Sydney Continental stylists My Sauce Good are a quartet releasing a new EP called Orphan Spirit. The feature title track has a bouncy 1960s surf-rock groove and sexy French female vocals. Think Tarantino soundtracks, Francoise Hardy, early B-52s. Recorded at Defwolf studios Redfern, produced by Dirk Kruithof (Waiting for Guinness) and Aaron J Trew (Zombie Ghost Train).
Each track has its unique flavour: ‘Walk-A-Mile-Blues’ is a soulful traveller’s blues ballad with a cinematic road-movie / Tom Waits feel that was inspired by the band’s tour of Europe. ‘Wake The World’ is a kooky psychedelic pop-rock apocalyptic love song with shades of the 90s sound (Beck etc). ‘Orphan Spirit Joshua Isaac Dance Remix’ finishes off the EP with vocal cut-ups in fine dance-party mode.
The band is also proud to be releasing a beautifully animated video clip of ‘Orphan Spirit’: a collaboration between the band, Jumaadi – 2013 Moscow biennale featured artist / shadow-puppeteer and Sarah Eddowes – animator / director. It is the perfect 3.5 minute pop-song length full of drama and beauty about a little girl and a trapped spirit. Complete with English subtitles.
We caught up Dirk the guitarist of My Good Sauce to find our where it all began, their new EP and signing in French.
Could you tell us a little bit about how My Sauce Good began?
I met our singer Laura at The Studio Opera House at a night called ‘Russian Roulette’ in 2008, with music by Vulgargrad, Zulya and the children of the underground and dj Sveta. We were sitting next to each other selling cd’s on the night, and a little bit later we met up and I heard her sing a beautiful Spanish song – ‘La Sirena’. I was blown away by her voice and we decided we should try and play music together. We chose a bunch of songs in English Spanish and French and 3 months later we were doing some small duo gigs around the place, with me on acoustic guitar. It grew from there and we are now a quartet also with drums and 2nd guitar and a more electric sound.
You’re about to release a new EP called Orphan Spirit. How would you describe it?
It’s a nice mix of 60’s meets 90’s on the way thru the 80’s to 2013. The song Orphan Spirit is a sexy French surf-rock track with handclaps and tremolo guitar, a bit B52’s/Francoise Hardy/Tarantino. Theres also a heart-breaking road-trip blues ballad and a kooky pop song on the EP. Theres also a little bit of Tom Waits and Beck influence, (that is if you imagine that they were both Female singers born in 1970’s Argentina.)
Before its release you’ve given a sneak peak by dropping the title-track and its accompanying clip. With French vocals and a cinematic Tarantino vibe, what was the inspiration behind Orphan Spirit ?
Musically I just wanted to come up with something simple, catchy and with a bouncy groove. Lyrically ‘Orphan Spirit’ is basically a ghost story with a happy ending, but you really need to see the clip, it’s animated and very beautiful with English subtitles if you get lost. But the story has a bit of magical realism flavour so it’s not too literal and you can enjoy it for the imagery.
What would your music be the perfect soundtrack for?
Road trips, pool parties, sex, art exhibition closing parties.
Recently you’ve spent some time overseas on a European tour. How was that? Any highlights?
It was lots of fun and exhausting, we covered heaps of territory in 2 months. Corsica was pretty memorable, we played a wedding and heaps of other gigs there – it was basically a 2 week party. They have the craziest drivers of anywhere Ive been! In Ireland everyone played music and were very passionate and knowledgeable about it.
Speaking of tours, you’re about to go off on a national tour starting mid-September and continuing until the start of November. For those who haven’t caught you live before, how would you describe the experience?
We bring the M.S.G. flavour: It’s a four piece line up of two guitars, drums and female vocals. We do a mix of songs in English, Spanish and French. Its Bohemian Rock, Alternative World, Torch-song-noir. I like to wear my white leather shoes and Laura always looks good for the stage and tells stories that may or may not make complete sense. We try not to use smoke machines if we can help it.
In terms of music scenes, would you say there’s a big difference between Europe and Australia?
Its hard to generalise ‘cos the parts of Europe we went to are all different from each other. We didn’t find that many opportunities to play music in Amsterdam or Italy for example, but that may have just been our lack of contacts. I would say that it feels like music is a real part of the fabric of everyday life over there – on the streets, on the train, in small bars more so in places like Ireland, Corsica and Portugal than here.
What’s getting heavy rotation on your iPod at the moment?
I’ve got into some Kurt Vile and Devendra Banhart of late. Lanie Lanes album is cool. I still listen to old punk stuff like The Fall, Pil, Pogues, then things like Tom Waits, Beck and also free jazz stuff like Don Cherry. Neneh Cherry’s latest was good. Recently discovered a great 1980’s French pop group – Les Rita Mitsouko. They are very cool. Plastic Bertrand wasn’t the only thing to come out of France. The singer is way cooler than Madonna or Lady Gaga. Also Marc Ribot and Django Reinhardt for guitar music. So its all over the place.
Which living Australian artist would you most like to collaborate with, and why?
Nick Cave. I reckon we could do a great bi-lingual song together with him, kinda Sonny and Cher go Euro. Im Serious. Plus I could easily pass for Blixa Bargeld.
Do you have any particular ritual before you go on stage, or even a lucky charm you take with you?
I like to make sure Ive gone to the toilet and tuned my guitar before hitting the stage, and Ive also learnt that tuning a little sharper sounds better than being flat. To my ears anyway… Im not superstitious so Im not so into lucky charms, but I think a bit of loose change in a suit pocket or buried under a sneaker insole couldn’t hurt.
If you could curate your own festival, where would it be, who would be on the bill, how many people would you let in and what features would it have?
It would be a free party in Bairo Alto Lisbon, an alleways party with 1 euro Ales in big cups. Affordable street food in large serves. You could fit a whole suburbs worth of people in because there would be 8 indoor venues side by side and you wander from one to the other. There’d be Samba stage, Fado stage, Punk stage, Africa stage, Electronic stage, Anything goes stage, Hip-hop stage, Underground stage. A bar in each venue, and the best music around. Kinda just like how it really is there except there’d be no angry police or people trying to sell you drugs on every corner.
Looking forward, what have you got planned for the rest of the year and the start of 2014?
We are aiming to release a new album soon, hopefully early 2014. Or is that 1954 now Abbott is in ?… We have the name of it already Death Of A Wedding Band, so we want to hurry up and get it out soon.
Where we can see you play next, what releases do you have available and where can we get them?
Our music is available through Itunes or www.cdbaby.com/cd/mysaucegood
My Good Sauce Tour Dates:
September 18 – Sydney, Bordello Theatre, level 4, Kings Cross Hotel
September 20 – Katoomba, The Clarendon Guesthouse
October 30 – Adelaide The Grace Emily Hotel
November 1 – Melbourne The Spotted Mallard
November 2 – Canberra The Front Gallery
Watch ‘Orphan Spirit’ here:
