The Goon Sax – ‘In The Stone’ + UK Tour Date
THE GOON SAX ANNOUNCE NEW ALBUM
OUT JULY 9 ON MATADOR
WATCH THE VIDEO FOR FIRST SINGLE
DETAIL SEPTEMBER 2021 UK TOUR DATES
(Credit: Elliott Lauren
The Goon Sax will be releasing their new album Mirror II on July 9th on Matador. The band’s third album and first for Matador, Mirror lI is a new beginning: a multi-dimensional eclectic journey of musical craftsmanship that moves from disco to folk to no wave skronk with staggering cohesion. The first-person narratives of their school days have graduated into an immersive and fluid world, one where “the narrator changes, the view-point isn’t definitive”. Songs have been m
ade expansive, more universal, more weird— as introduced by the supernatural avant-pop of first single ‘In The Stone’.
Watch the video, directed by Mara Palena HERE.
“‘In The Stone’ is set in Berlin where I moved with my partner at the time, just after finishing school and recording our last album We’re Not Talking at the end of 2017,” says Louis Forster.
“We were both exploring ourselves – accepting each other’s changes and celebrating flux – but also reckoning with the complicated need for a solid sense of self and the person we loved. Musically the song was influenced by what was playing in the background of our conversations which often took place in Ubers, supermarkets, outside parties etc. So it probably bears more of a subconsciously absorbed modern pop influence than anything else we’ve done as a band.”
The band have also announced a run of UK dates in September, including a headline show at London’s MOTH Club on September 6 and a slot at End Of The Road festival. A full list of dates can be found below, alongside previously announced spring Australian shows.
Since forming in high school, Brisbane band The Goon Sax—the trio of Riley Jones, Louis Forster, and James Harrison, best friends who take turns writing, singing, and playing each instrument—have been celebrated for their kinetic homemade pop. On their debut album, 2016’s Up to Anything, it was their candid affection and scrappy instrumentation that drew praise; 2018’s We’re Not Talking was exalted for the same—their massive choruses, a sharpening of their craft, then with an addition of horns, strings, piano, and castanets to their guitar/bass/drums.
Mirror ll, recorded in Bristol at Invada Studios, owned by Geoff Barrow of Portishead and Beak, with producer John Parish (Aldous Harding, PJ Harvey), is the result of three years of writing, and some considerable time spent apart: Louis relocated to Berlin and worked at a cinema (he sings in German on the track ‘Bathwater’), Riley and James formed an angular post-punk band called Soot. All three experimented with abstract, atonal sounds before recapturing the essence of The Goon Sax: “pop melody,” Louis explains.
“The first two albums are inherently linked. They had three-word titles; they went together. This one definitely felt like going back to square one and starting again, and that was really freeing.” “We lived in a shared house together, this tiny little Queenslander we called ‘Fantasy Planet,’ where we wrote the album,” Riley explains. “We were able to go to each other’s rooms and say anything that came to mind and go to the practice room three times a week. It was pretty intense.” Mirror II is intense, the sum of everything that has always made The Goon Sax great: robust sprechgesang, raw lyrical candor, ascending guitar pop structures that would make the most storied jangle bands blush, elevated into their newfound narrative verisimilitude and expanded sonic experimentations. Riley’s bubblegum noise is more present than ever before (‘Desire’, ‘Tag’) reflecting her heavy Les Rallizes Dénudés and Keiji Haino influence, and some Kylie Minogue-inspired “sparkle sound”. Louis’ moody, shapeshifting pop (‘Psychic’, ‘In the Stone’) stems from an admiration for HTRK, Young Marble Giants, Stereolab, The Motels’ ‘Total Control’, Justin Beiber’s ‘Sorry’, Chris Kraus’s I Love Dick and Diane Di Prima’s Memoirs of a Beatnik in equal measure. James’ psychedelic folk (‘Carpetry’, ‘Caterpillars’) is no doubt studied from The Walker Brothers, Jandek, Felt, and Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett. “I got into Syd Barrett’s lyrics because they were hazy, relatable and honest but up in the air. That’s how I felt,” he says of his whimsical songs. “I was experiencing romantic love for the first time, it felt out of my control, and there’s something about Syd Barrett’s lyrics… it doesn’t just come from inside us; it is the moments that are happening to us as well.” Those uninhibited combinations wouldn’t work for most bands, but then again, The Goon Sax aren’t most bands: their deep trust in one another is the very spirit of Mirror ll.
“I was reading The Philosophy of Andy Warhol the other day. He said something so perfect… ‘I’m sure I’m going to look in the mirror and see nothing. People are always calling me a mirror, and if a mirror looks into a mirror, what is there to see?’” Riley recites. “The name [Mirror II] was totally arbitrary to begin with, but it became about reflecting on reflection: we all get so influenced by each other. You find other people who show you yourself, who you are.” – Maria Sherman Read the full album bio by Maria Sherman HERE
Mirror II is available for pre-order via Matador Records here – https://thegoonsax.ffm.to/mirrorii
The album is released in Australia and New Zealand via Chapter Music.
Tracklist
1. In The Stone
2. Psychic
3. Tag
4. Temples
5. The Chance
6. Bath Water
7. Desire
8. Carpetry
9. Til Dawn
10. Caterpillars
AUS Tour Dates
21/5/21 – The Zoo, Brisbane
28/5/21 – Mary’s Underground, Sydney
3/6/21 – RISING Festival, MelbourneUK
Tour Dates:
01/09/21 Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
02-05/09/21 – End of the Road Festival
06/09/21 – MOTH Club, London
07/09/21 – Pink Room, YES, Manchester
08/09/21 – Mono, Glasgow
The Goon Sax
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