Ladyhawke's A High Flyer

By Joe Kavanagh

Compared to most other years in the noughties, especially on the European side of the Atlantic, 2008 has struggled to find a musical identity.

Most years find record labels and the music press coming together to create some kind of "scene", such as the recent hipster movement, emo scene and nu rave revolution that have come and gone with ever more frequency since the turn of the millennium.

This year, however, has labored in large part because, despite a few close calls, no truly inspirational act has appeared and put its stamp on the European scene.

Outside of such acts as Elbow, Hot Chip and Black Ghosts and perhaps handful of others, it is certainly debatable as to whether many European albums from 2008 will truly be remembered when it comes time to recording the history of rock 'n' roll.

In what has been a relatively fallow year for European music, America has stepped into the breach and provided a plethora of acts in the form of MGMT, Bon Iver, Vampire Weekend, Fleet Foxes and perhaps a dozen more who are all legitimately in the running for album of the year.

The second half of 2008, however, has also revealed another fertile ground for music and perhaps the beginnings of the next big global scene for next year.

While electronic music has come and gone as a trend at least twice over in the rest of the world during the past decade, it never really went away in Australia, as evidenced by the recent success of acts such as Pendulum, The Presets and Cut Copy, which has spawned a new phrase coined by music journalists still eager to salvage a scene from what remains of this year: The Antipodean Influx.

Ok, so it's hardly the British Invasion, and may even sound like something that Scotty might have used to kick start the Enterprise, but it's the best that journalists could do at a pinch, and the last few weeks has seen another name added to this list, in the form of a lady that might just be the most talented of the bunch.

Phillipa "Pip" Brown, was born raised in the tiny town of Masterton, in rural New Zealand, and raised on a steady diet of Led Zeppelin, David Bowie and Joan Jett, by her singer mother and drummer father, who had an undying love for jazz.

Although hers was a happy childhood, it was also a difficult one in the sense that she frequently suffered from illnesses and was allergic to a whole manner of things, including antibiotics, antihistamines and penicillin, which made treating her illnesses all the more difficult.

In fact, she became somewhat of a medical celebrity in New Zealand at 10-years-old, when she contracted a disease that attacks the brain but is usually only seen in seagulls, and had not been seen in a human being for over 20 years.

The disease had her on the brink of a coma when doctors treated her with penicillin, which was the exact moment that they realized that she was allergic to it, and her body's reaction almost killed her.

She was also a rather solitary child, happiest when working on puzzles, and while she thrived on such school subjects as woodwork and art, she had little time for the more practical classes and the standard line on her report card usually read: "Philippa is a lovely child but she stares out the window a bit much."

Given her propensity for solitary pursuits, it is hardly surprising that she immersed herself in music by 11-years-old, assiduously learning to play an incredible 10 different instruments, later recalling: "I had no teaching or training. I taught myself everything except for drums, because my stepfather is a jazz drummer, so he taught me how to play with brushes and everything. From a really early age I was really good on the drums and I had quite an interesting style. I also remember my mum singing to me with the guitar. I remember being 13 or younger and asking her if I could play, so she gave me her acoustic guitar and a sheet of chords and I taught myself."

By her teen years she formed a band called Two Lane Black Top, which was named after a forgettable movie starring James Taylor and Dennis Wilson.

Although she excelled as the guitarist in the band, her character remained retiring and it was only after she went for tests around this time that she was finally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome, which immediately explained much of her past.

A condition that endows the sufferer with a unique way of experiencing the world, which is sometimes described as a mild form of autism, making social interaction difficult yet often allows the subject to express themselves in hugely artistic flourishes.

Despite her diagnosis, she continued with the band, moving to the nearby city of Wellington, getting their single, The Rat, played by the legendary John Peel, and even making a trip to New York, where they performed at CBGBs, which she later described as a seminal moment in her life.

The band was even chosen to play at the Australian version of South By Southwest, but two days before they were due to leave, the drummer quit and the band imploded. Brokenhearted, Brown decided to hop on a plane to Melbourne anyway, and spent two years in the city immersing herself in the local scene.

It was during this time that she came to the attention of Sydney producer, Nick Littlemore, who invited her to join him in a collaboration under the name, Teenager and the pair subsequently worked together for two years.

Although appreciative of her time with Littlemore, she eventually began to feel somewhat stunted creatively and decided to move to London in order to pursue a project that she had been working on in private for some time.

In an effort to get around the problems associated with her condition, where standing on stage can be nothing short of terrifying, she created the persona Ladyhawke, which drew its name from an 80s movie starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Mathew Broderick (not to be confused with Vancouver act, Ladyhawk).

This stage act gave her a degree of separation that made her more comfortable performing and loosened some of the constraints associated with Asperger's, although she still suffers terribly from nerves during live gigs, as she recently explained: "I find live performances hard, I can't look anyone in the eye. I'm so conscious of everyone staring at me. I start to think I'm terrible or I'm singing out of tune. I get sickly-nervous before I play. I throw up and start shaking and sweating. The second I get on stage it disappears and the adrenaline kicks in. I try not to look at anyone in the audience or it will freak me out. Especially when they're smiling."

She set out with one simple mandate in mind: "I wanted to make music that could put a smile on people's faces and give them a feeling of nostalgia even though they may be hearing my songs for the first time. I love how music evokes memories of a certain time, I wanted to see if I could find a method of songwriting that would evoke those feelings from me on writing the song and then on the individual when listening to it for the first time."

Again, the Asperger's hampered her as she found it difficult to tell producers what she really felt, and watched in horror as many of them tried to turn her into some vapid pop act.

She even walked out of one studio in tears but eventually found a firm ally in Pascal Gabriel, whose résumé includes Bomb The Bass, Dido and later Kylie Minogue.

Playing all the instruments, Ladyhawke had virtually the entire album recorded by the time she signed with hot electro label, Modular Records and exploded onto the scene in June with the seductive single Paris Is Burning.

Another single followed in September, in the form of superb 80s electro track, Dusk Till Dawn, before her self-titled album hit shelves later that month.

Containing a veritable smorgasbord of influences, the album is a virtual pastiche of musical methods from the past half century that contains elements of everyone from Cyndi Lauper and Goldfrapp to T-Rex and Fleetwood Mac.

The wealth of imagination on display and the astute attention to detail (another trait of Asperger's) is nothing short of remarkable, and the range of styles on hand make for an album that offers more every time you listen to it without ever getting boring.

Her next single, My Delirium, which hits shelves next week, will almost certainly see her break through into the mainstream, such is its crossover appeal and the album will no doubt continue the long march from obscurity to global renown.

The recent dramatic breakdown suffered by Vines front man and fellow Asperger's sufferer, Craig Nicholls, offers incontrovertible proof of just how much of a battle sufferers of the condition face if they wish to use their gifts in the public eye.

Let's hope for Ladyhawke's sake that it's a battle she wins because it's certainly one worth fighting.