Good Grief - Artistic Support Material
Prior Work
Selected Previous Releases
Please click “Download” to access previous works. You’ll be redirected to a public YouTube link. (Listening to 30 seconds of each track is recommended)
Darwin by Kaylah Thomas - Live at ‘The Palms at Crown’
Debut Headline Show - Highlight Reel
22 & Blue sits within the first act of the album, acting as the catalyst moment that quietly sets the rest of Good Grief into motion. It captures the strange contradiction of turning 22. It's about a birthday that should have felt celebratory but instead became the beginning of an emotional unraveling and the slow realisation that a relationship was slipping away.
At its core, the song explores the loneliness that can exist even in a crowded room. It reflects that uniquely disorienting period in your early twenties, when everyone around you seems to be moving forward while you're trying to make sense of your own heartbreak. The track leans into the confusion, messiness, and quiet grief that often accompanies growing up, especially when reality begins to look different from the future you imagined for yourself.
Elgin St is full of yearning and the bittersweet weight of loving someone who can’t quite love you back. It sits in the moment of descent, and is intentionally two-sided, holding both the excitement of falling for someone and the fear of what that fall might cost.
There’s a thread of naivety woven through it, but also an underlying sense of knowing that gently pushes back against it. The song exists in that tension. It lives in the in-between space before anything is spoken aloud, where everything is felt but nothing is confirmed, even though some part of you is quietly aware of how the fall might unfold.
Influenced by Bridgerton and Lana Del Rey, it steps into a sound world I haven’t explored before, with no drums, and strings. It is a softer, more suspended arrangement that mirrors the strange, fragile atmosphere I found myself in while writing it.
At its core, it’s about the beautiful ache of falling in love.
Breathe is a gentle reminder to find clarity amidst chaos. The song doesn't avoid panic or overwhelm, but instead moves through it, offering listeners a hand to hold as it slowly finds its way back to steady ground. It’s a breath in the middle of the noise.
While the stories within the song become progressively darker, there are small glimmers of hope scattered throughout. Breathe slowly unravels, but never completely falls apart. Even in its most anxious moments, there’s an underlying belief that things will be okay. The song enters the panic but doesn't stay there. It emerges on the other side with a sense of acceptance, calm, and perspective.
I’d love for it to be the second single, as it captures the emotional landscape I want to thread through the rest of the project.
This is one of the darker songs on the album, one of the most cathartic. At its core, it's an emotional release, a place to pour all the love that never had anywhere to go, alongside all the hurt that came with it. It's angry, raw, and unfiltered. A reckoning with the realisation that you gave so much of your youth to someone who never truly valued you.
This isn't a song about grace, forgiveness, or taking the high road. It's about everything that was left unsaid. Every question, every frustration, every moment of heartbreak that never found closure. Written as a letter “to the boy who broke my heart”, the song becomes a space to finally say the things you never got the chance to say.
Rather than tying the story up neatly, the song embraces the messiness of grief and heartbreak. Sometimes closure doesn't arrive. Sometimes all you can do is finally let yourself feel everything.
Good Grief – Selected Singles
The following recordings have been completed and are currently awaiting professional mixing and mastering. These tracks are the most likely candidates for the first three singles released from Good Grief and have been selected as the focus of this funding application.
Potential Music Video Concept: I'd like to further develop this concept as a music video for one of the album's lead singles. The video would be created collaboratively with two dancers, using movement as a visual extension of the song's narrative and emotional themes.
The focus of the work would be the relationship between music and movement. Drawing on my background in interactive composition the video would serve as both a creative work and a promotional asset, helping introduce audiences to the visual world of Good Grief. It would expand the album's themes beyond the music itself and create a deeper, more immersive experience for listeners by combining contemporary dance, storytelling and original music.
The Fabric is an example of a text art–driven track, intended as an autobiographical piece. It weaves personal narrative with spoken and visual text elements, forming an intimate prologue that threads memory, identity, and lived experience together.
‘Lonely and Lost’ will sit between Acts I and II, with the possibility of appearing as a transitional piece before Act III. It explores the feeling of loneliness becoming an identity, where the character begins to feel defined by their isolation rather than simply experiencing it. This piece creates space for reflection, connecting the emotional gaps between acts while deepening the audience’s understanding of the character’s internal world and the weight of carrying loneliness as something that feels permanent.
This track is a collaboration with Thomas Fernando and will be completely instrumental. The Sandhill’ is a song about loss. It’s is an outpouring of everything left unsaid: the pain, the anger, the confusion, grief and ultimately, the gratitude.
At its core, the song sits in the space where grief and gratitude coexist. It's about mourning what was lost while still acknowledging the impact that person had on your life. Rather than seeking answers or reconciliation, "The Sandhill" is an act of acceptance.
Someday” is a song about hope, but not the kind that comes after everything is resolved. It’s about the slow, messy journey toward acceptance and learning how to feel whole again. It’s not about having all the answers; it’s about trusting that someday, you’ll find your way back to yourself.
Additional Demos in Development
Please note that at the time of this application, I am currently in the recording process. The attached demos are not final versions, with recording scheduled to be completed in 2026. Additionally, this album will be autobiographical and will incorporate a variety of field recordings and spoken word/text-based interludes to enhance its narrative. These tracks are still in development.
Collaborators/Letters of Confirmation
Please click the link below to view letters of confirmation and contributor bios
“To make living itself an art, that is the goal ”
— Henry Miller
Letter of Support
Please click the link below to view letter of support from Susan Eldridge a Lecturer in Music (Entrepreneurship) from The University of Melbourne.
Please see attached a visual overview of the anticipated timeframes and key activity dates referenced in this application. Mixing/Mentorship + Mastering + Cartel Australia (All activities seeking funding support)
Platforms for Potential Collaboration
I will be reaching out to grief support networks, community groups, organisations, online forums, and podcasts to enquire about potential collaborations and opportunities to include this work within future grief-focused programs. Some organisations and platforms of interest are listed below.