e4444e Shares ‘Skink' Ahead Of Authentic Natural Tradition Release Next Friday
'Skink' is a kind of lover's lament taking the form of small, fragmented vignettes: strong windows, a skink coming around a wall, and a moment of seeing someone as they really are. An image, as Church sings, of life's "lonely carousel." Church says it was inspired by the 'feeling of wind rushing over you while you sit still.' The song contains a similar gentle force, beginning with unaccompanied acoustic guitar that slowly builds with soft synths and xylophone.
Authentic Natural Tradition might be Church's most direct statement, with the cloudy arrangements of his previous record (I Spend All Day Drawing a Circle) cleared to make way for breathy vocals, bittersweet lyrics and delicate guitars and percussion. On this album, Church's reflections float to the surface of his tracks, clear-eyed and bracing. Lyrics are not buried deep into the mix, but slice through. Meanwhile, the album's lyrics push against linearity, playing with the haphazard nature of dreams and the subconscious. Celestial forces, strange associations and juxtaposing images abound on Authentic Natural Tradition, but the record never feels lofty or out of grasp. Rather, Church's abstract tales feel grounded, through their visceral emotions and invocations of the natural world.
Like I Spend All Day Drawing a Circle, Church recorded, performed and mixed the album by himself, with a few friends dropping by to add in live drums and guitar hooks. The title is a sly joke – Church wanting to put aside alternative tunings and revisit more simple chord hooks. He was also poking fun at himself. As he says, the album reflects the 'tradition' he's created over his past four records, with Church becoming increasingly aware of his own fixations, themes and sounds. Yet, Authentic Natural Tradition sees Church expanding his palette like never before, with dips into psych-rock, ghostly techno and sprawling country.
Authentic Natural Tradition continues e4444e's prolific and expansive output, joining last year's Soft Sighing Dusk I Never See You, I Spend All Day Drawing a Circle (2023), Autumnal Eve (2021) and Australian Music Prize-nominated Coldstream Road (2020), as well as a string of self-released EPs and stand-alone singles. Cited by The Guardian as 'one of the best young artists in the country', his work has been met with widespread acclaim from NME, Rolling Stone Australia, The Music, The Australian and Fashion Journal among others, with regular plays and praise across FBi Radio (Album of the Week x 4), 2SER (rotation), Triple R, 2SER and more. Live, e4444e has shared stages with Emma Russack, Godtet, thatboykwame and Body Type, among others, plus landed a coveted slot on innovative Gadigal land/Sydney venue, Phoenix Central Park's Season III program.
Authentic Natural Tradition singles 'Liberation', 'Crutch' and 'Skink' have been embraced by Spotify with adds to New Music Friday, Indie Arrivals, Fresh Finds, Fresh Finds Indie, Fresh Finds AU & NZ, and cover spots on Tapestry and Alt Here, with additional support from rage ('Liberation' scored a Wild One feature on release), Rolling Stone AU, FBi Radio, RTR, 2SER, 4ZZZ and 3RRR, David Dean Burkhart and Newcastle Herald among others, alongside debuts on the NZ RadioScope Alternative Airplay Chart.
Authentic Natural Tradition is out next Friday, May 30 via Dinosaur City. Pre-order the album on limited-edition, recycled 12" vinyl and stream the singles now.
