Karma chameleons Felicity and Josh. Photo by Asha Kidd. NONE OF THIS FLASH hotel room malarkey, not even a café in some on-trend spot with a hissing coffee machine in the background, for Felicity Urquhart and Josh Cunningham in interview mode. Today they greet me, partly off-camera each – turn your phone to landscape! – from the salubrious confines of the front of their van. With their dog, Wilson, a silent partner. Working musicians with an extensive tour starting on Friday?

Come May, armed with an orchestra, maybe a rumpled suede suit, but definitely songs from albums like Sea Change , Mutations  and Morning Phase , the artist once, currently and very likely forever known as Beck will be in Australia. Or at least Sydney and Melbourne, which is not quite the same thing admittedly, but if you don't tell Adelaide et al, I won't. (Tickets on sale tomorrow, see below.) It’s not his first tour here, obviously, but will be the tour with the highest bo

Jalen Ngonda, looking for a driver, not just a car. Photo by Rosie Cohe. CAUGHT AT THE BEGINNING of his second visit to Australia – maybe you saw one of his irresistible groove shows in January 2025 – just as he is announcing a second album due out mid-year, Jalen Ngonda is busy. Busy reviving the golden age of soul – from the dawn of Sam Cooke via tight suits in Detroit to tight harmonies in Philadelphia a decade later, like he didn’t just hear this stuff but might have act

Seasonal greetings as the leaves fall but the songs rise. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Almost as many of my playlists as there are leaves can be found at Spotify. Rake them in.

MITSKI Nothing’s About To Happen To Me (Dead Oceans)   BACK WHEN I USED TO do a lot of travelling for work, occasionally in packs but much of it solo, with the daytimes filled with meetings or interviews or simply getting from one place to another in a strange city or a strange country, beginnings and ends of days had quite different versions of me. At breakfast in the dining room or common area I wanted no one, no conversation or interactions. It’s not that I’m some anti-mor

There's glitter on earth but it's all praise to the one above for Annie And The Caldwells. Photo by Annie Forrest. WE DON’T DO GOSPEL much around here, what with Australia being a fairly secular place of little public singing, with a pretty white history only now realising not every sacred moment has to come with a dull hymn or a true blue bush ballad. Bless. And it took us to the brink of the 21 st  century to get a proper handle on funk, a bit longer if you lived outside Me

Ignatius Jones of Jimmy And The Boys not quite getting that stigmata thing right. Photo 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. Each time, he will dig out a photo from his archives going back almost 50 years and challenge me to respond with what comes to mind when I look at that image. It might be serious or ridiculous, perso

Your best friend has a story for you. Stella Donnelly live (though not at the OAF here) STELLA DONNELLY Oxford Art Factory, Sydney, February 19   SHE IS THAT ENTHUSIASTIC best friend who’s always got something excellent to tell you. Grinning as she approaches maybe, furrowed brow on another day, but always tapping you on the arm or chest like she is bursting to share or to dance. Or both. At the same time. Not surprisingly, you find yourself doing it too, unintentionally mirr

Don't do it alone, share the music and the love. After a nap of course. CLICK HERE TO LISTEN Your solitude need never be silent if you find more of my playlists at the villa de Spotify.