I’ve known Nathan Harrison and Emma McManus for a few years, travelling to the Phillipines with them both on separate occasions, listening to Nathan’s podcast that chews through every song in Triple J’s Hottest 100 from its inception, and seeing Emma perform under a bedsheet in a Tomato Kick in Quezon City, and also occasionally join Pocket Fox onstage around Canberra. They’re both also involved in the Sydney theatre collective Applespiel.
Had some time in the home studio with the Norah Jones Half Hour, they came to me with, and I quote, “two finished songs and 3 other things” that actually felt alot more realised than they led on.
I’ve known Nathan Harrison and Emma McManus for a few years, travelling to the Phillipines with them both on separate occasions, listening to Nathan’s podcast that chews through every song in Triple J’s Hottest 100 from its inception, and seeing Emma perform under a bedsheet in a Tomato Kick in Quezon City, and also occasionally join Pocket Fox onstage around Canberra. They’re both also involved in the Sydney theatre collective Applespiel, who are amazing and played my bass guitar onstage at the Malthouse in Melbourne one time, OMG.
They’ve played live twice so far, on both occasions they supported Finnigan & Brother (another band I’ve had my ugly mitts on a few times), who are accused of creating NJHH by not looking hard enough for other support acts and calling Nathan and Emma on their bluff when they said they’d create a band to support them.
So the idea that they now have a recording that I’m producing is a weird one, but honestly they’ve written some super interesting tunes with hilarious lyrics. Crime Fighting Shame Blog dives into the world of photographing manspreaders on public transport then posting the photo on the internet, All Your Faves Are Problematic draws back the curtain on blindly following celebrities, trends and pop humour, and the NJHH anthem THE NORAH JONES HALF HOUR GLOWER POWER HOUR kinda just needs to be heard to be believed.
Nathan’s love of TISM is so welcome on these tracks, I’d love to hear more of that sort of influence on any Australian music at all, and they both bring some great performance chops to the vocals on all these songs.
Have a listen to Crime Fighting Shame Blog, right below: