Brisbane seven piece The Mouldy Lovers are set to release their brand new album this Friday the 6th of February, but ahead of its release they’ve given us an early listen.
A concoction of ska, punk, dub and various worldly sounds, the band have spent most of the past four years gigging non-stop at venues and festivals across Australia, the band have carefully crafted a unique and raucous live performance style which gets the stiffest legs moving.
To celebrate, the band have given us a track by track run down of their Paulie Bromley (The Beautiful Girls, Bobby Alu) produced LP. Check it out below.
Hemlock
“As I remember the melody for this one was written a while back by Matt and then I put some chords to it. At first it was way more folky-punky, with the opening chords in the chorus, however the band decided it needed to be a bit more raucous. Lyrically, it poses a lot of questions and offers little answers! We think it’s a perfect opening track for the album and really captures the style and sound we have moved towards over the last year.”
Six Foot Fences
“Six Foot Fences was the first track we recorded off the album way back in June for a double a-side single. This one was initiated by Jo who really wanted a reggae song, so he got one. Louis also wanted a surf song, which is what inspired the surf breakdown in the middle. We’re always cajoling Canna into doing bass solos, and it seems we got that too! Really this was a full band effort.”
A Town Called Apathy
“We wrote the verse structure for this one ages ago, and originally it had a big metal breakdown in the middle as well as a slow folky bit. Laura put the intro hits into it and it became quite a catchy wee song! The song talks about growing up and letting apathy take root, and how we are the only ones who can really shake our selves out of it. It’s a hopeful song.”
Love Song Part II
“Love Song was written via a bunch of jams over the few months leading up to album recording, but didn’t really take form until we we’re already in the studio. For this track we used a trick Paulie B likes to use on reggae songs where the instruments are recorded before the drums to a click track, and then the drums are added in after. It’s probably the only song that stays in time the whole way through, and Laura really loved not having to keep us in time! The lyrics weren’t written until after the tracking either, so it became a bit of a last minute group collaboration between Louis and a drunken couch sesh with Canna, filtered through Gav’s mind. It’s the current band favourite and a love song to ourselves.”
Ode to Bode (Interlude)
“Speaks for itself, really.”
Paint Bomb Grenades
“Paint Bomb Grenades started life as a gyp-hop tune and then the slow jam just took hold and wouldn’t let go! The lyrics came from a poem of Jo’s which he shaped to be a bit more catchy and rhythmically solid. This track shines like a crystal river of mould for it’s message, delivery and the texture it adds to the album. It was also probably the easiest track to record (for the rhythm section at least), so we are still able to really enjoy listening to it in post!”
Fibonacci
“This is one of the oldest tracks on the record, written by Louis with inspiration from a French-Canadian band called Tintamare. In the context of the band it started as a campfire jimmy jam at Woodford 2012/13. It’s always been a live favourite of ours, crooked as a broken leg and as heavy as we’ve got so far.”
5 Days (Interlude)
“Five Days was scraped up out of the ashes of an old song we never recorder and hastily put together in a one hour interlude jam session at the Tanuki Lounge. It’s short, sharp and ragged. A tasty little biscuit!”
Pauper Kingdom Dub
“After years of talk we finally made an attempt at a dub song! We jammed this one out live in the studio under the supervision of dub-meister Paulie B, and then the horns did their thing the next day. The intro is a bit of a throw back to Mouldy Lovers circa 2012 and we decided to throw in some gang vocals to give it a bit more chutzpah!”
One Tooth Chosei (Interlude)
“Matt Hsu. Genius. Nuff said.”
The Incubator
“The Incubator was a late addition, jammed in the studio from an older solo song that Gav had lying around. We were interested in working out how we could flesh the song out, and spent quite a few hours developing a flow that didn’t lag. The results were great and we’re stoked at how it builds and climaxes once the horns enter to play us out. While we were laying down the bed tracks Paulie took the role of band conductor. It was a great deal of boozy fun.”
Ship of Fools
“One of the first songs we wrote with the new line up and the second half of the double a-side we released back in August. I remember us being interested in injecting some swagger into the sound, which is what led us to our discovery of heavy half time (a trick we’ve returned to quite a few times since). The lyrics we’re inspired in part by Hieronymus Bosch, William Blake and Caroline Townsend. It is a sly reference to us all of course.”
They Crawl Out (Postlude)
“I never want a Mouldies album to not end with Louis laughing and us all applauding ourselves ever again.”
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