Live footage of acclaimed JOVM mainstay Tame Impala performing a Sound Check session at Cherry Lane Theatre.
Tag: Fremantle Australia
New Video: Tame Impala Shares Woozy, Self-Aware “My Old Ways”
Acclaimed Aussie JOVM mainstay Tame Impala‘s highly-anticipated fifth album, Deadbeat saw its official release today through Columbia Records.
Deeply inspired by bush doof culture and the Western Australia rave scene,Deadbeat sees Tame Impala mastermind Kevin Parker recasting himself as a sort of future primitive rave act. Conceived in various locations over the last handful of years, the album was largely galvanized between Parker’s hometown of Fremantle and his Inijidup, Western Australia-based studio Wave House during the first half of this year.
Renowned for being a perfectionist, Parker’s fifth Tame Impala album showcases an artist with a leveled-up mastery of songwriting but crafted with a newfound embrace of spontaneity. The result is a collection of remarkably catchy, hook-driven, club-friendly psych pop while being some of Parker’s most direct songwriting of his career to date. Sonically, there are timbres and textures that add new dimension to the material’s overall sound paired with a much richer, more playful vocal range.
Lyrically, the album finds Parker channeling an endless bummer with a self-deprecating fuck-up of a narrator stuck in a hopelessly negative feedback loop, when he should have long had his shit together. We all know this kind of dude — and in some cases, he is us. Thematically, the album suggests raving as self-inquiry, self-medication in lieu of self-care and the kick-on as domestic bliss. Dance and sweat your troubles, stresses and concerns away on the dance floor, y’all. Reality can wait another day or two — hell, fuck it, another three.
Deadbeat features the previously released “End of Summer,” “Loser,” “Dracula,” and its latest single, album opener “My Old Ways.” Anchored around a looping, twinkling piano figure, “My Old Ways” begins with Parker accompanying himself just on piano for about a minute or so, before the song quickly morphs into a mind-bending, trance-inducing bit of Larry Levan-like house with fluttering and oscillating synths and thumping beats. And at its core is a deeply self-aware, self-referential narrator, who is acutely cognizant that they’ve slid into a long-held negative pattern while simultaneously forgiving themselves and being self-flagellating for that backslide.
While being a serious banger, “My Old Ways” offers what may be one of the more empathetic portrayals of a fuck up that I’ve heard in some time. I’d argue that most of us could see some of ourselves in the song.
Directed by Kristofski, the accompanying video for “My Old Ways” features cinéma vérité footage the director took, following Parker throughout the process of recording the album in studios across the world, including his native Australia.
New Video: Peter Bibby Shares Boozy “Bin Boy”
Peter Bibby is an acclaimed Fremantle, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, whose music career started in earnest when he turned 19: He quit the unfulfilling job he was working at the time to busk, eventually landing a few paying gigs. Sometime later, Bibby landed a high-paying job that he eventually lost, because he would frequently show up hungover from the gigs he’d play the night before.
So the Aussie singer/songwriter and musician played even more gigs with a series of different backing bands, including Frozen Ocean, Fucking Teeth and Bottles of Confidence, gradually developing a rough and tumble sound and approach that a critic describes as being like “Shane McGowan screaming at bleeding laudanum and typhoid hallucinations” with his guitar described as being like “a dog drunk on rum.”
With the release of his first two albums 2014’s Butcher/Hairstylist/Beautician and 2018’s Grand Champion, Bibby proudly championed — and has been championed for — being a working class and wholeheartedly independent artist, which was documented in greater detail in the 2018 film Chasing Palm Springs, which followed Bibby on a cross-country trip from Perth to Melbourne in a temperamental van. Since then, the Fremantle-based artist has begun to build a growing profile and reputation as a must see act, as a result of a rowdy and raucous live set — and through headlining shows and international festival circuit stops at Laneway Festival, Falls Festival and SXSW.
Bibby’s third album, 2020’s Marge saw the acclaimed Aussie collaborating with Dog Act — Pete “Strawberry Pete” Gower (bass) and Dave “Dirty Dave” Taylor (drums) — and derived its name from Dave Taylor’s grandmother Marge. The titular Marge is prominently featured on the album’s over art, smoking a cigarette on a beach in Darwin, Australia, seemingly watching her corner of the world go by.
