Joshua Moore of Victoria’s stunning indie-folk outfit The Redwoods has shared a pair of live tracks for the latest instalment of Rolling Stone’s ‘In My Room’, a series in which artists perform from home following a year which has seen live shows become a rarity.
A musician who mixes pure talent with a real understanding of what makes music speak to the soul, there’s no denying the fact both Moore and The Redwoods create art which is intended to speak to the heart in addition to the mind, and nowhere is this more noticeable on their recent ‘In My Room’ performance.
Appearing from his titular room in Victoria’s Mount Martha during lockdown, Moore treats listeners to two gorgeous, stripped back songs, with acoustic guitar and delicate keyboard combining with his voice (which is itself reminiscent of Australian icons such as Jae Laffer or David McComb) to create an astounding (yet far too brief) set.
Kicking things off with recent single, “I Wrote a Letter”, Moore picks up the guitar to transport the listener into a world not unlike the luscious Warburton redwood forest which features in the song’s official video.
“It’s a song I wrote years ago about some time I spent in the USA and Portland, Orgegon in particular during the time of the solar eclipse,” Moore recalled of the track.
As one song finishes, another begins, with a red keyboard taking pride of place as Moore reflects on the origins of second track, “By the Banks of The Murray”.
“As you can tell by the title, I wrote in on the banks of the Murray River,” he explains. “I was at Strawberry Fields several years ago now and I was doing some work with the clean-up crew there and I sort of felt a bit overwhelmed by the business of a big festival and I ended up just ducking out over the fence and going down a stretch of the river with my guitar and this some sort of came out intuitively.
“It’s been an interesting song to reconnect with through the recording process and also just in the last week just practicing it for this take because it’s a lot about being on your own, as opposed to being in a group of people. But that’s had a really different context now, being in lockdown, compared to what it had been at a festival – which seems like a lifetime ago.”
Check out The Redwoods’ performance in the player above, or by heading over to Rolling Stone Australia’s Instagram page. In the meantime, their latest single, “I Wrote a Letter”, was released in August.
