[Cover photo credit to Hugh Stewart]
Australian Psych-Rock band The Church have released new single and video “The Hypnogogue“ via Communicating Vessels/Unorthodox. The song and video are set in a dystopian future of 2054 and features a machine, “the Hypnogogue”, that can draw music from dreams. The video is directed by Australian filmmaker Clint Lewis.
Steve Kilbey, bassist, vocalist and founder of Church explains:
The song is about Eros Zeta the biggest rock star of 2054 who has traveled from his home in Antarctica (against his manager’s advice) to use the Hypnogogue to help him revive his flagging fortunes. In the midst of the toxic process, he also falls in love with Sun Kim and it all ends tragically (of course…as these thing often do).
I gave the director a lot of input into this video but he took my ideas and ran with them and came up with a fair bit of stuff I never envisaged. The Church appear on screens in the Hypnogogue as workers in the system, translating the dreams of users into real time music. I’m very happy with the way it all turned out. It’d be hard to get a better result!
As they move into their fourth decade as a band, The Church have been hard at work on their 26th album, the follow-up to 2017’s Man Woman Life Death Infinity. Planned for release in early 2023, its first single “The Hypnogogue” is a precursor to the music that the band is prepping for release.
The band’s 2022 line-up includes bassist, vocalist and founder Steve Kilbey with long-time collaborator Tim Powles, drummer and producer across 17 albums since ’94; guitarist Ian Haug formerly of Australian Rock band Powderfinger, who joined the band in 2013, and Jeffrey Cain (Remy Zero), touring multi-instrumentalist who is now a full-time member of The Church since the departure of Peter Koppes in early 2020. The band have also recruited Ashley Naylor, long-time member of Paul Kelly’s touring band (Even, The Grapes, The Stems).
