Jessie-May K Releases Album ‘Rising Sun’

May 25, 2023

Jessie’s first full length album is a triumph over childhood hardship – she explains below

Since escaping, recovering and healing from some childhood traumas, I’m finally experiencing a life where I’m free to live & not just survive. My whole world has opened up! The sun has finally shone through, I can explore people and places freely and breathe life in! Something I never had the chance to do as a child.

The first 18 years of my life were focused on surviving constant anxiety. It bubbled in my chest and body, it was like I hadn’t a second to take a breath. After escaping this situation, my brain and body shut down for a year like never before. My mental health had never been worse. The physicality of my depression & trauma hit me like a tonne of bricks. My mind and body were completely and rightfully exhausted.

I’ve grown the most, tried the most and felt the most free than ever in my life. I’ve met friends who have shown me levels of kindness and support I’d never experienced before and who help me remember life is worth living. I’m at a stage in my life where I’m younger now, a phoenix, regenerated, a Rising Sun. I’m still eclectic as a creator, but with this album I feel like I’ve really found my sound and one that expresses who I am inside.

There are so many people I couldn’t have made this album without! Artists I’ve collaborated with such as Brandon Macmillan, Jordan Ellery and the extraordinarily talented Dave Hunt. My wonderful sound engineers who do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to these projects: Andrew Beck, Olivia RA, Murray Dilger & Russell Pilling and my Vocal Coach Joanne McMahon.

Jessie-May K is a young Singer, Songwriter, Director, Actor & Artist. Most successful as an internet personality, Jessie has released four singles and a collection of episodic works that accompanied their 5 track EP Zone Out (2020).

Originally trained in Musical Theatre, Jessie transferred to music when they were 16, teaching themselves guitar from YouTube to elevate their musical career, as they had been writing songs with lyrics and melody since they were 5 years old.

Jessie is passionate about social justice and activism, often releasing music about movements that are important to them, raising awareness and sharing donation links in the hopes it will make a difference. Jessie is Neurodivergent and was born with ASD, ADHD, OCD and developed PTSD as a result of their early hardships and extreme childhood trauma. Jessie believes that the world thrives on diversity and that benign individuality is something to be celebrated and not feared.

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Karen Harding Releases Single ‘Devil In The Mirror’

March 27, 2023

Welcoming Karen Harding to Soundslikecafe with her new single Devil in the Mirror already added to our playlist!

With her first track for 2023, Melbourne based singer-songwriter, Karen Harding unveils a metamorphosis, moving away from her previous emotional ballad releases of 2021 and 2022, with her catchy indie-pop single ‘Devil In The Mirror’.

In our modern world, we are constantly faced with images of what we should look like, how we should behave, who we should be and a bar of impossible ‘perfection’ that society expects us to live by. Karen’s self-written, recorded and produced track, ‘Devil In The Mirror’, mixed and mastered by Edwin Kraus, dives into the way that many feel when they don’t see themselves as measuring up.

Within ‘Devil In The Mirror’ – a catchy track filled with driving drum rhythms and 80’s style bass lines, with an underlying ambience of bell synth pads and binaural beats – the devil acts as a metaphor for the judging voice in our heads that is constantly putting us down, and leaving us feeling inadequate, whether that be through body image, relying on acceptance from others or not achieving what we set out to do.

“Like so many people, I have spent so much of my life being afraid to put myself in front of a camera or for people to see the whole me. My ‘devil’ would tell me stories that I didn’t measure up or that I didn’t look how I was supposed to look. I wanted to share this song because I believe that we’re in a pandemic… that people everywhere are striving for impossible, unreachable versions of themselves. I want them to know that they ARE good enough just by being themselves. They finally have the chance to break the mirror and conquer their devil.”

The haunting illustration within the artwork for ‘Devil In The Mirror’ was designed using the power of AI art and then incorporated into the final image by Karen Harding.

Karen Harding is a singer-songwriter from Melbourne, Australia, whose debut single “I Didn’t Realise” released in May 2021 marked the beginning of a musical and personal journey of exploration. Karen has since been pushing the boundaries of creativity, collaborating with a diverse range of artists and producers from around the world.

