THE ORVILLE PECK is bringing out the big guns
the debut album out 8th april
Orville revealed to us in this month’s cover feature that before he donned the mask, he used to spend his youth dancing into the night at Dalston Superstore. Where were DIY’s misspent youths played out?
SARAH JAMIESON • Managing Editor
Obviously have to give a huge shout out to our big Digital nights out at Stone Love and Born in the 80’s, but really, we were all about the £2 trebles at Sinners. It’s a surprise we’re still going after that amount of vodka tbh…
EMMA SWAN N • Founding Editor
Shout out to Milton Keynes’ much-missed Bar Central for its £1.50 snakebite and blacks (and for its crucial, formative influence on my music taste).
LISA WRIGHT • Features Editor
I essentially had a rota of weekly indie discos (The Roxy on a Tuesday, FROG on a Saturday etc) but special shout out to Candybox in Soho where the tunes were supreme, the carpet was leopard print and the drinks were 80p for a spirit and mixer. Yes, I’m THAT old.
LOUISE MASON • Art Director
Cardiff Barfly every time - it was always full of dancing because a single stationary minute meant you'd get stuck to the rancid floor. I saw all the bands there that made me want to make my own.
ELLY WATSON • Digital Editor
While I spent several Thursday nights drinking Red Stripe and dancing to Fall Out Boy on the top deck of Thekla, sadly I was more of a sucker for a toffee vodka shot in Bristol’s infamous Lizard Lounge. Followed by some late-night chips at Jason Donervan, of course.
Whether it’s a true crime podcast, a gripping TV drama or just your classic musician-in-a-strangeheadpiece, we at DIY love a bit of mystery; which is perhaps why we’ve been so intrigued by Orville Peck for so long. And so, as the world’s most enigmatic musical cowboy gears up to release his new album ‘Bronco’, we’re ecstatic to have him on the cover for the first time.
And as it just so happens, cowboys have become a bit of a theme this month... Not only do we head to Austin, Texas for our annual fill of new music at SXSW, but we also take the wonderful Walt Disco to a quintessential Texan ranch for good measure. Plus, there are inspiring and intriguing interviews with The Linda Lindas, Self Esteem, Fontaines DC, Bob Vylan and loads more. Giddy up, and let’s get stuck in!
Sarah Jamieson, Managing EditorLate last month, we at DIY, along with the rest of the world, were shocked and deeply saddened by the tragic and unexpected passing of Foo Fighters’ irrepressible powerhouse drummer Taylor Hawkins. A central member of the world-beating rock leviathans for more than two decades, we’ve watched Taylor gleefully shred the skins countless times and it seems unimaginable that a group so visibly built on brotherly love and an unending commitment to the power of music should lose one of their cornerstones in such an untimely manner. As Taylor told us in an interview just last year, “Foo Fighters is all about the hang factor. It’s our own fucked-up little family.”
Sending love and best wishes to all of Taylor’s family, friends, bandmates and millions of fans, and let’s all pour one out to ‘Cold Day In The Sun’: the first Foos song to feature the drummer on lead vocals, and a gentle classic that proved Taylor was about the heart as much as the pounding, preternatural drum skills.
Scan the Spotify code to listen to our April playlist now.
Shout out to: Dev, P-C, Fahd and all at SXSW for making our week out there such a roaring success (if we say so ourselves); Walt Disco for stepping in to play last minute and save the day; Terry Gaona at Austin’s The Little Longhorn Saloon for probably the most memorable, chicken-centric photoshoot we’ve done in a long while; Wild About Music and Blackstar Amps for enabling us to film our SXSW sessions (keep an eye on YouTube for those!) and Nathan from King Nun for the genius audio help. State51 for the studio space, and Treefort and the city of Boise, ID for the generous hosting.
Founding Editor Emma Swann
Managing Editor Sarah Jamieson
Features Editor Lisa Wright
Digital Editor Elly Watson
Art Direction & Design Louise Mason
Contributors Alisdair Grice, Bella Martin, Ben Tipple, Cady Siregar, Chris Taylor, Ed Miles, Eloise Bulmer, Elvis Thirlwell, Emma Wilkes, Eva Pentel, Felix Rowe, Greg Hyde, Ims Taylor, Jenessa Williams, Jenn Five, Joe Goggins, Katie Beswick, Lindsay Melbourne, Louisa Dixon, Matt Pinder, Nick Levine, Poppy Richler, Will Richards.
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Fontaines DC
As 2021’s breakout UK star, SELF ESTEEM has spent the time since game-changing second LP ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ steamrollering the competition, one perfect pop song at a time. Halfway through her first run of US shows and kicking off her week at SXSW, we caught up with Rebecca Lucy Taylor to chat festival plans, what she’s got up her sleeve for LP3 and why she’ll be calling her next project Crypto.
Interview: Lisa Wright. Photo: Jenn Five.
Since we last spoke to you for our July 2021 cover, everything has objectively kicked off in a pretty massive way - it’s happening! It looks like it’s happening! I’ve got more than one award, it’s great, I’ve had a right laugh. Although since all of this stuff has happened, it’s made me feel quite stressed; I’ve gone back to feeling jealous and looking at other people, so I have to keep that in check. I was in a truly zen place before, so this year’s been weird, but I went to see David Byrne’s ‘American Utopia’ show when we were in New York just now and I was like, ‘Ohhh OK, I’m David Byrne, that’s fine’. So I feel better now.
You’ve done SXSW before with Slow Club - does it feel different this time around as one of the week’s buzz names?
This is my fourth or fifth time here. I’ve had profound moments at SXSW where like, Slow Club were playing and Best Coast were so loud and there were so many people at their show that we had to stop because there was no point in us playing. And I remember thinking, that’s what I want. I didn’t want to be drowned out, I wanted to be someone that people queue for, and for the last few months of my life
I’ve been someone that people queue for. And I’m aware of the dangers of being validated by that, but hey - if I’m the buzz band or the bitch that everyone wants to see then I’m gonna enjoy that!
What’s key to the magic of the live shows?
I’ve always just thought, if you’ve got the stage and lights, let’s just DO something. We played New York and LA earlier this week and a few separate people described the show as ‘cocky’ and I think, great. Because when do women get to be cocky? I’m inspired by theatre and performance art, and I love being very fucking sincere and really meaning what I mean because I had to pretend I didn’t for my whole life. I think women meaning what they mean without apologising is unfortunately insanely confronting, and I don’t like that it’s confronting but I’ve had 35 years of being scared of everything and now when I’m onstage everyone’s scared of me so the power is fun. The shows are a battle cry not just for women, but for
anyone who’s ever been told to stop it or be quiet or not be themselves. It’s a celebration of not being - quote unquote - normal.
You’ve been heralded as a vital new voice over the past six months - why do you think people have embraced the message so hard?
I think it’s ‘cause you can see that I’m not from money, and I’m not backed by much money, and I write it all. Any pop star that you get to digest is a product of quite a lot of things, but I’m still cobbling it together; there’s an authenticity that I wish I didn’t have! We are essentially a scrappy indie band, but just one that’s doing this [music] instead. I wonder if I had the budget that Dua Lipa has, what would happen? Most of the time in art and especially music, the artist to listener pipeline often has a lot of other cooks round the cauldron, whereas with me there aren’t. Although I would like to be rich. When people ask me why I chose Self Esteem as the name, I explain that I just thought it would be cool and then I realised that I actually needed it. So I’m gonna call my next band Crypto. You’ve also been busy writing the score to Prima Facie, the new play starring Jodie Comer. Tell us a bit about that.
The play’s fucking amazing; ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ to be honest could have scored it. It’s all about the grey areas of consent and the way that it’s absolutely impossible, as a victim of sexual assault, to be heard - and if you want to be heard it takes a bigger toll on you than is potentially worth it. It looks at it from the legal side of things - Jodie plays a lawyer who knows this because she’s also a victim. I’m blessed to be a part of it. Jodie Comer’s obviously amazing; the team are incredible; there’s a lot of gatekeepers in theatre and they took a chance on me which is very cool. I’ve done my bit now! I’ve sent them the CD so they just have to press play and we’ll see what happens. I’m thinking with the third album, it’ll be like, if you want to hear it you’ll have to come to a small theatre and see a theatre version of it.
Ah, so this is why you’re David Byrne…
I always knew I was David Byrne but now I just know how to do it! With this [‘Prioritise Pleasure’] show, with no money and no time, we’ve introduced elements that are more theatrical so I just wanna do more of that. I feel like I could probably make five or ten more albums where each album is its own show and it has its own journey and narrative and props and style. That’s all I’ve ever wanted to do.
What’s the sonic plan for the next album?
I want to do the same again, but with more strings and more budget! ‘Prioritise Pleasure’ was made with peanuts, so I’d love to make it with a bit more. Any strings on there are cobbled together with four different string players up and down the country, sending the stems. I wanna make music that’s like 2012 Olympics music.
everyone’s scared of me so the power is fun.”
I’ve had 35 years of being scared of everything and now, when I’m onstage,
- REBECCA LUCY TAYLOR
“
Forget the lairy lager lad stereotype of Brits abroad: taking over the British Music Embassy - in its swanky new 700-capacity home at Cedar Street Courtyard - for Monday night at SXSW, DIY’s showcase proves that the UK has plenty to offer away from home turf.
Glasgow newcomers GALLUS will likely linger in the memory long after the evening is through. Stalking through the crowd, hoisting himself like a baby into the arms of an unwitting punter and closing their set by making a cape out of a Scottish flag, singer Barry Dolan rinses every single second of their set to its maximum.
Meanwhile, London’s NUHA RUBY RA dressed like a sort of catwalk Red Riding Hood, but musically she’s far more akin to the wolf: a mesmeric, menacing presence in the vein of Nadine Shah or PJ Harvey that could probably lure her fair share of unwitting prey to her lair.
With the arrival of STRAWBERRY GUY comes yet another change of pace. Bringing to mind the likes of slightly psychy Welsh favourites Meilyr Jones or Gruff Rhys crossed with a soft Matt Maltese tinge, his keyboard-centred swoons are a cosy balm for any jetlagged heads. And we’d wager at least five bucks that no one at tonight’s showcase is as happy to be here as Dublin . Kicking off with ‘Nashville’ and ending with a touchingly excited speech before closer ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’, she’s a joy from start to finish - part genuinely sublime vocal prowess, part energetic wildcard, bounding around the stage and high kicking through the likes of ‘No More Virgos’ and ‘Every Bottle (Is My Boyfriend)’.
Through some glorious loophole, tonight’s British Music Embassy stage has made a second exception for the liberating party of MOONCHILD SANELLY frankly, the UK should be so lucky to have such a diamond as one of our own. Clad in an outfit (complete with tail) that we’ll label as BDSM Pink Panther, she’s an all-singing, all-twerking ball of celebratory energy: the sort of person whose sheer positivity should come in prescription form. And, closing out the night for the boozeBUZZARD BUZZARD to show that, sometimes, all you need is some sweet, sweet ‘70s-soaked riffs to seal the deal. Like Wings-era McCartney resurrected in the form of a quartet of lanky Welshmen, cuts from just-released debut LP ‘Backhand Deals’ are melodically-rich, toe-tapping treats that don’t try and reinvent the wheel and are all
With two stellar DIY showcases and a bumperweekpackedwithbuzzylive music,here’sthebestofour SXSW. Words:LisaWright. Photos:EmmaSwann,JennFive.
LP ‘Unlearning’, their industrial-soaked goth pop deserves every platform it can get; these are queer anthems with bite, that embrace ideas of identity whilst having a throbbing dance party in the process.
urning the bright afternoon sunshine of the outdoor
Pershing stage into a slice of effortless Brooklyn cool, GEESE might look like they’ve bunked school to be here but their twisting indie-art-rock-funk-whatever hybrid belies their minimal years. Another bunch of New Yorkers are in equally bruising form, meanwhile, as SUNFLOWER BEAN head out for a blitz through the wares of forthcoming third album ‘Headful of Sugar’. Prioritising only mosh pitstarters, they blast through the riffs of blistering new track ‘Beat The Odds’, plus the glam stomp of ‘Who Put You Up To This?’. There’s even a run through of psych wig out ‘Somebody Call A Doctor’ from the band’s debut 2015 EP thrown in for good measure.
Over at Seven Grand, Chicago trio HORSEGIRL are proving one of the year's most frequently whispered names. Conjuring up a shoegaze wall of fuzzy guitars on the likes of recent single 'Anti-glory' and last year's ‘Billy’, it's in the juxtaposition between co-vocalists Penelope Lowenstein and Nora Cheng that their particular alchemy starts to fizz: the former a glowering, intense, ridiculously cool presence; the latter a sweeter, more unassuming foil.
Gothy new wavers
GLOVE take a little while to warm up but, by the end, come good on the promise of their Depeche
Mode-indebted icy slither. Squint and you could be looking at a time-travelling group comprised of a young Billie Joe Armstrong, Thora Birch, Alice Glass and Faris Badwan, but there are tunes beneath the aesthetic too: slick, sexy things that’ll seduce you down to the disco dungeon.
Already riding a wave following last year’s debut ‘Death of a Cheerleader’, POM POM SQUAD take the sort of American grungepop bones that should endear them to fans of Snail Mail, Soccer Mommy and the like, but inject them with the energy of a magnetic pop star. Singer Mia Berrin already feels like someone destined for more than the underground. Similarly prepped for greatness
are NOVA TWINS, whose bouncy, electronic rockcues taken as equally from punk, metal and dubstep - has a sweltering British Music Embassy jumping in tandem with Amy Love and Georgia South’s 100mph energy on stage.
If there was any question as to the buzz for WET LEG translating overseas then the endless queue of people left straining at the entrance to every one of their shows this week should allay those fears. There’s tangible magic to their sets - a perfect mix of wide-eyed wonder, cheeky lyrical piss-taking, classic indie melodies up to their eyeballs and that indefinable je ne sais quoi. Every time singer Rhian Teasdale sweetly instructs her adversary to “suck my dick” in ‘Ur Mum’, a fairy gets its wings.
Nashville-via-New York songwriter ANNIE DIRUSSO’s set of emotional, country-tinged indierock (the singer’s vocal is uncannily similar to Jenny Lewis, making the whole thing akin to a punkier Rilo Kiley) has an excitable fanbase here yelling back every syllable. Fans of the boygenius trio, Courtney Barnett or Alex Lahey would likely find much to love. Elsewhere on a very different note, LA’s SASAMI is having something of a second wind at the moment and it’s clear to see why: having flipped her previous grunge set for a sort of goth Goldilocks and the Three Bears scenario - her band all dressed in enormous fluffy animal outfits as Sasami herself contorts and wild-eyes the crowd - there’s a whole lot more to see, second album around. Musically, she spends the heavier, metaltinged wares of ‘Squeeze’ extolling speeches on heaven and hell; it’s part Poppy, part St Vincent, a smidge of Nirvana and fully bonkers.
And if the party has to end, then we’d rather have a final hurrah with BLACKSTARKIDS than most others. A three-person ball of energy, bounding around the stage to the sort of nostalgia-soaked jams that recall Bran Van 3000’s iconic ‘Drinking in LA’ at their more chill moments and Estelle’s ‘American Boy’ at others, they’re a wholesomely magnetic way to see out the week, and an easy highlight.
ANNIE DIRUSSO HORSEGIRL SUNFLOWER BEAN SASAMI GLOVE WET LEG GEESE
"I started my music journey with the thought in my mind I was already a failure."
“Iremember we was so broke,”
Kojey Radical begins in his gravelly, amused London accent, tall frame bent back against a small chair in his hotel room. “We split a £3 pizza. A £3 Italian pizza we split between like, five people, because we had no money.” He’s recounting a time back in 2015, as he worked on the visual concept for the track ‘Bambu’ with Northampton creative duo The Rest (now best known for their collaborations with slowthai).
DIY In Deep is our monthly, online-centric chance to dig into a longer profile on some of the most exciting artists in the world right now.
It’s been a long and bumpy road for KOJEY RADICAL but, but, with longawaited debut LP ‘Reason To Smile’, the multi-hyphenate Londoner is finally ready to come good on all the potential. Keep reading for an extract, and head over to diymag.com/kojey to peep the full feature…Words: Katie Beswick.
It’s one of the many moments in his career when failure and success rubbed up tight against each other; when Kojey - also known as Kwadwo Adu Genfi Amponsah - sat in what seemed like defeat yet might have also been on the verge of global mega-success.
Today, DIY is meeting him over a video call as part of the promotion for newlyreleased album, ‘Reason to Smile’. According to almost everyone, Kojey is (once again) on the cusp of greatness. But this, as he later puts it, is not his first rodeo. The promise of something better has long been dangled, realised to a certain extent sometimes, and then snatched away, only to resurface just when he thought it was all over.
“I started my music journey with the thought in my mind I was already a failure,” he begins to explain. Having studied at the London College of Fashion, he finished by writing a book in his final year. “And I had an idea for a soundtrack to accompany this book. And I decided, OK, I want to do this. So I’ve gone to my lecturers - I was studying Illustration and Creative Direction at the time - and I’ve gone to them and said, ‘I’ve made some music, and I’m gonna hand it in, and you’re gonna mark it like illustration and art’. And they said, ‘We’re not, and you will fail if you do that’.”
He did it anyway, and presumed he’d failed his degree. However, deflated but not deterred, Kojey posted the EP that came from that final project, ‘Dear Daisy’, on SoundCloud. It quickly gained traction, and had soon scored him a big enough audience to allow those feelings of failure to begin to recede. “Virality was a lot smaller back then, it took a lot less to go viral, you know? So, I’m enjoying the fruits of that labour, and the summer comes to a close, and my boy gives me a call like, ‘Are you going to the end of year show?’
“I quickly put on a jumper, some jeans. Everyone else was dressed to the nines - I didn’t get the memo,” he continues. “So, I go, and my lecturer’s there. She comes up to me smiling, all, ‘Oh so glad to see you, you did
so well’. I said, ‘What you mean, did so well? What you talking about?’ She said, ‘Check the results’. So, I checked them, and I’ve ended up getting a first. I finished top six, I can’t remember if it was in my class or the university overall, but I did really well. And then life began.”
From there, life began to unfurl in its own twisting, turning way. The video for ‘Bambu’ ended up getting Kojey signed as a director, while an early tour supporting Young Fathers would prove life changing: an inspirational moment to hammer home the importance of a strong work ethic and, integrally, the idea that not all music that finds a popular audience is pop music. “It forced me to never consider changing for a mass audience; to just do what you wanna do, consistently,” he nods.
He left the tour focused and determined, ready to share a burning rage with the world. The political tracks he wrote in this period saw him labelled as a sociallyconscious spoken-word rapper. “But that wasn’t really me,” he explains. “I mean, I came from spoken word, which was conscious, but that’s not my personality trait. I’m a normal person, you know what I’m saying?”
Then, all of a sudden, the tides began to turn. “The industry starts fucking with me a little bit more. I’m on the ‘Hot for 20-something’ BBC list or whatever. Radio was starting to support. But I’m inexperienced and have a severe lack of music. I’m getting all this attention and this love, and I can’t reciprocate it. You get this rush of, ‘Oh it’s there; he’s there; Kojey’s right there; he's on the cusp of whatever the fuck’. But I weren’t ready so it went away.”
Read the full feature at www.diymag.com/kojey.
‘Reason To Smile’ is out now. DIY
"The more music I put in the world, the more I have the chance of being [a lifeline] for someone else."
