New Zealand born and Melbourne based, award-winning singer songwriter Jenny Mitchell has today proudly unveiled her new single, Mr Cotter’s Ridge, out now, and announced east coast tour dates for March-April and a run of shows through the UK in May 2027.

The raw, stripped back track features gritty banjo, wild fiddle and a voice unafraid to sit in the grain of a true story. Set in the Gippsland region’s coastal town of Kilcunda, Victoria in the 1860’s, the song follows Mr Cotter, a farmer who defied Australia’s Land Act and chose to walk off his allotment of land as a final act of protest, rather than clear three ancient gum trees from the ridge of his property. Just a decade later, farmers in the same district were being paid to replant what had been stripped away. 

Co-written with Jenny Churchill, whose family has farmed the land beside Mr Cotter’s for generations, and recorded with alt-bluegrass band Midnight Chicken, under producer Shane Nicholson, it’s Jenny Mitchell at her most raw and defiant.

The song’s release will be marked by Jenny travelling to Kilcunda to play a sold out single release show tonight at the local, community-loved Kilcunda Hall. 

The track is a fitting continuation for an artist who has always tied her music to something bigger than the songs themselves – tours that have raised thousands for conservation group Forest and Bird, and funded hundreds of safe nights for women and children escaping domestic violence in NZ.  Mr Cotter’s Ridge adds land and legacy to that list: a song of stewardship and a protesting spirit generations ahead of its time. “I feel lucky to be the voice telling this story,” she says. “A reminder to listen to each other – and not cut trees down.”

In additional news, Jenny is excited to announce Australian tour dates with her collaborators, Midnight Chicken, for March-April next year – on sale Wed 30 Sep. Jenny will follow these shows with her first UK tour in May 2027, including London, Manchester and Sheffield. UK pre-sale sign up is available now. 

Fans can head to jennymitchell.co.nz for tickets and all information.

ABOUT JENNY MITCHELL: 

One of New Zealand’s most compelling songwriters, Jenny Mitchell’s work is a mix of grit and an unflinching kind of grace. An Aotearoa Music Award Winner and 4x Australian Golden Guitar nominee, Jenny has spent over a decade turning stories of family, nostalgia and the land into some of the most moving country and Americana music on either side of the Tasman – praised by Rolling Stone as an artist “worthy of every award [she] will inevitably collect,” and hailed by Country Music Capital News as simply “a star.”

Since winning New Zealand’s Gold Guitar Award at just 18, after growing up in the country music capital of Aotearoa, Jenny has toured relentlessly – including 32 dates supporting Kasey Chambers across Australia, an opening slot for The Lumineers, and bring a hand-picked selection by the Australian Academy of Country Music to perform at Nashville’s AmericanaFest in 2024. Her 2022 album Tug of War produced the APRA-winning “Trouble Finds a Girl,” a collaboration with country soul icon Tami Neilson and a direct response to the mistreatment of women in the music industry – a song that revealed the sharper, more restless edges of her songwriting. 

2025 saw the release of her fourth album Forest House, working with ARIA and Golden Guitar award-winning producer Matt Fell and recorded in a temporary studio in a house in rural New Zealand. The record received rave reviews and featured a crafted set of 12 intimate, emotional, heartbreaking and uplifting tracks including the singles, ‘Where The Water’s Cold’, ‘Square & Plain’, ‘Heart Like a House’, ‘Little Less Lonely’ and the heartwarming ‘Sister’, featuring her sisters, The Mitchell Twins. 

CATCH JENNY MITCHELL LIVE 

Tickets on sale now:  jennymitchell.co.nz

Supporting Meg Washington
8 Oct – Beechworth, NSW
9 Oct – Wodonga, VIC
10 Oct – Gundaroo, VIC
29 Oct – Upwey, VIC
30 Oct – Frankston, VIC 
31 Oct – Archie’s Creek, VIC
13 Nov – Brisbane, QLD
14 Nov- Kia Ora, QLD 
15 Nov – Mapleton, QLD *sold out

Dorrigo Folk & Bluegrass Fest, NSW 
23 – 25 Oct – TICKETS

Tamworth 2027, NSW 
Jan 20 – Capitol Theatre – TICKETS

Jenny Mitchell & Midnight Chicken – 2027 Australian Tour
March 5 – The Cordial Factory, Grenfell NSW
March 6 – The Street Theatre, Canberra ACT
March 7 – Jungle Duke Hotel, Wagga Wagga NSW

March 11 – Wesley Anne, Northcote VIC 
March 12 – Church, Geelong VIC
March 13 – Theatre Royal, Castlemaine VIC
March 14 – Birregurra Hall, Birregurra VIC
April 2 – Playhouse, Newcastle NSW
April 3 – Milton Theatre, Milton NSW
April 4 – Avoca Beach Theatre, Avoca Beach NSW

On sale Wed Sep 30

UK TOUR 2027
May 1 – The Met, Bury, Manchester
May 15 – East Quontoxhead Village Hall, Somerset 
May 16 – Ashley Court, Tiverton, Devon 
May 20 – Café 9, Sheffield 
May 21 – Café 9, Sheffield 
May 24 – The Green Note, London 
Pre-sale sign up available now: jennymitchell.co.nz

Mr Cotter’s Ridge
Written by Jenny Mitchell & Jenny Churchill

Red red morning, 1864

Nothing grows here anymore

Red red warning, smoke chokes the sky

The land cries out, asking why

A pound an acre, gotta strip it bare

The bush & gums are useless here

Nothing grows here anymore

One man stands and draws the line

For 60 million years of bush and time

Trees so thick and now all there is 

Is three gums, on Mr Cotter’s Ridge

Faceless men, walk right onto the dirt

If you listen boy, nobody will get hurt

Cut ’em down get it done by day break

It’s up to you, choose your fate 

A pound an acre, gotta strip it bare

Stolen soil, poisoned air

Nothing grows here anymore

One man stands and draws the line

For 60 million years of bush and time

Trees so thick and now all there is 

Is three gums, on Mr Cotter’s Ridge

Red red morning, 2024

Faceless men, are knocking at my door

Pockets full of dollars, pockets full of seeds

Collected from Mr Cotter’s Trees

One man stands and draws the line

For 60 million years of bush and time

Trees so thick and now all there is 

Is three gums, on Mr Cotter’s Ridge

Three gums, on Mr Cotter’s Ridge

Three gums, on Mr Cotter’s Ridge

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