Sonically, the album is splintered and volatile and written as a sort of soundtrack to a surf movie from hell, where there’s blood in the water, a dirt road leading to a dead end — and everything is covered in diesel fumes and dust. “The Dog Act and I recorded this album in a week off in Perth between two Australian tours. We were match fit and full of beans,” Bibby says of the album. “It features a selection of songs, some fun, some completely bloody miserable. It was made better by the involvement of the fourth Dog, Mitch McDonald, who engineered the record and offered endless energy and ideas. I love this record.”
Produced by Dan Luscombe, whose work with fellow Aussies The Drones and JOVM mainstays Amyl and The Sniffers convinced Bibby that he’d be in safe hands, Bibby’s fourth album, Drama King was released last week through Spinning Top Music. The album was mixed with White Denim‘s Josh Block.
“It was the first time I’d worked with a producer, and I prepared for it knowing that my songs were going to get chopped up and shortened,” Bibby recalls in press notes. “I’m glad I did, because for the most part, Dan was like, oh, you’ve already solved every problem I had with these. He was completely underselling himself, because he shaped and sculpted every song on the record into a far more beautiful and articulate thing than I could have on my own.”
“Where Dan shaped and sculpted the songs into superior arrangements, Josh made them sound better than I ever thought they could sound,” Bibby adds.
Although Drama King‘s material may have come together without major incident, the album’s lyrics reflect Bibby’s evolution from hard-partying prankster to a more enlightened, responsible human, who has grown up, and now knows when enough is really enough. Fittingly, the album’s second single “Fun Guy,” was an up-tempo, in-your fafe ripper built around a motorik groove, scorching guitars and relentless drum machine paired with Bibby’s punchily shouted lyrics and howls.
It’s the sort of song that’s perfect for furious calisthenics — or worse, Peloton sessions — while recalling some of the awful decisions and incidents informed and influenced by hard partying, hard drinking and harder living that you must stay away from — presumably because of all the shit you’re afraid of losing. But at its core, is the unvarnished honesty that comes from having lived the life that his songs talk about. Bibby has been the stupid, drunken lout, who has embarrassed himself and others. And he’s gotten tired — perhaps of not remembering what happened or why it happened; of being completely out of control; of being hungover; of the flop sweat-filled nights or mornings . . .
“I was just really over all the silliness and getting wasted and all dumb behavior that is considered ‘fun,'” admits Bibby. “A lot of the songs on the album are the result of situations where I was drunk or dealing with the drama that comes from it all. It suggests a period of change, and honing in on the shitty situations which have inspired it.”
Bibby adds “It’s a fun song about quitting fun. A bit gross, a bit self deprecative, a bit of a banger. Rather than a drum loop, we just went full drum machine with this one, taking a few hints from Suicide’s first album. We laid this whole thing down in a few hours on my first day in the studio, setting the tone for a disgustingly productive few weeks.”
The album’s latest single “Bin Boy” is a boozy, Kerosene Hat-era Cracker-like tune featuring twinkling keys, strummed acoustic guitar, a shuffling and drunken rhythm, and a bluesy electric guitar solo serving as a lush, slow-burning bed for the acclaimed Aussie’s beer and whiskey soaked, plaintive delivery and a soulful backing vocal. The song hilariously anthropomorphizes a trash bin, and examines with a great deal of empathy, the one-sided relationship people have with their trash bins — with the song’s narrator lamenting its thoughtless treatment.
“Could this be the world’s first song written from the perspective of a wheelie bin? I think it might be,” Bibby says. “The song marks a clear connection between man and bin, how we are not so different after all.” He continues “I went full guitar hero on the solo and was very pleased when Carla’s backing vocals lifted the song onto a whole other level. I don’t think it was that easy for her to harmonize with my derelict vocal style, but she nailed it.”
