EMMA DONOVAN SHARES SUMPTUOUS NEW SINGLE + VIDEO ‘TAKE ME TO THE RIVER’
One of Australia’s most celebrated voices, proud Gumbaynggirr and Yamatji artist Emma Donovan today dips into soulful waters with a sumptuous cover of Al Green’s 1974 hit Take Me To The River. The new track arrives alongside a deeply personal music video.
In a match made in heaven, Emma’s warm, velvety vocals mark the beginning of her new solo soul era, infused with her trademark storytelling and deep sense of personal connection. “I’m quite nervous releasing a song like Take Me To The River because the Al Green version is such an iconic version, and it’s a big song!”shares Emma. “But it’s exciting and good to share my perspective on it. A song like Take Me To The River is similar to an Archie Roach song like Get Back To The Land. It’s about filling that cup up after a big breakup, going to look for that Country, looking for that water, to cleanse and feel good. I love my connection to that song and I’m excited to share it.”
“My take on this song is really about family and community,” Emma continues. “We always talk about going up the river, that’s our outlet. We go fishing, we go swimming, we go to hang out, and we take the little ones and we’re there with family. We’ve been following my nannas and my grandfathers for years to the river. So hopefully, with that bit of language that we translated, people will feel the connection to that.”
No stranger to soulful territory after fronting acclaimed outfit The Putbacks, Emma’s new take on Take Me To The River also carries threads of her lifelong love of gospel and country. “In my new soul era, I would have to describe it still with country and gospel in there,” she explains. “All of those things also make up soul. There’s also a lot of soul in country, and I believe country and gospel need to be included in soul! And the other parts of my soul era are family and connection.”
“For the single itself I worked closely with Ben Edgar who has been playing guitar for me for a while, and he’s been doing most of our recordings,” Emma adds. “He pulled that sound at his home studio in Melbourne, in Belgrave. I also worked with David Symes (Boy & Bear) on this one — he plays bass on the track too. Me, Ben and David all put our three heads together for Take Me To The River.”
Adding her own unique charm to Al Green’s original, Emma weaves her personal narratives into both the song and its compelling companion video. “A lot of the concept and a lot of the story behind the clip is re-enacting some old photos and some memories that I have with family and fishing and the river,” she shares. “A lot of the reenactment is me as a little kid, but played by my own daughters in the present day. Because my grandparents were so active in my music — they were musical people and they would also fish and take us to the river — I’ve got an Aunty and Uncle just like them in the clip too.”
“For the song itself, I was channelling my nanna, my mum and her brothers,” Emma continues. “I grew up having these big fishing trips up the river of Kempsey, a little place in Northern NSW. We used to have huge trips there. Now, it’s probably not as big, but when I was a kid, we’d take all these cars full of kids and families, and we’d go out onto the back areas of the river near the airport at Kempsey. My grandmother would have to get permission to go on properties — these white fellas had bought properties, but they were at the back of the river. So, we’d go and my nan would make friends, or she’d have some connection to a lot of people who owned these properties. These were areas she’d been to when she was growing up, so I was channelling a lot of my grandmother and all of the family trips that we had going to the river in this song.”
Widely regarded as one of Australia’s most beloved voices, Emma Donovan’s career spans over two decades. The proud Gumbaynggirr and Yamatji artist has carved a singular path that fuses gospel, country and soul with the storytelling traditions of her culture. First emerging as a teenager with Stiff Gins, Emma went on to front The Putbacks, whose albums Dawn (2014), Crossover (2020) and Under These Streets (2021) earned her critical acclaim and cemented her as a vital force in Australian music. Having performed on iconic stages including WOMADelaide, Bluesfest Byron Bay and the Sydney Opera House, Emma has become a guiding voice for the next generation of First Nations artists, and in 2021 was inducted into the National Indigenous Music Awards Hall of Fame alongside her family band The Donovans. Emma’s previous album Til My Song Is Done was nominated for an ARIA last year and won an AIR Award this year.
On the horizon, Emma will perform a special multidisciplinary show — also titled Take Me To The River — that reimagines her catalogue with powerful new arrangements, visuals and storytelling. Following its premiere at Darwin Festival, the show will appear at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival this month and Sydney Festival in 2026, marking the latest chapter in a career defined by truth, power and an unwavering commitment to song.
“With these upcoming performances, fans can expect a deeper connection to these songs,” says Emma. “I love storytelling, I love putting my own spin on things. And playing live, I’ll be sharing lots of reasons why these particular songs in the show mean so much to me. I feel like with my last album I focused so much on the family, country vibe, and the gospel vibes. So, it’s been a while since I’ve sat in the soul hot seat again. This is just me slowly driving back into that area!”
