In a historic world first, Yugambeh/Kombumerri/Gold Coast-based six-piece SELVE - led by Jabirr Jabirr man Loki Liddle - today announce their forthcoming second album ‘Breaking Into Heaven’ (12 September), the first full-length album to be recorded at the legendary Abbey Road studios by an Aboriginal artist. SELVE celebrate this incredible fete with the release of the title track.

Anchored and inspired by Nina Simone's words that "‘The people who built their heaven on your land, are telling you that yours is in the sky", ‘Breaking Into Heaven’ is a powerful testament of First Nations stories, music and culture breaking into spaces that have traditionally been reserved for the select few.

A confronting interruption of regular programming and a bold declaration of love and resistance that is both unapologetically playful and grounded by a powerful message, ‘Breaking Into Heaven’ is a high-theatre showcase of raucous punk/post-punk and subversive rock, tender indie-pop, winking new-wave/psychedelic and beyond, all tied together with rebellion and compassion - punctuating and refracting the listener's consciousness like a glass brick through a window.

‘Breaking Into Heaven’ launches with the high-octane pulse of a spaceship engine firing up — a post-punk, psych-funk, fuzz-laden ride that feels like being flung headfirst through a strobe-lit wormhole. With Loki Liddle’s sharp, charismatic vocal at the helm, SELVE command a sound that’s as fiercely defiant as it is celebratory.

There’s an unmistakable nod to the electroclash movement of the early 2000s, but it’s reimagined through an Indigenous lens, with gritty 80s rock-disco grooves, distorted synths and breakneck drums giving the track its warp-speed propulsion. It’s chaotic in the best way — a dance-floor rebellion soundtracked by culture, sweat, and electricity.

More than just a banger,“Breaking Into Heaven” sounds exactly like what that means. Kicking down doors, rewiring tradition, and making a bold statement while doing it.

Selve - Jabirr Jabirr man Loki Liddle (Lead vocals/Guitar - he/him), Anaiwan man Reece Bowden (Lead Guitar - he/him), Creation Saffigna (Vocals - she/they), Michael Baldi (Drums - he/him), Scott French (Bass Guitar - he/him) and Liam Kirk (Keyboards - he/him) - close friends who have continued to assert themselves as a formidable force of easy creative chemistry, capable of brewing an inimitably tantalising musical soup of sounds, characters and themes thanks to a shared curiosity, disparate influences and the freedom to "paint however they like with their instrument", all continually expanding their scope via outside projects of their own across poetry, acting, visual arts, sound design and crafts.

Instantly roaring to life with the kind of adrenaline and energy that echoes being dropped in the middle of a car chase, 'Breaking Into Heaven' is "about breaking in and subverting the centres of power that have been used to author our fates en masse, stealing the pen back from the stealer and sprawling a First Nations story and future across the heavens above", shares Loki Liddle

‘Breaking Into Heaven’, the first full-length album to ever be recorded at the legendary Abbey Road studios by an Aboriginal artist, is anchored and inspired by Nina Simone's words that "‘The people who built their heaven on your land, are telling you that yours is in the sky" - a powerful testament of First Nations stories, music and culture breaking into the spaces that have been stolen or denied to them and traditionally reserved for the select few.

A rude interruption of regular programming and a bold declaration of love and resistance that is both unapologetically playful and grounded by a powerful message, ‘Breaking Into Heaven’ is a high-theatre showcase of punk/post-punk and rock, indie-pop, new-wave, psych and beyond, self-produced by the band's Scott French with trusted collaborator film & TV composer Simon Benesch (of French techno-rock band FAIRE) - who also produced Red Desert Dream - recorded with Abbey Road studio engineer Thomas Briggs (Little Simz, Sam Fender, Kojey Radical), and mastered by Matt Colton (Fontaines D.C., The Cure, Foals), Breaking Into Heaven is tied together with rebellion and compassion - punctuating and refracting the listener's consciousness like a glass brick through a window.

Though very much a sonic rebirth - with a variegated palette that values being radical and pushing boundaries as much as it does playfulness and love, inspired by the spirit of albums like Tyler the Creator's Chromokopia, Fontaines D.C.'s Romance and Childish Gambino's Bando Stone + The New World and the live performances of Massive Attack and LCD Soundsystem - "it's not: radical or silly, dark or light, fury or love, punk or pop. We are allowed to be all of it. And if people don’t know how to place you because of that, you’re probably doing something right", Liddle adds, ‘Breaking Into Heaven’ continues Selve's exploration of the characters and themes found across their past releases, also inspired by Liddle's own forthcoming poetry work Damn Good Television (due 2026).

The historic journey that the 13 songs on ‘Breaking Into Heaven’ have taken, Liddle says, "gave the record its soul - taking the embers of songs sparked on my Jabirr Jabirr Country and recording that at Abbey Road, this amazing ideal and root of Rock N Roll mythology: a reclamation, reimaging and subversion of that ideal through an inspired First Nations lens has taken place".

Loki Liddle shares, "Breaking Into Heaven is a glass brick shimmering with the light of the sun. A brick that has landed in your living room - as a gift, not as a threat. The embers of a project sparked on Jabirr Jabirr Country was carried across seas and lands and recorded in Abbey Road, breaking down doors to tell a First Nations story through the platform of the most notorious music studio on the planet. Despite the awe of it all, I was gripped every day with the knowledge that I was only there because of those who have come before me, that I was sent there by my ancestors and my community because something bigger than myself was happening, and that my job was to devote myself to the music & story - and not get in its way so that it could communicate itself. Thomas (Briggs, engineer) took us on a tour - casually pointing out pianos used by The Beatles on major records, the desk Dark Side of The Moon was recorded on and all such ridiculous things. The time we spent in Studio 3 was an unbelievable dream; everyone was nerding out and having a field day: sending things up to the plate reverb in the roof, running signals through ancient pre-amps and singing into microphones worth more than everyone’s HECS debts. Every member of the band was in peak form, everything you might imagine recording at Abbey Road to be like - it was like that. For Scott French (bassist and producer) it was like watching someone go from fighter pilot to the driver of an interstellar mothership. With the help of Thomas Briggs and Simon Benesch, he somehow made operating the most infamous studio in the world look easy, and was totally in his element."

Completing two massive tours in support of their debut album Red Desert Dream and the World Wide Wave EP last year - nationally and in the EU/UK - Selve have taken their dazzling live presence to SXSW Sydney, BIGSOUND, Woodford Folk Festival, BLAK DAY OUT, Springtime Festival, Brisbane Festival, Horizon Festival, Valley Fiesta and beyond, also performing on bills with the likes of Jessica Mauboy, Archie Roach, Matt Corby, Mo'Ju, Meg Washington, Electric Fields, Barkaa, Shakaya, The Cat Empire, Tia Gostelow, Mildlife, Alice Skye and more, claiming the Gold Coast Music Award in 2021 and a nomination for the QMusic Billy Thorpe Scholarship in the same year.

‘Breaking Into Heaven’ - the single - is out now on all streaming platforms, while the album of the same name drops on September 12.