Revulva are back to do it again! Hot off their sold-out album release tour across Aotearoa, the crazy-sexy-cool-awkward eight-piece are back to strut their stuff around the motu with The Album Releaseminder Tour.
Having sold over 100 copies of vinyl before its release, Revulva’s self-titled record was the talk of the town last year – selling out shows, making Rolling Stone’s top 40 NZ albums of the year, topping the charts, and bringing packed crowds to Twisted Frequency and New Plymouth Festival of Lights. Seven dates wasn’t quite enough, and the eight-piece soul/funk supergroup are back at it again to continue the party, playing favourites from the record as well as debuting some new work – reminding you that there is still some dancing with Revulva to be done, and some dancing to be enjoyed in the distant future.
Described by Rolling Stone Australia as “strangely alluring,” the femme-fronted eight-piece formed in Wellington under the de facto leadership of the composer, lyricist, bassist and vocalist Phoebe Johnson in 2019. Since then, Johnson and her clown van full of hyper-busy musical collaborators, Lily Rose Shaw, Toby Leman, Hector McLachlan, Kaito Walley, Lennox Grootjans, Mysty Cooke, and Zane Hawkins, have won over bar, nightclub and festival audiences across New Zealand.
Taking cues from Talking Heads, Tom Tom Club, Jamiroquai, Steely Dan, Herbie Hancock, Minnie Ripperton and Prince, Revulva reimagines the anything-goes energy of New York City’s 1970s downtown scene and London’s 1990s funk and soul renaissance through an antipodean lens informed by the deadpan humour and the realities of 21st-century life in New Zealand. The result is a hedonistic whirlwind of acid jazz, avant-funk, disco, AOR and art-pop, where polished playing leaves room for improvisation in the heat of the moment, and real statements come bundled up with just enough laughs to soften the snarl.
Following on from their first EP, Girls Gotta Eat (2022) and the road-rage jazz-funk and orgasmic uptempo R&B of recent singles ‘Beep Beep’, ‘Bush Bash’, and ‘Heroin Chic’, Revulva’s self-titled debut album is a musical snapshot of the hijinks, realisations and adventures they’ve lived through over the half-decade. Recorded at Doctor Lee Prebble’s Surgery Studios in Wellington, its ten-song tracklist captures the dynamic energy and juxtapositions that power their percussive grooves, spellbinding horn section and Johnson’s silky smooth songcraft and spoken word strut. It’s a high-wire act in a three-ring circus. You’re all invited to the Revulva party. You can even cry if you want to.
Revulva - The Album Reminder Tour
4th April – A Rolling Stone, Christchurch
5th April – Wānaka Festival of Colour, Wānaka
11th April – Double Whammy, Auckland
12th April – Last Place, Hamilton
17th April – Meow, Wellington
