Band photo: Charlie Nite.

If it’s possible to predict anything from the ever-delightful SKiN GRAFT Records, it may be that whenever a forthcoming release is announced it will have the power to suck your brain down a wormhole one way or another. Which leads us conveniently to instrumental Progressive-Rock three-piece Yowie and forthcoming record Taking Umbrage (the band’s fourth record and first full-length since 2017’s Synchromysticism) due for release on SKiN GRAFT Records on October 3rd, 2025. The bands’ new single “Grimgribber” can be streamed below.

Pre-order here:
https://yowie.bandcamp.com/album/taking-umbrage

With the band pushing themselves to the further outer limits of what two guitarists and a drummer can construct—as they seemingly melt and fold the Rock space-time continuum—the forthcoming record sees the current lineup of founding member and band leader Defenestrator and more recent additions Jack ‘Oakie Doke’ Tickner and Daniel Ephraim Kennedy ‘The Quidnunk” (both on guitar) together on a full-length record as Yowie for the first time (the trio having had several years to fuse together, including on recent split EP with Pili Coït).

Of the band’s recent evolutions, Defenestrator reveals, “When the last Yowie lineup ended, it wasn’t clear that the band would be able to continue. There was only one member left, and it quickly became clear that not just anyone can play this music. And of the smaller number of those who can, very few want to devote what it takes to make it work. But a lineup emerged that was so strong that it was worth re-inventing many of the previous processes the band had relied on for the past quarter century.”

“It took eight years,” the drummer continues, “but now it is finally ready to be unleashed. Taking Umbrage is utterly unique for us. Yowie had always had an esoteric writing process that involved stupid numbers of hours together in the basement, pummeling counterintuitive rhythms until they were either compressed into diamonds or discarded. But for the songs on Taking Umbrage, with each member living impossibly far away from one another, we had to find a way to create Yowie without being in the room with one another. And that was a slog.”

“The band member who has never had a cell phone had to learn to record music, and send files via email. This same luddite had to try to teach his completely made up method of music transcription to people who actually know what they are doing. Attempts to convey subtle phrasing differences via videoconference became maddening.”

Technological aversions were not the only obstacle, as Defenestrator reveals. “There was the small matter of the pandemic. One member’s house was infested with bees for several months. There is the whole Australian time zone thing. And despite all this, the chemistry of this group compelled us to find a way to make an album that is still unmistakably Yowie, while emphasizing the unique voices and ideas of the new members. Listen to it for fucks’ sake.”

Of the trio’s singular style, guitarist Jack Tickner comments, “”I frequently get people at shows asking how I manage to memorize all of our music. I smile and laugh and pretend that I hate it and it’s hard. But here’s the brutal truth: I love it, and it’s easy. At any given time I am wishing I could be at home memorizing atonal guitar music. If you sit me at my computer with a monster zero and a guitar and a stack of linear freak music to memorize, I am happy. I am in heaven. I am complete.”

“The Chopi tribe in Mozambique are the inventors of a tuning system named ‘Mavilla’,” Tickner adds. “Characterized by its extremely flat 5ths: there is a strange effect to this system where major intervals sound minor and minor intervals sound major.”

“When I knocked my steaming hot mug of dalgona coffee onto my guitar in the summer of 2020 the most strange thing happened. In anger I picked up my guitar to play a diminished chord, but what did I hear? C major singing out of my guitar. In disbelief I went to play a C major and instead heard the opening of Wagner’s Tristan and Iseult.”

“I could not believe it,” the guitarist continues. “Through happenstance during the midst of one of the most brutal and long-lasting lockdowns in recorded history I accidentally reverse engineered a kind of ‘Mavillaesque’ open string tuning for the guitar. Shocked, I went out into the street to tell my neighbors. Only to be immediately arrested and to have my guitar confiscated.”

Notable features of physical formats of the record revealed by SKiN GRAFT include:

– Deluxe Gatefold LP Jacket designed by Arnulf Roedler, acclaimed architect of YOWIE’s “Synchromysticism” album art.

– Pressed on Gumbone Blue Colored Vinyl and includes collectible Footlong OBI.

– Ultimate Edition Bundle and MOD CD in Digipak Lite packaging available exclusively from SKiN GRAFT Records and direct from the band. CD includes additional artwork and features a different sequence than the vinyl.

Needless to say, Taking Umbridge is not something the likes of which you’ll hear too often. With thanks to SKiN GRAFT, Ghost Cult is delighted to provide an exclusive link to the first track to be publicly revealed from Taking Umbrage. Click below to check out “Grimgribber”.

Meanwhile, Yowie will be on tour in Europe from October. With more dates to be announced, the band are confirmed for the following shows:

Wed.22.10.25 (BE) BRUSSELS – Magasin 4
Fri.24.10.25 (UK) LONDON – Strongroom
Sat.25.10.25 (FR) AMIENS – Accueil froid
Tue.28.10.25 (DK) COPENHAGEN – Rahuset
Wed.29.10.25 (DE) HAMBURG – Hafenklang
Thu.30.10.25 (DE) BERLIN – K19
Fri.31.10.25 (PL) GDANSK – Klub Zak
Sat.1.11.25 (PL) WOLOW – Nowa Forma Club
Sun.2.11.25 (CZ) PRAGUE – Cafe V Lese
Mon.3.11.25 (CZ) České Budějovice – Venue tba
Wed.5.11.25 (CH) GENEVE – La Cave
Thu.6.11.25 (FR) LYON Ground Zero
Fri.7.11.25 (FR) BESANCON – Les Passagers Du Zinc
Sat.8.11.25 (BE) KORTRIJK – Sonic City Festival

Band photo: Charlie Nite.