Angus Gill — Sideways

Angus Gill is a brilliant young singer/songwriter and if you want to be thoroughly entertained, you’ll go and see his show” - Ray Hadley OAM, Legendary Broadcaster 2GB.

“Gill cares about the idiosyncrasies, the small things in songwriting that make a big difference in what he brings to the world.” – American Songwriter.

“…a musical sugar fix.” – Americana Highways.

Wauchope wunderkind, ARIA & 3x Golden Guitar nominee Angus Gill makes a return to his traditional roots while simultaneously breaking new ground with his latest offering and fourth studio album The Scrapbook, out on September 24 on Rivershack Records/MGM. Recorded virtually during the COVID-19 pandemic with a host of stellar US bluegrass musicians, including Tim Crouch, Randy Kohrs, Clay Hess, Tony Wray, and others, The Scrapbook marks the second time Gill has embraced the bluegrass genre. His John Scott Sherrill co-write Fly on the Wall was one of the standouts on his 2019 offering Welcome To My Heart.

“I’ve always been a big fan of traditional bluegrass music. From a young age, I’ve been drawn to the high and tight harmonies, vocal stylings, phrasing, and virtuosic playing. There’s also this beautiful juxtaposition in some bluegrass music when a poignant lyric is set against a rapid tempo and a major chord structure. I just love that!” said Gill.

The project came about in late 2020, after the release of Gill’s critically acclaimed 3 Minute Movies, recorded with the members of Paul Kelly’s band. Gill started laying the bed track down for a song Whittling Away, written with multiple Grammy winner & bluegrass icon Jim Lauderdale in 2019. This eventually became the catalyst for a bluegrass record.

“Jim and I wrote Whittling Away in 2019 and I liked it then, but after revisiting it in late 2020, the sentiment of the song hit me even harder than it did when we wrote it. Due to the broken narrative structure, I decided it would work as a duet and Jim agreed to do it with me. I was hearing a slow bluegrass production, so decided to take that approach with this song. I wasn’t sure where to place it at the time, but I had a strong instinct that I needed to record it then. A month later, I start- ed pre-production on another song Samson, which I had intended to have more Americana stylings. However, it occurred to me after playing it live, that my delivery and phrasing was in much more of a bluegrass fashion. Not to mention, I was playing it on banjo! I have always wanted to record a bluegrass album with players that are incredibly passionate about the genre and know it like the bow of their fiddle or the metal picks on the tops of their fingers...people that have bluegrass in their blood. I had half a dozen bluegrass songs that I had written from several years ago that I restructured or altered for this project. I wrote a few new ones and then we had all of the songs for a new record. I called up Tim (Crouch) and asked him if he would play and co-produce the album with me and we brought Randy, Clay & Tony onto the project and recorded it all remotely at the start of 2021. It’s pretty cool because it sounds like we were all playing in the same room, despite being over 15,000 km away.”

The album opens with a rollicking homage to hard-working women Always on the Run, co-written with 2021 Grammy nominee Thomm Jutz. Gill quips, “she’s moving like a bullet that was fired from a gun/she’s always on the run.” The narrative-based Samson is a masterclass in character development. The Jim Lauderdale duet Whittling Away highlights the resilience and strength that people are displaying during these trying times. Gill’s signature wit comes to the forefront in the swing-grass romp Caught Between a Rock and a Heartache. The challenges of a paternal bond are explored in the heartfelt Feet of Clay, a song co-written with Nashville star Charles Esten, which Gill and Esten performed on the Grand Ole Opry in 2019. Let’s Have a Drink (To Not Drinking Again) is the ultimate high-spirited bluegrass drinking song, featuring Music Row veteran tunesmith Jerry Salley. Gill sings of his grandmother’s affection in the autobiographical title track The Scrapbook. After a near 300 bpm sprint in Heartquake, the album closes with the exquisite epitaph Forget Me Not. “Our heartstrings will be tied up in a never forget me not,” Gill sings a cappella in perfect four-part harmony.