Kind Hands is out now!
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Aotearoa/New Zealand producer and artist Will McGillivray has debuted his new musical project, Goodwill, with the release of Kind Hands. To celebrate, the musician has shared with MILKY five songs that inspired his new single.
"This one felt really effortless and just fun to make. It’s easy to overthink the different creative stages of making a song and 'Kind Hands' seemed to bypass that friction. So much so that the whole writing and recording process feels like a complete blur and I can hardly remember how or why I did anything, but it weirdly feels the most like me out of anything I’ve made." McGillivray says of the track.
"The song pulls from fragments of all the softest memories, it's that mental 'happy place' you'd be told to go to in some therapy session. One of the lyrics references a perfect morning I spent in the NGV Gallery in Melbourne in 2022, 'In a gallery in Melbourne I tried to climb in an oil painting of a clothesline'. I‘m naturally drawn to writing things with some melancholy when I sit down with a guitar, so 'Kind Hands' was a slight swim against the tide. Some of the writing was done on the sunny West Coast of Aotearoa with plenty of Nikau Palms around, and it feels pretty hard to write some down in the dumps song in that environment. There‘s a warmth in this that makes me feel good, and that seems like as good of a reason as any to make a song."
WILCO - POT KETTLE BLACK
This whole record is a pretty steadfast listen for me over the years, but especially around the time of writing Kind Hands. I love how modest and emotionally understated some of the chorus are. It’s the ol’ less is more I guess. I think somewhere in the back of my mind that enabled me to just leave this song as it was when it showed up.
ALDOUS HARDING - FIXTURE PICTURE
At some point I got really obsessed with the bass line in the chorus of this song. Making my last project I was a bit hesitant to have an overt bass line in a song, and I’d just default to a simple synth bass thing. It inspired me to buy an old violin bass when I was away in Melbourne last year and when I got home I started working on Kind Hands.
BLAKE MILLS - NEVER FOREVER
For about a year I’d put the Mutable Set record on every night when I was going to sleep. That sounds slightly unhinged to me now but there’s so much detail in this album that reveals itself over time, so it never got fatiguing. I’d usually fall asleep somewhere around the 3rd-5th song and then leave my half-asleep brain to subconsciously digest the rest. I love the opening sequence in Never Forever with the gently unravelling dry synths and guitars.
ALEX G - COW
I have a real soft spot for Alex G’s melodies. I find the ‘I see the red sky beyond our state line. Over mama’s minivan rushing to work on time’ verse melody particularly crushing. I can hear the influence rubbing off a little in moments in Kind Hands.
CASS MCCOMBS - UNPROUD WARRIOR
My favourite song of 2022 and a real lesson in the power of simplicity and story telling. Gets me every time. God bless Cass!
Kind Hands is out now!