Following the release of his latest single ‘Imaginary Friends’ and set to embark on huge run of North American dates with Australian favourites Allday and Mallrat, Gab Strum aka Japanese Wallpaper today announces his debut full-length record. Glow will be available Friday 18 October via Wonderlick Recordings, followed by his biggest national tour to date in October and November.
JAPANESE WALLPAPER GLOW NATIONAL TOUR
Friday 25th October – Corner Hotel, Melbourne VIC
Friday 1st November – Badlands, Perth WA
Saturday 2nd November – Lion Arts Factory, Adelaide SA
Friday 8th November – Oxford Art Factory, Sydney NSW
Saturday 9th November – The Brightside, Brisbane QLD
Three years since his 2016 debut, following a period of development that allowed Gab to experiment with new sounds and hone his craft as a songwriter and producer. Recorded in Atlanta with Grammy-winning producer Ben H. Allen (Walk the Moon, Animal Collective, Gnarls Barkley, Kaiser Chiefs, Cut Copy, Washed Out, Neon Indian) Glow is purposeful in its arrangement and a slight divergence from his prior strictly electronic base. Whimsical, yet wistful, textured but not overwhelming, the new LP fuses acoustic and electronic instrumentation with electric guitar riffs nestled into synth loops.
Another artistic choice employed on Glow is the absence of featured singers — or rather, the emergence of Gab’s own voice. Thematically, Glow illuminates life’s small moments. Lead single ‘Imaginary Friends,’ explores the tender emotions of late teendom and early 20s turmoil. As he validates the mundane, no emotion is wasted. “None of the things are about massive changes or massive terrible things that happened, or big breakups,” he says. “It’s all songs about little things and it’s also fine to be affected by little things.”
Japanese Wallpaper originated after Gab first composed a string of songs in Garageband at the age of 15. After one of the tracks won triple j’s 2014 Unearthed High competition, Gab’s career was cemented: music was his destiny. While finishing high school, he worked on his 2016 self-titled-debut EP. On it, a pensive track called ‘Breathe In’ caught the attention of Zach Braff who included the song on the soundtrack for Wish I Was Here. The EP went onto amass over 20 million streams and featured the likes of Airling, Pepa Knight, Wafia, Jesse Davidson and remixes from Yumi Zouma, UV boi, Elkkle, Anatole to name a few.
Since the release, he has produced music for the likes of Mallrat, Holy Holy, Wafia, Eilish Gilligan, swim good now, Bec Sandridge and Allday, and gathered fans such as Flume, Gotye, Lily Allen, Nick Murphy, Rostam Batmangjil and Charli XCX who he remixed ‘Need Ur Luv’ for.