Grace Cummings - Bloodhorse!

This week’s PBS Feature Album is Bloodhorse!, the grand, nervy fourth album from Naarm-based musician Grace Cummings.

Fight or flight is the fuel that powers Bloodhorse! – a bold, lush and at times perversely provocative journey through the anxieties, confessionals, hopes and nightmares of one of the country's most acclaimed performers.

Reuniting with producer Jonathan Wilson (Angel Olsen, Father John Misty, Billy Strings), who also produced Cummings’ critically-acclaimed 2024 LP Ramona, Bloodhorse! finds Cummings’ swooping from gorgeous to grotesque, velvet and violent, sacred and profane. If Ramona was a dusky expansion of Cummings’ universe from folk artist to widescreen, Bloodhorse! is a leap deep into the night – headlights off.

“In the past few years I’ve gone through one of the biggest personal changes of my life,” says Cummings. “Bloodhorse! is an attempt to express the things I can't say. A confession, an act of courage. For no one else but me. And it’s me deciding to represent, not necessarily the way life is, but the way it feels.”

And those feelings are big. Themes of life, death, agency, abuse and self-examination – both psychic and physical – pump through the lyrics of Bloodhorse!. It brings a new dynamic of sound: shuddering synths, tense strings and woozy grooves, joining Cummings’ knack for campfire melodies, expressive piano and uniquely soulful voice. What unites it is the thrill of hearing Cummings’ push at the edge of her own understanding.

“Someone described it as me wearing a bunch of different masks,” says Cummings of the wild emotions explored across the album’s 12 tracks. “But I disagree – I think it’s the sound of when I take the mask off. That’s why I wanted it to feel passionate and huge – like an insane, twisted, grotesque, fantastical, magical, majestic, horrendous, painful and surreal place. I know all these things. Sinead O’Connor once said, the only reason a person should sing or make a record is because they’ll go mad if they don't. That’s how I experience the world.”

Tune in all this week to hear tracks from Bloodhorse!. PBS Members have the chance to win a copy of the album on vinyl - simply email your name and membership number to    before midnight Sunday August 23.

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TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING THIS WEEK

Don Glori - 'Sundancer'

The Bamboos - 'Rockets & Flowers'

Troth - 'In Essence'

EWAH - 'Spiritual Dance'

My Chérie - '5 Years'

Marcel Borrack - 'Sun Dust'

Georgia Bird - 'Let's Go'

LINA - 'Sucker'

DIIV - 'The Fountain'

Blowers - 'Choked On Puke'