Jon Duncan is a singer-songwriter and poet from Electrona, Tasmania. Jon has put out six albums through Half A Cow, and his seventh Merry Dance Lightly is out 25th July 2025.

Merry Dance Lightly

Jon Duncan’s latest album is a sweet blend of breezy folk-pop songs, reflective ballads, booty-shakin’ improvisations and nods back to the tin-pan alley era, all wrapped up in his mellifluous vocals and melodies and lyrics that linger, long after the songs are sung. It’s all in the title: optimistic, jangly tunes tempered with the lived experience of knowing life isn’t all cloudless skies.

Merry Dance Lightly is pure old-school, high-class songwriting; minimal arrangements, one-take, single-mic recordings. The record features Duncan on ukuleles, voice, bass, percussion and keys and Sia Joo Hiang on harmonies. Songs to make you smile, think a little, cry some and then get up and hug the person closest to you and dance…lightly!

Happy Endings Know

Some folks like eggplants, some prefer aubergines. Hang on, wait…
Jon Duncan took a line from an obscure Darren Hanlon tune and crafted this sweet and snappy pop song, the second single from his upcoming long player, Merry Dance Lightly. Lots of fun word play clothed in a super catchy melody, “Happy Endings Know” features Jon Duncan on ukes, bass, voices and percussion and his wife Sia Joo Hiang on harmonies. Spoiler alert: love wins! You can make a happy ending out of anything at all… 🙂

Rockin’ the Corduroy

The first single from Jon Duncan’s upcoming long player Merry Dance Lightly is a breezy, snappy li’l slice of folk-pop goodness celebrating being comfy in your own skin, or your corduroy pants as the case may be! With Jon Duncan on vocals, baritone ukes, bass and percussion and Sia Joo Hiang joining in on harmonies, “Rockin’ the Corduroy” says ‘Stand out from the crowd and rock it proud!’

This Wicked Ol’ Line 

The songs of American singer-songwriter Richard Buckner are haunting, atmospheric, hallucinatory, lyrically dense. A perfect fit for the musical aesthetic of Jon Duncan. Following on from his most recent release Fledglings in 2022, this esoteric collection was recorded in various locations between 2019 and 2023. This Wicked Ol’ Line is Duncan’s paean to the beauty and mystery of a gifted, enigmatic musician and poet.

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Interview with Jon (March 2021)

“Everything was impromptu. I like to just pick up an instrument sometimes and press record and see what happens. All these pieces happened this way. There is the odd bung note here and there but it definitely has a mood, a vibe and the rawness and the immediacy of playing and recording matters more to me than perfection. I hope that comes through in the soul of this music. Even my lyric songs I generally write and record straight up like this.” – Jon Duncan

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He began recording with a Tascam 4-track cassette machine in 1992 and ever thereafter lamented the demise of analogue, only to rejoice with the silent majority at the Lazarus-style vinyl resurgence.

He has played live around Tasmania for more than twenty years and released his first LP, Where Your Treasure Is, in 2001 and his first volume of poetry, Songs of Solitude, in 2014 – a wrecking-ball memoir of time spent in a psychiatric hospital.

Jon also writes and plays in two duos: Silence Is Autumn and Two Little Woodpeckers. Both of these bands have recorded LPs and are ongoing. Check them out on YouTube.

Spare, soulful, intimate, real and raw as it gets. Music to break your heart even as it puts you back together.