Children Collide Performs ‘Trampoline’ Live at Enmore
Melbourne-based Children Collide has been around for a while, but their 15 years in the industry has truly cemented their status as one of the most passionate and vital acts in contemporary Australian culture.
Their latest single Trampoline is an emotional kaleidoscope of an experience — sonically evoking a sense of nostalgia, heartbreak and urgency as you wind through the track. It’s like aching and wanting to mosh at the same damn time.
For the band’s Live at Enmore session, the track was radically reinterpreted, still hitting triggering those bittersweet feelings, but in a completely different way.
Trampoline was Mixed and Recorded by Dan Shaw and Radi Safi
Multi-instrumentalist Chelsea Wheatley (aka electronic pop artist, Chela) joined Mackay for the session. The chainsaw fuzz of her bass replaced gentle hum of the reed organ. Mackay’s searing Stratocaster was replaced with a sweet and melancholic acoustic guitar. Though this interpretation of Trampoline was undoubtedly quieter, it lost none of its intensity and emotional impact.
Before hitting record, this is how Mackay described the song:
“It’s about people who are fun and really magnetic, but as soon as you get close to them, you bounce off.”
Check out the performance below:
Frontman/guitarist Johnny Mackay describes the single’s production as “straddling two eras but still making sense.” The electric guitar riff mixed with the opening bars of Trampoline, “of all the things that I’ve lost / I think I miss my mind the most,” speak to a lyrical vulnerability that reminds one of the late Beatles’ sonic aesthetic. When combined with the heaviness of the dark bassline, Trampoline infuses ’90s grunge, reminiscent of Smashing Pumpkins.
The release of Trampoline follows the singles Aurora and Funeral For A Ghost, all of which is a preamble to the band’s long-awaited fourth studio album, Time Itself. For the production of the LP, Mackay cites “Sabbath, The Stooges and Sonic Youth“ as key inspirations. The band have also announced a tour to support their forthcoming LP.
Time Itself will be the band’s first album drop since the enduringly popular Monument,(2012), and Theory Of Everything (2010), which debuted at #5 on the ARIA album chart and claimed the triple j feature album.