The midnight muse has always been a force in music, inspiring hits like Rolling Stone’s “Midnight Rambler” and The Killers’ “Midnight Show”, venturing into the shadows. Taylor Swift’s nocturnal-inspired tenth studio album, Midnights, also using the term, stirred up feverish fan speculation about its hallucinogenic undertones. For Australian artist Boo Seeka, though, midnight isn’t about darkness; it’s a launchpad to a bright new day. His latest album, Midnight Highlight, is all about that dawn chorus.
“The title track really encapsulates the whole vibe of the album,” Boo Seeka, AKA Ben “Boo” Gumbleton, says. “It gives me this feeling of waking up and knowing that you’re going to have an awesome day.”
With its smooth synths and uplifting beats across 11 uptempo tracks, the feel-good effects of Boo Seeka’s album are undeniable. Born from spontaneous studio sessions with his best mate Jay and producer Luke Palmer, the record heralds an exciting new era for the Newcastle artist.
After touring the album across Australia in February and March, Boo Seeka is set to hit North America alongside Boy & Bear in August, building on the bond formed during last year’s Aussie tour.
Before he jets off, Boo Seeka will wrap up his local tour in Melbourne with two shows at the Corner Hotel in May (see full dates here).
Following the release of Boo Seeka’s album, Rolling Stone AU/NZ asked him to break down each song on Midnight Highlight in more detail, which you can check out below.
Boo Seeka’s Midnight Highlight is out now.
Midnight Highlight Track by Track:
“From the Beginning”
This track is all about putting a bigger focus on Jay, who is my best mate and my brother. Jay walked into my life a couple of years back, and since then he has been a pretty permanent member of the Boo Seeka camp both on the road and in the studio for a little while now.
This year, I was so inspired from watching him raise his beautiful son, and hope that hopefully one day I’d be able to be as good a father as he is. Jay is actually on the cover artwork for this one, and we wanted to use some videos of him and his son in some of the promo materials, so this one goes out to him for sure.
“Let It Go”
“Let It Go” is my second release with Annika (Alice Ivy) and it is kind of a spiritual successor to our other track “Stories”. When I was back down in Melbourne for the Boy & Bear tour, we linked up and the bones of it formed super quickly.
Once we were back home from the road we finished it with my long-time mate Luke Palmer who has had a big part in this album. I love how different this one is to anything else I’ve ever done, but I’m so happy with how it turned out for sure.
“Come with Me”
For this new record, we had been basically living in Luke’s studio for six months, writing and recording. It’d all been mostly good days, but we had definitely had hard days. When you feel like nothing that you want to say or hear is coming out of you, it can definitely be a little frustrating. We were about to call it a day, until Jay asked me to just pick up a guitar and start strumming. Having no idea that Luke had the mic on in the studio to capture the moment, it then all of a sudden started to make so much sense.
From eight hours of getting nowhere, to all of a sudden going back and forth with melodies with Jay and creating what I believe to be one of the best tracks of this upcoming record.
“Somebody” (ft. upsidedownhead)
This is another of my favourites, and was probably the one that went through the most changes as a song on the whole album. A massive credit goes to my brother and legend Ross James (upsidedownhead) who started this track out at first and then showed it to me, and I fell in love in the instrumental and how it sounded. After we worked our magic the pieces kind of fell into place.
At one point I was thinking of making this track as sort of a part two to “Come with Me’”, maybe calling it “Lost Part 1” and “Lost Part 2” or something like that, given they have similar themes throughout.
“Midnight Highlight”
I would say the title track really encapsulates the whole vibe of the album pretty well, as it gives me this feeling of waking up and knowing that you’re going to have an awesome day. I feel like for this album it was a bit of a mix of the first two albums, with some of the classic [2017’s] Never Too Soon elements being fused with some of the newer stuff on [2022’s] Between the Head & the Heart, and I really had a blast making this one. Fun fact: back when I was still at first thinking about the name of album, Luke Jay and I originally called this one “Fire Wind Earth”.
“Grapefruit”
This is the feel-good song of the album for sure. My goal with this one was to have a bit of a change of pace from the last couple that we had released up to that point, and just be something chill that you can pop on in the background as a nice partner to a nice drop of red.
“The Birdie That Never Was”
I think that this track will be one of my favourites from this album that I am looking forward to playing live when we’re on the road again.
“Make It for Love” (ft. CHISEKO)
So keen that this one is out now in the world. I made “Make It for Love” originally with Lach Bostock (Mansionair) cooking up the beat, but it felt like it still needed something else. Later in the year while I was with CHISEKO, he hopped on and it just happened.
You could almost say it like it’s a big game of pass the parcel in the creative process, for this track but also for basically all of the others on this album as well. One of us would have an idea, another one of us would add to it, and so on until we had something we were proud of. I’m so happy we could get CHISEKO on the track as he is only just starting out his musical journey and is definitely going places.
“New Morning”
This was a track that had been floating around since early/mid last year and was one that I always seemed to keep coming back to. The “ooh-ooh”s that repeat throughout the song had been stuck in my head for ages, and they were kind of the building blocks for this track, and Jay and Luke did their thing as well. The original title for this one was called “Jam Jam Jam” and it was exactly that, a product of a sick day of jamming with my brothers.
This track is one of those ones that has different meanings for all of us involved, but we still came out the other end of the process loving it equally, whilst all still having different attachments to it. Honestly, I would say that is the case with a good amount of the tracks on Midnight Highlight. Not every track, but a lot of them.
“Are You All In?”
I love how different this track feels to any other Boo Seeka track before it. I get lost in the sweeping vocals and huge drums, and the gravitas of the track is what really pulls me in. I know it’s a cliche, but this process and Album has shown me once again just how powerful a song can be. Even if it only connects with one person other than myself, then in my mind we have accomplished an amazing thing.
“Right Energy”
I think this time around everyone involved unanimously agreed that “Right Energy” was the perfect closer for the album. Usually with my songs, I like to go away, write them, and then come back into the studio and record. But this time around, it was all about having the ones I love respect a part of the process, and I think that’s evident in the final song. It almost feels like it ties up the entire journey of the album and everyone involved in a nice way.
