INTERVIEW: JACOTÉNE releases debut EP 'Untitled (Read My Mind)': "I never force a positive or negative feeling, so most of my songs come from a very real spot."

Interview: Jett Tattersall
Published: 20 June 2025

Australia’s JACOTÉNE (pronounced jack-oh-teen) has only been releasing music for two years but is already showing the confidence, poise and sheer talent of a veteran of the industry. Coupled with a jaw droppingly good voice that will literally stop you in your tracks when you first hear it, JACOTÉNE is an artist to get truly excited about.

JACOTÉNE first came to prominence in 2022 when she won Triple J’s Unearthed High competition with her song ‘I Need Therapy’. After releasing a number of singles independently, she was signed to Epic Records in the UK, with ‘Stop Calling’ her first major label release. Today she embarks on the next important step in her career with the release of her six track debut EP Untitled (Read My Mind), and it is a stunning collection of music that combines pop, soul, jazz and trip hop..

The EP begins with the short opener ‘Only God (Intro)’ with a plucked guitar and angelic, soaring vocals from JACOTÉNE which are gradually surrounded by a swelling string soundscape.

The ethereal, angelic feel of the intro carries into second track ‘Stronger’ which also opens with a gentle acoustic guitar. The gentleness remains throughout the song, which has an almost reassuring, dreamy lullaby feel as JACOTÉNE sings of a relationship that is disintegrating as she leans on those close to her to help her through the pain.

JACOTÉNE’s first release after signing to Epic Records in the UK , ‘Stop Calling’, is up next. It leans heavily into a delicious, 1990s trip hop sound with an abundance of glitchy beats and sees JACOTÉNE’s vocals soar into her upper register. It tells a story of breaking away from a toxic relationship with no apology or doubt. ‘I got your notification / But it won't change my mind / All of this manipulation / No, I won't let it slide.’

‘Easy’ has an upbeat, jazzy sound while also bringing in elements of trip hop, with its shuffling beat and bursts of piano. JACOTÉNE sings of how easy falling for someone is and the fear that it is perhaps too easy ‘I hope that you won’t make me go and change my mind / Cause I don’t want to lose this feeling inside’

‘Forgive Me’ is a truly mesmirising soul-pop track with a soundscape that plays on the drama and uncertainty in the lyrics that explore romance, heartbreak and self-discovery. It moves from lush strings into a dramatic escalation of the beat as it bursts into the chorus before pulling back again into quietness as JACOTÉNE asks for forgiveness for loving too much.

The EP ends with ‘What Did I Do?’, a majestic, string infused soul pop track that sees arguably JACOTÉNE’s greatest vocal performance on the EP. Like the previous track ‘Forgive Me’ it sees JACOTÉNE struggling with the aftermath of a relationship breakdown and working out what went wrong. ‘Tell me what did I do? / To be falling on my knees / Begging you for forgiveness / Can you make it all make sense,’ she sings.

With elevated production, beguiling music and that voice, JACOTÉNE has everything it takes to be a future global superstar and Untitled (Read My Mind) is a compelling introduction to her artistry. Jett Tattersall recently caught up with JACOTÉNE to chat all about the EP’s creation and her music career to date.

Hi JACOTÉNE it is very, very lovely to talk to you today. And thank you very much for your music, may I just say, and congratulations on your very delicious debut EP Read My Mind. Oh my goodness it is so good.
Thank you so much, thank you for listening.

First of all, how does it feel to have that compiled and together?
It feels like I'm giving away a really cute little present for Christmas!

Oh I love that. Let's talk about ‘Easy’, because your pipes on this are kind of a rumbling motor purr before it kicks into this nightingale, phoenix bird call in the chorus. It's just everything. There's so much going on between your voice and the production, and then it all comes to this very firm stop at the end, which leaves you dead in your tracks.
Right? It's like, here it is, take it or leave it.

This is such a great song. Please talk to me about building that, because I feel like it's one of those songs that needs to be listened into in of those really fancy surround sound rooms. It's an IMAX song!
Ooh yes! I wrote ‘Easy’ in Miami last year, and it was a bit of a different one for me, because I'm normally a sad, yearning, pleading type of girl, and ‘Easy’ was more of a okay, let's actually enjoy the moment here. We're in Miami, I'm working with Ozmoses, and these guys are great, they understand me as a creative. I was in a positive vibe writing this song. You don't always need to overthink everything, and that was my understanding of the song when I first wrote it. Let's just enjoy this moment and write about it.

I think that's beautiful. And by the way, the song does not sound easy at all!
It is a pain in the ass to sing too, goddamn! it's like, ‘so should we do ‘Easy’ for sound check?’ Oh, please no!

That's gonna be the song people think that they'll do at karaoke and they go, ‘Oh, no, no'!
I'm telling you now, save yourself!

You said usually you're deep in the grit, and you get quite dry, you can get quite comedic, you get quite brutal with your lyrics and your delivery. And although that would probably feel like a scary place, for a lot of people, that's sort of your zone. So doing something like ‘Easy’, was it difficult for you to step into that?
I think my subconscious took over. I didn't fight what I was feeling. So maybe it was easy. I never force a positive or negative feeling, so most of my songs come from a very real spot.