In the video for ‘Anything But Me’, MUNA are tied up. Whether that's to a relationship, an outdated idea of themselves, or anything else holding them back, we're not told. But the resultant video and song is a story of breaking out of these shackles and, as the band say, “trusting yourself and your instincts enough to walk away from someone while you still have love for each other and before it gets too bad.” The song is a suitably euphoric recreation of these feelings – of finally being free. (Will Richards)
The latest preview of upcoming album 'Supernova' is about celebrating yourself, your past and your culture. And while ‘Cleopatra’ may have been written in response to the Black Lives Matter protests, its meaning stretches beyond that. “Wouldn’t wanna be anyone but me – I’m the fucking queen,” the pair sing on the crunchy, arena-ready rock banger, and it's a welcome reminder to give yourself the praise you deserve. (Will Richards)
When Megan Thee Stallion was quizzed on new music earlier this year, she hinted that she was prepping a “fire” new collab and now she’s delivered on that promise, linking up with pop frontrunner Dua Lipa for their joint offering ‘Sweetest Pie’. A powerful track from two of music’s trailblazers, Megan’s fiery flow perfectly matches Dua’s vocals, as the two deliver a sexy discoinfused empowerment jam. Bring on Hot Girl Summer 2022. (Elly Watson)
Soccer Mommy being produced by Oneohtrix Point Never is one of the most unexpected artistic team-ups we’ve come across this year, as well as one of the most exciting. On ‘Shotgun’, the first teaser of Sophie Allison’s new album ‘Sometimes, Forever’, Daniel Lopatin’s touch is light; the catchy, light indie-rock bop isn’t immediately reminiscent of any of his prior projects, but his input immediately gives the track a fuller, more rounded feel. (Will Richards)
It’s perhaps a strange observation, but when the title of Arcade Fire’s first new music in five years was revealed to be ‘The Lightning I, II’, it was easy to wonder if their latest could be a wink back to the days of the band’s 2010 opus ‘The Suburbs’. And while, since the release of that career-defining record, they’ve tried on a variety of musical guises - all very well, made we add - there was a nugget of glee at the idea they could be returning to their grandiose indie-rock roots once again. What’s even better is that ‘The Lightning I, II’ lives up to that promise and more: together, the track’s two halves are a glorious rally call for togetherness, and a tonic for the soul. What a triumphant return. (Sarah Jamieson)
Fresh from the release of glitchy new track ‘Make It Easy’, we catch up with the Manchester singer to discover her ambitious next moves. Words: Sarah Jamieson.
Throughout the early years of her career, Phoebe Green has never shied away from making a bold statement. Whether through her speak-sing rumination on people-pleasing in ‘Reinvent’ or her examination of youth in last year’s ‘So Grown Up’, her offerings so far have seen her carve out an intriguing and engaging niché for herself as an artist. It’s with the arrival of latest single ‘Make It Easy’, however, that she’s decided to shift into another gear altogether.
“I really had this feeling that I was moving away from a guitar-y indie sound,” the Manchester singer explains today. “I had begun to stop listening to that kind of music and I was like, ‘You know what, I love that but I don’t really wanna keep making it just because I feel like I have to’. I really wanted to push myself. I was like, ‘Do you know what? I wanna be a pop star now!’”
Written with friend and collaborator Dave McCracken, the track itself is a slinky offering, led by glitchy beats and Phoebe’s aching vocals; what’s even more remarkable is that it came together in just over half an hour. “It just literally happened so fast and when it did, it felt so fun!” she laughs. “I feel like - as far away as it is from my usual stuff - it felt more me in that moment than a lot of my music has before.”
Releasing new music isn’t all Phoebe’s been up to recently either. When DIY catches up with the singer, she’s in the middle of a break from a recent run supporting Self Esteem, with the final shows taking
would happily watch the Self Esteem show every single night and still feel as much as I felt the first time I saw it.”
It’s not only Self Esteem’s live show that’s been inspiring; being out on the road with a mostly female crew has been just as rewarding. “It feels like a dream,” she nods. “I did a little Twitter talk about this stuff because I’ve mostly been on tours with indie boy bands. They’re incredible and I love them, but I’ve never felt as safe and empathised with as I do on this tour. It just feels like such a safe environment to express things that I’ve never really felt comfortable expressing before. It’s sad that it feels like a very isolated experience because it feels so good, but it’s very rare that in this industry you’re in a femaledominated environment.”
As for what’s next on the agenda, Phoebe’s got more live shows booked in alongside Baby Queen and Everything Everything - plus a spot at our very own DIY Alive - before she gears up to reveal the next taste of her forthcoming debut album. “Oh my god, the next single…” she says, before beginning to giggle. “I had no idea it was gonna be a single! It’s easily one of my favourite tracks on the album, but I just didn’t think it’d be a single because the structure of it is so ridiculous! I wrote it with Dave again and our initial inspiration was old Kanye…” she teases, stopping herself before she reveals too much. “So yeah, I am so excited for it!”
Phoebe Green plays DIY Alive, which takes place in London on 23rd and 24th April. Head to diyalive.com for details
DIY
These days, even yer gran is posting selfies on Instagram. Instagran, more like. Everyone has it now, including all our fave bands. Here’s a brief catch-up on music’s finest photo-taking action as of late.
Rico, watch out, that monster’s eaten the rest of your clothes.
“I was like, ‘Do you know what? I wanna be a pop star now!’”Photo: Lewis Vorn. Hands up who just got a five star album review on page 56! (@wetlegband)
Last time we saw Isaac, he was topless, sweating and screaming behind a drum kit as one half of Slaves. Now, though, he’s back with solo project Baby Dave, and his set at DIY Alive will be one of the returning fave's earliest live shows. Having just announced debut LP ‘Monkey Brain’ - complete with production and instrumental credits from Damon Albarn no less! - we've only had precious few tasters of Baby Dave's more lo-fi, slightly Mike Skinner-y sound so far but he's clearly been keeping in fine company. Join the gang on Saturday at Space 289.
Every month, we pack DIY full of the best and most exciting new artists around, and we’re delighted to bring a host of them to DIY Alive. From the brilliantly inventive queer rap of Grove to Fräulein’s gritty post-punk and the superbly fun indie bangers of Lime Garden and Do Nothing, you’re bound to find your new favourite band around every corner. Don’t miss a second of it.
In a year or two, we’ll likely look back at Master Peace playing the tiny Pickle Factory and realise how lucky we were. Blending indie and rap and landing collaborations with The Streets and more, Master Peace is a ball of energy on stage, and has the charisma and – vitally – the tunes to take him a long, long way. Avoid any future regrets and catch a superstar in the making on Sunday. Nice'n'easy
Obviously, we know you can’t wait for the inaugural DIY Alive to roll around later this month, but we know there’s going to be a lot going on. Rather than have our punters scratching their heads over plans, we’re giving you a hand; here’s just eleven of the brilliant things you’ll be able to dive into across the 23rd and 24th April …
Discover how to make a gimp mask
Over the past half a decade, Shame have become one of our favourite live acts on the planet. From sweaty clubs to festival main stages, they bring a consistently brilliant energy and crowdsurfinga-plenty. It’s been just over a year since the
If you’ve listened to her new album ‘Prioritise Pleasure’, follow her constantly on-the-money social media presence, or dove into her 2021 cover feature in DIY, you’ll know that Rebecca Lucy Taylor – aka Self Esteem – is an endless well of wisdom and wit. Many of you, we’re
(because why not?)
Ever since they blew the Old Blue Last to pieces with their fantastic set at DIY’s Hello 2020 two years ago, Lynks has
the industry - along with a couple of our own team, obv - to chat about their own careers and offer some key advice, before giving you a chance to get stuck into some more hands-on experiences. So if you’re interested in music journalism, photography, design and more, this is the perfect opp!
It’s Saturday night. You’ve just had your mind blown and your body slightly bruised by Shame’s riotous set. So what, are you just gonna… go home!? Well duh, obviously not. Instead, head over to the Pickle Factory afterparty, where drag queen extraordinaire Ash Kenazi will be presenting Popperz: a club night set filled with bangers, performance, maybe even a little bit of opera (Ash’s speciality) and outfits - oh lawd, the OUTFITS! It’s the only way to see out Saturday, trust us.
One of the best things about Baxter Dury’s
DIY-related goodies - think vinyl, festival tickets, subscriptions to DIY and loads more - all to raise money for some important music-related charities. Get involved and help a good cause for us all!
Mitski, Soccer Mommy, Sorry Nilüfer Yanya are some of the first acts to be announced for the inaugural edition of LEISURE festival (24th June), which will take place at Dreamland in Margate.
Reading & Leeds (26th - 28th August) have announced another 77 names for their Bank Holiday weekend lineup, including Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, 100 gecs, WILLOW, Black Honey, Gus Dapperton, Poppy and Beabadoobee.
Foals, Lewis Capaldi and Snow Patrol are set to headline this year’s Latitude Festival (21st July - 24th July), which takes place at Henham Park in Suffolk. Other artists also confirmed to appear include Phoebe Bridgers, Fontaines DC, Little Simz, Rina Sawayama and loads more.
Jamie xx, JARV IS…, Aldous Harding and more have been confirmed for the line-up for Finland’s Flow Festival (12th14th August). They join Florence + The Machine, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Gorillaz, who have already been confirmed to play the Helsinki event.
Alfie Templeman, Stella Donnelly, Lauran Hibberd, MUNA and Chrissi are just some of the new names added to the line-up of this year’s Great Escape (11th - 14th May). The fest have also confirmed that ENNY, Tems and Gabriels will be playing their Spotlight shows.
Holly Humberstone, The Vaccines, Dream Wife and Sports Team are just some of the latest acts set to join Bombay Bicycle Club and Arlo Parks on the line-up of Live At Leeds: In The Park (4th June).
Poland’s Orange Warsaw (3rd - 4th June) has returned with the first news of their line-up: Florence + The Machine, Tyler, The Creator, Stormzy, Foals, Charli XCX and loads more will play the event this summer.
Words: Poppy Richler.
“What you grow up around shapes you. London is what it is. You’ve got a lot of love, a lot of hate. We’re all just trying to find our way in this mad metropolis,” begins Pinty.
Born and bred in the south of the capital, the rising Peckham star has spent the past year perfecting the art of MCing, calling upon roots legends like Smiley Culture and MC Skibadee, but also harking back to the drum‘n’bass he grew up with. “I’m as London as it can be,” he says. “MCing came from Jamaica and made its way into London – I grew up with reggae, I’ve also always loved the dance music side of things. There aren’t really any other MC’s that are ingrained in house [music]. When I was younger, people used to say, ‘How can you be an MC if you make house music?’”
Exploring UK jazz and soulful house more than the typical roots and jungle influences of his peers, Pinty’s 2021 EP ‘Tomorrow’s Where I’m At’ was also hailed for its unashamed exploration of mental health and gentrification – a goal he set back in 2019. “I think that’s called manifesting,” he playfully chuckles. “I’m on my fourth project now and can finally say I know exactly what I want to make.”
Such statements only come with practice and maturity, he explains. “Especially on collaborations. I used to have to listen to a piece of music as many times as possible in a day; now I trust myself a lot more, and would rather connect with the microphone the first time I hear a song.” That’s exactly what happened when Metronomy’s Joe Mount asked Pinty to get involved in the band’s recent covers release ‘Posse EP Volume 1’, also featuring the likes of Biig Piig, Sorry and Folly Group. Joe recalled how quickly the MC sent back his parts for EP opener ‘Half An Inch’, while Pinty in turn reminisces about how quickly he connected with the track: “They sent me the beat and I had it within two hours.”
Collaborations are all about “creating a mix of worlds,” he decides. Recalling his previous tracks with Emma Jean-Thackray, Maxwell Owin, Tomos and most recently Afriqua on ‘Deep In, Deep Out’, Pinty highlights how important it is to be confident with collaborators. Though
unable to name names on his upcoming project, he does, however, disclose that certain figures with “crazy success over many years” were excited by his ideas. The Pinty touch on such collaborations? “Putting a smile on people’s faces,” he grins.
Such smiles undoubtedly stem from the MC’s drive to explore new musical avenues. He admits that he hadn’t traversed the musical waves of Elton John’s catalogue until the legendary singer praised his EP last year. As soon as Pinty heard Elton’s music, he thought, “‘Right, I want to make a song where I just sing and play the piano’. I get so quickly influenced…”
Also pushing him down new avenues, he explains, is his radio show on underground station Balamii. “Just the other day, I listened to ‘Tonight’s The Night’ by Smashing Pumpkins and wrote a full piece of music to it right after. When I was younger I used to really care what people would think, but when I finally put myself out there, I moved on to
thinking, ‘Fuck it’.”
Putting himself out there is something Pinty has been striving for both personally and artistically, meanwhile. ‘Tomorrow’s Where I’m At’ was notable for its openness regarding therapy, and it’s a topic that the Londoner is vocal on. “That album was coming to terms with things that have gone on for the best part of my life,” he explains. “It taught me to be on top of your own struggles. It feels good. I’d urge anyone who can go through that process to do so; it brought me clarity.”
A year later, Pinty’s work still stands as a testament to the importance of destigmatising mental health discussions and the catharsis it brings. He reminisces about the first time he threw lyrical caution to the wind. “I remember sitting at [Peckham pub] The Gowlett when I was 18, asking myself how to express what I was feeling. The song that came from it – ‘Found It’ – was the first time I ever talked about love. Once I played it for the first time, I found that I could talk about anything.”
This openness sits at the centre of his live shows, too. “At a basic level, it’s about connecting with people through my lyrics. I remember someone once saying to me, ‘You don’t understand what this song’s done to me!’ I mean I wrote it, so I probably do,” he laughs. “But he felt something, and that’s what’s important. I think all humans strive for a bit of connection in their lives.”
The experimentation Pinty explores in the studio doesn’t stop there. On his upcoming showsincluding a Saturday set supporting Shame and Do Nothing at DIY Alive this month - Pinty will be taking his live sets to the next level, using “loads of delay pedals, transforming the music to fit a band.”
Already a firm favourite of music legends old and new, Pinty’s cup is proving far more than half full. “I’m not stopping. Non-stop Pinty 24/7,” he affirms. “It’s Pinty’s house.”
Pinty plays DIY Alive, which takes place in London on 23rd and 24th April. Head to diyalive.com for details. DIY
“I think all humans strive for a bit of connection in
When most people think of life for a band on the road, it’s all rock and roll cliches - expensive riders, huge tour buses, wild nights out. What perhaps doesn’t cross most minds is Prima Queen’s current reality: having to jump on the South Western Railway service to their next gig, supporting Dream Wife in Norwich.
Two transatlantic best friends brought together by fate, Prima Queen are now turning heads with their warmly powerful indie-rock. Words: Sarah Jamieson.
Nevertheless, that’s where we find the two main protagonists of the band today, as they both squeeze into one of the train’s empty loos to get in shot for DIY’s Zoom call. “Sorry, someone’s trying to come in…” Louise Macphail begins to giggle, as a fellow passenger knocks on the door and the pair have to renegotiate their location.
Having begun life after Kristin McFadden decided to leave her native Chicago for a break from university and enrolled on the same songwriting course as Louise in London, it didn’t take long for fate to intervene. “I actually started the course halfway through; they’d cancelled the one I was supposed to be on and I was like, ‘I’m still gonna come!’ I asked if I could do the course that had already started and it’s lucky I did that, because I would never have met Louise if I hadn’t.”
“I’d been having really unsuccessful band dates with loads of different people,” adds Louise. “It had been quite bad, but then they sent a video of Kristen and I was like, ‘She’s the one!’ I was trying to play it really cool and not bring it up, but as soon as I met her I was like, ‘Will you be in my band?!”
Now, almost five years on since that fateful meet-cute first brought them together, things are picking up pace for the best friends. Having supported fellow girl gang The Big Moon before the pandemic hit, they more recently reunited with Jules Jackson and Fern Ford who helped produce their forthcoming EP, due out later this year. “We really looked up to them,” nods Kristen. “They’re just a really good team.”
Led by the mesmerising ‘Chew My Cheeks’ and their gorgeous recent single ‘Invisible Hand’, there’s a warm vulnerability to Prima Queen’s offerings that the pair encourage through their close bond as friends. “Each of the songs are personal stories, and the next two are similar,” Louise explains. “I think all of these songs are quite vulnerable in their own way,” Kristen confirms. While ‘Chew My Cheeks’ deals with unhealthy obsessions, ‘Invisible Hand’ delves into her personal struggles with mental health. “But I think what’s powerful is that we are best friends, and we write the songs together, so we keep each other in check and [ensure] we’re being the most honest.”
And while the subject matter itself may be a little raw, their energy - both musically and as a pair - is incredibly infectious. Even as the conversation draws to a close - mostly thanks to the overhead tannoy announcing their train is pulling into Colchester - they descend into fits of laughter, much like two best friends stuck in a train toilet together would.
Prima Queen play DIY Alive, which takes place in London on 23rd and 24th April. Head to diyalive.com for details. DIY
“I think all of these songs are quite vulnerable in their own way.”
Kristen McFadden
Rock that draws from both hardcore and slacker vibes.
Nirvana, ‘90s R&B and Drake are cited as formative influences for Enumclaw, the Tacoma, Washington band who formed only a year ago. It's the first of these names that shines brightest on their modest output so far, with the band traversing the rock spectrum; at times, they threaten to become a hardcore band, while at others they lean closer to the sardonic slacker-rock of Parquet Courts. All of it, crucially, is done with a hell of an attitude.
LISTEN: New single ‘2002’ is an exciting distillation of their sound.
SIMILAR TO: A rock‘n’roll roulette wheel that always lands on something golden.
London grungers channelling the brooding spirit of PJ Harvey.
You don’t need us to reel off a list of duos who’ve managed to conjure up an impressive amount of noise between a minimal amount of bodies, and now into the fold come FräuleinJoni Samuels and Karsten van der Tol - whose guitar/drum interplay dances between creeping and purposefully sparse to heavy and satisfyingly loud. Rather than the garage rock stylings of more recent rock’n’roll pairs, however, Fraülein tread a more deadeyed, insidious path, with the spectre of Polly Jean looming deliciously large.
LISTEN: Recent single ‘Drag Behind’ is one for the Nirvana-heads.
Matador-signed trio weaving heady noise rock spells.
Winning SXSW’s Grulke Award for the festival’s most promising US act, Chicago trio Horsegirl are already cantering to the front of the race armed with a forthcoming debut - June’s ‘Versions of Modern Performance’ - that spins an intoxicating shoegaze-indebted web. Full of reverb-soaked guitar bends and ghostly vocals courtesy of singers Nora Cheng and Penelope Lowenstein, they’re not rewriting the rulebook but providing a clever, enticing new chapter within it.
LISTEN: Recent single ‘Anti-glory’’s stabbed cries of “DANCE!” are a brilliantly terrifying command.
SIMILAR TO: Sonic Youth fronted by two female bezzies.
SIMILAR TO: A fuzzy trip back to the early ‘90s.
Viral Liverpudlians already breaking into the UK charts. Rare is the guitar band that manages to break through the upside down logic of the streaming-heavy UK singles charts these days, and even rarer is the new band who manage it before they’ve even released an album. Scoring a wordof-mouth hit with early single ‘Come Over (Again)’, however, Liverpool quartet Crawlers are the exception to the rule; sonically, think fellow city-dwellers The Mysterines, or Pale Waves if they swapped out the pop side for heavier rock.
LISTEN: Last year’s debut self-titled EP gives a taster of Crawlers’ colours.
SIMILAR TO: The band on everyone’s lips come Reading & Leeds.
Former Goat Girl bassist weaving glistening folk tales.
