DIY, September 2018

Free • Issue 78 • September 2018 DIYMAG.COM • Set Music Free

PLUS

PALE WAVES DILLY DALLY MARIKA HACKMAN INTERPOL

Chris NOBODY PUTS

IN THE CORNER

Christine and the Queens talks desire, positive confusion & terrible teeth.

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CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR TWELVE SHORTLISTED ALBUMS

Title Sponsor

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diymag.com

SEPTEMBER QUESTION!

With Slaves’ choice of The Vengaboys’ ‘We Like To Party’ going down a storm, what would Team DIY’s walk-on music be?

SARAH JAMIESON • Managing Editor I’d definitely have to go for the Game of Thrones theme music because what’s not to love about all that drama?! Derrrrr der, der der der, derrr, de de dun dun, der der, DUN DUN.

EMMA SWANN • Founding Editor ‘Take That And Party’: it’s cheesy and upbeat, and by my childhood obsession. Ideal!

LISA WRIGHT • Features Editor Oasis’ ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’. If that doesn’t get you in the vibe then I don’t want to know you anyway.

LOUISE MASON • Art Director

Shintaro Sakamoto - 鬼退治: falsetto Japanese robots reflect my deepest emotions and wildest ambitions.

EDITOR’S LETTER

It’s no secret that Héloïse Letissier is a woman of many talents.

Ever since first bursting into our consciousness with her ace debut, Christine and the Queens has been a firm DIY fave and now, returning with new album ‘Chris’, she’s taking on a whole new life. Challenging preconceptions and becoming a more provocative character in one fell swoop, her new era as Chris is a truly enticing ride.

Elsewhere in this month’s issue, we learn of Dilly Dally’s rebirth, talk urgency and compulsion with Interpol and see Pale Waves transform into the pop idols they always looked destined to become.

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

LISTENING POST

What’s been tickling the DIY team’s eardrums this month?

SWEARIN’ - FALL INTO THE SUN Five years on from their second album, Alison Crutchfield and co are back with more sugary, crunchy goodness.

WILL RICHARDS • Digital Editor The Spiritman techno remix of the ‘Countdown’ theme tune... obviously.

BASEMENT - BESIDE MYSELF

RACHEL FINN • Staff Writer

ABBA - GOLD

It would have to be some objectively awful cheesy pop banger from my childhood… Probably going to regret this but let’s go for ‘5, 6, 7, 8’ by Steps.

Helmed by great first single ‘Disconnect’, the Ipswich punks have a spring in their step on LP4..

Mamma Mia 2 > Cher covering ABBA > the DIY stereo being full of Swedish goodness.

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NEWS

C O N T E N T S

6 MARIKA HACKMAN 12 MINI MANSIONS 16 HALL OF FAME 18 HAVE YOU HEARD? 20 FIRST AID KIT 22 SLAVES 26 FESTIVALS NEU

Chris hadn’t quite got the hang of dabbing.

28 RINA SAWAYAMA 30 FONTAINES DC 35 COL3TRANE FEATURES

36 CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS 44 2018 HYUNDAI MERCURY PRIZE 48 DILLY DALLY 52 INTERPOL 56 PALE WAVES REVIEWS

62 ALBUMS 72 LIVE

Founding Editor Emma Swann Managing Editor Sarah Jamieson Features Editor Lisa Wright Digital Editor Will Richards Staff Writer Rachel Finn Art Direction & Design Louise Mason Contributors Alex Cabré, Dan Jeakins, Dave Beech, El Hunt, James Bentley, Joe Goggins, Matt Hog, Matthew Davies Lombardi, Nick Roseblade, Timmy Michalik.

Photographers Erina Uemura, Eva Pentel, James Kelly, Patrick Gunning, Sharon López, Soloman Rost.

Cover photo and photo this page by Eva Pentel.

For DIY editorial: info@diymag.com For DIY sales: rupert@sonicmediagroup.co.uk lawrence@sonicmediagroup.co.uk For DIY stockist enquiries stockists@diymag.com

m DIY HQ, 23 Tileyard Studios, London N7 9AH DIY is published by Sonic Media Group. All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of DIY. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which Sonic Media Group holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of DIY or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.

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Shout out to: The lovely people at Bestival and House of Vans, Mr Nando, Lowlands Festival for their nice almost-houses, Sub Rosa studios, Pale Waves’ Tokyo correspondents, the frankly immense €2 massage machines at Amsterdam Schiphol airport, and Marika Hackman for her hospitality and nice cups of tea.

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“I think people are gonna be shocked by the language I’m using.”

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diymag.com

Bringing

Sexy Back On second LP ‘I’m Not Your Man’, MARIKA HACKMAN ditched the folk for something altogether more upfront and bold. This time round she’s dropping any last semblances of cute and prioritising slickness, sass and a hefty dose of sex. Words: Lisa Wright.

Photos: Louise Mason.

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t’s a drizzly Thursday morning and Marika Hackman is sat in the East London bedroom that doubles as her home studio and creative hub. “This one’s about masturbating,” she grins, before pressing play on the second of three new songs she treats us to today - a disco-tinged bop (currently jokingly titled ‘Disco Stu’) packed with a bunch of gloriously upfront lyrics that certainly don’t, ahem, beat around the bush.

If this X-rated version of the London singer comes as a slight surprise then, well, you’d better get used to it.

Though the first as-yet-untitled track - an immediate earworm with a propulsive pop bassline - jokes around about “selling out because I’m making more poppy music;

all very tongue in cheek, very sarcastic”, a solid two thirds of what we hear from Marika’s forthcoming third album very clearly has one thing on the brain.

But though the overtly raunchy lyrics about “kissing and fucking” may raise eyebrows in certain quarters, the singer isn’t here to be purposefully controversial.

Instead, Marika’s here to change the dialogue on female and queer sexuality and to question why it’s so shocking that a woman might, y’know, enjoy these things in the first place. “I think people are gonna be shocked by the language I’m using and how direct I’m being about sex and women. But we hear lyrics in music all the time that are about fucking women and bitches and all this stuff that’s disempowering for the woman and very much objectifying her,” she explains. “So I’m here writing music about fucking, and it’s in a much more unifying and sexy way.

But I think people are just gonna be shocked because it’s coming from me, who is an unexpected source of that.

“I should be like, polite. If you look at me, I should be, right?” she deadpans, with an eyeball roll. “I’m this kooky folkster, because that’s what people still call me. It’s like a little girl running around at a party and when she says 7

something wrong everyone says, ‘Go back to bed darling’.

But no. Fuck off. I’m not being derogatory in any way and I can talk about whatever I want. But I think people will be shocked and only because it’s coming from me, and that’s where the conversation lies.”

It’s a massively empowering train of thought and one that comes directly off the back of the response to last year’s second LP ‘I’m Not Your Man’. Amping up the volume from folky debut ‘We Slept ...At last’ and openly talking about her own queer identity for the first time, it’s an experience that visibly changed what Marika wanted her music to do.

“I got a lot of young girls and boys coming up to me and saying, ‘Thanks so much for writing these songs that I can connect to because you’re dealing with sexuality in a way that I haven’t heard coming from someone like me. It gave me the confidence to come out to my parents and accept who I am,’” she recalls. “It’s a real vindication of why I needed to be really upfront about my sexuality, whereas maybe I shied away from it slightly on that first album because I didn’t want it to define me as an artist. But I’m carrying that through now because I didn’t have that when I was 14 or 15; there were no queer women writing songs that I could really connect with in any way, that I knew of at least. And if I could rewind time and be 14 and see someone like King Princess release a song like [‘1950’] I’d have been like, ‘oh my god!’ That’s why every lesbian has watched The L

Word - because that’s the only real lesbian show that’s ever been on. There’s nothing to connect to!

It’s a really underrepresented part of mainstream media; it’s bizarre.”

As well as contributing to the much-needed and still-small pool of young, queer female artists, ‘I’m Not Your Man’ - with its grungier riffs and giddier kicks - also opened Marika up sonically. “I think one of the defining moments for me, having always played relatively intimate, moody shows where everyone’s experiencing their own thing, was at a show on the first tour in Birmingham where the crowd were moshing and singing along and dancing,” she remembers. “That was why I made [that] record - for people to share in a unifying experience rather than an isolating one and I still find that so exciting.” Now, the emphasis is still on producing these unifying thrills, but on LP3 they’re set to be even bolder and slicker than before. “I wanted to take that directness, and also the ballsiness and the grunginess of the music, to take the energy of that but treat it more like the first record where I layered it up and played everything,” she explains

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of the new material. “I wanted a slicker sound - less garage rock and more pop, grungy weirdness - and to fuck around with that kind of stuff. More synths and samples and basslines and things, and to work my way up from there.”

To help her along the way, Marika’s enlisted pop superproducer David Wrench (Frank Ocean, The xx, Let’s Eat Grandma). She’s also co-producing with him for the first time, stepping out of her comfort zone and taking more control. The end result, she explains, is unashamedly to make something “bigger sounding and poppier”. “If you listen to my early EPs, people probably think, oh she’s a dark indie kid who turns her nose up at pop music. But I like pop music. So it’s like, why don’t I dip my toe in that a bit more?” she shrugs. “On the last album, songs like ‘My Lover Cindy’ had much more of a pop sensibility but I’d record them in a grungy way. But with this one I’m just letting the songs be what they are and not forcing them into some weird, kooky box. Just letting them be what sounds good to listen to.”

Still midway through the writing process (“but in my mind it’s got to be done by the end of the year, so that will happen,” she notes), Marika 3.0 is already shaping up to be a glorious mix of the slick and the dirty, with directness coming from every angle. Ask the singer about influences and she’ll merrily cite cover star Christine and the Queens, Fugazi and author Cathy Acker (“She’s very direct in very explicit, disgusting, sexual [matters].

But it’s this thing where all the parts that we judge ourselves for as humans are actually all the things that unite us”) in the same breath.

All seemingly disparate influences, but united by an uncompromising sense of laying their cards on the table and being open and true to themselves.

Already firmly following down that path, Marika’s third album is set to cement the singer as a genuinely important artist. And if she’s ever having a wobble with what she’s trying to say? “I rang my mum up because I had writer’s block and said I couldn’t finish these lyrics. She’s like, ‘what’s the song about?’

Masturbation. Then she gave me this whole list of stuff to Google and things to look up and words I could put in and I wrote the rest of the lyrics two hours later,” she laughs.

Looks like we could probably all learn a thing or two from the Hackmans… DIY

THE GOON SAX WE’RE NOT TALKING OUT 14.09 “this is indie pop at its melodic, bittersweet best” Loud & Quiet 9/10 “a glorious pop album” Mojo HHHH “their garage-rock stylings have flourished” Uncut HHHH “Chock full of frenetic energy, catchy rhythms and captivating melodies” DIY HHHH

COMING SOON...

LOS CAMPESINOS!

CLOUD NOTHINGS

HOLD ON NOW, YOUNGSTER...

WE ARE BEAUTIFUL, WE ARE DOOMED

OUT 19.10

LAST BUILDING BURNING

10TH ANNIVERSARY REMASTERED REISSUES OUT 12.10

www.wICHITA-RECORDINGS.COM

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WHAT LEDGE

To be honest with you, Stormzy could pick up our accolade for LegTHIS MONTH: end Of The Month pretty much yearround. From demanding answers from the Government on the Grenfell Tower fire live at the BRITs to getting his own #Merky Burger at Nando’s and streaming England’s penalty shootout win against Colombia in the World Cup while on stage in Ibiza, he’s pretty much never out of our good books.

This month, though, he’s really upped the ante.

STORMZY First off, he flew a bunch of fans out on #Merky Airways to Spain to celebrate his birthday. Then he announced The Stormzy Scholarship, a scheme in association with Cambridge University set to help black British students financially during their degrees. What.

A. Ledge.

On

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.

DIY Due to the name of our magazine, dear readers, we often get some slightly strange requests in our social media inboxes. Sorry, Jane from Surrey, but we’re really not sure on the best way to assemble your new desk. As our expertise lies far away from actual DIY, we’ve done the sensible thing and asked some of your favourite bands for their #1 DIY tips. We’re a magazine of the people after all.

This month, it’s... Sean from Shame.

“If you spill red wine on anything - a shirt or a carpet - it can be removed by putting white wine on it.

Ideal.” (Sean’s obviously not against mixing his drinks, but he’s also not the first band member to recommend a cleaning solution. What does that tell us, then?! - Ed)

LAURIE VINCENT, COMING TO BROADWAY IN 2019. (@SLAVES)

THE SPORTS TEAM SAFARI, BOOKING NOW! (@SPORTS.TEAM)

S P OT T E D Believe it or not, pop and rock stars sometimes do normal things, too.

They get lost, go food shopping, and catch buses – all sorts. This month, we clocked a fair few of them roaming around…

BROCKHAMPTON hanging outside the DIY work cafe. GREG JAMES giving CLARA AMFO a lift on a buggy around the Reading Festival site. DEAF HAVANA having a bop to DUA LIPA at Reading. GOLDIE looking suspiciously at SUNDARA KARMA backstage at Bestival, after he “lost his cigarettes”.

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WHEN AOIFE TOLD US SHE’D SLAPPED BONO (ISSUE 72), WE DIDN’T ACTUALLY BELIEVE HER. (@WHENYOUNGBAND)

Hamburg/Germany

19 – 22 Sept.

2018

Concerts by Jess Glynne · Metronomy · Bear's Den · Lewis Capaldi · Jungle · Passenger · Goat Girl · Tank and the Bangas · S. Carey · Okkervil River · Darwin Deez · ALMA · King Princess · Bishop Briggs · Sam Fender · Jamie Lenman · Princess Chelsea · Anna Burch · Cuco · Soccer Mommy · Freya Ridings · Amyl and the Sniffers · Bad Sounds · The Magic Gang · Poppy · Mikaela Davis · Boy Azooga · Ocean Alley · Fieh · Zak Abel · Nakhane · Kara Marni · Charlotte Lawrence · Sorry · Hollow Coves · Blanco White · Men I Trust · Black Foxxes · Octavian · Lxandra · David August · Sigrid · Graveyard · WhoMadeWho · Jeremy Loops · Ane Brun · and more Arts · Film · Word · Education Conference with Sessions · Showcases · Networking · Meetings · Awards

reeperbahnfestival.com

NOTHING BUT

HOPE PASSION AND

Organiser: Reeperbahn Festival GbR & Inferno Events GmbH11 & Co. KG

It’s not that hard to sit in the right order guys is it? There’s only three of you.

BACK TO WORK

T

After a three year break spent playing with a couple of rather massive carve out time in the studio and he normal trajectory stadium bands – as you do from it came forthcoming EP for a reasonably niche ‘Works Every Time’. “We were band returning to all together and all focused and the live arena goes are returning with new EP ‘Works we wrote probably some of the something like this: Every Time’ and a new lease of life. best songs we’ve ever done and play a few small Words: Lisa Wright. that’s when I thought, OK we have shows, release some music, wait something really special and I don’t agonisingly to see if anyone cares wanna let it go,” Michael affirms. and repeat, scaling things up a little each time. Not so, Mini Mansions. “We did our own Drawing primarily from a recent wealth of experience show in New York and it was fucking awesome and then gained during an intense, two-year relationship, songs the next night we played to 40,000 people supporting like the synthy, heady prowl of ‘Midnight In Tokyo’ and Arctic Monkeys,” laughs singer Michael Shuman, speaking the slinking, nocturnal title track are their most direct and from Toronto during a day off from the tour. “And that was immediate offerings to date. “Falling in love is the most actually meant to be our first show back.” amazing thing and when that happens it’s actually really easy to write because so much shit is pouring out of you.

It’s a mighty ask for a comeback show, but then the LA Same for breaking up, but in the opposite direction,” he trio - completed by keyboard player Tyler Parkford and explains. “I was busting out songs, because I had so much bassist Zack Dawes - aren’t exactly newcomers to the big content running through me.” Then there’s the filthy cover stages. In the interim three years since second LP ‘The of Edwyn Collins’ traditionally lovelorn ‘90s classic ‘A Girl Great Pretender’, Michael has been back playing bass with Like You’ that ends the EP. “It always just seemed like a his other band, Queens of the Stone Age. Tyler and Zach dirty song to me,” laughs the singer. “The slinkiness of spent the time on stage with The Last Shadow Puppets, it, that’s the way I thought of it. I understand it’s lyrically while Tyler is now in Arctic Monkeys’ touring band, meansupposed to be sweet, but I always heard it as super sexy while all three signed up as cult outsiders Sparks’ backing and dirty...” musicians for a stint too.

MINI MANSIONS

It’s a hefty CV, but one that also nearly broke Mini Mansions as their own band. “Though [those projects are] all good things, we really started to not have time together.

And there was a time when I thought, let’s just probably stop this. It doesn’t seem very healthy...” recalls the singer.

However instead of quitting then, the band decided to 12 diymag.com

Though short, it’s a return that kicks any of Mini Mansions’ doubts to the curb. Next year they’ll follow it up with a third album proper, meanwhile now they’ve just got the small matter of a stadium tour to contend with. Just another day in the office for this lot... diy

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SPONSORED

SINK OR SWIM

DIY’S PICK OF

LNSOURCE In desperate need of a live music fix but can’t decide where or who? If you feel too spoilt for choice, here’s just a few of LNSource’s upcoming shows worth getting off the sofa for.

VILLAGERS’ Conor O’Brien talks rediscovering his faith and finding

comfort in making music, ahead of the release of his fourth album.

Interview: Will Richards.

You’re back with new album ‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ - did it come together quite easily?

I find making music quite a comfortable experience, but you’ve just gotta let it happen. With this album, it was slightly reactionary, given that I’d toured [2015 LP] ‘Darling Arithmetic’ and brought out another album [live record ‘Where Have You Been All My Life?’] during that touring, and both of those albums were quite sparse and confessional, and I think I’d really done that to death. So the beginning of this one was a reaction to that, and trying to get back to enjoying arranging things, and making things as exciting as possible in a textural way, using a different part of my brain and testing myself again.

There’s been a lot of change in Ireland recently, largely around the Repeal vote - did you feel that seeping into the record?

I suppose when I was writing [the album], it wasn’t in the news that much - it became more prominent after the album was done. But the Repeal vote is quite indicative of a general cultural change that’s been happening for the last ten years in Ireland, which is a movement away from the Church, and towards a more socially progressive society, and the equality referendum and many other positive things have

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happened, and you can definitely feel it in the air. And with having moved to Dublin, you just have to walk out of the door and you really feel it on the streets.

It’s an interesting point around a movement away from the Church in Ireland at the moment, as a lot of the new album focuses around you rediscovering your faith.

For me, when I was very young, I was quite obsessed with the idea of God. I used to pray all the time. Then when you get a bit older, you get cynical, and life happens, and you realise how scummy organised religion is. For me, I’m in my mid-30s now, and you’ve got to take what you can get when it comes to spirituality, and you have to realise that you can’t denigrate anyone else’s faith, or their idea of what God is, or even if they want to use the word God. It’s all about how that animates you in the world, and if it allows you to be a more open, loving person and allows you to embrace the world around you more. For me, that’s what faith is, and I like the idea of reclaiming that word from organised religion, and using it as my own personal way of animating myself.

‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ is out 21st September via Domino. DIY

pale waves

27th September, O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London By the time the Class of 2018 cover stars reach the iconic venue, you’ll all have debut ‘My Mind Makes Noises’ in your, er, mind. Singalongs, dancealongs and quite possibly cryalongs ahoy for the Manchester lot.

Oscar Key Sung 26th September, Corsica

Studios, London The Aussie electronic wiz was hit with the buzz stick a few years back, culminating in a support slot with Years & Years in 2015. He’s back with new EP ‘No Disguise’ in tow.

belako

17th September, The Lexington, London The Basque post-punkers return to London following their appearance as part of Queens of the Stone Age and Friends at Finsbury Park.

For more information and to buy tickets, head to livenation.co.uk or twitter.com/LNSource

Reeperbahn

Festival 2018

Venue Molotow / Hamburg

Invitation to the annual Dutch Impact Party at Reeperbahn Festival 2018. Thursday 20 Sep / 12.00 till 18.00 hrs / Free drinks, food and excellent networking for delegates.

Pieter de Graaf With his debut project „Fermata”, Dutch pianist Pieter de Graaf went back to basics: combining easy melodies with more virtuoso passages without losing the meaning, or the essence, of each song.

Resulting in the the birth of a new talent in the neo-classical world.

Joep Beving Dutch composer and pianist Joep Beving’s music borrows from the classical vocabulary but appeals to a much broader audience racking up over 200 million streams to date on the Spotify platform alone.

EUT EUT brings a dose of energy to 1990s inspired tunes, dynamic and intriguing at once, without sounding too polished.

Rosemary & Garlic Rosemary & Garlic have gained worldwide attention with their beautiful and poetic songs, each of them filled with a great sense of beauty, nature and image.

Baby Galaxy The nostalgic ghosts of 80’s noise rock and 90’s alternative rock can be heard shimmering through, yet Baby Galaxy succeed to create a unique, modern sound.

Other Dutch acts at Reeperbahn Festival Jett Rebel Like a passionate superhero he flies around rocking on stage, coordinating every show with his charming enthusiasm, setting the band, as well as the crowd, on fire.

Pip Blom Pip’s music has recieved raving reviews from across the UK Music Press and also BBC R1,R6 and Radio X love her! Noisey were quoted in saying that “Pip Blom is ready to join the ranks of 2018’s rising guitar acts!”

The Homesick The three lads from the North of The Netherlands make some pulsating noise pop that gets firmly stuck in the mind and on the dancefloor.

Altın Gün On their debut album ‘On’ Altın Gün show what happens when you open doors between Turkish folk songs and a dirty blend of funk rhythms, wah-wah guitars and analogue organs.

DeWolff Having just released their first album at Mascot Records, Dutch psychedelic southern bluesrockers DeWolff are winning ground quickly, having a massive European clubtour (58 shows) lined up starting right after Reeperbahn.

For complete dates and times of performances, check the Reeperbahn website!

Brought to you by Dutch Music Export, powered by Eurosonic Noorderslag, Dutch Performing Arts and Buma Cultuur.

Bazzookas Based on a classic ska punk rhythm and happy rock-steady melodies, the band unleashes a stage energy that enriches really any festival.

Mauskovic Dance Band The whole world lies in these sounds.

Combining elements of Cumbia, Afro-Caribean rhythms, Space Disco, No Wave & Psychedelia to create a unique hypnotic analog groove.

Inge van Calkar Inge van Calkar is on a never-ending adventurous musical exploration, mixing pop songs. Her new album RESET will be released on September 29th.

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HALL FA M E of

A MONTHLY PLACE TO CELEBRATE THE VERY BEST ALBUMS RELEASED DURING DIY’S LIFETIME

Kings of Leon – ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ These days, Kings of Leon may fully occupy the overblown stadium rock domain, but rewind back to 2004 and the Followills were a whole different beast – cheeky, dirty and oh so exciting. Oh, the good old days... Words: Lisa Wright.

It’s called fashion. Look it up.

I

f you’re under the age of 21, then you’ll probably have only ever known Kings of Leon as big, blustering, stadium-filling MOR rock titans. From the moment their loins were set aflame with the advent of 2008’s ubiquitous ‘Sex On Fire’, the quartet - comprised of Nashville brothers Nathan, Caleb and Jared Followill, plus their cousin Matthew - fully embraced the lure of the big time; with nary a look back, radio-friendly choruses and anthemic sincerity would become the order of the day. But before... oh, before then, things were very different...

Rewind back to summer 2003. Debut ‘Youth and Young Manhood’ exploded into consciousness in a feral tangle of lusty howls and rattling guitars; if The Strokes were the effortlessly cool kids propping up the early ‘00s bar, then KOL were their randy Southern cousins, getting their rocks off round the back. It was a blisteringly exciting opening statement, but a year later they’d follow it with ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ - an album that retained all the dangerous, unhinged energy that categorised its predecessor, but refined it into something more focused. An album, essentially, that proved they weren’t just a bunch of rough’n’ready Tennessee tearaways,

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but that they could write some properly big songs too.

If ‘YAYM’’s finest moments were all categorised by their unpolished, raw rattle, then on ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ the band upped the pop nouse just enough to turn their unpolished diamonds into bona fide gems. ‘Soft’ is almost certainly the most joyous, climactic (irony intended) song about erectile dysfunction out there; ‘Taper Jean Girl’ prowls by on barely contained lust, while ‘Velvet Snow’ is a giddy hillbilly bop that’s insatiable in its exuberance.

And then you get to the hits. If the purring stomp of ‘Four Kicks’ still best exemplifies the sexuallycharged hedonism that defined the band’s early days, then ‘The Bucket’ remains their perfect singular moment; instantly recognisable from the first twinkling chords and cathartic shout.

It’s why their slow trudge into their current form bears lamenting. In 2004, it would have seemed unthinkable that a band so thrilling would ever be anything but; in 2018, it seems like a distant memory that they ever were. But in ‘Aha Shake Heartbreak’ we still have a glorious document of them in their youthful prime. And that’ll do us for now. DIY

THE FACTS

Release: 1st November 2004 Stand out tracks: ‘The Bucket’, ‘Four Kicks’, ‘Soft’ Tell your mates: The record’s big single ‘The Bucket’ was written by Caleb for little brother Jared, about the teenager’s struggles with coping with the group’s burgeoning fame.

P R E S E N T S

PLUS AND

1310.18 19.10.18

BRISTOL NEWCASTLE

Thekla Riverside

UK TOUR 2019 FRIDAY 25 JANUARY

TUESDAY 29 JANUARY

GLASGOW

BOURNEMOUTH

SATURDAY 26 JANUARY

THURSDAY 31 JANUARY

O2 ACADEMY

LEEDS

FIRST DIRECT ARENA MONDAY 28 JANUARY

NEWPORT CENTRE

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BRIGHTON GLASGOW

Concorde 2 Stereo

O2 ACADEMY

BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY

15.10.18 21.10.18

BIRMINGHAM MANCHESTER

O2Academy O2 O2Academy 2Academy 2 Academy 2 16.10.18 23.10.18

FRIDAY 01 FEBRUARY

NORWICH NOTTINGHAM

Arts Centre Rescue Rooms

LONDON

THE SSE ARENA WEMBLEY

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LEEDS LONDON

Church Electric Ballroom

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ROBYN MISSING U

.........................................................................................................................

When Robyn’s biggest track ‘Dancing On My Own’ came out in 2010, the song came to define what the Swedish pop star did best: explore life’s loneliest moments through upbeat, melancholic and bittersweet pop made for the dancefloor.

Now back with her first solo song in eight years, ‘Missing U’ is no different. Here she tackles that same sense of the unfairness of loss again, exploring lack of closure when someone leaves your life and leaves behind so many unanswered questions.

Robyn recently said that ‘Missing U’ follows the direction of her older material as opposed to that of her as-yet-untitled forthcoming album, but whilst the track seems steeped in a sense of nostalgia, it doesn’t seem like a step backwards. It’s both a welcome return and a fresh start after so many years away. (Rachel Finn)

FIDLAR

ARE YOU HIGH? ..........................................

FIDLAR’s Zac Carper has long been willing to put his shortcomings front and centre in the band’s output.

‘Are You High?’ is, on the surface, a Weezer-esque punk-pop shout along of the best kind, the footage they’ve paired alongside it from their recent live outings matching its bouncy tempo perfectly. It’s because of this that it’s also able to be a gut-punch, Zac querying “I think they liked me better when I was using.” It looks like FIDLAR’s upcoming third full-length is going to be just as heart-on-sleeve fun as its predecessors.

(Emma Swann)

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BRING ME THE HORIZON

MANTRA ..........................................

With last album ‘That’s The Spirit’, Bring Me The Horizon completed their transformation from scrappy metalcore outfit to full-blown arena titans. With ‘Mantra’, it’s clear their sights are now set on world domination.

Where previously they fused together their screamo roots with hook-laden choruses, this is different. Oli Sykes’ vocals are cleaner, and it’s the instrumentation here that relates the track’s weighty feel. Another surefire anthem in their arsenal, it’s an intriguing introduction to the band’s new era. (Sarah Jamieson)

LADY BIRD

BOOT FILLERS ........................................

On debut EP ‘Social Potions’, Kent trio Lady Bird set themselves up as punks with a heart. Now, on newie ‘Boot Fillers’, they’ve taken these traits and deployed them in their most affecting way yet.

The track is a hefty, rough’n’ready number on the surface. Thematically, however, it’s anything but.

Discussing the difficulties of accepting a string of temporary stepfathers into the family with an honest and empathetic stance, it’s a track full of internal conflict that ultimately chooses positivity and hope. (Lisa Wright)

THE 1975 TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME

.......................................

From the moment it twists into life with a tropical beat and Drake-like flourishes not to mention the autotune that threatens to drown Matty’s vocals - The 1975’s latest takes a while to digest.

Well, until the catchiest chorus we’ve heard this year worms its way in, set over stabs of chart-ready piano, and lodges itself in your brain indefinitely. Sure, the lyrics are deliberately vacuous The 1975 understand the power of letting all that go for three-and-a-half minutes via a pop song that makes you feel on top of the fucking world. (Will Richards)

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WHAT’S GOING ON WITH...

FIRST AID KIT

Klara and Johanna Söderberg reflect on a jam-packed first half of 2018, and talk a new album set to feature a little less heartbreak.

Interview: Will Richards. Photo: Emma Swann.

You’re mid-way through a huge 2018 - how has it been so far?

Johanna: It’s been amazing - one show that stands out is a show in the US with Ryan Adams at Red Rocks in Denver, Colorado. That’s been a venue that we’ve wanted to play for ages. It’s this gorgeous natural amphitheatre in the middle of the desert, and that says it all. And then Ryan Adams on top of that!

Klara: We also played a really incredible show in Paris earlier this year. We didn’t really know what to expect. We’ve played shows in France before and people haven’t been ecstatic that we’re there.

And this time we walked out on stage and they were just going nuts! It was just that energy in the room, and you feel it the minute you walk out, knowing that this is a special one.

“What we’re feeling right now is that the next record might not be as sad.” - Johanna Söderberg ‘Ruins’ has been out for six months now - do you feel fully settled in to the new era of First Aid Kit? Klara: Are we ever?

Johanna: We’ve started thinking about the next one and writing a little bit for it. It’s still very early.

Some of these songs from ‘Ruins’ are already about four years old.

Johanna: What we’re feeling right now is that the next record might not be as sad [as ‘Ruins’].

It’s been really tough to sing about heartbreak eeevery day! I’ve been going through heartbreak and singing about it and feeling it, it’s been very hard for me. Hopefully we’ll be in a happier place next record!

Klara: It’s gonna be super positive.

Johanna: Super poppy, and happy!

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NE WS

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DIYLive

W

hen Slaves’ Laurie Vincent announces to tonight’s crowd that the duo have previously played within the sweaty confines of the Old Blue Last seventeen times before, it’s not actually that hard to believe. The infamous London boozer has played host to just about every brilliant new band over the

Last month, Slaves launched their new album in the most boisterous way possible by inviting a bunch of their friends to take over London’s infamous Old Blue Last.

Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photos: Sharon López.

ACTS OF SWEAT last eight years - honestly, name any of your faves and they’ll have cut their teeth on that stage at some point - which makes their triumphant return even more special this evening.

Celebrating the release of new album ‘Acts of Fear and Love’, the explosive pair aren’t just performing here, but throwing a full-blown party. Like something out of Phoenix Nights, the venue’s filled with silver streamers and helium balloons, while the bill comes stacked with a handful of newer acts who the band themselves are keen to watch.

Making an early acquaintance with ticket winners, Brighton quartet Thyla offer up slabs of darkly scuzzed-up alt-rock; the wooziness of their tracks perfectly warming up the crowd for the rest of the night’s proceedings.

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THYLA

A band well-versed in the art of performance, LIFE waste little time in riling up their audience, singer Mez Green spending as much of the set in the crowd as onstage. Their set is charged with the blistering frenzy they harness so well, and comes punctuated with the first taste of politics we see tonight, when Mez goes to introduce the powerful ‘In Your Hands’. It’s a sentiment that’s echoed in slowthai’s cathartic performance too; most of which is spent pacing the floor of the venue, in among the audience, who he instructs to chant “Fuck Theresa May!” Unsurprisingly, they oblige.

LIFE

SLOWTHAI

By the time Slaves finally hit the stage - to the dizzying introduction of Vengaboys’ ‘We Like To Party’ - the tiny room is rammed. As Isaac Holman slams into opener ‘Sockets’, the place erupts and it’s clear tonight’s the perfect time for a celebration. While old favourites ‘Cheer Up London’, ‘Ninety Nine’, ‘Where’s Your Car Debbie?’ - are storming affairs, their new numbers also come packed with a fire. ‘Chokehold’ is resplendent in all its Britpop glory, while ‘Photo Opportunity’ provides a more reflective breather within the chaos. It’s ‘Cut and Run’, however, that really incites a frenzy, with several of the band’s friends getting up on stage to demonstrate the song’s dance routine.

& ROWDINESS

Choosing to round things off with a real bang, ‘Girl Fight’ sees Isaac march across the tiny room and up onto the bar, the duo then blasting through all of its cacophonous 15 seconds, before both him and Laurie dive back into the crowd for their last incendiary one-two of ‘Beauty Quest’ and ‘The Hunter’. If anyone knows how to throw a party packed with chaos and sparkly streamers in equal measure, it’s Slaves. DIY

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GIVE US

LIFE

Hull’s brilliant LIFE are the latest band to join this year’s Jäger Curtain Call, hurrah!

B

ack in 2015, DIY teamed up with Jägermeister to launch Jäger Curtain Call, a project designed to lend a hand to bands at an undeniably important point in their careers. Taking place on Curtain Road - the home of many iconic labels, studios and venues - Jäger Curtain Call was about providing bands with the opportunity - whether that be through recording, making videos or playing gigs - to make their next step really count.

This year, however, there’s a bit of a twist: instead of just existing on the east London street, we’re taking the project on a bit of a road trip around the UK - making stops in London, Manchester and Glasgow. Having already announced YOWL’s show in the capital, which takes place at The Lexington on 15th November, we can now confirm LIFE will play at Manchester’s infamous Night & Day on 4th October. Tickets are on sale now via TicketWeb – head to diymag.com/jagercurtaincall for more details.

DIYLive

Mez gets a 4/10 on the Dele Alli Challenge.

A BLESSED NATION London’s enigmatic duo Sons of Raphael have announced plans to release debut EP, ‘A Nation of Bloodsuckers’ later this month. To celebrate the release, the pair will be playing a special launch show in the capital.

P

resented by Because Music and yours truly, the brothers will play London’s Thousand Island on 21st September.

Tickets for the show are free and you can get your hands on one by heading over to DICE. “We had a hell of a time, and did a hell of a job,” the band’s Loral told us of the release.

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“Initially I wrote ‘A Nation of Bloodsuckers’ for a talent show in boarding school and this opened the way for the rest of the EP,” continues Ronnel. “The songs were recorded almost entirely in my boarding school room on my tape machine, I would skip games to work on music. I was the only kid carrying a reel to reel tape around my school, the jocks gave me dirty looks.” Alright then...

As for whether they’re looking forward to the London show... “Absolutely,” Ronnel confirms. “I’ve got news for you: it will be so great people will fall off their chairs.” You heard it here first! DIY

WIN A HOLIDAY TO AUSTIN, TEXAS - THE LIVE MUSIC CAPITAL OF THE WORLD® - WITH NORWEGIAN VISIT AUSTIN IS GIVING YOU AND A FRIEND THE CHANCE TO WIN THE HOLIDAY OF A LIFETIME TO THE LIVE MUSIC CAPITAL OF THE WORLD® IN ASSOCIATION WITH NORWEGIAN. In the heart of Texas sits the weird and wonderful paradise of Austin. It’s known globally for its live music - from the buzzing downtown venues of 6th Street to festivals like SXSW® Conference & Festivals and Austin City Limits Music Festival (ACL). Must do activities include sampling the local BBQ joints, checking out the food truck scene, taking in the unique shops from thrift stores and cowboy boots, to designer outlets, then chilling out in Austin’s vast array of natural beauty spots such as Zilker Park and Barton Springs - a natural spring fed threeacre pool. Experience Austin any way you want - hiking, biking, paddle boarding, on the race track at Circuit of the

Americas™ or even on a surf board at Nland surf park!

No visit to Austin would be complete without live music.

