Long-serving Australian psych-rockers THE CHURCH have signed with UK label Easy Action Records

The new partnership will see a UK and European release for the band’s brand new full-length The Hypnogogue. Recorded just prior to the Covid pandemic, the album is the band’s first new studio album in six years and the first to feature the newest line-up of founder, bassist and vocalist Steve Kilbey, drummer Tim Powles, guitarists Ian Haug and Ashley Naylor, and multi-instrumentalist Jeffrey Cain.

The Hypnogogue is set for release on CD and vinyl on in the Spring– confirmed date to be announced shortly.

The Easy Action deal will also see Kilbey’s expansive solo and collaborative back catalogue getting a much needed physical release, including a first time physical release for some previously download-only items.

Dating back to the mid-80s, the extraordinarily prolific Kilbey has released dozens of solo albums alongside collaborations with various musicians such as Grant McLennan (The Go-Betweens), Donnette Thayer (Game Theory), Martin Kennedy (All India Radio) and Frank Kearns (Cactus World News).

The first planned reissues will be Kilbey’s most recent solo albums, 2020’s Eleven Women and 2021’s The Hall Of Counterfeits, both set for release on CD and vinyl this summer, with the CD box sets Surge and Monsters & Mirages – in a new expanded edition – towards the end of the year.

“It is the Church’s absolute pleasure to be getting into bed with Easy Action records in the UK,” announces Kilbey . “It seems especially auspicious that the company is named after a T Rex song. Hopefully we can add the Solid Gold component (ha ha!)… It’s been awhile in the UK since we had someone so needless to say we are damned excited!!”

Formed in 1980, The Church found early chart success in their homeland, before establishing themselves as an international touring entity, earning a worldwide hit with the single ‘Under The Milky Way’ from their hit 1988 album Starfish. The band has since released a string of consistent and inspiring albums of which The Hypnogogue is the twenty-seventh.

Often seen as the Godfathers of an Australian psych/prog scene generating such internationally successful names as Tame Impala and King Gizzard And The Lizard Wizard, The Church have gone on to maintain a loyal and far-reaching following as their fanbase has expanded with their evolving sound.