You've waited a long time since Owl & Mouse's debut 7" on Fika Recordings a year ago to hear something new. So we're chuffed that we can finally reveal Worst Kiss, the first track from their debut LP "Departures".
The songwriting vehicle for talented young Brisbanite Hannah Botting, which began as a twosome with sister Jen, those early outings have quickly grown into something altogether more fully formed. “The name was kind of silly,” says Hannah, reflecting on the band's early days. “It came from a song I wrote years ago about an owl and a mouse that go to war together. In the beginning it was just Jen and I doing shows and people would always ask who was the owl and who was the mouse,” she reminisces, before adding with a certain dry humour, “we had to grow the band to avoid that question.” And grow the band has, with the addition of Tom Wade (We Aeronauts) and the prolific pairing of Emma Winston and Dan Mayfield (Enderby's Room, Darren Hayman's Long Parliament).
Straight out of the same school of Australian songwriting as The Go-Betweens, Triffids and Courtney Barnett, Hannah's words follow her compatriots' ability to be widescreen and personal at once, infused with an added degree of delicacy and poignancy:
"Worst Kiss is one of my favourites and is probably the newest song on the album, it was only written a few days before we went into the studio. It’s a love song. It sounds a bit like a confession to me, telling someone they’re the love of your life. It’s just about sharing stories and feeling grateful and relieved that you are where you are and you’re with who you’re with. Not kissing idiots any more."
Departures is out on vinyl and CD on the 27th of July. Pre-orders are available here. You can still pick up one of the last copies of their 4 song 7" EP, Somewhere To Go, none of which feature on the new album.