GUM’s Jay Watson Nods To Jazz On ‘Blue Gum Way’

Tame Impala / Pond principal Jay Watson nods in the direction of jazz on his seventh album as GUM, Blue Gum Way, which will be released March 6 on King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s p(doom) label. Sample new song “Celluloid” and its Kristofski-directed video below.

“Everything feels worse in the middle of the night,” Australian native Watson says of the track. “It’s where peak worry and catastrophizing happens — exacerbated by a slow death from blue screen light and brain rot.”

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Watson self-produced Blue Gum Way, which is the follow-up to 2023’s Saturnia and his 2024 debut collaboration with King Gizzard’s Ambrose Kenny Smith, Ill Times. He previously told SPIN of Blue Gum Way when it was in progress that it would be influenced by jazz — sort of. “Because I’m not a jazz musician, it doesn’t actually sound like jazz, but it’s like my version of it,” he said with a laugh. “It’s just me doing the dishes every day while listening to Roy Ayers.”

A month after the release of the new album, Watson will be back on the road with Tame Impala, which kicks off an international tour April 4 in Porto, Portugal. In late 2025, the group played its first shows in Australia in three years.

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