Jade and Tim From jade imagine on Their New Album 'Cold Memory'

Cold Memory, the second album from Melbourne band jade imagine, came together in fits and starts over the last three years. Written by band leader Jade McInally and guitarist and producer Tim Harvey, the finished product betrays no evidence of its strained conception, building on the sly dream pop psychedelia of 2019’s Basic Love while introducing new thematic and textural curiosities.

There’s plenty of live atmosphere and songs rooted in guitar, bass and drum arrangements, but Cold Memory is furnished with gothic production details, organ sounds and electronic programming. Music Feeds speaks to McInally and Harvey about their co-writing practice and the album’s emphasis on “getting light”.

jade imagine – ‘I Guess I’ll Just Wait’

Music Feeds: How did you feel after the first album came out?

Jade McInally: I felt good about that album at the time. We did lots of touring, didn’t we Tim? We were pretty busy. It felt like we were on a good path and we were brainstorming stuff to do next. We were on that Pond tour and then we got back to Australia and we were like, “Oh let’s start writing again.” And then shit hit the fan.

Tim and James [Harvey] – who isn’t in the band anymore but was playing drums – and I went to Warrnambool to do a writing retreat right at the beginning of 2020. As we were there, we were getting messages from our friends in Melbourne being like, “Oh, you should buy some tinned food out in Warrnambool, because they might still have some food left.” And we were like, “What?” And then after that, we just couldn’t do much really for ages.

Tim Harvey: We pretty much wrote the whole album – and [Jade] had some sketches that we fleshed out – in that couple of weeks. I guess it was early March 2020. And then there was just a couple of other songs that came together after that. All we wanted to do was make a really live feeling record, and that was the dumbest idea ever apparently.

Jade: When we were writing the concepts for the songs at that Warrnambool house, I remember just saying all the time, like, “Yeah, I just want to make this album all of us in one room together, just a couple of takes. Don’t spend too much time on it; just get it done.”

Tim: Embrace the mistakes. Just get that live feeling, maybe some programmed stuff as well. A bit of Broadcast, a bit of Deerhoof. Things like that. And then some other dark, gothic sounding things. Bit of trip hop.

MF: Do you think all of those elements are still in there?

Jade: I think they are.

Tim: Yeah.

MF: There’s some real songwritery stuff on the album as well. ‘Grow Taller’ is one example.

Tim: Told you it was a good one.

Jade: I like that one.

MF: Is there ever any tension between the two of you when you’re writing?

Tim: There’s tension sometimes but it’s like—

Jade: It’s because we’ve got belief in an idea that we have. And sometimes that idea is the direct opposite of the other’s idea.

Tim: Yeah. And I think the more we work together, the more paths we find to resolve things like that. In a way, I think it gives us a lot, in that there’s tension and that translates and splinters into a few different facets, which become their own songs. And then we have more material to work with.

Jade: It’s like road works, so you have to go a different way to get to your house.

Tim: Like a detour.

MF: And you have to put someone in hi-vis.

Tim: Yeah, Jade wears the hi-vis. Oh, no, wait, I do.

jade imagine – ‘Cold Memory’

MF: Are the lyrics a collaboration as well?

Tim: That’s more [Jade’s] room of the house and occasionally I stick my head in the door and just say, “Hey, what about this?” or “That doesn’t make sense to me,” and provoke Jade into considering something else. Sometimes that works; sometimes her idea is the best idea anyway.

Jade: Sometimes I’ll just bring the lyrics to Tim and be like, “Can you just read them and tell me this bit that I can’t figure out?” And you can relay it back to me in a way that makes it make more sense. You’ll help me bridge the gap between little bits and pieces.

Tim: Yeah, sometimes it feels like you just need to hear your thoughts read back to you and you’re like, “Oh, well of course it needs to do that.”

MF: Are you ever bashful about showing your lyrics to Tim?

Jade: Like, always, but I know that I have to get past that if I’m going to be a songwriter. I just have to show people things. In the past I probably never really asked anyone for their input on lyrics. Like on Basic Love and before that. And I think I’ve realised that there’s no bad that can come of it. You’re only going to make it stronger, even if it’s try an idea and realise it wasn’t the right idea.

MF: What did you want to write about on this record?

Jade: I feel like the last album was like, “Me me me. This is shit. The world sucks a little bit.” I was a bit judgey. ‘Gonna Do Nothing’, it was kind of about, Oh, suburban life, I hate it. Blah blah blah. And I had this realisation that I wanted to project some kind of positive spin on these new songs. You can tell a story and it can leave a good taste in your mouth, or it can just be negative.

‘Get Light’, one of the new songs, is a song I wrote for my sister because she was really down. But rather than focusing on the anxiety and letting that be the leading feeling in the song, I wanted the leading feeling to be, just have fun, shake it up, or whatever.

It sounds really corny, but I wanted to be playing songs live that we could all do fist-pumps to a little bit. Not in a daggy way. In a really cool way.

jade imagine’s new album Cold Memory is out now.