
Recently featured on Elton John’s radio show Rocket Hour, Alison’s song Cowboy was described; “It’s so beautiful… Wow, now I absolutely love that, it’s one of my favourite tracks of the year… We will definitely be playing that again.” - Elton John
Alison is an Australian musical artist and songwriter, focused on writing and recording music. She pulls together many styles and influences to construct (particular aesthetics in her) songs, that show different corners of the human experience. “I care most about writing songs. I write ALL the time. I have a hard drive full of music.”
Alison studied jazz piano and voice in Adelaide, South Australia, and then a masters in linguistics in Sydney. Having lost confidence in her voice as a result of her studies, she spent several years in Europe, in particular Berlin, which was “a really formative experience as an adult. The friends and mentors I found in that city helped me find my direction and sense of place in the world, more broadly. Like any poet or artist who moves to a melting pot, I met artists, musicians and a community of people who I believed informed my taste, and my development as an artist.”
It was after this that Alison began to focus more seriously on song writing. She learned the guitar and delved into different genres, integrating the country and folk tradition of storytelling into her own writing.
She was studying philosophy in Germany when she heard a song on a Netflix show; the song was Elegy by Leif Vollebekk, a Canadian singer songwriter. “It completely shifted my world. I knew I just had to write songs, and I couldn’t waste any more time not doing that.” Obsessed with following a new sound that felt so intrinsic and “like myself”, she then moved to Montreal for 11 months and wrote her debut album Sometimes I’m There, which included her song Cowboy.
Her sound shifted to become an intersection of soul, pop and folk. An electric, super modern take on the traditional singer songwriter, lyrically and rhythmically driven. She returned to the electric organ sounds of a Nord keyboard, however sometimes re-visits the softer sound of an acoustic guitar.
Her most recent influences are; Stayed Too Long at the Fair by Bonnie Raitt, Bon Iver, Little Feat, Arvo Part, Homer’s Odyssey, Day Breaks by Norah Jones with drums by Brian Blade, and Cranes in the Sky by Solange.
A strong element of Alison’s creative output is collaboration, with different musicians and also across different art forms. “I love collaborating, writing for people, writing with people…across many different styles. I’ve always danced, and I feel like movement is a big part of where I write from.“
Winner of the 2018 people’s choice and judges choice awards SCALA Songwriting Competitionin South Australia. She has most recently in 2021 played Seabreeze Festival in Darwin.