New album ‘Sluice’

by Golden Syrup

Release date: Dec 5th, 2024

Format: Cassette and Digital

Label: Sound is Never Ending

Full Album Stream: Soundcloud

Full album DL: Google Drive

Press images: here

Buy link: https://goldensyrup.bandcamp.com/album/sluice

PRESS RELEASE:

This second album by Naarm-based artist and producer Golden Syrup (Sara Retallick) combines organic and in-organic sounds in an intricate and intimate collection of works. With classical guitar, electric bass, voice, rhythms, synthesis, and field recordings, the release uses acoustic and electronic instruments to traverse through ambient, electronic, and alt-pop/folk musics. 

Building on her debut release with experimental label Nice Music, Sluice adds lyrical exploration, concrete poetry, and place-based resonances to Golden Syrup’s signature elegant, distillations of sound and structure. The album draws inspiration from Gabriel García Márquez’s Eyes of the Blue Dog, reflected in the dreamlike, visual focus of several tracks.

Recorded over an extended period in various indoor and outdoor spaces, Sluice reflects a deeply exploratory creative process, with compositions ranging from site-responsive works like ‘Sparkes Lookout’ to deconstructed pop songs such as ‘The Blue Dog’ and ‘Bronze Melodic.’ The album contrasts breathy vocals with deep sub-bass, alongside shimmering sounds that shift between synthesised and concrete textures. Bass plays a pivotal role in Sluice. Retallick says; 

“I love to work with the weight of bass as a creative tool, and to generate contrasts in sonic pressure. Bass has a unique ability to redistribute weight and space in sound.”

Sluice showcases Golden Syrup’s ongoing inquiry into sonic process and listening, continuing to nudge genre boundaries through innovative music and sound-making.

Golden Syrup’s Sluice is out on Dec 5. Cassette and digital download preorders are now available via Bandcamp. 

With this release, Retallick begins a new label called Sound is Never Ending. SINE is an independent experimental sound and music focused initiative based in Naarm.

TRACK HIGHLIGHTS

Bronze Melodic: Guitar sounds converse throughout this poetic musing on erratic thoughts and manifestations of internal chaos. The instrumentation is an anchor, a backbone, a vessel to hold the experimental lyrical content. Playful musical elements come through as the work unfolds, sparkling with dark humour.

Little Gems: Saturated sine tones entwine with a physical sub-bass sound wave oscillating in and out of phase. As the slow, pulsing bass sets the tone, a breathy voice extends the space. Electric bass weaves a counter melody as discordant atmospherics and drone take the composition into unexpected territory. 

Sharpes Lookout: Field recordings and classical guitar form this reflective work that blends digital and natural sounds, exploring how psychedelic experiences can enhance and inform our surroundings. The guitar holds steady as synthesised and designed sounds engulf and fade, moving around the sound space to create a sense of layered reality. 

ABOUT GOLDEN SYRUP

Golden Syrup is a music project by Sara Retallick, a Naarm-based artist whose work explores listening as central to constructing sonic encounters across music, sound installation, and performance. 

With exploratory electronics, bass guitar and a subtle but direct vocal delivery, Golden Syrup makes compositions layered with synthesised and concrete sound recordings, melding a range of sonic approaches from synthesis, bass-driven rhythms, and sound collage to alt-pop and folk music traditions. Golden Syrup released a self-titled debut album in 2018 on Naarm’s Nice Music label, to wide praise, which took the project throughout Australia to perform at festivals such as Hobart’s Dark Mofo, and Melbourne’s Music Week. 

Recently, Retallick has focused on her cross-disciplinary research and sound installation practice which has included exhibitions in Durban, South Africa at the International Symposium of Electronic Art (2018), in Madrid, Spain at the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía (2020), at RISING Festival (2021), and an artist in residence period at Melbourne Electronic Sound Studio (2022). Retallick’s practice also encompasses collaboration having recently worked with artists such as Maria Moles, Jannah Quill, Sow Discord and post-punk trio Mod Con.

Nice things that people have said about Golden Syrup:

“Using unique sounds and eerie visuals, Retallick created a moving art piece that exerted the same emotions as a horror film” - The AU Review 

“The syrup itself is viscous, thick and moves at its own pace” - Purple Sneakers 

“Droning bass notes and a work-gang rhythm underpin Retallick’s incantatory vocals,” - Who The Hell

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/goldensyrupmusic

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldensyrupmusic/

Website: www.sararetallick.com

Bandcamp: https://goldensyrup.bandcamp.com

CONTACT

Sara +61408630103

goldensyrupmusic@gmail.com