Today, the Australian music axis shifts with the arrival of Aurora, the new single from Children Collide.  The first official single will feature on their fourth studio album due 2020 via Spinning Top | Caroline.   Renowned for their epic and frenzied live performances, Children Collide has also announced their first headline shows since 2014 in Melbourne and Sydney this December.

Returning with a post-punk charge and the unmistakable trademarks of Children Collide, Aurora is a love letter to humanity’s grand illusions.  “I kept listening back to the demo and remembering how much fun it was playing this kind of music,” says vocalist / guitarist Johnny Mackay of the track.   “It was originally written for our third album Monument, so it’s felt like unfinished business ever since and a big part of the reason we made another album. In the end if felt like it was burning a hole in my hard drive, so we had to put it out.”

“I never really stopped writing music that felt like it belonged to Children Collide.  In 2014 Heath, Ryan and I jammed and did a couple of shows and remembered how much fun it was to play that stuff together. The idea of a fourth album was thrown around in those sessions, but we were all busy pursuing our own paths,” he adds.

Johnny, largely based in New York, traversed psychedelic explorations as Lord Fascinator, drummer Ryan Caesar stepped out from behind the kit as vocalist/guitarist in the glam-rock group Pearls and bassist Heath Crawley curated his own vintage store on the Central Coast.

When Ryan brought Pearls to New York for CMJ in 2016, he and Johnny reconnected as friends, but it wasn’t until 2018 that the idea of LP #4 was conceived.   With Heath busy with his new project, Johnny and Ryan recorded the new album in August and September this year in Bushwick and Queens with their genius friend and producer Loren Humphrey.

A live phenomenon Children Collide have performed sets at SXSW, The Great Escape, Splendour in the Grass, Falls Festival, Groovin The Moo and the Big Day Out.  They’ve performed countless sold-out headline shows across the nation in addition to dates in London, Paris, LA, New York and Tokyo.  Next, joined by bassist Chelsea Wheatley who performs as Chela, Children Collide will take the stage at The Lansdowne on Wednesday 18 December and Howler on Thursday 19 December. 

Aurora is the first taste of new music since the twice ARIA-nominated band’s third studio album Monument released in 2012.  It was another enduringly popular LP, following 2008‘s The Long Now and 2010’s Theory Of Everything, which debuted at #5 on the ARIA album chart and claimed the triple j feature album. Their repertoire includes some of the most well-loved Australian singles of the past decade, a roll call that includes Social Currency, Skeleton Dance, Chosen Armies, Loveless and triple j hottest 100 entries Farewell Rocketship, Jellylegs and My Eagle.