Forty years after co-founding pioneering Australian electronic band Single Gun Theory, Jacqui Hunt returns with Desiderium, a deeply personal album shaped by several years of profound change. Since emerging with Single Gun Theory, Hunt has continued to forge her own path through a varied solo career and collaborations with artists such as Delerium. She created Desiderium in the aftermath of losing both parents, undergoing cancer treatment herself, and rediscovering the role music played in her life. The result is an album that explores grief, love, healing, and renewal through a blend of atmospheric electronics, piano-led compositions, and organic instrumentation.
While Desiderium contains echoes of Hunt’s earlier work, the album emerged from a need to create. Rather than following a fixed plan, it took shape gradually through spontaneous moments of inspiration, collaboration, and experimentation as Hunt found herself returning to music as a source of comfort, expression, and connection. The finished record balances electronic and organic elements with a freedom that reflects both her experiences and her evolving creative process.
In an email interview, Hunt discusses the personal experiences behind Desiderium, collaborating with Brian Conolly, Daniel Denholm, and Laurence Pike, the role of improvisation and intuition in her songwriting, and how her relationship with music and technology has evolved since the early days of Single Gun Theory.
As you worked on the album, did you have a clear sense of its themes and musical direction from the start, or were there things you only recognized in retrospect once the songs began to take shape?
Jacqui Hunt: I had always intended to write another album and had been working on ideas in my home studio…I was also experimenting with the idea of playing live and needed to work out what was going to work for me in that situation.I had a lot of discovery in that process,. I started to pull back from the complexity of needing computers and tech to express myself, I needed immediate soothing that I could absorb myself in. It was around the time of Covid, and I was caring for my father who was living alone, house bound with terminal cancer. Dad died a year later, and I had a lot of responsibilities and grief simultaneously. My dad played piano and I think I was drawn to playing piano more as I moved through this grief. 18 months later my mother died of cancer quite suddenly, she was still vibrant and working and it was a huge loss and I was again at the start of another grieving process . There were many emotional complexities to sift through. Both my parents were creative, and I channeled a lot of energy from this time into music as a way of processing. Reflecting on what they had given to me, they were at the forefront of my mind continually. I had also moved house twice which is a significant. The two deaths very different experiences for me. Writing and improvising was cathartic and I had no expectations of what I was doing or creating. In fact I no longer cared about releasing an album for a long while, adamant I wouldn’t actually. As I moved through this time and began to emerge from all that had taken place, just getting back into the swing of my life goals, I was diagnosed with cancer. I had to address this and have surgery and treatment and this absorbed another good chunk of time. I felt compelled to create the album not long after this. Kind of acknowledging again, that part of me existed outside these life changing experiences, that not everything has changed.The idea was literally to try and heal myself somehow, and completing this album would help me to focus again on a huge part of myself that I needed to acknowledge, something personal, familiar and releasing. The recurring themes tied in with grief and love, and meditation which I had also begun on a regular basis. I had some darker tracks that I didn’t release, because when it came to the crunch ,I didn’t like how those tracks made me feel. So I deserted their energy, even though I had spent a good deal of time in their company. I did need to write them, just not share them, and I did need to leave them behind. Just as I had needed to do with other aspects of my life. After a certain point, I just knew I needed to do it, to make the album, to release, to mark time, and let it be what it will be.
Your work has always blended electronic textures with something more organic and human. How did you approach that balance on this album?
Jacqui Hunt: Balancing the electronic and the organic was something that had concerned me at times, oh I need to be more electronic, or I preferred that melody when I played it on piano etc. I decided that in the end it was my voice that was the common thread between the two, and I needed to to acknowledge to myself that I was free to move between the two. I like both, and can be both, without having to be dominant in one direction. Having said that, I like the idea of taking something opposite and moving into new territory with a remix, which I’m currently exploring at the moment with some of the material.
When making the vinyl, and ordering the tracks, I definitely took this into account, it sort of begins more electronically and then melts away to more organic material and then returns to the electro in a more prominent way, which echos the grieving process for me. More upbeat by the end of the album. Like time changes perspective, there can be a more upbeat approach to grief or something. I know that might sound strange unless you’ve been there.
