Australian rock band King Gizzard & The LizardWizard released a new single entitled, “Pleura”. The latest recording from the workhorse rock band follows previously-shared “O.N.E.” which was released late last month, and “If Not Now, Then When?” shared back in December. All three recordings will appear on the band’s forthcoming 17th studio album, “L.W.” which is set to arrive on digital formats next Friday, February 27th.
Similar to the songs heard on the band’s 2020 surprise K.G. album, the melodies heard throughout “Pleura” were evidently influenced by classical music from Eastern cultures. The dynamics heard on “Pleura” also cover a winding range of peaks and valleys throughout its 4:11 minute runtime, resulting in a mesmerizing, almost entrancing listening experience.
According to the band’s album announcement on Thursday, L.W. can be considered a companion piece to the recordings heard on K.G., so fans should be able to hear a sonic connection between the two projects.
The album is available to stream on digital platforms like Spotify, and the band will donate $1 from every download of L.W. on Bandcamp to Greenfleet, an eco-friendly organization that plants native biodiverse forests in the band’s native Australia and New Zealand. “We’re aiming to make 2,000 downloads which is enough to revegetate 1,000m2 at Pearsons Block in Central Victoria, King Gizzard singer/guitarist Stu Mackenzie said in a press statement. “Some of the species endemic to this region include Yellow Box (Eucalyptus melliodora), Varnish Wattle (Acacia verniciflua) and Sweet Bursaria (Bursaria spinosa).”
“For me personally, making a record is always a certain percentage of fun and a small percentage of agonizing over it too,” Mackenzie continued in regards to the process of writing and recording the two companion albums during this ongoing downtime from touring and playing live. “But there’s always a wild alchemy going into it. Like, you don’t really know what you’re doing, you’re just kind of throwing all of your emotional energy into nothing, which becomes…something?”
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard are a psychedelic machine gun, having now released 17 albums in just nine years, maintaining a level of production only rivaled by Oh Sees and Robert Pollard. The latest was only officially announced a couple weeks ago and is the third record in their “microtonal” series where they explore the “notes between the notes.” It’s also clearly the second part of the record that started with last year’s K.G. Not that it needs to be spelled out, in this case literally, but the titles together are the band’s initials, the cover art for both are variations on a theme, and both feature microtonal instruments that give everything a sitar kind of vibe.
The microtonal element colours everything, but King Gizzard apply it to a wide variety of styles on L.W. which makes it both high concept but also all over the map. That sound obviously suits itself to standard definition “pysch” and the band are clearly masters of that as heard here on the bongo-fueled “O.N.E.” and big ripper “Pleura.” But the album is more interesting when it applies microtonal instruments to things like the nearly nine-minute prog-metal opus “K.G.L.W.” which closes the album with some serious fireworks and sounds like a certain set-closer once shows can happen again (which is soon in their native Australia). More interesting, though, are songs that take them into new territory. “If Not Now, Then When?” builds like it’s going to be a rager, but then turns into a groovy ’70s style number with funky electric piano and falsetto vocals. Hopefully that’s an area they’ll continue to explore on future albums…which are probably being mastered as we speak.
For their latest recording, King Gizzard also shared its affiliated video which was impressively performed live, filmed, recorded, edited, and uploaded to YouTube all on February 18th.
The Australian psych band’s 17th album in nine years flies between the funky and the ferocious
After a break of over four years between album releases, Australian duo Big Scary announce fourth LP ‘Daisy’. Their most playful collection to date, the tracks are full of drama – a little bit spooky and a little bit silly. It’s ok to LOL when you listen (and do a little boogie), but equally there is a thoughtfulness to be discovered within the themes and arrangements. The pair of Joanna Syme and Tom Iansek reflect broadly on superficiality, naivety and fantasy, compared with the complexities of reality, and the ongoing exercise in thoughtful living. Dynamic relationships are explored, between lovers old and new; and with the voice in your head.
Since releasing their last album ‘Animal’ in 2016 the pair have dived into broader creative projects. Tom has released three albums across solo project #1 Dads and duo No Mono, and produced or engineered releases for Maple Glider, Tom Snowdon, The Paper Kites, Airling and Bec Sykes. Jo created a second label imprint Hotel Motel Records (the first being Pieater, run with Tom Iansek and manager Tom Fraser); releasing four LPs, eight EPs and many singles; and toured Australia and Canada with the likes of Quivers and Cool Sounds, as well as working the Pieater releases.
