Phantastic Ferniture
The mission is obvious: Don’t overthink it. That’s evident in the urgent garage-pop perfection on Phantastic Ferniture’s self-titled debut album, and in the unconventional path the band has taken to releasing it. Phantastic Ferniture is the project of old friends Julia Jacklin, Elizabeth Hughes, Ryan K Brennan, and Tom Stephens, who wanted to shake the shackles of their meticulously crafted solo work to experience a second, giddy adolescence. “I’d gone straight into folk music,” says Jacklin, “so every experience I’d had on stage was playing sad music with a guitar in my hand. I thought, I would love to know what it’s like to make people feel good and dance.” Phantastic Ferniture’s spiritual home may be the garage but they were born in a bar, specifically the hallowed basement of Frankie’s – a beloved pinball and pizza shop in Sydney. One late night in 2014, on Jacklin’s birthday, a group hug manifested amid the pinball machines, with all ten participants vowing to form a band. “Only four of us remembered the next day,” notes Hughes. So that there could be no backing down, these four grifters booked a gig four months in the future at the Record Crate in Glebe. They advertised it as ‘Phantastic Ferniture’s Christmas Extravaganza First and Final Gig’, then got back on with their lives. “We thought, that’s ages away, we’ll definitely have songs by then,” Hughes recalls.
Julia Jacklin's summery garage-pop outfit fulfil their brief masterfully
Two years later, she follows it up with a much more off-the-cuff, upbeat indie rock via her band Phantastic Ferniture.
No one can deny a solo artist who trades in "sad music with a guitar" the chance to let loose and have some fun, and on Phantastic Ferniture, Julia Jacklin is having it in spades.
Julia Jacklin wanted to know what it feels like to make people dance with her offshoot project Phantastic Ferniture - "it feels good".
Phantastic Ferniture 'Phantastic Ferniture' album review by Adam Williams for Northern Transmissions. The full-length comes out on August 27th via Polyvinyl/Transgressive.
Over nine songs, the band straddles brash garage rock and pop subtleties, shedding the trappings of the members’ comparatively reined-in solo material.