DIY, April 2020

FREE • APRIL 2020 • ISSUE 95 DIYMAG.COM

& Pale Waves Glass Animals Perfume Genius Pottery Riz Ahmed

H O W B I F F Y C LY R O FOUND HOPE IN THE DARKNESS 1

Are you a

Musician

in need?

For almost one hundred years, Help Musicians has been making a meaningful difference to the lives of musicians.

There has rarely been a time where that has been as important as it is now.

If you are a musician affected by COVID-19, visit the dedicated site coronamusicians.info for advice and support.

Find out more about how our charity is helping music creators during this difficult time, as well as our extensive regular support offers in times of crisis and opportunity, at helpmusicians.org.uk. @HelpMusiciansUK @HelpMusiciansUK @helpmusicians

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APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL Listening Post APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL Question!

APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL Editor’s Letter APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL APRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRILAPRIL What’s been worming its way around DIY’s collective ear-holes this month?

GAL GADOT AND FRIENDS - ‘IMAGINE’

“Imagine what me and all my famous friends could do to help this horrible coronavirus,” muses Hollywood superstar and current Wonder Woman Gal Gadot.

“Can you just imagine…” And thus began a cringingly misguided attempt at, we’re guessing… raising the national spirit (?) that tried to be Band Aid but ended up more like an earnest musical Human Centipede, with added Jennifer Aniston.

JOE EXOTIC ‘I SAW A TIGER’

With gigs, festivals and general outside fun all off the cards for a bit, we ask, what things (aside from records ofc) are keeping the DIY team sane right now?

SARAH JAMIESON • Managing Editor

A sly combination of baking, Zoom pub quizzes and deliberating whether to get Disney+.

EMMA SWANN • Founding Editor Pals; a best first week of March; that I’ve got film development gear at home and chocolate. Far too much chocolate.

LISA WRIGHT • Features Editor

I have become a fully fledged domestic goddess: come at me for baked goods, sewing, fancy cocktails etc. Also shout out to Self Esteem’s daily begrudging workout: a level of exercise I can get on board with.

LOUISE MASON • Art Director My guardian property living is rapidly moving away from Crashing and more into Ballard’s High Rise. All fun and games until someone eats your dog.

ELLY WATSON • Digital Editor

Tiger King is the only thing filling my thoughts these days. Did Carole actually feed her husband to the tigers? (Yes). Does Joe Exotic’s music secretly slap? (Also yes). Will the producer who crafted the dramatic cut to that guy on a jet-ski with ‘Eye Of The Tiger’ playing win a BAFTA? (If there is a God). #FreeJoeExotic.

God bless our almighty ruler Netflix for blessing us with Tiger King: the brilliant, baffling, genuinely insane doc that’s held the world captive, much like a big cat in Joe Exotic’s enclosure. If you’ve watched it, you’ll know that Joe also has a sideline singing career: of course he does. Get yourself a problematic mustachioed zoo owner that can do both.

THE POLICE - ‘DON’T STAND SO CLOSE TO ME’

GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM ME MAN! TWO METRES!!

THERE’S A LINE FOR A REASON!!!

JESUS CHRIST!

What can we say? The past few weeks have been a real rollercoaster and if one thing is clear it’s that these uncertain times are not over yet. At least we have a whole new issue for you to dive into. When we first started making our April issue, the coronavirus pandemic felt like something way off on the horizon, but by the time we put the mag to bed, things have very much changed. Some of the releases we were covering in this issue have been pushed back, while others are going to be solely released digitally for now. As a team, we’ve tried to react to every new challenge and stay focused on one thing: making a bloody great magazine in spite of all this. And we think we’ve got it nailed.

Yes, this issue will feel a little different to usual, and you won’t be picking it up from one of our beloved stockists, but we promise that you’ll be able to as soon as this is all over. A huge thanks to all the artists featured in these pages - especially our brilliant cover stars Biffy Clyro - as well as all of YOU. Thanks for supporting us through this bizarre time in history. We’ll see you next month!

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

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Shout out to: Eva Pental and Sub Rosa studio for the hospitality and amazing photos, Simmons bar in King Cross, all at New Colossus festival and the absolutely heroes that stepped in to save the day, Dev at SXSW (next year!), all at the British Music Embassy for their last-minute replacement and killer live streaming skills, all the bands who’ve helped make DIYsolation so far so much fun (stay tuned!) and all of you lot who are helping keep the dream alive during this strange, strange time.

NEWS 6 Glass Animals 12 Pale Waves 15 Hall of Fame 16 Riz Ahmed NEU 20 Lynks Afrikka 22 R ecommended 24 Caro Features 26 Biffy Clyro 34 Purity Ring 36 Pottery 40 Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs 42 Perfume Genius R eviews 46 Albums 54 Live

Founding Editor Emma Swann Managing Editor Sarah Jamieson Features Editor Lisa Wright Digital Editor Elly Watson Art Direction & Design Louise Mason Contributors Ben Tipple, Cady Siregar, Felix Rowe, Gemma Samways, Jack Johnstone Orr, James Bentley, Jenessa Williams, Joe Goggins, Martin Toussaint, Nick Harris, Rob Hakimian, Rosie Hewitson, Sean Kerwick, Tom Sloman, Will Richards, Will Strickson

The cheek of it!

Photographers Andrew Benge, Eva Pentel, Gaelle Beri, Jenn Five, Patrick Gunning All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of DIY. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which DIY holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of DIY or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.

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Cover photo: Eva Pentel This page: Jenn Five For DIY editorial: info@diymag.com For DIY sales: advertise@diymag.com For DIY stockist enquiries: stockists@diymag.com DIY HQ, Unit K309, The Biscuit Factory, 100 Drummond Road, London SE16 4DG

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WHEN DRUMMER JOE SEAWARD WAS INVOLVED IN A TRAUMATIC ACCIDENT BACK IN 2018, THE FUTURE OF GLASS ANIMALS SEEMED UNCERTAIN. LESS THAN TWO YEARS LATER, HOWEVER, THE BAND ARE BACK WITH A NEW OUTLOOK, A THIRD ALBUM IN THE PIPELINE, AND A RENEWED SENSE OF OPTIMISM. WORDS: JENESSA WILLIAMS.

Animal Magnetism

D

ave Bayley has a lot to feel grateful for. Back in his native America, his band are about to play another night on their comeback tour, the same venues they visited on their first US trip. He's stocked up on his favourite canned cheese, and his bandmates are doing well. Life at the helm of Glass Animals is back on track, and if the hordes of fans camping outside overnight are anything to go by, they've been thoroughly missed.

"It's fucking crazy," he laughs. "We've been away for a minute, and you put tickets on sale never knowing if people will buy them. But it sells out in a couple of seconds, and you still have tons of extra people showing up on the night to try and get tickets on the door. People are so nice; we've been trying to get out there and hang out with people and thank them for camping out and waiting.