During your stay you and a friend will be invited to a gig at Austin City Limits Live at the Moody Theater (ACL Live) - a state-of-the-art, 2,750-person capacity live music venue that hosts approximately 100 concerts a year. It serves as the permanent home for the taping of the acclaimed KLRU-TV produced PBS series, Austin City Limits, the longest running music series in American television history.

London Gatwick to Austin from March through to the end of October. So, whether you are looking to go to ACL festival, watch the F1 at Circuit of the Americas race track, sample the famous local BBQ top up on tacos at a food truck, or learn to surf at Nland surf park, Norwegian can get you there.

Enter the competition at austintexas.org/win to be in with a chance of winning. The closing date for entries is 30th September 2018.

See website for full terms and conditions.

Getting to Austin has never been easier! Norwegian flies non-stop 3 times a week from

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FESTIVALS

REEPERBAHN Q&A T Whenyoung 19TH - 22ND SEPTEMBER

he German city of Hamburg is taken over once again this month by all things buzzy and new. Centering itself around the notorious Reeperbahn, and including the cult venue Molotow among others, every bar, venue and empty space will be taken up by some of the world’s most exciting newcomers - and a few familiar faces to boot. Goat Girl, The Magic Gang and Metronomy are all headed east, alongside acts including Sigrid, Amyl and the Sniffers and Psychedelic Porn Crumpets.

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How has your summer of festivals been?

Non-stop fun! We got to play all of these festivals for the first time and enjoyed every minute of it from the safety of the backstage area with the clean toilets.

Any particular highlights so far?

Truck and All Together Now probably had the best crowds! Latitude was the most fun because we camped and stayed the weekend. We played the Castlefield Bowl with Paul Heaton and Buzzcocks in June and Drew asked Paul Heaton (not knowing what he looked like) if he was the venue rep, that was an interesting one.

Reeperbahn is chock full of buzzy new bands: who are your favourite new acts?

At the moment we’re liking Nilüfer Yanya, bLANC, Isaac Gracie, Crewel Intentions and Fontaines DC from Ireland.

Do any of you speak good German?

No, we are absolutely useless. we just typed in to Google the most important phrase we could think of: servierst du Guinness?

EXCHANGE TRIP Discover some of the artists who are involved in this year’s round of Eurosonic Nooderslag’s European Talent Exchange Programme.

H

aving played at Eurosonic Noorderslag back in January this year, Superorganism have had quite the year. Since releasing their self-titled debut and playing at the Groningen fest, the collective have since gone on to play at dozens of festival this summer across the world.

As part of their performance, the band have also become part of the European Talent Exchange Programme – or ETEP for short - which aims to do exactly what it says on the tin: encourage bookers to add artists from across Europe to their festival lineups. From a quick glance at Superorganism’s touring schedule this summer, it’s certainly been a success.

“The reception to our album so far has been amazing,” Harry told us, back when they played The Great Escape. “We made all these songs at home, kind of in a bubble, then once it was released, people started to know the songs and sing along.

We’ve played a couple of shows – in London and New York – where we’ve come out on stage and there’s a thousand people who know all the lyrics. I don’t think I’ll ever get de-sensitised to that.”

LET’S GO DUTCH Fresh from taking on The Great Escape as lead country earlier this year, Dutch Impact will once again be making an appearance at this year’s Reeperbahn festival. In fact, some of the Netherlands’ finest acts will be Hamburgbound for an afternoon of sets this month. Taking place on Thursday 20th September across the Reeperbahn’s famous Molotow, this year’s show will boast performances from the likes of Pip Blom, The Homesick, Baby Galaxy and DeWolff.

DIY

STAGE At this year’s Reeperbahn, we’ll be teaming up with fritz-kola to bring you some of the best new bands at the festival. Taking place at Heiligengeistfeld (that’s the Holy Ghost Field, for all you non-German speakers), the fritz-kola and DIY stage takes place on Friday 21st and Saturday 22nd September, as part of the newly-launched Music and Art Festival Village.

Q&A The Homesick How has 2018 been treating you?

Nice so far! We went to Texas for SXSW and Brighton for the Great Escape. We also played some more shows in Europe.

You released your debut album last year – what’s it been like to have it out in the world?

It’s been really sweet. It has brought us to a total of 22 countries. We’re really glad people listen to the record and like it. Since we released the album we could finally tour a lot more outside of the Netherlands.

How are you looking forward to Reeperbahn?

We never played in Hamburg before with The Homesick! We’ve heard a lot of good stories about Reeperbahn and we like Germany so we’re excited to go there. I hope we’ll play a lot of the new songs that we’ve been working on.

“I think we’re drawing a lot of people to our festival shows because there’s a lot of curiosity,” continues the band’s Emily, before Harry picks back up. “I personally hope that when we play live that people who are in the audience can come down to our show and get a little bit lost in it.”

Watch the full video over at diymag.com now.

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THE BIG

thing

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RINA SAWAYAMA Tackling social media, technology, sexuality and mental health in 2018, Rina Sawayama is becoming a real voice for the new generation. Words: Rachel Finn.

There’s a song on Rina Sawayama’s 2017 mini-album ‘RINA’ where she muses about love, anxiety and loneliness in the digital age. “Came here on my own, party on my phone…” she sings on ‘Cyber Stockholm Syndrome’, describing a night dressed up, spent conversing with someone online.

It’s this head-on approach to talking about the way we interact with technology that’s resonated with many of her fans, the affectionately-named Pixels. Like her, they’re barely able to remember a time where they didn’t have the ease of instantaneous communication, yet at the same time are uncomfortably aware of the distance it can create between them.

“I guess that noone was really talking about social media [in music], so I sort of bought a couple of books, read through them, read articles, became kind of obsessed with the idea of how humans are reacting to social media,” she explains. “I can’t write about myself, so I write about other people and then make it academic.”

where she’s appeared in campaigns for the likes of adidas, Samsung, Versus Versace and H&M, among others.

“Music was always what I wanted to do, I just couldn’t figure out a way to make it happen… I just didn’t know what I wanted to sound like,” she explains of her roundabout route. A conversation with fellow online creative and friend, the Swedish artist and photographer Arvida Byström, helped her begin to figure it out. “Just becoming friends with her I realised in the most naive way that I can make art that’s inspired by my day-to-day around me.”

It’s this grounding in academia, filtered through everyday experience, which has allowed her to start to draw from her own personal experience when writing as well. On another track, ‘10 20 40’, she explores her experience with depression via the metaphor of driving a car in cruise control, trying to accept the fact that her emotions aren’t being completely controlled by herself. “[I was] just feeling really numb and being quite jaded that I couldn’t find something that would make me happy,” she says, explaining that the song’s title is a reference to the milligram dosages of prescription antidepressants. “It was important for me to talk about things that aren’t talked about in pop.”

“I can’t write about myself, so I write about other people and then make it academic.”

It’s moments like this that makes Rina’s music both simultaneously nostalgic and cuttingly of-the-moment. Describing herself as “obsessed” with “the emotion of Britney Spears and Max Martin’s early production,” her songs take a stab at the anxieties surrounding social media, technology, sexuality and mental health via the sounds of late ‘90s and early ‘00s pop and R&B. But, despite having arrived at such a seemingly-refined place with her sound, her route into music wasn’t exactly straightforward.

Born in Niigata, Japan, Rina moved to London aged five, attending Japanese school in London until she was ten.

Her education meant that as a child, she found herself mostly surrounded by ‘90s J-Pop, giving her “an inspiration source with Japanese music that noone else in the Western music world can really be inspired by authentically.”

Later, as a teenager at sixth form in north London, she was in band called Lazy Lion with Wolf Alice’s Theo Ellis and rapper Jelani Blackman, before finally arriving at a pop career via a degree in politics, psychology and sociology at Cambridge University and a successful career as a model,

On new single ‘Cherry’ - the next step on the way to her first full-length - Rina addresses an intimate moment locking eyes with another woman on the tube while on the way to the studio. “Down the subway, you looked my way, with your girl gaze, that was the day everything changed,” she sings over a twinkling synth.

“This is the first song that I’m kind of talking about my queer experience on…” she explains. “I just wanted to write a song that felt really honest to me about the shame that sometimes I feel about being queer. But it’s not about being ashamed or being shameful. It’s a song about shame whilst refusing to be ashamed.”

“When I was growing up I had a lot of shame around non-heterosexual, not relationships, but just any time it was brought up or any girl that I was getting with or whatever, there were would be a lot of shame on all sides,” shes adds, hoping she can use her music to help others who might be going through similar experiences.

“I think that’s a problem with representation and if I can be a part of that solution by being part of this growing body of Asian LGBTQ people, then that’s great.” DIY 29

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Words: Lisa Wright.

turning it into ramshackle poetry.

Dubliners taking the pleasure and pain of their surroundings and

FONTAINES DC The ‘D’ stands for dapper.

neu

“A lot of the things we’re reading at the moment are [about] trying to find beauty in hardship,” explains Fontaines DC guitarist Conor Curley. “It’s expensive to live in Dublin now and as an artist you can almost feel pushed out because of rent prices, but then you look at the [River] Liffey and you see the divine beauty in the skyline and that’s where we wanted to push it - to make people see the art around the city.”

Though sonically his band might find reference points in the careering punk of The Pogues or, more recently, the likes of Partisan labelmates IDLES, it’s in this romanticising of their hometown that the quintet - completed by vocalist Grian Chatten, guitarist Carlos O’Connell, bassist Conor Deegan III and drummer Tom Coll - really find their true lineage. Influenced by the poetry and writing of lauded natives Yeats and Joyce, it’s through this literate lens that the band are filtering their niche of ramshackle punk rock.

“Ireland is almost a living thing and has so much character in it. All these writers were touched by the country and by the culture and they wanted

to represent these feelings towards where they live and where they’re from in their art,” Conor continues. “Dublin and city life is that topic that keeps coming up in all the songs [we’re writing].”

Rather than mere doe-eyed love letters, however, the likes of recent single ‘Chequeless Reckless’ - “A sell-out is someone who becomes a hypocrite in the name of money / An idiot is someone who let’s their education do all the thinking” ring with a politically and socially-attuned bite. “We just want to be self-aware and aware of what’s going on in the world.

It’s more liberating and it provokes conversations,” says Carlos of the band’s outlook. “I think we just want to try and express the viewpoint of common people and maybe an anxiety and a stress that comes from your surroundings and the overloading of media and social media commentary. To take it back to common ground.

Currently recording their debut album, slated for release early next year, Fontaines DC are cementing a mission statement that should solidify this mantra of beauty and unity among the bleakness.

“We like to use our music to be vulnerable in a certain way,” summarises Conor.

“Before this band, poetry was the outlet for that, but I think there’s a certain vulnerability to this which is, in my opinion, the most beautiful aspect of it.” DIY

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CHAI

SQUID

Jagged, hyperactive

Brighton bunch channelling the scrappiness

guitar pop from Japan.

It’s not a half-hearted endeavour, listening to CHAI. From the moment new single ‘N.A.O.’ bursts into life, it grabs you by the neck and demands you sit upright for a journey through jaggedy guitars, pulsating synths and relentless, probing vocals.

An LP is coming via Heavenly, and the band support Superorganism in the UK in October.

Listen: The relentless ‘N.E.O.’ Similar to: If J-Pop and intense math-rock made bedfellows.

of early Foals.

ITALIA 90 Snarling Londoners making brilliantly bleak ragers.

London four-piece Italia 90’s ‘Tourist Estate’ - recently shared on diymag.com as our Neu Pick - is post-punk at its darkest and most delicious. A wash of guitars scythe their way through the entire track, while a simple, catchy bassline bobs along behind to-the-point, barked lyrics. It follows an equally promising debut EP from last year, and adds one more name to the list of superbly exciting guitar bands in London right now.

Squid have an infectious energy about them. Existing on the fringes of math-rock, dance-punk, indie and sleazy riff-worship, their small output so far isn’t defined by genre, more a unifying sense of ingenuity and vessel-bursting energy. It becomes even clearer live; their shows are frenzied sprints defined by the same vivacity.

Listen: Raucous new one ‘The Dial’.

Similar to: LCD Soundystem, The Rapture and ‘Strange House’era Horrors put in a blender and rocketed into 2018 at 100mph.

Listen: A sharp, incisive self-titled debut EP. Similar to: A 2010s reincarnation of politically pissed-off post-punk.

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RECOMMENDED

NO ROME

Future pop from the buzzy, Dirty Hit-signed Filipino.

Continuing Dirty Hit’s penchant for forward-facing signings, Manila-based No Rome has turned more than a few heads in his short existence so far, not least that of The 1975’s Matty Healy.

Across the tracks - most recently the glossy ‘Saint Laurent’ - he’s shown himself to blur the boundaries between chart-bound pop and something more leftfield beautifully, and looks destined for pretty big things.

Listen: Glossy, chart-bound new one ‘Saint Laurent’.

Similar to: Justin Bieber if he were drawn to the weirder corners of pop.

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THE

BUZZ FEED

All the buzziest new music happenings, in one place.

HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY ANTEROS have shared fiery new track ‘Call Your Mother’ alongside announcing a DIY Presents UK tour for October!

Peep the dates at diymag.com.

BONUS TRACKS

TOMBERLIN Kentucky singer-songwriter creating sad yet uplifting soundscapes.

Tomberlin takes a deep dive into the personal in her music. The mononym of Kentucky-based Sarah Beth Tomberlin, her recently released debut ‘At Weddings’ is full of atmosphere, pairing twinkling guitar and lush piano sounds. On latest track, ‘Any Other Way’, she shows some of that promise best with a poignant description of what it’s like to feel like you can’t quite find your place in the world.

Listen: The emotional, punch-in-the-gut sound of ‘Any Other Way’.

Similar to: The introspective soul searching of Julien Baker via early Bon Iver.

In a meeting of two Neu faves, DRAHLA are set to play a host of UK shows with Captured Tracks labelmate Chastity later in the year.

The Leeds trio are also off on their first ever US tour! Find out all at diymag.com

TAKE THE THRONE Fresh from releasing her debut EP and being profiled in this here Neu section, natch - KING PRINCESS has announced her first ever European shows. Get the info at diymag.com.

ON THE PLAYLIST neu

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: YONAKA ‘Waves’ Another strong statement of intent from the Brighton band.

AVERAGE JOE ‘Cross My Heart’ World-weary musings in a deliciously thick Northern accent.

PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS ‘Social Candy’ Australia’s weirdest new psychsters are back with more mind-bending tricks.

DESIRE ‘Sons’ Members of Abattoir Blues channel the dark underbelly of the ‘80s.

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NEU LIVE

MUSTSEE SHOWS THIS MONTH Like being the first to see the next big thing? Get ready to brag to your mates about watching this lot before they go big, sell out, and spectacularly break up.

PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS

Arriving fresh from down under, these Aussie psychsters have already made quite the mark with their mind-bending offerings ‘Cornflake’ and ‘Social Candy’.

Now, you can see ‘em live: they play Blondies on 11th September, before taking to The Shacklewell Arms on the 19th.

SPORTS TEAM

BIG INDIE BIG NIGHTS ST MARTIINS Two Tribes, London. Photos: Soloman Rost.

H

ere at DIY, we’ve been teaming up with record label Big Indie for a new monthly live music night, the appropriately titled Big Indie Big Nights, where we put on a host of new artists that we’re very excited about indeed. Taking place each month at Two Tribes Brewhouse and Tap Room, in Tileyard Studios, close to King’s Cross and DIY HQ, we’re putting on one band each month for the very reasonable price of £0.

Fresh from making the trip to London from their hometown of Dundee, ST MARTiiNS make quite the impression during their first show in the capital. Offering up slices of their dreamy and, at times,

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sparse electronica, Katie Lynch and Mark Johnston’s efforts are mesmerising, feeling even more powerful thanks to their extra live members. Melding together Katie’s angelic vocals with darker tones, the likes of ‘do ur words’ come packed with noodling Foals-esque guitars, while ‘othr grls’ boasts a hooky chorus, embued with a real funky feel.

The real jewel in their crown comes in the form of ‘ur so pretty’ – the band’s recent release with Big Indie – a track flecked with smooth R&B and swirling beats. Providing a more introspective round of Big Indie Big Nights than in the past, perhaps, but ST MARTiiNS’ intricate brand of electro-pop is endlessly appealing. (Sarah Jamieson)

Playing their biggest headline show to date at London’s Scala on 19th September, the band promised us big things when they appeared in Neu in June (“We want to do a shark theme. Get a beach upstairs, cages, boats, surfers”) so this is your chance to see if they’re living up their word.

AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS

Taking on the glitzy confines of Hackney’s Moth Club to serve up their brand of snotty ‘70s-inflected punk (on Monday 24th September, FYI), Amyl and the Sniffers are another Aussie fave of ours that you should be catching this month.

Channelling the vulnerability of Frank

COL3TRANE

Ocean, Cole Basta is a newcomer to fall in love with.

Words: Will Richards. Photo: Emma Swann.

Col3trane’s not dressed for the weather. Two weeks before the release of his new mixtape ‘BOOT’, Cole Basta has arrived back in the UK on the day the overwhelming heatwave has decided to give way to biblical rain, and is kitted out in the whitest trainers going, with his suitcase lost. It might be in Iceland, or New York, or LA. Maybe even Kazakhstan. He’s been a busy man of late.

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The Londoner, who released silky debut mixtape ‘Tsarina’ late last year, has been spending time in Toronto, New York, LA and more recently, adding a final sheen to ‘BOOT’ while also looking forward to future projects. With ‘BOOT’ announced only weeks before its release, it’s clear he’s an artist that lives in the present, not bound to traditional restraints.

‘Tsarina’ was an intriguing introduction to his work, teaming syrupy, Frank Ocean-esque vocals with swirling, erratic production. It was created largely in a collaborator’s bedroom in Hastings, after he realised how small the scale of his musical setup could be. A superbly exciting, burgeoning musical career was then in motion.

“My stepdad used to work in radio,” he remembers, “so I had a microphone, then I think it was my brother’s old

laptop. My mum got me a pair of speakers for my birthday, and I remember coming home kinda late one night, I opened up GarageBand, put a J Dilla beat in and just started singing over it. It was just like, ‘Oh shit, this is easy as hell!’. Stuff just came naturally from there.”

