New musical collaboration yields rich reward with EP

Julie Hough and Stephen McHale began writing together at the end of 2022 – initially through remote filesharing, without much idea of what direction they wanted their songs to head in. The pair had known each other from different acts – Julie’s HAVVK toured Ireland and the UK alongside Stephen’s BARQ – but this partnership stepped away from each of their back catalogues.

The end result is PostLast, presented a brand of dream pop that is both warm and jarring, with strong imagery and nostalgia flowing through its spine.

This week, the duo release Pull Me Into the Open Sea, a six-track EP that celebrates what quickly became a very fruitful creative collaboration.

“My response to the songs was such a new experience because I’m not used to thinking in the same kinds of chord progressions that [Stephen] brings to the table,” Julie says.

“Weirdly, there is a consistency, but I never could’ve predicted how I was going to respond… I don’t think we knew how it was going to sound but we ended up in this kind of dreamy realm.”

Stephen began crafting rough instrumentals to pave a roadmap for the EP without a clear idea of how he wanted it to sound.

When he sent demos on to Julie, he offered no direction or storyboard for her involvement, and invariably the file she sent back would come as a pleasant surprise.

“I’m a big fan of horror and I really like exploring the darker sides of your imagination,” Julie says.

“That’s something I’ve always brought through any other music projects, so I’m not surprised that even though we tried to make something nice, it still managed to come out kind of dark and maybe a little bit sinister here and there.

“I think any time you go into a dream territory, there’s always got to be a bit of a nightmare side to it too. Even though there’s a lot of happiness and joy in the songs, I find that [Stephen’s] chord progressions can be quite dissonant as well. So, any time I’m singing something happy, it might be underpinned by these dissonant chord progressions and guitar sounds as well – clangy guitar sounds.”

Pictured: PostLast...fruitful collaboration.