KEELY EXPLORES HEALING AND CALLS FOR MORE FIRST NATIONS MUSIC SPACES
Singer Keely Eggmolesse. Image by Kerri Llewy Allan.
By Katherine Glass
Singer Keely Eggmolesse says her album Scorpio Szn brings personal stories into polished pop, while her cultural connections guide how she works in the music industry.
First Nations singer Keely is calling for more community-led recording and performance spaces as she prepares to share an album shaped by relationships, grief and healing.
Speaking to Ngaarda Media about Scorpio Szn, Keely said emerging artists needed greater access to production resources and opportunities to showcase their work.
She also wanted more women and gender-diverse people leading those spaces.
“I think more mob led spaces and more resourcing in terms of just production and spaces for young artists to create and also showcase their work,” she said.
Keely said support from Aboriginal communities had been important throughout her career, helping her navigate an industry she described as challenging.
“Grateful that I've been pretty lucky to have just mob always get behind me,” she said.
Music woven into family life
Keely grew up moving between communities with her parents and younger brother while her father worked in schools across remote Australia.
She was homeschooled for much of primary school and some of high school, with family life sometimes involving camping or house-sitting.
Music was a constant.
Family gatherings featured guitars, harmonies and singalongs, while gospel, rhythm and blues, disco and funk helped shape her listening.
As a child, she imagined herself performing in musicals and large theatre productions, singing in the backyard or out bush.
Her influences now include Whitney Houston, Destiny’s Child, Beyoncé and Stevie Wonder. Mariah Carey is her dream collaborator.
“I would love for Mariah Carey to produce a song of mine,” she said.
SCORPIO SZN Album Cover. Artwork: Sasha Parlett, Redhanded Media, 2024. Post-production and design: Keely Eggmolesse.
Finding stories beneath the pop
Keely said Scorpio Szn took shape after her first album, Summer Vibes & Bad Habits, which explored her experience of an abusive relationship.
Sharing that earlier work meant repeatedly discussing a difficult period of her life while still processing it.
Another relationship later ended, and she began working through grief while attending songwriting camps and collaborating with producers.
Those experiences helped shape the new album’s themes of healing and self-reflection.
“I think all my different personalities and facets come through in each song,” she said.
Collaborating with different writers and producers also brought a range of sounds to the project.
Keely said she hoped listeners would spend time with the lyrics and vocal arrangements beneath the album’s pop production.
“And also a lot of the songs do sound quite poppy, but um for me there's a lot of storytelling there,” she said.
Culture guides her practice
Keely said her Aboriginal identity influenced both her creative work and her approach to the industry, including decisions about honouring her ancestors and community.
She also wanted to challenge expectations about how Indigenous artists should sound.
“I love to sort of push boundaries about what mainstream audiences may expect from sonically from indigenous artists,” she said.
She welcomed seeing a new generation of First Nations musicians working across different genres.
Making the album also coincided with receiving autism and ADHD diagnoses as an adult, an experience she connected with learning more about herself and developing her practice.
Looking ahead, Keely wants to bring her different creative interests together and make more time to sing for enjoyment.
“Finding more time to actually just sing, sing from the heart, sing for joy,” she said.
For now, she hopes listeners will connect with the new songs in their own way.
Keely said a digital download and merchandise would be available through her Bandcamp on the album’s release day, giving listeners another way to support her work.