Cong Josie and Garry Sacred – Sacred Money

Off the back of his 2024 EBM meets rockabilly greaser album Moto Zone. Cong Josie returns with a new partner in crime. On this new EP Sacred Money, Cong teams up with the legendary Garry Gray, or should I say, Garry Sacred of the seminal Aussie swamp-punk outfit Sacred Cowboys. The two met in early 2025 when Cong fessed up to ripping off the Cowboys’ track ‘Nothing Grows in Texas’ on ‘1300 Scorpio’, the two recognise a kindred spirit, they bonded over their love for Alan Vega and 70’s oz-boogie and next thing you know we’ve got this scorchin’ EP.

The record kicks off with a re-recording mash-up of the aforementioned ‘1300 Scorpio’ and ‘Nothing Grows in Texas’ in ‘1300 Texico’. T he call and response vocals and generation time-travelling adds a deeper narrative and allegory for our times of capitalism in its bizarre death-throes. Like leather clad twins mysteriously separated by a decade or two, there is undeniable synchronicity and something very ‘now’ at play here. If you know these two musicians, you can just imagine the burning heat produced when you hear them together. It feels right, it feels inevitable. What follows just gets better.

Sacred Money is a bold work conjuring the dread power and unrelenting pull of money-seduction that affects as all. Next is a triplet of on-theme cover versions starting with what was the lead single from the record, a sleazy and sinister cover of the cannonic Oz-boogie-era song, ‘I’ll Be Gone’ (originally by Spectrum 1971). Side two smacks you straight in the face with a blood pumpin’ rendition of Suicide’s ‘Fast Money Music’ followed by a deep cut from The Kinks underrated 1974 concept record Preservation Act 2 : ‘Money Talks’. The record closes with the title track ‘Sacred Money’ a tripped out ode to/ lament for/ rail against, you guessed it… money.