It's been amazing, and really heart-warming especially for Joe's confidence. It just gets you excited for the rest of what's to come."

The successful return of a beloved band is always a special moment, but its occurrence is not always a certainty, and until fairly recently, a new Glass Animals record was looking highly unlikely. While out riding his bike before a show in the summer of 2018, drummer Joe Seaward was hit by a truck, fracturing his skull and rendering him incapable of speech or movement. The rest of the tour was cancelled, and the band were brought to a standstill at the height of their success, beginning the slow but steady process of teaching Joe to walk, talk and drum again. Against all odds, however, he’s back behind the kit a mere 18 months later, learning to adjust to a new way of touring.

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“Part of this new music is about realising how lucky we are, and running with that.” - Dave Bayley

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"He's doing a lot better, but it's still hard emotionally," Dave explains. "You just want to do absolutely everything again - wake up, go for a big run, do interviews, meet fans, do the show. It's a really long day, and he's maybe not able to do as much of that in the same way as before. You definitely realise it after the first couple of shows, and you have to re-evaluate a few things."

This process of complete life re-evaluation has also changed the outlook of their musical direction. As the band's lead songwriter and producer, the singer was already working on new ideas for another character-driven record when the accident occurred, sharply altering his lyrical perspective.

"I've always liked quite conceptual projects, and I did have a theme in my head for this new record; it was all about happiness and how that manifests," he explains. "But then suddenly, Joe was in the hospital. I obviously spent a lot of time there, and you're worried and exhausted and surrounded by a lot of dark things, and it makes you feel very reflective. You think about all the mistakes you've made, all the shitty things you've done… I think that's when the more personal approach started. I just started asking the questions that I asked of people on the last record about myself a bit, and this new record has evolved to become more introspective."

Looking inwards hasn't compromised any of the band's trademark upbeat sonic energy. Latest single ‘Your Love (Déjà Vu)’ is a slinky, slippery number that sits comfortably among their best work, summoning early ‘00s R&B to craft something that feels effortlessly Glass Animals. Once again finding himself drawn towards the personal, its origins began from his work outside of the band - producing songs for a range of pop and hip hop artists including Joey Bada$$, Flume, 6lack and Suzi Wu. "I had it as a beat first. I was working with Suzi and it was an idea I had with her in the back of my head," he explains. "With writing for other people, you're able to write quite powerful stuff but be removed by one degree.

As a Glass Animals song, it's pretty dark; it's about being in a relationship with somebody who you know is just going to rip your heart out over and over again, but you're kind of addicted to the pain of it. It doesn't necessarily need to be a romantic relationship - it can be a mate, or a family member. I think a lot of people have those relationships with family members, or grew up in a chaotic household and find a weird comfort from trying to repeat that environment in later life…" He pauses. "Maybe I'm looking too far into it!"

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To combat his tendency for overthinking, Dave has built a brand new character for himself. Introduced to the world on ‘Tokyo Drifting’, the band's 2019 single featuring US rapper Denzel Curry, Wavey Davey has become his new alter-ego: the alpha-male he can rely on in a crisis.

we were going to do a couple of festivals together too, but with this coronavirus I don't really know what's happening with festivals now. I love being alone though, it's a good excuse to sit in the studio and make some noise. I might get six albums out of this…"

"My regular body is that of a skinny, scrawny, blond Jewish child, but Wavey Davey has grotesque fitness levels," he says. "It's just a confidence thing - I'm a pretty shy person, and I do find being on stage a bit awkward sometimes.

The only way to really shake that is to pretend to be somebody else; it kind of doesn't matter what you do when you're in that persona, because you can blame it on that person. There's also the thing of handling more production work outside of the band. There's a lot of meeting new people and working with them quite quickly, so you have to try and be a baller."

But whether the result is six albums or one, Glass Animals are just grateful to be back in the saddle once more. "I do feel incredibly lucky to be able to keep doing this," Dave agrees. "Joe's accident… we thought it was done. But part of this new music is about realising how lucky

No such baller bravado was needed in the studio with Denzel, who Dave hit it off with immediately. "We

“This new record has evolved to become more introspective.” Dave Bayley we are, and running with that.

just connected on all the late ‘90s / early 2000s culture: we grew up in America at the same time, we've seen all the same movies and cartoons, we've eaten all the same food,” he enthuses. “I find that when you have a bit of a shared background in some way with somebody, that's when the best things happen.

“I don't think we'd ever let anyone else be on a Glass Animals album, but that track will probably make it - although I'm not really supposed to be talking about the album yet…” he notes. “We're doing a couple of shows together, and

“We'll see what comes,” he continues, “it could still be an album of weeping!

I really try to write sad songs, but I always get distracted by a funky beat. But then that's kind of what all great songs do. If you listen to Motown or Northern Soul, it's all really fucking sad, but then it'll have this heavy-ass beat. I've always liked that juxtaposition. It'll be a record that is definitely introspective, maybe even sad in places. But overall, it's something very optimistic." DIY

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NE WS SHOW ME THE PUPPY WE LOVE DOGS. YOU LOVE DOGS. HERE ARE SOME POPSTARS’ DOGS.

This month: Nilüfer Yanya

Name: Coco Age: 8 years old Breed: Jack Russell / Chihuahua mix Favourite Things: Food, sleeping in the sun, sleeping under blankets, sleeping on anything soft.

Tell Us A Fact About Your Dog: Coco used to be best friends with a little guinea pig called Moo who lived in a cage… poor Moo!

WHAT A LEDGE THE UK MUSIC COMMUNITY

On the

‘Gram These days, even yer gran is posting selfies on Instagram. Instagran, more like. Everyone has it now, including all our fave bands. Here’s a brief catch-up on music’s finest photo-taking action as of late.

Day six in quarantine house, and Charli’s attempts to join The Blue Man Group weren’t going that well. (@charlixcx)

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ormally, we like to devote this section to something fun and silly - Flume’s Burning Man exploits or Matty Healy’s latest escapades - but this month there’s nobody who deserves our sincere admiration more than the wealth of absolute heroes DIY surrounds ourselves with (two metres apart at all times, of course) on a daily basis. It’s been a horrible month: one that’s seen tours and festivals fall like dominoes; artists, venues and labels left in financial limbo, and essentially the whole industry thrown into panic mode. But rather than sit back and give up, we’ve witnessed a fighting spirit and sense of community shine through that truly shows why the UK music scene is one of the world’s finest. To everyone harnessing these new challenges creatively and compassionately in the face of adversity, we raise a glass to you. Here’s hoping we can all drink it at a bloody brilliant gig together before too long.

S P OT T E D

We’re not saying Diplo has a Jesus complex, but… (@diplo)

Believe it or not, pop and rock stars sometimes do normal things, too. They get lost, go food shopping, and catch buses – all sorts. This month - before we all got locked in - we clocked a fair few of them roaming around…

James Murphy buying some wine in New York (!); Alexa Chung strolling down the street in a different bit of NYC; an enviable party group inc. Baxter Dury, Lias Fat White Family and Oli from Yak watching their pal Jarvis Cocker’s London show.

