US based guitarist Marisa Anderson will be embarking on her first solo tour of Australia February 24-28. Anderson is best known for her recent work released by Thrill Jockey Records, including two duo discs with Dirty Three drummer Jim White.

Tour stops include Melbourne, Sydney, Thirroul, Murwillumbah and Brisbane. Marisa Anderson channels the history of the guitar and stretches the boundaries of tradition. Her playing is fluid, emotional, and masterful, featuring compositions and improvisations that re-imagine the landscape of American music. The New Yorker calls Anderson ‘one of the most distinctive guitar players of her generation’, and NPR refers to her as among ‘this era’s most powerful players’. Her music has been featured in Rolling Stone, NPR, The New York Times, Pitchfork, the BBC and The Wire. Festival appearances include Big Ears, Pitchfork Midwinter, Le Guess Who and the Copenhagen Jazz Festival. Anderson is the recipient of the 2025 Spark Award for Oregon Artists presented by the James F. and Marion L. Miller Foundation.

In addition to her solo work, Anderson is sought after as a collaborator and composer. Swallowtail, her second record in duo with drummer Jim White was released May 2024 on Thrill Jockey Records. 2024 also saw the release of the feature film score ‘ A Perfect Day For Caribou’, as well as appearances on records by Charlie Parr, Myriam Gendron and Big|Brave. In addition to multiple solo releases, past projects include 2021’s Lost Futures with guitarist William Tyler, and contributions to recordings by Matmos, Tara Jane O’Neil, Beth Ditto, Sharon Van Etten and Circuit Des Yeux, among others. Classically trained, Anderson honed her skills playing in country, jazz and circus bands. Her current work is focused on a mid-20th century archive of recorded music from the Islamic world, Southeast Asia and the Soviet Union.

On his fifth LP Big Black Plume, Melbourne-based musician Michael Beach reveals the vitalising power of connection in an often hostile world. Equally informed by the songwriting of Bill Fay and Peter Laughner, the minimalism of Tony Conrad and Terry Riley, and the rock and roll heart of the Goner Records roster, Big Black Plume provides deliberate compositions adorned with genuine madness. The songs on this album range from spare, textural ballads, to spiralling psychedelic overtures connected to a propulsive cosmic pulse.

Building on Beach’s network from over 20 years of touring, engineering, and production work (in Melbourne, SF, and LA), and employment in independent touring venues, Big Black Plume features contributions from a murderers’ row of talent. Produced by Beach and Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm), the record includes Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner, The Necks bassist Lloyd Swanton, Tropical Fuck Storm members Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin, folk artist Leah Senior, Oren Ambarchi collaborator Joe Talia, and Comets on Fire’s Utrillo Kushner, among others.

Beach is a masterful songwriter–he writes songs as seen from 10,000 feet, from 6 feet under–from every angle. The songs here aren’t stick-and-poke songs that will dry and fade on the skin, aimless prayers for jams; Beach has been making deliberate things for decades. Big Black Plume is a record about connections, mercurially curated, transforming individual contributions into something strikingly communal.

For the last decade, Beach has called Melbourne home, a city that knows the power of community–in myriad small venues like The Tote and The Old Bar, in community radio stations like RRR and PBS, in countless independent bands playing all genres every night, untouched by heavy industry. For a living, Beach teaches music (often to folks in those same small bands). He produces, engineers, or performs as a guest musician for friends’ bands (most recently for Tropical Fuck Storm on their forthcoming record Fairyland Codex). He worked for years at San Francisco’s Hemlock Tavern, a hub in the American musical underground. For years, Beach has been carefully fostering musical connections – for the making of Big Black Plume, it was time to bring the community together.

On his fifth LP, Big Black Plume, Melbourne-based and Californian-born musician Michael Beach reveals the vitalizing power of connection in an often hostile world. Equally informed by the songwriting of Bill Fay and Peter Laughner, the minimalism of Tony Conrad and Terry Riley, and the rock and roll heart of the Goner Records roster, Big Black Plume provides deliberate compositions adorned with genuine madness. The songs on this album range from spare, textural ballads, to spiraling psychedelic overtures connected to a propulsive cosmic pulse.

“I was wrestling with the beauty and intensity of the natural world and coming to grips with the human destruction of it,” says Beach. “I have an overwhelming sense that humans will come and go, and the world we depend on will outlast us.”

Building on Beach’s network from over 20 years of touring, engineering, and production work (in Melbourne, SF, and LA), and employment in independent touring venues, Big Black Plume features contributions from a murderers’ row of talent. Produced by Beach and Gareth Liddiard (Tropical Fuck Storm), the record includes Dirty Three guitarist Mick Turner, The Necks bassist Lloyd Swanton, Tropical Fuck Storm members Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin, folk artist Leah Senior, Oren Ambarchi collaborator Joe Talia, and Comets on Fire’s Utrillo Kushner, among others.

Big Black Plume was recorded over four different sessions. Phil Manley (Trans Am) engineered the album’s two hardest-rocking songs, “Poison Dart” and “Sick Century”, at El Studio in San Francisco, with Kushner on drums. A second session at Sydney’s Golden Retriever (engineered by Tim Whitten) captured the album’s improv and avant-inflected ballads, “No One Knows Any Better” and “I’m Gonna Need Ya,” creating a special resonance through the interplay of Swanton’s subtly winding acoustic bass and Talia’s abstract but propulsive drums.

“The Sea” (featuring Turner and Talia), “Next To You,” and the album’s electronic pieces and overdubs were recorded at Beach’s Melbourne studio, EAP West. The album was completed in Nagambie with Liddiard adding finishing touches and guitar overdubs, and Kitschin singing backing vocals.

Beach is a masterful songwriter–he writes songs as seen from 10,000 feet, from 6 feet under–from every angle. The songs here aren’t stick-and-poke songs that will dry and fade on the skin, aimless prayers for jams; Beach has been making deliberate things for decades. Big Black Plume is a record about connections, mercurially curated, transforming individual contributions into something strikingly communal.

For the last decade, Beach has called Melbourne home, a city that knows the power of community–in myriad small venues like The Tote and The Old Bar, in community radio stations like RRR and PBS, in countless independent bands playing all genres every night, untouched by heavy industry. For a living, Beach teaches music (often to folks in those same small bands). He produces, engineers, or performs as a guest musician for friends’ bands (most recently for Tropical Fuck Storm on their forthcoming American musical underground). For years, Beach has been carefully fostering musical connections.

Big Black Plume is out July 25th, 2025, on vital independent labels Poison City (Australia) and Goner Records (US / Rest of World). Beach will support Big Black Plume with headlining tour dates and festival appearances in Australia, the United States, and Europe, including Gonerfest in Memphis, TN, Rising in Melbourne, Dark Mofo in Tasmania, and Binic Folks Blues Fest in France.