Live Review: Marcus Whale announces new album, 'The Hunger' and glowing new single, 'Two Holes'

Today, Gadigal/Sydney artist and multi-instrumentalist based Marcus Whale has announced a brand new album titled, "The Hunger" to be released on the 4rd of September. Alongside the announcement he has released the second single from the record, "Two Holes" with a stunning video by Andrew Haining. He's well known for his work under left-field pop duo product Collarbones and electronic underground club group BC (with DJ Plead and Cassius Select). Marcus Whale's solo endeavour however works between the artistic expression of both music and performance, from the heightened drama of horror to religious scripture.

His forthcoming record is a long collaboration with Athena Thebus and Chlow Corkran, who contribute to the visual side of the project. They create costumes and the sets that translate Whale's hypnotic music into iconographic and exaggerated forms, working with familiar figures such as the cowboy, the satyr and the devil. It's a strong concept album with an immersive ethos, full inviting the audience into the creative world of Marcus Whale.

Today's release, 'Two Holes' is a tripped out pop number set for today's eerily uncertain global climate. Whale's soulful and whimsical vocals grow stronger throughout the track, washing over the listener in a humble yet brute fashion. A minimal drum line combines with growing and eerie synths, creating a euphoric and energetic atmosphere. It's also accompanied by a stunning video directed and curated by Andrew Haining.

On the creation of the record, 'The Hunger', Marcus Whale states, "'The Hunger' is a collection of songs told from the perspective of a vampire's familiar – a pitiable human servant with a taste for blood and whose deepest desire is to be turned undead like their master. This story becomes a metaphor for a deep longing for transformation, the price of devotion paid for an uncertain outcome, as well as the queer, grotesque conditions that desire and devotion imposes. In contrast with its schlocky concept, I've thought of The Hunger as my adult contemporary album, in which the horror of the vampire familiar is rendered into more tender, slow-paced forms, more insidious than imposing, more intimate than loud, more immersive than violent."

Image via Andrew Haining

Words by PARRY TRITSINIOTIS

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