Australian psych maverick GUM returns with new single ‘Race To The Air’.
The songwriter – in reality Jay Watson – is linked to Pond and Tame Impala, but his solo guise is where his true fantasies are revealed. Just recently – for Record Store Day, in fact – he linked up with King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard‘s Ambrose Kenny-Smith for a special seven inch release.
Clash sat down with both songwriters for an unusual conversation – check that out in our archive.
A new collection of solo works is incoming, and the Australian aural astronaut has just shared something new. Out now, ‘Race To The Air’ is a bouncy psych-pop track, the bubbly bassline set against those sighing, lysergic vocals.
If there’s a faint festival feel then that’s entirely apt – the song owes a debt to The Cure’s lengthy Glastonbury set, and a madcap dash to the nearby portaloos.
GUM comments…
“’Race To The Air’ was originally called ‘Running To The Cure’. I have this memory of going to the toilet at Glastonbury and The Cure started their set by playing Plainsong, which is my favourite Cure song, so I was running from the portaloo to the stage. I couldn’t call a song ‘Race To The Cure’ after COVID though, I didn’t want people to think I was making an album about the pandemic!”
A fair point.
Online now with some colourful visuals, you can enter GUM’s remarkable audio realm below.
Photo Credit: Grant Spanier
