Mistletone

Tropical Fuck Storm (l-r: Fiona Kitschin, Gareth Liddiard, Erica Dunn and Lauren Hammel) photographed at Nagambie Victoria, on 5 August 2017 by Bleddyn Butcher

Tropical Fuck Storm (TFS for short) is a newborn band formed by Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin (The Drones). Liddiard and Kitschin are joined by maniacs Lauren Hammel (High Tension) on drums and Erica Dunn (Harmony, Palm Springs) on guitars, keys and other gadgets. Not since John Lydon changed it up from the Sex Pistols to PiL has a curveball felt so bracingly exhilarating.

Pre-order the limited edition debut TFS 7″ single ‘Chameleon Paint’ b/w ‘Mansion Family’ here.

Pre-orders will ship on or before September 22.

Pre-order all four 7″s and received limited edition coloured vinyl, while stocks last! the first 7″ is on white vinyl (white vinyl for those ordering 4 packs only. Single orders will receive standard black vinyl.)

The debut TFS 7″ single, “Chameleon Paint” b/w “Mansion Family”, will be released on September 22 as a label collab between TFS Records and Mistletone Records. This limited edition 7” is the first of a series; each 7” featuring an original Liddiard A-side and a B-side cover of “songs we love and wish we had written”. The “Mansion Family” B-side is lifted from Melbourne band The Nation Blue, who released the original less than a year ago. Each 7” will feature phantasmagoric cover art by Montréal artist Joe Becker.

The band has already announced a North American tour in September/October with compadres Band of Horses and King Gizzard, with Australian dates to follow.

“Chameleon Paint” and “Mansion Family” were both recorded in Liddiard and Kitschin’s home studio, Liddiard having practised the dark arts of recording on previous Drones outings and recent/forthcoming releases by Gold Class, Batpiss and Palm Springs. (Liddiard prefers the term “knob twiddler” to “producer”; “I just like fucked up, do it yourself recordings,” he explains.)

“Chameleon Paint” captures the sense of foreboding that we’re all feeling at this time in history in exquisite detail. “You phone it in / All shame and sin”, Liddiard snarls, as a female Greek chorus howls in collective outrage. Liddiard explains that the song was inspired by the “stacks on” phenomenon of online shaming and trolling, the all-too-familiar cycles of internet outrage and sanctimoniousness.

“It feels like a turning point in history”, Liddiard comments, “as technology speeds up. The internet distorts reality and dehumanises relationships, and makes everyone crazy. It’s a bullshit, out of focus place where everyone is the worst version of themselves. Facebook and Instagram keep you glued to the screen, melt your brain and turn you into an idiot so they can sell shit to you. That’s the climate in my head; that’s why I write all this doom and gloom.”

“Mansion Family”, written by The Nation Blue’s Tom Lyngcoln, shudders with a kindred malaise. “I can feel a cold change is coming,” Liddiard intones, and as the tension mounts, the new day dawning foreshadowed in the lyrics feels like cause for dread.