Rowena Wise returns with new single & video “Blood Ties”. Out Now
Today, Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Rowena Wise (she/her) returns with her first solo single in two years, “Blood Ties”, out now via Beloved Records / Remote Control Records, alongside its accompanying video. Following the success of her debut record Senseless Acts of Beauty (2024), Wise has been praised for her “Carefully etched indie folk” by Clash, writing songs that feel like intimate conversations: lucid, clear-eyed, and quietly disarming in their honesty.
Written in the wake of a close friend’s mental health crisis, “Blood Ties” turns its gaze toward the private architecture of family, and the costs of emotional restraint. Wise shares: “I wrote “Blood Ties” after a close friend experienced a mental health crisis. In the aftermath, I watched his father struggle to respond — not because he didn’t love his son, but because he didn’t know how to meet him emotionally… In Australia, especially, emotional restraint has long been normalised… But that silence creates space for shame to grow, particularly within families where unspoken pain lingers beneath the surface.”
Listen to “Blood Ties” here and watch the video below.
“Blood Ties” confronts what is often left unsaid, giving voice to pain and making a case for speaking — for naming what hurts and rejecting inherited beliefs that cast vulnerability as weakness. It reflects Wise’s instinct for introspection and emotional release, delivered through candid, poetic storytelling that sits between silence and the need to be seen, and moves unflinchingly toward a more honest way of relating. The track is anchored by a driven, understated band groove that mirrors its emotional core — strength held in restraint. As Wise puts it, the work is driven by a need “to tell the truth… in a beautiful way,” leaving listeners “put at ease knowing there is catharsis in acknowledging their own truth.”
Raised in Margaret River, Western Australia, Wise was immersed in music from an early age. Her father, a luthier, built guitars by hand, and her mother, a folk musician from near Chicago, instilled a deep reverence for songcraft and storytelling. After touring as part of a family band, Wise moved to Melbourne at 18 to forge an independent artistic path.
Since emerging in 2018 with debut single “Diary”, Wise has amassed over 9.2 million streams and earned airplay across triple j, double j, and Unearthed. Subsequent releases, including “F**ked Up Over You” and “Indifferent”, have cemented Wise as one of Australia’s most compelling voices in indie songwriting, while the duet “No Cure for Love” with Didirri further highlights her gift for raw, intimate storytelling.
In May 2024, Wise released her debut album Senseless Acts of Beauty. The record was shortlisted for the 2024 Australian Music Prize, with producer RobMuinos (Julia Jacklin, Didirri) later nominated for 2025 AIR Independent Producer of the Year for his work on the project. Since its release, Wise has toured extensively across Australia, the UK, Europe, the USA and Canada, bringing a live show defined by understated intensity: soaring melodies, purposeful guitar work, and lyricism that lands with quiet force.
Wise has supported artists including The Paper Kites, Medium Build, Didirri, Ball Park Music, Folk Bitch Trio, Holy Holy, Bernard Fanning and PaulDempsey, and has appeared at festivals such as The Great Escape (UK), SXSW (USA), Queenscliff Music Festival and Party in the Paddock.
With “Blood Ties”, Wise returns not with a reinvention, but with a deepening: a new chapter in an ongoing commitment to emotional truth, and to the kind of songwriting that makes room for complexity without losing sight of tenderness. Even at its heaviest, the work insists on the possibility of light, holding fast to the belief that hope and love endure even when everything feels oversaturated and hard to hold.
BLOOD TIES TOUR DATES:
Friday May 29, 2026 – Junk Bar (Brisbane/Meanjin)
Friday June 05, 2026 – Low 302 (Sydney/Eora)
Saturday June 06 – Shotkickers (Melbourne/Naarm)
Tickets – rowenawise.com