Start Listening To: Rowena Wise & Didirri
Rowena Wise & Didirri on love, conflict, and creativity.
When two distinct artistic voices come together, the results can be unexpected, intimate, and deeply personal. That’s exactly the case with No Cure For Love, the latest collaboration between Melbourne-based singer-songwriters Rowena Wise and Didirri. Both acclaimed in their own right. Rowena for her poetic, folk-inflected storytelling and Didirri for his raw, introspective songwriting, the pair have crafted a song that lays bare the complexities of love, conflict, and commitment.
In this conversation, Rowena and Didirri reflect on the origins of No Cure For Love, how their eight-year relationship has shaped their music, and what it means to balance personal vulnerability with public artistry. They also discuss the striking visual concept behind the song’s music video, their evolving creative processes, and what might be next for them, both individually and as collaborators.
For those unfamiliar with your music, can you tell us who you are, where you’re from and about the music you make?
R: We’re both indie musicians from Melbourne, we have pretty different styles but we both write story-driven songs from the heart. Didirri is from Warrnambool and grew up doing circus tricks, I grew up in a folk family band in West Australia, I toured a lot from a young age so I always knew it was my calling (unfortunately haha). I like creating a sense of intimacy and immediacy with my writing, and a sucker for rigid rhyming and soaring chorus melodies. I guess that’s where my folk / alt pop influences come in.
No Cure For Love is a deeply personal track. Could you both talk about how the song came to be and how your eight-year relationship influenced its creation?
We've both been making music loosely in the indie singer songwriter space for almost 8 years. We met in the summer of 2018. We have been together for what seems like a long time, I guess it's not that long to some but for us, it's the longest relationship we've been in. We never really intended on writing this song - there's some nights we just pick up instruments and see what happens - after experiencing some of our first proper arguments, we drilled into those emotions for the creation of this song.
The music video for No Cure For Love explores themes of domesticity and tension. How did you come up with the concept for the video, and what was it like filming such an intimate and raw scene?
D: We have collaborated on four music videos to date, and each of them starts in our lounge room with a concept and we build the shots out from there. For the music video for ‘No Cure For Love’ we came up with the idea of depicting the trappings of domesticity. Using the Japanese art form of Shibari felt suitable, because the act of being bound by rope can be both restrictive and enjoyable. We decided to play with this concept alongside shots of typical domestic scenes to highlight the pleasurable and restrictive bonds of love.
Rowena, your debut solo album Senseless Acts of Beauty delves into themes of love, loss, and alienation. How do these themes intersect with your work on No Cure For Love?
R: No Cure For Love feels very close to home for me. Similarly there are a lot of songs on my recent record that came out of heartache and inner conflict. I like to use snatches of everyday imagery to create something relateable amidst the heartache, an intimate time and space. You can hear lots of that in No Cure For Love.
Didirri, with your debut album Caught in the Act receiving critical acclaim, how has your approach to songwriting evolved since its release? How does No Cure For Love fit into this progression?
D: Rowena has slowly - over the years living together - influenced my writing profoundly. The more we show each other songs, the more I trust her opinions and hold them with high regard. I have always considered myself a lone writer, but that is changing every day and I suspect we will be writing together for a long time to come
No Cure For Love speaks to the challenges that come with long-term relationships. In what ways do you think music can help process and navigate these complex emotions?
R: I often look at art as a means of processing complex emotions. It’s a therapeutic experience for me to write songs, whether it’s coming up from deeper or shallow waters. Music subverts language to create a feeling, it’s in and of itself. That’s why it’s such a powerful, malleable space to express in. I feel very lucky to be able to do it, as does Didirri.
D: Writing - for us both - Has always been an exercise in processing the events of your life. Whether that be through allegory, or through the literal reporting of events. The act of writing together becomes one of the most confronting forms of therapy. Not only are you asking each other to speak their mind for the sake of the other person in the room, but you are also potentially presenting it to the world. You best speak the truth.
You’ve both built reputations as solo artists, but your collaboration on No Cure For Love is something entirely different. How did the creative process differ when working together compared to your solo work?
