Charlie Collins Announces New Album 'Nightwriter'

Sydney-based singer-songwriter Charlie Collins has officially announced that her third album, Nightwriter, is coming this year.

Collins teased the impending release with the single, Transactional Deal, last month, but today, along with announcing her new album, she’s dropped her heaviest, most personal single to date.

Rock Bottom doesn’t sound devastating—it’s catchy, upbeat alt-country with a rock edge. Collins’ bright vocal guides listeners through the darkest experience of her life. Written about a bender that turned into a major overdose, the song is confronting and devastating, a theme Collins follows throughout the album.

“This one hit hard in every way, and my words here tell the story,” Collins revealed. “I always felt like I had to be this fun, fucked up party girl or people wouldn’t like me, so I pretended for so long to be someone I wasn’t just to please others.

“I was numbing myself with whatever I could get my hands on because the pain was too far gone, and I felt like I couldn’t deal with any of it until I finally hit rock bottom and knew the only way to deal with it was head-on.”

You can listen to the track below.

Taking her music to new, vulnerable, uncharted territories, Nightwriter was recorded in three weeks with Crowded House singer Neil Finn and producer Steven Schram (Crowded House, San Cisco, The Cat Empire) in Finn’s Roundhead Studios in Auckland.

The album was mixed by Tom Iansek (Big Scary, #1 Dads), and like Collins’ previous albums—2019’s Snowpine and 2022’s Undone—it showcases her extraordinary abilities as a songwriter able to balance light and dark and highlight the juxtaposition between bright musical arrangements and her highly personal lyrics.

Nightwriter will be released via Island Records Australia on Friday, 29 August. You can pre-order/pre-save the album here.

Collins said of her aims, “I want to encourage women in particular to be bold and talk about the uncomfortable, we can also be real and raw with this and say it how it is.”

In addition to announcing the impending release of Nightwriter, Collins will showcase the album in its entirety tomorrow (9 May) at the Paddington Uniting Church in Sydney. She’ll be joined by special guest Seb Szabo; last-minute tickets are available here.

CHARLIE COLLINS – NIGHTWRITER TRACKLISTING

1. Nightwriter

2. The Hardest Part

3. All A Waste Of Time

4. Transactional Deal

5. You Might Be A Man, Just Not Man Enough

6. Say Something, Say Anything

7. Rock Bottom

8. I’ll Do What It Takes To Get Me Right

9. I’m Alright

10. The Last 48 Hours

11. Sincerely, Not Yours

12. Kinder, Lighter, Brighter Shade Of Blue

13. I’m In The Right Place