Emily Ulman Finds Her Voice Again on ‘Mountains Mountains Mountains’

After more than a decade behind the scenes shaping some of Australia's most beloved music institutions, Emily Ulman's Mountains Mountains Mountains marks her return to the mic — a song that feels both intimate and expansive, grounded and windswept.

Sonically steeped in warm indie-folk and carried by Ulman’s careful phrasing, ‘Mountains Mountains Mountains’ offers a meditation on contradiction — stillness and movement, clarity and confusion, memory and momentum.

Listen — 'Mountains Mountains Mountains

We caught up with Emily to talk creative reawakening, duality, and why it took ten years to make a record that finally feels like home.

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Emily Ulman – ‘Mountains Mountains Mountains’: Full Interview

Emily, hello! For those who know you as a curator or industry force — how would you introduce yourself as a songwriter and artist in 2025?

After years championing others and working behind the scenes as a programmer, curator and venue booker, in 2025 I’m returning to my artist side with new music for the first time in a decade. My songs are lyric-driven and honest, often drawn from personal stories or small everyday moments. I’m excited to be sharing this side of myself again and reconnecting with audiences in a new (or at least new-ish) way.

‘Mountains Mountains Mountains’ is your first release in over ten years — what drew you back to the mic, and why now?

It wasn’t so much a conscious decision as it was an impulse I couldn’t ignore any longer. Even when I wasn’t releasing music, I was still writing. The songs were stacking up quietly in the background. After spending so many years supporting other artists, I started to feel the pull to give my own work some attention again. I’m not sure there’s ever a perfect time, but this feels like the right one.

The song carries a beautiful duality — it’s meditative and massive, intimate and cinematic. What moment or feeling gave birth to it?

Thank you, that’s so lovely! The song started with a Japanese proverb I couldn’t stop thinking about, ‘the reverse side has a reverse side’. That idea that nothing is ever just one thing really stuck with me. Around the same time, I went on a picnic with some friends and found myself totally taken by the landscape. The Australian bush felt both wild and quiet, pristine and overgrown. That contrast became the heart of the song. It’s about how two things can exist at once, ‘mess and beauty, clarity and confusion,’ and how beautiful that in-between space can be, and is.

“Nothing is ever just one thing” — tell us more about that idea, and how it shaped this track.

It’s a mindset I keep coming back to, that things can be contradictory and still true. We’re often pushed to land on one clear answer or identity, to think in black and white, but life just doesn’t work like that. One needs the other. Like yin and yang, the light only makes sense because of the dark. Mountains Mountains Mountains leans into that messiness. The repetition isn’t just for emphasis, it’s a mantra to keep going even when the ground feels uncertain. It’s about holding space for multiple truths at once, and learning to sit with, and even love, the ambiguity rather than trying to fix or define it.

There’s a real richness to the sound — gentle but layered. What did working with Bonnie Knight and Simon Berckelman bring to the process?

Working with Bonnie and Simon was a dream. Bonnie has this incredible instinct for texture and tone, and they brought so much warmth and depth to the track without crowding it. They really listened to what the song needed, and built the arrangement around the emotional and lyrical centre. Simon’s mastering made everything feel widescreen and still intimate, in a way that makes it feel spacious. They both treated the song with so much care, and helped it become fuller and more expansive than I’d imagined on my own.

And what was it like being surrounded by collaborators like Gab Strum, Soren Maryasin, and Alex Lashlie? Did the song evolve once they came on board?

It was such a gift having Gab, Soren and Alex involved. I’ve been the longest and biggest fan of Gab’s. He has this incredible instinct and brought the kind of care that makes a song feel held from the inside out. Soren added subtle textures that gave it shape without crowding the space, and Alex’s harmonies lifted everything in this effortless way. Each of them contributed something that helped the track grow while still staying true to the original feeling. Love them.

Lyrically, there’s a tenderness and poetic weight to this — who do you look to as inspirations when it comes to language and storytelling in song?

I’ve always been drawn to writers who make the personal feel universal. Leonard Cohen, for the way he threads philosophy through feeling. Paul Kelly, for his clarity, storytelling and emotional precision, like a musical Raymond Carver. Sharon Van Etten and Fiona Apple, for how they hold vulnerability and strength in the same breath. And Stephen Merritt, whose wit and wordplay constantly remind me how powerful and playful lyrics can be.

Between Isol-Aid, Brunswick Music Fest, and ALWAYS LIVE, you’ve shaped the scene in so many ways. Has that role changed how you see your own music-making?

Absolutely. Working behind the scenes has deepened my respect for every part of the music ecosystem. Programming festivals and running events like Isol-Aid has made me more aware of how songs live outside the studio and how they’re experienced in real time, by real people. It’s made me think more intentionally about how my music might connect with others, but also given me the confidence to back my instincts. I’ve spent years championing other artists and being constantly inspired by the brilliance of live music in and around this country. Stepping forward with my own work now feels like a continuation of that same care, just turned inward.

What do you hope listeners feel or reflect on when they spend time with ‘Mountains Mountains Mountains’?

I hope it gives permission to sit in contradiction. To feel still and restless, soft and strong, certain and lost. And that that if things feel a bit shit, there’s something coming next to look forward to. Or at the very least, something to bop to and sing along with in the meantime.

Do you collect records yourself? Is there a record you always return to, or one that’s followed you through the years?

There are many and varied albums I love and have loved and have worn thin, but ‘Exile on Main Street’ is the album I will never not go back to. There is no feeling or mood in the world that this album doesn't cater to. Its perfection just covers all bases.

If ‘Mountains Mountains Mountains’ were pressed on vinyl — what would the artwork look like, and what colour would the wax be?

The artwork for the album this single is on is almost done (shout out to the wondrous Alex Rothmeier) and it’s so beautiful I could cry into it. If Mountains Mountains Mountains had its own vinyl pressing, the artwork would probably be a windswept tangled hillside with suspiciously celestial lighting, like mother nature got a stylist. And maybe upside down.

And finally — what’s next for you? What can we expect from the album, and how are you feeling about this new chapter as a recording artist?

The album is due out later this year and I can’t wait. It’s the first body of work I’ve released in ten years and it feels huge, and exciting and surreal. The songs are lyric-led, personal, full of place and feeling and little moments I’ve carried around for ages. There’ll be more singles, more shows, and more music. And hopefully more people singing along. I’m proud of this next chapter and really grateful to be here. With you.