DIY, April 2015

set music free free / issue 39 / april 2015 diymag.com

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Drenge

“Why does n’ t everyone find us really funny?”

d e at h cab f o r c u t i e

the cribs

e a s t i n d ia yo u t h younG Fathers

“I’D LOVE TO HAVE ANY KIND OF UNDERS TANDING OF WHAT THE PRES S WANT.”

and the diamonds

c a n ’ t

p i n with Drenge Wa x ahatch e e

h e r

Death Cab for cu t i e E ast I ndia You th yo ung fat h e rs

d o w n 1

At Recordstore, we’re committed to the finest indie and alternative music. Here are some of the albums we’re excited about this month…

Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell

Drenge - Undertow

CD / Vinyl LP / Clear Vinyl LP

CD / Vinyl LP / Cassette

Alabama Shakes – Sound & Color

Waxahatchee – Ivy Tripp

CD / Double Etched Vinyl LP / Deluxe Clear Vinyl LP

CD / Vinyl LP

recordstore.co.uk 2

diymag.com

// @recordstore

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SWISH VS NOT SWISH WHAT’S ON THE DIY TEAM’S R ADAR?

Victoria Sinden Deputy Editor SWISH DIY’s got a one-off festival guide coming soon, in addition to our usual monthly shenanigans. Watch this space.

NOT SWISH So much good stuff, so little time. ..............................

Emma Swann Associate Editor SWISH The Drenge album! My favourite of the year so far (that I can talk about, shhh).

NOT SWISH One of the greatest live bands of ALL TIME announce a brief return and it’s ON COMPLETELY THE WRONG DAYS. ..............................

Jamie Milton Online Editor SWISH Meeting Marina fans who had travelled from the other side of the world to see their favourite pop star.

NOT SWISH Realising just how lazy I am when avoiding shows on the other side of London.

Sarah Jamieson News Editor SWISH Malteaster bunnies are well and truly in season and I cannot get enough of them..

NOT SWISH Packing to move house is the most annoying thing! ..............................

Louise Mason Art Director SWISH I painted my first pineapple.

NOT SWISH Marina didn’t want to keep it as a souvenir of our day together. ..............................

El hunt Assistant Online Editor SWISH I can’t go five minutes without mentally replaying Madonna’s Brits fall and subsequent Lara Croft-style recovery. What a trooper.

NOT SWISH Nearly had a heart attack the other day due to the surprise release of ‘Towards The Sun’. RiRi, m8, give me a heads up next time, yeah?

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EDITOR’S LET TER This is it. As we head into April music has decided to hold its very own silly season. Over the next few months you can prepare yourself for wall to wall bangers. Not just our cover star Marina, or Drenge, Death Cab, Young Fathers and the other amazing acts featured in this issue, but Wolf Alice, Blur, Mumfords, Muse, Everything Everything, Hot Chip, Florence, Django Django, Palma Violets, Brandon Flowers, Soak... loads more. Save your pennies, squad. Things are about to get expensive.

Stephen Ackroyd SWISH Flute solos.

NOT SWISH No flute solos.

LISTENING POST

What’s on the DIY stereo this month?

METZ METZ II

Bang! That’s the sound of Metz’ amazing second album blowing your mind.

WHO SAID “My favourite Spice Girl?

Definitely Posh!!! “

Find out on p.22

MUMFORD AND SONS Wilder Mind

No banjos. There’s gonna be no banjos. They’re gonna be big and strong enough to turn you on.

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C O N T E N T S

NEWS 6 YO U N G FAT H E R S Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Emma Swann News Editor Sarah Jamieson

10 SUMMER CAMP 12 SPEEDY ORTIZ 14 MUMFORD AND SONS 1 7 D I Y H A L L O F FA M E

Art Direction & Design Louise Mason Head Of Marketing & Events Jack Clothier

1 8 C I R C A WAV E S 2 2 P O P S TAR P O S T BAG

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2 8 F E S T I VA L S

NEU 32 LEON

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FEATURES

BRIDGES 35 BLACK PEAKS 3 6 F O R M AT I O N

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3 8 MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS 4 6 DE AT H CAB FOR

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CUTIE

50 DRENGE 5 4 WA X A H AT C H E E 58 EAST INDIA YOUTH 62 THE CRIBS 4 diymag.com

REVIEWS 66 ALBUMS 78 LIVE

Online Editor Jamie Milton Assistant Online Editor El Hunt Contributors: Ali Shutler, Andrew Backhouse, Danny Wright, David Zammitt, Euan L Davidson, Henry Boon, Jessica Goodman, Joanie Eaton, Joe Dickinson, Josh Pauley, Kate Lismore, Kyle Forward, Kyle MacNeill, Kris Lavin, Laura Studarus, Liam McNeilly, Louis Haines, Martyn Young, Matthew Davies, Ross Jones, Sean Stanley, Stuart Knapman, Tim Lee, Tom Connick, Tom Walters, Will Richards Photographers Abi Dainton, Carolina Faruolo, Mike Massaro, Nathan Barnes, Phil Smithies, Sarah Louise Bennett For DIY editorial info@diymag.com For DIY sales rupert@sonicdigital.co.uk lawrence@sonicdigital.co.uk bryony@sonicdigital.co.uk tel: +44 (0)20 3632 3456 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. 25p where sold.

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.

Cover photo: Mike Massaro

The New Album Feat. Lifted Up (1985)

Out 20th April

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“I ’ d l ov e t o h av e any kind of u n d e r s ta n d i n g o f w h at t h e p r e s s wa n t.” - G r a h a m ‘G’ Hastings

news

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diymag.com

On Another Planet Why so serious? Post-Mercury Prize victory, Young Fathers explain why their every move involves intention, and why they always have - and always will - stick to their ethos. Words: Jamie Milton.

Photos: Mike Massaro

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nstead of drowning in praise and receipts for champagne bottles, the night after winning the 2014 Mercury Prize for ‘Dead’, Young Fathers flew to Berlin to record their new album. Most of ‘White Men Are Black Men Too’ had been formulated, this wasn’t some whim to avoid a press frenzy, but months on Graham ‘G’ Hastings doesn’t hesitate in saying it was a wise thing to do.

The reception to Young Fathers’ victory wasn’t straightdown-the-line. Plenty applauded the panel’s decision, but others had more to say about the band’s direct response to winning. Solid, serious expressions (a staple of their image since day one) didn’t give way to overwhelmed happiness, or Sam Smith-style “I’d love to thank everyone, especially my team” appreciation.

“We deserved to be there,” states Alloysious Massaquoi.

“When we do the straight face,” starts Hastings, “it’s on purpose. Because we need to be taken seriously, more than if we were just three white boys with guitars. We need to push harder than most bands, because we need to fight for our respect.”

In the ceremony’s immediate aftermath, the next day’s headlines - released while Young Fathers were boarding their Berlin flight - focused on a stern-faced group who had little to say. “That shows the industry. If you don’t play ball, that’s what it’s about. How can you concentrate more on not smiling, than the actual winning of the award?” asks Massaquoi.

“I’d love to have any kind of understanding of what the press want,” begins Hastings. “When we went into that room, we answered every question. We gave them enough information. Fucking good answers. They never used none of it. They made it look like we never fucking spoke. We talked about fucking everything.”

“Wait, I asked for a short back and sides!”

Controversy stirred when upon arrival and prior to the winners’ conference, Young Fathers refused to speak to specific publications. Correspondents from The Sun, The Daily Mail and The Daily Star weren’t to be given any time.

Once the night was over, their angle was crass but obvious: ‘Mercury Prize winners don’t care, don’t speak’.

“We’ve had that stance for years, but obviously the Mercurys highlighted it,” explains Hastings. “Basically it was papers that we feel have a fucking agenda of Islamophobia, homophobia, anti-immigration. It’s fucking blatant. For us, there’s a basic line in humanity. In being a decent human.

And some of these media outlets cross it, so we just say no.”

This mostly pales into insignificance given the band’s next step, but it’s an important part of understanding the unfaltering ethos defining Young Fathers. In front of a camera, those serious faces are prompted without fail. But in conversation, they’re open, honest, willing to discuss anything.

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Photos taken at Red Bull Studios, London

BREAKING THE MYTH ‘White Men Are Black Men Too’ has its place in Berlin and in a post-victory glow, but it was largely put together on the road. Chants, laughter, the sound of someone ecstatically dancing in the background - these all appear across the record. Hastings has a ritual of playing a constructed loop or backing track to the rest of the band for the first time, before hitting record on the response. Be it a smattering of chaotic sounds or something more direct, most of ‘Dead’’s follow-up belongs to the moment. First takes stay on tape.

‘Sirens’ - a track penned in response to the Ferguson killings - sounds like it’s hosting a string section, but it’s just Hastings maddeningly scratching the same broken string on a violin and doubling everything up until it “sounds like an orchestra”. Massaquoi claims that the group are “bringing a new mindset” to the table. ‘Like being able to do what the fuck you want in the studio. Without any rules. It’s DIY and industrial. And it’s this vibe that’s carrying us through.”

“It took us years to realise that we use our ears more than anything, and a lot of people don’t have that innate, instant thing,” says Hastings. “It’s always about the mathematical equation. Because it can affect you when you’re recording.

You think, ‘Oh, I’ve not done that right. I need to do it again’. But we’ve realised it doesn’t actually matter.”

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Inspiration came from a trip to the States, particularly when they drove to Louisiana. Hastings heard music that was “traditional, but driven by rhythm”, something that spills into the neverstop mentality of the new LP. “Some of the music when we were travelling, just listening to the radio, was fucking beautiful,” he remembers. “It could be some Mexican soul station which is just playing covers, recorded in the ‘60s.

You’d never know who did it. But it stuck with us.”

They returned with a full-length quicker than the Mercury hubbub could simmer down. “We’ve made the record that we’ve been talking about making since we started,” says Massaquoi. And he’s referring specifically to making a pop album, cramming melody into concise, hard-hitting moments that rarely go beyond three minutes. That shouldn’t come as a great surprise. Before having their photo taken and applying the now infamous serious faces, you can hear each member of the group singing along to B*Witched’s ‘C’est La Vie’, blared out through the Red Bull Studios speakers. There’s a big sense that Young Fathers remain misunderstood. ‘Dead’’s accolades didn’t clarify anything. But despite that, they’re happy to keep taking their own course, even if it’s a slower route to success. “In some

The Mercury Prize panel always claim the decision’s solely about the record being judged, not the performance on the night. Suuuure - Alloysious Massaquoi has other ideas.

“I think our performance is what maybe swayed it,” he says. “The album doesn’t sound like anything else, but to perform like that - that’s what maybe swung the panel.”

Hasting agrees. “When people watched us on the telly, it was like, ‘What the fuck is this? Literally, what the fuck am I watching?’ But I think all of us would rather that than they take us as being a bunch of box-tickers.” aspects, being on the Mail Online might get us the biggest hits,” admits Hastings. “But when you have feelings about stuff, you can’t just let it ride and be alright by talking to these media outlets and letting it slide by. If we didn’t care, then I think we would have more followers. It’s a fucking easier way to do it. We would be bigger. But at what cost?”

Young Fathers’ new album ‘White Men Are Black Young Fathers Men Too’ will will play Latitude. be released on See diymag.com for 6th April via details.

Big Dada. DIY

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Summer Camp take Saturday nights watching Take Me Out very seriously.

NEWS IN BRIEF

DON’T ACT THE FOOL

Get Lucky

Breakout LA star Ryn Weaver has confirmed plans to release her debut album, ‘The Fool’. Out 16th June in the US via Friends Keep Secrets / Interscope, it’s set to contain the breakthrough tracks ‘OctaHate’ and ‘Promises’, both of which featured on a debut EP from 2014.

Summer Camp are back and, inspired by their recent work on the ‘Beyond Clueless’ soundtrack, they’ve got a new album in tow.

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t feels like it was just yesterday that Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley released their second album, ‘Summer Camp’. Yet, in between touring and piecing together the soundtrack for teen-flick documentary ‘Beyond Clueless’, they’ve somehow found the time to write and record a whole new full-length.

“We started it in January 2014,” Warmsley reveals, during a phonecall with the pair, “and we’ve worked really hard on it for a year so it doesn’t feel all that quick to us!”

With their last effort, Summer Camp found themselves pushing their own limits, experimenting with 90s hip hop and old school R&B and forging a new direction. Yet, after working alongside longtime friend Charlie Lyne to create the score for his film venture, the duo felt themselves pulled back into the cinematic pop that made their name.

“The second album was about us trying to do something outside of our comfort zone,” explains Sankey, “but this one was more about doing what we felt comfortable doing, but doing it the best that we could.”

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“The soundtrack was all about creating a world that was very immersive,” Warmsley continues. “That’s something we really wanted to do, not just in the music but in the lyrics and the artwork.

This record was all about creating a whole world you can get lost in.”

Titled ‘Bad Luck’, the two-piece’s third effort is set to be, in Jeremy’s own words, “all about different kinds of bad luck, really.” Is it going to be completely based on fiction, though? “It always comes from your own experiences to a degree,” reasons Elizabeth, “so there are parts and ideas that are coming from us, but it’s about phrasing things in a way that are slightly different.

“In order for it to make sense as a whole, you have to have a vision of what you want to say, and then try and find different ways to say it. Personally, I will always be drawn to things that have a theme or a world you can create, or a landscape to explore in terms of narrative, rather than ‘This is a song about what we did yesterday!’”

Summer Camp’s new album ‘Bad Luck’ will be released later this year. DIY

DIGITAL WITNESS Last month, Björk enlivened the digital artwork for ‘Vulnicura’ by releasing two videos accompanying tracks from her recently-released album. You can watch the clips for both ‘Lionsong’ and ‘Family’ on diymag.com now.

HOLY COMMUNION Years & Years have announced details of their debut album, ‘Communion’.

Their first full-length is due for release on 22nd June via Polydor, and will boast their chart-topping single ‘King’, plus last year’s ‘Desire’ and ‘Take Shelter’ singles.

TEAM UP, TEAM UP Earlier last year word spread about a potential collaborative album between Wavves’ Nathan Williams and Cloud Nothings’ Dylan Baldi. Now the two have finally confirmed plans to release a record together: ‘No Life For Me’ is coming out later this year via Ghost Ramp Records.

HEAVEN LONDON WED 08 APR

O2 ACADEMY3 BIRMINGHAM THU 26 MAR SCALA LONDON THU 09 APR

GEORGE THE POET

PURPLE FERDINAND

TOVE STYRKE

ECHOSMITH

SCALA LONDON TUE 14 APR

SCALA LONDON TUE 14 APR

STORNOWAY

THE JUNCTION CAMBRIDGE TUE 28 APR

JACK GARRATT

O2 ACADEMY2 OXFORD SAT 16 MAY HARE AND HOUNDS BIRMINGHAM MON 18 MAY ACADEMY 3 MANCHESTER TUE 19 MAY RESCUE ROOMS NOTTINGHAM WED 20 MAY THEKLA BRISTOL THU 21 MAY

ZHU

OVAL SPACE LONDON WED 27 MAY

HEAVEN LONDON THU 23 APR

SO L D O U T

HOXTON BAR & KITCHEN LONDON WED 22 APR

ODESZA

S O L D OU T

WALKING ON CARS

SAY LOU LOU

DRENGE

LIBRARY BIRMINGHAM SAT 11 APR

MT WOLF

CECIL SHARP HOUSE LONDON WED 15 APR

ASTROID BOYS

CAMDEN BARFLY LONDON TUE 28 APR ROCK CITY BASEMENT NOTTINGHAM WED 06 MAY

SUNSET SONS

THE LAUNDRY LONDON FRI 01 MAY

THEKLA BRISTOL FRI 01 MAY WATERFRONT STUDIO NORWICH TUE 05 MAY O2 ACADEMY2 OXFORD WED 06 MAY SCALA LONDON TUE 12 MAY

JOYWAVE

LA DISPUTE/ FUCKED UP

LONDON SEBRIGHT ARMS WED 20 MAY

BILLIE BLACK

THE WAITING ROOM LONDON WED 08 JUL

KOKO LONDON TUE 26 MAY

JOHN GRANT

EVENTIM APOLLO HAMMERSMITH LONDON THU 12 NOV

b uy t i c ke t s at l i ve nat i o n.co. uk 11

“ M y s o n g s h av e a lways b e e n about whatever issues I’m having.” - Sadie Dupuis

“This album is less of a bummer” Speedy Ortiz are in a good place on their second full-length, ’Foil Deer’. Words: El Hunt

T

wo years ago Speedy Ortiz never envisaged music being a feasible day job. Then ‘Major Arcana’ happened. Recorded in four frantic days, on a shoestring budget, the band’s debut - energetic, cathartic, and riddled with tightly strung tension - spiralled into something far greater than they ever imagined. After juggling music with university teaching gigs and studying for her MFA, suddenly Speedy Ortiz became Sadie Dupuis’ sole focus.

With second album ‘Foil Deer’ shrinkwrapped in aluminium and waiting impatiently in the wings for release, it’s the first time “in forever” that Sadie’s had space to relax. Largely her recreational time has been dedicated to playing potentially the greatest

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computer game in the universe - The Sims 2. “Oh my god!” she laughs, “I love it so much. All of my Sims are so perfect,” she says with a detectable hint of pride. “They’re all master artists, and really good at swimming. One of my Sims is a top video game player.”

“I haven’t made the band on there,” she adds, “but I made my own dog, it was peeing all over the floor in the Sims’ house. It’s pretty cool” Sadie Dupuis’ Sims-playing ethic is nothing out of the ordinary, and she applied a similar level of discipline to writing ‘Foil Deer’. Holing up in the woods, away from the hubbub of touring, she wrote constantly, day in, day out. “We’d spent ten months on tour - which is, just, like, having to talk

to people every single day. That’s what came up for someone whose general impulse is to hermit up,” she admits.

Sadie’s a cathartic songwriter, she agrees, and ‘Foil Deer’ - an altogether more feisty record - stems from moving towards a more positive place. ”A lot of the previous songs were really insecure,” she agrees, reflecting on ‘Major Arcana’ “They’re all coming from this cornered place. [‘Foil Deer’] is self-assured, but maybe that’s just my own headspace when I was writing. My songs have always been about whatever issues I’m having. I use them as a tool to try and figure out what I’m feeling, and make it better.”

Lately, she’s had less negative lyrical fuel. “I kind of cut out people who were

being crappy, so I didn’t have them to write about,” she laughs. “I think [‘Foil Deer’] is less of a bummer than the last one, which is good. It seems weird to me that our first record was this bummery thing. I guess this is still who I am, though, a little neurotic.”

Lucy Rose will play Kendal Calling. See diymag.com for details.

This time around, Speedy Ortiz had time and money on their side, and it afforded them more freedom to mess about and play things by ear. While their debut captured the visceral excitement of the band tearing up the live circuit, the follow-up is a playful, more experimental affair that takes on a slightly different shape with every listen. “I love that experience of hearing something a few times and noticing parts I hadn’t noticed there before.”

Fun, bursting with texture, and a far more brazen affair, first single ‘Raising The Skate’, Sadie explains, felt like the ideal introduction. “It seemed like a mission statement for the way we’re doing things this time around, you know? [‘Foil Deer] is about taking charge. I think a lot of this album is about that, and I think [‘Raising The Skate’] represented it best. It’s a sort of changing of the tide.”

‘Raising The Skate’ takes a swing at the kinds of people who call strong, opinionated women ‘bossy’, and as far as Sadie Dupis is concerned, they can bog right off. “Women are dominating many areas of music. I mean, they have since forever, but in the past few years especially. It is frustrating to encounter these rare people who cant believe it. I’m at this point now where I have no tolerance for anybody who communicates in that way, that’s bigoted and sexist, and I’m shocked when people are forgiving of people like that. I’m not going to be burned twice.”

After a well-earned break Speedy Ortiz are raring to cram back into the van and road-test ‘Foil Deer’, and, Sadie admits, they’re also looking forward to indulging their love of on-road snackage. “We love ramen,” she says, adding on a more practical note. “We all eat an unhealthy amount of it cos it’s easy to travel with. I’m probably the one that’s worst about it; as soon as I get to a city, I’ll know where I want to eat. That’s one of my favourite parts of being on tour,” she laughs, “they’re culinary tours in a way.”

Speedy Ortiz’s new album ‘Foil Deer’ will be released on 20th April via Carpark Records. DIY

What’s going on with…

Lucy Rose?

The singer-songwriter gives us the lowdown.

Hello Lucy! You just released your new track ‘Our Eyes’ and it’s had a great reception.

Hopefully! I never read reviews - I always worry it might make me crazy.

You’ve been a bit quiet in the UK over the past year or so. What’ve you been up to?

Last year I was really lucky and we played a lot of shows in places that we haven’t really had the chance to go to yet, like Singapore and Kuala Lumpa. I haven’t really done anything in the UK for a while now, just working and recording.

Is that for your new album?

Most of the album while I was on tour. I guess I wrote about fifty songs for the record and then cut it down to what was the best. I’m still writing, too. It’s kinda weird, when there’s some pressure on to finish a record, writing feels a bit different, but then, when I got the all clear that the album was done, suddenly I felt desperate to write!

