Ashe studied at the renowned Berklee College Of Music in Boston. A big fan of the likes of Brian Wilson, Carole King and The Beatles, she fed off those classic writers when creating the impressively grand sounding debut album titled Ashlyn (which is her real first name).

In the lead up to its release came the sleeper of a hit called ‘Moral Of The Story’. Co-written and co-produced with FINNEAS, the song took a year to generate interest. However, following its inclusion in the To All The Boys: P.S. I Still Love You soundtrack, it became a huge viral hit, and is currently streaming in the hundreds of millions.

Personally, Ashe has gone through plenty of heartbreak. A failed and emotionally toxic young marriage, followed by losing her brother last year to addiction, has fed directly into her deeply personal songwriting. Hear her open up about her life and influences in this conversation with Richard Kingsmill.

Over the past four years, since first uploading his songs when he was just 14yo, Alfie Templeman has impressed with his growth as an artist.

After getting turned onto music at the age of seven when he came across the ‘70s prog legends Rush and the drumming prowess of the late Neil Peart, he started teaching himself different instruments. Today, with four EP’s and a brand new mini-album to his name, he reckons he has around 1,000 more songs that he’s been working on.

Richard Kingsmill speaks to Templeman about his influences (which also include the likes of Todd Rundgren, Tears For Fears, Mac DeMarco and Billie Eilish), as well as what he’s striving for with his future debut album.

KUCKA has finally released her debut album. Titled Wrestling, it hears the singer/producer openly tackling some very personal issues.

Born in England, KUCKA (real name Laura Lowther) moved with her family to Perth during her teen years. It wasn’t an easy move at that stage of her life, but eventually she explored music making and started making a name for herself on the electronic scene there from 2012 onwards. Some big name features along the way with artists like Flume helped the unique talent get her name out there even more.  

However, it’s taken a long time for her to get to her own debut album. Relocating to Los Angeles a few years ago, she speaks here to Richard Kingsmill about the influence of that move, how coming out has had its personal challenges, and what inspired her year of ‘yes’.

Sixty Summers is a solo album few expected from Julia Stone.

While we were enjoying Angus & Julia Stone’s popular 2017 album Snow, which itself broadened the traditonal sound of the duo, Julia had already been long at work writing and recording ideas for her next solo release.

Teaming up with American Thomas Bartlett, who first worked with Julia back in 2012, they started mapping out songs together in 2015. Bartlett’s work has ranged from The National and Sufjan Stevens through to Norah Jones and Yoko Ono. The versatile producer/musician has also worked closely with St. Vincent. To get this record of Julia’s finished, they invited her (aka Annie Clark) to come in and help co-produce.

Julia speaks here with Richard Kingsmill about how the three worked together, some of the album’s standout moments, and what she wanted to say with these new songs.

The seven long years to his second album is now over.

American Porter Robinson talks more with Richard Kingsmill about Nurture.

Find out how his side-project Virtual Self as well as his collaboration with Madeon influenced his latest music. And hear how he explored singing and lyric writing in a much bigger way on this album.

In 2014, American musician Porter Robinson was riding high on the EDM wave with his acclaimed debut album Worlds.

The momentum continued with a successful Madeon collaboration in 2016, and then his side-project Virtual Self in 2017. However, when it came time to focus on his second album, things started falling apart for Robinson.

A combination of writer’s block and the feeling that nothing was good enough started haunting the musician. When he found out that his younger brother Mark had a rare form of cancer, things spiralled even further.

Seven years on from Worlds we finally have Nurture, an album that will put Porter Robinson back in the limelight on the electronic music scene. In the first half of his chat with Richard Kingsmill, the 28yo takes us through the long and painful journey to this second album.

A new talent called Budjerah launched on the music scene towards the end of 2020 with the single ‘Missing You’.

Hailing from Bundjalung country in far north NSW, he impressed everyone immediately with that pure and soulful voice.

Singing has been his whole life. Raised on gospel music at church, he says he sings every day, and has for as long as he can remember. He was spotted by a major label after his cousin reposted a video first uploaded by Budjerah’s mum. That cousin is Nakkiah Lui from Black Comedy fame, and through her sharing that live video, Warner Music came calling.

Budjerah (whose name means ‘first light’) had attracted other early fans.

Through AIME mentor Robbie Miller, Matt Corby was also tipped off about the young talent. Now, the 19yo has released his debut EP which Corby went on to record with him in his studio outside Byron Bay.

Hear Budjerah talking more about his upbringing and love of music with Richard Kingsmill.

For three years, the Californian group Peach Tree Rascals have been attracting fans worldwide through a succession of singles.

Their biggest hit so far is ‘Mariposa’ which exploded worldwide in 2019 via social media. It currently is sitting at well over 200 million streams. The biggest fanbases for them are a lot of Asian countries too, such as Indonesia, Thailand and the Philippines.

With the release of their debut EP Camp Nowhere,  Richard Kingsmill speaks to one of the three rapper-singers in the band Isaac Pech. They talk about the struggles their families have in common, what bonds them musically, and why their music has reached so many fans already.

Following the release of twentyseven, Melbourne artist LANKS (aka Will Cuming) decided to take a break from the project, even though the debut album spawned plenty of successful tracks.

What followed was zero downtime. A couple of new music projects, a move to New York, as well as studying for a Master of Data Science were just some of his new plans. And in amongst all that, LANKS re-emerged with the recent release of a double album called SPIRITS.

Find out more about his love of tracking data, collaborating and making music, as LANKS chats here to Richard Kingsmill.

MAY-A has given us three great singles across the past year. But how did she get her start on the music scene?

With part of her childhood spent in Byron Bay, and the rest moving constantly around Sydney, MAY-A got interested in music through hearing her dad playing Bob Dylan songs on the guitar. Once she got to Sydney by the age of 14, the music bug had bitten her, and she started attending a performing arts school. However, that turned out to not be the best fit for MAY-A.

Instead, it was an extremely random and coincidental meeting with her future manager that created the opportunities to come for her.

Richard Kingsmill speaks to MAY-A (aka Maya Cumming) about the details of that meeting, and her introduction to the world of music.