Princess One Point Five

Melbourne's Sarah-Jane Wentzki was nicknamed "Princess One Point Five" for her diminutive height — just over 1.5 meters — and her over-sized personality. After four years as a member of a band called I Want a Hovercraft she went solo under that nickname, sometimes rendered as "P1.5". She performed pop songs with lyrics whose sometimes alarmingly morbid subjects were at odds with their jaunty piano melodies, as well as more blatantly shadowy, experimental instrumental pieces. Her first album, 2005's At Long Last, was funded by an Arts Council Buzz Music Grant and recorded with members of fellow Melbournites Because of Ghosts forming her backing band. The album won the Spirit of Youth Music Award, and again the money was used to fund recording, this time of a more ambitious album, The Truth. Four months before winning the competition Wentzki's mother had died and The Truth became an album about dealing with grief. During this time her various musical guests solidified into a band, with Richard Andrew from Underground Lovers on drums and Andy Papadopoulos on bass guitar. This group also recorded the third Princess One Point Five album, Vous Je Vous, this time without the assistance of any grants or prize money, working on it for a year while the members juggled part-time jobs. They also released the limited-edition Lolita EP in 2007 as a fund-raiser. The more pop-sounding Vous Je Vous was eventually released in 2008 and several of the songs were quickly picked up to be used on the TV shows Gossip Girls and Medium.