SUPPORT FOR EMILY WURRAMARA + PRAISE FOR NARA
AIR Awards – Independent Album of the Year, Independent Music Video of the Year 2025 (Nominee)
National Indigenous Music Awards – Artist of the Year 2025 (Nominee)
National Indigenous Music Awards – Album of the Year 2025 (Nominee – NARA)
National Indigenous Music Awards – Song of the Year 2025 (Nominee – ‘STFAFM’)
National Indigenous Music Awards – Film Clip of the Year 2025 (Nominee – ‘Lordy Lordy’)
ARIA Awards – Best Adult Contemporary Album 2024 (NARA)
ARIA Awards – Best Independent Release 2024 (Nominee – NARA)
J Awards – rage & triple j Film Clip of the Year 2024 (‘Lordy Lordy’)
The Australian Music Prize 2024 (Longlist – NARA)
National Indigenous Music Awards 2024 – Film Clip of the Year (Nominee – ‘Magic Woman Dancing’)
National Live Music Awards – Best Folk Act 2023
National Live Music Awards – Live Voice in Tasmania 2023 (Nominee)
Environmental Music Prize 2023 (Nominee)
AIR Awards – Best Independent Children’s Album 2023 (Nominee – Ayarra Emeba / Hush EP)
AIR Awards – Independent Blues and Roots Album 2019 (Milyakburra)
Australian Music Prize – Tomorrow Maker Award 2018“Emily Wurramara is a rare artist, and the follow-up to 2018’s highly acclaimed debut album Milyakburra proffers the depths of her music ability and the lengths she’ll go to deliver it. Through an exhilarating mix of blues, indie, country and folk, NARA’s guiding light is strength and honesty… [NARA] reflects on the most unpalatable parts of life, while simultaneously finding the beauty in it.” – Rolling Stone
“a confident and outgoing second album.” – The Guardian
“With co-producer Kuya James, the honey-voiced Warnindhilyagwa singer-songwriter proceeds to smooth her crisp acoustic roots with subtle electronic colours… the emotional push and pull of a career in motion” – The Age / Sydney Morning Herald
“a deeply personal journey through a markedly eclectic musical landscape… a gorgeous melange of sound and style.” – The Australian
“NARA brims with layered arrangements that move confidently across genres and guests… the album’s title may translate to ‘nothing’ in Anindilyakwa, but NARA is quite something indeed” – The Big Issue
“Fans of Warnindhilyagwa woman Emily Wurramara have been waiting a long time for NARA. Once you hear it, that wait will feel insignificant – this is a comprehensive exploration of the many dimensions of Emily Wurramara’s musical powers” – ABC News
“NARA features soul-baring tracks about incredibly dark and personal topics – the kind most other artists would only dare broach if they were camouflaged in metaphors – and Wurramara feels so confident in them” – The Music (Cover Artist) |
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lutruwita/Tasmania-based multi-award-winning artist, author, producer, activist and proud Warnindhilyagwa woman hailing from Groote Eylandt & Milyakburra/Bickerton Island Emily Wurramara (she/her – pronunciation guide here) today shares ‘Adore Me‘ – a sun-lit alt/indie/folk-pop meditation on love of all kinds for anyone who “has their sh*t together, but doesn’t at the same time”, contrasting sonic euphoria with deep layers of lyrical frustration – her first official release since she made history by being the first Indigenous woman to ever win an ARIA for Best Adult Contemporary Album thanks to her second album NARA (2024), took out the J Award for Australian Music Video of the Year 2024, and sold out multiple stops on the album’s double run of tour dates. It follows a massive ten months for the acclaimed artist since NARA‘s release, with 4x current nominations each at this year’s National Indigenous Music Awards and AIR Awards, 3x songs eligible for triple j’s Hottest 100 of “Australian” Songs – most recently selling out her headline show @ Sydney Opera House for VIVID with additional performances at City Recital Hall for Mardi Gras, and upcoming dates across July on Turtle Island/so-called Canada at Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Calgary Folk Music Festival, Winnipeg Folk Festival, a headline show on Musqueam, Squamish & Tsleil-Waututh Land/Vancouver, and at Garma Festival on Yolngu Country in the so-called NT this August – all dates below. ‘Adore Me‘ is out now via ABC Music – stream/purchase HERE.
