The Australian-born, Berlin-based percussionist and songwriter confronts colonial violence, Indigenous language suppression, and the politics of cultural memory on her new single “Taken, Never Erased.” Ahead of her sophomore album Twist My Words, Frawley speaks to MUNDANE about the relationship between beauty and political discomfort, the power of repetition, the importance of independent music communities, and why art should remind people of their ability to resist.
There is a difference between taking something away and making it disappear.
A language can be prohibited, its speakers punished, and its transmission interrupted. Traditions can be marginalized, histories rewritten, and entire communities subjected to systems designed to dismantle their cultural identities.
But the existence of those efforts does not mean they have entirely succeeded.
Memory survives in unexpected places.
In stories.
In fragments of language.
In the determination of communities to preserve, recover, and pass on what previous generations were denied the freedom to practice.
For Australian-born, Berlin-based musician Eilis Frawley, the distinction between suppression and erasure lies at the center of her new single, “Taken, Never Erased,” released October 23 via Sinnbus Records.
The track confronts the suppression of Indigenous Australian languages through colonization, examining both the violence of cultural theft and the resilience of communities whose histories have endured despite systematic attempts to silence them.
Yet rather than approaching the subject through abrasive instrumentation or an overtly confrontational musical arrangement, Frawley made an unexpected creative decision.
She tried to write an ’80s pop ballad.
“I was 50% successful in my mission,” she jokes.
The result is an unusual combination of nostalgic strings, hypnotic percussion, steady basslines, and spoken-word lyricism.
It’s beautiful, but never entirely comforting.
And that tension is deliberate.
“In my opinion, not all political music needs to sound inherently heavy, aggressive, or abrasive to carry the weight,” Frawley tells MUNDANE.
“I’ve always been drawn to the power of a catchy melody.”
Her intention was to create something musically inviting enough to encourage listeners to engage with subject matter they might otherwise find overwhelming.
To make the arrangement accessible without making the history easier to dismiss.
And to allow the contrast between sound and meaning to become part of the song’s emotional impact.
“By creating something that is easy to digest musically, I hope to disarm the listener and let the friction be between the two parts.”
It’s an approach that defines much of Frawley’s forthcoming sophomore album, Twist My Words, arriving November 6.
Across the record, she confronts political manipulation, algorithmic isolation, capitalism, war, genocide, and the complex relationship between individual responsibility and collective power.
But she refuses to surrender beauty in the process.
For Frawley, music doesn’t need to choose between emotional accessibility and political urgency.
Sometimes the most powerful way to confront an uncomfortable reality is to invite someone into a beautiful space and then ask them to consider what that beauty contains.
The Violence of Erasure and the Persistence of Memory
At the emotional center of “Taken, Never Erased” is an image of language being pressed flat like flowers.
It’s a delicate metaphor for a brutal historical process.
Throughout Australia’s colonial history, Indigenous communities experienced policies and practices that suppressed languages, disrupted cultural transmission, and attempted to replace existing systems of knowledge with those imposed by colonial institutions.
The consequences extended far beyond communication.
Language carries relationships to place, ancestry, identity, and collective memory.
When a language is suppressed, the damage reaches into the ways people understand their histories and transmit knowledge between generations.
Frawley’s song reflects on that violence without treating Indigenous cultures as relics of the past.
“Language pressed flat like flowers reflects on the many languages that were suppressed, banned, or lost through the act of colonisation,” she explains.
The title introduces the song’s central distinction.
Taken, Never Erased.
An acknowledgment of historical theft, but also a refusal to equate colonial suppression with the complete disappearance of the cultures targeted by it.
“‘Taken, but never erased,’ acknowledges the violence of cultural theft and the attempts to silence indigenous communities, while recognising the resilience of the people, memories, and traditions that continue to be carried forward.”
The distinction is especially important because narratives of disappearance can inadvertently reproduce the logic of erasure.
To describe a culture only in terms of what was lost risks overlooking the people who continue to sustain it.
Frawley’s song instead holds two realities together.
The historical violence was real.
Its consequences remain significant.
And Indigenous communities continue to preserve, reclaim, and revitalize their cultural identities.
The music reflects that coexistence.
There is sadness in the arrangement, but also movement.
