COME OUR WAY FOR THIS WAY NORTH

We caught up with Renowned Duo ‘This Way North’ who released Debut Album 'Punching Underwater' 

Indie pop-rock duo This Way North, comprising Cat Jungalwalla and Leisha Leahy, is gearing up for the highly anticipated release of their debut album, 'Punching Underwater,' set to hit the shelves on February 8th, 2024. This musical endeavor is a collaborative masterpiece between the award-winning artist Ainslie Wills and accomplished engineer-producer Jono Steer, promising a blend of creativity and expertise that fans have eagerly awaited.

The journey leading to 'Punching Underwater' has been a fascinating one for This Way North. Having traversed various landscapes across Australia and beyond, the duo found themselves amid the serene Dhudhuroa country in north-east Victoria during the pandemic. Here, amidst ancient trees and high-country valleys, they exchanged the nomadic lifestyle for a temporary home, allowing a pause that became a haven for creative expression, shaping the essence of their forthcoming album.

This Way North has steadily climbed the ladder of recognition, previously honored as Music Victoria's Best Regional Act. Their repertoire includes three EPs, and they've gained prominence not just in Australia but also in New Zealand and Canada, sharing stages with notable artists like Vika and Linda Bull, Ash Grunwald, and Kate Ceberano.

The debut single from 'Punching Underwater,' titled 'My Love,' made its debut in October 2023. Featuring the mesmerizing sounds of Christine Tootoo's Inuit throat singing from Iqaluit, Arctic Canada, the single quickly gained national rotation on Double J and secured a top-5 position on the AMRAP charts, resonating deeply with their dedicated fan base and setting high expectations for the album's release.

In 'Punching Underwater,' This Way North showcases their peak songwriting and performance abilities, weaving together musical and lyrical elements that highlight their creative prowess. With Ainslie Wills stepping into the role of producer for the first time and collaborating with long-time creative partner Jono Steer, the album reflects a synergy that allowed Cat and Leisha to delve deeper into each song, refining them to showcase their exceptional talents.

Recorded across studios in Melbourne and Romsey, central Victoria, each track on the album radiates lush, dynamic sounds, standing out both individually and collectively. Cat Leahy's vibrant, powerful drumming and Leisha Jungalwalla's intricate guitar tones and slide guitar chops are meticulously crafted, forming the backbone of the album's sonic landscape. Additionally, guest vocals from Xani, Little Wise, Tuckshop Ladies, and Ainslie Wills, along with contributions from Jono Steer and guest bassist Brett Langsford, add layers of depth and richness to the musical tapestry.

'Punching Underwater' delves into introspective themes, addressing insecurities, imposter syndrome, and self-doubt while also celebrating the journey of self-discovery and personal growth. From the struggle to avoid falling in love to the highs of building confidence and contentment, the album encapsulates the myriad emotions of a woman's evolution. Ultimately, it leaves listeners on a positive note, embracing the highs and lows of life's journey with resilience and grace.

With compelling harmonies, robust melodies, and a profound exploration of the human experience, 'Punching Underwater' is poised to be a standout debut album for This Way North, solidifying their place in the indie music scene and captivating audiences worldwide. Fans can look forward to a musical journey that is introspective, uplifting, and undeniably authentic.

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INTERVIEW:

Can you tell our readers about your new Album 'Punching Underwater', and a little bit about who you are?

Hello! We are a band called This Way North, I'm Leisha, I play guitar and sing and there's Cat on drums and vocals. We are based in Yackandandah (yes, it's a real place!), in the high country in North East Victoria. We are a drums and guitar duo who often get mistaken for a full 5-piece band, we love blending indie rock, pop, blues, roots and folk with a little bit of psychedelica thrown in! 

We've just released our debut album 'Punching Underwater'! 

Who did you work with for this single, and what does the name of the album mean?

We worked with Ainslie Wills and Jono Steer as co-producers on the whole album and the lead single 'Punching Underwater'. The name is about how when you try to punch under the water everything is slow moving there is a lot of resistance. There were a lot of challenges for us to get this album and the songs together and out into the world, the song is about how you can be too hard on yourself and make yourself so slow by not believing in what you're capable of. We co-wrote this song with Bobby Alu.

How do you put music together, or do you work with a Producer, if so who?

