Music / Features
Track by Track:
Sissysocks - Slink Away
Sissysocks - Slink Away
Nine years on from the rippling echoes of his previous album, Melbourne electronic artist Tom Briglia aka Sissysocks opens up another dimension through serene sonic landscapes on his third full-length Slink Away. We had the pleasure of catching up with Sissysocks who let us in on the shaping of the long-awaited new record.
Recognisable through his work in Parading and Creeks, Tom Briglia has also been crafting “oblivion pop” under his Sissysocks moniker for more than a decade. Created over a span of several years and recorded at three different locations with James Cecil - who’s recently worked with Time for Dreams and The Goon Sax - Briglia’s latest effort Slink Away widens his scope, digging deeper into his cinematic pop melodies and mind-bending textures, while exhibiting his artistic evolution with an explorative spirit.
According to Briglia, each track on the album took on multiple turns and identities during the album’s recording. “I had to take it to different places before realising I actually had much of what I wanted to begin with. I wanted to honour the person I was then when I made the songs, also,” Briglia explains. “This meant ultimately keeping some rougher edges and imperfections; and a lot of false starts, and some false finishes. I hope this production is something that can be used to reflect on, or draw out, some truths, humility and honesty.”
Instantly with its sheen of futurism, the soothing ‘I’ll Die One Day (Cranes)’ opens the album with its dash of synthesizers and bright chords. ‘You Know It’ is driven by its pulsating beat and new wave-minded emotions, while revealing a romantic urgency over its sparkling chords and soaring synth lines. Next along, ‘Wander [Rust]’ is packed with dizzying loops and downtempo treats, and moments later, this mood is cradled with Briglia’s foggy vocals on the mysteriously massive and hypnotic ‘All the Same’.
As the album rounds out, the sleek ‘Augsburg’ cruises into an eruptive and flashy soundscape with its sizzling 808-inspired beat production and dramatic effects, before the listen concludes on a distinctly uneasy note with the murky and turbulent soundscapes of ’Goodbye, Zola’. Venturing between beaming electronics and apocalyptic atmospherics, Slink Away is futuristic, doomy, but above all, human.
Briglia says his new album is “part three of three” following his previous two studio albums, and is about “repeatedly looking for things in the wrong places, and learning and accepting that you are a fallible human being who will make the same mistakes again.” Slink Away finds Briglia at the top of his game and we had the pleasure of having him dive into his immersive new album track by track.
According to Briglia, each track on the album took on multiple turns and identities during the album’s recording. “I had to take it to different places before realising I actually had much of what I wanted to begin with. I wanted to honour the person I was then when I made the songs, also,” Briglia explains. “This meant ultimately keeping some rougher edges and imperfections; and a lot of false starts, and some false finishes. I hope this production is something that can be used to reflect on, or draw out, some truths, humility and honesty.”
Instantly with its sheen of futurism, the soothing ‘I’ll Die One Day (Cranes)’ opens the album with its dash of synthesizers and bright chords. ‘You Know It’ is driven by its pulsating beat and new wave-minded emotions, while revealing a romantic urgency over its sparkling chords and soaring synth lines. Next along, ‘Wander [Rust]’ is packed with dizzying loops and downtempo treats, and moments later, this mood is cradled with Briglia’s foggy vocals on the mysteriously massive and hypnotic ‘All the Same’.
As the album rounds out, the sleek ‘Augsburg’ cruises into an eruptive and flashy soundscape with its sizzling 808-inspired beat production and dramatic effects, before the listen concludes on a distinctly uneasy note with the murky and turbulent soundscapes of ’Goodbye, Zola’. Venturing between beaming electronics and apocalyptic atmospherics, Slink Away is futuristic, doomy, but above all, human.
Briglia says his new album is “part three of three” following his previous two studio albums, and is about “repeatedly looking for things in the wrong places, and learning and accepting that you are a fallible human being who will make the same mistakes again.” Slink Away finds Briglia at the top of his game and we had the pleasure of having him dive into his immersive new album track by track.
I’ll Die One Day [Cranes]
Maybe this year will be the year - for what, I’m not sure, but as we all come back from summer tanned and toned and a new footy season arrives there is cause to be optimistic about… something. I was always overwhelmed going past the lit-up cranes at the docks at 5am going home from a night out, and I’m overwhelmed when I look at them now from my bedroom window.
Initially this was a let’s-see-what-happens attempt at making a Gorillaz-inspired track (Plastic Beach-era; days after I saw them live with my Mum), but it didn’t quite work. The synth bass was added and lyrics and percussion reworked all of six years later. This was the last song selected to be on this record, rescued outright and brought to life by producer James Cecil.
Maybe this year will be the year - for what, I’m not sure, but as we all come back from summer tanned and toned and a new footy season arrives there is cause to be optimistic about… something. I was always overwhelmed going past the lit-up cranes at the docks at 5am going home from a night out, and I’m overwhelmed when I look at them now from my bedroom window.
Initially this was a let’s-see-what-happens attempt at making a Gorillaz-inspired track (Plastic Beach-era; days after I saw them live with my Mum), but it didn’t quite work. The synth bass was added and lyrics and percussion reworked all of six years later. This was the last song selected to be on this record, rescued outright and brought to life by producer James Cecil.
You Know It
Coming down after a better time in your life that you didn’t really think would end. Slowly feeling the return of self-doubts while the inertia of confidence makes it a push-pull battle. Not knowing what part of yourself to believe, or believe in. The anxieties can be mobilising, which lends itself to the percussion arrangement, and synths inspired by Charli XCX’s True Romance, but they give way to sirens.
