The proudly independent project of Naarm / Melbourne fixture Tom Iansek, #1 Dads, today unveils his latest album Every Little Fire. LISTEN HERE.

It’s as #1 Dads that Tom Iansek produces his most personal work, and today’s release, his fourth album under the moniker, chronicles an especially transformative era. A plea for resilience, Every Little Fire wrestles with carving out stability, peace and artistic fulfilment amid dramatic upheaval following an especially transformative stretch for Iansek: becoming a father to two young children, and relocating his personal and professional life from Melbourne/Naarm to London.

Across 12 tracks, the album confronts the messy realities of maintaining precious relationships and creating meaningful work while managing life’s complexities. “New baby, setting up a new life, dismantling an old one. Adulting, buying a house, packing up and moving out, having dependents,” Iansek lists. “That was my emotional landscape, so it was tapping into that. It was not an easy thing to do. It has been an insane, wonderful, chaotic, intense and joyful period of my life.” Every Little Fire doesn’t “fight against what’s happening in the moment”, it embraces spontaneity and personal circumstances.

These are sincere, sensitive songs that draw from the deeply personal. “I don’t have any other option,” Iansek continues, who views songwriting as “coming to terms with my own life and what’s happening in it.” The time-poor parent instinctually mined present emotional truths rather than crafty poetic prose. “The more I make music, the more I’m interested in using what is at hand and honouring that. The time and resources available: ‘This is where I am, this is who I am. This is just me doing my best with what I’ve got’,” Iansek says.

True to his word, Every Little Fire is produced and mixed by Iansek himself largely out of a bedroom studio, tracked in small recording spaces with contributions from London-based musician Chris Hyson and engineer/drummer Lloyd Haynes, with remote contributions from bassist Antoine Katz, bandmate Gus Rigby, vocalist Georgia Potter, Jordan White (aka Braille Face), and engineer Isaac Barter on strings. The result favours torchlit piano, lush strings and understated guitar over studio polish — tempos drift, breaths stay in the mix, and takes run longer than a bigger studio would allow.

Lead single ‘Already Something’ — a brass-laden ode to partnerships that outlast adversity, featuring a saxophone solo from Gus Rigby — drew early notice from Atwood Magazine, which described it as a striking return from an artist whose songwriting has long outpaced his public profile. Elsewhere on the record, the tyranny of distance runs through the slow-burning ‘Love No Light’, the anthemic ‘Post Card’ tracks the work of rebuilding a home from “a million cuts and bruises”, and the bustling ‘Tonight Alive’ opens the album’s more upbeat, synth-led side.

Today’s focus, ‘Love No Light’, Iansek explains, highlights the transformative power of place, breaking routine and the discovery of experiencing a new everyday to challenge oneself. “Getting away to find yourself, away from the other from whom has longed formed part of how you define yourself. The subject finds themselves in a new place, looking for something, they’re not sure exactly what yet, but also feeling out of place as they’re not used to being on their own. How vital is that missing part?”

Everything Tom Iansek does is arguably a passion project, but emerging in the wake of an especially fundamental period of life and the significant upheaval it presented, his fourth album as #1 Dads is his most profound solo endeavour yet. At the centre of Every Little Fire is a voice that can be obstinate or apologetic, filled with grief or gratitude, but more often reaches for hope. It’s the sound of an artist asking his nearest and dearest to have a little faith – to see the possibility of adventure, rather than only the hardship of change.

A rewarding evolution for those who’ve followed #1 Dads’ 15-year trajectory, experience Iansek’s refined sensibilities later this month upon his anticipated return to Australia for his 25 date ‘solo dad mode’ tour – tickets are selling fast across his extended regional dates.