With much of 2020’s tour plans put on ice due to, y’know, reasons, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets instead hunkered down to prepare for their fourth studio album. With a title like ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’, this isn’t your standard fare.
Words: Jessica Goodman. Photo: Captura Obscura / Matt Puccinelli.
“The amount of conversations I’ve had with people and they’re like, ‘zombies are coming!’” Jack McEwan laughs. “I can’t take it.” It’s a sunny summer evening in Perth, and after a couple of beers under blue skies, the Psychedelic Porn Crumpets frontman is contemplating the relevance of 28 Days Later (“that is not a good film to watch in lockdown”) and his need for a summer wardrobe (“no one wants to be the first person of the year to go out in shorts”).
It’s been over a year and a half since the psych-rock outfit released their last record, ‘And Now For The Whatchamacallit’. In the time since then, they’ve toured the world, played the festivals of their dreams, and whiled away lockdown with frequent visits to their local bottle shop. “We’ve been given a sniff of the great life, and now we’re back into our days of playing golf and getting sunburned,” Jack laughs. “We don’t know what’s going on.”
They might claim not to have much of a clue, but their music tells a different story. Hitting play on ‘SHYGA! The Sunlight Mound’ is like taking a step inside a world of the band’s own making. Vivid and vibrant – or as they describe it, “colourful, convoluted, seventies nonsense” – this is the sound of a band at the top of their game. Their time at home – to relax, refresh, and reinvigorate their creativity – while unplanned, has served them well.
