Black and White Town by Perry Keyes

Our final Feature Album for 2023 brings it all home, viewing modern Sydney through the lens of Perry Keyes and his sixth studio record “Black and White Town”. 

Keyes lives in Waterloo and grew up in Redfern, and it’s a highly personalised collection of poetic Australiana and heartland rock, written as a snapshot of stories that reflect the unvarnished realities of urban life and the “other” inner city: homelessness and people trying to hang onto each other amidst the economic displacement of the inner city: 

“These songs are not concerned with the glorious, semi-mythic good old days of the old
industrial inner-city of my grandparents time. Nor with the inevitable slide from working
class to welfare driven underclass of my parents era that has continued unabated into my
own.
These are stories of displacement, anarchy, homelessness and of people trying to hang
onto each other in the face of what’s happening on the hard streets of the inner-city right
now.”

Black and White Town was produced with Michael Carpenter (The April Family) and recorded at House Studio, the sessions consisted primarily Keyes, Carpenter  doing the recording along with guitarist Ed Kairouz. It’s an incredible record with hard-hitting and poignant storytelling and highly recommended. *Perry Keyes recently came in for a live performance and interview about the album with Vinny Ramone on The Outpost : Listen here

Out now via EH Records on vinyl and digital