I'll Be None The Wiser

Rowena Wise - The Lyrical Assassin. Or at least that’s what an Australian radio station (Australian Triple J) said once. Ya know what, they would be correct! This week is all about Rowena’s compelling song construction, impactful musical choices, clean vocal tone, and gut-wrenching, real, introspective lyrics.

As a quick note just before jumping into this week - I want to hear from you all! What do you all enjoy most of these newsletters? Any improvements / ideas? Something you’d find even more valuable from here or me? All ears! Genuinely. —→ Let’s get into it!

New Spaces | Similar Feelings

A tumultuous life isn’t one wrought with change. Change affords us the opportunity to learn more of us, more of our environment, and simply more on existence. And that is beautiful! There are a lot of times where music can sort of springboard into a place that is just exactly what you need to hear in that moment. Sonically, lyrically, technically. I think we each attach our surroundings and environment into our perception of music and that sometimes we can listen to something once in a certain environment, enjoy it, but it hits different later. I bring up this idea of change because it is the premise I feel throughout the course of Rowena’s most recent release (her first LP).

When it comes to new spaces, I think its fine or common to welcome in similar feelings. Joy, laughter, happiness but also sadness, anxiety, pain. All of those are emotions that when felt in a vacuum are harder to digest, but it’s perspective that affords us the opportunity to grow and learn and cope. This is a theme that bleeds into Rowena’s Senseless Acts of Beauty. The lyrical theme being one of love, separation, pain, and growth juxtaposed with musical themes in high energy, ballad-like energy, and a deep snare drum tone backbone mixed with twangified guitar (yes, I said that) that really carry the music to new heights and places. I know this is a lot…

Big Words - Lots of Vulnerability

Oops, sorry (but only kinda). I felt like I wanted to get a little real with you guys on this! This record was a really enjoyable listen for me in a variety of ways and I thought it would be fun to engage that more vulnerable side of speech and lay it alongside this release to help me in defining its sincerity as a musical composition. I will definitely keep it jovial and funny, cause that is just me, but just as much as that is true, so is the aforementioned.

This Rowena Wise record here is something I only just discovered recently, and it really pulled at the strings a bit, caused some introspection, and it really made me want to share this all of you here, so of course that is what I am doing!

⬇️ Breakdown + Rec ⬇️ 

As mentioned up above, Rowena is fairly “new” in the sense that there is only one full record that is released at the current moment. Given how I feel about it, see it performing, and otherwise - I see more music in our future from the lyrical assassin!

Thanks for tuning in, my friends! I do hope you all have enjoyed this week’s Finetuned. I’d appreciate any insights, opinions, thoughts, admiration, or otherwise. You can direct that towards my email or DM me on Twitter. ([email protected])

Please do share Finetuned with your friends & fam! I believe great music should be shared, cherished, and understood from all sorts of perspectives.

See you all in the next one! 🙌