Australia’s Eurovision act: an eclectic, electric dream come true
Electronic music duo Electric Fields will represent Australia at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest in May, SBS has confirmed. The duo, vocalist Zaachariaha Fielding and keyboard player Michael Ross, have been described as “Daft Punk meets Nina Simone in the Deep Forest”.
The choice of artist is a shift in strategy for Australia, having previously sent both individual soloists and a group to the annual competition. An electronic music duo, performing in both English and the Indigenous Yankunytjatjara language will play well to Eurovision’s electronically-inclined and culturally diverse audience.
South Australian duo Electric Fields (keyboardist Michael Ross, left, and vocalist Zaachariaha Fielding) will represent Australia at the 2024 Eurovision Song Contest in Malmö, Sweden. Credit: Nick Wilson
When the duo were told they were Eurovision-bound, they cried, Fielding said. “We had the little a-ha moment and cried and got really emotional,” he said. “We love our music, we love what we create, and to be given this platform to showcase our love for people ... it’s really nice to be connected to that.”
Ross described his reaction as “frazzled emotions, but there was jumping up and down like a goose and there was the very proud phone call to the parents because they love when the world gives us opportunities,” he said. “They’re so full of joy and pride. So I think sharing it with loved ones is possibly the best part.”
Fielding and Ross have been performing together as Electric Fields since 2015, winning best new talent of the year at the 2017 National Indigenous Music Awards, performing at the 2020 AFL Grand Final and, in 2023, performing We The People, the official WorldPride theme song.
Fielding, also the winner of the 2023 Wynne Prize, describes Electric Fields as “vulnerability and humour. We accept that we’re just temporary beings. We’re in and we’re out. And that’s how we like to express ourselves. What we all have in common is life and death, and you’ve just got to go with it. So we are just having fun, just making beautiful music.”
The duo will perform One Milkali (One Blood) in the Swedish host city, Malmö, in May. The song incorporates Yankunytjatjara, an Aboriginal language of the Anangu people. “We’ve always [incorporated indigenous lyrics] because it’s a beautiful language, and it’s a part of who I am,” Fielding says. “To be given this opportunity with Eurovision ... we get to be our country, and we get to showcase that.”
Electric Fields are not new on the Eurovision radar. The duo came second in 2019 at the Eurovision pre-selection event Australia Decides, losing to Kate Miller-Heidke, who performed Zero Gravity. Miller-Heidke went on to place ninth from 41 competing countries.
Ross says he is happy with how things worked out, even if meant the duo is going to Eurovision five years after the opportunity first came within their grasp. “I personally believe this [song] is a stronger message, this is a stronger story to take to the Eurovision stage,” Ross says.
“The blessing of coming second at Australia Decides was that we got to experience the lessons of performing on television; we’ve learned so much about that style of performance because it is different and I think we’re more prepared now for such a major opportunity.”
Electric Fields performing with the MSO in 2022.Credit: Laura Manariti
“We were just happy to be there [in 2019],” adds Fielding. “We didn’t think we would rank the way we ranked. And it wasn’t supposed to be, because it’s supposed to be now. We had work to do. And five years [later] coming back ... it’s another layer of an experience that wants to be enjoyed, and I just want to enjoy it.”
This year the Israel-Gaza war has prompted heated responses from all sides and artists from Iceland, Finland, Norway, Denmark and Sweden have protested the inclusion of Israel, which has competed since 1973 and won four times. Most cite the expulsion of Russia in 2022 after the Ukraine invasion as a precedent.
Two songs submitted for potential inclusion by Israel this year - October Rain and Dance Forever - were rejected by organisers because of political references in their lyrics. Israeli broadcaster Kan has asked the lyricists of both songs to “readapt the texts while preserving their artistic freedom”. A final decision will be made on March 10.
Though it is not always successful in enforcing strict rules about keeping politics off the performance stage, Eurovision’s organisers, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) have in previous years, asked national representatives to change their lyrics. In 2009, Georgia withdrew from the event after its song was rejected.
While not addressing the geopolitical landscape directly, Ross said he hoped Australia’s song, One Blood, and the competition’s other song selections, could be used as a tool to heal. “A complicated world is a constant at the same time that we are all connected is a constant,” Ross said, describing it as “the yin yang of humanity”.
“Zaachariaha and I love to focus on writing music that heals because we’re all way more similar than we are different,” Ross said. “And if we can heal ourselves, then maybe other people can pick up the medicine that we are creating.”
This year’s 68th annual Eurovision Song Contest will be the ninth year Australia has competed since our debut in 2015. Australia’s strongest result was a second-place finish for Dami Im in 2016. It is also the seventh time it has been held in Sweden.
Sweden previously hosted in Stockholm (1975, 2000 and 2016), twice in Malmö (1992 and 2013) and once in Gothenburg (1985). The event also falls, serendipitously, on the 50th anniversary of ABBA winning Eurovision with their hit song Waterloo.
Eurovision will screen on SBS from May 7-11.
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