Gut Health are a six-piece hypnotic dance-punk ensemble from Naarm/Melbourne. Stiletto is their debut album. Recorded in 2023 with long-term collaborator Julian Cue (CIVIC, Screensaver) and Gut Health’s Dom Willmott at Button Pusher Studios and APAX Warehouse in Preston, produced by Dom Willmott and bandmate Adam Markmann, mixed by Portland’s Evan Mersky (Lithics) on a 24-track reel-to-reel tape machine, and featuring additional contributions from saxophonist Yang Chen, Gut Health’s debut offering is an immersive ten-track foray into dancefloor-inducing soundscapes and punchy prowess, with songs oscillating between infectious up-tempo numbers, hypnotic bliss and chaotic noise edging precariously toward collapse.
GutHealth’s expression of the healing qualities of consensual rage and their unadulterated demonstration of sonic shapeshifting, lingering tension and auditory ambition gives Stiletto its magnetic edge. Tracks flicker between atonality and melodicism, while unpredictably snaking and expanding into engulfing, kaleidoscopic soundscapes, reinforced by a groove-heavy rhythm section that champions the diverse musical backgrounds of each player – spanning punk to jazz to sound design and beyond.
Dynamic front-person Athina Uh oh’s lyrics build upon their stream-of-consciousness approach to writing, obliquely drawing upon personal experiences and broader societal observations – like the value of listening and sharing, the challenges of contemporary so-called Australia, the destruction and erasure of Indigenous countries and people, and the empowerment of high-femmes and marginalised communities – while largely leaning into imagery and concepts to entice listeners to form song interpretations of their own.
Gut Health’s 2022 debut EP, Electric Party Chrome Girl (EPCG), self-recorded in a storage facility in the heart of Brunswick, marked an experimental venture into defining the band’s fast-developing sound. Initially intended as demos, the tracks evolved into a standalone work, released locally via Marthouse Records. Stiletto builds upon EPCG’s scaffolding, offering a more realised and expansive exploration of Gut Health’s musical core. Indeed, the central elements of Gut Health’s music – chaotic verses juxtaposed with hypnotic and danceable rhythms, and melodicism – remains, but Stiletto encapsulates a vaster sense of depth and dimension.
Release: October 11th, 2024, Highly Contagious / AWAL Recordings