Tim Hart (not to be confused with the late frontman of Steeleye Span) initially found success as the drummer of award-winning Australian indie folk-rock quintet Boy & Bear. After he brought his song "Stride by Stride" along to a Boy & Bear recording session, the band's frontman, Dave Hosking, encouraged him to write more and to record an album of his own. Hart wrote the songs for his debut solo effort, 2012's Milling the Wind, over the course of a year while Boy & Bear toured in support of their breakthrough debut album, Moonfire. When the band took a fortnight's hiatus for guitarist Killian Gavin's wedding, Hart headed north to Cairns to record with his friend Mark Myers, formerly of the Middle East. The album was recorded over the two-week period in Myers' home studio and features several of his erstwhile bandmates, as well as guest appearances by most of Hart's Boy & Bear colleagues. Inspired by Hart's love of reading, especially English novelists such as William Boyd and Graham Greene, and folk music giants like Bob Dylan, Nick Drake, Neil Young, and Simon & Garfunkel, the acoustic-based album's story-songs have a pared-down, in-your-face production that gives them a raw immediacy. In the years following its release, Hart resumed his position with Boy & Bear, touring the world as the band notched a pair of Australian number ones with 2013's Harlequin Dream and 2015's Limit of Love. Along the way, Hart continued to write, drawing on themes of loss, disconnection, and aspects of travel culled from his daily reality. In 2017, he completed work on his solo follow-up, The Narrow Corner, a slightly lusher, though still subtle affair co-produced by Mark Myers and Wayne Connolly. The album's lead single, "I'd Do Well," was released in October of that year. ~ John D. Buchanan