17 February 2023 - 0 Comments
Billie Fee (she/her), Mikey Sperring (he/him - The Drab Doo Riffs, Bib Kids) and Damian Golfinopoulos (he/him, Stress Cadet) are the members of Grecco Romank, a Tāmaki Makaurau based trio who make electronic music perfectly suited for a European Dungeon Rave.
Since 2020 the band have been releasing luxuriously bogan techno tracks inspired by microgenres like Industrial and Eurodance. Their debut album Red Tower was a critical success in Aotearoa’s underground circles and was accompanied by a perfume entitled Leathery Coward.
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Celestial Poison sees Grecco Romank hone their brand of ‘sewer pop’ - taking church bells and choral energy, then combining it with raw techno staples like monobass synths, and drum machines. For Celestial Poison the group were joined by Jeff Henderson (Audio Foundation, iii Records) on baritone saxophone and Ron Gallipoli who provided his trademark tropical industrial yodel.
“We wanted to write a pop song,” says the band. “Something grand and soaring like The Pet Shop Boys but filtered through our harsh palette. It had to make use of our strongest asset - having two vocalists who can play opposing roles in the drama of a number, like Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra.”
“When we write lyrics or name tracks our approach is to find phrases and ideas that are often quite abstract, then, slowly a theme starts to emerge through the fog. For Celestial Poison we realised that a lot of the lyrics we were incorporating seemed to speak to ideas of misinformation, pseudo-science and magical thinking. We often try to play with our lyrics by taking on different roles and perspectives, often ones that are contrary to our own views or moral position.”
Reflecting on how Celestial Poison fits within Wet Exit Grecco Romank promise “that [Celestial Poison] it’s the earworm of our album. It's our most dramatic and catchy track on a varied and wild record."
"Hopefully it’s the anthem that will be New Zealand’s official entry into Eurovision 2023."
Celestial Poison is the second single to be released from Wet Exit, Grecco Romank's new album, out March 23, 2023 on local label Moral Support. Wet Exit will be released digitally and on Vinyl LP, pressed by Holiday Records, Aotearoa's only purpose-built boutique plant.
Grecco Romank are hitting the road to celebrate the release of Wet Exit. They're live show is the stuff of legend, with the group performance reaching torturously high energy levels. Catch them at:
March 24: Hamilton - Last Place
March 31: Christchurch - Loons
April 1: Dunedin - Dive
April 6: Wellington - Valhalla
April 14: Auckland - Las Vegas
Tickets are available from Undertheradar, grab your ticket before they’re gone!
PRE-ORDER GRECCO ROMANK'S WET EXIT ON VINYL LP
“Sometimes you witness a band perform live and you become instantly obsessed... the team fuse together electronic elements including EBM, Industrial and Eurodance into Cronenbergian new shapes designed to set dance floors alight —with the operatic Fee and the growling Sperring being one of the most spine-tingling local vocal pairings since Fiona McDonald and Chris Matthews of the The Headless Chickens.” - Undertheradar
Grecco Romank's 2021 debut album Red Tower was a statement of decayed opulence, a fusion of dark wave, new beat and infectious sewer pop. This was followed by 2022’s remix album Shred Tower that excavates Red Tower’s eerie brutalism through mutually assured construction. It features tracks from twelve electronic trailblazers from Aotearoa New Zealand, London and Berlin, including Keepsakes, Amamelia, Eden Burns, and more.
And now Wet Exit has emerged from the depths as a manifesto of duality; of bleak techno futurism and rapturous post-scarcity. The second studio album is a step forward, repurposing electronic music conventions into grotesque new forms. The result is a journey through a hostile territory of dense dark bangers to soaring new-romantic pop melodies and operatic dirges. The album also features a number of household names from Aotearoa’s underground music community including Kraus, Ex-Partner, Hermione Johnson, Ron Gallipoli, Jeff Henderson, and Moider Mother.
Photo Credit: Peter Jennings
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