“Brisbane dream-pop duo Sunbather are here to make your day a little bit more dreamy ” – Purple Sneakers
”Together as Sunbather these two create really dreamy and trembling stuff. It’s bittersweet-ly romantic; a sombre mood now that it’s over but an acknowledgement that it happened at all” – Dave Ruby Howe, triple j
“Taking from dream-pop and shoegaze influences, Sunbather drive on passion with their debut EP ‘Brown Bread’, a five-track showing of music-lovers who clearly know what they like.” – Atwood Mag
A flawless five-track offering steeped in hazel dream-pop hues, Brown Breadmarks the debut output of Brisbane housemates-turned-collaborators Sunbather – released today.
Between planning their wedding, a human rights stint in Myanmar working with Rohingya refugees and navigating a global pandemic, it’s been a wild ride for the pair since they laid down the EP tracks at Plutonium studios just over a year ago. First emerging as the late-night creative outlet for Sally Latter and Mike Todman while living in a West End sharehouse, Sunbather’s early experiments quickly grew to fully-fledged demos. Coming together with the help of producer Aidan Hogg (Jaguar Jonze, Tia Gostelow) and drummer Stu McKenzie (Good Boy, Future Haunts), the end result is a unifying record in many ways.
Exploring themes of friendship, self-reflection and an openness to change. The title ‘Brown Bread’ was taken from American-Australian visual artist Gary Abkin’s work of the same name which was used as the cover of the EP. “The phrase ‘brown bread’ also reminds me of growing up in suburban Australia.” says Sally. ‘I’ve found that personal growth always begins with returning to what shaped me in childhood, so it seemed like a fitting title for an EP that explores these themes.”
Brown Bread EP is a treat for fans of Warpaint, Beach House, Real Estate and the like with singles like ‘Wide Open’ and ‘Softly Spoken’ both eliciting dreamy spatial tones and layered guitars. “Playing music is a really valuable form of reflecting but in many ways is also a reprieve.” says Sally. Drawing inspiration from visual artists such as Ron Hicks (‘Softly Spoken’), memorable encounters with strangers (‘Same Place’) and each other (‘Life to Come’), Brown Bread is a deeply introspective and somewhat cathartic outlet for the duo who both lead sometimes challenging double lives – one as a human rights lawyer and the other in neuroscience.
Sparking interest with streaming and radio alike, Sunbather have already achieved a flurry of attention across the EP’s first two singles with rotation on triple j Unearthed, triple j play and heavy editorial support across both Spotify and Apple Music. Their latest video also landed on tastemaker site Purple Sneakers with the outlet describing their sound as ‘intoxicating’ and ‘spellbinding’. Comparisons aside, the duo is now laser-focused on continuing to ‘get that bread’ with the chance to serve up ‘Brown Bread’ to a live audience hopefully just around the corner.
Sunbather’s debut EP Brown Bread is OUT NOW on all platforms.
