It's the year of Eddy Current Suppression Ring, again
After years in the shadows, one of this country’s most influential rock bands is back with a new album, a huge Sydney show, and the same unbothered spirit.
“You know, we can just put out a record next week and say it’s available, and then it’s done,” Mikey Young tells me. We’re talking on May 8th, 2026 via Zoom, and it’s been 2,338 days since his band Eddy Current Suppression Ring has released a studio album.
In this attention economy, a band with that kind of absence should be forgotten. Especially one that has not played a conventional tour since July 2010, is barely present on social media, and actively shirks the limelight.
But Eddy Current Suppression Ring is, and always has been, an aberration.
Their rise was rapid and unlikely, going from mates working at a record plant in suburban Melbourne to Australian Music Prize winners in about five years. They disappeared nearly as fast as they arrived, leaving a trail of acolytes in their wake who tried and failed to replicate Brendan Huntley’s tightly wound intensity and the band’s skilled, fast and loose brand of garage exuberance.
That reverence affords exceptions to normal rules. When Eddy Current Suppression Ring decided to end their first hiatus in 2016, they walked into a headline slot at Golden Plains and played Dark Mofo. Nearly a decade later, they returned again to a sprawling crowd at Melbourne’s Federation Square.
Now, the next era of Eddy Current Suppression Ring is in full swing: they will play their first full Sydney show in over 15 years at Vivid Sydney, headlining a free show at Tumbalong Park. And, about two weeks after Young and I spoke, the band surprised the world by releasing their fifth studio album In Light of Recent Events.1
It has been widely known that Eddy Current Suppression Ring has been recording, and they’ve played new songs live wherever they decide to pop up (Frankston, Hobart, Barwon Heads some of the recent sites blessed), but no one had a new ECSR album on their May 2026 bingo card.
During our conversation, Young told me it would be a “big relief” to release music at some point in 2026 but said broadly they had “no plans” firmed up. I wouldn’t begrudge him for a white lie, but it’s entirely plausible that he was telling the truth — as Young explained, the band is a DIY operation: they organise their own vinyl pressing, his best mate runs a distribution company, and all of the mixing, mastering and production is done in-house. Things can move fast.
Spontaneity is also a core tenet of Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s entire existence. Ever since they started as a few mates jamming at a boozy Corduroy Records employee Christmas party in 2003, Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s history is full of stories now etched into folklore: three albums in just over three years, each recorded on the cheap and fast (the longest they spent in studio was one day, for 2008’s Primary Colours). Stepping away at the height of their popularity, content and calm. Coming back whenever the urge strikes. It’s cultivated, mostly unintentionally, a kind of gravitas most bands would die to have.
Mikey Young admits that it’s all still very strange for him. When Eddy Current Suppression Ring first left, it came shortly after launching 2010’s Rush to Relax to a hometown crowd of about 1800. Reflecting a decade later, Young said he was “humbled, but a bit weirded out” to see so many people turning up for his band.
Speaking to me, Young says: “I just questioned at the time whether that was the way I would like to see my band and if I wasn’t sure of that, then that’s probably a good reason to stop it or change it in some way.”
“I do feel different this time around, I’ve really been enjoying making music at our own pace,” he adds.
“We’ve been doing it for a couple of years, before we even did the Fed Square, just to hang out and create. But Fed Square was really weird, but I’m really trying to enjoy it all and realise that not every band gets to experience that kind of feedback and love from people, and just cherish that.”
That’s part of the mindset that led to the band taking on Vivid Sydney, one of the country’s preeminent arts festivals, as the site for their first full show in the city in over 15 years.
Originally, the band were in talks for something even more ambitious, but negotiations stalled as they couldn’t find a way to cover costs without charging more than they felt comfortable for tickets.
“And then this came along where it was like, ‘Well, will you play this free show and we’ll still pay?’,” Young says. “That’s perfect for us. We can put on a show that everyone can go to, no matter if they’ve got cash or not.”
