Meet Uralla-based musician Jhana Allan

Born in Hobart, Tasmania and now making her home in Uralla, northern NSW, singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Jhana Allan has had a long road to finding her voice as a musician. Words by Rachel Baiman.

Photography Mike Terry

Jhana Allan’s newest sophomore studio release, Fake Paradise, she explores a cyclical emotional addiction that has plagued her throughout her entire adult life. “It’s the feeling of closing your fist around something, only to find that it is nothing,” she explains. 

Born to a clinical psychologist and midwife both passionate about Buddhism, Jhana was raised on a hobby farm and meditation centre in the Northern Tablelands. She worshipped her older sister, who remains her constant inspiration and began learning the violin at age of five in pursuit of her sister’s abilities. As a teenager she started a band called Turkish Delight (mentored by Linsey Pollack) and through this started an obsession with Eastern European and Balkan music traditions.

After studying classical violin at the Conservatorium of Tasmania in Hobart, Jhana moved to Melbourne to pursue a career as a freelance violinist. It was in Melbourne that she fell in love with the mandolin which was then a gateway to songwriting. She joined a multitude of bands as a fiddler and singer which led her to tour Europe and the UK, playing Glastonbury Festival in 2014. During this time she released an album, Bushrangers Need Bush with trad jazz/folk band The Willie Wagtails. 

While playing in these fast-paced bands, Jhana started writing simple and delicate songs on the mandolin and ended up recording her first album, Darkest Night, in 2017. She collaborated with storyteller and banjo player Jan Wozitsky (The Bushwackers) on the song Don’t Look Back. 

Following her new calling down the singer-songwriter trajectory, Jhana joined forces with now Darwin-based artist, Alice Cotton for their duo Still Water inspired by Gillian Welch and Jean Ritchie. She also founded Eastern European band Rosenstein, which performed at Woodford Folk Festival in 2016.

But after years of the city grind, Jhana’s Melbourne life began falling apart. Her bands, relationships, work and her mental health seemingly deteriorated simultaneously, and she moved back home to regroup. 

In a small town, with plenty of space to rest and think, Jhana began to examine the past years and write the songs which would eventually become Fake Paradise. She formed an Americana folk band The Rocky Bottom Girls with her sister Sujata, Clara Murray and Craig Johnson, which is set to release its debut album, Dorrigo Squash Club in July this year. 

Over the numerous covid lockdowns she connected with American folk musician Rachel Baiman, and the two began to meet regularly to work through her songs, which would gradually take the shape of an album project. 

Jhana raised thousands of dollars from her community and fans via Kickstarter, and traveled to Nashville in January of 2023 to record with Baiman and multi Grammy-winning engineer Sean Sullivan, with a band of session musicians including guitar player Cy Winstanley (Brandy Clark), Baiman’s band members; drummer Lauren Horbal and bass player Steve Haan.

Drawing inspiration from musicians like The Weather Station, Sam Amidon, PJ Harvey, and Lucie Thorne, the album moves through folk, jazz, and rock soundscapes, retaining a throughline of Jhana’s visceral and emotive writing and singing, and grounded by her layered vocal presence.   

“There is a lot of me processing my own self-destructive behavior on this album,” she explains. On Second Skin Jhana writes: “Like a wide, blank canvas / I can take on anything / throw your best shot at me, and I’ll soak it up / I will wear it like a second skin.” 

“It’s a song about my tendency to take on other people’s qualities out of a lack of security, or sense of self,” she explains. “There’s a bitterness to it, but also a strength.”

The album is not without hope, however.  On Made It, a stunning, stripped down moment, she sings: “You made it this far / with a broken heart / you can do it again”. And on Scheming Plans, Jhana commits herself anew to taking time to rest and breathe. She is attempting to find peace within herself, in the place that she grew up. “I’m really proud of that song,” she says, “because I can feel myself growing in it. And it’s not a song about heartbreak or desire for something external. To me, that’s breaking a cycle of addiction.”

Fake Paradise was mixed by Greg Griffith (Amy Ray, Vitapup), and the layers of beautiful fuzz and distortion play beautifully on Jhana’s sometimes painful revelations of desire and self. Jhana is at times frustrated by her own inability to produce at the speed of modern life, but her struggles are also her superpower. 

“I’m surrounded by fast and busy people,” she says. “But I just don’t function that way.” Somewhere in the midst of detangling and reflecting, Jhana has created a beautiful and deeply relatable album, anointed with rare honesty and self awareness. 

The Deets

Fake Paradise comes out on 9 August.
In the meantime, keep your eyes peeled on Jhana here at: @jhanziallan and here.