Accomplished Melbourne-based singer, songwriter, producer and stage actress Grace Cummings has released a new single and music video for “Up In Flames,” from her upcoming self-produced second album. Storm Queen will be released January 14 on ATO Records and will follow Cummings’ low-key debut album Refuge Cove, released in 2019 via King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard’s Flightless Records.

“I wrote this song the day Notre Dame burned down. I love being able to trace this song back to the exact day with a little timestamp like that,” Cummings said of the new single. “It reminded me of a time that I remember vividly, standing on the sands of Jan Juc beach, looking at the ocean. Every wave that hit the shore was thick and black. I went to take a closer look. water and it was full of burnt gum leaves. “

True to its title, Storm Queen is a work with its own unruly climate, governed only by the visceral quality of Cummings’ haunting and devastating vocal presence, as heard on stage at the opening for Weyes Blood, Evan Dando, J Mascis. and more. With most of the songs captured in the first few takes and featuring unexpected flourishes from Cummings’ peers in Melbourne, Storm Queen presents a vast and volatile emotional landscape of one of the most captivating folk artists to step onto the scene in years. . “Up In Flames” follows the previous release of the single / video “Heaven”.

An almost lifelong musician, Cummings made her debut as a drummer in a series of high school groups whose repertoire consisted largely of AC / DC and Jimi Hendrix covers. When she started writing her own songs, she drew inspiration from artists like Australian singer / songwriter Paul Kelly, Bob Dylan and Spiritualized frontman J Spaceman, as well as traditional Irish folk music her father played. often at home.

“Irish melodies are one of my favorites; they go to places so dark and dramatic, ”she said. Shortly after launching as a solo artist in the late 2010s, Cummings landed a contract with Flightless Records (a Melbourne-based label founded by former King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard drummer Eric Moore). After attending drama school, she has also spent much of the past decade performing in Australian theater and most recently starred in the Melbourne Theater Company Berlin production of Joanna Murray-Smith. . Noting his eternal fondness for Shakespeare – “If anyone wants me to play Hamlet, I will” – Cummings found his indelible lyrical sensibility indelible by certain literary influences. “For me, poems and stories are sometimes more of an inspiration than music, because they don’t give you a melody – you just have to imagine yours,” she says.

Over the years, Cummings has combined his idiosyncratic musicality with a deliberately spontaneous approach to songwriting. “I don’t really do this thing where I lock myself in and sit at a table like, ‘Okay, let’s write a song now,'” she said. “If I feel like I have something to write, I take it out right away.” And in the studio, Cummings remained entirely determined to follow her deepest and most immediate instincts. “I’m not at all valuable about recording; it just doesn’t make sense to me,” she says. “I am who I am and I sound like I sound, and I’m not really interested in going in as some sort of magician to try and make it sound different.”

In the making of Storm Queen, Cummings reinforced the self-mastery naturalism at the heart of his art, ultimately distilling his vision to its most basic essence. “In the past, there were times when I let the opinions of others affect me too much,” she says. “But with this record, I learned that I am allowed to influence myself instead of accepting someone else’s ideas. I learned to fully trust what I see and hear in my life. head, and I stayed with that and focused on creating what I love … most: something real, raw, ugly, and beautiful. “

Watch the new clip here: