GEM SHARES NEW SINGLE ‘RUINS’ + NEW EP ‘HEALING FEELINGS’ OUT NOW
Often among the literal and metaphorical ruins, plenty of life’s gems and lessons can be found; and for Australian producer and DJ GEM, heartrending gold has evolved from heartbreak and self discovery, with her stunning new single Ruins, out now, softly and serenely billowing you away with its empowered authenticity. A lesson in healing and dreamy indie pop, Ruins also provides a glance into GEM’s new EP Healing Feelings which was officially released on Friday September 30.
Gentle, undulating and flowing with swooning melodics, Ruins pits invigorating yet simplistic textures against GEM’s ethereal vocals. Like a meditative surge of warmth and fresh renewal, Ruins greets as a spiritual and slow-burning delight, softly building with sultry beats, while also acting as the perfect introduction to the broader EP Healing Feelings, as GEM explains, “I wanted the EP to reintroduce myself, starting with the parts that I hide the most. The story begins with Ruins. I was holding on so tightly to an idea that didn’t exist anymore – once I let that relationship shatter, the breakthrough begun and the healing started. I wanted the EP to start in mess, tangled, unsure, inching your way into the day as we all sometimes do and slowly, step by step, track by track find that voice, that inner knowing that sets you right again. I made a very deliberate decision to connect all the pieces of myself and make whole, regardless how popular that may or may not be”.
The single is accompanied by a live video featuring Martin Estrada on guitar (Selena Gomez, Macy Gray, Gashi, Say Grace, Snoop Dog).
Balancing pensive delivery with focused intention, GEM’s dreamy blend of liberating lyricism and transformative soundscapes practically leap out of the speakers and transports you body and soul into the subtle beauty of the world around on her upcoming EP; from the meditative experimental opener Soul Bath, to the empowering spoken word of Heartfelt, the lush flow of Innerbloom and the vivid vibration of Remedy, complete with a gospel choir, the broader Healing Feelings EP offers a tangible sonic feast, simultaneously reintroducing GEM to the world while also stoically showcasing GEM’s pursuit of connection in unexpected times alongside electronic undertones, as she reveals, “Truth be told, this wasn’t the EP I started to make. Or the one I was supposed to make. I felt myself being pulled towards a very conscious creation process. I started producing my own spiritual music and decided that I would blend wellness benefits into the mix so it was more than just another song in the background. I wanted to produce a project that would remind you on a deep level that there are better days ahead, that you can stop and start again at any moment and that you can manifest a healthy beautiful life – not something that would win me awards with the cool kids and I to make peace with that inside my heart. I was told New Age music was boring and that no one would listen, I was told that positivity was lame and people wouldn’t connect with it. That I should dig deeper past just things I love. That music should express pain. But how can I dig past love? Isn’t love the very reason for existing?”.
Embracing life’s highs, lows and everything in between, ultimately emerging with tales of insecurity, sex, the divine feminine and being the architect of all of your best days still to come, Healing Feelings wholeheartedly encapsulates its transformative moniker, merging clever and calm downtempo-meets-new-age beauty alongside polished production, splashes of neo soul and a significant lack of ego throughout the charming six tracks. And while undeniably flexing the scintillating creative know-how that has seen GEM snag millions of streams to date on Spotify so far alone as she continues to build into one of Australia’s most illustrious musical exports, the undeniable root behind Healing Feelings is an inescapable and genuine peace as much as it is a window into GEM’s own healing, as she explains, “I wanted to use the EP to openly talk about insecurities and not owning your ideas and how I’d been tip toeing and circling around my truest dream, as if shrinking and unthinking it was somehow safe keeping. I wanted a dreamy, inspiring musical blend, with empowering words and authentic messages. I longed for the music to carry you into the sunrise and just sit there, amongst all the beauty quietly complementing the colours of dawn. The theme is healing your feelings, cleansing and starting afresh. Wherever you may be on your journey”.
A trailblazing force in the musical world, GEM has tirelessly worked to innovate and lead the way for local artists into the international scene. Having previously been named in the Top 5 female music producers worldwide by Showbiz Magazine, GEM, currently based in Los Angeles has been nominated twice at the IMAs for Best Album (Electronic) and Producer Of The Year, as well as having her debut album The2070s hit #2 on the Australian iTunes Electronic Chart back in 2019. More recently, GEM was also one of only six producers selected globally to participate in the prestigious Grammy NEXT program, mentoring under Jeff Gitty of The Weeknd, HER and John Legend fame, and has also appeared at numerous high-profile gigs including TED Talks, the Emmys pre-party, Pride Miami and Pride NYC amongst countless others.