We last saw Naima Bock as the bassist of zeitgeisty post-punks Goat Girl, but her solo music – which has seen her signed to Sub Pop – feels plucked from a different century. Anchored by Naima’s superb, commanding voice, her acoustic music features mantra-like chants, otherworldly subject matter and influences from centuries of folk music.
LISTEN: The transfixing alt-folk of '30 Degrees'.
SIMILAR TO: Hearing a songwriter from centuries ago land in the present day.
Your favourite band’s new favourite artist, Christian Alexander is ready to take his lo-fi charm worldwide. Words: Elly Watson.
There are a few accolades that can signify that an artist’s on the right path. Having Brockhampton’s de-facto leader Kevin Abstract openly claim that you’re his “favourite artist in the world,” however, has got to be one of the coolest. “There was definitely a lot of jumping around the room when I found out that they liked my stuff,” Christian Alexander grins today of the game-changing moment.
Not quite the Stateside star you might’ve expected, instead Christian hails from somewhere a little less versed in producing future superstars: Lancashire. But though a literal and metaphorical ocean might separate them, the two artists soon struck up a bond. And while it may have been Brockhampton’s spotlight that pushed him more into the mainstream (Christian would go on to feature on the collective’s last album ‘ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE’ before being handpicked to support the group on their fated European tour), his knack for detailing poignant feelings in lo-fi leaning bedroom-pop gems was bound to eventually do the same.
With two mixtapes, ‘Summer ’17’ and ‘Summer ’19’, already under his belt and having captured the hearts of Kevin and beyond, Christian is now getting ready
to share his debut album proper, ‘I Don’t Like You’. Starting work on the record back in the summer of 2020, he explains that he was in a creative lull before a nap soundtracked by Nirvana’s ‘Bleach’ shook him out of it. “I woke up feeling really inspired and went back to my guitar and focused on the melodies,” he recalls. “It all happened really quickly after that.”
Likening the record’s creation to a bit of a “bloody annoying puzzle,” ‘I Don’t Like You’ saw Christian flying back and forth between studio sessions in America with the Brockhampton boys and his UK home. “When they reached out to me I didn’t really want to work with anyone, I had such a closed mind, but my main exception was someone from Brockhampton,” he smiles. “It was amazing that it happened.”
Giving “absolutely everything” to the album’s creation, Christian highlights this new collaboration - alongside going back to basics and concentrating on songwriting and structure - as what makes ‘I Don’t Like You’ stand out from his previous releases. “I was just really interested in the idea of how, if a certain melody is done, it can be like crack to the ear, basically; just how people can keep going back to a track and why they can't get enough of it,” he explains. “I don’t know if that’s gonna happen to any of the songs on this album, but if people enjoy listening to it, then I’m happy!” DIY
“There was a lot of jumping around the room when I found out Brockhampton liked my stuff.”Channelling Joey wearing all of Chandler’s clothes realness.
year’s ‘SURVIVORS GUILT: THE MIXTAPE’. New track
team up with Travis Barker were just in the studio, and I wanted to make some rap shit to kind of show a different side of me,” he explains. “Dwilly and
Ahead of their stint supporting Everything Everything in Leeds and London next month, Leeds quartet L’objectif have announced details of their new EP ‘We Aren’t Getting Out But Tonight We Might’. The five-track release is due for release on 3rd June via Chess Club, and includes latest offering ‘Get Close’; “It’s a love song probably or at least a song about intimacy,” frontman Saul Kane says. “I kind of liked the idea of writing about having a borderline existential crisis but then thinking ‘forget that’ and just focusing on wanting to be with someone. I mean the title ‘Get Close’ is what it’s about really, wanting to get close to someone and the rest can wait.”
All the buzziest new music happenings in one place.
London trio deep tan have announced news of second EP ‘diamond horsetail’, which will be released digitally on 6th May before receiving a physical release on 22nd July. The record follows last year’s debut EP ‘creeping speedwells’ and includes new single ‘rudy ya ya ya’ which the band describe as “the rudy giuliani diss track you never asked for”. Listen to ‘rudy ya ya ya’ on diymag.com now.
Every week on Spotify, we update DIY’s Neu Discoveries playlist with the buzziest, freshest faces. Here’s our pick of the best new tracks:
North London 11-piece (!) Fake Turins specialise in soupy disco-psych resonances, and latest offering ‘Parcel Duchamp’ is no exception. Hinged upon a slaloming bass-line, the groove slips in and out focus, whimsically seduced by any tall tangent or rhythmic excursion that might take its lip-licking fancy. It’s as if LCD Soundsystem were swallowed by a fragmented time-vortex, slopped en masse, then reformulated in a parallel universe of boogie-centric reckoning. And within that confusion, this vignette of funk, setting hips in motion, was thankfully born.
Ethel Cain’s new song ‘Gibson Girl’, the first teaser of debut album ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, is inspired by Evelyn Nesbit, the world’s first supermodel who was also known as the Gibson Girl. “Whenever I start to lose myself and forget what I’m capable of, I just turn to her and she’s the greatest reminder,” Ethel says, and the song - a near-six-minute odyssey full off shuddering synths and Cain’s whispery, inviting voice - is a reminder to realise your own strength.
After returning with the synthy ‘Mr Nice Guy’, her first new music since the release of debut EP ‘Things That Don’t Exist’ early last year, Dublin’s Kynsy has shared new track ‘New Year’. Written on - you guessed it - New Year, the track, we’re told, is inspired by pop legend Roísín Murphy, resulting in a squelchy alt-pop dance number about searching for meaning as a new year rolls in.
“I need a place to grow old, believe me, believe me.” George Ireland pipes on ‘Home’. The London-via-Brighton fourpiece appear to tap into profound emotions far beyond their age would have you believe, deftly conjuring formidable sorrow in the unity between each instrument. ‘Home’ is a wary balance between glistening cymbal crashes and surging guitar swells, effortlessly pairing the candour of Fontaines DC with the lucid breathiness of Massive Attack.
Honeyglaze began as the solo moniker of South London-based Anouska Sokolow, but when the opportunity to present her wares live arose, it was obvious that she needed a band to back her. Enter bassist Tim Curtis and drummer Yuri Shibuici into the fold and a very hasty first meeting, a mere three days before their debut gig as a band…
“I was part of this friend group that revolved around Noush’s old band she was in,” Tim explains of his arrival into the group. “It was commonly accepted that she was the best songwriter we knew. It was really obvious that if Noush was going to ask you to play with her, you should probably give it a go.” “I was very tempted to say, ‘Nah, fuck that!’” laughs Yuri, on the contrary. “I was in a lot of bands at the time, and I thought being in another was going to be quite a lot. But I went to this rehearsal anyway, did the first gig, and then I don’t know… it all fell into place nicely. It easily became the band that I wanted to focus on.”
With their chemistry ignited almost immediately, Honeyglaze’s subsequent rise has felt just as effortless. Initial versions of the songs that would come to make up their self-titled debut, released at the end of this month, were more or less in the can as early as Autumn 2020; it was a YouTube live session filmed around this time, however, that inadvertently became their audition for Dan Carey’s cult Speedy Wunderground label.
”It was very random!” explains Anouska. “It was during lockdown; we hadn’t really spoken to anyone else in months. We had recorded these demos in Yuri’s bedroom, and there were rumours that Dan had seen this live video we did in our friend Fran’s garage. Apparently, he loved it! Everything was just messaging like, ‘Dan’s heard this! Dan wants to meet you!’ So we went down to his studio - we were all nervous as hell - and he was like, ‘I wanna do an album’.”
Months of rehearsals later, and Honeyglaze were primed for the studio. “It was definitely so much bigger than everything we’d done before, in multiple ways,” says Tim of the album’s memorable recording sessions. “How long were the days? 10 hours? And it was weirdly really hot for April. Like, bizarrely hot. It was so beautiful, but we had to
spend all our time in this room with one window instead of outside. At one point I thought I had Covid because I’d got some sort of heat stroke. I had to go into a dark room and lie down...”
Yet, in spite of the sweltering heat, the eventual record breathes as fresh and pure as a spring morning. A quintessential coming of age debut, Anouska’s songs brim with the growing pains of incipient adulthood. Tracks like ‘Female Lead’ - narrating a misguided attempt to reclaim one’s identity by replicating on-screen heroinesor ‘Creative Jealousy’, an old-as-time tale of lowered self esteem, make light work of earning their listeners’ sympathies.
Indeed the whole album is strewn with heart-warming vignettes such as these. Although sourced from personal experience, they’re expressed with such clarity of thought and directness - harking back to ‘80s romantics Aztec Camera or The Sundays, or to contemporaries like Whitney and Julia Jacklin - that it’s easy to see why the trio have already amassed a devoted following. And, despite being at odds with much of the buzzy post-punk emerging from the capital and beyond (many of which have, too, settled into Speedy Wunderground’s prestigious roster), it’s a style of music which has penetrated that world, and marked out its own Honeyglaze-shaped tract of land within it. Were they ever conscious that they were doing something quite different from their contemporaries?
“I think it’s more the other way round,” asserts Anouska. “I feel like, a lot of the time, we’ve been put in with ‘the scene’. We’ve never tried to consciously fit in with it, but a lot of times we’ve been put on line-ups with post-punk bands. It’s funny for us! We don’t make music like that but, for some reason, we’re part of it.”
Scenesters or not, what’s clear is that Honeyglaze are producing some of the most emotive and refreshing indie songs around. Given the time that has passed since their original conception, how does the singer feel about them now? “It’s a relief to get them out to be honest. They’re a moment in time, of how I felt a couple of years ago now,” she answers before chuckling: “I find them quite silly now! Especially ‘Creative Jealousy’ or whatever, it’s like, ‘Ahh, I remember feeling like that.’ They’re like memories...” DIY
With their debut album released this month, Speedy Wunderground’s latest signings are weaving a heady, hypnotic spell.
Words: Elvis Thirlwell.
“It was commonly accepted that Anouska was the best songwriter we knew.”Tim Curtis
Whether he's opening for Harry Styles at Madison Square Garden, modelling for Beyoncé's Ivy Park Rodeo collection or duetting with Shania Twain in their ‘Legends Never Die’ video, his signature fringed mask always stays on. Since he emerged in December 2018 with ‘Big Sky’, a gorgeously haunting country ballad about a failed relationship ("I like him best when he's not around"), Peck has never publicly shown his face. When he jumps on a Zoom call from Nashville, where he's “doing a little work” ahead of the release of brilliant second album ‘Bronco’, it's no technical glitch that the camera isn't switched on.
As his profile has grown to the point where Lady Gaga is asking him to cover one of her songs – last year, he put on a Nashville spin on ‘Born This Way’ – he has been too clever to spoil the effect by supplying concrete biographical details. Orville Peck is a stage name like Lana Del Rey or David Bowie. We know he is Canadian and grew up “somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere”. Today, he tells DIY that he spent “almost five years” living in London in his late-twenties shortly before he introduced Orville to the world, which presumably puts him in his earlyOrville’s musical brilliance was confirmed by 2019 debut album ‘Pony’, a glowing showcase for his rich baritone voice, emotive storytelling and retro country style. He called it “a love letter to a classic country album”, but few of those have a song like ‘Queen of the Rodeo’ in them, which he wrote for Vancouverbased drag queen Thanks Gem. In a way, the fact Orville is so open about his queerness, both in interviews and his lyrics, only makes the other, unknown
“I really love being this source of [queer] visibility for people within the country landscape,” he says today. “But I feel like I'm just doing what everyone from the dawn of time has done, which is writing about love. It's not hard for me to do. I have a hard time not being honest; I REALLY hate lying. So it's an easy responsibility, because I just get to go up there and be myself.”
Because his mystique is so carefully crafted and beguiling, certain social media sleuths have become obsessed with discovering who he “really is” and what he did before he became Orville Peck. He thinks they're kind of missing the point: when DIY asks if we should really think of the mask as “a look,” he replies in a heartbeat: “100 percent!”
“I'm someone who grew up with the idea that any type of performance went hand in hand with an aesthetic and a production value and kind of being extra, you know?” he says. “I don't really subscribe to the notion that something has to be boring or toned down for it to be sincere. I mean, this is the most sincere
thing I've ever done in my life, and it's obviously very extra-looking at times, but that's part of who I am and part of who I like to be as an artist.” Orville finds it frustrating when anyone suggests his mask – or look – could detract from this sincerity. “I think it's kind of shortsighted of people to think that the two things are mutually exclusive,” he says.
In this sense, Orville sees himself as a successor to country icons of the 1960s and 1970s – Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard – who operated at “this cool intersection of sincerity and theatricality.” Though the images they projected were larger than life, no one doubted that they meant what they sang. Legend has it that when Parton stays overnight in a hotel, she sleeps with a wig next to her so that she can even give us Dolly during a fire drill. Maybe we should think of Orville’s mask in a similar way: as an unnegotiable component of his public persona.
In fairness, it's hard to argue with the raw emotional honesty that radiates from ‘Bronco’, his rollicking, rousing and often very moving second album. “I don’t want you to be afraid, let me see you cry,” he sings on ‘C'mon Baby, Cry’. It sounds like a lost country classic from back in the day, but grapples with a very modern phenomenon: toxic masculinity.
Though Orville addresses ‘C'mon Baby, Cry’ to “a sad boy just like me,” he says it's based on his own personal journey. “It's advice that someone gave me, because I used to be someone who found it hard to be vulnerable and say what I want and need,” he says. "I found it hard to be kind to myself, to go easy on myself, to encourage myself, all of those things, for a very long time. For most of my life, actually. And I finally learned how to, so I guess that song is me sort of encouraging someone else to do the same.”
"I just didn't give a fuck anymore. I felt like I had nothing to prove to anybody."
Orville’s got an A-list little black book these days; here are some of the names nestled within it.
Queen Bey recruited Peck to front last year's cowboy-themed Ivy Park Rodeo collection.
LADY GAGA
Gaga asked Peck to put a Nashville spin on her queer rights anthem ‘Born This Way’, and he really delivers.
TRIXIE MATTEL
Peck and Drag Race star Mattel are a squabbling married couple on a rollicking cover of the country classic ‘Jackson’.
SHANIA TWAIN
Peck duets with one of his heroes on ‘Legends Never Die’, a wistful highlight from his ‘Show Pony’ EP.
K.D. LANG
Peck gives Lang a suitably grand spoken word intro on the Iron Hoof Remix of her song ‘Miss Chatelaine’.
It's no coincidence that ‘Bronco’ continues Orville’s run of horse-themed record titles: he followed ‘Pony’ with 2020’s ‘Show Pony’ EP, home to his Shania Twain duet and a fabulously dramatic cover of Bobbie Gentry’s 1969 hit ‘Fancy’. On one level, the equestrian leitmotif plays into the singer’s campy cowboy image. But on another, he says the titles tell us something about his headspace when making each record. “For me, ‘Pony’ was an album very much about loneliness,” he explains. “And it was me putting myself out there for the first time, so I was feeling a little bit like a little scared, lonely pony.” But, by the time ‘Show Pony’ came out less than 18 months later, his career had exploded. “Suddenly I had this kind of confidence, and [the music] was showy and glitzy and a bit more, you know, rhinestone-y, so that's why it was called ‘Show Pony’,” he says.
After the rhinestone-studded confidence of the ‘Show Pony’ era came an almighty crash that eventually gave birth to ‘Bronco’. "I wrote this album coming out of a really terrible depression,” Orville recalls. “I was ready to stop making music, my tour had just been cancelled because of Covid, my personal life was in shambles. And so I kind of did this big overhaul with my life.” This involved writing songs solely for himself, “for the first time in ages,” without trying to second-guess what Orville Peck should sound like. In time, a “beautifully cathartic” body of work started to take shape. “It just felt absolutely freeing,” he says. “And when I looked at the end result, I thought, 'This is just so unrestrained and untamed and wild and free. And at that point it was obvious. I was like, ‘I think this one's called ‘Bronco’’.”
Orville says his depression was caused by “a mixture” of personal and professional events, but as you'd expect, he's much more comfortable talking about the latter in specific terms. “It sounds a little silly, I suppose, but I had trouble getting used to this success that I'd found very quickly,” he says. “There were so many new expectations on me from other people, and new expectations from myself, that I was kind of running on empty and burned out and uninspired. I didn't even have a home at the time because we were on tour; all my stuff was in storage.” Then when Covid hit, he found he had no choice but to confront “the other part of my life that I had been ignoring and neglecting for a long time.”
By confronting his demons head-on after being in such a “dark, unhappy place,” Orville reached a point of “radical self-acceptance”. “I just didn't give a fuck anymore,” he says. “I felt like I had nothing to prove to anybody.”
Unsurprisingly given the album's soul-searching origins, strands of darkness are woven into ‘Bronco’’s rich tapestry. “I sat around last year wishing so many times that I would die,” he sings on ‘The Curse of the Blackened Eye’, a song that alludes to a physically and
“There's a sense of relief and comfort with accepting who you are and being proud of the fact you are different.”
“You put your right foot in… your right foot out…”
emotionally abusive relationship.
‘The Curse of the Blackened Eye’ taps into country’s capacity for tackling tough subject matter, but it also feels like an incredibly vulnerable moment for Orville. When he sings, “It ain't the letting go, it's more about the things that you take with / And I can feel it getting closer with every kiss,” he seems to be suggesting that past relationship trauma still haunts him when he meets someone new. In characteristic fashion, though, he'll only be drawn so far into discussing what the song is about. “I kind of realised that I had this trauma following me around for a long time, and it still follows me around,” he says. “It doesn't matter if I'm sitting in my hotel room alone or at the GRAMMYs, it's still always there just, you know, keeping an eye on me. And that's sort of what the concept for the song was.” Where does this trauma come from? “I mean, I went through a heavy personal thing in my life, relationshipwise ..." is all he’ll concede today.
‘Bronco’ also contains more wistful moments such as ‘Blush’, a song Orville calls his “love letter to London”. When he sings “some of us, we gotta saddle up and ride,” it's a stirring reminder of why he can lay claim to being the world’s coolest cowboy. Because he has realised his artistic vision so beautifully, it's difficult now to imagine him, pre-fame, pinging around on the London Underground. But actually, he’s happy to look back on this period of his life in relatively unambiguous terms.
“I'm kind of an East London boy,” he says brightly. “I lived in London Fields and Stoke Newington for a long time. I used to hang out at The Glory, which is the gay pub in Homerton, and also at Dalston Superstore. But at the same time, I'd also hang out in Soho and bounce around all over the place.” Soho? Surely he never frequented G-A-Y, a camptastic Soho bar where the only concession to country music might be Shania Twain commanding “let's go girls!” every so often. “I'm definitely more of an East London guy,” he replies with a laugh, “but that's not to say I haven't been to G-A-Y and Heaven.”
Orville looks back fondly on his London years because it was there that he began building the identity he presents today. “I was acting, doing a lot of classical theatre – Shakespeare, Chekhov – but I was also starting to write music again,” he recalls. “I actually started working on ‘Pony’ at the tail end of my time living in London. You know, I was in my late twenties and it was like my second round of formative years in a way. I really found my autonomy and the kind of artist I wanted to be. I had this lightbulb moments of realising that I could do all these different things that I love, and put them into one thing and make it sincere.”
Though Orville Peck appeared to arrive in 2018 as a fully formed alt-country superstar – a glistening synthesis of traditional Nashville glitz and modern unapologetic queerness – what we see now is the butterfly that emerged from a sometimes uncomfortable cocoon. “I spent most of my life trying to be someone I wasn't, trying to be likeable, trying to change myself somehow to be successful,” he admits. “But at some point, that just gets old. There's a sense of relief and comfort with accepting who you are and being proud of the fact you are different and kind of an outsider.”
Rather touchingly, he says being hired by Beyoncé for last year's Ivy Park Rodeo campaign erased the last traces of his imposter syndrome. “It just gave me this, like, really obvious and loud sort of validation,” he says. "I was like, ‘OK, Beyoncé knows who you are and she likes what you do. And she wants to have you as part of this thing she does’. I mean, what could be more affirming than that?"
Being an outsider is as fundamental to Orville’s identity as being a cowboy: for him, the two go hand-in-hand. As a lonely kid who “always felt out of place,” he was drawn to the strong, solitary and yes, homoerotic image of the cowboy as a kind of proud lone ranger. “Even though I didn't know it at the time,” he says, “I think I connected with it because it was the only character I saw who was an outsider and a loner, but had that celebrated as their power rather than their weakness. The cowboy was always coming into town to save the day.”
Ever since then, Orville has felt country to the core, but also like a punk. “You know, I played in punk bands for a long time, I was a drummer,” he says. “And I feel like there are a lot of parallels between punk and country music because they’re both about challenging the status quo. Female country feels very punk to me because it's about challenging the patriarchy.”
Orville characterises Lil Nas X – who climbed the charts in 2019 with ‘Old Town Road’, an innovative countrytrap hybrid, then came out as gay when it was number one – as the genre’s latest major disruptor. “The funny thing about country is that it goes through this cycle every generation or so,” he says. “When Willie Nelson first came out [in the 1960s], everyone in Nashville was flipping out – like, who is this hippie singing about smoking weed? Then when Shania Twain got to Nashville [in the 1990s], people were like: ‘This isn't country, it's pop music. She's showing her belly button and being provocative.’”
For Orville, this cycle is what makes country “subversive,” or at least gives it the potential to be. He has no real
From one country icon to another, Orville and Shania Twain’s collaboration on ‘Legends Never Die’ lived up to its title…
"She's a friend of mine now. I went to see her Vegas residency and got to hang out with her in the dressing room. I definitely have some, like, disassociating moments around her where I feel like I leave my body and I'm kind of looking at myself and her and thinking: 'What is going on? That's Shania Twain!' But at the same time, I will say she is one of the most inspiring, talented, strong, incredible people I've ever met. I feel really lucky to know her, even beyond the fact she's
“I don't really subscribe to the notion that something has to be boring or toned down for it to be sincere.”
Shania Twain."
affection for cookie-cutter country songs about “trucks and beer” because “that's not really coming from a place of challenging people's thoughts, or telling a story that's gonna intrigue them”. “But,” he continues, “when ‘Old Town Road’ came out in 2019, that made total sense to me, because it’s challenging the idea of what country music can be and actually evolving the genre.”
With time coming to an end, DIY asks about Orville’s favourite Dolly Parton song, ‘Tennessee Homesick Blues’. Written for her 1984 film Rhinestone, it's a sleek and shiny country bop with layers of longing, regret and steely determination lurking just beneath the surface. When Parton delivers the payoff line – “it's hard to be a diamond in a rhinestone world” - it could almost be a mantra for her entire career.
“That's my favourite line in the song, and kind of my favourite Dolly line in general,” Orville says. “Without wishing to sound conceited, I grew up as a very singular kind of kid. I was always different and super creative, and for the longest time I was sort of bullied into thinking that was a weakness. But as I've gotten older – and I say this because it took me a long time to get there, like 30 years – I recognise that me being a diamond in a rhinestone world is ABSOLUTELY my strength.”
Most excitingly of all, this diamond hasn't even been buffed to his full sheen yet. “I feel like I'm in the healthiest place of my life at the moment,” he says. “I'm honestly just raring to go.”
‘Bronco’ is out 8th April via Columbia. DIY
AFTER YEARS OF HAVING THEIR CUTTING MESSAGES IGNORED BY THE WIDER INDUSTRY, BOB VYLAN ARE MORE THAN CONTENT TO FORGE THEIR OWN PATH. AND, AHEAD OF THE RELEASE OF SECOND ALBUM ‘BOB VYLAN PRESENTS THE PRICE OF LIFE’, IT’S PAYING OFF...
Words: Emma Wilkes. Photos: Eva Pentel.
There was once a time, in the not too distant past, when nobody in the music industry wanted to know Bob Vylan. The truth they were speaking - about institutional racism, class struggle, capitalism and violence - was too cutting, too raw and too uncomfortable to be palatable enough for corporate success. Radio stations didn’t want to hear about vocalist Bobby Vylan’s neighbours calling him the N-word, as he recounts on breakout single ‘We Live Here’, for fear of upsetting advertisers. One PR agency refused to work with them due to the lyrics of their song ‘Pulled Pork’: a scathing indictment of racist police brutality which refused to condemn violent resistance.
softened their tone. But in reality, what they had to say was too important for either of those to be an option. And so, instead, they went their own way, operating completely independently. They booked their own shows, hand-delivered vinyl and CDs to record shops, and paid for everything out of their own pockets; everything they release is via their own label, Ghost Theatre, meaning that, unlike many, they own all of the rights to their music. Nobody can tell them what they can and can’t say.
But despite being the enemy of the capitalist music machine, years of resolutely going their own way has started to ripple out above the underground. Over the past two years alone, they’ve been nominated for awards, and bagged support slots with Biffy Clyro and The Offspring - the latter of which put them on the stage of Wembley Arena. Most importantly, perhaps, people are listening; even those same industry bigwigs who initially turned their backs on them now want a piece of the Bob Vylan pie.
“The band has gotten itself to a point where you can’t really ignore us,” proclaims the vocalist, seated with his similarly-named bandmate. “When you talk about punk music in the UK, you have to mention our name. Now, all of these cowards that were too scared to give us a chance [want to work with us] because there’s no risk involved anymore. Before, they didn’t want us. We’ll fight tooth and nail to be able to say what we need and want to say whether those channels help us or not.”
Now they’re in this position, they could probably snap their fingers and a hefty record deal would be offered up, but the band refuse to participate in these broken, unfair mainstream music pathways. “Everyone is making money [from these deals] except for the artist,” continues the vocalist. “You have very little control over the direction of the art that you are creating. As a band, we cannot sign those things away.”
“The band has gotten itself to a point where you can’t really ignore us.”
Bobby Vylan
“People [need to be] more comfortable saying no to things,” asserts Bobbie. “Artists are saying yes to things they shouldn’t necessarily be saying yes to. In this industry, so many people want [success] so much, so it can be scary to say, ‘I’m not going to do this thing, because it doesn’t feel right’. But I think that if we all get better at saying no to things that we should be saying no to, it works out for all of us.”
The passion the Bobs speak with is infectious. They light up with furious energy when topics like these come up, and it’s easy to get the sense that, if left uninterrupted, they could speak on it eloquently for hours. Beyond just identifying a fundamental problem with their industry, they also have the vision to help resolve it. Hoping to build upon the foundations they’ve laid with Ghost Theatre, the aim is to create an enterprise that can help other artists who have been in their position, albeit in a fairer way. They want to see greater transparency over financial matters, believing artists need to talk to each other more about the business side of their operations to ensure nobody is being ripped off. And of course, they’d happily see the phrase ‘paid with exposure’ be thrown onto the fire. “Why is it that in music and in art, artists are always made to feel like they should just be happy [to get to do what they love], and asking to get paid for your work is so strange?” the vocalist questions. “In what other industry does that happen?”
Crucially, whether it comes to the music industry or, indeed, the wider global landscape, Bob Vylan understand that in a capitalist world, money is everything - and often a literal case of life or death.
“Everything is connected to your bank account,” Bobbie says. “It dictates everything you do. Life is made unavailable to us without money.” And it’s this thought that forms the backbone of ‘Bob Vylan Presents The Price of Life’, with the subject leaking into the vast majority of their songs.
Sometimes it’s overt, such as in the corrosive, thumping rap rock of ‘GDP’, which puts under the microscope the way the significance of money changes depending on your class, and the way working class people are sometimes forced to turn to illegal means to survive. In other ways, it’s less so: the trumpetled ‘Health Is Wealth’ reveals the relationship between food and class, with “the killing of kids with two pound chicken and chips” eventually metamorphosing into the most punk rock song about healthy eating you’ll ever hear. Later, ‘Drug War’ discusses the contrast between selling drugs illegally and pharmaceutical companies raking in colossal profits from prescribing drugs with the
potential to cause life-ruining (and sometimes life-ending) addictions.
In ‘Pretty Songs’, everything comes full circle. “The music you hear on the radio is connected to money,” Bobby says. “[The radio] doesn’t want songs about capitalism or food deserts or any kind of social hardship that people are going through. They want shit that’s going to make motherfuckers spend their money and party on the weekend, buy drinks and not worry about anything going on in life. Then there’s an advertisement for a new thing that you need. It’s all connected.”
If there’s anything the Bobs want anyone approaching ‘...The Price of Life’ to recognise, it’s the importance of connecting the dots. “Hopefully [this album] will show [people] some connections between things that they maybe didn’t make before and
get them to think about them when they come across them in life,” says Bobbie. An unmissable album that shines the most blazing of lights into the darkest of corners, it tears injustice apart with sharp-tongued finesse, aggression and, at points, a good dash of humour. Yet still, Bob Vylan’s epiphanic second accomplishes more than that.
This band is vital. Their words are everything, and it’s time to start listening.
‘Bob Vylan Presents The Price Of Life’ is out 22nd April via Ghost Theatre. DIY
“We’ll fight tooth and nail to be able to say what we need and want to say.”Bobby Vylan
“There are always going to be judgmental people who say we don't know anything, because we’re young. But we do know.”
- Eloise Wong
When their single ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’ went viral, The Linda Lindas staked their claim as the next in line to the feminist punk throne. Debut album
It’s a normal day in the life of a fourteenyear-old. You go to school, you sit through freshman biology class. You go home, trawl through your homework, and get ready to go on tour alongside Jawbreaker and Best Coast with your all-female garage-punk band that has already been lauded by Bikini Kill, Paramore and Alice Bag. Normal, right?
‘Growing Up’ finds the quartet making a whole lot more noise.
Words: Cady Siregar.
Well, perhaps not. But it’s a reality that’s becoming increasingly familiar for The Linda Lindas: sisters Mila (drums, aged 11) and Lucia de la Garza (guitar, aged 14), cousin Eloise Wong (bass, aged 13), and family friend Bela Salazar (guitar, aged 17). The foursome were mostly playing new wave and post-punk covers when they were invited by Kristin Kontrol (of Dum Dum Girls) to play at all-women music festival, Girlschool LA, in 2018; when their performance of their song ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’ at the LA Public Library for AAPI Heritage Month went viral in 2021, however, everything changed overnight. To date, it’s racked up over 1.3 million views on YouTube, and counting.
It’s not hard to understand why ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’ got the attention it did. A blistering rager of a punk tune that clocks in at just under two minutes, it was written after a boy in Mila’s class told her that he’d been instructed to avoid Chinese people. Upset, hurt and angered by the experience, Mila and Eloise decided to channel their energy into a song.
“You are a racist, sexist boy / And to have really take the joy / Fake dance, shoot and destroy,” snarls
Eloise amid a riot grrrl-inspired torrent of heavy guitars and thundering drums. “We rebuild what you destroy,” is their unapologetic message.
About a week after the video went viral, it was announced that The Linda Lindas had signed to Epitaph (Bad Religion, The Offspring), but the band’s ascent had been bubbling for a while. Through Girlschool LA, the group were able to connect with female rock heroes such as Best Coast’s Bethany Cosentino and Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Karen O, and were asked by legendary Bikini Kill vocalist and riot grrrl pioneer Kathleen Hanna to open for the band at the Hollywood Palladium in 2019, where they covered ‘Rebel Girl’.
“I mean, for me, I've listened to their music and looked up to them my whole life,” says Lucia of the experience today. “It’s so amazing that they even know about us.” “I grew up going to shows and listening to Best Coast,” adds Eloise. “I never imagined that we'd be supported by them. Or even be in a band!”
Music has never been far away from The Linda Lindas. Mila and Lucia’s father is Grammywinning producer Carlos de la Garza, who’s worked with the likes of Paramore, Wolf Alice and Cherry Glazerr, while Eloise’s dad co-founded the Asian-American culture magazine Giant Robot. The sisters even had the unique experience of having their debut album recorded and produced by their father. Written during the pandemic, the 10-track LP was put to tape during their summer vacation from school.
“When we were little, music was right there,” Lucia nods. “It was never out of reach.”
The band’s debut album is, very fittingly, titled ‘Growing Up’. While grounded in the band’s signature loud guitars, it draws from eclectic influences such as new wave and garage pop, threaded together by earnest lyricism. It includes a studio version of ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’, while other gems include a song about Bela’s cat (‘Nino’), quarantine blues (‘Why’), and of course, what it means to grow up as a whole.
“We’ll sing about things we don’t know… We’ll show what it means to be young and growing up,” Lucia sings on the title track. “When we get burned from jumping in the fire / We’ll never tire ‘cause we’ll always find ways to fly higher.”
It’s a reminder that The Linda Lindas, just like
everyone else, are still trying to figure life out.
A common theme on the album is worrying about things the band can’t control. What they can do, though, is make music as a form of catharsis, and remind their listeners - and the people around them - that they aren’t the only ones struggling, and that you’re never too young to start making a change. “It’s hard trying to figure out how to say that, to talk about the issues we want to talk about while also reminding people that we're not perfect. Nobody is,” says Lucia. “We're never going to hit an age where we know all the answers. We felt that because we were so young, there’s nothing we could do, and that we had to wait until we were older to bring in a change. It helps when people reach out to us, like after the video went viral.”
With their members being of Chinese, Mexican and Salvadoran descent, everyday racism and sexism is something all four musicians have already witnessed and encountered. The band credit their parents for encouraging them to become more aware of current events, and their politically-conscious and sociallyaware mindset, at such a young age, is refreshing. Writing songs about their feelings of helplessness allowed them to reclaim some of their frustrations, they say, while also directly addressing wider problems in society.
“A lot of it started with the Trump administration,” says Lucia. “We learned more every day. Something was always happening on the news, something that was out of our control. It would be this feeling of, ‘What am I supposed to do about it?’” “You grow up around sexism and racism,” says Eloise. “It's just something that we're around so much that it gets tiring. For me, there has to be something musically,
like writing ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’, to get all of this frustration out.”
When we speak today, it is almost the one-year anniversary of the Atlanta spa shootings, where six Asian women were murdered. Anti-Asian violence has skyrocketed during the pandemic, with Asians being unfairly targeted as the scapegoats for the virus outbreak. All over the United States, there have been frequent incidents of Asians being assaulted and attacked by strangers, and even more going unreported by the media. The ‘Stop Asian Hate’ movement has gained momentum, but anti-Asian racism still runs rampant.
“It hurts a lot to see people denying that racism still exists,” says Lucia. “There’s no excuse for
oppressing people. That shouldn't be hard to comprehend. Sometimes we feel this helplessness, but we need to stop and take a moment and reflect. We had a lot of moments to reflect during lockdown. I hope that the video increased awareness.”
And yet, the band have to fight the double-edged sword of being lauded for their political awareness, while also being patronised for the fact that they’re still barely teenagers. “There’s a lot of people who call us ‘cute’ for talking about important issues, and for playing in a band,” says Lucia. “We play shows, and they say, ‘Wow, that's cute’. And we’re like, well, we take music seriously and take these issues seriously. You wouldn't tell a boy they were cute! You would tell a band full of boys, ‘Wow. You're so talented. You're so brave for speaking up about these issues’. It's cool when they think our outfits are cute and they think our style is cute, but it’s not cool when they say it’s cute that we play music.”
Adds Eloise: “There are always going to be judgmental people who say we don't know anything, because we’re young. But we do know. We’re reminded of it, and we see it. We want to keep growing as the world changes.”
Ultimately, for the band, it’s about trying to make the world a slightly better place – one punk song at a time. “You have to take in the big picture,” continues Lucia. “We know we’re not going to stop things immediately; it’s going to take time and effort. We want to put in the work, and we know that there are so many people who want to make where we are better.”
‘Growing Up’ is out 8th April via Epitaph. DIY
“There’s a lot of people who call us ‘cute’ for talking about important issues, and for playing in a band. You wouldn't tell a boy they were cute.”Lucia de la Garza
A proudly queer band with a core ethos of self-acceptance, the Glaswegian sextet found themselves spending some of their first hours in the city not chomping down on tacos or supping margaritas as is the norm, but attending a protest, flanked by armoured vehicles and rebutted by angry, staunchly conservative counter-protesters. “We were obviously scared because we know what America can be like, but no one wavered, they were being solid as fuck. There were armoured cars but everyone stayed. It was very inspirational,” vocalist James Potter recalls. “There is that conservative side that we knew about, but we were also surrounded by all these amazing queer people. We got lost on the way and this 70-year-old gay cowboy just started explaining what’s happening and pointed us towards the protest.” “He came over, gave us the quest and went on his way…” nods drummer Jack Martin, sagely.
There’s an increasing sense with Walt Disco - completed by guitarists Finlay McCarthy and Lewis Carmichael, bassist Charlie Lock and keyboard player Dave Morgan - that wherever they go, they’ll find and broaden their tribe. Before we meet today, the band played a chaotic house party that was marketed as a lesbian wedding so as not to get shut down by police (“When we got told that, we were jumping for joy,” says Jack, pink cowboy hat perched jauntily atop his head). Even at the location for today’s shoot - the none-more-Texas Little Longhorn Saloon - an initial selection of raised eyebrows from the locals soon turns into a series of requests for selfies.
“They might have never met someone like me or us, but if you’re open to getting to know someone different from yourself then you’re gonna make a lot of friends,” says James. “I want to meet people and share my friends with them,” grins Finlay. “I mean, I never thought I’d be in a saloon in Texas, with neon blue cowboy boots on, holding chickens. James got shat on by a chicken. Lewis got shat on the other night before a gig too.”
By what, we ask? “Whatever a Texan pigeon is?” James chuckles. “A hawk? It was the eagle from the bank notes!”
They might be prone to a little aviary-based exaggeration, but there’s a core feeling of playfulness, unity and fun to everything that Walt Disco do. Blessed with the sort of cheekbones that have already scored James modelling work with Celine and always, collectively, dressed better than 98% of people in the room, when the band first arrived they were quickly compared to the likes of HMLTD: art school types who prioritised aesthetic. The reality, however, is a world away from any sort of posturing. “We find that sometimes people have an expectation or an assumption of what we’re about, but we’re a band for everyone,” Jack asserts. “I believed in Walt Disco long before I joined the band, and I still have to pinch myself sometimes - finding that
“If you’re open to getting to know someone different from yourself then you’re gonna make a lot of friends.”
- James Potter
could indulge in every experimental whim and flight of fancy that came their way. Today, they gleefully recall times spent attempting to record the exact metallic clank of a particularly pleasing fire door, and creating the scattershot electronics on ‘Those Kept Close’ that they describe as “the sound of R2D2 crying”. “There’s bits even when we play it live where I’m like, my god! That robot! Someone help them!” exclaims James. Whether leaning into icy ‘80s pop on ‘Selfish Lover’, swooning through the heart-wrenching croon of ‘Be An Actor’ or coming on all Bugsy Malone on ‘How Cool Are You?’ (“That’s one of me and Jack’s favourite films of all time!” the vocalist cries gleefully when we suggest the comparison. “Even now when I was deciding on a haircut I wanted Tallulah’s hair…”), you never really know what’s going to come next.
