Suffering Jukebox

This morning's episode features an interview with Andrew Clare, from English experimental guitar band, I'm Being Good. Shapeshitter, I'm Being Good's ninth record, was recently released through Clare's own label, Infinite Chug Records. Find out more about I'm Being Good (and purchase their music) here https://imbeinggood.bandcamp.com/music

Nick's Pick of the Week is Tropical Fuck Storm's Fairyland Codex. You can hear the whole album in all the usual places, or purchase it herehttps://tropicalfstorm.bandcamp.com/album/fairyland-codex and my review can be read below.

Tropical Fuck Storm: Fairyland Codex (Fire Records)

Released 20th June 2025

Tropical Fuck Storm is, arguably, Australia’s greatest live band. Comprised of Gareth Liddiard (guitar/vocals), Fiona Kitschin (bass/vocal), Erica Dunn (guitar/synth/vocals) and Lauren Hammel (drums), they’ve built a reputation on the back of their relentless touring and energetic shows. Fairyland Codex is their fifth studio album and —perhaps— the first that matches the quality of their live performances.

Formed in 2016, when Liddiard and Kitschin’s previous band, The Drones, went on hiatus, it would take them another two years to release their first full length, A Laughing Death In Meatspace. Since then they have alternated between being annoyingly prolific and worryingly silent. Some of their past releases have been patchy, mixed affairs which featured a handful of excellent songs amongst a larger selection that lacked greatness. Fairyland Codex, may be their most chaotic, yet most cohesive, effort to date; the all killer no filler record we all knew they were capable of.

The album opens with Irukandji Syndrome; a surrealist, psychedelic noise-scape that invokes images of a giant jellyfish with “…seven eyes and seven tails / Laced with cyanide and DMT” that gets hauled out of the sea by the unsuspecting crew of a fishing trawler. Liddiard has a knack for combining everyday exploits with the menace of the absurd, wherein hallucinatory visions rise malevolently out of the mundane. This is a tactic also evident within the lyrics of Goon Show and Dunning Kruger’s Loser Cruiser.

Both Stepping On A Rake and Fairyland Codex find Tropical Fuck Storm at their most poignant and restrained. Each song recounts a litany of struggles and hardships endured by nameless protagonists who yearn for nothing more than a lack of humiliation and basic survival. These quieter moments showcase a band who, despite their reputation for volume, aren’t afraid to explore their softer side. Moscovium, however, starts slow but ends in a squall of noise, whilst Liddiard screams a final refrain of “Murderers” which ensures that Fairyland Codex ends, not with a whimper, but a bang.

Fairyland Codex is, without a doubt, Tropical Fuck Storm’s most definitive musical statement. In the past, their albums and EPs have meandered and featured unnecessary additions, yet this time around they have managed to trim the fat while still managing to take the occasional risk.  When they do step out of their comfort zone, they shine, demonstrating a newfound penchant for moderation that not only broadens but strengthens their sound. Already a force to be reckoned with, on the back of this record Tropical Fuck Storm threaten to be nothing short of unstoppable.

Nick Stephan