OCEAN GROVE RELEASE ‘FLIP PHONE FANTASY’ ALBUM – 0UT FRIDAY MARCH 13

Stream Flip Phone Fantasy

“This is the must-have album of 2020. If you have kids, get it for them. If your mate doesn’t have it, burn them a copy. And if you can’t afford it, download it off Limewire.”– Dale Tanner, Ocean Grove

The turn of the millennium brought with it a technological revolution and a wave of youth caught in the middle of a transitioning world. The flip phone is an iconic time marker that’s placed right in the middle of this exciting revolution. It is the vestigial reminder of a time of ever-growing promise and anticipation of a futuristic world that would soon be literally at our fingertips. 

It is the ambitious energy and awe of this time that Ocean Grove recalled to create their new album, a technicoloured, hyper-active, sonic ode to retrofuturism: The thoughts and sensibilities of the current era filtered through the lens of yesterday. Or as Ocean Grove have aptly named it, a “Flip Phone Fantasy”. 

All members were given unlimited licence to be as them as they could be during the making of their sophomore album. A concerted effort was made to remain as chaotic as possible, all whilst in a humble Melton, Victoria recording studio, void of distraction and external contaminants, with drummer Sam Bassal at the helm of recording, mixing and mastering. Throughout this process, Ocean Grove answered only to the universal truths of the “Oddworld”; their own all-encompassing artistic ecosystem in which curiosity, passion and weirdness prey on the boring, mundane and regressive. Since its inception during the making of their erstwhile debut, The Rhapsody Tapes, The Oddworld has become the spiritual home of all things Ocean Grove and now serves to govern the music, artwork, merchandise and videos spawned from Flip Phone Fantasy. 

With its stratospheric peaks through to its subterranean troughs, Flip Phone Fantasy refuses to sit still long enough to be categorised. Whipped, chained and beaten by its tyrannical creators – Ocean Grove were determined to see their vision for Album #2 become fully realised, taking the better part of two years to complete and perfect. 

A diverse track listing sees all bases covered: from love and lust, to anger and anarchy, to youthful innocence and the realisation of one’s impermanence. Between the blistering chaos of album opener ‘SUPERSTAR’, through to the dreamy haze of closer ‘FREAKS’; Flip Phone Fantasy is yet another defining moment for a band whose success as a whole is based largely on the unique characters of the individuals contained within. 

“The songs on the album have somewhat of a metaphorical undertone for the futuristic mirror image we hoped to embody by the end of the process. The album is a very intentional blue print for the changes we wanted to see in ourselves.” – Twiggy Hunter, Ocean Grove

‘SENSE AGAIN’ sees the band use tenants of alt-rock to smuggle a stirring message of severing ties with toxicity – both the chemical and human kind. ‘SUNNY’ plays as though it ought to be bounced off the walls of an arena. ‘GUYS FROM THE GORD’, on the other hand, was built to shake you to your bones in a sweaty nightclub at 3am and ‘BABY COBRA’ sees the smoke, mirrors and distortion dissipate for a moment of vulnerability–- the calm before the storm that is fan-favourite ‘ASK FOR THE ANTHEM’, which we heard as a first warning shot from the record, back in 2019. 

“Lyrically, this album is a more evolved perspective of youth experiences, those that define and shape us as adults and give us a compass and anchor for moving forward while being earnest on the path to unapologetic authenticity.” – Dale Tanner

Such ebb and flow between moods, emotions, soundscapes and ideas was a masterstroke from the band, who perfectly captured the intricate nuances of yet another trend that became ubiquitous with the early 2000s but unlike the flip phone, remained current: personalised custom playlists. 

“Rather than an album that streamlines in one direction of genre, Flip Phone Fantasy has the capacity to be someone’s very own mixtape from start to finish, but more importantly it offers enough diversity that individual songs should find their way into the playlists of rock listeners and hip-hop listeners alike.”
 – Dale Tanner

Self-discovery, self-worth and self-determination are core themes of Flip Phone Fantasy, as is the difficulty in navigating such vague concepts against a never-ending current of external forces actively steering you in the opposite direction. 

A statement just as true for Flip Phone Fantasy, is that the record is specifically crafted as a stimulating listening experience from start to finish...or finish to start...or in whichever way the listener decides to dissect it. 

To compare Flip Phone Fantasy to Ocean Grove’s previous work is to miss the point entirely. Hell, compare the band to who they were a month ago and you’ll discover purposeful pivots and thoughtful adjustments. This isn’t a band who have clocked nods of approval and thunderous applause throughout the known world by sticking to what’s safe: Ocean Grove are a band who earn their acclaim by whole heartedly plunging into the unknown. 

“Combining futurism with nostalgia, we aim to make our listener feel connected by the familiar, inspired by raw self-expression and intrigued by the unknown. We hope to invigorate and unite both our mature and youth audiences alike.” – Dale Tanner 

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