How to win at self-isolation, pt 1. (@selfesteemselfesteem)

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A B I L L I O N H E A RTB EATS ST RE A M T H E N E W A L B U M O U T NO W PRE -ORDE R T H E P H Y S I C A L A L B U M O U T JU NE

★★★★

★★★★

★★★★

DIY

DORK

Q

“ONE OF THE MOST ESSENTIAL INDIE ALBUMS OF RECENT YEARS” GIGWISE 9/10

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In The Studio with…

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Pale Waves

FINISHING UP WORK ON A “VULNERABLE” SECOND ALBUM, SOME FRANK AND DIFFICULT CONVERSATIONS HAD TO BE HAD IN CAMP PALE WAVES TO LEAD THE BAND INTO A STARKLY HONEST NEW ERA. “I KNEW I HAD TO EMBRACE MYSELF AND GIVE MYSELF TO PEOPLE MORE,” HEATHER BARON-GRACIE TELLS US. WORDS: WILL RICHARDS.

“M

e and Ciara wrote a bunch of demos, and I just wasn't connecting to them,” begins Heather Baron-Gracie. “We were having difficulties and clashing a bit on where we should take this next album.

“Me and Ciara…” she pauses, letting out a deep exhale. “I respect her so much and I think she's so talented. But we both like different music. She loves pop - like, pure pop. I love alternative rock, country. She hates all that… Well, she doesn't hate it, but that's not her cup of tea really. We were butting heads, and I decided that I needed to go away alone to write the album.”

Speaking about the genesis of their hugely-awaited, forthcoming second LP, having just played a series of arena shows in support of pop sensation Halsey, Pale Waves’ recent artistic trajectory might be slightly more rocky than you’d expect for a band who, objectively, have smashed it so far. Heather describes the conversations as being “really tough” on her bandmate. “She really took it to heart and thought that I didn't want to write with her anymore,” she recalls. “She said, 'Do you not respect me anymore? Do you not think I'm talented?’”

“Ciara is honestly going to be an amazing producer one day,” Heather continues, firmly. “She’s already started creating tracks for different people, which is really cool. But this album is poppy, but it's also very alternative; it's very rock and it's very raw. It's not very dressed up in a lot of production.

We needed that space from one another, and it's actually made us closer.”

some fancy metaphors to hide behind. It's me talking about things that are going on in society, and things about me that people might find uncomfortable. The subject matter is a lot more intense, but really important.”

The band have been playing new track ‘Tomorrow’ live on tour recently. An alt-rock banger, the song’s verse harbours a lyric - “sexuality isn’t a choice” - that’s set to become the crux of the album. It was also painted onto the back of Heather’s jacket when the band sold out London’s Kentish Town Forum last autumn.

“This is my time to really speak up about my sexuality, and be open about it,” Heather says, referring to another new track ‘She’s My Religion’, which she teased on social media recently with the caption ‘gay anthem’. “That's what's so different with this second album,” she continues. “I'm a lot more open about that, and I feel like it's going to really help the fans too.

We have so many gay and queer fans and you need a place to go and to feel connected, and I can [provide] that. I might as well speak the truth with what's going on in my life.”

“THIS IS MY TIME TO REALLY SPEAK UP ABOUT MY SEXUALITY, AND BE OPEN ABOUT IT.” - Heather Baron-Gracie

Decamping to Los Angeles on her own, Heather says the decision changed the course of the album, and led the band to make what she describes as “the best thing we've ever created”.

Indeed, the singer speaks of Pale Waves’ future with the same confidence and swagger that she’s developed on stage over the last year. “That first album has given us this foundation, and done so much for us,” she reflects. “It's got us to where we are now. But I'm just excited to release the second album, because this second album... it’s just something else.

“It's a beast of its own kind,” she beams. “It's a lot more open, and I’m less hidden. It's a lot more vulnerable; I actually sound like I have a voice in this. I've talked about real shit that's happening with the world, it's not just a few romantic songs with

“I'm a very closed-off person, and I don't really like opening up,” she continues. “The only time I'll open up is in the music.

[On album two] I knew I had to embrace myself and give myself to people more in the music.

That's what I did on this album.

There are so many gay anthems!”

If the Manchester quartet’s new effort does what Heather hopes and believes - it should, then the as-yet-untitled release should turn Pale Waves into bona fide big time stars, ones who really mean something to an increasingly large amount of people. Yet, though the singer is still as likeable as those early days, timidly playing ‘There’s A Honey’ to crowds far larger than their minimal experience, there’s an undeniable confidence to her now, too.

“I do reflect when I'm in bed at night,” she admits, “I’ll see a picture or video of our last UK headline tour, and think, 'Oh my god, that is crazy!'. We've played with each other to no-one, and then one day I've looked out and there's thousands of people on so many tiers, screaming my lyrics back at me,” she beams.

“I just think, 'How the fuck did this happen?!' And we're only on our first album! Wait 'til they hear the second one... It's gonna shake the world up.” diy

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HAVE YOU HEARD? HAVE YOU HEARD? DIYMAG.COM

When The Killers last launched an album, they did so with ’The Man’, a track possessing the most arrogant and flirtatious of struts. Three years on, they’re returning with ‘Imploding The Mirage’, and its lead single is infectious (erk) in an entirely different way. Harking back to their synth-rock days of old, ‘Caution’ is a glorious call-to-arms, a rousing offering that taps into their love of dusty desert storytelling and massive pop hooks. A hopeful pick-me-up if we ever needed one, this one’s a certified banger, to say the least. (Sarah Jamieson)

THE MAGIC GANG - WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO LOSE

DREAM WIFE - SPORTS

Following the announcement of second album ‘Death of the Party’, The Magic Gang have shared slow-burner ‘What Have You Got To Lose’. Building from the smoothness of the verses into a characteristically huge, punchy and euphoric Magic Gang chorus, the song explores internal vulnerabilities felt when the world keeps spinning on seemingly without you. Yet another example of the quartet’s skill at crafting perfect pop songs, it’s the latest glimpse into the follow-up of their 2018 self-titled debut. Can’t wait lads.

(Elly Watson)

Miserable school PE lessons might not have made sports seem like particularly fertile creative ground, but in recent years indie has attempted to prove otherwise. Sports Team named their band after them, Viagra Boys made a certified classic in 2018, and now Dream Wife have kicked off an entire campaign with an ode to athletic pursuits.

‘Sports!’ is not, of course, actually about a nice game of tennis though; intoning various cliches over fizzing, tightly-wound guitars, the trio are actually making a comment about the relentlessness of modern life.