You’ve previously said that ‘Our Eyes’ sees you pushing yourself to explore more. Is it representative of the new record?

I think all the songs are quite different; they’re all kinda doing

different things. ‘Our Eyes’ is as similar to ‘Cover Up’ as anything else. Some of the songs are still quite acoustic and downbeat - similar to the first record but I wanted to push myself more to see if I could get a kind of rocking element in there. I think writing happy, upbeat songs is sometimes harder than writing sad, slow ones.

Lucy Rose’s new single ‘Our Eyes’ will be released on 26th April via Columbia Records. DIY

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Lucy Rose - Our Eyes Returning after a three year absence, Lucy Rose is back. She’s got a suit made out of dog biscuits and new amped up production these days, and ‘Our Eyes’ realises the full scope of her strippedback acoustic beginnings. Musically there’s more than just a curt nod to her pals Bombay Bicycle Club, with every chiming note balancing on fidgeting percussive foundations. Lucy Rose still writes raw and confidential songs, but ‘Our Eyes’ sees her smash through into a new realm of previously untapped potential. (El Hunt) 13

“Honestly lads, I can’t remember where the fuck I put those banjos.”

Back Without Banjos Mumford and Sons launch their new album ‘Wilder Mind’ with a tiny London show.

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umford and Sons have broken cover: the band have announced a new album, ‘Wilder Mind’. Set for release on 5th May, their third LP was recorded in London and produced by James Ford (who has previously worked with Arctic Monkeys, HAIM and Florence + The Machine). A number of the new songs were written and demoed at Aaron Dessner from The National’s garage studio in Brooklyn.

And here’s the curveball - ‘Wilder Mind’ is completely banjofree. “Towards the end of the ‘Babel’ tour, we’d always play new songs during soundchecks, and none of them featured the banjo, or a kick-drum,” says Marcus Mumford, of the new record. “And demoing with Aaron meant that, when we took a break, we knew it wasn’t going to involve acoustic instruments.”

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“We chose instruments that played well off each other, rather than consciously trying to overhaul it,” adds Ben Lovett.

Mumford also explains that the new record is “a development, not a departure. I think all of us had this desire to shake it up.

The songwriting hasn’t changed drastically; it was led more by a desire to not do the same thing again.”

With a tracklisting that includes songs such as lead single ‘Believe’, ‘Tompkins Square Park’, ‘Monster’, ‘Snake Eyes’ and ‘Hot Gates’, Mumford and the band launched the release with Sons will play a super tiny show at London’s Oslo; a Bilbao BBK Live. See great venue for an intimate showcase, diymag.com for we’re told (hi Marina! - Ed). DIY details.

Mumford And Sons Oslo, London

“What happened with the banjos?!” someone yells from the back of the packed room. There’s a moment of laughter before the quiet takes over which is to be expected, when the venue is so small you could hear a pin drop. Marcus Mumford looks up from tuning his guitar and smiles. “That’s a fair question,” he pauses. “We don’t really know.”

Tonight marks the first in a set of showcase-style live performances from the festival-topping, arena-dominating Mumford and Sons, where they’re offering fans a first comprehensive glimpse of their new album, ‘Wilder Mind’. From the looks of things, there’s not a banjo in sight. This isn’t like anything they’ve tried before, but the applause that their new material is met with feels genuinely appreciative.

Running through the majority of their forthcoming album’s tracklisting – we’re treated to eleven of its twelve tracks, slightly out of order – they breeze through their new bluesy Americana-infused tones, leaving a hefty impression on attendees. ‘Believe’ packs quite a punch, with its woozy, laid back strumming introduction soon bursting into massive life. The likes of ‘Snake Eyes’ and ‘Ditmas’ are more intense offerings, while ‘The Wolf’ echoes of Kings Of Leon in moments, before ‘Monster’ sees them channelling The SETLIST National.

• The Wolf Throughout their time on stage, the band • Believe seem at ease; from offering an explanation • Wilder Mind to their venue-wide phone ban (“We just • Monster wanted to have an intimate moment.”)

• Just Smoke to updating those in the dark with the • Tompkins latest football score (“That’s why we were Square Park late on stage,” Marcus laughs), tonight • Snake Eyes may be an evening filled with completely • Broadunknown music, but it still feels engaging.

Shouldered There’s a subtlety to their new efforts that Beasts draws in the crowd, and it makes being • Ditmas their guinea pigs for an evening feel • Hot Gates effortlessly special. (Sarah Jamieson) • Only Love

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Mumford and Sons - Believe Impressively divisive. That’s a good way to describe the career of Mumford and Sons to date. International superstars, on the whole they inspire far more devotion than derision. For the significant number who take a dislike, though, it’s rarely casual - with a trademark sound, the comeback has always been the same. So imagine if they changed things up; removed that one, distinctive element so often seized upon. With word the banjos were firmly out, and a more plugged in, electric sound set up in their place - to most ‘Believe’ firmly marks the first taste of Mumfords 2.0.

Where Kings of Leon’s reinvention from likeable southern hillbillies to polished FM friendly radio-hoggers saw much of what made them great in the first place lost, Mumford and Sons actually find something new. They’re already huge. This isn’t about the need to shift more units or buy a bigger house. Instead, they’ve uncovered something. Their breaking of the mould comes with no loss of urgency, but rather shows a band with more dimensions than many previously assumed. With the shield of tweed cast aside, emotion and sincerity are given more room to shine through. (Stephen Ackroyd)

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Gnarwolves Play Rowdy Afternoon Set On Barge In Camden Lock

TRACKLIST 1. Dead Inside 2. [Drill Sergeant] 3. Psycho 4. Mercy 5. Reapers 6. The Handler 7. [JFK] 8. Defector 9. Revolt 10. Aftermath 11. The Globalist 12. Drones

The band performed a short gig in the middle of the canal to a crowd of fans and surprised shoppers. Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photo: Emma Swann

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narwolves have played in plenty of weird places, but a cold Saturday afternoon in Camden recently marked their first live appearance surfing the waterways.

Prepare The Drones Muse are back, and they’re not holding back on the hyperbole.

T

here was plenty of back-and-forth when it came to rumours of the new album from Muse – from passworded pre-order pages to whispers of live shows - but now the truth is out there: the band will release new album ‘Drones’ on 8th June.

Co-produced by Muse and Robert John “Mutt” Lange, the album’s set to be twelve tracks long, and a first taste of it comes in the form of ‘Psycho’ – which you can hear now over at diymag.com. It’s followed by the first single to be taken from the record, ‘Dead Inside’.

Speaking of the record, the band’s Matt Bellamy has said: “To me, ‘Drones’ are metaphorical psychopaths which enable psychopathic behaviour with no recourse. The world is run by Drones utilising Drones to turn us all into Drones. This album explores the journey of a human, from their abandonment Muse will play and loss of hope, to their Bilbao BBK Live. See indoctrination by the system diymag.com for to be a human drone, to their details. eventual defection from their oppressors.” Ok, Matt. DIY

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Announced only by a Twitter post the previous day, the band float along into Camden Lock to cheers and wolf howls from the hordes of fans patiently waiting on both banks of the canal.

Bursting into a gravelly rendition of ‘Bottle To Bottle’, they catch the attention of some bewildered onlookers. The streets surrounding the Lock are rammed with both fans and visitors all trying to catch an eyeful as they dive into ‘Melody Has Big Plans’.

HAVE YOU HEARD?

Muse - Psycho Muse don’t do small statements: when their comeback track, ‘Psycho’, sees them riding into town on the 16-years-in-the-making mutant cousin of the riff from ’Personal Jesus’ spliced with Shania Twain’s ‘Man, I Feel Like A Woman’, nobody is likely to bat an eyelid.

‘Psycho’, though, does mark a change for the band. Or at least, a return. In your face, it’s a step away from their more recent intergalactic albums.

The space opera replaced with direct action, the dubstep with distortion; but underneath, sits a massive rock band.

(Stephen Ackroyd)

Then, almost as soon as they arrive, it’s time for them to head off again. With a few nifty rope tricks and a celebratory rendition of ‘Smoking Kills’, they sail away on their barge just in time to incite some crowd surfing amongst the fans on the towpath.

Now that’s how you play a show on a boat. DIY

DIY HALL OF FAME

A monthly place to celebrate the very best albums released during DIY’s lifetime; for the second inductee to our Hall of Fame, El Hunt

Foals Antidotes

tackles Foals’ game-changing debut, ‘Antidotes’.

I

t’s impossible to bottle up the weird intangible energy of a perfect debut album, but everyone knows what it feels like.

Nowadays, it’s a keyboard scrabble. Pre-streaming days, albums involved a great deal of scurrying. First, down to the nearest record shop, crisp banknote firmly in hand. Then, the dash home to rip off the plastic, and the race to digest the whole thing in one go. It’s safe to say that a lot of excitable scurrying took place on 24th March 2008.

Officially, 2008 was International Year of the Potato, and it was also the year that the recession officially took root with the collapse of Northern Rock. Ask a lot of people, though, and they’ll remember it as the year that Foals came bowling on in and knocked through the stalemate. Shaking music up irreversibly, and clattering into indie’s banging hangover with direct vengeance, ‘Antidotes’ was brash and exciting, with just a mild streak of self-assured arrogance. Bursting with muscular rolling snares and pealing horns, sparse and slightly agitated guitar lines, and abstracted choruses custom-manufactured for yelling, it is a debut that demands to be listened to.

Urgency and escapism are the two flitting creatures of ‘Antidotes’. Foals are always searching for a way to disappear

into thin air, at least until tomorrow, when things might improve. Yannis Philippakis sprints between slogans and manifestos, and whether he’s repeatedly regurgitating a Lacoste advert throughout first track ‘The French Opener’“un peu d’air sur la terre,” - or yelping about love being an exhaustible fuel on ‘Balloons,’ there’s a desperate, clawing naivety at the centre, a desire to stop the poison and cure the pain. Despite all of Philippakis’ acerbic snarling, there’s a detached glossiness to ‘Antidotes’, too, a sort of cold, clinical bedside manner. It’s only exacerbated by drummer Jack Bevan, who fuels the entire record with a mechanical, methodically constructed pulse.

It’s fair to say that after ‘Antidotes’, Foals progressed on to grander, showier - and perhaps more accomplished - things.

Foals’ second album ‘Total Life Forever’ honed the chaos into something far more concentrated and muscular, and by the time ‘Holy Fire’ came around, things had taken a turn towards the devastatingly apocalyptic. ‘Antidotes’, though, is a perfect unstoppable debut. Hungry to lead the next generation of festival headliners, and sure that they could take the world by storm, Foals’ fierce debut longs to fill every inch of air turned out to be infectious - and, more than just a little bit selfprophesying. Marking the wildly ambitious entrance of Foals, ‘Antidotes’ was a debut that marched into the middle of the civilised status-quo, stood on a chair, and yelled “this is how it’s going to be now”. DIY

Read more on diymag.com

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W

ith consistent, complimentary nods to early Cribs, early Libertines and early Two Door Cinema Club, Liverpudlian four-piece Circa Waves have a genuine and warm likability just like slamming your face into a tub of cream cheese icing. Their iconically British appeal, combined with a dreamy, transatlantic optimism, is the medium for universally compatible lyricism about desperate adolescence.

As they wheel in their well-travelled cases covered in Australian airport stickers, there’s a playful distraction amongst the band with frontman Kieran Shudall pondering on how drummer, Colin Jones, should work as a Disneyland Prince character with “that head of hair”, then moving swiftly and oxymoronically to their sheepish

adventures on Tinder. They’re about as subtle as Madonna’s fall at The Brits, and it’s quite charming.

With the serendipitous splendour of northern air, the band explain meeting for the first time at Liverpool’s Sound City 2013 through mutual friends.

“We’d all been in bands before but at that point, I’d been working on my own and recording bedroom demos,” Kieran says. “Zane Lowe had just played the demo of ‘Young Chasers’ on Radio 1 so I desperately needed to get a band together,” he admits before bassist Sam Rourke defensively but bashfully interrupts “…I wouldn’t say you were desperate, keen maybe,” before they crease with laughter.

“When I recorded the demos, it was giving the illusion of a band anyway,” Kieran continues. “I always wanted people to think it was a band. That’s what I enjoy doing… we all do. The

reason why we’re in bands is because it’s the most fun you can have in music.

I never wanted to be a solo artist, it just seems really fucking boring.”

Having fallen into a rabbit hole of praise in a dangerously short amount of time after supporting The Libertines, the idea of Circa Waves holding ‘buzz band’ status is completely valid. The anxiety to conserve and nurture the initial intrigue however has the potential of sudden dread, like when you get in the shower only to realise halfway through that you forgot your towel. Proving you’re not a one trick pony whilst avoiding label manipulation has challenged and verified a lot of bands’ authenticity, but Circa Waves respond with nonchalance and refreshing confidence. “I don’t feel any pressure towards it, I honestly don’t feel like there’s that much hype anymore,” mumbles Kieran whilst harshly squinting and blocking the sun

chasing. .the dream.

Circa Waves have their sights set high for debut album, ‘Young Chasers’. Words: Joanie Eaton. Photo: Emma Swann

18 diymag.com

out of his eyes with a café menu.

We’re all aware that with some musicians, the reception of their singles may not necessarily reflect the success of an album. It can be a gamble: like seeing the euphoric picture of a burger in chicken shop, then in reality facing the reality of the meteoric, neon slop you’re presented with. “I think we brought out quite a lot of good singles.

People see that we have potential, so the album is expected to be something proper, you know?” he confusingly explains before getting tonguetied about the differences between ‘decent’ and ‘good’. But with ‘Young Chasers’, the album clicks, conjoins and compresses with indie hit after indie hit so their confidence is justified.

‘Young Chasers’ is a piece bursting with northern pop fuelled giddiness, reflecting what ringleader Kieran describes as “misspent youth”. “We looked at a lot of debut records that we loved, like [Arctic Monkeys’] ‘Whatever People Say I Am That’s What I’m Not’, and just wanted to make something as

“Guitar music is never going to go away, it’s just being hidden by a crock of shit.” Joe Falconer

good or even better,” he explains. “We definitely wanted to release something visceral and something that you could feel was just a band in a room. In the early stages of a band, I think it’s cool to have that live and energetic sound. It’d be weird if your first album sounded like your third album, as if it was fully formed.”

And with those dreaded words ‘guitar music’ persistently in debate, Circa Waves are prepared to hold their own.

“I think that when we first came out, people were excited because we had guitars on which is quite silly,” laughs off Kieran. “There’s always going to be bands playing guitars.” “When we turned up people were like ‘oh, guitar music’s back!’, that’s the fucking ridiculous thing about it,” guitarist Joe Falconer adds. “It’s not, it never went away, it’s just that the industry decides to back it every now and then.”

Sure, today’s mainstream charts are dominated by Rihanna and Sam Smith, but the success of bands such as Royal Blood in 2014 proves that ‘guitar music’ is unlikely to end up dry and numb like a prune in a sous-vide machine. “For me, I remember seeing bands like Bloc Party and thinking ‘that’s something that I have to do’. Guitar music comes and goes in waves with commercial popularity but it’s going to be a thing everywhere, anywhere, at whatever time,” Sam concludes.

“You’ve got all these musicians with electronics and stuff which often sounds quite outdated because technology’s constantly changing,” Joe says, whilst looking at Sam, explaining a similar conversation they shared the day before. “But the thing about guitar music is that it’s so pure and so simple, you can write a song with the bare minimum and do something that really excites and inspires, you know?”

“I think that from playing with bands like Metronomy, you see how the core of what they’re doing is really amazing pop songs but they’ve put it in this really unusual outfit which just works.

We’ll always keep writing pop indie sounds, but we’re keen to try different guises, you know what I mean?”, Joe emphasises. “Guitar music is never going to go away, it’s annoying that people think it does… it’s just being hidden by a crock of shit.”

Circa Waves’ debut album ‘Young Chasers’ will be released on 30th March via Virgin. DIY

NEWS IN BRIEF

UNDER THE SKIN Of Monsters and Men have confirmed they’ll be releasing a new album this summer. ‘Beneath The Skin’, the followup to the Icelandic band’s 2011 debut, ‘My Head is an Animal’, will be released on 8th June, with the band playing a one-off London date at the Kentish Town Forum on 16th June.

OH FFS Newly-coined supergroup FFS (Franz Ferdinand and Sparks) have added a Manchester date to their first ever UK tour. The group will play Manchester’s Albert Hall on 25th August, just a couple of months on from their first ever gig at Glasgow Arts School, 16th June.

BUSY BOYS The Cribs have announced plans for a new headline show, taking place at Norwich Waterfront. Having already completed a tour around the UK, the band are about to head into festival season, but will now make the headline appearance on 23rd May.

GRAFFITI ART The Vaccines have confirmed a release date and details for new LP ‘English Graffiti’. Their third album is out 25th May on Columbia, following 2012’s ‘Come of Age’. Recorded in winter 2014 with Dave Fridmann at Tarbox Road Studios, it boasts lead single ‘Handsome’ and ten new tracks.

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“It’s a different thing for us to experiment with.” -

Best of the Rest

Av e y Ta r e

George Ezra - Wanted On Voyage You’ll be able to play ‘Where’s Geoff?’ with George Ezra’s new ‘Wanted on Voyage’ picture disc.

Avey Tare and co. have re-issued

CHVRCHES - Dead Air / Get Away

their 2005 EP ‘Prospect Hummer’, which they recorded with cult figure Vashti Bunyan.

Animal Collective sign up for Record Store Day

W

ith Record Store Day fastapproaching, artists everywhere have been bandying together for impromptu collaborations, and delving into their back catalogues to pick out re-issues.

Animal Collective certainly aren’t low on choice in either respect, and they’re giving their 2005 EP ‘Prospect Hummer’ its first ever vinyl pressing, with the help of FatCat Records.

“The time definitely flies by, but so much has happened to the band - and to me personally that it feels like it was a long time ago,” Animal Collective’s Avey Tare says, looking back over the ten years since ‘Prospect Hummer’ first came out. “I think the last couple of years have been the first time that I’ve really started to look back.”

The band collaborated heavily with cult freakfolk figure Vashti Bunyan on the EP. Practically unknown until the turn of the millennium, Bunyan released her debut album in 1970, sold very few copies, and gave up on the music industry to live in Scotland. Thirty years later, she discovered that her small run of ‘Just Another Diamond Day’ had become one of the most sought-after records in the world. “I heard that record and immediately fell in love with it,” says Avey Tare. “I got it in the late nineties on bootleg or something.” During the recording

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for ‘Prospect Hummer’ Bunyan was still in the process of rediscovering her voice. “[Vashti Bunyan] was definitely shy,” Avey agrees. “We wanted her to do the vocals, because it would be a different thing for us to experiment with; somebody else singing our songs.”

“For Animal Collective, our history comes from being in a group of friends and all making things,” continues Avey. “It’s how I came into making music. Brian [Weitz, Geologist] would come over my house when I was younger, and we’d make a song. It was all about having an experience with a friend. I think that has carried on over the years. Whenever we’re going to make a record, it’s this crucial time of everyone getting together and working it out, and feeling what the song’s going to actually feel like when we’re playing it together.”

Following Panda Bear’s recent confirmation that Animal Collective are headed back into the studio to record the follow-up to 2012’s ‘Centipede Hz.’ Avey Tare makes a commendable effort to remain tight-lipped, though he lets slip that something resembling an album is starting to come together. “Yeah, over the past few months I’ve been writing some songs. I think we’re starting to have a group of songs that we’re thinking about recording,” he laughs. DIY

They may already be working on album number two, but grabbing this 7” is the perfect way to satisfy any electropop cravings you have in the meantime.

Biffy Clyro Puzzle It’s what diehard fans have been waiting for: the band’s classic album will finally get its first pressing on vinyl.

Florence + the Machine What Kind of Man Flo’s single is the first preview ahead of her May album release, and true to name the vinyl will be big, blue, and beautiful.

Brand New Deja Entendu And the prize for the most coveted US-only release goes to… It does come in a paper bag, after all.

For more information about Record Store Day, visit diymag.com.

Expect The Unexpected:

Bloc Party are working on a fifth record

K

ele Okereke has confirmed that Bloc Party have already begun work on their fifth studio album, sharing an acoustic clip of a new track.

During the frontman’s recent tour in Australia, in promotion of his latest solo offering ‘Trick’, he spoke to Veronica and Lewis from radio station Triple J. Kele said that the band are “at the writing slash recording stage” and that they have “about 18 ideas [for songs], and we’re going to lay them down properly in the next few months.”

“It’s sounding like nothing that we’ve ever done before but that’s what everyone always says,” he said. “We’ve always

been fans of lots of different sorts of things and I feel that maybe in the past we tried to recreate different worlds or sounds. I feel that this record is an evolution of where we were.

So far, there’s nothing really that I can compare it to in terms of other musicians where as in the past I could… This is very much our own record.”

There was no mention of personnel, after Matt Tong previously left the band towards the latter stages of their 2013 festival run, but Kele did pick up a guitar to give an acoustic performance of a work-in-progress from the new record, ‘Exes’. For more information, head over to diymag.com. DIY

SPOTTED

THIS MONTH ON ‘THE INTERNET’

PHEW! It’s ok everyone, Will loves us again.