What connects the mad patchwork of dots together, however, is the sense of genuine sincerity behind it all. Walt Disco aren’t throwing shit at the wall just to see what sticks; ‘Unlearning’ is the giddy result of genuine freedom of expression, and the fun you can have when you allow yourself to play with all the toys. In a previous interview, James spoke of opening track ‘Weightless’ as an ode to “gender euphoria”: the joyful antithesis of the dysphoria more commonly spoken about in queer headlines. “For trans and non-binary people, there’s a lot of bad news, and even in art and film people lean towards telling the tragic stories,” James explains, “but there’s so much happiness in it - in being able to express yourself to the world so you CAN be happy.” “Oh please don’t cry / It’s never too late to start,” goes its emotive refrain.
There is sadness within ‘Unlearning’ yes - not least in ‘Macilent’, which was written in the wake of an attack on three trans women in Hollywood last year. “I was just fed up with seeing stuff like that on the
Walt Disco’s influences span far and wide. They explain what they’ve picked up from a few of them.
SOPHIE
Finlay: SOPHIE is an artist who worked with that patchwork attitude. She’d create all of these samples on synths and then mash them together, and I love that.
Jack: Now, SOPHIE samples are a recognised genre of samples; you hear a SOPHIE sample and you just know.
James: It took them five years to do seven songs with ‘Hats’, but it’s perfect and a lot of people in Scotland’s favourite ever record.
Finlay: I’ve listened to that album hundreds of times, but I’ll still find things I haven’t noticed before on it. People call it an audiophile album, but I think they were just fucking around and enjoying it and playing with the toys they had to hand.
James: They’re an insanely good
news,” James nods quietly. But even within those moments, the backbone is one of hope. Walt Disco might not go around mouthing off about Brexit, but theirs is a personal revolution - and one that feels twenty times more actively political than most bands who’d adorn themselves with the title.
“Politics isn’t about changing the biggest thing in the world straight away; tiny changes in attitudes in your community and in the way you speak to people and accept people - those create bigger shockwaves,” says Finlay, as James picks up: “Writing about emotion and talking about emotion will create better people who vote progressively. The arts and being in tune with your emotions leads to you wanting good in the world.”
Walt Disco are people who undeniably want to put as much good into the world as possible. They’re kind souls, making bright and brilliant music, who are trying to hitch as many people onto their gleeful wagon of freedom and fun as possible. In every town they pass through - from Aberdeen to Austin - you suspect there is a confused kid desperately grateful for their visibility and existence.
And, at their core, the band’s members seem just as indebted to the communal safe space that Walt Disco provides, too. Their hopes for ‘Unlearning’?
“Empathy,” replies Finlay. “And the feeling that people are being empathised with,” nods Jack. “That, as people who are being perceived as different, we’ll have our day.”
“This album is your friend,” smiles James, “and so are we.”
‘Unlearning’ is out now via Lucky Number. DIY
“THE MAJORITY OF [THE ALBUM] IS LOVE SONGS, BUT I THINK - LIKE IN REAL LIFE - I GET SIDETRACKED BY THINGS.”
ole Model has always been drawn to juxtaposition. From hiding themes of anxiety in songs rife with sunshine-soaked melodies, to the emo-esque cover art of his upcoming pop-heavy debut full-length ‘Rx’, challenging what people expect from him has always been something he tries to do. It seems only right, then, that for our time with him, DIY continues that streak, bringing the rising pop megastar to a place you would never expect to find him: a Wetherspoons pub garden.
£4 double Jameson and Coke in hand, it’s admittedly a somewhat different vibe for Role Model - aka Tucker Pillsbury - who has spent the last week rubbing shoulders with celebs at Paris Fashion Week. “I shouldn’t be at those events whatsoever,” he laughs. “I’m sure everyone is like, ‘Who the fuck is this kid?!’”
Though still prone to a fanboy moment - “Joe Jonas came up to me and I went back to the hotel and was jumping up the fucking walls!” - it’s part of the new VIP lifestyle he’ll have to start getting used to as his star continues to ascend. With three EPs under his belt (2017 debut ‘Arizona In The Summer’, 2019’s ‘Oh, How Perfect’ and 2020’s ‘Our Little Angel’) and a viral hit in the form of 2020 pop bop ‘blind’, Tucker has already amassed a legion of devoted fans. Now, his long-awaited debut full-length is set to arrive this month to fully silence any fashionista doubters.
Written over the last two years, ‘Rx’ is centred around Tucker’s current relationship. Despite starting off as a collection of love songs, he soon found himself getting bored by the tracks and decided to approach the record from a new angle. “I wanted to change the perspective of it,” he notes. “I would say the majority of it is love songs, but I think - like I do in real life - I get sidetracked by things throughout the album.”
And what did his girlfriend think about that sudden change of tune? “She hasn’t heard any of it!” he laughs. “I don’t show anyone anything until it’s out. Maybe that’s a bit evil…”
Wanting to find “cooler” and more creative perspectives to show his affection, ‘Rx’ sees Tucker turning away from the traditional and reinventing what a love song can be. Opener ‘Die For My Bitch’ finds him listing everything he would do for his girlfriend (including falling out of a plane), while ‘neverletyougo’ sees him “talking my shit” about his partner and showing her off, with instantly quotable lyrics including “respectfully, I think about you sexually”.
Perhaps the most startling dedication comes in the form of ‘Masturbation Song’, which had the Instagram comment section under his track list reveal going wild. “I love click-baity lyrics and song titles,” he smiles. “Drake does it fucking amazingly and pulls you in immediately and doesn’t waste a line. I look up to people like that, and it happens a lot in rap which really inspires me. So ‘Masturbation Song’ is where I was using masturbation as a way to show you how much I think about you and how much I love you, even when I’m touching myself. Using that to show how much you care about that person.”
“I LOVE CLICKBAITY LYRICS AND SONG TITLES.”
ways that his music stands out. The album’s first single, ‘If Jesus Saves, She’s My Type’, stands as a prime example of this, hiding a sad song behind a dance number. “I actually lost like, 4000 followers after that song,” he sighs. “There were some hardcore Christians commenting on the YouTube and my mom saw and called me freaking out. I was like, ‘One: get off of there. Two: I’m not looking, you shouldn’t be looking, it’s fine.’”
How are they going to react to the lyric, “I saw Jesus kissing on the same sex / Dancing to some Aphex” in ‘Life Is Funny’, we wonder? “That’s what I said!” Tucker laughs. “That’s a bummer if it’s going to hurt people’s feelings, but it’s not about God, it’s not about Jesus, it’s not about Satan. That song is
about people not being what they say they are and what you think they are. If people can’t understand that, that sucks, but it’s good to clean the house of those people if they can’t wrap their heads around the music.”
Elsewhere on the record, Tucker moves away from his relationship and gets more selfreflective, closing the album with ‘Can You Say The Same’ and its title track, which finds him exploring “a bunch of shit that drives me crazy and drags me down and induces depression”. “It’s very much about myself, which is kind of the music I started making and I think, hopefully, people will appreciate that,” he smiles. “A lot of the songs are cool and catchy, and it’s fun to try and find things out about my relationship - I get how the internet works - but I think people will appreciate me talking about these things again.”
Never one to shy away from his emotions, Role Model has positioned himself among the new wave of male pop acts such as peers Lauv and Conan Gray who are unafraid to confront their feelings, with his hero, The 1975’s Matty Healy, acting as his main source of inspiration. “I don’t know why everything is so sad right now,” he muses, “but I think it has a lot to do with phones and social media. And I sound
like a fucking grandpa when I say that, but I know why these kids are so depressed and you can hear it in the songs they’re putting on TikTok. It’s like, you have social anxiety because you’re talking to people on the phone all day and the second you have to go outside and talk to someone, it’s going to be extremely overwhelming!
“I just think that more and more kids are depressed, so music is going to get depressing,” he continues. “I just hope that people find a way to make it unique, because it all just feels very repetitive and safe and a bit dry right now. But it’s great that they’re using music as an outlet and as support, because you need it and it helps. I think everyone should go buy a guitar and mumble some shit over it!”
Above all, Tucker hopes that ‘Rx’ resonates with people, but also proves his abilities as more than just a famous name. Admitting that its impact will probably be a slowburner, he’s hopeful that his self-professed “non-radio friendly” anti-pop lyrics masked in infectious beats will cement his status as an up-and-coming songwriter of clout. “Lyrically, this album is my favourite thing ever, and it’s just a huge step up,” he beams. “I’m petty and I want [it to get some] achievements. It’d be cool to get a little trophy!”
‘Rx’ is out 8th April via Interscope / Polydor. DIY
WRITTEN AS THEY RELOCATED TO LONDON, Fontaines DC’S THIRD ALBUM
‘SKINTY FIA’ IS AN INTERROGATION OF CULTURAL IDENTITY AND “MUTATED IRISHNESS” SET OVER THEIR MOST EXPERIMENTAL MUSIC YET.
Words: Will Richards.
kinty Fia’, the title of Fontaines DC’s third album as well as its best song, is an old Irish phrase used often by drummer Tom Coll’s great aunt.
Literally translated as “the damnation of the deer,” it was used as a term of exasperation by the Donegal native, as one would sigh and mutter, “For fuck’s sake…”
“It’s a bastardisation of Irish culture,” Tom says of the titular phrase, one which spoke deeply to the band, who have all moved across the Irish Sea to London in the past two years.
“None of us speak Irish, but now we’re in London we feel like we’re fighting for this Irish culture that is kind of not real,” the drummer adds. “It tied in with the album and made total sense.”
DIY is speaking to Fontaines DC at their latest crossroads. After a period of settling into their new lives, learning how to live off the road and exploring domesticity in the English capital, Tom and frontman Grian Chatten call in from their separate homes in North London, the day before the band leave for a tour that’s set to stretch over the entirety of 2022 and beyond.
“I’m about to not have a home for a year,” Grian muses. “My home will be the tour, and I’m apprehensive about it because in order to become comfortable on tour, you have to let everything else go. It excites me, but to have these extremities in your life has a real effect.”
‘Skinty Fia’ follows 2020’s ‘A Hero’s Death’, a reactive second album that Grian calls “sad and introspective” - one borne of the feelings of uncertainty and displacement that the band’s mammoth tour for debut album ‘Dogrel’ brought with it. By their own admission, Fontaines DC were falling apart at the seams by the end of the tour and, as guitarist Carlos O’Connell told DIY in 2020, the greatest achievement of the process for him wasn’t when they headlined Brixton Academy or slayed Glastonbury, but the moment he and Grian “just really, really fucking addressed” the self-professed “litany of resentments” they had built up against each other.
For Grian, these resentments stretched towards the band’s audience as well. “I used to get angry at them whenever we played,” he says, revealing that he’s unable to properly eat while on tour, often having a snack in the
– GRIAN CHATTEN
.”
mornings and being unable to stomach anything else until after they play because he wants to be “light and fluffy and energetic” on stage. “We’d be six months into a tour and looking like absolute shite, and I’d resent our audience and think they were the reason that I had ended up in this state,” he says.
In the intervening years, Grian says he’s begun to enjoy being on stage again, and is setting out on the ‘Skinty Fia’ world tour with a more grateful mindset despite being wary of the same troubles that plagued their last extended jaunt of shows rearing their head again. “I’m able to experience it as a celebratory event now, while for the first couple of years it felt like a really intense and gruelling exorcism,” he says. “I was angry, and there’s still that anger, but I’m now really enjoying people singing back to us.”
Grian was the first of the band to move to London, with the other four members following - deliberately or otherwise - in the following year. Tom, who says he previously hated his experiences in the capital, flew over to join the band to write ‘Skinty Fia’, expecting to stay for a few months before hurriedly returning to Dublin. Two years later,
Since the release of ‘Dogrel’ in 2019, Fontaines have been constantly catching up with their ambition, releasing a new album when the next one is already almost ready. Suitably, Tom tells us that work on album four is already underway.
“We’re always catching up with ourselves. We’ve been in the room for the last few days in pre-production for the European tour and have already written a few new songs which I’m absolutely buzzing for. We’re very restless people and always want to be working on something new. I think it’s a healthy way to be as an artist – we’re always trying to keep pushing it.”
he’s visibly enlivened by his new life in the city, moving from his first home in the leafier Holloway to Dalston to get closer to the city’s buzzy beating heart. “We’re like a little moving circus!” he laughs. “Everyone I hang out with or meet is Irish. We do stick together.”
Tom describes a “mutated Irishness” at the heart of the band’s third album, and these feelings of anger, confusion and (sometimes) acceptance are splashed all over the record. Opening track ‘In ár gcroíthe go Deo’ translates as ‘in our hearts forever’ and made headline news in 2020 when an Irish woman in Coventry was banned from having the phrase on her gravestone without an English translation, so nobody misconstrued it as a political slogan.
“Now we’re in London we feel like we’re fighting for this Irish culture that is kind of not real.”
Tom Coll
Elsewhere, ‘Roman Holiday’ sees Grian trying to embrace London as an Irishman, wearing the aspersions and xenophobic stereotypes cast upon him as “a badge of honour,” while the roaring ‘I Love You’ begins as a love song and ends as a thrashing exorcism of the guilt he feels for leaving his homeland for a country that has caused it so much pain in the past.
This grappling with identity is also beautifully reflected in the album’s instrumentation, which features both the sparsest and most dense music they’ve written to date. In the album’s second half, the song ‘The Couple Across The Way’ – a stark departure from the Fontaines of old – features just Grian’s voice and an accordion, and leads into the title track, an industrial hammerblow which sees the frontman take on the cadence of a rapper more than a punk poet, over scything, metallic electronic music. The juxtapositions present in the band’s lives, the country they left and the one they now call home, are played out thrillingly.
Fontaines DC’s move to London coincided with continued lockdowns, meaning that the five members were able to settle into their new homes without the constant interruption of touring. This domesticity
also proves an anchor of ‘Skinty Fia’, bringing a newfound stillness and reflective quality to Grian’s songwriting.
On the aforementioned ‘The Couple Across The Way’, he writes of an arguing man and woman opposite his apartment, frightened and intrigued by the prospect of that becoming him and his fiancée in the future. To hone in on the feeling of putting down roots, he asked bassist Conor Deegan to make a cup of tea in producer Dan Carey’s kitchen while he recorded his vocals in the corner of the room: “I wanted a tiny hint of domesticity in the background,” he says.
As with ‘Dogrel’ and ‘A Hero’s Death’, ‘Skinty Fia’ was recorded at the Speedy Wunderground mastermind’s Streatham studio in South London. “It’s a relationship of true friendship,” Grian says of the band’s work with Dan, “and it means that we have an unbelievable amount of fun working on stuff. I don’t think, if we worked with another producer, I’d have the confidence to skip around the room when an idea was executed well.”
For ‘A Hero’s Death’, Fontaines had initially decamped to Los Angeles’ iconic, plush Sunset Sound Studios to record, but scrapped the sessions
and headed back in with Dan after making an album that was “too polished” and “like a big cocaine second album,” as Grian told DIY in 2020. “It wasn’t a cocaine album in that we were doing loads of cocaine, just in its sound,” a laughing Grian is quick to clarify when reminded of the quote today. The choice he and the band made then - to prioritise comfortable and fun working relationships over glitz and glamour - is one that they firmly stand by however, and an ethos that they’ve carried with them ever since.
Two years later, this choice can be seen somewhat as a turning point for the band, leading them away from the delusional rockstar brink Grian says they flirted with after the tour for ‘Dogrel’, and back into the bosom of relationships that are personally fulfilling as well as artistically well-suited.
“I recognise certain ugly characteristics in myself that were a product and a result of touring life,” the frontman reflects. “I became quite narcissistic, and couldn’t fuckin’ stop talking about myself when I met up with my old mates. When you’re on tour, your world revolves around you, and all your mates in the crew are all having to make sure that you get on stage and do your thing. It’s this weird little world that encourages you to have this toxic idea of yourself being at the centre of things on a daily basis.”
When he would go back to Dublin between tours, he says, he developed an “ugly reflex” of zoning out while his old friends updated him on their lives and jobs, waiting “until I could talk about myself again.” “Getting rid of that was…” he continues before pausing and chuckling to himself, processing the change in real time. “Jesus Christ, I truly dread to think what type of album I would’ve written if I still had that mindset.”
Instead, he wrote ‘Skinty Fia’: a record he sees as more akin to ‘Dogrel’ than ‘A Hero’s Death’ in its “communal” message, and one that tracks shifting cultures and identities - that’s angry yet hopeful, confused yet defiant. It’s their best album yet.
While everything may seem rosy as the ‘Skinty Fia’ world tour beckons, Grian has one tiny worry left. “I don’t know what I’ll write about on this tour,” he says. “Because we have to keep writing. It’s always been the way.
“Writing is proof that I’m alive,” the frontman continues, his eyes suddenly glistening. He cuts a noticeably more animated figure when looking towards the future than regurgitating the past. “Writing means that I’m still thinking and moving.
“If we write a tune together on the day of a gig, that gig will undoubtedly be better,” he concludes. “It gives us back our sense of autonomy and I become a better partner, son and brother when I’ve written something. It allays all my fears and insecurities for a little while.”
‘Skinty Fia’ is out 22nd April via Partisan. DIY
“I used to resent our audience and think they were the reason that I had ended up in this state.” – Grian Chatten
Wet Leg (Domino)
For those old enough to remember the immediate, seismic crater in the indie landscape that the arrival of Arctic Monkeys’ debut single proper for Domino, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’, made back in 2005, there will have been familiar wafts of excitement ringing upon the arrival of Wet Leg’s irrepressible ‘Chaise Longue’ last year.
It’s not just that the two bands share a record label, a penchant for a ridiculous two-word nom-de-plume, and an ability to write a seeminglythrowaway sentiment into the musical history books; it’s hard to think of an incident since Alex Turner and co. first sowed the seeds of what viral fame would mean in a burgeoning internet age that one song has so wholly declared the dominant arrival of a band.
An omnipresent fixture across the airwaves of late
drums, into something lifeaffirming. Take opener ‘Being In Love’. A steadily pulsing drum beat gives into a giddy Camera Obscura-esque exhalation in the chorus, but there’s something just that little bit odd about Rhian’s tumble into the feels (“I feel like someone has punched me in the guts / But I kinda like it cos, it feels like being in love”) that sets ‘Wet Leg’’s stead up from the off.
Throughout the album, there are shades of indie past to be found, from the 2min30 fuzzy
Yeahs spikes of ‘Oh No’ to the off-kilter, rickety Moldy Peaches charm that skips through ‘Supermarket’. The riff that peppers ‘I Don’t Wanna Go Out’ is an unashamed nod to Bowie / Nirvana’s [delete according to preference] ’The Man Who Sold The World’ while the infectious bounce of former beau-dissing ‘Ur Mum’ has shades of Le Tigre to its dancefloor potential. All these references you’ll note, however, are the sides of the genre that have aged well - and so while you’ll more often than not hear ‘indie’ bookended by either ‘landfill’ or ‘sleaze’ these days, ‘Wet Leg’ is a product of neither.
Jack White’s decision to release two albums in 2022 is not, as one might imagine at first glance, a late hop on the ‘double album’ trend of a few years back. Nor is it an attempt to carve an ‘era’ for himself (yes, an odd thought for an artist for whose public persona the word ‘cantankerous’ may well have begun applying a few decades too early, but then again this is also an album cycle which began with a Call of Duty trailer, so…). Instead, it seems a way for the guitarist to be able to show both sides of his solo self simultaneously. For while The White Stripes had its infamously self-imposed limitations of various rules of three, and both The Raconteurs and The Dead Weather are, thanks to their respective co-conspirators, distinct in sound, solo Jack White has somehow come to mean different things for different people; a Jack of a few trades, if you will.
camps.
