Valley Road Find Beauty in the Open Air

Some records sound like the place they were made.

On Plein Air, Central Victorian duo Valley Road draw on dry bush, rolling hills, summer heat, drought and long stretches of country road to make an album that feels firmly connected to the landscape around them.

Long-time friends Bec Howell and Marty McKenna have always understood the power of keeping things simple. As Valley Road, their music is built around close harmonies, acoustic instruments and carefully observed songwriting, with echoes of Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Joan Shelley and Iron & Wine. But listen a little closer and this is unmistakably Australian folk music, shaped by where they live and the lives being lived around them.

Their second album, Plein Air, takes that connection to place even further. The title comes from the French term en plein air — painting outdoors, capturing the light, colour and atmosphere of a landscape as it is in that particular moment. It's a fitting idea for two songwriters whose lives are spent largely outside. McKenna lives on a sprawling Merino sheep farm, while Howell lives off-grid in a bushland hideaway, and the Central Victorian landscape inevitably finds its way into their songs.

“We both live rurally, Marty on a sprawling Merino sheep farm, and Bec living off-grid in a bushland hideaway, and we draw heavily on these contexts in our writing,” the pair explain.

That landscape isn't simply scenery on Plein Air. It's part of the storytelling.

There's the pull of escape in ‘Rising Moon’, while ‘Collapse’ captures those moments when emotion arrives without warning and sometimes the only thing to do is let it wash over you. On ‘Shelter’, a shimmering guitar figure with a touch of Neil Young's Harvest Moon frames Howell and McKenna's intertwined voices as the song moves through much more difficult territory.

Written around a troubled period in Howell's marriage, ‘Shelter’ explores what happens when a relationship has been shaken by upheaval and loss, and the complicated process of trying to find your way back to what once felt like home. “The chorus lyrics ‘be my shelter, be my fire’ express a longing and a wish for the sense of home that the relationship once offered,” Howell says.

It's that combination of landscape and real life that gives Plein Air its weight. ‘Long Drive’ stretches out across open roads and rolling country, while ‘Weightless’ captures the sounds and smells of a Central Victorian summer and that familiar sense of renewal that arrives with another year. ‘Song for a Weary Farmer’ looks at the other side of rural life — the deep attachment to farming set against the physical and emotional toll of drought.

Elsewhere, ‘Big Problem’ is a reminder not to lose sight of the things that actually matter, while ‘A Wisdom’ considers what we learn through losing somebody we love. ‘The Herd Returns’ reaches much further from home, drawing an unlikely but poetic connection between ageing and the migratory lives of Lapland reindeer herders.

There is plenty going on beneath these songs, but Valley Road never seem interested in overplaying their hand. The arrangements leave room for the words and harmonies to breathe, which is part of what makes the record feel so natural.

That confidence has grown since the duo's self-titled debut in 2023. The first album came after Valley Road won a Troubadour Foundation Award, giving them the opportunity to record with producer Rod McCormack. It went on to attract national radio attention, including being named ABC Country's Feature Album of the Week, and quietly established Howell and McKenna as a distinctive new voice in Australian country and folk.

For Plein Air, they returned to McCormack, but this time entered the studio with a clearer sense of what Valley Road had become. Most of the new songs were written together rather than drawn from their individual catalogues, and the sound has expanded without losing the intimacy at its centre.

Howell handles vocals, guitars and mandolin alongside McKenna's vocals and guitars, while McCormack adds guitar, banjo, dobro, lap steel and keys. James Gillard brings double bass, Glenn Wilson drums and Zoë Barry cello, adding colour and texture without crowding the songs.

“We both really value honesty and authenticity in music,” Howell and McKenna say, “and we hope this comes through and helps people connect with what we do.”

It does.

There's no great attempt on Plein Air to manufacture an Australian identity or dress folk music up in borrowed clothes. The Australianness is simply there — in the weather, the distances, the farm, the bush, the long drive home and the way two voices sound when everything else is stripped away.

Like the painters who gave the album its name, Valley Road have stepped outside and captured what's in front of them.
Sometimes that's where the best stories are.

VALLEY ROAD LIVE
Friday, September 25 @ Major Tom's, Kyneton VIC
Sunday, September 27 @ The Brunswick Green, VIC w/ Ruth Parker
Saturday, October 10 @ Shedshaker Brewing, Castlemaine VIC Double album launch w/ Lucy Wise, plus Luke Watt
Saturday, October 24 @ Upwey Story Tellers, Upwey Belgrave RSL VIC
November 6-8 @ Majors Creek Fest, Majors Creek NSW
November 20-22 @ Burke & Wills Winery, Troubadour Weekend, Mia Mia VIC