Wolf Alice got a bit carried away watching Robin Hood and the Prince of Thieves… ..........................................

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

This one time, The Rock called George Ezra a cat.

Everyone wants their own 3D version of Kanye’s new bezzie mate.

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

Someone’s excited for festival season.

Everyone’s all about The Rock this month.

WHICH two indie dreamboats were discovered comparing their DIY posterboy status during the recording of an appearance on BBC Radio 1.

WHO was the pop star spotted walking outside of DIY headquarters wearing a hat so big, so blue, so beautiful. (Okay, it wasn’t blue, it was black but whatever.)

WHICH former X Factor contestant was found lurking at the back of George Ezra’s show at Electric Brixton last month.

He was looking pretty Friend-ly.

WHO were the four men who arrived at a recent DIY photoshoot wearing their leathers and riding motorbikes? A little less Sons of Anarchy, a little more...

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P o p s ta r P o s tbag Ellie Rowsell , Wolf Alice We know what you’re like, dear readers. We know you’re just as nosey as we are when it comes to our favourite popstars: that’s why we’re putting the power back into your hands. Every month, we’re going to ask you to pull out your best questions and aim them at those unsuspecting artists. You don’t even need to pay for postage! This month, Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell steps up to the plate.

Who are your biggest influences & do you all have different ones or similar? @ellieofficer I think we all have different ones, but we have stuff that ties us all together too, like Patrick Wolf, Outkast, Queens of the Stone Age, Nirvana, the Beatles, Miley Cyrus.

What is the song you guys are most excited for fans to hear? @cruelxworld I have no idea, they’re all pretty different so I’m excited for people to hear all of them. I like what we put first on the album, cause it’s quite different from all our other stuff.

What was the first show like with the four of you together? @timshel As the four of us it was supporting Swim Deep at the Sebright Arms with Temples, about three years ago! It was exciting - we hadn’t played a show like that before. We played a country song which Theo hadn’t learnt yet, so we just shimmied on stage. I’m surprised no one booed us really.

What’s your favourite Spice Girl? @c0neyisland Definitely Posh!!!

How much have you been influenced

by Roald Dahl on the new album? @ahhholly Not at all.

Where is the album title inspired from? @tomm1975 It’s a short song I wrote which had the lyrics ‘my love is cool, my love bends rules’. I just like that love and cool mean different things for different people, and the two things together sound important and exciting to me.

Union Chapel - it was amazing. Theo’s was Red Hot Chili Peppers at Hyde Park, supported by James Brown, and Chicks on Speed with Patrick Wolf playing violin - I’m v jel of that!

If you had to duet with anyone, alive or dead, who would it be? @ahhholly Jeff Buckley, I adore him.

What was the first concert any of you went to?

Mackenzie My first concert that wasn’t like an all ages show, with tons of bands or something, was Patrick Wolf at

What’s your favourite song to perform live? @jess_vro I like performing heavy songs like ‘Giant Peach’ and ‘Fluffy’, but I also get quite teary when we play ‘White Leather’ or ‘We’re Not The Same’. Sad songs like those can be emotional to perform.

NEXT MONTH: Twin Atlantic Want to send a question to DIY’s Popstar Postbag? Tweet us at @ diymagazine with the hashtag #postbag, or drop us an email at popstarpostbag@diymag.com. Easy!

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Wolf Alice will play Best Kept Secret and Latitude.

See diymag.com for details.

23

The best new tracks from the last month.

have you heard

Warpaint - I’ll Start Believing

A lot happens over the course of a month in the mad world of ace music. You’re busy people, we get that, so we’re here to help. Catch up with the most amazing, exciting or generally ‘WTF m9’ new songs that have surfaced in the last few weeks. No need to thank us. No, really, it’s fine.

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What instantly stands out about ‘I’ll Start Believing’ is its brevity. At 2:58 it’s remarkably short compared to pretty much anything Warpaint have done before, and with that comes a rare sense of urgency. While the fourpiece are typically associated with stretched out, dreamy psych-rock, this is a direct, immediate shot in the arm. It’s all underpinned

by Jenny Lee Lindberg’s driving, abrasive bass riff, which owes more than a hint to the Pixies.

It’s not Warpaint as we know it, but ‘I’ll Start Believing’ is just as intense and beguiling as anything they’ve done. (Stuart Knapman) Shura - 2Shy If there was even a molecule of vague indecision left in the air, Shura’s all about that pop. ‘2Shy’ sounds like the obligatory last ballady song to wind down a misty 5am basement party. A pre-DFS advert era Human League were manning the door earlier on, but they’ve long left their posts to repeatedly request ‘Human’ at the DJ booth. Huge swelling synth-lines bursting with sassy panache are the order of the night here but despite all of Shura’s obviously gaudy pop influences, it’s undoubtedly her party, too, and everyone - no, really, everyone - is invited. (El Hunt)

Tame Impala - Let It Happen Forsaking the thunderously driving guitar lines that dominated the last album, ‘Let It Happen’ is driven almost entirely by synth melodies and staccato rhythms that flood through its core. But in (perhaps the only) typical Tame Impala fashion, the song doesn’t stick with one motif for long.

Constantly changing and evolving, it imbues elements of dance, sun-kissed psychedelia, and orchestral string sounds, all neatly drawn together with Kevin Parker’s distinctive intonations. A giant leap and a natural progression onwards, ‘Let It Happen’ is the track everyone’s been waiting for. (Jessica Goodman)

Grimes - REALiTi

Black Honey - Madonna

As far as discarded offcuts go, Grimes’ ‘REALiTi’ takes some topping. Harking back to Claire Boucher’s pre-‘Visions’ experimental pop, it’s an anthem made out of pastel shades.

A #sadbanger in every sense, outward-leaning synths even recall the Washed Out-era of chillwave. It shouldn’t work, but ‘REALiTi’ makes fine work out of various oddities, which is essentially Grimes’ greatest strength. (Jamie Milton)

While the new single from Black Honey shares a name with cape-troubled Madonna, it runs with the sort of excited defiance that takes stairs two at a time. All bubbling vitriol and playful menace, it’s a threat that’s maintained in the refrained snap of the opening and the sideways drawl of the vocal allure. The uptempo surf breaks on the band’s devil may care attitude, making ‘Madonna’ a choppy, charming affair. With a nod to the late nineties and full access to the diary under their pillow, Black Honey have crafted a brazen, beautiful work of art. (Ali Shutler)

Kero Kero Bonito - Picture This ‘Picture This’ hurtles into life with a panpipe solo that could easily be taken from Zelda, and once the pogoing main hook ricochets into life, there’s truly no stopping them. Kero Kero Bonito are quickly building up a solid back catalogue of intensely infectious and multi-hued pop, and anybody who doesn’t dance along should probably go and get their funny bone checked out. Whether they take on party planning, video games, the merits of cats versus dogs, or letting your inner flamingo run wild and free, Kero Kero Bonito have the strange, playful sincerity that centres all great pop music. (El Hunt) Jack Garratt - Chemical ‘Chemical’ matches up with all the hard-cold facts known about Jack Garratt, his combination of #nasty beats, wob-wob synths and floating falsetto being the biggest draw. But that doesn’t stop Garratt from eyeing up next steps, like the midsection machine gun, marching drum combo, or the piercing scream his bonkers verses will often burst into. Once that’s taken care of, in steps a serene piano section, sounding like it was recorded through the walls of a bedroom. Just when you’ve played catch-up with Garratt, he’ll set off on another victory lap. (Jamie Milton)

The Magic Gang - No Fun With more hooks than a fully-saturated cloakroom in a sweaty basement bar, the latest new song to come from The Magic Gang starts off ramshackle enough. A messy, scuzzy bass line slops outwards, throwing squealing feedback and rackety snares in its wake like a potent soup straight from Hogwarts.

With a sly swish and flick, though, ‘No Fun’ suddenly drifts into spectacular clear focus, and lifts off with all the welly you could ever ask for. With their latest, The Magic Gang are laying down the cards, and ‘No Fun’ is a veritable rabbit in a hat. (El Hunt) Honeyblood - No Big Deal In contrast to the furious, fast, jangly onslaught of their debut, Honeyblood’s new track ‘No Big Deal’ takes more from the schools of Pavement and Sleater-Kinney. A totally new guitar sound - a more trebly, reverby prospect - glistens on a melody that snakes into a far more unorthodox chord pattern than the Glasgow-based duo have previously utilised.

This is a band that’s dealt with the stress of changing a vital component (new drummer Cat Myers makes an appearance here) and yet Honeyblood continue to be prolific, matching quantity with quality. (Euan L Davidson)

Wolf Alice - Giant Peach Lots of songs have riffs in them, sure, but there’s a certain rare breed that seems to just oooooze riffing. It’s unmistakable when you hear it; the sort of song where every single melody line whacks you across the chops with a firm thwack and grows into something somehow larger and even more dangerous. Black Sabbath wrote a few of them on ‘Paranoid’; Led Zeppelin had their moments as well.

With ‘Giant Peach’ it’s a big old welcome to the club for Wolf Alice: a far more contemptuous and snarling fare than the band’s earlier EP releases. (El Hunt)

For DIY’s verdict on all the latest tracks, visit diymag.com.

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DIY PRESENTS REPORT

Roundhouse Rising, The Roundhouse, London A week’s worth of events is approaching its close, tonight’s headliners linking up with Brighton’s The Magic Gang, Liverpudlians Hooton Tennis Club and fellow seasiders Object Object in bringing forward DIY’s picks for the year ahead.

In truth, most in attendance are already more than aware of Rough Trade signings Girl Band, but that doesn’t stop their set from scattering surprises in among the inevitable chaos.

Word’s clearly spread about their hypnotic pull. Crowd declarations range from the slightly deranged (“you’re way heavier than METZ!”) to the completely bizarre (“Fuck off. In a good way…”) - barely anyone quite knows how to cope. Their Blawan cover of ‘Why They Hide The Bodies Under My Garage’ is an inevitable, limb-flailing highlight, but there’s more - frontman Dara Kiely breaks into a paced falsetto at one point, and they even play a “ballad for all the ladies”. Girl Band’s ballads aren’t quite ‘Viva Forever’ (more ‘Viva Death-Noise’), but tonight sees the group exposing another side, one that makes their eventual full-length even more exciting - like that was possible. (Jamie Milton) REPORT

Weyes Blood, The Old Blue Last, London “I stand apart from the rest,” sings Weyes Blood at the opening of her set. It’s the first of many truths that she delivers tonight. Singing about the inevitable loss of innocence that comes with growing older, she handles herself with poise. ‘Hang On’ layers the theatrical pomp with earthy determination while the glitching opera of ‘Some Winters’ sees her heavenly vocals reach angelic heights.

Every motion she makes is deliberate, a trait mirrored in her music as a blend of loops, vocals and samples huddle together forming a warm ball of light that radiates quiet charm. A broken folk rendition of her American-baiting album opener ‘Land of Broken Dreams’ is laced with powerful prose while a confident cover of Fred Neil’s ‘Everybody’s Talkin’ throws a soft light on just how compelling and unique this performance is. (Ali Shutler) 26

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PREVIEW

Tall Ships confirm one-off DIY Presents London show Tall Ships, who are currently in the midst of finishing their second album, will be playing a special, one-off DIY Presents date in London, appearing at The Lexington on 24th May. And what should fans should expect from their first London show of 2015?

“Everything’s a greatest hits show with us!” the band’s Ric Phethean laughs.

“This is an unofficial single party for our [as yet unannounced] new single. There will be loads of new material, and it’s basically a re-introduction to the band.

We’re really looking forward to it.”

those avid record buyers, we’ve invited Leeds scuzz-masters Menace Beach to celebrate with us by playing a tiny headline show at London’s Old Blue Last. Taking place on 18th April, support is due to come from Simmer and Bruising, and entry is free, so it’s worth getting down there early before more queueing pops up. DIY DIY Presents…

MARCH 27 Dutch

Uncles, The Ritz, Manchester

PREVIEW

Menace Beach to head up DIY Presents Record Store Day gig Record Store Day is always a special time for music fans and this year, DIY has got something up our sleeves to make it even more so. As a treat for all

APRIL 04 Errors, The Deaf Institute, Manchester 09 Bipolar Sunshine, O2

Academy, Oxford 18 Menace Beach, The Old Blue Last, London MAY 01 Iceage, The Hare and Hounds, Birmingham 24 Tall Ships, The Lexington, London

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F E S T I VA L S 2015

L AT I T U D E Alt-J, Portishead and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds head up the first Latitude announcement.

I

t’s that time of year again: the sun’s starting to come out, the sheep are getting ready to be spray-painted and Latitude has made its first line up announcement.

Topping the bill for their tenth Birthday celebrations, Alt-J have been confirmed as one of the three headliners for Latitude 2015.

Fresh from dominating the O2 Arena - and in turn, playing their largest headline show so far in their careers - the threepiece are more than prepared to take on the challenge of closing the festival’s proceedings. “I saw the poster today,” the band’s Gus Unger-Hamilton tells DIY. “It’s pretty amazing to see our name at the top of the poster like that. It’s quite amazing. Next to Portishead!”

Having already managed to prove naysayers wrong with their massive London show back in January, it’s safe to say that the band are feeling ready to continue playing to huge crowds.

“We played Ally Pally in the autumn and a lot of journalists were a bit snide about it, saying, ‘Oh this band isn’t exciting enough to be playing this big an arena,’” Gus admitted.

“We were a bit like, ‘Well, fuck you, we’re gonna go play

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somewhere that’s almost twice as big.’

“There was 18,000 people at the O2 and we got really good reviews for that gig. I think we felt like we had proved some people wrong, who were like, ‘Well, how can a bunch of shoegazey nerds possibly play the O2?’ We were like, ‘Well, this is how we do it and if you don’t like it, whatever, these people seem to like it.’

“This is a different occasion,” he continues, aware of the magnitude of headlining such an event, “but I think the O2 was very good for us, it was a bit of a test for us as to how we would cope in that sort of situation. It was a big challenge for us to do a gig like that and it’s a big challenge to headline a festival, and I think, hopefully, we nailed it so hopefully we’ll nail the festivals as well!”

Elsewhere on the line up, both Portishead and Noel Gallagher’s High Flying Birds will headline the Obelisk Arena. It’s a rare performance from the former - they’re topping the bill on Saturday 18th, while Noel closes the festival on Sunday 19th. Manic Street Preachers, James

Blake, former DIY cover star Laura Marling and Caribou have also been confirmed for the same stage, while Wild Beasts will be playing as a UK festival exclusive, too.

On the BBC Radio 6 Music Stage, The Vaccines, Jon Hopkins and SBTRKT have all been announced as headliners. Savages and Django Django are also on the bill, with Drenge, Sun Kil Moon, Wolf Alice, Toro Y Moi and Unknown Mortal Orchestra also confirmed. The iArena meanwhile will host the likes of Adult Jazz, Shura, Marika Hackman, Leon Bridges, and Jack Garratt. XLsigned twins Ibeyi and DIY favourites Gengahr have also been announced.

Natasha Haddad, the festival’s music programmer, says: “I’m ridiculously excited and honoured to be a part of curating Latitude’s tenth edition line up. Music, arts and emotions go hand-in-hand and we’re so lucky to have an audience whose appetite for these covers such a broad spectrum;

from the hands-in-the-air euphoria of Jon Hopkins, Caribou and Kiasmos to united sing-alongs during Noel Gallagher, Manic Street Preachers and Laura Marling, Latitude will also embrace the celestial moments of Portishead, James Blake and Sun Kil Moon.”

Founder of Latitude, Melvin Benn, says: “This year is the tenth edition of the festival and we’re celebrating with an event which, although it has evolved significantly from the intimate 4,000 attendees we started out with, I really feel has kept the special atmosphere and unique quality which sets it apart.”

DIY is an official media partner for Latitude 2015 - we’ll be bringing you all the backstage gossip, #bandter and tons of exciting exclusives throughout the festival.

Latitude takes place from 16th 19th July at Henham Park, Suffolk.

DIY

F E S T I VA L NEWS

IN BRIEF DOT TO DOT 22nd - 24th May Best Coast, Swim Deep and Prides have all been added to this year’s Dot To Dot festival.

The event, which takes place in Manchester, Bristol and Nottingham, will also play host to Britpop-nodding newcomers Flesh and the ever-controversial Fat White Family.

POSITIVUS 17th - 19th July A second wave of acts has been confirmed for Positivus Festival, featuring Charli XCX, Kasabian, Everything Everything, Placebo and Lamb. They join a line up that already includes Robert Plant, St.Vincent, Jungle and Soak. The event takes place in Salacgrīva, Latvia.

BEst kept secret 19th - 21st June Holland’s Best Kept Secret has announced Ride and Marmozets for its 2015 bill.

They’ll be joined by A$AP Rocky, Kettering psych-heads Temples and Catelonian group Mourn. Best Kept Secret takes place 19th 21st June, at Beekse Bergen, Hilvarenbeek, Netherlands.

KENDAL CALLING 30th July - 2nd August Dutch Uncles, Augustines and Bondax and Friends are among the latest additions to the line-up for this year’s Kendal Calling festival.

Bondax curate the Glow Tent for a day, bringing along pals Maribou State, Kidnap Kid, Monki and Jax Jones, while there are also places for Flyte, Port Isla, Seafret, Tuff Love, Blossoms and Boxed In.

BESTIVAL 10th - 13th September

All white on the night: Caribou.

Charli XCX heads up the latest list of additions for this year’s Bestival.

Honeyblood, Girlpool, Ekkah and SOAK are also among the acts set to appear at the event, which takes place on the Isle of Wight and already boasts the likes of Tame Impala, The Chemical Brothers, Jungle and Duran Duran.

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SOUND CITY Taking place in Liverpool over the Bank Holiday weekend, Sound City has added The Cribs and Everything Everything.

Peace and Swans are further exciting additions - both confirmed for DIY’s Baltic Stage, with Liverpool-based promoters EVOL taking on curation duties – joining Fucked Up as our three headliners.

The full list of new names is as follows: The Cribs, Peace, Everything Everything, Fat White Family, George the Poet, Spector Iceage, Stormzy, Bill Ryder-Jones, The Bohicas, Honeyblood, Aquilo, The Sundowners and Tea Street Band.

They join The Vaccines, The Flaming Lips, Belle & Sebastian, Dutch Uncles, Gaz Coombes and more.

Running from 22nd - 24th May, DIY’s stage is set to host the likes of Clarence Clarity, Honeyblood, Unknown Mortal Orchestra, Iceage, Slaves, Bad Breeding, Single Mothers, Palace and Yak. Tickets are on sale now.

LIVE AT LEEDS This year’s Live at Leeds has added lots of new names to its bill, with The Cribs, Rolo Tomassi and Lucy Rose heading up additions. New acts also include Spring King, London charmer Oscar, brand new Chess Club signings Beach Baby and the hotly-tipped Yak, in addition to Raleigh Ritchie, Rhodes, The Strypes, Vaults, Get Inuit and Fraser A. Gorman. All the new names join the previously confirmed Eagulls, Hookworms, Dutch Uncles, Real Lies and Tobias Jesso Jr. Alongside the new additions to the 2nd May event, Live At Leeds has announced two opening parties. Pulled Apart By Horses will play Leeds University (their biggest ever hometown show) with support from Dinosaur Pile Up and Allusondrugs. Darlia, Sundara Karma and The Hearts will play Brudenell Social Club on 1st May. Both shows require a separate ticket.

Live At Leeds takes place in various venues across Leeds and tickets are on sale now.

FIELD DAY Field Day has announced new names for 2015, with Spector and Rae Morris leading the way.

Saturday’s line-up now features Clarence Clarity, Ratking, hyped-up duo Honne and Norwegian producer Cashmere Cat, while PC Music is represented by A. G. Cook and Danny L Harle.

Sunday has meanwhile added Eagulls, Ex Hex, Pale and Gulf, alongside Gaz Coombes, who was also recently announced.

They join the likes of Caribou, Ride, Patti Smith, Mac DeMarco, Django Django, SOPHIE, Run The Jewels and DIIV, who are all already scheduled to appear at this year’s event.

Ticket prices have increased to £54.50 for day passes, and £83 for the weekend. Field Day takes place at Victoria Park in London from 6th - 7th June.

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Bilbao BBK Live There have been a handful of new line up announcements for this year’s Bilbao BBK Live, with the likes of Mumford and Sons, Disclosure and Marmozets all now confirmed to appear.

Along with Of Monsters and Men, they join artists such as Of Montreal and Dover, who have also been added to this year’s edition of the Spanish weekender.

In the latest raft of acts announced, Black Rebel

Motorcycle Club, BRITs Critics’ Choice winner James Bay, Vintage Trouble and Catfish and the Bottlemen are also set to appear.

These new names join 2015 headliners Muse, who release their new album ‘Drones’ this year, along with Future Islands, Alt-J and The Jesus and Mary Chain, performing their ‘Psychocandy’ album in full.

Bilbao BBK Live takes place from 9th - 11th July 2015, in Kobetamendi, Bilbao.

SPOTLIGHT ON...

