thibault

Australian band Thibault (ex Minimum Chips) preps debut LP -- listen to "Centrelink"

Thibault is the new band from Nicole Thibault, who led Australian motorik pop band Minimum Chips in the ’90s/00s (and were openers of choice for bands like Bikini Kill, Le Tigre, Pavement, Stereolab and more back in the day). Their debut album, Or Not Thibault, will be out September 4 via Chapter Music and features Parsnip‘s Rebecca Liston, The Ocean Party‘s Lachlan Denton and Nicole’s former Minimum Chips bandmate, Julian Patterson.

Says Kathleen Hanna of Nicole’s new band, “Thibault is like if two of my favourite bands, Stereolab and Electrelane, merged together and were made brand new by Nicole’s originality.” That description is pretty on the money, as you can hear on the album’s single “Centrelink,” which has a bit of baroque psych to it as well (harpsichord will do that). Nicole tells us more about it:

I wrote the song at a time in my life when I really shouldn’t have been going out in public because I was just crying all the time, due to a change in my circumstances, but I had to go into Centrelink (the Australian unemployment office) almost everyday for a number of weeks to be able to get financial assistance for myself and my children. I would be sitting there for hours, trapped, just waiting for various appointments and usually had tears just cascading down my face which I just could not stop. It was humiliating, soul destroying and I lost what little amount of dignity that I had left. No one ever came over and asked if I was OK, it was just so out in the open and a really odd experience. The staff were used to it I suppose, but I’m not sure how someone could work somewhere where they witnessed and were responsible for so much suffering, a lot of it needless. I always found it funny that they always talked down to me, but if it wasn’t for me and people like me they wouldn’t have a job. The irony. The song does have a sad side to it, but also a happy side and is mostly about overcoming the sadness and the weirdness that life throws at you.

The song premieres in this post and you can listen below.

Check out album art and tracklist below as well.

Or Not Thibaut album art

Thibault – Or Not Thibaut tracklist:
1. See the World
2. Centrelink
3. Drama
4. Wanting To Be Alone
5. Componential
6. Continuer
7. Chatty Cathy
8. Late Expectations
9. Spanakopita
10. Treasure Trove
11. Later Expectations
12. Moody Ghost
13. Too Much Time