Karen’s collaborations have included working with Argentinian P&M Records, the Cologne Chamber Orchestra, Canadian producer Landao, Melbourne Hip Hop artist Serif, and an inspiring project with Misia Julia. Her talents have also been recognized through awards and nominations, including winning the 2021 Bendigo Bank sponsored Radio Eastern songwriter talent show, being nominated as a top 10 winner for the World Songwriting Awards, and a nominee for Best International Artist on Crags Radio Independent Artist Awards in February 2022.

Karen’s vocal versatility moves between the ethereal sounds of of Sarah McLaughlan and Eva Cassidy, and to the more powerful pop vocals of Ella Henderson and Adele. Her music has the ability to transport listeners to a dreamland of imagination, with lyrics and melodies that touch upon the human experiences and emotions that connect us all.

For Karen, music has been a world of discovery and possibility, as well as a tool for therapy and personal growth. As she continues to explore her musical talents and creative potential, Karen Harding is sure to captivate audiences with her unique voice and innovative approach to songwriting.

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Jessie-May K with Miguel Cullen-Green Releases Single ‘My Type’

February 17, 2023

Jessie-May K has never been one to follow the crowd, so it’s no surprise that conventional beauty standards hadn’t been implanted into their psyche, the same way they have affected the masses through media consumption and cliquish social paradigms.

My Type was inspired by the beauty Jessie sees in the unconventional and in support of the underdogs and nerdish types. They find themselves often discarded by society and labelled as unattractive and inadequate, when it comes to mankind’s idealisation of relationship partners and cultural paradigms.

The song was written in collaboration with Miguel Cullen-Green who is an excellent artist himself and a friend of Jessie’s. Although My Type is their first musical project together, Miguel is an actor as well as musician and has been featured in some of Jessie’s music videos.

Jessie-May K is a young Singer, Songwriter, Director, Actor & Artist. Most successful as an internet personality, Jessie has released 4 Singles (2018-2021) & a collection of episodic works that accompany a 5 track EP titled ‘Zone Out’ in 2020.

Originally trained in Musical Theatre, Jessie transferred to music when they were 16. As they had been writing songs with lyrics and melody since they were 5 years old they taught themselves guitar off YouTube to elevate their musical ambitions.

Jessie is passionate about social justice and activism, often releasing music about movements that are important to them, raising awareness and sharing donation links in the hopes it will make a difference. Jessie is Neurodivergent & was born with ASD, ADHD, OCD and developed PTSD as a result of their early hardships and extreme childhood trauma. Jessie believes that the world thrives on diversity and that benign individuality is something to be celebrated and not feared.

Download or stream:

Connect with Jessie-May Kitchen:

Luke Escombe Releases New Album ‘Whale Beach Road’

August 19, 2022

Finally out on all digital platforms here is Luke’s latest album, an ode to brilliant songwriting and musicianship all wound up in family stories.
Luke says –
“I genuinely believe that Whale Beach Road is the best album of “adult music” I’ve made, and it’s very special to me because of all the family history written into the songs.

Whale Beach Road is the first full studio album I’ve made solely under my own name. I started writing the songs in early 2020, towards the end of the fires and before the first lockdown. Initially, I was working on a memoir but then the stories started turning into songs instead.

At first, I was hesitant to apply for Jobkeeper in 2020, as I felt like other people needed it more than me, but then I realised it would give me the funds to go and employ all of the amazing musicians on this album, like drummer Evan Mannell, bassist Zoe Hauptmann, Aaron Flower on guitar and Clayton Doley on Hammond organ. There was even enough to get string and backing vocal arrangements for most of the songs, which gives it that luxurious 70’s soul vibe I was after while still sounding modern and clean. I could have been a hermit and lived off beans and rice, but instead Jobkeeper enabled me to keep creating and collaborating with my community.

Whale Beach Road is a very personal album, but I think there’s also something very universal there in that the songs are all about searching for love and hope in an uncertain world. It was all written and tracked between the Northern Beaches of Sydney and the Central Coast, and I think those beautiful locations feed into the sound. Hopefully the album takes listeners to a good place.”

