It’s only a matter of weeks before their national headline tour kicks off, but Perth’s world-conquering psychelicious cosmonauts, Tame Impala, have recorded an intimate hometown set of three stand-outs from their super-successful sophomore release, Lonerism.
The group’s long-awaited follow-up to debut album Innerspeaker has already received rave reviews across music media (including Tone Deaf’s), and has since backed up its critical clout with commercial sales to match in the UK and America, where the band have just finished tours to capitalise on their chart successes, where Lonerism debuted at #14 in the UK Albums Chart and cracked the US Top 40 upon release.
Filmed in the band’s hometown of Perth, WA, the new video performance captures Tame Impala at their home-away-from-home, the Norfolk Hotel basement, performing three Lonerism highlights: the heavy buzz-rocker ‘Elephant’, the Beatles-inflected ‘Apocalypse Dreams’, and keen pop single ‘Feels Like We’re Only Going Backwards’ – which recently received a delightful animated video treatment.
Considering the band’s recent wave of success, they may have to change the title of the latter to ‘Feels Like We’re Only Going Forwards’.
The three song set is presented by the band’s label, Modular, (which you can view it up top in the banner) and is the second in the new Modular Studio Session series from the influential label following fellow Aussie act Van She taking the reigns for the first, with their performance of the sun-baked ‘Jamaica’. Considering the band’s recent wave of success, they may have to change the title of the latter to ‘Feels Like We’re Only Going Forwards’.
Interestingly it’s a track that almost never made it onto the album, as Kevin Parker revealed in his recent interview with Tone Deaf: “I’d forgotten about it” says Parker of the song formerly known as ‘Blues-Prog-Epic’, “I didn’t really record it back in the day and the guys reminded me of it, they said ‘is that song ever going to be on an album?’ and I was like ‘I don’t think so, it’s too late now’ and they said ‘it should’ and so I recorded it finally and Jay [Watson, the band’s drummer] came and helped out with the synth part in the middle.”
Parker also commented on his unique songwriting process; “It’s generally just a chorus, like 30 seconds, and it will just go over and over, that’ll suddenly appear to me. It’s usually sparked by a jolt of something,” says the Tame Impala frontman.
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“There’s usually just one little melody or chord change, or blip and I love the sound of that happening,” he added, while applauding Modular for letting him get down to the business of making music in his much desired state of isolation.
“Our label has been totally accepting of our weird ways. The fact that they let me record it by myself in a room in my house is already an illustrator of that.”
Tame Impala are set for a busy national touring schedule that capitalises on what has been a banner year for the band, and considering their debut at #4 on the Australian album charts, they’ll be plenty flocking to their headline tour through December, as well as playing a spate of music festivals in the summer season. Including Meredith Music Festival, Homebake’s 2012 ‘Global Edition‘, and finishing with Pyramid Rock Festival at year’s end.
Tame Impala 2012 Australian Tour
The Forum, Melbourne ** SECOND SHOW ADDED**
Wednesday 5th December
All ages, with guardian
The Forum, Melbourne
Thursday 6th December SOLD OUT
HQ, Adelaide
Tuesday 11th December
The Tivoli, Brisbane
Wednesday 12th December
Enmore Theatre, Sydney ** SECOND SHOW ADDED**
Thursday 13th December
All ages
Enmore Theatre, Sydney
Friday 14th December SOLD OUT
Fremantle Arts Centre, Perth
Saturday 15th December
All ticketing information can be located here.
