In the Wildwood Tarot deck, the Four of Arrows is adorned with a painting of man face down on the ground. The titular arrows surround him, sticking straight up from the ground but never making contact; a large butterfly hovers above him. The card symbolizes rest – a call to recharge and recovery. This card revealed itself to Great Grandpa’s Pat Goodwin in a reading and the symbolism aptly embodied where he and his fellow bandmates were in their lives.

Following the 2017 release of Plastic Cough, the band were a unit, they lived together, worked together, and toured tirelessly across the country. As tours ended and band members relocated across the US, they found themselves suddenly separated and eventually isolated. The time spent apart wasn’t planned, but it proved to be necessary. It was a chance to gain perspective into their lives, relationships, and creative purpose.

Thus enters Four of Arrows, a creative turn toward introspection and Great Grandpa’s collective result of rest and solitude. Undoubtedly, the 11 songs comprising Four of Arrows are a departure from the playful nods to pizza and zombies on Plastic Cough. The writing and recording process had evolved — less Seattle garage jams and more vulnerable solo songwriting sessions. Most of the songs on Four of Arrows were written in isolation by Patrick and Carrie Goodwin while traveling and living in the Midwest. Though written separately, the songs came to life when the band reunified and began recording with producer Mike Vernon Davis (Modest Mouse, Portugal. The Man) on New Year’s Day in 2019.

The band instantly found common threads between their individual contributions, citing mutual love and admiration for vulnerable and emotionally resonate music. Four of Arrows embraces subtlety and pays close attention to the quiet. From the methodical dirge of ‘Dark Green Water’ into the haunting and howling guitar of ‘Digger’ — Great Grandpa try something new by letting the acoustic guitar and piano lay the foundation for many of the album’s tracks

The songs weave through the pains of familial divisions, partnership, internal and external forgiveness, and the struggles of mental illness. Pat Goodwin describes “Digger” as the emotional pillar of the album. The lyrics allude to the titular tarot cards and set the scene for Four of Arrows — solitude and an exploration of the obsessive, neurotic and even paranoid existential questioning seen in ourselves and the characters in our lives. “Shouldn’t go out in the darkness” repeated over tranquil guitar, serves as the mantra of the song before it erupts into an evocative and tense outro.

Tracklist:

1, “Dark Green Water”

2, “Digger”

3, “English Garden”

4, “Mono no Aware”

5, “Bloom”

6, “Endling”

7, “Rosalie”

8, “Treat Jar”

9, “Human Condition”

10, “Split Up The Kids”

11, “Mostly Here”

Wonk Unit, the unique punk phenomenon born out of the South London town of Croydon, return with a new single ‘Cyclists’ that furthers the bands inimitable take on punk rock, and finds them this time taking aim at selfish cyclists.

“Last Summer on route to a festival on some country lane we were unfortunate enough to get stuck behind two cyclists, yes two abreast,” explains frontman Alex Johnson. “Did they care about the motorcade snaking behind them? ‘course not! Go read the Highway Code - two abreast is cool but ONLY IN CERTAIN SITUATIONS. DO NOT OBSTRUCT THE FLOW OF TRAFFIC. It’s the rules. So, I was tapping my hands on the dashboard when the funk took hold. "Cyclists riding two abreast blocking traffic, blocking traffic". Then I did some rapping (but thankfully that never made it onto the single.) After about three months the cyclists decided to fix a puncture and we made it to the festival. By then the song was already a Wonk winner in the van! We jammed it in soundcheck and was a hit in our set later that night. The end.”

The end result is just over two-minutes of additive wonk genius that once ingested, is almost impossible to get out of your system. In short, you’ll be humming this for weeks. That, combined with a video that perfectly captures the songs frustrations and message, and we have another winning wonk track to add to the bands vast catalogue.

The band are now on their ninth album, curate ‘Wonkfest’, their own successful festival and are fuelled by their own super-proactive DIY ethos and sound, artwork and imagery.

The roots of Wonk Unit stretch back to 1992 with a band called The Flying Medallions who were young, dumb and up for fun, courting chaos and controversy at a time when punk was very much dead in the UK. Wonk Unit formed in 2005 and have since created their own ever-expanding peerless world of sound, colour, art and friendship. A creation that is inclusive to all…unless you ride two abreast in front of them when they’re trying to get to a festival, that is.