“You can look away / And tell me that you’re sorry
Fight for me to stay / Just tell me you adore me”
Written around the NARA tour following the album’s historic ARIA win and landing alongside a warm, diaristic video documenting this momentous time, ‘Adore Me‘ is a love song with a twist – all jubilance and sunlight on first listen as it opens with the spellbinding woozy synths Emily Wurramara laid down on the track’s original demo, building to a buoyant pop groove – but there is an ache for reciprocity underneath the surface, as she reflects on “the flaws and patterns humanity engage with” when it comes to love in all its forms – whether internal, external or universal: “all these different concepts of love we need to look at and embrace as society” Wurramara says – to meditate on what we deserve from these relationships, especially when there is “so much pain in the world”. Co-produced by Wurramara with longtime collaborator James Mangohig (A.B. Original, Daniel Johns), decorated with rhythmic flourishes of various bells, medicine bowls and chimes and inspired by the way artists like Florence + the Machine and James Blake blend emotive lyrics with atmospheric soundscapes, the song was recorded on Larrakia Country’s/Darwin’s Sands Studios with many more of NARA’s players including Caiti Baker on vocal engineering duties and a rapturous chorus of friends, with additional production, mixing and instrumentation via Tony Buchen (G Flip, Mildlife – bass, synthesiser) at Church Street Studios who worked with Declan Kelly (Bernard Fanning – drums, percussion). ‘Adore Me‘ stands as a testament to Wurramara‘s ability to ask the big, endlessly complex questions in the most healing, gorgeous, heart-on-sleeve ways – as she did on NARA – in a more expansive way than ever before, leaning further into the production instincts that helped to make her second album so singular.
Wurramara explains: “I’m a chord girl – so after laying down the chords for ‘Adore Me‘, I just sat there at two o’clock in the morning improvising. I heard the hook first, recorded it and then improvised the verse, which hasn’t changed since then. When it comes to songwriting, I feel like love songs are my superpower; I’m very well-versed and experienced in that. I’ve got a big heart, I’m a lover, and sometimes that can lead to challenges in the self and also within a relationship. But it’s all about growth. You’ve gotta go through that to understand the love you deserve and need. You grasp onto this idea of what adoration means, in the hope you find that, only to realise that, hey, maybe you should love yourself first? Set that standard for how you want to be loved. Relationships are a lot of work and I firmly believe that fostering these discussions, around love and vulnerability, can lead to greater understanding and connection between people who are longing for that profound experience. I think ‘Adore Me‘ really captures that essence – and there’s this continuation of community with the way we recorded it, which I loved.“
Dubbed one “of the country’s greatest voices” (Double J), songwriting helps Emily Wurramara make sense of the world. “To me, songwriting is like a ceremony, it’s sacred,” she shares. “It allows connection to happen; not to the physical, but to the soul, to the spirit.” An important, impactful voice in so-called-Australia’s musical landscape, the internationally acclaimed, multi-award-winning artist has amassed 35+-million streams on Spotify alone thanks to her breath-taking talents as an artist, storyteller and performer who is known for her ability to evoke feeling through intimacy and appreciation of life’s subtleties and complexities.
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A self-described “rebirth” album titled for the Anindilyakwa word meaning “nothing”, 2024’s NARA – debuting at #17 on ARIA’s Aus Albums Chart, #9 on the Digital Albums chart, and #6 on the AIR Albums Chart, also longlisted for theAustralian Music Prize – featured triple j-added singles ‘STFAFM’ ft. Arringarri, ‘Lordy Lordy‘ ft. Tasman Keith, as well as ‘Magic Woman Dancing‘ & ‘Midnight Blues‘ and attracted high praise from musicians, actors, comedians and media figures alike from The Wiggles to Nicky Winmar, Barkaa to Ben Lee, Fanny Lumsden, Sean Millis and many more. The album drew glowing reviews from Rolling Stone, The Age, The Australian, Beat Magazine, The Big Issue, The AU Review and support via The Guardian, The Brag Media (Record of the Week), Junkee, SBS Living Black with Karla Grant, ABC News, ARIA Amplified, NITV, Daily Telegraph, Witchology Magazine UK and was added at Double J, highlighted in a myriad of end of year lists ranging from KEXP’s Sounds of Survivance DJ Kevin Sur, The Guardian (Best AU Albums of 2024), Rolling Stone (#11 – Best AU Albums of 2024), JB HiFi (Best AU Albums of 2024), The Music (Best AU Albums of 2024), Double J (#12 – Best Albums of 2024), Happy Magazine (Best AU Releases of 2024), Kill Your Darlings Culture Picks, RUSSH’s ARIA-Winning Albums to Listen To, Outside My Inside (Best Albums of 2024), Suffragette Records (Best Selling/Favourite Albums of 2024), named top “AU” album of the year by Heavy and Weird and Music Farmers, The Footy Almanac (#5 – Best AU Albums of 2024), and Bernard Zuel, with Angie McMahon cementing ‘STFAFM‘ as one of her Hottest 100 votes via triple j and Zan Rowe shouting the track out as one of her favourites of the year; plus rage highlighting in their Best New Music Videos 2024 (‘Lordy Lordy‘ – also #2 in the rage 50) and Wurramara herself as one of their Best of the Guests 2024. The record was also named Feature / Album of the Week across 8 community radio stations nationally with strong DSP playlisting support and a breathtaking debut on triple j‘s Like A Version, covering Hozier‘s ‘Too Sweet‘.
