Turning Heads with August Billy

Turning Heads welcomes American artist and performer Rhiannon Giddens. Rhiannon's latest release is They're Calling Me Home, her second consecutive collaboration with Italian multi-instrumentalist Francesco Turrisi. Get in touch: [email protected] classically-trained Rhiannon Giddens has been active in the blues, folk, country and bluegrass field for the last 15 years, starting her journey as one third of the string music revivalists, the Caroline Chocolate Drops. On albums such as Genuine Negro Jig, the group performed traditional folk songs that originated in North Carolina and underscored the influence of enslaved African Americans on the development of country and Americana music. Rhiannon broke away from the Chocolate Drops to release her debut album, Tomorrow is My Turn, in 2015. Much like the group's records, the tracklist was filled with interpretations, including songs by Dolly Parton and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Her next album, Freedom Highway, was dominated by original compositions, many of which were based on slave narratives. The album also brought attention to Rhiannon's minstrel-era replica banjo, which has since become an essential part of her sound. Her first album with Turrisi was 2019's There is no Other, an ambitious work that encompasses not just folk and bluegrass, but also opera, gospel, and Italian traditionals. Theirs is an incredibly fruitful partnership, built around Rhiannon's deeply resonant voice and banjo playing and Turrisi's variety of frame drums. They're Calling Me Home was recorded in 2020 in the pair's current home city of Dublin, Ireland. It's made up of songs from America, Italy, and Ireland, which long for the comfort of home and gesture towards death. In the podcast, Rhiannon speaks about the nature of her collaboration with Francesco, what compelled them to make the new album and how music's given her strength over the last 12 months. Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads speaks to LA-based, Australian songwriter and musician Mia Dyson. Mia's latest release is Parking Lots (Revisited), which includes updated versions of five songs from her 2005 LP, Parking Lots.

Get in touch: [email protected]

The thorough blues, soul and honky tonk revisions on Parking Lots (Revisited) were put together with producers Erin “Syd” Sidney and Daniel Wright as well as double bass player Matt Aronoff and keyboardist Lee Pardini.

The original Parking Lots won the ARIA award for Best Blues and Roots album, an award Mia’s 2003 debut album, Cold Water, had also been nominated for. That’s a giveaway of where Mia’s music has always been categorised, though there's long been more to her artistry than what that genre tag might suggest.

This is best exemplified by Mia's latest solo album, 2018's If I Said Only So Far I Take It Back, a pop album on which her artistic vision outshines the resonance of her influences.

Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads speaks to Melbourne producer and rapper Joel Ma. His new collaborative LP, Joelistics Presents Film School, is out now.

Get in touch: [email protected]

Joel began his career as an MC and instrumentalist with the alternative hip hop outfit, TZU. TZU released four records between 2003 and 2013. They're perhaps best known for their anti-racism single, 'The Horse You Rode in On', as well as their third album, Computer Love (2008).

Joelistics' solo journey began at the turn of the 2010s while he was living in between China and Mongolia. His debut solo album, Voyager, came out in 2011 and was followed by Blue Volume in 2014. Although he continued to rap and embrace the sounds of golden era hip hop, Joelistics' solo records also infused post-punk, grunge and folk sounds.

Joelistics Presents Film School is his most deviant work to date, drawing on 70’s Asian pop music and psych- and post-rock to create a surreal, cinematic listening experience. Parvyn Singh (The Bombay Royale) and Hailey Cramer (The Meltdown) add guest vocals while cellist Francesca Mountfort and guzheng player Mindy Meng Wang appear on multiple tracks.

Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads speaks to Malcolm Middleton and Aidan Moffat from Scottish indie rock band Arab Strap. Arab Strap’s new album, As Days Get Dark, is their first in 16 years. Get in touch: [email protected] Arab Strap formed in 1995. Their debut album, The Week Never Starts Around Here, arrived the following year. It was led by the single ‘The First Big Weekend’, which has become the group’s signature song. It combines spoken word vocals, drum machines, plucked guitars and themes of unglamorous late-night hedonism.They’d go on to release a total of six studio albums, including 2003’s Monday at the Hug & Pint and 2005’s The Last Romance, before calling it quits in 2006. Aidan and Malcolm both embarked on solo careers and engaged in various other collaborative projects over the next decade before reforming Arab Strap in 2016.They’ve toured intermittently since then and in September 2020 released their first new single in 15 years. That song, ‘The Turning Of Our Bones’, appears as the first track on As Days Get Dark, which is out now via Rock Action/Best & Fairest.The band’s various sonic and thematic signatures – drum machines, arpeggiated guitars, strings, spoken word vocals and themes of sex and death – remain intact, but As Days Get Dark is a musclier and more melodically persuasive record than any of the band’s earlier work.We spoke about the benefits of breaking up, the themes behind many of the songs and the experience of working together again after so many years apart.

Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads episode 29 features a conversation with German-Afghan producer Farhot. The Hamburg-based producer's latest album, Kabul Fire Vol. 2, came out in January 2021. Get in touch: [email protected] It's been seven years since the series’ previous instalment – Kabul Fire Vol. 1 – during which time Farhot has produced tracks for artists such as Isaiah Rashad, Selah Sue and Talib Kweli. Farhot’s production aesthetic is comparable to expert beatmakers like Madlib, J Dilla, Portishead and Quakers’ Geoff Barrow and The Avalanches. The new album finds Farhot reconnecting with the culture of his homeland, Afghanistan, which he left as a child more than 30 years ago. It includes audio clips taken from numerous Afghan films and a spoken word piece by fellow Hamburg-based Afghan artist, Moshtari. Vocalists JuJu Rogers, Nneka, Tiggs Da Author and Maverick Sabre also make appearances. In the podcast, Farhot speaks about his musical influences, changing artistic goals and growing engagement with Afghan culture. Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads welcomes Canadian songwriter and performer Tamara Lindeman, who makes music as The Weather Station. Get in touch: [email protected] Tamara has been releasing music as The Weather Station since the late-'00s. The project's fifth album, Ignorance, is out now via venerated American label Fat Possum. It’s Tamara’s most polished record to date and it contains more stylistic depth than any of her previous outings. Ignorance follows The Weather Station's self-titled fourth album (2017), which built on the folk and Americana sounds of earlier Weather Station albums with full band arrangements that were, at times, genuinely rocking.The Americana influences aren’t absent from Ignorance, but the album incorporates pop melody, disco rhythms and layered percussion. Tamara wrote the album on keyboard, not guitar, and piano is at the centre of many of the songs. She's backed by a band that includes not just drums, bass and guitar but also saxophone, flute and strings. Tamara has always taken a writerly approach to lyric composition. Past releases have centred on things like faithfulness and faithlessness, feminist politics and the acceptance of love. On Ignorance, she focuses on climate change and its entwinement with neoliberal economics – often to quite devastating affect.Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads episode 27 features an interview with Melbourne-based songwriter Sarah Mary Chadwick.

Get in touch: [email protected]'s new album, Me and Ennui Are Friends, Baby, is out now via Rice Is Nice. It's Sarah's seventh album and the final instalment in a trilogy that began with 2019’s The Queen Who Stole the Sky and 2020’s Please Daddy.Please Daddy was recorded with a full band and The Queen Who Stole the Sky was written specifically for performance on the Melbourne Town Hall Grand Organ. Me and Ennui is a more traditional SMC album in that it features Sarah playing solo behind a piano. There’s greater intensity to the performances as a result, which helps to spotlight some of Sarah's best songwriting to date.Across the trilogy, Sarah has reflected on and sought to process the deaths of her father and a close friend, the breakdown of a relationship and an attempt she made on her own life.In the podcast, we speak about Sarah's preferred method for creating albums, the satisfaction writing and recording music brings her, and her life changing experiences with psychoanalytic therapy. Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads episode 26 features an interview with Karina Utomo from Melbourne metal band High Tension.

Karina co-founded the band in 2012 with guitarist Ash Pegram, who she'd previously played with in Canberra band Young and Restless. Their first album, Death Beat, came out in 2013 via Cooking Vinyl Australia.

Their popularity grew with 2015's Bully, which saw them land a spot on the 2016 Laneway tour and establish a large international following.

Following Bully, Pegram was replaced by guitarist Mike Deslandes, while Lauren Hammel joined as the band's new drummer (Karina and bass player Matt Weston are the band's two remaining original members).

The band's next album, Purge, arrived in mid-2018 and it was their heaviest to date. Karina's lyrics focus on the anti-communist purge in her home country of Indonesia, which occurred in 1965-66 and led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of members of the communist party at the hands of the military and Muslim groups under the orders of General Suharto.

In the podcast, we speak about the impacts of the coronavirus restrictions on the arts in Australia and the themes that informed Purge.

Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Turning Heads' first episode of 2021 features an interview with Sebastian Murphy from Viagra Boys. The Stockholm post-punk band released their second album, Welfare Jazz, in January 2021. 

Get in touch: [email protected] is an American, but moved to Sweden over a decade ago. He formed Viagra Boys with a number of established Swedish musicians in 2015. The band's first album, Street Worms, came out in 2018. Its best known track is 'Sports', a kind of absurdist commentary on sport's place in culture. Like much of Viagra Boys' best work, 'Sports' firmly inhabits the realm of the bizarre. The interview centres on Sebastian's lyrics – where they originate from, what his intentions are and how this compares to the public and media perception of his lyrics. Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.

Episode 24 of Turning Heads is a two-parter, featuring interviews with Azim Zain (of Azim Zain and His Lovely Bones) and Eugénie.

Be Good, the debut album from Azim Zain and His Lovely Bones, came out in November 2020. It's dedicated to the Canberra music scene that transformed Azim's life after he relocated there for uni. 

Azim was born in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, but completed high school in Adelaide before moving to Canberra. He fell in love with the local music scene and began writing and performing his own stuff in 2015. 

Be Good was completed in 2019, but visa changes meant Azim was forced to leave the country and return to Kuala Lumpur. He's still there, but this album is his love letter to the scene that birthed the Lovely Bones.

Eugénie is the project of New York based songwriter Eugénie Thompson. Her debut EP, Arrhythmia, came out in May 2020. It was made in collaboration with producer and jazz guitarist Lee Meadvin and dates back to when the pair were both studying at NYU. 

Eugénie moved to Melbourne after finishing college. She was born in Sydney, but had lived in New York since she was two years old. The return to Australia and the culture and lifestyle she witnessed in Melbourne had a major impact on her musical ambitions. She's since moved back to New York. 

Turning heads is recorded on the stolen land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation; the traditional custodians of the land. I pay my respects to their elders past and present, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been ceded.