Ever since her debut five years ago, Jem Cassar-Daley has been steadily building towards her debut body of work. Through the single releases, the national tours and all of the accoldaes, Jem established herself as one of Australia’s most compelling songwriters and performers and today, she finally gets to share her debut album tattoos used to come off in the pool, out now via Civilians.

Growth is a key tenet of tattoos used to come off in the pool –?the journey into adulthood, the ups and downs of relationships, the notion that past experiences make you the person you are today. While some of the experiences catalogued on the album are her own and others are inspired by those close to her, the entire album is wrapped in her indie-pop storytelling that’s catchy but never disposable, relatable yet uniquely personal and dancefloor-ready yet heartbreakingly delicate.

The sincerity and vulnerability on tattoos used to come off in the pool comes from the process in which these songs were created, with majority lifted from the original demos recorded just after a song was written, when the emotion was at its rawest. Jem assembled an incredible lineup of producers on this album, including Robby De Sá (The Veronicas, MAY-A), MSquared (Newton Faulkner, Aloe Blacc), Ethan Reginato (Meg Mac, The Avalanches) and Garrett Kato (Budjerah, Tones And I). Top of mind was ensuring that, even though the songs were recorded with different collaborators at different times and places –?from Sydney to Nashville – the album retained a common thread, making it feel like a complete and compelling body of work. Cassar-Daley sums up that thread in one word: “storytelling”.

“A song can be like a tattoo,” says Jem. “It can represent a time in your life that should be looked on with fond eyes, even though it may be from a period you don’t resonate with anymore. That’s what growth’s about. I feel totally connected to this album. That was really important leading into a debut album, knowing that this is going to be a body of work that is me. If I reflect in 15, 20 years’ time, I'll just know that that was from this time of my life. And I had total control over it.”

Following her support slot on Vera Blue’s national tour and her performances at BIGSOUND 2026, Jem will head out on her headline tour this September. Kicking off in Perth on Thursday September 17 at FOUR5NINE, she will then head to Jive in Adelaide on Friday September 18 and Melbourne’s Northcote Social Club on Saturday September 19. The following week she will perform at Sydney’s Lansdowne Hotel on Friday September 25 and will wrap up tour back in Brisbane on Saturday September 26 at The Brightside. For more information, head to jemcassardaley.com.

Since her debut in 2021, Jem has carved out a distinctive place in the Australian music landscape, earning widespread acclaim for her celestial vocals and evocative songwriting. Her rise has been marked by an impressive run of accolades, including the NIMA New Talent of the Year award and QMA Indigenous Artist of the Year in 2022. In 2024, she claimed the Queensland Music Awards’ Best Pop Award and Song of the Year for her standout track ‘King of Disappointment’, alongside the AIR Music Awards’ Song of the Year. She continued this momentum into 2025, taking home the Queensland Music Awards’ Indigenous Artist of the Year, and in 2026 she repeated the success of 2024 when she won Best Pop Award and Song of the Year for her standout track ‘Kiss Me Like You’re Leaving’.

A proud Gumbaynggirr and Bundjalung woman, Jem weaves a deep sense of identity, emotional truth and cultural richness through her songwriting. Grounded in intimate and reflective storytelling, Jem is ready to share her most vulnerable, purest and proudest work to date in her debut album, tattoos used to come off in the pool. Finding the sparks in simplicity, the nuance in everyday moments, Jem reflects on where it all started: “Behind all of the production and at the end of the day, each song is just a story in different outfits. Whether there’s an 808 or its totally stripped back, it all starts on either piano or guitar. The common thread through it all is stories I’ve connected to and then brought to life.”

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