OFFLINE RELEASE DATE + ARTWORK + DETAILS FIT TO PRINT + 4 x VINYL REVIEWS!!

After 2 & 1/2 years of constant unending writing, recording and arranging, the OFFLINE album is on the fucking runway - thank fark im exhausted, a few bits and bobs to do and the first single will be released on the 11-06-2025. Today we delve into our 5th full-length release, then 4 mini reviews of vinyl classics and finally a rant on the merits of 70s HiFi. Read on..

GFR NEWS | TAKE 45

Offline

THE ARTWORK (SANS ANXIETY)

Above is the provisional artwork for the pre-release single that asks why we see so many naked women and so few normal size erect male members in our culture (I swear if I see one more giant penis in my face I am going to stop giving head to tall skinny guys for at least a month 😁). As always I am doing too much on this latest album, again painting and then digitally editing all the artwork plus all the songwriting, lyrics, arrangements, tracking, co-producing, co-engineering, vocals, guitars, bass and even composing the percussion - approx 4000 hours so far by me and I am truly tired and over it, and also proud and exited to release it too.

This pre-release flyer is a hint to the album artwork's theme of going offline and the imagery is going to be focused on future hybrid male/female humans and lots and lots of broken smartphones, modems and laptops. It is going to get, hopefully, pretty wild because this album is offline and I don't care if it sells or charts and I have no anxiety from and am not constrained by the nanny-state prudes that police the internet. So we can expect some fireworks with artworks baby, shit yeah har-har put on your guilt filters!

It feels like that for over the last 20 years now artistic expression has been running scared of public opinion and that is imo the exact opposite fucking god damn direction it should sail. Time to steer it back to not giving a god damn I reckon. I can't remember the last time I saw anything online that made me go "wowser!" or "whew what is that mean?" or "that's disturbing.." AND THEN INSTEAD OF FREAKING OUT AND CRITICIZING IT... I JUST GOT ON WITH MY DAY AND ACCEPTED THAT THE WORLD IS FULL OF VARIED AND DIFFERENT VIEWS. Been a while for you too huh? Well get yer sjkates on GFR is a ridin' the lightnin' and things gonna get a wee bit sweaty in thar and it's all fun and meaningless because from 11-06-25 it's going to be all offline so you can't get upset anyway and I don't want to upset anyone, artistic entertainment is our game.

Righto, minefield averted, on we go..

TRACK LIST

OFFLINE is 12 songs of me wondering why we haven't violently overthrown and destroyed all of the following institutions:

Governments (don't need em just use the web to transparently and mutually get shit done)
Corporations (upper management makes 10000 times the workers salary, just say that slowly a few times)
Share market (have you seen dividends? Share is not the relevant word for the oldest ponzi scheme, watch the Adam Curtis docos, I featured them in the last post, for the minute details of how they fuck us without lube and up-sell the bleeding as a personal freedom we should worship there overpaid asses for).

Yes song 12 is a Flowers cover, this is the first cover song we have ever released, it only took 36 year so there you go. The first single is likely to be track 1 'Your My Core', a song about getting trashed in 7/4 in a 4/4 world.

LIVE & LAUNCH

GF live at Lost

Guiltfilter Mags, Adrian & Cav @ Lost For Words bar St Kilda circa 2022

As a previous post stated Guiltfilter has departed the music industry and now will be putting on performance art exebitions in the same way visual artists do. Ie. multiple live audio-visual performances at a gallery type venue for a period of a week or so and comprising a one off expert crew of musicians, actors and stage crew, this harks back to early Dolls performances and if anyone want to get involved contact us asap please.. After that the LP or soundtrack if you like shall be available on vinyl and CD and the movie of the performance released to small indy film festivals. Record companies, music venues and music press are out, performance and offline releases are in.