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Solo Career, the beguiling bedroom-pop project of Body Type's Annabel Blackman today shares her debut album, Interior Delirium, out now via Dinosaur City. Interior Delirium is a glorious and sly synth pop record about the absurdity of identity – how we perform for others and ourselves, the puppetry that plays out across culture, and the freak impulses that startle our sense of self. It's fitting for a project that was borne from musician Annabel Blackman's interest in the uncanny and reflective possibilities of persona. 'The album revolves around awkwardness, earnestness, gripe-picking, lustful stewing, play and self-deprecation' says Blackman. If her first solo EP The Sentimentalist (2021) was a dreamy strut, Interior Delirium is an unruly waltz, where foggy, late-night longing merges with stomping, hilarious, cyborg satire. Interior Delirium was made in-between tours and sessions for Blackman's group Body Type, and served as a counterpoint to playing and writing in a band. She was able to explore a radically different mode of making music – where she was free to obsess and fixate, and let experimentation and imperfection be. As Blackman puts it: 'Solo Career is part control freak, part embellished mess.' The album was performed, recorded, and mixed entirely by Blackman, and marks the release of songs that she's been tinkering with for many years. Advertisement - scroll to continue reading 'I'd pick up an instrument, make a blip or blop and follow the thread until a song took shape,' says Blackman. 'I started one of the songs almost ten years ago, picked it up and finished it 6 years later, played it at shows for a couple years, and then got so tired of working on it by myself that I just let the jagged edges be, because polished stuff isn't for me anyway.' Lead single 'Venus on Speed Dial' is a synth-driven road song about the discombobulations of desire, and how wanting someone can so often come at the expense of your own personhood: 'This one is dedicated to being messed around by someone and going a bit loopy, and the experience of morphing yourself into whatever you think someone might like you to be,' says Blackman. The song revels in this claustrophobia, with distorted synths, fuzzy guitars and Blackman's disaffected drawl ("What's your ideal/ What's the appeal'), which swaddles the song in both humour and tenderness. In Interior Delirium, alienation is the presiding texture of modern life, manifesting in the most ridiculous way. 'Spring Drills', a bouncing New Wave song stripped back to its brittle bones, pokes fun at the inescapable building developments that riddle both the city and the suburbs, causing endless racket. As Blackman sings: 'The spring drill sings / spirals through the window / And every cell of your being / wants to jump out the window'. 'Neo Soul Jazz Afternoon' is a slow-burning dream-pop ballad, which discusses the dullness of easy listening music that has taken over shopping malls and offices. 'Is That U', a wry rock song about women going to extreme lengths to look ageless and exactly like one another, brimming with dark, hilarious imagery: flesh being hacked off, g-string seams, and a 'saturday rhinoplasty with my sister'. How can one stave off the dread? On Interior Delirium, Blackman gives us a tart tasting platter of what's on offer. 'Spenda', released last month alongside a visual masterpiece courtesy of acclaimed artist, Matthew Griffin, is crazed, robotic, electro-pop (replete with jagged guitars and vocals pitched so high they mimic a kid having a temper tantrum) about the agony and addiction of online shopping. 'It's a sad thing when you're caught in the futility of trying to buy someone a present,' says Blackman. But despite the song's mechanical bent, there is a hidden layer of sweetness – it's really a love song about hoping a gift will embody all your affection for someone ('I want to buy you everything,' as Blackman coos). 'Beta' is a buzzing, lo-fi synth song about the allure of the beta blocker: 'it's this gag about taking beta blockers and then becoming some like, hardcore Alpha Dog' says Blackman. If all else fails, you can, like Blackman's father, go see Avatar eight times at the cinemas, which she tenderly chronicles in the sauntering 'Avatar' (featuring Boba Lego AKA Oscar Sulich of Eternal Dust), something of a spiritual sequel to her 2021 track 'Movie'. But despite all these endless alienations and futile cures, connection is still found and fought for. 'GWD' is a pounding, fuzzy anthem to friend and Body Type member Georgia Wilkinson-Derums ('if she likes it I know it's good'). The album ends with the lush and atmospheric 'Bed Knot', an ode to Blackman's boyfriend's bed hair in the morning. But it's also about entanglement – a kind of euphoria that can sometimes stifle. 'It's that feeling of being lovingly trapped,' says Blackman 'being totally wrapped up in each other.' Interior Delirium has a similar enveloping charm: it's a beguiling and twisty record, full of great, scrappy pleasures and droll affection. Since the release of her debut EP The Sentimentalist via Dinosaur City in 2021, Solo Career has been met with critical acclaim from PAPER Magazine, NME, KEXP, WFMU and community radio across Australia. Her song 'Movie' was featured in Fader's Best Songs of 2021, and her EP The Sentimentalist was included in The Guardian's Best Australian Albums of 2021. 'Venus on Speed Dial', the first single from her upcoming album, was added to rotation at FBi Radio and RTR, charted at 4ZZZ, and featured on Rolling Stone Australia's as 'Song You Need to Know'. It's accompanying Gus Macleod-directed music video featured as rage's 'Wild One'. Solo Career's thrilling live sets – where Blackman combines the humour and theatrics of cabaret with her stylish, singular synth-pop – has seen her support Julia Jacklin, The Hard Quartet, Gum and Springtime, among others. Interior Delirium is out now via Dinosaur City.
