Pain Gain – Prizefighter

Pain Gain, the collaborative project of Chloe Kaul (Kllo), Hamish Lefevre (SWIM), and Samuel Cooke (CRUSH3d), today share their latest single “Prizefighter”, taken from their forthcoming self-titled debut album Pain Gain, due for release July 17 via Play It Again Sam/PIAS.

Formed in 2023, Pain Gain began as a deliberate left turn. Shedding their established electronic identities, Kaul, Lefevre and Cooke retreated to the beachside forests of southern Australia, armed with guitars, modular synths and a tape recorder. What began as a temporary escape soon evolved into something far more profound: a complete recalibration of sound, process and purpose. The result is Pain Gain, a debut album that trades velocity for gravity, moving fluidly between indie rock melodrama and expansive pop balladry while rejecting genre as a fixed idea.

Latest single “Prizefighter” is one of the album standouts. It emerged from reversed and replayed tape experiments, its slow-build crescendo mirroring the exhaustion of staying too long in something that won’t change as Pain Gain explains: “Prizefighter is a centrepiece to the record. Conceptually it’s about being coaxed into a cycle that never breaks. It’s always the same fight.”

The album’s ten tracks trace personal upheaval with unflinching honesty, led by Kaul’s at-times-excoriating lyricism, while Lefevre and Cooke shape immersive, tactile soundscapes where no single voice dominates. Working instinctively, the trio embraced single takes, analogue experimentation and the beauty of imperfection, allowing songs to emerge organically from their surroundings. Each room of their retreat became a makeshift studio; melodies drifted through kitchen conversations, while lyrics were forged in late-night exchanges by the fire.

“We went away together with only the intention of starting something new, we never expected that we would end up not only with an album, but one that feels as cohesive and collectively personal as this. It’s a record that looks for beauty in friction, and finding a new start in the wreckage of something past”

Despite arriving from distinct musical paths, Pain Gain is less a reinvention than a shared language discovered. Rooted in instinct and play, the project became an immersive, almost familial experience for its members, one that ultimately shaped a record concerned with transformation, and the clarity found in its aftermath.

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