Releases

Manhood

Muscles - Manhood

June 15, 2012

MANHOOD is a concept record to follow up a concept record, but in reverse. Each song is prelude connected to each track from Muscles' debut album GUNS BABES LEMONADE. The debut that established cult status worldwide and really hit home down under as in-demand live music festival machine. Where the rules of the party were constituted, bursting your eardrums, this is the story of how Muscles came to be. A tour de force of 'no holds barred' electronic post-punk, euro-dance, Italo disco, engaging sophisticated (through drunkenness) camp masculine pop, this is an album that balances itself in It's extremity.

In rainbow valleys where boys are getting high, and girls are rolling their own cigarettes. Pink centaurs are breeding with polka dot lionesses. Where Zeus and Prometheus are sharing a beer and a robot from the future, advises you to ignore your future devil son who appears to you in self-medicated psychosis. Where your hair grows blue, but your blood is still red and your heart is just the centre a tangled maze of veins and arteries.

MANHOOD is a destruction of truth and lies of Australian culture, recorded by a guy who grew up in rural Australia in his mid-20s, in a makeshift studio in South Melbourne. Are you a twenty-thirty something reckoning with the forces to pay the rent, finish uni, settle down, get a loan to buy a home, to experiment and try.... LET'S STOP THIS FOR ONE SECOND.

Stretch out your left arm as far as you can go, now do it with your right arm. Now lies the centre of your heart, the axiom of your soul. Now connect your mind and you have a crucifix. A empty face with lips to be kissed, hair to be ruffled and cheeks to be licked. Now twist your hips for me.

Muscles. You've seen him at the markets fondling broccoli examining the texture, measuring the greenness of the miniature tree of life. You've seen him at festivals baring all to the soul evoking, honest brutality of the centre of the bloodshot eye of the storm. Sand pyramids, unzipped jeans and sleepless nights, songs about bullying, before it was trendy to advocate such matters. Knife crime, nightclub violence, and permission to fuck around. YEAH, UH-HUH, UH-HUH YEAH.

Hypothetically let's party all night, YEWWWWWW! Go to the bar, get another drink, go kiss that guy who's staring at you across the room. Finger that hot Brazilian and lick your fingers before washing your hands in a cocaine basin. Dance until 6am, then crush that little yellow pill with your fist. Inhale, what's for your mouth, in through your nose, when's for your sleep, keep you awake. Walking the streets it approaches noon and suddenly the curtain of reality dissipates before your eyes. You feel yourself, floating over yourself. You're pushed deep underground and breathing in the saltwater like a late baptism. The duality of life kicks in.

MANHOOD is one trip you can't ignore to take. Stumbling with one leg in the transcendent, navigating on the Tao axis, flying above his super-ego from first track to last. When the final song fades out you can't help but know, we all have a little MANHOOD inside all of us.