With COME TO ME Maryen has recorded a true singer/songwriter’s album. Diverse and genre crossing, it is refreshingly outside the box. Inspired by the red dust and lunar landscapes of WA’s Kimberley and Pilbara regions, the album was produced and arranged by Chris Kimsey, legendary producer for the Rolling Stones, INXS, and Peter Frampton. Maryen’s original vocal, guitar and piano recordings are augmented with a live band including Jennifer Maidman (Boy George, Penguin Cafe Orchestra), Paddy Milner (Tom Jones), Evan Jenkins (Neil Cowley Trio), Karlos  Edwards (Robert Palmer, Michael Buble), Ollie Clark, Arwen Kernaghan, Sani Bolton and Maryen’s son Elvis Kernaghan, guesting on electric guitar. 

INCLUDED in the digital download with 15 songs - PDF OF THE BOOK, includes all lyrics, stories, illustrations & credits.

(The Physical CD comes in the BOOK!)

Bringing to life some of the stories of Australia’s most remarkable women - some well-known, many almost forgotten - among them Birrung, Mary Reibey, Tarenorerer, Caroline Chisholm, Grace Bussel, Elizabeth “Jessie” Hickman, Edith Cowan, Joyce Barry, Oodgeroo Noonuccal AKA poet Kath Walker and Granny Lum Loy.

UK producer Chris Kimsey produced Femina Australis, building on Maryen’s home studio recordings in his London studio with the help of some impressive musicians, among them film-score composer Hal Lindes, who had been the second guitarist in Dire Straits; American keyboards player Red Young (Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Eric Burdon) and UK musicians drummer Ash Soan (Del Amitri, Squeeze, Robbie Williams) and bass player Jennifer Maidman (Penguin Café Orchestra, Joan Armatrading, The Proclaimers), while Katherine-based Indigenous artist and Wardaman elder, Bill Yidumduma Harney brought a traditional Whirlwind Song to Maryen’s final song on the album, Australis. A proud mother of four, her youngest son, Elvis Kernaghan, even provides some wailing electric guitar licks on the track Tarenorerer.

Darkly lucid Storyteller, creator and host of Sydney Songwriters and The Mfest (www.mfest.info)

Who is Maryen Cairns? As a very young musician she went to London for a three-week holiday - she stayed for 10 years. During that time she recorded two albums (released by the U.S. label Progressive International): The Pictures Within and For Eternity. Rolling Stones producer Chris Kimsey produced her first single "Too Young To Die" - on his own time! Kimsey brought Maryen in to sing on Scottish rock legend Fish's album "Internal Exile". Maryen's band opened the show for a huge variety of artists including The Troggs, Sarah Jane Morris, Fish, UFO and Desmond Dekker. Maryen's had long blonde hair; she's had a shaved head. A very wild teenager who became a lyrical raconteur, Maryen is a friend to countless writers and artists through her fierce support of original music being heard in our communities. She has also not given up the pleasures of being a woman for her artistic sensibilities - she has 4 children! Her belief? You have to have a life and experience living to the max.

STORIES FROM BENEATH is self-released in 2004 on her own label, Sydney Songwriters. This is her third album, but her first Australian Release. Here you find eleven tracks which take you on an intimate journey through one woman's life... stories of truth and lucidity, snapshots of a life varied and wild. From the Scottish heritage of Voices From Scotland through the teenage horror of Kids From The 'Burbs to the eternal questions in Every Moment Saved to all the answers in What Women Want, this album is a woman's album. Even the simplicity with which the songs are performed cut through the sound barriers to carry forth this woman's message with astonishing clarity upon the mostly two and three piece unions of vocals, trombone, acoustic guitar & piano. STORIES FROM BENEATH is the marvelous antidote to the current trend for sonic maelstroms and syncopated confusion. Recorded with little regard for the bent of the short form radio formula, STORIES FROM BENEATH boasts strong tales, some running almost eight minutes (Voices From Scotland) returning listeners to the halcyon days of real music and real songs! Yes, there are a couple under 4 minutes though! (This Love and Twist)