Alice Ivy has carved out her own distinct corner of the electronic music universe. Following her previous releases ‘I’m Dreaming’ (2018) and ‘Don’t Sleep’ (2020), the ARIA-nominated producer’s third album ‘Do What Makes You Happy’ emerges as a testament to creative liberation.
Her trophy cabinet — housing accolades from the Music Victoria Awards and Australian Women In Music Awards — speaks to her technical prowess, but it’s her collaborative spirit that truly defines this latest offering with a tracklisting that reads like a who’s-who of contemporary music, featuring contributions from Kah-Lo, BJ The Chicago Kid, and Låpsley (on the aptly titled ‘Popstar’). The record also boasts appearances from Mallrat and Jelani Blackman on ‘Broke My Heart’, while Mayer Hawthorne lends his distinctive vocals to ‘Howlin’ At The New Moon’.
It’s a celebration, and reminder us that sometimes the best art comes from simply doing what makes you happy. Here, Alice Ivy talks us through the release, from front to back.
When I first started writing ‘Do What Makes You Happy’, the world was finally starting to open up again. Melbourne had finally opened up its borders and we were able to travel and work in the studio again. I booked a trip to the US and UK, but first parked up in LA for a month to do back to back writing sessions to inspire the record. As exciting as it was, this was one of the most challenging but rewarding times I’ve ever experienced in my life.
Before I got the States, I had a vague idea of what I wanted the record to sound like. I had recently moved into a beautiful new studio on Merri Creek in Northcote in Melbourne. I started collecting a bunch of old hardware, and I really got into picking up the guitar and bass again and creating a warm analogue atmosphere around a strong bass line or guitar chords. It’s really weird thinking about how I started my career playing guitar, but the last couple of records I barely touched those instruments.
When I got to the US, it was a massive adjustment going into writing sessions every day, but what was so special about this time period was that everyone I worked with was so enthusiastic and grateful to be able to create in studios again and to just simply connect with people on that level. I feel like I captured most of the collaborators on this record at their rawest, you can hear it in the vocal recordings.
What’s also so special about this record, is most of the recordings you hear were done in those first writing sessions. So dope! I kept an open mind when writing this record and didn’t try to push it in a certain direction especially when first going into those initial writing sessions with the collaborators, but the record naturally began to write itself which is always such a good sign that you are doing something right.
‘Do What Makes You Happy’ was written at a time where so many people were finally experiencing the freedom to do what gives them the most joy in life again, it was felt in the production, every vocal line and the photography and art. I like to think of every layer of this record as art at its purest and most natural form. It’s been such an incredible journey, I hope it provides as much meaning to you out there as it provides me!
Howlin’ at the New Moon feat. Mayer Hawthorne
‘Howlin at the New Moon’ came out of nowhere! It’s honestly been a dream of mine to work with Mayer. We were both writing in New York last year. I had booked a room at Shifted Recordings in Greenpoint, Brookyln. I grew up listening to Mayer’s music, so the prospect of doing some writing with him blew my mind. Mayer had a last minute cancellation so we jumped in together and made it happen! Howlin’ came about in just a few hours. I was internally losing my shit as soon as he started putting his vocals down. What you hear on the track are all first takes! Absolutely flawless. Hands down one of my favourite collaborations of all time. I remember being super excited playing back the track to my manager back at the airbnb after the session.
Popstar feat. Låpsley
Another song that came out of nowhere! I was playing some shows in the UK for The Great Escape festival, and I took some days at the end to do some writing. I was super excited for this session, I have been listening to Låpsley’s music for a few years now. We were working out of Rex Studio in Islington, in this little room fully decked out in silver. There was silver velvety material on the walls and cans of silver diet coke everywhere. Holly’s energy and vibe when she rocked up was so infectious. I played her some chords on this little juno synth in the room and we started messing around with a verse. She said that she had to leave in a couple of hours to sign a publishing deal so we just had to get it done fast. It flowed so well, we had the song down in about an hour! I remember accidently pasting her vocals onto the Bass channel and it completely changed the vibe of the song, we went for a super rock / psychedelic vibe. One of my favourite sessions of all time, I will never forget it!
