Angus & Julia Stone

Hailing from Australia, the brother-sister duo Angus & Julia Stone create music that moves between close-up folk and expansive, atmospheric indie pop. They first surfaced in 2007 with the album A Book Like This, then reached wider audiences when Down the Way arrived in 2010, entering the Australian charts at number one and securing five ARIA awards. After turning their attention to individual projects, the pair reconvened in 2014 for the self-titled Angus & Julia Stone, recorded with Rick Rubin and becoming their strongest commercial performer to date. Sparkling sonic details filled the intimate, self-produced Snow, released in 2017, while Cape Forestier in 2024 ranged across a broad stylistic spectrum that encompassed both rustic acoustic pieces and gentle, atmospheric pop.

Raised on Sydney’s northern beaches, the siblings absorbed pop songs early through their father’s work in a local cover band. By 2005 Julia Stone was giving trumpet lessons and Angus Stone was employed as a laborer; she urged him to try performing in public, and he in turn invited her onstage as a supporting musician. Initially they appeared on separate bills, yet mutual stage support eventually led them to share billing. An early collection, the EP Chocolates & Cigarettes, preceded their 2006 relocation to London, where they encountered Fran Healy of Travis. Impressed by their songs and the attention they were drawing in Australia and England, Healy offered the use of his piano at home, and the duo tracked their second EP, Heart Full of Wine, in that setting. In exchange, Julia Stone contributed backing vocals to Travis’s album The Boy with No Name. The full-length debut A Book Like This followed in 2007 on Flock Music and Nettwerk, reaching the Australian Top Ten; an international edition appeared in March 2008. Two years later Down the Way introduced a larger, more assertive sound and became a breakthrough, topping the Australian chart and earning five ARIA awards, among them Album of the Year.

After that achievement the siblings set aside plans for another joint record and pursued solo paths. Julia Stone issued the well-received albums The Memory Machine in 2010 and By the Horns in 2012, while Angus Stone delivered the similarly praised Broken Brights that same year. They rejoined forces in 2014 for the Rick Rubin-produced Angus & Julia Stone, which again reached number one in Australia and marked their second straight entry on the Billboard Americana/Folk Albums chart. Angus Stone next issued the 2016 album Honey Bones under the Dope Lemon name, capturing informal sessions with friends. The duo returned in 2017 with the personal, self-produced Snow, which peaked at number two on the ARIA chart. In 2021 they supplied the soundtrack to the video game Life Is Strange: True Colors, featuring the single “Love Song.” Cape Forestier, issued in 2024 and co-produced with longtime associate Ben Edgar, adopted a leaner approach that revisited the rustic folk of their earliest work alongside warmer, atmospheric adult pop.