Having recently returned from extensive tours of Japan, UK and Europe, Field Commander Ali brings her intimate and idiosyncratic folk songs to Bellingen, joined by special guest, Jordan Lee Ireland.

Doors 6pm, Music 6:30

This show is presented by Brierfield Flood Press, a DIY folk and ambient label with it's roots in the Bellinger Valley.

Field Commander Ali

Field Commander Ali is the solo project of Ali Mollica, a folk song person living on the South Coast of NSW, Australia. The Next From Field Commander, her new record and second under that taken name, was recorded in her bedroom in Stanwell Park, a beachside town surrounded by bushland. Here, where the Great Dividing Range meets the Tasman Sea, Mollica worked quickly in the early part of 2025, utilising little more than a classical guitar and a 4-track tape recorder to execute her vision.

The result is a truly beguiling Australian folk record. With a voice that balances understated vulnerability with determined stoicism, Mollica describes everyday scenes, passing interactions and the moments that follow moments between people, all with an astonishing clarity of expression. Full moons are felt but remain unwitnessed, great loves lean into praxis or strain against it, and time is a character that watches quietly on all the while.

Despite its modest conception, both the songs and recordings are possessed by a unique density. Layered vocals are used undramatically but ePectively. Conversational asides seem to open outwards like leaves, and oPhand remarks reveal themselves to be quiet realisations through subtle repetition. There is an intimate spaciousness within these songs too, with shuffling pages, creaking chairs, and distant whistling all entering the sonic sphere.

The spirit of folk song clairvoyants like Bridget St John, Anne Briggs and Maxine Funke may be sensed throughout, while Michael Hurley’s ‘Wildegeeses’ is given a faithful, though suitably idiosyncratic, re- reading. A tradition is being channelled here, though ultimately what you are hearing is the emergence of a distinct new voice. As such, The Next From Field Commander moves with a meandering yet captivating immediacy, clear and self-assured, while remaining deeply receptive to the world and all the things in it.

Listen

https://brierfieldfloodpress.bandcamp.com/album/the-next-from-field-commander

NTS Live-to-air

https://www.nts.live/shows/corticeps/episodes/corticeps-6th-september-2026

Jordan Lee Ireland

Jordan Lee Ireland ( ex-The Middle East, Purple Orchestra, Stolen Violin & Blue Divers) is a multi-disciplinary musician from Australia’s tropical north. Weaving deep astral folk song with outsider spiritual jazz and vivid improvisation to create trance-like states, exploring the mystery of existence and communing with the heart.

Listen

https://brierfieldfloodpress.bandcamp.com/album/spirit-walking

Contact the host of Field Commander Ali & Jordan Lee Ireland