Or maybe it’s just a fun song with some good chanty bits. Either way, it works. (Lisa Wright)

PROTOMARTYR - PROCESSED

BY THE BOYS

PERFUME GENIUS ON THE FLOOR

There is something eerily prescient about the start of ‘Processed By The Boys’: “When the ending comes, is it gonna run at us like a wild-eyed animal? / A foreign disease washed upon the beach?” Protomartyr’s Joe Casey goes on to build a world where “everybody’s hunted with a smile”, its imagery blossoming gruesomely in a soundscape that features rising and ebbing walls of caustic guitars, underscored by disembodied saxophones that wail like the souls of the lost. “They’ll be gentle enough / gentle enough,” Casey signs off - but it’s forlorn hope in a world that has none left.

(Rob Hakimian)

Mike Hadreas is no longer a timid man hiding behind a keyboard. The journey’s been gradual and gorgeous to watch, and with the advent of fifth LP ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’, there are even more changes afoot. ‘On The Floor’ is the closest version of a straight-up pop song that he’s ever penned. The chintzy keys are straight out of a Stevie Wonder number, while the sugary chorus climax is pure ‘60s girl group. It ends with an angelic piano flutter, as Mike hums a sort of heavenly ‘Winner Takes It All’ melody.

It’s almost certainly a coincidence, but it’s an appropriate one; in his latest incarnation, Perfume Genius is striking gold. (Lisa Wright)

HAVE YOU HEARD? HAVE YOU HEARD?

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THE KILLERS - CAUTION

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Fame

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Them Crooked Vultures – Them Crooked Vultures What happens when you bring Josh Homme, Dave Grohl and John Paul-Jones together for one brief-but-beautiful year? A monster of an album that proves exactly what supergroups are for. Words: Lisa Wright.

Imagine, if you will for one moment, a scene. It’s a balmy summer’s evening, late August 2009. You’ve got a hot ticket in your sweaty little paws, one that’ll get you down front for Arctic Monkeys’ Brixton Academy warm-up show ahead of their soon-tobe-conquering Reading Festival headline. You’re waiting impatiently to see what will happen; as yet, there’s been a tantalising gap left where a support artist should be. And then, out walks QOTSA’s Josh Homme, Foo Fighters’ Dave Grohl and Led Zeppelin’s John Paul-Jones: three of the most beloved men from three of the most beloved rock bands in history. They’ve got a new band. And by Christ they sound good.

Such was the way that Them Crooked Vultures – the supergroup to end all modern rock supergroups – made their first steps in the UK at the tail end of the ‘00s. Teased offhandedly over the previous years by its members, it seemed like the kind of riffy wet dream that would never actually come to fruition.

Yet, three months later, they’d release a self-titled debut (and, to date, only) record that lived up to every shred of the hefty promise that three musical heavyweights could command.

If, from Lou Reed and Metallica’s iffy ‘Lulu’ to The Flaming Lips and Deap Vally’s recent underwhelming ‘Deap Lips’, a notable collaboration

THE

FACTS

Released: 13 November 2009 Standout tracks: ‘Dead End Friends’, ‘New Fang’, ‘Bandoliers’ Tell your mates: During the making of the record, Dave developed a mad level caffeine habit (as eulogised in viral vid ‘Fresh Pots’) and subsequently had to go to hospital.

doesn’t always add up to the sum of its parts, then ‘Them Crooked Vultures’ was the polar opposite: a record that took the meat and heft associated with its participants, and added new grooves and the kind of spontaneous fun only ever created by a bunch of freshly excited pals. Single ‘New Fang’ slunk by on jagged, prowling basslines, ‘Reptiles’ was the sexiest product of a light-night jam out there, while ‘Elephants’ was essentially exactly what you’d get if you wrote a Queens-Zep hybrid.

In lesser, more self-congratulatory hands, it could have been an album of glorified one-upmanship; three men at the top of their class vying for the spotlight. But, much like Josh’s famous Desert Sessions, Them Crooked Vultures was an exercise in curating the perfect party guests and then letting the good times unfold.

Then came a brief tour and a few notable live shows (an early Reading and Leeds spot; a gig at the Royal Albert Hall for Teenage Cancer Trust), and then – less than a year later - it was all over as quickly as it had begun. Since their last shows in mid-2010, there’s been vague talk of a follow-up; the group, after all, never split, they just stopped. But whether they reconvene for Round Two or leave it as one brief moment of magic, TCV’s is a combined pedigree that’s up there with the true greats. DIY

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End of the Road

LAST MONTH, ACCLAIMED ACTOR AND SWET SHOP BOYS FRONTMAN RIZ AHMED DROPPED SURPRISE ALBUM ‘THE LONG GOODBYE’. A COMMENT ON BREXIT AND RACIAL TENSION IN BRITAIN, HE EXPLAINS WHY HE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO REACT. WORDS: SEAN KERWICK.

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hen anybody from the world of Hollywood crosses over into the world of music, it's hard not to raise a doubting eyebrow. But for Riz Ahmed, the Emmy-winning star of The Night Of, Star Wars and Four Lions, it’s where it all began. Having cut his teeth on London’s freestyle rap battle grounds, building a reputation under his Riz MC moniker, it was music that was his primary passion before he turned acting pro.

In 2016, his collaboration with US rapper Heems and producer Redinho as Swet Shop Boys cemented his rapping chops, with ‘Cashmere’ - their first and only album to date - becoming a deserved critical hit. But it wasn’t until very recently with the surprise drop of ‘The Long Goodbye’ - a 15-track solo album and accompanying short film - that Riz decided to put his birth name to a project.

relationship in turmoil suggests there must have been something resembling a sweet spot at some point. “Something snapped, especially with all the dogwhistle racism in the Brexit campaign,” he agrees, pausing for a moment. “The picture’s always mixed though isn’t it? It’s been a really mixed bag for a long time and, after a while, you’re like, ‘How much more can I stomach before we sit down and have a real conversation?’”

As such, Riz turned back to music to allow his unfiltered voice to participate in the conversation he felt the need to instigate. “Music offers a more direct line to my head,” he explains. “As an actor, I can express raw and personal feelings but they’re also mediated through other people’s visions. This album isn’t a thesis

Later, ‘Any Day’ featuring Jay Sean unravels the phone-lit revelations of a late-night social media stalk in a smooth slice of moody pop. “I was looking at your pics today / Self-centred I was always edge of frame / But when it’s blame game I'm the one you want to frame.”

The one-liners are bountiful as they bubble and froth atop instrumentals indebted to Qawwali music - a consistent source of inspiration for the musician.

“It’s Pakistani-Muslim music that dates back to the 12th century,” he explains.

“It’s like gospel-jazz in the way that it’s emotional. It’s highly improvised, quite punk and uses a lot of metaphors. It’s where I borrowed the idea of being separated and heartbroken from a beloved who is not actually a person.”

Besides providing a vibrant palette for the album, however, it also offered a more personal connection for Riz. “Qawwali singers tell stories through spoken word which closely resembles double-time rapping,” he says.

