News · 4 May 2026

Tex Perkins Shares Surprise Ambient Experimental Record

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Basic includes 10 genre-defying tracks from one of Australia’s most creative artists.

After reuniting with The Cruel Sea and releasing 2025’s Straight Into the Sun, the band’s first album in over two decades, frontman Tex Perkins has surprised music fans with his new ambient album, Basic.

Described in press material as a “collection of ambient soundscapes, electronic noise rock, and captured sonic experiments originally created by himself for himself,” the record introduces music lovers to a new side of the award-winning singer-songwriter.

This material, Perkins reveals, “is untethered to conventional musical structures, but has an inner logic of its own. I never really know where these things are going when I start them. I get lost in it; it’s like therapy. It was created by me, for me. But it’s always a good strategy to believe no one else will ever hear what you’re doing, it kinda frees you up to go wherever...”

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Perkins has also announced three special live concerts performing Basic live on the So Real It Hurts East Coast Tour alongside Lydia Lunch's spoken word set. Catch him at Melbourne’s Kew Courthouse on Friday June 19, Brisbane’s Powerhouse on Saturday June 20 and Sydney’s Riverside Live at Phive on Saturday June 27.

Tickets on sale now via texperkins.com.

One of the country’s most accomplished artists, Perkins is best known as the frontman of The Cruel Sea, along with his long-running side project The Beasts of Bourbon. He’s also been a member of The Dark Horses, The Ape, Tex Don and Charlie and The Fat Rubber Band and collaborated with everyone from Spencer Jones and Kim Salmon to Murray Paterson and Matt Walker.

Tex Perkins Basic by Tex Perkins is out now. Listen here.