Future soul singer and songwriter Wallace Gollan’s musicality is as deep, complex, rapturous and compelling as the dark ocean that stretches across from her origins of Wellington, New Zealand to Sydney, Australia where Wallace now resides.
Wallace resonated with music at a young age with a background in traditional jazz, a father whose heavy penchant for blues influenced Wallace’s own musical inflection, and a natural gravitational pull towards hip hop and soul. Wallace’s music is an exciting mosaic combination of the aforementioned genres. She creates music in spaces unfamiliar, addresses silences with harmonies so detailed it is simple and expressive that words are not needed to understand her message. She possesses a type of sound others have labeled in the vein of Erykah Badu, Little Dragon or Carmen McRae.
What sets her apart is her unique voice. Wallace applies her multi-award winning jazz trained licks and intonation to create a rich layer of distinct harmonies causing heads to turn in mid motion.
In this interview, we spend a few minutes with Wallace discussing her influences, her newest project and more.
Full Q&A as well as links and a stream of her new single “Is It You” below.
We’ve featured you before but let’s dive a little deeper into the artist and the music. What attracted you to this genre or style of music?
The soundtrack to my childhood was full of blues and soul, my music mad parents made sure of that. Then at around the age of 12 I got into jazz in a big way and went on to study it at university. As I started to gig more though I realised I loved playing music that people want to dance to and got into hip hop and neo-soul. There’s no better feeling, knowing that you’re causing such a positive reaction in people.
How long have you been creating and sharing your music with the public?
Just over a year ago now. I released by first tune ‘Vinyl Skip’ in April 2015
Who or what influences your playing and/or writing? Also, what motivates you to keep going?
Although I’m influenced by music I’ve been looking to other art forms for writing inspiration. I want to try and create more of a narrative with my lyrics so the listener can get lost in my songs lik e you do a good book or a painting.
One of my newest tunes is based on a quote from Peter Pan, that a friend from NZ has tattooed on herself. “If it’s below my dignity to climb a tree then I never wanna grow up, never grow up not me”.
What was the last song you listened to?
‘Justin Bieber’ – Fortunes
Which do you prefer? Vinyl? CDs? MP3s?
I love dancing around to Vinyl, nothing beats the sound but I listen to MP3s most of the time. So keen to get my first release done on cassette. Don’t forget about those little guys haha
How about this one…. Do you prefer Spotify? Apple Music? Bandcamp? Or something else? Why?
Bandcamp is definitely my favourite. They really look after the artists.
Other than the digital era overwhelming us with access to an abundance of music, what are one or two of the biggest challenges you face when trying to attract listeners to your music?
Just getting people to press play really.
Do you gig, tour or perform? Do you ev er live stream? Where can music lovers see you perform?
I’m based in Sydney and gig regularly here and have also played in Melbourne and Brisbane. Can’t wait for my first tour! Which is hopefully just around the corner.
Where is the best place to connect with you online? Discover more of your music?
The best way to keep up to date is to follow me on Instagram and Facebook. All my tunes are available on bandcamp, itunes, spotify and soundcloud
All social links below:
