Babe Rainbow

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For fans of Levitation Room, Drug Cabin, Allah-Las, Sugar Candy Mountain, and Sam Evian

They say it ain’t where you’re from, it’s where you’re at. But for Angus Dowling, Jack ‘Cool-Breeze’ Crowther and Dr Elliot ‘Love Wisdom’ O’Reilly, the character of their home, Australia’s idyllic Gold Coast, permeates every atom of the dreamlike, joyful, psychedelic music they create together as Babe Rainbow. “The old Aquarius hippie connection is everywhere around here,” singer Angus says. “We tap into it, and absorb it all.” And their new album, Slipper Imp And Shakaerator, is their most “homegrown” project yet – a suite of maverick, zephyr-light acid-pop following its own north star and chasing subtle, slippery, subterranean grooves to delirious destinations.

The trio grew up in Rainbow Bay, later relocating to nearby Byron Bay. An area of breathtaking natural beauty, where the waves are always strong, the magic mushrooms grow freely, and old, abandoned farm buildings abound. It was and remains the perfect locale for young dudes to play their music as loud as they want. “We were 16 and 17 years old, working at Tropical Fruit World in Duranbah, cruising around the kiosks and listening to the Nuggets compilations,” remembers Angus, of the group’s earliest days. “Jack and I met in the Australian youth choir as junior songbirds years before that, and he was still the only technical musical guy I knew, but I had the feeling we could all play this music we loved in our own way. We lived on an avocado farm up around then, in the macadamia orchard of the property. And it was so much fun making random noise while surrounded by the mangoes and the bush.”

The trio jammed tirelessly in those abandoned shacks, and as their sound began to develop, they booked shows in Brisbane, the nearest city, a two-hour drive away. While playing Brisbane, they crossed paths with King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, who began to book the embryonic Babe Rainbow as opening band at their shows. “This is before Gizz’s ‘stadium-rock’ period,” Dowling grins.

The Gizz connection would prove fortuitous for Babe Rainbow, who signed to the group’s Flightless label for their 2015 eponymous EP, and whose 2017 self-titled debut LP was produced by Gizzard King Stu Mackenzie. The album established a loyal following for Babe Rainbow, one which has only grown over the records since. And Babe Rainbow’s music itself has evolved across those years, as the band have travelled, toured the world and connected with new friends in faraway places. “Early on, we got to play in California, came early, stayed late, caught a ton of good waves and met some of the best people in the world,” Angus says. “We began rolling around the world, picking up new styles and collaborating with everybody.”

This creative sprawl reached its apotheosis with 2022’s The Organic Band, which Angus remembers as coming together “on the road, a lot of friends together. We met [drummer] Miles Myjavec from Sydney and began chucking ideas down. We were meeting amazing people in California and London and Paris just jamming and singing, everyone’s so happy, having the best time ever.”

For the new album, however, Babe Rainbow have opted for a different approach – one Angus says “keeps to the powers of the Rainbow”. The collaborations with all the free spirits they encounter along the way have been curtailed this time. “We’d done a few albums of us experimenting with people we met on the road and bringing in influence from everywhere,” says Angus. “This is the first record since our debut EP where it’s just the ‘original Gs’, pushing the songwriting in the direction we want, without any groove geniuses around helping us in those really deep and special moments of writing a song.” This back-to-basics, back-to-the-source vibe explains the album’s enigmatic title, the (Bunyip) Slipper Imp and the Shakaerator, aka the Yeoman plow, a sub-soiler chisel plow designed for the more extreme conditions found in Australia, the “revolutionary new ripper of great strength – haha!” says Angus.

The trio took over a massive warehouse on an old banana farm where they could get to work alongside friend and producer Timon Martin and magical Miles Myjavec on percussion and flute. The roots of the tracks often lay in riffs and figures cooked up by guitarist Jack Crowther. “‘Cool Breeze’ has always got something going on” says Angus. “He’s always keen to jam, and Timon’s so good with helping to realise the potential of a song.” The key this time was not to overwork these early ideas, to give them space “to flow, to grow”, he explains. “Keeping a loose feeling to the music is so important. An idea develops together outside but it doesn't take its wings until you take it into the studio. Every step of the way, I'm always trying to stay connected to Jack’s original moment of inspiration. We experiment with synths and drum machines and overdubs, and we love that, but we never wanna escape too far from the hippie power of the music. We're made of rainbow.”

That looseness and that true essence are key to the pleasures within Slipper Imp And Shakaerator. The album rambles gleefully wild, the jams running long but with purpose, lysergic harmonies loosely tethered to deftly funky rhythms loops and fragments of guitar that channel the lyricism of high-life (What Is Ashwagandha), the flash of 80s funk (Like Cleopatra, a glorious, sun-soaked pop banger in disguise), the white-heat of acid-rock (When The Milk Flows). There are haunting instrumental vignettes (Apollonia), nuggets of lo-fi introspection (Now And Zen), even a massive, ground-quaking, reggae-informed excursion starring old friend Stu Mackenzie (the woozy, wonderful Mt Dub), who also mixed the album.

Indeed, while the connection between the core Rainbow Babes here is crucial to the character of Slipper Imp And Shakearator, they weren’t working entirely alone. One key collaborator was singer Camille Jansen, who the group met through their friend and old band mate Maria Benz, and who joined them onstage on their recent US tour. “Cami sang on all the songs on the album, but I feel we haven’t fully tapped into our connection together yet,” says Angus. “She brings an insane new flavour, which is stupendous. It feels really cool and powerful to add her to this lineup.”

But ultimately, Slipper Imp And Shakearator is a celebration of all the colours of the Babe Rainbow – the milk, Angus jokes. “I love the fact that, with all the touring and the changing tides, and hair, the creative relationship within the band still feels so strong. I feel so lucky to have this psychedelic family, which is really the essence of the band. We’re just a bunch of laid back surfers, cattlemen’s sons.”

But as Slipper Imp And Shakearator proves, these babes have access to powerful, home-baked psychedelic magic, and they aren’t reluctant to share. Come grab some – all are welcome.