RUN THE JEWELS After releasing their second album together last October, the world is putty in the hands of Killer Mike and El-P. From supporting Jack White at Madison Square Garden to selling out their own headline shows and then some, the duo are fast becoming an unstoppable force. The pair are planning to dominate this year’s festival season, and here are just a handful of places that you can get involved: Coachella, California (10th - 12th April / 17th - 19th April); Field Day (6th - 7th June); Flow Festival, Helsinki (14th - 16th August); ATP Iceland, Keflavík (2nd 4th July); Primavera Sound, Barcelona (27th - 30th July); Reading & Leeds Festival (28th 30th August).

GLASTONBURY After a flurry of bets and rumours, it’s now official: Kanye West is headlining Glastonbury.

Yeezy is headlining the Saturday night at Worthy Farm, topping the Pyramid Stage on 27th June. It’s, so far, his only confirmed UK appearance of the year, with his last being his surprise late night gig at London’s Koko last month.

Kanye will join Foo Fighters, who are also already confirmed as a headliner. Courtney Barnett, Father John Misty and Lionel Richie are also all down to appear on the Tor. Tickets have sold out, with the festival running from 26th - 28th June.

THE GREAT ESCAPE OPEN’ER Polish festival Open’er has added a batch of new names.

Disclosure and The Vaccines are heading up the new list of acts – the latter are returning this summer with their ‘English Graffiti’ album – alongside The Prodigy and XL-signed producer Kaytranada.

These additions join headliners Mumford & Sons and Kasabian. There’s also St. Vincent, Django Django, Father John Misty, D’Angelo and Modest Mouse.

DIY is an Official Media Partner for Open’er.

We’ll be bringing you all the excitement from the festival, running 1st - 4th July at Gdynia’s Badie Doly Military Airport.

Brighton’s Great Escape Festival has announced new names for its tenth anniversary, taking place from 14th - 16th May. Kate Tempest has been confirmed to headline a Brighton Dome show, separately ticketed from the weekend’s events.

Other additions include Birmingham’s Swim Deep, who just returned with their ‘To My Brother’ single, and the exciting new project LA Priest, formerly of Late of the Pier.

Wichita signing Oscar, LA newcomer Kelela, Mew and Mumdance & Novelist are also on the bill, with Shamir, Nao and Sundara Kamra.

Keep an eye out for news of the soon-tobe-announced DIY Stage.

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NEU

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“ I wa s mirroring c e r ta i n st yles of a r t i s t s t h at I j u s t wa s n ’ t awa r e o f. ” Leo n B r i d g es

Leon Bridges Taking lessons from the past, this Texas newcomer’s music is the very definition of timeless. With White Denim’s approval, he’s stepping into the future. Words: Tom Walters.

Photo: Phil Smithies

S

eeing Leon Bridges sitting in his 50s slacks and checked vintage coat, it’s hard not to immediately associate him with thriving American diners, slick topdown cars and dingy bars with authentic jukeboxes.

His Instagram is a window into a world that existed over fifty years ago, brought back to life via Bridges’ own vision of the era. He is exactly the character he portrays in the recent video for his ‘Coming Home’ single - dressed to the nines, sharp as can be and an absolute charmer to boot.

Based in Fort Worth, Texas (with the majority of his family over in New Orleans), Bridges has been making his suited-and-booted rounds for a while now, causing heads to turn and catching glimpsing eyes everywhere ever since the first demo of ‘Coming Home’ emerged. He used to play in a small local bar every Tuesday night, satisfied with his way of life, until White Denim guitarist Austin Jenkins saw him play - a night that his world truly flipped upside down. “After I’m done playing one night, [Jenkins] comes up to me and he’s like ‘Man, we need to make a record,’” Bridges recalls, his face clearly still reeling from that fact this is happening at all. His bewildered, wild eyes are sincere and genuine as he speaks - it’s the first time he’s even been outside of the States, too.

Musically, Leon’s songs are as simple and straightforward as they come, but it’s his own take on soulful songwriting that makes the handful of tracks he has floating around online feel just as new as they do old - as if someone has peeled back the pristine shrinkwrap on a timeless old record player. It’s easy to compare his music to that of Sam Cooke - anyone can throw that comparison around - but Bridges isn’t phased by expectations.

In fact, Bridges is barely even clued up on Cooke at all. “A friend of mine he asked me if Sam Cooke was one of my inspirations, and I was like, ‘Well, no...’ and I felt bad, because I had never really listened to him, or any soul music before, and so after that I started digging into him and Motown,” he explains. From the first time he picked up a guitar, to the first moment he stepped into his all-analogue studio with with Jenkins and White Denim drummer Josh Block, Bridges has been learning about the sounds that came before him in real time, shaping his own stories with the templates laid years before him.

Growing up, Bridges was mostly a fan of popular 90s R&B artists like Usher, but ended up writing more soulful music when he made it his ambition to be as creative as he could be with his songwriting. It wasn’t until friends turned him on to certain Cooke or doo-wop songs that he realised his music’s deep connection to the past. “I was mirroring certain styles of artists that I just wasn’t aware of until after I would write a song,” he dutifully admits.

“Then I would be like ‘Oh, they’re doing the same thing,’ but I didn’t know or notice. It was something that was always there, but I didn’t realise it until I started tapping into it.”

Leon Bridges will play Latitude. See diymag.com for details.

‘Lisa Sawyer’, the latest single to be lifted from Bridges’ debut album - due in summer - perfectly encapsulates his schtick: his family tales align themselves perfectly with a serenading croon and hearkened back style; a song of gentle guitar licks and Southern seduction. “I wrote [‘Lisa Sawyer’], a song about my mother, before the sound that I’m pursuing now,” speaks Bridges.

“The concepts and stories of the 50s and 60s… the love songs, the heartbreak songs… I like to write about that, but I also like to write songs about my family. It’s what comes naturally.” DIY 33

Photo: Carolina Faruolo

neu

NEWS IN BRIEF

yung

play debut UK shows in chaotic circumstances

TELEGRAM make it snappy with new single Glam rock, mop-haired specialists Telegram are the latest act to sign up for Dan Carey’s Speedy Wunderground label. A quick reminder of the Speedy process: Songs are recorded in 24 hour sessions at Carey’s South London studios. Most of the time, bands aren’t even allowed to get lunch - instead, the aim is to get submerged in lights, smoke and just enough insanity to create something out of the ordinary. Telegram’s ‘Inside Outside’ effort is out now - listen on diymag.com.

YAK turn attention to huge summer shows Last month’s lead Neu band, Yak, have quickly upped the ante with huge touring plans for 2015. This May, they’ll be playing DIY’s stage at Liverpool Sound City. Shortly after that, they’ll take to a June show with The Strokes at Hyde Park, and they’re already planning to close the year with a support slot on Peace’s October UK tour. Word’s spreading fast about this great new band.

34 diymag.com

It was never going to be an easy ride for Danish punks Yung, a hotlytipped new group making music born of unrelenting frustration.

Those woes only added up on 2nd March when, down to play their neu debut headline show, they had to swiftly navigate around East London for a last-minute location change - after a power outage at The Old Blue Last, attention turned to The Shacklewell Arms for a Kanye-style late night gig. Things were a little more to-plan the following night, when the group took to a support slot for Metz’s UK comeback at the 100 Club.

During that set, the band tumbled from glistening melody to abrasive swing with pointed confidence. All the talk around the ‘Alter’ EP immediately backed up the hype.

So Stressed neu

head up Honor Press, the new label of Perfect Pussy’s Meredith Graves

Who said running a record label was stressful business? (Everyone, pretty much.) Aside from tearing up stages worldwide, Perfect Pussy’s Meredith Graves has announced her first indie venture with Honor Press, a “little tiny record label and book publisher” based in Brooklyn. Her first signing is Sacramento group So Stressed, releasing their debut, ‘The Unlawful Trade of Grecro-Roman Art’. It was recorded over the past couple of years, bringing anxious, amped-up punk into an exciting package. Look out for its 25th May release and listen to lead track ‘Merv King & The Phantoms’ on diymag.com.

“Can’t wait to get on the road again, man.” - Will Gardner

Champions of smash-and-gr ab, meet

B l ac k Pe a ks

This Brighton band had their world turned upside-down at the very beginning of 2015. Now they’re taking the year head-on. Words: Jamie Milton.

Brighton’s Black Peaks had a plan. Building up excitement under neu the name Shrine, they huddled into a studio in late 2014 to put together a debut full-length.

As the year began, complete with a moniker change, it was pretty much mastered, ready to launch. Things dramatically shifted when their (at the time unfinished) ‘Glass Built Castles’ found its way into the hands of Radio 1’s now-departed, Apple-bound Zane Lowe. This began a bonkers 24 hours where a humble, self-starting bunch ended up being tipped as 2015’s answer to Royal Blood, a rock crossover success in waiting. Even Fearne Cotton was on their tails, dishing out daytime plays for fun.

“I got a personal phone call from Zane Lowe, being like ‘Hey man, how’s it going? Dude, I absolutely love the track so much,’” remembers frontman Will Gardner. “He was asking about labels, I

told him we were unsigned. He thought that was hilarious. Stuff like that. And he told us he was going to plug the hell out of it.”

Once the hype went into overdrive for ‘Glass Built Castles’, they had just a couple of days to film a music video and plan a season’s worth of tours. “They wanted to play this now, now, NOW. We hurried up, jammed everything into overdrive,” says Gardner. “Me and two of the guys are able to take our music with us and drop our jobs,” he says. “Our bass player [Andrew Gosden] works at Gibson, repairing guitars and building guitars. So he’s also able to do things very last-minute. In our game, you kind of need to be able to do that.”

Just like that, Black Peaks are dropping all other responsibilities and diving head-first into 2015. A sold out show at London Barfly awaits, coupled with slots on the Arcane Roots tour. “It’s gonna be amaaaazing. ARGH, I can’t wait! Can’t wait to get on the road

BETTER BY THE SEA Like Royal Blood, Demob Happy, The Wytches and countless others, Black Peaks are putting life into a Brighton scene that’s going skywards. “The scene’s going crazy at the moment. We did have a thing about five years ago where it trailed off a little bit.

But that was in the heart of the depression. At the moment it’s kicking,” Gardner says. “Demob - we love them. And Tigercub.

We don’t really get to hang out, because everyone’s so busy.”

again, man. We’re all about being on tour,” Gardner says. As for the full-length (which had to be put on hold slightly, to deal with the surge in attention), we can expect a few surprises. “It’s got a lot of variety. We take you on a journey. That’s the punch in the face, opening track. And then we go pretty dark, into very heavy, Converge, Dillinger-type aggressive stuff.”

Whichever shape this year ends up taking for Black Peaks, they’re riding a wave of momentum that doesn’t tend to strike more than once. With that, expect their journey to be a chaotic one, complete with even more surprises than Black Peaks will ‘Glass Built play Live at Leeds Castles’’ bonkers and The Great Escape. breakthrough.

See diymag.com DIY for details.

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FIRST FORM These twins have been surrounded by music their whole lives - here’s how they landed on their current sound.

School days - Will: “We were building skate ramps, making music. We were heavy into skateboarding.

We spent a week learning how to make a pogo stick and by the end of it, we were jumping over tables.”

Formation

Harking back to golden days, Formation shun nostalgia by pointing forward.

It’s all in the groove. Words: Jamie Milton. Photo: Phil Smithies.

On their new EP, ‘Young Ones’, South London duo Formation give two fingers to the present day and bask in the past. That’s neu not to say they’re nostalgia-peddlers, mind you. Comparisons to LCD Soundsystem are no disservice, and they’re a pointer to Will and Matt Ritson’s groove-packed pop, but there’s an extra purpose to what they’re doing.

“All things pass, you’re gonna die - so take responsibility for what you’re doing,” says Will, who performs lead vocals and percussion for the project. Half of the EP is about “getting bogged down in capitalism and being fucked over,” he claims matter-of-factly. The rest is devoted to the best parties in a generation, the fleeting, mid-teen moments that wind up disappearing as reality checks in. Those days fade into memories pretty fast.

Given the harrowingly real, close-to-the-bone themes circuiting their new release, it’s a relief that Formation coat harsh truths in unashamedly catchy hooks. “It can’t be anything but pop, really,” says Will, before correcting himself: “Until we get to that improvised jazz album.”

As it happens, Formation began as a spur-of-the-moment output for improvised music. They had one objective: Write a ton of songs within a three-minute window. Every part drums, bass, vocals, synths - had to be done on the spot. “But we only got as far as bass and drums, and we realised it was really fucking good. So we started making actual music,”

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says Will.

What followed was a headturning white label release in summer 2014, so low-key that the whole thing ended up being taken offline after stirring excitement. ‘Young Ones’ takes things further, bringing out those LCD x DFA staples into something more - err - rapturous than The Rapture. Matt remembers being compared to James Murphy for the first time, when Formation were staring out. “I was like ‘Wicked, cool’. I’m so down with that. They’re one of my favourite bands. But it’s moving further away.”

They’ve a good way to go (thankfully) before the improvised jazz records come out in their spades, so for now it’s worth embracing Formation as one of pop’s brightest prospects in yonks. Now Shura’s on

First bands - Matt: “We were in the council of Merton. They ran orchestras and concerts, so we did that. Will was in the top level orchestra there with Ben from Mumford & Sons.

They were in the percussion side together. And we started a band with our friend Adam when we were like fourteen. We learnt Red Hot Chili Peppers covers.”

Present day - Will: “You remember all the stuff you thought was crap, that your parents would listen to - and it’s actually all really good. Today I like to mention John Maus. It’s the idea of trying to be genuine.

That’s important to us. It’s trying to say something greater than your own ego.” their case, joining a chorus that’s bigging them up to the heavens, these two will be soundtracking the parties they hark back to for a long time.

Formation’s new EP ‘Young Ones’ is out now via Meno Records. DIY Formation will play The Great Escape and Liverpool Sound City. See diymag.com for details.

THIS MONTH IN

EPS neu

REC OM M E N DE D

Before they put themselves to task on a full-length, some of DIY’s favourite new acts are releasing new EPs. Here’s a round-up of the finest.

L A P r i est Don’t be late to Sam Dust’s new project.

As part of mid-00s heroes Late of the Pier, Sam Dust helped build a cult following that could have feasibly exploded into something colossal, still topping festival stages today. Instead, like everything else associated in the post-Klaxons and Crystal Castles wave of synth-hugging, bonkers pop, LOTP disappeared. A few years on, and Dust has quietly set out a new stall. LA Priest takes the best parts of his previous outfit and morphs into a more compact, chartnodding guise. Hearing debut track ‘Oino’ for the first time is a lot like discovering Jai Paul - it’s a disconcerting but undeniably future-leaning journey through pop. He’ll be the most talkedabout new name playing Brighton’s Great Escape Festival this year.

Listen: Debut track ‘Oino’ is out now on Domino.

For Fans Of: Have a wild guess...

Sweden’s new big pop hopes, playing a wicked game.

Tul a

Based in Berlin, Tula are a Swedish five-piece who’ve been working with Klas Åhlund. With Robyn, Åhlund helped work wonders, off-kilter, hard-hitting pop being a default mode.

Tula aim for similar heights. Although their 2014 head-turner stood out in a dense crowd, new track ‘River’ puts them in a different league altogether.

Listen: ‘River’ is a hybrid of Portishead and Say Lou Lou. For Fans Of: Trawling Berlin’s vibrant streets with headphones on.

Clattering into view, one reality-check at a time.

.Crows .

Unforgettable shows have been Crows’ game for a couple of years, but a big slot on Wolf Alice’s UK tour is only going to further establish their reputation. On the coldest month of the year, they took DIY’s Hello 2015 showcases by storm.

Any chance you get to see these guys live - grab it with both hands.

Listen: Their single ‘Pray’ b/w ‘Crawling’ is out on 30th March via Brace Yourself Records.

For Fans Of: Musical purging.

New London outfit specialising in tightly-packed electronic pop.

. Hælos .

The subjects of an indie label bidding war, Hælos are a new outfit from the capital who’ve captured attention on the strength of just one track. ‘Dust’ does anything but settle. It delves around into dark corners and finds inspiration in dank nothingness. Like a more pop-oriented Darkside.

Listen: New single ‘Earth Not Above’ is their first on Matador.

For Fans Of: Mellow electronics with serious purpose.

Jac k G a r r at t Syntesthesiac

Less an involuntary experience, more a chaotic trip, Jack Garratt’s new EP backs up the early buzz.

Mixing wob-wob drops Skrillex would kill for, with the Londoner’s signature falsetto, it’s a smart guide to his complex, soul-steeped pop. It’s released 13th April.

Spring King They’re Coming After You

One of the UK’s most criminally unsung new bands, the tide seems to be turning for Spring King. New EP ‘They’re Coming After You’ (out 20th April) sees Tarek Musa and co. upping the game on rowdy garage-punk.

B e ach Baby Ladybird

Beach Baby specialise in unorthodox anthemia. Their folknodding pop’s picking up comparisons to arena giants Coldplay and Mumfords, but hints of new wave and anxiety-led punk also come into the equation. It’s out 13th April.

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‘FROOT’

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control , the

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“ I k n e w I wa n t e d t o w r i t e c o m p l e t e ly a l o n e .” - M a r i n a Diamandis

A

rtistic transformations come in all shapes and sizes. From the grandiose alter ego of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, to the constantly-shifting style of Lady Gaga, pop stars channelling different personalities is nothing new. Yet, when Marina and the Diamonds introduced Electra Heart to the world with her last album, it caused quite a stir.

For those not up to speed, Electra Heart was both the title of Marina’s last album, and the name of the character she inhabited. Originally conceived as a side project and described at the time as “the antithesis of everything that I stand for,” Madonna, Marilyn Monroe, Britney Spears and Marie Antoinette were all namechecked as influences. Though it may have been the second Marina and the Diamonds album, it was far from personal.

“Looking back, I used Electra as a big lesson.” Three years

40 diymag.com

on, Marina Diamandis couldn’t appear further away from her previous on-stage incarnation. That infamous blonde wig has been abandoned in favour of her natural dark locks and gone is the tiny black heart that once sat proudly on her cheek.

“It taught me a lot of things about songwriting,” she readily admits, “and a lot of things about what I didn’t want to be as an artist that were completely independent of the album.” She pauses slightly to reflect. “I think people expect me to maybe say negative things [about the album] because it’s so pop and it’s so different to what I’m doing now. It’s not that at all. It was actually how I felt treated, as a ‘fake pop star’, which turned me off completely. It wasn’t much to do with the music but all about the perception.”

In the end ‘Electra Heart’ was a gamble, but it paid off. Not only did it win Diamandis an even larger fanbase and earn her a place at the height of mainstream consciousness, but it topped the charts for good measure. “It’s what I wanted to do.

It was an extreme position,” she confirms, “therefore, you get an extreme effect!”

More than anything, though, it opened the door for what was to come next.

I

t was only three months after the release of ‘Electra Heart’ that Marina put pen to paper again. According to Diamandis, that’s common practice for her: she’ll give herself some time after an album has landed, but soon throw herself back into writing. This time, while she was acting the primadonna pop star on stage, behind the scenes she was making some key decisions about her next move.

“I knew I wanted to write completely alone,” she explains.

After two albums’ worth of writing partners, independence was key. “It was something that I hadn’t done so far in my career because, well... It wasn’t that I didn’t have the confidence, it was more that there were people - culturallyspeaking, songwriting-wise, labels and teams - that encourage you to co-write. It’s not a bad thing, but I think for me, actually, it would’ve been if I continued to do that for my whole career.”

When it comes to her previous works, the production credits read like a who’s who of pop producers: Greg Kurstin, Diplo,

Dr. Luke - the list goes on. Yet, Marina still didn’t quite feel as though her records were representative of who she was as a performer.

“It wasn’t a squeaky clean pop star,” she explains, referring to her live shows. “I felt like a band and that part of me hadn’t really been expressed yet. I loved playing live and that raw energy and sound that it gave me the opportunity to express.

I felt that the way in which I was presented on record was actually much cleaner and I didn’t really want that anymore. I wanted to have a sound that was a bit more human this time.

That’s when I realised I wanted a live drummer. So, once I had done all of the drums live, I thought, actually I really want a lot of guitars on this record. Bit-by-bit, it fell into place.”

Since firmly taking the reigns, Marina has become unstoppable. From the funk-infused riot of the title track to 41

“ W h at e v e r I g o o n t o d o i s g o i n g t o b e v e ry d i f f e r e n t a g a i n . I wa n t t o d o t h i n g s t h at a r e c o m p l e t e ly o u t o f t h e m a i n s t r e a m .” - M a r i n a Diamandis

In the Frootgarden If you’ve been lucky enough to see Marina play live before, you’ll know how immersive her show can be. Her touring schedule for ‘FROOT’ is set to be no different: she’s going to be rolling out a huge electric garden, and those lucky enough to be in attendance at her one-off DIY Presents... gig at Oslo, London got the first tiny taste.

HER STAGE SET UP...

“It’s more for a festival setup, but my plan is to build a really surreal stage design based upon space, planets and fruit. I wanna create a really amazing electric garden, but it won’t go into production until the festivals.”

HER MERCH STALL...

“I want it to be like a fruit stall! We have the Scratch’n’Sniff vinyl and I’m gonna try and do t-shirts for tour. It’s really good - I’ve seen the finished product. Those things are important to me: I love creating a package.”

