HTRK, the collaboration of Jonnine Standish and Nigel Yang, will release their fifth album on their own N&J Blueberries label.
Recorded in their native Dandenong Ranges, Australia between April and May, Rhinestones is an elegant nine-song suite of windswept emotion and heartbreak noir, crafted through guitar, voice, metronomes, and effects.
The album is inspired by the pair’s infatuation with “eerie and gothic country music,” and moves from “whispered lament to acoustic eulogy to downtempo vignettes,” we’re told, “tracing muted embers of loss and lust through haunted city streets.”
Yang, the band’s guitarist, cites friendship as the album’s central muse, “particularly the forging of it, and its potential for new feelings of telepathy and trust.”
HTRK, pronounced as “Hate Rock,” formed in Melbourne in 2003. They released their latest album, Venus In Leo, on Ghostly in 2019.
Tracklisting
01. Kiss Kiss and Rhinestones
02. Valentina
03. Sunlight Feels like Bee Stings
04. Siren Song
05. Fast Friend
06. Real Headfuck
07. Reverse Déjà vu
08. Straight to Hell
09. Gilbert and George
Rhinestones LP is scheduled for September 17 release. Meanwhile, you can stream opener “Kiss Kiss and Rhinestones” below.