Family – On Feature Track ‘Max and Melanie’

“While I was writing Max and Melanie I had the idea that it would make a good 70th birthday present for my Mum, a way of paying tribute to her family and where she came from. I’d never actually realised it before, but she was a political refugee, an asylum seeker in her own country. I carried on her story in another song on the album – “Lady Sunlight” – and then started to think about my own story, and all the events and circumstances that had led me to the exact place I found myself at the time of writing these songs: a house on Whale Beach Road. That’s how the album found its narrative, and its title. It’s about people trying to hold on to love and hope while confronting the powerful tide of history. To paraphrase the chorus of Max and Melanie, history makes plans for us, but we can still make plans for ourselves. I find that idea very hopeful.”

“Luke Escombe is a rock-soul singer, raconteur, blistering blues guitarist, comedian and songwriter, and very good at them all” – Sydney Morning Herald

Luke Escombe is an ARIA-nominated singer-songwriter who combines his blues, rock and soul influences with subversive humour, poetic lyrics and heartfelt storytelling. He is the creator of the internationally acclaimed one-man show “Chronic” and the writer and front man of multi award-winning Aussie kids band The Vegetable Plot.

Luke has released numerous albums and EPs with his band Luke Escombe and the Corporation and one album solely under his own name, 2017’s Skeleton Blues. The album was recorded direct to tape in a three-hour session at Damien Gerard Studios, featuring his smoky-voiced cover of Bob Dylan’s “Man in the Long Black Coat” alongside distinctive originals like Punctuation Blues and The Lipsi. This new Luke Escombe studio album, Whale Beach Road, was recorded in between lockdowns with some of Sydney’s most in-demand session players.

Luke received his early musical education in London, where his father’s job in the rock and roll industry enabled him to see hundreds of legendary performances by artists like Freddie Mercury, Prince and Bruce Springsteen while he was just a boy. When he’s not channelling his childhood idols, Luke is an ambassador for a number of health charities, a member of the NSW Arts Advisory Panel, a teaching artist with the Sydney Opera House’s Creative Leadership in Learning Program. He is also a song writing mentor with the Sydney Children’s Hospital’s Chronic Illness Peer Support program [ChIPS] with whom he wrote and recorded the track “Wake up Call” in 2021. He believes strongly that music and storytelling can play a transformative role in health, education and society. Among his more obscure awards is the title of “Sydney’s Sexiest man voice”, which he won in a competition on a once-popular Sydney radio station.

Luke Escombe – Whale Beach Road (Foghorn/MGM) August 19

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Daxton – In Verses

April 22, 2018 Leave a comment

2018 saw Australian born artist Daxton Monaghan release his new album “In Verses,” Daxton’s expressive writing and complete artistry shines on this album. “In Verses” starts off with a coulorful up-tempo song titled “I Don’t Mind” with high falsetto, reminiscent of artists such as Marvin Gay or Eagles of Death Metal. As the album preogresses further in you will notice some of the songs have a more psychedelic grungy approach revealing hidden ambient sounds. Overall, there is a blues meets alternative rock meets Spanish guitar feel that flows throughout the album.

Tracklist:

I Don’t Mind (3:07)
Strange Little Creatures (4:02)
Power and the Glory (4:13)
Water Goes Dry (5:09)
Sanctuary (4:34)
Ten Thousand Miles (3:20)
Ball & Chain (3:29)
Stain (4:21)
Water Lines (4:01)

Listen to the new album here!

Facebook:

www.facebook.com/Daxton6

Website:

www.daxton-music.com

Mama K and The Big Love – Debut Album Blind – Funk, Soul, Rhythm and Blues

February 16, 2017 Leave a comment

Mama K and The Big Love is a band with attitude and substance. Hailing from Australia’s “deep-south” (Hobart, Tasmania), Mama K and the Big Love performed their original, old school funk for the first time in 2014.

In 2016, Mama K recorded their debut album at Red Planet Recording with producer Stewart Long (Violent Femmes, Luca Brasi) in Hobart. The album was tracked through a 1975 Vintage Harrison 24/32 Recording Console and mixed to a Vintage Studer B67 Analog Tape Deck. “So much can be done with digital these days, but sometimes you just want some romance!” said Stew Long, “We used old gear where it felt good,”

Recent Album Review

http://themusic.com.au/music/albumreviews/2017/03/03/mama-k-and-the-big-love-blind-liz-giuffre/

Upcoming Shows

17 March – The Duke Hotel, Hobart

Track List