Blurb by PAUL SHOGREN
HOT & BOTHERED was the second and only ‘proper’ studio album recorded by New Voice. The songs reflect the artistic influences on the band (80’s electro-rock, Aussie pub rock and more than a passing nod to Midnight Oil) as well as their two years travelling around Australia working in a multi-arts context. ‘Safe Train’, for instance began life as an improvisation performed to passengers on an Adelaide night time ‘Safe Train’. ‘Look Over’ was taken from a musical the band wrote and performed in Brisbane before taking a stripped back version on the road, performing in schools. David Mills (guitar, guitar synth) and Tony Pitman (keyboards) were the music engine room for the album.
Danielle Boucher was responsible for many of the vocal melodies and harmonies and more generally in the composition of the songs. Paul Shogren variously crooned, yelled and growled in the album and was lyricist for many of the bands songs, along with Tony and Danielle. New Voice was not just a band but also lived as a travelling Christian community and so Helen Shogren, Paul’s wife, was very much part of the band as its manager and sometimes, reluctant, performer. Hot & Bothered is instrumentally cohesive, but stylistically it shows a band still searching for an organic, collective voice. New Voice was an ambitious attempt to integrate a broad arc of life, faith and artistic endeavour. Hot & Bothered is a musical testament to all that.
NEW VOICE group pictured late 1991 while based in Elizabeth Grove, SA.
L to R: Paul, Helen, Casey, Tony, Dani & David.
The cassette single WALK released in 1991 for high
school students in the northern suburbs of Adelaide.