black bananas - bad bunch - fire

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Jennifer Herrema’s Black Bananas return with Bad Bunch, the group's first album since 2014’s Electric Brick Wall and Herrema’s first release since Royal Trux’s White Stuff in 2019. Assembled across more than a decade the record is out today via Fire Records (their first for the label).

The long-awaited return of Jennifer Herrema’s iconic vocals with her equally enigmatic group Black Bananas, now a three-piece band with Brian McKinley and Kurt Midness, arrives as an alternate-reality, spaced-out, jazzy-rock groove about limited menu items.

These three musicians first started their collaboration over 20 years ago under the name RTX (Herrema’s first post–Royal Trux band project) and are now a kinetically connected, freaky collective that busts through the algorithmic consciousness of the modern music ecosystem.

Bad Bunch began over a decade ago, with a pause in the middle that allowed for a Royal Trux reunion, resulting in the 2019 album White Stuff. In 2020, the lockdown disrupted the band’s working rhythm and led to the loss of their recording studio they had called home since her long running project’s inception. Since letting the studio go, the band has developed new ways of recording, emphasising improvisation as a central tool in shaping the rest of the album. Across the album tracks like “Turkey Burgers”, “Eddie’s Album”, and “Good Pass” highlight the band’s innovative tendencies, which have made them a standout presence within Herrema’s remarkable discography.

BLACK BANANAS IS NOT A NEW DIRECTION. IT IS THE CURRENT STATE OF A SYSTEM THAT HAS BEEN IN MOTION ALL ALONG..