Tom Lyngcoln has just clocked off from work when he picks up his phone. The 39-year-old singer, songwriter and guitarist runs a carpentry business out of a workshop on the Mornington Peninsula, commuting from south Melbourne every day. “It’s a family property – they’ve been out there since the ’70s,” he says. “I’ve worked here on and off for the better part of my whole life, and I’ve been running it for about the last 10 years.” He’s happy to discuss business and family and other small talk, but Lyngcoln’s tone definitely shifts into a more apprehensive one as the very purpose of the interview is broached. “This is weird,” he confesses. “I’m talking about something I’ve actively avoided doing for a very, very long time.”
Said thing is Doming Home, Lyngcoln’s debut solo LP. It’s literally solo, too – there’s nothing more than Lyngcoln’s haunting voice and the buzz of his electric guitar to guide the 11 original songs on offer. Having cut his teeth at the helm of bands such as The Nation Blue, Harmony and Pale Heads, there’s absolutely a curiosity pertaining to the how and why of releasing Doming Home. “I was playing solo sets in the front bars of a few pubs in Melbourne, just to try and stay active,” Lyngcoln begins.
I’m talking about something I’ve actively avoided doing for a very, very long time.
“I’ll be honest – playing solo makes me very uncomfortable. I guess doing it more was me trying to learn something; trying to get better at it. I was just playing a bunch of Nation Blue and Harmony songs at these gigs, but a lot of those songs are a bit too hard to play solo. It just wouldn’t cut it. That’s when I started writing songs specifically to perform at these residencies and these shows. 11 songs later, here we are.”
Doming Home opens with ‘Gemini Orion’, which makes for quite the compelling headphones listen. The stereo mix has Lyngcoln’s vocals emerging from the low end of the left pan, moving closer to the centre as the song progresses. It’s almost as if Lyngcoln is entering the room as he’s singing – probably because he literally was. “Yeah, that’s exactly how it was done,” Lyngcoln confirms with a laugh. “It was actually pretty complicated. There’s a lot of physics involved there; a lot of microphone techniques and that sort of stuff. It’s pretty elaborate for what is ostensibly just a dickhead walking into a room. I just thought it would be a nice introduction – a big entrance.”
The recording process for the song, however, didn’t come without its setbacks. “I had this ongoing argument with my grandma,” says Lyngcoln. Yes, really. “I was recording at the family home which she still occupies, and my singing was interrupting her watching the dog race in the next room. What should have only taken a couple of goes ended up being the better part of a couple of hours.” Not that Lyngcoln was going to step up to gran anytime soon: “She’s a fiery, 94-year-old Irishwoman,” he says. “She even kicked me out at one point! I had to find somewhere else to record the last two songs on the property.”
There’s this domestic hum that’s picked up on all the recordings; you can just hear it in the back. I like that it simmers around the edges of these songs.
On the album credits for Doming Home, Lyngcoln is credited with recording and mixing the record himself “in lunch breaks.” While still running the aforementioned carpentry business, Lyngcoln was indeed taking his spare time and putting it towards recording the album out in the Peninsula. “A lot of it was recorded there in the living room,” he recalls. “I quite liked it, even though there was always traffic going past. If anything, all of that added to it – there’s this domestic hum that’s picked up on all the recordings; you can just hear it in the back. I like that it simmers around the edges of these songs.”
The album is named after a term Lyngcoln has coined for his own brain. Everything you hear on the record is based on his own thoughts, visions from his dreams, stories from the past… all swimming around his shaved head. “I’ve got a big, beaten-up dome of a head,” he says, snickering. “That’s the cover photo! It’s just the brutal reality of my face and what I’ve done to it over 20 years.” Since the release of the album a few weeks ago, fans have been sending Lyngcoln photos of them doing a “record face” – the tried-and-tested gag of placing an album cover donning the artist’s headshot over your own face. “It’s just bloody tourism, mate,” Lyngcoln quips sarcastically. “They don’t have to live with this face! I’ve had a couple of mates get their kids to do it, too – surely that counts as child abuse?”
With Doming Home out in the world, Lyngcoln now draws his attention to dreaded solo shows. This will include a visit to Sydney at the end of April, in which Lyngcoln will perform at both the Golden Age Cinema in Surry Hills and the legendary Beatdisc Records in Parramatta. Although the tension and discomfort Lyngcoln has expressed about playing solo hasn’t quite subsided, he’s finding ways around it. “I’m mitigating the pain,” he jokes. “I’ve got some HD projections that I got a mate to shoot using drones and stuff like that.”
Doming Home is out now through Solar/Sonar. Tom Lyngcoln plays the Golden Age Cinema in Surry Hills on April 26, and an all-ages show at Beatdisc Records in Parramatta on April 27. Header image by Ian Laidlaw.
