The Yearlings

Chris Parkinson debut solo album launch - Children During Wartime - an instrumental guitar record created in response to the invasion of Ukraine.

Chris Parkinson has well earned his standing as one of Australia’s very finest expressive guitarists. Best known as one half of iconic South Australian duo The Yearlings alongside his partner of 25 years Robyn Chalklen, Chris is a highly respected and experienced musician and collaborator renowned for bringing a depth of tone and nuanced touch to his craft. Chris Parkinson has contributed to dozens of albums - and countless hundreds of live performances - in a wide variety of contexts, for over 35 years. Children During Wartime is his first-ever solo offering.

Children During Wartime is a collection of exquisite and emotionally-charged musical vignettes brimming with pathos. From the plaintive opener Ukraine, through the drive and reckoning of Somewhere Over There to the haunting First Day of Spring, this is a body of work borne from empathy and deep feeling.

As Chris explains; “When all of us knew of the impending Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, I went to the Kyiv webcam and watched as cars rolled by, everything looking quite normal and peaceful, but checking in on the webcam on the first day of the invasion there was nothing but blackness, the webcam vision had disappeared and the hell of what was to be the new normal for so many lives struck me hard. The week after I composed the beginning of a tune that was to become ‘Ukraine’ and the birth and direction of this record began. And the tunes kept coming. I don’t normally write in this way… but it dawned on me that I was reacting to how I felt about the children and their innocence and I finally realised that that was the record and I wanted to share those feelings”.

Children During Wartime was conceived, composed, performed, recorded, engineered, mastered and produced by Chris Parkinson, at The Yearlings’ own recording studio My Sweet Mule, making this album a truly solo venture in all regards. Recorded during the Spring of 2024, each instrumental has been captured live with one microphone and zero edits (and just one overdub).

Lean on in and listen; to the weave of sorrow and pain, of urgency and courage, imbued with the ultimately hopeful optimism of children during wartime.

The Yearlings will play a set from 9pm