A sense of mourning, but not absolute defeat.
And an insistence that acknowledging historical violence should lead toward reflection rather than passive resignation.
Why Political Music Doesn’t Have to Sound Angry
Political songwriting is often associated with confrontation.
Distorted guitars.
Aggressive percussion.
Shouted vocals.
An urgency designed to communicate outrage as directly as possible.
But Frawley is interested in another possibility.
What happens when the music is inviting, even pleasurable, while the subject matter remains deeply unsettling?
For “Taken, Never Erased,” she deliberately embraced the emotional vocabulary of the pop ballad.
The kind of song built around memorable melodies, sweeping instrumental passages, and a sense of nostalgic familiarity.
Her intention wasn’t to soften the political message.
It was to create a different way of encountering it.
“My aim was to create an entry point that pulls people in and then allows the weight of the spoken-word to really settle.”
The contrast encourages a particular kind of listening.
Rather than responding immediately to an aggressive sonic atmosphere, the audience is given room to absorb the words and consider their implications.
The music creates space.
The lyrics introduce friction.
And the listener is left to reconcile the two.
Frawley describes the process as an invitation to sit with complexity rather than simply tuning out.
It’s a particularly relevant artistic strategy in a cultural environment saturated with political information.
When every platform competes for attention through increasingly urgent messages, emotional intensity can become exhausting.
People become accustomed to outrage.
And eventually, they may stop responding.
Frawley’s alternative is not disengagement.
It’s a different form of attention.
A musical experience that draws people closer before asking them to confront something difficult.
The ’80s Ballad That Became Something Else
Although Frawley began with the ambition of writing an ’80s pop ballad, the finished track reflects the wider range of musical influences that have shaped her career.
She wanted the song to feel weightless.
Almost suspended.
Something that could carry the listener from one section to another without interrupting its emotional atmosphere.
“I wanted to make a track that felt like you were floating,” she explains.
But she was also interested in a structural feature associated with the elaborate pop arrangements of the era.
A distinct third section.
A moment when the song moves beyond its established pattern and introduces an unexpected instrumental idea.
For “Taken, Never Erased,” that moment became a string solo.
One of Frawley’s favorite passages on the entire album.
The arrangement was developed with Jean-Louise, who recorded strings throughout Twist My Words.
With the bass and drums already established, the pair spent several hours layering instruments and developing the solo.
Frawley was searching for a particular emotional quality.
A melody that felt nostalgic.
Reflective.
Perhaps slightly mournful.
“I was chasing that nostalgic feeling, the kind of melody that makes you feel deeply reflective, if not a bit sad.”
But beneath the sweeping strings lies another essential element of her musical identity.
Repetition.
The hypnotic rhythmic structures associated with Krautrock.
The steady propulsion of drums and bass.
The sensation of movement created through patterns that change only gradually.
“I also have a deep love for repetition, famously connected to Krautrock,” she explains.
The result is a song that moves between two distinct musical impulses.
The emotional drama of the pop ballad.
And the meditative persistence of minimalist, rhythm-driven music.
One encourages emotional release.
The other creates a sense of continuity.
Together, they give “Taken, Never Erased” a distinctive atmosphere in which beauty and unease can coexist without canceling each other out.
Repetition as a Way of Understanding the World
Frawley’s relationship with repetition began long before her solo career.
Classically trained at Adelaide’s Elder Conservatorium, she developed an understanding of percussion through the discipline of repeated practice.
Performing the same passage.
Refining the same movement.
Returning to a rhythm until it becomes almost automatic.
For some musicians, repetition is simply a technical necessity.
For Frawley, it has become something closer to meditation.
“My education definitely made me a sucker for repetition,” she says.
“Practicing the exact same thing over and over again — it becomes meditative.”
She describes the particular satisfaction of reaching a moment when muscle memory takes over.
When the body understands what to do without requiring constant conscious direction.
That experience has become central to her approach to songwriting.
Repetition allows her to establish a musical environment in which small changes acquire greater significance.
A subtle shift in rhythm can alter the emotional atmosphere.
A new instrumental layer can transform an otherwise familiar pattern.
And spoken words can become more forceful when surrounded by arrangements that leave them room to exist.
