By their own admission, Possible Humans are Total Control for sadsacks. Citing their abrasive Aussie countrymen as post-punk counterparts, there’s definitely a similarity in the two groups’ vocal deliveries—but it’s no coincidence their distilled psych rock drew the attention of Trouble in Mind Records for the U.S. distribution of the five-piece’s recent album, Everybody Split.
By the way they describe the nine tracks that make up their sprawling debut, their original intention was to mimic the reverb-drenched synth punk of Typical System, though somewhere along the way they discovered Flying Nun and/or an overwhelming feeling of melancholy. The result recalls much of the jangle pop familiar to the Trouble in Mind discography, only steeped in a particularly dense network of guitars and a penchant for enigmatic verbiage.
Not much of that enigma gets cleared up when the band walks us through Split track by track—in fact they only manage to tangle our interpretation by discussing each track in purely poetic—if not surreal or grotesque—terms. Read what they had to say about each song, and listen along below.
Everybody Split is out today via Trouble in Mind. You can order it here.
1. “Lung of the City”
Resenting a home town is lazy, and leaving it doesn’t make you cool, however correct. It’s a relationship worth understanding, because maybe it doesn’t want to see you either.
2. “Aspiring to Be a Bloke”
Along the lines of all the things that go to make loose bowel, but also putting yourself in the doghouse to have a long hard chinwag with a sad old mate. Squirts are welcome there. Finding what makes you drool, staying in touch with it amid foul stench and discomfort, learning the value of delayed gratification, risking it to get the biscuit, doing it all without the sense of entitlement that fucks it all up for everybody. Just ’cause. “Bloke” is a funny word. Hopefully there’s something in the horrendous lot of all it evokes that’s positive. Get your hand off it and perhaps lend one, ay.
3. “The Thumps”
Bursting out the gate and through the disco door with concrete shoes.
4. “Absent Swimmer”
Travelling, wet behind the ears. Having a navel more like one of those things where an ingrown hair becomes sentient and starts burrowing with bloodlust toward your brain. Doing casual, reluctant backstroke in the olympic genepool. A bananahead’s personal holocaust, to the sound of the world’s smallest violin. Replaying the score on Arthur’s Harp*, because heaps thirsty. Generous hosts. Personal lexicons. Learning an attitude of gratitude. Piss off if you need to, and maybe don’t come back until you’ve wiped that bloody look off yer face.
*Angling for a Guinness endorsement
5. “Nomenclature Airspace”
Out of step with the world. Unable to process experiences in real time. Ruining relationships because of dumb sensitivities. Fantasizing about truth in a milieu of lies. Saying too much. Cutting of your balls despite your, uh, dick. Thirsting after Armageddon in the highrises. Up to your eyeballs in the dialogue of white collar lemmings. Too civilized to destroy. Jacked on amphetamines. Passive, melancholy, nostalgic. Total Control for sad sacks.
6. “Orbiting Luigi”
You’ve been very patient, and now this? The straw has broken the camel’s back, and the storm has dampened your last Camel. Sparks fly into the void. A bowl o’ bloody chuck projectiles from every orifice. So damned mad! Can’t even.
In the stoic, contemplative, rational, evolved human, the body stores its rage like nuclear waste and seeks to binge on video games, while a vindictive narrative scrolls like ticker tape below conscious awareness. I really enjoy some Stereolab with a cup of tea when I’m feeling warm, for the record. Cobra and Phases is my favorite, but. Peace.
7. “Stinger”
Paddling desperately against the flow of the river sleep in search of some non-existent, never-to-exist transcendence. Copping mouthful upon eyeful of toxic algae; going slowly and painfully blind. Dropping your phone on your face.
8. “Born Stoned”
What we have here seems to be a pickled kind of self-involved soul territory where wine-ocybin and beer-ocybin are a fledgling person’s allies.
Life is about exploring shit! Do some finger painting with your leavings.
The results are not quite face-melting…more like when they rush your cheese toasty through and you take it home and put it under the griller for a bit. Some things take a long time. Journeys and that.
9. “Meredith”
It’s a love song. Earlier versions include Molotov cocktails thrown through corrupt publicans’ bedroom windows and white horses and windmills. But this is the bone truth of it. You know when your trip is not quixotic. You got a feeling. You go for it. Fuck your ego, fuck the past, fuck the future. Ask her out.
