Judith Ann Warren is experiencing the peak of success at the age of 67. In February this year, she posed nude on the digital cover of Vogue Singapore, followed by modelling pastel purple hair in the June edition of...
Melbourne has been battered by COVID-19, but our city remains the music capital of Australia, regardless of what Sydney may try to claim. Across genres, there’s been no shortage of recent releases and emerging artists worth crowing about, or...
New Zealand-born Lisa Crawley had stars in her eyes when she landed on US soil. Having lived in Melbourne from 2014 to 2019, after a bit of back of forth between New Zealand and the US, she ended up...
Melbourne three-piece post-punk purveyors Plaster of Paris are bristling, vulnerable and truthful on their debut album, Lost Familiar, out June 23. After years of thrilling Melbourne with brain-shuddering, pelvic-shaking garage rock on stage at some of Melbourne’s finest rock...
When Andrew Weatherall passed away in February 2020, there was little fanfare beyond radio stations playing an (abridged) ode to him, then moving on. Abridged, mostly, because Weatherall’s legendary DJ sets were epic in length, lasting hours upon hours....
Joan of Arc? Joan As Police Woman? Joan Jett? Any of these Joans, and all of them, have the unrepentant, independent spirit that sustains the indie-punk vibe of Teenage Joans. Adelaide duo Tahlia Borg, 18, and Cahli Blakers, 20,...
The Psychedelic Freaks take their own wild, whirling dervish-approach to jazz on their debut Passing Through The Doorways Of Your Mind, released on La Sape Records June 4. Like their name suggests, there’s a lot of adventurous, freak-out psych...
When indie pop songstress Holiday Sidewinder wants to make music, she goes directly to the best in the business. If the business is weird, transcendental, adventurous dance music, all the better. For her second album, Face Of God, she...
Starting off her career as a country artist enabled the public to pigeonhole Tori Forsyth. But Forsyth can’t be tamed. Her voice – rootsy, impassioned, and earthy – has all the glorious storytelling, lived-through-it quality of a country singer,...
Stevie Jean is an honorary Melbournian. Hailing from Humpty Doo – a small town about 30 miles North of Darwin – she’s transitioned to the considerably colder, wetter city and embraced it as her own. And Melbourne has embraced...
Alt-country, nu-folkie Imogen Clark is possibly the hardest working musician you haven’t heard of. She wrote her first song at 13 (“I loved writing my own music,” she admits), going on to tour Australia, release two albums, and work...
“Bury me high upUp on that mountainBella ciao, bella ciao, bella ciao,Bury me high upUp on that mountainAnd let a flower mark my grave” – Anita Lane, “Bella Ciao” Anita Lane was an exceptional talent – a songwriter, a...
Brisbane-based singer-songwriter Asha Jefferies was suffering a serious case of writer’s block last year, when inspiration struck. The end of a long-term relationship provided her with permission to question her identity, her goals, and – ultimately – her sense...
Partying hard, getting evicted, breaking up and starting out on a new solo career – these are the earmarks of a Quarter-life crisis in the making. Sydney-based artist Lola Scott has been through it all, so it makes sense...
Brisbane artist Jaguar Jonze, the alter-ego of Deena Lynch, is brave – both in the bold moves she makes as an artist, and as a woman navigating a tense socio-political climate. Despite her lengthy 2020 hospitalization due to COVID-19,...
Performer, vocalist and composer Gian Slater could have limited herself to purely working in the jazz world – but why would she, when she excels at pushing boundaries? After eight albums of original music, and numerous collaborative projects, she...
While the world awaited Lana Del Rey’s Chemtrails Over The Country Club, diminutive Australian singer Hayley Mary tantalised us with a cover version of its title track for Australian radio station Triple J’s Like A Version series. In a...
Every Saturday afternoon, driving home from teaching a Pilates class, I’d hit the freeway right as the theme song for Twang introduced Denise Hylands’ regular 2-hour country music show on 3RRR. I have to admit, I’ve never been a...
Renée Geyer is a soul superstar in Australia. She is vaunted by various scenes, from jazz to soul to rock and blues. She is regal and rockstar at once, with high cheekbones and a cheeky smile. At 67, she...
Emma Volard’s sound melds rhythm ‘n’ blues, neo-soul and electro in a contemporary, Australian ode to classic soul/hip hop artists like Erykah Badu and Lauryn Hill. Her 2020 single “Femininity” epitomises the brave, take-me-as-I-am-or-don’t attitude Volard espouses in both...
At the beginning of 2020, country singer Tracy McNeil had decided to finally stop dividing her life, giving up her day job as an educator and packing up her belongings to dedicate her life to touring her music. That new chapter...
A recent report by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s youth radio station, Triple J, indicates that women are still underrepresented at almost every level of the music industry, including festival lineups, the boards of major music bodies, radio and at...
Rock ‘n’ roll’s first female roadie has lived with AC/DC, toured with Suzi Quatro, Leo Sayer and Status Quo, and though she couldn’t have imagined it as a teenager, she’s proven women belong backstage. Tana Douglas, a teenager whose...
Georgia Odette Sallybanks – better known simply as Odette – set a high benchmark with her debut album To a Stranger, which peaked at number 13 on the ARIA (Australian Recording Industry Awards) Albums Chart and was nominated for...