VICE Spotlight: Winten

The first time I listened to Winten about a month ago, I wrote some notes down on my phone.

As the sun set, I sat on a hill near Newtown cemetery having just finished making a playlist hopelessly titled, ‘Femsad’. I had been thinking about love and life, and fallen down a wormhole of misery and loneliness, to then filter my frustrations into a long list of songs about female heartbreak and reckoning: Lana Del Rey, Phoebe Bridgers, Suki WaterHouse, Amy Whinehouse and finally, Winten.

It was something to behold watching the planes fly low over an orange sky, Venus sitting on the horizon as Winten sang, “I knew this would go wrong / I knew it all along”. I suddenly got flashbacks to driving home in the dark at 6am from overnight shifts at McDonald’s – an era of life where I felt the most lost. 

Winten's music stimulates the same type of emotions you have in those dark but reflective moments. Where things feel bittersweet yet still hopeful and at the back of your mind you know that some kind of decision has to be made.

“I think my music is sort of like when a certain smell reminds you of your childhood or someone you love,” Winten tells VICE.

“It can be sad and happy, nostalgic and affecting, or whatever it wants to be, really. I try not to abide by a particular form or currency and just create what feels right for me.”

Wrapped in sepia-toned vintage aesthetics, her acoustic folk songs (of which she has three) traverse themes of insecurity, acceptance and coming-of-age. They’re thought-provoking, sincere and continually changing. 

Her latest, “Bad Ones”, is a send off to unfulfilling relationships, sung over slow-moving guitar – introspective but also an explicit fuck-you to a past lover. 

“I write music because it feels good in my body and it serves as a stream of consciousness for whatever’s going on in my busy head. It really helps me to feel more connected to myself,” she says.

“All that I hope for is that anyone who’s kind enough to listen to my songs feels connected to them in whatever capacity that feels good for them.”

Much like a Fleetwood Mac, Julia Jacklin or Big Thief songs, Winten’s music teeters on the edge of relatability while also being true to her own experience, and her influences come from artists who work in much the same way. Her present muses cover, “Mary Oliver, Adrienne Lenker, sleep, gardens full of flowers and fruit trees, David Whyte, Cary Joji Fukunaga, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, Grace Jones, Joel Sternfeld, Alessandra Sanguinetti and Kate Bush,” she says.

And her past: “Probably Death Cab For Cutie and Harry Potter.”

As for the future, Winten’s debut album will be released in early August covering stories of self-acceptance after years of discovery. And already she’s thinking about her second. 

“I’m just super proud of finishing my first album. I’m so full of love with how it turned out and I feel a huge sense of accomplishment when I think about how much work went into the creation of it all,” she says.

“I’m also really proud of the relationships that were formed along the way and their importance in my life now. I’ve learnt a lot and I think you can hear that in the music. I can’t wait for the album to come out and for people to listen to it.”

Follow VICE Spotlight on Spotify for a weekly rotation of some of Australia’s best upcoming artists. This week: Winten, Picked Last, Shady Nasty, X4nder, Cherry Chola, Monet's Pond, PANIA, Jaal, BillyMaree + more.

Follow Julie Fenwick on Twitter and Instagram.

Read more from VICE Australia and subscribe to our weekly newsletter, This Week Online.