With Gut Health‘s debut album, Stiletto, drawing nearer, the dance-punk band have shared the record’s striking title track.
Set for release on October 11th, Stiletto is the highly anticipated follow-up to their debut EP, Electric Party Chrome Girl, which earmarked Gut Health as a band to watch through energetic tracks like “Inner Norm.”
Released today, the title track is reflective of the album’s core theme of the “healing qualities of consensual rage,” according to lead singer Athina Uh Oh.
“I think this is most reflective in the dynamics and energy we expel in the song,” she says. “I tend to write lyrics that are image-based, up for interpretation, intended to allow you to feel and make what you want of them. We ultimately want people to feel a sense of catharsis. The flow – the push and pull.”
“Stiletto” actually dates back all the way to Gut Health’s first gig in 2021. “I had written the words a while back before the band’s inception, and found them in the corners of my notes app while we were rehearsing together,” Athina explains.
“The song took a stream of consciousness approach in both the lyrics and instrumentation. We all really mesh as individuals, as friends who are chosen family, and writing this song revealed that can be reflected sonically as bandmates.”
Never a band to shy away from political issues, “Stiletto” is a “condemnation of contemporary so-called Australia, how it is fabricated and capitalistic, and how its real owners are Indigenous people.”
“These are settler words and images though – people should really go and listen to Indigenous mob,” Athina adds. “We believe that people should feel free to expel feelings like rage, hurt, and anger in a space that is safe, surrounded by people who are safe.
“It’s when these feelings are used to intentionally hurt or abuse people that it becomes unethical. They are human emotions though, used to help us make sense of the world and to see injustice. This kind of draws back to some of our influences around the dance-punk sound – hardcore shows and raves often take on a similar approach.”
As for why “Stiletto” was chosen as the title track, it’s partly to do with how well-received the track has been at Gut Health gigs.
“People seem to really resonate with the song when we play it live, and we wanted to show another aspect to our sound that isn’t just two-minute jagged dancey tracks. ‘Stiletto’ gives us the opportunity to not box ourselves in and to open up for exploration,” the band’s bassist Adam Markmann says.
That’s why Gut Health tend to conclude their sets with a rendition of “Stiletto.”
“I think this is because it’s where we can forget about the world when we play the song. We can live in a time vault, that being the moment while we are on stage. I’m always chasing that feeling when performing or dancing in a crowd ‘cause nothing really beats it – a space where I can lose a sense of myself, of how I might be perceived, to just be there in that moment, in the present,” Athina adds.
The accompanying music video, premiering on Rolling Stone AU/NZ today, is a near-eight-minute odyssey shot between Coburg Velodrome and Cool Studio in Collingwood.
Athina’s friend and collaborator, Renee Kyprotis, handled the treatment. “She wanted to show a wide expanse, where both nature and man-made materials are present,” Athina shares.
“As the visuals progress, they gradually darken, descending into a liminal space that mirrors the song’s evolving tone. A blacked-out studio becomes the setting, with a spotlight illuminating Athina and the band,” Renee adds.
“Stiletto” is less overtly groovy than previous Gut Health cuts like the aforementioned “Inner Norm”, the latter of which revelled in the “dance” part of “dance-punk.” Instead, the band’s title track is hypnotically repetitious, carefully building to its chaotic, cacophonous crescendo; the pacing is so meticulous that the epic track feels like a tight three-to-four-minute anthem.
“Stiletto” is the third taste of Gut Health’s forthcoming album, following “Cool Moderator” and “Separate States.”
The sextet – Athina and Adam are joined by Eloise Murphy-Hill (guitar), Dom Willmott (guitar, synth), Angus Fletcher (percussion, synth), and Myka Wallace (drums) – have become one of Australia’s most promising bands in the country’s punk and post-punk scenes since first forming in an Inner Melbourne sharehouse a few years ago.
Their burgeoning success has led them to share stages with Queens of the Stone Age, Mudhoney, RVG, and Body Type, showcase their music at BIGSOUND and SXSW Sydney, and complete their second tour of Europe this year, which saw them, in a perfect match of philosophies and politics, play a set at Health Bells Festival hosted by Germany’s socialist anarchist football club FC St. Pauli.
“Stiletto” is the title track of Gut Health’s debut album, out Friday, October 11th via Highly Contagious / AWAL from guthealth.space.
