29 November 2024 - 0 Comments

Michaela Tempers is a writer and musician based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, Aotearoa. After moving home from Melbourne in 2019, Michaela Tempers rediscovered her lost love for songwriting. While studying for her master’s in Creative Writing, she began to write a collection of songs exploring the complexities of womanhood. The resulting work forms the basis of her debut EP Good Woman, which is out now on Te Whanganui-a-Tara label Home Alone in early 2025.

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Tempers’ debut single Forest Fire is a folk-rock number written about the strange relationship between pain and happiness. Recorded at The Surgery in early 2024, Forest Fire is both intimate and full, drawing on electric guitar, organ, piano, bass and drums. It was written during a difficult time in Tempers’ life and, like many artists, she was trying to figure it out through her music. She says of the song, “Sometimes life sweeps right through you, burning everything away, and it’s hard and painful, and then you walk out the other side, different. Better? I don’t know. I think that’s what I was trying to understand”.

Good Woman, the second single and EP’s title track, will be released on December 13th. A deviation from Tempers’ norm, Good Woman flirts with the slide guitars of country music and a more contemporary, explosive sound. “It’s about watching an abusive relationship and feeling utterly powerless to stop it. It was very hard to write. I wanted the recording to reflect the highs and lows of a woman who is trapped and while I think it was my way to grieve, I also wanted to empower.” Good Woman comes out ahead of a concert in her hometown, alongside fellow Home Alone artist Tessa de Lyon (Mystery Waitress).

Tempers’ four-track EP was recorded at Surgery Studios with Lee Prebble and an all-star folk band of Chris Armour (guitar), Dayle Jellyman (organ), Hikurangi Schaverien-Kaa (drums), Phoebe Johnson (bass), and Brooke Singer (keys). It was mixed and produced by Brooke Singer and Chris Armour and mastered by Carl Saff.

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