Reetoxa – “Bottle”

It is rare to find a track with three decades of history behind it, but Reetoxa brings exactly that raw honesty to the table with “Bottle”. The project is fronted by Melbourne singer and songwriter Jason McKee, who wrote this track all the way back in 1995 when he was just a fifteen-year-old kid growing up in Frankston. Back then, a tight budget meant the song stayed locked away, saved for a future moment when it could get the production it deserved. Now, working out of The Avenue studio in Cheltenham with producer Simon Moro, that moment has arrived.

The song has an incredible backstory rooted in teenage rebellion and real mateship. McKee wrote it after running a few blocks in Kananook with his high school sweetheart Jody to help her friend Nicole retrieve locked-away medication. It captures a real, unpolished snapshot of mental health struggles and home life difficulties in nineties Australia, back when people rarely spoke about those things openly.

To bring this old track to life, McKee put together a powerhouse band of musicians who grew up with the same alternative rock influences. Kit Riley holds down the bass, James Ryan turns the original guitar ideas into a massive explosion of sound, and Peter Marin from the nineties band Jet anchors everything on drums. Producer Simon Moro handled the mastering because he fell in love with the project. The result preserves all that original nineties alternative grit while sounding incredibly clear and polished for today. It has a huge, energetic presence that people have compared to a cool version of INXS, and the comparison makes total sense.

I absolutely love this release. You should definitely check out the previous music from Reetoxa to see how their sound developed. I highly recommend following Reetoxa to stay updated on everything they are doing for the rest of this year. They are already planning a massive double album, talking with record labels, and getting things ready for a tour across the United Kingdom and Europe later down the line. It is great to see an independent artist realize this potential, so follow their journey closely.