Good Morning Release Surprise Eighth Album 'The Accident'

Good Morning has unveiled their eighth studio album, The Accident. Flanked by the recent 8 minute epic single "Soft Rock Band," The Accident is a dynamic nine track collection that sees the duo of Stefan Blair and Liam Parsons continue to challenge their own boundaries as a creative partnership.

The steadfast release would take shape in the background of preparing and releasing their critically acclaimed album Good Morning Seven earlier this year. From a broken eight track tape machine which necessitated a strictly digital approach, to taking on the challenge of booking studio time without a single pre-prepared song, Good Morning embraced the self-induced discomfort of being put on the spot, resulting in jamming together – “something that we’ve spent the better part of our adult lives avoiding,” they explain.

Speaking to its genesis, Good Morning continue, “Somehow, we broke through the barrier of being vulnerable about our creativity (again) and got into the swing of writing together in a room for the first time in a long time. During this time we’re starting all the advance rollout work on Good Morning Seven and planning our next year. We’re not really fighters, (we’re way too passive for that), but given that we’re making a new record at the same time as already getting sick of thinking about the old one, an air of burn out and band related bum out seems to find its way into much of the lyrics. For the first time in a long time, there is no new Good Morning record being worked on as this one is coming out, and no plans to tour.”

A distillation of sounds and influence as wide as Pavement, The Beatles, Wilco, with the range of big band rock moments to the intimate, The Accident is as much a product of indulging imagination, as it subconsciously comments on instinct and quiet confidence in the face of hard work. Highlights include "A Telephone Rings," where truncated kooky percussion, warm whispers and triumphant guitars make for “another song about trying,” through to "Baby Steps," a seemingly self-referential hymn of self belief – “It’ll work sometimes, It’s gotta work sometimes.” Wind and horn arrangements shine on the driving "Romance" and "Peaches," a forlorn declaration of grace against twinkling flutes and nylon strings. 

Embracing the moment and quietly gratified by the vulnerability of simply writing together – start to finish – in a room again, The Accident formed in three stages: instrumentals recorded in August 2023 at The Old Carpet Factory on the Greek island of Hydra amongst 40 degree celsius weather and late morning swims; lyrics added and mixing initiated in November 2023 at Stella Mozgawa’s Sunfair Studios in Joshua Tree, post co-headline tour with Frankie Cosmos; with final touches in February 2024 at Naarm / Melbourne’s York Street Recorders, Australia’s oldest running recording studio that Stefan co-operates while they rehearsed to support Waxahatchee across the US.

With a dedicated focus to a small contingent of instruments that feature across The Accident, as with Good Morning’s wider discography, the record is abound with xylophone, slide guitar, congas, and a Melotron setting called "Boy’s Choir." Hydra’s ever-present cicada population, coupled with Joshua Tree local scorpions and tarantulas, meant that “a lot of the recordings have a layer of hiss anyway.” The Accident also sees a horn and wind section return, with contributions from Stefan’s father Glenn Blair on saxophone, Nicole Thibault on trombone, and Hank Clifton-Williamson on flute. Retaining their firm DIY spirit, The Accident arrives written and produced by Good Morning (pair), engineered and mixed by Stefan with mastering by Fred Kevorkian, and artwork by Liam.

Hot off Pitchfork Festival London with Drugdealer and June McDoom, Good Morning will appear at Meredith Festival this December alongside Jamie xx, Genesis Owusu, Mk.gee, and Waxahatchee, with whom they will reunite at her Tigers Blood Australia Tour sideshows in Naarm / Melbourne.ABOUT GOOD MORNING

Over the past decade, Good Morning have carved out a peculiar, hard-to-define indie career for themselves, amassing a global cult fanbase and hundreds of millions of streams despite (or perhaps because of) their defiantly DIY approach. The band/duo/recording-thing from Naarm / Melbourne, Australia come together as Stefan Blair (29, brown hair, 6 foot something) plays most of the instruments and sings half the songs. Liam Parsons (30, brown hair, 6 foot on the dot) plays the rest of the instruments and sings the other half of the songs.

The band name is intentionally impossible to Google but hasn’t gotten in the way of them getting shouted out by Tyler, The Creator, sampled by A$AP Rocky, going viral on TikTok (for their 2015 track ‘Warned You’), or touring the globe (including the US, Mexico, China, Japan, Thailand, and beyond). Their 2021 album Barnyard, both thoughtful and catchy, released internationally via Polyvinyl was met with widespread acclaim from Rolling Stone, NME, Stereogum, The Line Of Best Fit, Consequence, Alt Press, Paste, DIY Magazine, Northern Transmissions, KCRW, 6Music and more, plus an appearance at Pitchfork Festival London earlier this month.

More recently the group marked ten years as a duo with Good Morning Seven, praised by The Guardian for their “wry, charismatic, self-effacing paeans to the pain and pleasure of existence,” alongside Rolling Stone, The Australian, Junkee, Bandcamp, the FADER, NPR, Stereogum, Paste, Northern Transmissions to a suite of radio playlisting across Double J, Triple R (Album of the Week), 2SER (Album of the Week), SYN (Local Feature Album), and Edge Radio (Feature Album). Released earlier this year, the homerun record was just as vehemently embraced across the live circuit, with a landmark home show at Melbourne’s Recital Hall for RISING festival praised by The Age with 5 out of 5 stars: “One of Melbourne’s most underrated bands return home and blow off the roof.” It’s all down hill from here.

Photo credit: Jarvis Taveniere