Percolating deep at the core of the GEM success story is ultimately a desire to explore her own journey, while inspiring others to do the same; something she delivers in stunning spades both on Ruins and the broader EP her sublime new track calls home, as she concludes, “I create music to make yourself better too. Music to raise your vibration with. Music that will encourage you to find all of the parts of yourself that you also hide and have the confidence to bring those to the world. Music that makes you dream more vividly, music that flips this antiquated narrative we’ve been sold for generations that shadowy, non-transparent, pre-fabricated, limiting and isolating story lines are the only ones worth selling. I am not here to ‘fake it until I make it’, I am here to share how I manage my own health using what I do (music production) in the hopes you can take inspiration from it and it makes your life a little sweeter too”. For anyone grappling with heartbreak, healing or just in need of a lush and intuitive listen, Ruins is a curative triumph against the chaos of life, and a perfect scene-setter for GEM’s next sonic chapter.
Healing Feelings is out now
MICHAEL DAY SHARES NEW SINGLE + VIDEO ‘PSYCH OR THE PRIEST’
Bathed in the soulful sounds that define the alt-folk genre he excels within, Perth Hills-born singer/songwriter Michael Day has entered into stunning new territory with the release of his latest single, Psych Or The Priest. A musician since a young age, Day crafted his enveloping musical style after years spent listening to leaders of the indie genre, including the likes of Josh Pyke, Angus & Julia Stone, and The Lumineers.
A reflective person by nature, Day translated this introspective focus into his music once again when he formed his current band in 2019. Backed by musical comrades Rhyan Lyndon-James, Ben Humphreys, and Dave Rajendram, Day’s sound is as folky as it is melancholic and ambient, with the sum of all these parts being illustrated in vibrant detail on latest single, Psych Or The Priest.
Tender in its delivery, and helped along by subtle trumpet and harmonica (and the production talents of Debaser Studio’s Andy Lawson), Psych Or The Priest sees Day drawing influence from the likes of Gregory Alan Isakov as he ruminates on the topic of anxiety and depression that often impacts his life. “The song started as a reflection on the emotions I had around the time, specifically the feeling of drowning,” Day explains. “As I sat on a train, thinking about the past number of years, thinking ‘What just happened?’, I felt like I was watching life as a montage and had no control over any of it, which left me feeling somewhat sad and useless, and maybe for the first time, I felt the feeling of hopelessness.”
It was these feelings of hopelessness and destabilisation that soon found themselves coalescing into the inspiration for Psych Or The Priest. Forcing himself to look inward and wonder if these thoughts are the product of his own psyche or external elements, the result is a track which Dayhimself says is bathed in pride, and indicative of the positivity he looks toward the future with. “I think this is me processing life and reflecting on my own actions and how they affect others,” he adds. “I hope others would hear it and be encouraged to self-reflect on how their actions influence and even hurt others, that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Maybe this song is just me feeling sad feelings and saying it’s ok to sit here for a moment.”
The track also comes paired with a powerful, ethereal, and visually breathtaking film clip which sees Day working with Harry James Blyth (Riley Pearce) to craft a visual which contextualises the message of Psych Or The Priest, and ultimately tells a story of triumph and catharsis. Filmed around the Mundaring Hills area, the clip also has a personal connection for Day, with the locations portrayed also part of where he spent time growing up.
“In light of the heavy nature of the song, the idea of weight was a big concept I wanted to portray,” Day says of the clip. “The idea that as we go through life heavy things continue to happen to us and sometimes it’s a feeling of compounding weight, that it gets bigger and more. The concept was to keep adding bags of weight and changing clothes symbolising different life stages or changes. The more we go through life the more hard things hit us and weigh us down. We go on carrying this baggage. We struggle with mental health or the different challenges life throws at us and one day we die. Life is hard.”
With Psych Or The Priest released in late September, Day and his band will also be touring around Western Australia in October, performing both a single launch and a three-date tour of Albany. Together these dates will allow fans to hear his touching new single, along with a raft of other acclaimed tracks in an environment which fosters both unique musical experiences, and – most importantly – comfort of the audience in attendance. “Storytelling, fairy lights and bean bags are a staple at our gigs to give a relaxed and inviting environment,” he quips. “And there are always impressive support acts who are on my listening list.”