Criminal feat. Kah-Lo & BJ The Chicago Kid
This song felt like a bit of a puzzle. I have always been a fan of Kah-Lo, we were hanging out at Splendour in the Grass a few years ago talking about how we had to jump in the studio one day. We worked out a time with Kah-Lo during my stint in New York. I remember messing with the main bass line a few minutes before she rocked up. She was really into the instrumental! Kah-Lo is such a fast writer, we had the hook down pretty quick. We finished up the session on a high. A few months later, my friends The Knocks sent me a folder full of samples and vocal hooks they weren’t using on their album and I found these really dope BJ The Chicago Kid stems that sounded so good and felt like a good fit for ‘Criminal’. I dropped the stems in and did a couple of tweaks and it worked so well. That rarely happens, they were in the same key and almost tempo! Anyway my team hit BJ up and we asked permission to use his vocals and he was cool with it. I loved Disclosure’s record ‘Energy’, so I was super inspired to make room for a big dance banger on this album, which I think is ‘Criminal’.
Do What Makes You Happy feat. Sam Austins
The bones to this song began in a session with the songwriting duo Nate Campany and Kyle Shearer aka Valley Girl,, best known for their work with Tove Lo and Carly Rae Jepson, on my trip to the US. I had brought some Juno chords in, the ones you can hear in the prechorus and we essentially built a whole instrumental around it. We wrote the main hook, Kyle played a bit of bass and synth in. I really loved this song, and wanted to play it to Sam Austins from Detroit who I thought could be a really cool fit to sing it. Sam loved the song!! We wrote some new verses to it and rerecorded new vocals a short while later. I thought the programmed drums were lacking, so I hit up one of my all-time favourite drummers, Sean Hutchinson from Bleachers/Taylor Swift/Lana Del Rey etc. on IG asking if he’d be interested in doing some remote drumming. He hit me with stems just a couple of days later! This song is one of my favourite songs I have ever been a part of. All of Sam’s vocals have so much emotion and meaning, you can feel it in every word. It was such a surreal time recording this too, I remember having goosebumps the whole time. The hook just sums up the whole album. The omnichord plays such a big role across this song, and actually across the whole record really. My friend Liam aka Ex-Olympian gifted one to me a couple of years ago and it’s made its way onto almost every song. I’ve always drawn album titles from songs that feel like they’re at the intersection of everything else on the album, ‘I’m Dreaming’ in 2018, ‘Don’t Sleep’ in 2020 and the sentiment of the lyric perfectly encapsulated that, so ‘Do What Makes You Happy’ also provided me with a title for this body of work.
Broke My Heart feat. Mallrat & Jelani Blackman
‘Broke My Heart’ is one of my favourite songs off the new record but it took a while to come together. Mallrat and I frequently work together in my studio in Melbourne and we had this song that I really loved but we couldn’t quite get it flowing properly. I always knew that I wanted to do something with it but I decided to rest it for a little bit. I took the instrumental into a session I had with an incredible Dutch producer called The Nicholas and we workshopped it, essentially stripped the song and reworked the drums. It was feeling heaps better now. A few months later I traveled to the UK to play some shows and I saw Jelani Blackman play at Great Escape. His set was so good, I went up to him afterwards and floated the idea of working together. A few months later I sent him the demo with Mallrat and asked if he wanted to put a verse on it, he sent me stems a couple of weeks later! I love how this song makes you feel like you’re floating, Mallrat’s and Jelani’s vocals on it are so smooth. I’m super proud and so excited that it’s coming out and I can’t wait to hear the 808s on a big festival PA.
Do I Need To Know What Love Is? feat. Josh Teskey
Working with Josh was one of the first sessions I had coming out of lockdown in Melbourne. I was so excited to work with him, I’m such a big fan of his vocals and was so interested to hear what it would sound like if we worked on something a little more electronic. I actually pre-sent him the instrumental (which I never really do) and he loved it. He was such a pro when he came in. He spent about 2 hours warming up his vocals blowing into a straw, and did about 8 runs of the track. I love this way of recording vocals, from top to bottom not section by section, it’s such a joy to be able to experience the song build so naturally especially as a producer, sitting back listening to Josh Tesky do his thing on the RCA mic! It’s a moment in my life I will never forget. I played it to my friend Liam McGorry who ended up putting down some horns on it, the ones you hear in the chorus. We parked the song for a bit and I realized after a listening break that it wasn’t quite sitting right. I actually ended up deleting the whole original instrumental except for the horn line, omnichord strums and the juno arpeggios, and reworked the whole thing, bumping the BPM drastically by 15 or so. It felt so much cooler this way! I also ended up re-arranging the original vocal and added my own vocals in the hook to make it feel more sample-like. I then got my friend Mallrat to sing in the outro. Sometimes it’s really hard to pull yourself out of a situation where something isn’t sitting right especially when you’ve heard so many versions of a song, but I am so proud of how this song came out and it goes to show you just gotta trust your gut!
