Psychedelic Porn Crumpets

Naming your band after a small griddle cake eaten in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland and Australia would probably be a bit too out there for most bands. But then Psychedelic Porn Crumpets are far from your typical psych rock group…

Formed in 2014, the Perth experimental quintet have quickly become one of Australia’s hottest prospects, uncovering all kinds of weirdness and psychotic fuzz in their deceptively concise and punchy sonic warfare. Debut album High Visceral {Part 1} set the bar incredibly high from the off, quickly followed by {Part 2} a year later, with landmark release And Now for the Whatchamacallit hitting the shelves in 2019 and racking up millions of streams on Spotify in very little time.
Fourth full-length Shyga! The Sunlight Mound, set for release in January 2021, marks the biggest step in their evolution yet – melding all manner of quizzical and heart-palpitating sounds into their uncompromising orchestra of noise…

“I wanted something that could encapsulate loads of fun and sound a bit strange,” explains founding singer/guitar Jack McEwan, who was given first place in MusicRadar’s top ten round-up of the best new guitar players in the world right now and prefers his crumpets on the savoury side. “Like painting a colourful image of this distant world.”

The first taste of the new opus arrived in the form of Mr. Prism earlier this September, with its kaleidoscopic stop-motion clay animation adding to wildly adventurous nature of the music (“it reminds me of that Simpsons episode where the police come in and murder the family, we didn’t want to stray from gore!”). Other highlights on the fourth full-length include The Terrors (“we wanted our drums to sound like Songs For The Deaf by Queens Of The Stone Age”) and Tripolasaur (“that was more of a Queen meets Ty Segall kinda vibe”). This time round the group went deep down the rabbit hole of sonic texture and production, disguising simple pop tunes as high intensity, off-kilter rock anthems. The riffs change in quick succession and still there’s all the ebb and flow you’d expect from a more radio-friendly take on alternative noise…
“I always go back to Sgt. Pepper’s, Nevermind and Youth And Young Manhood by Kings Of Leon,” continues Jack McEwan, who grew up in England before his family relocated to Australia. “If the songs didn’t fit in that category, I’d leave them and save them for another album.”

The new music also feels more up-tempo than previous endeavours, with a pulsating charge that builds and builds until the final moments of Gurney Gridman. Though there are plenty of opportunities for introverted escapism, it’s an album best enjoyed when you’re surrounded by friends and celebrating good times.
“I wanted Shyga! The Sunlight Mound to be like a line of coke,” laughs Jack, who recorded the majority of the guitars and vocals in his own bedroom. “You’re racing up on the first track, forever on a peak and then coming down on the last one. We thought let’s make a really fast-paced, 40-minute record. It’s the ultimate barbecue record when you have your mates around.”
Though the songs were over-constructed at one point, they were stripped back during the mixing stages because – by Jack’s own admission – “they were starting to sound like a Batman film or James Bond soundtrack”. He eventually realised his mission this time round was simply to write a really good rock album, dialling back to the vintage glory years of T-Rex as much as the grunge heroes of the 90s. The singer notes you simply can’t be unhappy when listening to this kind of up-tempo music.
“I love bands who sound massive, like Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Sigur Rós as well as heavier stuff like The Mars Volta and Tool. We wanted to take those more drawn-out influences and do it in four minutes!”

And that they have. Shyga! The Sunlight Mound looks set to be a career-defining record for the Perth quintet. There are already big plans to put together a socially distanced tour on home soil and their own fringe festival, in which they will be examining the achievements of mankind from an unorthodox lens. “I really want to do this space opera where you have this robot drone who goes around scanning galaxies and alternate realities,” grins Jack. “Eventually he finds earth, so it’s from the perspective of this drone – it’s his summation of the entire history of earth. I guess to some extent what we’re doing is kinda fictional!”
There is, however, nothing fictional about the hype surrounding the group ahead of what will undoubtedly be the most important album of their career. But as with all great things, you might just have to see it and hear it in order to believe it…

Standing show. Presented by Now Wave.