Emily Wurramara & Alice Skye Announce Co-Headline 'River Eylandt' Tour - playing Solbar in June
Celebrating the release of their respective debut albums, two powerhouse Indigenous artists, Wannadilyakwa woman Emily Wurramara and Wergaia woman Alice Skye, have teamed up and announced their co-headline ‘River Eylandt’ national tour. Taking place across June / July, the tour will see the official national launch dates of both Alice Skye’s ‘Friends With Feelings’ (out now) and Emily Wurramara’s highly anticipated ‘Milyakburra’ (out June 1).
From Groote Eylandt, Emily Wurramara stunned listeners across the country in 2016 with her debut EP Black Smoke as she sang stories from her heart and childhood in both English and her traditional language Anindilyakwa. Black Smoke amassed over 1 million Spotify streams, rotation on JJJ and ABC Local x 2, 10 weeks in the AMRAP charts, a Queensland Music Award, a publishing contract with Mushroom and live showcase slots everywhere from BIGSOUND as a Triple J Unearthed feature artist to Folk Alliance International in the USA. Now, only two years on - with a child of her own and another Queensland Music Award win under her belt, Emily Wurramara has officially announced the long-awaited release of her debut album ‘Milyakburra’ (out June 1).
Emily says: “Alice is from the river people, I’m from the eylandt people - two different worlds, two different perspectives of life but both of us have a strong love for our land, our people and our culture. Our strength is our sisterhood and in a way it’s a contradiction; two different mermaids, one from the sea and one from the river but both with a love so deep we’re like sisters. I’m so excited to come together for this tour, connecting these two worlds where the river meets the sea, combining our love for music and each other while celebrating sisterhood and the divine greatness of femininity.
From the country river, Alice Skye has just spent a month at top of AMRAP charts, her debut album Friends With Feelings made quite the entrance as the entire album premiered on ABC Local programmes across the country, was added to double J rotation and Qantas in-flight programming and was a feature on both Spotify and Apple Music. She’s the new kid on the block but has caught attention early honoured as the inaugural recipient of the ‘First Peoples Emerging Artist Award’, Fbi’s independent artist of the week and just announced as next weeks feature artist on Triple J Unearthed!
Alice explains “I was so excited hearing that I was going to go on my first tour with both a friend and musician that I admire so much. We share so many similarities when it comes to our music and our approach to it and we wanted to highlight that, but also to shed light on the differences between us. To promote that Aboriginal people are not one dimensional, we're multifaceted people with different stories, backgrounds and cultures. All worthy of celebration and recognition. So with myself coming from river country in the Wimmera and Emily being from Groote Eylandt we’ll be sharing songs from our hearts and our different homes as ‘River Eylandt’.
Catch Emily & Alice on their ‘River Eylandt’ tour performing songs from their brand new debut albums. To make this tour extra special both artists will join each other on stage at every show for a unique set of duets that can’t be found on either albums!
Catch Emily and Alice when they start their tour on June 14th at Solbar. Get your tickets here.