42 diymag.com

the dark dramatics of ‘I’m A Ruin’ and the 60s shuffle of ‘Gold’, ‘FROOT’ is a multi-faceted pop gem, as intriguing and unexpected as it is brilliant.

One of the best examples comes in the album’s opener ‘Happy’; a not quite what-it-says-on-the-tin affair. “I feel like, after ‘Happy’, people go like,” she stops to put on a charming fake accent, “‘So, Marina, what is the key to happiness?!’ and I’m like, ‘I don’t know, I’m not the Dalai Lama!’ Listen to the lyrics, they’re actually quite depressing!” she laughs.

‘Happy’ was less a eureka moment or a declaration of intent; instead inspired by the gradual realisation that for the best part of the last decade, she had been at an emotional standstill and now was time for change.

“I had felt the same way for almost ten years of my life, since I was eighteen.

Now I’m 29 and that’s kind of what led to writing that song,” she continues. “It just came from being emotionally static for a long time. Especially post-Electra.

It was such an extreme and stressful two-year period, not just in terms of music, but with my health and voice. I had loads of problems and things go wrong, and I just didn’t wanna be like

that anymore. It certainly wasn’t a thing where I was like, ‘I’m not gonna do this anymore. Tomorrow I’m gonna wake up happy.’” That’s evident enough from the song’s lyrical journey. “I think it was more about having realisations about what you like and what you don’t like.”

It’s a thread that runs throughout the album; the cold-daylight reflection of ‘Blue’, the voice of advice in ‘Better Than That’, the glorious admission of ‘Immortal’. Marina becomes both the devil and angel on her own shoulders, tempting fate and throwing her chips in, betting them all on her own happiness.

I

t isn’t just lyrically that Marina takes control, either. Musically, there’s an eclecticism that feels natural yet refreshing, and it’s a credit to the band-like dynamic that she was intent on exploring. “It’s about what the song needs. I think I was always really pedantic before when I was involved in production,” she adds, “but I think this time because - from the start - I made it clear that I wanted to co-produce it, it was a completely different vibe from the off. That allowed me to arrange things in the way that I wanted.

Actually create a sound that made the songs feel very at home, as opposed to forcing a sound onto the song, like, ‘Ooh, this is gonna be disco!’ or whatever. Even with ‘FROOT’,” she admits, “I’m not a disco fan, I’m not a funk fan, but my bassist James did the riff at the beginning, and from that it gave the whole song a groove. The disco element shifted it.

“You can just tell if something doesn’t really sound at home. ‘Savages’ for ages didn’t feel right.

David [Kosten, producer] had done these really heavy, dark drums and I wasn’t happy with it and so it took a while. That was the only song where we were at loggerheads, but it got there in the end.”

Marina also teamed up with both Everything Everything’s Jeremy Pritchard and Alex Robertshaw, and The Cure’s Jason Cooper. “David knows Jason,” she laughs. “That’s the only reason that I got him!” The recipe for ‘FROOT’ seemed to come together nicely, even calling upon Guillemots’ Fyfe Dangerfield for extra piano. “It was very much like old connections and David’s new connections. It was nice, it was very chilled actually.”

The results became one of Diamandis’ most fulfilling recording experiences.

“It was probably my most pleasant experience working with a producer. Not that they’ve been bad before, but I like David, he’s really funny.

He gave me a huge amount of confidence. Before, I felt like, when you’re a girl and you have the potential to be pop, it’s like they think you can’t really do things, or they assume you’re not gonna be trusted in terms of production because it’s a very male role.

“This time felt quite stable because in the past, I’ve

marina and the diamonds Oslo, London

how was it for you?

“It was very satisfying.

I didn’t really know what to expect actually because I hadn’t played in London for two and a half years, and since I’ve had a proper break from touring, but it was a really special show.

We did a really nice job on the stage design, with the neon forest, so I was really pleased.” Marina Diamandis

W

ander into Oslo this evening and it’s a glittering paradise. Across the tiny stage, trees with twinkling pink lightbulb leaves stand tall, while the word ‘FROOT’ is spelled out in huge silver heliumfilled balloons. It’s a bit like stepping into a tiny version of Wonderland, and when Marina Diamandis appears on stage, dressed in shiny pewter and complete with a giant cherry headband poised on her head, she beckons the room to hop down the rabbit hole.

Set opener ‘Bubblegum Bitch’ bursts into life and the whole room is animated, voices raised and ready. Then comes the glorious ‘Forget’, the first cut to be debuted from her new record tonight; the excitement sizzles as Marina guides the crowd through ‘The Family Jewels’ cuts ‘Mowgli’s Road’ and ‘I Am Not A Robot’.

Soon abandoning her headwear and laughing about how she’s “forgotten how to do stage banter” – after almost a year and a half off the road, no one can really blame her – she slows the pace with a wonderful piano-led rendition of ‘Obsessions’, before showcasing the melancholic ‘Happy’.

Throughout the night, there’s a palpable sense of fun; through the insatiable ‘Can’t Pin Me Down’, the bombastic joy of ‘Primadonna’ and the playful ‘Hollywood’, there’s not a body in the room that isn’t dancing. Even the dramatics of ‘I’m A Ruin’ sound otherworldly in a live environment, but it’s ‘Radioactive’ that really transforms the venue into a pseudo-rave, with the lights going wild.

By the time Marina’s set draws to a close it’s clear that there’s very little this star can do wrong. As the funky opening riffs of ‘Froot’ ring out within the tiny room, there’s no doubt about it: Marina’s a diamond. (Sarah Jamieson)

“It’s the first time we’ve seen her live. Been waiting since ‘Family Jewels’ - day one. We really like the new album, our favourite song is ‘Blue’.” - Lama, Summer and Maral, London

“I flew over from Kuwait - of course it was worth it! My first gig ever. I’ll hopefully see her again. I love the new songs - all of them. I laughed at the cherry hat at first, but I got used to it!” - Besic, Kuwait

* We’re very very sorry if we’ve got your names wrong, vox pop people. It was past our bedtime, ok?

43

“ I f e lt l i k e a b a n d a n d t h at pa r t o f m e h a d n ’ t r e a l ly been expressed

Getting Frooty

y e t.” - M a r i n a

Ahead of the release of her third album, Marina and the Diamonds got creative with unveiling her new tracks and, voila, ‘Froot of the Month’ was born.

Diamandis

“I came up with it, but it was prompted by my manager Jess who said I should think about how I wanted to release the album, because we didn’t have to do it an orthodox way. So, first I was like, why don’t we do two tracks a month which are polar opposites sonically, so it’s like a double A-side, [release them over] six months and then the album’s out? It’s based on the idea of a Singles Club, so it’s collectable.

“Then iTunes said we couldn’t do it, but that was probably for the best, so I came up with one song a month and then, about three weeks before we were about to announce the strategy, I was like, ‘It’s called FROOTS of the month!’ So it worked out really well. It was a way in which I could build a visual world around it in which fans could indulge.”

“It’s been good because it kinda took away a lot of the commercial pressure too.

It was focused on a really nice, new way of letting your music travel, not having to pick the songs in a way which will satisfy radio or media. That was important.

I had to do this for myself; it wasn’t really an option to do it any other way.”

44 diymag.com

Forever blowing bubbles: Marina Diamandis. done a week here and there, and that’s how I wrote and produced. With this one, we locked off two and a half months. It was nice to just go into a studio every single day.”

More than anything, her third album has given Marina the opportunity to finally fully realise herself on record. While ‘Electra Heart’ and ‘The Family Jewels’ went on to become learning curves, it turns out they were only warm up acts. ‘FROOT’ is the start of something new.

“As an artist, to be challenged and stimulated is really important,” Diamandis says.

“Whatever I go on to do is going to be very different again. I have to have that because

otherwise there’s no point in me doing this. I don’t want to recreate the same album. Even in terms of songwriting and production, you have to be progressing, otherwise I don’t wanna do it anymore.

“I kind of see this as a starting point for me as a songwriter and an artist. This is the first album I’ve been properly represented in.

I wanna go on to do other things that are completely out of the mainstream - outside of pop - and this will allow me to do that.”

She smiles, already clearly excited at the prospect. “It’s like a calling card, in a way.”

Marina and the Diamonds’ new album ‘FROOT’ is out now via Atlantic. DIY

A CAMPINGFLIGHT TO LOWLANDS PARADISE / AUGUST 21 + 22 + 23 / 2015 BIDDINGHUIZEN / 1 HOUR FROM AMSTERDAM / THE NETHERLANDS

BEN HOWARDRMAJOR LAZERR THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS BASTILLERPASSENGERRUNDERWORLDRMARK RONSON (DJ-SET) INTERPOLRTAME IMPALA R JOEY BADA$$ CONCERTGEBOUWORKESTR BOYS NOIZE B2B BAAUER ENTER SHIKARIRALL TIME LOWRKODALINERJOSÉ GONZÁLEZ CARIBOUR SBTRKT R YEARS & YEARS RECHOSMITH DJANGO DJANGORTWENTY ONE PILOTSRBEAR’S DEN ROOTS MANUVAR FOUR TETR HUDSON MOHAWKE (LIVE) MØ RTODD TERJE & THE OLSENS RIMELDA MAY BENJAMIN CLEMENTINERALLAH-LAS RLA ROUX MARCEL DETTMANNRMAX COOPER PRESENTS EMERGENCE JACK GARRATTR FATHER JOHN MISTY RCURTIS HARDING THE DISTRICTSR MIGHTY OAKS R COURTNEY BARNETT SEINABO SEYRALESTORMRSKINNY LISTERROUGHT VIET CONG RPOND R WHAT SO NOTRSHURA BAD BREEDING RSLAVESR JP COOPER RTHE BOHICAS WHILE SHE SLEEPSR AND + 100 ACTS TO COME Three day ticket including camping: £129 + booking fee Tickets: Ticketmaster.co.uk Check www.lowlands.nl for updates 45

Life

Imitating

Art

46 diymag.com

W

hen it comes to the newest offering from Death Cab For Cutie, the clue is in the title.

Named after the Japanese art of ‘Kintsugi’ – the fixing of broken ceramics using resin mixed with gold or silver - it sees the breakage and repair of an object as shaping its overall history; a subject which the band found themselves having to deal with first hand.

After almost two decades as a band, it was with their latest record that things began to change. For each of their last seven albums, guitarist Chris Walla found himself in the production chair. And, when the quartet began work on the follow-up to their 2011 effort ‘Codes and Keys’, he once again took up that familiar seat. The position he’d find himself in as the album neared completion was set to be a little different.

T h e

d e p a r t u r e

o f

g u i t a r i s t

C h r i s

W a l l a

c o u l d b r o k e n C a b

F o r

b u t

h a v e D e a t h

C u t i e ,

i n s t e a d

t h e y ’ r e w i t h

b a c k

o n e

t h e i r a l b u m s

t o

W o r d s :

o f

b e s t d a t e .

S a r a h

J a m i e s o n

“I suppose the story of this record starts in summer 2013,” begins the band’s frontman Ben Gibbard, who, last year, bid farewell to Walla during his final show with the band. “For the second record in a row, we had talked about bringing in an outside producer and then, at the last minute, we decided collectively that Chris should do the record. We started that way again, where Chris was at the helm and we were in his newly refurbished studio here in Seattle, and from the very beginning, it just didn’t seem like things were clicking in a new and interesting way. A couple weeks in, Chris called a

meeting and said, ‘I don’t think I should be producing the record, I think we should call in somebody else.’ I think that was definitely the right call. I don’t think Chris had been pulling the best out of the songs that we had been working on. That’s not necessarily his fault; we’ve been doing it this way for a really long time and he recognised that.”

The next challenge that the band were to face lay in finding a suitable man for the job, a challenge that as Gibbard aptly puts it, was “a leap of faith”.

“Even more than going off someone’s previous work,” he emphasises, before referencing Rich Costey’s impressive resumé, including work with Muse, Foo Fighters and Sigur Rós, “even more than that, you have to go off the personal connection that you feel you have when you first meet somebody. You have to ask yourself, ‘Are these little ticks that I’ve noticed upon first meeting them going to drive me insane in three months?’

“We got a really good vibe off Rich because he was fairly apprehensive about taking the project on,” he laughs. “He was just like, ‘I just wanna make sure if we do this, we really do this.’

That’s what really sealed Rich in all of our minds.”

With their new producer at the helm, the band soon found themselves pushed in ways that felt previously impossible. It no longer mattered what records had come before – or would come after – because

47

Costey’s main goal was simply to challenge the four-piece to make the best record they could possibly make now. “Chris would have to play these songs after we had recorded them,” Gibbard explains. “I think, looking back - obviously we’ve made some great records with Chris,” he relays, “but I feel like one of the drawbacks in having the guitar player produce the record is that they’re also thinking about their life over the next year and a half of playing those songs. At times, I feel like some of Chris’ choices were made around knowing he had to the play the

honestly - there’s a particular kind of relief that comes when you know that the outcome that you’ve expected on the horizon is finally here, and you can finally move on with your life.

I’m certainly not overflowing with joy that Chris left the band,” he adds sincerely, “but at the same time, just having - finally after all these years - the catharsis of somebody who’s had - in some ways - one foot out the door for years, finally leave the band, it comes with a particular sense of relief.”

“I mean, honestly, I found it very

don’t think that’s working’ and not be concerned that he might carry that into a tour. The same way that I might do the same thing.” He pauses to laugh.

“Look, I’m indicting myself as much as anybody else! When you’ve been in a creative relationship for so long, sometimes you carry things over past the point at which they should’ve just been taken care of. I found it rather liberating because, with Rich in charge and Chris leaving the band, the focus was not about someone’s feelings but about making the best record, not only because it’s the last with Chris, but because that’s what we set out to do.”

As for whether or not ‘Kintsugi’ lives up to the band’s original goal in the eyes of their audience, it almost doesn’t matter. A line in the sand, their newest offering represents a turning point for the group; a journey that has gone on to shape and solidify their history, just as its title implies.

”There’s a particular kind of relief when the outcome that you’ve expected is finally here.”

- Ben Gibbard songs. But with Rich, someone who’s just brought in to make the record, his only job was to make the best record possible. Producers don’t care about the record four records ago, and they don’t know that we used the same keyboard sound on the first record.

They don’t give a shit.”

It was then just a few weeks into the making of their new album that Walla would reveal to the band his decision to part ways with them. Yet, his announcement didn’t derail the recording like it might have with some groups – but instead, helped to inform it. The band wanted to celebrate their time with Walla on record.

“We kinda knew this was coming for some time,” Ben admits, “but we never knew what was going to precipitate it. I think that, knowing this was something that was coming - for years,

48 diymag.com

bittersweet,” Gibbard offers up, on just how Walla’s news affected the process, “but also, frankly very liberating. I think that when you’re making a record with a band and you’ve been doing it as long as we have, sometimes you do have to tiptoe around people and make sure you don’t hurt their feelings if you tell them that something’s not working.

You know that you’re gonna be living with this person for the next year and a half, playing these songs.

He continues frankly. “Particularly Chris and I’s relationship has been a complicated one over the years and I think that sometimes neither of us have said the thing we needed to say at the time because we were fearful of setting one another off. I think when you find yourself in the situation when you know someone is leaving, at least for me, it allowed me a certain kind of bluntness and I could tell him, ‘Yeah, I

“I mean, not every record is our best,” Gibbard admits without qualms. “With every album, we’ve set out to make the best record we’ve ever made, but that’s only so much within our control.

The quality of any one album is as much a function of the material as it is the context in which it came out. At this point, we’ve been fortunate enough to make some records that will go down as some of our most seminal albums, and it’s virtually impossible to compete with oneself. It becomes virtually impossible to have that same impact on somebody and that’s something that as an ageing musician - as someone who’s now made over a dozen albums over different projects - it’s just something you have to come to accept. For us, at this point, I firmly believe that this record is amongst our best albums. I haven’t been able to say that about every record.”

Death Cab For Cutie’s new album ‘Kintsugi’ is out now via Atlantic Records. DIY

Death Cab For Cutie will play Best Kept Secret. See diymag.com for details.

49

Courtney Barnett adopts a defensive mentality for table tennis.

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Oops, They Did It Ag ain

Every time Drenge get a little bit better (and it’s happening a lot, lately), it’s either an accident or some elaborate joke. From dodgy dresses to making Letterman shout “DER-BY-SHIRE!!”, brothers Eoin and Rory Loveless are stumbling towards greatness.

Words: Jamie Milton. Photos: Emma Swann

A

ugust 2014 will probably go down as one of the most important months in Drenge’s history. Eoin and Rory Loveless played the set of their lives at Reading Festival.

In dresses. By the time they’d finished Nirvana comparisons flooding in, and not just because of the attire - they looked to have made the big step up from bright brotherly prospect to Actual Massive Deal. But it wasn’t that simple.

“As triumphant as that moment might look on paper, it was an absolute ballache,” states Eoin Loveless, dryly.

He recalls a five-minute drama where, prior to showtime, “everything broke”.

His response was to throw the biggest “tantrum” of his life - “In a dress.”

“It was the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen,” admits Rory. “Pedals were being thrown. I was scared for my life. I’d never seen you like that.”

Perhaps Eoin’s unparalleled anger came into the equation, the magic formula to Drenge’s Reading success. There’s zero doubt that on that muggy weekend afternoon, something shifted. Out stepped one of the UK’s biggest hopes in an age, a couple of guys who could play

Whoever smelt it, dealt it, is Eoin Loveless’ mantra.

51

their hearts out while wearing dresses with nice felt pineapples sewn on.

Drenge’s journey from plucky Derbyshire newcomers to festival conquerors wasn’t some bolt out of the blue. Riding the wave of their 2013, self-titled debut, every show out-did the previous.

Improvement marked every move, and it’s no surprise that second LP ‘Undertow’ translates the transition. “I suppose with touring the last record, we got a bit better at our instruments playing live,” says Eoin. ‘Undertow’ is a “better attempt” at translating the thrill of a Drenge show, while also acknowledging a band that’s come one hell of a long way in the space of two years.

There’s a step up in ability, but Drenge have another ace up their sleeve. Bassist Rob Graham helps two become three, adding that little extra grit to an already shameless fuzz-fest. Whereas their debut was defined by its own constraints, ‘Undertow’ is the sound of a group free from their shackles. It’s no coincidence that tracks take titles like ‘Running Wild’ and ‘We Can Do What We Want’ - this is a band unhinged, bouncing off the walls in possibility.

“We didn’t choose the two-piece life. The two-piece life chose us,” jokes Rory, Royal Blood have brought the two-piece chat to something of a zenith, but from day one, Drenge have always been intending to avoid double vision. “Even before successful two-pieces were suddenly a thing, every interview was almost exclusively about The White Stripes and The Black Keys,” says Eoin. “I don’t own a Black Keys record. And I don’t know the last time I listened to a White Stripes album. They were hugely influential when growing up, but when you’re twenty-two or twenty-three and you’ve got people going, ‘This band - you must listen to them loads’. It’s like… we don’t.”

“COME ON! LET’S GO! NICE JOB! DERBYSHIRE!”

Fair enough, they didn’t do a Samuel T. Herring and take over the world through TV sets, but Drenge’s US debut on The Late Show With David Letterman summed them up completely. Mic stands fell down, guitars were slightly out of tune, but they still stormed it.

“We could have redone it. But I was really proud of it. I thought we’d nailed it and then I watched it back on TV and it was like…,” remembers Rory.

“We all just laughed at it. Musically, it might not be the best thing ever. But I feel like it’s a really honest attempt to show what we do,” adds Eoin. “When you see stuff like [Future Islands], it’s like ‘Good on you, but...’ Foxygen did something similar recently, and the singer is waving his hair, dancing around on stage, but that never got as many hits as Future Islands. There’s only so many people who can dick around on TV for it to go viral. If we all did it, then YouTube would just be this wasteland of idiots.”

‘Undertow’ is defined by big changes, but it remains close to home. Most of the songs, Eoin says, are based in Ringinglow Moor, which he’d have to drive over in order to get to Sheffield. Growing up, new bassist Rob would give Eoin lifts into town. “He’d play Iggy and the Stooges, Sabbath… I didn’t have an older brother telling me to listen to stuff. Driving over the Moor is where I learned a lot about music.”

Part of Drenge’s appeal is that, in Rory’s words, “there’s not many other bands from where we are”, and they’ve stayed rooted to home on LP2, despite spending half their time on the other side of the world. In fact, stints in America only further established their national pride. Eoin describes their last US tour as “incredibly difficult”. “We hadn’t taken any time off,” he says. “I came away from that and I was not in the mood to entertain an Americanfriendly album with a pop hit that’s gonna get you on the charts.”

Mind you, ‘Undertow’ isn’t all one grand, gnarly horror show. It’s the absolute opposite of antihooks, and tracks like ‘The Woods’ and ‘The Snake’ represent Drenge’s most overtly pop moments. True to form, however, whenever these two strike gold on a chorus, they’ve done it as a joke.

Single ‘We Can Do What We Want’ rockets past at a ridiculous speed, but it’s most notable for its closing section - or “outro”, in Drenge terms - which switches from raw-as-hell verses to a chirpy, indiecirca-2003 climax. It’s great, but it’s also a bit weird.

