Washington keeps fans guessing
From Berlin to Karratha, former Brisbanite and indie-pop maestro Megan Washington will swap the European summer for the sunny North West winter when she travels back Down Under this month for a pair of festival shows.
Washington will return to Dampier for the first time since 2010, when she supported The Beautiful Girls at the Mermaid, to play the second Gossip Festival on Hampton Oval, before heading to Kununurra for the first time to play at the Kimberley Moon Experience.
The latter will be one of the most isolated Australian shows the young musician has played besides a gig at the triple j One Night Stand in Alice Springs she recalls as being about "a million years ago".
Neither festival will be getting the fully synth-fledged fury on display in Washington's second album There There, which was released last year.
Instead, Washington said one show would be a duo and the other solo.
"I'm exploring what I can do with very little," she said.
It will be interesting to see how Washington, who is a talent with the keyboard, transfers the bouncy 1980s vibe of singles like Limitless and My Heart is a Wheel off her latest album - with their little runs of synth and muted guitar riffs that have a quality akin to something steadily popping - in the stripped-back shows.
The album's themes are taken straight from the storybook of Washington's rollercoaster personal life - from the accolades to the public revelations of having a stutter since age five.
Despite the nature of her latest offering, an upbeat Washington appears to have gotten some closure out of the creation of the album and is focused on the rest of the year after a spell chilling out in the warmth of Berlin.
"This is a very busy year for me," she said.
"I'm halfway through writing album three.
"There's a tour planned but I can't say too much about it, yet."
To get her in the mood for her third album, Washington has listened to a lot of disco and dance music and says she wants to make something that gets her "shake on" and you can "boogie down" to.
As far as the lyrics, she said there would be songs about love "like always".
"And sunshine, and tempests, and underwater scuba hotels," she said.
