total tommy – shares new single ‘Tailgate’ New album ‘Trapezoid’ arrives October

total tommy today shares new single ‘Tailgate‘ taken from the upcoming album Trapezoid – which will be released October 23rd on Play It AgainSam. total tommy has received an avalanche of critical acclaim – from the likes of NME, i-D, DIY, Wonderland, The Times, Clash, DIY,Dork, Notion, The Line Of Best Fit. At radio there has been continuous support at BBC 6Music and BBC Radio 1.Tailgate – a raw slice of grunge-flecked indie rock, turning a disturbing unsolicited psychic reading into something cathartic, takes total tommy’s scuzzy 90s sound to the next level. 

On the new single, Tailgate, total tommy says – “A couple of years ago, I jumped in an Uber on the way to a wedding, and the driver told me
she was a psychic. She then proceeded to ‘read’ me, glaring at me in the back seat from the
rearview, telling me all of these crazy things that would happen to my family. Complete
unsolicited advice. I left feeling so spun out and violated. All of the things she said
sometimes still come into my mind to this day, but this song makes me feel like I’ve taken
some of that power back from her” 

 
If there’s a lyric that epitomises the sophomore studio album of Melbourne-born, Sydney-based singer-songwriter and instrumentalist Jess Holt – aka total tommy – it is as follows: “Red eye, watching Reality Bites.” It’s a simple sentence, a descriptive statement, but one that offers a unique glimpse into its creator. This is an album in transit, dripping with references, lost amid a web of nostalgia and – as the title of the track that homes the above assertion, “Winona Forever”, conveys – Winona Ryder adoration.

Sonically, the record steps ever further into heavier, guitar-focused terrain. Deeper into distortion than the lighter, spritely, at times tender base of bruises, Trapezoid is far brasher and bolder in sound, plucking from grunge, emo, post-punk, pop punk and post-rock, even incorporating an electronic-tinged edge on cuts like “Bloodshot”. The difference in tones and ideas is encapsulated by the respective album closers – while the debut album ends on the softer, more subdued “Shark Attacks”, Trapezoid is antithetical, building up to a blistering, Brobdingnagian crescendo with the big-hitting closer, “Tailgate”. “It is just the ending I want people to hear,” she explains. “I just want it to be screaming in their face and it just felt like the right mood for the record. The album begins restrained and then it grows so much.”

 A maturation from the uncertainty of bruises into the intelligence and impact of Trapezoid, Holt is showing her many sided personal and artistic silhouette. The new album shows that it’s okay – good, even – to be a little lopsided.

Album pre-order – https://totaltommy.lnk.to/trapezoidalbum