Wildlife
Wildlife was another wildcard. I share the studio with an incredible producer called Pip Norman and we decided to do a session together, just starting a bunch of instrumental ideas. We sampled some omnichord through this incredible pedal called the chase bliss habit which essentially cuts up your audio and Pip caught this loop of the Omnichord playing the chords you hear on Wildlife which we began to loop. We added some acoustic guitar and synths and got a really cool vibe going! Pip did a deep dive on his hard drive and found these old stems from a session he did with a singer-songwriter called Dotan from the Netherlands. I did some tweaking in melodyne and dropped them in and honestly that was such a magical moment. It was sounding super cool, the vocals sounded super warped and furry like an old 70s song. I hit up Sean Hutchinson again for live drums which really made the song shine. I then got my friend Ben Townsend (Rest For The Wicked/Ivan Ooze) to re-sing the vocals and I rewrote and sung on the verse too. That’s Pip talking that you can hear sampled at the end of the song too. Wildlife was one of the later songs to be added to the record, but it’s probably my most played.
Dandelion
Dandelion is the first song I’ve sung solo on since my first album, ‘I’m Dreaming’. I wrote ‘Dandelion’ in London on my trip out in May 2022 with Phia and Nick Hahn. I came into the session with the idea of making something super 80s, big Juno synth sound with slow drums. Something super euphoric with a big chorus. I remember we were all feeling a little hungover in this session, which can sometimes be a good thing, you go in on things without thinking twice, you kind of get a bit silly. I remember we were thinking how cheesy and potentially lame it would be if we did a key change into the last song (P.S. I’m also realising that this is the first time I’ve had a key change in an Alice Ivy song), but I think we nailed it!
Smile feat. Chlothegod
Smile was the last song to be added to the record. I was playing some shows in the States in late 2022 and I tacked some writing sessions in LA on to the end of my trip. I thought I had the record finished at that point, but I did this amazing session with Chlothegod one morning and the song we did was so fire! When Chlo rocked up to the session I knew it was gonna be so much fun, she had so much energy and she was vibing the instrumentals I played to her. I prepped the chords that morning in my hotel room and singing the backing vocal response melody you hear on the track, so we built the chorus around that. I had the biggest smile on my face all the way through the vocal takes, again they were done in one pass of the whole song , rather than section by section. It feels so good doing it that way! I just had to add this song to my album.
All In My Head feat. Elohim
I love this song. I worked with Elohim on the second day I got to the US, so I was still feeling super jetlagged. We worked out of Rock Mafia studio in LA. The specific room we worked out of was all white, with a chandelier, it kinda had a bit of a Maria Carey ‘Fantasy’ era vibe about it. We hit it off instantly, El is such a legend. I played her this cut up Moog sample I made in my studio and she dug it and started writing a verse. The song more or less wrote itself, we had heaps of fun piecing it together, making vocal chops, putting down synths. The kick you hear on the track is actually Elohim hitting the back of the office chair I was sitting on during the session. So cool! A few months later Elohim sent me a revocal which sat in nicely! I find this song quite visual and colourful. I’ve already started playing it out live and it goes down a treat.
Sticky Situations feat. Sam Sparro
Sticky Situations was built from an instrumental I remember making when I was still working out of my old studio in Brunswick. I loved the vibe of all of the summery rhodes sounds, the drum machine, all of the glitchy synths. I got my friend Liam McGorry to play some horns in the chorus. I was originally supposed to jump in the studio with Sam Sparro on my big US trip however I ended up getting Covid so I had to cancel. I was so excited to work with Sam, I grew up listening to ‘Black and Gold’ so I was pretty persistent in trying to reschedule this session to catching up on Zoom once I was back in Australia. I played Sam the instrumental and he dug it. We ended up knocking it all out pretty quickly, Sam was so so good to work with on zoom, all of his vocal takes were flawless. It came together so naturally. This song also features a key change in the last chorus which is a pretty special moment.
Rat Race feat. Gangs of Kin
Rat Race is probably the oldest song on the record. I wrote it during lockdown over zoom with Gangs of Kin from the Netherlands. Again it came together pretty quickly really. His vocals sounded so good on the track. After sitting on it for a bit I felt like it would sound super cool as a closer on the album, as a special little surprise at the end. I was really referencing a Beach Boys type of treatment on the vocal, super 70s sounding. I also mixed this song myself.
Alice Ivy’s album ‘Do What Makes You Happy’ is out now.
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