Gypsy & The Cat remaster ‘Gilgamesh’ with unreleased tracks for 10th anniversary

Gypsy & The Cat – the now-defunct Melbourne dream pop duo – have shared a tape remaster of their debut album ‘Gilgamesh’ for its 10th anniversary.

The new remaster was surprise-released as a Bandcamp exclusive today (October 30), with four previously-unreleased tracks. These new songs will be released to streaming services as a bonus EP next week, but the remaster of the original album will not due to licensing issues.

Listen to the 10th anniversary tape remaster of ‘Gilgamesh’ below:

In September, Gypsy & The Cat took to social media to ask whether fans wanted a “long overdue” vinyl release to celebrate the album’s 10th anniversary. It’s unclear whether this is still also planned.

Former band members Xavier Bacash and Lionel Towers wrote a note about the making of the album, and how they met alongside the release. They describe the six months in 2009 in which they wrote the bulk of ‘Gilgamesh’ above a car mechanic on Market Street in South Melbourne, Victoria.

“We met as resident DJ’s at Charlton’s in Melbourne CBD’s ‘China Town’,” they wrote.

“After a few weeks of talking around the subject, we decided to meet up at Lionel’s studio and have a try at making music together. Initially, there was no real stylistic direction – the music fruited from these early sessions was something like forgettable dance music and edits for the nightclub we were djing at.

“But after six months of experimentation, a curiosity to introduce live instrumentation into dance loops quickly planted a stylistic flag in the ground. We began to meet more regularly.

“After experimenting unsuccessfully with recording multiple friend singers on the earliest instrumentals from the project, Lionel suggested I try singing on the music. Suddenly instrumentals started shaping into stories and songs. The 3rd attempt at doing this was on an instrumental that would go on to be called ‘Jona Vark’. We knew after writing Jona that we the kern of what could be an album. We got to work.”

‘Gilgamesh’ would go on to achieve gold record status in Australia, with three songs charting in the 2010 triple j Hottest 100 – ‘Jona Vark’ the highest at #64. ‘Gilgamesh’ itself recently charted at #93 in the radio station’s Hottest 100 Australian Albums of All Time.

The band released two more studio albums – ‘The Late Blue’ and ‘Virtual Islands’ – before amicably breaking up in 2016 following their final tour. Bacash launched his solo career as Sonny this year, with his debut album ‘Union: Integration of the Shadow’.

Towers has since put out piano music under his own name, and worked on film scores.

The tracklist of ‘Gilgamesh 10th Anniversary Edition – Tape Remaster’ is:

* denotes previously unreleased

1. ‘Time To Wander’
2. ‘The Piper’s Song’
3. ‘Jona Vark’
4. ‘Gilgamesh’
5. ‘Sight Of A Tear’
6. ‘Human Desire’
7. ‘Parallel Universe’
8. ‘Breakaway’
9. ‘Watching me, Watching you’
10. ‘Running Romeo’
11. ‘A Perfect 2’
12. ‘Fading Lines’*
13. ‘Videotapes’*
14. ‘The One’*
15. ‘Next To You’*