“That’s the sound of lots of people in the studio going, ‘Ha ha ha, wouldn’t that be funny’. Then recording it. And then not ever getting rid of it,” admits Eoin. “That’s a moment of excess. We thought we were being really funny by doing that.

We just thought we’d written some Libertines-y indie rock thing. But the jokes don’t continue outside of the studio.”

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diymag.com

“It’s hard to communicate when you’re so funny, and your brother’s so funny. And you’re like, ‘Why doesn’t everyone find us really funny?’” ponders Rory.

“I find the last record quite funny, lyrically,” starts Eoin. “Whereas this one, I don’t find it funny - I find it really depressing. But musically, this record is really, really funny. I’ve got

a shit sense of humour, if I can find bits of music comical.”

At this point, the two of them crack up at the thought of Eoin doing a guitar solo. Taking the piss, however, is half of why Drenge are doing so well. They don’t take much of what they’re doing particularly seriously. So they do things like turn up to the biggest festival slot of their lives in dresses.

“I wouldn’t carry on if I didn’t have that attitude,” says Rory. “When we toured America, two hours of sleep and then getting in a taxi to the airport - it was a bit much. But I’m still here.”

Drenge’s new album ‘Undertow’ will be released on 6th April via Infectious Music. DIY

Drenge will play Latitude. See diymag.com for details.

53

Take me to church: Waxahatchee’s music brings serious worship.

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Comfort in

Sound Waxahatchee returns with her new album, ‘Ivy Tripp’. “I’ve got more adventurous,”

I

Katie Crutchfield explains. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Carolina Faruolo

t’s the morning after the night before. Curled up in the armchair of a coffee shop, wrapped in a blanket and with a cup of tea going cold in front of her, Katie Crutchfield is a long way from home. Visiting London as part of a promotional blitz for ‘Ivy Tripp’, her third album as Waxahatchee, yesterday saw Katie perform a pair of sold out shows at London’s St Pancras Old Church. They provided a taste of what’s to be expected from ‘Ivy Tripp’ while getting the room drunk on beauty. Today is out of focus.

“I feel at home here,” reasons Katie. “People have always been so supportive of what I do, especially London, so I feel comfortable here.”

Waxahatchee, the Alabama native currently living in Philadelphia, takes influence from the world around her. “At every point in writing, at my parents’ house or at Waxahatchee creek, I’m surrounded by nature. I wrote a lot of this record at Long Island, which is beautiful,” says Katie, giving a reason for every jaw-dropping moment of serenity that floods ‘Ivy Tripp’. It’s not just the lyrics that benefit from this exposure, as the whole project has grown in the sunlight. “If I played ‘Ivy Tripp’ to myself when I started, I’d be like, ‘What, this is so weird’. For my audience though, it will seem like natural progression,” she admits. “When I started Waxahatchee, it was just a solo thing. I feel like I’ve got more adventurous.”

Before Waxahatchee, Katie was in a string of now defunct bands with her mirror twin, Allison. P.S.Eliot was the most recent, and the one whose absence is still felt today.

“It’s funny, we’re all still really good friends but the dynamic is different. I can see us getting back together and playing some shows,” Katie teases. P.S.Eliot mobilised after a run in with Brooklyn punks, The So So Glos. “It was romantic and lovely. They were just travelling around the world, playing their music. They didn’t have a home, they lived on their little bus and as soon as they left, we wanted to do that,” Katie remembers. “Those were the best years ever.”

“What was hard about P.S Eliot, was making creative decisions,” she states. “People were bringing different things to the table and having different expectations, so we clashed a lot. P.S Eliot was your standard band democracy. I was always in the driver’s seat and sometimes it’s hard, when you have so much invested in a band, to talk about it with other people. It starts to feel a bit uneven. It was a bit of a struggle so when I started Waxahatchee I wanted to be the sole member, I wanted to make every decision and for it to be my thing.”

“The biggest collaboration now is with Keith [Spencer, drums]. He is a really big part of what I do and has a lot to do with how the songs turn out,” Katie states. “I bring the lyrics, the structure and the melody but then we build them up together. Keith is really adventurous, and that’s rubbed off on me. I let myself try things, just to see what works and what sounds good.

When I was younger I tended to make everything a certain way, make it really simple and I play with that now. I think it would be boring if I was writing the same songs again,” she explains.

This sense of exploration is at the heart of ‘Ivy Tripp’. A record that needs and wants to be heard as a whole, every poignant word and carefully assembled sonic world is the product of seek and retry. “It’s based around the idea of ‘Ivy Tripp’, which is a term I made up,” starts Katie. “It’s about the general directionless of life, especially for people in their twenties, thirties and beyond. It’s an evolving idea that I have.

“A lot of my closest friends are in the same boat as me, where all their weird friends from high school are getting married.

We all lament that together, but who knows if they’re even happy? It’s an observation of that. It’s resisting that weird conformity and realising that everyone’s kinda unhappy but ultimately, it doesn’t really matter. That sounds like a weird and existential idea but as long as you try and make yourself happy, that’s all that really matters,” she smiles. From the opening gambit of ‘Breathless’ to the melancholy finale of

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“ I

t r y

f r o m

a n d

d r a w

d e p r e s s i o n

a n d

s a d n e s s ,

t h a t

s o u n d s

t h e

l i k e

m e . ”

m o s t

K a t i e

‘Bonfire’, it’s Katie’s demanding, yet comfortable vocals that captivate the listener throughout. “You look at me like I’m a rose,” are the first words Katie utters and it’s easy to see why.

Recorded at home, away from the “clinical” feel of a studio and the constraints of working to a deadline, “I wanted the opportunity to take as long as we needed,” ‘Ivy Tripp’ came together one song at a time. “Every day we’d sit with one song and see what it needed. We’d toss ideas around and add things,” remembers Katie. Then, at the end of the day, Kyle Gilbride, who engineered the record and plays alongside Allison in Swearin’, Keith, also from Swearin’, and Katie would relax and take in what they had created until “by the end we just knew. We knew it was in a good place.”

The lyrics that twist around the swells, the echoes and the silence, are an 56 diymag.com

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C r u t c h f i e l d

altogether more private affair. “I feel like lyrics are always really important to what I do,” she declares. “A lot of my songs are so personal and I used to have a lot of ownership over them but now, they mean what to mean to me and I just want them to mean something to people,” Katie finishes. “Every time I’ve tried to draw from anger or happiness or love, it doesn’t sound like my voice,” starts Katie. “I try and draw from depression and sadness, and that sounds the most like me.” Despite the inspiration, ‘Ivy Tripp’ is “a fun record,” Katie promises. “I like the juxtaposition, have the lyrics heavy, but have the music fun. It evokes a weird, emotional combination that I enjoy.”

The battles that subtly rage on ‘Ivy Tripp’ are well balanced, coming from a place of vocal self-assurance. “I trust myself creatively,” Katie states without a whisper of arrogance. “If I wasn’t confident, I just wouldn’t be able to

do it. I’m terrible at baseball, so I never play it in front of people. It’s definitely something that’s come with age but I’ve got to this point where, I’ve played music for so long that I feel like I can handle anything. Making records for me at this point is routine, in a good way.

As soon as I finish one, I want to make another and I’ve been doing that for ten years. I make records, it’s what I do,” Katie says with a glint in her eye.

“I can’t decide what I want to do with my next record. Part of me wants to make another solo record. Maybe I’ll make two records in 2016,” she smiles, playfully. And beyond that? “Who knows.” With this comfort in sound, it’s sure to be an adventure.

Waxahatchee’s new album ‘Ivy Tripp’ will be released on 6th April via Merge Records. DIY

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William Doyle’s surprise debut album success changed everything. Staying on track with momentum, new LP ‘Culture of Volume’ sees East India Youth upping the stakes, avoiding Alan Partridge comparisons and agreeing that music is the real winner. Words: Jamie Milton.

Photos: Emma Swann

S

everal coffees in and dressed in his customary smart suit (although this one’s a new outfit, apparently), William Doyle is trying to get his head around becoming a performer. Last night saw him showcasing his second album ‘Culture of Volume’ to a small crowd for the first time. The new record was initially intended to be purely instrumental, but as 2014 debut ‘Total Strife Forever’ grew and grew in momentum, eventually picking up a Mercury Prize nomination, Doyle changed perspective. Out stepped the songs - big, proudly bellowed, verse-chorus tickers - and with that, the Londoner had to work out how to front it properly. Up to now, he’s been safely confined behind a wall of electronics, alien-looking controllers and pads that almost cage his frame on stage. The task this time round is in figuring out just how much of a frontman Doyle really is.

“It’s not in the way I imagined,” he admits, citing stands, drum pads, a “more active” experience.

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“That feels quite good - you’re able to look at the audience. I initially wanted everything to be spread out on stage, but the more I think about it, the more ridiculous that sounds. If I’m using a headset and dressed like this, it just looks like I’m about to do a TED talk. I’ll look like Alan Partridge at his book launch in Norwich Train Station.”

East India Youth’s 2014 hosted the kind of twelve months that could feed any ego, but thankfully Doyle always has a Partridge-ometer in case he gets ahead of himself. He describes his debut as a “pretty weird record” but the praise it picked up “changed my idea of what East India Youth was.”

Before this project, the East Londoner fronted a semisuccessful outfit, Doyle and the Fourfathers. Way more devoted to ‘songwriting’ with a capital S, rather than a production role, it’s this brief spell - despite its ups and downs - that helped shape ‘Culture of Volume’’s new perspective. “My job - first and foremost - is to get the song out

Kaleidoscopes are the real winner.

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expression, while Doyle dubs his debut as “my own space”. Aspects of straightup, 80s pop (‘Beaming White’) share the honours with grandiose, stately synth-led songwriting (‘Turn Away’). There’s also room for East India Youth’s now signature #banger, a thrashing jolt of consciousness informed by techno nights in South London’s Corsica Studios. On the debut it was ‘Hinterland’, enough of a shot of adrenaline to stand the test of time. Here, it’s ‘Entirety’, a filthy, fucked up dive into the industrial. “Actually, in its earlier stages, it was a lot more banging,” he claims, calling the song an “homage” to Perc Trax nights. “I had to dial it back, to make it fit in.”

MUSIC - 1, SOCIAL MEDIA - 0

As William Doyle famously declared backstage at the Mercury Prize: “Music is the real winner.” Penning #bangers trumps trivial updates, so when the time came to focus on new music, Doyle chose to give social media the shove. “I’m off my personal Facebook now.

Completely. People look after the music page now.

I know that sounds really snooty and privileged, but it’s not my job. I’ve started to let it become too much of a thing, for me. It’s a habit. And it’s all based on affirmation. It rewires your brain. So I needed to take a step back.” To be honest, we were worried our #musicistherealwinner hashtag had taken things too far, prompting Doyle to quit Twitter. So this is a big relief.

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“If I’m using a headset and dressed like this, it just looks like I’m about to do a TED talk.

I’ll look like Alan Partridge at his book launch in Norwich Train Station.” - William Doyle there,” he says. “I just realised that I had the ability to write songs as much as I could create sounds. It was about melding those two worlds together.”

When the new LP’s instrumental intentions gradually unravelled, in stepped the nagging thoughts and barely-conscious hooks that have followed Doyle since way back, before ‘Total Strife Forever’, even.

“These songs - they’ve been hanging around for a while. They’re like stalkers, they don’t leave you alone,” he jokes. “And they’re always there looking through the window at you.” He patched together scattered half-ideas over twelve months, and by the time the Mercury Prize came round - when success or failure could have shaped a follow-up - the new album was already finished. Pressure didn’t come into the equation. A deal with XL was already in place (a “terribly kept secret”, he admits), and 2015 was beginning to come into view, way before most of the nominees had time to think about their next step.

‘Culture of Volume’ is an “outgoing”

A scatterbrained quality defines the new record, and that’s about the only characteristic linking together the two LPs. They’re varied, widescreen forms of expression, and it’s a default mode Doyle hasn’t been able to kick since day one. “I said that I’d pick one aspect from the first record and explore that as a thing, but…

I haven’t,” he says, almost ashamed. “I felt some pressure to be more consistent, or hone in on something. And I don’t know where I felt that from. I’ve been recording on the computer for ten years now. But even back then, every song sounded different to the last one. I didn’t think much about it then and I shouldn’t think too much about it now. That’s just how I write.” The trick, he says, is in realising that East India Youth’s unique draw is that it doesn’t stick to one individual movement.

Straight-up songs wrestle with all-night juggernauts, and that’s the best part.

There’s still plenty of work to be done in bringing East India Youth to life, whether that’s in making Doyle a full-on frontman or having his show backed by breathtaking visuals. He’s also beginning to think about LP3, having reacquainted himself with a Moleskine notebook from the past. “I realised I hadn’t written in there for two years now, I’ve just been externalising,” he says, citing Twitter’s “weird, chemical dependency” as a reason. “I used it all the time for ‘Total Strife...’. That was the thing I relied upon. Now I’m back to it, and I wonder if that will have some effect on the next record.” Whether in fragmented form or full blossom, Doyle seems the type to always plan his next move, using briefly flirted-with ideas as a foundation. ‘Total Strife Forever’’s bonkers success was a shock for everyone involved. But if a similar spiralling effect strikes the new record, so long as he avoids Partridge-isms on stage, East India Youth has everything covered.

East India Youth’s new album ‘Culture of Volume’ will be released on 6th April via XL Recordings. DIY

SET IN HENHAM PARK SUFFOLK

16TH - 19TH JULY 2015

FESTIVAL

CARIBOU

JAMES BLAKE

WILD BEASTS FEMI KUTI & THE POSITIVE FORCE

LAURA MARLING LIANNE LA HAVAS JOSÉ GONZÁLEZ BENJAMIN BOOKER JP COOPER

MANIC STREET PREACHERS SEASICK STEVE NAOMI SHELTON & THE GOSPEL QUEENS

BBC RADIO 6 MUSIC STAGE

DJANGO DJANGO

CATFISH AND THE BOTTLEMEN

PUBLIC SERVICE BROADCASTING TORO Y MOI KING CREOSOTE UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA THE DISTRICTS SOAK

SAVAGES WOLF ALICE SUN KIL MOON THE THURSTON MOORE BAND DRENGE

LA ROUX YEARS & YEARS YOUNG FATHERS KWABS

ARENA THE 2 BEARS / CLARK / ADULT JAZZ / KIASMOS / JACK GARRATT / SHURA / GENGAHR / IBEYI SUSANNE SUNDFØR / DM STITH / LEON BRIDGES / KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD THE TWILIGHT SAD / CURTIS HARDING / MARIKA HACKMAN / NADINE SHAH / DOLORES HAZE / DUKE GARWOOD LATE NIGHT: BEN UFO / DJ EZ / MONKI / ALEXANDER NUT / THE FOUR OWLS / THE BUSY TWIST / WERKHA (LIVE) VERY SPECIAL PERFORMANCE: GARETH

MALONE PRESENTS: VOICES AND THE LATITUDE CHOIR COMEDY

JASON MANFORD / ALAN DAVIES / JON RICHARDSON THE LAST LEG LIVE WITH ADAM HILLS, JOSH WIDDICOMBE & ALEX BROOKER JACK DEE’S HELPDESK / ROB DELANEY / DAVID O’DOHERTY / KATHERINE RYAN / NINA CONTI ROBIN INCE AND JOSIE LONG’S FESTIVAL SHAMBLES / NICK HELM / SARA PASCOE / TIM KEY SPECIAL GUESTS

CHILLY GONZALES & KAISER QUARTETT / SADLER’S WELLS SIMON ARMITAGE / DOCTOR JOHN COOPER CLARKE / MICHAEL ROSEN / GEORGE THE POET PLUS MANY MORE MUSIC AND ARTS ACTS ACROSS THE WEEKEND MUSIC / COMEDY / THEATRE / DANCE ON THE WATERFRONT / FILM / POETRY / LITERATURE / CABARET / SCIENCE / ART / LAKE SWIMMING / SOLAS

FOR THE LINE-UP SO FAR GO TO THE WEBSITE WWW.LATITUDEFESTIVAL.CO.UK TICKETS FROM SEETICKETS.COM / 0871 231 0846 CALLS COST 10P PLUS NETWORK CHARGES. BILL SUBJECT TO CHANGE

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e l g

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The Cribs are one of the UK’s most consistently brilliant bands. Their new album ‘For All My Sisters’ suggests they’ll remain that way for years to come. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Mike Massaro

“T

his year seems like a really critical one,” starts Ryan Jarman. “A lot of things are different.

It’s not anything radical, but psychologically we’ve shifted. It’s exciting to move on with a new record.”

“It took some time for us t o a c t u a l ly learn how to write songs to g e t h er .” Corin Roddick

l

Last night The Cribs reacquainted themselves with the capital during a sold out show at the Electric Ballroom. More a full-bodied embrace than tentative handshake, today the Jarman brothers “feel a bit beat up.”

Ordering soft drinks from the bar downstairs, The Cribs fall into place on a haggard sofa. “I do feel like our fans are a different breed,” says Gary, echoing his onstage message from the night before. “They embrace the new stuff,” Ryan states before Gary continues. “I feel like they’re behind us all the time so doing shows is really easy because you know they’re with you. At the same time I always enjoyed doing support shows because it felt like you had something to prove - so there was a bit of both. You’ve got

63

something to prove but also, it feels really celebratory because we’ve been away for a while and people are excited to see us.”

By their standards, The Cribs have been absent for an age. ‘For All My Sisters’ is their first studio album since 2012’s ‘In The Belly Of The Brazen Bull’, their first since the release of their decade-celebrating best-of compilation ‘Payola’, and their first for new label Sony Red. This chapter is laced with change but the Jarman brothers are sitting comfortably; this new record is their opening statement: concise and powerful. A selfconfessed “pop album”, it was written in the gaps of last summer’s festival circuit. Influenced by the greatest hits setlist (“You realise what you do best and we wanted to consolidate that”) and shaped over “a long period of time where a lot of different things happened,” the band’s seventh album is definitely a Cribs record. “We didn’t even know what

that was, so it’s cool that we actually have a sound that’s tangible,” Ryan grins. “It’s really streamlined. We had a couple of years to write this one because we were in limbo last year so we just channelled all that into writing. People who already like the band are going to really understand this record but I also think it’s a good starting point for the next phase. It represents everything we’ve been trying to do. I’m really happy with it.” “‘The Cribs’ and ‘For All My Sisters’ are the only times I made an album where I was happy and optimistic about my situation,” admits Gary. “I feel comfortable.” “The first record and this record we made because we really wanted to make a record,” Ryan continues. “The first record you do without any agenda and this record, our contract with Wichita was up and we had a period of time where we didn’t know what we were going to do so we made a record because we wanted to. There was no one rushing us in the studio, no one asking for a record so we made it because it was something we wanted to do and it was fun. It’s almost like we had time to take a breath before making this record.”

“It’s the most fully realised Cribs record,” boasts Gary. “Often when we do a record, we’ll write a few poppy songs but then we’ll get the punk rock guilt so the albums become a balancing act. I really enjoy the fact we have two sides on each record but on this one we just threw everything onto the pop side and made something that’s concise,” he pauses before asking, “What’s the point in changing the plan? At the moment I feel like we’re bigger than we ever have been. With the last few shows the thing that’s been significant is how young the audience are. It means new people are here.

We’re not just playing to our audience, and our audience are getting older, they’re all still

The Cribs have delivered back to back triumphs, and not for the first time.

64 diymag.com

there we’re just picking new people up.” “That feels good,” Ryan adds with a smile.

Ross was seventeen when we started going on the road. It’s hard to imagine that’s his entire adult life.”

“When you have a record you’re proud of and that represents you, you want that to reach more people,” starts Gary, with Ross adding. “It’s just because we’re happy with the record and we want people to hear it.” There are nods of agreement and Ryan continues, “It would be nice to think we could take that further but we can’t complain. I think we’re valued now, having been around for a long time people value you for what you are and what you represent. There were times in our career where it felt like a rat race. It was dog eat dog, there was a load of bands and everything was about trying to get ahead. It was a situation that we didn’t flourish in. You could tell we were pretty separatist at that point whereas now, I feel relatively content with what The Cribs are. It’s a great feeling, I’m really optimistic.”

“Everyone knows what we are and what we represent and that feels great to me,” says Ross in agreement.

“The grassroots fanbase has always been a huge thing, the fact that those people understand and are dedicated has meant we’ve always had a platform, y’know?” questions Ryan.

“It’s like a forcefield, it makes you impervious.” “Although there are times when you feel like certain members of your fanbase, base their principles on things you’ve said and then try and use that against you. Man, it doesn’t work like that,” says Gary, his mouth twisting into a grin. “We say it’s a poppy record but its still very guitar heavy, we’re on a major label but it affords us more control that ever before. I think our fans just trust us and that’s the main thing. We’re not going to do anything that’s going to be considered distasteful,” he finishes, still smiling.

The Cribs, as self-aware as they are, have endured when so many bands haven’t.

“If you look at our existence on paper, it’s an anomaly,” ventures Ryan. “We can’t believe the situation we’ve found ourselves in over the years. I’m really happy with the niche we’ve got and we wouldn’t do anything to jeopardise that. I don’t think we’d be capable of having a seismic shift in our mentality anyway.” That mentality has seen them rise from the DIY ‘indie’ scene of the early noughties and remain “untroubled by the changes in trends in guitar music.”

