The regional songwriter’s fifth album looks at the family customs we carry, question and sometimes leave behind
Fanny Lumsden has built her career the old-fashioned way: long drives, country halls and years spent taking her songs directly to regional audiences.
Now, the ARIA-winning singer-songwriter is turning her attention to the traditions that shaped her, announcing her fifth studio album, Traditions, due out October 30.
The 11-track record explores family, farming and the complicated customs passed from one generation to the next. It is less about preserving everything exactly as it was and more about working out which parts still belong in the present.
“As I’ve got older, I’ve begun to realise the value and meaning that can come from traditions,” Lumsden said. “However, what I’m still learning is how to balance the ideas of who I am with those traditions, and that they are all allowed to change as we go.”
The announcement arrives alongside new single ‘Mother’s Eyes’, a gentle reflection on ageing, appearance and the connections that remain visible across generations.
Lumsden describes the track as a love letter to herself, built around the moment you look into the mirror and recognise your mother staring back. Pedal steel and banjo move quietly through the arrangement, giving the song an appropriately warm and unhurried feel.
Traditions also features the previously released ‘Difficult Woman’ and ‘By The River’, a collaboration with Paul Kelly.
The latter was partly inspired by Kelly’s song ‘The Pretty Place’, which Lumsden performed while touring Europe with him. Written while she was staying beside a river in England’s Peak District, the track also draws from her own family’s habit of seeking out rivers wherever they go.
Produced by Steven Schram, whose credits include Crowded House, The Cat Empire and Paul Kelly, the album was recorded live in the studio across nine days with Lumsden’s band, The Daddies, also known as the Prawn Stars.
Each song was captured in a single take, a process Lumsden admits initially felt daunting.
“Steven was really great and helped me to trust the process and stop underestimating what we were doing,” she said.
Lumsden will launch the album with an outdoor show at the Tooma Recreation Grounds in the NSW Riverina on October 31, before heading out on an East Coast tour throughout November.
The run includes stops in Geelong, Meeniyan, Castlemaine, Caloundra West, Murwillumbah, Port Macquarie, Bathurst, Milton and Newcastle.
Presale tickets will be available from 10am on Wednesday, August 5, with general public tickets on sale from 10am Friday, August 7.
Traditions is out October 30. Pre-order here.