Which brings us to ‘Fear of the Dawn’. In both eschewing his softer side for July’s follow-up ‘Entering Heaven Alive’ and having well and truly flexed his more eccentric muscles with ‘Boarding House Reach’, Jack has given himself space to make something ferociously heavy, wonderfully weird - and gloriously immediate. There’s a sense - perhaps best typified by the jubilant “woo” that begins ’That Was Then (This Is Now)’ - that in not intending to tick every expected box here, he’s freed up to simply have a lot of fun. ‘What’s The Trick’ takes a grin-inducing riff, repeats it over an immaculately-paced hip hop beat and climaxes with a perfectly-placed scream. ‘The White Raven’ has him on fierce vocal form, fervently spitting his lyrics backed by trademark sonic motifs. ‘Esophobia’ (literally, fear of the dawn) smashes its way along, echoing its thematic tension in both tempo and note. Singles ‘Taking Me Back’ and ‘Love Is Selfish’ only scratched the surface.
2021, by the time the duo - Rhian Teasdale and Hester Chambers - released its follow up, the equally cheeky ‘Wet Dream’, they were already selling out 1000-capacity venues; in the time since, they’ve been on a sold out US tour, appeared on TV both sides of the pond and emerged from SXSW as easily the buzziest band of the festival. At the time of almost all of these occurrences, Wet Leg had released less tracks than the fingers of one hand.
Maybe it’s timing, that after two years of incessant global trauma, what the world collectively needed was a reminder that life can be fun (“Good times, all the time” goes the mantra of ‘Angelica’). But more than just a lucky combination of time and place, there’s an indefinable sparkle to everything Wet Leg do - the sort of effortless magic that can allow those few indie bands with the golden touch (not THAT band…) to turn an age old formula, guitar bass
However, influences aside, it’s the slightly wonky worldview of the band themselves that really elevates ‘Wet Leg’ into the realms of the truly special. Don’t be fooled by the prairie dresses and sweetly innocent vocal delivery, Rhian has bite and gleefully revels in a rude one liner. Whether she’s shrugging off a suitor who insists on sending text updates of his nighttime fantasies (“What makes you think you’re good enough to think about me when you’re touching yourself?”) or wearily eviscerating an ex on the deceptively laid-back ‘Piece of Shit’ (“Well if you were better to me then maybe I’d consider fucking you goodbye”), ‘Wet Leg’ is packed with righteous middle fingers and playful bon mots.
The album ends with ‘Too Late Now’, a slowly crescendoing climax packed with lyrical uncertainty: about growing up and giving up, the anxiety of the modern world and the meta fears that the song she’s singing isn’t even a real song. It’s in keeping with the cheeky winks of the duo to end their debut in such a contrary fashion, doubting their own futures and abilities, when the reality is so very far from that. Whatever Wet Leg say they are, that’s what they’re not, eh?
(Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Wet Dream’, ‘Ur Mum’
There’s the rip-roaring rocker Jack, which threads through solo tracks like ‘Sixteen Saltines’ from solo debut ‘Blunderbuss’, both the title track of 2014 follow-up ‘Lazaretto’ and its ‘That Black Bat Licorice’, and of course, the fact he still tours much of The White Stripes’ back catalogue. The 2016 release of his ‘Acoustic Recordings’ compilation seemed to cement another side to the musician, echoed through ‘Blunderbuss’’ title track, soft-but-deadly single ‘Love Interruption’ and ‘Lazaretto’’s swooning ‘Temporary Ground’. And while 2018’s ‘Boarding House Reach’ showcased a more experimental vein - opting for synths and jazzy rhythms in place of, well, much in the way of conventional song structure and immediacymost of his work can pretty much sit in one of those two
And, much like on the Q-Tip-featuring ‘Hi De Ho’, the fun continues when things get a little more strange. Where ‘Boarding House Reach’ perhaps took experimentation to pleasingbut often not particularly structurally coherent - places, here similar textures are used to augment what are throughout essentially pop songs. ‘Into The Twilight’ begins with a curious, haunting jazzy vocal and makes use of an eerie spoken-word sample, while ‘Morning, Noon, And Night’ is based around a jaunty loop that sits just on the correct precipice of irritating, and ‘Dusk’ - echoing the not-quite title track - meanders spookily like its namesake hour.
Lyrically, yes, the record might be a not-soveiled muse on getting older (“When I was a child / I could take my time / I thought I would live forever”, says one choice lyric of ‘Morning, Noon, and Night’), but ‘Fear of The Dawn’ is very much like the kind of party where you’re hoping daylight stays away for some time yet. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘What’s The Trick’
Ferociously heavy, wonderfully weird.
Bronco (Columbia)
“You know, I recall somebody saying there ain’t any cowboys left, they ain’t met me,” croons Orville Peck on ‘Lafayette’. And when he first emerged back in 2019 with debut ‘Pony’, perhaps the singer’s pop-infused country inspired by the genre’s greats - not to mention his constantly masked appearancewas indeed something of an unexpected surprise. Now a household name, however, ‘Bronco’ arrives to prove why this cowboy is gonna be sticking around for a long time. Inspired by “writing in isolation and going through and ultimately emerging from a challenging personal time,” ‘Bronco’ flits between theatricality and poignancy, almost every song sounding like it could score a Western’s pivotal moment with ease. Helmed by the singer’s powerhouse vocals, it’s impossible not to be drawn in throughout the album’s 15 countryrock-song run as he recounts tales of facing hardships (‘The Curse Of The Blackened Eye’, ‘Let Me Drown’) and the trials of love (‘City of Gold’, ‘Blush’) throwing in lighter moments with iconic lines like ‘Outta Times’’: “She tells me she don’t like Elvis, I say a little less conversation please.” Saddle up and get ready for an emotional and exciting journey.
(Elly Watson) LISTEN: ‘Lafayette’
The Linda Lindas were forging a path through the LA punk scene long before their furious live performance of ‘Racist Sexist Boy’ for AAPI Heritage Month went viral. Now, their accolades can also include opening for riot grrrl figureheads Bikini Kill, two appearances on Netflix, and a forthcoming appearance at emo and punk mega-festival When We Were Young. With debut full-length ‘Growing Up’ they easily cement themselves as far more than a viral moment, pairing political and social charge with a suitably playful charm. Opener ‘Oh!’ delivers a powerhouse homage to the band’s foremothers, highlighting ‘Growing Up’’s clever balance between frivolity, passion and skill. ‘Cuantas Veces’ pairs cultural tradition with the alternative. The title-track delves into insecurities that reach beyond teenage years, while the studio recording of breakthrough ‘Racist Sexist Boy’ delivers a powerful burst of poignant anger. Yet The Linda Lindas are keen not to gloss over their youth; the youngest member is 11 years old at the time of writing. Musings on identity and purpose sit against an ode to cat Nino, proving there’s always time for fun. It’s a lesson for all ages on a record that reaches across the generational divide through both its mastery of sound and the universality of its stories. It nods to shared experience and highlights indifference, marking the reality of being both young and purposeful. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Oh!’
(Loma Vista)
All hail the crown prince of rap. Denzel Curry returns with his sixth studio album, effortlessly playing lead man to a star-studded collaborative cast with his own veritable flow and homage to the sprawling generations of rap that paved the road before him. His newest persona, Zeltron, is introduced as ‘Walkin’ fades out, likening the flux of his career to the sprawling odysseys of samurai heroes, even namedropping the fictional star of Japan’s longest running film series ‘Zatoichi’ in a namesake track featuring the inimitable slowthai. The record is positive, with Denzel reflecting on his own constructive mental health in ‘X Wing’ and ‘Angelz’ serving as a eulogy to the greats that came before him, forcing the rapper to reflect on his own comeuppance. ‘John Wayne’ and ‘The Smell of Death’ tap into a neo-soul beat (the former cooked up by collaborator JPEGMAFIA) while ‘The Last’ is graced with a $uicide Boysesque flow, Denzel half-singing the horror-trap verse that waxes bluntly about police corruption, abject homelessness and regularly living one’s “last day” in the US. What stands out about this album is Denzel Curry’s unequivocal ability to combine the triplet bars and laidback candour of mid-‘90s Nas and Pharcyde with the trap cadence and progressive production nuances of 2022. It feels like an album not caught in time, instead spanning and encompassing it, acknowledging his lifelong influences while riffing off the modern desire for escapism and freedom from trauma. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: ‘The Last’
It flits between theatricality and poignancy.
There’s a sense of old Hollywood theatricality to the likes of ‘Chloë’ and ‘Funny Girl’ - what was inspiring you to embrace those sort of ideas?
The challenge of pulling off something like this with a really small group was very inspiring. Arrangements like Drew [Erickson]'s are very reactive and allowed me to tell a certain kind of story I found amusing.
What was the most creatively fulfilling part of making this record?
I can't really make any kind of defence or case for the record. I can't tell you why it should exist. To find yourself so totally committed to making something you don't understand at all is very fulfilling.
You’re playing a selection of shows with a full orchestra to tour this album - combined with the album cover, can we expect a full Fred Astaire moment from you on these live dates?
My friend connected me with someone who's title I think is “renowned movement specialist”. We had a phone call, I sent him the album and some live performances and never heard from him again.
Would you agree that this is the record of yours where you’re least often the main character? If so, why did you make that choice?
Your personal life just can't go on one-upping fiction.
There are often very specific stories that unfurl in your songs - such as the narrative of ‘Q4’ - do you create a wider storyboard or world around them to get it to that point?
I write as little as I have to and pray it makes sense.
Would you ever consider writing a sitcom / novel / something longer form?
The sitcom was a disaster and the novel got kneecapped by a movie that came out in 2018. I wrote a poem a few years ago that was OK.
What do you think Lana Del Rey adds to her version of ‘Buddy’s Rendezvous’?
Aside from lots of ineffable singing-things that a real singer can bring to a song, she's got some incredible ad-libs in there. I gave myself one at the end of my version. Any one of hers you could have built a whole song around. Love her.
There was a brief period of time, following the breakthrough success of 2015’s ‘I Love You, Honeybear’ and into 2017’s ‘Pure Comedy’, when the character of Father John Misty began to yield infinitely more column inches than the music Josh Tillman was creating. Such is the curse of the instinctively quotable, but the singer’s wit was never only in his withering internet presence. It’s hard to think of another modern musician whose brain moves in the strange, funny, satirising way that could produce recent single ‘Q4’ - a self-contained soap opera about a writer milking her dead sister’s trauma to flog a Christmas best seller, only to get swiftly cancelled. Buoyed by a sweeping string section and mellifluous harpsichords, it’s a playful highlight in an album full of them.
Central to ‘Chloë…’’s relative lightness of touch, you sense, is FJM’s decision to remove himself from the centre of the story. Where ‘Pure Comedy’ and follow-up ‘God’s Favourite Customer’ weighed heavy
with the burdens of the world and his own demons, his latest prioritises more character-driven flights of fancy, often bolstered by a twinkling, orchestral palette that only further uproots the record from the grim trudge of reality. ‘Chloë’ opens with the sort of light-footed sparkle that transports you to a 1940s revue show (albeit one that soundtracks the story of a suicidal socialite), while lead single ‘Funny Girl’’s old Hollywood glamour is only momentarily spiked by a reference to Letterman. Amid the narratives, meanwhile, are plenty of songs about love: love lost, love hanging on by a thread, love yearned for and abandoned. But there’s a (sometimes faded) glamour to the slow lilt of ‘Kiss Me (I Loved You)’ or the Parisien shimmy of ‘Only A Fool’ that’s a world away from the modern specificities of ‘... Honeybear’ and the like. On ‘Chloë and the Next 20th Century’, Father John Misty is transporting himself to a different world; it sounds pretty damn sweet over there. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Funny Girl’
He's transporting himself to a different world.Union)
Ivory (Warner)
Omar Apollo’s anti-pop agenda is less evident on ‘Ivory’, instead wiping the slate clean from 2020’s lockdownsteeped ‘Apoliono’ and embracing a more acoustic-pop voice, deploying his relatable, effervescent ballads to astounding effect. He leans on a woolly, biting guitar for spontaneous solos in ‘Talk’ and the intro to ‘Killing Me’, giving both tracks a jolt of psych infusion. Sultry slow dance ‘Evergreen’ flirts with Omar’s lovelorn Silk Sonic influences, using a minimal brass band to lull the listener into his soporific flow. The album gathers tempo at ‘Petrified’, a smooth alt-rock anthem, with Omar crying out “I’m thinking of you more each day / I’m thinking about all the words you say to me” with a glorious gravel to his tone as he enters his higher register. ‘Tamagotchi’ is an on-the-nose, steeze-soaked track that combines late 2010’s R&B flow with a plucked samba cadence, with Omar distorting his own voice to create a Brockhampton-like effect. Omar Apollo inspires, and his competence as a vocalist is unmistakable on ‘Ivory’. Conflating his electro-pop tendencies with the occasional stride of a campfire guitar, he turns everything he touches to glistening radio gold. (Alisdair Grice)
LISTEN: ‘Petrified’
Bob Vylan have never played nice. And on ‘Bob Vylan Presents the Price of Life', they continue to deliver the types of snarling missive that’ve made them one of UK punk’s most essential voices without a moment’s hesitation. “I’m not a pacifist,” Bobby spits on ‘Pretty Songs’ – the album isn’t just a relentless outlaying of what we pay in Britain to exist across the board, it’s a critique of those who think it’s fine to protest politely. Subjects that aren’t trendy - food inequality, postcode lotteries, disgust for the memory of Churchill instead of reverence - are dealt with in a ferociously vital way. There’s something powerfully, brilliantly British about Bob Vylan’s sound. Unapologetic and loud on fuzzy, guitar-laden cuts like ‘Pretty Songs’ (deliberately, ironically, a massive singalong hit at the band’s electrifying live shows) or taking a different path on tracks that pull from outside the traditional rock canon, they deliver their vital messaging equally through the relentless pulse of ‘Health
Is Wealth’ or the reflective sonic pause of ‘Must Be More’. Bobby is a jack of all trades when it comes to surmising his subject matter while balancing the line of fact, fun, and fierce emotion. It makes for one of the year’s most essential records yet. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Health Is Wealth’
Unlearning (Lucky Number)
“For all of my life I was in the dark,” James Potter reveals on album opener ‘Weightless’, setting the scene for Walt Disco’s sprawling outsider pop opus, marrying oblique EDM with decadent goth punk to fabricate a transgressive statute on queer existence. No strangers to exuberance, ‘Unlearning’ is an effort in making oneself heard. ‘Selfish Lover’ marries James’ distorted vocoder with a hyper-saccharine pop chorus, and lead single ‘How Cool Are You’ pairs unnerving carnival “la la la”s with the boundless bounce of an LCD Soundsystem synth progression. James’ heavily-enunciated, sometimes
vaudevillian vocals always serve as the perfect cherry on top of Walt Disco’s opulent ‘knickerbocker glory’ soundscape, eliciting a subversive yet immersive listening experience. Caustic ‘Macilent’ is an ode to the trivialisation of queer violence, presented with a vacuous drumscape, oversaturated snare snaps and throbbing distorted guitar passages. It captures a band confident in their own identity, holding it as a badge of honour instead of something to be hidden. On ‘Unlearning’, Walt Disco lead a careering tour around the dichotomy of queer existence. Either being swaddled in support by those you hold dear or instead held on a pedestal as a scapegoat for the wider bigoted populous. Approached with a worldliness only Walt Disco can conjure, this anarchic debut teaches us to embrace uncertainty with open arms, and express ourselves however we see fit. Beauty is no longer in the eye of the beholder, it is within us. (Alisdair Grice)
LISTEN: ‘Macilent’
One of the year’s most essential records yet.PHOTO: JENN FIVE PHOTO: EVA PENTEL
Fontaines DC will never not be an Irish band. It’s embedded in their lyricism, their imagery, every note that drips from Grian Chatten’s unmistakeable drawl. And yet as they adjust to being one of the world’s breakout rock acts, they’ve often spoken of having to find new ways to carry their identity with them, to keep each record connected to home even as success takes them further and further away.
In ten songs, ‘Skinty Fia’ tackles a range of increasingly dour topics: consumption, greed, corruption, despondency, isolation, heartbreak. It’s heavy, but never heavy-going; cinematic is an easily lauded term, but these are definitely tales of literary prowess, showcasing their growing ability to shape an atmospheric sound. Very few rock bands are doing hooks as well as they are right now; the drum’n’bass breakdown of opener “In ár gcroíthe go deo” (meaning In Our Hearts Forever) comes as both a surprise and an immediate reminder not to pigeonhole, while the title track borders on a ‘90s basement groove, not outrageously dissimilar to what you might expect from a Kasabian or
Stone Roses offering. ‘Jackie Down The Line’ reveals Nirvana as a bigger influence than ever, but there are shades of Oasis too - ‘How Cold Love Is’, ‘Roman Holiday' 'I Love You’. The latter's unspooling, retooling and then even bigger race to the finish has the kind of relentlessness that only the deftest of songwriting talents can truly pull off, capturing fury and confusion without ever compromising on dynamics. Described by the band as their most political song to date, its melody seems determined to burrow its way into the brain, deepening its message of propaganda patriotism.
On meditative shanty ‘The Couple Across the Way’, Grian struggles to unpick himself from the woven tapestry of the world's ills, contemplating his melancholy role: “All the mirrors face the walls and I wake just to long for bed/ ‘Love what’s got you so down low? / The saddest tongue is in your head!’”. Similar to ‘I Love You’’s confessional, it speaks of the unsettling nostalgia that so many of us feel when we leave our home towns behind, the sadness of distance between future and past. By shedding light on Ireland’s struggles, Fontaines DC serve only to highlight their nation’s enduring character, the reasons why it is so central to their beating heart. For those who missed the rabble-rousing of ‘Dogrel’ but liked the darkness of ‘A Hero’s Death’, this record splits the perfect difference, sealing it along the middle with the superglue of a band who now know exactly where they’re going. Truth be told, they’ve never been more at home. (Jenessa Williams) LISTEN: ‘I Love You’
(jennys recordings)
You worry that this second solo full-length from Jenny Lee Lindberg might end up being one that slips through the net for many, arriving as it does just weeks before Warpaint, of which she’s a founding member, make their long-awaited return with fourth album ‘Radiate Like This’. It wouldn’t be the first time a solo effort from one of the Los Angeles art rockers went under the radar either. Theresa Wayman’s ‘LoveLaws’, released under the pseudonym TT, was an elegant, loop-based postscript to Warpaint’s 2016 album ‘Heads Up’ but was largely overlooked when released a year later and remains under-appreciated. It’d be a crying shame if 'Heart Tax’ were to meet with the same fate. This is a different beast entirely to Jenny’s avowedly minimalist debut album, 2015’s ‘Right On!’; where that album felt like a bass player writing their own record specifically around that instrument, ‘Heart Tax’ is much more expansive, and has her spreading her wings in a number of different stylistic directions whilst maintaining her trademark hypnotic rhythms as a throughline with which to tie everything together. Outwith that, the record is free to run the gamut from breezy acoustic reflections (‘Newtopia’, ‘In Awe Of’), poppier territory than she’s normally able to explore with Warpaint (superb opener ‘Stop Speaking’ features Dave Gahan of Depeche Mode on the chorus) and, on ‘Clinique’ and ‘Hallows Eve’, more complex delves into the brooding atmosphere she conjured up on ‘Right On!’ The supporting cast, meanwhile, includes the likes of Trentemøller and Goldensuns, but the most crucial collaborator is one much closer to home: Stella Mozgawa, Jenny’s other half in indie rock’s most consistently brilliant rhythm section of the past decade. After five Warpaint-less years, two buses have come along at once, and ‘Heart Tax’ is every bit as deserving of your attention as ‘Radiate Like This’. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Stop Speaking’
It’sbutheavy, never heavy-going.
