Matt Hewson
Geelong-based singer songwriter Maddie Jackway is gearing up for her second EP release early next month.
With the first single You Make Me Look Over My Shoulder already up on streaming platforms, the full EP, Kindred, will be released on Friday, April 5.
The five-track EP was recorded through 2023 while Jackway was the Music Artist in Residence at Victoria University in Footscray at Kindred Studios, and features appearances by some of Australia’s finest musical talents including Jake Amy (keyboards/co-producer), Patrick Danao (drums), Matt Dixon (pedal steel), Alexander Flood (drums), Stephen Lane (bass) and Pia Nesvara (strings).
Kindred follows Jackway’s 2020 release What Is This Freedom, serving as a continuing evolution of the sound she established with that offering.
Drawing on pop, folk, soul and R&B elements, Jackway’s music maintains a twin focus on her clean, agile and expressive vocal abilities and the narrative nature of her lyrics.
Jackway said the pastiche of stylistic influences in her songs was a natural result of her wide tastes in music.
“I don’t really like to box myself into a genre; I listen to and am inspired by a lot of different genres,” she said.
“That was definitely evident on the first EP (What Is This Freedom), and I think this second EP… has a little bit more emphasis on soul aspects, with a little sprinkling of R&B.
“There’s still definitely that introspective folk element that’s in the majority of my writing, just with instrumentation and arrangement that’s more pop, soul, R&B kind of focused, which is really exciting.”
Having been writing songs since the age of five or six, Jackway said it didn’t “make sense to me to do anything else”.
“I have just always done it, so writing for me helps me to process my emotions,” she said.
“I remember my mum saying, what if you just did something else for the rest of your life? And I thought that was terrifying.”
