The cover of Garage Sale’s latest EP depicts a white mule surrounded by bushland and a decrepit barn house. This image, along with their signature cutesy teddy bear motif, appears to be a deviation from their noisy and wandering sound. However, Garage Sale are ironically conformist in this particular instance - joining the general trend of emo bands along the East coast of Australia adopting innocent animals as logo mascots in recent years. Freezer has a deer, doris a fox, swapmeet a lamb, and now Garage Sale, a mule. As Rhea speculates in their interview with the band, perhaps these typically shy animals consciously or unconsciously signify an alternative to a hyper commercial scene - of which none of these diy bands are a part of.
Fondly labelled the “Freezer effect”, Garage Sale says that all these animals share a “calm presence, that contrasts the music”.
In spite of this shared penchant for images of modest animals, Garage Sale note they have distinctly softer sonic tendencies to their counterparts. Their music tends to favour a “really simple melody,” with the recent EP even being described as “nursery rhyme-esque.” Songs such as ‘1 star falls’ - a momentary electronic blip in the record’s otherwise guitar dominated sound - also show the groups unique direction and personal take on the “scene” which they are a part of.
“What really connects all those bands is what we're all trying to accomplish at gigs, the space we are trying to occupy, and the people we want to occupy that space with us.”
Having just begun an extensive tour of Queensland, 193 kilometres from their hometown of Ballina, Garage Sale note that deep community ties transcend state boundary lines and the inconvenience of physical distance.
“Australia’s quite big…, but when you can drive really far, go somewhere and you have friends there, it makes it all feel a little bit smaller.”
Words by Madi Martin-Bygrave