All songs written and performed by Big Scary, except for “Bursting At The Seams” where extra percussion was performed by Jim Rindfleish and live strings were performed by Emma Kelly
There’s a certain beauty within Angie McMahon’s music that’s always present, but never quite the central focus of her work. It’s something that underlays the potent emotion of her earliest work in 2017 – “Slow Mover’s” strange mix of uplifting ache; “Keeping Time” soaring choruses – right through to her 2019 debut record “Salt”, an 11-track collection of songs that encapsulated AngieMcMahon’s charm as both a musician and storyteller in a similar vein to some of her biggest comparables and influences – Joni Mitchell, Bruce Springsteen, Stevie Nicks.
However, this remarkable and almost unexplainable pocket of beauty is something that really reaches a fever pitch in Angie McMahon’s live show, at the points where her live band step away for a moment and leave Angie alone in the spotlight. It’s here where Angie becomes her most brilliant; the lyricism and storytelling that underpins her work’s emotional richness entering the forefront to the point where you can’t brush it away or focus on anything else – you simply have to stand there and take it all in.
It’s something that really shone in this video filmed with her in 2018, where Angie – amidst a tour with Canadian musician Leif Vollebekk – stripped back the then-unreleased If You Call to its most subtle and remarkable, backed by the greenery of Victoria Park florist/plant store Green Bunch. With the production of the single’s recorded form replaced by only gentle piano, guitar and Leif Vollebekk’s devastingly-beautiful vocal cries, the moment is something that can draw you to tears from the get-go, even an entire year following its original release:
As it turns out, the acoustic live cover was the catalyst for the now-arriving “Piano Salt EP”, a stripped-back collection of tracks from her 2019 debut LP Salt, along with a few covers too. “The version of “If You Call” on this EP was recorded by Pilerats in Perth when we toured Australia with Leif Vollebekk,” she explains. “It was this wonderful day where we set up inside Green Bunch, a lovely plant shop/cafe, and filmed and recorded the duet. That was probably the seed being planted for this EP, because by the start of this year I was practising new versions of other songs off Salt too and was able to find a place for all of those with this release.”
The full collection of tracks that form “Piano Salt” ahead of its official release tomorrow, October 2nd. It’s a gentle seven songs that really flesh out this aforementioned beauty that swirls around Angie McMahon’s work when its stripped back to its most raw and subtle, indulging in the richness of Angie’s vocal and how she’s able to turn the emotions of Salt – and a few other special songs too – into potent, devastatingly beautiful moments that encapsulate Angie’s talents as one of Australia’s most brilliant songwriters and vocalists.
It opens with a swirling, piano-backed cover of Soon that feels almost like a modern-day reimagining of classical music, and its ability to tell stories and emotions even at music’s most minimalist and acoustic. This trait really shines amongst Piano Salt. When Slow Mover is pulled back to its most subtle, the soft sense of cathartic release that floats amongst the single’s cries are replaced by an almost-haunting presence that on a surface level, makes you feel the track’s lyrics underneath a new emotional lens. Keeping Time provides a similar moment – a favourite of Angie’s catalogue that many would associate with their introduction to the Melbourne musician painted in an entirely new light – while the EP-closing Pasta aches in a way that’s conveyed in the original, but emphasised this time around.
The EP also gives the opportunity for Angie McMahon to shine in another area she’s long-adored: covers. “It’s been a real treat to release second versions of some songs, and have an excuse to do more covers too,” she says. “I love covers.” Her Isol-Aid set early on in the festival’s existence seemed to encapsulate the whole event’s beauty , and a big part of that came through two covers that Angie performed; one of Bruce Springsteen’s The River, and the other of Lana Del Rey’s Born To Die.
TheBorn To Diecover is a highlight of the EP, joined by a video also premiering today, filmed The Perch Recording Studio, Castlemaine. It’s a cover that pays tribute to Lana’s distinct performance style, and how she – like Angie – are really capable of highlighting this deep sense of emotion through their work. “This cover of Born to Die was just so fun to play. I love the way Lana sings, so deep and emotive, and I wanted to pay tribute to that way of performing because it has inspired me as an artist in the way I write and sing my own songs too.”
The whole EP – and the covers included within it – are a coming full circle moment for Angie too. “Piano is the first instrument I learnt and the one that made me first love singing. My favourite piano song when I was young was k.d lang’s cover of Hallelujah. So this EP feels like a return to my piano-cover-loving inner kid,” she explains. “It’s been a really nice creative opportunity to recreate the feeling of some bigger songs off my first record, give them a new life, and cover some of my favourite songs too. It gave me something to do when we went into quarantine.”
The end result is something remarkably brilliant.
