Live Review: Music To Isolate To: Ali Barter

26 March 2020 | 5:05 pm | Emma Jones
Originally Appeared In

The next artist to take over our Music To Isolate To playlist is none other than rock goddess Ali Barter who takes us on a musical journey with her picks!

With the ongoing and ever-evolving COVID-19 pandemic, it’s a crazy world out there right now, so it’s never been more important to band together. Self-isolation and social distancing are two of the most effective tools we have as a society to help fight COVID-19, but they’re also very difficult to undertake and they have very real, long-lasting consequences on the music and arts industries — some of which we aren’t even aware of yet. Our artists and our industry are already feeling the ripple effect, and things are only going to get worse before they get better.

Because of this, it’s up to us to use what we’ve got at our disposal to best represent and amplify our community and continue to tell artists’ stories. Purple Sneakers has always fiercely represented Australian music and our team are some of the best writers in the country, so we’re going to use our platform to continue doing what we do best: connect our community with the artists we love, and support artists by promoting their incredible music.

Music To Isolate To is an ongoing artist-curated playlist series by Purple Sneakers. We’ve asked some of our favourite artists ever to provide us with the ten songs they’re listening to while in isolation, and provide some commentary for their selections. We’ll be running these for the foreseeable future every Monday and Thursday, and you can follow the Spotify playlist which will be updated on these days right HERE. The idea is to not only promote artists who are curating the playlists, but to also promote those songs that mean a lot to them whether they be longtime classics or fresh new releases.

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The next artist in our Music To Isolate To series is actual real life queen, ALI BARTER. Fresh from releasing her critically acclaimed second album last year titled Hello, I'm Doing My BestBarter has made the very best of her self-isolation this week with the release of a new song titled 'Four Days'. She teamed up with Oscar Dawson from Holy Holy (also her boyfriend, making them one of Australian music's hottest couples) to write a song in 24 hours, a task asked of them by national broadcaster triple j. The result is a brilliant love song that isn't afraid to go through the vey real highs and lows of self-iso, from hiding your bodily functions from your significant other to rhyming isolation with masturbation. Out everywhere tomorrow, you can peep the self-made clip below!

From iconic singles from Divinyls and John Farnham to Ball Park Music and Skegss, this one is a big bunch of tracks that will get you thrashing and dancing all around the house, shaking the cabin fever away!

It’s Nice To Be Alive - Ball Park Music

What a bloody great sentiment for right now hey. This song makes me feel good. Thats why it’s on the list.

Elastic Heart - Sia

Listen to this song to jump around, sing your heart out, get worked up. The melody of this song is OFF IT’S DICK (thats a good thing ps)

I Touch Myself - Divinyls

This one is pretty self explanatory. Get on the net, get yourself some inspo, and give yourself a little self care.

Tomorrow - Silverchair

Turn it up, get angry or sad or whatever emotion you feeling, and play along on air guitar on your knees in the living room.

Spring Has Sprung - Skegss

We could all use a little slacker rock at the moment. Be like Skeggs and CHILL THE F*CK OUT.

Running Red Lights - The Avalanches

This is my new favourite song. The lyrics are so nice. It’s transporting. I shut my eyes and imaging driving through NYC at night, something I cant do right now, but thats the magic of music. It takes you somewhere.

Waiting For My Real Life To Begin - Colin Hay

Well, sitting inside waiting for this to be over has made me realise how amazing life was before a;l tis started and how I was taking it for granted. Listen to this song to be thoughtful, quiet, have a cup of tea, and reflect on how amazing life is and how you are going to appreciate it when the crisis is over.

Some Kinda Bliss - Kylie Minogue 

Tune. Just play it and enjoy and be inspired to watch road trip movies (like the film clip) and imagine being on the open road committing crimes with that hot guy from Press Gang (if u know, u know).

It’s Only The Beginning - Deborah Conway

This is one of the greatest Australian songs so just appreciate it and sing along. Feels good to sing.

Pressure Down - John Farnham

What a song. And we can take it literally, take the pressure down. Take the pressure off ourselves, relax, be still, don’t panic buy toilet paper. Listen to music and stay calm.

Introduction by Emma Jones

Image by Ilsa Wynne-Hoelscher Kidd

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