Naarm/Melbourne artist Rowena Wise releases her sophomore album, Bad Things Feel Good*.
Blending ’60s folk, indie rock, garage pop and alt-rock, Wise creates a sound that’s intimate and shapeshifts throughout the album. Heartbreaking honesty anchors the album as she explores what it means to be human, embracing the reality that life is messy and there’s no such thing as a picture-perfect ending.
Bad Things Feel Good* explores relationships throughout, acknowledging imperfect parents, former lovers and even the relationship she has with herself. Wise reflects:
“I have been careless with my heart, dishonest to myself about what I want and who I am. I’ve loved, lost, and left the realm of comfort to pursue hard truths. I realise now that pain has become something that doesn’t senselessly happen. It comes as one part of a larger picture, and I want to learn from it rather than recoil. Now I don’t know who I am, but I do know that I just want to be human, to be at peace with the messiness of life without continuing to try to tell a clean, novel story about it.”
Alongside the album, Wise shares focus track ‘Unlearning Of Love’, which explores the blurred lines between relationships.
“Non-monogamy was part of the context in which I wrote this song. I was experiencing the confusion of loving multiple people at once, but more than that, I was wondering what a new connection could become when there were fewer assumptions or expectations around it. There was a real tension in not knowing where friendship ended and romance began, or whether it needed to become either. That openness could feel scary and obscure, but it was also exciting, meaningful and incredibly expansive. Getting to know people in that more open way taught me as much about myself as it did about others – how differently people love, communicate, attach and move through the world.
Rowena Wise
Changing your fundamental beliefs about love can feel destabilising, like your identity is cracking open. I wrote ‘I’m coming apart for the slow unlearning of love’ to capture that internal rupture. To unlearn is to dismantle something that once felt like truth. It can feel pretty daunting and destructive to let go of the frameworks that shaped your sense of self. But within that unravelling, there’s expansion.”
Bad Things Feel Good* is an album that finds power in diving into the personal, embracing the bad and finding growth through it. It’s about learning from what hurts and transforming into a stronger version of yourself.
Upcoming tour dates:
Rowena Wise – New Zealand Tour Dates (solo)
24 Sept – Kerikeri – Turner Centre Theatre Bar
25 Sept – Auckland – Old Folks Association
26 Sept – Raglan – The Yard
27 Sept – Oakura – Dawn
3 Oct – Wellington – Vogelmorn
Rowena Wise and Her Band – Australian Tour Dates
15 Oct – Melbourne (VIC) – Howler
16 Oct – Castlemaine (VIC) – The Bridge Hotel
23 Oct – Sydney (NSW) – The Vanguard
24 Oct – Thirroul (NSW) – Thirroul Railway Hotel
29 Oct – Brisbane (QLD) – Black Bear Lodge
30 Oct – Mapleton (QLD) – Mapleton Pub
7 Nov – Adelaide (SA) – Grace Emily Hotel
13 Nov – Hobart (TAS) – Altar Bar
20 Nov – Fremantle (WA) – Mojo’s (solo)
22 Nov – Margaret River (WA) – The River (solo)
UK Tour Dates
4 March – London (UK) – Moth Club
5 Mar – Bristol (UK) – The Louisiana
6 Mar – Birmingham (UK) – The Sunflower
7 Mar – TBA (UK) – Venue TBA
9 Mar – Newcastle (UK) – Cluny2
10 Mar – Glasgow (UK) – The Glad Cafe
11 Mar – Leeds (UK) – Headrow House
12 Mar – Norwich (UK) – Voodoo Daddy’s
13 Mar – Brighton (UK) – Green Door Store
14 Mar – Manchester (UK) – The Abbey
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