Melbourne band Reetoxa announce the release of their sweeping new double album, Soliloquy — an orchestral, emotionally vast work that has been decades in the building and arrives as one of the most ambitious independent releases Australia has seen in years. Produced and mastered by Simon Moro, and featuring a European Budapest Orchestra across six of its tracks, Soliloquy is not merely an album. It is a reckoning.
The story behind it is as extraordinary as the music itself. Frontman, lead vocalist, composer, and lyric writer Jason McKee first conceived the idea for Soliloquy back in 1997, when at just seventeen years old he had accumulated enough songs for an album and needed a new canvas — one expansive enough to match what he was reaching for. Inspired by his English Literature teacher Mrs. Clarke’s explanation of Shakespeare’s dramatic device, he adopted the name. A soliloquy: a character alone on stage, speaking truth directly from the interior of a life.
⇒ Check our thoughts on “Soliloquy” here.
But life intervened, as it tends to do. The project was shelved. Then, years later, a chance encounter at a Spiderbait gig at the Forum Theatre changed everything. A girl named Lisa asked to hear a song. McKee had nothing but rough voice notes to show her. The embarrassment was clarifying. He quit his university music degree and committed to recording the album properly. He met producer Simon Moro at RMIT, recognised immediately that he was the right person for the project, and the sessions were scheduled.
Then the global pandemic arrived. Melbourne locked down. Rather than polish and rehearse what already existed, McKee did something far more difficult. Sustained by coffee and cigarettes and minimal sleep, he went back through thirty years of his own life’s work and began again — writing deeper, wider, and more honestly than he ever had before. The process consumed him entirely. The album sent him to hospital for six weeks.
What emerged from all of that is Soliloquy.
A step back to the era when albums were experiences — when listeners poured a drink, put on headphones, and surrendered to a full journey — Soliloquy challenges every memory and emotion its listener carries. It moves across a vast emotional range, covering the full spectrum of what a human being can feel, and it does so with a cast of musicians whose combined credentials are remarkable.
Alongside Jason McKee, the album features Kit Riley on bass (Robbie Williams, Savage Garden, Ross Wilson), Peter Marin on drums (Jet, Ross Wilson), James Ryan on guitar (Men at Work, Ryan Wilson), Jessica McPherson-Riley on backing vocals, and Terry Hart on piano — with the European Budapest Orchestra appearing on six tracks, elevating the record to a scale that will floor even the most demanding listener.
Soliloquy is Reetoxa’s second album and the full realisation of a vision that has been carried, interrupted, and ultimately completed across three decades. It is produced and mastered by Simon Moro.
“Pour your favourite beverage, put on your best headphones, and let Jason McKee and Melbourne’s finest music crew take you on an epic journey.”
