MP3:> Black Bananas: "Rad Times"
Indie vet Jennifer Herrema is a proponent of the saying: If you don't like what they're saying about you, change the conversation. When listeners didn't quite take to JJ Got Live RaTX, the last album from her metal/psych-folk act (and Royal Trux spinoff) RTX, she simply rebranded the group as Black Bananas. "Drag City owner Dan Koretzky and I thought: If it just stays RTX, will there be any kind of fresh look at it?", Herrema explained over the phone last week. "'Fuck it, people are stupid. Let's just change the name.'" Rad Times Xpress IV, the first album under the new Black Bananas moniker, is out tomorrow.
And if a fresh look is what Herrema's after, it can't hurt that she's about to go on tour in support of Sleigh Bells, and has unexpectedly teamed up for a new track with pioneering sample collagists the Avalanches. The Australian group teased the news that they're preparing their first proper studio album in over a decade by tweeting about the Herrema collaboration in December. "They said the album is definitely going to come out this year," mentioned Herrema, referring to the the long-delayed release. (Lol, we've heard that one before!) "And I heard Danny Brown is going to guest on the record, too." (OK, that we hadn't heard.)