Week in Pop: Crying, Infinity Shred, The Olympians

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Jacky Winter

Melbourne's Jacky Winter; photographed by Anita Beaney.
Melbourne’s Jacky Winter; photographed by Anita Beaney.

Melbourne’s Jacky Winter recently released his Every Bump EP last September via Very Rare Animals & today premieres the Chris Matthews video for the title track that features Jacky & company rocking out during an indoor session. Also one of Courtney Barnett’s fellow guitar playing besties—Jacky W. works in a host of various styles that combines head nodding rhythm arrangements, hosts of trippy effects & an eclectic of array of any particular form he is feeling. As Melbourne continues to capture the envy of the entire musical world, Winter continues his work to push his own talents in ambitious directions that further elaborate upon his own scope of sensationalist sounds that are instantly infectious.

On the video for the title track “Every Bump”, Jacky Winter wears his freak flag proudly with backup musicians handling guitar/keyboard/MPC/etc duties while he gets as weird as he wants to with a host of inspired improvisational dances. Jacky’s instructions to “ride every bump” allude to the title in a Hunter S. Thompson-esque philosophy of “buy the ticket, take the ride” where the refrain is repeated as a mantra of swagger that celebrates an indulgent brand of hedonism. An anthem of sustainable & questionable insanity with an hallucinatory edge trips forward as Jacky creates something of a hilarious dance maneuver to compliment “Every Bump” that will inspire you to do your own cool-wild-thing out on the dance floor. Jacky Winter here throws all sense of self-consciousness out the window and just feels it & rides it instead of fighting it as he instructs in the repeated title. Jacky Winter brings the world the latest Melbourne vibes with a video that could be an international dance craze (that is also begging to be remixed, we might add).

Jacky Winter introduced his solo work to the world with the following epistolary soliloquy:

Hello there,

My name is Jacky. It was March two years ago. Just like every Sunday morning I was cleaning a pub in Melbourne, Australia when I heard Wu-Tang Clan properly for the first time. It was really fucking loud, I was dusty and it screwed me loose. I became obsessed, listening to 36 Chambers, Only Built for Cuban Linx and Liquid Swords every day.

I bought a MPC, started making beats and invited my mates to come work in a way none of us ever had done cos we’re all fanging guitar players. We learned to sample and sequence, making it up as we went along, writing songs like we always did, but in pieces. Forever cleaning the pubs I saved enough money to fly 6 times across the Pacific to New York City to work with producer Matt Verta-Ray (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion/Dirtbombs) in his analogue studio NY HED. People tell me it reminds them of the Dust Brothers production style, especially the early Beck records. I fucking love those guys, a brilliant compliment.

This is all exploration, doing whatever feel good, just pure music making. It’s sideways and it’s dark and sometimes beautiful, that much I know. I wanted to show that to you.

Love,
Jacky Winter