This is a mixture of footage from my home in lockdown, when everything went slow, and the Hozier tour that I joined in November last year, when everything was moving so fast. We were travelling around America, my sound engineer Jono and I, following the Hozier bus and having our own adventures every day. I’m so grateful he kept the go pro on for that month, and that the audiences were so warm, and that I have a safe and comfortable home to slow down in now. Thank you to our friend Lewis Parsons who edited all of this together so flawlessly. this version of Soon almost made it onto the Salt record, there has been a band version and a piano version floating around for a while, and in the end we decided on the band version. It’s so nice to be able to bring this one out now, and I hope it connects with people.
“Slow Mover” by Angie McMahon under exclusive license to AWAL Recordings Ltd Released on: 2017-10-09
The pandemic continues to have a profound impact on Intervention’s key partners. Earlier this year both Stoughton Printing, the company that makes our amazing jackets, and our pressing plant RTI shut down for a period, and have struggled to catch up since. Earlier this week Stoughton announced it has suffered a small Covid-19 outbreak and needs to close again until February 1st. When Stoughton reopens it hopes to be at or near full capacity. Where this affects Intervention and its fans and friends is that The Church “Starfish”release is delayed since we can’t get the jackets completed for several more weeks. There is something of a domino effect here, as we cannot get in RTI’s queue until the jackets are done and delivered. Starfish is the fifth album by the Australian rock band The Church, released in April 1988. The band’s international breakthrough album, “Starfish” went gold in America and has remained their most commercially successful release.
The high guitar priests of the Australian band the Church have been making pretty much the same record for nearly eight years with twin guitars overlapping in crystal formations of pinging harmonics, staircase arpeggios and clarion twangs and singer-bassist Steve Kilbey’s voice walking a thin line between a melancholy drone and an embittered hiss. Yet no two Church records ever actually sound alike. At its most compelling, the band scrambles the real and the surreal with ease, rattling its stately guitarchitecture with howling north-wind echo and the troubled undertow of Kilbey’s enigmatic lyrics. It’s like being in the middle of a recurring but constantly evolving dream where only the faces remain the same.
The first single, “Under the Milky Way”, charted in the US Billboard peaking at No. 24, leading to significant exposure of the then relatively underground Australian act. “Under the Milky Way” was recorded/produced in Los Angeles including renowed L.A. session musicians Waddy Wachtel and Greg Ladanyi. The recording is more sparse and open than its predecessor, Heyday, which featured orchestral arrangements with brass and strings. Many of its songs have seen heavy rotation in live set lists, and the album remains a favourite among many fans. The song “Under the Milky Way” was co-written by Kilbey with his then-girlfriend Karin Jansson of Pink Champagne. When drummer Richard Ploog was unable to find the right feel for the song, the band played to a click track and session musician Russ Kunkel was brought in to add the drums and percussion later.
The album’s title was taken from singer/bassist Steve Kilbey’s nickname for friend/ musical partner Donnette Thayer, who signed herself that way on postcards she sent to Kilbey. Kilbey contributed a long untitled poem to the album’s liner notes. “Hotel Womb” has dream-themed lyrics relating to an imagined wedding. Music videos were filmed for “Under The Milky Way” and “Reptile.” The fifth season of the US TV show, Miami Vice, featured two songs from the album. “Under the Milky Way” was used in an episode called “Asian Cut” and “Blood Money” was showcased throughout the episode “Heart of Night”. Starfish, The Church’s sixth and possibily their best LP, is about the spaces between the faces and about the tensions that fill those spaces. “Our instruments have no way/Of measuring this feeling,” Kilbey sings with edgy resignation in “Destination,” heightening the icy picking of guitarists Peter Koppes and Marty Willson-Piper with visions of musty old bones, stormy weather and “clapped-out swingers. “Blood Money” could be about nothing more sinister than a whore and her john (“She says, ‘Why can’t you get hard/Because you paid for this now in cold hard cash?'”), although the dripping sarcasm in Kilbey’s voice and the metallic sting of the guitars hint that this sexual transaction has more to do with emotional piracy.
There is certainly a lot of betrayal “Reptile” and dislocation “Lost” on tap on this album. At times, it’s hard to reconcile Starfish’s richly appointed production – pillowy strumming, aqueous reverb, the sunshine blast of synthesized bagpipes in “Under the Milky Way” with the negative energy charging some of these relationships. But it’s the very contrast of otherworldly ambiance and sly baroque lyricism with the earthy erotic tug that lights up songs like “Hotel Womb” and Willson-Piper’s “Spark.” On “Hotel Womb” the urgent guitars stoke Kilbey’s vocal despair like a “White Light-White Heat” for distraught young lovers.
