Fresh from returning home to Victoria, Melbourne psych-rockers Foreign/National have released their latest single “Diamond Mine”, the latest taste of their upcoming album, The Garden.
Having been on the scene for some time now, Foreign/National previously caught the attention of numerous critics and music lovers with the release of 2017’s Dépaysement, and have spent the last few years based in Berlin, slowly carving out a voracious fanbase as they work towards new music.
Sharing tracks such as “Balmy Evening” and “Heat” over the past year, the group have been hard at work, slowly moving towards the release of their second album. Now, they’ve shared the record’s latest single, “Diamond Mine”, and revealed that The Garden is officially set to release on May 29th.
Recorded between Melbourne and Los Angeles, The Garden has seen Foreign/National working with a steady roster of world-class collaborators, including Casey Harnett (Sui Zhen, Dreamin’ Wild, King Gizzard), Jarvis Taveniere (King Gizzard, Real Estate, Mild High Club, Sunflower Bean) and Andrei Eremin (Chet Faker, Tones and I, Hiatus Kaiyote).
Though previous releases had seen the group utilising a lo-fi psych-pop sound, The Garden sees the group moving away from this approach to create something wholly fresh, but still uniquely their own.
“This is the first release where we’ve had a firm creative direction from the beginning,” explains guitarist and vocalist Tom Stephenson.
“When writing it, we were all listening to a lot of afrobeat and Ethio-jazz and were keen to inject elements from those genres into our somewhat traditional pop sound,” adds frontman Mark Gage.
Thematically, the new record sees the group commenting on the distressing state of the world, while utilising songwriting contributions from all Tom Stephenson, Mark Gage, and bassist Sean Gage for the first time.
“The Garden is more focused on the negative behaviours and hypocrisy we see in public figures – business leaders, politicians, the clergy and, of course, entitled men,” Mark Gage explains.
Foreign/National’s The Garden is set for release on May 29th.
