Music marks out the phases of our lives like a timestamp. Hearing heartbreak albums or feeling-myself-era anthems, even years down the line, evokes memories of how we felt when we first had them on repeat.
The same goes for making music, says singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist turned furniture-maker Lachlan Denton, who played in multiple outfits – including the Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch, as well as a prolific pairing with local musician Emma Russack – before going solo.
“I’ve always seen the records I’ve made as time capsules. I enjoy that I can look back on every record I’ve been a part of, listen to it, and I know where I was at and what I was doing,” he tells Broadsheet.
Throughout his twenties, Lachlan made a lot of music in Melbourne with younger brother Zac Denton (also a member of the Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch). The Wagga Wagga-raised brothers and best mates worked on around 18 albums together – forging their identities and an even deeper bond through music-making. So, when Zac died suddenly in 2018, Lachlan faced a heavy grief and, eventually, the desire to redefine himself creatively.
“I wanted to do something different and not be focused on music, as that’s something that Zac and I had done together.”
He struck out on his own by enrolling in a furniture-making course at Tafe in 2020. “I accumulated some [basic] tools and started teaching myself at the same time as doing a course. It sort of took over my life.”
Lachlan honed his practice during Melbourne’s long lockdowns making custom pieces for family and friends – from a sleek and sturdy kitchen island to boxy, pared-back record shelving made with salvaged floorboards.
Now all that dedication is starting to pay off. Last month, Lachlan launched his debut furniture collection alongside his third solo studio album, Furnishings. For him, the two projects were always meant to be enjoyed together.
“I had the idea early on of creating a space that you could walk into, and the record would be playing, and the furniture would be there,” he says. “It’s a space that I would want to exist in.”
The warmly minimalist collection starts at $100 and features six pieces that stand out with their spare yet sturdy structures, exacting corners and raw wooden hues. There’s a low-lying bed frame, an open-backed record unit, floating planter boxes, an airy open-facing wardrobe, a sturdy work desk, and a stool.
The sleek record unit is divided into five compartments for easy storage and organisation, while the minimalist bed frame cradles your mattress on a low platform. Lachlan crafts the furniture in his studio in Melbourne’s north and can adjust each piece to custom dimensions.
It’s all made using recycled Australian hardwood, which he sources from roadside collections, Facebook Marketplace and scrap yards and transforms into laminate. First he planes the out-of-shape timber to create flat surfaces and square edges. Then he glues the timber and laminates it together for strength, before cutting pieces down and reassembling them into furniture. The wood comes in varying tones of light yellow to golden brown, with streaks of dark brown and black throughout – lending a one-off feel to each piece.
“I wanted to work with recycled materials. [Hardwood is] the one thing that there’s an absolute abundance of in Australia,” he says.
As for the album, it brims with songs dedicated to Lachlan’s family members, with an opener dedicated to his late brother. “After Zac passed away, I decided I wanted to write a song for every member of my family, to say all the things that up until that point I hadn’t.”
In some ways, the songs are about opening himself up: to those around him and to himself as he embraces furniture-making as part of his creative practice.
“I’ve defined myself as a musician for so long,” Lachlan says. “It felt like the only way I could justify doing a furniture collection … was to bring the two things together and create a new picture of how I see myself.” And, perhaps, to timestamp this season of his life with a beautiful soundtrack.
Lachlan Denton’s furniture range starts at $100 for a square-edged planter box and goes up to around $2000 for a minimalist, low-lying bed frame. All pieces are made to order and can be commissioned via email. The studio album Furnishings can be purchased on vinyl at The Sound of Vinyl.
