Amyl & The Sniffers have shared the new single, Jerkin, lifted from their forthcoming album, Cartoon Darkness, due out on October 25.
Alongside the release, the Aussie punks have released a NSFW music video, featuring numerous people in the nude. Directed by John Angus Stewart, the video arrives in two versions: X-rated and censored. The former can be viewed on the band's website.
Jerkin' is packed full of attitude, and driven by a sleazy punk guitar riff, smacking drums and very explicit lyrics, such as 'You're a dumb cunt / You're an asshole / Every time you talk you mumble, grumble / Need to wipe your mouth after you speak 'cause it's an asshole'.
Speaking of the new song, frontwoman Amy Taylor says: “It’s good to express your anger when someone’s been pissing you off and it’s good to have humour in life, especially as a woman, when you’re meant to just passively say ‘everything’s good’ to keep everyone else comfortable.
“The best part about this song is that a squirter can be anybody’s genitals. I wanted to write a song to big-up ‘the self’ while putting down the ‘other’ because sometimes, even if it’s just for a small window, that’s the best way to laugh something off and empower yourself.”
She continues, "World’s pissing me off and breaking my heart more than ever right now, might as well poke it back. It’s pointless but it’s cathartic.”
Discussing the X-rated video, director Stewart says: “The level of offence that a vagina or penis can generate is absolutely bizarre. Once, Amy said to me, ‘If the world wasn’t so fucked up, I’d never wear clothes’.
“It’s the context we stamp onto our sex organs that makes them innately ‘offensive’. This is why we wanted to strip away the artifice and examine the body in an open, conversational way. We approached the project as if it were a performance in itself.”
He continues, “From concept to crewing to casting, we (the production) let the project evolve in the most natural way possible, allowing our subjects to dictate their level of input based on their comfort on the day. We were learning what it was as we were making it, which is basically the opposite approach I’m used to.
“But because this idea was driven by people’s personalities, it felt wrong to do it any other way. We just kept pulling things further and further back until we were left with just a white wall and the human body. I want to come out of everything I do with a different perspective.
“Just as one’s perspective changes with an Amyl song, I want to change in the same way. I think we all walked away from the shoot with an innate need to be less prudish and give less of a shit.”
Watch the censored version of Jerkin' below:
