My Heroics

Joyce Prescher and Lachlan Bryan

Melbourne singer-songwriter Joyce Prescher releases the first taste of her new collaboration with songwriter and producer Lachlan Bryan.
Joyce Prescher was born and raised in the Netherlands but has lived in Melbourne for Read more
Melbourne singer-songwriter Joyce Prescher releases the first taste of her new collaboration with songwriter and producer Lachlan Bryan.
Joyce Prescher was born and raised in the Netherlands but has lived in Melbourne for over a decade. Her albums, Home (2017) and Out of My Mind (2022), are filled with songs of isolation and alienation, themes that emerged not only from the reality of finding herself a resident in an unfamiliar place, but also from her unconventional upbringing as a twin with two complicated father-figures in an equally complicated homeland.

“I am very Dutch” admits Joyce with a wry smile, acknowledging the inherent contradictions of a country and people known for being both highly progressive and deeply traditional.

Perhaps “very European” is even more accurate – particularly if we’re here to describe the sound of Joyce Prescher’s songs, each of which she delivers with a delicacy befitting their lilting melodies, meandering time-signatures and often melancholic lyrics.

This European-ness has never been more evident than on her upcoming single release, 'My Heroics', a song written and originally recorded by Belgian indie rock band Absynthe Minded. It’s the first time Prescher has ever released a cover and it is in collaboration with Melbourne songwriter and producer Lachlan Bryan.

“Joyce and I became great friends in ‘the quiet times’ around 2021 and 2022”, explains Lachlan. “We would walk around the empty streets of St Kilda and talk about music and life. I was particularly enchanted by the images of the underground music scenes of the Netherlands and Belgium. I’d never heard these bands or songs before, and eventually we had the idea to record some of them”.

"These songs and bands will always be so near to my heart." Joyce recounts. "I listened to them a lot during my 'formative' years and have such profound memories of the live venues and festivals I would go to in my late teens and early twenties with my close friends back home. I have a soft spot for our Flemish neighbours in particular, so many great bands were releasing music and touring during that time. It's been real fun recording these songs, I hope we've done them justice, but I think we have."

'My Heroics' is the first of these recordings, made after hours in a high-rise apartment, to see the light of day. It has been re-imagined as a duet, retaining the urgency of the original but switching out the polished early-2000s production for angular guitars, swirling keyboards and a hypnotic, electronic groove. Joyce gently whispers her vocals whilst Lachlan croons in the lowest parts of his register. It is quite unlike anything either artist has done before.

Somehow, through this process of collaboration and re-interpretation, Joyce shows us even more of herself in this latest piece. 'My Heroics', and its companion piece which will soon follow, show us what a unique voice she presents, and whet our appetites for her next original songs, on the not-too-distant horizon.

Nothing Really Ends

Joyce Prescher with Lachlan Bryan

The second single in this collaborative series is Nothing Really Ends, a track originally recorded by Belgian band dEUS. It was the first song Joyce Prescher recorded with Lachlan Bryan – a beginning marked by a song Read more
The second single in this collaborative series is Nothing Really Ends, a track originally recorded by Belgian band dEUS. It was the first song Joyce Prescher recorded with Lachlan Bryan – a beginning marked by a song about endings.

For Joyce, dEUS is more than just a band, they’re part of the fabric of her youth. “I’ve listened to them since the mid-90s,” she says. “They have been with me throughout my life, and I always come back to them. This song to me has this depth, this melancholy, but also a sense of calm and peace.”

“These songs - starting with Nothing Really Ends - opened a whole world of music to me that I was previously unaware of but instantly drawn to. At a time when seeing the world was literally impossible, Joyce and I were able to kind of escape to Europe through making these songs. For me it felt new and exotic, for her it meant going home.

There’s a cinematic feel to this version – layered guitars, strings, and a rhythm that simmers just below the surface. It doesn’t rush. It unfolds. Lachlan and Joyce trade lines like two people trying to make sense of a shared memory, their voices weaving together and pulling apart. It’s richer than a stripped-back ballad, but still intimate – the kind of arrangement that reveals more with each listen.

“We recorded this song fast, in a very instinctual kind of way”, says Lachlan. “We would grab hold of the instrumental hook from the original and try and reimagine it, but because I didn’t know the song very well it quickly became its own thing. I was learning it from Joyce rather than from dEUS, and I think that’s part of the charm”.

The emotional terrain of Nothing Really Ends – longing, ambiguity, resignation – felt like a perfect mirror for long walks and long talks through the empty streets of Melbourne. There’s a tension in the song, but also acceptance. “It doesn’t scream, it just lingers,” Joyce reflects. “That’s what I love about it. To me it’s about understanding that endings aren’t always clear. Sometimes, the things we think are over never really leave us. They’re always there, in some form.”

