Psychedelic Porn Crumpets Tease New Album Era With Electric New Single ‘Bubblegum Infinity’

Crashing through with another addictive, thrilling release to tease the divinely warped and curious sonic mind of songwriter Jack McEwan, Perth’s Psychedelic Porn Crumpets present new single Bubblegum Infinity. Taken from their forthcoming new album (their fifth), Night Gnomes, the single is both a fitting example of what to expect from the broader album as it is a timely reminder of the ease of which Psychedelic Porn Crumpets can weave many distinctive creative sounds in making something definitively their own. Jack give Hi Fi Way some insight to the new single and album which we are eagerly awaiting to hear.

Fifth album Night Gnomes is almost ready to drop, can you believe how prolific the band has been?
I definitely didn’t think we’d ever be in the position we are now. It’s both a blessing and curse as you always want to keep writing better material but we’re almost no longer the judges of that anymore. It definitely gets the brain ticking though, so that’s decent.

Sonically, has the PPC sound changed much with this album?
I don’t think it’s changed an awful lot, we tried to beef up the production a touch but all that stuff grows with what we did wrong on previous releases. It’s still drenched with guitars and strange effects, I think the song writing itself is a bit clearer now as we left a lot of room for the idea to poke through more. There’s always a different flavour with each record and this one feels a bit darker so I’m excited to hear what everyone thinks.

What do you think inspires that?
Probably two years isolated from the rest of the world will do it.

The artwork is cool, how do you come up with the concept design?
We worked with Ben Giles again who created the Whatchamacallit artwork. I really love his collages, they’re so captivating, you can stare at them for hours. I’ve always liked that with vinyl artwork, you want to look at the album cover while listening to the record and feel something more.

Do you have any particular go to albums when you need to get creative?
These days it’s difficult to get inspired by other music, there’s obviously bands I enjoy listening too but a lot of the time I get creative when hearing things in random moments, like the other day I was in a really pretty pub garden with fountains and palm trees and The Stooges came on the speakers, beforehand I didn’t realise there was any music playing but all of a sudden I was nodding along like “This is the shit!” and all I wanted to do was go home and try and emulate that sound. I find movies or strange nights seem to be the best source of inspiration.

What is the story behind the single Bubblegum Infinity?
Bubblegum’s had quite a few variations until we settled on the version we released. I was completely out of lyrical ideas as there’d been hundreds of different alterations that I couldn’t work out what to sing about anymore. So I started researching some quotes as that always helps, got on a bit of a tangent with a few older philosophers who apparently turned themselves into mental asylums later in life and I thought that was kind of comforting, even the smart ones couldn’t deal with reality and that was before acid was invented so there’s flickers of hope for us cooked ones still.

Are you hands on with the video clip?
Yeah we always try and have some input on our videos, whether it’s just cementing the idea or creating what kinda world we wanna show. Sometimes when we’re working with animators we just let them go away for a few months and create what they want, It’s always easier to be left alone when you’ve got an idea, so we’re happy to trust what they want to create. With the Bubblegum clip we just went to a funfair and strapped a GoPro to our heads, our friend Tay did all the editing and it was quite an easy turnaround. Was really happy with how it turned out though.

How frustrating has it been not to be able to tour?
It’s sucked from the bands perspective but personally I’ve had the best year of my life. I’ve actually been able to settle down and feel like a human again, it’s been really nice. We’ve got a couple of one off shows coming up so I think that’ll perk us back up and get us ready to be road dogs again.

Are there any plans for an Australian tour later this year?
There certainly is!

Are you excited about getting to head overseas and tour?
Yeah the excitement is starting to creep back in, I’m really looking forward to heading to some places we haven’t been before. Feels weird to think about really.

What’s next for PPC?
Cracking on with another record!

Interview By Rob Lyon

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