IKSRE (I Keep Seeing Rainbows Everywhere) is the solo moniker of Balnarring-based multi-instrumentalist, vocalist, producer and sound healer Phoebe Dubar.
Phoebe combines ethereal vocals with lush strings, bass-forward synths and effects-laden guitar with field recordings, to create a unique, ambient, neo-classical electronica sound, which sits at the intersection of the natural world and the human experience. The road to this style of music came via the junctions of many other genres throughout her life, having picked up her first instrument, the violin, when only five-years-old.
A few years after the violin she swapped to the viola. She then turned to classical vocals, jazz, then orchestra, touring internationally. “Music was always in my life”, said Phoebe. Growing up on a cattle farm near Bass, the youngest of three sisters, Phoebe credits her older siblings for shaping her musical taste. “When I veered off into pop music, they pulled me back and got me into good 80s synth bands such as Depeche Mode, New Order, and The Cure”, said Phoebe. After school she sang and played with many different bands, spending some time dabbling in every style of music imaginable.
After spending a few years pursuing a career in marketing and event management, the music pulled Phoebe back, and she returned her focus 100% to it. She started her IKSRE project when her daughter was born. “I was listening to more ambient music than club bangers, and it kinda just emerged. I was sitting by Paradise River near Apollo Bay and had my laptop with me. The sounds around me were so divine that I opened it up and hit record.” Never intending for that music to be heard, she showed it to a few people and they loved it. Capturing the soundscape of birds and water on her laptop mic became the song Alone. At Paradise on her debut album Unfurl. “So I kinda kept going. And here I am now – eight albums later!”
Sound healing came via her yoga practice. Phoebe did her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in 2017 and decided not to teach asana (postures) but found out about the Sound Healing Academy in Cornwall, which runs workshops and trainings globally. Sound healing is the musical complement to yoga in many ways, and she thought “I should be doing the music side of yoga rather than the asana!”
Now a certified sound healer, Phoebe is one of the most prominent facilitators in Melbourne, having hosted group sound baths across the state and beyond consistently since 2019. Her sound baths use a combination of Himalayan and Alchemy crystal singing bowls, gongs, hand pan, drum, chimes, Monochord and voice, including overtone singing. She also runs sound healing basics training workshops locally and abroad.
“You could say that a sound bath is meditation for dummies. It is a way to switch off from the stresses of the outside world, go inward and experience deep rest and relaxation without needing to do anything”, said Phoebe. To do so, you lie down, close your eyes and allow the sound of singing bowls, gongs, chimes, drums and voice wash over you and allow you to tap into the parasympathetic nervous system, responsible for deep rest, and healing.
“You could say that a sound bath is meditation for dummies”
Phoebe has featured in a dedicated sound healing segment on The House of Wellness (Channel 7) and as a guide for Endota Retreat. Then in 2023 she released an eight-part podcast, What is Sound?, featuring interviews with industry experts across the topics of sound healing, music performance, recording and the sounds of the natural world.
She has released eight solo albums to date achieving widespread acclaim from tastemakers, blogs, Amazon and Spotify official playlists as well as radio (BBC Radio 6, KEXP, RTE, triple j, double j, RRR, PBS-FM). She has also released collaborative albums with international artists and has had notable performances at Dark MOFO, Tree People Los Angeles, An Evening with Drew Barrymore in Sydney and Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre, the Melbourne Recital Centre, Jazzlab, Peninsula Hot Springs and a swathe of smaller venues across Victoria and New South Wales.
Her latest album, In All Her Forms, released in October, is a deeply immersive sound bath album where water functions as both physical element and guiding metaphor for transformation. Across the work, water is understood as constant change within continuity. It moves through states of solid, liquid, and gas, yet always returns to itself as H₂O. This cycle becomes the conceptual foundation of the album, reflecting on how we as humans might move through change while retaining our essence.
“Water is ephemeral, sacred, and essential to life. It is both nurturing and destructive. It shapes ecosystems and landscapes while also sitting at the centre of the climate crisis, from rising seas and water scarcity to global conflict and displacement”, said Phoebe.
Created as both meditation and composition, the album follows the arc of a traditional sound bath, expanded through field recordings and layered instrumentation that reflect water’s shifting states. Alongside crystal and Himalayan singing bowls, handpan, gongs, voice, and acoustic instruments, she incorporates bass, synthesisers, and ambient electronics that flow intuitively through the work. Drawing on her training as a certified sound healing practitioner, IKSRE weaves traditional sound bath practices with principles of brainwave entrainment and energetic healing throughout the album.
The result is a continuous one-hour journey through entrainment, deep rest, dissolution, transformation, and integration.
In All Her Forms (sound meditations vol.2) is out digitally now and on cassette and CD via Constellation Tatsu, and on vinyl preorder via IKSRE’s Bandcamp. A launch event is being held at the Red Hill Mechanics Hall on 21 November.