“It became a lineage I could tap into. It can be really emboldening for an artist to discover these templates that you can draw from, particularly when so much of our personal experiences and creative blueprints are just being articulated now as children of immigrants.”

“Racial tension affects me on a psychological, emotional and interpersonal level.”

“It’s not something I need to be doing,” he explains over the phone with hyperspeed diction. “I have this other career, and the only reason I want to spend considerable time and energy making music for comparatively minimal financial return - and expose myself to scrutiny in the process - is because I feel I HAVE to do it. There are things I want to say that aren’t being said and I feel like I can express it in a way that contributes something fresh - that’s always the driving force.”

The resulting LP is a startling, no-holdsbarred take on our divided times that finds Riz meditating on the “breakup” from his country, who he sporadically personifies as ‘Brittney’ throughout: “Britain’s broken up with me / We had our ups / But now it’s broken down / Lemme break down the whole fuckery,” begins the record with a loaded, anguished snarl on ‘The Breakup (Shikwa)’.

Framing the piece around a toxic

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on race relations; I’m addressing things as a personal matter. This is my personal reality. Things like racial tension and the atmosphere in our society affects me on a psychological, emotional and interpersonal level.

“Part of what the album is saying is, ‘Yeah, we are to some extent born from trauma’,” he continues, “‘Yes, to some extent our identities are defined by resisting oppression’. But we’re also more than that. We’re love and beauty.”

Though only running to 27 minutes, the album densely loads its wares throughout, packing tracks with passages of spoken-word, singing, star-studded skits featuring the likes of Mindy Kaling and Mahershala Ali and razor-sharp rhymes like on ‘Toba Tek Singh’, where he puts Brittney in the firing line: “Allow kids they raised on your hate / Don’t be shocked when they retaliate”.

By shedding the masks worn during his day-job, ‘The Long Goodbye’ reverberates with raw, tangible emotion that carries across to the album’s accompanying visual clip: a jaw-dropping piece which finds humble domesticity ransacked at the hands of racist Britain. ”It’s my uncensored, unapologetically messy self in all facets,” says Riz. As the hook for ‘Fast Lava’ affirms, “I spit my truth and it’s brown.”

‘The Last Goodbye’ is out now via Mongrel Records. DIY

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Merch Special: The Hit List In the market for more than just new music? We’ve got you covered. Now, we’d normally use this spot to point you towards some fancy new shoes or a big bottle of gin, but you know what? There’s no-one who needs your hard-earned pennies right now more than the artists that fill these pages and give us all daily joy. Support your favourite bands, and get your mitts on these.

CARO TOTE BAG

Tag yourself on this bag of faces, c/o Neu additions Caro. We’re second from the left on the top with the big eye. That’s how we find all these lovely new talents.

RRP: £8 Buy it: carotheband.bandcamp.com

PURITY RING LONGSLEEVED TOP Stardew Valley is a video game, apparently. We wouldn’t know. Video games are for NERDS (jk). Subtly rep the console, while masquerading as a band stan, with Purity Ring’s latest line.

RRP: $35 (approx £30) Buy it: purityring.kungfustore.com

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PALE WAVES HOODIE

Our mind makes noises, too.

It says things like, “Why am I still hungry?” and “Dear god, you animal, ffs stop eating”.

Which is almost certainly what Heather & co are referring to on this natty hoodie.

RRP: £30 Buy it: store.dirtyhit.co.uk

GLASS ANIMALS BEANIE

Keep your bonce nice and toasty with this delightful teal green affair. Just because you’re not allowed to go outside - DON’T GO OUTSIDE - doesn’t mean you can’t be winter-proof indoors.

RRP: £15 Buy it: shop.glassanimals. com

SWET SHOP BOYS CAP

PERFUME GENIUS BAG

Riz Ahmed’s solo merch is so in demand, it’s already sold out. But you can still harness some BTE (Big Tiger Energy) by scooping up his other project, Swet Shop Boys’, cap.

RRP: £29.99 Buy it: swetshopboys.com

Pledge your allegiance to both Mike Hadreas and not buying single-use plastic bags with this roomy, reusable black shoulder number.

Genius!

RRP: $15 (approx £12.50) Buy it: perfumegenius. storeenvy.com

POTTERY HOODIE

PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS T-SHIRT

Designed by the band’s own Paul Jacobs, Pottery’s merch is a two-fer. Don’t wear it when you’re actually doing pottery though; clay’s a NIGHTMARE to get off black fabric.

RRP: $35 (approx £30) Buy it: pottery.bandcamp. com

Mowgli was raised by jungle animals; the human baby on this shirt is being raised by 7 small bovine pals. We see no world in which this won’t spawn a lovable film sequel.

RRP: £9 Buy it: pigspigspigspigspigspigspigs.bandcamp.com

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NEU new bands new music

Lynks Afrikka Taking anxiety to the club and proving that most things are best served with a side of humour, Lynks Afrikka is putting on a party, and everyone’s invited.

Words: Lisa Wright.

Photo: Jenn Five.

“I'm worried Lynx Africa are going to sue me and I don't even want to be called Lynks Afrikka anymore because it's only called that in England, so everywhere else I just look like this random white drag queen with Africa in their name,” grimaces Elliot Brett - the man behind the pink knitted mask. “I could be called something else in different territories, but it's called Axe Africa abroad... That's a lot worse...”

It's the second potential lawsuit that’s cropped up in conversation today; having sampled a calming mantra from the Headspace app on recent single 'On Trend', he's now gunning for a brand collab to stop the men in suits from coming a'knocking (“I'm happy to wear a bodysuit with the Headspace logo on it?! Let's not fight. I use your app! Don't @ me!”). But really, they'd be fools to sever their ties with the 23-year-old performer anyway. Making some of the most fun, smart, hilarious yet subtly provocative music around, and throwing a joyous party wherever he goes, Lynks Afrikka is exactly the kind of ambassador for living unapologetically that any selfhelp app could hope for.

is this a critique of the dairy industry? Is it a sex thing?! Get your mind out of the sewers! But sex sells you know. 3,000 plays on Spotify, cash that £8 in.”

Stating that “the whole idea of [Lynks Afrikka] is to make the most entertaining show I can, which to me is dance music, comedy, costume... layering every single thing that's entertaining and interesting”, and aiming to pack one-liners and gags into every track (“calibrate my chakras / call me Chakra Khan” goes 'On Trend'), it'd be easy to peg the singer as purely an entertainer, one drawing from drag and the club kids of the ‘90s to make one uniquely anarchic, arresting package. But there's meaning behind the mask, too; just by existing as his lipstick-smeared, anxiety-narrating self, he's occupying a space that's traditionally not been acknowledged by the wider world.

“We're only seeing queer archetypes in the mainstream right now. Queer Eye, for example, are the most put-together, almost inhumanly-perfect people. We're never seeing imperfect queer people, and when we do show them, they're kind of torn apart,” he says. “So I'm trying to show the rough edges and the insecurity. Gay people are always the fairy godmother, or the godmother fairy, but sometimes it's really fucking hard being gay.

