CINDER WELL A Blooming Body (Hen House Studios) INTIMACY AND VASTNESS, the finer details observed but the space around them no less clear for its openness, is not just tricky to make work but potentially disconcerting to experience. If you are unsure where to ground yourself, or if you found a base but can’t be certain it is fixed, would you stay or look for an escape? And what I’m describing here is both musical and lyrical, sound and tone. Some – many? – would say, I’m ou

Worker bee musician, organiser, promoter, friend of Joni & Elton & Tanya, collaborator with dozens more, ultimate Pacific Northwest represent, and no mean songwriter and singer, Brandi Carlile can do, and does, a lot. Including playing at the Super Bowl. She’s currently on tour through the USA, a tour which is unlikely to make it to Australia, so Wind Back Wednesday looks to fill the gap somewhat. Not a show but an interview with Carlile from 2020 that originally ran in three

Dave Warner and friends from The Suburbs. THE MAN WHO HAS BOTH an honours degree majoring in psychology and a proto-punk band in Perth called Pus on his resume, one David Robert – but we shall call him Dave – Warner, has behind him a large French poster for one of the Indiana Jones movies, alongside some books, records and other paraphernalia of your artsy type who has written a score of books and some films alongside quite a few albums. He looks like the even cheerier altern

From Ithaca to Washington, from Aeaea to Hollywood, it's a truth. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Find that the fabled tales of more great playlists like this are actually true when you search my name out on Spotify.

“There’s a great Irish philosopher called John Moriaty who talks a lot about the importance of doing things that don’t make any sense, what they can actually do for your life.” Glen Hansard: 1970-2026. “Darling, you simply must, I insist, come and see The Frames. I won’t forgive you if you don’t but you will thank me. They are simply divine.” In the second half of 2002, my friend Gaynor Crawford, promoter, publicist, woman of impeccable taste, holder of great loves and even g

PERRY KEYES The Alison Bend (EH Records) MOMENTS DON’T TELL YOU EVERYTHING; too many things happen, have happened, can still happen to be definitive. We know this, right? See someone at their worst and that’s not them; catch a slice of bad luck and that can’t be the only luck you’ll get; a word hurled mid-fight isn’t the way you really feel, or not all the time, or not the only thing you’re feeling anyway; mistakes you’ve made are not impossible to recover from, won’t be he

Ross Wilson as captured by Stuart Spence Here we have the next instalment in What Comes To Mind, an alternative series in the Wind Back Wednesday space, based on the work of the brilliant photographer Stuart Spence, whose not-so-secret goal was to dig into my brain or soul or what might pass for both. Each time, he pulls out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenges me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious

BUDJERAH Gentleman (Warner) THIS IS A CLASSY debut album from Budjerah Slabb, a Coodjinburra man from the Bundjalung nation up north in NSW, who has been on the radar for three years and a set of increasingly more confident singles but wisely chose not to rush into a big statement too early. Not that you’d call this a big statement exactly, more a declaration of interests that sets his direction. What Slabb is offering is contemporary-ish R&B (tinged with gospel and Stevie

It will take heavier chemicals and deep cleansing to remove the evidence, but we can make a start. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN More playlists to deep-clean countries by at Spotify. Look for my name.