Spiderbait have shared a previously unreleased song titled ‘My Car’s A UFO’, marking the Riverina outfit’s first new release in almost a decade.
The track comes as part of ‘Sounds In The Key Of J’, a compilation album comprising songs led by bassist and co-frontperson Janet English. Due out on April 8, it’ll be Spiderbait’s third compilation album – following the 2005 ‘Greatest Hits’ release and 2017’s ‘B-Sides Collection’ – and follows a trio of EPs released earlier this year, each of which comprising old tracks led by a different member of the band.
‘My Car’s A UFO’ was initially recorded for Spiderbait’s fifth album, 2001’s ‘The Flight Of Wally Funk’, but laid dormant until recently, when drummer and fellow co-person Kram stumbled upon it on a mix CD. Have a listen to it below:
“I wanted to put everything of Janet’s on the album that we could fit onto a double album, including B-sides and any lost tracks,” Kram said in a statement. “‘UFO’ had been mixed but for some reason, it didn’t make ‘Wally Funk’ and was never mastered.
“When we found it, we decided we should include it on ‘Sounds In The Key Of J’ It’s weird to hear something from your past come out in the present and, strangely, fate was kind to us in that we didn’t release it back in the day so it could be heard for the first time now.”
Also released was a B-side titled ‘Riffer’, which debuted as a demo on last month’s ‘Janet Jumpers’ EP. Kram says the song was “recorded in [guitarist/vocalist Damian Whitty’s] home studio and represents a different side of the band: the surf-punk vibes we grew up with. I love Janet’s lyrics, too – this song is raw Spiderbait.”
Listen to ‘Riffer’ below:
Speaking on ‘Sounds In The Key Of J’, English said: “Kram was going on about the compilation idea – and initially, I said ‘hell no’. I kinda said ‘OK’ to shut him up… And here we are! I never expected that a fun thing I do with two of my best friends would become a body of work like this. Music is brilliant and creative; torturous at times and exhilarating at others. What an absurd, accidental, and satisfying journey it’s been for the three of us.”
Spiderbait’s last full-length effort was their eponymous seventh album, released in November of 2013. That record also ended a nine-year drought of new music, with its predecessor, ‘Tonight Alright’, landing in 2004.
Last September, Kram dedicated a cover of the Neighbours theme song – reinvented as a “religious hymn” – to Guy Sebastian, following Sebastian’s controversy over an industry-wide campaign for COVID-19 vaccination.