Historic at Abbey Road: Selve's Breaking Into Heaven
In a monumental moment for Australian music, the independent Aboriginal-led band Selve has etched its name into history by becoming the first First Nations group to record a full-length album at the legendary Abbey Road Studios in London. Their second album, Breaking Into Heaven, is not just a collection of songs but a powerful act of cultural reclamation and artistic defiance, a concept deeply rooted in the band's identity and heritage.
Led by Jabirr Jabirr man Loki Liddle, the Gold Coast-based sextet approached the project with a profound sense of purpose. The album’s title and core message are inspired by a poignant quote from jazz icon Nina Simone: "The people who built their heaven on your land are telling you that yours is in the sky." For Selve, recording at Abbey Road—the hallowed ground of rock and roll mythology—was a symbolic "break-in," a way of subverting a space traditionally reserved for others and instead, using it as a platform to tell a First Nations story.
The journey to Abbey Road was a meticulously planned, three-stage residency. It began on Jabirr Jabirr Country in Broome, where Liddle and lead guitarist Reece Bowden connected with their ancestral roots. It continued with an intensive six-week writing residency in rural France, where the band challenged themselves with the question, "What are you risking?" This creative inquiry resulted in a stylistically diverse album, spanning genres from raucous post-punk to psych-rock and tender pop ballads. The final stage was the historic recording sessions in Abbey Road's Studio 3, the very same room where Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon was created.
During the recording, the band embraced the studio's rich history, utilising vintage equipment including the Mellotron used on The Beatles’ "Strawberry Fields Forever." The significance of the moment was not lost on them, as they laid the Aboriginal flag on John Lennon's piano, embedding their culture into the fabric of the studio's legacy. For Liddle, whose Jabirr Jabirr name Joongabilbil means "the keeper of the fire," the songs are a modern-day vessel, or coolamon, carrying the "embers" of his culture and stories. The album is a testament to this, with lyrics incorporating the Jabirr Jabirr language, ensuring the continuity and celebration of his heritage.
After the recording was complete, the band, operating without a label, successfully secured funding to create a visual campaign and a major live debut at BLEACH Festival, where they performed the album with a 33-piece orchestra. Selve's journey and their album Breaking Into Heaven send a clear message to other First Nations artists: they don't need permission to "break in" and make their own history. It is a powerful declaration that their stories are not only worthy of being told but deserve to be heard in the highest echelons of the music world.
