Just a year and a half since the release of his critically acclaimed LP Transangelic Exodus, Ezra Furman has returned with Twelve Nudes, yet another incendiary and inspiring classic from the singer/songwriter/guitarist/bandleader.

“This is our punk record,” says Furman. “We made it in Oakland, quickly. We drank and smoked. Then we made the loud parts louder. I hurt my voice screaming. This was back in 2018, when things were bad in the world. The songs are naked with nothing to hide.”

“I think we curate our reactions to current news because we’re overwhelmed by how bad it is, and I noticed I was suppressing how bad I truly felt. I wanted music that gave me permission to feel how it felt to live in a broken world, which punk rock does.”

Furman’s preceding album, 2018’s Transangelic Exodus, was “an angry and fearful and pent-up reaction to events too,” he recalls. “But it was a carefully written and recorded version; we took a lot of time with edits and overdubs. I knew I wanted I make this album quickly and not spend time thinking how to play the songs. Twelve Nudes is a ‘body’ more than a ‘mind’ record - more animal than intellectual, And by affirming negativity, it gives you energy, to reject stuff. There’s more space for positivity.”

“The record is political,” says Furman, “but it offers an emotional reaction rather than being specific or partisan. One of my goals in making music is to make the world seem bigger, and life seem larger,” he concludes. “I want to be a force that tries to revive the human spirit rather than crush it, to open possibilities rather than close them down. Sometimes a passionate negativity is the best way to do that.”

Release: Bella Union/Inertia, August 23rd, 2019
Words: Bella Union

Look Me In The Eye is the incarnation of a fresh direction for Mermaidens. Laced with themes of power and control, their evolved sound is confronting, lyrically introspective and fervent at every level. 

Recorded with long-time collaborator, audio engineer James Goldsmith at Blue Barn Recording Studio, the album sees Mermaidens pushing new boundaries in a body of work that is as severe and progressive as it is vibrant and exhilarating. 

At the heart of the record lies the thematic exploration of female voices, as co-lead vocalists Gussie Larkin (guitar) and Lily West (bass), with dynamic support from Abe Hollingsworth (drums) expose embedded motifs of exterior masks, human relationships and power dynamics.

Release: Friday September 6th, 2019, Flying Nun Records
​Words: Flying Nun

Melbourne-based, feminist brat-wave band Hearts and Rockets have just released their second long player, Power, on blue 12” vinyl, digitally and via all streaming platforms. 

The 14 track album Power is anchored by Hearts and Rockets’ unmistakable driving bass lines, buzzing analogue synth and clattering 808 drum machine beats, plus the addition of chorus-drenched guitar. On Power, Kalindy and Kurt reinvent the sound they created in 2017, all mixed and mastered by their career-long collaborator Mikey Young.

Hearts and Rockets have pushed themselves beyond the hazy Heat Wave days, taking the fun and energy of their debut album Dead Beats and adding some serious pop smarts. They’re set to take it on the road for a tour in September 2019 playing Melbourne, Sydney, Wollongong and Brisbane, then to Ballarat, Adelaide and Tassie in November.

Power’s effect is in its simplicity: Hearts and Rockets don’t mince words, and they don’t waste time. Their short-sharp and catchy tracks are fun, without being vapid. They’ll make you want to dance, and definitely sing along.

Release: August 23rd, 2019, Psychic Hysteria
​Words: Psychic Hysteria

Braindrops is the follow up album from Tropical Fuck Storm's 2018 debut A Laughing Death In Meatspace and similarly, written and recorded in the bands home 'Dodgy Brothers Studio' in regional Victoria.

“I've invented fake news as a genre of music,” Gareth Liddiard observes with a laugh. He’s talking about “Maria 63”, the closing track on Tropical Fuck Storm’s Braindrops.  The song takes aim at the once-marginalized alt-right conspiracy theories that now seem to be a driving force behind the rise of fascism in global politics. “It’s about a Mossad agent traveling to Buenos Aires to assassinate Maria Orsic, a Nazi witch who telepathically got the blueprints for warp drive engines from aliens,” Liddiard shares.

“It may be the most stupid song ever written,” Liddiard jokes. He’s wrong, “Maria 63” is emblematic of Tropical Fuck Storm’s keen ability to mine the extreme edge of pop culture’s periphery for potent musical and conceptual spice. Braindrops overflows with compelling sounds and visions that reflect the often dark and fractured reality of life on planet Earth as we hurtle toward environmental and social decay at a frighteningly rapid clip.

“Everything we do, we try to do it in a weird way. The whole album is full of weird beats, and just weird shit everywhere,” Liddiard explains. He cites Doc at the Radar Station-era Captain Beefheart as a key sonic touchstone, and Braindrops certainly shares the Captain’s penchant for pounding abstract grooves. Tropical Fuck Storm have achieved a uniquely off-kilter sound on Braindrops. Liddiard partly credits this to the group’s use of unconventional equipment, “We use lots of techno gear to make rock and roll because rock and roll gear is boring, and all sounds like Led Zeppelin.”

Liddiard’s own description of Tropical Fuck Storm’s sound is nearly as interesting and evocative as the music itself. He describes the LP’s title track as “Fela Kuti in a car crash,” and talks of creating a sonic atmosphere that “sounds like chloroform smells” for “Maria 62”. Liddiard can be a bit more taciturn when asked to get specific on the group’s lyrical themes. “It's not always a good idea to be too straightforward.” Instead Liddiard favours a “more nebulous and mysterious” approach.

A recurring theme on Braindrops concerns the various ways the human brain can be manipulated and controlled for exploitative gain. The bracing “The Planet of Straw Men” is a study of human behaviour inside the social media comments section, a place where otherwise reasonable people are seen gleefully engaging in psychotic chest-thumping rhetoric. “It's about everyone having a screaming match,” Liddiard says. “You see two people yelling at each other on Twitter, but they're not really yelling at each other, they're yelling at each other's idea of the other. Meanwhile countries like Russia are taking advantage of this to push their ideologies and get ahead.” Erica Dunn’s “Who’s My Eugene?” contemplates a more personal example of predatory mind control. “It's about Eugene Landy, the doctor that drugged the shit out of Brian Wilson and emptied his bank account,” Liddiard explains.

While Liddiard is careful not to give away too much about the band’s lyrics, he’s confident that audiences will find their own meaning. “If you show a gorilla Hamlet, even if he was capable of reading it, he wouldn't be capable of seeing himself in it. But with humans that's kind of what we do. We have our heads up our own asses.”

Listening to Braindrops is a jarring and exhilarating experience, full of pulsating grooves, black humour, dissonant experimentation, and unsettling dystopian plot-lines. Braindrops is an unrelenting work, from an unrelenting musical ensemble. “Tropical Fuck Storm is a full-on thing,” Liddiard offers. “Everything we do, we do it to death.”

Release: August 23rd, 2019, Flightless Records
Words: Secret Service PR

Press Club’s sonic calling cards are all present on their second full length, Wasted Energy; the fuzz-addled, kicked-in speaker bass of Iain MacRae, the razor sharp guitar tones of Greg Rietwyk, the merciless drumming of Frank Lees, not to forget the emotionally charged vocal deliverance of Natalie Foster.


Wasted Energy approaches the microphone through a lens of extrospection. It examines the negative behaviours in the world around us and how we’re all learning to exist in today’s ever-evolving socio-moral landscape. Wasted Energy is broadly about change, and life’s watershed moments that change its course. These shifts are laterally represented lyrically and sonically in many of its songs. Sweeping about-faces and musical departures are an expansion of the musical fibre that make up the Press Club repertoire.


"From the writing and recording to the design and video making... I couldn't be more proud of every single part of this album."  Natalie Foster


Wasted Energy follows on from acclaimed debut album, Late Teens, which thrust the group into life on the Australian and European touring circuits. 


With a hard-earned reputation for relentless touring, Press Club celebrate the release of Wasted Energy is coupled with the announcement of a massive Australian tour slated for later this year which will see the band play shows in NSW, VIC, ACT, QLD, SA, TAS and WA, shortly after their second assault on Europe and The U.K for 2019. 


“For some reason being on the road is a tranquil place for us. We’ve all always been pretty intrepid people. To be able to spend another stint in Europe this year, after the first one was so flattering is brilliant. Everything is different from place to place. New cities, new people, new music scenes that operate in completely foreign ways. The one thing that seems to be a unifying constant is music. I can’t wait to hit the tarmac again.” - MacRae

Release: Friday August 16th, Independent
​Words: Little Giant PR