The great Australian drummer Jim White has been around a long time and left a serious impact on indie rock. White has been in bands like Dirty Three, Venom P. Stinger, and Xylouris White, and he’s played for artists like Cat Power, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, PJ Harvey, Mary Margaret O’Hara, Nina Nastasia, and Bill Callahan. But up until this moment, White has never released a solo album.

This spring, Jim White will drop his solo debut All Hits: Memories. That’s a bold title for a debut album, but it makes sense. White is a drummer; everything he does is a hit. White engineered and produced the album with Fugazi co-leader Guy Picciotto, a longtime Xylouris White collaborator, and Picciotto also co-wrote six of the 13 songs with White. (Guy Picciotto knows the value of a debut album with 13 songs.)

First single “Names Make The Name” is a moody, intricate instrumental, with White doing dense, feelings-heavy drum improvisations over soft synth and piano drones. The song has a video from directors Tran and Masami Tomihisa. Below, check out that video, the All Hits: Memories tracklist, and the bio that White’s friend Bill Callahan has written.

Bill Callahan writes:

This is long overdue. I mean, looooooonnnnnng overdue. A solo album by Jim.

The trap kit—so straightforward, so mysterious. What’s inside those things? Air and light—from which century? Which continent? Depending on how and when you hit them, it can be a vibration sent through a prehistoric breath… the dead, wet leaves you walked through on the way to the first day of school. These are the memories of the drums on this record. Infinite and personal. Editing each other as they muscle to the front or soft shoe to the shadow. Drums are the instrument where you can feel the presence of the player the most — the full body — and sense the thoughts of the player the most. The instrument with the most choices to be made sends out the most brainwaves. A bouquet of brainwaves is on this LP.

Jim oversees it all, surveys from the lost place we’re in, the void — the drumless song. We trust. We trust, Jim. His big green eyes search for the right tool (mallet, brush, etc), eyes that search you like you’re a song he wants to join, wants to see if he can add to or understand.

Before humans, drums were playing — these drums. Genesis was a solo drum piece. After humans, these drums, this album. Someone — the last man — is out in a spaceship at the edge of space. He plays a single chord on a synth to set time free from its bind and then lets go. This album sets time free, lets it frolic, lets it graze, lets it remember.

This is a record of thoughts, memories, surgery. A deft surgical operation you may not even realize is happening as it’s happening but you’re back on your feet when it’s over. Memories refreshed.

TRACKLIST:
01 “Curtains”
02 “Percussion Build”
03 “Marketplace”
04 “Soft Material”
05 “St. Francis Place Set Up”
06 “Uncoverup”
07 “Walking the Block”
08 “Jully”
09 “Long Assemblage”
10 “Names Make The Name”
11 “No/Know Now”
12 “Stationary Figure”
13 “Here Comes”

All Hits: Memories is out 3/29 on Drag City.