Six years on since the release of 2016’s In Search of… album, ex-Panel of Judges frontman and Melbourne-via-NYC luminary Dion Nania returns with Free Time’s third studio album in eight years, the (only sometimes) aptly-named Jangle Jargon.
The album was recorded chiefly in two parts, beginning in 2017 in Ridgewood, Queens, with engineer Jarvis Taveniere (Purple Mountaintops, The Avalanches, Molly Burch) and guests Martin Frawley and Amy Franz (Twerps, Super Wild Horses) from Nania’s faraway home in Melbourne, Australia.
After a period of quiet in which he focussed on his academic work, Nania, now living in the Brooklyn neighborhood of Williamsburg, returned to these original sessions in 2021 with a bag of new material and regular collaborators Jonah Maurer and Mike Mimoun. After a happy accident in which Nania discovered that he shared a building with engineer John Epperly (Veldt, Daddy Long Legs, Baby Shakes), the band tracked six new songs and had themselves an album.
Nania says of the recording process - “Well…it was recorded during a pandemic. I played bass on most of them, which is new for Free Time. I was also living about 40 meters from the studio where we were working. I would highly recommend that to anyone.”
Growing up in the punk and underground scenes in Geelong and Melbourne, Nania was self-taught from an early age. Interestingly, it was his move to the US that sparked a growth in musical theory, prompting him to develop new skills in order to work with new collaborators. Says Dion about his change from the Melbourne underground to New York City - “About ten years ago, when I first came to NYC, I started playing in Craig Dermody’s band (Scott & Charlene’s Wedding). We decided to go to an Underwater Peoples label showcase, we were aware of them because they’d put out the Twerps already. So we went and met those guys who ended up being Free Time’s label for years, and Mike Mimoun from UP joined (Scott & Charlene’s Wedding) on drums, so I got to know him. Then the next year I filled in on bass for a Twerps tour, and through that got to know Jonah Maurer who was touring with us in Real Estate. Then Underwater Peoples asked if I wanted to make a record.”
The band continued over the years, with Dion bouncing between the USA and Australia and continuing to collaborate with musicians on both sides of the Pacific. Eight years on and we have Jangle Jargon, ten tracks ranging from the overtly political to the optimistically upbeat and desperately heartbroken, with a healthy dose of jangle jargon in between. It’s Free Time doing what Free Time does best - catchy licks and sunlit melodies, sure to soundtrack summer days for generations to come.
