BIO
Spook-folk Sweetheart Greta O’Leary is a songwriter and musician whose pervasive yet spacious sound cuts through the thickest of skins. Poignant, heartbreaking, and occasionally absurd, O’Leary’s voice “reminiscent of a hāngī pit” seizes us, “imbued with earthy, smokey tones” (UTR). Think Angel Olsen meets Vashti Bunyan down-under.
“A free-thinking aesthetic and a refusal to conform” (Muzic.net), she soothes yet disrupts us with stories of grief, love, and belonging. Greta is quickly establishing herself as a rising force in the Aotearoa music scene, recently the recipient of APRA’s Artist Mentoring programme, she is currently working with her mentor Tom Healy (Tiny Ruins, Marlon Williams) on her latest works.
"Writing and feeling is truly all that has ever made sense to me”. Coming of age during a few nomadic years hitching the globe, Greta’s lifelong love of music was ignited through the folk scenes of Australia and beyond, a contrast to her childhood home of blues, whiskey and rock and roll. “I didn’t see myself in the hazy, heavy records drifting through the house as a child, but they are forever imprinted in my ears and my pen, and I still loved to dance to them”.
O’Leary’s first single ‘Outnumbered’ gained a feature on RNZ, charted on independent radio stations such as BFM, RDU and Radio One, and gained 140,000 views for its self directed music video. It has “a real fragility” (NZ Musician). NZ on Air development funding with producer Charlotte Yates meant a return to the studio soon after to track her first EP. Greta and her live band took the EP to the road for a 7 date national tour, and subsequently performed at festivals such as Newtown Festival, Earthbeat and the Performance Arcade.
Having recently returned from her debut Australian tour, a headline performance at Wellington Gardens Magic Festival and teaming up with producer Jol Mulholland (Neil Finn, Anika Moa), 2024 is seeing the new wave of O’Leary's work.
Releasing her debut EP Treasure Horse in 2022, Greta and her live band took the collection on a 7 date national tour. “In true Greta spirit it is ridiculous, optimistic, bleak and celebratory.”
At times crushingly fragile, then surging and frenzied, Treasure Horse is hypnotic, relentless and poised in a world of O’Leary’s’ own. Produced by a duo team of Toby Lloyd and Charlotte Yates, it’s a wry journey through the depths of self, bleak longing and an earnest celebration of life.
"Ploughing through a valley bathed in golden light, spurred by urgency.” Under The Radar
“O’Leary’s vocal delivery is incredibly unique, I genuinely can’t think of any other performer to relate it to“ Ratworld Magazine
“A sonically rich record” Under the Radar
“Intimate storytelling and confessional prose are complimented by cinematic arrangements” UTR
“Wonderfully deep in nature” Muzic.net
“At times it feels naïve and wistful yet at others it is a voice which has lived and suffered” Muzic.net
“This does not sound like anyone else I have heard recently” Muzic.net
“An insanely atmospheric and wonderfully crafted debut" Ratworld Magazine