Brisbane Musician Tara Simmons Passes Away

Brisbane musician Tara Simmons has passed away following a lengthy battle with breast cancer.

In an open letter, collaborator and friend Yanto Browning confirmed Simmons passed away last Thursday, while also detailing her final album.

The album’s final song was "recorded in the palliative care ward, with Tara perched on the end of her hospital bed, summoning the strength to sing, and of course finding that strength."

“I feel privileged and honoured to have been entrusted by Tara to help her on what would be her final record, and in no small measure relieved that we were able to finish the last few songs in early January,” Browning said.

“Tara approached her music the same way she approached her life, with an uncompromising attitude and a spirit of unadulterated curiosity.”

The album features backing vocals from Kate Miller-Heidke and Megan Washington, production and co-writes from Danny Harley (The Kite String Tangle), Gav Parry (Yes You) and Dean McGrath (Hungry Kids Of Hungary, Rolls Bayce) and more.

“I’ll miss her creativity and artistic single-mindedness forever,” Browning said.

“And I’ll hope that her final body of work finds an audience, and that people get a chance to hear my friend’s wonky pop songs, songs that mark this period of her life and serve to shed light on her experience of the human condition, expressed in a way unique to the beautiful, one-off human being that was Tara Simmons.”

The album will be released later this year, with its second single, North, out today.