Upon listening to ‘Tsarina’ and ‘BOOT’’s first previews double single ‘Fear & Loathing’ and ‘Britney’ - which were recently released with a gorgeous, Hunter S. Thompson-nodding video, a natural feel is abundantly clear, and Col3trane’s music feels effortless.

Now, a UK headline tour, built around a set-to-be-formative hometown show at Village Underground, is set to follow his fruitful LA sessions, and on the back of ‘Tsarina’’s success, Col3trane has blossomed into an ambitious artist for whom the sky is the limit.

“I have goals for myself now, while I never really did when I started,” he reflects. “When I was writing songs in my bedroom, and getting like 200 plays on SoundCloud, the dream was to perform at a show. Then you do that, and think ‘I wish I could perform at a show that people pay to come and see’. And then you do that. ‘I wish I could have a song on Spotify!’. Done. ‘I wish I could have a million plays on Spotify.’ Done. They just keep getting bigger and bigger, and now... world domination, you know. Let’s give it a go.” DIY 35

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N After a meteoric rise following the release of her debut album ‘Chaleur Humaine’,

CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS is back with its slick and sexy follow-up, and she’s out to prove one thing: nobody puts Chris in the corner. Words: El Hunt. Photos: Eva Pentel.

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Yoga with Chris wasn’t going briiiiilliantly.

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fter performing comeback single ‘Girlfriend’ on Radio 1 this morning, Chris has slung a denim jacket over the top of her black and white shirt and, shortly, she’ll be back on the move. This time, she’s hopping on a train back to Paris. She has mixed feelings about the trip, and groans melodramatically, throwing herself across the velvet seats of the restaurant booth. She’s paused for lunch in a swanky hotel next door to the Eurostar, and a somewhat chaotic, lust-related situation apparently awaits her the other side of the channel. She won’t elaborate further on that one.

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wo years on from the original release of debut album ‘Chaleur Humaine’ in her home country, a strange set of circumstances led to Christine and the Queens, then a freaky French outsider, suddenly infiltrating the mainstream.

First came her rendition of ‘Tilted’ on Later... with Jools Holland, which blew the lid off most other static, staid performers.

Then, after Graham Norton read about her by chance in an inflight magazine, he booked her for his own show following a cancellation from Drake (thanks, Aubrey!). Suddenly, her uniquely expressive choreography, curiously-told stories and sharp-tailored suits had found an audience of almost four million unsuspecting viewers. A careerdefining performance at Glastonbury ‘16 - the very same day that hundreds of thousands of sleepy campers discovered that the UK had voted to leave the EU - followed. “The elements were wild, people cowered under the rain, Brexit happened, and there was a sense of, let’s try to transcend this weird situation,” the singer remembers today.

“I was richer, and I was more powerful,” she states matterof-factly, pondering her new place in pop. “I was the boss onstage,” she continues. “I was lusting for sex, and all of that. Sometimes, that confused people and scared them away.”

It is true that society is not kind to powerful women in charge of their own desires. We are told repeatedly by certain people that meticulous powerhouses like Beyoncé are actually workaholics, and that countless other female artists are arrogant for recognising - and speaking about - their own immense talents. Dip into the online comment sections beyond your own bubble, and you’ll see people claiming Grimes doesn’t produce her own music (false!) or that Rihanna is unladylike for singing about lust without restraint. While template male rock stars are celebrated in the same breath for their sexuality and hedonism, powerful women are branded either a threat or a fraud. It’s exhausting to navigate, and so ‘Chris’ takes a different approach. It’s the musical equivalent of exclaiming “fuck it!”, in more than one sense.

“I’M NOT HERE TO JUST EXCITE YOU. I’M HERE TO TAKE YOUR PLACE!”

The rest, as they say, is pop history. ‘Chaleur Humaine’ became the fastest-selling debut of the year, with a million copies sold across the world. By the end of the whirlwind, she was back where she began on Jools; this time as the star of the New Year’s Hootenanny. It was a surreal whirlwind for an artist that began on the fringes, and it’s obvious, two years on, that it’s given her a boost of super strength. “I do want to turn your world upside down, you get it?!” she jokes today. “I’m not here to just excite you.

I’m here to take your place! No, no, but I am here to reverse things a bit,” she revises. “Being a woman in power made me think about how disruptive I could be.”

In pressing the detonation button on this new era, Christine and the Queens first disrupted what she had already built.

Taking a pen to her moniker and scribbling out the majority of her name, a sexier, more playful character arose out of the radical softness of Christine. Chris herself was met with positive confusion. “A positive confusion,” she ponders, “I agree with you. Right now I kind of like it when people call me Chris, but I’d say it’s up to you.”

While ‘Chaleur Humaine’ was all soft edges and warm evocation, with a “chamber album quality”, ‘Chris’ is rough and raw, laced with filthy beats that gyrate and strut.

New York producer Kashif’s work on Whitney Houston’s early dance-funk tracks, and Janet Jackson’s go-to production duo Jerry Jam and Terry Lewis come to mind, and both were firmly pasted onto what Chris calls her “moodboard for the sound stuff” (she creates moodboards for everything, it seems). She also paid a lot of attention to Michael Jackson’s ‘Dangerous’ era in the early ‘90s. “I was searching for a production that could fit the stamina of the record,” she says. “[‘Dangerous’] was really expressive, they just sampled shit like crazy broken glass and a car starting, this almost cartoonish energy. This album has accidents, the songs are like a skin that gets caught.”

And where ‘Chaleur Humaine’ grappled introspectively, constantly negotiating with the world and protesting that it’s possible to be both good and ‘Tilted’, its follow-up is more concerned with other questions. Notably: what gets Chris off?

“It’s me oozing with desire and telling you about it,” she says with a conspiratorial glint. “I would talk to you really close about it.”

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Drawn to powerful femininity and delicate masculinity at the same time, Chris pasted more figures still onto her growing characterstudy collage: “Leonardo DiCaprio in Romeo and Juliet, this tiny scoundrel, this tiny brat,” and Eminem‘s “deliciously devilish” Slim Shady both figured too. And gradually the ambiguous, 40 diymag.com

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“Done with that,” she decides more jovially. “Oh yeah! And now I’m eating a sea bass at the restaurant!

It’s actually quite good!” she notes. “Enjoyable.”

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n articulating all of this, she looked first to the aggressive women of the ‘90s, and their “square shoulders and healthy bodies that could lift shit.” Sigourney Weaver’s character Ellen Ripley in Alien - all tank tops, gun-slinging and streaks of oil - appeared on yet another moodboard, as did Madonna. “Instead of trying to excite you, she’s telling you, I’m getting off on this,” observes Chris, remembering a segment of the Blonde Ambition tour where Madonna gleefully simulated wanking atop a velvet bed during ‘Like A Virgin’. “It’s a small nuance that matters to me,” she adds. “Even when I’m writing something like “Para follarse… para joderse,” (Chris adds a third linguistic string to her bow on the sleazing ‘Damn (what must a woman do)’, expressing her want “to fuck” in Spanish between short-of-breath French whispers) “this record is me being excited more than me trying to lure you.

What is made to excite people when you’re a woman?” she goes on, wondering aloud. “It’s so much about restraint, and being not too much. Slutty, but not too much. Silent, not talking loudly, shit that almost killed me at some points…” she trails off.

Chris can dance, Chris can jive, and she can also teach you to boogie. Yes, even you over there!

Is there such a thing as a terrible dancer?

I do believe everyone can be a dancer! The ones who are typically considered as not good dancers, they just haven’t found a way to listen.

It’s totally possible. It’s about embracing your physicality, your own sense of rhythm. For me, it’s how to make the most of what I have: for example, I know that I have quite mobile hands, fluttering ones, and it’s about working on those assets. You get to learn quite a lot about yourself in that process which is cool.

Which song tempts you to the dancefloor every single time?

I think it’s ‘Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’ by Michael Jackson.

Sorry, it’s incredibly predictable, but it’s also inescapable. The inescapability of his work is something that I’m jealous of.

Even the attack of the song.

Dack dack dack! It’s done for me. I’m under the spell.

Do you recommend practicing dancing all the time - even when you’re waiting for the bus?

Yes, I recommend trying to dance your way through life whenever you feel like it. It’s also a good way to be free from the look of others. To do that, you have to get a bit loose, and it’s greatly contagious in the best way.

Do that on the subway, and you’ll see people getting into the groove a bit.

What would be your number one practical tip?

Don’t try to isolate parts of your body. When I think of something that makes me a bit swaggier - sorry to use that word! - you have to think of something circulating through your body. If you start with [moving] the head, it cannot stop there. Think of a playful way to make it circulate, think of a tiny demon that runs through. Let the tiny demon flow!

That is also very good life advice.

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androgynous figure of Chris started to emerge with oiled biceps and a mischievous air. Flexing, thrusting and body-rolling along a steel joist in the video for ‘Girlfriend’, flanked by a troupe of strong, fast-impact dancers and lit by an artificial sunset, it straddles the two worlds of campy, and straight-up sexual.

“I was obsessed with stealing out of patriarchy, stealing out of those tiny macho characters and using all of those codes to my advantage,” Chris explains. “It’s diffusing it from the inside. There’s these videos of sailors activating machines; it’s super macho but it’s super homoerotic as well. It’s so camp in the way that it’s used. What if I use all those sets for myself?”

the way I dress my queerness, I don’t want to be something that can be labelled onto a plastic bag and sold, you know?”

In 2016, when the Christine and the Queens effect first started to take hold, Chris found people trying to package her in exactly this way. Her whole aesthetic became, for better or worse, very fashionable. Google “how do I dress like Christine and the Queens?”, and you’ll find reams of articles hailing her as our brand new gender-defying fashion saviour, followed by a comprehensive guide to shopping in the men’s department.

It’s perhaps no accident that British Vogue published an article entitled ‘How To Wear The Suit This Season’ in November that same year.

Christine’s style, her swagger, was everywhere.

remember the beginning of Christine as something really freaky in the best tasty way in my life. I could be disruptive and threatening and dirty! I will never want to be this glossy twodimensional…” she adopts a cheerily vacuous tone, “‘queer’. “Love everyone!” she eyerolls. “It’s way more than that. As a girl, being queer freed me from all the suffocating injunctions.”

“Sometimes I felt like I was explaining the fact that I felt like I couldn’t fit into a box, and people were putting me in yet another one,” she adds.

“You know, I was talking about [my] pansexuality, and how desire is a force of chaos and reinvention, and they were like ‘oh, you’re gay!’’ She pulls an unimpressed face. “If you want, but how? My queerness is me, and my eroticism is me finding hesitation and doubts and disruption, this is what excites me.”

We’ve come to expect such evolution. Originally, this character arose in the face of heartbreak.

Morphing constantly - from Héloïse Letissier, to Christine and the “Working on something even rawer Queens, and now, to the snappier, than the first album, sometimes sultrier Chris - it all began when blunt, was a way to still be she found herself lost in uncomfortable in the best London, with no idea how to Chris might be bringing love way. I do believe that queer exist alone. A bunch of drag bites back, but it turns out she’s very is a threat, in a good way; queens sternly encouraged picky when it comes to teeth. a threat to an established her to turn her sadness society with established into a musical outpouring, “People have a whole set of teeth, too much teeth! Too norms. I think that and then came ‘Chaleur white, almost blue! I like yellow, Parisian teeth. Slightly [queerness] should also Humaine’. “Christine yellow, damaged! I have a fake tooth, just one. I remember be a resistance to a lot is there as a survival at the Met Gala I talked to someone, and they were like, of things that are to be technique,” she explains “what’s your sign?”. Gemini. She was like “it’s not going to questioned for me. It’s, now. work”. I was like, are you kidding me? That’s ridiculous.“ above all, a counterculture. It’s not about Cropping her hair short like Was she a celeb, Chris? me refusing for it to be an expelled choir boy for mainstream. I’m really scared album two, accessorising “Slightly! I’m not going to say who because of it being digested, or made with a stonking great love-bite, that would be shady, but she had too many more sugary.” and singing about getting lost teeth. Slightly blue. I should’ve seen in the most filthy, carnal aspects it coming. Such a huge mouth ‘Chris’ should put a stop to any of life with an artful turn of phrase and so many teeth.” fears of sugary digestibility. In one that’s more like poetry, ‘Chris’ makes track, the bouncing ‘Goya Soda’, she sense completely from an artist who references fizzy pop and the Spanish continually breaks the rules and master painter Francisco Goya - who Clearly, empowering people structures of the world around her. was best known for his sexuallyto express themselves without On ‘5 dollars’ she toys with the idea charged paintings of demonic night boundaries is a brilliant repercussion. of paying for pleasures (“It turns me terrors - in one breath. “Who came For many young, queer listeners, on because it’s timed,” she goads) there to see, who is seen, and qui seeing Christine and the Queens and in another, ‘The Walker’, she mange quoi,” (who eats who?) she plastered across London manages to make bitten flesh sound wonders, looking at a painting, Underground billboards, rocking delicate. “I am out for a walk, and I thinking half in French. And in the the shit out of a suit, was powerful. will not be back til they’re staining opening track, ‘Comme Si’, you’ll Unfortunately, ‘everywhere’ also my skin / This is how I chose to find her mission statement for the included Chris heading up every talk / With some violent hits, violet record nestled within the cryptic “as single ridiculous listicle of The Best blossoms akin.” Ooh la la... if”s. “There’s a pride in my singing Queer Artists To Listen To as if the / The thickness of a new skin / I am whole thing could be condensed “I was eager to try and write a record done with belonging.” If it sounds down into yet another glossy trend. that could give some justice to the like a dizzying puzzle of an album to She hated it. “It pisses me off!” complexity of a female figure in pop dissect, that’s because it is. Want to music,” she reasons. “It’s about know who Chris is? Move close, and “It always made me slightly trying to be a pop character which is listen. uncomfortable when I understood complicated,” she adds. “The notion that people were thinking of me as of nuance and detours and actually a trendy queer girl,” she expands. all the small alterations, I’m interested ‘Chris’ is out 21st September via “I was like, you don’t get it! I freed in. I don’t want to be this glossy Because Music. DIY myself through that character. I surface. Even in the queerness and

A BITE TOO MUCH TO HANDLE

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PICKTHECROP OF

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t’s not long now ‘til twelve artists battle it out for the 2018 Hyundai Mercury Prize, so we decided to take a quick nosey at all of this year’s shortlisted albums.

Let’s be honest, there aren’t many music prizes out there that have seen the likes of Blur pitted against Take That, or Dizzee Rascal taking on The Darkness.

Even fewer have managed to consistently surprise and intrigue as much as the Hyundai Mercury Prize over the past twenty six years and now here we are again, with another twelve shortlisted albums battling it out for victory. Fancy getting more a bit more acquainted with this year’s shortlist? Here’s a quick run-through of each of 2018’s contenders. Photos: Patrick Gunning.

Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

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WOLF ALICE The London quartet give us an insight into their second offering ‘Visions of a Life’.

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fter becoming one of the country’s best-loved new bands with 2015 debut ‘My Love Is Cool’ - also shortlisted for the Mercury - Wolf Alice decamped to Los Angeles to create ‘Visions Of A Life’, a darker, twisted beast that saw their star rise even further. It also had them refusing to censor themselves. “I think sometimes I felt embarrassed to suggest something or try something out [on the first album],” vocalist Ellie Rowsell tells us. “With this one I was determined not to be embarrassed or hold anything back, because those are probably the moments that I regretted in the first album, and you can hear yourself holding back a bit or remember the idea that you never suggested.”

NADINE SHAH

Shortlisted for the first time, Nadine offers up a glimpse into the themes of ‘Holiday Destination’.

EVERYTHING EVERYTHING Returning with their second nod - following on

from their debut ‘Man Alive’ back in 2010 - the band’s Jonathan Higgs dives into ‘A Fever Dream’.

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verything Everything’s journey as a band so far really has been something. After the confrontational heights reached on third album ‘Get To Heaven’, however, they knew the intensity had to be dialled down on their next release. “We certainly felt quite drained by ‘Get To Heaven’,” says Jonathan Higgs. “We had difficult times when we were making it; certainly my headspace when I was writing the lyrics for ‘Get To Heaven’ was pretty fucked up. I had gotten far too into following ISIS and rolling news, and getting very entrenched in the woes of the world.” Thus, ‘A Fever Dream’ became more about our connection to the world’s political changes, and how we’re collectively striving to process them. “’A Fever Dream’ was more about the collective shock that everyone felt then Brexit happened, and Trump got in, and the sense that everything we thought was safe was suddenly completely blown out of the water. That was something I wanted to get across: that sense of bewilderment, and the sort of dream-like state.”

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usicians are no strangers to making poignant statements, and if there’s one album doing just that on the shortlist this year, it’s ‘Holiday Destination’. Attempting to document real-life stories from Syria’s refugee crisis was no easy task, and even a year on, its themes continue to strike a chord.

“When I was making it, there was a bit of me [thinking] ‘This might not be relevant by the time it’s released,” she says. “That was real wishful thinking!” she says. “The camps in Calais were bulldozed, but people are still living there; they’re just in much, much poorer living conditions and loads of these stories are no longer front page news, so I’m glad this album exists if it plays a tiny, tiny part in reminding people that this is an ongoing crisis. It’ll keep happening.”

HOW DOES IT FEEL,

NOVELIST?

“I

’m so grateful that there’s people out there that appreciate the music, and consider it as great art.

When I was making [the album], that’s what I really wanted from it.

I wanted people to think ‘Yeah, this is good music and I can take something from it’ not just something that you listen to on bypass. I wanted to resonate with people.”

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HOW DOES IT FEEL,

LILY ALLEN?

“I

worked really hard on this album and I worked to make something that felt really connected, and a true representation of how I feel,” she told us. ”I really believe that that’s what music is meant to be and people so often say to me - when I’m doing promo, or interviews - they’re like, ‘Wow, you’ve really been honest with this record’, but if you hold it up to Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, it’s like, no, not very! Something’s kind of gotten lost, maybe in the internet age, where music is so much more about the visual aspect of things and not so much about what you’re saying. I really wanted to change that with this record and I felt like I had achieved that.

To get the nod from the panel is just amazing. I feel so happy.”

THE DIY VERDICT

Here’s a quick look at what we thought of some of this year’s shortlisted albums.

ARCTIC MONKEYS

Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino “A record that is undoubtedly new, unexpected and conceptually interesting. You could spend days unpicking Alex’s lyrics. Written and recorded in a large part by the singer alone in his LA studio, it’s all either genius or the sound of a man unravelling.”

