STELLA Donnelly, Australia's "hottest new singer-songwriter", will go from supporting First Aid Kit on the travels through Oz in April to playing The Band Room at Low Mill, Farndale, on May 4: the night before the world's top cyclists whizz through nearby Kirkbymoorside on the Tour de Yorkshire.

"Donnelly, from Perth, Western Australia, specialises in gorgeous lo-fi songs with a lyrical bite," says Band Room promoter Nigel Burnham. "Influenced by Courtney Barnett, Cerys Matthews and Billy Bragg, she released her debut EP, the deftly-titled Thrush Metal, early last year with the expectation of selling a few copies. Homegrown fans, however, had other ideas, and the momentum has been building inexorably ever since."

Donnelly was raised between the Swansea suburb of Morriston and Quinns Rocks in the coastal suburbs of Perth, where she cut her musical teeth singing Green Day songs in her Aussie high-school rock band, eventually turning her interest to jazz and contemporary music as an adult studying at the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts.

"Her brutally honest lyrics, combined with a jazz-folk musical orientation, create beautifully poetic songs with sharp, lyrical punchlines," says Burnham. "Donnelly’s invariably witty, perceptive observations of people and their relationships throw a lot of light on what it’s like to be a millennial woman in the age of Trump, Tinder and third-wave feminism."

When playing live, her between-song banter is such that Donnelly refers to her shows as “half-comedy.” In contrast, however, a song such as Boys Will Be Boys addresses the sexual assault of a friend with such power that Donnelly precedes it with a content warning.

"It was a hard process writing it and it’s still quite hard to sing," she says. "Rape is hard to talk about, but it has to be talked about. Dads and daughters and sons need to hear this stuff. There’s no excuse anymore."

Tickets for Donnelly's 7.30pm concert are on sale at thebandroom.co.uk or on 01751 432900.