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FEBRUARY 27th… DASHVILLE SKYLINE ( WEEKEND ), NSW APRIL 1st….BOOTLEGGER BAR KATOOMBA -RECORD LAUNCH TICKETS HERE APRIL 9th…Golden Barely Hotel, SYDNEY APRIL JUNE 22 ..Midnight special with CJ Stranger JUNE 24…MERRi Creek Tavern with Molly Jean Morrison, Northcote, Melbourne JUNE 26…Brunswick artist bar with Dan Brodie (afternoon show) MELBOURNE AUGUST 5 … MARYS UNDERGROUND SYDNEY w/EVEN AUGUST 11… VANGUARD, SYDNEY w/SALLY SELTMANN AUGUST 12…BLACK BEAR, BRISBANE w/SALLY SELTMANN AUGUST 18…THE BRIDGE Castlemaine, VIC w/SALLY SELTMANN AUGUST 19..NORTHCOTE SOCIAL CLUB, VIC w/SALLY SELTMANN AUGUST 26… BULLI HERITAGE HOTEL, NSW w/SALLY SELTMANN AUGUST 27… RESONANT WAVE, KATOOMBA NSW SEPTEMBER 24 BAROQUE ROOM , KATOOMBA NSW w/ALEX LLoyd & DECLAN KELLY OCTOBER 12 CENTRO CBD WOLLONGONG W/ TEX PERKINS AND MATT WALKER OCTOBER 13 GREAT CLUB MARRICKVILLE W/TEX PERKINS AND MATT WALKER OCTOBER 14 GREAT CLUB MARRICKVILLE W/TEX PERKINS AND MATT WALKER OCTOBER 15 LIZOTTES NEWCASTLE W/TEX PERKINS AND MATT WALKER

CURIOUS MOON & I SWIM VIDEOS BOTH DIRECTED BY JEMIMA OF CLOUDHERD FILM CO

More history….

The longest body of work for Tania has been that of Via Tania. Moving from Sydney Australia to Chicago in 1999, Tania changed her musical direction. Going solo and encouraging her own new ‘bedroom’ sound, but also being influenced by Chicago musicians she was surrounded by, Via Tania became an exploration of electronic, folk and jazz components with many collaborations and talented musicians contributing.

Via Tania’s first release was on Chocolate Industries. An EP called ‘‘Dream of…’ based on the Sunday EP the label had heard previously.

The next anticipated full length ‘Under A Different Sky’ was released in 2003 on Chocolate Industries, engineered and mixed by Casey Rice it was released to critical acclaim and Tania went on to play shows with The Books, Sea bear, My Brightest Diamond, Cat Power and many more as well as being on compilations with Mos Def, Diverse and Prefuse 73. It was also released on Trifeka Records in Australia.

‘Moon Sweet Moon’ came next, released on French based label ‘The Hours’ and Australian label ‘Love and Mercy’. MSM was recorded and mixed by Craig Ross in Austin, Texas where Tania went to salvage recordings made in the last couple of years. MSM saw Tania play back in Australia on ‘The Laneways’ festival and a national tour with Clare Bowdtich.

During this time Tania also collaborated with Finnish dance musician and DJ Jori Hulkonnen which resulted in ‘The Tania and Jori Continents’ full length album released on Australian lable Other Tongues.

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The final instalment of Via Tania was a collaboration with Matthew Golombisky and his ‘Tomorrow Music Orchestra’ the Chicago based orchestra put music to Tania’s songs resulting in a lush full length album quite different to anything Tania had ever produced before

Tania was also a guest vocalist on the Beni ‘Zig Zags’, and contributed to a Presets release with a cover of ‘ If I know you.’ and Sunday EP ‘Universe City’ also sampled on Giant Sand record : Cover Magazine.

Going back even further, teenage Tania began writing songs in her first band at the age of 16Spdfgh began in Campbelltown, NSW. The girls all met at high school and formed a band in 1990 playing many covers from bands such as The Cure, The Ramones, Rat Cat, The Humming birds, The Church and many more. Soon enough originals came into the picture and the band started taking themselves more seriously.

