pre-dawn landscape,” she said.
Indeed, it is a catchy tune.
Jess has spent many years performing in Australia and overseas and has worked as an electric guitarist and vocalist on stage with Katie Noonan, Clare Bowditch, Deborah Conway, Renee Geyer, Kate Ceberano to name just a few, as well as recording, performing and composing for television, dance and theatre.
Jess Green with the skywhales.
Career Highlights include performing at the Closing Ceremony of the 2018 Commonwealth Games, performing at the 2019 Australian Women In Music Awards, and composer in residence at the 2019 Canberra International Music Festival.
But when asked what it was like to compose the theme song to Canberra’s most iconic and stratospheric family, Jess described it as magical.
“I vividly remember opening up my emails and seeing Patricia Piccinini’s name in my inbox and I totally did a double take! I have been a big fan of her work for some time, it was so incredibly exciting to consider what it might be like to get up close to her art practice, and collaborate with her. It was daunting too—to add text to a visual work is a big responsibility.”
Jess was living in Sydney when Skywhale 2013 was launched.
“My reaction was ‘oh wow, it seems like Canberra is getting very cool!’ I am a big lover of public art, and art that engages on many levels. I remember seeing weird, interesting sculptures in the back streets of Berlin, and desperately wanting to live somewhere like that, where one could be going about one’s everyday life and have an encounter that inspires awe and joy.”
She described the collaboration with Piccinini as incredibly rewarding and instructive, involving “long conversations and Zoom meetings, as well as in person. I would make sketches of ideas based on our chats and come back to her with fragments, to see if I was on the right track. She is always so supportive and open, it has been an incredible mentorship.”
Jess Green and Patricia Piccinini.
And as for the song’s inaugural performance beneath the creatures who inspired it, Jess said it was simply surreal.
“The Skywhales are really part of my consciousness, and when I sing I feel like I’m soaring in the clouds with them, and later watching the Luminesence children’s choir sing the acapella version, whilst papa floated up into the air, was something I will never forget. Sometimes when you work super hard on a project, you forget to take a moment and arrive with it. I definitely feel like I appreciated the beauty of what we had done together on that day.”
The launch of the skywhales at Skywhales: Every Heart Sings.
She also said the reaction to the song had been great.
“Little kids were singing it as they walk away, and peers and Pheno fans have been messaging me and saying it’s their favourite of my songs yet. I feel super lucky to have had this opportunity, and can’t wait to see where the song goes. I hope one day we can have a mass choir where everybody can join in and sing together!”
The skywhales are due to take to the skies (weather permitting) on March 8 and April 3. Click here for details.