Her musical development has also been shaped by geography.
After studying in Adelaide, Frawley spent several years in Seoul, where she performed regularly with multiple bands.
It was there that she developed much of her practical experience as a working musician.
“Seoul is where I gained my gigging ‘chops,'” she explains.
She also encountered professional recording environments and collaborative songwriting practices that would become essential to her later work.
Berlin, where she relocated in 2016, offered a different kind of education.
The freedom to dismantle familiar structures.
To experiment.
And to decide which elements of her training she wanted to preserve in her solo music.
“Berlin, on the other hand, gave me the creative freedom to break those structures down and pick and choose what to put into my solo project.”
The resulting sound is neither strictly classical nor conventionally post-punk.
It draws from both traditions while refusing to remain entirely within either.
From Drummer to Fully Formed Musical Author
Before establishing her solo identity, Frawley developed an extensive career as a freelance drummer and percussionist.
Her collaborations include work with Laura Lee & The Jettes, Kara Delik, and Anika.
Those experiences helped establish her versatility, but they also placed her within creative environments where someone else’s artistic vision often provided the starting point.
With Twist My Words, she wanted to assume responsibility for the entire process.
Not simply the rhythm.
But the structure.
The tonal atmosphere.
The production.
And, crucially, the lyrical content.
“I absolutely loved the process of writing and recording these songs because I was fully, unapologetically committed to my own vision,” she explains.
“It was nice to feel less like a drummer or hired external member and more like a fully formed musician.”
That distinction is important.
Percussionists are often understood primarily through their technical contribution to a larger musical arrangement.
But Frawley’s solo work places rhythm at the center of a broader artistic and political language.
The drums aren’t simply supporting the songs.
They’re part of how she thinks.
Part of how she organizes ideas.
And part of how she translates complex emotional and political subjects into something physical.
Initially, she embraced the solitude of the process.
Working through winter.
Experimenting.
Learning new production techniques.
Developing the material without needing to compromise her intentions.
But eventually, the limitations of working alone became apparent.
After several months, she reached a creative impasse.
The solution was collaboration.
She invited trusted musicians into the project, allowing the songs to develop beyond what she could achieve independently.
“With them the album grew to be what it is.”
It’s an approach that balances artistic autonomy with openness.
Frawley wanted to establish a clear vision.
But she also recognized that the strongest version of that vision might require other people’s contributions.
Twist My Words and the Exhaustion of Modern Life
“Taken, Never Erased” is the third single from Twist My Words, following “Guilt” and “Calm Down.”
Together, the tracks introduce an album concerned with the ways power operates through language, information, institutions, and everyday life.
At first glance, the subjects might appear disconnected.
Colonial violence.
Algorithmic control.
Political manipulation.
Personal guilt.
War.
Genocide.
But Frawley sees them as expressions of larger systems that shape how people understand the world and their place within it.
“Between them I cover topics that seem isolated but in fact are intertwined,” she explains.
She describes the album as a response to the anxieties of contemporary life.
The exhaustion of constantly navigating online environments.
The difficulty of distinguishing information from manipulation.
The sense of helplessness that can emerge when political decisions and institutional failures appear too large for individuals to influence.
And the emotional burden of witnessing violence and injustice through an endless stream of digital information.
“The algorithmic exhaustion we are all feeling, the devastation of war and genocide. The exhaustion of it all.”
It’s an ambitious set of concerns for an album built around minimalist arrangements.
But Frawley believes restraint is essential to communicating them.
“More minimalist arrangements leave space for the words to cut straight through.”
Rather than trying to reproduce the overwhelming scale of these systems through equally overwhelming instrumentation, she creates musical environments that allow individual statements to remain clear.
For her, making music is inseparable from the desire to understand the world.
“Being a musician is a way to try to comprehend and question the world around you.”
That questioning doesn’t necessarily produce answers.
But it creates opportunities for reflection.
And perhaps more importantly, it resists the temptation to treat complex political realities as distant abstractions.
The systems Frawley examines may be enormous.
But their consequences are experienced by individual people.
And music offers a way of making those consequences emotionally legible.
Why Music Needs Communities, Not Just Audiences
Frawley’s political commitments extend beyond the themes of her recordings.