It ensures that they’ve never lived or died by radio airplay although they do find “infiltrating the mainstream,” funny. The Cribs have an ethos that sees them drive and repair their own van while staying in budget hotels on tour.

“We’re economically very viable,” laughs Ryan. “Fundamentally, we’re just three brothers. That makes things easier as a band,” explains Ross. “We always used to joke and say it would be difficult to break up because how would you deal with Christmas dinner?

It’s just what we’ve done since we were kids.

It’s deeply ingrained; I mean

“It wou diff to

b

up

b

how

The band filmed the video for lead single ‘Burning For No One’ in the Bahamas. An Instagram photo of the plane that took them to the island saw a few people accuse them of changing.

“It was the worst plane ever,” exclaims Ryan. “Cracked windows, a child driver distracted by his mobile phone for the duration of the flight and seat belts, barely ld b e attached to the plane.” “The guy who was directing on the day described it as a Ford Cortina being driven into the clouds,” giggles Ross. “Private jets? Yeah, look closer icult dude,” says Gary, excitably. “The whole thing was done totally independently,” says Ross, composing himself. “We had no reak authorisation to go out and do it, we just showed up on the boat with a camera. No makeup, no lights, no costume changes, just us and a guy with a camera.” ecaus e “On paper it might be the sort of thing that’ll make people look twice. I like that we have the sort of fans that would question things, ethically they’re concerned,” would explains Ryan.

you

deal

with Chris tmas dinner?”

-

Ros s

Jarman

The Cribs have another summer of festivals in the diary and a full UK tour for the autumn penciled in. There’s the admission that “we’ve been stockpiling all the more aggressive songs, the more punk rock stuff, for possibly another session with Steve Albini. We did a session with him a while ago so there’s the intention of making a record with him.” Now eleven years deep into their career and a new phase glistening with promise, The Cribs know exactly where they stand. “We have been around a while now and have been through so many specific eras, I feel like we most comfortable in this one,” opens Gary before Ryan concludes. “I think it’s liberating to have been around for this long.”

The Cribs’ new album ‘For All My Sisters’ is out now via Sonic Blew / Sony Red. DIY

The Cribs will play Live at Leeds and Liverpool Sound City.

See diymag.com for details.

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ALABAMA SHAKES / E AS T I N DIA YO U T H MO UN TAI N G OAT S / ORTIZ / STEALING

A L E X G / A L L T I M E L O W / B R A I D S / B R AW L E R S / C I R C A WAV E S / G A L L O W S / H A N N A H C O H E N / JAC K S O N S C O T T / L A PA L U X / N A D I N E S H A H / O N LY R E A L / PA S S I O N P I T / T H E P R O D I G Y / R A E S H E E P / S U FJ A N S T E V E N S / T O R O Y M O I / T U R B O F R U I T S /

“What do you mean, I need to work on my seductive wink?”

TRACKLIST

T

1. Introduction 2. Running Wild 3. Never Awake 4. We Can Do What We Want 5. Favourite Son 6. The Snake 7. Side By Side 8. The Woods 9. Undertow 10. Standing In The Cold 11. Have You Forgotten My Name?

A band finding their feet before taking to the skies.

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DRENGE

Undertow (Infectious music)

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T

he magic of Drenge’s debut album arrived long after its initial release. As they tore up festival stages and cemented themselves as one of the UK’s finest live acts, brothers Eoin and Rory Loveless discovered a new belief. By no means standard fare on record, tracks like ‘Bloodsports’ and ‘Fuckabout’ found

another gear on stage, the latter rinsing anthemia for all its worth. They became a band to believe in.

Step two is ‘Undertow’, a journey of selfdiscovery, confidence abounding like limits simply don’t exist. Departing their hometown of Castleton, Drenge end up ‘Running Wild’ - their new LP is all about independence, a band finding their feet before taking to the skies.

/ CI T I Z E N S ! / T H E CR I B S / DE AT H CAB FOR LOWER DENS / MARINA AND THE DIAMONDS / M O R R I S / R Y L E Y WA L K E R / S A N C I S C O / S A N V I L L A G E R S / WA X A H AT C H E E / T H E W O M B AT S /

Assisted by new bassist and childhood friend Rob Graham, both Eoin and Rory up their game. The former’s vocals spit like never before, turning standard phrases like “money” into gruesome projections. On ‘We Can Do What We Want’, he practically fronts a high-speed chase, Drenge surging ahead in the fast lane. The staples of their debut remain, but every aspect is enhanced tenfold.

It’s like seeing a couple of toddlers turn into superheroes in record time.

CUTIE / DOLDRUMS / DRENGE / MARMOZETS / METZ / MEW / THE F E R M I N / S AY L O U L O U / S P E E D Y Y E A R S & Y E A R S / YO U N G FAT H E R S

‘Favourite Son’ showcases the band’s grimy, no-bullshit undercurrent, raising the tempo for fun. ‘The Snake’ slices up crunchy guitar parts like it’s a sinful hobby, turning a live favourite into a fire-breathing monster. The second half of ‘Undertow’ perfects the Drenge tradition of pointing forward. Here they explore a darker side, twisting grunge into a new form. ‘Have You Forgotten My Name?’ is an ominous way to end,

while ‘The Woods’ might be Loveless’ ultimate pop moment, a straight up verse-chorus #banger to rival the greats. The brilliance of ‘Undertow’ is in knowing just how much more Drenge can achieve. Regardless of what happens next, this’ll always be looked upon as a pivotal moment.

(Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘Favourite Son’, ‘The Snake’, ‘Have You Forgotten My Name?’

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eeee

RYLEY WALKER Primrose Green (Dead Oceans)

Following the release of his debut solo record ‘All Kinds of You’, Ryley Walker set out to experiment; ‘Primrose Green’ is the next chapter. His songwriting remains expansive, evoking a whimsical element by leaving in all elements of jamming and crafting. His natural guitar-playing, evident throughout the record and the rhythm that carries it, is indulgent yet essential. With ‘Primrose Green’, Walker has created a mystical record, balancing idyllic sonics with moving sensibility. (Ross Jones) Listen: ‘Summer Dress’

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DOLDRUMS

The Air Conditioned Nightmare (Sub Pop)

As an extension to previous album ‘Lesser Evil’, Doldrums’ ‘The Air Conditioned Nightmare’ is a slightly more subdued affair, though there’s plenty of melodies within the chaos.

For an album beset by “paranoid sentiment and Dystopian imagery,” there’s shoots of recovery peeking below the surface. Nestled in these adrenalised, highly evolved songs are bright pop hooks. (Sean Stanley) Listen: ‘Loops’

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LOWER DENS

Escape From Evil (Domino)

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ALABAMA SHAKES

Sound & Color (Rough Trade Records)

The clue, of course, is in the name. Alabama Shakes make music that sounds like the Deep South. Or at least what one might imagine the Deep South was like based on a handful of Hollywood films. Likewise,’Sound & Color’ is a pretty good name for this second album, with its immediate ability to paint such vivid pictures, say a dive bar serving only weak lager (sorry, Americans) and whiskey spelt with an ‘e’ to a crowd who’ve known each other for generations.

Once again, the real superstar here is Brittany Howard’s impeccable vocal; whether she’s going full-pelt in the outstanding ‘Miss You’ (a more impassioned love song you won’t hear all year), laid back on the porch-step sitting ‘This Feeling’ or alternating between screech and falsetto on the R&B-inflected ‘Don’t Wanna Fight’, she’s a joy to listen to.

None more so than on ‘The Greatest’, the record’s curveball – a scruffy garage rock number, beginning with a mischievous “check this out” and culminating in laughter, it’s reckless in its delivery – and serves as a great counterpoint to ‘Sound & Color’’s more intense moments.

Best of all, both Howard’s innate ability to channel any emotion through her voice, and the band’s evocative Southern rock sound – come over so naturally; notes may be reached, riffs rinsed, stop-start moments choreographed, but nothing’s being reached for - it’s all so brilliantly effortless.

(Emma Swann) Listen: ‘Miss You’

‘Escape From Evil’ is a stylishly sinister release, evoking a Lynchian fevered dream aesthetic. It also happens to be a fun, well-produced listen — because who said serious and likeable are mutually exclusive? A surprising third act perhaps, but for listeners craving substance served with flash, Lower Dens’ is a world worth exploring. The band may be at their most accessible, but they’re not about to make it easy.

(Laura Studarus) Listen: ’I Am Earth’

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BRAIDS

Deep in the Iris (Arbutus Records)

The last time we heard Braids was on ‘Flourish // Perish’, which marked a period of synthesis for the band: keyboardist Katie Lee departed and they focused on honing a less guitarcentric sound. As a result, ‘Deep in the Iris’ is a thoroughly satisfying listen that features some of the best material Braids have put to record so far; it’s just a shame the piano/electronic drums/ synth combo can wear a little thin.

(George Boorman) Listen: ‘Miniskirt’ 68 diymag.com

Alabama Shakes, wondering who’s going to be called first to the headmaster’s office.

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THE MOUNTAIN GOATS

Beat the Champ (Merge Records)

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DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE Kintsugi (Atlantic)

Given the alienated fanbases, tales of Hollywood divorce and departures of founding members that have all plagued Death Cab For Cutie since their last record, ‘Kintsugi’’s first triumph lies simply in its title. Named after a Japanese style of art involving fixing broken ceramics with solid gold detailing, it’s an insight into the band’s readiness to not just repair themselves, but to come back more valuable than ever before. This is the actualisation of those intentions. Finally free of their pinning as the indie kid’s go-to mixtape tearjerker, they’ve blossomed into a thoughtful, stadium-destined rock band for the ages. ‘Kintsugi’ sees their eighteen-year-in-the-making intentions fully realised, and - eight albums in – Death Cab For Cutie are born again. (Tom Connick) Listen: ‘El Dorado’

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European Soul (Kitsune)

Desolation Sounds (Venn

CITIZENS!

With ‘European Soul’, Citizens! have made a proper fun, open-ended album.

Supposedly inspired by soul music, elements of the genre are certainly weaved into the house-inspired ‘Lighten Up’ or the neo-soul groove of ‘Only Mine’. But, by far, more potent influences are at work; the most obvious being the Pet Shop Boys, with Tom Burke’s vocals sounding strikingly similar to Neil Tennant in its infectious, helium-injected hyperactivity. The big-haired 80s ghosts of Soft Cell and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark can be seen lurking throughout the record, which certainly isn’t a bad thing.

There’s a bit of filler in the form of the relatively stagnant ‘Xmas In Japan’; but pretty much all of the other tracks are just great big fun dancefloor hits. (Kyle MacNeill) Listen: ‘Are You Ready?’

GALLOWS

/ Play It Again Sam Records)

Gallows seem fated to be an ever-changing beast.

Since the release of their last album their self-titled effort which saw former Alexisonfire man Wade MacNeil take the reigns - they’ve bid farewell to another of their founding members, seeing them take on the challenge of becoming a quartet. Yet you’d never guess they were a man down.

‘Desolation Sounds’ sees them grow leaner, more muscular, and braver in their exploits. While opening track ‘Mystic Death’ explodes into life, all relentless guitars and fierce vocals, the album’s title track sees them reign in the rip-out-your-throat intensity.

Even with the twisting and turning of different styles Gallows remain ferocious until the last drop. (Sarah Jamieson) Listen: ‘Leather Crown’

John Darnielle’s follow up to his critically acclaimed debut novel ‘Wolf in a White Van’ is a challenging Mountain Goats concept album focussing on his childhood love of prowrestling. The result of this endeavour is ‘Beat the Champ’, an enjoyable if slightly disjointed collection of songs that feature John’s signature witty lyrics and some foot-stomping acoustic guitar. John previously explained that he was going to use his wrestling concept to address themes such as “death and difficult-to-navigate interior spaces.” Despite this ‘Beat the Champ’ as an album can be slightly hard to follow, swinging from manic to heartfelt in a matter of minutes.

Overall ‘Beat the Champ’ will no doubt prove a hit with die-hard Mountain Goats fans, however as a standalone album it lacks a coherent sound. (Kate Lismore) Listen: ‘The Legend of Chavo Guerrero’

eeee NADINE SHAH

Fast Food

(Apollo/R&S Records)

It doesn’t take long for ‘Fast Food’ to remind you how good a voice Nadine Shah has: the kind of soulful, howling instrument that - should you be sat on a rotating seat with a giant button by your side and the wreckage of your career behind - you’d say helps to make the songs her own. Not that Shah needs much help owning these tracks. Much like the debut, there’s an intensely personal slant to this album. Unlike the debut, there are a few more patches of light in and amongst the storm clouds.

It’s sweet, it’s sour, it’s angry, it’s reflective, ‘Fast Food’ is pretty successful in capturing the ups and downs of complicated relationships.

The fact it manages that in a way which is neither hackneyed or predictable is near miraculous. (Tim Lee) Listen: ‘Fool’ 69

Only Real chats with DIY’s Liam McNeilly.

Niall Galvin’s Only Real moniker has taken step after step in the right direction over the past three years, a culmination of progressions that sees his debut full-length drop this month. “It feels like it’s going at a nice healthy pace,” he explains, while sounding characteristically chilled about the new record being out in the open.

“There’s something really nice about it being done and a finished piece of work. The pressure’s off now, it’s out of my hands. I’m just pleased that I’ve made it as good as I can.”

‘Jerk At The End Of The Line’ offers up a take on the breadth of influences from which Galvin draws, but with one eye already on the future, he’s not got plans to be limited by anything when it comes to genre. “I just want to keep rolling and doing whatever I want, and slowly build a portfolio of things so that over time, people can develop an understanding of what Only Real really is.”

eee

ONLY REAL Jerk At The End Of The Line (Virgin EMI)

For the past couple of years, Niall Galvin’s been cramming cereal into his gob, getting shitfaced most nights, and lounging about on his West London sofa penning songs about parties and boredom. It’s a formula that hasn’t shifted one jot between his emergence as a more poporiented Jamie T hybrid, right up to his colourful debut ‘Jerk At The End Of The Line’. ‘Pass The Pain’, ‘Yesterdays’ and ‘Jerk’ are the best examples of Only Real’s bolshy, bread-and-butter music. Sod complexities and treading new ground - Galvin shuns the spectacular in favour of delivering easy-going, irritatingly catchy pop. About as complicated as a four pack of cider and a pack of smokes at a grimy UK festival, ‘Jerk At The End Of The Line’ might not knock on new doors, but behind everything is a character. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘Jerk’

eeee YOUNG FATHERS

White Men Are Black Men Too (Big

Photo: Mike Massaro

Dada)

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‘White Men Are Black Men Too’ goes even further in Young Fathers’ attempts to escape being pigeonholed. Call them hip-hop and they’ll turn their noses up. Mention any kind of trajectory or “breakthrough” and eyes roll. Despite the title, there’s nothing political about the record. ‘Sirens’ belongs on dusky streets in the freezing cold, ‘Rain or Shine’ carries a post-midnight quality.

But there’s nothing distinctly Scottish or neatly-contained about this record. It’s chaos, the most extreme kind of hybrid imaginable. They sound more excitable and progressive than ever, like they’re chasing a pot of gold that contains endless truths. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘DEAD’

Mad Sounds Villagers shares his recent listening.

Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - The Boatman’s Call Like with any truly beautiful music, there’s nothing I can say to express how much this collection of songs means to me. The feeling I get when I listen to this album is embedded within the depths of my soul.

eeee THE PRODIGY

The Day Is My Enemy (Take

eee VILLAGERS

Darling Arithmetic (Domino)

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas - The Ultimate Collection I went to see Martha Reeves and the Vandellas in Dublin while I was writing ‘Darling Arithmetic’ and it totally inspired me. It makes me feel like closing my eyes and dancing the pain away.

Wilco - A Ghost is Born I love the way that Jeff Tweedy manages to convey beautiful ideas without getting too literal about anything.

The sonic landscapes on this album are unreal, as is the musicianship and production. Just beautiful.

“It took a little time to get where I wanted...” is the opening thought of Villagers’ third album, ‘Darling Arithmetic’. It’s a familiar feeling of openness and closeness that Conor O’Brien offers. Instantly you’re presented with something that’s half diary entry and half poem. What’s really different here, third time around, is that this isn’t a starting point from which to spring surprises, there’s no disorientating change of pace, no intimidating raise in tension. Instead, it’s a simple story, well told, by a very engaging story teller.

Nevertheless, for all the mature restraint and consummate mastery it can be hard not to miss the sheer energy and fury of previous albums, the restless experimentation. As beautiful and accomplished as ‘Darling Arithmetic’ is, hopefully Villagers isn’t finished ripping up the rule book yet. (Matthew Davies) Listen: ‘Everything I Am Is Yours’

Me To The Hospital)

The Prodigy have always been a distinctly uncompromising and confrontational group and sixth studio album, ‘The Day Is My Enemy’ may be their most visceral and incendiary record yet.

There are precious little pop thrills here or moments of light but the album is in no way inaccessible: it’s in many ways the quintessential Prodigy album. The rave punk spirit that has driven them for over 25 years seems stronger than ever on a record that will delight old fans and no doubt capture a whole new era of angry youth. (Martyn Young) Listen: ‘The Day Is My Enemy’

eee SAN FERMIN

Jackrabbit (Downtown

Records / Sony RED)

Ellis Ludwig-Leone has created a second album with the fluidity and togetherness debut ’San Fermin’ always promised but never realised.

The improvements from the self-titled record can only be comprehensively taken in with a full listen of ‘Jackrabbit’, but using a follow-up to slowly build and improve an already vastly promising sound - instead of attempting an erratic reinvention - is something Ludwig-Leone should be commended for. (Will Richards) Listen: ‘Sonsick’

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eeee

WAXAHATCHEE Ivy Tripp (Wichita)

SPEEDY ORTIZ

Foil Deer (Carpark Records)

Wild dreams of sci-fi transformations aside, there’s something inherently empowering and bullshit-banishing about ‘Foil Deer’ from the very beginning. ‘Raising The Skate’ busts right into the joint, slamming the door open in a deft demonstration of intent, and from then on, things are playful and self-assured, with the wheels firmly skating in the same direction. Sadie Dupuis’ lyrics are more waggish than anything she’s ever written before, the melodies craftier, more complex.

A second album bursting with its own personality, Speedy Ortiz have poured everything in to a record all over again. A snarling, twisted, mischievous creation, ‘Foil Deer’ is a leaping, high-spirited joy. (El Hunt) Listen: ‘Raising The Skate’

eee

TORO Y MOI

What For? (Carpark Records)

Chaz Bundick left chillwave behind before it was cool: mentioning the long-forgotten genre in the same sentence as Toro Y Moi seems a disservice these days, but it’s testament to just how freely the producer tends to move. Latest case in point: ‘What For?’, a fourth album existing in a completely different hyperspace to the house-pop-fusion of 2013’s ‘Anything In Return’. Out with the simple, repeat-friendly dance nods, in with lush instrumentals, it’s arguably the biggest risk Bundick’s taken since the heady, short-lived chillwave days - unfortunately it’s one that only sometimes pays off. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘Buffalo’

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Recommended

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from the past few months

Waxahatchee’s ‘Ivy Tripp’ is a perfect continuation from precursor, ‘Cerulean Salt’. The sound is a little tighter and the overall aesthetic is cleaner – especially when compared to their lo-fi debut. But one thing remains: the songs are impeccably written.

Opening this third release is ‘Breathless’. A rich, distorted organ synth and stunningly honest vocals slowly build suspense before dropping seamlessly into two back-to-back all guns blazing instant Waxahatchee hits in ‘Under a Rock’ and ‘Poison’. Poignant lyrics highlight the trials of being a directionless 20-something, with the jagged delayed drums a beautiful touch used to accentuate that dazed and confused feeling. ‘Half Moon’ shifts the mood to about 4am. Everyone has gone home and Katie Crutchfield is left pondering and recording piano – further showing that the overall ethos for this collection is that less really is more. It leads to an absolute triumph of a record. (Joe Dickinson) Listen: ‘The Dirt’

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Sleater-Kinney - No Cities To Love “‘No Cities To Love’ could be Sleater-Kinney’s finest work to date: there’s not an ounce of flab.” (Stephen Ackroyd)

eeee

Laura Marling - Short Movie “Wonderfully unlike anything Marling has attempted before.” (El Hunt)

eeeee

Courtney Barnett Sometimes I Sit And Think, And Sometimes I Just Sit “This is a debut like few others: beyond bonzer, mate.” (Jamie Milton)

eeee

STEALING SHEEP Not Real (Heavenly Recordings)

eeee

SUFJAN STEVENS

Carrie and Lowell (Asthmatic Kitty Records)

‘Carrie and Lowell’ sees Sufjan Stevens refine his music down to its essentials.

There are no orchestral flourishes, no electronic embellishments; there aren’t even any drums. With tongue lodged firmly in cheek Stevens has even jokingly described the album as “easy listening”.

The truth is it’s anything but. This is a record of searing honesty and stark soul-bearing emotion. The album revolves around the death of his mother and tries to make sense of the unfathomable; of the loose wires and uncertainty and unanswered questions and bottomless feeling of loss that comes with losing a parent. Yet it only takes half of the opening track for him to realise the impossibility of his quest: “I long to be near you but every road leads to an end.”

