Thelma Plum - When Rosie Met Monsters (LP) - White Vinyl

When Rosie Met Monsters is the moment Thelma Plum gathered her first two EPs into one tidy package, and it still lands with that rush of finding a new voice you know you’ll follow for years. Released in 2014, it stitches together Rosie from 2013 with the follow up Monsters, and you can hear a young Gamilaraay songwriter from Brisbane sharpening her pen track by track. People often talk about debut albums as a big statement, but this collection feels like the sketchbook that proves she already had the goods, clean melodies, unflinching lyrics, and a knack for letting small details carry a lot of weight.

Plum’s voice sits right up front, warm and close, the kind that turns a line you thought was sweet into something quietly devastating by the next verse. The arrangements lean on chiming acoustic guitars, brushed drums and those soft, airy harmonies that were all over indie radio at the time, yet she avoids the twee cul-de-sac and keeps finding edges. There’s a pop lilt to these songs, but she writes with a classic folk sense of scale, making big feelings feel like they happen in real rooms, not on a stage set. You can hear the confidence growing between the two halves of the set, the early songs a touch more hushed, the later ones brighter and bolder, with sharper hooks and more bite in the rhythm section.

Triple j listeners were onto her early, and for good reason. She had already won the Unearthed National Indigenous award in 2012, and the craft on show here backs that early acclaim. Lyrically she traces the mess and thrill of young love, the awkwardness of small-town circles, and the tug of family and identity, but she never lets the writing turn into diary scrawl. There’s a calm steadiness to her phrasing, a way of leaving space around a line so it sinks in. Even when the band pushes a little harder, that sense of restraint never leaves. It’s the same quality that later powered Better in Blak to major attention, but here it’s wrapped in the glow of first steps.

As a listen front to back, the set flows like a night drive, verses flicking past like streetlights. Early highlights open the door with gentle sway and crisp picking, then the Monsters-era cuts bring in sleeker production, a few glints of synth and a more cinematic sweep. Nothing feels overcooked. Even the catchiest moments sound lived in, like songs played in share houses before they ever hit a studio. There’s a lot to be said for that balance between poise and looseness. Plum finds it over and over.

If you’re hunting for Thelma Plum vinyl, you’ll usually see Better in Blak on shelves first, and fair enough, it’s a modern Australian favourite. When Rosie Met Monsters, though, is the one that shows where that record came from. It’s the thread that runs back to the earliest gigs and radio sessions, a snapshot of a songwriter learning how to be generous and exact at the same time. For anyone building a collection, it’s essential context. I’ve seen more than a few people come into a Melbourne record store asking for Thelma Plum albums on vinyl, and while this one hasn’t been an easy wax find, it sits comfortably next to those spins. If you like to buy Thelma Plum records online, keep an eye out for reissues or special runs. Even if you’re mostly digging through vinyl records Australia, don’t sleep on the digital or CD versions of this early set, because the songs do the heavy lifting.

What sticks after a few plays is how personal it all feels without being inward. Plum writes like someone in conversation, not confession, and that gives these tracks a long life. They stand up in a quiet room, they work on a speaker in the kitchen on a Sunday, and they still hit in headphones on a late bus. When Rosie Met Monsters might be a compilation by name, but it lands like a real album in the way it builds and breathes. If you came in through the hits later on, circle back. This is the kind of early collection that turns curiosity into fandom, and it still feels fresh.