FLORENCE + THE MACHINE

High As Hope “By bringing things closer to home, Florence forges a deeper connection than ever before. ‘High as Hope’ is an album that takes solace in those closest to her, works to right previous wrongs, and sees her come out the other side a whole lot stronger.”

KING KRULE

The OOZ “On it, he expands on some of the more hip-hop and jazz-influenced ideas that weaved in and out of 2013’s ‘6 Feet Beneath The Moon’, giving more space to dusty percussion, brass and contemplative electronic melodies than to his stark, ramshackle guitar riffs.”

NOEL GALLAGHER’S HIGH FLYING BIRDS

Who Built The Moon? “‘Who Built The Moon?’ cements Noel as the more adventurous – albeit hit and miss – of the Gallagher clan.”

RICHARD RUSSELL

Everything Is Recorded “A rich, brilliantly textured record featuring the expertise of Sampha, Kamasi Washington, Syd and more, all tied together by the iron-clad vision of the XL boss, ‘Everything Is Recorded’ brings together a host of different voices and perspectives to make something varied and wonderfully unique.”

SONS OF KEMET

Your Queen Is A Reptile “The most immersive album on the list, ‘Your Queen Is A Reptile’ picks from a gorgeously diverse palette of influences to create a record that sweeps through its 55 minutes like a daydream, and leaves its mark permanently.”

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HOW DOES IT FEEL,

JORJA SMITH?

“I

didn’t expect it.

I wasn’t thinking about it,” she told us, of her nomination.

“I’ve been busy! So I wasn’t really thinking about it, no. It’s a bit mad, but I’m happy - people are enjoying it, and they think it’s good.

“We’re all making our music how we want,” she commented, on the rest of the shortlist. “That’s definitely what I’m doing.

From this, hopefully I’ll be discovered, get some more fans, and more people that like my music.”

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STAIRWAY to HEAVEN

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In the aftermath of debut album ‘Sore’, Dilly Dally almost fell apart. Now returning with new album ‘Heaven’, they’re ready for their rebirth.

Words: Rachel Finn.

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he physical demands placed on a band experiencing first album hype can be overwhelming; that’s something Toronto’s Dilly Dally know all too well. Following the release of 2015 breakout ‘Sore’, the quartet went on to play over a hundred shows in almost as many cities in 2016 alone. The mental toll of so much time in transit, days spent almost constantly in motion, too close to each other across a blur of different hotel rooms and on too many roads in the same vehicle, eventually began to wear them down.

“I think that some of us really were depressed and couldn’t see a way out of it,” recalls vocalist and guitarist Katie Monks of their time spent touring the record.

“It really fucks with your head, being in an enclosed space with other people for a year or two.

Literally, you are codependent.

If one person is off that day or is feeling weird or is feeling bitchy or depressed or reckless or destructive… anything… then everybody feels it.”

“I thought the band was over… We were stretched really thin and a lot had happened in our personal lives.” - Katie Monks A record of emotive punk with a pop twist, characterised by Katie’s intense, razorblade screams, even getting to the point of touring ‘Sore’ - and eventually becoming disillusioned by it - had been years in the making. But, by the time the band - completed

by guitarist Liz Ball, bassist Jimmy Tony and drummer Benjamin Reinhartz - came to the end of the run in late 2016, their first record hadn’t just put the band on a trajectory to international recognition, but engulfed their friendships and mental health too. Then came the questions of whether they would even continue at all.

“It felt like we were over,” Katie admits. “I thought the band was over… We were stretched really thin and a lot had happened in our personal lives. It seemed like everybody just individually needed time on their own and away from the music industry, just because it’s easy to lose yourself when you’re travelling all the time.”

And so the band all “went off and did nothing” for a while, Katie locking herself away for an entire year, writing new music almost every day in her bedroom in Toronto. Later, the other members began turning up once a week to help her hone the material she was creating, building their parts into the base instrumentals and free-flow, stream of consciousness lyrics that she’d created.

It was that change of scene, and stability of location, that gave Dilly Dally time to decompress, but also a chance to work without any expectation.

Crediting the time away as a break from the pressure for “extroverted Katie to come out of the box” on the road and “go around and be a social butterfly and be on stage every night, making eye contact with loads of strangers,” the singer now describes their new album, quite fittingly, as “a punk dream of the afterlife.”

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“It’s a story of a band that kind of fell apart and had some kind of spiritual awakening through music,” she explains.

It’s this topic of ‘awakening’ that comes up a lot. On the surface, second album ‘Heaven’ comes packed full of the same loud, chaotic spirit that characterised their first album, but underneath it all is a new layer: an underlying message of hope, acceptance and re-birth. Single ‘I Feel Free’ came accompanied by a music video in which Katie (who also made her directing debut) literally digs her bandmates up from their graves, propping their muddy corpses against their instruments in hope of them playing together again; it’s something she admits is a metaphor for the way the album came into being as a whole.

Elsewhere come themes of love and radical self-belief, something particularly evident in the lyrics. In ‘Believe’ she delivers the cathartic mantra of “Believe in yourself / ‘Cause that’s all that matters / Love is an ocean / Don’t hide in the shadows”, while with ‘Doom’, she preaches “Remember who you are and where you’re gonna be / What’s inside you is sacred.”

In the slow-burning build of ‘Bad Biology’, the band take aim at the confinement of gender norms. “It’s supposed to represent how often our bodies and our assigned gender essentially keeps us from connecting to the people we love,” Katie explains. “I feel like the more feminine I am, through that I can connect with people more but then sometimes I feel like I’m just playing a role. My spirit and who I am goes beyond gender, as I’m sure everybody’s does.”

But alongside the band’s own personal struggles, there were bigger political powers at play during the build up to making the new record. While the band were on tour in the US during the weeks surrounding Donald Trump’s US presidential win, their own issues became magnified by a sombre tone surrounding the places they visited: “We

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felt a wave of depression wash over the whole country,” she confirms. “We played in Washington DC the day after it happened and everybody was quiet. It was weird, but I understand it. It would have been weird if everyone was happy, I suppose.”

As the political situation unravelled, in some ways it seemed as though they were holding up a mirror to their own issues. While America sought guidance and hope in the hands of an elected politician, the band felt the need for some guidance of their own. “We felt that people were looking for a leader and I felt like I was looking for a leader as well. It felt like the last thread that everything was holding onto and it was like, ok, well, now everything’s fucked.”

In what can sometimes seem like increasingly dark times, ‘Heaven’ is an album about what it’s like to look at the difficulty of navigating the road in front of you; about deciding to just keep going forward anyway, almost in blind faith, regardless of what’s to come.

“Sometimes things become so dark and so sad because you’re faced with these question marks of life and death and destruction and things. Hate and anger and pain and all this shit,” muses Katie. “But as you live more, it becomes harder to dig it all apart and then to process it all. And then you kind of have to go ‘well, fuck all that shit!’ and escape and push it all aside and go ‘well what is good?’ and ‘what is positive?’ and ‘what is worth living for?’ What is positive in this world? It’s better to nurture those things than it is to dwell in the absolute infinite perpetual timeline of shit.”

It may be an album born from chaos and instability, but with ‘Heaven’, Dilly Dally are back from the brink and ready to push through.

‘Heaven’ is out 14th September via Partisan. DIY

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wild rovers With their urgent sixth album,

INTERPOL confront the ‘Marauder’ in all of us, reaching inwards to find acceptance and power. Words: Will Richards.

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2

017 was a year that saw Interpol looking back. Featured in journalist Lizzy Goodman’s ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’ book, a comprehensive guide to the revolutionary, wildly exciting New York City music scene of the early 2000s, Paul Banks, Daniel Kessler and Sam Fogarino were quoted talking about their role in the scene that saw the emergence of The Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and LCD Soundsystem, as well as themselves, and how they became one of indie rock’s handful of new icons.

Later on in the year, the band took debut ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’ out on a 15th anniversary tour around the world, revisiting a record that remains resplendent in its bleakness, and serving up a reminder that the trio conjure a dark, deeply atmospheric musical cloud better than any other.

Either side of the anniversary tour, though, the trio were painstakingly crafting their sixth album, the urgent ‘Marauder’. Helmed by furious first single ‘The Rover’, the album is a return to form that reaffirms the band’s ability to weave raw, wintry music borne out of life’s dark underbelly.

T

heir last record, 2014’s ‘El Pintor’, served as a turning point, whether they chose it or not. Their first LP since the departure of effervescent bassist Carlos Dengler, it saw the band forced to rejig themselves as a taut, interwoven three-piece; a process of repositioning that frontman Paul Banks - who’s served as the band’s on-record bassist since - sees as having brought he, Daniel and Sam musically closer, making delicate but certain steps forward into new territory.

York and Central America, and Daniel between New York and Europe - the band’s heartland is more often than not where they regroup to carve out new music. It also - for the band and fans alike - satisfies the clear romanticism of the return home for such a quintessentially ‘New York band’, ready to make their next steps.

Living in different places also allowed the band to schedule regular breaks into the writing process, taking time out, considering the work done, and returning to the creation, as Paul puts it, “without just the rose-coloured glasses of newness.”

One of these breaks was the ‘Turn On The Bright Lights’ tour, which saw the band playing their biggest shows yet - including an electrifying night at London’s Alexandra Palace - and found the ‘Marauder’ sessions injected with a newfound energy once the band returned from the road.

“Whenever you’re having your personal rampages - that’s the marauder.”

- Paul Banks

Paul - speaking on the phone from Mexico City - saw the latter stages of writing for ‘El Pintor’ as he and Sam “hitting on a new chamber of groove,” with the new-found connection flowing effortlessly through to album six. It shows, too: ‘The Rover’ sees Daniel’s trademark tinny guitars worm their way over rollocking waves of bass and drums that are intertwined impeccably.

Highlight ‘Stay In Touch’, meanwhile, is a sprightly skip, an Interpol song that you can dance to, not just stomp a foot as before. “I feel like this entire record was the continuation of where we’d gotten to on the last one,” reflects Paul.

“It feels like we’ve found our own new language and our own vibe together. I feel honoured to be part of a rhythm section with the great Sam Fogarino.”

‘Marauder’ was crafted over a year or so in the Manhattan practice space belonging to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, with sessions getting raucous enough for the band to have the police called by a disgruntled neighbour on one occasion.

Though the band don’t now exclusively live in NYC - Sam resides in Georgia, while Paul splits his time between New

“It’d been a long time since we’d been on the stage together as Interpol, and getting that feel [back] by playing ‘...Bright Lights’ was a really good refresher,” says Paul, “and it gets you out of the mode of just being in a rehearsal room or a studio, and I think that residue of being onstage in front of an audience stayed with us as we came back, finished the record and headed into the studio. It paid off as far as how we were letting our new music settle in the backs of our minds while doing something else, and letting that live feeling permeate into the recording.”

With that defining debut in their back pocket, such an anniversary run could’ve easily seen Interpol slide into a new status as a nostalgia act of sorts, but the insinuation couldn’t be further from the truth. Heading back into the Manhattan writing room after the shows, the sense of belief behind ‘Marauder’ - and what Interpol are as a vital, forwardthinking band in 2018 - had never been stronger.

“I’m really fond of those recordings,” Paul reflects. “It was cool to check back in, as I think they’re a fundamental part of our DNA as a band, but at the same time, I’m a different guitar player now, and I’m a different singer now. I certainly like the old stuff, but I didn’t play the songs again and think ‘Oh I should go back on myself to what I was doing back then’. It was cool to check in with that material, but I still have that stoke of moving forward. I’d say to myself: ‘No, I do new shit now, and I like to believe it’s better.’”

As if to amp up the idea of newness even more, the trio - after lengthy discussions - decided to introduce a producer to the fold for the first time since 2007’s ‘Our Love To Admire’, teaming up with Dave Fridmann (MGMT, The Vaccines, The Flaming Lips) on fleshing out the songs that would become ‘Marauder’ at his upstate New York studio.

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“We all came together and decided ‘Fuck it, let’s try something new’,” Paul lays out of the band’s motives for the link-up. “Fridmann can work with you if you have no ideas, sketchy ideas, or pretty completed ideas, and he had a great way of inserting himself into our process.”

A

s well as settling into their new skin as a three-piece, ‘Marauder’ sees Paul treading new lyrical ground, delving deep inside of himself to expose the darker facets of his personality. “It’s a childish, selfish facet, the marauder,” he lays out, the character bursting out of every vein of the claustrophobic album.

“It’s always there in all of us to some degree,” he expands. “Rather than stomping it out in adulthood, I think it’s good to cultivate it and get it doing good stuff, given that there’s a lot of fire to that facet. Everybody has it, but maybe it’s mostly at the fore in adolescence and early twenties. Whenever you’re having your personal rampages - that’s the marauder.”

been trying to look inwards as deeply and honestly as I possibly could. I think maybe now the language just changed, rather than the pursuit.” “[Ideas have been] flowing more freely as the years go by, as a lyricist,” the frontman responds, to the suggestion that mid-career stumbling blocks could easily present themselves, especially to a band with such an iron-clad identity. “Any writer, they develop their techniques, and I’ve had rough patches in my career, but now it feels very easy for me to access whatever sort of inner…” he continues before pausing and taking stock. “I don’t know, I can just tap into whatever place the lyrics come from more easily, and I’m more tuned into it.”

“This is still a real, urgent compulsion that we can’t resist.” - Paul Banks

“I’m always looking inwards as a writer, and I’m always looking outwards as a writer, and I think [‘Marauder’] was a moment when the pendulum was swinging inward and that was what I was looking at - looking at my previous selves, into who I am now, and who I want to become,” he reflects in a matter-of-fact tone. It’s another sign of a band pushing forward. “I’ve always felt like I was trying to uncover things as a lyricist,” he continues. “I’ve always

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“In a pure creative sense, when you do this for a long time, maybe you’re gonna show up one day and say ‘Fuck, I don’t really have the gas for this anymore’, but I’ve not experienced that,” Paul concludes.

“Fortunately, all of us seem to feel that this is still a real, urgent compulsion that we can’t resist. It’s not like, ‘Oh god, time to make a record, better get started!’. I think we all genuinely still feel like we have a shitload of things to say. I think [we] need this. It’s a by-product of the stress that you take in as being a person, and it’s an indispensable part of my life still, being a writer.”

‘Marauder’ is out now via Matador. DIY

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MIND CONTROL 56 diymag.com

“Come, look!

Real life goths!”

Thrust into the spotlight essentially from day one, PALE WAVES have had to learn on the job and do it damn fast. On the advent of debut ‘My Mind Makes Noises’, however, singer Heather Baron-Gracie looks set to transform from a buzzy young star to a genuine teenage icon.

Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Erina Uemura.

T

he first time DIY properly encountered Pale Waves was back in March of last year, on the band’s first real tour when the Manchester quartet were buddying up with Dirty Hit label-mates Superfood and King Nun for a jaunt around the country.

Despite only having one single to their name at the time - the super-buzzy ‘There’s A Honey’ - the group already spoke with the hunger of a band aiming eye-wateringly high. “The ambitions are the biggest,” affirmed singer Heather BaronGracie. “We never didn’t believe we could do it,” reiterated drummer Ciara Doran. “You know some artists you meet, they’re like, ‘Oh, maybe I’ll make it?’ Whereas we know that we will because if you believe in something then you’ll work for it.”

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“I feel a lot of pressure in this band.�

- Heather

Baron-Gracie

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Fast forward to summer 2018 - still only 18 months after that first single dropped - and Pale Waves stand as a band dangerously close to getting everything they’ve ever dreamed of.

In the interim period they’ve played Madison Square Garden as part of a massive US tour supporting pals The 1975; toured across Australia, Asia, Europe and basically everywhere else; picked up a nod in the success-guaranteeing BBC Sound of 2018 poll alongside landing at the top of basically every other tip list across the board, and headlined DIY’s own Class of 2018 tour, selling out every venue along the way. The list truly does go on.

Now, however, is when Pale Waves have to come good on all that early promise. With ‘My Mind Makes Noises’ ranking as easily one of the year’s most anticipated debuts, the band (completed by guitarist Hugo Silvani and bassist Charlie Wood) now face the transition from buzzy hopefuls to (fingers crossed) genuine successes. “It feels like everything went really mental, really fast and even now it seems surreal. It feels like things are getting bigger and bigger and the train is just full steam ahead now,” explains Heather, backstage at Reading Festival ahead of their rammed late-afternoon set. “I do feel a lot of pressure in this band because we’ve had so much support, especially from the media.

But at the same time that pressure is really satisfying and a big compliment that people believe in us. It’s good that people can see the potential that we have.”

There’s a quiet confidence to the way the singer - currently sporting evil harlequin-esque make-up, one eye red and the other black - addresses these topics. Though the 23-year-old frontwoman is still understandably overwhelmed by the experiences being thrown at her (“Today we did a signing and before we went out we were terrified that no one would be there, but there was over 300 people. We still get so shocked with everything we do,” she notes), there’s a clear sense that she’s focused and completely ready to wrangle them into her own shape. If being given the keys to the kingdom so quickly and so young could ruin many, Heather seems impressively rational about the whole thing. “Our band’s moving so fast and it’s a lot to take in, especially for me being the front-person. Being centre stage and singing these songs that I wrote and that break my heart every time I play them and doing it basically every night. It is a lot to ask

of myself but I feel like I can handle it,” she nods. “I feel like every frontperson has to be a bit bonkers and a bit unstable at times though because there’s so much pressure and it’s all about you in a way because they’re your songs. I’m opening up the most.”

“People get offended because we dress like this and play pop music, but we wanna make everything acceptable.”

- Heather Baron-Gracie

I

t’s this idea that sits at the crux of Pale Waves’ success. Though ‘There’s A Honey’ and followup single ‘Television Romance’ arguably launched the band into the public eye via their association with The 1975 (Matty and George from the band produced both), it’s Heather’s often painfully open, diarystyle lyrics that have cemented their place as cult heroes. Go to any show and you’ll find the front rows packed full of teenage girls, often in tears, singing along to every relatable word that comes out of the singer’s mouth.

