Since September, Ribeiro has been touring in support of her second album Kill It Yourself, playing all over Australia before venturing overseas. The album is an intriguing blend of darkness and light, a portrayal of stark rural landscapes and dark deeds, with the odd flash of wry humour. In the title track she describes the gruesome yet pragmatic act of slaughtering an animal for food – images of the bloody death mingle with the comforting refrain “We get to eat tonight”.
Her evocative lyrics could be described as mature. However, at this suggestion, Ribeiro explodes in laughter. “Oh my God,” she says. “Does that mean that I’m really old?” At just 31, the answer is a firm no.
Ribeiro’s 2012 album My Little River was awarded ABC Radio National Album of the Year and Best Country Album at the 2012 AIR Awards. More recently, she’s been nominated in The Age Music Victoria Awards for Best Song and Best Female Artist, with the winners announced this week. “It’s so exciting,” Ribeiro says. “I mean Courtney [Barnett]’s going to win everything but that’s fine, it’s still nice to be acknowledged.”
Ribeiro is playing an AWME showcase at the Toff in Town on Saturday November 14 with Mick Thomas and Archer. She’s looking forward to the gig, but she doesn’t find the networking side of her job particularly easy.
“It’s really hard being a self-managed artist because you are expected to put on a management hat and go and network,” she says. “But it’s so awkward and not organic – it really makes me feel really anxious. I’d love to have international opportunities and the chance to play at festivals, but it’s also excruciatingly unlike me to talk to people and say, ‘Hey there buddy. Can we hook up a meeting? This is me and this is my stuff. I’m really good – buy me’.”
She is, however, excited about another AWME event. “One thing I’m going to be doing, which I’m really looking forward to, is the songwriting session run by APRA. And they’re getting some other artists and we’re going to be doing some co-writing, so that’s really exciting.”
Her songwriting skills are on display all across the new album, especially in the mesmerising If You Were A Kelpie. The song’s macabre lyrics were inspired by one of her school teachers, who would discipline students with the threat: “If you were a kelpie I’d shoot you.”
“I would have been like seven or eight. I’ll never forget it because I’d never heard anyone say that, or say that since. My mum’s side of the family are very rural – kelpies are very important to the work that my family do – so when someone says, ‘If you were a kelpie I’d shoot you’… He didn’t say it to me, he said it to one of my little buddies, and I remember thinking ‘What?’ Pretty scary.”
Apparently her lyrics don’t always translate overseas. “We actually played that song in New York but I don’t think that people there really know what a kelpie is. So I think if we get the opportunity to tour America, I won’t even talk, I’ll just play the song, because there’s no point in trying to tell the Americans about that.”
BY EMILY DAY