Did you work mostly in a studio environment, or were there elements created more intuitively or spontaneously?
Jacqui Hunt: Several of the tracks were written away from my home studio environment, for example “Look At The Sky” was written in Gerringong NSW with stunning coastal landscape surrounding me. The initial idea anyway. “This love” was very spontaneous, I was just hammering out those words at the piano one day when I was feeling a bit overwhelmed, a type of personal brainwashing exercise of repetition, and Brian said quick..lets get that down, and so I recorded that on the Nord, and that is the end result for the most part.
The track “Planet” has a long history, partly written from an airport departure lounge, well the first draught was definitely received at Kuala Lumpur departure lounge where Brian Conolly was about to board a flight. He’d sent me the poem, and I sent it back as an mp3 musical idea. It’s had quite a few interpretations along the way, and it finally landed in this form. It goes back many many years. It was cathartic to set that one free as well.
“Cecilia” was an addition that began in the studio of Daniel Denholm with his zither, sent at the last minute just because I might like it, and the riff just captured me.`So I dropped what I was doing and decided to see what may come. There was a back story to the antique zither that inspired the song, a sort of tragic love story about a devout husband and wife who played their zithers together, there were two initially, the wife died early into the marriage. Saint Cecilia is the patron saint of music, but I wrote it as a love song to a woman Cecilia, lyrically as a merging of the two in my mind. A persons attraction to a woman named Cecilia, and named after Saint Cecilia whom I discovered when researching some info for the song. Her patron day is the 22nd November. Dad was born in November and a ruling 22 in numerology (my mother was a numerologist) so I liked that connection also… The lines “a pull of the heart strings” comes from an early piece of sheet music written by my father I discovered after his death …. An atheist, but a believer in women’s intuition, so I figured this was the right time to unite in song my discovery. At the end of the day, a love song. This track was all spontaneous, and the synth track that Brian played was very organic, and played like a lead break on guitar. It then ended up back at Daniel’s studio where Laurence Pike added live drums, and Daniel added strings.
I ended up adding live drums to 4 of the 11 tracks, and love the energy that Laurence brought to the album.
Your vocal style has always carried a strong atmosphere. Did you approach your voice differently on this album?
Jacqui Hunt: I think my voice has changed in some aspects, matured as well, maybe a bit more gravel in my sound these days… or on some days ( haha). Some vocals are very much the raw initial idea and in the recording, and other tracks such as ‘’Cycles” was recorded in two takes maybe, like it is almost a live band recording. The track was fully formed with the drums, I think the track has that atmosphere which might showcase a different sound for me. “This Love” also falls into the same category, although the drums track was post vocal.
“Cycles” is the only track actually where the backing is fully completed prior to vocals going down, which is how I worked in the past. Other tracks were constructed in the studio and formed as I went along. Doing a vocal or changing a synth or adding piano again… It’s true I didn’t go in with the vocals entirely worked out like I have in the past, I wrote in the moment, and the tracks were building around me, and layering.
Are there particular sounds or production techniques on Desiderium that you feel define this record compared to your earlier solo work?
Jacqui Hunt: For me Desiderium is definitely overall more intimate and organic, although it has a decent share of electronic blends, in an atmospheric way, I guess it is less beat driven, and the songs have less pop structure and overall synth dominance than my last album. There are a couple that fall into that space. It has a few genre blends in some ways, I just wanted to indulge a space that allows me to be both, to say that I am both, because I am. Electro and acoustic/organic. In the same way I listen to both from other artists. I think the addition of live drumming has defined a new feel for my solo work, while maintaining the technique of previous work such as “planet”. Overall using less loops, and more bass guitar on this album, and hardware synths.
How does your current creative process compare to how you worked in the Single Gun Theory days? Do you feel more freedom now with modern tools, or were there advantages to the limitations you had earlier on?
Jacqui Hunt: Everything is different to Single Gun Theory days. There was not as much scope to develop from my perspective as a musician and performer within the bands structure, and yet I really believed in what we were creating, and wanted to take it as far as it could go, it ended prematurely for me in terms of the music, and yet perhaps this was a blessing, It would have needed to change the group dynamic emotionally and creatively if we were to continue. I feel certain that SGT are proud of what we made, and all have our slant on the history. We certainly turned down some wonderful opportunities when it came to touring, which was a hard pill to swallow for me. The band has maintained some very dedicated followers which is really so very wonderful. It’s hard to believe how long ago it was, and I have enjoyed recent communications with both Kath and Pete.
