This bird has flown. Angie Hart, formerly of Frente! and Splendid, is one of the most enigmatic and lovely people to know.

She has spent half her life in the public eye since Frente! and it hasn’t been easy. Angela Ruth Hart, now 35, has faced a few demons along the way. Some of them live and breathe in the graceful airs of her new album, Grounded Bird. Although to be honest they probably started life much earlier. Uncomfortable with the spotlight that blazed on her original band in which she shared the limelight with former barman at Melbourne’s Punters Club, Simon Austin, Hart has grown up the hard way emotionally. EPs such as Clunk with the massively popular, Ordinary Angels, pre-empted the smash hit that was Marvin The Album. And from that November 1992 release came the ever popular Accidentally Kelly Street. A backlash of sorts followed after the media obsessed over Frente in the ensuing months and Angie stunned everybody by posing nude for the now defunct Australian music mag, Juice.

A version of New Order’s Bizarre Love Triangle gave the band a US hit, however constant touring from 1993-95 diminished Hart and Austin’s songwriting powers and left them exhausted. And while 1996’s Shape contained some good songs the writing was on the wall and it finally peeled off at Big Day Out in January 1997.

Angie eventually settled in LA where she began making jewellery and married and formed the band Splendid with Jesse Tobias whom she’d met when Frente supported Alanis Morissette in Canada in 1996. Tobias was the tall Canadian’s guitarist. An album, Have You Got A Name For It, was released in Australia-only in 1999 as their US record company collapsed. Five years later the marriage did as well and the couple have now divorced.

At the heart of Grounded Bird is that break-up and the ensuing changes in Angie’s life. It is a brave, honest and, at times, brilliant album. Musically, it is massive step forward - big atmospheres, huge dynamics, subtle contrasts, epic guitars and melodic keyboards and Angie’s unique voice. It is her finest work.

“I laid everything on the line I think,” she says. “It was just a case of me being honest. At times, I did think ‘what am I putting out there’ and there is that thing about the songs being cathartic but there’s also the thing of if you keep having to talk about the songs and perform them then you are always being reminded of what happened.

“I mean, most of these songs are about me. Like My Year Of Drinking – which was actually two years. Others are less obvious. When I wrote them I didn’t necessarily know exactly what they were about but they generally reveal themselves to me.”

One of the standouts is the epic Kiwi, a song which sonically is at the very heart of the album – think Godspeed! You Black Emperor or Sigur Ros – a slow atmospheric build to an explosive ending. Who would have imagined Angie Hart doing that. The song was inspired by an NZ short film about a kiwi, a flightless bird who through great effort (and imagination) ends up flying. The metaphor though is obvious. Hart sings, “I’m not asking for the world/I’m just staring at the sky/I don’t think I’m more than just a girl/but I would like no more than to fly.’’

“It’s odd, I see this as a very intimate and pared back record yet I suppose it is very big as well,” she says. “But that’s like life, as well. I guess it’s all about transformation and growth and moving on – and, eventually, you do move on. I’ve found my way despite it all.”

You get the feeling, talking with her, that Angie may still be working out how far she’s gone. Yet to the outsider who walks into her life every now and then it’s quite obvious that this is a changed woman. I first interviewed her 15 or 16 years ago – she was the shyest of shy; cutest of cute. Three years later, Angie was frayed, smiling on the outside but not on the inside. In Los Angeles, she seemed content, yet not content. When Frente! reformed she was a work in progress. Now look at her. She looks transformed. The woman inside the girl who was an anything but an ordinary angel in Frente! Is something else indeed. Hell, she’s even looking forward to touring. The old Angie was never that happy about getting in front of an audience. “It’s true. I am actually looking forward to doing some shows. They are edgy and a challenge for me because I don’t know how the audience will react – and I have to win them over. With the Frente! shows in 2005 the audience was won over before the show began. They knew every word, sang every song, and while that’s is nice, I’m not really comfortable with it, and it doesn’t leave much for the performer. But my solo shows are much different – I get a lot from them.” In fact she’d like to do even more than those that are already scheduled. How about that. She laughs at the reality.

This bird is no longer grounded.

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