Psych Or The Priest is out today, September 30.
PRETTY TALKS SHARE NEW SINGLE & VIDEO ‘HURT ME’
Capturing and celebrating all things bittersweet and beautiful in the world, glistening alt pop trio PRETTY TALKS return with an immersive and intensely engaging new single Hurt Me, officially out today. Showcasing a relationship breakdown soundtracked by glossy pop and retro synths, Hurt Me is also today accompanied by a raw music video that traverses youthful romance and the many harsh realities that can come with the territory, while also drawing inspiration from early 2000s and 2010s pop culture for good measure.
An emphatic follow up to the band’s lush debut track Need You, which dropped earlier this year, Hurt Me finds PRETTY TALKS welding nostalgia and modernity deep amongst lashings of shimmering and dramatic, angsty pop. Drawing influences from the likes of MUNA, 5 Seconds of Summer and The Band Camino on their latest release, Hurt Me is an intimate, soul-searching gem full of driving basslines, airy reprieves and silken vocals that simultaneously appears affable on its sonic surface while diving into self-exploration and the agonising moments of a relationship gone awry, as the band explain, “Hurt Me is a snapshot of a relationship in its most tumultuous moments, a relationship breaking down, where neither person is necessarily at fault. The outcome being that one person decides to put everything on the line whilst the other has already mentally checked out. It’s that feeling of “I know we’ve both made mistakes in this, but let’s give it one last chance”. It’s also about the moments of weakness; when you realise it’s not evolving in a positive way and you wish you could pretend it was just how it used to be”.
Produced by fellow musician and close friend Blake Wares, aka Central Coast singer-songwriter and producer lovemedo, and mastered by Jamie Muscat, Hurt Me is a gleaming and genuine snapshot of the highs and lows of young love; a fact brought vividly to life by the track’s accompanying music video. With The Million frontman Jacob Thomas on board as director of photography and cameraman for Hurt Me’s brooding music video, Hurt Me was filmed in and around PRETTY TALKS bassist Hadi Ansell and drummer and backing vocalist Tommy O’Brien’s previous place in Sydney’s inner West, with the location entirely gutted and reshaped to suit the band’s ultimate creative vision. And aptly capitalising on vocalist and guitarist Liam Deans’ interest in filmmaking and screenwriting, PRETTY TALKS also enlisted friends and actors Anna Baumgartner and Aaron Gee-Gamkreildze to bring the compelling clip to life. Liam reveals, “The Hurt Me music video is aesthetically inspired by the English television show Skins, combined with an early-2010’s Tumblr-esque Pinterest board. An emotional, volatile and messy relationship paired with a dirty, youthful abandon. It felt like an honest and real song to write and a beautiful thing to create on film. I scripted, storyboarded, directed and edited the music video, so it was great seeing all my tiny little concepts slowly come to life. We endeavour to build a world around our art and band, so we played with the ideas of hiding Easter eggs and band member cameos throughout this clip, adding another layer of meaning in which we are part of this universe that we build our songs in”.
Bringing together a close-knit group of friends-turned-housemates, the PRETTY TALKS origin story itself stems back to the guys meeting at The Australian Institute of Music. What began as a group assignment with Liam and Tommy soon evolved into meetings at university bars, bonding over shared musical tastes and, ultimately, the trio’s shared desire to craft music to strike people’s emotions and challenge the way listeners perceive life and the world around them. Now firmly dedicated to developing a culture and community of art and self-expression into every inch of their creative output, PRETTY TALKS have arrived in 2022 ready to divulge their soul-searching tunes written and recorded pre-pandemic, wielding their darkly beautiful aesthetic and striking lyricism. With another single waiting in the wings to release in the not-too-distant future, PRETTY TALKS continue to enamour with their bright and eloquent wares, and Hurt Me is a sublime second glance into the band’s ever-growing authentic universe. As Liam accurately concludes, “From writing, producing and recording the song, to developing, writing, shooting, editing the music video, it all feels like a joyful sigh of relief. It feels like we’ve created a real piece of well-rounded art with Hurt Me. Something that conveys the story in the gritty romantic aesthetic that we wanted”.
HURT ME is out today, Wednesday September 28.