2013 was a good year for Melbourne’s Baptism of Uzi. Their single ‘Stray Current’ was on high rotation on triple j, and it received a bunch of positive reviews – including from the King of the js himself. They performed at Laneway Festival and scored a slot at Splendour in the Grass as winners of that year’s Unearthed competition.
So it came as a surprise when in February a series of elliptical posts showed up on B’uzi’s Facebook page that seemed to announce a hiatus, or even a premature split for the band, the last post closing with an ominous ‘To be continued…’.
As it turns out, Baptism of Uzi were experiencing something of an identity crisis in the wake of the Daft Punk/MJ-inspired pop excursions of the Stray Currents EP. This is, after all, the same band that once took its cues from Tony Iommi and toured alongside Krautrock greats Michael Rother and Damo Suzuki.
With the departure of drummer Leif Gordon-Bruce earlier this year, the tension came to a head. Singer Bojan Stojanov told me:
“After the success of ‘Stray Current’, which was an experiment with pop, B’uzi were a divided band. … We come from a ‘heavy’ background and the tune was a departure, and it split B’uzi in two sides: the pop side and the rock. This made for some pretty weird shows, with power metal songs like ‘Fist of the Western Suburbs’ being pitted against songs like ‘Believe’. In the end we stopped playing those pop tunes and just did our rock set because it seemed more like us.”
B’uzi are now airing the last of the material produced during the Stray Currents period in order to move on, in search of The New Sound…
First up, we’re premiering the video for ‘Believe’, the EP’s breezy second single. The clip was directed by Thomas Russell, who’s also responsible for the band’s previous video and album art. It features Bojan in a starring role, as he prepares a neat conjuring trick with romantic results.
According to Bojan:
“[The video] combines a few influences: the show Around the Twist, sigil magic, the movie Evil Dead and the idea of being committed to a belief regardless of how incredulous it seems. Some people call it a ‘leap of faith’, like that guy Kierkegaard. T. Russell did a great job with the edit and Artemis Ioannides was terrific and a good sport to get in the freezing cold water in a dress at a beach on the Mornington Peninsula. It was filmed at a spooky old house in Sassafras and Half Moon Bay.”
Finally, guitarist Tom Battersby has made film clips for a couple of ‘Stray Current’ remixes – one by the Go! Team, the other from Melbourne’s own Yolke.
May 22, 2014 7:07 pm
So good! Baptism do it again!