Culture Cabinet

Rowena Wise has been making music since she was a child. Having grown up in Australia, to a traveling musical family, it seems only certain that she was born to be an artist. Her debut full-length album, Senseless Acts of Beauty, that was released last year, is an accumulation of those experiences. 

“Two and a half years ago, I saved up some money in lockdown during COVID in Melbourne, and I knew I wanted to record an album,” she says of what drove her to create the album. “I was incentivized to take my time with it and find a really beautiful, tight band to play everything live in studio, which I was new to. I recorded it with Robert Muinos in a little studio in Collingwood, which is in the northern suburb of Melbourne, above a pub. It was a really gratifying process, recording it live. It was really raw in some bits and really unrefined, which gave it what it needed. I think some of the songs are real sweet, and it was nice to bring it down a notch or two.” 

In listening to Senseless Acts of Beauty, it’s easy to feel that raw edge. The album features sweet rhythmic guitars, pulsing base beats that seem to cut to the listener’s core, and airy vocals from Wise that only guide the songs to cohesiveness. The end result of which is a breezy presentation of indie-rock goodness that matches the sunlit aura from the artist that created it. Standout tracks include ‘Forgiving Up,” “In For The Kill,” and “Life Of The Party.” 

While the album has been out for close to a year, Wise is now taking the spotlight again, with a recently released new single, and the announcement of a North American tour. The single, entitled “”No Cure For Love,” features a collaboration with her real life partner, Didirri, was created in a process that Wise has nothing but kind words for. 

“The challenges Didrri and I face as a creative couple is more from separating work from play, and knowing when to switch it off,” she says. “We do a lot of work from home, and that includes writing. Writing is sort of play as well as work, but at the end of the day, you still have your artist hat on, and you’re still working your brain juice. We’re just so driven and ambitious, and we do egg each other on. We are both artists in our own right, with very driven, very busy repertoires and plans. It was nice to just hold space and just write this song together and record it in the same studio we recorded my album and he recorded his previous album. It felt like we’re all coming together, like a Venn diagram. It was very cohesive, it kind of just fell out of us.” 

On top of the new single, the duo also released a corresponding music video that was shot predominantly on 8 mm black and white film, and directed by Didirri. “It’s nice to have such a multi faceted partner,” Wise laughs. “He envisioned the whole thing. I think we came up with the concept of having quite candid, colloquial imagery.” 

The video, that plays almost more like a short film, mirroring the cinematic feel of its production, features symbolic images of the confluence of every day domestic life with the art of Shibari knot-work. 

“I really liked the idea of having a film, and looking at the beauty of the ordinary. [Didrri] was the one that came up with the idea of having us being tied up in a Japanese art form of Shibari, for a really long shot at the end. A friend of ours tied us up side by side. We were actually naked for the shoot, which was really liberating. It was really fun. We did it all with our friends in the studio. That [final] shot was just beautiful to see, the knot-work that we shared. I think Didrri thought it would resonate with the theme of the song, long-term love that one might feel beholden to, maybe trapped in, in a way that’s beautiful but painful, sometimes.” 

The single feels like a worthy entry to Wise’s next chapter, a North American tour, which includes stops at festivals like New Colossus and South By Southwest. While Wise is excited at the new opportunity, she’s eager to see how her music will resonate with audiences on another continent. 

“Australia is so far away, and it’s a beautiful, incubated zone over there, and it’s a nice community. Everyone kind of knows everyone, but it’s far away, and culturally, I think the audiences behold art a bit differently. It’s a very young country. I’m excited to pick up on those little subtle cues of a different audience and culture, in Canada and the US. I’m expecting a bit more openness and people being a bit more respective. Because I feel like music like mine, there’s more interest for it in places like this, where historically, there’s jus a bit more going on for the arts and culture. That’s what I’m looking forward to. I’m also looking roward to other artists, which is always my favorite thing. I’m just keen to meet some other like-minded creatives and chin-wag.” 

You can stream “No Cure For Love” below. 

You can get tickets for Rowena Wise’s tour here.