Track by Track: Tshitaki take us through their album World Keeps Turning

Today we have a very exciting feature for you. It’s the full track-by-track breakdown of the sophomore album by Sydney-based rockers, Tshitaki.

Tshitaki is from the Northern Beaches in Sydney and is comprised of Nik Philpott on vocals and lead guitar, Mullo on bass and vocals, and The Gwarp on drums.

I’ve really enjoyed listening to this album. The boys are known for their ‘leave it all out there’ shows, high-energy and everything cranked up to eleven. There is some great variety on World Keeps Turning,  with blistering guitars, kick-arse drums and sweet harmonies.

The band has a 12″ limited edition World Keeps Turning vinyl – there’s only 150 of these, individually numbered, with a download code. They’ve also got a limited run of 50 CDs. You can order them on their Bandcamp HERE.

We’ve got a stream of the album for you to listen to, whilst reading the track-by-track description.

 

World Keeps Turning – Track-by-Track

Surfing In The Sink

The album opener is also the oldest song on the record; it’s the one song that has never left our live set either. It’s a song about our neglect for our oceans, I remember surfing in filthy water and it felt like being in a sink full of scraps. 

Goddamn Jellyfish

Sun is shining, perfect waves, tropical island paradise, surfing all day, what could possibly go wrong? “Goddamn Jellyfish” is the story of a surf trip in Lombok when a perfect wave ended with a damn nasty allergic reaction to a Jellyfish sting. The next three days were spent in bed sweating profusely and swelling like a balloon.

Everything in this song is true.

Inside Out

A rolling question. What if all I want, ain’t all I need?  Inside Out is a song about our constant wanting for something different, something more, something someone else has, running from greed. ‘Inside Out’ very nearly didn’t make it on the album, it’s a song we’ve been playing for a bit now, after tracking all the instruments I got to the vocals and put down a few takes with the original melody and lyrics, It didn’t sit well at all, I hated it and I almost erased the whole thing, I let it sit for a week or two and then took just the music out with me for a bush walk with the dogs and the idea of a round came to me, not like a ‘Ging Gang Goolly’ kind of round, but a repetitive thought, I was out in nature with my 2 dogs and I felt like I had everything I needed, then the line “What if all I want, isn’t all I need?” came to me and “Inside Out” was reborn, now it’s one of my favourites on the album.

Hard To Love

That relationship that you know is bad for you but you can’t leave alone. One of the newer songs to jump on board, this one pretty much came straight together from the first time we jammed it, I’d had it in my head for ages and was playing it on the acoustic for a while before we started working on it, I wanted the lyrics to tell a bit of a story too, it was very loosely based about a mate who had moved away and the rollercoaster he had to go through to make that move happen. It took a hell of a lot of courage. 

Coward

“Coward” was written after listening to a triple J’s Hack story ‘How do you sleep at night’ by Sarah McVeigh, I felt angry and ashamed as a human that we allow the cowardly practice of trophy hunting and can’t excuse it by calling it a hobby or a sport. What sort of Coward would kill a Lion just for fun? We tried a few different versions of “Coward”, I think the original was more of a rock song with this jungle beat on the toms, It didn’t really work like that, felt like it lost its mood, I wanted it to feel dark and eerily uncomfortable and I wanted the message to be clear, Mullo’s put these amazing choral like vocals in the background and the spookiness of the song really came out. It’s one of the songs I’m most proud of on the album and it’s quite a different feel for us.

Lean on Love

This was Mullos debut behind the wheel for writing and lead vocals in a song, and bang, what a killer tune, I think he nailed the vocal on the first take as well, smashed it! Here’s what he says about “Lean On Love”. Lol is a song about using a filter of love to see others who may have differing opinions than my own. There’s always a journey to an opinion. Like mine, it may be hardwired!!! But is it fixed ?? Love opens doors it explores… labels judge and keep locksmiths busy!! It’s inclusive, gentle and fun. Lean on it !!”

Finchop

This one is so much fun, while we were tracking drums for “Finchop”, The Gwarp started playing this with a click track, I really wanted him to do it raw and play to the feel of the song, so (he doesn’t know, guess he will now), Me and Mullos would slightly change the speed during the song from the control room, It’s a horrible thing to do, I feel really bad, but then, as it was impossible to keep it in time, we took that click away he nailed it with so much damn feel straight away, we can have a good laugh about it now, not sure he’ll ever trust me behind the desk again though.

Holiday

I hope people will blare this from their cars as they flee a smoky bog of a city on a road trip that has no end!! I’m no Robinson Crusoe in feeling that week in, week out grind of work and when it can push you almost to the edge, you sometimes just gotta getaway! I was doing a road trip up the coast every 2nd or 3rd weekend there for a while, I love packing the car the night before, getting up at 3.30am and hitting the road while there’s no one else about, I’d have to shake my girlfriend to get her up, She’d be mumbling something about me being ‘Captain Holiday’ leave me alone…. I’d get the dogs in the car and we’d go, I like to be nearing Bulahdelah as the sun just starts to fizz up on the horizon! Then we’re in the water by 8, I reckon I could easily live on the road like that for a while.  

Sun Goes Down

“Sun Goes Down” is a song to my Father, we lost Dad pretty suddenly nearly 17 years ago now and I wanted to put something down for him that would last forever in his memory. Dad was a teacher, both at a school and in life, he, along with my mum ran a theatre company for youths which over its life put on around 30 + musicals right up till the day he left us. He had such a huge positive impact on so many young people from all walks of life nobody was ever turned away, people would call him the Pied Piper, as people just wanted to be involved with whatever he was doing next. To me, he was just Dad. The song also makes mention of another good friend of mine Jem, who we also lost about 3 weeks after Dad, I’d like to think somehow, somewhere up there they may have met and were looking down my way when I penned this one.

World Keeps Turning  

It sure does! What a bloody whirlwind we are in at the moment, the title track “WKT” was a riff that happened by mistake while I was demoing another song, it stuck like glue in my head and became a 7-minute adventure.

Mullos and I used to live in a street right near the beach that had three old weatherboard houses in a row. I lived there for ten years and my best mates lived in the two houses next door. There were no fences, heaps of grass to sunny views of the beach, between the three houses there were about ten of us and there was rarely a dull moment. Such great memories, 

Then all three got sold at the same time, knocked down and turned into lifeless concrete compounds, all separated by 8ft high fences, little to no gardens or trees. I’ve heard that called ‘Progress’ and while we all come and go and pass through every sweet high and every filthy low and everything in between, one thing is for sure, long after we’ve left the World Keeps Turning.

I hope you have enjoyed the album as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Nik Philpott – Tshitaki.

 

World Keeps Turning is released today, 27th March 2020.  Follow Tshitaki on Facebook, Bandcamp, Instagram, and Youtube

Bruce Baker

Probably riding my bike, taking photos and/or at a gig. Insta: @bruce_a_baker