On Gusto Gusto’s New Album

Gusto Gusto have a new album!

To The Ocean They Returned is out today. It’s our debut full-length album, which is a funny music marketing thing I’ve seen everyone else do and figured we’d co-opt for our project.

Is this our ‘debut album’? No, of course not. We’ve got two EPs out already. But it’s our ‘debut full-length album’, which basically means it’s the first time we’ve done a longer album. Weirdly, music industry people LOVE stuff like this. Anything that can make something seem new and cool sells right? Blergh.

I first saw **name redacted because some of my friends play in his band** try this, and suddenly all these people were raving about this ‘cool new artist’ who has just released his first album. Not his first album, and definitely not new, he’d been kicking around Melbourne for years at that point, but he just scrubbed the internet of his first two albums and started fresh. The marketing worked and his ‘debut’ album did really well and now he has a successful career, so let’s see how it goes for us.

To The Ocean IS a much different album to our two EPs.

When I started this band back in 2021 I had a glut of songs. I wrote almost two sets worth of songs before we’d had our first rehearsal. Our first two EPs were mostly songs I wrote during lockdown, brought to the band and workshopped on the bandstand, then recorded in a flurry across the last couple of years of national touring. When we released our second EP Secret Dance Party in October 2023 we’d played some of those songs over sixty times live, and while the gigs were still fun, the songs were starting to get a little stale around the edges.

I was ready for something new, so I threw the idea of a full-length album out to the band, with the offer to make space for other people’s compositions. To The Ocean is a collaborative affair – five of the band members wrote songs for it.

At first it felt a little weird giving away creative control. This band is my baby. I’ve grown it up from the ground, taken it from its first swaying steps to touring the UK and playing at Glastonbury. I’ve had a strong idea of what the band is and what we sound like since day dot, and suddenly I had other people with other ideas pushing in new creative directions.

There’s a tendency in the face of something new to push back. Revert to the status quo. Find the place that’s comfortable and live there forever. But to grow as a band, to become something bigger than me requires giving it up and seeing what comes of it.

To The Ocean is a much different album to the album I would have written by myself. There’s songs with emotional deftness (Peny’s tune Poseidon’s Playground), there are songs with wild compositional twists and arrangements that took us months to master (Maddi’s tune Eos/Astraeus), there’s a cheeky, cheerful dance banger (Pan’s tune, which is called… Pan’s Tune), and there’s a handful of Sam’s tunes which are truly the weirdest songs in our set.

Each of the people brought a different flavour to the album, a different way of thinking about what a song is, how we deal with textures and harmony, what a compelling melody is.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts – and if I’m to quote Aristotle now – the whole album took inspiration from Greek mythology. I read Madeline Miller’s book The Song of Achilles a couple of years back and it re-sparked a childhood love of the Greek myths. Each of the songs on the album is loosely tied to a Greek myth or god or character. The album starts with Lypé which is the Greek word for sorrow or grief, and ends with Pandora who kept us hope (feel free to read into this what you will). There’s a journey in between.

This album is currently available to stream but we’re also bringing it out in vinyl and CD format. I’ve never had a record on vinyl before, so I had to go and buy a record player to listen to it. It sounds schmick. Warm. Delightful. I’d love for you to have a copy of it BUT for music marketing reasons we’re trying to get everyone to buy them between Oct 18^th and 25^th. It’s a long story, hopefully I can explain it to you in person.

Speaking about in person – Gusto are playing TWO shows to release this album. This Friday, October 11th in Geelong and then next week, October 18^th in Melbourne. Please buy a ticket. It’s going to be a lot of fun.