Marlophone take you back to a time and place. The clue lies within the title of the Sydney three-piece’s debut full-length, Remembered Adventures in Widescale. Times that were more innocent, and where art felt like it had the power to change the world.
Made from prime DIY Antipodean stock, Marlophone is bassist / vocalist, Saskia Clapton, vocalist / guitarist, Patrick Haid (Idles of Space) and drummer, Nick Kennedy (Knievel, Big Heavy Stuff). Haid and Kennedy, helping underpin the foundations of Australia’s late ’90s / early ’00s underground. An era where Rage, Recovery and Triple J were the ultimate sources for discovering new music.
Remembered Adventures in Widescale is a snapshot of those times. Good nostalgia, with many of the bands of that era forging the path for a generation’s listening journey. Even from the drenched reverb of opening cut, Nintendo Era Hero, the past and present instantly flashes before your eyes. While it’s playful, Marlophone run far deeper than a mass culture gaming console. The band, perceptively using it as a metaphor in life’s journey.
Sonically, Nintendo Era Hero bleeds into Pencils Drawn at Dawn and Romance Rearranged. Both tracks, melodic emo-gaze that would have been played on a loop during the days of peak-era Triple J. Which, of course, is exactly where this band takes you. Outlier communities sharing their fandom on message boards via dial-up internet. It was a moment in time where music shaped someone’s life instead of being a by-product in this attention economy. Or in Marlophone own words, “romance rearranged”.
Marlophone - Remembered Adventures in WidescaleThey do a bit of rearranging of a different kind, too. The slow, saccharine guitars and big drum build-ups on I Promise It All to You, reaching great heights. It’s here where Marlophone ferry you to beautiful places, which is where they remain on Beating Heart Waltz. The speed, reduced to a crawl and it’s in these milieus where the three-piece tailor striking results.
Elsewhere, the one-two gut-punch of If We End Up on the Run and I’m on Your Side are chugging alt-rock for the Pacific Highway north bound. Songs that hit like a coastal breeze with Isn’t Anything-era bravado.
And while Strings and Old Machines just about ties it all up with something primarily designed for the ether (“The things you haven’t seen / Like sounds on the silver screen”), I Could Hear It In Your Smile seals the deal. An emphatic, quintessential closing track with all the high-wire spectacle that echoes Knievel and Big Heavy Stuff’s most understated contemporaries, Gersey.
While it’s a celebration of the past, Marlophone carry it through to something fitting in the present. As alt-rock continues to enjoy a renaissance, it’s the wiser heads of a past generation who are still the prime torchbearers, crystallising its authenticity. And that’s the thing about Remembered Adventures in Widescale. Those innocent times, illuminated in the present through song, and while art may not change the world in 2026, at the very least, bands like Marlophone possess the power to still change yours.
Remembered Adventures in Widescale is out via Love As Fiction Records (AU), Defend Vinyl Records (EU / UK) and Mandatory Music (everywhere). Purchase from Bandcamp.
