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Avant-pop mavericks Eggy have shared with us "The Luckiest Girl in the World" and its accompanying video from their upcoming album, With Gusto, out July 22 through Flightless Records. Along with the premiere, we caught up with members Zoe Monk and Sam Lyons who tell us more about the new track and give us insight on the making of With Gusto.
Later this month, Melbourne's surrealist-pop wunderkinds Eggy will be releasing their sophomore effort, With Gusto, out July 22 through Flightless Records. Today, the band is sharing their fourth and final single from the album, "The Luckiest Girl in the World," a superb expansion of the band's playful embellishments and sonic eccentricities that drip with sly compositional sophistication. The new track is also accompanied by a VHS-style video that resurfaced from the early noughties.
Along with its oddball leaning narratives, the new track skips along with melodious ease over disjointed rhythms, shaggy riffs, and sweeping string arrangements from Sam Harding (Delivery) and Sophia Lubczenko (Bad Bangs, Sledgehammer). Speaking about the new single, vocalist and guitarist Zoe Monk wrote in a press release: "'The Luckiest Girl in the World' is a reflection on our relationship to time as a privilege, presence, and measurement. The track is intended to represent how your action at any one point is happening and passing at the same time. It can be stressful to examine the minutiae of life, but it’s also a privilege in being able to do that."
Along with the video premiere, we caught up with members Zoe Monk and Sam Lyons who tell us more about the new track and give us insight on the making of With Gusto.
Paperface Zine: Talk to me about the origins of this new single, "The Luckiest Girl in the World." How did it come about and what did you envision for it when initially composing it?
Zoe Monk: This one came about through a little home demo done in the pits of lockdown, then jammed out and made a million times better by everyone in Eggy. Plus we had our good mates Sam Harding and Sophia Lubczenko lay strings on it and take it somewhere else again. They play on a few more throughout the album, which I'm pumped for people to hear! I think overall it turned out a fair bit different to the first demo, and I love that.
PFZ: What would you say is the overall theme of the new single?
ZM: Time! As as a privilege, presence, and measurement. Insular and reflective, lockdown vibes haha. The line "tracking up and down the path, a cycle here, a cycle past" is meant to represent how your action at any one point is happening and passing at the same time. It can be stressful to examine the minutiae of life, but it's also a privilege in being able to do that. The bridgey more dissonant part is meant to be a bit of a tantrum reaction to all that, inspired by Veruca Salt's "I Want It Now" from Willy Wonka.
PFZ: Take me through the recording of this new LP, With Gusto. When did you begin recording and what was the process like?
Sam Lyons: We actually started properly planning it out early 2021, after Zo and Dom had a bunch of demos. Every Monday we would meet up and plan the recording, or jam out a song or even just have dinner. John Lee, who recorded the album, was a blessing to work with, and we met him in about May last year and got in the studio with him for about eight days in June. It was a pretty amazing experience, he knew exactly how to get the best out of us and fully understood what we wanted to make. We had the last few days just to experiment with overdubs and fun sounds. I think that was my favorite part of the whole thing.
PFZ: How was the recording different to 2020's debut LP Bravo!? SL: The main difference was With Gusto, we recorded and finished it in eight days straight. Bravo! was done in little weekend chunks over a handful of months. I really liked making Bravo!, but it is such a different thing when it's so spread out, each time you come in your mindset can be so different to the month before and I think that probably changes the result a fair bit. I also only joined the band a few weeks before they started recording Bravo! and was asked to record straight away. It was really fun getting to add bits and pieces to songs that soon into joining a band.
PFZ: What are you looking forward to the most to the album’s release later this month? SL: I just can't wait for it to exist to people other than ourselves! No matter what people think of it in the end, it is just exciting for it to be listenable to everyone and just be out of our hands really. We've got a few shows coming up later in the year for the album release and hopefully a few other fun things so I can't wait for it all.
With Gusto comes out July 22 through Flightless Records. Pre-order the album below and purchase tickets to the upcoming Flightless & Friends at the Collingwood Town Hall here.