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Today, multi-instrumentalist GUM (aka Jay Watson) has released his new album Saturnia, available now via Spinning Top Records. To celebrate the occasion, he also releases the new single “Argentina” featuring the dreamy-pop vocals of the beloved indie artist Hatchie. The music video was directed by Alex Aulson who’d previously collaborated with Watson on the video for the GUM track “Glamorous Damage”.

Remarking on the track, Watson says, “This song isn’t really about Argentina, I just want to say that I adore Argentina and it’s one of my favourite places to go and play. It’s about letting ego take hold of you and not surrounding yourself with the right people. It features some great vocal parts from Hatchie.”

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Recently released singles “Race To The Air”, “Would It Pain You to See?” and “Music Is Bigger Than Hair” have drawn support from the likes of Rolling Stone Australia, NME Australia, triple j’s Richard Kingsmill, Pedestrian and more, along with an outpour of additions including Double J, rage, 2SER and more.

GUM is currently on a rare home soil tour with his band, recently playing Perth and Brisbane ahead of his upcoming Sydney and Melbourne shows. He’ll be heading to WA’s Wave Rock Weekender this month before playing a string of dates across the US in October.

Over five albums fronting GUM, not to mention the nine he’s made as co-leader of psych cosmonauts Pond, Watson’s restless imagination has treated us to some of the most sonically diverse explorations of the past decade. On Saturnia, however, these visions have coalesced into the richest, most coherent work of Watson’s career to date.

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Arriving off the back of 2020’s Out In The World, Watson had a loose idea of where he wanted GUM to travel to next. 

Sticks in hand and a rough sonic map in mind, the intervention of the pandemic and the logistics of looking after two small children meant that the songs Watson had started to write were given a previously unprecedented amount of time to percolate in his head and they slowly began to ferment and sprout new tendrils. 

“Because of Covid and because I had a new kid, for the first time ever I would write songs and think about them months on end,” he says. “I’d always been a bit of a lazy arranger, but this time I was working on different sections in my head for months.”

With his mind ticking over and creative impulses sparking off new ideas all the time, Watson’s initial blueprint started to look a little different. There were new routes on this map all of a sudden.

“My dream was to make one coherent record that sounded the same all the way through, but it’s just so hard when you like so much different stuff!” he laughs. “I wanted the whole album to sound like Nick Drake at the very beginning, but it just doesn’t workout like that. I’ve got so much equipment and stuff to play with that even if I start with something that sounds like Nick Drake, I’ll starting adding things and playing with it and it will take it away into somewhere else immediately.”

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The glue that holds Saturnia together, and what anchors it, is that bedrock of real-life playing and organic sounds that Watson was aiming for. But as the record evolved and grew, it proved to be the launchpad for something far wider, adventurous and musically nourishing.

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The story of Saturnia is one of Watson starting in one place, finding himself somewhere completely different and in the process finding a new balance. His initial ideas may not have mapped out quite as planned, but frankly, it’s all the better for it.

Saturnia is available globally now wherever you consume great music.

Purchase now in digital formats as well as 180g clear 12” vinyl HERE.

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Australian Tour Dates

Friday 8 September
Freo Social
Perth, WA
With Lyndon Blue & Erasers

Thursday 14 September
Brightside
Brisbane, QLD
With SCRAPS

Friday 15 September
Oxford Art Factory
Sydney, NSW

With special guests Solo Career

Saturday 16 September
The Night Cat
Melbourne, VIC
With special guests Kosmetika

Tickets on sale now from jaywwatson.com

Friday 22 September – Monday 25 September
Wave Rock Weekender
Wave Rock Caravan Park and Surrounds
Hyden WA

Tickets available here

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Available globally now

SATURNIA

Race to the Air
Muscle Memory
Argentina
Would It Pain You to See?
Fear of Joy
Music Is Bigger Than Hair
Real Life
Saturnism
In a Glasshouse (With No Light)
It Lies a Lifetime

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AMNPLIFY – ML