Mickey Cooper – Hit the Ceiling

As a kid in Melbourne, Mickey Cooper would listen endlessly to the Finn brothers and Dylan, re-working the lyrics and recording them onto blank cassettes. Listening to his debut album Hit the Ceiling, the influences are obvious. Recorded in a tiny Lower East Side apartment with a paltry microphone, acoustic guitar and audible fridge, the songs mine the heartache of a family break-up.

It’s an open, spacious sound with only some overdubbed harmonies and the odd harmonica or tambourine to colour a beautifully sparse instrumentation. It’s a perfect canvas for Cooper’s voice, high in the mix and lyrically rich and impressionistic. The mixing by Brooklyn engineer, Bryce Goggin captures the raw intimacy and natural reverb of the apartment but manages to give the album a polished studio feel.

Indie-pop at it’s best. (GW)

★★★1/2