We write all of our own songs by either writing them separately and bringing them to each other to finish or writing them completely together. We then worked with Ainslie Wills on each song in pre-production. She really brought them out to be the best they could be with her incredible ear and song writing sensibilities. We learnt so much from her and how she crafts her songs. 

Who's on your greater team?

We have our awesome booking agents Abby and Bec from Onya Soapbox, our album team was Ainslie Wills, Jono Steer (Co-producers plus some keys and vocals), Brett Langsford (bass), our publicists Stuart and Jonny. But the rest is all us! We're an independent band and work bloody hard to make sure we hustle and create opportunities for ourselves. Oh and our dog Messy.

What are some of your go-to records to listen to, when you're either chilling or working on new music?

We both love Bahamas, Khruangbin, Tami Neilson, Bonobo but there's too many to list! 

Anything exciting coming up over the next few months?

Yes! We have the next leg of our album tour throughout South Australia, Queensland, Victoria and New South Wales! 

What other artists and or creatives are from your community, and who should our readers get across?

We're super lucky to live in a very creative area! There's amazing artists from all mediums: sculptors (check out Ben Gilberts creations), visual artists (Kirrily Anderson), black smiths (Toadhall forge) and of course musicians!

Check out Sal Kimber, Liv Cartledge and DJ Jane Doe. 

We also have amazing whiskey distilleries (Backwoods Distillery), recycled wool and leather workers (Stonehill View), furniture makers (Indigo Woodworks). It's a really inspiring place to live with lots of amazing people doing cool and inspiring things! 

What do you like to do, outside of writing, recording and playing music?

We both love being out in nature, camping in our van with our dog Messy! Cat is a hatter, so she spends a lot of time in her shop making glorious hats (check ou Feather & Drum Hat Co.). I love surfing when I can get to the coast. 

Do you have any shows coming up?

Catch us here:

Sun April 28th supporting Ash Grunwald at Star Hotel Yackandandah

Sat June 15th Melbourne Album Launch Show w East Bound Buzz, Liv Cartledge and DJ Jane Doe at Stay Gold, Brunswick

Fri June 21st Brisbane Album Launch Show at the Cave Inn with special guests TBA

Sat June 22nd Full Moon Party, Verrierdale Sunshine Coast QLD

Sat August 3rd The Stone Pony, w Parvyn Willunga, SA

Sun August 4th Adelaide Album Launch Show at Trinity Sessions w Parvyn Adelaide SA

Fri August 23rd Wauchope Arts, Wauchope NSW

Sat August 24th Sydney Album Launch Show at The Great Club with Monstress and Juanita Tippins Marrickville NSW

Sun August 25th The Fun Haus, Gosford NSW

 Any last words?

We can't wait to hear what you think of the album, don't forget to check out the film clips for the first two singles 'My Love' featuring Inuit Throat Singer Christine Tootoo, shot up in Arctic Canada and 'Punching Underwater' filmed at the Old Beechworth Gaol in an empty 100 year old pool! 

INTERVIEW: HOLLY HEBE SAY NOTHING HURTS, SHE PROMISES

Hi Holly! Would you be able to tell me a little bit about yourself? How’re things going now that life is sort of somewhat back to normal?
Things are going well! I live in a little town in Mornington Peninsula, it’s super cute and small and cosy and I love it. I’ve just got my little studio set up in my room, I spend a lot of time they’re just kind of writing and producing and I’ve got a little outdoor piano that I sit at and play a lot at as well. I think it's so nice to be able to sit outside and play music, it’s a lot more inspiring sometimes, than sitting inside. I started uni last year doing interactive composition at VCA, so that's been really fun. It’s like a really different side of music that I haven’t really experienced before. A lot of art music and kind of more abstract, I guess. That sort of side to music has been really cool. So it’s been fun to have kind of producing at home and doing the songwriting thing and then having that side as well going at the same time. I think they’ve been able to sort of complement each other really well which has been fun. I had a great summer break just gigging and jamming out with heaps of friends and things like that, meeting lots of musos and that was just like the best thing ever. I think that’s the biggest thing I’ve gotten out of being more of a solo artist and gigging a lot more so far this year, is just the people I’ve been able to meet. It’s just been awesome.

