This week’s PBS Feature Album is the debut album Stiletto by six-piece hypnotic dance-punk ensemble Gut Health.
Recorded in 2023 with long-term collaborator Julian Cue (CIVIC, Screensaver) and Gut Health’s Dom Willmott on a 24-track reel-to-reel tape machine, Gut Health’s debut full-length offering is an immersive ten-track foray into dancefloor-inducing soundscapes and punchy prowess, with songs oscillating between infectious up-tempo numbers, hypnotic bliss and chaotic noise edging precariously toward collapse.
Gut Health’s expression of the healing qualities of consensual rage and their unadulterated demonstration of sonic shapeshifting, lingering tension and auditory ambition gives Stiletto its magnetic edge. Tracks flicker between atonality and melodicism, while unpredictably snaking and expanding into engulfing, kaleidoscopic soundscapes, reinforced by a groove-heavy rhythm section that champions the diverse musical backgrounds of each player – spanning punk to jazz to sound design and beyond.
Dynamic front-person Athina Uh Oh’s lyrics build upon their stream-of-consciousness approach to writing, obliquely drawing upon personal experiences and broader societal observations — like the value of listening and sharing, the challenges of contemporary so-called Australia, the destruction and erasure of Indigenous countries and people, and the empowerment of high-femmes and marginalised communities — while largely leaning into imagery and concepts to entice listeners to form song interpretations of their own.
Tune in all this week to hear tracks from Stiletto, and PBS Members have the chance to win a copy of the album on vinyl: simply email your name and membership number to before midnight Sunday October 20. Please note vinyl giveaways must be picked up from the station in Collingwood.
Not a PBS Member? Join now!
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING THIS WEEK
The Pro-Teens - 'Kon Queso'
Tinariwen - 'Amoss Idjraw'
Tomin - 'Love'
Yukimi - 'Break Me Down'
Mia Koden - 'Baile De Blues'
CCL - 'Plot Twist'
K.Verell - 'An Age of Ghosts – A Requiem in C'
Laurence Pike - 'Requiem Aeternam'
Golden Bug - 'L’Effet Domino' feat Anna Jean
Kim Gordon - 'Bangin' On The Freeway'
