Your favourite garage-psych group King Lizard and the Lizard Wizard know a thing or two when it comes to pioneering in the world of production. They recorded and distributed their first EP entirely off their own backs, went on to release 8 albums in about four years, have five more projects lined up for 2017, they’ve just won an ARIA, and have also managed to gift Australia with its very own psychedelic festival, Gizzfest.
After debuting last year, Gizzfest’s sophomore undertaking has seen a bunch of national and international acts hopping around our shores, including the legendary White Fence, POND, Stonefield, Los Angelenos Mild High Club, ORB, The Murlocs, and funk master Boulevards. We blissed out to all of these and more at Sydney’s Luna Park.
ORB
Jaala
Stonefield
GUM
Mild High Club
The Dandelion
The Murlocs
Photos: Dani Hansen/Howl & Echoes
What’s a remix among bandmates? Tame Impala‘s mastermind Kevin Parker has showed he isn’t slowing down any time soon since releasing one of the best albums of the year last year in the form of Currents, and has now offered up a space-age remix of his bandmate, GUM (aka Jay Watson), and his track Anesthetized Lesson.
The track was the lead single off GUM’s own 2015 album, Glamorous Damage, and was one of the grooviest songs of the year, in this writer’s opinion at least. Seductive vocals, retro-futuristic synths and a bass that makes you weak at the knees, this track was indicative of GUM really hitting his stride as a solo artist, so it only makes sense that his pal Kev would step up for remix duties.
In a statement accompanying the track, Watson said, “While I was recording the album I was listening to a lot of dance music and while it was a big influence, my mixing of the album didn’t really reflect that.”
“When Kev offered to do a remix of Anesthetized Lesson, I jumped at the chance because I knew he could make it sound wild. He didn’t let me down!”
No he did not. With some muffled vocals and some heavy reverb, Parker has taken Anesthetized Lesson away from the heaving disco dancefloor and given it a kaleidoscopic, dreamy, end-of-night feel, dripping in psychedelia. The perfect song to wind down to after busting a move to that of GUM’s Glamorous Damage. Check out the song for yourself below:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2k_-Sj-5IAM
Image: Pitchfork
GUM
Kirin J Callinan
Mac DeMarco
See More
Read our review of GUM’s sophomore album, ‘Glamorous Damage’
Read our review of Falls Festival
See our galleries from Falls Festival at Byron Bay for Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3
Jay Watson, aka GUM, is a master of many trades. Not only does he hold valuable positions in both Tame Impala and POND, but he also holds his own when it comes to his solo material. Having just recently released his sophomore album under his GUM moniker titled Glamorous Damage, he’s cemented everyone’s expectations that not only is he a wizard when it comes to his mates’ bands, but a force to be reckoned with on his own.
Now, we are a little biased. We couldn’t get enough of Glamorous Damage (you can read our review here), with it’s retro futurist funk and intergalactic grooves. Spanning 13 tracks, he explores the future in a Flash Gordon style journey, taking no prisoners when it comes to the infectious earworms he’s created. His lead single Anesthetized Lesson is one such earworm, and a song that will get you up and moving instantly.
It seems the GUM train isn’t showing any signs of stopping post-album release, with Watson recently dropping some accompanying visuals for his latest single. From just one listen of Anesthetized Lesson, you could probably already imagine the type of clip that Watson would make to go along with it, and you probably wouldn’t be too far off. Drawing obvious influence from the likes of David Bowie, Brian Eno and even Prince, Watson stares down the camera in a technicoloured suit, plays synth besides a yellow fire hydrant and lounges in a majestic, white throw like it’s nobody’s business. It’s a hot contender for clip of the year, purely because of how much fun GUM looks like he’s having – and how serious he takes it.
If you can’t get enough of that GUM sound and you need to see him in action, you are in luck! He has just nabbed a highly sought after support slot with none other than Mac DeMarco next year, and you can see all those details below.
Glamorous Damage is out now via Spinning Top Music.
Glamorous Damage reminds me of the soundtrack to a retro futurist film about an unlikely hero. He’s flung into situations he’s not quite sure how to navigate, but at the end of the day he makes it home. It could be argued that GUM, aka Jay Watson, could indeed be this hero. Integral in the rise of Pond and Tame Impala, always there right behind his mates, Watson is navigating the fields of fame and fortune in the music industry, and GUM is his solace; his individual expression.
He lays his cards on the table, he’s not hiding his influences or inspirations. In fact, he is very much highlighting what he’s into and what he’s trying to do or sound like. There is no pretentious attitude or hiding: this is Watson just trying something different on for size, and absolutely owning it. He traverses the worlds of Bowie, Prince, Eno or even more recently Todd Terje, and steps out as his own laser-firing, synth-obsessed, retro futurist self – and the results are out of this world.
Watson needs you to know about his love of all things synth related, Sci-fi and the future with Glamorous Damage. He’s laying it all out there, and he’s embracing his love of weird and whacky pop. From the jabby grooves of the opener, to the passionate, explosive ballad of Notorious Gold; the lead single Anesthetised Lesson in all its groovy glory, to the dramatic, Flash Gordon-esque Elafonissi Blue; Glamorous Damage is a polished but gritty, well constructed but DIY, exhilarating and immersive album that you can’t help but get lost in. Funk and disco stylings are on full display as well. Anesthetised Lesson is enough to get anyone’s bass face going, whilst the beat driven R.Y.K, although experimental and unassuming, narrows in on an insatiable groove I can’t get enough of.
Watson’s vocals, though drenched in effects, show a personable side to him that has not been seen yet. His lyrics, although he may insist are very deliberate and intentional, have to come from somewhere. Considering he is behind literally every element of this record, all the way to the producing and engineering of it, it really is Watson who is on full display here. Building upon what he’s already laid down in his debut, Delorean Highway, but thrusting it even further into the synth galaxy, Watson himself may not realise just how great this album is.
Although the leading single and Elafonissi Blue are two of my personal favourites, it would be hard to go past the two clear standouts of the record. Science Fiction sounds like the song that plays in the final scene of the aforementioned movie; triumphant, extravagant, supercharged and the most intergalactic of all the tracks. It’s 4 minutes of incredibly solid songwriting, complete with Bowie-esque vocals and sits somewhere between love ballad and all-out glam rock. Yet, such is the complexity of this record that it stands at a tie with the album’s closing track, Carnavorn, named after the city in Watson’s native Western Australia. Atmospheric in nature, it sounds like the moment after you’ve taken off in a plane and you level out above the clouds; the album before it, the propulsion whilst you’re strapped in and a little on the edge of your seat, only to finally break through and be on top of the world.
I wouldn’t call myself a “science fiction” fan by any stretch of the imagination, but if sci-fi movies had GUM’s Glamorous Damage as their soundtrack, I may just change my mind. Actually, if this was the soundtrack to anything I would probably enjoy it. I’ve been a Tame Impala fan since I was 15, a POND fan since I was 18, and a GUM fan admittedly only since last year when I was 21. However, with a record like Glamorous Damage, it’s now no question that I will be a GUM fan for a long, long time to come.