THE GENEVIEVES

Writer: Joseph Maranta

Photographer for all photos - @snappedbykay on Instagram

The exterior walls have corroded. Years of wet seasons and neglect have caused the sulfur within the concrete to moisten, the ensuing chemical reaction sees the erasure of the imposing grey conformity as streaks of dark brown discolouration permeate the city's once pristine brutalist architecture. 

Approaching the outside of their town’s library, they admonish the lack of creativity involved in its assembly. Each side of this ten-storey cube is the same. A homogenous entity barred from any signs of creative expression slowly succumbs to dilapidation as years of neglect begin to take effect. As the concrete walls remain exposed to the elements it acts like an inorganic sponge accruing more soot with every passing year, the resinous stains ironically provide a break from the plaid grey monotony it otherwise maintains. 

Upon entering the monolith, the brutalist architecture begins to justify itself. Protected from the outside environment its interior is pristine. The high ceilings convey an uncanny feeling of ease, the floor composed of polished concrete provides an industrious though modern atmosphere. The bookshelves are perfectly curated and filled out with hardcover works of literature, the colours of each book burst into the fore against the light grey hue of the polished concrete. 

So well maintained and brimming with expression underneath the facade of its corroding siding. The library seems to hold thousands of esoteric and important descriptions of the human experience. Like something one would find in the ruins of an abandoned empire, a place that exists in the halcyon days of right now.

A paradoxical space if there ever was one. 

In many ways the artistic expression of Kaurna land quartet The Genevieves is similar to this fictional library. 

The four unassuming Adelaideans create compositions which take the best of the 1990’s shoegaze gold-rush while incorporating the idiosyncrasies and boundary-pushing ethos of their contemporary scene. What becomes of this combination is a wholly original and enthralling sound which has earned them a seat at the table of the most exciting bands in Australia. 

Featuring Lara Patzel, Finn Larcombe, Baily Taylerson and James Nisbet, The Genevieves are emblematic of Australian music’s tendency to remain firm on the forefront of experimental music.

JOE: Thanks for having a chat guys! So start from the beginning, how did you four become a band?

JAMES: We formed from the rubble of a failed indie band that Baily and I were in. We were just looking for something else, and then we met these guys [Lara and Finn] at University. We all met before we got involved in the Adelaide scene, I suppose it’s the first serious thing we’ve all done. 

JOE: Your first gig together was back in February of 2023, do you have any fun memories of that show?

FINN: Yeah, we played at Arthur Art Bar, if you’re from Adelaide it's a bit of a if you know you know thing. But for those who don’t, it’s a bit of a DIY venue, you can sort of do whatever you want there. A lot of cool and a lot of weird stuff, it’s a good place for bands to play their first show. I think we all wore suit jackets for that show, we had an ethos at the beginning of our time together that we had to dress like a band, so that’s why we did that. 

BAILY: We used to lose money playing there because there isn’t anywhere to park so we kept getting parking fines. I’m pretty sure our first gig didn’t have a sound guy either, it was just the owner - who’s a lighting guy. He doesn’t know about sound, so he just winged it. 

FINN: It would’ve been a much different set to what we do now. I think we had a synthesiser and drum machine intro. 

JAMES: We were wack. I think we thought we were doing something revolutionary at the time. Tame Impala ass intro. 

FINN: We had a stuff up because someone’s mic wasn’t turned on. We had that epic intro ready and then it just ended abruptly with a full minute of silence and us having to ask for the mic to be turned on. 

JOE: A music venue I see frequently mentioned within the Adelaide scene is the Crown and Anchor. What is the importance of the ‘Cranker’ in Adelaide’s music scene?

LARA: It’s a staple for University students. They have this special on Wednesdays where they do $3 schooners for two hours and it's always free entry for bands on Wednesdays too, so it's just packed with people. It’s a great way to get a start in the scene. 

BAILY: It’s booked out for months on end. You have to book like 6 months in advance for a Wednesday because it’s the night of the week. 

FINN: It’s not a massive bandroom either, probably around a 150 person capacity. But you get these random nights with different bands and you’ll see bands get footholds and book launches there, as well as international bands packing out the place. You get a large mix of demographics too. It’s the most stereotypical disgusting dive bar in Adelaide, it’s very what you expect. But it’s also exactly what you’re after. 

JOE: What bands do you think ushered in the now distinctive ‘Adelaide’ sound?

JAMES: I’d say that crowd of Swapmeet, War Room, Gallery One and The Munch. These are the bands that I feel came out of the woodwork at a similar time with a unique sound. We were seeing these bands before we started doing anything, and it was very exciting. I saw War Room with Baily when we didn’t know much about the scene, and we ended up trekking it to Metro and we saw people everywhere. From there that’s where we started going to more gigs and meeting heaps of different people. 

BAILY: There’s a separation between people in their late twenties and early twenties, with bands like The Empty Threats and Nuclear Family, who kicked off where the music eventually started to go. 

FINN: There’s a lot of bands coming through with a different background of music. Instead of bands being inspired by Foo Fighters, Blink 182 and Spacey Jane, a lot of bands are being birthed from acts like Dry Cleaning, Black Country New Road and Black Midi.

