About the new album...
Sage has been a long time coming. It is the result of hundreds if not thousands of hours alone in my project studio. In a sense commercial success was never the imperative. It's always been about surprising myself, making absolutely the best music I am capable of, then building it into something universally applicable. This is why around half of the album is instrumental. The alpine setting perfectly reflects the mood of second track Key Duck, and also speaks to the lyrics of some of the songs, especially Leading Me Home and India. I hope Key Duck reminds people of some of Mike Oldfield's shorter instrumental pieces which were a huge influence. Album opener India is in open D, a guitar tuning Joni Mitchell uses often, and the cadence and rhythm of the track owes a little to her as well. The orchestral, semi-classical Saudade (sadness) was a piece my longtime muse Sue Keogh loved and it is dedicated to her memory. Sweet Restless Bird is a very young man's song. Love did come along, you might be happy to know, in various forms and configurations. Greed, like the Cobalt Express suite that ends the album, was one of those pieces that just snowballs. Inspired by the knowledge that six men have more wealth than the poorest 49 million, I wondered what the hell they do with it. Sure, some moguls are quietly generous but they are the exceptions. This track is also my personal tribute to Bowie, though I'm not sure others will hear that. I still miss him as if we were actually mates. Greed also features a face melting guitar solo by my Liverpudlian pal Simon Anthony. Vowels is a folk song about nearing the possible end of a relationship that I wilfully electrified. Doing my best McCartney bass line! Hey Ma is me calling out across the dimensions to my mum Betty, who passed in 2008. It's a bit of a sequel to All We Leave Behind on my first album, Fathom. Cobalt Express is a ten minute song suite that starts with a bunch of dance vibes and a train recorded in a backyard in Charlottesville, Virginia, before a tempo change into a piece I've had for ages about Alexander the Great, then into Sunday Morning, a tribute to my adorable AmStaff pup Luna, before the final ode to my partner Greg's happy place - his garden.
Happy listening.
Ian Cuthbertson, September, 2025.
Lyrics - Sage To A mountain
India
I'm lookin' for a reason to believe in this love, now you are gone
As the sun takes flight from the grip of another lonely dawn
India keeps callin’ you and Holland needs your time
I know you've got your reasons to be leavin' - still you're leaving me behind
And I'm waiting on the mailman just like Ahab lookin' for his whale
And he smiles but he doesn't understand my heart is in the mail
There's a man in Amsterdam and a girl in New Mexico
And I'm thinking that, much as I don't want to, it's time to let you go
So thank you for the tenderness oh, the candles and the wine
Thanks for believing in me almost all the time
I guess you'll never know all the reasons why
It's so hard to say I love you and goodbye
Let's not pretend that we were bound forever
I can't go on until this bond is severed
I wanted to believe that my heart could be an open door
But reality clipped my wings and left me here stranded on the floor
I need a love to call my own and to keep a faithful heart
And that can't be done in episodes, while ever we're apart
Leading Me Home
The lights were fading fast as the night closed in
The earth was bare and dry
Then you came along, like a sage to a mountain
Rivers ran in the valleys, birds flew high in the sun
Green grass grew on the meadow
Life had surely begun
Over the ocean - moonlight, star-bright
Shining like diamonds the path on the water was leading me home
to you
Sweet Restless Bird
Standing alone at the edge of the sea wondering aloud about me
Lovers I’ve known just keep skipping like stones
Thrown by old memory
It’s time for a change
In the way I live my life
I seem to stand outside and watch it all go by
I’m too young to pretend
And too old not to notice
That love has passed me by
Cause I held you once, sweet restless bird shaking, between my hands
Failing to see that the wind must be free it whispered you don’t understand
Watching the waves racing for the shore - waiting for the tide to come in
Helpless before the slow march of time - another day’s at an end
Hopeful, I’ll see another sun - and I’ll do my best not to head for the shade
Stand up and face all that love undertakes and try not to be afraid
Greed
How much do you need for yourself?
How deep is your greed?
I get the feeling I’ve seen all this before
I see the way that the rich eat the poor
Commodifying them, using their labour as slaves
Your obscene opulence is built on the shame of their graves
Vowels
Why don’t you say what you mean when you say that you mean what you say but you don’t?
And why don’t you do what you say you will do when you say what you’ll do then you don’t?
Can I have a vowel please
Can I get a clue?
I’m drowning in your secrets
But I’m so in love with you
Every time I get my bearings, and I believe I understand
You’re heading for the water, and I’m waiting on the land
After all this time we should be sure of who we are - we shouldn’t hold on to the past, we should be near instead of far, we had a bond you couldn’t break with a fucking iron bar
Oh where did it go?
If you should leave you’ll believe when you leave that you leave all the heartbreak behind
But if you should stay you may find there’s a way to release all the doubt in your mind
Cobalt Express
Now that you're out of your mind
Do you like all that you find?
Out of the blue - love is coming for you
Sunday Morning
Sunday morning – I’m up with the lark
I’m taking the dog out to piss in the park
Hey she won’t remember the bad times she’s had
She’ll live in the moment and always be glad
Oh can’t you see it’s how we all should be
Your Garden
I will feel you in the Autumn breeze
When the house releases its woods and camphor
In the shafts of winter sun
That light the afternoons of careless slumber
But in the spring and summertime
The planting and the nurturing
The joy you take in every bloom
And in every shoot that breaks on through
And I will know to find you there
Perhaps eternally
In your garden
Ian Cuthbertson
Stories and Sounds
Ian Cuthbertson has three major influences - McCartney, Mike Oldfield and Joni Mitchell. These three are the stars by which he charts his course but there are many, many others he's been touched by. Roy Harper, John Martyn and Van Morrison to name but three. From folk clubs in Sydney aged 15 (and still at school) to pub residences and band work, clubs and choirs, Ian's journey has been long and winding. Highlights include the release of Fathom - his debut solo album 2010; and the original theme music and audio production for the podcast Bondi Badlands in 2021, which has now had well over 500,000 downloads. The thing Ian's three main influences have in common is that they often play all the instruments and sing all the parts alone. A heady cocktail of possibilities for a once-shy kid with a head full of stories and sounds. Out now, the new album Sage To a Mountain is the culmination of a lifetime of dreams.
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