Press Recent Reviews Sean Sennett Lost & Found "Pure pop from start to finish ... think two parts Go Betweens to one part David Bridie ... every track is painstakingly crafted to stand alone as a single" The Australian **** Daily Telegraph Sydney "Lost & Found has more going for it than intelligent writing. Sennett has a voice that wraps around you like a warm blanket on a winter night. And when Katie Noonan turns up to guest on a couple of tracks, her cut crystal cameos prove the perfect foil." **** The Sydney Morning Herald "The nicest thing about this album is the way it rolls gently through a varied but distinctly Australian landscape...the foreboding undertow in 'Sister Bright Light' could almost be a lost Paul Kelly classic" Rolling Stone "Sean Sennett makes a point of mixing up the moods, there are soulful shuffles...and some downbeat acoustica, while savvy production gives his tunes a 21st century sheen. The result is a set of smart, thoughtful, grown up pop songs". The Bulletin "One of the finest pieces of intelligent pop song writing I've heard this year" Evolver Magazine Flying high RITCHIE YORKE Sunday Mail 28jun03 ONE of the essential credos of music industry success is maintaining a steadfast, never-give-up attitude. You may not always win but as long as you keep trying, you have a chance. Otherwise, you're out of the race. It's an outlook that has served Brisbane singer/songwriter/musicologist Sean Sennett extremely well as he ploughed his way through 10 years of ups and downs – more of the latter than the former. Now, as he sits on the verge of a national breakthrough with his new song and its stunning video, the exercise is probably starting to make a lot more sense. "Youthful naivety is what got me through," he is quick to acknowledge over a coffee at newly launched Fortitude Valley hang-out The Main Squeeze in Brisbane. The song that's starting to make a major fuss is My Love is a Kite, the second single from his album Lost and Found. The first-class song also offers a vocal collaboration with Katie Noonan (George, Elixir) and mixing by Jeremy Allom (Massive Attack). But it's the striking, imaginative video that will command attention and lift this song above the everyday and provide it with due prominence. There's quite a story behind the video, which was produced virtually as an overseas "calling card" by Michael Gracey and Peter Commins, for their Babyfoot video production company. Babyfoot won Best Video at last year's ARIA awards (for the song Karma by 1200 Techniques) and they were keen to produce an even more dazzling effort with My Love is a Kite. Babyfoot had previously been responsible for videos by Delta Goodrem (Innocent Eyes), the Sugababes (Shape) and Baz Luhrmann's musical releases. With My Love is a Kite, the company pioneered the use of puppetry with computer techniques, a form best left to Sennett to explain. "Babyfoot made some puppets and then constructed a set to put the puppets in," Sennett says. "They filmed some sequences and then put the results through a computer process and added animated heads on top of the puppets. "When you see the whole clip, there's this aerial dogfight sequence over Dover. "The girl finds a bomb, puts it in her fridge and conspires to blow her favourite pilot and lover out of the sky to be back in her arms." He adds, with considerable understatement: "Visually, it's quite amazing." Presumably the programmers of MTV and Channel V will be similarly entranced by the video, which Babyfoot is using to sell its services internationally. Not that My Love is a Kite is the first success for Sennett. During the past decade, he has made some formidable inroads as a songwriter, individually and in collaborations with such tunesmiths as Stephen Cummings, Midnight Oil's Rob Hirst, Robert Parde, Ross Wilson and Mark Seymour. Last year, his song Lost and Found became a widely requested favourite on Triple-J but My Love is a Kite threatens to lift his profile into the national spotlight. No one could deny it has been an arduous journey. "After having my first single, A Girl Called Love, gain a lot of Triple-J airplay early on, I signed with Westside, which was owned by E Street," Sennett says. "That fell apart and I thought of quitting. "Then I was offered a songwriting deal by Mushroom Publishing, which led to a record contract with Festival. "An album called This Boy's Life was released and then Festival had a big collapse. "I signed with W.Minc and released Lost and Found initially but Virgin stopped distributing the label. Again I was going to pack it in. "But Lost and Found finally found its way out there through ABC. The song has to be the end in itself. That's the only reason that you do it. "I just think that the end has to be the song. When you're 15, you want to write a song. It's the same now. "Having been fortunate enough to have a few of my songs covered by other artists, I think that I am able to write a decent song. But it's not something I take for granted." There's also the awareness factor. As a rock journalist and managing editor of Time Off (he has been involved in more than 800 issues of the Brisbane street paper), Sennett has chronicled the foibles of the music industry over many years. He has observed the desperation required to stay afloat in what is sometimes a sea of mediocrity. In short, he has done the maths. He knows how much time things can take, and that anything that does happen overnight is not likely to linger. As befits a man who has patiently waited for his day in the sun, Sennett remains fairly laid back about his prospects. "The record's finished and I'm very proud of it," he says. "Now the video's arrived and whatever happens, happens. "We're not after world domination. After a while, you gain new appreciation of what it takes to create a musical standard. Getting a song up and away is so dependent on oxygen from so many sources. "We're just hoping that the album does well enough for us to record more stuff, that's our main intention. Even if it doesn't, I'll probably do another album to give to friends." The death of his mother last year prompted Sennett to re-evaluate his priorities. "I've had a few reality checks in the last 12 months that have made me realise there are more important things in life than worrying about stuff like that. "Basically, I feel that if Ross Wilson thinks a song of mine (Same as Me) is good enough to go alongside his best songs on his anthology, then I can keep on doing it." • Lost and Found by Sean Sennett is out now through ABC Music. © Queensland Newspapers Critic proves 'em wrong Joel Dullroy Courier Mail, 13 June 2003 It's often claimed that rock music writers are nothing more than failed musicians, embittered at their own shortcomings, enacting their revenge by writing scathing reviews. Sean Sennett is one rock writer who disproves the critics. The publisher of Time Off magazine produces sensational sensible rock-pop tunes which reveal no such shortcomings. He has nothing to feel embittered about, save perhaps the knowledge that his music is too good to be appreciated by the majority of undiscerning listeners. Like most quality music, it's stuff that is destined to be critically acclaimed but tragically ignored. Sennett and his band Crush 76 (complete with a fat-sounding Fender Rhodes keyboard) warmed a chilly Monday night in the Brunswick Street Mall. He's modest about his job ("If I was a plumber, nobody would say, 'Oh, that's interesting'," he jokes), and says he was writing music long before he was writing about music. The just-released album Lost & Found almost never happened. Sennett says he thought his record-making days were over until the song was picked up by an indie label and given high rotation on Triple J. "It's like having a second bite at the cherry," he says. Check out www.brispop.com for info on Sennett and other Brisbane artists.