Culture

Bri Lee On their second album, Wild Seeds, Seeker Lover Keeper took a more collaborative approach to songwriting. While the process was challenging, it created a more cohesive record and deepened the three musicians’ friendship. “It’s a real relief when you can relax and lean into that,” says Sarah Blasko. “You don’t have to get everything right or have all the perfect ideas. It’s really nice to see each person take the song forward at a different moment and you can kind of rest in that.”

Andy Hazel After releasing three successful albums and winning an ARIA award, indie rock band Art of Fighting all but disappeared. Having returned with their first record in 12 years, Luna Low, they discuss their thoughtful brand of songwriting, their collaborative process and their long hiatus. “Maybe we felt like we’d run our creative course to a point,” says Ollie Browne, “and there was a fear of eroding the artistry even more.”

Kári Gíslason Back in Australia for a series of concerts around the country, Sydney-born conductor Simone Young discusses her storied career, the jewel-like music of Richard Strauss and the portrayal of women in 19th-century opera. “The composers, however appallingly these women might be treated, clothed these figures in some of the most glorious music ever written. And that’s what Strauss does. Strauss takes these difficult situations and creates compassion for the women in the audience by giving them music that is deeply moving.”

Daniel Browning Throughout her career, artist Julie Gough has shone light on Tasmania’s colonial history and the genocidal war against Aboriginal people, including her ancestors. With a major solo exhibition at TMAG, Tense Past, she speaks about her remarkable work. “Art is not only a visual outcome; making each artwork is my way of proceeding through the quagmire of the past.”

Ronnie Scott In his second novel, The Pillars, Peter Polites uses Australia’s fixation on home ownership to explore the intersection of race, class and sexuality – as well as a growing conservatism within the queer community. “If you look at the generic images coming out of the queer community, there is a very specific aesthetic going on that’s obviously tied to race and class … You can be a total slut monster but still operate within a hegemonic discursive framework. There’s nothing radical about reinforcing dominant discourse. To me, that’s the opposite of sexual liberation.”

Brodie Lancaster With their brilliant new album, The Center Won’t Hold, Sleater-Kinney’s defiantly feminist brand of punk remains vital as ever, 25 years after they began making music.

Ella Donald After almost 50 years, major technical problems and multiple legal challenges, the film recording of Aretha Franklin’s legendary Amazing Grace performances has been released at last – and it’s worth the wait.

Steve Dow A long-overdue revival of Oriel Gray’s The Torrents is brilliantly cast and beautifully produced, highlighting the work of a talented Australian playwright who was never given the recognition she deserved.

Simon Webster A visit to the Lisbon apartment of polymath activist António Serzedelo.

Sarah Price The writer of Memoirs of a Suburban Girl on her long road out of a violent relationship. “There I am, right in the middle of my teenage years and suddenly in a serious relationship. A relationship that pushes away my other life. Being hit was beyond my world experience. I didn’t want it to happen again. I started treading a little bit more carefully, and that set up a power dynamic.”

Cass Moriarty A chat with theatre designer Tracy Grant Lord, side stage at a rehearsal for Twelfth Night.

Reviewer: Andrew Fuhrmann That versatile polymath historian Tim Bonyhady’s latest book is nostalgic in the weirdest way. Where, he asks, are the great rat plagues of yesteryear, those rodent hordes that, in times past, regularly swept the back blocks of Queensland, New South …

Reviewer: Fiona Wright Inland is a novel about many things: about the idea of home, about what drives us and what haunts us, about a world on the cusp of change. But above all, it is a book about secrets – those we keep from the people who know and love us best, …

Reviewer: Peter Craven You couldn’t make up the Borgias. After Giuliano della Rovere – the man who would become Pope Julius II, the great warrior Pope who commissioned the Sistine Chapel ceiling from Michelangelo – finally took the chair of St Peter in 1503, …