“Yeah, that’s my first ‘breakup song’ even though the breakup it describes takes place roughly 130 years before I’d ever even dated anybody.” Antoniou said of the song, which is set in the 1800s. One the ice was broken, Antoniou and O’Malley started working up all sorts of tunes, including a lot of other ‘firsts.’ For example, opening track “The Dressmaker” is the duo’s first proper “breakup song,” but it certainly takes a unique angle. “Which, ironically, got me a little excited about songwriting again, as I got to play with that mythological imagery (the ivy, which is associated with Dionysus honeysuckle and resin in his hair in reference to one of his ancient titles, Dionysus ‘the Blooming.’ And, of course, the idea of sacrifice hinted at by ‘ awful smoke in the air….’) I also think of this as the first ‘horror story’ song I’ve ever written, which was probably as much influenced by the subject matter as the state of mind I was in while writing it.” “It was easy to imagine that the cult of Dionysus (a god so associated with wine and revelry) might have an escapist lure for someone in a similar, distracted state of mind,” Antoniou said. One song in particular that grew out of this initial moment of inspiration is the introspective tune, “Dionysis,” which combines ancient Greek imagery (Antoniou was born in Greece) with a distinctly modern point-of-view.
Contemplative, well-spoken and with brilliant, symbolic imagery, the EP shows off just how powerful a simple change in perspective can be for a songwriter. Now, on June 11, the flame that grew out of that spark is set to drop-titled A Sleeping Place, the EP is a seven-song romp exploring everything from history to mythology, philosophy, anxiety and more.
In searching for the answers for these questions, Antoniou accidentally stumbled across what she was looking for in the first place: inspiration. “Distraction was all I wanted, which made me wonder, ‘Who else might have felt that way? What distractions would they have sought?’” “It turns out that, in order to create anything, you have to be okay with sitting with your thoughts and feeling your feelings-neither of which felt particularly great to do,” Antoniou said.
In fact, when they were faced with a bit of writer’s block, Antoniou and O’Malley decided to tackle it head-on, opening the hood on their process and tinkering around to try to make the engine run again.
Leonard Cohen once described the struggle as akin to being “married to a mystery”-Antoniou describes it in simpler, yet equally effective language: “Every time I sat down to write, it felt like my brain was getting up and walking out of the room, like we were in a fight.”īut nonetheless, as a lot of songwriters know, just because creating can be a struggle at times doesn’t mean you stop trying to do it. And with this past year being a time of unprecedented change and isolation, her and her bandmate-her fiancé, Mike O’Malley-have gotten to know this fickleness on a whole new level. “It was a struggle to create this year,” Alexia Antoniou said.Īs one half of the indie-folk duo, Gawain and The Green Knight, Antoniou is well aware of how fickle something like creative inspiration can be.
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