Vivid Sydney will be Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s first live performance since the release In Light of Recent Events.2 When we talk, Young is ringing in from his recording studio and talks me through the band’s process behind what, unbeknownst to me at the time, would soon become the fifth ECSR album.
“The process feels pretty much the same, we just get in a room to jam, and the way we write songs is exactly the same. Possibly it’s a little less chaotic than in the past, just because we’re older and slowing down,” he says.
“When we used to record the other albums, we used to practice every week in a rehearsal studio, and then we just book somewhere, be it a rehearsal room or wherever for a day and just quickly bang out the album and whatever the takes were, they were the takes. With the new stuff, I’ve got this mastering room and it turned out to be a really nice sounding jam space.”
Young admits it’s a much more professional set-up than the early days of ECSR — winding back a bit of the chaos for some fidelity.
“I’m trying not to make them too good,” he grins. “They’re still pretty loose and alive, it’s still Brendan singing in the same room, so it’s leaking into everything else. Nothing’s changed too much.”
The proof is in the record. In Light of Recent Events is a natural progression from 2019’s All in Good Time, consolidating Eddy Current Suppression Ring’s second act as a recording band. Across their first three albums, the records were electric with their unpredictability. It felt like Huntley was veering all over the song while the tight ensemble behind him sprinted to keep everything on the rails. It was utterly captivating, a delightful symphony that always felt one beat away from crashing over the barricade.
On the new record, there’s less friction. Huntley feels in step with the band, buoyed and backed to wander into weird pockets — ‘Swimming Hole’ is a rollicking song about the climate emergency in which Huntley’s voice flicks between a strained weariness, an enticing growl and an off-kilter falsetto, as if he’s channel surfing vocal styles.
It’s perhaps the prettiest that an Eddy Current Suppression Ring album has ever sounded. Sure, ECSR have always had gorgeous sounding riffs, but the songs ran so fast that you could never luxuriate in it for too long before the next drum fill or jagged turn.
All in Good Time, in 2019, was the first time Eddy Current Suppression Ring really applied the handbrake, but the fruits of that labour are more fully realised this time out. Points that somewhat laboured on the last record absolutely soar on this one. The aptly titled ‘Bop’ has some Beach Boys in its DNA, while ‘Turtle’ uses all of its clear air to produce a song that will sit in the pantheon with ‘Which Way to Go’ as among the most moving ECSR tracks.
If Mikey Young ever reads the above paragraphs, he’ll probably hate it. There is a long and public record of Young shying away from praise for his band and trying very hard not to dwell on its success, a task that only gets harder as its legacy fortifies.
That much came through in 2010, when Young told Andrew McMillen he didn’t want to think about why people like Eddy Current Suppression Ring out of fear it’d compromise how they made music, and it rears its head when I touch on the impending 20th anniversary of their self-titled debut in October.
““I just want to look forward to making music and not dwell on our classic album from 20 years ago,” he says politely, before adding: “But I am really grateful that people care.”
He continues: “When we were making our first record, I was more interested in making a record that someone would want to reissue in 25 years than one that was going to sell a lot. I just wanted to make something that sounded as fresh in the future, so hopefully we succeeded in doing that to some degree.”
It’s about as much acknowledgement of influence as you’ll get from one of the scene’s most humble pioneers. Eddy Current Suppression Ring are beyond the point of needing to prove anything to anyone — for them, it happened the day they formed — but I’m sure the coming calendar year is about to show that their past and present music is as fresh and enrapturing as it ever has been.
Eddy Current Suppression Ring are playing a free show at Vivid Sydney on June 12 at Tumbalong Park with Chikchika (event details). Their new album ‘In Light of Recent Events’ is out now.
It wouldn’t be correct to say the 'recent events' in question includes a charming, riveting and inspirational interview with the world's best music publication BAD SCENE, but we can't yet categorically say that's not what happened, either.
Probably. These guys do have a tendency to pop up at a tiny venue and blast out a furious 45 minute set on a moment's notice.