Quan Yeomans is sitting in what could pass for a beige soft porn set in Hong Kong on the 21st floor of a lofty tower. “I seem to end up in Hong Kong,” he says. “I love it here. I’m relocating here. I have been for a while. It always feel like home.”

The multi-instrumentalist, singer and songwriter for Brisbane’s now near legendary Regurgitator seems in a happy place. The band, 13 years old – becoming more and more unheard of in these days of one album contracts – has gone past all those youthful highs and lows to reach what Yeomans describes as a great relationship. With original partner in crime bassist ben Ely, drummer Peter Kostic and new girl Seja Vogel, the latest incarnation of ‘the Gurge’ is looser, more melodic and almost whimsical on its sixth and latest album, Love And Paranoia.

Quan says he was nervous about it, particularly the sound. It’s not the Gurge some of the band’s harder core fans might expect. Yet it is the band you’d expect this far down the track. The band that sucked a lot of you-know-what to get where it is, hasn’t lost its sense of humour – try Blood & Spunk and Drinking Beer Is Awesome – but it ahs in Quan’s term produced its most romantic album.

“Seja has had a lot of effect on us, in terms of having a female in the band and a really good keyboard player. We really like keyboards but in the past we’ve approached them lightly in a naff 80s kind of way. She has more taste; she comes from a Kraftwerk background. She has a deeper understanding of keyboards – she plays synthesisers. In fact it has rubbed off on me and I have started a collection of analogue synths myself.