Though Ford-fans who follow me on Facebook or Instagram will know I’ve been bubbling away in the background over the last year, including big shows for my new Campfire Ukulele Torture show (including at His Majesty’s Theatre in Perth for Perth International Cabaret Fesitval), a festival appearance at Out Of The Woods in Busselton and touring with PVI Collective’s Eaters and the odd bit of Crap Music Rave Party…
…they’ll also know that I’ve gone a bit quiet over the last year. My marriage dissolved after the 2022 Fringe World festival, which meant I spent most of the year licking my wounds and getting my life back into some kinda shape.
That said, I also spent it honing my new album Have A Bath With Me?, which is finally due for release very, very soon. The first single off it is called Bad Frenz Club and the video has just gone live:
The first single off it is out now via a compilation called Waterblaster Management Plan, which collects songs from artists who live between Rockingham and Binningup - which is to say, the bit of coastline from Perth’s southern border, down past Bunbury. It’s a great compilation full of everything from synthwavey pop to ambient noise - check it out on Bandcamp and pretend you’re visiting my part of the world:
My track is numero eight. The final tune. Bad Frenz Club.
It’s one of those songs where I am trying to navigate something that’s happening to my brain before I’ve realised it’s happening. It forecast a lot of things that happened to me after I wrote it. I think you can hear in it how deeply felt it is.
It’s a multi-part epic that I’m proud to say sounds like absolutely nothing else I can think of. If you’re thinking “is it meant to sound like that?” Then the answer is “YES, OBVIOUSLY.” It took a really long time to make it sound this broken. I wanted it to sound like it was recorded in exactly the kind of can’t-afford-to-fix-anything, falling-apart-but-holding-together studio that I call my own. I don’t wanna hide that stuff anymore, it’s part of it.
Anyway, check it out. The new album is arriving as a goddamned fully-fledged Beyoncé-style visual album. Music videos for everything. We shot most of it in the Pilbara. It looks amazing. I can’t wait to share it with ya.
