Queer Indie-Pop Group Platonic Sex Reveal Debut Album Face To The Flywire; Announce Headline Australia Tour Dates

Stilted houses, summer breeze, peach and lilac sunsets… Face to the Flywire – the first studio LP by Platonic Sex – is the product of a coming-of-age that unfolds within the natural poetry of Queensland. The album is released today, independently, alongside a string of national tour dates.

Until now, at least - Bridget “Brando” Brandolini (they/them), Ryan Hammermeister (he/they) and Jane Millroy (she/her) – have remained in the city that grew them, delaying the move ‘away’ that sometimes feels inevitable, as their peers leave for other sharehouses, in colder places with more artists and venues and gigs.

Developing this record, the band members – who have since welcomed Jess Cameron (she/her) on bass – continued to graft a new sound from their individual music backgrounds (in jazz, folk and other touring acts) sun-bleached by the spirit of the community they live in: languorous, warm, isolated, intimate.

“These songs feel nostalgic, like the Christmas holidays,” says Millroy. “Sitting on the back deck and
listening to cicadas.”

In the main, the album was recorded at Marrickville’s Golden Retriever Studios with Antonia Gauci, then finished at home with Issac Rogers at The Tunnel and Sam Cromack at Prawn Studios. But the songs were germinated on a weeklong stay at Minjerribah/Stradbroke Island, back in 2022. Hammermeister remembers “working on a guitar part with Brando and shedding a tear at the feeling of closeness we had in the space… the cheap plunger coffee smell, sandy footprints outside, cold beach wind, salty air.”

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That guitar part would find its way into ‘Over It’. According to Brandolini, its lyrics chart the space of “temporal pain that you know will liberate you later, bring relief; coming to terms with letting others down to bring yourself peace.” Like the gilded map printed on the endpages of a well-worn hardback, the track opens a portal into an imagined world, where iPhone samples meld into burbling tributaries of reverb and ripple.

“I am learning over and over again that the only way to get through life is to be accepting, and to keep moving forward,” says Brandolini. “I don’t feel pessimistic in believing that it doesn’t get easier - resilience is the hero of my values.”

After a long held place in the group’s live set, ‘Shark Teeth’ is set in snarling stereo, with a nod to Turnstile in the breakdown. It asks: when you’re proud of deep, long-term friendships, how do you honor your own values in the face of their flaws? ‘Step Back’ a defense of not acting like the bigger man in the break-up, has the crunch and spike of a Momma bridge; meanwhile ‘Fever Dream’ is blushing and sweet, grafted from its upright-piano intro.

Premiered on triple j’s Home and Hosed program, focus track ‘Sun Goes Down’ closes out the record. Its chorus serves as a mantra of gratitude for ephemeral joy and closeness, a reminder to be mindful, brave, diligent in love of all shapes: “Can we stay just a little longer? / Sun goes down, can we hold each other?”.

It gives way to what Hammermeister calls a “full Taylor Hawkins bridge”, then fades and settles to peaceful gurgle. Hammermeister says, “I want to make music that’s company for people when they’re alone, or with the person they feel most vulnerable with - music they can create memories to.”

After headlining the annual Sounds Like Community Radio at BIGSOUND, Platonic Sex will embark on their first national tour, including interstate headlines in Sydney and Melbourne, and an appearance at Newcastle’s The Lass. They’ll also play at 4ZZZ’s 50th Birthday Market Day, alongside The Saints and Tropical Fuck Storm. In October, they’ll join critically acclaimed jasmine.4.t at Black Bear Lodge, as part of her first trip to Australia, before celebrating their hometown headline at Crowbar.

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