Jess Ball is on the rise

Born and raised in Melbourne, Ball has made a name for herself toplining on huge dance hits like “Lose Our Minds” with Curbi and “I Found You (Neptune)” with EDX. But over the past couple of years she found herself itching to create music that was more in line with the sounds she grew up with, and on new single “Kiddin’” she leans into a new level of vulnerability. 

Growing up with an older brother and sister, much of Ball’s early musical tastes were informed by her family. The artists she name checks as inspirations run from AJ Tracey and Lily Allen to Cigarettes After Sex and Massive Attack. “My sister put me on to Turnstile two years ago and they are just like my favorite band ever now. The Cure’s from my dad. I sort of accumulated everyone's taste all into one,” she says. “I think I'm quite lucky to have had older siblings who had their cool music to show me all the time. It's sort of steered me in a direction where I do explore a bit more than what you'd just hear on TikTok trending sounds and radio.”

Her first taste of performing was a solo with the school choir, age ten, which kept secret from her mum who taught at the school. “She was like, ‘What the hell? I didn't know you sang,’” Ball laughs. “That was my first proper memorable music moment.”

Over the next decade her talent and appreciation for music was shaped further by an influential music teacher at her high school. Nick D’Silva, who had competed on The Voice Australia as Nicholas Roy, formed a songwriting group which forced Ball to push herself outside of her natural comfort zone. “I found that a bit difficult, but it also helped me. It was a good, almost embarrassing thing to do, so that I have a thicker skin now in sharing songs and being a bit more vulnerable with my music,” she says.

As school was coming to an end, Roy introduced Ball to the Melbourne-based production duo 1and2 Productions who were looking for a vocalist to work on toplines for DJs. The first track Ball sang on was EDX’s “I Found You (Neptune)”, which has amassed well over twenty-million streams to date. “It was literally the first song I recorded with them which is wild,” she says. “Then we got more requests to just send toplines out to DJs. So I guess straight away we started doing that. I still enjoy doing toplines for DJs and I'm happy to write for other people as well, but it doesn't feel as fulfilling as when you're doing your own solo stuff and it feels like you kind of follow a formula sometimes with the dance music. I just said that to Tone, my manager. Like, it's great and I still love doing it, but it's not creatively letting me go where I want to.”

Over the past three years, while still working alongside 1and2 Productions, Ball has been slowly building herself as a solo artist, attending conferences like Miami Music Week and ADE, and pushing herself in writing sessions. “I just said, I want more of a direction like a personal connection to the songs now. I don't just want to send them off to DJs anymore. I'd like to do my own solo project as well,” she explains. “It's been really cool and I'm so grateful to have had them basically support literally anything that I've wanted to try or explore. They have very open minds when it comes to trying new things and experimenting.”

On last year’s Where You Go EP she partnered with London-based label Project Melody Music, and on subsequent single “Lately”, a sultry and confident cut of r&b, she collaborated with Jelani Blackman. “He's one of my favorite artists. I wanted to make songs that I would listen to myself and then I thought why not try to get someone to rap on a song or explore those avenues,” she says. “I just thought, this is a long shot, but what's the harm in sending it out? And then Jelani replied, and I was like, gosh, this is crazy. I was so excited.”

Having made the move to the UK less than a month ago, Ball is ready to capitalise on the prospects her new home affords her. “There's just more opportunity here,” she says. “At home, it's like I'm comfortable, I'll be lazier with it. It's probably a good thing to just get out of that environment and into a new space. I think it's more motivating to sort of throw myself in the deep end a little bit and just try something new.”

On new single “Kiddin’” Ball pushes herself, a self-proscribed introvert, further than ever before, sharing her experiences of OCD over angular pop production and a confronting beat. Once again partnering with Antoni Polimeni and Richy Sebastian of 1and2 Productions, the track maintains her slick and confident delivery while the lyrics go deeper, juxtaposing her internal struggle with pop ease. “I think we recorded this a year ago now. It's just sort of been sitting there. We wanted to release it, but we weren't sure when would be the right time,” she says. “I feel like it's a good representation of everything looking fine on the surface, but then something a bit more sinister and eerie going on underneath. Even though it's pop and quite bright, there's just something about it. The piano melody sounds a bit off or something that I think lends itself well to OCD, which is what the song's about.”

For Ball, receiving her diagnosis was a huge relief, and in sharing her experiences, she hopes more people will reach the same understanding and acceptance she’s found. “I think the reason I talk about things like that so much is because I used to not talk about it at all and it used to make me feel awful,” she says. “I think the song doesn't really go too deeply into it lyrically, but it definitely stemmed from what goes on internally in those spiral moments. I used to have such exhausting rituals that everyone was like, ‘What is she doing all the time?’ It wasn't until 2021 that I actually saw someone and they diagnosed me with OCD and it just made me a new person. I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, everything is explained.’ I don't know what it was, but just hearing them say that, I was like, there's a reason I do these things. There's nothing wrong with me.”

The off-kilter piano and audacious production mirror Ball’s personal journey, while the poppier touchpoints of the track point strongly towards her continued evolution as an artist. With a new city in her grasp and more music to come, Jess Ball’s journey is only just beginning.