“The whole idea of Lynks Afrikka is to make the most entertaining show I can.“

Starting out making “shit house music” and “sad boy indie pop”, it wasn't until one fateful night at a house party that Lynks was truly born. “Musicians always have that bank of random shit on their laptop that's too weird to use, but one day my mate asked if I wanted to do a set at a party so I thought fuck it, and took that as my in,” he begins.

“I did a Kate Bush cover and a song called 'Why Aren't You Dancing?' which was just me shouting “Why aren't you dancing?!?!” over a beat that got more intense over five minutes. That song was actually great,” he muses. “I should release that song.”

In that first set was also 'Don't Take It Personal' - a series of scatter-gun rhymes over propulsive beats, about acting erratically under stress - and recently-released track 'How To Make A Bechamel Sauce in 10 Steps (with Pictures)' which is... well, exactly that. “There is nothing deeper to it than this: I had the beat, and one of the tabs I had open on Google was 'how to make a bechamel sauce in ten steps, with pictures', and the heavens opened and the light shone on my face, and that was it,” he narrates. “People are trying to find deeper meaning, like, 20

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“People make jokes about stuff they're scared of and you can see that in my music,” he continues.

“You take the big bad wolf and dress it up as a clown and then it's not scary anymore. No wait, actually that would be terrifying. A wolf clown would be horrible! Ignore that! But if you take the scary thing and put a humorous spin on it, then now whenever I think about the impending ecological collapse of the world, I'm like, 'Lol, I made that funny song!'”

In person, as in song and on stage, Lynks Afrikka is incapable of resisting a gag; he's endlessly charismatic and a natural entertainer, with that most integral of ingredients - a vulnerable side. But he's also onto something fresh and ridiculously exciting, and you sense he sort of knows he's struck gold, too.

“I basically saw Lynks Afrikka in my head - this mad Leigh Bowery-esque creature jumping all over the stage being the maddest MC ever - and it was such an easy thing that hadn't happened yet,” he grins. “And when you think of something that should have happened that hasn't then it's like, well, I guess I've got to do it now!” DIY

Outfit by: David Bates (@davidsabunny)

Lynks hadn’t quite understood the concept of a bottomless brunch.

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FAUX REAL

SPOORT

NORMAN

Franco-American duo making earwormy synth pop bops.

Super new Midlanders landing with a swagger.

Bristol-based newbies crafting weirdly wonderful sounds

Favouring matching outfits, fevered onstage choreography and an aesthetic straight out of an ‘80s sci-fi film, Faux Real – the project of French-Americans Elliott and Virgile Arndt (brothers?

Lovers? Who knows...) - have already got a whole vibe going, despite only recently releasing single #2. Following on from sparkling, Teleman-esque debut ‘Second Sweat’, that newie’s a winner too: a woozy, dreamlike slowie that MGMT wouldn’t sniff at.

If mouthy oiks The Rhythm Method hailed from the Midlands and got really into Jungle (the band, not the genre), you might end up with something along the lines of Spoort’s recently-released new track ‘Self’. Roughly intoning its repeated counterculture mantra “turn on, tune in, drop out” over a chorus of big, lush production, theirs is an unusual juxtaposition but an intriguing one. Keep an ear out for their self-titled debut EP, which drops at the end of May.

Listen: ‘Boss Sweet’ is their most recent offering.

Similar to: The ‘80s and the future having a party.

Listen: ‘Self’ is your only nugget for now.

Similar to: A modern update of the ‘90s baggy tribe.

A cacophony of wind instruments, punchy spoken word, thrashing guitars and crashing cymbals, topped off with some melodic vocals, thrown together and played over the top of each other could sound like a recipe for disaster, but Bristolian quintet Norman are making something delicious. Already getting a rep for a live show that packs a punch, their recent mixtape ‘Songs From The Basement, The Old England etc’ is a hypnotic introduction to their bizarre yet brilliant world.

Listen: Dive into their debut mixtape for 10 minutes very well spent.

Similar to: What The Thick of It’s Malcom Tucker would describe as a “fucking omnishambles”.

But in a good way.

D E neu D N E M M O C E R MXMTOON Gen X’s shiniest new talent, making melodies out of misery.

THE COOL GREENHOUSE Tongue-in-cheek speak-sing dispatches from the mad, mundane modern world.

“And what if you buy your pet when it’s very small / And then it grows up not to like you as a person?” wonders TCG singer Tom Greenhouse over repetitive, discordant prangs of guitar on ‘Pets’. With a strange, affected vocal twang, and a tendency for bizarre bon mots such as these, the buzzy London outfit are a new band like no other. And now, they’ve announced an album, giving you 11 more insights into their jarring, genius world.

Listen: EP ‘Crap Cardboard Pet’ is lyrical gold.

Similar to: The greatest inner monologue you’ll ever find.

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Pronounced em-ex-em-toon, mxmtoon is the moniker of Oakland-based Maia, who originally made her name on YouTube and whose songs now frequent self-isolation-app-of-themoment TikTok. Making music with lyrics that could be ripped from any Gen X’s diary, she crafts twee, selfdeprecating bops about the emotional rollercoaster that is teenage life.

Listen: ‘Prom Queen’, which includes the lyrics “I’d be prom queen if crying was a contest”, is a mood.

Similar to: You know that delicate balance between cute and cringe that a ukulele has? The right side of that.

BUZZ FEED

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All the buzziest new music happenings, in one place.

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A

ON THE

Every week on Spotify, we update DIY’s Neu Discoveries playlist with the buzziest, freshest faces. Here’s our pick of the best new tracks:

THE LOUNGE SOCIETY ‘Generation Game’ The latest release from tastemaker singles label Speedy Wunderground, Hebden Bridge lot TLS lace regional accents over a track that seesaws between motorik, TOYesque fuzz and woozy dreamlike respite.

Heroic Behaviour

All Systems Go

Having graced DIY’s Class of 2019 way back when, Will Westerman has finally announced details of debut LP ‘Your Hero Is Not Dead’, set for release on 5th June.

It’s preceded by recent single ‘Think I’ll Stay’: a warm, lightly synthy affair that takes the softer Prefab Sprout end of the ‘80s and gives it a modern singer-songwriter update.

The current trend might be for bands to split the release of an album into two EPsized parts, but Welsh eccentrics Buzzard Buzzard Buzzard have gone the other way, announcing a new EP (‘Non-Stop’, out 10th July) that’s actually got 10 tracks, making it an album by any other name.

“A friend was talking to me about how they’re going to be working until they’re 80 years old, so what’s the difference.

In the song, I’m trying to say that it’s worth sticking around. It’s a sort of giddy affirmation of being,” says Will.

