Jen Cloher & The Endless Sea released their critically acclaimed ARIA nominated album Dead Wood Falls in 2006. They have toured with the likes of Josh Pyke, Ben Lee, Missy Higgins, Jose Gonzalez and MIa Dyson and played Homebake, Queenscliff, Falls, Feel Good and Harvest. For all the latest on this hot new songwriter and band go to www.jencloher.com
Christine Anu is an Australian pop singer/songwriter/actress of Torres Strait Islander descent. She is an Australian icon, and her cover of “My Island Home” is the song that she is most known for. She studied dancing at school, thinking that it would lead her into a singing career. She has also worked as a cultural ambassador for Torres Strait Islanders, and she is associated with the "Deadlys" - the national Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander music, sport, entertainment and community awards.
Bertie Blackman’s first encounter with her artistic self came as a child sashaying across her mother and father’s paint strewn studio floor. The daughter of iconic Australian artist Charles Blackman, not many musicians can boast a foundation of emotional expression like Bertie.
Bertie first stepped onto the scene with ‘Headway’ (2004), her folk-inspired debut album. The single ‘Favourite Jeans’ became Bertie’s radio breakthrough and saw her dubbed “Australia’s underground queen”.
American indie rock and avant-garde musician, composer and producer Jim O'Rourke has been a key component in the increasing overlap of the American and European experimental music avant-garde, working in everything from jazz and rock to ambient and electro-acoustic and building many a bridge in between. A Chicago native, his work has found equal luck with experimental jazz and noise fanatics, chill room denizens, and bedroom experimentalists, and has had the resultant effect of cross-pollinating many otherwise isolated compositional communities.
James "Blood" Ulmer (born February 2, 1942 in St. Matthews, South Carolina) is an American avant-garde jazz and blues guitarist and singer. Ulmer's distinctive guitar sound has been described as "jagged" and "stinging." His singing has been called "raggedly soulful." Ulmer began his career playing with various soul jazz ensembles, and first recorded with organist John Patton in 1969. After moving to New York in 1971, Ulmer played with Art Blakey & The Jazz Messengers, Joe Henderson, Paul Bley, Rashied Ali and Larry Young.
The Cruel Sea is a multi-ARIA Award winning 90s Australian rock/blues outfit. Originally an instrumental band focused on surf sounds, the addition of vocalist Tex Perkins (also a member of The Beasts Of Bourbon and a solo artist) proved an inspired decision. Combining the charismatic Perkins with the highly talented musicians created an unstoppable force through much of the 90s. Members of the band continue to perform, though with the exception of Perkins, most activity is fairly low key.
Patty Griffin, born Patricia Jean Griffin, March 16th, 1964 in Old Town, Maine, is an American folk singer. She brought out her debut album Living With Ghosts--a set of demos featuring only Ms. Griffin and her guitar--to critical acclaim in 1996. Her sophomore album, Flaming Red, demonstrated a more rocking, full-band sound. The ill-fated Silver Bell album was never released by her record label, however, and the label terminated her recording contract shortly after that. Many of the songs from Silver Bell were re-recorded for subsequent albums.
Ed Kuepper is an Australian guitarist, singer and songwriter. He co-founded the seminal punk band The Saints, the experimental post-punk group The Laughing Clowns and later the grunge-like The Aints. He has also recorded over a dozen albums in his own name with a variety of backing bands, notably Ed Kuepper and the Yard Goes On Forever, Ed Kuepper and his Oxley Creek Playboys, Ed Kuepper and The Institute Of Nude Wrestling, The Exploding Universe of Ed Kuepper, Ed Kuepper and the New Imperialists and presently Ed Kuepper and the Kowalski Collective.
Tracey Thorn (born September 26, 1962, in Brookmans Park, Hertfordshire) is an English pop singer and songwriter. She is best known as being one half of the duo Everything But the Girl. She grew up in Hatfield, Hertfordshire and studied English at the University of Hull, where she graduated in 1984 with First Class Honours. She lives with her EBTG partner Ben Watt in North London. The couple have twin daughters born in 1998, and a son born in 2001.
The Waifs (originally styled as The WAiFS) are an Australian folk rock band formed in 1992 in Albany, Western Australia, by Josh Cunningham (guitar, vocals), and sistersVikki Thorn (n