Directed by Robin Bottrell, the accompanying video seems inspired by Harmony Korine‘s Trash Humpers and follows Bibby as part-man, part-bin in the suburbs being taken out on the curb and its contents — without Bibby, of course — being dumped into a garbage truck.
New Video: JOVM Mainstay GUM Returns with a DIY Visual for Breezy Yet Yearning “Low to Low”
Carnavon, Australia-born, Fremantle, Australia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer Jay Watson is an extremely busy and restlessly creative man: Watson splits his time as a touring member of acclaimed JOVM mainstays Tame Impala and POND. He’s also the creative mastermind the acclaimed solo recording project (and fellow JOVM mainstay act) GUM.
Spinning Top Music released Watson’s fifth GUM album Out In The World earlier this year. The album, which is the highly follow-up to 2018’s critically applauded The Underdog was written and recorded in between tours with Tame Impala and POND continues Watson’s long-held reputation for having a voracious taste for styles, sounds and different eras. Thematically, the album is fueled by the Carnavon-born Fremantle-based artist’s quest to make sense of modern life — with the album’s material being fueled by an untethered curiosity and the inherent anxiety of too much awareness and too much connectedness.
Sonically, Out In The World’s material may arguably be the most boundary pushing of Watson’s growing catalog. “This album is my attempt at making a record that combines my fascination of how other people live their lives, with my own internal desire to analyse mine and improve it,” Watson says of his latest album. “‘Out In The World’ was a phrase that conjured a lot of grandeur and ego, yet somehow felt really small and wholesome at the same time.”
I’ve written about two of the album’s singles:
“Don’t Let It Go Out,” the album’s second single, a track that sees Watson pushing his sound and songwriting in a bold new direction. Centered around a glistening arpeggio guitar riff, jangling acoustic guitar, propulsive four-on-the-floor and shimmering synths, “Don’t Let It Go Out” finds Watson pushing his sound and songwriting in a bold direction while retaining the hook-driven, carefully crated nature quality that GUM fans have loved.
“Airwalkin,” a swaggering 80s synth pop-like banger featuring tweeter and woofer rocking boom bap-like beats, squiggling synths, soaring strings and an enormous hook that sonically seemed indebted to J. Dilla. Odelay-era Beck, Future Shock-era Herbie Hancock and Kraftwerk.
Out In The World’s latest single “Low to Low” finds Watson pushing his sound into a new direction — but while arguably crafting what may be the funkiest song of his catalog. Centered around shuffling polyrhythm, explosive horn stabs, dusty breakbeats, tinny Casio-like synth arpeggios and Watson’s yearning vocals, the track sounds as though Watson had been listening to salsa, Expensive Shit/He Miss Road-era Fela Kuti, 80s New Wave and synth pop the deceptively breezy pop confection actually seems to express a fear of irrelevance and of being forgotten.
“I purchased an EHX DRM15 drum machine and the song developed from one of the preset beats, this ‘robot-latin vive with lots of spring reverb. It was the last song I recorded for the album, it’s bizarre stylistically, but I just went with it,” Watson says of the album’s latest single.
Co-directed with POND bandmate Jamie Terry, the recently released video for “Low to Low” was shot in Fremantle on grainy Super 8 or 16mm film, and the visual captures the sunny warmth of Western Australia — while following Watson walking around with an enormous plastic box. “ My mate Az gave me 16 panels of Perspex he had found, who knows where? GUM thinks outside (and inside) the box,” Watson says of the video. ““Now that the dust has settled on Out In The World,I think this is probably my favourite track from the album, and I know it is for lots of other people too, so I wanted to make a visual for it,” he adds.
New Video: Follow Acclaimed Aussie Indie Rocker Peter Bibby on a Hilarious Night Out in New Visual for “Calcium”
Over the past handful of months, I’ve written a bit about the rising and critically applauded Fremantle, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, Peter Bibby. Bibby’s music career started in earnest when he turned 19: he quit the unfulfilling job he was working at the time to busk, eventually landing a few paying gigs. Sometime later, the Fremantle-based singer/songwriter and guitarist landed a high paying job that he wound he losing because he would show up hungover from the gigs he’d play the night before. So, he played even more gigs with a series of different backing bands including Frozen Ocean, Fucking Teeth and Bottles of Confidence developing a rough and tumble sound and approach, a sound and approach that a critic described as being like Shane McGowan screaming at bleeding laudanum and typhoid hallucinations while his guitar playing has been described as being like a dog drunk on rum.