Nothing Really Ends captures the fragile beauty of that idea—a reflection on the things that persist, long after they’ve passed. It’s a re-imagining of a song that’s always felt deeply personal to Joyce, and through her collaboration with Lachlan, it becomes something even more intimate and reflective.

With this second release, Joyce Prescher continues to reveal new layers of herself – not just as a songwriter, but as an interpreter, curator, and collaborator. These aren’t just songs she admired from afar; they’re part of her personal history, now reshaped and re-voiced with care.
Nothing Really Ends is available on Friday 23 May, through Cheersquad Records & Tapes.

Out of My Mind

Joyce Prescher

Cheersquad Records & Tapes are stoked to give you ‘Out of My Mind’, the exquisite new album by Melbourne based folk singer/songwriter Joyce Prescher.

Joyce's 13-track album is available on CD and digitally, while the Read more
Cheersquad Records & Tapes are stoked to give you ‘Out of My Mind’, the exquisite new album by Melbourne based folk singer/songwriter Joyce Prescher.

Joyce's 13-track album is available on CD and digitally, while the 180g black vinyl contains 10 tracks, but comes with a digital download card for all 13 tracks. All tracks will be added to your Bandcamp library and can be downloaded in a variety of formats. The CD includes the songs: 'In Time', 'His Love' and 'It's Me'.

After releasing her debut album ‘Home’ in 2017, Joyce Prescher returns with her second full-length studio album. ‘Out of My Mind’ is an intimate, soul-baring record by the Dutch-born folk artist, spanning a total of 13 tracks. On the record Joyce reveals much of her inner world, with themes that encompass love, heartbreak, loss and healing. It comes after a turbulent time in the songwriter’s life, a time in which life was turned upside down and inside out, leaving nothing as it once was.

‘Out of My Mind’ - losing yourself, your mind, a loved one, and then slowly piecing yourself back together to find your way back to yourself.

The sophomore album shows a more mature Joyce, one who dares to experiment with styles, words and delivery. It highlights a love for concept albums, for albums designed to be absorbed in a single sitting.

Cello and lap-steel guitar weave their way through the tracks, leaving behind a hauntingly cinematic and deeply poetic record. A delicate dance between light and shade, in every sense.

‘Out of My Mind’ was recorded over an extended period, across different locations in Australia. A sign of the times, perhaps, with injuries and prolonged lock-downs and other things that happen - which in turn left ample space to create something quite magical.

Originally from the Netherlands, Joyce Prescher moved to Melbourne over a decade ago. She met a man during a safari in Africa, and decided to follow him back to Australia, where she fell in love with Melbourne and its thriving music and art scene. She never really left after.

Joyce started singing from a very early age - according to her mother, “before she could talk”. Music was a big part of the family; there was always music playing and constant singing on road trips with four kids in the back of a tiny hatchback. Rumour has it she was conceived on ‘The Dark Side of the Moon’, which could explain her love of Pink Floyd.

As children, Joyce and her siblings would write silly songs, and Joyce performed in local community events before the age of ten. In the first year of high school, she heard a boy play beautifully on a grand piano, and she sat with him and offered to sing along. He was quite taken by Joyce’s vocals; they became good friends and would occasionally write and perform together, as a duo or with a band.

Around this time, her mother would play guitar after the kids had gone to bed. Joyce would lie awake listening to her mum softly strumming. Frustrated that no one ever really played the songs she wanted to sing on guitar or piano, and dreaming of being a songwriter herself, at age 15 she decided to learn to play her mother’s guitar. In university, she formed her first band and started to combine her writing skills (she used to write short stories and lots of poems) with her love of music. She also improved her singing skills by joining a choir for a few years.

It took her a while to find her feet and her scene in Melbourne, but by 2013 she formed her first band in her new home. The band was short-lived, but the spark was re-ignited, and Joyce has been writing and performing regularly since.

Joyce released her debut album Home in 2017, which was praised by PBS and listed in their top 10 albums upon release.

In 2020 Joyce joined the line-up of a show called Keep the Circle Unbroken, curated by Delsinki. With the show she has performed at the Memo Music Hall, the 2022 Port Fairy Folk Festival and as part of their regional Victoria tour in 2021. She shared the stage with many Australian favourites, including Tim Rogers, Kylie Auldist, Mick Thomas, Debra Byrne, Sarah Carroll, Kerryn Fields and XANI. Joyce also features on the Keep the Circle Unbroken album, which was recorded live in July 2020 at the Memo Music Hall in St Kilda, between the two Melbourne lockdowns.
In November 2021 Joyce performed as part of three sold out shows paying tribute to the late Justin Townes Earle at the Brunswick Ballroom.

More recently, Joyce completed a tour as part of the Sing a Song of Sixpence line up, with artists including Abby Dobson, Freya Josephine Hollick, Charm of Finches, Van Walker, Grim Fawkner and more.
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Home

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