Melbourne based music artist Gio has just released a new track Free, a raw and endearing record that combines an exploratory lyric with all the indie rock trimmings;
A vocal whose cadences of fragility and vulnerable endeavour are the focus, a blanket of pleasant, emotion-inciting electric guitar jangling and miscellaneous layers of dynamic aural textures, all hovering above a pulsing, vaguely muted rhythmic heart.
With several single releases under his belt including Your Face which has since been added to over 250 curated Spotify playlists and attracted over 40,000 streams and YouTube views, Free is a preview of Gio’s forthcoming EP Finding Milly’s Address.
Aside from these quite engaging indie-rock tropes that Free utilises there is an underlying urgency at play here, a distilled energy that emanates from the vocal, one which is perhaps understood in the context of Gio’s writing practices. As he says of his process, ‘I have never written a song the same way as another. Most songs though, including Free, are written within an hour or two.
There are small changes made later to certain melodies or arrangement, but all the lyrics, the story and the design of the song is finished in a small window of time. I never go into writing with any plan or preconceived idea. I also never go back to a song and completely change it. I will add bits but never major changes.
‘The lyrics and flow of the song must flow, and it can only flow smoothly if you are developing the story at the same time as your mind and as your feelings change as the song progresses.’
The lyrics and flow of the song must flow, and it can only flow smoothly if you are developing the story at the same time as your mind and as your feelings change as the song progresses’. Gio’s style has often been described as a mix of Bruce Springsteen and Milky Chance with a vocal tone comparable to that of George Ezra.
Well, yes and no. There are some overlapping elements and characteristics but there are a few more serrated edges here, and that’s all just fine; these edges are the points of difference, the DNA code that will hopefully distinguish Gio from a legion of singer-songwriters.
LISTEN TO GIO HERE: