Beyoncé's mum offers rare insights into famous family
New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright.
Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99.
Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama.
Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99.
"If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.)
Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99.
Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more.
Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99.
The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control.
Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99.
In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser.
Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99.
For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her?
Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99.
The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life.
Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99.
The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is?
Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease.
New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright.
Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99.
Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama.
Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99.
"If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.)
Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99.
Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more.
Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99.
The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control.
Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99.
In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser.
Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99.
For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her?
Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99.
The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life.
Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99.
The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is?
Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease.
New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright.
Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99.
Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama.
Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99.
"If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.)
Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99.
Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more.
Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99.
The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control.
Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99.
In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser.
Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99.
For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her?
Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99.
The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life.
Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99.
The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is?
Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease.
New books sampled this week include a memoir by Beyoncé's mum and He Would Never, the new novel by Holly Wainwright.
Tina Knowles. Hachette. $34.99.
Tina Knowles is Beyoncé's mum. In this memoir, the fashion designer recounts the family history and upbringing of the pop music megastar (and her singer sister Solange). Knowles offers rare insights into her famously private daughter's early life of school shyness and the discovery of her talent. She also writes about raising "bonus" daughter Kelly Rowland, as she and the other members of chart-topping '90s girl group Destiny's Child juggled fame and stardom at a young age. Billed as a celebration of "the world-changing power of black motherhood", the book has attracted praise from the likes of Oprah Winfrey and Michelle Obama.
Raina MacIntyre. NewSouth Books. $34.99.
"If there was a vaccine against heart attacks, would you take it?" asks world-leading epidemiologist Raina MacIntyre, before explaining that the answer is right in front of us. Vaccines that will help reduce the chances of cardiac issues already exist. Flu, shingles and (surprise!) COVID shots are among them. MacIntyre explains how vaccines changed the world, and how ignorance and complacency threaten to change it back. Among the important messages: COVID isn't over. If we don't act it will be with us for decades. (If you can't be bothered getting a flu jab, maybe start with the chapter on influenza.)
Damon Young. Scribe. $32.99.
Just how much is there to consider, analyse and write about the simple gesture involved in asking for a restaurant bill? Quite a lot, as it turns out, and it is fascinating. You know the signal: you pretend to hold a pen and twirl your wrist in the waiter's direction. What then, can be said about the "shush" gesture, or a shrug, or the "unsanitary and unnecessary ritual of the handshake" (ick warning)? Philosopher Damon Young goes deep into 13 gestures, drawing from Degas to Dr Who. Yes, it is about gestures, but this book is really about much more.
Phil Craig. Hodder & Stoughton. $34.99.
The final book in Phil Craig's Finest Hour trilogy examines how the closing chapters of World War II played out for Britain and its empire. In Europe, Bergen-Belsen concentration camp was being liberated. In India, nationalists faced a choice between the Raj and the Axis. In Borneo, Australian soldiers are dropped behind enemy lines, but sadly not to rescue Australian prisoners from the infamous Sandakan POW camp. Perhaps most astonishingly, in Vietnam, where Ho Chi Minh was trying to curry favour with the US, the British used freed Japanese prisoners to attack his army and return Saigon to French control.
Gareth Ward & Louise Ward. Penguin. $34.99.
In 2013, six years after relocating to Hawke's Bay, New Zealand, former British police officers Gareth and Louise Ward bought a local bookshop that was closing down. They went against everyone's advice, including the shop's owner, but built the business back and opened a second store. The heroes of their Bookshop Detectives cosy crime mysteries are the husband-and-wife owners of the Sherlock Tomes bookshop in a tiny NZ town. The Wards follow their 2024 debut, Dead Girl Gone, with Tea and Cake and Death, in which book-selling sleuths Garth and Eloise Sherlock investigate deadly poisonings ahead of their annual Battle of the Book Clubs fundraiser.
Cassie Hamer. HarperCollins. $14.99.
For her fourth suburban noir since her 2020 debut After The Party, Sydney author Cassie Hamer adds misery, mystery and mayhem to the usual festering family angst of Christmas as Maz Antonio hosts her first big family gathering after two years in jail. To atone for her terrible mistakes and show their guests she can maintain her sobriety, Maz wants the lunch to be perfect for her husband and children. But who is the man impulsively invited along by her mum? Is he really a stranger or is he connected to the past Maz is so desperate to put behind her?
Jacqueline Maley. 4th Estate. $34.99.
The second novel by Nine newspapers columnist Jacqueline Maley (after 2021's The Truth About Her) follows half-sisters and their unreliable mother as they reconcile with the family ties that bind them and the hidden trauma that threatens to tear them apart. Lara is a model living carefree in France. Matilda is a chef in a fancy Sydney restaurant who prefers her life solitary and self-contained. Lara is 10 years younger than Matilda, but they are close - until a visit home by Lara and the return of her long-absent, erratic father trying to make amends for his past misdeeds, blows up Matilda's buttoned-down life.
Holly Wainwright. Pan MacMillan. $34.99.
The fifth novel by Mamamia podcaster Holly Wainwright is inspired by her family's long-standing annual camping holidays with a bunch of other families, and the diverse perspectives and strong bonds of friendship shared by the women. For her fiction, the NSW South Coast-based author follows five women as they gather with their families for their traditional summer camping holiday at Green River. They all met at a mother's group 14 years earlier. Liss and Lachy Short are still the gang's golden couple. But is Liss prepared to listen to her second family of truth-tellers about the kind of toxic man her husband really is?
Love books? Us too! Looking for more reads and recommendations? Browse our books page and bookmark the page so you can find our latest book reviews and articles with ease.
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The Age
an hour ago
- The Age
She's seen the chaos of life and the quiet of death. Gordi won't stand still
Jet-lagged but beaming, Gordi is riding high on love for her latest release. But first we need to talk about Ginger and the goat. When we meet in a light-flooded warehouse conversion cafe in Melbourne's inner north, her song Peripheral Lover has just come out. It's only a few days since Gordi was stuck in a blizzard on the tarmac at Dallas in the US – the same city where she filmed the music video for the queer bop almost three years ago. Gordi, restless with boredom, kept herself busy during the three-hour stranding by reading the absurd text exchange of a woman sitting in front. 'She had the most enormous phone, and she was trying to text this person named Ginger who'd obviously given her some flowers,' Gordi tells me, laughing. 'She was trying to say to Ginger, 'Instead of paying you with cash, would you accept a baby goat?' And Ginger said, 'Yes.' 'That's kind of a look at the last two weeks.' The unexpected tends to follow globe-trotting musicians, but especially ones who, like Gordi, find it hard to settle for just one job. Chaos, Chris Martin and impostor syndrome In choosing music – alongside change-making and medicine – Gordi chose chaos. It has led the 32-year-old, real name Sophie Payten, to three studio albums (the third is due for release in August), life-altering work in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, a seat on the board of the Music Australia council and, more recently, an emotional encounter with fellow singer-songwriter Chris Martin. The Coldplay frontman was touring Australia when Payten was invited to join local artists hanging out with him. He singled her out, saying he listened to her music. 'I ended up playing [ Lunch at Dune ] from the [new] record for him, and we had this beautiful exchange where he loved the song; he was moved to tears by it,' Payten says. 'I only discovered [that] when I opened my eyes at the end of playing it.' She had closed her eyes because she was so nervous. 'It was amazing – and no one in the room thought to get their phone out to film it.' Payten spent a few hours wrestling with what she saw as the potential cringe factor of sharing the story online, but friends convinced her to post a Reel about it on Instagram. The video has since been viewed more than 2 million times. The hesitation seems typical of Payten, who is grateful and a tad bashful in the face of her success. Our lunch at CIBI, a Collingwood favourite of Payten's, is our fourth meeting. I've previously interviewed her about the grassroots live music initiative she set up with partner and musician Alex Lahey, Over Our Dead Body, and have gone along to a couple of their gigs. Loading Today, she pulls me into a hug, asking how I've been and saying, 'I didn't know it was you.' Later, as I'm getting stuck into a soba noodle salad, I say I've heard Payten is about to appear on a billboard in Times Square in New York. 'Oh, yeah, so there's actually going to be two billboards in Times Square – one for Spotify and one for Amazon Music,' she says with a shrug, smiling as I interrupt her attempts at eating CIBI's special lunch plate. '[It's] cool.' Payten breaks into a grin when I mention Peripheral Lover. Fans are loving the song, even if it is a departure from the deep, reverberating and ethereal sound they've come to expect from Gordi. Payten initially thought she would give it away, but it finally felt right after she reworked the chords. 'Right up until its release, there was a part of me which felt like, 'Are people going to think this is not me?' I had some weird impostor syndrome,' she says. Payten explains how, in high school, she would scrawl illegible song lyrics on the tiniest notepad she could find, out of fear her classmates might discover them and stick them up around her boarding house. When it came to performing at Sunday night chapel, she would pretend her own songs were written by obscure artists. 'I didn't want the kind of judgment that would come from people knowing that it was mine,' she says. 'I wanted to hear their feedback but from a more objective [viewpoint].' Payten grew up on a farm in the NSW town of Canowindra, near Orange, but went to boarding school and university in Sydney. The city is still close to her heart, as is Melbourne, where she moved for love in 2020. She now spends her time between Brunswick in Melbourne's inner north and Los Angeles. 'Brunswick actually has the highest number of registered songwriters in Australia for any suburb,' she says. '[My parents] still work the farm. I call them in the middle of the day, and they're moving pipes, or chipping burrs, or moving a mob of sheep or whatever. I feel like you'd be hard-pressed to find two other people who are closing in on 70 who work as physically hard as they do. 'I try to get home every few months, which is good because it is such an important place to me.' Payten thought music was not a viable career option until, halfway through her university studies at age 21, one of her songs – Nothing's as It Seems – was first played on Triple J. Six years later, having qualified as a doctor, she quit her job as a junior medical officer, planning to take a hiatus from medicine and tour the world again after recording her second album, Our Two Skins. But the pandemic beckoned her back home after just a few weeks, and she signed up to join the COVID-19 emergency 'surge' workforce. The time that followed became a core inspiration for her latest album, Like Plasticine. Payten says albums are a beacon of what a person's life looked like. 'It's like looking at old photographs of yourself,' she says. One picture is clear – Payten, standing alone in a room with a man, and telling him he was dying. First, a wall – then the dam burst In her final year as a medical student, Payten learnt how to certify death. For one person after another, she listened for the absence of a heartbeat, the absence of breath, and tested for responses and reflexes. She was most struck by the waxy quality skin takes on after people die. 'Throughout our lives, we constantly morph and change, and twist into all sorts of shapes,' Payten says. 'Then, at the very end, we're set in place.' The experience inspired the title of her new album, and taught her about the fragility and transience of life. It is a lesson she feels acutely now going home to the farm, when nostalgia, which she describes as 'the sorrow of homecoming', washes over her. Goddamn, the last song she wrote for Like Plasticine, explores that feeling. Payten has wound back her work as a doctor, but still does 'bits and pieces' when she can. 'Music, in a sense, gives you eternal youth in that your life is always chaos, and you never really know where you're going to be two months in advance,' Payten says. 'That is becoming more and more like a stark contrast to the people around me.' Through COVID, the gravity of dealing with life and death daily meant the songwriting 'tap' turned off for Payten. Her first instinct was to worry. 'Trying to write songs about personal stories in the face of a global tragedy is very challenging because it makes you feel self-absorbed,' she says. 'It wasn't until well into the second year of the pandemic that I took some time away from the hospital … and it just absolutely came out. I wrote eight songs in eight days for this record, having not written a song really for 18 months.' Automatic, one of 12 tracks on the record, interrogates the dissociation it takes to deliver people terrible news. PVC Divide looks at the cracks that can sometimes appear in this – in Payten's case, with a brain cancer patient she had befriended. The man was in recovery when a progress scan showed his cancer had multiplied to an inoperable point, Payten says. 'It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that when I went in to tell him, I really struggled,' she says. 'When I told him the news, he said, 'This is what was written for me.'' When a queer make-out session meets Texas farmers Despite all the morbidity, Payten still places herself as a firmly optimistic and positive person – but she's also a realist, she says. Our conversation turns back to Dallas, and to the story behind the Peripheral Lover music video. Payten was hauling around a kissing booth for the shoot in 45-degree heat in July 2022, and the clip called for queer extras who were happy to make out with each other. Loading A bunch of people showed up to take part, she says, before her team realised they had set up next to the Future Farmers of America Convention. 'We were just like, 'You know what? This is a good life experience for them that they probably don't get in Dallas, Texas, enough,'' Payten says with a laugh. She concedes she probably wouldn't spend as much time in the US if it weren't for work, given the 'wave of hate' from the country's government. Her two home cities of Melbourne and Los Angeles are 'beautiful bubbles' where she can hold hands with her partner without thinking twice, she says. But she feels deeply for other people in her queer community. 'This small community of trans people who are only asking to just exist … [are] being denied, and by the most powerful billionaires in the world. It's really quite apocalyptic,' Payten says. 'But when I feel very bleak about it … you go small, you go back to your community, and you find real connections, and you find people who value you.' The most beautiful thing about the Peripheral Lover shoot was that at the end of the day, all the extras who barely knew each other went out for drinks, she says. They created a sense of community within hours. 'I was like, 'Hell yeah.' That's the best thing about this whole process.'
Sydney Morning Herald
an hour ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
She's seen the chaos of life and the quiet of death. Gordi won't stand still
Jet-lagged but beaming, Gordi is riding high on love for her latest release. But first we need to talk about Ginger and the goat. When we meet in a light-flooded warehouse conversion cafe in Melbourne's inner north, her song Peripheral Lover has just come out. It's only a few days since Gordi was stuck in a blizzard on the tarmac at Dallas in the US – the same city where she filmed the music video for the queer bop almost three years ago. Gordi, restless with boredom, kept herself busy during the three-hour stranding by reading the absurd text exchange of a woman sitting in front. 'She had the most enormous phone, and she was trying to text this person named Ginger who'd obviously given her some flowers,' Gordi tells me, laughing. 'She was trying to say to Ginger, 'Instead of paying you with cash, would you accept a baby goat?' And Ginger said, 'Yes.' 'That's kind of a look at the last two weeks.' The unexpected tends to follow globe-trotting musicians, but especially ones who, like Gordi, find it hard to settle for just one job. Chaos, Chris Martin and impostor syndrome In choosing music – alongside change-making and medicine – Gordi chose chaos. It has led the 32-year-old, real name Sophie Payten, to three studio albums (the third is due for release in August), life-altering work in hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic, a seat on the board of the Music Australia council and, more recently, an emotional encounter with fellow singer-songwriter Chris Martin. The Coldplay frontman was touring Australia when Payten was invited to join local artists hanging out with him. He singled her out, saying he listened to her music. 'I ended up playing [ Lunch at Dune ] from the [new] record for him, and we had this beautiful exchange where he loved the song; he was moved to tears by it,' Payten says. 'I only discovered [that] when I opened my eyes at the end of playing it.' She had closed her eyes because she was so nervous. 'It was amazing – and no one in the room thought to get their phone out to film it.' Payten spent a few hours wrestling with what she saw as the potential cringe factor of sharing the story online, but friends convinced her to post a Reel about it on Instagram. The video has since been viewed more than 2 million times. The hesitation seems typical of Payten, who is grateful and a tad bashful in the face of her success. Our lunch at CIBI, a Collingwood favourite of Payten's, is our fourth meeting. I've previously interviewed her about the grassroots live music initiative she set up with partner and musician Alex Lahey, Over Our Dead Body, and have gone along to a couple of their gigs. Loading Today, she pulls me into a hug, asking how I've been and saying, 'I didn't know it was you.' Later, as I'm getting stuck into a soba noodle salad, I say I've heard Payten is about to appear on a billboard in Times Square in New York. 'Oh, yeah, so there's actually going to be two billboards in Times Square – one for Spotify and one for Amazon Music,' she says with a shrug, smiling as I interrupt her attempts at eating CIBI's special lunch plate. '[It's] cool.' Payten breaks into a grin when I mention Peripheral Lover. Fans are loving the song, even if it is a departure from the deep, reverberating and ethereal sound they've come to expect from Gordi. Payten initially thought she would give it away, but it finally felt right after she reworked the chords. 'Right up until its release, there was a part of me which felt like, 'Are people going to think this is not me?' I had some weird impostor syndrome,' she says. Payten explains how, in high school, she would scrawl illegible song lyrics on the tiniest notepad she could find, out of fear her classmates might discover them and stick them up around her boarding house. When it came to performing at Sunday night chapel, she would pretend her own songs were written by obscure artists. 'I didn't want the kind of judgment that would come from people knowing that it was mine,' she says. 'I wanted to hear their feedback but from a more objective [viewpoint].' Payten grew up on a farm in the NSW town of Canowindra, near Orange, but went to boarding school and university in Sydney. The city is still close to her heart, as is Melbourne, where she moved for love in 2020. She now spends her time between Brunswick in Melbourne's inner north and Los Angeles. 'Brunswick actually has the highest number of registered songwriters in Australia for any suburb,' she says. '[My parents] still work the farm. I call them in the middle of the day, and they're moving pipes, or chipping burrs, or moving a mob of sheep or whatever. I feel like you'd be hard-pressed to find two other people who are closing in on 70 who work as physically hard as they do. 'I try to get home every few months, which is good because it is such an important place to me.' Payten thought music was not a viable career option until, halfway through her university studies at age 21, one of her songs – Nothing's as It Seems – was first played on Triple J. Six years later, having qualified as a doctor, she quit her job as a junior medical officer, planning to take a hiatus from medicine and tour the world again after recording her second album, Our Two Skins. But the pandemic beckoned her back home after just a few weeks, and she signed up to join the COVID-19 emergency 'surge' workforce. The time that followed became a core inspiration for her latest album, Like Plasticine. Payten says albums are a beacon of what a person's life looked like. 'It's like looking at old photographs of yourself,' she says. One picture is clear – Payten, standing alone in a room with a man, and telling him he was dying. First, a wall – then the dam burst In her final year as a medical student, Payten learnt how to certify death. For one person after another, she listened for the absence of a heartbeat, the absence of breath, and tested for responses and reflexes. She was most struck by the waxy quality skin takes on after people die. 'Throughout our lives, we constantly morph and change, and twist into all sorts of shapes,' Payten says. 'Then, at the very end, we're set in place.' The experience inspired the title of her new album, and taught her about the fragility and transience of life. It is a lesson she feels acutely now going home to the farm, when nostalgia, which she describes as 'the sorrow of homecoming', washes over her. Goddamn, the last song she wrote for Like Plasticine, explores that feeling. Payten has wound back her work as a doctor, but still does 'bits and pieces' when she can. 'Music, in a sense, gives you eternal youth in that your life is always chaos, and you never really know where you're going to be two months in advance,' Payten says. 'That is becoming more and more like a stark contrast to the people around me.' Through COVID, the gravity of dealing with life and death daily meant the songwriting 'tap' turned off for Payten. Her first instinct was to worry. 'Trying to write songs about personal stories in the face of a global tragedy is very challenging because it makes you feel self-absorbed,' she says. 'It wasn't until well into the second year of the pandemic that I took some time away from the hospital … and it just absolutely came out. I wrote eight songs in eight days for this record, having not written a song really for 18 months.' Automatic, one of 12 tracks on the record, interrogates the dissociation it takes to deliver people terrible news. PVC Divide looks at the cracks that can sometimes appear in this – in Payten's case, with a brain cancer patient she had befriended. The man was in recovery when a progress scan showed his cancer had multiplied to an inoperable point, Payten says. 'It happened so quickly and unexpectedly that when I went in to tell him, I really struggled,' she says. 'When I told him the news, he said, 'This is what was written for me.'' When a queer make-out session meets Texas farmers Despite all the morbidity, Payten still places herself as a firmly optimistic and positive person – but she's also a realist, she says. Our conversation turns back to Dallas, and to the story behind the Peripheral Lover music video. Payten was hauling around a kissing booth for the shoot in 45-degree heat in July 2022, and the clip called for queer extras who were happy to make out with each other. Loading A bunch of people showed up to take part, she says, before her team realised they had set up next to the Future Farmers of America Convention. 'We were just like, 'You know what? This is a good life experience for them that they probably don't get in Dallas, Texas, enough,'' Payten says with a laugh. She concedes she probably wouldn't spend as much time in the US if it weren't for work, given the 'wave of hate' from the country's government. Her two home cities of Melbourne and Los Angeles are 'beautiful bubbles' where she can hold hands with her partner without thinking twice, she says. But she feels deeply for other people in her queer community. 'This small community of trans people who are only asking to just exist … [are] being denied, and by the most powerful billionaires in the world. It's really quite apocalyptic,' Payten says. 'But when I feel very bleak about it … you go small, you go back to your community, and you find real connections, and you find people who value you.' The most beautiful thing about the Peripheral Lover shoot was that at the end of the day, all the extras who barely knew each other went out for drinks, she says. They created a sense of community within hours. 'I was like, 'Hell yeah.' That's the best thing about this whole process.'
Sky News AU
3 hours ago
- Sky News AU
'Maori-white girl': Bikini-clad AFL WAG Rebecca Judd shocks fans as she reveals her little-known New Zealand indigenous ethnicity
Rebecca Judd has shocked fans by revealing her little-known ethnicity. On Monday, the wife of retired AFL legend Chris Judd, 42, took to Instagram Stories to share a video of herself flaunting her signature bikini body at the couple's weekender on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula. Judd donned the crocheted bikini from Australian swimwear brand It's Now Cool's new collection while proudly strutting around her outdoor spa. However, it was the mother of four revealing her ethnicity in the caption which really turned fans' heads. "Winter fit check with @itsnowcool. This little Maori-white girl needs a tan. See you soon, Broome," she wrote. Judd seldom mentions her New Zealand heritage from her mother Kerry Brown's side. Her father Hugh Twigly, is of Scottish and Irish descent. In 2023, the AFL WAG told Stellar magazine her family often travelled to New Zealand in her childhood, influenced by her mother's heritage. "Mum's side is MÄori, so we did a lot of trips to New Zealand when we were kids," the model said. "No one ever guesses that I'm MÄori. No-one. Ever." Judd said her family would all flock to her at her grandfather's farm in New Zealand, where they would enjoy a hÄngÄ«, a traditional MÄori cooking method in which food is cooked in an underground oven. "My pop has a big farm, and we'd have all the uncles and aunties over to have a hÄngÄ« every time we went over," she said. Judd's parents Hugh and Kerry relocated from New Zealand to Australia in the late 1970s to take advantage of the West Australian mining boom. After her parents separated, Judd and her sister Kate split their time between Perth and regional WA. In her wide-ranging interview with Stellar, Judd mentioned her family struggled to make ends meet growing up. "We didn't have much growing up, and every dollar counted, so we really respected our food, our home and our belongings," she said. In 2007, Judd moved to Melbourne with then-boyfriend Chris Judd. She completed her studies in speech and language pathology at La Trobe University and worked with adults in rehabilitation at the Alfred Hospital. Judd married Chris in Melbourne's Carousel at Albert Park in 2010, and they have four children: Oscar, 14, Billie, 11, and twin sons Tom and Darcy, nine. The couple documented their extensively redesigned $7.3 million Spanish Colonial house in Brighton, Melbourne's southeast, in the media.