There are so many incredible digital sounds today, and a lot to scroll past as well in presets, it is easy to get lost in the search and tweaking. For me enjoyable and frustrating, and a place where time dissolves, it can been a huge distraction, and also an exciting exploration. Pete did the production with SGT. It was all so new when SGT began, and it wasn’t just the use of beats etc, but the spoken word samples. It had a recognisable handwriting, and I do think while many things are easier now with tech, it is still the combination of many elements falling into sync at the right moment in time that allows music to connect with others outside the world of the composer and the experience that it may bring during that process. Multiple recording possibilities instead of tape, I’d say that’s an advantage..and yet for me the draw cards in my opinion were all made by people. The cutups, the voice, the lyrics, the riffs, the melodic hooks. The tech was a tool and is still a tool, an exciting tool, and created a new type of musician along the way.
I absolutely feel that I have more freedom than ever before as a musician. It’s taken me a while to reach this point.To give myself permission to not have to fall into a particular expectation, either placed on me by others or by myself.
Did you collaborate with others on this album? If so, how did those collaborations shape the final result?
Jacqui Hunt: Yes, Daniel Denholm who mixed the album is a co writer on “Cecilia”, and Brian Conolly and I co-wrote the majority of the album. Daniel introduced me to Laurence Pike who is an amazing drummer, and makes wonderful albums of his own. I was fortunate to have Laurence contribute to four of the tracks. It was an intimate circle, and I’d worked with Daniel when I made “Auraphonic”. Daniel mixed the album and so brings a handwriting to the album, in my opinion an overall smoothness.
What was the timeframe for making it? Does it reflect material written over a longer period, or was it created in a more concentrated stretch?
Jacqui Hunt: The timeframe was I needed to release something at the beginning of 2026. I just had to for my own sanity, and for reasons as expressed earlier. I knew I could potentially never be ready, so I needed to give myself this deadline. To push it out no matter, I had dabbled and procrastinated and explored for ages and it was time, I had ideas and sketches and I was never potentially ever going to be ready. The universe made it very clear. I could always find another reason to hold off, but now I needed to let go. I needed that release, and that re directed focus, it was part of my personal growth after some tough years, and I just needed to leap.
In what ways does Desiderium feel like a continuation of your past work, and where does it break new ground?
Jacqui Hunt: Desiderium is a continuation of all my work the way I see it, my solo work and collaborations. In the way that it is my voice that I am continuing to use, as a form of expression through my life. A passion that seems to keep me wanting more, to keep striving for something that I want to get closer to, it is a complex energy, and has many facets, like a love relationship. I think it teaches me something about myself. In that way, Desiderium has taught me valuable lessons. I am a student to the phenomenon of music creation, and the power that it has to transform and absorb. I’m like a kid who changes school a few times trying to find where I fit, and perhaps that is where I fit, in a changing landscape, and also the lesson, that the landscape is changing.
You’ve worked within electronic music since before it was mainstream. Does the current landscape feel like it’s finally caught up, or moved somewhere else entirely?
Jacqui Hunt: That is an interesting question. I think it has caught up in some respects, in the sense that electronic is not on the outer edge of mainstream for sure. I have no doubt that new interpretations of how we engage audio is on the horizon, and that could deliver another genre potentially. I think there will still be room for classics, of which electronic will take it’s rightful place, alongside the others.
There’s often a tension between technology and emotion in electronic music. Do you see that as something to resolve, or something to lean into?
Jacqui Hunt: I am unsure if I am interpreting the question correctly, but think that emotion is not something to shy away from musically, I’d be inclined to think certain sounds trigger certain emotional reactions or responses in the same way major and minor chords do, and always open for analysis, and maybe something to resolve or not, a case by case situation really.
Are you planning to perform this material live?
Jacqui Hunt: I would love to perform live again, and I would delve into the current and back catalogue of my musical journey to date, I hope this may well be part of my evolution to come.
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