Track: ‘Uh Oh’ – Naarm/Melbourne-based artist Romanie is back with a brilliant new single and tour dates.

Romanie (Romanie Assez) relocated to Naarm/Melbourne a few years ago from Belgium and has released a string of exquisitely beautiful tracks that showcase her velvet vocals and acute observations on life. She is back after a couple of years’ absence and her new single ‘Uh Oh’ continues this upwards ascendancy. ‘Uh Oh’ has grungy, thrilling, rich guitars that rumble underneath her cool, louch vocals delivering soaring melodies. With a scintillating yelp, the track moves into overdrive like a monster truck breaching a hill before a fade with hints of feedback.

It’s a much more bold and visceral track than her previous work: a bittersweet ode to obsession and regret with a thread of self-deprecating humour shining through the melancholy:

I don’t think I can like the way you liked me then
Can we pretend, a world in which we should be friends? One of these days I will replace this
version of myself
The bedside manners soothing up the bad side of my health Uh oh, uh oh — nothing goes to plan
Uh oh, uh oh — the way I lose myself

‘Uh Oh’ comes with a suitably gritty nineties-style video directed by Young Ha Kim (Mdou Moctar, Kaiit, Press Club) and shot on Wurundjeri Country at Harvey Wreckers and Gary Mac car wrecking yards in Cranbourne where Romanie and her band (Emma Rumble – bass, Naomi Best – drums and Thomas Swain – guitar/BVs) perform with a luminescent style against a beak background.

Romanie says of the track and the video:

I was going through a rough patch in life with some health scares and homesickness and caught up with my friend Hamish Mitchell, we wrote ‘Uh Oh’ over a couple of hours. A few months later we started playing it live – it’s a really fun song to play live. This was the first time taking my live band into the studio and I think Sam Swain captured our energy really well. The scream got added towards the end of the session mainly as a joke but everything evolved so naturally and we kept it in. For the video, I emailed about 20 different car wreckers around Victoria and some of them were not super enthusiastic: one of them got back to me just saying ‘Go get fucked. Sent from my iPhone’. Darren from Harvey Wreckers and Troy from Gary Macs both replied with enthusiastic good news a few days before I was about to abandon the idea, and the locations were so amazing – the whole day I was smiling and giggling amongst the wrecks.

It’s a fitting accompaniment to the visceral track:

It’s great to have her back. ‘Uh Oh’ is out now through Community Music and can be downloaded and streamed here.

Romanie has some headline gigs coming up to launch her new material see details below.

Friday, 6 June – Merri Creek Tavern – Naarm/Melbourne
Friday, 13 June – Bergy Bandroom – Naarm/Melbourne*
Wednesday, 25 June – Shotkickers – Naarm/Melbourne**
Saturday, 28 June – Northcote Social Club – Naarm/Melbourne***