Claire Atkins | Eternal Return

From the time we can talk we’re asked what we want to be when we grow up, and as we grow there’s huge pressure to find and follow a single passion. At age 46, Byron-based artist Claire Atkins has just released her debut EP Eternal Return, a body of work born of heartbreak and curiosity.

With her training in fine arts, for the last 20 years Atkins has worked solidly as a studio artist, magazine editor, actor and creative producer, but it in the wake of significant loss, she says she hit a creative brick wall, and to her surprise discovered music.

‘I was dealing with a whole bunch of grief. My dad and two close friends died suddenly and in quick succession, and it paralysed me creatively speaking… Music kept suggesting itself to me, which was strange, because at the time I couldn’t play an instrument. I was quietly terrified by that, and so I started small with the uke,’ she said.

Within 12 months Atkins was writing and performing her own songs. Curious about the recording process, and with her teacher’s encouragement she sent her songs to producer and sound engineer Paul Pilsneniks (Angus & Julia Stone, Powderfinger, Silverchair) at Rockinghorse Studios in Byron Bay.

Pilsneniks says, ‘Hearing Claire’s demos I felt that these beautiful tunes would really shine with some additional instrumentation and production, and so we brought some amazing local artists to guest on the songs. We’ve ended up with a stunning debut EP, and I encourage any music-listening aficionado to keep an ear out for this body of work in early 2020,’

Atkins’s hometown region has taken up Pilsneniks's good advice with the album receiving significant media attention and high rotation on Byron’s BayFM.

The album’s title track is inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy of eternal return that proposes the universe and everything within it has been recurring and will continue to recur in the same pattern infinitely. While Atkins says reliving heartbreak is not an attractive prospect she’s also confident of music’s power to transform hardship into something unexpected, beautiful and healing.

’In a strange way, I’m grateful for life’s challenging times, and if it wasn’t for them I may never have strummed a chord or written a lyric. That difficult period drove me to music and it saved me,’ she said.

Atkins’s unique vocal style has been likened to Natalie Merchant and Julia Stone, and her story-driven songs are supported by a stunning line-up of guest artists including legendary horn players John Hoffman and Martha Baartz, and guitarists Angie Hudson and Al Brooker.