Oh!Gunquit
Nomads of the Lost 7-inch
Trash Wax records
November 2016

Far out is closer than you think, because when the aliens landed at King’s Cross Station, London, UK, Earth, they taught the baffled locals how to bop.

Dazzling weirdos Oh!Gunquit have been bothering the recording studio again and put themselves out a new single on Trash Wax records. It’s an intergalactic honk-monster with sixteen tentacles and body glitter, and god dammit Jim, it’s heading right for us.

Light-years from their home planet, our intrepid crew have travelled through time and space to finally end up tumbling out of your bedroom wardrobe wearing leopard print and lamé. Like some kind of glam rock space Narnia in reverse.

The track starts off with machine gun drums reminiscent of ‘Psycho’ by the Sonics, and as far as I’m concerned that can only be a good thing. Then you get the horns… The horns! What you have right there is a riff that’s going to destroy at live shows, have people jumping about recklessly, dogs and cats living together – mass hysteria.

Frontwoman Tina’s all-American vocals then pierce their way through, all twangy and distorted and awesome. Imagine Karen O as a psychedelic cosmonaut, jamming good with Weird and Gilly and the Spiders from Mars. Awesome, right? That’s what I’ve been telling you.

But times are tough for aliens. All over, politics are becoming more insular, more isolationist, less neighbourly. People voted Brexit. A looming Trump presidency now casts an ominous shadow. The Land of the Free is building a wall and rejecting your huddled masses. Those of us with astral wanderlust face an uncertain future. It’s little green men and Cold War paranoia. It’s hubcap spaceships getting shot at by Midwestern farmers. It’s ET go home.

Are these the Nomads of the Lost? An alien race unwelcome in their adopted lands? Rubber-headed freaks with Elvis collars and fluorescent hair, their oxygen running low?

Maybe. But through it all Team Gunquit have a subversive glint in their eye, “…free yourself from the convenience, learn a thing about disobedience…” Oh!Gunquit might well come from the other side of the universe, but now that they’re here they’re staying put and plotting to wreck the place. And they have my blessing.

The flip side ‘Walking the Street’ is a Halloween slab of rockabilly nightmare. It’s sinister. It’s the kind of song that makes me want to quit my job and become a filmmaker, just so I could use it in a soundtrack. Actually fuck it. I’m leaving right n…

Buy Nomads of the Lost online here

-Jody Porter