BIO – EWAH & THE VISION OF PARADISE

EWAH & The Vision of Paradise are based in nipaluna/Hobart, lutruwita/Tasmania. Their sound is often cited as psychedelic and cinematic, merging post-punk and new wave.

EWAH & The Vision of Paradise’ debut release, Everything Fades to Blue captured attention nationally and internationally and was longlisted for the Australian Music Prize (The AMP) 2017. The band were one of ten featured The AMP longlisted acts to play showcases across Australia.

EWAH & The Vision of Paradise have played at festivals including Mona Foma, Party in the Paddock, A Festival Called Panama, Dark Mofo, BIGSOUND and Junction Arts Festival.

In 2017 they won the National Live Music Awards for Best Live Act Tasmania and were nominated again in 2019.

Walk the Night (Light Room Version) won Critic’s Choice for Best Music Video at Winter Light Festival 2022 (nipaluna).

Album two, The Warning Birds is out now through Part Time Records.

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EWAH brings universality to the personal, traversing ethereal to visceral with guitar and voice as her mainstay instruments. Someone said Kevin Shields meets Patti Smith. Someone else said Leonard Cohen, Lou Reed and Cat Power hanging out on a damp night. You’re getting someone in the zone now.

EWAH is the moniker for Emma Waters, whose current projects are solo EWAH, dreampop electro outfit EWAH DUO and The Vision of Paradise. For many years EWAH called Naarm/Melbourne home where she performed mostly as E-wah Lady, including with her band The Open Road. Her recordings during this time embraced a lo-fi and DIY aesthetic such as experimental album GOSPEL DANCE in 2010.

In 2010 E-wah took home the APRA Darebin Songwriters’ Award for a capella song When You’re Down & Out.

She has played at festivals such as Festival of Voices (lutruwita) and Melbourne Fringe Festival.

EWAH regularly jumps across disciplines; a published writer, an award winning filmmaker, pretends to be someone pretending to be someone else (acting) sometimes, and is working on her goal to score for screen and stage.

EWAH co-produced the experimental film Finding Paradise with Flare Productions and Tess Campbell, released in 2022. The feature has gone on to pick up awards at film festivals internationally.

2022 saw EWAH complete a two week residency in Queenstown (lutruwita) with The Unconformity. She will engage in a four week residency with Assembly 197 in Launceston (lutruwita) in 2023.

She is currently working on a solo album.

MEDIA

“The band’s first album in five years arrives this Friday…” Read NME article

“The post-apocalyptic imagery showcases often under-utilised raw and ravaged Australiana, in all its run ragged beauty, with a stillness, respect and empathy rarely depicted in the lens of the nation’s consciousness, for art’s sake or otherwise.” Broaderlines. Read the full exposé

“Now starting to create some serious buzz outside of the Hobart hometown, EWAH And The Vision of Paradise are back in 2019 with ‘Cannibals’. The Music Network. Read the full review.

“Lead singer and guitarist EWAH is a captivating performer who plays a twangy semi-acoustic guitar that is steeped in swampy southern blues, reminding me of The Cramps’ Poison Ivy, or The Duchess, who played with Bo Diddley.” Dave Faulkner, The Saturday Paper Read the full feature

EWAH writes about her influences for Undertow Issue 3 Read it here

“Every aspect coheres into a whole – from the dusky cover art of clouds and mountains to the frontier sprawl of tremolo-heavy guitars and crescendos swelled by synthesiser. Songs brood and build into lush, long outros, some of them satisfyingly loud.” Kate Hennessy, The Guardian Read the full feature

“… epic post-punk with a scope as wide as the Australian skyline.” When You Motor Away Read the full review

“Incorporating the music’s thin fragility to the wicked grit of their themes and delicate new-wave-meets-tough-desert-rock sound, the album balances between darkness and light throughout its entirety…” destroy//exist Read the full review

“A dark and smouldering track with the spark of PJ Harvey and the swampiness of Beasts Of Bourbon. EWAH & The Vision Of Paradise are just another band making us realise that Hobart is going through a real musical purple patch.” Dan Condon, Double J Read the full feature

“Tasmanian solo artist Ewah has a new single called ‘Superstition or Love’. It’s elegant and leisurely at the surface with plenty of emotions brewing below.” Augustus Welby, Mixdown Mag Read the full feature

“….. attention-grabbing, honest and unique”. BEAT Magazine Read the full review

“E-wah Lady makes stuff go, with her excellent command of tunes and what sounds like quite a mature and realistic view of life.” David Nichols Read the full review

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