Artist
Palm Springs
Melbourne, Australia • Formed 2012
Palm Springs is a music group from Melbourne, Australia, active since 2012. Their discography on Gatefold includes 3 records.
3
Albums tracked
1
In collections
2012
Since
Biography
There are multiple artists called Palm Springs: 1) Palm Springs is the name of the solo acoustic project by Erica Dunn of Tropical Fuck Storm and Mod Con 2) Palm Springs are a British independent band from Brighton, comprising DC Cane (lead vocals, guitar, drums, percussion, piano, melodica, glockenspiel, VL Tone, keyboards), Jon Russo (guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussion, piano, melodica, glockenspiel, VL Tone, stylophone, keyboards, samples
The Arc of Palm Springs
The pivots — what forced Palm Springs to reinvent.
The Bedroom Folk Blueprint
Dunn carved out the project with the 2016 Flowers in a Vase EP as a deliberate breather from Melbourne's crushing rock pace. Teaming up with Retallick and Solier, they built songs around quiet, fragile strums and minimal percussion rather than massive drum kits. The result was stark, immediate bedroom folk where every creak of the floorboards stayed in the mix. It staked out the band's identity as a quiet powerhouse.
The Communal Circle
By 2018's Palm Springs & Friends, the trio cracked the door open to the wider local scene to fill out their sparse sketches. They brought in friends and peers to layer guest harmonies, loose organ, and subtle string accents without burying the central acoustic core. The tracks got wider, trading stark solitude for the warmth of an after-hours living room session. It proved the songwriting could expand without losing its claustrophobic charm.
The Long Burn Return
After years scattered across heavy touring schedules and other commitments, the core lineup locked back in for 2025's Turning Yr Back on the Dolphin. The time away hardened their instincts, replacing tentative folk textures with sharper, more deliberate dynamic drops and flinty arrangements. Dunn's vocal delivery moved further up in the mix, dry and uncompromising. It showed a band operating with total economy and zero interest in filler.
Influences
- The Triffids — David McComb wrote the book on bleak, wide-open Australian storytelling that directly informs Dunn's songwriting worldview. You hear it in the sparse acoustic arrangements and dry, sun-baked melancholy that runs straight through the Palm Springs catalog. It is the gold standard for Antipodean folk noir.
- Cat Power — Chan Marshall's mid-nineties output proved that a slightly out-of-tune guitar and total emotional vulnerability hit harder than a polished rhythm section. That blueprint shapes the phrasing and minimalist cadence on Flowers in a Vase. Dunn borrows that same uncanny ability to make a single repeated chord feel utterly devastating.
- Townes Van Zandt — Van Zandt's unvarnished, tragic folk picking is the undisputed foundation for Dunn's stripped-down acoustic guitar style. You can hear his stark narrative presence in the pacing and deliberate pauses on Palm Springs & Friends. It's country music built entirely out of dust and nerve.
- The Clean — The New Zealand pioneers established the jagged, DIY jangle-pop ethos that Melbourne's underground runs on. Palm Springs adopts that loose, first-take attitude and unpolished guitar chime throughout their rhythm tracks. It keeps their folk songs anchored in a garage-rock frame of mind.
- Karen Dalton — Dalton's raw, sorrow-drenched Greenwich Village recordings serve as the historical benchmark for Dunn's unvarnished vocal delivery. The refusal to sand down the edges or oversaturate the recordings with studio tricks comes straight from Dalton's playbook. It cuts through the mix without ever having to raise its voice.
Discography
Their records — most-collected first.
Related artists
Around the web
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