“Gum / Ambrose Kenny-Smith — consisting of Jay Watson (Gum, Pond, Tame Impala) and Kenny-Smith (King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Murlocs) — are about to release a new collaborative album, “Ill Times”, an album born out of the friendship between that began over a decade ago. Watson and Kenny-Smith first met at the bar in the hazy hours after Tame Impala played in Kenny-Smith’s hometown of Geelong in 2009. But it wasn’t until Kenny-Smith’s bands came to prominence a couple of years later that the bond between these groups was formed.
Co-founder of Pond and touring member of Tame Impala, Jay Watson, also makes music as Gum. “Gum is my brain, unfiltered,” Watson says. A labour of love and an exercise in joy, written and recorded with Ambrose Kenny-Smith,
“Ill Times” is an album that takes swings at losers with god complexes, that builds the Impressions’ slow-burning ballad “Fool For You” into something so massive and brawny it’d give Jack White the willies, and closes with Watson and Kenny-Smith delivering righteous rough justice to an unabashed villain, and then riding off into the sunset like the heroes they are. The album is easily as much fun as the duo had making it, and that was a truly ridiculous amount of fun.”
‘Ill Times’ album out July 19th, 2024
The Fat Angel Sings 