Reb Fountain plays two shows on this side of the Tasman this October, in Eora and Naarm
Reb Fountain is packing up her number one record and hauling it across the Tasman for two nights only.
Water for Gasoline is the fourth studio album from Reb Fountain, and it landed at number one on the New Zealand charts. She recorded the whole thing live in her home studio across a single week, with almost every track captured in one take. That gives it a relaxed, in-the-room feel, built around themes of connection, resilience and finding some light when things get murky.
Reb Fountain’s Water for Gasoline Australian tour
- 16 October, Bootleggers, Eora/Sydney, with Adam Hattaway
- 17 October, The Curtin, Naarm/Melbourne, with Dan Kelly and Adam Hattaway
Stay up to date with what’s happening in and around Melbourne here.
“Bob Dylan thought that you could blow an army off the stage with a guitar and your wits about you,” Fountain explains.
“Woody Guthrie believed art should send people into battle knowing what or whom the real enemy was. As Patti Smith says, ‘people have the power’ when they create art as a conscious act. To me, art is all that and an expression of love; a clear sign that the universe is bent towards creation, not destruction.”
The title track leans into that live-in-the-room looseness, and a new video for another cut, Beautiful Lie, opens up more of Fountain’s visual world. Musically the album slips between folk, blues and rock without settling in one lane, threading big hooks through slow, unhurried grooves. It’s cinematic and emotionally direct, and live she folds new songs in with older cuts from her catalogue.
It’s a family operation, too. Fountain’s daughter Lola directs and edits the videos, her son Kalvin handles photography and artwork, and her housemate helps out on design. Even her pets make it onto the record, which fits the collective spirit she builds her work around. That collaborative, whanau-driven way of working sits at the centre of everything she makes, and it feeds straight back into the songs.
“I don’t ever feel like I do this alone,” she says.
“My work is a collective project inspired and shaped by my fellow contributors and whanau. We share in the process so deeply and intimately, and I am forever grateful for our relationships.
“We’ve all chosen this path and get to make music and life together that we make sense of as we roll along. What a gift.”
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Water for Gasoline is the fourth Fountain album shaped by co-producers Dave Khan and Simon Gooding, with drummer Earl Robertson rounding out the lineup. That same live band tends to lift the recordings a notch on the road. Both nights pair Reb Fountain with fellow New Zealander Adam Hattaway, while the Naarm show adds local favourite Dan Kelly to the bill.
Tickets for both dates are on sale now. Anyone after a night of raw, close-up songwriting has a couple of options this October, one in Eora and one in Naarm, each in a room small enough to feel every word.
For more information, head here.