For a number of other dates on the American tour, the band was paired with another of their heroes: Tom Verlaine of Television. Verlaine supported The Church. For their encore every night (“You Took”), they brought Verlaine on stage with them for a three-way guitar duel. Some fans consider the Verlaine/Church shows to be some of the best live performances they’ve ever witnessed. Starfish set up the band’s well-deserved breakthrough in the States,” and added that the performances throughout “are at the least fine and at the most fantastic.
During the tour drummer Richard Ploog became gradually disengaged from the band during this tour, even though he stayed with The Church for another two years. The exact nature of his malady is unknown but most agree that LSD exacerbated his condition. There were degrees of internal strife within the band and a high pressure of expectation from Arista Records. Because of this, Kilbey smoked more pot on this tour than at any other point in his life – such large quantities that he routinely coughed up blood. By the tour’s end, The Church had performed 94 shows across the US, Canada, Europe, the UK and Australia.
The Church:
Steve Kilbey – bass, lead vocals
Peter Koppes – guitars, lead vocals
Marty Willson-Piper – guitars, lead vocals
Richard Ploog – drums, percussion
Additional musicians:
Greg Kuehn – keyboards
Russ Kunkel – drums and percussion
David Lindley – mandolin
“Awesome Welles” – Synclavier
Waddy Wachtel – Guitars backing vocals
What sets Starfish a notch above other distinguished Church hymnals, like 1986’s Heyday and the 1982 import beauty The Blurred Crusade, is its remarkable musical unity and refined dramatic poise. “Under the Milky Way” is the closest the band has come to adapting its expansive guitar chorales to potential-hit-single form since “The Unguarded Moment” .
While my hope at this point is that these LPs are in stock and shipping in June, I’m calling it summer of 2021 and crossing fingers and toes that it comes sooner. I am so sorry for this delay! The test pressings sound AMAZING, the artwork will be stunning and you will be thrilled!
Artist-Approved 2X LP Expanded Edition!, 8 Bonus Tracks Not Included On Original Vinyl Release!
As unexpected as it is to find Luluc closing out 2020 sharing a producer with pop behemoth Taylor Swift, it seems like a fitting end to this liminal, otherworldly year. The kinetic Aaron Dessner beat that opens the Australian duo’s fourth album is as much of a departure from the more muted tones of their previous work as its siblings brought to folklore – and yet, just as those propelled Swift’s heroine east from St Louis, this synthesised pulse also takes the listener on a journey.
The opening “Emerald City” began in a world halfway between the Melbourne of Luluc’s beginnings and the Brooklyn the duo have since come to call home: in Berlin in August 2018, where, on an invitation from Dessner,Zoë Randell and Steve Hassett flew out to perform at the PEOPLE festival. There, in an old East German radio-station-turned-venue-and-studio, the frequent collaborators – together with drummers JT Yates and Jason Treuting, and CJ Camerieri on trumpet – sought to translate the restless energy of the streets of New York into music.
Friends, festivals, transatlantic flights: the “Emerald City” origin story couldn’t be further from the Australian coast where Randell and Hassett finished mixing the album, seeing out the pandemic in isolation. And yet the thread that runs through “Dreamboat” is primarily an introspective one: of wild horses and weatherbirds, Wizard Of Oz metaphors and waking in the night. Luluc’s dream world, like the real one, is still complicated: at times as idyllic as the vision of “blue water and sunshine” in the Carpenters-esque “Dreaming”; at times a claustrophobic nightmare roping you in against your will.
The frantic buzz of that opening track is straight from the fast-paced, pre-pandemic world in which it was occasionally played live – but the anxieties tied up in its frenetic layers, punctuated by panicked bursts of trumpet, will be familiar to anyone who has lain awake these past few months, “tumbling and twisting” with “too much” in their head. The song is a stream of consciousness set in those anxious moments before sleep; above the noise, Randell’s voice a steady ship, with lines that seem prescient now. “Like Dorothy on the run,” she sings, “breaking my will, I stay in”.
The track is one of two to feature a Dessner co-production credit, Randell and Hassett handling the majority of the album solo. Combined with their decision to release independently rather than through long-time label Sub Pop – an amicable decision, Randell explains, driven by the duo’s desire to release this music into the world at their own pace – the implication is of full creative control. The simplicity at the core of the duo’s song writing remains intact, but the confidence that comes with experience allows them to lean into different choices as the songs dictate, be it duelling drummers, tenor saxophone or a touch of New York jazz guitar.
Wurlitzer and walking bass lend “Hey Hey” a vintage country feel, jazz drummer Dalton Hart working with Hassett to keep the song at a simmer until a melodic burst of sunshine shoots through the middle. “Weatherbirds” is built around another Dessner beat, but it’s the brightness of Hassett’s guitar and backing vocals that carry the song; and Arcade Fire touring member Stuart Bogie’s saxophone brings the pink flush of sundown to “Out Beyond”, a harmonious Randell-Hassett duet from the edge of the world.
But sometimes, the songs call for nothing at all. “All The Pretty Scenery”, a feather-light beauty in which the narrator’s gaze turns from her own interior world to that of another, features only Randell and Hassett, some vocal doubling the closest thing to trickery. “Gentle Steed”, recorded live in Berlin with Hassett on piano and Caimin Gilmore on double bass, falls somewhere between old folk song and mythology, Randell’s vocals timeless and pure. Her voice carries something of a myth-making quality in its timbre, making the everyday details that creep into her lyrics – a reference to “booze”, an affectionate “my man” designation for a partner – twice as charming.
The real world creeps in as it must: as the sound of cars “rolling their way into my notebook” among the diary-esque lyrics of “Hey Hey”; in the shape of an arachnid in “Spider”. But behind it all, a self-possessed Luluc in isolation, daydreaming of friends apart until they can once again cross the sea.
“Dreamboat” released through Sun Chaser Records October 23rd, 2020
Australian four-piece Flyying Colours are set to release their sophomore album ‘Fantasy Country’ on the 19th February via London-based independent label, Club AC30. Taking inspiration from the early 90s UK psych/shoegaze scene, ‘Fantasy Country’ is rich in sonic texture and shimmering atmospherics with a heavy dose of melody.
Formed in 2011 by school friends Brodie J Brümmer and Gemma O’Connor, Flyying Colours released their debut single ‘Wavygravy’ in 2013 with a self-titled EP following later that year. Honing their explosive sound on the Melbourne live scene and picking up numerous accolades along the way, the ‘ROYGBIV’ EP followed which received heavy rotation across worldwide radio including BBC Radio 6 Music and KEXP.
Having released their critically acclaimed debut album ‘Mindfullness’ in 2016, Flyying Colours have spent much of their time on the road with headline shows across the UK and Europe. “While it’s been a long time seemingly between records it doesn’t feel like that so much for us. We have previously been able to throw ourselves into recording over a period of time, however with this record was about creating that time in between touring and life. We are real people who work to pay our rent and to be able to go on tour,” says Brümmer.
From the swooning, sludgy ‘Goodtimes’ and urgent noise-fest of ‘Big Mess’, to the gorgeous melodic pop of ‘OK’, Flyying Colours look to redefine noise within the context of pop music. Elsewhere, ‘It’s Real’ is perfect, summery dreampop while the crushingly loud ‘White Knuckles’ and chugging ‘Boarding Pass’ is a hazy, echo-laden spaced-out affair.
“This album was supposed to now be 6-12 months old. We take touring and supporting our music live pretty seriously so it would have been very difficult for us to put out this album during the early stages of the pandemic. We are very lucky to be in Australia right now where shows are starting up again, and we of course hope to be touring internationally again soon,” says Brümmer.
Flyying Colours have toured with Johnny Marr, Brian Jonestown Massacre, The Jesus & Mary Chain, The Black Angels and A Place to Bury Strangers and are set to return to the UK in 2021 with a 7-date April tour.
Flyying Colours is Brodie J Brümmer, Gemma O’Connor, Melanie Barbaro and Andy Lloyd-Russell.
Normally we don’t like ghosts, but The Australian A. Swayze & the Ghosts is a fine exception to this rule. The band around front singer Andrew Swayze blew a fresh new wind through the punk landscape in September with their debut album “Paid Salvation”. Their high-profile combination of cut lyrics and raw instrumentation produced twelve razor-sharp songs that become even more powerful with each listening. Paid Salvation is an almost flawless debut full of highlights (“Connect To Consume”, “Suddenly” and “Beaches”), with which A. Swayze & the Ghosts has earned its place in the Best Of 2020.
Since their earliest entrance back around the cusp of 2016/2017, you had the feeling A. Swayze & The Ghosts were in it for the long run. Their 2017-released, self-titled debut EP presented a vision you wouldn’t expect from a band just starting out; the band’s namesake and frontman Andrew Swayze leading the rest of the Tasmanian-raised outfit – Hendrik Wipprecht, Zac Blain, Benjamin Simms – through the highs and lows of DIY, rough-around-the-edges alt-rock with the rush of their sound at its most manic but also the subtlety of them when stripped-back and intimate.
Since then, the group have shared singles at a near-yearly rate – one at a time, emphasising quality over quantity – and it’s clear it was all paying off; the group soon crossing into international waters they are now a mainstay of the rock/punk festival world, performing at institutions such as The Great Escape and Shaky Knees Festival. Back home in Australia, they’ve played everything from Splendour in the Grass to BIGSOUND, and their recordings show why they’ve become such a favourite on the live stage – it’d be hard to see their live show as anything but explosive, considering the work they put out.
They’re a group that have put in the work to break free of Australia’s isolation shackles and emerge in the greater international rock market; every move they do – from singles and tours to festival appearances and god knows what else – reflective of a band that have this clear vision and will put everything into making it become real-life. On their debut album “Paid Salvation” – which arrives after a lengthy, incredibly hyped wait this all begins to pay off, at least on a level A. Swayze & The Ghosts haven’t seen in the past.
Paid Salvationis a definitively A. Swayze album so jam-packed with their charm and spirit that it would be impossible for anyone else to make the exact same record. Across the space of 12 tracks, they encapsulate their career thus far and the sounds that have gotten them to the point they’re at today – full of energy, flavour and just down-right fun – while showing potential future paths, always keeping things open as they dance in their versatility and range that on this record, stretches from the foundations of 90s-era rock worthy for a stadium right through to punchy punk and the slightest smattering of indie.
It’s an album that’s always concise and focused, rushing with an energy and pace that’s full of these blink-and-you-miss-it bursts of brilliance. “Nothing Left To Do” whips up a storm of thick-layered guitar and frantic percussion that quietens down before just three minutes, while “Marigold” – a song that would unexpectedly slap you for six and leave you rattled – doesn’t lose its rush until its sudden end. Every song is as fierce and elevated as it can possibly be, but at this point, would you expect anything less from a band that have come to champion this over the last few years?
It’s why A. Swayze & The Ghosts’ debut album feels exactly like a representation of the band’s most brilliant moments distilled into 12 tracks. It’s not afraid to tackle the big stuff – the tall poppy syndrome encountered being an international break-out; social media’s grips on the world; herd mentality and echo chambers – but it’ll always do so with a ruckus-inducing fun that charades its often-heavier lyricism, encouraging you to listen it when you want to, but just kick up and have a great time when you don’t want to think about all the worries in the world.
“It really shits me off when bands have this pedestal and they have the ability to influence so much around them and they waste it by singing about stupid shit. If you’re given this audience, I think you have to have something to say. And I definitely intend on abusing that right,” says Andrew on the record. “I want people to go, ‘I love that song it makes me dance but I also appreciate the honesty’. I want the melodies and the instrumentals to be accessible for people from all sorts of backgrounds, but I also want everyone to fucking listen to what I’m saying as well.”
It’s difficult to coat heavier themes like the ones Paid Salvationembraces with another lightness that people will still want to listen, but A. Swayze & The Ghosts do it with ease. Take a dive into the band’s heralding moment of a debut album below, and underneath, learn about the album’s inner themes and creation with a track-by-track walkthrough from the band themselves.
It’s Not Alright
Starting in 2017, women were forced to travel from Tasmania to Melbourne in order to have elected pregnancy termination, and upon arriving they’d potentially be accosted by imbeciles protesting against their right to have the treatment at all. I believe in a person’s right to have autonomy over their body; I consider abortion to be a part of that. On face value, this song seems to be very ‘pop’ and lyrically shallow, but I like the accessibility this style gives the listener while delivering a message they can choose to read into however they like.
Suddenly
Written in one session, listening back to the original phone recording, not much has changed. It’s really important to all of us that we capture the urgency of our live shows on record, and with Suddenly we found a balance between some of our more garage-y punk roots, and the more complex and interesting writing styles that we have been striving for.
Nothing Left to Do
I don’t generally write love songs as they’re so predictable and can bore the shit out of me. This one was tough to finish, it took me months and tens of iterations before I ended up coming full circle and sticking to the lyrics and melody I’d first written.
I’m conflicted between two entirely different personalities which can produce a lot of blurred lines between fact and fiction and then what I choose to present to people. The sole person who has complete access to behind the scenes of Andrew Swayze is my wife Olivia, I cannot hide or look away from her.
Connect to Consume
We have exchanged honesty, beauty, ugliness, boredom–reality–for an abstract museum inside a digitised screen, curated by big business but sustained by us. We have volunteered to pace the halls blindly, loudly. We are promised the pain of life will numb. We are given a rule for everything. We submit, we succeed. We do not feel; we do not need to anymore. We have accepted the prison and adorned the uniforms under the guise of convenience. We have connected and now we will consume.
Marigold
I read an article published by the BBC that made me feel nauseous. In August 2018, two men, Ricardo Flores and his uncle Alberto Flores, were beaten and burned to death by an angry mob in a Mexican town called Acatlán – a place known for its marigold and walnut trees. The two men were falsely accused of kidnapping children in the local area. As it turns out the kidnappings didn’t even happen. It was all just vicious rumours and community hysteria trafficked through WhatsApp and Facebook. The men were thrown onto the steps outside the local police station where they had been housed for their own safety, then executed. There was no trial, just violent retribution – all because of a rumour.
Paid Salvation
I took the theme of a great flood, which takes place in the Bible, and imagined it as a reality in the world we live in today. The selection process of people who would make it onto “god’s” ark is a simple one – the wealthy and the self-appointed religious, who’ve killed god and used its name to justify action/inaction. These false-profits would survive while the poor and disadvantaged become martyrs in the drowning of the planet. The people on the ark paid for their salvation while we all die along with our belief in the morals they preach.
Mess of Me
This song discusses inheritance. Not the conventional heirloom, but the type of negative trait you may learn as a child voyeur of your surroundings. Hendrik brought the song to us with the chorus “you’re always trying to make a mess of me”. Since I don’t have any saboteur but myself, I changed his lyrics and wrote the rest around the new chorus.
Rich
Tall poppies.
Our band comes from a small community, which is generally supportive but some members can also very quickly brand you as a sell-out with any kind of commercial success. It’s petty, but I hate that shit so much and I wish their keyboards would burst into flames and engulf them. When we started touring more and getting played on the radio we’d hear things people would say about our band behind our backs that were so inaccurate it was actually comedic, hence writing this song completely tongue-in-cheek as if to “submit” to their accusations of our motives.
Funnily enough one of the people I wrote this song “for” came up to me after a set we played and told me he loved the track… I couldn’t be happier hearing that.
News
I don’t have a problem with people consuming news or their need to remain updated. I do, however, have an issue with pseudo-journalism and a flow of information directed by corporate or political agenda. It’s not their fault, but people base far too much of their opinion off bias hand-fed to them by media outlets without questioning who benefits from the spread of this misinformation.
Beaches
Hendrik and I wrote the guitar parts for this song one afternoon on his bed. Originally it comprised of two guitars interlocking throughout the track, though when playing it as a band I couldn’t manage to keep up while singing too. Hendrik messed with the tuning on his guitar so he could play both his and my part simultaneously.
Lyrically the track has themes of subservience, politics, ecocide and immigration. All very topical in modern-day Australia and infuriating to witness. The chorus vocal delivery is the most brutal amongst the record – it had to be an anger-fuelled explosion from me to the listener to stress how fucked the people and policies are behind these topics, while the middle section is slow and moody to emulate feelings of hopelessness and defeat.
Cancer
There’s no point in trying to give meaning to this song, it’s meaningless.
I love this track’s elements of early house music in it’s Oberheim DMX drum machine, repetitive bass-line and guitar silence in sections, which were suggested by our producer Dean. The original version of the song was far more ‘rock’, and frankly not nearly as interesting. With the change of style it just needed a fun melody, so I gave it one with a focus on phonetics rather than what’s actually being said.
Evil Eyes
This was brought to us by Hendrik one night at in our studio as a short fun song he’d written years before. The lyrics were his too. I’m fairly sure they alluded to the paranoia you feel when smoking pot, but I read into them as a weird homage to the delusions of mental illness so I re-worked them and added the ‘psycho passion’ section to fit that description.
“Paid Salvation” released on Sunset Pig Records under exclusive licence to Ivy League Records Released on: 2020-09-18 A. Swayze & the Ghosts
RINSE, the solo project of Brisbane artist Joe Agius, who also produces, co-writes and plays live with Hatchie, marks its beginning by revealing its very first slice with the infectious debut single ‘Tell Me Tell Me Tell Me’. Brisbane, Australia’s RINSE collaborated with fellow Australian Hatchie on this dreamy single. It’s the first off Rinse’s debut EP, Wherever I Am, due out March 5th, 2021. “I originally started writing ‘Back Into Your Arms’ as a possible song for Hatchie last year,” Joe Agius says, “but enjoyed singing it too much myself and decided to make it my own. Harriette’s vocals sounded so great accompanying mine on the demo we decided it would be a perfect opportunity to make her an official feature, since we both loved the song so much.”
Incredibly excited to announce my debut EP ‘Wherever I Am’ will be released March 5th 2021. The 12” Splatter Vinyl is now available for pre-order only via Bandcamp along with a whole heap of limited items depending on your pledge including a hand-made zine, sticker, signed fold-out poster, original demos and 10 signed unique hand-painted test pressings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGR-GdhFPJU
Back Into Your Arms feat. Hatchie is out now in Australia & everywhere else at midnight!
