by Ljubinko Zivkovic (@zivljub)
Back in 2020 Melbourne, Australia based collective Bananagun came out of nowhere with their debut album The True Story of Bananagun, an intriguing combination of sunshine pop and afrobeat rhythms. Four years on, and the pandemic on the vane, the band are back with Why is the Colour of the Sky?, a set of ten songs, or compositions if you will, that so audibly push the band into new musical territories, without abandoning the great sounds that it created on its debut. Those afrobeat rhythms are ever present, this time around combined with the rhythmic patterns that the Feelies picked up from Velvet Underground, as on “Children of The Man,” giving Bananagun a new musical avenue to develop.
The sunshine pop melody patterns are present here in a more skeletal form as the harmonies are sparser and are now combined with jazzy moves (“Those Who Came Before”), all played and sung as if a sixties garage band suddenly got weaned on spiritual jazz. The spine of each song is placed by the band’s guitarist, vocalist, flautist, and songwriter Nick van Bakel, who then brought them to other band members individually. Together they turned them into full-fledged songs though a series of live performances, where each individual set brought new shape and form, before the band decided to take the material to the studio.
The improvisational elements that can be heard throughout, at times taking Bananagun from sixties psych pop to prog rock which works as on “Feeding the Moon” or “Gift of the Open Road." The full result is as surprising as it is inventive, with Why is the Colour of the Sky? presenting itself as a true musical delight.