Widely beloved and critically celebrated award-winning Naarm/Melbourne-based psychedelic jazz outfit Mildlife today return with new single and video ‘Return to Centaurus.’

Channelling its astral namesake – home to the closest two stars to earth, Proxima and Alpha Centauri – ‘Return to Centaurus’ conjures up images of nature which are not so much earth-bound as they are loftier and more grandiose whilst simultaneously more molecular and microscopic. Here, Mildlife’s exploratory, star-hopping cosmo-jazz feels completely in tune with the universe, from the most gargantuan of supergiants to the most miniscule of mitochondria. It suggests that the thread between the two is always there, invisible but omnipresent and not as far as you might think, just waiting to be given expression. Infinite, boundless and palatial, ‘Return to Centaurus’ feels sweeping enough to house the birth of entire universes; it represents Mildlife stepping boldly into the unknown – and invites us to do the same.

Directed by Jordan Giusti, the surreal ‘Return to Centaurus’ video finds the four members lounging around an artful, mid-century mod-meets-70’s space futurism living room, seemingly locked in deep, enigmatic ponderance, a slow series of mesmeric zooms revealing the solar systems both within and without.

★ LISTEN TO ‘RETURN TO CENTAURUS ★ WATCH THE VIDEO ★

On the new single and video, the band cryptically share: “We liked imagining a room that our minds inhabit together while we’re in hyper sleep on the way to a distant constellation. As our bodies lay still in a capsule tucked in the closet of a fast-moving craft, our minds meet in this artificial room designed by someone or something else. The room is a tool to keep our minds limber as our human forms spin against time in the physical world. Is it a room within a room though? Does your body lay still in a capsule as your mind watches this clip? Are we all returning together? Who knows. It was fun to draw on each other and watch Adsy take his true form as the silver Mark anyway.“

★★★

Out now – ‘Return to Centaurus’ marks the band’s first new material since the release of their lauded, ARIA Award-winning 2020 second studio album Automatic. Opening with droning synths and a wall of horizontal, Kraftwerk-esque vocoders, ‘Return to Centaurus’ evolves from psychedelic space rock into a gloriously hook-heavy acid funk meltdown over the course of its ten-minute-long trip time. Luxuriating in loping, velvet-draped bass lines, sparkling, funk-laced guitar riffs and intricate, morphological percussion, it distils Mildlife’s unwavering adoration for the beguiling realms of 70’s psychedelic and cosmic sounds, owing as much to Sun Ra and Alice Coltrane as it does Ennio Morricone and Giorgio Moroder.

In the years since, Mildlife have performed over 100 shows in 23 different countries, selling out multiple national headlining tours and embarking on several UK, North American and European tours  and enamouring crowds with euphoric festival sets at Splendour in the Grass, Meredith Music Festival, Strawberry Fields, A Festival Called Panama and more. 

The band also will return to the UK / EU next year for dates.

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