Last week Regurgitator released 'Invader', the tenth studio album from the Australian experimental champions and genre chameleons – another sonic chapter depicting their lasting legacy on the indie-DIY scene.
"We're an old-school band," guitarist and co-frontman Quan Yeomans says. "The album just makes sense to us somehow, and in the current musical environment nothing really makes sense. It's just getting weirder and weirder out there."I watched a video about developments in AI before I went to bed the other night and had an existential crisis. I will say, even though there was a lot of hard work that went into this album, it was also the most I've ever enjoyed the work and been satisfied by being in the zone of making it."
Fans were given their first taste of the album last month with the release of 'This Is Not A Pop Song', the band's first new song in nearly six years (excluding their children's album from 2019) and their first-ever collaboration with the one and only Peaches.
A mix of dance-punk and electro-funk, it doubles down on the eccentricities of both artists – who have been kindred spirits since they met at the Big Day Out in 2002. "We've always had this connection," Yeomans says. "I really wanted to work with an artist of that calibre who also has that longevity.
"She's an amazing, incredible performer and we've been fans of one another since day dot. I really appreciate everything she's done – I saw her show again last year at Northcote Theatre in Melbourne, and she's still just so awesome."
The album also sees Regurgitator working with Minjungbal/ Gudjinburra rapper JK-47 on the track 'Dirty Old Men' and – perhaps most unexpectedly of all – an Apalech author and academic named Tyson Yunkaporta on 'The Bastard Poem No-One Wanted'.
Here, Quan and fellow founding member Ben Ely share some stories, thoughts and observations about each song that feature on 'Invader'.
1: 'Cocaine Runaway' (Quan)
A driver coked out of his mind believes he is on the run, racing his white car through the night, in a desperate attempt to outrun his own psychosis. One evening in London I was invited by a circus friend to watch her perform at the Tate Modern.After closing, when everyone had left, she took my hand and led me through the gallery. We wandered together alone in silence, flirting in whispers so as not to offend the Henry Moores guarding the dark.
Later at her apartment, we sat chatting at her kitchen table. She smiled, cut a small white line on it, rolled up some Sterling and urged me to breathe it in through one of my nostrils. I obliged in the spirit of the evening, but as we climbed up into her loft bed made of repurposed steel scaffolding, a horrible chemical bitterness descended the ladder of my throat obscuring the true taste of her body.
2: 'Pest' (Ben)
We are all born to run the wheel. Work for the man. Do this. Do that. Blah, blah, blah. Should we question what the f... this is all about? What's your part in it? What can we do to step outside of it to maintain our own sense of sanity in a turbulent sea of insanity? Put your nose to the grind stone and slave, slave, slave.3: 'This Is Not A Pop Song feat. Peaches' (Quan)
Pop was the baby I meant to leave on the doorstep of the orphanage, but whose wailing pierced my heart, coercing me into the servitude of unplanned parenthood? It was that peach plastic car sitting in the middle of the hallway which, in the half light of dawn I tripped over and made yelp in its 8-bit 'white' reggae.It was one short amnesia after another, one more return to Oz, one more glance across the cabin of a crowded train to meet the eyes of a stranger just long enough to allow a tentative exchange of knowing smiles, only to then reach a station and be spewed out onto the platform in a sluice of fellow commuters.
4: 'Australiyeah' (Ben)
I can't leave the house. Why the f... should I? What's out there? The unexpected altercations f...ing scare me. Their sentences stab you in the face. Oh the long, boring small-talk and the endless drama. It's a social minefield field of petty entertainment performed with filed-down teeth and sharpened claws. F... that.5: 'Epic' (Quan)
In approximately 4.5 billion years the Milky Way will finally pluck up the courage to ask Andromeda to slow dance. After another five or so billion years of coy glances and suggestive dropping-of-handkerchiefs, they will eventually become lovers and their colossal black hearts will merge.
6: 'That's Not Nermal' (Ben)
In 1993 the Butthole Surfers toured Japan. On the 13th day of the tour following a debauched evening of downing a bucket of mountain-grown mushrooms their touring van collided with a semi carrying 56 of the latest arcade fighting games.7: 'Content' (Quan)
Each morning I awoke feeling like an empty sack waiting to be filled. Instead of reaching over in the twilight to spoon my partner, I found myself turning my back to her and reaching for my phone. I'd squint at it in the half waking, as the screen blazed and seared my eyes shut for the day.8: 'The Bastard Poem That Nobody Wanted feat. Tyson Yunkaporta' (Tyson)
A Coriolis effect of spirit protecting the global south since time out of memory is pierced by a land rush caused by climate change.9: 'Invader' (Quan)
The invasion began with blood and from then on, like a vampire it required blood to sustain itself.10: 'The Edge Of Losing It' (Ben)
When your boss gets to you, your work sux, your family doesn't understand or support you, you have an overwhelming sense of alienation as though you're standing on the outside watching the world revel by the bonfire at the beach party of capitalism, and you're about to lose the plot just remember, there is a theme song that goes with this feeling.11: 'Dirty Old Men feat. JK47' (Quan)
Old man unawareWhat is taken is returned
What comes, goes again
Empires burn
And in turn
Will be burned
12: 'Pee Pee Man' (Ben)
Speaks for itself.13: 'Wrong People' (Quan)
Mother always told me, 'if you insist on hanging out with the wrong people just make sure they're the right wrong people'.14: 'Tsunami' (Ben)
Is the humdrum drone of suburban existence getting you down? Low on energy? Nothing satisfies? Just remember. . . we will all die and turn to dirt and nothing matters anyway.Regurgitator 2024 Tour Dates
Fri 10 May - Odeon Theatre (Hobart)Sat 11 May - Forth Pub (Forth)
Sun 12 May - Du Cane Brewing (Launceston)
Thu 16 May - Barwon Club (Geelong)
Fri 17 May - Theatre Royal (Castlemaine)
Sat 18 May - Forum Melbourne
Thu 23 May - The River (Margaret River)
Fri 24 May - Rechabite (Perth)
Sat 25 May - Freo.Social (Fremantle)
Thu 30 May - Waves (Wollongong)
Fri 31 May - King St (Newcastle)
Sat 1 Jun - Roundhouse (Sydney)
Fri 7 Jun - The Gov (Adelaide)
Sat 8 Jun - The Baso (Canberra)
Sun 9 Jun - SS&A Club (Albury)
Thu 13 Jun - Beach Hotel (Byron Bay)
Fri 14 Jun - Miami Marketta (Gold Coast)
Sat 15 Jun - Open Season @ The Tivoli (Brisbane)
Thu 20 Jun - Seabreezes (Mackay)
Fri 21 Jun - The Dalrymple (Townsville)
Sat 22 Jun - Tanks Arts Centre (Cairns)