It’s preceded by latest single ‘Hollywood Actors’ - a big, ballsy glam rock-tinged stomper of a track that finds singer Tom Rees meditating on the film industry and how he felt like “everyone around [him in real life] was just acting”.

BLANKETMAN ‘Taking You With Me’ On their debut, Manchester’s Blanketman fuse baggy, ‘Leisure’era Blur, a splash of Television and some dance moves par excellence.

Rinse and repeat.

PRIMA QUEEN ‘Brownstone’ Hailing from Brockley rather than the Brooklyn of their song title, on their latest Prima Queen are nonetheless conjuring a kind of wistful, escapist melancholia - like a modern Beautiful South on downers.

Class As Opinionated Tordmorden-dwellers and members of DIY’s Class of 2020 Working Men’s Club have also announced their first LP. The self-titled release also lands 5th June (competition!), with twitchy, undulating clubby banger ‘A.A.A.A’ now out in the world to celebrate.

Produced by Ross Orton (The Fall, Arctic Monkeys), and with politically-minded frontman Syd Mynskey-Sargent at the helm, it’s sure not to go quietly into the night...

LADY BIRD ‘Got Lucky’ Romance, love rivals and bar brawls abound in the relatable late night storytelling of the Kent punk trio’s latest. There’s a happy ending, too - phew.

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Caro

Sonic nerds and lyrical explorers, out to challenge alt-J for the odd-pop crown. Words: Rosie Hewitson.

neu

“I love it when people say we’ve got really cool synths in our songs,” says Caro frontman Adam Pardey, phoning from his garage-slash-recording studio in Leeds, where he’s busy experimenting with some new material. “I’m like, ‘Haha! Fooled you! There aren’t any electronic instruments in our set-up at all, except for electric guitars!”

It’s an easy mistake to make; though they might technically be one, it’s fair to say that Caro don’t sound much like your average guitar-based outfit.

Formed when Adam met drummer Bryn Jenkins at Leeds College of Music, the trio (completed by bassist Andrew Thomson) have drawn more than a few comparisons to fellow Leeds exports alt-J, thanks to Adam’s articulate falsetto, Bryn’s “very linear” drumming and the band’s unconventional take on guitar music.

“I hate the sound of a chord being strummed on a guitar; it’s so boring.” Adam Pardey

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“My favourite thing to do is to try and make the guitar sound not like a guitar at all, to treat it almost like a synthesiser,” Adam says of the band’s sound. “I hate the sound of a chord being strummed on a guitar; it's just so boring so I never want to do that. But you can take that chord progression, dissect it into different parts

and apply all of the same filters to each waveform as a synthesizer,” the frontman explains, clearly in his element when geeking out over this kind of stuff. “You maintain a tactile element to the sound, you can still hear fingers on the strings, and I like that a lot.”

With tracks inspired by everything from Trump’s election to Patrick Süskind novel ‘Perfume’ and stand-up comedy routines, it’s not just Caro’s sonic inventiveness that makes their imminent debut album ‘Burrows’ stand out. “I don't set out with a general theme of what the songs are necessarily about, but the ones that get finished are the ones where there’s something to write off,” Adam explains of the diverse lyrical inspiration behind songs like recent single ‘Form A Line’ (written “from the perspective of a dictator”) or the upcoming ‘Cat’s Pyjamas’ - an eerily jovial ode to suicide.

But it’s not all doom and gloom, despite the sometimes heavy subject matter. “I think the stuff that inspires me is usually the darker, sadder side of things,” Adam admits. “But then I don't really want to play a set of just sad songs. It's kind of nice to have that energy there too, and there's a chance that my Mum will like it if it's upbeat enough,” he says, chuckling. She’s definitely not the only one.

DIY

“SOUNDS LIKE AN ADVANCING STORM”

“ONE OF THE BEST NEW BANDS IN THE UK”

“PUSHES PIGSx7 TO NEW HEIGHTS”

“A MONUMENTAL FORCE”

THE GUARDIAN

UNCUT

LOUD AND QUIET

DIY MAGAZINE

PRESENTS

‘VISCERALS‘ N E W LT D L P & C D O U T N O W

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FOR A CHANGE 27

Born as a reaction to conflicts both political and personal, Biffy Clyro’s ‘A

Celebration

of

may sound like an album defined

Endings’

by the gloom of the present day; in fact, it’s more a guiding light towards the future.

Words:

Sarah

Jamieson.

Photos: Eva Pentel. Collage:

“W

e are at the end of something in society, and humanity, at the moment,” offers up Biffy Clyro frontman Simon Neil, in the midst of explaining the title of the band’s new album. Considering the current global crisis, his statement and the record’s chosen moniker itself - ‘A Celebration of Endings’ - obviously come loaded with a real sense of weight; it’d be easy to mistake his sentiment as a description of the fraught times the world is facing right now.

But his words aren’t as cut and dried as they might seem.

“It’s not even in a political way, I just feel like we’re at the end of some kind of consciousness level,” he goes on. “This sounds hippy dippy as fuck, but I think the Mayans were right when they said that in 2012 the world would end; not in a physical realm, but I think our consciousness has shifted.”

As the band approach the release of their eighth album originally scheduled for release in May, but since pushed back to later in the summer - it’s safe to say we’ve entered trepidatious times. Over the past few years, the rise of the far-right has been all too strongly felt, while the climate crisis has dominated headlines across the world. Political and social shifts have become the norm, and it’s been an overwhelming time for many - without even taking the current pandemic into account. However hope, the Scottish trio want you to know, is not yet gone.

B

iffy Clyro have always pushed to subvert the norm, consistently going against the expected grain. From their earliest days, when they first began building a reputation for post-hardcore weirdness thanks to jarring instrumentation and titles like ‘Kill the Old, Torture Their Young’, through to the present day, they’ve rallied against boundaries and tried to be - as bassist James Johnston puts it - “awkward and obstinate and stubborn”. Almost 20 years on from their debut’s release, the trio are steadfast in reconfiguring with every turn, hoping to turn heads with each new project. Even when approaching this album, they didn’t follow the regular path. After the release and subsequent touring schedule of 2016’s ‘Ellipsis’, instead of having a well-earned rest, recharging the batteries and then heading back into the studio, the band

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Louise

Mason

instead decided to make two additional records - a live album and a soundtrack - just to see what they’d come up with.

The ultimate palate cleanser, the trio - completed by James’ drumming brother Ben Johnston - then set about picking up where their previous studio album left off. Having returned to Los Angeles to once again work with producer Rich Costey, they wanted to experiment even more than they had with ‘Ellipsis’. “With Rich, the modus operandi was gorgeousness with real trash,” Simon told DIY around that last record, and on ‘A Celebration of Endings’, it’s clear they’re still chasing that feeling. “For us on this record, we did feel like there is a bit of chaos,” Simon confirms, “but there’s a couple of songs where we wanted to put the sophistication of strings onto that chaotic side. I think that’s partly defined what we do for a long time; we really are a band of contrasting sounds, ugly and beautiful.”