In 2016, she founded Bang On, a Berlin-based platform focused on supporting LGBTQI+ and emerging artists.
The project reflects her belief that music is fundamentally a communal activity.
Not simply something produced and distributed through digital platforms.
But an experience built around people gathering in physical spaces.
“Music is community,” she tells MUNDANE.
“Music that exists solely on the internet is the least exciting part of it all to me.”
For Frawley, the most meaningful experiences happen in rooms.
At concerts.
In independent venues.
In conversations between artists, audiences, and the people who make live events possible.
Those spaces allow people to connect beyond the limitations of digital identities.
But she is increasingly concerned about their future.
Small independent venues face rising costs and commercial pressures.
DIY spaces struggle to remain financially sustainable.
And the growing emphasis on advance ticket sales can create additional obstacles for emerging musicians trying to establish themselves.
Frawley questions whether cultural spaces should always be evaluated primarily as commercial enterprises.
“Maybe venues don’t need to be commercial entities, isn’t a space for exchange more important?”
It’s a question that connects directly to the broader concerns of Twist My Words.
Who controls cultural infrastructure?
Who gets access to creative opportunities?
And what happens when the systems designed to support artistic communities become increasingly dependent on commercial expectations?
For Frawley, community includes everyone involved in making live music possible.
The musicians.
The venue staff.
The audience.
The people who organize events and sustain independent spaces.
Being part of that environment keeps her work connected to the realities she wants to address.
“Being involved in a larger community keeps my music grounded in reality, reminding me exactly who and what I am fighting for.”
The Importance of Beauty in an Uncomfortable World
One of the most revealing aspects of Frawley’s artistic philosophy is her refusal to separate beauty from political discomfort.
Her music can be reflective, melodic, and even uplifting.
But it also confronts some of the most disturbing aspects of contemporary life.
For her, that isn’t a contradiction.
It’s an accurate reflection of human experience.
“Don’t those two things co-exist throughout life?” she asks.
“Life is beautiful, it’s full of joy, friendship, nice food, relationships, family, but it’s also filled with sadness, war, grief, frustration.”
The observation challenges the assumption that politically engaged art must reject pleasure in order to remain serious.
People can experience happiness while recognizing injustice.
They can celebrate personal relationships while remaining concerned about events beyond their immediate lives.
And they can find beauty in music without ignoring the difficult subjects it addresses.
Frawley doesn’t see those experiences as mutually exclusive.
Instead, she understands them as parts of the same reality.
“We can both be content with our own lives and reflect the negative and positive elements around us.”
This philosophy gives Twist My Words an emotional complexity that extends beyond its political themes.
The album doesn’t simply communicate outrage.
It attempts to preserve the possibility of joy within a world that often makes joy feel difficult to justify.
And in doing so, it suggests that beauty can be a form of resistance.
Not because it eliminates suffering.
But because it reminds us that suffering is not the only thing worth recognizing.
In Conversation With Eilis Frawley
MUNDANE: “Taken, Never Erased” deals with heavy, critical themes like Indigenous language suppression and cultural resilience, yet you framed it around the structure of an ’80s pop ballad. What drew you to using that specific pop sensibility to process such a serious historical and political topic?
Eilis Frawley: In my opinion, not all political music needs to sound inherently heavy, aggressive, or abrasive to carry the weight. I’ve always been drawn to the power of a catchy melody and by creating something that is easy to digest musically, I hope to disarm the listener and let the friction be between the two parts: wrapping heavy historical and political content inside something ‘pleasant’ to listen to. My aim was to create an entry point that pulls people in and then allows the weight of the spoken-word to really settle and offer a space for honest reflection, sitting with complexity of the topic rather than just tuning out the noise.
MUNDANE: You mentioned aiming for an ’80s pop ballad and being about “50% successful” in that mission. How did that initial vision shift during the recording process, and where did the Krautrock and post-punk elements take over?
Eilis Frawley: I wanted to make a track that felt like you were floating, something that transports you from section to section with ease. I was particularly keen on incorporating a distinct “third part” to the song, which is a structural hallmark that was so much more relevant in the ’80s. That is exactly where the string solo came into play. But as much as I love big, sweeping strings and big backing vocals, I also have a deep love for repetition, famously connected to Krautrock. Most noticeably, the drum part that just ticks along with these steady, driving basslines. It balances the drama of the pop ballad with the hypnotic feeling of krautrock.
