GUM's Surprise Return

Scott Wallace
4th Nov 2016

GUM, the moniker of Tame Impala/Pond multi-instrumentalist Jay Watson has today surprised fans with gooey funk single "Gemini."  This comes coupled with the album teaser for his third consecutive self-produced album, Flash in the Pan. The follow-up to last year's bold, sci-fi flavoured Glamorous Damage will be released November 11 via Spinning Top Music and available for pre-order here.

Watson has supported Canadian indie rock bad boy Mac DeMarco on his Australian tour earlier this year, and his psych-pop jam "Anesthetized Lessonwas given the remix treatment by bandmate and friend Kevin Parker. Both of his previous records, the aforementioned Glamorous Damage and 2014's Delorean Highway featured on the longlist of the Australian Music Prize.

Flash in the Pan immediately continues in the retro-futurist vein of the previous records, and from Robert Beatty's cover art - possibly a cheeky reference to German krautrock group Cluster's 1974 album Zuckerzeit, which may have also informed the music's sticky rhythms and distant atmospheric noise - to the self-effacing title, it is clear that GUM is still just as fun as ever.

"Gemini" is a killer track, featuring gorgeous falsetto workouts, synths that hover like UFOs, a choir of watery backing vocals, and a funk bass breakdown over a murmuring, pitch-shifted alien voice. It's a lot, but it's all packed up in the kind of pop package that GUM has become known for. 

“‘Gemini’ is the first song I recorded for the album, and probably the most immediate,” says GUM.  “I’m not really a fan of star signs. It’s kind of a song about people pinning stuff happening in their lives on things like star signs and religion. I am a Gemini though, so there’s the bipolar/duality thing in there is as well.” 

Recorded almost entirely at home throughout 2015 and 2016, the LP features sampleadelic-funk 'If You’re Gonna Love Again' and 'Deep Razz,' as well as the space-ballad “Distorted Star."

Flash in the Pan is out next Friday November 11th, and can be preordered here. Artist photo by Andy Banjanin.