About The Release

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Few titles capture a feeling as instantly as Disassociating On The Travelator—the second collaborative EP from Melbourne/Naarm songwriters Winter McQuinn & Acacia Pip. Equal parts mundane and surreal, it describes that strange state where your body keeps moving while your mind drifts somewhere else entirely. These are songs that unfold like internal monologues, reflecting on (and trying to make sense of) our feelings, relationships and the world around us.

 

That sense of observation has always been central to the duo's partnership. Since their early days in Melbourne psych-pop outfit Sunfruits, Winter McQuinn (Beefheart & McQuinn, jade imagine) and Acacia Pip (PINCH POINTS, Slush) have spent years writing alongside one another, gradually discovering a shared language built less on perfection than instinct. Their songs rarely begin fully formed. One arrives with a chord progression, the other with a stray lyric or melodic fragment, and somewhere in the conversation between those ideas, a song emerges.

 

Recorded over a weekend at Melbourne's legendary Bakehouse Studios with longtime friend and celebrated Australian songwriter Snowy producing, engineering and performing throughout, the EP trades the homemade warmth of its predecessor for something more spacious and finely detailed. Yet its heart remains wonderfully unpolished. The trio recorded the foundations live, allowing small imperfections to remain where they carried emotional weight, before layering subtle guitar and piano textures that deepen the record without disturbing its natural intimacy.

 

Across four songs, McQuinn and Pip navigate the emotional geography of modern adulthood. They capture the tension between nostalgia and acceptance, self-doubt and contentment, movement and stillness. Rather than offering easy answers, the songs embrace the uncertainty of trying to make sense of it all.

 

Lead single "Exactly The Same" wraps shimmering guitars around Melbourne winter melancholy, exploring how moods shift with the seasons. "Slow Lane" wrestles with comparison and self-doubt, gently questioning the invisible timelines we measure ourselves against. "Say What You Do" contrasts the repetitive rhythms of contemporary life with images drawn from the natural world, while "Frankenstein" looks back on touring through memories of highways, shifting relationships and the subtle ways movement changes who we become.

 

Sonically, Disassociating On The Travelator balances the warmth of indie folk with the shimmer of jangle pop, coloured by understated arrangements that leave plenty of room to breathe. Echoes of Andy Shauf, Courtney Barnett, Kurt Vile and Elliott Smith drift through the record, though the duo's songwriting remains unmistakably their own. Like the songs themselves, every musical decision serves the emotional heart of the record rather than competing for attention.

 

Perhaps that's what makes Winter McQuinn & Acacia Pip such compelling collaborators; their music resists the pressure to become bigger, louder or more dramatic than it needs to be. Instead, the EP embraces uncertainty, celebrates imperfection and finds quiet meaning in the everyday—a reminder that the most enduring songs often speak in their softest voices.

 

Set for worldwide release by Third Eye Stimuli Records on October 16th, 2026 as a special double EP pairing with Recently I've Been Missing The Colour Green (2024)—bringing both releases to vinyl and CD for the first time—Disassociating On The Travelator feels less like the beginning of a new chapter than the natural continuation of a conversation that's only becoming richer with time. 

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Tracklist

 

1. Exactly The Same
2. Slow Lane
3. Say What You Do
4. Frankenstein

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Credits

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Written by Winter McQuinn, Acacia Pip
Recorded by Liam 'Snowy' Halliwell
Performed by Winter McQuinn, Acacia Pip, Liam 'Snowy' Halliwell
Mixed & Mastered by Liam 'Snowy' Halliwell