After a couple of years at high school where the band practiced and played many youth centres and school fetes, they evolved to playing in bars and asking their favourite bands for supports. By the end of seven years, one EP ( Grassroots ) one album (Leave Me Like This- released on the infamous Half A Cow records) Spdfgh were now playing with likes of Bikini Kill, Elastica, The Breeders, Superchunk, Super Grass and many more indie darlings as well as The Big Day Out and other festivals in the 90s.

As the seventh year passed the band broke up.

Tania started exploring a solo sound and began working on a project called ‘ Sunday’ with Tony Dupé. Recorded in the sleepy sea side town of Gerroa, an EP called ‘Thema’ was made and released in a tiny batch of a few hundred CD’s, which was the beginning of Via Tania, and a move overseas for 21 year old Tania….

Press contact Jo Corbett Publicity

Publishing contact Cooking Vinyl Publishing 

Record Label Cheersquad Records

PRESS FOR TEN SONGS

Ten Songs (Cheersquad Records)

Straightforward. Clear. Promises kept simple. Promises kept.

The album cover shows a woman with a guitar (electric) but otherwise, from her clothes and solidly imperturbable expression, we’re unclear as to time or place. Within the album that is the same, with songs that don’t reek of age but also possess no obvious signs that they weren’t exhumed from a dusty songbook found at the back of a charity shop.

The colour scheme on the album is stark black and white for two thirds, paired with an earthy shade for the final third: not prettied-up nor “distressed” for effect. And that is pretty much the balance of the songs: simply arranged, with as much air as instrumentation in some songs, and curiously muscular beneath modest exteriors; sung with few flourishes, but pitched from the natural centre of this singer who tells tales as if she’s barely paused between laying bricks or shelling peas.

The album says ten songs, and ten songs is what you get, done and dusted in under 35 minutes: not one song staying longer than necessary, but none of them feeling as if its progress has been abruptly curtailed.

If this suggests that you can trust T. Wilds, even if that is not her name (this being the not exactly self-explanatory nom-de-music of former SPDFGH member, Tania Bowers) it is justified. And in some ways, necessary.

Necessary because any time you have a sound and a presentation as out of place and out of its time as this there is a suspicion of some musical carpetbagger, hoovering up others’ work, or at best a musical tourist, dallying with the “cute” habits picked up on a brief, cursory visit.

Neither feels the case here. Bowers’ songs have enough of a patina of worldliness to pull the songs into at least the late 20th century, and yet they feel organic. Not in a hippie way, thank god, but like songs built from scratch and from within her. Part of that is they’re filled with lyrical textures that speak of an eye as much as an ear for the way we’re living.

I have to confess that a lot of the time with her songs I am torn between wanting to know exactly what she’s saying and not wanting to let specificity ruin what she’s made me imagine. I think I understand the ghost country Wounded Knees, for example, but I’m not going to test it.

As a singer who sometimes feels like a less burdened Karen Dalton (June has a creak in its bones but she doesn’t sound likely to crack; Goodbye, a duet with Matt Toohey, evokes night regrets within its burst of freedom), and at other times like a one woman Saint Sister or less flighty Joanna Newsom (Say It has a tempered urge-for-flight; St Cecilia hovers in the atmosphere), Bowers doesn’t have any layers of overt modernity in her presentation.

Anything like that would ruin a song such as What To Do, which Bowers and co-producer Toohey make a semi-ghostly slide through the night. But even in the more regulation understated rock of Curious Moon - electric guitar in the wind; drums as low-key anchor – the voice doesn’t direct; it is another passenger too.

You know, the further I’ve gone with Ten Songs the more I’ve come to suspect that maybe its winning element isn’t any of these individual elements I’ve been picking at. Maybe it is, to borrow from a certain film lawyer, the vibe of the thing.

That’s it, the vibe. I rest my case.

BERNARD ZUEL

Due for release this Friday, 27 August, ‘Curious Moon’, the new single from Blue Mountains artist T. Wilds (aka Tania Wilds, the nom-de-plume of Tania Bowers) is a mesmerising ethereal track that seems to float on air, with Bowers’s voice an enchanting softly billowing cloud infused with an air of longing and melancholy. We are proud to premiere the track this morning with an absolutely transfixing video that manages to encapsulate the beauty and the grace of the song with a gorgeously shot, cinematic portrayal of dance, magic, and movement.

