Reviewed by Ian Phillips.
By Jem Cassar-Daley, Wildheart Publicity 2023.
Jem Cassar-Daley, the daughter of country music legend Troy Cassar-Daley, is forging her own impressive music career and her latest single, King of Disappointment, is the best track she’s produced to date.
Jem has been around the Brisbane music scene for a few years and her enticing blend of country and pop has garnered her a solid following.
Her first seven-track EP, I Don’t know Who To Call, was released in 2022 and the lead single Letting Go won her the Indigenous Award at that year’s Queensland Music Awards ceremony.
The EP was nominated for the Album of The Year at the National Indigenous Music Awards and Jem also won the New Talent of The Year Award.
This is a mightily impressive beginning to her recording career.
Jem is gifted with a beautiful singing voice and she’s also a talented instrumentalist.
The King of Disappointment sprang out of experience.
As Jem tells it she was all ready to go out on a date, carefully chosen outfit, shoes on, make-up on, and then the text message came through “Sorry, something came up”.
Instead of moping about it she decided to turn the disappointment into something positive.
From the opening lines ‘Nearly had me convinced that you were someone who wouldn’t desert me/now I’ve gotta tell my friends why I got home so early’ to the closing chorus ‘Call me the queen of paranoia… tell me I’m crazy while avoiding me’ Jem has us engrossed as she turns rejection into a powerful new song.
The single was recorded and produced in Byron Bay by Garrett Kato who was one of the co-writers for her well received first single Letting Go.
The King of Disappointment has already made the Triple J playlists and I expect it to do well in the charts and feature come awards time this year.
Queensland’s Sunday Mail crowned Jem a ‘Star To Watch’ on the release of her debut EP and the National broadcaster has praised her remarkable presentation and performance skills.
The King of Disappointment is sure to cement her position as a star on the rise.
