PRAISE FOR BLUE DREAMS
“A stunning and heartbreaking Americana record that shows why Arrowsmith is one of the country’s top Singer-Songwriters right now.”
— Conor Lochrie, Rolling Stone
“A compelling presence like the young Joni Mitchell”— Graham Reid, Elsewhere
“Magnificent” — Samantha Cheong / Chris Cudby, Under The Radar
“Blue Dreams is carefully constructed and immediately impressive.”— Tony Stamp, RNZ Music
Multi-Award-winning Americana artist Holly Arrowsmith and her all-star band tour Aotearoa New Zealand in support of Holly’s new record, Blue Dreams. An alt-country opus, Blue Dreams features “Desert Dove”, which took home the award for 2024 APRA Country Song of the Year and has been reworked by Melbourne choir One More Chorus. Singles “Blue Dreams” and “Neon Bright” have won Holly radio play across Australia and the United States as well as New Zealand.
Holly tours with an incredible lineup of musicians: Joe McCallum on drums (Nadia Reid, Marlon Williams, Tami Neilson); award-winning engineer Tom Healy on guitar/pedal steel (Bic Runga, Tiny Ruins, Marlon Williams); Anita Clark aka Motte, on violin/keyboard (Don McGlashan, The Eastern, Phoenix Foundation) and award-winning producer Chris Wethey on bass (Jack Page, Emily Browning)
About Holly Arrowsmith:
Born on the high desert in Santa Fe New Mexico and raised in the mountains of Southern New Zealand, multi award-winning songwriter Holly Arrowsmith is both poet and storyteller. With the conviction that the deeply personal is also the universal, Arrowsmith's lyrics orbit around what it means to be human, and offer up prayer-like responses to our most intimate struggles.
A leader in New Zealand’s contemporary folk and alt-country movement, Arrowsmith’s sound pays homage to tradition without being too reverential. She embodies Americana through her mastery of vocal dynamics, and nuanced lyrics, creating a gorgeous sonic portrait of life's ups and downs, real emotion and optimism, a baptism by sparks. Holly shape-shifts from powerful to intimate with ease.
Arrowsmith has won the hearts of music lovers close to home and abroad, touring throughout Aotearoa, Australia, and North America, and sharing stages with Sixto Rodriguez, CW Stoneking, Tami Neilson, Jessica Pratt, Nadia Reid, Marlon Williams and Tiny Ruins.
NPR described Arrowsmith's music as ‘Utterly beautiful, anchored by a voice that pulls you close and cancels the noise outside.’ In 2020 she was awarded the APRA Country Song of the Year (Slow Train Creek), after receiving the prestigious Tui Award for Folk Album of the Year in 2017 for her opus For The Weary Traveller. In 2024 Holly was awarded the APRA Country Music Song of the Year for Desert Dove, the first single off her 2024 album Blue Dreams.
If a great song can act as a mirror for the listener’s own inner landscape, then this is songwriting at its finest.
With support from Michaela Tempers
https://www.instagram.com/michaela.tempers/
Michaela Tempers is a writer and musician based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. She picked up a guitar for the first time at 16 after seeing a black and white video of Joan Baez covering Bob Dylan’s classic ‘Don’t Think Twice’. She begged her brother for guitar lessons and taught herself to sing, inspired predominantly by the folk artists of the 60s and 70s. While studying for her Master’s in Creative Writing, she began writing a new collection of songs exploring the complexities of womanhood. These songs formed the basis for her forthcoming EP, informed by her early influences as well as more recent loves, Frazey Ford and Laura Marling. She has opened for Creedence Clearwater Revival, as well as Australian folk artists Boy & Bear and Sarah Blasko.
