Jade McInally has spent the last 8 years playing music with a variable ensemble of Melbourne’s best and brightest, first with her band TANTRUMS and more recently with Jess Ribeiro and Teeth & Tongue – two of Australia’s most formidable alt-pop acts. In August she took the stage solo as jade imagine and released her debut single, “Stay Awake”, which you can now watch the music video for, right here on IMPOSE.
The video looks like an early nineties audition tape for a role on the popular Australian sitcom Neighbours – a show that kickstarted the career of Kylie Minogue. But with “Stay Awake” as the soundtrack and jade imagine as the star, the video is less suburban soap opera, more mumblecore. It’s hard to know if Jade’s channeling a love for ‘90s nostalgia or kitsch Australiana – perhaps it’s both.
Lines like, “It looks like a safe place between the sheets, but I’ve got a better friend and it’s called caffeine”, and “stay awake don’t sleep at all. Do you ever feel as though you’re not interesting enough”, are loaded with social anxiety. In the age of start-ups, social media and Zoloft, the idea of never quite achieving enough resonates and probably freaks most of us out.
Jade says the song is “in reference to the feeling of needing to constantly be moving, interesting, creative and productive. The older I get the more I feel like I need to use every moment… I always get anxious when night-time hits. It’s a time that should be relaxing, but my mind begins to assess the day just passed and I wonder ‘should I have done more? Am I boring? Am I not interesting enough?”
“Stay Awake” is out now on 7” vinyl and digitally via Our Golden Friend. Jade’s debut EP will be released in the new year by Courtney Barnett’s Milk! Records.
