Up to Anything

Up To Anything is the debut album by Brisbane trio The Goon Sax. Louis Forster, James Harrison and Riley Jones are all 17-18 years old. They make pop music. They have refined tastes - they love the Pastels, Talking Heads, Galaxie 500, Bob Dylan and Arthur Russell. On Up To Anything they pull off the almost impossible, capturing the awkwardness, self-doubt and visceral excitement of teenage life, while still in the thick of actually living it. The band formed around high school friends James and Louis in 2013, and some scrappy duo-era home recordings still linger on the internet. Riley joined in early 2014, after a month of drum lessons, and the band played their first show a few months later. Chapter signed The Goon Sax in 2015 on the strength of an unsolicited demo, the first time that has ever happened in the label’s history. We intro- duced the band to the world via music conference Bigsound last year, and singles Sometimes Accidentally and Boyfriend have since been featured on the likes of Stereogum, NME, BBC6 and Brooklyn Vegan. They’ve gone on to play with the likes of US Girls, Twerps, Blank Realm and Crayon Fields, and have a spot on Brisbane Laneway Festival in Febru- ary. Goon Sax songs are both immediately charming and deceptively deep - Sweaty Hands examines a point in a relationship where you’re seen at your worst, while Telephone addresses the heartbreaking realisation that noth- ing you offer your crush is enough. The Goon Sax are already masters at pairing teen microdrama with pop sophistication - but clearly, Up To Anything is just the beginning!

The Goon Sax are a teenage indie-pop group from Brisbane. The best moments on their debut are as clever as they are sad, a dynamic frontman Louis Forster perhaps inherited from his father Robert Forster, one-half of the songwriting duo behind The Go-Betweens.

This is pop music as it should be: simple, unvarnished, young but world-weary, and ultimately timeless.

On their debut album, Up to Anything, Brisbane, Australia trio the Goon Sax tell pithy and insightful tales of teenage life over sparse musical backdrops that are reminiscent of classic indie pop bands like Beat Happening and the Cannanes.

Brisbane teen trio impress with an eloquent set of songs that are self-deprecating but never maudlin, prematurely world-weary but never cynical