AN IMAGINARY COMPILATION ALBUM #343 – THE GOON SAX

It was only during a discussion with my mate Aldo a few months back that I found out The Goon Sax had broken up last year.  We had been discussing Robert Forster‘s new album and I mentioned how his son Louis had appeared on a number of the tracks and wondered if his increasing involvement with his dad would mean a delay to his own band writing, recording and issuing their fourth studio album.  That’s when Aldo pointed me in the direction of this statement that had been issued in July 2022:-

To all friends of the Goon Sax we have some bittersweet news…after nine years of giving it our everything we’ve decided to draw the curtain on this band. It’s taken us places stranger, more beautiful, and far beyond anything we could have imagined, and brought us to meeting and working with so many special and incredibly inspiring people. Our gratitude to everyone who’s been with us and allowed the madness of the last 9 years to happen is far beyond anything we can palpably express. Although this means we won’t be doing our US tour anymore, including the Interpol & Spoon tour and the Pavement shows, we promise we will play one or two more shows in Australia before we finally say goodnight. For us it feels like a happy ending. We love each other and we love you! thank you for everything ♥️♥️♥️✨
Riley, Louis & Jim

I was disappointed to finally learn this.   While never a band who were going to change the face of indie pop’n’roll, they made some really great music in their time, getting better and more confident with each album, to the extent that they really did seem on the cusp of getting a substantial following well beyond their native Australia.

For those who don’t know the back story, Louis Foster and James Harrison formed a band back in 2013 when they were still in high school in Brisbane.  Around a year later Riley Jones brought her drumming talents to the table.

They were signed by Chapter Music, an Australian-based indie label and debut album Up To Anything came out in 2016. It’s fair to say that it was the sort of album only a group of teenagers could make – the playing doesn’t edge towards any sort of technical brilliance while the lyrics have a degree of naive charm and innocence across all the subject matters that were are crucial to all kids who are 16/17 years of age.  As the record company PR folk so accurately described it ‘….capturing the awkwardness, self-doubt and visceral excitement of teenage life, while in the thick of actually living it.’

I saw The Goon Sax in Glasgow when they toured the debut album in the UK.  At that age, and with next to no experience, they had no right to be so tight, confident and able in the live setting.  But they more than put on a show that had an audience, many of whom could have passed as their grandparents, nodding their heads in appreciation.

Their second album, We’re Not Talking, appeared in 2018.  It was a step forward from the previous album, particularly from the fact that Riley Jones was more involved in the vocal department and helping with the songwriting for the first time.  Again, the record company got it right.

“An album that shows how much can change between the ages of 17 and 19…..it takes the enthusiasms of youth and twists them into darker, more sophisticated shapes. Relationships are now laced with hesitation, remorse, misunderstanding and ultimately compassion.  Delivering brilliantly human and brutally honest vignettes of adolescent angst, The Goon Sax brim with personality, charm and heart-wrenching honesty. “

At this point, the trio were offered a deal by the American-based Matador Records. It came at a time when the trio, along with some other friends, were all living together under one roof, working incredibly hard to improve in every aspect of their musicianship.   The label teamed them up with John Parrish, best known for his many years working with PJ Harvey, and The Goon Sax would eventually head to Bristol in England to work on their third album.

Mirror II was released in July 2021 and proved to be the quantum leap that those of us who had followed the band were hoping for.  It was a bolder, more ambitious, richer sounding set of songs than before – far more instrumentation to the extent that it was almost gothic in nature in places.  It’s an album that I couldn’t wait to heat played live, but sadly the restrictions around touring in the wake of the pandemic meant that the proposed UK tour was shelved, and in the wake of the band’s decision to call it a day, cancelled altogether.

What they’ve left behind are three very different sounding albums, all of which have much to appreciate, as I hope to demonstrate with an ICA.  The only thing is, with all three albums having such differences, it doesn’t make any sense to leap back and forth in time, and so what follows are 15 songs, five lifted from each album, in chronological order. Consider it a double-vinyl ICA, with the final side left blank.

Having given you so much in the backstory. I’ll leave the songs to themselves.

Side One : Five Songs From Up To Anything

The Goon Sax – Up To Anything
The Goon Sax – Telephone
The Goon Sax – Sweaty Hands
The Goon Sax – Boyfriend
The Goon Sax – Maggie

Side Two : Five Songs From We’re Not Talking

The Goon Sax – Make Time For Love
The Goon Sax – Strange Light
The Goon Sax – Get Out
The Goon Sax – She Knows
The Goon Sax – We Can’t Win

Side Three : Five Songs From Mirror II

The Goon Sax – In The Stone
The Goon Sax – Temples
The Goon Sax – Psychic
The Goon Sax – Desire
The Goon Sax – Til Dawn

JC