Pickle Darling (Christchurch-based artist Lukas Mayo) has shared a final single, “Congratulations Champion”, ahead of their upcoming album Bots, out September 5 via Father/Daughter Records. The track is a collage of one-liners pulled from Mayo’s phone notes, stitched together with warmth, wit, and fractured melodies. Its standout lyric — “You know I’m gonna love you still / Like black mold loves the windowsill” — captures the record’s balance of devotion, decay, and strangely sweet tenderness.
With Bots, Mayo pushed their computer—and songwriting—to the edge. Files became unopenable as layers of warped voice memos, fragmented guitar notes, and static built into something beautifully broken. Unlike 2023’s polished Laundromat, Bots thrives in chaos, drawing from influences like Four Tet, The Books, and Robyn while leaving every seam exposed. It’s an album about friction, collapse, and the messy process of creation itself.