Tāmaki Makaurau/Auckland based Tiny Ruins releases a new single, ‘The Crab / Waterbaby’. The first musical offering since 2019’s much lauded album, Olympic Girls – a finalist for the Taite Music Prize.
The songs of Tiny Ruins often gift a rich visual and emotive narrative. ’The Crab / Waterbaby’ is drawn from a time-honoured walk around the coves of Little Muddy Creek aside the Mānukau Harbour. A Crab is found upturned, showing its soft belly. The songwriter sees in the Crab an experience of suffering – it’s as though everyone can see right through you, into your very innards – ‘you cannot help but speak about it’.
A song about the transcendent comfort of ritual and ceremony that ‘returns you the right way’, to ‘give this day a chance’.
Shimmering electric firebird guitar and minimalist verse arrangements give way to striking Philip Glass-esque strings & a bass solo resembling a scuttling crab that fluidly connects the song’s lyrical narrative.
WATCH/LISTEN: The Crab / Waterbaby
Listen / Stream: linktr.ee/tinyruins
written by Hollie Fullbrook, performed by Hollie Fullbrook, Cass Basil, Alex Freer & Tom Healy
recorded at Paquin Studios, Tāmaki Makaurau, with Tom Healy
released by: Milk! Records in Australia, Marathon Artists in Europe, Ba Da Bing Records in North America and in New Zealand via Tiny Ruins’ own imprint label, Ursa Minor.
“Part of the charm of Olympic Girls lies in the layers of mystery in each song. Inspired by literature, science, nature and human experience, these mysteries lie waiting to be carefully unfolded…” – God Is In the TV – 9/10
“… songs that change sound and mood during their duration, never meandering and always captivating.” – BUST Review of Olympic Girls – 5/5
MOJO Review of Olympic Girls – ★★★★
UNCUT Review of Olympic Girls – 8/10
“An album confident in its vulnerability and luxuriating in a bigger sound.” – Loud & Quiet Review of Olympic Girls – 8/10
“… a deeper listen to these eleven tracks exposes a breadth of influences that spans decades.” – The Wire Review of Olympic Girls
ABOUT TINY RUINS
A rare blend of eloquent lyrical craft and explorative musicianship, the songs of Tiny Ruins have been treasured by crowds and critics for over a decade. Traversing influences that cross genre and era, the artistry of Hollie Fullbrook and her band spans delicate folk, lustrous dream pop and ebullient psychedelia. Founded in 2009 by songwriter Hollie Fullbrook to describe her solo output, the group has included Cass Basil on bass, Alex Freer on drums and Tom Healy on electric guitar since 2013. A group renowned for their electric dynamic live on stage, Tiny Ruins have played stages in solo and varied group formations across countless cities and states with Sharon van Etten, Aldous Harding, Calexico, the Handsome Family and more. Fullbrook has collaborated with both Robert Scott and Hamish Kilgour of seminal Flying Nun band The Clean, on song ‘Dream Wave’ with filmmaker David Lynch, and on a recent project with novelist David Mitchell.
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