Over the past couple of months Pickle Darling, the project of New Zealand musician Lukas Mayo, has shared the sweet indie pop singles “Massive Everything" and "Human Bean Instruction Manual." Mayo is following those up today with the new single "Violence Voyager," along with the news that all three of those songs will appear on the forthcoming Pickle Darling album Battlebots, out in September.
Mayo self-recorded Battlebots at their home studio in Christchurch. Though they cite pop diva classics like Madonna’s Ray Of Light as a source of inspiration, Battlebots is delightfully sparse and imperfect, feeling more like a cross between Suicide's self-titled and Beat Happening. Mayo adds: "I wanted to avoid capturing a performance as much as possible, everything had to be fragments, and I wanted to show as much of the recording and editing process as possible, leaving all the seams exposed."
The cozy "Violence Voyager" -- unclear if it's named after the 2018 cardboard puppet horror flick -- seems to weigh the mundanities of everyday life with the looming anxieties behind them: "When I run out of thoughts I think of battlebots/ Built to kill and smash and break and bend and take over jobs," Mayo sings. Christiane Shortal animated its music video, which you can check out below along with the Battlebots tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 "Obsolete"
02 "Violence Voyager"
03 "Earthshaped"
04 "Congratulations Champion"
05 "Human Bean Instruction Manual"
06 "Steps"
07 "Massive Everything"
08 "Infinite Trolley"
Battlebots is out 9/5 via Father/Daughter.
