…a fierce animal, PENNY IKINGER Travels and Travails
Penny Ikinger Travels and Travails is available on Bandcamp
by Walter Price
If you’ve been around for a while, making rocknroll and wooing fans and critics alike for a long and winding career such as Penny Ikinger has…you’re bound to be able to craft a career-spanning LP that’s as much a sonic documentary as it is one of this year’s tip top rock albums.
Eclectic, wise, and chockful of fierce emotional weight “Travels and Travails” is snippets of Ikinger’s storied life in just 11 tracks. And, if you’re a real music nerd like myself and like to peek behind the curtains a bit, the seminal Australian rocker provides origin stories to some of the songs on her Bandcamp page, to boot.
Like sprawling Haight-Ashbury-vibed opener “Voodoo Girl”, Penny shares, “I recorded “Voodoo Girl” with my French band PENELOPE INC. The song was composed by bass guitarist Vinz Guilluy and me on his rooftop balcony in Montmartre in Paris. Eventually, it was recorded by Penelope Inc. in Sète, France in a studio overlooking the Mediterranean Sea, with Jim Diamond (ex The Dirtbombs) sitting in as producer. Jim was originally from Detroit, now residing in France.”
On looking back on my favorite track (if not the noisiest) “Ride On, Cowboy” Ikinger says, “The most recent tracks on this album were recorded live in my hometown of Melbourne with my current line-up – Penny Ikinger’s Marbles, featuring Tim McCormack (bass), Jason McGann (drums), Sam Billinghurst-Walsh (guitar), Julian Held (guitar) and Ryan Oliver (keyboards). “Ride On, Cowboy” was recorded live and mixed at RMIT studio in 2022. This track is a re-working of a song from my Tokyo album, originally recorded with my Japanese band The Silver Bells. My Melbourne-based band breathes new life into this song and takes it on a different path from the original version.”
But there’s far more insight to be had, so stream the full LP here at the GTC and pop on over to Bandcamp for some real inside baseball from one of rock’s most enduring riff-slingers.
PENNY IKINGER Travels and Travails
Artist photo via pennyikinger.com // Quotes and artwork via Bandcamp
“VOODOO GIRL” (P. Ikinger, V. Guilluy) – PENELOPE INC.
Penny Ikinger – guitar and vocals
Vinz Guilluy – bass
Dimi Dero – drums, percussion, saw
Recorded at Studio de la Butte Ronde, Sète, France by Guillaume Brugvin on 18 March 2019
Produced, mixed and mastered by Jim Diamond in 2019.
Full track listing and credits at Bandcamp
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“Penny Ikinger is an antipodean rock maestro who defies easy comparison and definition. With her iconic guitar, the Pennycaster, she is a fuzz queen, sonic chanteuse, and primal mistress of dark folk who wows her audiences at home in Australia and beyond. She has recorded and toured the globe with musicians from the U.S.A, Japan, France, and Australia, to great acclaim and instant fandom.” – BC bio