Wander [Rust]
This is about being spooked out of having children because of potentially passing on a mental illness (more existential threats to all life on planet Earth notwithstanding). “Report back/From a better place than your own/A failed hero” - there has to be something else other than this, and I saw some of it in a lounge room in Ham. Otherwise there’s just a lot of dead ends.
Stay Here
I’m always fascinated by nostalgia and how we frame time. For all the constantly-growing body of evidence I have that time does pass, the time ahead seems to grow in magnitude. Getting through a footy season feels like a monumental achievement, let alone a whole calendar year, and January can all of a sudden feel very cold (or simply just too hot). I wrote and recorded the bones of this in the first days of a new year, and tried creating a TR/ST x Beach House track that would be the album opener (it didn’t quite sit right there).
Slink Away
The gateway between the vacuum drone and lo-fi of the first two albums, and the poppier and more structured elements on this album. This was the first song made and was always going to be the title track (apart from briefly flirting with the idea of calling the record In Time, thwarted when Time For Dreams released their album In Time - also produced by James Cecil, and released while we were working on this record). Leaving parties, clubs, anything really, bewildered, going for a walk, not quite sure what to think. “I want to go” was the essential conclusion.
Grace
The first half was built in a rudimentary form for a friend’s short film soundtrack, before being expanded unintentionally. I will forever be torn about what I even wanted this to ultimately be, and the different places we took it, and where it ended up. “Operate like me” - ‘Grace’ is a plea and a wish and a dream.
All the Same
Short and sweet. Another refraction on this record of the prisms of fallibility and making the same mistakes again. Musically and lyrically straighter to the point - “When you’re wrong all the time / It’s hard to know when you’re right”.
Augsburg
Once my favourite thing I’d ever made, and also the song that has given me the most grief. ‘Augsburg’ is about looking for things in the wrong places, and making the same mistakes again. I remember getting a bit too excited at one point when I was making it and thinking, “This song will save my life!”, so in a way it unintentionally ended up being about itself. For all intents and purposes it would encapsulate the album in a single song, but it didn’t quite end up being what I thought it might be. It took a few turns; a lot of it ended up where it began.
As the title suggests, this was written after spending a short time in Augsburg, outside of Munich. Musically, an attempted meeting of iamamiwhoami, Grimes and TR/ST.
Coming down after a better time in your life that you didn’t really think would end. Slowly feeling the return of self-doubts while the inertia of confidence makes it a push-pull battle. Not knowing what part of yourself to believe, or believe in. The anxieties can be mobilising, which lends itself to the percussion arrangement, and synths inspired by Charli XCX’s True Romance, but they give way to sirens.
Wander [Rust]
This is about being spooked out of having children because of potentially passing on a mental illness (more existential threats to all life on planet Earth notwithstanding). “Report back/From a better place than your own/A failed hero” - there has to be something else other than this, and I saw some of it in a lounge room in Ham. Otherwise there’s just a lot of dead ends.
Stay Here
I’m always fascinated by nostalgia and how we frame time. For all the constantly-growing body of evidence I have that time does pass, the time ahead seems to grow in magnitude. Getting through a footy season feels like a monumental achievement, let alone a whole calendar year, and January can all of a sudden feel very cold (or simply just too hot). I wrote and recorded the bones of this in the first days of a new year, and tried creating a TR/ST x Beach House track that would be the album opener (it didn’t quite sit right there).
Slink Away
The gateway between the vacuum drone and lo-fi of the first two albums, and the poppier and more structured elements on this album. This was the first song made and was always going to be the title track (apart from briefly flirting with the idea of calling the record In Time, thwarted when Time For Dreams released their album In Time - also produced by James Cecil, and released while we were working on this record). Leaving parties, clubs, anything really, bewildered, going for a walk, not quite sure what to think. “I want to go” was the essential conclusion.
Grace
The first half was built in a rudimentary form for a friend’s short film soundtrack, before being expanded unintentionally. I will forever be torn about what I even wanted this to ultimately be, and the different places we took it, and where it ended up. “Operate like me” - ‘Grace’ is a plea and a wish and a dream.
All the Same
Short and sweet. Another refraction on this record of the prisms of fallibility and making the same mistakes again. Musically and lyrically straighter to the point - “When you’re wrong all the time / It’s hard to know when you’re right”.
Augsburg
Once my favourite thing I’d ever made, and also the song that has given me the most grief. ‘Augsburg’ is about looking for things in the wrong places, and making the same mistakes again. I remember getting a bit too excited at one point when I was making it and thinking, “This song will save my life!”, so in a way it unintentionally ended up being about itself. For all intents and purposes it would encapsulate the album in a single song, but it didn’t quite end up being what I thought it might be. It took a few turns; a lot of it ended up where it began.
As the title suggests, this was written after spending a short time in Augsburg, outside of Munich. Musically, an attempted meeting of iamamiwhoami, Grimes and TR/ST.
Goodbye, Zola
The bones were made on the same day as the title track. Initially I had them closing the album back-to-back. I ended up recording the vocals for both of them in the studio on the same day. Much like the opener, six years separated the first and second lots of the work done on this. This was always, always, always going to be the album’s closer. This is about leaving places that you might have once felt you belonged.
The bones were made on the same day as the title track. Initially I had them closing the album back-to-back. I ended up recording the vocals for both of them in the studio on the same day. Much like the opener, six years separated the first and second lots of the work done on this. This was always, always, always going to be the album’s closer. This is about leaving places that you might have once felt you belonged.
Slink Away is out in all the usual places.
