Rowena Wise is a Naarm/Melbourne-based singer-songwriter whose work balances beauty and mess with rare emotional precision, drawing from 60s folk storytelling while grounded in indie rock, garage pop and alt-folk. Raised in Margaret River, Western Australia, by a luthier father and a Chicago-born folk musician mother, Wise moved to Melbourne at 18 to forge her own path.
Since debuting in 2018, she has amassed over 10 million streams, earned airplay across triple j, double j and Unearthed, and toured extensively across Australia, the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada, supporting artists including Holy Holy, Ball Park Music, Bernard Fanning and Paul Dempsey. Her 2024 debut album, Senseless Acts of Beauty, was praised by CLASH Magazine as “carefully etched indie folk” and shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize. Her highly anticipated sophomore album, Bad Things Feel Good*, a tender, point-blank meditation on transformation produced by Rob Muinos (Julia Jacklin, Didirri), is out August 7, 2026 via Beloved.
Great to see Rowena Wise again in Brisbane, this time at the Junk Bar. It has been over a year so I was hoping that my memories weren't deceiving me and Rowena was as good as I remembered, especially as I managed to bring a friend who wasn't a regular with live music.
As ever, Rowena was great. 3 things really stand out for me - she has a lovely voice, she gets a great sound out of the instruments she plays and the thing that keeps my listening to her is her lyrics.
Rowena said afterwards that she will be back later in the year with her band. I'm sure many of the songs will be the same but the sound will be much fuller, so really looking forward to that!