Sauce

Given that she was sitting in an airport after enduring nothing less than a full-on security scare, Amira Pyliotis – AKA Tecoma – was in the perfect position to chat to me about being called “post-trip hop” by the world’s most famous music magazine, her much-anticipated debut album Home Brew, and why she doesn’t wear the “solo artist” cap … not all the time, anyway.

Where are you at the moment?
In Canberra airport. We’re just… our flight was delayed for about three hours, so we’ve just got off the plane and got our stuff and [we’re] just sitting here with our gear!

Your manager was saying there was some kind of security thing – what was going on there?
Basically, they emptied out the whole like… we were sitting in the airplane waiting to take off and then they just said that the whole terminal had to be emptied [Laughs]. And so everyone had to get out of all the planes and go through the… like someone had got through security and they had to go get everyone out of the terminal and search the whole terminal and shut down the shops and go through all the shops because someone had got through with something – I don’t know what it was – and then everyone had to wait for security to finish doing that, and then security went and x-rayed all the people and all our stuff again. So, yeah – that was that.

It’s a scary world…
Yeah… I wasn’t scared, you know. Stuff like that… maybe it was John Howard, like maybe there were some people who were gonna go up to Canberra and vote on that Senate Bill; maybe plan the whole thing… I’m just joking!

Or maybe John Howard was getting on the plane and everyone thought, “Oh shit, there’s a threat to national security…”
Yeah, maybe! Maybe! I don’t know that he’d be travelling with the hoi-polloi to be honest – he’d have his own special airplane…

So, Rolling Stone called you “post trip-hop” – what do you think they meant by this?
I don’t know! Like, I know what trip-hop is, like Massive Attack and stuff like that, and so I guess “post” is what came after Massive Attack and… I don’t know, but I reckon that if Rolling Stone said it then it must be cool – that’s all right! I guess that’s a comment on the use of programs… the marriage [with] the acoustic thing…

A lot of your music has a very cool kind of groove – what’s your favourite way to chill out?
Yeah, well… gosh… definitely gotta be with my friends and if there’s music there somewhere, like at a festival – festivals are the best for me… the best way to chill out.

You’re releasing Home Brew in September…
Yeah!

…What sets the tracks on this release apart from, say, a track like Air To Me?
I reckon, probably, Air To Me is the most produced track on the record and the other stuff is a lot more acoustic and less programming and a lot more relying on just more the story of the song, and some of the bloody awesome session musicians I’ve got playing on those tracks.

You perform both solo and with an ensemble – ultimately, which do you prefer and why?
I reckon there’s something… they’ve both got really good things about them. I mean, I’m just sitting here at the moment and we’ve got about… gosh… eighty kilos of gear… all these boxes and all these wires, you know, to pull this technological stuff off that we’re doing on this tour. And I think, on a level, that makes the music richer, playing with other people and having these other aspects; it’s just… you know, there’s so much time spent lugging shit around and… with the logistical plan there’s something so beautiful and simple about just… like my first couple of tours solo, just putting the guitars in the car and just rolling up in a town and travelling around by yourself, you know, to all these new places… and having nothing [but] your guitar to define you and the fact that you’re there to sing your songs; there’s something that’s really immediate and fantastic about that, and kinda like there’s nothing to hide behind when you’re playing solo and also travelling solo’s kinda like… I think the relationship you form both with an audience and with the people that you meet… you know like, when you’re travelling with people you tend to stick in your group a bit more, but when you’re travelling by yourself… I don’t know, you meet more of the people, you get under the skin of a place… like I’ve had a few scary and crap experiences travelling around by myself, but I’ve had some amazing adventures… when you’re with a group also, it seems a bit… cushioned, for better and worse…

Tecoma play Hobart’s Republic Bar on the 12th of September.

Listen to the rest of Tecoma’s amazing adventures