The deathlessly cool underground figure Jennifer Herrema was half of the notorious noise-rock duo Royal Trux, which means she’s been kicking around the weird-ass music universe for decades. Her music isn’t getting any less weird. Herrema got back together with her Royal Trux bandmate Neil Hagerty in 2015, and they released the album White Stuff in 2019, but that reunion turned out to be both chaotic and short-lived. In 2023, Hagerty was charged with three felonies for attacking Denver cops, but those charges have since been dropped. For her part, Herrema is ready to reactivate her old project Black Bananas.
A few weeks ago, we learned that Black Bananas were once again active and getting ready to release Bad Bunch, their first album since 2014’s Electric Brick Wall. Today, they make it official, and they share its lead single, an absolutely deranged piece of psychedelic pop called “Turkey Burgers.” This time around, Black Bananas are officially a trio, and the other two members Brian McKinley and Kurt Midness, were previously in Herrema’s post-Royal Trux band RTX. History repeats itself!
Black Bananas started recording Bad Bunch more than 10 years ago, and they put the project on hold for the Royal Trux reunion. Here’s what Herrema says about “Turkey Burgers” in a press release:
“Turkey Burgers” was one of the first new songs we wrote for the album. It dates back to when we had our own studio and would regularly work on music together. Since the pandemic, we had to adjust and develop some new methods for making music. I think it’s a part of the process that has led to some interesting new sounds for us. We paired down with some new methods. We are really happy you will finally hear it when we get to share these adaptations on Bad Bunch. It’s still Black Bananas, so you can hear a progression.
Every time we opened the sessions was different, and like the universe expanding so did the tracks and the density of the combinations. It’s really cool to revisit and expand. We went about constructing over periods of disconnected time — that was the work. We knew it was done when, after shaping it for so long, there was suddenly this completed fully formed record sitting in front of us… It’s totally done when the magic is real.
Below, check out “Turkey Burgers” and the Bad Bunch tracklist.
TRACKLIST:
01 “Nutrageous & Jam”
02 “All The Way”
03 “Dust Of Ages”
04 “Eddie’s Album”
05 “Cold Bussin”
06 “Outta My Head”
07 “Sherman Dealer”
08 “Turkey Burgers”
09 “Tiny Chewbacca”
10 “Good Pass”
Bad Bunch is out 9/4 on Fire Records. Pre-order it here.
‘ The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties ’
‘ Some details of this article were extracted from the following source stereogum.com ’
