Black Shadow Photography

To celebrate their brand new album Playtime for John Mountain (released 23 August via Sensory Projects), The Rectifiers play their first show in quite a while alongside Legends Of Motorsport’s wonderful Richard ‘Lightbulb’ Fyshwick at The Tote, Saturday 30 August. The show is part of Sir Richard’s solo residency and features stripped up and down songsmithery in the mood of Kelley Stoltz, Clawhammer, and the Legends. Be sure to arrive at The Tote by five pm to secure a comfortable piece of floor space.

Five years on from the hugely acclaimed Wear The Weight Of The Resting Sky, Playtime for John Mountain is The Rectifiers’ most ambitious and accomplished work to date and signals the return of one of Melbourne’s most singular and ahead-of-the-curve bands, emboldened with a beatific new musical and lyrical vision.

Put simply, Playtime for John Mountain is a pastoral pop masterpiece. Conceived as the first part of a trilogy, this stunning collection of a dozen cyclical story songs revolves around an internal narrative logic dreamed up by the brothers Volk (Nick Volk: samplers/synths/bass and Jo Volk: guitar/vocals), who remain at the core of the band together with Todd Denham (synths/samplers). Ben Teniswood joins The Rectifiers on drums.

Driven by a desire to avoid the pitfalls of self-referential singer-songwriting, and inspired by the ideals of magic realism, Nick and Jo devised a world of their own making. After the album title came to Nick in a dream, the brothers’ imagination went to work and the parallel cosmos of John Mountain became a setting for the folkloric journey and characters which inhabit these dreamlike songs.

Taking four years from conception to completion, the band’s meticulous recording process yielded a wealth of material which was lovingly cut and pasted to construct Playtime for John Mountain. There were musical touchstones along the way — namely, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society, Odessey and Oracle by The Zombies, The Three EPs by The Beta Band, the entire Hank Williams canon and the Fearless Freaks documentary — but fans of The Rectifiers will recognise Playtime for John Mountain as uniquely theirs.

The Rectifiers + Sly Hats + special guest