Coming out of the lively music scene of Melbourne, Babyccino makes ragged, but cleverly structured experimental pop music that engages your heart and mind all at once. The trio consists of frontwoman Alannah Sawyer, bassist Cecilia Carrasco, and drummer Harry Green, who also double-heads the constantly-growing experimental folk band Mouseatouille, with the help of Sawyer. On their debut EP, ‘Stomach Bug,’ the trio let loose in a kaleidoscope of rich sonic layers appropriately dense with a raw and angst-ridden tone.  

The retro-leaning opening track ‘Thorny Rose’ is three minutes of frenetic garage rock with the lilting pop tone of the Byrds. Accompanied by an infectious riff, the track bursts with energy with a stomping rhythm that sounds like a series of rifle shots to the spine. The cathartic nature of Babyccino sneaks up on you, particularly on the swirling and shambly psych-nugget ‘12345’ accompanied by Sawyer’s luscious saxophone adding to the journey.

‘Morse’ is a minimal treasure that’s one of the more intimate moments on the EP, while the darting ‘Picture This’ is a tale of vengeance that’ll leave you breathless. The eerie epic ‘Memento Mori’ is drenched in slow-burning layers of sound built around Sawyer’s stream-of-consciousness vocals that ruptures into a fiery wall of noise - it carries the strangeness of early 2000s Animal Collective. The closing track ‘Camouflage’ is a restless jangly rocker that’s exercised with thrilling drum fills and sustained tension, serving as the perfect snapshot of the trio’s DIY ethos.

To dig a little deeper into Stomach Bug, Alannah has kindly walked us through the EP track by track.

Thorny Rose

The ‘thorny rose’ is a metaphor for a toxic friendship; beautiful to look at but painful when you touch the stem. This song is about a troubled relationship where one person puts in more effort than the other and is constantly pushed aside. It's hard because there are so many happy memories with this person, but the ratio of good to bad is just not worth your energy!

12345

This song is about when something makes you nervous and you just want to exit the situation, however you are stuck. You feel a sense of comfort because you are so used to it being this way, however deep down you know something isn’t right and you don’t know how to fix it or get rid of these feelings.

Morse

This is about the early stages of a romantic relationship, when you don’t know how someone feels about you. The concerns of being too forward or showing too much of your emotions, just in case they don’t reciprocate your feelings! That's why you have to wait for ‘the signal’, something that lets you know that it is okay to be open with your inner emotions :).

Memento Mori

I wrote this song after an experience that I went through when I travelled to Paris a few years ago. My friends and I visited the ‘Pere Lachaise’ cemetery where various famous musicians, poets and writers (amongst others) are buried. It’s a beautiful cemetery, but it's bloody humongous. We visited in the early evening thinking that it closed at 6pm, which is what Google said, however it closed at 5.30pm and we got lost within the maze of graves. It was pretty scary and then the sun began to set; it eventually became pitch black as my friends and I navigated the labyrinth of memorials. At one point we found a dog as well which was really weird and spooked us out because it looked like my friend's dog who had passed away that year. We eventually found the perimeter of the cemetery and followed the walls to the exits but they were all locked. We were starting to believe that we would have to sleep there overnight and were running like mad people. We saw a light in the distance and ran to these guards who did not speak English and were yelling at us in French. Thankfully, my friend spoke the language and apparently they were telling us that they were going to call the police on us. But she explained that we were lost tourists and they let us out. It was really scary but a good story!

On a deeper level, to me this song is about being at a low point in life. Kind of like feeling dead inside, feeling empty and lonely… Recently it has gained new meaning after COVID-19 as I feel like all my motivation went in the bin during lockdown. I didn’t feel like there was any hope, and I was bored with my life. 

Picture This

This song follows a fun story line about a woman who murders her husband because he treats her poorly. It is kind of a girl power song…  although I do not condone domestic violence! It is sort of a metaphor of a woman taking control and standing up to men who treat her badly, as so many women I know have had to deal with shitty men. I like writing stories in songs, and being dramatic hahaha!

Camouflage

This song is about feeling as though everything you do is embarrassing, and the anxieties of life. Feeling like everyone hates you when it’s really just your own brain putting you down in your head. It makes you want to just blend in with the crowd and disappear from the world.