Given the far-reaching success of their independently-released debut, it would have been easy for Dublin’s Pillow Queens to repeat the process verbatim. Perfectly capturing place, family and identity, 2020’s ‘In Waiting’ saw the four-piece break both sides of the Atlantic, even securing two slots on US TV. Yet ‘Leave The Light On’ swaps this sense of personal heritage for introspection, pairing delicate self-reflection with sounds far grander than their previous release. Awash with electric guitars equally as influenced by tradition as cathartic night drives, ‘Leave The Light On’ delves into the power of loneliness. Challenging the definition through both lyrics and sound, Pillow Queens deliberately play with light and heavy. Pamela Connolly’s voice embodies this juxtaposition, cutting through like a jackhammer with soft edges. Combined, they boldly express the inward isolation aligned so closely with moving beyond the setting established on ‘In Waiting’. That record’s intimacy is replaced here by an urgent yearning for something bigger, captured in the chaos of ‘Historian’s closing moments and the frustration of ‘Try Try Try’. They soundtrack the band’s trajectory, stepping out into the world and facing the explosive new emotions that come with it.
(Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Try Try Try’
(Human Re Sources)
Coming a touch over a year since going viral with her impeccably-sharp Phoebe Bridgers parody ‘Immune’, Jensen McRae’s debut shows an artist even more exceptional at telling her own stories than caricaturing her peers’. Frequent comparisons to Joni Mitchell and Tracy Chapman are no small matter, but heartbreaking centrepiece ‘Wolves’ has echoes of both, the singer pulling herself in and out of the tales of sexual harassment in a way that perfectly echoes a survivor’s instinct to detach themselves from the situation (“And though I got away / I never walked the same”). The centrepiece of ‘Are You Happy Now?’ might be Jensen’s vocal, and her extraordinary ability to make it express the full gamut of emotions with often spine-tingling results - but her songwriting still gives it a hell of a run. ‘Machines’ sees her make poetry from the everyday (“I saw Jesus Christ in a bookstore / He looked burdened with all that belief”), while ‘White Boy’ showcases her ability to express so much with relatively few words (“White girl arrives / I turn invisible”). And while her folk roots are still on display - a series of acoustic interludes pepper the record to boot - there’s also a fair share of pop nous to keep things strictly this side of the millennium. The expansive ‘Adam’s Ribs’ could easily be an Adele single with its hearton-sleeve vocal dexerity, opener ‘Starting To Get To You’ is gloriously radio-friendly, and ‘With The Lights On’ has the kind of skittish percussive vibes that Ed Sheeran has spent years aiming for. A good idea to have tissues at the ready, but ‘Are You Happy Now?’ can’t help but be an invigorating listen. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘Wolves’
HEALTH approached their sixth album with a giant to-do list in hand, but amazingly, even within only twelve songs, they tick every item on it off. They stretch their silvery industrial musical template every which way, from the floaty realms of ‘DEAD FLOWERS’ featuring Poppy that harks beautifully back to the singer's own industrial days to the creeping buzz of ‘ISN’T EVERYONE’ (featuring Nine Inch Nails). Yet while these tracks are testament to how well the LA trio can build an astronomical sense of atmosphere, they can create icy harshness with equal brilliance. There’s unexpected genius in the juxtaposition of Black Dresses’ Ada Rook’s almost black metal-esque screams and PlayThatBoyZay’s barbed raps on ‘MURDER DEATH KILL’, while Lamb of God brings a hefty metallic crunch to ‘COLD BLOOD’ that’s periodically punctured with HEALTH’s otherworldly atmospherics. A couple of tracks don’t hold up quite so well, mainly the thin, uneventful one-two of ‘STILL BREATHING’ and ‘NO ESCAPE’, which are content to peter along without ever really arriving, but for the most part, spreading themselves too thin is not a problem HEALTH ever seems to worry about. Nine times out of ten, the scale of their ambition pays monumental dividends. (Emma Wilkes) LISTEN: ‘Dead Flowers’
Was this envisioned as a collaborative album from the outset?
Not at all. It was pretty accidental. What we used to do, is put out a remix album to accompany each record we made, under the DISCO umbrella. We’d kind of realised while making the third DISCO album that these days, people’s enthusiasm for remixes is close to zero. So, we weren’t going to do that again, but what we had done a couple of years before the fourth record came out is a collaboration with Nolife called ‘Hard to Be a God’, and that had gone over really well, and the experience for us was totally novel. So, we said, why don’t we do a few more of these? And then COVID hit.
There are some huge names on this record. Guessing Nine Inch Nails were pretty close to the top of the list. Oh, trust me, there’s nobody above them! [laughs] I don’t think I have a bucket list any more. But that was one where maybe we wouldn’t have reached out if it weren’t for the pandemic, because we might be thinking they’d be too busy. And they still were, but we got it done. I think it’s a great track.
The variety of collaborators is really impressive, to have Lamb of God and JPEGMAFIA on the same record, and then somebody like HO99O9 bridging the gap. Is that just a reflection of your individual tastes?
I think somebody at our management works with Lamb of God, and they suggested it. It’s not something we or they would ever have thought of, but once it was proposed to those guys, they were really excited. I spent a lot of time on the phone with [Lamb of God frontman]
Randy [Blythe], and we were both stoked on it, just them firing over guitar riffs and us trying to put beats to it. I mean, we ended up delaying the record just to make sure we got that song on there, because those guys were back on the road by last summer - I mean, we’re talking about a band that would normally play 200 dates a year. So, it took a little while, but it was worth it.
And then, again, there was a tenuous connection with JPEG which is that he released his first record on a local label that we’re friendly with. And when we reached out, he was excited to do it because he really loved Max Payne 3. So, as nice as it is to have these connections, it’s really important for everybody to be equally invested in it, because it can come out sounding like you’ve tacked something on or tried to force something if it isn’t a genuine collaboration. And I think we’ve been gravitating towards hip hop much more anyway since the advent of SoundCloud rap; that’s something that feels a lot like punk to me. You’ve always struck me as a band that’s kept up with musical trends, and sure enough, there’s a collaboration with 100 gecs on this album. Yeah. I mean, I know there’s many historic examples of bands trying to be up on trends and then making terrible music, but it’s good to be aware of what’s current. You don’t need to copy it, just make sure you’re tuned into it. And that’s the beauty of these collaborations; we’d never put a hyperpop track on a straight-up HEALTH record, but the chance to do it with the king and queen of hyperpop? Why the fuck not? We had the room to be fucking weird on this album.
Missed the boat on some the best albums from the last couple of months? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
DThe art of passing stories down through generations has long been replaced by the ability to capture words as data, to be stored until beyond human obsolescence. But even though this art is no longer practised, Kae Tempest is unafraid to share their experiences with us all, in the form of beat-laden, lucid poetry. The minimal beats on ‘The Line Is A Curve’ lean on Kae’s spoken vocals, the artist directing them, as opposed to the other way around. Their handpicked transcontinental roster of collaborators stretches from Brockhampton’s Kevin Abstract on ‘More Pressure’ to the glacé lullaby of fellow Londoner Lianne La Havas. Each word is meticulously delivered, with the strength given to each syllable making the entire record a heady and vivid listen. We are instantly placed in Kae’s shoes, surrounded by the same media onslaught, bubbling anxiety and artistic growth they experience every time they open their eyes. ‘Salt Coast’ utilises meandering coastal metaphors to paint an evocative picture of Kae’s headspace, while the minimal ‘I Saw Light’ sees Tempest team up with Fontaines DC’s Grian Chatten, delivering an enchanting masterclass in duet poetry. On ‘The Line Is A Curve’ Kae Tempest removes their mask, revealing an intimate and often blunt aperture into their lived experience. Rife with feelings of ephemeral isolation and deep personal anxieties, they have realised a new wave of modern storytelling, forging ‘The Line Is A Curve’ as an answer to an open call for honesty. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: ‘I Saw Light’
Between expertly telling his own stories, and amplifying others’ via collaboration, it’s a beaming victory lap.
We’re all bored of the by now, but luckily Role Model is also in the same boat. Finding traditional musical declarations of love “boring”, whilst his long-awaited debut album ‘Rx’ may be all about his relationship at its core, across its 11 tracks he challenges what a love song can be. Evident from the delicate opening declaration ‘die for my bitch’, to slowburning sizzler ‘neverletyougo’, and the upbeat pure-pop bop ‘forever&more’, while he’s definitely feeling the love, Role Model explores his emotions in refreshing ways soundtracked by his alternative take on pop music.
Continually shape-shifting as all great pop stars do, Charli’s fifth cements her as a true trailblazer.
‘Who Hurt You’ is infused with his love of rap music as he spits bars over its pop backing, and ‘Life Is Funny’ is a easy-breezy lyrical journey, while ‘Masturbation Song’ arrives as a tender love melody and ‘Strip Club Music’ poignantly delves into power dynamics over stripped-back beats, before closing tracks ‘Can You Say The Same’ and ‘Rx’ provide for Role Model to confront his inner-struggles. Brimming with emotion, from love songs to lamentations, Role Model’s long-awaited debut finds the pop star navigating life while falling in love, and was more than worth the wait. (Elly Watson) LISTEN: ‘neverletyougo’
When it was announced last year that Kurt Vile would be signing to a major label, it was difficult to envision him going down the same path as his former bandmate, The War on Drugs’ Adam Granduciel, in making a sonic shift to a sound that genuinely felt like it belonged there. Whereas ‘Lost in the Dream’ heralded a move towards the kind of classic rock that doesn’t sound out of place among that genre’s pantheon, Kurt’s signing with the Universal-owned Verve simply felt like the latest unorthodox move in a career littered with them. Sure enough, ‘(watch my moves)’ remains very much a Kurt Vile record, sprawling in length and gorgeously unhurried in its pace. Standouts includes the woozy ‘Like Exploding Stones’, which plays like a paean to 1960s Laurel Canyon rock, as well as the twinkling prettiness of ‘Jesus on a Wire’ and the slide-driven ‘Cool Water’. This is unquestionably one of Kurt’s easier-going records - at times, there’s a poppiness to it that brings to mind ‘Lotta Sea Lice’, his collaborative album with Courtney Barnett - and at times, you wonder whether the sheer mellowness of it all can actually mask the skill with which he constructs his soundscapes. For an album winding in length, it doesn’t outstay its welcome; if the jump to a major means more lovingly fashioned breeziness like this, then so much the better. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Like Exploding Stones’
On their third album, The Regrettes have entered their take on Paramore’s ‘After Laughter’ era. These songs sport a shinier, poppier sound, yet in contrast to its upbeat nature, the lyrics are wracked with deep anxiety, and at times a darkness that can stop a dancing listener in its tracks as the words sink in. ‘Barely On My Mind’ is the catchiest, most ebullient song about an abusive relationship you’ll ever hear (with a chorus that’s stupidly easy to commit to memory), while the sugary-on-the-surface ‘Monday’ smiles through existential crisis with effortless charm in spite of its dark subject matter. Away from the fascinating juxtaposition between sound and lyrics, there’s still so much to appreciate, not least the LA quartet’s capacity for an infectious hook. ‘La Di Da’ is the soundtrack to bouncing rather than running away from personal crises, while the twinkling, delicate melodies of ‘Out of Time’ are hard not to fall in love with. It’s mainstream baiting but still retains a distinctness and authenticity that leaves any finger-pointing purists looking foolish, particularly since these songs will inevitably end up stuck in their heads. In short, it’s bloody lovely. (Emma Wilkes) LISTEN:
‘Barely On My Mind’
The Aussies swap punk fury for anecdotal musings, losing none of their trademark urgency in the process.
Brimming with emotion, from love songs to lamentations.PHOTO: EVA PENTEL
‘Unlimited Love’ is something of an occasion, with the reinstatement of estranged guitarist John Frusciante marking a return to the Chilis after 16 years’ absence. Whether anyone is still fussed is another matter. Despite their influence, time perhaps hasn’t been so kind and they have become an easy target to deride. Still, love them or loathe them, the Chilis have something that most bands would sell their own grandmothers to acquire: a unique and identifiable sound. If ever they have descended into self-parody, it’s largely a reflection of their truly singular identity.
‘Unlimited Love’ is refreshingly raw. It’s reassuring to hear John’s familiar guitar opening the record on ‘Black Summer’, and the playing is tight and visceral throughout, with drummer Chad Smith on particularly top form (see ‘Here Ever After’). It’s an unashamedly back-to-basics consolidation of their work on ‘Blood Sugar Sex Magik’ and ‘Californication’. Indeed, it could quite convincingly pass for a ‘lost’ off-cuts disc from 1999, though what’s missing is any killer anthems. ‘Unlimited Love’ certainly won’t win over the naysayers. As the laid-back funk and wordplay of ‘Poster Child’ attests, all their usual tropes are present and correct, meaning whatever your view on the Chili Peppers, this record will only confirm it. (Felix Rowe)
LISTEN: ‘Poster Child’
Tilt (Heavenly)
Confidence Man’s 2018 debut sure lived up to its title: 'Confident Music For Confident People' was cheeky, brash and packed with deadpan silliness. A gleeful whizz through ‘90s electronica by a group who knew exactly what they were trying to do. Second time around, ‘Tilt’ isn’t quite so sure of itself. Like trying to host the party of the year while still on a comedown, it’s not quite as able to keep the momentum going but still has plenty of moments to get down to. Janet Planet’s Valley Girl schtick was front and centre to Confidence Man’s fun. The icing on the fluorescent cake. Here she pivots closer to house diva. Sometimes it works, as on the glitter cannon explosion of ‘It Feels Like A Different Thing’, but often it doesn’t, as with opener ‘Woman’, which promises that same bratty persona then falls a bit limp. And yet when the brattiness does rear its head, it’s also with mixed results. ‘Break It Bought It’ is everything that made that debut so intoxicating, with its brash, witty delivery. But ‘Angry Girl’ feels one-note, a crudely-drawn stereotype without the sense of humour. ‘Tilt’ feels stuck halfway between a band wanting to be taken seriously and the band who won so many over by not giving a shit what anyone thinks. Their knack for incredible hooks is still there (see ‘Holiday’, the very definition of an earworm), but the effortless fun seems to have fallen by the wayside. (Chris Taylor)
LISTEN: ‘It Feels Like A Different Thing’
For the better part of a decade now, Toronto quartet PUP have channelled down into the more self- deprecating side of life to mine for inspiration, continually using their records to process their own existential dread and worries via a brand of deadpan humour. With their fourth album - the perhaps aptly-titled - ‘THE UNRAVELING OF PUPTHEBAND’, they come up with the goods once again. And while a dark punk heart still beats away at the centre of their latest - tracks like ‘Totally Fine’ and ‘Waiting’ offer up glorious breakdowns and anthemic singalong opportunities - this time they’re giving a few new things a try too. Billed as loosely conceptual - hooked around the amusing, and admittedly unlikely, premise of PUP becoming a big-wig corporation - the record itself comes peppered with self-aware, piano-driven interludes (‘Four Chords’ etc) to propel its narrative, while ‘Habits’ starts all glitchy and off-beat before transforming into another rough-around-the-edges PUP classic. An enticing way to stay true to their roots, while approaching things in a fresh manner, their fourth record might still play to their selfdeprecating strengths, but it also proves that they’re secretly ambitious too. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: ‘Waiting’
The first thing we are introduced to on the record is the elusive ‘Board Of Directors’, a slightly meta projection of PUP’s internal headspace, viewing the band as a corporate cash cow. How did this idea come about?
Stefan: It was an inside joke for a long time. But we never intended for that to go on the record or be a part of the record, because that's so stupid. What band is talking about themselves as a corporation? But I wrote four chords and I sent it around to the guys just as a joke. I just was bored. I wanted to see if I could make my friends laugh. And we didn't really talk about that song for a really long time until we had maybe a week left in the studio. And Nestor [Chumak, bassist] pushed to record it and make it the first song on the record. That just seemed like the worst idea in the world to me. But the other guys got behind it, and the more they pushed it, the more it made a lot of sense to me. So as soon as we made that decision, I think we could all see the forest for the trees. The record was no longer just a collection of songs, we could now envision it as a record.
With the record being a combination of all the creative things that worked really well for you in the past, what would you say those things were?
Zach: Well, the interesting thing is we spent three records thinking about what fans will respond to live, and I think that's a worthwhile endeavour because it's a symbiotic relationship. But I guess on this one, there was less talk about that and more understanding that we're going to do something
that sounds fun whatever, so we don't have to worry so much about what the fans want. So we kind of entirely let go of that. And I think it's still representative of the energy that we have from other records.
PUP are no strangers to writing a love song. But you've really doubled down on your love for inanimate objects like guitars (‘Matilda’) and robots (‘Robot Writes A Love Song’) on this album. Where has that come from?
Stefan: Yeah, those two songs come from very different places. ‘Robot Writes A Love Song’ started off with me trying to write a legitimate earnest, heartfelt love song. Just to see if I could, and what I found was, I fucking suck at it. I just couldn't. Everything I was writing sounded cheesy and contrived and not pop. And so changing the perspective added some humour and some levity, and represented earnest feelings that I was having. So ‘Robot Writes A Love Song’ definitely comes from a real place of love and not inanimate objects. ‘Matilda’ is very much about my guitar. And I’ve done the same thing on the first record with my car. Why do I form these attachments with inanimate objects in such a strong emotional way? For me, [‘Matilda’] it just represents the entire beginning of this band. We were just starting to tour full time and quit our jobs and try to be a real band. Everything was so new and exciting, it felt like being in love for the first time. Everything was just so vibrant, the highs were so high and the lows were so low, and to me all of that emotion is sort of I guess personified in that guitar.
TEN HANDS HIGH
(Hand In Hive)
Dama Scout’s self-titled EP was both fresh and exciting on its release. Eva Lui’s sweet vocals smacked up against scuzzy riffs and barreling sonic assaults, like being cast into a world that’s neither quite dream nor nightmare. It felt like we weren’t going to hear much from them after that. But now, five years later, the London-Glasgow trio have conjured up another such world - the irresistible ‘gen wo lai (come with me)’. The out-and-out chaos of ‘Dama Scout’ has been replaced by something slightly more sinister. In parts it calls to mind Nilüfer Yanya’s quietlymenacing soundscapes, where you’re never quite sure when it’s going to snap. Take ‘lonely udon’, one of the record’s standouts. A drum machine and Eva's eerie harmonising open the tune. Things slowly begin to decay, until her vocals and brass bring light to the darkness. Then it collapses again with a cacophony of sound. Even those once beautiful vocals start to warp and distort. It’s this ebb and flow that makes Dama Scout so special; they're restless masters of mood and agitation, with each track linking the autobiographical push and pull of two worlds that drives the record. ‘gen wo lai’ conjures the anxiety of trying to embrace a new culture while holding on to your heritage. The addition of ‘一 個 謎 (a mystery)’ later, which brings to mind the saccharine soundtracks of classic Hong Kong romance films, feels like Eva embracing both by placing this moment of familiarity, albeit still distorted, in an album of tension. ‘gen wo lai (come with me)’ is a spectacular record about carving your own space out in a world that doesn’t want to make things easy for you. A record of cathartic release, whether it’s finding solace in the things that remind you of home or just screaming into the ether, it's everything that. brilliant self-titled EP promised and more. (Chris Taylor) LISTEN: ‘lonely udon’
Psychedelic Porn Crumpets say they view ‘Night Gnomes’ as the natural conclusion of the songwriting cycle they began with their 2016 debut album, ‘High Visceral (Part One)’, the “summary” of their discography to date. There are indeed lots of high points on it in terms of the band’s musicianship, with songs like ‘Lava Lamp Pisco’, ‘Bubblegum Infinity’, ‘Bob Holiday’, and ‘Acid Dent’ featuring strong riffing from Luke Parish and frontman Jack McEwan. However, the album also features filler like ‘The Creator’ and ‘In Dream Out’ which feel unfocused and unnecessarily ambient, while ‘Slinkly Holy Water’ makes for a rather underwhelming finale. Overall, the whole thing feels like a step down from the tight, laser-focused garage rock of last year’s ‘Shyga! The Sunlight Mound’ in terms of songwriting, song selection, and playing style. There are plenty of good ideas at work, the band citing artists as disparate as Black Sabbath and Lenny Kravitz as influences on it. Despite the album featuring several enjoyable moments, though, the listener is left feeling that it’s somewhat rambling and unfocused, and could possibly have benefited from the band leaving themselves more time for their ideas to gestate. (Greg Hyde) LISTEN: ‘Lava Lamp Pisco’
How’s it going?