With the release of his first two albums 2014’s Butcher/Hairstylist/Beautician and 2018’s Grand Champion, Bibby proudly championed — and has been championed for — being a working class and wholeheartedly independent artist, which was documented in greater detail in the 2018 film Chasing Palm Springs, which followed Bibby on a cross-country trip from Perth to Melbourne in a temperamental van. Since then, the Fremantle-based artist has begun to build a growing profile and reputation as a must see act, as a result of a rowdy and raucous live set — and through headlining shows and international festival circuit stops at Laneway, Falls and SXSW.
Bibby’s highly anticipated, third album Marge sees it official released today through Spinning Top Records/Caroline Records Australia. The album, which features Bibby’s latest backing band Dog Act — Pete “Strawberry Pete” Gower (bass) and Dave “Dirty Dave” Taylor (drums) derives its name from Dave Taylor’s grandmother Marge. The titular Marge is prominently featured on the album’s cover art, smoking a cigarette on a beach in Darwin, Australia, seemingly watching her corner of the world go by. “I felt there was no better image than a smoking nanna to be the face of this album,” Bibby says. Sonically, the album is splintered and volatile and written as a sort of soundtrack to a surf movie from hell, where there’s blood in the water, a dirt road leading to a dead end — and everything is covered in diesel fumes and dust. “The Dog Act and I recorded this album in a week off in Perth between two Australian tours. We were match fit and full of beans,” Bibby says of the album. “It features a selection of songs, some fun, some completely bloody miserable. It was made better by the involvement of the fourth Dog, Mitch McDonald, who engineered the record and offered endless energy and ideas. I love this record.”
So far I’ve written about two of the album’s previously released singles: the disorderly, wobbly and boozy “Oceans,” a track full of spittle, fury and howled invective centered around fuzzy and lurching power chords, thunderous drumming and drunken shout along worthy choruses reminiscent of Johnny Thunders‘ “Born to Lose,”and John Cale‘s “Pablo Picasso” — and “Whyalla,” a love letter and condemnation of rural Australia that viciously points out the hopelessness, small-minded thinking and boredom of that world with the sort of lived-in hate, despair and deeply abiding love you’d feel for a dysfunctional and fucked-up family member.
Marge’s third and latest single “Calcium” is a slow-burning track that’s one part sarcastic yet scientific study and one part late night, shitfaced blues, centered around shimmering guitars, BIbby’s earnestly howled vocals, twinkling piano and shout along friendly hook. The song features a narrator, who’s deeply concerned about his calcium intake — mainly because he’s concerned about his teeth becoming jacked up. See, vanity, they name is male!
“I wrote this song on the back porch of a mate’s place in Mt Lawley. I remember having read a lot of mumbo jumbo about the dairy industry at the time. The lyrics felt silly but the tune felt so nice to sing. Engineer Mitch pulled a real shifty on me and put my guitar solo in reverse, resulting in me being a happy boy,” Bibby says of the new single.
Co-directed by Bibby and Billy Bowen, the recently released video for “Calcium” follows Bibby on a typical night at his regular bar: Bibby having preternatural restraint and control as friends and regulars offer him booze, cigarettes and alcohol, which he steadfastly refuses. Throughout the video we see Bibby drink milk, lose terribly at pool and hunt for vitamins like a fiend. It’s hilarious and absurd — but at the end, Bibby can say that his grill looks good.
New Video: Acclaimed Aussie Artist Peter Bibby Releases a Fiery Examination of Rural Australian Life
Peter Bibby is a rising and critically applauded Fremantle, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, whose career started in earnest when he turned 19: he quit the unfulfilling job he was working at the time to busk, eventually landing a few paying gigs. Sometime later, Bibby landed a high paying job that he wound he losing because he would show up hungover from the gigs he’d play the night before. So, he wound up playing even more gigs with a series of different backing bands including Frozen Ocean, Fucking Teeth and Bottles of Confidence while developing a unique, rough and tumble sound and approach — one that many have described as being like Shane McGowan screaming at bleeding laudanum and typhoid hallucinations while his guitar playing has been described as being like a dog drunk on rum.
