DAILY TOLL – A Profound Non-Event – LP – Black Vinyl [JUN 20]

LP – Black Vinyl

A Profound Non-Event, the debut album by Sydney-based three-piece Daily Toll, comprises 11 songs traversing three years of forged friendships, collaborative experimentation, and a shared love of growing through words and song.

Those attuned to the ever-vibrant Australian underground may already be well familiar with Daily Toll, their consistent live presence since their inception in 2021 embroidered by a handful of (mostly) home-recorded, (mostly) digital self-releases that have steadily accumulated an appreciative following. Initially the project of self-taught musician, poet & artist Kata Szsz-Komls (they/them) and Jasper Craig-Adams (he/him), and expanded to a three-piece with the more recent addition of friend Tom Stephens (he/him), Daily Toll represents the union of three unique creative dispositions, of relationships blooming through the push and pull of creative practice. Mapping the bands existence through their recorded output is to bear witness to the flux of three people learning to respond to one another and gently ossify into a collective vision that at once calls to mind folk song intimacy, post-punk dynamics, and the artful poeticism of an adjacent Flying Nun legacy.

If those earlier recordings reflect a band imagining themselves into being in real-time, A Profound Non-Event observes a clear shift in both conviction and approach. Recorded in just three days with Alex Bennett at the purely analogue Sound Recordings studio in Castlemaine and holing up at night in the century-old cottage situated beside the studio, sheltering from the late-June wind and rain within walls littered with instruments and microphones, lighting fires to stay warm. Kata describes the experience as defined by candlelight and creative camaraderie, an idyllic account of a collection of songs that glide with an undeniably warm, easy charm, evidenced in particular in the records second half as the tone turns increasingly introspective, the very sound of a cold evenings drift into night. When contrasted with the moody swirl and sing-song bounce of the opening trio of tracks, theres clear evidence of a band not simply in the process of becoming, but committed to finding their truth in that process.

Still, if Daily Toll display a reluctance to be wholly defined, then album centerpiece Killincs (positioned in the middle for a reason) might just be their Rosetta Stone. A verbose rumination on unsettled feelings of isolation and longing, exploring the challenges in making peace with one’s decisions amidst the uncertainty of an often harsh world and the realization that some things remain best unresolvedI have the keys still, but Ive buried the path.

Tracklist:

1. Another World
2. Fleeting
3. Im Bored
4. Easy Man
5. Killincs
6. My Sisters Loom
7. Mountain Song
8. Belljar Convenience
9. Fated To Pretend
10. Waiting Game
11. A Light