JOE: The band’s first release was a dual-single effort which received widespread acclaim. Did its success take you by surprise at all?

FINN: I was pretty blown away, I thought we’d put it out and only have our parents and mates listening to it. Three D, Adelaide’s community radio station, played it heaps. 

LARA: Three D were a massive catalyst for the double-singles doing as well as they did. The Three D crowd tend to like that 90s inspired sound which we didn’t realise. They pushed it really hard and showed it to their music friends and I guess it just rippled out from there. We really appreciate what they do. 

JOE: So how long has your new EP ‘DOG DREAMS’ been in the works for?

LARA: The songs have been around since we began the band, except for Keith, that was much more recent. But it was mainly tricky just trying to find a good time to record, we didn’t want to do it in chunks. We record everything ourselves and I felt that people might have been able to tell that a particular song might have been recorded later than another, just due to the quality of it. 

FINN: Once we had our first singles out we pushed to get Adore You released. We recorded that song over the course of a few months at my house. That song just didn’t fit within the EP but we really wanted to get it out so we could have something to promote while we worked on the EP. 

JOE: So the EP is called DOG DREAMS but the lead single, Keith, is about a cat. Why is there a song about a cat on an EP called DOG DREAMS?*

FINN: Keith is about a cat, but in a metaphorical sense. We were talking about this the other day, but basically we made the EP and we had the cover art ready, but we were still going back and forth on the name of the project. We settled on DOG DREAMS and once we came back from a show in Melbourne we wrote three songs in a row that were all dog related. We like the EP name now, but we did have a moment where we thought,

“For fucks sake we’ve put out an EP called DOG DREAMS and we’ve accidentally got a dog motif going into the next EP”

It was completely accidental but it’s one of those things that we just have to live with. So here we are, we have a song about a cat on an EP called DOG DREAMS. 

BAILY: I guess dogs would dream about cats. 

JAMES: It’s not out of the realm of possibilities. 

FINN: There’s plenty of ways we can justify it to ourselves. 

JOE: I’ve always thought that your music sounds the best to me when I’m walking through the Brisbane CBD on a cold rainy winter’s day. But in your opinion, which city provides the best backdrop to listen to the new EP?

BAILY: Probably not Darwin hey. 

JAMES: Not any city too far north. Probably Adelaide to be honest, or Melbourne. Somewhere dreary, a bit wet. But not properly pouring either, somewhere with subpar weather.

FINN:  It’s funny releasing this in February, when it’s 27 degrees and sunny outside. 

JOE: Your upcoming tour will be the first time you’ve played a show outside South Australia / Victoria, how excited are you to hit the actual east coast?

LARA: It’s super exciting! It’s great to say we’re going on tour and we’ll actually be away from home for more than a couple days. That’s what excites us the most. 

FINN: It’ll be great to go to New South Wales. With Melbourne it’s pretty easy to just go in and out, but we’re driving to Sydney so it’ll be a few days of travel. It legitimises that feeling of “Oh my god we’re on tour!”. 

LARA: We swear we don’t hate Brisbane by the way, it’s just too expensive to get there. 

FINN: It’s definitely next on our places to go wishlist. We’ll try to shoot for BIGSOUND, play some side shows and maybe go on holiday. 

JAMES: We’ll go to Movieworld. And also go to Noosa. 

LARA: Everyone in Brisbane please push for us to get on BIGSOUND so we can go to Movie World and Noosa. 

JOE: So you’ve alluded to a couple goals already, but what else are you hoping to achieve in the rest of 2025. 

BAILY: Madison Square Garden. 

LARA: Glastonbury and Coachella. Nah I'm kidding, but we probably want to just to keep writing some more. When we were making the EP we were gigging so much it became hard to find time to write. So now that we have DOG DREAMS out and now that we’ve recently finished recording the second EP, we can start writing for something hopefully bigger. 

FINN: Pretty much the same plan. We’ve just done the EP and now we’re going on tour, so we’ll do the next EP and then tour again. 

JAMES: Sad life. 

FINN: Next time we’ll go to Movieworld though, and then we’ll look at something bigger later on. 

JOE: Is there anyone you want to thank within Adelaide’s music scene specifically?

LARA: For sure, James Brown from Wizard Tone studios has mastered Adore You as well as our EP. 

FINN: He’s so accommodating with us. Margot Bricknell did the cover art for the EP and singles, and she’s been an absolute gem to work with. We also want to shout out Stu from The Empty Threats, they’ve been a great mentor for us and have also given us the opportunity to play some gigs as well.

JAMES: We still look up to The Empty Threats, but we really, really looked up to them when we started. They were like our heroes, and it was so weird when we were sitting down for coffee with Stu, when a year ago we were playing at Arthur Art Bar. 

BAILY: We were at the Cranker when The Empty Threats started following us on Instagram and we thought we’d made it then. 

JOE: And just finally, if DOG DREAMS was an actual dog, what breed would it be?

BAILY: A boxer. Dumb as hell, but really cute. 

THE GENEVIEVES TOUR DATES AND LINKS

| SA / VIC / ACT & NSW SHOWS | INSTAGRAM | BANDCAMP | SPOTIFY |