With the release of his first two albums 2014’s Butcher/Hairstylist/Beautician and 2018’s Grand Champion, Bibby has been championed for being an inherently working class and wholeheartedly independent artist, further documented in greater detail in the 2018 film Chasing Palm Springs, which followed Bibby on a cross-country trip from Perth to Melbourne in a temperamental van. Since then, the Fremantle-based artist has begun to build a growing profile and reputation as a must see act, as a result of a rowdy and raucous live set — and through headlining shows and international festival circuit stops at Laneway, Falls and SXSW.
Earlier this year, Bibby released “Oceans,” the first bit of new material since the release of Grand Champion. Featuring his latest backing band Dog Act — “Strawberry Pete” Gower (bass) and “Dirty Dave” Taylor (drums) — “Oceans” is disorderly, boozy and wobbly take on garage roc that’s full of spittle, fury and howled inventive, fuzzy and lurching power chords, thunderous drumming and drunken, shout worthy choruses that reminded me a bit of Johnny Thunders‘ “Born to Lose,”and John Cale‘s “Pablo Picasso” — but much more unhinged.
“Oceans” will be included on Bibby’s forthcoming third album, Marge. Slated for a September 18, 2020 through Spinning Top Records, the album features Dog Act as his backing band. Reportedly, Marge, which derives its name from Dave Taylor’s grandmother Marge, and is an album of splintered, volatile Australiana written as a sort of soundtrack to a surf movie from hell — the sort where there’s blood in water; a dirt road leading to a dirt end; and everything is covered in diesel fumes and dust. “The Dog Act and I recorded this album in a week off in Perth between two Australian tours. We were match fit and full of beans,” Bibby says of the album. “It features a selection of songs, some fun, some completely bloody miserable. It was made better by the involvement of the fourth Dog, Mitch McDonald, who engineered the record and offered endless energy and ideas. I love this record.”
The titular Marge is prominently featured on the album’s cover art, smoking a cigarette on a beach in Darwin, Australia, seemingly watching her corner of the world go by. “I felt there was no better image than a smoking nanna to be the face of this album,” Bibby says.
“Whyalla,” Marge’s second single derives its name from name of a South Australian steel town that had been in decline for years. Centered around churning power chords, thunderous drumming and an unhinged spittle and invective delivered vocal and a classic grunge rock song structure, the track is simultaneously a love letter and a fiery condemnation of rural Australia, pointing out the hopelessness, small-minded thinking and boredom of rural life in a way that feels full of the sort of lived-in hate, despair and abiding love you’d feel for a dysfunctional and fucked-up family member. The song’s spoken word bridge features Bibby telling some tall tales about some of Whyalla’s notable legends — but drenched with irony.
“I wrote this song a few years back after my mate Racoo asked me to write a song for a road trip compilation she was putting together. I don’t think it saw the light of day. I had a lot of help from Wikipedia,” says Bibby of the track.
Directed by Brendan Hutchens, the video is sort of a hitchhiker’s guide to nowhere in particular; the sort of nowhere in particular that somehow feels, well — American. We see Bibby getting up from camp, walking alongside a deserted road, hitchhiking until two guys — the members of his band — pick him up, They pull over to the side of the road to play and pay homage to Whyalla’s legends. Much like the video for “Oceans,” the accompanying video for “Whyalla” feels like a slow-burning fever dream.
“We shot this thing out in Glen Eagle’s Rest, due to COVID 19 we couldn’t shoot it in Whyalla,” Bibby says in press notes. “It came together nicely with the help of great friends, a great crew and a weird toilet cleaner who hung around telling us strange and creepy facts about the location. He said he was disappointed that we weren’t shooting a porno.”