When universally acclaimed second album NARA won Best Adult Contemporary Album at the 2024 ARIA Awards, Wurramara became the first Indigenous woman to take out this category since the award’s inception in 1987, with the record also nominated for ARIA‘s Best Independent Release, longlisted for the Australian Music Prize and saw her nominated as the APRA Awards Emerging Songwriter of the Year. Previously, the Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore-directed film clip for ‘Lordy Lordy’ ft. Tasman Keith was announced as the 2024 J Award winner for Australian Music Video of the Year, with the station adding the track to full rotation as well as another album single, the rollicking mental health anthem ‘STFAFM’ ft. Arringarri. Her debut studio album, 2018’s Milyakburra – named after Milyakburra/Bickerton Island, her ancestor’s established home of the Wurramara tribe – won the AIR Award for Best Independent Blues And Roots Album, a moment that came full-circle at the 2024 ARIA Awards where she presented that same award to its new recipient. A six-time Queensland Music Award winner, Emily Wurramara is also a passionate advocate for environmental issues, mental health awareness and beyond with musical collaborations including The Wiggles (on ARIA-winning Re:Wiggled! as well as Emma! 2), PNAU and Empire of the Sun‘s Nick Littlemore (on the highly-praised ‘ So High‘ from PNAU album Hyperbolic which also featured Khalid, Ladyhawke, Troye Sivan and Bebe Rexha), Reuben James ( Tori Kelly, Sam Smith), GRAMMY Award-winning producer Q Million, Emma Donovan, Kee’ahn, Fred Leone, DRMNGNOW, Bumpy and more on heartfelt tribute ‘ Forever 15‘, JK-47, Kutcha Edwards, The Wiggles, Tibetan musician & activist Tenzin Choegyal, Mereani Masani (PNG) and many more, including on Bad//Dreems’ triple j Like A Version alongside Peter Garrett ( Midnight Oil) and members of Mambali which placed in the station’s Hottest 100 that year. Wurramara’s striking live performances are at once intimate and brimming with an overwhelming sense of community, packed with full-chested sing-alongs, heartfelt stories, raw honesty and laughter in a showcase of her incredible skill and sleek melodies, taking the audience along with her on a profound journey of growth and healing – “I love to turn my audiences into my backing singers”, she says – selling out headline shows at venues from intimate to mid-size to the Sydney Opera House and sharing stages with renowned artists including the late Uncle Archie Roach, Missy Higgins, Thelma Plum, Baker Boy, Mavis Staples, ICEHOUSE, Rob Thomas, Midnight Oil and many more, plus appearances at high-profile festivals across so-called Australia like Bluesfest, Sydney Mardi Gras, Groovin The Moo, VIVID, A Festival Called Panama, RISING, Treaty Day Out, WOMADelaide, Port Fairy Folk Festival, YABUN Festival and many more live appearances including the Protect Our Oceans benefit series, the Australian High Commission in Papua New Guinea, at TEDx and with the Queensland Orchestra, as well as internationally on Turtle Island/so-called USA & Canada, Sweden, France, and beyond.
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LIVE DATES
July 10 – 14 – Winnipeg Folk Festival, Turtle Island/CAN
Jul 17 – Vancouver Civic Theatres, Turtle Island/CAN
July 18 – 20 – Vancouver Folk Music Festival, Turtle Island/CAN
July 24 – 26 – Calgary Folk Music Festival, Turtle Island/CAN
August 1 – 4 – Garma Festival, Yolngu Country NT
Tickets here
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MORE ABOUT EMILY WURRAMARA
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Emily Wurramara continues to be a force of empowerment, with a preternatural ability to bring people together in the most open and vulnerable way. Furthering this sense of connection, she has dedicated herself to championing vital causes like mental health and environmental issues. Her work in these spaces echoes the emotional nuance and depth of compassion that resonate so strongly in her songcraft, with a catalogue written and sung in both English and Anindilyakwa language. Now a first-time author, having co-written children’s book Marringa Lullaby – based on her song of the same name – with Sylvia Wurramarrba Tkac for HarperCollins – the impact of her art is evident, with her music garnering widespread support from media internationally, also soundtracking film & television, art gallery installations and fashion runways alike. Of her historic win, ARIA shared the news, saying “We’re thrilled to acknowledge Emily Wurramara’s historic achievement in becoming the first Indigenous woman to win the Best Adult Contemporary Album ARIA Award for NARA. The album debuted at #17 on ARIA’s Aus Albums Chart on September 2 and was awarded the ARIA for Best Adult Contemporary Album at the 2024 ARIA Awards on November 20. Huge, well-deserved congratulations to Emily and all involved in this incredible album and historic achievement.”
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CONNECT WITH EMILY WURRAMARA
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