The Goon Sax have shared ‘Desire’, a new single one day before the release of their third album ‘Mirror II’.
The song is penned by drummer Riley Jones, and is a marked change from much of the band’s material to date – droning analogue keyboards, and a soft cooing voice rendering it similar to ’80s dream pop.
The Eddie Whelan-directed video reflects the aesthetic change, starring Jones in a kitsch, lysergic daydream. She watches the band play on TV, in an animated pink room stripped right out of an early-2000s children’s show. Bandmates Louis Forster and James Harrison fly through the sky, and a white Pomeranian dog enters the fray – watch the giddy clip below.
In a press statement, Jones said ‘Desire’ was written while living in a Brisbane sharehouse with Forster and Harrison they called “Fantasy Planet”.
“In my basic understanding of the way Lacan theorised fantasy, desire is founded upon a lack. The cause of our desire is a gap that we are always trying to fill, even while it constantly evades us,” she said.
In a Facebook post, Jones added what they were going for musically: “We were trying to strike the right balance between being sparkly Kylie Minogue song, crushing like an Elvis song and like stadium rock but the stadium is empty”.
It’s the third single from ‘Mirror II’, following ‘In The Stone’ and ‘Psychic’. The record will be released tomorrow (July 9) via Chapter Music and Matador Records. NME named it one of the 10 best Australian releases for July, calling it “their most adventurous album yet”.