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May 12, 2021 By Mark Redfern Photography by Elliot Lauren

Australian trio The Goon Sax have announced a new album, Mirror II, and shared its first single, “In the Stone,” via a video for it. Mirror II is due out July 9 via Matador, their first for the label. Check out the Mara Palena-directed “In the Stone” video below, followed by the album’s tracklist and cover art, as well as the band’s upcoming Australian and UK tour dates.

The trio features Louis Forster, Riley Jones, and James Harrison. Mirror II is the band’s third album and the follow-up to 2018’s We’re Not Talking, which was released by Wichita.

John Parish (Aldous Harding, PJ Harvey) produced the album, which was recorded in Bristol, England at Invada Studios (which is owned by Geoff Barrow of Portishead and Beak>). Since their last album, Forster moved to Berlin and worked in a cinema, while Jones and Harrison formed a post-punk side-project, Soot.

“The first two albums are inherently linked,” says Forster in a press release. “They had three-word titles; they went together. This one definitely felt like going back to square one and starting again, and that was really freeing.”

“We lived in a shared house together, this tiny little Queenslander we called ‘Fantasy Planet,’ where we wrote the album,” Jones explains of the album’s genesis. “We were able to go to each other’s rooms and say anything that came to mind and go to the practice room three times a week. It was pretty intense.”

Of the album title, Jones adds: “I was reading The Philosophy of Andy Warhol the other day. He said something so perfect… ‘I’m sure I’m going to look in the mirror and see nothing. People are always calling me a mirror, and if a mirror looks into a mirror, what is there to see?’ The name [Mirror II] was totally arbitrary to begin with, but it became about reflecting on reflection: we all get so influenced by each other. You find other people who show you yourself, who you are.”

Influences on the album cited in the press release run the gamut and include HTRK, Young Marble Giants, Stereolab, The Motels, Justin Beiber, Les Rallizes Dénudés, Keiji Haino, Kylie Minogue, The Walker Brothers, Jandek, Felt, and Pink Floyd’s Syd Barrett.

“I got into Syd Barrett’s lyrics because they were hazy, relatable and honest but up in the air. That’s how I felt,” says Harrison. “I was experiencing romantic love for the first time, it felt out of my control, and there’s something about Syd Barrett’s lyrics… it doesn’t just come from inside us; it is the moments that are happening to us as well.”

Speaking of the album’s first single, Forster says: “‘In the Stone’ is set in Berlin where I moved with my partner at the time, just after finishing school and recording our last album We’re Not Talking at the end of 2017. We were both exploring ourselves—accepting each other’s changes and celebrating flux—but also reckoning with the complicated need for a solid sense of self and the person we loved. Musically the song was influenced by what was playing in the background of our conversations which often took place in Ubers, supermarkets, outside parties etc. So, it probably bears more of a subconsciously absorbed modern pop influence than anything else we’ve done as a band.”

Read our interview with The Goon Sax on We’re Not Talking.

Mirror II Tracklist:

1. In the Stone
2. Psychic
3. Tag
4. Temples
5. The Chance
6. Bath Water
7. Desire
8. Carpetry
9. Til Dawn
10. Caterpillars

The Goon Sax Tour Dates:

5/21/21 – The Zoo, Brisbane
5/28/21 – Mary’s Underground, Sydney
6/3/21 – RISING Festival, Melbourne
9/1/21 – Hare & Hounds, Birmingham
9/2-5/21 – End of the Road Festival
9/6/21 – MOTH Club, London
9/7/21 – Pink Room, YES, Manchester
9/8/21 – Mono, Glasgow

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