4 VINYL RECOMMENDATIONS

vinyl covers

Our fave gen-x era LPs this month, in no particular order because they are all grouse mate, are:

SONGS ABOUT FUCKING - Big Black [1987 LP]

Oh man this might be the most under-rated album of all time, Albini you are a god. Fave lyrics are from side 1's 'Bad Penny': "Don't curse me for my nature / I always come back to you / Just a bad penny", possibly the most focused bit of angry-frustrated-young-inner-suburban-male punk rock ever recorded

SUNRISE ON THE SUFFERBUS - Masters Of Reality [1992]

Some of the best production I have ever heard, must be heard on vinyl to understand why Kyuss/QOTSA had their songwriter Chris Goss produce/engineer their albums, oh and Ginger Baker guests on drums, hes just the inventor of the double kick, Bohnam's equal and former Cream superstar.. Fave song is side 1 track 1 'She Got Me' just because the drums are so damn loud and so damn good

DIRTY DEEDS DONE DIRT CHEAP - ACDC [1976]

If the greatest rock band ever is ACDC and the greatest rock movies ever made are the Mad Max trilogy then does that make Australia the greatest rock creators of all??

REPEATER + 3 SONGS - Fugazi [1990]

Fugazi changed everything for Guiltfilter; at a time when record companies and tour companies came calling and left us disgusted at the overreach and control they wanted to enforce on us, it was Fugazi and the DC scene and Dischord records that steered us away from sold out world of Subpop and 'big music business'. They showed us the way to make and promote DIY content and keep complete creative control and, most critically, to retain the option to release subversive art that questioned the validity of the money men that sucked the life out of music from 1974 onwards.

GET A TURNTABLE & HIFI POST HASTE

This month we here at GFR have been re-aquainting ourselves with how much better music sounds on our proper 70s/80s STEREO hifi system, big ass brown wood speakers, Technics turntable and hi-end CD player we got on the gumtree el cheapo.

Seriously vinyl gives you that rumble in the groin, chill down the back and nirvana in the ears feeling..

I can never get that feeling with shitty blue-tooth headphones or crappy blue-tooth speaker with no stereo sound and as we know all digital music is compressed and crushed to the shit so all the dynamic are lost. Digital converts natural waves of voice and instruments to blocks like stairs and much of the beauty is lost. Our hot tip of the week: If you haven't already, then get yourself a record player and HiFi system now before they get really expensive. If you have one and mostly listen off your phone/laptop because your too lazy to bust out the CD/Vinyl **then consider that for a hundred years we all loved buying an album at time, perusing the artwork while sitting on the floor in an uber-relaxed-totally-blissfully-content-state-of-harmony instead of all the anxiety of choosing from a billion songs, most of them that you don't even like!

Fuck what the billionaire technocRATS trying to fleece your every cent want! The zenith of classical concert performances (acoustic room, minimal microphones if any and orchestra playing live in a pit) was reached 200 years ago and we still do it that way because it is the best way we have found to do it. 1970s HiFi systems, 1960s designed ceramic speakers and 1980s made turntables and CD players are exactly the same IMO. I mean FFS get AFK IRL & OMFG I love Acronym's!

See now there is a good use of the internet and digital space, communications and administrations, bankings and wankings, news and reviews - but not fucking listening to music: we already perfected that!! The ever increasing use of technology for everything is, to my mind, a giant con of epic proportions that is creating more and more and more anxiety and unhappiness, give it a fucking rest I say - you techno billionaires took all our money and all our time now just piss off already, right guvner?.

LA BANDERA 12" VINYL

La Bandera 12" vinyl artwork

The limited run of La Bandera vinyl features full color artwork, all the lyrics printed on the inner sleeve and an added bonus track She's My 2022. The LP was originally recorded in 2019 by Colin Wynne at Thirty Mill studios and produced by Mark Opitz. The vinyl mastering was done by Colin and we pressed the album at Zenith Records who are independent and did an amazing job.

La Bandera vinyl is only $50 (or $40 for concession card holders). Head to guiltfilter.com or go in store or order online from our exclusive stockists:

RARE RECORDS (Melb West) →
GREVILLE RECORDS (Melb South/East) →
HEARLAND RECORDS (Melb North) →