New Video: GUM Returns with a Trippy Animated Visual for “Airwalkin'”
Jay Watson is a Carnavon, Australia-born, Fremantle, Australia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who creatively splits his time as a member of acclaimed psych rock acts and JOVM mainstays Tame Impala and POND — and with his acclaimed solo recording project GUM.
Watson’s fifth GUM album Out In The World, which was officially released today through Spinning Top Music, is the highly-anticipated follow-up to 2018’s critically applauded The Underdog. Written and recorded in between his commitments with POND and Tame Impala at his Fremantle-based home studio and while on the road, Out In The World continues Watson’s long-held reputation for his voracious taste for styles, sounds and eras — paired with his ongoing quest to make sense of modern life. Driven by untethered curiosity and the inherent anxiety of way too much awareness, the album is arguably, the most boundary pushing of his growing catalog. “This album is my attempt at making a record that combines my fascination of how other people live their lives, with my own internal desire to analyse mine and improve it,” Watson says of his latest album. “‘Out In The World’ was a phrase that conjured a lot of grandeur and ego, yet somehow felt really small and wholesome at the same time.”
Earlier this year, I wrote about “Don’t Let It Go Out,” Out In The World’s second single, a track that found Watson pushing his sound and songwriting in a bold new direction with its influences blurring into something distinctly Watson. “Airwalkin,” the album’s latest single is a swaggering, 80s synth pop inspired banger centered around boom bap-like beats, squiggling and shimmering synths, a soaring string sample, an enormous hook with vocodered vocals and Watson’s plaintive vocals. The end result is a song that sounds as though it were indebted to J. Dilla. Odelay-era Beck and Future Shock-era Herbie Hancock and Kraftwerk.
“This song is trying to capture the feeling of walking around my rural town with my Discman as a teenager, completely self-conscious about the way I look but completely feeling myself at the same time.” Watson says. “3 and a half minutes of Boombox Rock inspired by Stevie Wonder, Dilla and Beck.”
Directed by Alex McClaren, the recently released video for “Airwalkin'” is a vividly colored visual that features a variety of characters — three-eyed dog, a kid’s toy robot, a walking recycling bin and a walking boom box among others — walking through some trippy yet mischievous backdrops. “I wanted to do something with Alex McClaren again. He’d worked on the claymation video for ‘The Blue Marble’ off my last album, I love his stuff. I only had quite a vague idea that the clip could be a figure moving across a landscape in claymation, a vocoder robot-man initially, and Alex went next level with it’.”
New Video: Peter Bibby Releases a Feverish and Watery Visual for Rowdy and Explosive “Oceans”
Peter Bibby is a rising and critically applauded Fremantle, Australia-based singer/songwriter and guitarist, who started his career when he turned 19, quitting the job he had at the time to busk, eventually landing a few paying gigs. Sometime later, Bibby landed a high paying job that he eventually lost because he would show up hungover from the gigs he’d play the night before. So, he wound up playing even more gigs with a series of different backing bands including Frozen Ocean, Fucking Teeth and Bottles of Confidence while developing a unique, rough and tumble sound and approach — one that many have described as being like Shane McGowan screaming at bleeding laudanum and typhoid hallucinations while his guitar playing with his guitar playing like a dog drunk on rum.
With the release of his first two album’s 2014’s Butcher/Hairstylist/Beautician and 2018’s Grand Champion, Bibby has also been championed as an inherently working-class and wholeheartedly independent artist, commemorated in the 2018 documentary Chasing Palm Springs, which followed Bibby on a cross-country trip from Perth to Melbourne in a temperamental van. Along with that, the Fremantle-based artist has begun building up a growing profile as a must-see act as a result of rowdy and raucous live set through headlining shows and stops across the international festival circuit — particularly with stops at Laneway, Falls and SXSW.
Interestingly, today marks the release of Bibby’s first bit of new material since Grand Champion, his latest single “Oceans,” features his latest backing band, the rowdy and disorderly Dog Act, “Strawberry Pete” Gower (bass) and “Dirty Dave” Taylor (drums) — and the track is a wobbly, boozy and disorderly take on garage rock that’s full of spittle, fury and howled invective, fuzzy and lurching power chords, thunderous drumming and drunken shout worthy choruses that to my ears reminds me a little bit of Johnny Thunders’ “Born to Lose,” John Cale’s “Pablo Picasso” and others — but much more unhinged.
