Tropical Fuck Storm

Tropical Fuck Storm
Tropical Fuck Storm, 2018. Left to right: Fiona Kitschin, Gareth Liddiard, Erica Dunn, Lauren Hammel.
Background information
Origin	Melbourne, Australia
Genres	Alternative rock blues rock experimental rock garage rock noise rock punk blues
Years active	2017-present
Labels	Joyful Noise Recordings
Members	Gareth Liddiard Fiona Kitschin Lauren Hammel Erica Dunn
Website	The Drones official website

Tropical Fuck Storm is an Australian band from Melbourne, Victoria, formed by Gareth Liddiard and Fiona Kitschin after taking a hiatus from the art-punk psych band The Drones. Lauren Hammel, from the band High Tension, plays drums, and Erica Dunn, from the bands MOD CON, Harmony and Palm Springs, plays guitars, keyboards, and other instruments.

Biography

Looking to reboot creatively, The Drones went on hiatus at the end of their tour supporting Feelin' Kinda Free in December of 2016. The following year, Drones founder Gareth Liddiard and longtime bandmate Fiona Kitschin started writing material for a new project under the name for the record label they'd coined to self-release their last Drones album. The pair recruited Erica Dunn and Lauren Hummel during the summer of 2017, prior to embarking on an American tour. According to Dunn, "They just rang me up. Gareth and Fi were on loudspeaker like excited children. The pitch was 'Do you want to play guitar? We’re just going to do some weird shit.' And I was like 'Okay, sure.' Then Gareth said 'We might go to America in the next month, are you free? And we have to write some songs.' Sure I’ll clear my schedule. Hammer [Lauren Hummel] was a bit different though, because [Gareth] didn't know her and he had to take her to the pub."

They released a series of 7-inch singles later that autumn while on tour with Band of Horses and King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard in the states. Their debut album, A Laughing Death in Meatspace, dropped in March of 2018 and the band signed with Joyful Noise Recordings shortly thereafter. "The album title links “meatspace” – as Silicon Valley engineers derogatorily refer to the physical realm – with a neurodegenerative disorder called kuru, once found in the Fore people of Papua New Guinea. Men would eat the muscles of the deceased, while women and children ate the brains, thereby inheriting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and pot-holing their own grey matter to such an extent that they lost control of their emotions and laughed themselves to death." Videos for the songs "You Let My Tyres Down","Rubber Bullies" and "Soft Power" were released that spring.

The album received positive reviews with the press noting that, "Starting a new project unencumbered by the Drones’ name or weighty reputation seems to have given Liddiard the freedom to jettison the last remaining trappings of rock traditionalism in his songwriting and let loose, with impressive results." The Quietus ranked it #8 out of 100 entries on their list of “Albums Of The Year So Far 2018”, writing that it’s “hot with anger and full of ugly truths about the ways we live our lives[…]the effect is compelling.” Greil Marcus wrote that the album makes "as fierce a band as" The Drones "seem austere" in comparison, writing that "the explosions in “Two Afternoons,” “A Laughing Death,” and “Rubber Bullies” are glorious and frightening, so big they don’t feel quite real, but there’s a story trying to climb out of the noise, carried by Liddiard’s weariness, his uncynical fatalism, but shaped by the counter-vocals of Kitschin and Dunn", ending by saying that "you can feel as if this is what history sounds like as it’s being written."

As of October 2018, it is also the highest ranked punk blues and noise rock album of the decade on the website Rate Your Music, based on over 2,600 ratings.

Members

Current members

• Gareth Liddiard — lead vocals, guitar
• Fiona Kitschin — backing vocals, bass guitar
• Erica Dunn — backing vocals, guitar, keyboards
• Lauren Hammel — drums, programming

Discography

Studio albums

• A Laughing Death in Meatspace (Joyful Noise Recordings, 2018)

Singles

• "Chameleon Paint" b/w "Mansion Family" 7" (Mistletone, 2017)
• "Rubber Bullies" b/w "Stayin' Alive" 7" (Mistletone, 2017)
• "You Let My Tyres Down" b/w "Back to the Wall" 7" (Mistletone, 2017)
• "Soft Power" b/w "Lose the Baby" 7" (Mistletone, 2017)