28 August 2023 - 0 Comments

To celebrate the 20th anniversary of The Phoenix Foundation’s beloved debut Horse Power, the album will be released on vinyl for the first time on 24th November. To coincide the band will tour New Zealand in November, performing the album in its glorious entirety; another first for The Phoenix Foundation.

In the winter of 2002 The Phoenix Foundation recorded their debut album Horse Power with Lee Prebble (The Black Seeds, Trinity Roots) at The Surgery in Newtown, Wellington. The gruelling late nights and scurvy resulted in one of the most acclaimed New Zealand albums of 2003. Horse Power was the only album to be nominated for ‘Best Album’ at both The New Zealand Music Awards and The Bnet Awards. It was also voted the ‘Best NZ Album’ of 2003 by nzmusic.com and was the only New Zealand album selected in The Listener's ‘Top Ten Albums of 2003’ by Nick Bollinger (NZ Listener/Radio NZ).

Singer-guitarist Samuel Flynn Scott shares “you can only ever make one debut album, literally but also in some spiritual sense. We were all in this state where you’d put some delay on a synth as you turned a filter knob and played with the speed of an LFO and suddenly you’d realise “that's what air did!” or “that's the sound from Street Fighter”. There was very little premediation to make certain sounds, it was more a case of seeing what happens and hoping for the best.”

20 years later Horse Power will be released on Vinyl, limited edition 12” and 12”+7” with two RNZ Recorded live tracks from the album available for pre-orders from retail and bandcamp today.

“When Horse Power came out there was no way we could afford to release it on vinyl” says Sam. “It was the golden age of the compact disk and we didn’t even know if we'd sell any of those to be honest. We’ve been wanting to release it on vinyl ever since. I mean at the time we were music nerds who loved the idea of seeing our record on the same format as our ancient heroes, but as we all know vinyl is no longer a nostalgic format and it's about time our debut caught up with the times!”

The band will perform the album in its entirety, starting with Sister Risk and finishing on Wildlife. Joining the band on stage is long time collaborator Anita Clark.

"Playing Horse Power live from start to finish is going to be a deep nostalgic trip mixed with a sweet fresh vibe as some of these songs have NEVER been performed live. We were so young, carefree and enthusiastic in those days and that’s the vibe we’ll be channelling at these shows” says co-front-man Luke Buda.

Joining the band for these shows is special guest Jess Cornelius, whose 2020 album Distance, garnered praise and attention across the US, Australia and the UK. In the three years since the release of Distance, Jess has recorded a live set for NPR’s World Cafe, released a 7’’ record, toured with Ty Segall and King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, played Treefort Music Fest and Huichica festival, toured NZ and Australia, and recorded a new album - which is due for release in early 2024. Jess will be performing live with the formidable Mikal Cronin.

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