Providing a valuable and muchneeded mouthpiece for this so-oftenunderappreciated section of society, Heather’s become a figurehead for more than just a natty pop tune. “I had Avril Lavigne as a role model when I was growing up and there’s this [condescending] attitude towards her but if you actually listen to her songs, on ‘Anything But Ordinary’ she’s talking about feeling numb so she does stupid things to feel something different. I can relate to her a lot,” begins Heather. “I think

it’s really important for us to take on that role now. Especially on songs like ‘Noises’ when I talk about body image and self doubt and feeling like you’re not smart enough, I feel... “ She corrects herself. “Well, I know that song’s helped people. A girl started crying today because she said that song had helped her. That’s what sticks with me.”

Across ‘My Mind Makes Noises’’ 14 tracks, Heather runs the gamut of the raw, unfiltered emotions of youth. There’s the aforementioned ‘Noises’ with its barbed attacks of low self-esteem (“Heather, you’re stupid / I think you might’ve overdone it again / And the faces that you love are slowly giving up”), and the tentative, nervous romance of ‘Came In Close’; the almost shockingly stark post-break up hatred of ‘She’ (“I take my clothes off / I’m just staring at myself / You wasn’t satisfied enough so you fucked somebody else”) and the opposite giddy, lovestruck head rush of ‘Eighteen’. Perhaps one of the bleakest sentiments, meanwhile, comes in the form of the robotic, autotuned ‘Loveless Girl’. “A lot of people said when I was younger that I was a bit cold and a bit dead inside,” shrugs Heather. “I was just trying to figure myself out, I think. I feel like people were intrigued by me because I wasn’t a typical high school girl, and they wanted me to be this person and to be obsessed with them but I just wasn’t, as brutal as that is. And then they got angry with me because I didn’t give them what they wanted...”

The album ends with an acoustic ballad, entitled ‘Karl (I Wonder What It’s Like To Die)’. Far from cold and emotionless, it’s filled with an almost uncomfortable level of sadness and pain. “Karl’s my grandad. And I feel like, even though it’s about a certain person, it will really touch people,” says Heather. “I played that song to everyone in the band and [some of my] family members and most of them cried when they first listened to it. I wanted the acoustic song to be really raw and to make people feel uncomfortable and a bit anxious listening to it. It’s a really traumatic song, but I wanted that.”

I

f death and trauma aren’t the usual thematic fodder for your standard pop song, then this is where Pale Waves are carving out their own niche. Though they may have confused the world by - shock horror - wearing heavy eyeliner and velvet whilst also liking Taylor Swift, 59

Pale Waves themselves are under no illusions where they sit. “Our music is radio friendly, but at the same time it’s really real. It’s honest pop music. It’s real pop music,” insists Heather. “People get offended because we dress like this and then go onstage and play pop music, but we wanna make everything acceptable. We wanna change how the world has these awful stereotypes and prove that pop music is bigger and stronger than ever, and bands can play pop music and it can be emotional.

There’s still some level of negativity towards it, that pop’s easy to write,” she chuckles, exasperated.

“It’s not! You write me a pop song that can get played on the radio!”

It’s back to that old ambition again.

Pale Waves don’t want to just write pop music, they want to write pop music with honesty and truth at its core. They don’t just want to look cool, they want to change the game with what’s deemed acceptable by the mainstream. They don’t just want to be a band, they want to change the world. We start to ask Heather where she sees the

Ciara is yet to notice the Postit Hugo’s stuck on her back.

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Pa1e Wav3s

1n Numbe7s

1 5

The number of singles Pale Waves had released when they played Madison Square Garden.

The band’s placing on the prestigious BBC Sound of 2018 poll (they were the only band to chart).

15

The number of soldout shows when Pale Waves headlined DIY’s Class of 2018 tour (that’s all of them FYI).

18

The opening track on ‘My Mind Makes Noises’.

1975

Pale Waves’ famous pals who produced their first two singles.

5.4 million

The number of YouTube plays of the ‘Television Romance’ video.

7.6 million

Streams on Spotify of ‘There’s A Honey’ to date.

trajectory of the group going, and before we even finish the question she jumps in: “Arenas, yeah.”

Just because Pale Waves play in your traditional guitar-bassdrums indie set-up, don’t think they’re aiming for the indie leagues for one second. “Why would you wanna stop [there?]

I don’t just wanna headline Brixton, if I just did that with my life I’d be really sad!” she groans. So what does Heather want for Pale Waves? “I wanna be a pop star! I wanna take over the world!” laughs the singer. Seems pretty simple to us.

‘My Mind Makes Noises’ is out 14th September via Dirty Hit. DIY Pale Waves are one of the acts involved in the European Talent Exchange Programme.

For more information on ETEP, and the artists and festivals involved, head to etep.nl.

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eeee

BLACK HONEY

Black Honey (The Orchard).

.....................................................................................................

“I

’m gonna die before I even put out a first album,” joked Izzy B Phillips to DIY back last year. A long-established fan of melodrama the Black Honey frontwoman may be, but she’d got a point. A string of EPs showed the Brighton band to have the knack for a hook and Izzy the ability to spin a yarn or three, but there

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are bands who emerged alongside them who are already looking forwards to LP3.

So while ‘Black Honey’ is the foursome’s debut, and it does feature a handful of live fixtures - ‘Hello Today’, ‘Dig’, ‘I Only Hurt The Ones I Love’ - it’s almost as if they’ve jumped right into album two. Lead single ‘Bad Friends’ came as a curveball to anyone who’d been following their Americana-

tinged indie rock: more Trent Reznor producing Charli XCX than spaghetti Western soundtrack, it’s bold, brash and brilliant. And while the faded Hollywood glamour is still present and correct (“Stick and poke / James Dean”, sighs Izzy on the Twin Peaks soundtrack-indebted ‘Blue Romance’), it’s the band’s industrial pop guise that wins out.

Nowhere is this better shown off than ‘Midnight’, a Scissor Sisters-esque disco banger of the highest order, twisting the Cinderella story on its head. Similarly, ‘Crowded City’ packs hooks by the dozen, ‘Just Calling’ is ‘80s power

ballad-level anthemic and the Royal Blood-featuring ‘Into The Nightmare’ a spooky stomp-and-a-half.

By evolving from their earlier guise and pushing their sound forward before finally committing it to a first record, ‘Black Honey’ avoids any pitfalls its long gestation period could’ve created. Instead, it shows the band off as fresh and exciting as their early selves promised they’d be. As that famous Irish beverage advert once went: good things come to those who wait. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘Midnight’, ‘Just Calling’, ‘Into The Nightmare’

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ALBUMS eeee PALE WAVES

My Mind Makes Noises (Dirty Hit)

.................................................................................................

‘My Mind Makes Noises’ is filled to the brim with hooky pop choruses centred around falling in and out of love. But while it’s hardly new subject matter, from the first glossy synth-pop chorus of album opener ‘Eighteen’, it’s clear Pale Waves are a band keen to subvert your expectations.

‘Drive’ is a stomping electropop wonder whereas ‘Red’ has a thumping chorus that reaches dizzying heights. Even on some of the album’s slower tracks, that pop sensibility remains: ‘When Did I Lose It All’ is a ballad lamenting a lost love over twinkling synths.

But though many of their songs are gloriously upbeat, they’re tinged with sadness: of love, loss, betrayal and longing.

For all their goth rock exterior, ‘My Mind Makes Noises’ is ultimately a pop record with substance at its core. (Rachel Finn) LISTEN: ‘Eighteen’, ‘One More Time’

eeeee CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS Chris (Because)

................................................................................................

The titular ‘Chris’ exists as an evolution of the Christine and the Queens we were introduced to on debut ‘Chaleur Humaine’, a more subversive beast who proceeds to drag us through eleven tracks of challenging pop.

Visually, Chris is a lean, muscular character - the singer is said to have been pumping weights in order to fully assume the role - and it filters through to the music too. Sure, album frontrunners ‘Girlfriend’ and ‘Doesn’t matter’ are smooth, Janet Jackson-esque bops, but ‘Damn (what must a woman do)’ is a potent, athletic cut, Chris showing her true colours.

The adolescent wonder and worry of ‘Chaleur Humaine’ falls away on ‘Chris’, and is replaced by an older, wiser outward view, looking both outwards and inwards with more clarity and sureness: chart-mingling, radio-ready pop has rarely felt this disruptive. Maintaining every ounce of the sheen of ‘Chaleur Humaine’, while pushing forward the idea of Christine and the Queens as the most subversive, game-changing pop star we have, ‘Chris’ is a second album that thrives in the realm of the uncertain, and cements the status of Héloïse Letissier as a true star. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Doesn’t matter’, ‘Damn (what must a woman do)’ 64 diymag.com

ALBUMS eee ANIMAL COLLECTIVE Tangerine Reef (Domino)

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Avey Tare and pals are without the input of Panda Bear this time around, but have collaborated with avant-garde media duo Coral Morphologic, who specialise in coral macro-videography. The music that makes up ‘Tangerine Reef’ fits the theme wonderfully, the thirteen tracks offering an amorphous journey that dwells on subtle dynamic changes. Its basis lies in oceanic synth pads, whirring electronics, and Avey Tare’s murmured vocals.

While it’s set to be defined as an oddity within Animal Collective’s discography, this is undeniably an expertly conceived work.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Hip Sponge’

eee JUNGLE

eeee DILLY DALLY

(XL)

(Partisan)

Propelled into the limelight after a couple of genrefusing, falsetto bangers, Jungle’s 2014 debut was up there with the year’s most clamorously received. Now, over four years later, ‘For Ever’ lands with a much more difficult job to do. Jungle have largely played it safe; the feelgood alt-funk of ‘Heavy, California’ could sit seamlessly alongside anything from their debut, while the ominous nocturnal strut of single ‘Happy Man’ is just ‘Busy Earnin’’ Mk II. With such a distinctive sound, it’s hard for Jungle to really move anywhere but in a straight line; ‘For Ever’ might be safe, but safe might not be enough second time around. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Cherry’

Debut album ‘Sore’ was an intoxicating rock record helmed by Katie Monks’ gravelly vocals; on ‘Heaven’, all its promise is amped up and taken to the red line.

An album of finding hope in the most hopeless of places, ‘Heaven’ perfectly balances light and dark.

Forged in the wake of the election of Donald Trump, it sees Dilly Dally battling the increasing presence of evil around them, as well as their own personal demons, and emerging the other side defiant and reborn. The power gained from its creation can be felt in the way the band crash their way through its nine songs, and will undoubtedly also transmit to anyone who presses play. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Doom’

For Ever

....................................................

Heaven

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eee BLOOD ORANGE Negro Swan (Domino)

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From the dance-punk blitzkrieg of Test Icicles to Lightspeed Champion’s emo catharsis through the sultry, smooth R&B of Blood Orange’s first moves to now, Dev Hynes has been on a path of refinement. ‘Negro Swan’ arrives with an overarching ambience of unsettled nocturnal wanderings through NYC streets; Dev’s vocals are far-away and thin, while found sounds pepper the record. Tei Shi and Puff Daddy add dreamy falsettos and grounding musings on love respectively to ‘Hope’, while The Internet’s Steve Lacy is credited on ‘Out Of Your League’. Trans activist Janet Mock’s spoken word monologues on identity and self, meanwhile, are peppered across its 16 tracks. An album, according to Dev, about “black depression, black existence and the ongoing anxieties of queer / people of colour”, ‘Negro Swan’ is a record that radiates these tensions; subtle and amorphous, it’s not the most immediate listen, but it’s undoubtedly one with real weight. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Charcoal Baby’ 65

ECSTATIC ENERGY.

eee PAUL MCCARTNEY Egypt Station (Capitol)

....................................................

It goes without saying that Paul McCartney has earned the right to do whatever the fuck he wants. After all, he’s partially responsible for the whole of popular music.

And, it’s nothing short of a joy to see him so enthused about working with current hitmakers such as pop super-producers Greg Kurstin and Ryan Tedder.

It’s a mixed bag: ‘Come On To Me’, ‘Fuh You’ and ‘Despite Repeated Warnings’ are immediate reminders of his knack for writing a hook or two, while ‘Back in Brazil’ is a tad baffling, and ‘Caesar Rock’ doesn’t quite hit the right notes. Still, it’s hard to leave ‘Egypt Station’ without a grin. All aboard!

(Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘Come On To Me’ Don’t hide MNEK! You got a nice review!

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eeee JAKE SHEARS Jake Shears (Absolute)

....................................................

Leaving the Big Apple in order to write both his autobiography and this solo debut, there was definitely an uncertainty as to what we would find here.

And though the core of his songs is familiar, the synths of old often find themselves secondary to honky tonk guitars; the album clearly holds a part of New Orleans in its grooves.

Imbued with a resilience that burns bright with Mardi Gras spirit, Shears only occasionally reveals a glimpse at a slightly shadier underbelly. ‘Jake Shears’ is a traditional pop album which pays homage to the greats: Bowie, Elton John, Freddie Mercury and more, offering up the ballads alongside the dancefloor fillers. (Matt Hog) LISTEN: ‘Big Bushy Mustache’

eeee THE LEMON TWIGS Go To School (4AD)

....................................................

Not so much a traditional album as a high-concept, theatrically overblown rock opera, ‘Go To School’ is about two failed entertainers and their adopted chimpanzee son, Shane. In the hands of most, it would all be self-consciously kooky enough to immediately land in the bin, but The Lemon Twigs are masters of multi-layered, intricate instrumentation and nostalgic, classic melody.

Landing in the unique middle ground between the ‘70s warmth of Todd Rundgren (who lends guest vocals as Shane’s dad, of course) and Little Shop Of Horrors, ‘Go To School’ is a genuine original. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Queen Of My School’

eee MNEK Language (Virgin EMI)

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MNEK has spent the last few years collaborating with an array of global stars, but so far hasn’t hit A-list in his own right.

That changes now, at the still-tender age of 23, with MNEK driven to finish and release ‘Language’ because he wanted to bring a black, gay pop experience to the masses.

It’s a wildly ambitious effort, sprawling at sixteen tracks, that encompasses both giddy highs and messy lows. The one constant is his multifaceted vocal style - he’ll often sing the hooks and then deliver the verses in a spoken-word manner, allowing his London accent to come to the fore. It’s those tracks that constitute the highlights, like the title track, ‘Tongue’ and ‘Paradise’; he’s chosen to effectively vocally back himself, when there’s no doubt he could have called upon a host of A-list potential collaborators (there’s just the one, ultimately - Hailee Steinfeld provides a low-key turn on ‘Colour’). ‘Language’ could afford to lose a few numbers - particularly the low-energy likes of ‘Body’ and ‘Girlfriend’ - but there’s more than enough evidence here that MNEK is a potent force.

(Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Tongue’

ALBUMS eee TELEMAN

Family of Aliens (Moshi Moshi)

While they’ve always dabbled, ‘Family of Aliens’ is Teleman’s first out-and-out dance record. ‘Cactus’ recalls Hot Chip at their pomp, while ‘Submarine Life’, shows the band at their weird and wonderful best. There a few duds that prevent ‘Family Of Aliens’ from soaring to even loftier heights. Closer ‘Starlight’ is over-indulgent at six minutes forty, while ‘Somebody’s Island’ whimpers to a close without reaching any kind of climax.

Teleman are at their best when at their most rhythmic, and so slower tracks like ‘Sea Of Wine’ also don’t hold the listener’s interest particularly effectively. It may have arrived a little bit late for the summer, but should provide an effective remedy for those Autumn blues. (Dan Jeakins) LISTEN: ‘Submarine Life’

From furniture adverts to disappearing studios, vocalist Tom Sanders spills on Teleman 3.0.

Did you approach ‘Family of Aliens’ in any different ways to your previous records?

This time round, the process tended to be that I’d write some songs and demo them at home, then they would get deconstructed, reworked and re-imagined. Sometimes this led to a really different vibe, such as ‘Cactus’, which was grungier when it was first demoed. So before we’d even got in the studio the songs had been on a bit of a boot camp, but it meant that we had a pretty concrete plan for how we wanted them to sound.

RECOMMENDED

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MISSED THE BOAT ON THE BEST ALBUMS FROM THE LAST COUPLE OF MONTHS? DON’T WORRY, WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED.

eeeee

IDLES

Joy As An Act Of Resistance ........................

One of the year’s most vital releases.

eeee

SPRING KING A Better Life ........................

Tarek and the gang have turned it all up to eleven in the best way possible.

Where and when did you record it?

We recorded it in November 2017 at Flesh and Bone in east London. We were the last band to record an album there; the studio is sadly being turned into flats as I write. The producer was Oli Bayston, we first worked together when we recorded ‘Repeater’ and it was love at first… note.

What topics do you touch on thematically?

Most of the songs deal with the simple things in life; love, friendship, being a human. This time ‘round I was struck by the fact that lots of the songs talk about escaping. There are also themes of feeling like you don’t belong, like being an alien.

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SLAVES

Acts of Fear and Love ........................

Now, you recently appeared in a promo for a well-known Swedish furniture giant. If you were a piece of furniture, what do you think you’d be?

I think I’d be a floor lamp, because I often just stand in a room watching stuff going on around me. But come night time, that’s when I tend to light up!

Riffs, pop songs and riotous fun - all with a kind heart.

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eeee VILLAGERS

The Art Of Pretending To Swim (Domino)

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eeee MOTHERS

Beloved in their native Ireland, it’s perhaps curious that Villagers have never exploded in quite the way many predicted upon the release of 2010 debut ‘Becoming A Jackal’ – but their commitment to delivering rich, well-crafted studio albums continues to set them apart.

‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ is instrumentally dense. Opener ‘Again’ delivers a palpable sense of intrigue and sets up a record full of musical treats from the luscious ‘Sweet Saviour’ to the psychedelic ‘Real Go-Getter’. Themes of love, loss and disillusionment are explored throughout by lyrics that give a remarkably eclectic album a sense of consistency.

It remains to be seen whether ‘The Art Of Pretending To Swim’ will gain Villagers hoards of new followers, but fans of the Irish five-piece will put their fourth record right up there with their best. (Dan Jeakins) LISTEN: ‘Real Go-Getter’

eeee THE GOON SAX We’re Not Talking (Wichita)

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Chock full of frenetic energy, catchy rhythms and captivating melodies, ‘We’re Not Talking’ sounds like Young Marble Giants coving the Human League.

