Charlotte Le Lievre crosses the barrier into dark country territory on moving debut album

This was the experience of Newcastle-raised singer-songwriter Charlotte Le Lievre, when her mother Julie Buckton was diagnosed with uterine cancer in 2014.

Through the trials and tribulations of Julie's diagnosis, treatment and death in 2019, her daughter sought solace in country music.

The result was Songs From The Barrier Line, the debut album from Le Lievre, which was released earlier this month and debuted at No.4 on the ARIA Australian Country and No.3 on the Australian Independent Record Label Association charts.

"The response has really been quite mind-blowing, I didn't expect it to go as well as it has," Le Lievre says. "It's been a long time in the making, this record, and it's really lovely to have people really listening and appreciating the body of work."

Charlotte Buckton adopted the name Le Lievre for her music from her great grandfather, who emigrated to Australia from the country island of Jersey and settled in the far western NSW towns of Cobar and Wilcannia.

Moving to far western NSW also had a profound influence on Le Lievre and her music.

After growing up in the Lake Macquarie suburb of Marks Point and attending the Hunter School Of Performing Arts, Le Lievre spent her early years performing in punk and folk bands.

In 2015 she moved to Broken Hill for a job working in an Aboriginal family violence prevention legal service after completing a law degree at the University of Newcastle.

The discovery of country troubadours like Buddy Williams and Dougie Young, and the vast isolation and landscape of her new home, gave Le Lievre the music to describe the emotions she was feeling about her mother's illness.

"It was a time when Mum had been freshly diagnosed and I moved to Broken Hill once she was stable and going through treatment," Le Lievre says.

"It was quite a confronting time with Mum being sick and I connected with country music because of the themes that run through country music. It's such raw and honest music.

"I really started to write a lot about grief and found that country music was such a beautiful vehicle to tell those stories."

Songs like Vigil By Your Bed and Ridin' Free 'Til The End of Time directly address Julie Buckton's palliative care at the Mater Hospital in Waratah and her passing.

The latter was written a year on from Julie's death when Le Lievre was back living in Newcastle during the pandemic.

It was Julie's wish to have her ashes scattered in the sea near her beloved humpback whales, so the family headed to Nelson Bay.

On that cruise Le Lievre performed the freshly-written Vigil By Your Bed as Julie's ashes were scattered into the ocean.

"I'd had a break from music in the last year of Mum's life and something happened coming up to that first anniversary and I really tapped into music again and started writing lots of songs and I found it cathartic and healing," Le Lievre says.

"I'm so grateful to have country music and songwriting because it helped me make sense of losing Mum and it became such an important outlet to process the immensity of those feelings."

Another source of support after her mother's death was Le Lievre's old school friend and fellow singer-songwriter Grace Turner.

Turner lost her own mother, Lake Macquarie artist Mazie Turner, to cancer in 2014. Both Le Lievre and Turner are based in Melbourne.

"It was so beautiful to have her [Turner] sing backing vocals, especially on Vigil By Your Bed because we've been friends for a long time and are able to connect through that shared experience of losing our mums," Le Lievre says.

"We knew each other's mums, so it was really special to sing that song together."

Songs From The Barrier Line explores honky tonk, fiddle-flavoured old-time country and goth-country sounds, tied together with Le Lievre's vocal, which is rooted in the honky tonk traditions of Loretta Lynn and Kitty Wells.

It was recorded live to tape by engineer Alex Bennett in Castlemaine last winter following a grant from Creative Victoria.

It also features contributions from multi-instrumentalist Jas Bell, Grace Bigby (fiddle), Patrick Wilson (drums), Patrick Pheasant (double bass and backing vocals), Luke Byrnes (electric guitar), Turner (backing vocals) and Elwood Sze (banjo).

Grief isn't the album's only theme. Tracks like Silver Miner's Daughter and We'll Hold The Line see Le Lievre express her working-class pride and unionist politics.

"So, come take your broom in hand/ We'll tar the bosses and the scabs/ For none shall work down in the mines/ Against the black legs we'll hold down the line," Le Lievre sings on We'll Hold Down The Line.

The song was inspired by a Rebel Women of Broken Hill art exhibition about the female union movement.

The early success of Songs From The Barrier Line has already spurred Le Lievre into writing another album's worth of material.

"I think it'll be similar to this record," she says. "There's lots of songs about grief and I want to dig more deeply into the different country genres I love."

Charlotte Le Lievre's Songs From The Barrier Line is out now.