A rising voice in the independent music scene, with over half a million Spotify streams and column inches in leading industry publications from The Guardian to Rolling Stone, Harper Bloom is fast securing her place as the next artist to watch out for.
Ahead of her third EP release later this year, House of Cards, new single Sleepyhead from the Perth-born, Melbourne-based artist offers first-time listeners and established fans more of the lush synths and ethereal songlines that she is best known for today.
Exploring the all-too-common experiences of many young queer children masking their way through their adolescent years, under a guise of straight-passing heteronormative behaviour, the new single offers a beacon of hope to those at risk of losing their way.
The forthcoming EP promises a celebration of being open with one’s own queerness, making life feel so much more promising than if smothered within a closet. Harper asserts that Sleepyhead, therefore, is a good stepping stone for themes explored more widely across the later release.
“When I was younger, I went to a Catholic school,” she says today of the inspirations behind the new song, “and I was, basically, the whole time masking my true identity. There’s a lot of anxiety with that, and a couple of other people that were dealing with that as well, so I just wanted to sort of capture that in a song.”
The schoolyard influence of the new song’s lyrics drove another inspired creative choice, being the addition of a school choir. A group of Year 5 students from Clifton Hill Primary School added a backing track, drawing artistic links to many other songs to have done the same including Pink Floyd’s Another Brick in the Wall.
Or, a little closer to home, Aussie band The Middle East’s melancholy 2009 hit Blood. Harper readily admits the latter served as one of the reference tracks.
“I love them,” she confesses. “I love those songs with children’s chorus, it just brings this real feeling of childhood and being at school. This sense of fun, I guess, so I love that. The song is about the uncertainty what you’re going through when you’re younger and, you know, it’s hard. Hard to cope with, but if you can hang in there, it’s worth it, for sure.”
With the release of two prior EPs, Harper wanted to level up as a singer-songwriter, marking House of Cards as a notable evolution of her personal style and production values. Helping Harper expand her self-confessed “quirky, strange songwriting” is producer-writer Tim Cox, whom she credits as her main collaborator.
This coming September, Harper will be seen performing at Bigsound Festival as well as The Finders Keepers Market, hosted at Melbourne Convention Centre across the weekend of 11-13 July 2025.
“That’s a duo set, so just a little taste,” she says of the smaller-scale event. “If you want to see the full band at the show, July 18th, that’ll be great! An all-queer lineup, we’re trying to get market stalls and I’m trying to line up a live tattooist as well — so such Shotkickers!”
As a queer artist committed not only to being nobody other than themselves, as well as a killer performer and an enthralling lyricist, Harper Bloom promises much ahead of the release of her new single Sleepyhead.
Mark the date for the track’s drop on all major streaming platforms and, if Melbourne-based, be sure to see them live and tear up the stage in-person.
Harper Bloom will be launching her new single Sleepyhead at Shotkickers in Thornbury, at 8:00pm on Friday 18 July 2025. Get your tickets at https://moshtix.com.au/v2/event/harper-bloom-shotkickers/181451
By Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier
