Tag: 30th Century Records

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: Babe Rainbow Shares Breezy “Super Ego”

Founded back in 2015, acclaimed Aussie psych pop outfit Babe Rainbow — Jack Crowther (a.k.a. Cool Breez), Angus Dowling and Elliot O’Reilly — can trace their origins to back to when the trio worked for John Cuts, a local grower near Tropical Fruit World in Duranbah, Australia.

Initially, the band’s sound was rooted in ’60s psych pop and ’70s French surf-pop, but since their formation, their sound has evolved to include elements of woodland bop, folk disco, dub, dance and international grooves while maintaining the Aquarian Age quality that has won them attention across the globe.

2015’s debut effort, The Babe Rainbow EP was recorded at an office space in Murwillumbah, and received airplay from triple j and support from King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Flightless Records. The band signed with Columbia Records‘ 30th Century imprint, who released their Stu Mackenzie-produced 2017 full-length, self-titled debut. The trio supported the album with international touring with Allah Las, Tomorrow’s Tulips and JOVM mainstays King Gizzard and La Femme.

2018’s Double Rainbow and 2019’s Today were also released through 30th Century, which completed their three-record deal. The band now owns all of their masters — and will be releasing future released through their own label Eureka! with the assistance of AWAL Music.

The acclaimed Aussie psych pop outfit’s latest EP, the Timon Martin-produced Fresh As A Head Of Lettuce is slated for a June 16, 2023 release. Their collaboration with Martin can be traced back to a random encounter between the band and BENEE on a festival stage last year. This lead to Martin joining the band on their sold-out Stateside tour last year, which ended with recording sessions at Brooklyn’s Figure 8 Studios. Fresh As A Head Of Lettuce EP reportedly sees the Aussie outfit bringing their counter-culture vibes to a new level.

The forthcoming EP’s first single, “Super Ego” is a lush and breezy bit of psych pop built around a laid back and buoyant groove and shuffling rhythms paired with a dreamy vocal and reverb-soaked, fluttering synths. While being a dub-like beach friendly jam, “Super Ego” manages to possess a subtly wistful air of summer memories yet to come and quickly gone.

Directed by Kristofski, the accompanying video for “Super Ego” was shot on grainy Super 8 film and follows a kite flyer, getting a ride for thrills and adventures on a glorious afternoon.

Babe Rainbow will be embarking on a short Stateside town to celebrate the release of the new single that includes a stop at this year’s Shaky Knees Festival. Check out the tour dates below.

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Baba Ali Shares a Brooding and Uneasy Scorcher

Last year, rising Transatlantic indie duo Baba Ali — Baba Doherty (vocals) and Nik Balcin (guitar, synths) — released a series of singles through Danger Mouse‘s 30th Century Records, before releasing their full-length debut Memory Device through Memphis Industries to widespread critical acclaim, including features in the Observer and Sunday Times, heavy rotation from KEXP, KCRW and BBC 6 Music, as well as being named BBC 6 Music’s Album of the Day.

The rising duo’s double A side single “Living It Up”/”Black & Blue” act as a bribe between both old and new sonic directions, although both tracks were originally written back in 2020 — before they started working on what would become Memory Device‘s material. As it turns out, the duo put these tracks aside in order to focus on the Memory Device sessions, only to be revisited upon a newfound relevance to how their live show had evolved.

“We ended up reacting to the beginning of lockdown by writing a tonne of new songs in my basement in New Jersey,” Baba Ali’s Doherty says in press notes. “Some of the tracks ended up forming a mixtape that we put out on Bandcamp. ‘Black & Blue’ was a song from that collection of songs, and one we were really happy with at the time, so this was an interesting opportunity to open the track up again and see how our experiences since that period had changed our approach to recording.

“It is a song I am always trying to convince Nik to add to our live set, but I don’t even think he can even remember the tuning he used for it. Hopefully giving the song an official release will kind of force his hands on that one.”

Centered around buzzing synth arpeggios, skittering beats, slashing bursts of guitars, Doherty’s insouciant and dryly ironic delivery, “Black & Blue” is a brooding and slick synthesis of industrial electronica and post-punk that describes love as an experience that’s complex and confusing full of searing, blistering lows and euphoric highs, and made stranger, more dangerous in our increasingly apocalyptic age.

The “Living It Up”/”Black & Blue” double A single is the first non-Yard Act release through Zen F.C., the label run by the band’s James Smith and Ryan Needham. “We loved Baba Ali’s music from the moment we heard it. They’re joining us for our debut album tour in February,” Smith and Needham say in press notes. “When Baba sent through some new tunes he and his bandmate Nik were working on we saw an opportunity to reboot Zen F.C., and to preserve on wax and share some great music with the world. It was a no-brainer for us. We are honoured, we are buzzed to have Baba Ali as the first ever non-YA release on Zen F.C. – follow the label, there will be much more to come in the future.”

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

Last year, I wrote quite a bit about The Babe Rainbow, and as you may recall, the act which is currently comprised of the Bryon Bay, Australia-born and -based founding members Angus Dowling and Jack Laughlan Crowther and newest members Lucas Mariani and Jessi Dunbar can trace its origins to when its founding duo met while in school, bonding over a mutual love of The Incredible String Band and Swing Mademoiselles among others. The band’s early singles caught the attention of Flightless Records, who went on to release their breakout single “Secret Enchanted Broccoli Forest.” Eventually, the band then caught the attention of internationally renowned producer Danger Mouse, who signed the band to his 30th Century Records.

Their self-titled debut was produced by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s Stu Mackenzie, and album singles “Johny Stays Cool,” and “Monkey Disco,” revealed a band that specialized in an especially quirky, off-kilter approach centered around decidedly lo-fi vibes. Now, as you’ll hear on “Supermoon,” the first single off the Australian band’s forthcoming sophomore album Double Rainbow, the band will cement their growing reputation for crafting an anachronistic, lo-fi sound, but unlike their previous album, the single finds the band going further back in time — to the 60s; in fact, the lysergic single sounds indebted to Yellow Submarine and Sgt. Pepper-era Beatles and Creedence Clearwater Revival, thanks in part to a steady yet ethereal groove.