Introducing: FANNY LUMSDEN
‘It’s like she’s harnessed the greatest attributes of Gillian Welch and Dolly Parton’
UK AND IRELAND TOUR IN APRIL
AWARD WINNING ALBUM HEY DAWN OUT NOW
SINGLE “GREAT DIVIDE” OUT NOW
Who is Fanny Lumsden – and why is everyone talking about her? She grew up on a remote sheep farm, spent much of her time touring regional Australia in a caravan, is a volunteer firefighter and documentary filmmaker, and her songs are born of the red dirt, snowy mountains, and all the people in between.
Listening to Fanny Lumsden’s music, you soon grasp that she’s a story-based singer-songwriter with a strong sense of place. Words like sly, wry and witty are perfect descriptions of her songs, running through her work like a stick of rock – and even in the name of her band, the Prawn Stars.
Her latest, award-winning album ‘Hey Dawn’ is less introspective, more ‘outrospective’ than its predecessors, and very much a family affair. And having burst onto the UK scene with a live debut on the Avalon Stage at Glastonbury last summer, she’s now heading full steam into a UK and Ireland tour, taking in England, Wales, Ireland and Northern Ireland.
LEEDS, BRUDENELL SOCIAL CLUB WEDNESDAY 3RD APRIL
MANCHESTER, DEAF INSTITUTE THURSDAY 4TH APRIL
LONDON, OMEARA FRIDAY 5TH APRIL
CARDIFF, CLWB IFOR BACH SATURDAY 6TH APRIL
BRISTOL, DARESHACK SUNDAY 7TH APRIL
DUBLIN, WORKMAN’S CELLAR WEDNESDAY 10TH APRIL
BELFAST, EMPIRE MUSIC HALL THURSDAY 11TH APRIL
CORK, DE BARRA’S FOLK CLUB FRIDAY 12TH APRIL
LIMERICK, DOLAN’S SATURDAY 13TH APRIL
Ticket link: https://www.fannylumsden.net/ukandietour
Once they’ve witnessed Fanny Lumsden live, music lovers can plunge into her new single, “Great Divide”, and her fourth and latest album ‘Hey Dawn’, which has already been festooned with praise and numerous awards – much like its predecessor, ‘Fallow’. So far ‘Hey Dawn’ has won Best Country Album at the 2023 ARIA Awards, plus Alt-Country Album of the Year at the CMAA Golden Guitar Awards 2024, with the band performing their song ‘Ugly Flowers’ on the night. They also performed at the ARIA awards. Not only did the album debut at number one on the ARIA Australian Album charts, and Top 10 of global ARIA charts, it also became the 4th highest selling country album of 2023, and boasts country radio Top 10 and CMT Number 1 hit ‘Millionaire’.
The best way to get an immediate flavour of the quality and depth of ‘Hey Dawn’, is through the handy cinematic trailer, which gives a snapshot of the album visually and sonically, while showcasing each song in just 5 minutes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U8wLPrsV2O0
If we pull focus right back to the widescreen view of Fanny Lumsden and her career, you see her determination and commitment to every part of her life. Having grown up on a sheep farm 700km from the coast in western NSW, it was only natural that she gained a degree in Rural Science, and she currently lives on a farm on the western side of the snowy mountains, about 6 hours from Sydney and 6 hours from Melbourne.
She honed her art by driving around Australia in a caravan playing shows in halls on her ongoing ‘Country Halls Tour’, touring with her family – bass player husband Dan runs operations, is the graphic and website designer, photographer and video editor, and her brother Tom sings in the band, and runs the tour merch. Her kids, aged two and five, are meanwhile growing up on the road. She’s toured with artists like Paul Kelly and Kasey Chambers, headlined sold-out theatre tours, played Americana Fest in Nashville, and been feted everywhere.
Don’t just take Fanny Lumsden’s word for it though. Critics from publications including Rolling Stone, The Australian, Beat Magazine, The Music, and Rhythms Magazine have described the singer-songwriter and her music as ‘breathtaking’, ‘spine-tingling’, ‘stunning’, ‘unique’, ‘timeless’, ‘compelling’, ‘frank’, ‘heartfelt’, ‘visionary’, ‘distinctive’ and a ‘triumph’.
Four albums into her recording career, ‘Hey Dawn’ is a rich character study, with stories that have shaped her and those around her. More sonically diverse than previous records, it incorporates guitar-based indie-pop into her gorgeously crafted, emotionally rich acoustic songwriting. As she says: “I wanted to have fun. I didn’t want to think too hard about it. I just wanted to feel.”
Battered, bruised and burnt-out after an exhausting 18 months navigating the logistical nightmare of touring during Covid-related border closures and show cancellations, not to mention almost losing her property in the Snowy Valleys region of New South Wales during the 2020 bushfires, the desire to write music temporarily deserted her.
It returned as Fanny Lumsden and husband Dan navigated their way home from the Northern Territory after border closures prevented them from entering Queensland for the final show of the Fallow tour. This is when she finally managed to decompress. “It wasn’t until then, on the West Australian coast with no phone service, that I started writing.”
After looking inward lyrically on ‘Fallow’, she wanted to tell more detail-rich stories – but not just her own this time. Childhood became a theme, and she freely admits that this might have been a reaction to the last few years, “which were heavy for everyone.”
With a grab bag of ideas and shapes for songs, the band travelled to Tasmania to work with producer Matt Fell at his Gowrie Park studio. Almost immediately a huge storm forced them to relocate to the eastern side of the island, where one morning she awoke as the sun was rising over the ocean, and “literally just said, ‘Oh, hey dawn!’” She was also haunted by the sound of a man playing piano in a hall, which mirrored what she was feeling. That night she wrote ‘Hey Dawn’, and finally, the album made sense.
At a stroke this one moment both unlocked and re-energised her songwriting, and she told herself: “You just need to wake up, it’s a new day, it’s a new moment, every day is a new moment, and you just need to be where you are right now. Forget about all the other things, just be now.”
It has dawned on Fanny Lumsden that “you have to tell the stories of the moment you’re in, and you have to put them out and trust that that is okay. It’s a new day, we’re here.”
Fanny Lumsden is touring the UK and Ireland through April, and her new single ‘Great Divide’ and latest album ‘Hey Dawn” are both out now.