Your new single is called ‘nothing hurts I promise’ and it’s incredibly beautiful,
I must say I’m very much a fan. Can you give me some more background on that? What was the inspiration behind writing it, how did that go?
I feel like one day I was just sitting at my piano and I was just improvising as I mostly do when I sit at my piano, just kind of playing whatever comes out. And kind of stumbled across this piano riff I guess that I really liked, I kind of fiddled around with that a lot. After meeting so many amazing people over the past couple of months, and I don’t know, certain people I guess just like come/go in your life and they impact you. I just had this feeling that people were impacting me a lot more than what I was impacting them. I was just meeting all these amazing people and I was so inspired by them, and I was like “oh my goodness, I’d just love to be able to give that back to someone.” I guess I wrote this song about things that you don’t say and just really wanting to tell people how you feel and how that’s kind of impacted you or made your life better, but just being too scared. I think in the long run it’s kind of those unsaid words that end up hurting you a bit more. So that’s sort of what the song is about, the song is pretty special to my heart I guess like it means a lot to me. I’ve really enjoyed the process of kind of building this song up from the roots and just having it as sort of a piano riff at the start, and then experiencing all these new connections over the past couple months and then just being so inspired by all of that, then kind of building the song from there.

You had a single launch recently! How did you find the song was received with the audience and how did you feel playing that live for the first time? How was that experience for you?
It was so fun, I think it was kind of what I’ve been working towards for so long and what me and my band have been putting a lot of hard work into. I think to be able to just finally play it at an event that was made for that song, I think that was really special. I told a little bit of the story about the song beforehand and things like that and it was just so nice to see people kind of moving a little bit to it and just seeing people’s faces in the crowd, which is really cool. I think just singing it live made it a lot more real. I guess it’s sort of all the times that I’ve been singing it to myself at home or my first voice memo recordings of the song when I was first writing it and then finally playing live, it’s just the best feeling. It's kind of like “oh, this is what I’ve been working towards .” So yeah it was really cool.

That’s incredible! So you’ve received you’ve released a couple of singles lately… Is this a hint at an EP release, or what are your future plans (If you can tell us!)?
I really think that I’d love to put together an EP, I think at this stage I’m sort of just writing and producing and then being like, “oh yeah I probably should release things!” I guess when I first started releasing I didn't really know where it would go and if would continue releasing, because I feel like I do a lot of different things in my music world in terms of producing and then all my uni work. So it’s a lot of different projects that I’ve got going on. But I’m loving this solo act, and I think with the collection of songs that I’ve got going on I’d love to put together an EP and kind of tell a bit more of a story. So definitely stay tuned!

I’m super curious, what does your writing process look like when you are putting together a song? You mentioned that you use a piano.
It’s so awesome, I’ve got this super old piano, it’s over 100 years old and it's so beautiful. It’s sitting in my lounge room and I’ve basically written probably all of my songs at that piano. I feel like a lot of the times where the songs are little more personal or they’re a bit more poetic or lyrical or closer to me; they always start at that piano. Because I’m sitting down and I’m just in my feels or feeling super inspired. Then other times I’ll be sitting at my laptop just with my computer program open to producing and a riff will just pop into my head and I quickly record it down and then usually goes from there. I feel like if I think too much about the producing side, I overthink it and then I never get the song done. But sometimes I just like chuck in whatever happens and in a couple of hours I’ll be done and it’s so exciting, ‘cause those songs usually turn out to be the ones I like the most. I feel like the ones that I start at my piano are often the more personal ones and then I’ll record them. Then other times I’m just sitting on my laptop and I’ll be like “oh let’s just do something and see what happens” and that’s so much fun. I feel like there’s two different ways of writing and creating a really good ‘cause it kind of suits then different songs that end up coming out at the end which is really cool.

How did you know and when did you know that this was something you wanted to pursue in the music industry?
I don’t think I’ve ever thought of being anything else but a musician in my whole life. I remember when I was really young and I started playing the piano, I think I was four when I first sort of played and then started getting lessons when I was five. I have never ever thought of another career path. Which I think is probably a little bit naïve.

When I was younger I just always thought like “I just have to be a musician, like this the only option.” I think that’s actually been a bit of a blessing and a curse because I’ve sort of had tunnel vision. I just cannot see myself doing anything else and I think that’s actually really motivated me because it’s just what I absolutely love doing. I think that maybe took a bit of pressure off during school because like I felt like I really knew where I was wanting to go and so that was helpful in terms of picking my subjects and things like that I feel like. I enjoyed year 12 a lot more because I was doing subjects that I really loved that I knew that would help me to get to where I wanted to be later on in life.

