On my stereo this week: ‘Words’ by Kate Miller-Heidke.

With her outrageously beautiful voice, together with her flair for witty humour and poignant insight, Kate has drawn comparisons to, and I’ve read, Tori Amos, but I would definitely say Kate Bush. Though, it almost unfair to compare her to Bush, because Miller-Heidke is extraordinary and inventive in her own right, having released four full length studio albums with her very own unique twist of pop/folk/opera.

However, in the last few years, Kate surprisingly returned back to the theatre. She was commissioned by Opera Australia to compose a new opera, where she focused all her energy in writing an opera based on the children’s book by John Marsden called The Rabbits. It won 4 Helpmann Awards including Best Score (in 2015), which cemented her status as arguably Australia’s most versatile artist. More recently with her husband Keir Nutall, they also composed the music and lyrics for the smash hit ‘Muriel’s Wedding: The Musical’. But what I am most excited about lately are the rumours of her impending return back to the recording studio.

I spent a better part of the last few days listening to Kate’s eclectic back catalogue and couldn’t decide between a host of essential tracks – Caught In The Crowd, The Last Day On Earth, Can’t Shake It, Sarah, O Vertigo or You’ve Underestimated Me, Dude – to play for you. So instead I’ve gone back to one of her earliest singles called Words. Please check it out and hear Kate Miller-Heidke do her ‘Kate Bush – esque’ best. Enjoy!

Photo credit: The image of Kate Miller-Heidke is by flickr user TEDxSydney and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivs 2.0 license.