(Sea) Horse Latitudes
(Sain Magazine, January '03)

left with nothing after his family's home burned in the nsw bushfires, charlton hill realised that his music was his most wonderful posession.

charlton hill emerged with a debut single called "2's company", about meeting someone who is dysfunctional and getting excited about it for a while. with a video shot in the volcanic moonscapes of iceland, the song set the young 25-year old singer/songwriter from sydney in the scene.

"the song felt right, it was the emotion i wanted," he says, taking a break from recording in his home studio. "like a lot of my songs, it wrote itself. i really believe songs are floating in the air, complete with arrangements, and i happen to plug into them."

the song was significant for his career. he could see how much his music was affecting people. "when it got on the radio, people would be singing along with it at shows, which was overwhelming, that something you wrote sitting on a bed in a cold flat in london means something to people on the other side of the world." it increased his touring opportunities, playing with bic runga, the whitlams and john mayer, which widened his audience.

next month comes his debut album, waterline. there are references to water all the way through the songs. not surprisingly, charlton grew up near the beaches of sydney's northern suburbs and started surfing as a kid. "i'd travel down the east coast following the surf and getting close to nature," he remembers. "i've come close to drowning a couple of times. that happens when you try and tackle higher and higher waves. you certainly appreciate life, and nature more."

the album title comes from the great feeling it is to be tossed into the water and go below. your body is not attached to anything. you feel afraid, liberated and excited. as he sings, "slip past the waterline / plunge into the world i know."

he had the same feeling, he says, as he left his teens behind and became an adult. by the time he was 17, he was playing in bands in local surf pubs, and saved enough money to travel around the world.

"many of the songs on the album come from a five year period. there are a lot of references to water, because i was travelling away from the coast, and it's easy to use water as a metaphor for your emotions. when you're underwater, you're cocooned; you feel you're the only one in the sea. when you travel alone, you rely on yourself for everything. "crash landed", "deep" and "turn to you" reflect that.

could he have been a sailor in a past life? "i still have some sailing legs, i dream about getting a boat and disappearing for awhile, down the track."

in 1994, when he returned to australia, he went through a traumatic experience. the family home burned to the ground in the bushfires. they were left with nothing. that's when he decided to return overseas to follow his music. "it was a pretty significant moment," he shrugs. "i realised money and security were not important. music was definitely number one with me."

he returned to london for two years, played acoustic gigs and struggled to make a living. in that time, the songs came together. he was living with some musicians, who recorded a demo of his material. it found its way to the a&r department of sony music in australia, who paid for him to record the album in london and new york with producer ian grimble (travis, morcheeba, manic street preachers). sony said he could work with any musician he wanted to. he chose the young guys that he'd lived with.

waterline is a spacey pop record, with the ethereal below-water atmosphere on "deep" and "don't sail" delivered with his high voice, in between acoustic ditties ("if i could", "sound of goodbye") and guitar knee tremblers ("faithfully tenderly"). the hooks, he says, come from his love for neil finn, david bowie, stone roses and the cure. "their music has the capacity to stick in your head, and that's what drew me to making my own music."

- Christie Eliezer

Fact file
* first picked up a guitar when he was 12 years old.
* inspired by the doors and jim morrison.
* started writing poetry at 15.
* played bass and guitar in bands at 17.
* says that not all his love songs are about the same girl!

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