After swapping hemispheres, Australian outfit Death Bells have found a new home in Los Angeles, emerging with a new album of fervent guitar-driven rock, stripped of gloom and punching through with a new sense of positivity. “New Signs of Life”, their debut for Dais Records, finds Death Bells using a DIY pedigree to plunder the conventions of “rock music” with a saxophone along for the mission. Rather than leaping genres or formats, New Signs of Life is refined and nuanced—a methodology built on process, craft, and perspective.
Following their 2017 debut, Standing at the Edge of the World, and follow-up single “Echoes,” Death Bells left their hometown of Sydney for the United States. Energized by impulse, extensive touring and exploration led to the formation of an ambitious six-piece band that eventually coalesced as a collaboration between founding members Will Canning and Remy Veselis. With Canning and Veselis becoming the engine, Death Bells began to employ several underground mainstay musicians to complete their live presentation, including Cortland Gibson (Dock Hellis), Colin Knight (Object of Affection), and on occasion Brian Vega (Fearing).
Revitalized and centered, Death Bells released the single “Around the Bend” in 2019, before workshopping material that would eventually comprise their second full-length effort. As much as Standing at the Edge of the World was an energized disclosure informed by fresh naiveté, New Signs of Life harnesses those initial sparks, cloaking the threads of Death Bells with authority, allowing each of the nine tracks which embody New Signs of Life to become lush streamlined vehicles.
The eponymous lead single is a grandiose statement, influenced by the theme song of HBO’s classic television program Six Feet Under. The lyrics are a shopping list of personal neuroses charged with wry optimism, dressed with jagged guitars, brass, and percussion providing a deliberate pace for Death Bell’s new chapter. As method gives way to melody, New Signs of Life exudes an urgent hope laced with drive and verve.
The first track for New Signs of Life, “Heavenly Bodies,” signals Death Bells’ point-blank delivery of a laconic truth: “We all vanish, anyway.” Sombre and cool, it eases into hushed staccato hypnosis while still finding the tenets of guitar-driven rock. ”A Different Kind of Happy” and “Alison” push the edge of convention, speaking to the power of love in a world gone mad. A nod to their homeland and new city’s surf heritage, “Shot Down (Falling)” pivots playful to a sun-soaked beach strum, layered with shimmer before the horizon fades. As a new statement of purpose, New Signs of Life subverts the band’s moniker, offering breath during suffocation; optimism in chaos with sound over sinking.
Flowerkid has today announced his first move to obtain global recognition. The 19-year-old Sydney artist came to prominence with his track “BoyWith The Winfields And The Wild Heart” and “Late Night Therapy” and has now earned attention from across the globe.
Flowerkid (aka Flynn Sant) will be managed by Wonderlick in Australia in partnership with Best Friends Music’s Danny Rukasin (co-manager for Billie Eilish and FINNEAS) for North America.
“Flowerkid’s music is incredibly raw, honest and unique and he has a clear vision for how he wants his music to impact people and to help incite change,” said Wonderlick’s Stu MacQueen.
“It’s very exciting and inspiring to be involved in this project, and now with the addition of the brilliant Danny Rukasin, we have finally completed the amazing international label and management team. We look forward to flowerkid sharing this compelling music with the world very soon.”
“When I first heard flowerkid’s music, a recommended listen from Jason Kramer at KCRW, I was immediately blown away by how special and gripping of a voice he has, and the stories he is telling from a song writing perspective,” added Rukasin. “I am proud to be able to help develop and present this incredible artist to the North American market and to be collaborating with such a world class management and label team to help showcase this artist and his art to the world.” In addition to management, flowerkid has also announced label deals with Warner Music Australia for Australia & New Zealand (with A&R by Marcus Thaine), Atlantic for the US and Parlophone in the UK.
“When I first heard flowerkid’s music, a recommended listen from Jason Kramer at KCRW, I was immediately blown away by how special and gripping of a voice he has, and the stories he is telling from a song writing perspective,” added Rukasin. “I am proud to be able to help develop and present this incredible artist to the North American market and to be collaborating with such a world class management and label team to help showcase this artist and his art to the world.” In addition to management, flowerkid has also announced label deals with Warner Music Australia for Australia & New Zealand (with A&R by Marcus Thaine), Atlantic for the US and Parlophone in the UK.
The song, ‘Late Night Therapy’ is written, composed and sung by flowerkid,
Flowerkid featured in the acts to keep an eye on in 2020
The Fat Angel Sings 