Party Dozen edge closer to the release of new album 21 Bum Salute with the release of final single, “Full Powers,” a swaggering, swampy rock track about the intoxicating highs and ugly excesses of power. It starts confident and euphoric before slowly tipping into something wilder and heavier. Kirsty Tickle is given free reign to fully cut loose as the song moves from a swirling and melodic verse towards a pounding ending, the squalls and squeals absolutely joyous in their rebellion. As much as any song on 21 Bum Salute, and titled utterly appropriately, “Full Powers” shows where Party Dozen are at now: unafraid to experiment with traditional pop structures, big production and melody lines that veer perilously close to lyrics, yet not compromising or sacrificing the raw power or wild abandon that has carried them through four increasingly heard albums and around the world.
On the single, Party Dozen shares: “There’s ‘Full Powers’ good and there’s ‘Full Powers’ bad. The good is when you’re personally becoming too powerful, an angel pisses on you, everything is going very well and suddenly you’re gliding down the street like King Swinging Dick.
“The bad is when one side has all the power and more is not enough. Powerlust, greedmongering, gluttonous fiends. This track switches between the two. It has a really strong, confident feel that gets a little uneasy as the track progresses.”
“It’s like we just don’t care anymore,” says Jonathan Boulet. “But in the best way.”
21 Bum Salute is the fifth album from Sydney experimental psych-noise-pop duo Party Dozen. The work of Kirsty Tickle (saxophone, vocals) and Jonathan Boulet (drums, loops, production), 21 Bum Salute finds the critically-acclaimed, semi-improvised duo feeling liberated – from their peers, their worries, and what the hell they’re supposed to sound like now.
“We’re having more fun than we’ve ever had before,” says Tickle. “This album is kind of putting a middle finger up and waving at someone with a smile at the same time. We’re egging you on to have a good time.”
Emerging in 2017 from the warehouses of the Sydney experimental noise-rock scene, Party Dozen arrive at the release of their fifth album, 21 Bum Salute, in peak form. Over the course of four, increasingly perverse albums of psych-tinged rock peppered with pop noise and bursts of doom in equal measure, they’ve transformed from gleeful noise-makers producing DIY albums from a tiny room in Marrickville, NSW, to globe-hopping, critically-adored favourites – producing DIY albums from a tiny room in Marrickville.
As well as tours with Amyl and the Sniffers, King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, Tropical F*ckstorm, Algiers and more, Party Dozen had Nick Cave appear on 2022 single ‘Macca The Mutt’, collabed with New York rapper billy woods, performed an incendiary live set on KEXP, signed an international deal with Temporary Residence LTD (Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, MONA, BEAK>), and performed at Pitchfork Fest, All Points East, End Of the Road, Sydney Opera House and been nominated for the Australian Music Prize.
Along the way Party Dozen self-released their first two albums, The Living Man (2017) and Pray For Party Dozen (2020), struck a chord internationally with album The Real Work (2022), which sent them on tours of Europe, North America, Japan, China and New Zealand, while fourth LP, Crime in Australia (2024), an ode to Aussie noir that leaned beyond rock into moodier moments, repeated it. And for 21 Bum Salute?
“On this album we’ve got it down to the absolute best part of the idea for you,” says Tickle. “We’ve trimmed the fat.”
Proof is in punky opener ‘Special Unit’, the roaring ‘Toss My Coin’, swaggering ‘Full Powers’ and disgustingly hectic ‘PMFD’ (aka ‘Party Mother Fucken Dozen’). But there’s weird new sounds too. ‘Euro Stomper’ pitches them onto some gurning dancefloor, the blown out skronk of ‘Captain Honk’ squelches like the aux cord is half-out, and the rinky-dink title track throbs on farting guitars and delay-drenched vocals, conjuring some new liminal space for the band. It’s a whacko new universe – if you want in.
“Party Dozen is just what Jono and I want to do,” says Tickle. Or as Boulet says, “We wash our hands of this world.”
Party Dozen recorded, mixed and mastered 21 Bum Salute completely themselves, over a three month span. Inspired by spooky “old recordings” as well as the primal impulses of acts like ESG and Bikini ill, 21 Bum Salute – named after a peculiar, larrikin ritual in Australia’s arid Northern Territory –condenses consecutive years of jam sessions, loops and improvisations into just over half an hour’s worth of fizzing, strutting, striking sonics from the fringes. “We were looking for groove, some new takes, some weird fucking side quests,” says Boulet. “Some of these songs are the weirdest, oddest ditties we’ve ever made. Which I love. There’s doors we unlocked that we didn’t know were available to us.”
It also features more of Tickle’s vocals than ever before. Lead single ‘Mad Rooter’ is a greasy strut with swinging hips; Tickle grunting and hiccupping around sax stabs and reverb-soaked organ. She becomes the “crazy woman yelling” in the collapsing song that is ‘PMFD’, the speedy narrator of ‘Full Powers’, and the ingenue of ‘The Stinking Rose’, that starts sultry over a bluesy sway, before escalating into shrieks and squawking sax blurts.
There are no lyrics in Tickle’s wails on 21 Bum Salute. It’s the act of singing that compels her. “It’s whatever comes out in the moment,” she says. “My rage and anger and toughness and grunting are a reflection of my female experience. I look people in the eye while I’m shouting down the bell of my sax and I’m proud of it.” It also happens to be super fun. “I’ve never had such a good time in the studio,” says Tickle. “This record was the most enjoyable out of any we’ve done.”
“The ideas come when it’s a weird blend of two things that create a perfect balance,” says Boulet of the Party Dozen magic. “Something that sounds fucked up and you can only just hear what’s happening. It’s a real unspoken excitement that happens when we’re both into it. It’s the real reflection of both our creativity.”
“But it’s like, if you want to get on board with us, come,” says Tickle. “We’re having a great time.”
Keep your mind open.
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[Thanks to Andi at Terrorbird Media.]