MUNDANE: The string solo in “Taken, Never Erased” is highlighted as a standout moment on the record. How did that arrangement come together, and what emotions were you hoping to evoke with that instrumental shift?
Eilis Frawley: It’s one of my absolute favorite moments on the record, too! It came together beautifully. I was chasing that nostalgic feeling, the kind of melody that makes you feel deeply reflective, if not a bit sad. I have an incredible amount of trust in Jean-Louise, who recorded the strings throughout the album, and she took on this task like an absolute champion. Structurally, the foundation of the bass and drums was already laid down. From there, we spent a few hours in Jean-Louise’s studio layering sounds, and stacking instruments until we arrived at this exact solo that I fell in love with.
MUNDANE: Your upcoming album Twist My Words tackles truth-twisting, late-stage capitalism, and algorithmic control. How do you translate these abstract, systemic issues into personal, compelling drum patterns and minimalist arrangements?
Eilis Frawley: For me, being a musician is a way to try to comprehend and question the world around you. We live in incredibly complex, hyper-digitized times, and processing that through art is the only thing I’ve come to know as a musician. I’ve never been shy of tackling the “tough” stuff because, well, that’s life. Systemic (and government) corruption and algorithmic isolation can feel massive and overwhelming, but they impact our day-to-day lives in very personal ways. More minimalist arrangements leave space for the words to cut straight through, with the hope they really stick with the listener.
MUNDANE: As a classically trained percussionist from Adelaide who has lived in Seoul and is now based in Berlin, how have those vastly different geographic and cultural landscapes shaped your rhythm and approach to songwriting?
Eilis Frawley: My education definitely made me a sucker for repetition. Practicing the exact same thing over and over again – it becomes meditative. That’s what I love most about playing drums, reaching that moment where muscle memory takes over and you don’t have to think about anything.
Seoul is where I gained my gigging “chops.” I was playing constantly, almost weekly, across multiple bands. It was my first real introduction to professional recording studios and collaborative songwriting, and I learned an immense amount during those formative years. Berlin, on the other hand, gave me the creative freedom to break those structures down and pick and choose what to put into my solo project.
MUNDANE: Having worked extensively as a freelance drummer for artists like Laura Lee & The Jettes, Anika, and Kara Delik, how does your creative process differ when you’re building your own solo material from the ground up?
Eilis Frawley: I absolutely loved the process of writing and recording these songs because I was fully, unapologetically committed to my own vision. It was nice to feel less like a drummer or hired external member and more like a fully formed musician. I was responsible for the entire process, structure, tonality, production and lyric content, it was fully encompassing. Initially I loved to work alone, it was winter, I was cosy, every day I learnt something new, but after a few months I hit a wall and opened the project up to some trustworthy collaborators, with them the album grew to be what it is.
MUNDANE: You founded Bang On to support LGBTQI+ and emerging artists in Berlin. How does your community work and advocacy feed back into the music you make under your own name?
Eilis Frawley: Music is community. Music that exists solely on the internet is the least exciting part of it all to me. Real people in rooms, sharing their lives, and connecting regardless of whether they’ve had a great day or a terrible one, that’s where the magic can happen.
Live music, especially small, independent or DIY venues are under constant threat. Spaces are struggling to make rent or are being forced to close down because of the bigger players. The growing importance of presale tickets has completely hijacked live music, even for a tiny independent artist trying to book their very first show. But maybe venues don’t need to be commercial entities, isn’t a space for exchange more important? For me, “community” encompasses everyone: the venue staff, the artists, and the people buying tickets. Being involved in a larger community keeps my music grounded in reality, reminding me exactly who and what I am fighting for.
MUNDANE: “Taken, Never Erased” follows previous singles “Guilt” and “Calm Down.” How do these three tracks set the stage for the narrative arc of Twist My Words?
Eilis Frawley: Between them I cover topics that seem isolated but in fact are intertwined. These singles show some of the anxieties of modern life, the way we interact online, the overpowering governments who twist truths to suit their own agenda. The algoyrithmic exhaustion we are all feeling, the devastation of war and genocide. The exhaustion of it all.
