Yet few could identify with the excruciating chronic pain behind the ethereal beauty of her singing.It has taken Marlow six years to finish her debut record Medicine Man, an opus she began writing when she was hand-picked by legendary composer Randy Newman to record his song for the Qantas campaign. The album is a heroic triumph for a young woman who has endured a mysterious, debilitating auto-immune disease during that time, on top of the numerous surgeries through her young life after being born with talipes, also known as clubfoot. Marlow chuckled when asked how she celebrated Medicine Man’s recent release.“Well, I didn’t. It was a huge relief, there’s so much in it and so many years in it, but unfortunately, I actually had a medical appointment that day. None of that stuff stops just because the album is out,” she said. “So I still had to go in and get some help with my pain and I’m on immunotherapy now too so I frequently have to go into hospital.”Music and painting – she was studying at the National Art School when she was struck with blackouts and inexplicable pain from her head to her toes – have been her refuge outside of hospital. Marlow, who uses a walking stick and sometimes a wheelchair, finds it difficult to venture out of the Sydney home she shares with her parents, famed jazz musician Jonathan Zwartz and singer Jane Lindsay. Some of her “sinister” symptoms – dislocations and joint pain – have been explained by a recent diagnosis of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS), a connective tissue disorder, but the complexity of her myriad conditions continues to confound auto-immune specialists. “It’s difficult even to play so when I do sit down at the piano, it’s very much a release, a very true thing,” she said.“Pain is this weight that’s on you all the time and it’s very difficult to comprehend and it’s unremitting. It’s like a constant sound, that is constantly, constantly, constantly there. And it can be overwhelming at times, completely overwhelming. “It’s about being able to transcend it and turn it into something else, to send your spirit into something else, so it goes into song and into painting.” Marlow’s lush indie folk record features a 17-piece string orchestra and the work of several of the country’s most acclaimed musicians including her father, drummer Hamish Stuart, pianist Barney McAll, guitarist Ben Hauptmann, and violinist Veronique Serret. Arts funding enabled her to assemble a dream team to bring songs such as Don’t Want To Grow Up, All Of My Days and Don’t Think Too Hard. Practising the songs for her album launch on Tuesday has left the tops of her fingers painfully inflamed but Marlow is excited for the rare opportunity to perform live. She credits her band and string section for their support, for understanding her daily medical needs and accepting when she is unwell. But the young artist said the Australian arts community still has a long way to go before disabled performers can access the same stages and touring opportunities as their abled peers. Marlow said she hid her disability for years and often had to rely on her father to explain her chronic pain to collaborators because some people wouldn’t believe her. She wants to kickstart a wider conversation in the Australian music industry about everything from what you put on a rider to physically getting onto a stage for disabled musicians. “I love to perform. When you’re actually on stage, something happens and you are in your natural habitat. And that’s a wonderful thing,” she said. “But unfortunately, a lot of the time in the music industry, disability is seen as a liability. And so it’s taken me a very long time to be openly disabled, I’ve absolutely hidden that as much as I can because of that fear of not getting the same opportunities. “We have a really long way to go with it. But there are people who are making a big difference and people do want to do the right thing and you know, we all want to be on the right side of history.” Medicine Man is out now. Martha Marlow launches the record at The Great Club, Marrickville on June 1 and performs at the Jazz Lab in Melbourne on September 4 and City Recital Hall, Sydney on September 25.
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