Grace Cummings has released ‘On and On’ the first single to be taken from her upcoming third album Ramona to be released April 5th via ATO Records/[PIAS].
‘On and On’ is a song of subtlety shifting and enveloping emotive atmospheres and powerful vocal crescendos, a nagging percussive section garnished in gentle piano notes possess echoes of Kate Bush‘s ‘Running Up That Hill’, as warm brass enters like the sun warming your face. Cumming’s vocals are primal, and sinuous, frayed at the edges but housing an emotional heart that mirrors carrying the struggles and abuses of life on your back and carrying on anyway. It bristles with emotiveness and vulnerability rarely seen in today’s santised mainstream. It’s a wonderful song full of rich textures and vivid imagery, anchored by Cummings’s extraordinary vocal performance that crashes like giant waves in the ocean. The single comes with an accompanying video featuring the singer bathed in amber light – directed by James Gorter.
Ramona is a work of raw truth rendered in its most beautiful form. In a departure from the self-produced approach of her 2019 debut Refuge Cove and its 2022 follow-up Storm Queen—the Melbourne-based artist dreamed up a lavishly orchestrated sound that fully accommodates the depth and scope of her vocal prowess. With its visceral reflection on grief, self-destruction and emotional violence.
Recorded at Wilson’s Fivestar Studios in Topanga Canyon, Ramona came to life in collaboration with a stacked lineup of musicians that includes harpist Mary Lattimore and string arranger/multi-instrumentalist Drew Erickson (Weyes Blood, Mitski, Lana Del Rey). “I wanted everything and the kitchen sink on this record, to make it as big and dramatic as possible and show a whole range of colours,” says Cummings. “Jonathan and all the other musicians are so incredibly good at what they do, and so considered in their approach, but there was also a sense of fun and lightness in the studio that allowed me to be myself.”
Also an accomplished stage actor, Cummings imbues all of Ramona with an unbridled theatricality—an element on glorious display in the album’s title track. “I wrote that at a time when I wasn’t doing well and had the sense that other people saw me as a weak little bird,” says Cummings, who mined inspiration from Bob Dylan’s 1964 song ‘To Ramona’. “I didn’t want to be myself so I decided to be Ramona instead, full of intensity and melodrama. For me there’s a lot of safety in putting on a costume or a mask; sometimes it feels like the only way to express any true honesty or vulnerability.”
Cummings hopes that Ramona might provide her audience with a similar sense of relief and release. “A lot of the time the only way for me to process what’s happening in my life is to write about it,” she says. “So it’s a deeply personal record. But I hope that people come away from this album feeling like the songs were written just for them. Because they were, in a way. Watching the deeply personal evolve into something that’s shared by so many different people makes me feel less lonely in this world.”