The strongest tracks here are when Riley Jones gets vocally involved; ‘Sleep EZ’, ‘Til the End’, ‘We Can’t Win’ and ‘Losing Myself’ are immediately elevated beyond the sums of their parts by her presence. On ‘We’re Not Talking’, The Goon Sax are at their best when asking questions and trying to work out their existential angst, rather than giving definitive answers. (Nick Roseblade) LISTEN: ‘Strange Light’

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eee DARWIN DEEZ

10 Songs That Happened When You Left Me With My Stupid Heart (Lucky Number)

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Darwin Deez have been putting out eclectic earworms for the best part of a decade. On ‘10 Songs...’ there’s plenty to discover on a diverse record that takes a lot of interesting turns, and while there are some unsuccessful moments, there’s also much for indie-pop fans to get their teeth stuck into. ‘Queen of Spades’ recalls Passion Pit at their most colourful, while ‘All My Friends’ sees the band experiment with staccato electronic beat to good effect. (Dan Jeakins) LISTEN: ‘Queen of Spades’

Render Another Ugly Method (ANTI-)

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‘Render Another Ugly Method’ finds Mothers sticking to the blueprints set on debut ‘When You Walk A Long Distance You Are Tired’. Kristine Leschper slides melodies into a rush of oblique guitars, like a doleful game of Tetris - melting into brooding breakdowns or sharp rushes of glitchy feedback. Mothers find a middle ground between the pleasant and the discordant. it’s not always uplifting, but it delivers.

(Timmy Michalik) LISTEN: ‘WESTERN MEDICINE’

eeee SKEGSS

eee NOTHING

(Ratbag)

(Relapse)

Australia’s answer to FIDLAR, Byron Bay trio Skegss deal in short garage-punk blasts of the kind that usually come replete with a skateboard, a spliff and a weary sigh from your Mum. But there’s more going on here than just good times. Opener ‘Up In The Clouds’ finds singer Ben Reed looking wistfully back on his life so far; ‘Road Trip’ documents the comedown rather than the high, while hedonistic single ‘Smogged Out’ is set the morning after.

Skegss might soundtrack the party, but they’re all too aware of the pitfalls.

(Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Smogged Out’

It’s when Nothing hit the higher gears that ‘Dance on the Blacktop’ really shines: ‘I Hate The Flowers’ melds 20 years of squealing guitars and detached poetry into a potent blend of euphoric highs and endless falls.

That’s not to say the album is without missteps, as ‘Us/ We/Are’ veers too close to ‘Creep’ by a little-known band called Radiohead.

And while this is a record that won’t mean everything to everyone, its considered construction, and barbedwire hooks mean it’s certain to mean everything to someone. (Matthew Davies Lombardi) LISTEN: ‘I Hate The Flowers’

My Own Mess ....................................................

Dance on the Blacktop ....................................................

COMING UP

ALBUMS

eee AMBER ARCADES

European Heartbreak (Heavenly)

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It would be hard not to read ‘European Heartbreak - the second album from Dutch-born Annelotte De Graaf - as a largely political record in the era of Brexit.

On ‘Goodnight Europe’, it’s almost a break-up song.

“Europe, it’s not you, I’m starting to think it could be me, my left ideals and university degree...” she croons. But it’s about more than that, commenting on breakdowns of all sorts - romantic love, a sense of identity, an economic system. Full of lilting indiepop, often swelling with trumpets, string sections and a sense of wistfulness, ‘European Heartbreak’ sounds nostalgic for a dream, the realisation of which has long since passed. (Rachel Finn) LISTEN: ‘Goodnight Europe’

MØ

Forever Neverland

It’s been some time coming, but our Karen’s keeping the pop hits coming on LP2. Out 19th October.

FUCKED UP

Dose Your Dreams

It’s an epic double album from the Canadians, as rifftastic as ever five albums in. Released 5th October.

DRENGE

Autonomy While we wish it was a full-length rager from the Loveless lads, EP ‘Autonomy’ is bound to be a smashing stop-gap. Out 5th October.

eeee MUNCIE GIRLS

eee THE FRIGHTS

eeee SPIRITUALIZED

(Specialist Subject)

(Epitaph)

(Bella Union)

‘Fixed Ideals’ explores sexism, relationships (romantic or otherwise), and mental health. And while such topics might well feel well-trodden in recent years, Muncie Girls’ Lande Hekt treats them with both humour, energy and eloquence.

‘Jeremy’ lambasts an absent father while celebrating the joy that true family can bring, while ‘Clinic’ addresses mental health, the importance of looking after it, and how underfunded its services are. Muncie Girls’ ability to discuss such topics unflinchingly and with effortless understanding is what makes ‘Fixed Ideals’ so irresistible. A record both charming yet ballsy, the dichotomy of upbeat indie-pop and brutally honest lyricism only adds to its appeal. (Dave Beech) LISTEN: ‘Clinic’

This third record from San Diego’s The Frights follows 2016’s ‘You Are Going to Hate This’ and, like that album, was produced by FIDLAR frontman Zac Carper. It’s a collaboration that makes sense, given the similar sensibilities between the two bands; The Frights come off like FIDLAR’s more reserved cousins, swapping talk of cheap beer and slacking off with introspection that’s often self-deprecating. Both bands, though, are defined by their dry wit. ‘Crutch’ is exhilarating in its noisy abandon, but elsewhere, muddled opener ‘Tell Me Why I’m Okay’ shuffles along at an awkward pace - it’s a peculiar way to bring the curtain up. Anybody already on board, though, will find plenty to tide them over here. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Crutch’

‘And Nothing Hurt’ is the first self-produced Spiritualized record, and so is more rough and earthly-sounding. It benefits the distinct Americana influence first suggested by the ukulele intro to ‘A Perfect Miracle’, and later accentuated by the roaring guitar on ‘I’m Your Man’, and the bluesy noodling of ‘Here It Comes’. It’s the sombre, waltzing lullaby of ‘The Prize’, though, that ultimately provides the album’s most poignant moment. Its sensational climax of swelling brass and choral strings is the most quintessentially Spiritualized segment here.

Here’s hoping that the man they call Jason Spaceman isn’t completely burned out yet, because this album only re-affirms his unique and inimitable talent.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘I’m Your Man’

Fixed Ideals

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Hypochondriac

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And Nothing Hurt

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EP-OCALYPSE NOW

eeee DOE Grow Into It

(Big Scary Monsters)

eee WAXAHATCHEE Great Thunder (Merge)

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‘Great Thunder’ marks a return to Katie Crutchfield’s roots with six stripped-back tracks that have a warm and intimate feel. ‘Chapel Of Pines’ is given a sparse recording that gives Katie’s voice plenty of room to breathe, while ‘Singers No Star’ is a piano-driven number. A quieter, more intimate experience than last year’s ‘Out In The Storm’, this offers plenty for those wanting a return to Katie’s more acoustic roots.

(Rachel Finn) LISTEN: ‘You Left Me With An Ocean’

eee MINI MANSIONS

Chunky and melodic, Doe’s debut ‘Some Things Last Longer Than You’, channelled Weezer in its huge, distortion-lathered choruses and buzzing youthfulness. Followup ‘Grow Into It’ marks a change. “I’m tired, but you seem ok with that,” sings Nicola Leel on ‘Labour Like I Do’; the record doesn’t romanticise the often confusing process of growing out of your youth - it just lays it out as it is, becoming all the more powerful because of its honesty. Musically, too, ‘Grow Into It’ sees subtle changes to the band’s palette; the riffs are catchier, the heavy parts even more crushing, and the drum parts are wonderfully intricate. A second album that sees the trio keeping everything that made them so exciting in the first place, ‘Grow Into It’ sees Doe growing up gracefully. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Labour Like I Do’

BACK TO THE

DRAWING BOARD with DOE Q1: What did the recording process of ‘Grow Into It’ look like?

Q3: The opening track is ‘My Friends’.

Who are Doe’s best friends?

Works Every Time (Caroline)

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Ploughing the highs and lows of a past relationship, ‘Works Every Time’ finds Mini Mansions veering between ‘80s-flecked longing (‘Works Every Time’), propulsive lustiness (‘This Bullet’) and a Marilyn Manson-esque demonic reworking of Edwyn Collins’ ‘A Girl Like You’.

Impressively wide-ranging, it suggests that the trio’s next full-length should be anything but lacking in ideas. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘This Bullet’

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Q4: Track four is ‘Team Spirit’.

What’s Doe’s ideal team?

Q2: What did the members of Doe look like before they ‘grew into it’?

Kilimanjaro & Friends by arrangement with Progressive Artists present

ALBUMS

6 / 10 17 / 10 18 / 10 19 / 10 20 / 10 24 / 10

Manchester, Neighbourhood Festival Liverpool, Arts Club * Reading, South Street Arts Centre ^ Brighton, Sticky Mike’s Frog Bar ^ Bristol, Simple Things Festival London, The Dome ~ ^

25 / 10 26 / 10 27 / 10 30 / 10 1 / 11 2 / 11 ~

Cambridge, Portland Arms ^ Leicester, The Cookie ^ Dublin, Whelans Newcastle, Think Tank ^ Leeds, Brudenell Social Club ^ Glasgow, The Great Eastern ^ *

^

The debut album Invitation To Her’s out now via Heist or Hit Available on Swamp Green Vinyl, CD and Digital Download thatbandofhers

thatbandofhers

thatbandofhers

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BROCKHAMPTON

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READING FESTIVAL ....................................................

Photos: Emma Swann

PANIC! AT THE DISCO

R

eading - and its northern sibling Leeds - is never predictable. With a lineup spanning the genre spectrum and a schedule that never stands still, the cliche that there’s ‘something for everyone’ is not only true, but proved in its first 45 minutes. First, Big Shaq brings viral skit ‘Man’s Not Hot’ to the main stage for a suitably tongue-in-cheek opening, before Gengahr open the Dance Stage. Despite the number of confused, bucket hat-adorned teenagers wondering where the techno is, the band win over a new crowd - by the time set closer ‘Carrion’ careers into life, a cavernous moshpit has opened up.

Bring Me The Horizon are today’s not-so-secret set.

Single ‘Mantra’ may have only been released days ago but when they debut it here every line is screamed back with relentless adoration. The band then blast through the hits - ‘Throne’, ‘Can You Feel My Heart’, ‘Follow You’ and ‘Antivist’ all make high-energy appearances.

The crowd then barrel their way across the site to witness a sight British rock has been waiting for: Creeper taking the main stage. Will Gould whips the crowd up into a frenzy, with the comical sight of Post Malone fans trying to work out how a circle pit works while being in one. Songs from ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’ are as vicious as ever, and ‘Misery’ remains a festival anthem.

DREAM WIFE

LIZZO

At the same time, King Nun are inciting singalongs on shoulders. As bouncy - and gnarly - as ever, even the number making its live debut is given a clap along.

Dream Wife later pelt their way through an uncompromising set. Rakel’s become more of an imposing frontwoman with every show, and today she commands the Festival Republic tent impeccably`.

“A dream come true.” It’s impossible to count how many times the members of Wolf Alice repeat these four words throughout their Radio 1 Stage headline set, but it’s pretty obvious they’ve spent their entire existence as a band working up to this moment. From on-stage proposals to the confetti cannon the climax of ‘Giant Peach’ was always destined to trigger, there’s an added confidence tonight.

Making it to the upper echelons of Reading & Leeds’ alumni? As Gabrielle sang, “dreams can come true”.

Fall Out Boy’s headline show is full of fireworks, flames (at one point Pete Wentz’s bass is literally a flamethrower) and confetti, around a career-spanning set. ‘Grand Theft Autumn/Where Is Your Boy’ and ‘Saturday’ are met with as much adoration as ‘Centuries’ and ‘Immortals’, but it’s ‘Sugar We’re Going Down’ and ‘Thnks fr th Mmrs’ - that predictably get the best reaction.

Melding together slam poetry lyricism and jazz-flecked instrumentals, Noname performs an early Saturday set on the Dance Stage to a small but enthusiastic crowd, running through tracks from 2016 album ‘Telefone’.

Meanwhile, over at the BBC 1Xtra stage, Lizzo’s bringing the bangers. Donning a magnificent sequin outfit, and flanked by a pair of dancers, it’s impossible to resist the 73

Minneapolis-based talent’s infectious joy.

NONAME

The anticipation in the lead up to Brockhampton’s set today is so much that the festival end up letting them loose on the huge Radio 1 stage fifteen minutes early, and to the most frenzied crowd of the weekend. Kevin Abstract orchestrates the six-piece through a set that feels like a real Reading ‘moment’, anticipation at fever pitch for a band whose journey is only just beginning. When they appear on the main stage with N*E*R*D later in the day, it’s clear that’s where they’re destined to end up.

On the Festival Republic stage meanwhile, Pale Waves are having their own moment. Heather Baron-Gracie’s clearly relishing the band’s quick rise, becoming an attention-grabbing frontwoman who’s leading the band to massive things.

Today’s set will be one of the days to look back on as a formative step.

KING NUN

FALL OUT BOY

12 years ago on the same main stage at Reading, Panic! At The Disco’s Brendon Urie was bottled off stage. A lot has changed since, and tonight he attacks his co-headline set with defiance and joy. He’s grabbed the role of frontman with both hands, with the power to wrap festival main stage crowds around his little finger. Tonight he puts in potentially the performance of the festival.

Kendrick Lamar, meanwhile, falls a little flat.

The ‘DAMN.’ tour has been on the road for a year now, and it’s impeccably rehearsed and choreographed. Tonight, though, a largely unresponsive crowd leave an impression of him being on autopilot - there’s little to elevate his headline set above ‘just another show’, and after Panic! before him, it’s even more apparent.

It’s a sodden start to Sunday - driving rain greets the start of the festival’s final day - but it’s something that works to Let’s Eat Grandma’s advantage. Jenny and Rosa are welcomed by a more-than-sizeable crowd, half sheltering from the rain.

The BBC Introducing Stage is no stranger to the secret set. Peace’s spot today though, at the height of the downpour, still holds something special: for one, they open with a cover of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’. Deadpan and faithful, it does a lot to perk up the hardy souls watching.

Shame’s main stage debut is also affected by the weather, but if anything, the small turnout just makes Charlie Steen and co more fired up; from the moment ‘Dust On Trial’ storms into life, they give everything to win the crowd round.

The rain clears up just about in time for The Vaccines to storm the main stage. Raw and energetic, the crowd are treated to raucous, sped-up versions of ‘Wrecking Bar (Ra Ra Ra)’ and ‘Teenage Icon’ early set and from there on out, the energy barely lets up.

It’s up to Slaves to close out the weekend on the Radio 1 Stage. By the time closer ‘The Hunter’, rings out, all remaining energy is left behind in the tent, and Reading 2018 comes to a cacophonous close. (Rachel Finn and Will Richards)

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FIB BENICÀSSIM ....................................................

Photos: Emma Swann

LIVE

PALE WAVES

Hands up who accidentally just got some paint on their top.

BODEGA

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ssentially transporting several EasyJets’ worth of glitter-clad youths a couple of countries to the right, Benicàssim is a kind of endearing version of Brits abroad, but with more giddy dancing and less stag dos.

Case in point: The Magic Gang. While most of mainland Europe is still learning about the honeyed harmonies of everyone’s favourite Beach Boy-loving Brightonians, here they go down an absolute storm.

Similarly, young girls royally lose their minds as Heather Baron-Gracie strides onto the stage like a pint-sized monochrome badass. For a legion of young women in need of an outsider hero, the Pale Waves frontwoman is like the holy trinity.

On Friday evening The Vaccines set a feel-good celebratory tone. Returning to the festival for the third time, they’re the perfect Benicassim band; accessible but still cool, commercial but with a twinkle in their eye.

The Killers’ prerogative is then of a far more flamboyant kind. If, as the explosive intro of ‘The Man’ kicks in, you’re not sure which guy they’re talking about, then it’s the one wearing the gleaming white suit and touting a keyboard with a giant neon male symbol on it. Subtlety, let’s face it, is not Brandon Flowers’ raison d’etre.

On Saturday, there’s none more treat-some of music’s fresh new guard than New Yorkers BODEGA. Standing on stage, reading excerpts from a book on subconscious

thinking as a series of robotic voices deadpan ‘OK Computer’-esque phrases behind them, there has perhaps never been a band so gloriously out of place.

It’s approximately 1am on the last day of Benicassim, and just as Liam Gallagher is about to kick into ‘Cigarettes and Alcohol’ there’s a problem. “Which dickhead threw the fish here, then?” he questions. Yep, if there’s ever been a more surreal way to end a festival, then we’re yet to see it.

Earlier, Wolf Alice are on fire. After ‘Bros’, bassist Theo Ellis declares tonight “officially my favourite gig we’ve ever had” while Joff Oddie spends ‘Fluffy’ aiming his guitar like a gun into the crowd and pinging off notes like bullets. It ends in an enormous circle pit for ‘Giant Peach’, crowd and band on an equal high.

Far away from the often prickly atmosphere Parquet Courts would create several years ago, with new LP ‘Wide Awake!’ in tow their new show is basically one big party.

On its title track, Austin Brown begins casually flossing to his vocal. It is Parquet Courts at their best; still whipsmart, but letting everyone else in on the joke too.

After a bit of rain earlier that afternoon means that a couple of sets are forced to switch around, it’s left to Shame to close out the evening. It’s a lucky gift from the weather gods really, as the band’s prowling punk is far more suited to the darkness than blistering sun. A final ‘Gold Hole’ sees singer Charlie Steen launching himself over into the crowd to roar its final chorus. A suitably air-punching end to a weekend that’s seen their fair share of them. (Lisa Wright) 75

LIVE

M.I.A.

BESTIVAL

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Lulworth Estate, Dorset. Photos: Emma Swann.

here’s little sign of the torrential rain that put pay to the final day of sister event Camp Bestival as Bestival 2018 revs up on a blisteringly hot Thursday afternoon.

First stop - Temple. A Mecca for all things techno, Glasgow’s fresh new house talent Denis Sulta and Phonox resident HAAI go back to back as the sun sets, before it’s over to the Big Top.

After the frenzy whipped up by Ghetts, Kelela’s spot feels like an entirely different affair. Slick, pulsating beats are backed up by her gorgeous vocals, and tracks from debut ‘Take Me Apart’ match their musical sparseness with her rich voice.

Tonight, Jorja Smith is a silky songwriter showcasing her flexible voice over the smoothest jazz-flecked backing.