R: There are more similarities than differences when comparing the duo process of No Cure For Love to our solo processes. Our previous albums had the same producer, Rob Muinos, and some of the same virtuosic session musicians. Our creative differences were what made the song its own special thing when we wrote it.
You’ve both been open about the ups and downs in your relationship, and No Cure For Love reflects that. How do you balance personal vulnerability with the public nature of your art?
D: I guess we both know that nobody can ever know the truth of a relationship, except the people involved. I think once we accepted that it became a lot easier to be open about this in our art. I personally think that songs are a dramatic representation of a moment in time. I don't try to represent some kind of final thoughts that can represent one way forever, I try to capture the feelings of the moment. We both know that song is both meaningful and more dramatic than real life and our relationship is our own to know intimately, regardless of what is in a song.
R: I felt very comfortable pimping out our personal life experience for the sake of art. I think the important thing as a public facing artist is that I separate the art from my sense of self, however the song is very true to our hearts. At the end of the day it’s just a song, one snapshot in time.
The song's lyrics touch on difficult conversations - “You spun a broken record / of love that could be lost” and “A fool let’s go of what is good / holding it lightly” What do you hope listeners take away from those raw moments of expression?
R: Sometimes when I’m stressed or blue I get this narrative that I’m ’too much’ or ‘not enough’ for love. That line of thinking can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. For me this song is the hypothetical situation of letting my overthinking get in the way of love, leading to heartbreak and taking love for granted. We’re bound by love so we’re going to try to see eye to eye most of the time, but sometimes it’s not hard to imagine how it would feel to split up. I wonder what it would feel like to act upon that great divide we sometimes feel.
The track's production feels very intimate and live, recorded in a single take. Can you walk us through the process of recording No Cure For Love and how it shaped the song’s final sound?
R: It was a very different experience for us recording the track live together with the band. Josh Barber (drums), Rich Bradbeer (bass) and Lewis Coleman (keys) were in a separate room, while Didirri and I faced each other singing and playing guitar. I was daunted at first but I learnt to lean into the rawness and the imperfections.
D: It was awesome doing it live, listening and reacting to each other. Robert Muinos - producer and engineer - has an incredible knack for getting power out of every note played by the musicians and sung by us. He set up with microphones in place like the set pieces on a film and hit action - the end result is a raw and real take from all of us in the room.
The two of you have had impressive individual careers in the indie-folk scene. How do you think your different musical styles complement each other in this duet?
No Cure For Love is definitely a sonic lovechild for us, it’s straight down the middle when it comes to our own respective styles of writing. We definitely hold lyrics to be very important together and combining our two styles - Rowena, being very poetic and playful - Didirri, focusing on trimming the fat and conciseness - feels like it lands in a really nice place.
What do you love right now?
We're both pretty obsessed with the album ‘Big Time’ - Angel Olsen. She really knocked it out of the park without record. Timeless, songwriting and production. Heartbreaking lyrics.
What do you hate right now?
D: What a question. Hate is a strong word, but I would say that the majority of large corporate entities are not paying their fair share of tax and that makes us both pretty mad.
R: I hate having absolutist thoughts. I think everything nothing is black and white and good and bad can be mixed up. Nothing exists without the complex world and ecology it came out of.
Name an album you’re still listening to from when you were younger and why it’s still important to you?
R: I’ve been listening to the album ‘Tapestry’ by Carol King a bit more lately. I stopped listening to it for years until I started working on my album. It’s is still important to me because I discovered it in the most tumultuous time of my life, which I’ve processed and moved on from. My album was written about that time. Putting on Tapestry made the past loom pretty close in my rear view mirror.
What’s next for both of you creatively? Do you have any new projects in the pipeline, either solo or as a duo?
We are both working on our own individual projects, it's a little too soon to say what that looks like, but there is definitely more from us on a solo front. As for more duo works, we have released two tracks to date, and both of them have been rather spontaneous so - who knows at this point. We have definitely toyed with the idea of an album down the line.
