In Body Type’s hands, the mundane has a way of becoming something, well, not so mundane. A shitty old elevator, an awkward compliment, a piece of fruit—all are portals into the headier questions addressed on Tally (on King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard’s p(doom) label), the third album from the Sydney, Australia, four-piece. It’s an approach inspired by famed French-American artist Louise Bourgeois. Her ability to transform ordinary stuff into psychologically charged art stuck with Body Type as the band contemplated its first decade together.
After spending some time pursuing their own projects, Sophie McComish, Annabel Blackman, Cecil Coleman and Georgia Wilkinson-Derums reconvened in 2024. A year later, they recorded Tally in Los Angeles with Warpaint drummer Stella Mozgawa as their first outside producer. She encouraged the group to broaden their post-punk vocabulary with mellotron, synths, layered guitars and, yes, bongos.
In a short chat with MAGNET’s Hobart Rowland, McComish and Blackman covered some ground, touching on their working relationship with Mozgawa, the warped psychology of flattery and embracing the occasional clam.
What is it about the work of Bourgeois that resonates with you so strongly?
McComish: A woman’s interpretation of the world is always going to resonate with us in any art form. The retrospective of her work at the Art Gallery of New South Wales was breathtaking and bold. I loved the way she paralleled all the varied facets of womanhood with the banality of everyday life.
Working with a producer was a first for the group. What did Stella coax out of you that you might not have attempted on your own?
McComish: Bongos.
Blackman: Using a different guitar on every song … or several guitars per song. It’s much more decadent than just the usual two geets.
“And What Else?” captures the strange psychology of wanting reassurance while also distrusting it. Why do you think that emotional contradiction is so universal?
Blackman: I don’t know if it’s universal. I’m sure there are people out there who believe what they’re told about themselves—and they’d believe the good things but be skeptical of the bad things. “And What Else?” applies to self-deprecating, prideful types who are a little bit too weird to be surface-level perfect and can’t take a compliment without wanting to dissect it.
“Eye Is A Mouth Is A Face” was the first song you’ve written entirely collaboratively. Take us through the process.
Blackman: Well, because we’re all apart a lot of the time and consumed by the busy-ness of our respective hustles, we typically send rough demos to the group chat. And depending on how developed the demos are, we all start forming ideas on what we’re going to play long before we get a chance to work it out in a studio. “Eye” took shape in a brief moment of downtime—and I guess it’s an example of what we could do if we all lived in the same area and could just nip down to a local studio to mess around. I can’t remember where the seed of the idea came from, but we built it up together so quickly. It’s a pretty weird song structurally—plus, it has 3/4 timing … But it just happened that way. Soph and Georgia whipped out fragments of lyrics they had floating around inspired by Louise Bourgeois, and being there in the flesh made it natural to do a call-and-response vocal. It’s much harder to simulate that dynamic and spark when you’re making demos alone.
How did taking some time apart change the chemistry in the band?
Blackman: Every time we take a break, we inevitably cram in as much stuff as we possibly can, getting sucked into side projects, solo careers and band cameos—not to mention our real-life jobs. I can’t recall ever actually having a break. But usually by the time we get back together in a studio to make more music, it feels like the lessons from the last album/tour/gargantuan effort have sunk into our bodies and permeated the next lot of demos. Each time we reunite, we get a little bit more relaxed—and a little bit more Body Type. I used to get really stressed when we were first writing songs for our EPs because I barely knew how to play guitar and was terrified of playing wrong notes. Ten years of hacking it out has certainly changed that. I still play dud notes, but I just don’t care.
See Body Type live.