With a previous life in band Melbourne indie rock band 67 Special, Ash Santilla has gone solo in a spectacular fashion with his new single ‘Nightcrawler’, which we are very proud to premiere today.
With an ominous beat and a jagged raw power, ‘Nightcrawler’ slithers along like a terrifying beast filled with a dark brooding air, drawing upon a genetic code that includes strands from early Nick Cave, The Birthday Party and Rowland S Howard, all mixed in with a little late night regret and bacchanalian excess. The song prowls around and twists and turns, filled to the brim with seething emotions drawn from a challenging past. There is something very real about the ominous tones: Sanilla faced potentially life ending health issues at a young age, a recurring nightmare and always in the air, coupled with band break ups and mental issues, all which seem to feed into every note. Santilla says the song is about:
…all-encompassing nightmares of spectres of the mind at sleep whilst, the brain convulses in overtime.
It confronts the terrifying reality of recurring nightmares and the impact of misdiagnosed medications that promise healing but instead open darker doors.
The poetic lyrics are raw and unabridged:
There’s a record playin’ in my brain this morning
Its found its way into my hands
A train were calling like a death row song
Through my dreams and I saw red
So I laid another brick for my thinking stick
A promise to myself
Time was stalling like the fire that’s warming
From my toes to my neck
The nightmares seem to swirl through the barbed wire guitars and feedback and these all feed into the accompanying video, filled with chills and horrors. It’s raw, visceral and incredibly immersive:
‘Nightcrawler’ is released tomorrow through the glorious Cheersquad Records & Tapes and comes off the forthcoming debut album ‘The Darker Side of Up’. It is available tomorrow via all the usual sites and today exclusively through the link below:
Santilla says of the album:
To say the personal journey leading up to the realisation of this record has been taxing is to diminish the creative integrity of the material once fully realised. Regardless of the complex personal experiences intertwined within the narrative of the record, it, for me, stands up artistically and if it didn’t it just would not be released.
Much of the material on ‘The Darker Side of Up’ was written on an old, disused upright piano, at a Melbourne mental health facility Santilla was admitted to in 2015. Diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, Santilla continued to write and record during bouts of treatment. This stuff is real and immediate, lending power to the artistic expression.
You can catch Santilla live and launching the single here in the coming months:
Wednesday, 30 July
Northcote Social Club, VIC
w/ Matt Walker & Ashley Davies, Smoked Salmon
Tickets
Saturday, 9 August
Single launch @ The Old Bar, Fitzroy VIC
w/ Meghan Maike & the Cactus Flowers + Joyce Prescher
Tickets
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