But it’s the journey to get there that brings the warmth and comfort.

Understandably it’s not for the faint hearted: this is a harrowing though beautiful and tender listen. As he meditates on life and death, and all the mess that surrounds it, there is uncertainty and no answers but there is hope. “I just wanted to be near you,” he pleads on ‘Eugene’. By going through it all, by exposing all the pain, Stevens has created something beautiful and vital. (Danny Wright) Listen: ‘John My Beloved’

Beautiful and vital.

There’s no sense of label execs breathing down Stealing Sheep’s necks until they cough up another radio-pleasing hit. This isn’t a record multi-tracked in their plush Liverpool studio – it’s a deadly potion brewed deep in the forbidden forest. And yet the pop moments don’t let up. From the demented dancefloor of ‘Deadlock’ to the rolling sunrise of ‘Evolve and Expand’, ‘Not Real’ shifts from vivid dream to woozy reality. It’s hard to believe this wasn’t all a dream. (Andrew Backhouse) Listen: ‘Deadlock’

eee

LAPALUX

Lustmore (Brainfeeder)

It’s easy to drift off within ‘Lustmore’, enjoying the twinkly, serene backdrop to some inane daydream while never really engaging. Upon reaching the conclusion the whole experience is little more than a forgotten dream with a vague idea that something spectacular might have happened.

This doesn’t make it a bad album, far from it, it’s just difficult to get excited about something that may have hardly happened in the first place. (Henry Boon) Listen: ‘Make Money’

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HANNAH COHEN

Pleasure Boy (Bella Union)

When your first track comes with a refrain of “tell me her name, tell me her name”, you know you’re in for something visceral, impacting and lyrically striking. ‘Pleasure Boy’ is a studied, precise and explorative showcase of songwriting, equal parts accessible and experimental.

It’s ominous, dark even, at the right times and bright in others. A record deserving of widespread acclaim. (Euan L Davidson) Listen: ‘I’ll Fake It’

eee

TURBO FRUITS

No Control (Melvin Records/

Thirty Tigers)

Turbo Fruits have come of age, but not in the dramatic, ‘black and white instead of neon’ Blink-182 way, in a calm, decided, ‘just getting on with it’ way. Development is the buzzword for ‘No Control’: this being a garage rock album, nobody’s looking for pioneering ideas, but there’s a good spread of hooks. (Louis Haines) Listen To: ‘The Way I Want You’

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Q&A Following a brief break in 2014, Brawlers vocalist Harry George Johns gives an insight into the band’s new album.

Brawlers disappeared at the end of last year. Is everything ok now?

Yeah. It got a little hairy for a moment there. We’re a drummer down and we all lost our minds in different ways.

You have to remember that while it’s awesome that we got signed and played 200 odd shows last year, it was never the plan. If you stick four totally different best friends in a van for a year, it does things to you.

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BRAWLERS Romantic Errors of Our Youth (Alcopop)

“We’re accused of falling in line, every song doesn’t have to rhyme,” cry Brawlers, midway through the four-gun salute of album opener ‘Annabel’. It’s a defiant, playful message that’s spat with a wink and pulls back the curtain for ‘Romantic Errors of Our Youth’ to take centre stage. It’s a position the Leeds four-piece relish. After a brief pause to realign the snowball that ‘I Am A Worthless Piece of Shit’ started, the band have adjusted to the velocity and come out swinging.

From the grimy dancehall of ‘Drink & Dial’ through the prescribed escape of ‘High Again’ until the hammering finale of the title track, this is an unrelenting flourish of confidence. In digging up the romantic errors of their past and accepting their imperfections, Brawlers have built a debut album that doesn’t put a foot wrong. (Ali Shutler) Listen: ‘Romantic Errors Of Our Youth’

eee

CIRCA WAVES Young Chasers

(Virgin)

If it were ‘quite normal’ to compare bands to hotel chains (and why shouldn’t it be?!), Circa Waves would probably be a Travelodge. Reliable, decent, and no-frills, the Merseysiders’ jangly post-Libertines indie-rock does what it needs to on debut ‘Young Chasers’, and does it well enough. Like a sticky-floored lager-fuelled mid00s indie club through a sun-kissed Instagram filter, bar the Foals-indebted ‘The Luck Has Gone’ and the wistful ‘Good For Me’, for the most part ‘Young Chasers’ nods Stateside, whether it’s the title track bringing to mind Phantom Planet’s ‘California’, or the hint of The Shins in ‘Stuck In My Teeth’.

(Emma Swann) Listen: ‘Good For Me’

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eeee

JACKSON SCOTT Sunshine Redux

(Bloodmoss Records)

Where debut ‘Melbourne’ was essentially a collection of bits and bobs that put Jackson Scott on the playing field as a macabre and ghostly weirdoartist, ‘Sunshine Redux’ opens the bedroom windows and lets some fresh air in, allowing his music to become more wide-eyed and panoramic in the process. There’s an obvious lack of lo-fi sheen, but Scott’s unique take on psychedelia and pop still shines through - it’s more clear than ever, even.

Whether a more jacked-up moment or a hazy, sinking flurry, everything Scott has written on ‘Sunshine Redux’ encapsulates all of his best qualities.

(Tom Walters) Listen: ‘PRPLMTV’

Was there ever a conversation about Brawlers ending?

Nah, We’re best friends. We just work it out. 94% of last year was a laugh so it was totally worth it.

And how does it feel to be back?

Fucking exciting. The EP was pretty well received but this album man, I’m really proud of it. I want it to be the ‘getting ready to go out and get loose’ soundtrack of 2015.

eeee PASSION PIT Kindred

(Columbia)

Michael Angelakos and his Passion Pit crew make music that jars. Despite coming dipped in E numbers, there’s a darkness that lurks around every chorus, buried deep in every line.

It’s this disconnect between facade and theme, like a Bukowski novel snuck into a Peter Rabbit sleeve, which makes Passion Pit so utterly compelling.

‘Kindred’ picks up where its predecessor, ‘Gossamer’, left off, and though the sweetness is notched up – occasionally to the point of sickliness – Angelakos has fashioned another top pop record. There are no ‘indie’ qualifiers here, and it’s all the more joyous for it. (David Zammitt) Listen: ‘Where The Sky Hangs’

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SAY LOU LOU

eeee

Lucid Dreaming (À Deux)

MARINA & THE DIAMONDS FROOT (Atlantic)

Beginning an album with a song like ‘Happy’ is a huge statement. A declaration of the purest degree, Marina and the Diamonds starts her newest album stripped back, laying herself bare. Its lines, like the chorus hook of “Finally, I have found a way to be happy” are so simple, so honest that they’re the perfect opening gambit.

With her newest effort, we see Diamandis really come into her own. Gone are her co-writers and in their place, she’s built a more conventional band structure around her. The affect is astounding: from the funk-driven guitar riff that brings title track ‘Froot’ to life, to the full-bodied dramatics of ‘Forget’, she may still be the star of the show, but there’s an organic feel to the band dynamic that is all the more suited to her.

That’s not to say that she’s traded in her pop hooks and playfulness.

‘FROOT’ may find her at her most accomplished and intriguing – the billowing ‘I’m A Ruin’ and groove-infused ‘Can’t Pin Me Down’ stand as examples – but there’s plenty of knowing winks thrown in. Marina has gone from bubblegum bitch to true pop queen; this album is the jewel in her crown. (Sarah Jamieson) Listen: ‘I’m A Ruin’

The jewel in Marina’s crown.

Thematically centred around the concept of dreams, ‘Lucid Dreaming’ weaves together sparkling synths and reverb heavy pianos with Say Lou Lou’s pristine vocals to orchestrate an evocative dream pop soundscape. The record simultaneously triumphs as both a cohesive, introspective body of work and a bona fide pop record, the duo’s sense of artistic excellence and conviction couldn’t be any more of a reality. (Josh Pauley) Listen: ‘Games For Girls’

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SAN CISCO Gracetown (Waterfront Records)

The songs are sweet and the melodies are there on ‘Gracetown’, but it can seem a little two-paced: every song, it seems, is about loving someone.

Explicitly. And obviously. Sure, this is a record written for and by summers, and love can be simplistic – it happens, then it goes. You can’t stay swimming in Gracetown forever. But why didn’t San Cisco do a few more things, feel a few other feelings, when they were there?

(Kyle Forward) Listen: ‘Magic’

ee

THE WOMBATS

Glitterbug (14th Floor)

A lot has changed since The Wombats released their debut LP in 2007, and those changes leave the trio a little unsure of the space they’re occupying.

What really stands out from ‘Glitterbug’ is the lack of ambition on show. The Wombats are more than happy to wander aimlessly around the ground they always have done, only eight years on, it’s without the same vitality that once made them an exciting pin up.

(Liam McNeilly) Listen: ‘Emoticons’

eee

ALL TIME LOW

Future Hearts (Hopeless Records)

A frootiful return: Marina and the Diamonds.

Granted, none of ‘Future Hearts’ is rocket science. All Time Low are never going to reinvent the wheel, and there are a few moments (halfway mark ‘Missing You’ springs to mind) that feel a little too much. But there is something intensely satisfying in their sugary hooks and their handle on catchy, unadulterated melodies. A little pop does go a long way, after all.

(Sarah Jamieson) Listen: ‘Something’s Gotta Give’

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Q&A Andrew Backhouse speaks to Pennsylvanian Alex G about what makes him tick.

You’ve been writing songs from your bedroom for years - is it an easy process?

I’ll just get that urge to do it. The real writing process takes place in my bedroom, but I’ll write wherever I am. I always make the comparison to somebody who likes playing video games, or somebody who loves to draw. I never think of it as work.

You just played a run of UK shows, including a DIY Presents gig in Manchester. How was that?

The UK crowds have been really great. We played some shows in Europe too, [but] the UK felt a lot more familiar. People were just getting in to it how we’re used to when we play in the States.

eeee ALEX G

Trick & Rules (Lucky Number)

After the resounding success of last year’s breakthrough album ‘DSU’, which made sure that Alex G’s name was being carried in excited whispers across the globe, ‘Trick’ and ‘Rules’ are being given the pro treatment.

Originally released on Bandcamp a couple of years ago, these albums are the ones that helped Alex G to garner such a large and enthusiastic online following. Professionally mastered, they both sound better: to newcomers, they’re full, complete albums, and old fans will definitely find new things to enjoy.

‘Trick’ manages to blend melancholy and unsettling weirdness with a strange, uplifting sense of hope, while ‘Rules’ is a slightly more easygoing, less claustrophobic record, drawing a little more on Alex G’s 90s alt-rock sensibilities. Across the 30-or-so tracks, a song that has always stood out is ‘I Know Now’. At just over a minute long, it creaks into action and a warm, friendly bassline accompanies the words “I know now what I want” repeated over and over again. It sounds like an epiphany: Alex Giannascoli, sitting in his dorm room three years ago, suddenly seeing his entire future flash before his eyes. Blazing sun shines through the window, bathing him in light. “I know now what I want.” (Kris Lavin) Listen: ‘I Know Now’

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eeee EAST INDIA YOUTH

Culture of Volume (XL Recordings)

William Doyle isn’t the type to focus. Tracks on his Mercury Prize-nominated debut ‘Total Strife Forever’ and followup ‘Culture of Volume’ deliver everything with cutting exactitude, but throughout, the London producer’s navigating vast territory. There’s always chaos, only here it’s being controlled, used with greater intention. Some tracks might as well have siblings from Doyle’s debut.

‘Entirety’ is the deadly evil twin of ‘Hinterland’’s busied electronic headrush. ‘Turn Away’ gets swept up in similar style to ‘Heaven, How Long’. ‘Beaming White’, however, sounds like the breaking of new ground. Not dissimilar to a Gary Numanpenned classic, it’s the strongest Doyle’s sounded as a songwriter, even if he’s still finding his feet. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘Beaming White’

eeee MEW

+- (Play It Again Sam)

Mew have always dealt in soaring choruses and shiverinducing offerings, and with ‘+-’ that’s no different. Their otherworldly feel, which swoops and glides with every changing note, is still as present as ever on their sixth fulllength, but if anything, their newest album is more diverse. As ever, their music still feels like a familiar old friend. Yet, there are moments where they move into new territory: the guitars that open ‘My Complications’, which instantly announce the arrival of Bloc Party’s Russell Lissack by sounding, well, just like Bloc Party, or when ‘Witness’ sounds as though it’s channelling Interpol, right before Jonas Bjerre’s vocals arrive once more. Mew are unpredictable, and with ‘+-’ they prove, once again, that it’s all for the best. (Sarah Jamieson) Listen: ‘My Complications’

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live THE CRIBS

Electric Ballroom, London Photos: Carolina Faruolo

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“T

hey say London crowds don’t like to dance, but you’re fucking great”, exclaims a gangly Ryan Jarman somehow managing to stand spread eagle between the stage and the crowd…“The Cribs fans are a different breed.”

As the crowd turn ‘Another Number’ into a football chant, the Jarman brothers begin flinging their guitars around the petite stage and stomp on the drum set with an air of sloppy sophistication. Ever the showman, Ryan aggressively pins down the introduction to fan favourite ‘Mirror Kissers’ whilst screaming the chorus in his iconic Wakefield growl and performing jumping jacks as bassist, Gary, uses vocal overlaps.

The trio’s new material from ‘For All My Sisters’, out next month, is sincerely received.

Usually a point when moans would bellow across a venue, in this instance, the crowd are so excited that it doesn’t particularly matter. The new songs sound genuine and concise, like eating marmite straight from the jar. As the audience willingly comply to the demands of a mosh pit for ‘An Ivory Hand’, ‘Summer of Chances’ and ‘Burning For No One’, all possessing idiosyncratic Cribs qualities that still work eleven years after their self-titled debut.

As Ryan apologies for nearly messing up parts of the new material, ‘I’m a Realist’ and ‘Come On and Be A No One’ rile the crowd up as some kind of audio anthem for the youth, whilst the emotional phantasmagoria of ‘Cheat on Me’ sounds as invigorating as it did in 2009. Slamming the mic and mic stand onto the floor during ‘Our Bovine Public’, Ryan commands the entire stage, as he does during the entire performance, in possibly the deepest V-neck t-shirt ever made.

If you had any doubts, don’t, The Cribs definitely still work.

(Joanie Eaton)

METZ

100 Club, London Photo: Carolina Faruolo

T

he sprawling width of London’s 100 Club is full. As Metz take to the battered stage following a jubilant and pointed set from Yung, the room tightens just a little. The mic-check gets a cheer, the drum fill incites a cry of joy - when the Toronto threepiece launch into ‘Dirty Shirt’, chaos erupts.

Two bubbling pits of physicality emerge from the off, separated by a sizeable barrier in the centre of the room, and the frantic energy in both doesn’t waver throughout. Metz run through both well-loved material from their self-titled debut and unheard cuts from their upcoming second LP, but the crowd doesn’t need familiarity to react, Metz are the constant fuse. For new tracks ‘Wait In Line’ and ‘Acetate’, they tease the climb and tug at the crash, adding anticipation to their powerfully frenetic performance. The volume progresses along with their set as with every passing song Metz add another brick to their wall of noise.

“Let’s make this count,” the band demand before set closer, ‘Wet Blanket’ and as the screams of “You’ll never be the same,” bound around the ever-shrinking space, artist and audience are united in their separation. (Ali Shutler)

MARMOZETS

Electric Ballroom, London.

Photo: Sarah Louise Bennett

T

here’s something in the air tonight. A crackle of energy that jumps between the tightly packed crowd as they edge closer to the vacant stage.

Tonight marks the first proper headline show for Marmozets since the release of ‘The Weird and Wonderful Marmozets’ in September of last year. Both audience and artist have been waiting a long time for tonight and from the opening crunch of ‘Move, Shake, Hide’, they make every second count.

The hard-fought celebration of self that sits at the heart of their debut is multiplied many times over as the at-capacity venue is united under chaos. From the cavorting swing of ‘Is It Horrible’ through the roar of ‘Born Young and Free’, the crowd lose themselves. Even wellversed attempts at audience participation fall short of the usual compliance as nature takes over. ‘Captivate You’ should allow for the perfect ‘lighters up’ moment but tonight arms are too busy wrapped around shoulders in support of the emotional blade Marmozets wield while the smoldering fire of ‘Particle’ is too intense for circle pits to breathe.

Never simply leading, Marmozets inspire something primal within their audience. There’s an art in connecting with a room full of people in this manner and tonight is a masterpiece.

‘The Weird and Wonderful Marmozets’ was a huge step up for the Yorkshire five-piece and tonight sees them take another. As the dying hammer blow of ‘Why Do You Hate Me’ rings out, it becomes apparent that despite the evocative response, Marmozets are just getting started. (Ali Shutler)

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YEARS & YEARS

Heaven, London Photo: Abi Dainton

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urmurings about a boyish synth pop trio fronted by an actor turned into chatter early last year. By Christmas it had gathered steam and become buzz, and now, following a handful of immaculately turned out singles, that buzz has turned into a positive furore.

Appearing on their first ever headline tour, Olly, Mikey, and Emre might’ve been slightly taken aback at the sheer hysteria as their impressive lighting rig began pulsating in time with opener ‘Foundation’. The Moog’s throb and Olly’s recognisable drifting vocals coat Heaven’s funnel-like interior, before the atmosphere shatters with the segway into ‘Take Shelter’.

The heady mix of dubby ambience and sing song hooks that permeates their music has Olly gyrating and vibing throughout, centre stage and outwardly beaming. While Emre and Mikey pour diligently over their industrial array of synthesisers, he could just be enjoying himself at the club, but for a clinically measured vocal performance. ‘Desire’ sends the crowd into a spin yet again, while the vocal on new track ‘Ties’ is pure R&B, but draped in Mikey’s arpeggiated synth work, takes on the feel of a club stormer.

As far as formulas go, it’s a wonder nobody tried to contrive this one before. With the lightshow, Heaven’s concentrated sonic environment, and the band’s flawless execution of their glistening catalogue, this is one immersive gig. Years & Years’ songwriting chops are undeniable. All of this wrapped around Olly’s hook laden melodies makes for songs that just refuse to go away. (Louis Haines)

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RAE MORRIS

Electric Brixton, London photo: nathan barnes

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rom the percussive potential of ‘Unguarded’, through the arms-length intimacy of ‘Closer’ until the outstretched celebration of ‘Under The Shadows’, tonight is all about movement. The shoulder dance from behind the piano and the smile that flits across her face, Rae Morris is unwavering.

Backed by an impressive light show and a three-piece band, the quiet beauty of ‘Unguarded’ is amplified, steering it towards moments of twinkling euphoria and downright awe.

Every word is pointed and every pause, deliberate. Fryars, who opened the show in a blitz of thundering electro-pop, joins Rae for rendition of ‘Cold’ with his soulful performance highlighting the lofty heights she conquers with ease.

Rae drives the show with confidence. Her voice is flawless and every track shines under the hues of orange and purple; the only time this wavers is when she allows herself to embrace the occasion. The disbelieving grin as the crowd erupts in applause, her vocal quiver as she tries to express what it all means and her reluctance to leave the stage, as she stands breathing in every moment. Rae Morris is at home in the spotlight and as she leans back, crying out “The only way is up again,” you can’t help but agree. (Ali Shutler)

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INDIE DREAMBOAT Of the Month

JON HOPKINS Full name: Jonathan Hopkins Do you have any nicknames? My dad used to call me Turnip when I was a kid because of the way my hair sprouted amusingly from the top of my head.

Star sign: Leo. Do you have any pets? We had cats when I was growing up. One of them used to piss in my bed though.

Favourite film? Changes between Spirited Away and Mulholland Drive.

Drink of choice? I’m really into hoppy IPAs. Lagunitas or Angelinos when in the USA, anything Brewdog when in the UK. Favourite scent? Toast, coffee, and bacon.

Favourite hair product? My hairdresser sprays this stuff on it that’s supposed to make me look like I’ve been on the beach or just got out of bed or something. It looks quite good.

Song you’d play to woo someone: The idea of having one implies a worrying level of planning. That said, ‘I Believe In You’, by Talk Talk.

If you weren’t a pop star, what would you be doing now? A failed graphic designer.

Chat-up line of choice? I’ve never thought about one in advance and the day that I do, I promise to stop talking to girls.

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3-DAY TICKETS FROM £55

10TH BIRTHDAY YEAR

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EACH TICKET IS EXCHANGED FOR A FESTIVAL WRISTBAND ALLOWING ACCESS TO CORE PROGRAMME VENUES, SUBJECT TO CAPACITY. TO ACCESS THE BRIGHTON DOME CONCERT HALL SHOWS AND THURSDAY NIGHT BRIGHTON DOME CORN EXCHANGE SHOW. TOP UP YOUR FESTIVAL WRISTBAND FOR £8 PER SHOW, WOR PURCHASE SEPARATE GIG TICKETS. *IN ASSOCIATION WITH BRIGHTON FESTIVAL.

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T H E S TAV E S IF I WAS

T H E S TAV E S IF I WAS

The New Album 23rd March Includes Blood I Bled and Black & White

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