Artist
GUM
Perth, Australia
GUM is a musician from Perth, Australia. Their discography on Gatefold includes 6 records.
6
Albums tracked
20
In collections
—
Since
Biography
The mercurial neo-psychedelia of GUM is the creation of Pond and Tame Impala drummer Jay Watson. The solo project's full-length debut, Delorean Highway, appeared in 2014. Taking a varied approach over the next several years that was always trippy but sometimes drenched in fuzz, sometimes more robotic synth pop, and sometimes crunchier rock, GUM committed to a synth-enhanced psych rock for his more cohesive fourth album, 2018's The Underdog. Hailing from Western Australia, Watson began recording self-produced music as GUM in 2011.
The Arc of GUM
The pivots — what forced GUM to reinvent.
The Bedroom Glam Blueprint
Between grueling world tours on the road, Watson started tracking 'Delorean Highway' and 'Glamorous Damage' strictly during downtime. He slammed Roland Juno chords through busted overdrive pedals, leaning into dirt-cheap digital drum samples and Marc Bolan vocal hooks. The music felt chaotic, claustrophobic, and wildly immediate, proving he had far sharper pop instincts than just being the guy holding down the synth riser on arena stages.
Polishing the Chrome
By 'The Underdog' and 'Out in the World', the lo-fi hiss took a backseat to genuine hi-fi craft. Watson upgraded his signal chain, embraced clean funk basslines, and layered lush acoustic guitars over precise sequencer grids. You could hear him studying late-seventies AM radio production down to the millimeter, trading raw fuzz for crystalline vocoders and razor-sharp drum grooves.
The Flightless Collision
After the expansive sprawl of 'Saturnia', Watson joined forces with King Gizzard's Ambrose Kenny-Smith to cut 'Ill Times'. Bringing in outside vocal grit broke GUM out of his solitary studio routine. The result married Kenny-Smith's raw, soulful belting with Watson's slick synth arrangements and heavy breakbeats, marking his shift from solitary bedroom wizard to full-blown collaborative arranger.
Influences
- Todd Rundgren — Watson constantly cites 'A Wizard, a True Star' as the gold standard for solo multi-instrumentalists who build entire universes alone in a room. You hear it in the sudden tonal whiplash and the bright, phased synthesizer lead lines on 'Glamorous Damage'. Rundgren wrote the manual on DIY studio eccentricities, and GUM lives by it.
- David Bowie — Watson's vocal cadence and strut owe an obvious debt to the 'Station to Station' and Berlin era catalog. The robotic funk grooves and slick rhythm section on 'The Underdog' borrow directly from Bowie's mid-seventies white-funk phase. It is theatrical art-rock delivered without a shred of irony.
- Electric Light Orchestra — Jeff Lynne's pristine multi-tracked acoustic guitars and stacked vocal harmonies are stamped all over Watson's production style. You can hear that distinct hyper-compressed acoustic sheen driving the tracks on 'Out in the World'. He takes Lynne's orchestral pop excess and drags it straight into psych territory.
- T. Rex — Watson has repeatedly pointed to Marc Bolan's boogie riffs as the driving energy behind his early guitar tone. That tight, dry, midrange-heavy fuzz powers tracks like 'Anesthetized Lesson'. It provides the rock-and-roll spine underneath his sea of synth patches.
- Air — The French duo's Moog-heavy, space-lounge aesthetic directly informs Watson's slower, atmospheric arrangements. Listen to the lush string-synths and vocoder work on 'Saturnia' and you hear the fingerprints of 'Moon Safari' all over the mixing board. It gives his records their signature floating, weightless quality.
Discography
Their records — most-collected first.
Around the web
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