Leading this new chapter is her stirring new single Take Me To The River — a song that brings Emma’s journey full circle, connecting her past to her present and luminous future, and celebrating her lifelong love of soul.
“I mostly grew up on gospel music and country music because they were the old Mission-style songs from our family,” she shares. “I was straight-up country growing up. The genre I knew outside of country leant more towards blues. My father had a big blues collection — Robert Cray, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and LaVern Baker. That was close to soul, vocally. I had a bit of Ella Fitzgerald played to me too by my father.”
“My father actually introduced Aretha Franklin to me via the Blues Brothers film,” Emma continues, “where Aretha sings in the shop, she’s trying to hold off her husband from going on tour. She sings her song Think, and that was the first time I got to know a bit more soul. And then later on down the line I remember some friends sharing with me Renée Geyer’s album Sweet Life, my friend burnt that album and sent it to me.”
“I can’t go past a good soul song that comes from a breakup. There’s some heavy breakup sad songs that I know, and I guess it could be the country influences but I’m all over that like a rash,” Emma laughs. “Ann Peebles would sing I Can’t Stand the Rain – I love a good sad, hard soul song. They’re the things that I love and that make me tick.”
Take Me To The River is out today via Civilians.
EMMA DONOVAN – UPCOMING TOUR DATES:
SAT 18 OCT | EAT DRINK PLAY GIPPSLAND, LEONGATHA VIC | All Ages
Tickets available from www.eatdrinkplaygippsland.com.au | Festival Outlets
SAT 25 OCT | MELBOURNE INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL, MELBOURNE VIC | All Ages
Tickets available from www.melbournejazz.com | 1300 182 183 | All Ticket Outlets
DENMARK’S ‘ROYA’ ANNOUNCE AUSTRALIA TOUR FOR JAN 2026
Electrifying Danish pop duo, ROYA are set to bring their euphoric, house-infused live show to Australia for the very first time for a string of Aussie summer sets, set to lavish Brisbane (The Triffid) on Jan 29, Melbourne (The Night Cat) on Jan 30 and Sydney (Oxford Art Factory) on Jan 31.
Tickets go on sale today from 10am AEST from teglive.com.au/live_tour/roya/.
Emerging from Denmark, Line Gade and Sebastian Igens have built one of Europe’s fastest-growing fanbases. They first captured worldwide attention when a clip of their single Ain’t Just A Game went viral, with their follow-up single Cruise solidifying their breakout moment, snagging over 44 million streams and more than 500 million views across social platforms.
Now with millions of streams and sold-out international shows under their belt, ROYA’s momentum shows no signs of slowing down and Australia is finally getting in on the action.
Hyped to be jetting across the world to play for their Australian fans, Roya said, “From the very beginning of this journey, we’ve felt the love and support pouring in from Australia. Every message, every stream, every comment – we’ve seen it all, and we’ve felt so connected to the Aussies even from the other side of the world. This is not just another show for us. This is something we’ve been manifesting since day one and now the dream is finally becoming reality! We can’t wait to bring the beats, the love, the sweat, the energy and to live the music together!”
Tickets are on sale from 10am from teglive.com.au/live_tour/roya/.
ROYA – AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES:
Tickets available from teglive.com.au/live_tour/roya/
THUR 29 JAN | THE TRIFFID, BRISBANE | TICKETS
FRI 30 JAN | THE NIGHT CAT, MELBOURNE | TICKETS
SAT 31 JAN | OXFORD ART FACTORY, SYDNEY | TICKETS
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CHUCK SICS ANNOUNCES DEBUT EP ‘SLIPSTREAM’
Sydney-based multi-instrumentalist Chuck Sics has unveiled his long-awaited debut EP Slipstream – a five-track journey through dread, self-analysis, sleeplessness and reflection.
Entirely self-produced and mixed, with every instrument performed by Chuck himself, Slipstream is a whimsical yet hard-hitting outing that fuses alt-pop-rock production with pensive and occasionally cynical lyricism.
From the psychedelic warmth of opening track Redo, to Britpop-tinged grooves on M.A.D, buoyant melodies in the title track and the hazy, contemplative close, the EP showcases Chuck’s versatility and emotional depth in full.
Five years in the making, Slipstream marks the arrival of an artist unafraid to explore both light and shadow in his music.
“I don’t think of myself as a reliable narrator, even of my own emotions,” Chuck shares. “There’s a healthy amount of self-doubt in this record – and for me, that often turns into dread.”
With Slipstream, Chuck Sics steps into the spotlight as one of Australia’s most intriguing new voices in indie-pop.