MUNDANE: Your music constantly balances elegiac beauty with underlying tension and discomfort. Why is it important for you that beauty and unease coexist in your work?
Eilis Frawley: Don’t those two things co-exist throughout life? Life is beautiful, it’s full of joy, friendship, nice food, relationships, family, but it’s also filled with sadness, war, grief, frustration.
There’s also a lot of positive things in life, and each one of them needs to be celebrated.
We can both be content with our own lives and reflect the negative and positive elements around us, i guess that’s how i see my music, the sum of two opposing parts, tat fit together to make a whole.
MUNDANE: You’ve expressed the belief that every person possesses influence that should be used for good. What do you hope listeners take away from Twist My Words when it drops on November 6?
Eilis Frawley: I hope this record encourages people to reflect on their own positioning, their privileges, and the specific ways in which they interact with the world around them. If listeners finish the album feeling angry, uncomfortable, or sad, that’s entirely okay…. Those are honest, human responses to a broken system. What I never want is for people to feel small, helpless, or stripped of their agency. Quite the opposite: I hope these tracks empower people to recognize their own influence, question authority, and realize they have the possibility to push back.
Refusing to Feel Powerless
There is a particular kind of exhaustion that comes from feeling constantly aware of the world’s problems while increasingly uncertain about how to respond.
Information arrives faster than we can process it.
Political crises become recurring headlines.
Images of violence circulate alongside entertainment.
And the systems governing everyday life can appear so complex and distant that individual action begins to feel insignificant.
For Eilis Frawley, that sense of helplessness is one of the most dangerous consequences of contemporary political life.
Not because the problems are imaginary.
But because resignation can become another way of allowing those problems to persist.
Her music doesn’t promise easy solutions.
Twist My Words doesn’t attempt to explain every mechanism of political power or offer a comprehensive response to the injustices it examines.
Instead, Frawley wants listeners to reconsider their relationship to those systems.
To question the information they receive.
To reflect on their privileges and responsibilities.
And to recognize that influence doesn’t belong exclusively to governments, corporations, or powerful institutions.
“I’m convinced that every person possesses influence, power, or the ability to make a difference,” she says.
“And that should be used for good.”
It’s a belief that connects the album’s political themes to Frawley’s work within independent music communities.
Her commitment to supporting emerging artists.
Her concern for the survival of grassroots venues.
And her insistence that music should create opportunities for real human connection.
These aren’t separate from the ideas expressed in her songs.
They’re practical extensions of them.
“Taken, Never Erased” captures that philosophy through its central paradox.
It acknowledges the violence of cultural suppression while recognizing the resilience of the communities that continue to carry their histories forward.
It confronts painful realities without surrendering the possibility of continuity, resistance, and hope.
And it does so through music that refuses to become as emotionally oppressive as the systems it examines.
Frawley is comfortable with the possibility that listeners might leave her album feeling angry, uncomfortable, or sad.
Those responses, she believes, are entirely legitimate.
What she doesn’t want is for them to feel powerless.
“What I never want is for people to feel small, helpless, or stripped of their agency.”
Instead, she hopes the record encourages listeners to recognize their ability to question authority and push back against the forces shaping their lives.
That may be the most important distinction in her work.
Between recognizing injustice and accepting defeat.
Between confronting the past and allowing it to determine the future.
Between acknowledging the scale of political power and forgetting that individuals still possess power of their own.
And perhaps between the things that have been taken and the things that refuse to disappear.
For Eilis Frawley, resistance doesn’t always need to sound like a scream. Sometimes it can sound like a beautiful melody carrying a truth that refuses to be silenced.
Eilis Frawley — “Taken, Never Erased”
Single release: October 23, 2026
Album: Twist My Words
Album release: November 6, 2026
Label: Sinnbus Records
Genre: Experimental pop / Krautrock / post-punk / spoken word
Previous singles: “Guilt,” “Calm Down”
Photography: Marcelle Bradbeer
Listen and follow:
“Taken, Never Erased” is available now via Sinnbus Records. Eilis Frawley’s sophomore album Twist My Words arrives November 6, 2026.