‘Curious Moon’ has a dreamy hypnotizing quality about it: Bowers’s voice is haunting, otherworldly (with echoes of Nico) and the instrumentation (guitars by Matt Toohey and drums by Joe Dews) reflective, restrained and shimmering. Bowers says of the track:

When I was writing ‘Curious Moon’ in my kitchen one day I knew it would be a special song. I was
imagining two people on an adventure escaping from reality to a dream-like Donnie Darko film and soundscape.

It is a special song indeed.

Filmed by Jem Kjelgaard from CloudHerd Films and coloured in a sepia-tinged burnished glow, the air in the accompanying video is magical and mystical as Bowers and Toohey perform, interspersed with shots of graceful, expressive dancers in a visually entrancing atmospheric room filled with a lush, rich natural light. Moonlight dust is spread across the dancers by a child and there is a dreamy, sensual fugue throughout

ALBUM REVIEW: ‘TEN SONGS’ FROM T. WILDS IS A SOFT AND DELICATE WONDERLAND.

Tania Bowers, operating under the nom de plume T. Wilds, has just released the album ‘Ten Songs’: a deceptively simple and unadorned collection of the sweetest sounds imaginable. This is an album that sparkles with life and vitality and shimmers with an innate glow. Bowers has the most distinctive vocal style: a relatively low register, delicate and emotive that has a quiet, almost whispered, diction imbued with a certain fragility. This vulnerability evokes singers like Nico: there is a certain dissociative, observational approach leavened by a mysticism and magical aura. Bowers capacity for evocative story telling recalls shades of Nick Cave.

The recordings are crisp and unburnished – accompanied by fellow Blue Mountains resident Matt Toohey – and often involving simple acoustic strumming, the odd piano tinkle, a percussive patter and distant weeping of strings. In some tracks, Toohey and others provides a vocal foil, either in a call and response form such as ‘Wounded Knee’ (with its lilting pace), in soft and delicate harmonies (‘I Swim’ or ‘Say It’) or a duet in ‘Goodbye’ – an imaginary tale of possible Bonnie and Clyde duo, that camaraderie that exists in outlaw and adventure – where Toohey shares part of the lead vocals.

Bowers weaves delicate threads in her songs – ‘With You’ with its backing vocalisations and layered vocals has a deep romanticism that folds in and out of the strings and plucking guitars.

‘Curious Moon’, a single, is a mesmerising ethereal track that seems to float on air, with Bowers’s voice an enchanting softly billowing cloud infused with an air of longing and melancholy, released with an absolutely transfixing video that managed to encapsulate the beauty and the grace of the song with a gorgeously shot, cinematic portrayal of dance, magic and movement.

‘Curious Moon’ has a dreamy hypnotising quality about it: Bowers’s voice is haunting, other wordly and the instrumentation (guitars by Toohey and drums by Joe Dews) reflective, restrained and shimmering. Bowers says of the track:

When I was writing ‘Curious Moon’ in my kitchen one day I knew it would be a special song. I was
imagining two people on an adventure escaping from reality to a dream-like Donnie Darko film and soundscape.

It is a special song indeed.

Penultimate track ‘St Cecilia’ starts with a spoken child’s voice, recalling the earlier mysticism and innocent wonder of ‘Curious Moon’. Bowers says of ‘St Cecilia’:

St Cecilia is about a creative drought. Life logistics like jobs and raising a family make it much harder to be creative or take creativity seriously, more than a hobby, and the part of growing up Catholic that I enjoyed was the cult-like collecting of Saint cards, I knew them all at one point. St Cecilia is the patron saint of the arts, so it’s about her sleeping or waking over us.

Indeed, in tracks like ‘What To Do’, there is an air of wide-eyed wonderment, infused with an air of melancholy.

The album ends with ‘Wind in the Valley’ – a soft, reflective track that has a spiritual, gospel feel about it: like some song of the enslaved yearning for redemption and a better world.

‘Ten Songs’ is a gorgeous infusion of sweet yearnings wrapped in a magical and mystical cloak. Bowers’s gentle musings are evocative and thrilling: the sounds crystalline, delicate and yet antithetically draped over a steely spine. This is an album full of an inherent grace, poised and shimmering.

Out through Cheersquad Records and Tapes, you can order ‘Ten Songs’ below on CD, limited edition translucent red 180gr vinyl, black 180gr vinyl and digital.

We were mesmerised when we first heard the brand new album from Blue Mountains songwriter T. Wilds (Tania Bowers), Ten Songs. Featuring Matthew Toohey, the album is a stunning set of songs that sit within the folk idiom, perfectly balanced between modern folk noir and dusty traditional forms. You can hear the avant stylings that artists such as Aldous Harding are exploring, alongside the heartfelt, traditional sound of Gillian Welch, the ghost of Karen Dalton and the gothic tones of Nico. Tania’s songs reach out intriguingly into dreamy and atmospheric indie folk and gentle psych/dream pop realms. There are drum machines, acoustic and electric guitars, cello and violin, spoken samples/interjections. Most importantly there’s her voice.

Tania kindly answered our Six Strings Q&A, giving us an insight into her influences, songwriting, the local scene and future plans.

What was the album that first led you down the dusty path of folk music?

If it was anyone in particular probably Joni Mitchell’s Clouds in high school. I remember borrowing CDs from the library of the Mamas and Papas, Bob Dylan, and Rickie Lee Jones, so I was always a folk-leaning musician, although grunge took over for a while. Suzanne Vega also had a lot to do with my songwriting style and still does. 

Describe your latest release in 100 words.

A refreshingly simple undertaking for me, I wanted to capture my songs in an immediate way ie acoustic guitar and vocal melody. Of course, some songs wanted a bit more than that and we had fun adding cello and drums here and there. It was mostly Matt and I interpreting the songs we had been playing together for a while. I think it sounds almost what I thought inside my head, strumming, contemplative, a bit of darkness…

What’s been the most memorable gig you’ve played?

Probably in Chicago and I’d say a show at Millennium Park – outdoors with ‘The Books’ was a really great experience. Chicago city was supporting these summer concert events and it was cool to play music in the daytime, to people sprawled over the grass having picnics, haha. I also remember playing with The Breeders when I was 19 or 20 and that was really fun meeting them and playing on the same bill when I was practically a lil teenager.

How did you learn to play your instrument?

In primary school I had a guitar teacher I thought was pretty cool so I knew some basic chords from those days but it wasn’t till I was about 15 years old that my sister started learning cool songs from The Cure and RatCat and I wanted to join in, that was when I started taking it a bit more seriously. 

What do you consider the finest song you’ve written?

Oh geez. I have written hundreds of songs, at this point some memorable ones to me are because they stick out of time and context. One song I wrote called ‘I See You Tiger ‘ I wrote completely in my head without being able to sing it or use an instrument because I was at a silent retreat, so I just had to remember it for that whole week. Another song ‘ June’ which is actually on my latest release was also interesting because I hadn’t written a song in four years. I also then, didn’t write another song for four years after it. 

If you could sit-in with one other musician (living or dead) who would it be?

SO. MANY. I think I could learn a thing or two from Dolly Parton and Nina Simone also Curtis Mayfield and PJ Harvey. If you asked for two I would have given 8 (sorry!)

Do you feel there is a strong folk/country music community in Australia and if so, what does it need to keep growing?

I have been a hermit for almost a decade so I just don’t know the answer to that. But there are so many awesome folk festivals and the Blue Mountains Folk festival is a big indicator of how popular folk and folk-influenced music is. Once COVID has settled down, we need what we have always needed, good music venues that respect artists and everyone to understand how important musicians and artists are to this country. I read somewhere that Australia’s culture has become coffee and real estate. How sad is that? 

What’s been your favourite folk/Americana release over the last year?

I LOVE the Smithsonian folkways release of Wu Fei and Abigail Washburn, I Shazamed that straight away.

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