RESOLVING THE LEDGER
This is one outlet's own report from Billboard — the article as it was filed.
Debut albums, they don’t just fall from trees. With tattoos used to come off in the pool , Jem Cassar-Daley took time to find her voice, and the confidence that comes with life lived, experience. Maturity.
Tattoos (via Sony Music Australia) is the proud Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung singer-songwriter’s long-awaited first full-length album. Cassar-Daley might be branded a newcomer, but that’s not the full picture. She’s already a multiple award-winner, with a growing, national fanbase, and several songs that are part of Australia’s rich cultural tapestry.
Earlier this year, she won two categories at the 2026 Queensland Music Awards for “Kiss Me Like You’re Leaving,” including song of the year. With that honor, she secured a piece of real estate on Brisbane’s Brunswick Street Mall, with a plaque on the Valley’s Walk of Fame. She already has one, for having scooped song of the year in 2024 with “King of Disappointment.” Her treasure chest includes AIR and National Indigenous Music Awards.
Under its skin, tattoos is a tale of growth, the bumpy path into adulthood, and relationships that come and go. A song, she explains, can be like a tattoo. “A few years ago I don’t think I had the confidence to tell a producer how I felt and what I wanted,” she tells Billboard. “But now I’m so invested in each of these songs and each story, and I had a say in every decision made. I feel totally connected to this album.”
The new effort arrived today (Aug. 28) and houses previous releases “Clichés,” “Speak Now,” “Cool Girl,” and her most recent single “All I’m Thinking About,” all of them wrapped in personal, relatable stories, and baked with indie-pop seasoning. Plus a dash of country.
The majority of tattoo’s nine songs were lifted from their original demos. Sometimes you can’t beat the originals. “Behind all the production, at the end of the day each song is just a story in different outfits,” she explains. “Whether there’s an 808 on the track or it’s totally stripped back, it all starts on either piano or guitar. The common thread through it all is stories I’ve connected and resonated with and then brought to life.”
Cassar-Daley is a chip off the old block. Like her dad, Troy Cassar-Daley , a national treasure, she writes from the heart, plays multiple instruments and comes alive on the stage.
Next week, she will support the new record with appearances at BIGSOUND 2026, a warmup for her national headline tour this September , stopping in Perth, Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. Cassar-Daley has already sold-out headlining tours in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and performed to the music industry at the U.K.’s The Great Escape in 2023, and SXSW Sydney in the same year. She’s currently opening for Vera Blue on the fellow Aussie artist’s Modern Rituals National Tour .
“I feel totally connected to this album,” Cassar-Daley enthuses. “That was really important leading into a debut album, knowing that this is going to be a body of work that is me. If I reflect in 15, 20 years’ time, I’ll just know that that was from this time of my life. And I had total control over it.”
Stream tattoos used to come off in the pool in full below.
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