by Dan Goldin (@post_trash_)
Tough Age are a post-punk band from Toronto and they are getting ready to release a new album, Which Way Am I?, on the ever reliable Mint Records (Lié, Kiwi Jr, Dumb) out of Vancouver. Their latest, due out August 7th, is an expansive album that finds the band ever more collaborative, expanding their lane and scratching at the influences from krautrock, dream pop, and punk with a sugary center. Having shared singles “My Life’s A Joke & I’m Throwing It Away” and “Repose” already, the band looks for some inspiration from Australia and New Zealand with their latest single “Penny Current Suppression Ring.” Anyone following Post-Trash should already know that Australian/NZ punk scene is vast and incredible, and the sound works well in the hands of Tough Age.
Speaking about the song, the band’s Penny Clark shared, “This song is about the futility of making music with a material goal in mind. Flying Nun is just a stand in for any external benchmark of "success."
Tough Age’s Jarrett Samson continued, “the song's title was originally just one of those joke titles you give a song when you're jamming before you name it -- "Oh, this is funny to us, it's kind of like an Eddy Current song...", and this was before the lyrics were even finished. It ended up playing into the lyrical themes Penny introduced not because of its namesake's geographical closeness to New Zealand, but in a meta way as commentary of the idea Penny is exploring, using the idea of being signed to Flying Nun as what outwardly would represent 'success' to this band... For me, the "Penny Current Suppression Ring" is this spurious idea that there are forces holding us back from success, keeping the character of Penny that exists in this 'in her place', while also acting as transferable commentary on my own obsessions and limitations I place on my own ideas of what constitutes succeeding!”
Stream the song and a playlist of the band’s favorite New Zealand music below.