A Sydney-based Californian, Ainsley Farrell has been appearing on these pages since I was charmed by her 2018 single, Walls. At that point, Ainsley had already received plenty of attention in Australia courtesy of her debut EP, Dark Hours, which was played on radio stations around her adopted home country, and earned her a slot at SXSW in 2018. The last year has seen Ainsley tease her next move with a slow drip feed of singles, most of which were taken from her new album, Dirt, which is out this Thursday and is premiering here today.

Recorded on the New South Wales coast with acclaimed producer Tim Harvey, Ainsley has spoken of Dirt as a record of, “anxiety, loss and restlessness”, inspired by everything from existential crises to violating men and complicated relationships. The album opens with Ainsley’s previous single, So Small, a cascading slice of folk-rock, where swaggering guitars adorn a tale of fading relationships, “I hope that I’d reach you soon. This road is unclear, I’m losing view”. From there the album slides into the majestic Fireworks, a tale of losing your friends on the 4th of July and longingly looking at the fireworks exploding above her, “I want to be with you, I want to burn bright too”. The first previously unreleased track, Dark Spell, takes the pace down channelling Tramp-era Sharon Van Etten as Ainsley reflects on the eye-opening moment when you realise you’ve given too much of yourself away for another’s happiness, “you know I’d never leave you with a heartache, so break me and tell me what hurts”. The excellent, if harrowing, Buffet is Ainsley’s unflinching reflection on abuses of power within the music industry, as chunky Julia Jacklin-like chords accompany an angry howl, “I hold my tongue, I watch the blood run, what am I to say to a man of your age?”. An arresting change of mood introduces the title track, Dirt which clocks in at nearly eight minutes, and is a track full of atmospheric guitars reminiscent of the gorgeous post-Americana soundscapes of William Tyler, the vocals cutting in and out, creating a similar atmosphere to Squirrel Flower’s brilliant I Was Born Swimming.

The second half of the record opens with Feed, a further example of Ainsley’s versatility as a songwriter, it brings in down-tempo electronic beats and down-pitched vocals. It serves as something of a breather before the record roars back into top gear via The Way Back. The first track shared from the record almost a year prior, there’s an urgency to The Way Back, as driving drums and increasingly distorted guitars accompany a desire to hold onto the pain for someone at their lowest ebb, “do you know the way back to your feet, never felt this heavy, move ’em slowly, feel it ease”. After a distinctly American-folk aside courtesy of the gorgeous country-licked Blue Side, the album closes with something of a double-header, the layered vocal longing of Aretha, and then the closing track Oblivion. The track offers an intriguing end to the record, it’s almost a duet with drummer Tom Stephens, as he and Ainsley share vocal duties atop a twanging country song, lyrically it seems to exist at the end of a relationship that wasn’t really working for anyone, Ainsley sounding like she’s just seen the clouds part in front of her eyes as she sings, “don’t cry I’m moving on, don’t cry when I’m gone”.

Dirt is ultimately a record of doubts and clarity, for every moment of revelation, there’s another of questioning. It’s a soundtrack to finding your place in the world, as an artist and also as a human being, a soundtrack for that transition that we all go through on the way to finding out who we are inside. It may reflect at times on the actions of others, and on how our behaviours affect those around us, yet ultimately Dirt is about digging into the earth of ourselves, finding out what we want, where we’re going and what it is that is going to make this one life we get so uniquely wonderfully our own. Ainsley Farrell may not yet have all the answers, but on Dirt she’s unquestionably looking in all the right places.

Dirt is out June 8th. For more information on Ainsley Farrell visit https://linktr.ee/ainsleyfarrell.