There’s more than a few hints of Amy Winehouse in her guise, which - in contrast to first outing ‘Blue Lights’ treads the line between lounge and soul “I’ve got this sort of sweaty, sun-creamy thing going on right now,” says The Big Moon’s Soph Nathan with a grin,

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just a few songs into the band’s main stage slot on Friday afternoon. The band are on top form, even in the face of the day’s intense heat. ‘Silent Movie Susie’ is a firm indie fave, the slinky ‘Bonfire’ is glorious and the band themselves look to be having a ball in the process.

They’re followed by IDLES, whose set today is equally devoted to compassion as it is unadulterated fun. Guitarist Mark Bowen hops over his bandmates while Joe Talbot does laps of the backstage area between verses, all before opener ‘Heel / Heal’ properly kicks in.

“Too many men, too many many men,” Joe barks at a bolshy mosh pit towards the end. “Girls, get in the pit destroy that shit.” A furious rendition of ‘Rottweiler’ closes the set, after a pair of fans are brought on stage to shred their way through the jubilant ‘Exeter’, and they leave Bestival feeling a little more united.

We’re pretty sure that Silk City’s bill-topping set is the first time an act has headlined a major festival with only their second show. That’s the power of Mark Ronson and Diplo, though, and their ability as party-starters is never in doubt.

Tonight isn’t flash, and doesn’t rely on special guests.

Instead, it focuses on the pair’s cratedigging past, dropping big hitters between deep house cuts. “We wanna thank you for taking a chance on us, Bestival,” Mark says before they depart with little ceremony. Once the project develops a personality of its own, it could become a world-beater in its own right.

LIVE

IDLES

While the Castle Field pulsates to house beats, the Big Top is rammed with indie kids. Sundara Karma - in the middle of a relatively quiet 2018 for them - are raising voices from the getgo. ‘Loveblood’ feels supercharged, ‘Flame’ is huge, the crowd singing every word, and there’s even space for a newie. ‘One Last Night’ comes complete with a disco-fused intro, and sounds curiously like a certain David Bowie. If it’s any indication of what’s coming next, well, it’s a very exciting prospect indeed.

Equally as frenetic is the House of Vans, where Kurupt FM have security literally holding back the crowds. The rabble amasse a crowd that stretches far outside the confines of the stage, becoming the focal point of Friday’s late-night proceedings.

Not many bands can make an entrance quite like Black Honey; that’s clear from the moment Izzy B. Phillips leads the quartet on stage, dressed in a pair of ginormous platform boots and a striped sequinned dress perfect for a festival as colourful as this. It’s during old favourite ’Spinning Wheel’ that she most comes alive: the slinky intro seeing her become a cross between a blushing Jessica Rabbit and maniacal Marilyn Monroe, before the track’s Dick Dale-esque guitars kick in and her pouting transforms into screams. Never ones to do things by half, they also showcase their latest certified-banger ‘Midnight’ which proves an infectiously danceable offering, packed with disco hues and a killer chorus.

BLACK HONEY

First Aid Kit’s afternoon’s set sees plenty of honeyed harmonies and gorgeous duets. ‘Fireworks’ is a nostalgic lament, a cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ a gorgeous interlude, and ‘My Silver Lining’ closes the set with urgent, rumbling acoustic guitar and soft but purposeful backing.

As the decades carry on passing, Grace Jones will never become less fascinating, less weird or less brilliant.

Her sunset slot is a masterclass in eccentricity, skipping off stage at regular intervals for costume changes while continuing to sing the end of the current song.

Last year’s ‘Bambino’ saw Superfood take the indie sensibilities of their

MIKE SKINNER

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debut and add otherworldly samples, and the disco-esque vibes of the record slot perfectly in tonight. From the moment ‘Where’s The Bass Amp?’ opens things up, the set is a showcase of the band’s dancier side. As a Saturday night disco goes, Superfood can’t be beaten.

LIVE

ANTEROS

Sunday of a festival. Legs are weary, and heads even more so. Lucky, then, that we’re hosting a whole day of fun at the House of Vans. First up is Mellah, who today shows his flexibility on the live side of things, with a more stripped-back backing, but one that proves just as potent, recent single ‘Cigarette Lighter’ a jaunty highlight.

Then, for any revellers beginning to flag, Lady Bird are the perfect tonic. Amped-up punk packed with a good dose of wit, the trio may still be new, but they certainly know how to blow the cobwebs away. ‘Social Potions’ and ‘Spoons’ are deliciously boisterous gems and their set as a whole is blisteringly good.

“I’m Daniel Bedingfield, your secret guest,” quips Mike Skinner, striding on stage for a DJ set. Mixing charttoppers among a pulsating set of bass, he also takes the opportunity to confirm a return for next year’s festival season, revealing between songs that he’s bringing The Streets back to the festival circuit in summer 2019, after mixing ‘Fit But You Know It’ into the set.

SPRING KING

With the Castle Stage draped in yellow fabric and a huge palatial structure at the back of the stage, it’s clear M.I.A.’s headline performance is going to be big. Barely pausing for breath, she darts through the potency of ‘Bamboo Banga’, ‘Y.A.L.A.’ and ‘Story To Be Told’ with slick but ferocious speed. Closing with ginormo-hit ‘Paper Planes’ and firing off the final round of the World’s Biggest Confetti Cannon for good measure - being both pop and provocative may be a fine art, but it’s one M.I.A. has nailed.

It’s not over at the House of Vans, though, as Anteros shimmy their way through a disco-tinged set before Spring King - the final band of the whole festival, no less - storm on stage. ‘City’ remains a boisterous indie classic, while ‘Animal’ sees limbs flailing as the energy levels just keep on rising. Departing to the unhinged tones of ‘Rectifier’, Spring King have given Bestival a chaotic, fantastic finale, every drop of energy left on the floor. (Sarah Jamieson and Will Richards)

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GRACE JONES

GAZ COOMBES GHOSTPOET JANE WEAVER

NADINE SHAH

SUUNS . THE LOVELY EGGS . gnod BOY AZOOGA . warmduscher KIRAN LEONARD . alaskalaska lice . CASSELS . FONTAINES D.C. Husky loops . MADONnATRON . grand pax THE HOMESICK . SELF HELP . BE GOOD . haze BROOKE BENTHAM . JOHN . LACUNA COMMON LE FEYE . EASTER ISLAND STATUES . LIfE INC. VIVE LA VOID (Sanae Yamada - Moon Duo) . CATGOD GHOSTS IN THE PHOTOGRAPHs . JUNIPER NIGHTS DJ SETS FROM STEVE DAVIS + KAVUS TORABI

OXFORD COWLEY ROAD SATURDAY 20TH OCTOBER 14 + . £30ADV

plus DROWNED IN SOUND DJS

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LOWLANDS Walibi Holland, Biddinghuizen. Photo: Emma Swann.

S

omething about Lowlands just feels special. Located in Biddinghuizen, about 70 kilometres east of Amsterdam, the festival boasts being the Netherlands’ largest, with an array of big name talent to match and a relaxed, peaceful vibe on a site located around a lake.

Cut to the music though, and it’s Australian bands causing a scene early on.

First case in point: Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever. Second: Amyl and the Sniffers. The band make ferocious ‘70s rock; their crowd is an everexpanding mosh pit, beers flying everywhere.

Then there’s Brockhampton, proving why all the hype is justified. Wearing a uniform of black jeans and white t-shirts, their stage presence is a highly co-ordinated affair, each of the band’s six on-stage members winding round each other, making it look easy.

Damon Albarn’s decision to move away from the rotating cast he brought on stage throughout Gorillaz’s set in their ‘Humanz’-era shows feels refreshing, but there’s a select few tonight. Little Simz is a bundle of energy on ‘Garage Palace’ and De La Soul join in for ‘Superfast Jellyfish’ and ‘Feel Good Inc’. Over the course of their whopping 2 hour set there are a few omissions, but by the time they launch into set closer ‘Clint Eastwood’ it hardly matters.

Sofi Tukker kick things off on Saturday. Mashing up trashy europop with a sense of silly euphoria, the likes of ‘Fuck They’ and ‘Batshit’ eradicate any lingering hangovers.

Stormzy is pretty quick to announce what he expects. “I want dancing, I want mosh pits, I want everyone to have a fucking good time”. The crowd, predictably, obliges, while he matches their energy, jumping, dancing and spitting each lyric as though it’s the first time he’s delivered it.

Nile Rodgers & Chic charm a vast crowd spilling out way beyond their stage with a hit-packed set.

It’s a mash-up of Chic favourites and Nile Rodgers’ discography, with ‘Like A Virgin’, ‘Let’s Dance’, ‘I’m Coming Out’ and ‘Get Lucky’ making an appearance.

It’s hard not be swept up in a site-wide singalong.

It’s then time for headliners N*E*R*D, who give a set that’s at times fun but a little confusing at others. It feels slightly disingenuous when just five minutes in, Pharrell announces “It’s a big crowd! This is the most lit festival we’ve been to all year!”, only to look around to find the audience a little sparse and lagging in energy.

Already with an arsenal of palatable, crowd-pleasing pop hits, Sunday’s set from Dua Lipa bounces from dark-pop bangers to ballads, the singer delving into the crowd for ‘Be The One’ and whipping up a crowd-wide sing-along for ‘IDGAF’. Then, of course, to close there’s ‘New Rules’ which inspires one of the most joyful dance-alongs seen on site all weekend.

Not one for speaking much outside of his songs, for most of Kendrick Lamar’s headline set he’s not much more than a silhouette on stage. The timing means many of the festival’s attendees are already on their way home, so the crowd seems a little sparse and there are moments where he doesn’t quite connect - many seem to be turning up briefly, only to turn around and leave a few songs later. (Rachel Finn)

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DUA LIPA

LIVE

KALEIDOSCOPE Alexandra Palace and Park, London. Photo: James Kelly. .......................................................................................................

I

n the glistening sunshine, Kaleidoscope, in the grounds of north London’s Alexandra Palace brings - in no uncertain terms - an afternoon of sheer brilliance.

It’s not just the baking afternoon trek up the South Terrace that has us seeing stars, as The Go! Team whip out their mix of brassy soul on the main stage.

THE FLAMING LIPS

Next Mystery Jets arrive, a distorted monologue about space fading into ‘Telomere’’s scratchy intro. “We put out an album a year ago…”, starts frontman Blaine Harrison. “Two years ago!” corrects Will Rees, introducing a run of songs from ‘Curve Of the Earth’, including the astronomical ‘Bubblegum’, prompting further dancing, before ‘Alice Springs’ ends proceedings in a frenzy of strobes. Proof if proof were needed that any afternoon can be improved with a dash of MJs.

Later Ghostpoet battles technical trouble but ultimately comes out on top. The set is heavy with cuts from last year’s ambitious ‘Dark Days + Canapés’, the powerful and poignant ‘Immigrant Boogie’ a highlight.

So. The Flaming Lips. Where to start on a band whose opening number goes ham on confetti, balloons, and smoke machines like they’re going out of fashion. Lifting off with the exuberant ‘Race For the Prize’, there’s no downtime. ‘FUCK YEAH KALEIDOSCOPE’, reads the message Wayne Coyne holds proudly aloft, promptly torn to pieces when he dives off stage and into the front rows for a rendition of ‘Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1’. Said pink robot appears in the form of an enormous inflatable, joining the two huge mushrooms which flank the stage. Ten minutes in and the spectacle’s worth the ticket price already. The roadside posters on the journey here promised a “kaleidoscopic voyage through music and the arts”, and as the sun dips below the horizon and the last confetti hits the grass, that’s exactly what we get. (Alex Cabré)

YPSIGROCK Castelbuono, Sicily. Photo: Louise Mason.

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SHAME

W

hile many weekenders can boast elaborate sites and picturesque backdrops, Ypsigrock trumps them all without even having to try.

Located in Castelbuono and centred around the castle itself, the festival is like no other.

It’d take the most hardened of cynics not to fall for Confidence Man’s gloriously tongue-in-cheek show.

There are routines - overly sexualised gyrating things blown into such comedic proportions they’re simply just funny.

Against the imposing castle backdrop and a stage so swathed in smoke it’s almost hard to see the band among it, The Horrors power through a set that moves from the industrial throb of ‘Machine’ through the still-mesmeric dance of ‘Sea Within A Sea’ to the euphoric close of ‘Something To Remember Me By’.

Sure, Shame’s set is familiar by now, but the band are never anything less than ferocious. Sean Coyle-Smith’s soaring guitars on ‘One Rizla’ ring out into the night, offsetting the mayhem around him; bassist Josh Finerty runs laps of the stage like a kid doing knee slides at a wedding, while singer Charlie Steen launches himself into the crowd at every opportunity.

European festivals take note: Ypsigrock might be the smaller kid on the playground, but it’s packing an almighty punch. (Lisa Wright)

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quiz of sor ts, we’ll A big inter-band pub es one by one. fav r you be grilling

IT’S YOUR ROUND

TS TE AM ALEX RICE, SPOR l Drink: Tango tiva Fes g din Rea n: Locatio ss tent fridge) pre the from en (tak Cost: £0

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE Q1: What’s the capacity of famous London venue Scala?

Well, it’s 1,100 for a clubnight, 800 if you have the upstairs bit open for a live show, but we got introduced to the phrase ‘gentleman’s sellout’, where if you just close off most of the venue, you can bring the cordons in and sell it out for about 4-500 I reckon.

Correct, in so many ways.

Q2: Which football team were known as the ‘Biscuitmen’ up until the 1980s?

Oooh... Swansea?

It’s actually Reading!

Well there ya go! Henry [Young, Sports Team guitarist] would’ve known that.

Q3: Which is there more of in the universe? a) Hydrogen b) Oxygen c) Nitrogen Hydrogen.

Bang on.

Q4: An album recently overtook Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’ to become the top-selling album of all time - what is it?

Oh, yeah I know this!

Rob will know. Is it Drake? Adele?

It’s older…

Oh it’s The Eagles isn’t it!

Indeed, their ‘Greatest Hits’.

Q5: What’s Kendrick Lamar’s surname?

Uhhh, Gunderson?

Sadly not, it’s Duckworth.

Gunderson - not so far off!

SPECIALIST SUBJECT: CORNISH SEAFOOD COOKERY, 1975-PRESENT Q1: What are the three main ingredients of a stargazey pie?

Oh! I know this… is it the one with the heads popping out? That’s what makes it stargazey.

It’s quite a niche fish in this one.

Pilchard?

Yes! Then there’s egg, and... potato?

Bingo.

Q2: Rick Stein’s flagship restaurant - creatively named The Seafood Restaurant - is located in which Cornish town?

Padstow, or Padstein, as it’s been dubbed...

Correct.

Q3: How much roughly is the fishing industry worth to the Cornish economy per year?

Oh god... uh, two billion

pounds?

Wow, that’s a hell of a lot of fish. It’s £100 million.

Q4: Rick Stein has a vaguely famous DJ/producer nephew - who is he?

Does he?! I’m not gonna get it...he has a weird son called Jack Stein though who he’s trying to push onto his shows at the minute. He looks like he’s been lobotomised a bit.

Rick Stein’s nephew is Judge Jules. What a world we live in.

Q5: A restaurant in Port Isaac, Cornwall has been named the #1 seafood restaurant in the UK - what’s it called?

I don’t know...

It’s called Nathan Outlaw.

Oh is that the name of the chef?

We really couldn’t tell you, but it’s incorrect sadly.

SCORE:

SCORE:

3/5

2/5

SCORE 5/10 Verdict: Things looked a bit fishy for a while there, but Alex pulled it back for a very respectable score.

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GOAT GIRL The Cookie Leicester | 07.09.18

GET CAPE. WEAR CAPE. FLY. The Cookie Leicester | 11.10.18

KIRAN LEONARD The Cookie Leicester | 22.10.18

SHAME O2 Academy Leicester | 17.11.18

THE LOW ANTHEM Newhampton Arts Centre Wolverhampton | 10.09.18

HOLLIE COOK O2 Academy Oxfo Oxford | 12.10.18

YELLOW DAYS The Bullingdon Oxford | 23.10.18

PAUL DRAPER The Cookie Leicester | 17.11.18

LOW ISLAND O2 Academy2 Oxford | 21.09.18

CASSIA The Cookie Leicester | 13.10.18

LUCY DACUS The Cookie Leicester | 25.10.18

BLOXX The Bullingdon Oxford | 20.11.18

THE NIGHT CAFE O2 Academy2 Oxford | 25.09.18

DERMOT KENNEDY O2 Academy Oxford | 14.10.18

ROLLING BLACKOUTS C.F O2 Academy Oxford | 25.10.18

HINDS The Bullingdon Oxford | 19.11.18

THE NIGHT CAFE Dryden Street Social Leicester | 26.09.18

GIR OUR GIRL The Cookie Leicester | 15.10.18

HER’S The Cookie Leicester | 26.10.18

EASY LIFE Dryden Street Social Leicester | 22.11.18

SEAFRET The Cookie Leicester | 28.09.18

CLAP YOUR HANDS SAY YEAH The Bullingdon Oxford | 16.10.18

BAD SOUNDS The Cookie Leicester | 27.10.18

SUNFLOWER BEAN Dryden Street Social Leicester | 23.11.18

TELEMAN O2 Academy2 Oxford Oxfo | 29.09.18

TOM GRENNAN O2 Academy Oxford | 18.10.18

WE ARE SCIENTISTS The Bullingdon Oxford | 28.10.18

HINDS Dryden Street Social Leicester | 24.11.18

WHENYOUNG The Cookie Leicester | 05.10.18

TOM GRENNAN O2 Academy Leicester | 19.10.18

IDLES O2 Academy Oxford | 29.10.18

EASY LIFE The Jericho Tavern Oxford | 24.11.18

THE MAGIC GANG O2 Academy Oxford | 05.10.18

SAM EVIAN The Cookie Leicester | 21.10.18

THE BLINDERS The Bullingdon Oxfo Oxford | 05.11.18

SUNFLOWER BEAN The Bullingdon Oxford | 25.11.18

MAHALIA MAHALI

PUMA BLUE The Jericho Tavern Oxford | 22.10.18

COURTNEY BARNETT

SHAME O2 Academy Oxford | 27.11.18

Newhampton Arts Centre Wolverhampton | 10.10.18

FUTURE PERFECT

O2 Academy Oxford | 15.11.18

@FUTUREPERFECTT @FUTUREPERFECTT FUTUREPERFECTLIVE THEFUTUREISPERFECT.CO.UK INFO@THEFUTUREISPERFECT.CO.UK TICKETS FROM SEETICKETS.COM 83

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