Rowena Wise makes music about life's grey areas.
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Wise → make → areas
Mixing folksy earnestness with lush indie rock, her songs convey complex subject matter in accessible songs that contemplate "how we put pressure on ourselves to make the right choices, as though there's some moral scoreboard tallying everything up", Wise explains.
"But life is much messier than that …
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life → mix → that
Growth can often come through choices and experiences that don't neatly fit into good or bad."
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that → come → good
Time and again, the Melbourne-based singer-songwriter's second album thrives in contradictions.
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album → base → contradictions
The asterisk in the title of new album Bad Things Feel Good* is designed as the "start of an unspoken footnote, implying that not all bad things feel good", Wise tells Double J's Dylan Lewis.
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Wise → feel → Lewis
It allows space for nuance.
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It → allow → nuance
I just decided I was in this head space of 'Actually I don't want to tell a clean story about who I am, about morality or love.
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I → decide → morality
I'd like to sit in the grey area a bit'.
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I → like → area
And each song touches on that in a way."
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song → touch → way
Rejecting simplistic narratives, the album was written while Wise came to terms with "complicated stuff", a messy period involving relationships, mental health and identity crises.
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Wise → reject → relationships
On the ambling title track, she sings of tossing out a faulty moral compass ("the needle's wigging out") in favour of following her heart, her sensitivity underscored by plaintive strumming and sighing pedal steel.
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sensitivity → sing → strumming
Elsewhere, The Anchor is a tender, spartan tune in which the burden of love feels as crushing as the titular weight.
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burden → feel → weight
What ties the album together is that the person in each track, "which is a bit of myself and a bit of others, was standing at the edge of something: of realising, of unbecoming, of transforming".
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which → tie → something
Born and raised in Margaret River, Western Australia, Wise grew up part of a family band.
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Wise → bear → band
Her father, a luthier, hand-made her first instruments.
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father → make → instruments
He's coming up to five decades of making guitars."
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He → come → guitars
Her custom collection includes an acoustic guitar, ukulele, dulcimer and a violin, her primary instrument.
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collection → include → guitar
"I like to think my melodies are informed by my background of playing violin," says Wise, who arranged strings for her new album.
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who → like → album
At 18, after relocating to Melbourne, she began releasing music under the mononym Ro.
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she → relocate → mononym
Her 2024 debut Senseless Acts of Beauty was shortlisted for the Australian Music Prize, marking her as a keen-edged songwriter.
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debut → shortlist → songwriter
And she's only grown sharper.
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she → grow → ?
She's got a way with setting difficult experiences to music that fans of Julia Jacklin, Stella Donnelly, Carla Geneve and Gena Rose Bruce will recognise and admire.
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fans → get → Jacklin
Whether operating in intimate solo mode or fronting a live band, Wise's elegant, drawn-out vocal phrasing makes you lean in and pay attention to her perceptive lyrics.
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you → operate → lyrics
Inspired by a close friend's heartbreak, Diamond in the Rough reckons with the pressures of maintaining impossible standards.
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Diamond → inspire → standards
"I remember watching her still try to be charming and capable around everyone while privately falling apart.
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her → remember → everyone
She had built so much of her identity around being exceptional, impressive and desirable.
"
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She → build → identity
It made me think about how praise can quietly become a cage."
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praise → make → ?
The song became about embracing the freedom found in stepping off a perfect pedestal, with strings and slide guitar swelling around Wise as she confides:
"Don't believe what you've been told / You're made of flesh, you're made of blood / You are enough."
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You → become → blood
The track Blood Ties uses gently distorted guitars to chronicle the experience of another of Wise's friends going through mental illness with their emotionally repressed dad.
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track → use → dad
"His father loved him, but he didn't quite have the emotional tools to hold space for talking about what was going on.
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what → love → space
He'd grown up in a time where showing vulnerability, especially as a male, was seen as weakness rather than an opportunity to strengthen bonds between loved ones.
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showing → grow → ones
"I also saw that my friend had inherited that tendency to just remain silent and hence he didn't reach out enough to his loved ones and family and went through a really hard time."
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he → see → time
You wouldn't guess it from the unguarded way she untangles knotty topics, but Wise says she's had "trouble showing vulnerability", having grown up with a "small country town" mentality.
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she → guess → mentality
"I think it's so important to be honest with those that you love, otherwise there's this distance that's created.
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that → think → that
You've got to really open up."
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You → get → ?
Changing how she saw love
Wise reunited with producer Rob Muinos for Bad Things Feel Good*, recording at his Collingwood studio, The Ratshack.
She spent three days "crammed in a tiny room" knocking out each song with a live band: bassist Rich Bradbeer, drummer Jess Ellwood and Matt Dixon on pedal steel.
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She → change → steel
"We all together just found a vibe.
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We → find → vibe
The ensemble's patient, understated backing adds a rounded, organic quality that accentuates Wise's emotions without overshadowing their intimacy.
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that → add → intimacy
A steady rhythm section shepherds the stand-out Unlearning of Love, fuzzy guitars clouding around Wise "coming apart" from an experience with non-monogamy.
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guitars → shepherd → monogamy
It captures the "curious, terrifying but beautiful" tension and thrill of "forming a new connection with someone and not knowing where it sits between platonic and romantic.
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it → capture → someone
…and 10 more, not listed.
The Aporia