You've got this very lovely contrast with your music, and I think a lot of that is down to your vocal delivery, which, as I said, can go from like a 1950s motorcycle engine fabled bird. But then you have these punching and quite funny lyrics. Is that something that you're aware of when you're constructing a song, or is that just innately you pouring out into it?
For example, the verse in ‘Forgive Me’, where I talk about going to the supermarket, that was a verse that I actually was going to take out. And in the studio, I was like this is good for right now, but it actually ended up being on the final record. I don't think I view my lyrics the same way other people do, because we're so familiar to how we speak and how we act, and when somebody else hears that for the first time, they think ‘that's cool’, but to me, it's probably something I would have taken out. Everybody finds that spark in the authentic side of music, where, for me, I'm like this feels a little bit too vulnerable for me, and I'd rather take it out. But that's the whole purpose of music, you need to say what you're supposed to say, right?

Speaking of authenticity and amazing big voices, I will get into Lauryn Hill in a hot second, because she's also my favourite. Who were some of those queens for you when you were young that just screamed power, but were just lyrically authentically themselves?
Alicia Keys. Power. ‘Girl on Fire’ - come on! There was a girl on The Voice. called Alexa, or Alex, and she sung ‘Girl on Fire’ and that day I said to my mum, ‘I'm going to be like her one day’. ‘Girl on Fire’ is definitely one of the songs that I grew up listening to. Etta James, Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson and Lauryn Hill, of course.

Of course Lauryn Hill. You sang ‘Killing Me Softly’, The Fugees version, yes, on a zoom call, and then that propelled you to enter Triple J Unearthed, and that's what led you to win Triple J Unearthed. Can you talk me through how all that happened?
So I sung ‘Killing Me Softly’ on a Zoom call for my singing school. A person in the industry came to talk to the students, so I opened that night. I sung in my bathroom with my phone connected to my little speaker, and that was when I met my manager. It was during COVID, so a couple months of silence went by, and then we came together when lockdowns were over, and I started creating music. I had never written music before that, I'd always been doing covers. There was a period where I was just doing covers and all of those songs were just what I was listening to at the time. My mum saw the Triple J Unearthed competition, and she was like ‘there's a competition for high schoolers, maybe we should consider this’. I had no idea what it meant. I was just like, ‘yeah, okay, whatever’. I had no hopes whatsoever. And so I submitted ‘I Need Therapy’, I made the top five, and then they announced I’d won at my school assembly. And everything started from there.

I do love these stories because there’s always this notion successful artists have come out of nowhere, they're an overnight sensation. And for you, I imagine it started from when you were a kid. You've been watching The Voice, you'd been in singing school, you'd done the Zoom.
Oh my gosh, very, very much. It's so crazy. It's like that picture where you see the iceberg, and you see just the tip of it outside of the water, but you see the whole body underneath the water. That's exactly what it's like. All of this is like building a house. You gotta do the bricks, right?

But no one sees the bricks! You spoke about that shift from covers to your own music and becoming a songwriter yourself. Having being raised on such insanely talented women, I imagine there was quite a bit of trepidation on your part, going ‘I need to write like her.’. How did you not just go about songwriting but get over imposter syndrome?
It's a really good question. I think you just have to do it however you're feeling. Just do it. You don't know what you're doing, do it anyway. You're scared to do it, you're scared to say it - just do it. That's how I get through it.

With your music, there is a lot on romantic undoing, but then also it's a very personal kind of unraveling in amongst that and almost different viewpoints. It's very beautiful. It's almost prismic when I when I break down the lyrics, I'm just curious when you're writing, or even just when you're reading and listening to music yourself, are you more interested in the collapse of something or the rebuild?
The rebuild I think. Also, when I'm listening to music, I'm more of a melody girl. What keeps me coming back is a lyric, but I feel it from the music and the build. I also like the mystery too. There's a song that I was listening to by Nina Simone called ‘Lilac Wine’ and who’s not going to listen to that, because it builds.

You’re so, and you know the words, you can hear every single word, but if someone says to you, what was that song about, you go, ‘Oh, I don't know.’ Because you're not listening to the words, you're leaning in and listening to every single piece.
Right. It's like she’s right here talking to me. It's crazy. That's a massive inspiration to me.

You have made the transition from Melbourne to London, which quite often our amazing popstresses do, because Australia is very small pond. You have played everywhere, you’ve had your own sell out shows across the UK. Given your COVID Zoom singing moment in the bathroom, how do these songs play differently on stage compared to the studio, your bedroom or your bathroom?
I am in the studio to be able to play live, so it feels better on stage. For me, if it doesn't feel better on stage, it's a problem. Live for me has always been my goal. I'm in my element when I'm on stage.

What has performing your songs live taught you about the way people receive your music?
I've realised that people actually listen! Songs are really you admitting something, right? And I forget about that! But it is so great to know that people relate too, and it's such a crazy thing to me when I see people getting emotional or singing the lyrics. There is literally nothing better than that. That's the goal, let's sing this song all together.

On that, is there a song that still catches in your throat, I guess with surprise, when you're singing it live?
’Stronger’, because I dedicate that to my parents, and when I'm not with them, it's definitely something.

Oh, it's a beautiful one too. Lastly, before I leave you, if there is one song you wrote that small you was watching on The Voice, or could sit in the front row at one of your shows, what do you think she'd say?
To be honest, I’d probably have nothing to say. When I see something that feels so connected to me, which is so weird because I write songs, I normally don't have the words.

You just said it's the words, do you think that was also something that drew you so intensely into music, because it was another way to have a conversation?
Yes. Sometimes, we feel so excited about something that we have no words. And I think that's the feeling that I always got from listening to Aretha Franklin, Alicia Keys, Lauryn Hill, because it's so complete that you're just sitting there trying to figure it out in your mind, when all you can do is just shake your head like, ‘Oh my gosh’.

Untitled (Read My Mind) is out now via Epic Records/Sony Music Australia. You can download and stream here.
Follow JACOTÉNE on Instagram and TikTok.