Obviously still working towards it, I don’t know. It'’s just so cool that I get to have a passion, and I’m really grateful for that. I feel like the past year when I started releasing music, I was like “yeah this solo artist thing is really, really fun, and just being able to play in a band is awesome so I’d love to ride this wave a bit more.” I think originally always knew that I want to do something in music but didn’t know 100% what that would be. I feel like it’s always going to change, but this solo artist thing is really fun and I’m loving doing it at the moment.

And lastly, I just wanted to know who your top three Aussie artists/acts are right now?
I really like Aodhan, he’s from Sydney, he was in the Triple J Unearthed High in 2019. His music’s awesome, I really, really love his sound and his band’s vibe I guess. I really love Velvet Bloom, another Melbourne muso. She’s awesome and her music’s just so inspiring and the way she writes things I think is really, really cool.

And then, I mean you can’t go past Spacey Jane and stuff like that. I feel like they’ve
really revolutionised that Aussie band sound the past couple of years and that’s been
really awesome. Oh, there’s just too many I just love them all.

Listen to ‘Nothing Hurts I promise’ HERE

FOLLOW HOLLY HEBE
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MEET SIDNEY ROSE: MELBOURNE’S NEW INDIE-POP TRAILBLAZER

Pictured: Sidney Rose has made the most of lockdown, with her new single, Guarantee Image: Sarah Caust 

For some artists, the push and pull of Melbourne’s lockdown measures has stunted creativity, forming mental roadblocks. This was not the case, however, for a newcomer to the scene, Melbourne indie-pop artist Sidney Rose. Described as “pop, but left of centre” by Triple J’s Tommy Faith, Rose has established herself as one to watch with her second single of the year, Guarantee. 

Produced by Ben Oldland, Guarantee is a captivating indie-pop track, which, believe it or not, was a product of her first time in a recording studio after beginning her project in December 2019. 

After chasing musical theatre for three years post high school, Rose found herself more immersed with the notion of storytelling purely through music, and so made the switch to the Australian music scene. 

“I think my real passion, at the core, is telling either my story and expressing that... then also being able to then use that [mode of] storytelling to tell other people’s stories, I think of it as a cool craft when you get down to the crux of it.” 

Drawing on influences from Canadian musician Lennon Stella and Australia’s own Eliott, Rose blends vulnerable lyricism with alluring hooks.

“What I’ve always found with music is that it’s a lot easier to sing something that’s really raw and honest than it is to sit and say that to someone’s face, so Guarantee wasn’t necessarily written about a certain person,” she said. 

Pictured: Rose embraces vulnerability in her track, Guarantee 

Image: Sarah Caust 

“With Guarantee it was the first time I was really trying to write from just kind of what was in front of me at the time, rather than trying to pull on past experiences.”

Indie-pop as a genre is proving popular among the masses, with artists such as Rose appreciative of the sheer amount of work which goes into creating an indie-pop track. 

“Working with Ben on Guarantee I just didn’t understand the full craft of indie pop, there’s so much craft to coming up with hooks that stick with people,” she said.

“And so to try and translate really sad emotional stuff that I write with my guitar and put that into a context, it’s just really cool.”

Navigating the Australian music scene as a young emerging artist during a global pandemic is quite the task, but one which Rose was more than willing to tackle, noting her determination and much-needed optimistic nature. 

“I actually set a goal at the start of the year basically to be writing something musical every day, creating in some way, and that’s something that I’ve stuck to and I’m so grateful that I have,” she said.

“I think I’ve been able to stay growing as an artist, because I’ve either created with someone else via Zoom that day or I’ve been forced sometimes to sit at my piano or sit at my guitar and sing and figure something out because I’ve made that commitment to myself.” 

The current climate in the Australian music scene has allowed Rose to slowly make her mark and work through moments of personal growth.

“Because I haven’t experienced it in normal life,” she laughed. 

“Normal life, whatever that is, I haven’t had anything to compare it to, I’ve really just been able to grow and find ways to do it.” 

For the remainder of 2020, Rose has her sight set on collaborations and demos, and eagerly working on her live set for the return of live music, whenever that may be. 

“I think at the moment it's still up in the air but I’ve been building up a whole heap of collaborations and demos and things because I’d love to have as much released stuff [as] ready as I can,” she said. 

“At the moment it’ll look like a lot more releases and stuff to come out of lockdown – kind of like lockdown babies but [in the form of] songs.” 

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