Rowena Wise 'Senseless Acts of Beauty'

Hot off the back of a mammoth time at The Great Escape (UK), Rowena Wise is releases her stunning new album, “Senseless Acts of Beauty”. Described by CLASH as “carefully etched indie folk”, the Melbourne/Naarm-based artists’ ruminations on love, alienation, and self-empowerment are fast catching attention.

Hailing from the Western Australian surf town of Margaret River, Rowena Wise’s musical journey began at a young age. Together with her mother (a folk musician from Chicago) and father (a luthier who builds the custom guitars she plays today), they performed as a family band throughout her youth, playing folk festivals all over. Now, grown up and living on the opposite coast in Melbourne, Rowena is on the precipice of something exciting of her own.

A new zenith, her songs are full of emotional depth, and by allowing a searing honesty to run throughout, she’s being true to herself and the listener, holding space for all of life’s wonder and mess. Over the album’s ten tracks, she offers heady ruminations on love, loss, and alienation yet counters them with warmth, courage, and empowerment.

Working closely with producer Robert Muiños (Didirri, Julia Jacklin, Little May) and her band Rich Bradbeer (bass) and Jess Ellwood (drums), they recorded the whole album live in Melbourne’s Rat Shack studio. Often capturing a track in one take, this approach allowed them to bottle the raw energy of the performance, lifting Rowena’s whispy, powerful vocals to help make an evocative listening experience, as if the storytelling is being delivered by a close friend. This is music that reflects new perspectives, consolidated after navigating heavy life experiences and hard lessons that informed a new direction, artistically and personally, for Rowena to move forward.