“‘Oceans’ started out as a little sea shanty-esque poem scrawled on a piece of paper about going mad in the middle of the ocean. With the help of the Dog Act it soon morphed into a fairly raucous tune,” Bibby explains. “I used vibrato on the guitars to give it a wobbly seasick kind of sound, and we had some mates join us in the studio to sing along and clink beers together in the final chorus to give it the vibe of a pack of people getting drunk on a boat. As far as I recall, it is the only song I have written about losing one’s mind out at sea.”
Directed and shot by Duncan Wright, Luna Laure and Rhys Jones, the recently released video was shot around Fremantle and features Duncan as a shabbily dressed merman, a fisherman, a loutish, local drunkard and a drowning man — and each of those characters in one way or another is slowly going mad. It’s a dizzying and lysergic fever dream seemingly inspired by way copious amounts of booze, despair, loneliness and seasickness. “The video was shot around Fremantle over a weekend by Duncan Wright , Luna Laure and Rhys Jones who came up with the whole idea in no time flat after COVID-19 put holes in our original plan,” Bibby says of the video. “I got to pretend I was a poorly dressed mermaid, a wharfy, a fisherman and a drowning guy as well as have a pretty damn good time doing it. I got a lot of seawater in my mouth for this video, but as we say in the game you have to suffer for the art. This is my second video featuring work overalls.”
New Video: GUM Releases a Hazy and Feverish Visual for Shimmering and Bold New Single “Don’t Let It Go Out”
Jay Watson is a Carnavon, Australia-born, Fremantle, Australia-based singer/songwriter, multi-instrumentalist and producer, who creatively splits his time as a member of acclaimed psych rock acts and JOVM mainstays Tame Impala and POND — and with his acclaimed solo recording project GUM.
Slated for a June 12, 2020 release through Spinning Top Music, Watson’s fifth GUM album Out In The World is the highly-anticipated follow-up to 2018’s The Underdog, which was released to critical applause from Pitchfork, who called the album “a dark-night-of-the-soul reckoning embedded in a hazy fog of Floydian psych and quiet-storm R&B,” as well as several others. Written and recorded in between his commitments with POND and Tame Impala at his Fremantle-based home studio and while on the road, Out In The World continues Watson’s long-held reputation for his voracious taste for styles, sounds and eras — paired with his ongoing quest to make sense of modern life. Driven by untethered curiosity and the inherent anxiety of way too much awareness, the album is reportedly the most boundary pushing effort of his growing catalog, “This album is my attempt at making a record that combines my fascination of how other people live their lives, with my own internal desire to analyse mine and improve it,” Watson says of his forthcoming album. “‘Out In The World’ was a phrase that conjured a lot of grandeur and ego, yet somehow felt really small and wholesome at the same time.”
“Don’t Let It Go Out,” Out In The World’s second and latest single features a glistening, arpeggio guitar riff, jangling acoustic guitar, propulsive four-on-the-floor-like drumming, shimmering synths, a supple bass line, Watson’s plaintive vocals and a rousing and infectious hook. Interestingly, the track finds Watson pushing his sound and songwriting in a bold new direction. Interestingly, “Don’t Let It Go Out” can trace its origins to initially being laid down at home but arranged, edited, chopped and screwed while on the road — and as a result, it adds to a further blurring of the song’s overall sound. “My music for years was an obvious sum of its influences but it’s getting harder and harder to pick,” Watson says of the song, “‘Don’t Let It Go Out’ is about our modern desire to capture or record and keep every moment. The ease, not only to do all this, but then to lose it forever down the track inspires and disturbs me.”
Directed by Laura-Lynn Petrick, the recently released video for “Don’t Let It Go Out” follows a lonely, trench coat wearing Watson as he wanders around — and the video evokes the fever dream of traveling, complete with the odd feeling of places endlessly blurring in a way that’s familiar yet alien.