Photo by Kate Ellen Meakin

“Venus in the Zenia” hinders upon being the most trad indie rock thing Aldous Harding has ever done without subscribing to the clichés that define most music in that corner of sound these days. There’s amply melody and guitar chords strummed clean and jangly, feeding her flowers with enough sunshine as they reach their stems toward bright blue sky. The Australian songwriter, of course, has some peculiar ways of making something so typical into her own. She’s practically playing different versions of herself just by self-conversing through contorted tongue, especially flexing it when annunciating the word “zenia” in its chorus. Flipping the conversation into a flirty wordplay with Welsh songwriter H. Hawkline, his handsome voice amid the greenery gives Harding a suitable co-star to uproot the musical garden with. Even when coming at cultivating with an ordinary approach, her creativity is very much fertile ground.

Aldous Harding’s Train on the Island will be released May 8th on 4AD.