Luciano: Well, we [Luciano and Eva] have COVID right now! Yesterday I couldn’t even speak. But we just had so many drugs just now, so we’ll be fine for like an hour.
Danny: I moved back to Glasgow just before lockdown, so that was quite weird. I planned regular trips down to London to finish the album which COVID derailed, but we ended up finishing it remotely and much quicker anyway.
Luciano: ...and Danny did a Masters degree!
Danny: It was Sound for the Moving Image, not focused on music at all, and all about sound design and how it contributes to the narrative. A lot of the sounds on the album have the same purpose as sound design in film, not just in the narrative but filling a space that the musical elements don’t fill.
Did any of what you learnt make its way on to the album?
Luciano: It’s more about process than sound: we would find a process we liked, re-record and rebuild five or six times based on what we discovered. If we found limitations along the way, we wanted to push them to get results. It was important that our process was linked to what the album was about rather than just being a sick bell sound.
Eva: My parents moved back to Hong Kong
three years ago, and clearing out their garage I found loads of Cantonese pop mixtapes, and I feel like growing up listening to Cantonese pop in my mum’s car was such a big influence, and I wanted to bring that into this album… Danny: I cut them up and put them through my modular synth stuff, and made these ambient sounds. You wouldn’t be able to pick them out, but they’re in there… like Easter eggs!
Lyrically, themes about identity are very prevalent on the record – what was it like writing so personally?
Eva: Reflecting on the emotions through the lyrics was cathartic, and mirroring that in the music was like releasing it. I had all these feelings, like an identity crisis, and I didn’t really know how to communicate it, even with my family. I grew up listening to Cantonese but my parents were like oh, you should learn Mandarin, though! But I can’t speak either of them that well. Communication with my family, my feelings, have always been quite hard but I felt like this was the perfect way to process it. Over the past few years I’ve been reflecting more on my background and my heritage, and just owning that more. These songs lyrically were a way to get that down and process it. It’s been, dare I say, a healing process.
Given how bestie - and co-producer here alongside Better Oblivion Community Center comrade Conor Oberst - Phoebe Bridgers’ star has soared, there’s every chance ‘Quitters’ will be an introduction to Christian Lee Hutson for a whole new crop of the ‘Punisher’ star’s acolytes. Somewhere between his distinguished pals’ trademarks is a decent place to start in such a way on his fourth full-length, the Los Angeles singer-songwriter spinning tales of dark, often questionable situations (“Hiding out in nice apartments / Catholic school girl uniforms / I think I was suicidal / Before you were even born” from ‘Age Difference’ a particularly eyebrow-raising sequence) in a barely-there whisper atop folkish instrumentation that owes similar debts to the city’s famed ‘70s scene and Elliott Smith. With yes, witty lyrical asides that jar smartly with his seemingly timeless sound. Both Phoebe and Conor pop up in the background on occasion, and the pair’s insistence on recording to tape only serves to amp up the sonic warmth. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘Creature Feature’
Second Nature (Second Nature)
‘Second Nature’ sees Lucius - aka duo Holly Laessig and Jess Wolfe - enlist Dave Cobb and Brandi Carlile for production duties. Drenched in disco, the pair’s songwriting is still front and centre, yet the stage on which they perform is bigger and bolder. The opening title track is an instant mood booster, full of crisp drums and precise guitars, and even the slower cuts are movie ready. ‘24’ spotlights their trademark seamless harmonies, and ‘Heartbursts’, which could drag if not for the sparkling synths and drum machines that propel it forward, is a suitable homage to the ‘80s ballad. Things pick up pace with ‘Dance Around It’ (on which Brandi Carlile is joined by Sheryl Crow), a feather-light pop song which finds sanctuary in dancing through the hard times. However, on ‘Promises’, the addition of synths do less to turn it into a dance track and more to disrupt the mood, even if it was more porch-sitting than clubbing. ‘Second Nature’ hits the mark when it comes to dancing, although taking the time to embrace those quieter moments can often be some of the best, too. (Eloise Bulmer) LISTEN: ‘24’
The music of Hatchie is less a genre and more a mood. The project of Brisbane-based Harriette Pilbeam, Hatchie creates cinematic, sweeping dream-pop that evokes the longing of the Cranberries and melancholy of Cocteau Twins. While Harriette’s first full-length album as Hatchie, ‘Keepsake’, was all about the ins and outs of romantic love, this follow-up is more inquisitive and self-exploratory, and just a touch darker - while still building on her signature nostalgic sound. Lead single ‘This Enchanted’ is classic Hatchie, an earworm drenched in wistful reverb and fuzzed-out vocals, but ‘Giving the World Away’ transcends past dream-pop into more adventurous territories. The daring ‘The Rhythm’ recalls ‘90s trip-hop and psychedelia, while ‘Quicksand’, co-written with Olivia Rodrigo producer Dan Nigro, has her somberly looking inwards: “I used to think that this was something I could die for / I hate admitting to myself that I was never sure,” she sings. “I’m trying, but what’s the use in trying when I’m left with all this disillusionment?” But Harriette doesn’t let herself get too mournful, even when she is asking questions of her own self and reclaiming her self-confidence. Album highlight ‘Thinking Of’ is a journey into the scary world of love, and how it’s worth a leap anyway: “How do you know?” she sings. “So you wanna be in love? I wanna be in love.” ‘Take My Hand’ was inspired by a Red Hand Files entry by Nick Cave, where he writes to a young woman struggling with her body image. “Trust what you fear, use it to your advantage,” she sings. Later on, she laments: “You don’t have to change.”
It’s good advice. (Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘This Enchanted’
There was a ‘no shoes on the carpet’ rule in the little studio as you can tell, which Joe [Agius] forgot almost every day and had to run back out, apologising profusely, when he would realise about an hour into each session.
We had a foster dog for six weeks, her name was Naomi. One time Joe turned around from working on a demo and she’d done a huge wee on the white carpet. The stain is still there.
Those familiar with Warmduscher’s three studio albums to date might be filled with apprehension at the notion of them making a “lockdown record.” After all, so awash with different ideas were the likes of ‘Khaki Tears’, ‘Whale City’ and particularly 2019’s ‘Tainted Lunch’ that the concept of the Londoners stuck at home with nothing else to do but ruminate on music might be a recipe for disaster - it might actually be possible that Warmduscher would truly go off of the deep end. Instead, they’ve produced their most diverse and vibrant set of songs to date. Intriguingly, the pandemic affected the album in more ways than one; prolific psych producer Dan Carey, who was behind the desk on all three Warmduscher albums so far, was due to return for ‘At the Hotspot’, but contracted COVID-19 just before the recording process was set to begin. Instead, the band drafted in the similarly heavyweight duo of Al Doyle and Joe Goddard from Hot Chip, which may explain the record’s proclivity for extended jams and the interpolation of dancier rhythms than ever before; ‘Twitchin’ in the Kitchen’ is something close to a disco stomper, while ‘Five Star Rated’ is all groove. At the heart of ‘At the Hotspot’, though, is a reminder that for all of their eccentricities, Warmduscher remain a tight garage-rock outfit - just one that isn't afraid to wander down some stylistic rabbit holes. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Twitchin’ In The Kitchen’
There (Warp)
Couldn’t forget the most important member of the band - the triangle. Come to think of it I don’t even know if we ended up using it - they’re harder to perfect than you’d think!
I was feeling really uninspired this day and struggling creatively, so luckily Joe started us off with some nice guitar and mellotron.
We used vitamin pill bottles for the shaker in the ‘This Enchanted’ demopretty sure they’re still in the final recording!
Given that it’s a fair assumption that anyone seeking out ‘You Belong There’ is already a fan of Daniel Rossen’s alma mater Grizzly Bear, the soothing warmth that pervades his debut solo record is almost a time portal back to mid-‘00s Brooklyn; a point somewhere when the hedonism of the 2001 breakthroughs had dissipated, and before the cynicism of the area’s current crop had yet to rear its head. It’s at once jazzy, orchestral, cinematic and intentionally obtusewhile yet remaining understated. The likes of the sweeping ‘Keeper and Kin’ sit alongside more melodic numbers such as the skittish ‘Unpeopled Space’ and quietly euphoric ‘I’ll Wait For Your Visit’. The gem here is ‘The Last One’, using the record’s muted tones to almost joyous effect. Definitely an acquired taste for those who Grizzly Bear’s less immediate side already ticks multiple boxes, but for those it’s surely a win. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘The Last One’
(Fueled By Ramen)
The concept of puppy love isn’t exactly a new one, but back when Paul Anka first crooned his way through the classic in 1959 - before Donny Osmond and S Club Juniors, ahem, followed suit years later - we would venture a guess that he wasn’t actually talking about his canine pals. But that’s where Paul and Chloe Moriondo differ; the latest offering from the Detroit singer is, quite literally, all based around puppies. Opening with ‘Sammy’, a giddy dedication to her own dog (“He loves to go out in the summertime / In between he never leaves my side / He really likes eating carrots”), and including a sparkling cover of Florence + The Machine’s ‘Dog Days Are Over’, ‘puppy luv’ is quite literally a bit of fun. And who can argue with that? (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: ‘Sammy’
Ethereal, exploratory, and unexpected, English Teacher’s debut EP is a bitesize promise of exciting things to come. Surprises lurk around every corner, as the band delve masterfully into building energy through texture, telling stories with both sound and poetic lyricism. The EP opens on a note that summarises everything so wonderful about the rest of it: ‘Polyawkward’ is a tentative, intricate construction of melodies that symbiotically blend underneath Lily Fontaine’s sinuous, spoken delivery. It’s a slow-burner, but when it heats up, it’s white-hot and intense. The moody guitar meanderings and offbeat vocal musings are English Teacher’s weapons of choice, building into a series of snapshots of moments that are almost realistic but not quite. ‘Mental Maths’ dissolves from a simple narration of a late-night shopping trip into a horrifying, swirling funhouse mirror of anxiety, jolting rhythms evoking the panic attack feeling as aptly as a lyrical metaphor would have. But English Teacher do not depend solely on either sound or spoken words, and it’s demonstrated nowhere more clearly than on ‘Yorkshire Tapas’, the ultimate flex of Lily’s captivating poetry falling into English Teacher’s always-evocative instrumental flow. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Yorkshire Tapas’
Oblivion! (Chess Club)
‘Oblivion!’ is an emboldened reinvention of Sundara Karma, abutting their 2020 EP ‘Kill Me’ with a heartened maximalist soundscape, particularly focused on vocalist Oscar Pollock’s syrupy choruses. While traces of ‘The Last Night On Earth’ can be detected on ‘DESIRE’ and the bumping bass line of ‘All These Dreams’ harks back to the foreboding pre-chorus of 2019’s ‘Flame’, this iteration of Sundara Karma is far more ambitious and, well, poppy. There is no scarcity of substance to this EP; each track is overflowing with maxed-out synths, school assembly claps, dive-bombing 808s and cloying echoes that bounce around long after the last note has been played. ‘Godsend’ sounds like a ‘That’s The Spirit’-era Bring Me The Horizon number with bombastic orchestral support and a refrain to match: “And as you slip away / I feel my whole body break.” The entire EP is a remarkable (and fascinating) change of direction for the outfit, with Oscar’s newly-rousing vocals (captured by the prolific Clarence Clarity) serving as the focal point for each track. ‘Oblivion!’’s majesty is testimony to Sundara Karma’s position at the vanguard of indie-rock, tying in fizzing hyperpop influences with skyward melodies to create a near-masterpiece. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: ‘Godsend’
FLORENCE + THE MACHINE - DANCE FEVER
Flo’s fifth comes four years after ‘High As Hope’ and will be released on 13th May.
ARCADE FIREWE
It’s a tale of two halves from the collective, we’re told, now down a number after Will Butler’s departure. Out 6th May.
MUSE - WILL OF THE PEOPLE
Muse might well be ones for embracing the OTT, but the final track here being titled ‘We Are Fucking Fucked’ seems about as realistic as the trio have ever got. Released 26th August.
Fizzing hyperpop influences tie with melodiesskyward to create a nearmasterpiece.Oscar’s version of American football is a bit more out there…
estled between mountain ranges, Idaho’s capital Boise is quickly becoming a place to be, and no other week shows off its wow-factor than Treefort. Now celebrating its 10th anniversary, the festival’s line-up boasts over 300 acts playing across over 30 venues, and multiple other ventures, including HackFort (for all your techy needs, including learning how to channel your inner-spy with lockpicking) and DragFort (for some late night lipsyncing goodness with Boise’s fast-rising LGBTQ+ scene).
“It’s so funny, you sit on your ass for two years and then all of a sudden I’m [on stage] like ‘Hey!’” Lindsey Jordan laughs as she steps up for SNAIL MAIL’s headline set to cap off our first night in the city. Performing her first concert since 2019, having had to push back her 2021 tour following vocal cord surgery, she may be a little nervous at the start, but a few songs in, and with the crowd cheering her on every minute, she’s even showing the gargling water exercises her vocal coach has been urging her to do. Debuting ‘Valentine’ cuts for the first time IRL, she throws it back with ‘Habit’ EP track ‘Thinning’, even including a cover of Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Tonight, Tonight’, to prove that she’s still got the skills to deliver a killer headline show.
Locals BLOOD LEMON kick off day two rallying the crowd with heavy riffs as they call out Idaho’s legislature with ‘Keep The Gaslight On’, before INDIGO DE SOUZA takes over with a dreamy set showing off her captivating vocals as she flows through tracks from August’s ‘Any Shape You Take’ and 2018’s ‘I Love My Mom’, a standout moment coming from ‘Ghost’ with its lyrics, “If you ghost on me again, these tits will ghost on you forever.”
Heading over to the Linen Building, Idaho’s “space folkdream pop-country girl-jazz artist” EMILEE GOMSKE tells the crowd “this song’s about pain and misery, so let’s dance” as she dives into her laid-back harmony-heavy country-
infused tracks, before Grand Rapids brothers CAL IN RED set up shop in an old brothel for their Gus Dapperton-esque indie-pop stylings. Heading over to an old Masonic Temple, JENS KUROSS - accompanied by a mesmerising light show - is captivating with his beautiful piano-led songwriting, while a late-night bolt of energy comes from Boise’s own PIKENOTMIKE who drops an incredible drill set in a basement arcade.
The standout set from day three happens early in the day as Memphis’ BLVCK HIPPIE wow the crowd with their self-professed ‘Sad Boy Indie Rock’ that doesn’t stop being mesmerising all through their set, even with a broken bass string. LA duo MAGDALENA BAY hop on stage at the impressive Egyptian Theatre venue later in the evening to get the party started as they’re joined by a Poppy-esque A.I. figure.
Heading down to a skatepark the following day, THE FRENCH TIPS soundtrack various flips in the background with their riff-heavy indie rock, while BAD OPTICS deliver some powerful - if slightly deafening - post-punk.
KARI FAUX starts our final day off on a high with her sleek genre-blurring hip hop that has the whole crowd participating in a synchronised two-step, before Pottery’s PAUL JACOBS shows off his solo skills with his psych-tinged rock, and KIM GORDON commands the stage with ‘No Home Record’ cuts.
GUSTAF and GEESE close out the night, performing back-toback sets at the Masonic Temple. First on, Gustaf impress as they dance about the stage to their art-punk bops before Geese close the festival on a high as Cameron Winter’s magnetic vocals drive the group’s infectious post-punk.
Across the pond, we may not have heard too much about Boise, but with a festival that continues to spotlight the hottest new bands and some of the biggest names around, Treefort is soon set to be a staple on any festival-goer’s map. (Elly Watson)
“lright Leeds, we’re going to have a legendary night” promises Stormzy and he’s not lying as he brings pyro, flames and good times to Yorkshire on his ‘Heavy Is The Head’ tour.
Arriving from high up, the rapper floats down to the stage during opener ‘Big Michael’ where he demands energy from the crowd who are thirsty for hits - this tour is two years late, after all. Both requests are delivered.
The slick production only enhances the spectacle where he pays homage to early releases, ‘Know Me From’ and ‘Shut Up’ but this time he’s not in a park with his mates, he’s on a huge stage in front of a crowd who not only sing along with every word but the beat too.
While he bounces around the stage with what seems like an unlimited amount of energy during the likes of ‘Audacity’, ‘Cold’
Aand ‘First Things First’, the pace slows mid-set when he’s joined by backing singers. ‘Do Better’, ‘Crown’ and ‘Rainfall’ show how versatile Stormzy can be, not only as an artist but a performer too and it’s lapped up by the excitable audience.
After a short interlude to advertise his third album, the rapper returns, shirtless, for a home run of hits.
‘Wiley Flow’ sees him take to the sky in a crown, the arena goes wild for ‘Big For Your Boots’ and you can’t help but smile with closing number, ‘Vossi Bop’ where the crowd don’t need an ounce of encouragement to shout “Fuck Boris!”.
For years the US has been producing heavyhitting rap superstars, but now we have our own. Stormzy is leading the pack, inspiring others to follow in his footsteps while he goes on to conquer the world - with a huge smile on his face.
(Matt Pinder)
A big inter-band pub quiz of sorts, we’ll be grilling your faves one by one. Now brought to you via Zoom!
(aka Isaac Holman)
Where: His living room. Drink: A cuppa.
SPECIALIST SUBJECT: Game of Thrones
1
What are the names of the three Baratheon brothers?
Robert, Renly and Stannis.
Correct!
2
What is the Targaryen house motto?
Oh fuck… something about fire?
Fire and… Blood?
That’s correct!
5
3
How does Tyrion Lannister kill his father?
With a crossbow.
And where was he?
On the toilet!
6
What is the highest number used in sudoku?
I’ve never played sudoku… I don’t even know anything about sudoku… 10?
It was nine, alas.
8
What was Linda McCartney’s maiden name? No idea
Do you want to have a guess?
Linda… Smith?
Not the way we’d hope to go, but yes - that is the right answer! 9
It was Eastman.
What real life band performed at the wedding of Joffrey Baratheon and Margaery Tyrell?
It’s Sigur Ros.
Another correct answer!
What nickname does Arya Stark give to her sword? Needle.
And that’s five out of five!
Thank fuck for that, I’ve been doing my research for the last few days, stressing out about that.
7
4 10
What unit of measurement is used to measure horses?
How is that general knowledge!?
Horses? Foot?
You measure a horse in hands. OK…
How many years are you celebrating when you have a silver anniversary?
I take it gold is probably 50, so maybe 25?
That’s correct!
Well that’s one…
Which country originated the term ‘plonk’ for wine? France?
It was Australia, and apparently it was because plonk rhymes with blanc.
5/5 1/5
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