Body Type make the little moments shine on ‘Tally’
With 'maverick' maestro Stella Mozgawa in tow, the Sydney quartet make the mundane feel magic on their brilliant new album.
“We have a habit of making things a little bit hard for ourselves,” says Body Type guitarist and vocalist Sophie McCormish. “For some reason, we always just cram so much into so little time.”
To illustrate, she nods to her bandmate Georgia Wilkinson-Derums, who is joining the Zoom call to do album promo between classes at university.
Cramming so much into so little time might be the Body Type mission statement, or at least the protracted subtitle of the Sydney four-piece’s future autobiography. Since forming a decade ago, the band has churned out a string of EPs and acclaimed studio albums (including the Australian Music Prize-nominated Expired Candy in 2023) at an impressive clip.
But their latest record Tally, their first in three years, is Body Type’s sharpest and most expansive take on their brand of jangly post-punk yet. Recorded in Los Angeles with Australian super-producer Stella Mozgawa, Tally is ambitious and richly textured but firmly concentrated.
“We had 12 days booked in the studio in LA with Stella with the intention of recording 12 songs,” McCormish explains. “And then on day six, we were like, ‘we’ve still got two more songs to record’ and Stella was like, ‘What? We’re doing more than 10?’”
It prompted the band to narrow their focus and pour more into perfecting a tight 10 songs instead of letting the tracklist blow out. What resulted was, according to Wilkinson-Derums, a “fast-paced, mercurial” experience with Mozgawa.
“We’re four hard-working women and she put us to shame,” she says with a smile. “She was there all hours and didn’t take a break. It was inspiring to see how she works, she’s a bit of a maverick.”
The care and craft ring true throughout Tally. Body Type have always had an enchanting knack for making ordinary experiences feel larger than life, and they’ve never done it so well. ‘Planet 8’ is a slice of crooning garage rock that turns a ride in the rickety elevator of a boyfriend’s apartment building into a treatise on commitment and vulnerability. ‘Gorgeous’ threads in brisk acoustic guitar and harmonised vocals, making a visit to a Tarot card reader sound life-affirming.
It’s a perfect contrast to the moments when Body Type chose to forego the banal and dive headfirst into big feelings. Album opener ‘And What Else?’ might be the best example: it’s catchy as hell and incredibly funny,1 but don’t be surprised if it pricks at strangely raw parts of your heart.
What starts as a boppy pump-up lover’s anthem reveals its sleight of hand when the call-and-response vocals converge on the gut-punching chorus in which they urge a lover to “Tell me things that I don’t believe about myself” and “Tell me things that are true only to you”.
That notion, that a partner’s affirmation can in one light romantic and in another a sign your needs aren’t being meant, can slide over your head if you get wrapped up in the catchiness of the track. But not every punch on Tally sneaks up on you.
Album standout ‘Eye Is A Mouth Is A Face’ immediately asserts itself, toying with time signatures in ways that would thrill their label bosses King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard.
“‘Eye Is A Mouth Is A Face’ is the first complete song that we wrote together, and it just came from a session in the studio when we were just jamming,” McCormish says. “We’re all extremely busy, and the time we have together is limited, so usually when we’re writing, someone’s brought a demo and we’re building off an existing idea, but ‘Eye’ came together entirely in the studio.
“That’s something that, if we had more time and if money wasn’t an issue, we could be in the room together more often. I think that’s probably how we would write more.”
Neither McCormish or Wilkinson-Derums make a fuss about finances, but it’s implicit in any conversation you have with any Australian working in the arts. In the case of Body Type, their best statement on the subject comes on the chugging title track of Tally.
It starts dry and funny, asking about holidays and TABs, but the joy evaporates in place of anxiety and anger, culminating in a cathartic, loud shouting section.2
Wilkinson-Derums tells me a story about a 2024 show they played at Sydney’s Phoenix Central Park and how transformative it was to hear her band through in-ear monitors for the first time — something that, in a fair and supportive creative environment, an AMP-nominated band would get access to much earlier into their career.
“That performance actually was profound for the four of us, because we were hearing ourselves in a different, clear way,” she says. “For me, it was revolutionary … it’s like hearing for the first time. You work in pubs and whatever, you don’t really ever get a fantastic mix,” she says.
“We’re not in a financial position where we can take someone on tour with us. So, you learn to work with constraints and adapt in a different way. But having that clarity made me personally go, ‘Okay, I can sit back and maybe try something new’.”
McCormish offers an instant evaluation: “That came out when Georgia was doing her vocal takes on ‘Mulberry’ and I was just weeping in the control room because I’d never heard her sing so tenderly before.”
Tenderness is a new arrow in the quiver of Body Type. Although Expired Candy dialled back some of the scuzziness of Body Type’s debut, Tally feels like another step towards a band willing to bare its vulnerabilities in the full light of day.
Album closer ‘Everything In A Row’ cuts straight to the heart. The song sat in a demos folder for “like seven or eight years”, but was finally resurfaced at the urging of drummer Cecil Coleman.
“Annabel is also really good at sitting in the softer songs and being patient. When you’ve got a song that you started so long ago, you are recontextualising it to where you’re at in life now and where things are at with the band creatively now,” McCormish says.
“It feels like a real journey has transpired that you can measure, because there are some lyrics in that song I wrote a long, long time ago and then some that came through in the session.”
“It turns out to be a little bit like camp,” Wilkinson-Derums adds with a laugh. “I’m falling asleep next to Soph and watching her read a book and words stick out to her, or stick out to me, and I communicate that word to her, and she puts it in a song.”
Even in conversation, the women of Body Type make the mundane labour of putting together a song sound nothing short of magic. When Wilkinson-Derums tells me that the process of slowly finishing a song like ‘Everything In A Row’ is the best part of being in Body Type, I believe her.
“It’s the most special part of it all, it’s not even playing in a fucking band,” she laughs.
‘Tally’ is out now via Poision City Records/p(doom) records. Buy or stream here.
Just listen to the way vocalist/guitarist Annabel Blackman sings the lines ‘play guitar good’ and ‘fine round hind’ and try not to break into a dumb smile
“The end bit is the loudest I’ve ever sung on or off record (outside of my car)" Annabel notes on the album’s press materials.