Lior lets his music do the talking
ISRAELI-BORN singer/songwriter Lior had a sense that music was his destiny from a young age.
ISRAELI-BORN singer/songwriter Lior had a sense that music was his destiny from a young age.
“I picked up the guitar when I came to Australia when I was about 10 years old,” he said.
“But it was probably only when I started singing [that I] felt a sense of purity and, I suppose, escape. I knew I had discovered a passion.
“While I was growing up I was playing and I was dabbling in other things, but nothing ever quite gave me the feeling that music did.”
Fast-forward to 2010 and his third album, Tumbling into the Dawn, released this week, sees the singer/songwriter feeling relaxed and confident.
“The pressure was really there with the second album, you know when you’ve only done one and there’s an expectation,” he said.
“Going into the third, I’d learnt a lot with the previous two albums and there was a bit more of a feeling of ‘this is what I do’, and I can challenge myself and take some risks, so I felt a bit more solid and grounded.”
Lior credits the diversity of the album to a more spontaneous approach. “When I finished touring the second album, I made the decision that I’d take a really big chunk of time off, which ended up being about six to eight months,” he said.
During that time, he “just sunk back into enjoying songwriting again”.
“I didn’t feel pressured and I ¬≠didn’t feel like when I was writing a song that this has to make the album,” he said. “I could write in all sorts of different styles and try different things, and then at the end ‚Ķ I just chose the collection of 11 songs that I was feeling best about.”
The result is an eclectic collection of songs covering a broad range of musical territory and lyrical themes.
“I think there’s a lot of depth in the lyrics and even though some of them appear to be dark, very often there’s streaks of optimism and also the music is much more up and vibrant in this album.
Lior’s Jewish and Israeli heritage is an important part of both his life and his music. “Certainly growing up singing traditional Jewish melodies has shaped the way I sing and I borrow lots of vocal stylings and inflections from very much a Jewish style of singing,” he said.
Tumbling into the Dawn will be supported by an Australian tour starting in late October.
GARETH NARUNSKY
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