As an album, their eighth is packed to the brim with Biffy-ness; spiraling guitars let loose over luscious string sections, chorus refrains bold and big enough to dominate any festival headline set, and squalling, screaming, unhinged vocals. It’s a record that seems to represent their intensely contrasting worlds - a myriad of the playful pyromania of their first three records and the chart-friendly, soaring pop of 2009’s ‘Only Revolutions’ hung together with a sense of rebellion.

“For me, it’s always about combining things together, and the layers of how we listen to records as well,” Simon confirms, sat with his band mates in a North London flat-turned-photo studio.

“That’s also what makes it interesting for a listener. I don’t want people to ever know what to expect. See, if I’ve pressed play on a record, and it’s what I’ve wanted it to be, I never come back to that album; it’s always things where I thought, ‘That’s not what I thought they’d do next’ that bring me back.”

I

f the band’s latest is typical Biffy by merit of its atypical approach, then ‘A Celebration of Endings’ is also a record that feels particularly rooted in the current moment, one that looks around and emerges determined to face towards the future. From the synth-drenched choruses of lead single ‘Instant History’ to the frankly bonkers conclusion of album closer ‘Cop Syrup’, the concept of tradition gets a bit of a kicking.

Yet though the trio have always been unafraid to flex their varying musical muscles across their past two decades as a unit, this current bout of shape-shifting seems altogether more pointed. Much like on the album’s irreverent, historyskewing artwork, the band understand that, these days, simply rehashing the past no longer makes sense. “We’ve been lucky enough that we wanted to [and were able to] make a couple of records that sounded timeless and harked back to the classic records of all time,” Simon explains.

“But with ‘Ellipsis’ and this record, it feels like the world is changing so fast that you’ve got to be part of it or else you’re going to be left behind in all forms.

“For us, it just feels like music has a slightly different lifespan than it perhaps used

to. People aren’t going to their record collection to pick out that one album that they love from 17 years ago, you know?” he shrugs. “I think that’s made me consider the music that we’re making in a different way as well, not wanting to be harking back to a time that’s becoming less and less relevant to where we are now: I really want us to be a part of the 2020 world.”

Having formed in the mid'90s in an entirely different musical landscape and spent their entire adult lives becoming increasingly globally successful as a band,

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“THE NEXT GENERATION ALWAYS KNOWS BEST, BECAUSE IT’S THEIR FUCKING REALITY.” SIMON NEIL

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it’s this sense of acute external awareness that separates the trio from many of their arena rock peers. If there’s been a surfeit of musical casualties over the decades shielded by a bubble of their own making, then Biffy Clyro seem as determined as ever to harness the same antagonistic energy that they began with as a bunch of teenage upstarts. “I think it’s down to your motivation when you first start a band. If you’re just an aspirational band that want to play here or sell a certain amount of records, then once you get close to that, you probably don’t have the motivation to go forward,” Simon suggests. “But I want to be the source of the problem for these old fuckers as much as teenagers are. Especially as a white, straight male in this era, it’s more important than ever to acknowledge when you’ve had things perhaps easier than others, and it’s about time we took a responsibility to make changes and try to help others. If it wasn’t for the thrill that we get - that same feeling we got when we were 17, 18 - I think we would’ve had more time off. And there might be a time where we do need to take a break, but while the juices are flowing I’m gonna keep squeezing...”

It’s an impassioned argument with a sense of connectedness that writes itself all over the band’s latest. Throughout his tenure as Biffy’s chief lyricist, the singer has always leant heavily on personal experience - most famously with ‘Puzzle’ track ‘Folding Stars’, which was influenced by the passing of his mother. But while personal circumstances did provide some inspiration this time around, Simon stresses that it felt impossible not to begin addressing the world around him more directly.

“It’s the political and the personal, because it’s all one these days,” he sums up astutely, as his bandmates nod by his side. “When you see something happening in your close circle, which kinda reflects what’s happening in the wider world, [being political] is unavoidable. I couldn’t sit down and write 10 songs about how I feel in my heart at this stage in my life, in this stage of the century, because that’s not what’s waking me up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat. It wasn’t necessarily a conscious decision to not write love songs, but my head was just full of all this shit - as everyone’s is. And we don’t escape. No one switches off anymore; we don’t have that luxury.

“For me, the title is a big ‘Fuck you’ to the people who are making decisions, especially in this country, that are really going to fuck over a generation,” he aims at the 1%, the elite, those intent on ignoring the cries of the masses. “Boris Johnson was nowhere to be seen [at the start] of this coronavirus stuff, and it’s just these cowards who stand behind these lies and then slink away into the shadows when something serious is happening. But then I think, ‘Fuck it, bring it on’,” he grins, wryly. “‘You guys got what you wanted and you’re going to have to suck it up like the rest of us, but we’re gonna dance while it’s happening’.” Simon might be the tattooed, semi-naked frontman of a rock band most of the time, but he’s also not one to mince his words.

WE COULD REARRANGE… For their new album’s cover, the band enlisted the talents of Irish artist Thomas Robson to create something that embodies the spirit of the new record and then some. Here’s a bit of an insight into its creation…

Simon: The artwork is this really classic painting from 1700s of this Dutch humanist, and it’s just been glitched out, and pixelled out - it just fits with the perspective that we’re coming from. [That feeling that] some of the greatest things have perhaps been invented, but it doesn’t mean we have to be overly reverential to the past. You can take things that already exist and twist them into new shapes, or old thoughts into new shapes: we don’t need to live by the rigid rules.

It was probably eighteen months ago that I first saw some of Thomas’ work and it just really stuck in my mind, then luckily he was up for doing it, otherwise that would’ve been a shit phone call…

James: It’s really provocative and it just fits so well with the lyrics and the album, doesn’t it? It’s just a great marriage of some parts of history, not being rewritten, but almost fucking abolished. [It’s about how] we need to learn from those mistakes and move forward, and for me, that’s why it fits so well with the music.

Simon: It’s got a clean slate vibe, but without denying your past or who you were.

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Simon’s version of self isolation is a bit, er, different.

“I WANT TO BE THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM FOR THESE OLD FUCKERS AS MUCH AS TEENAGERS ARE.” - SIMON NEIL 32

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et, while their eighth record does, inevitably, deal with the darker side of modern life, ‘A Celebration of Endings’ is also very much a beacon of light. From ‘The Champ’’s defiant narrator (“Don’t give me that bullshit catchphrase / ‘It was better in my day”’) to the rallying call of ‘The Pink Limit’ (“If you want your peacetime / Then please prepare for war”) via the softer request of ‘Space’ (“Will you wait, will you wait for me? There’s always a space in my heart”), what defines the album is a real sense of hope through connection and community.

It’s also something the band are looking to in the next generation.

“There’s an incredible weight of responsibility on the shoulders of this next generation coming up,” Simon confirms. “They might never have had that feeling of being blissfully unaware of the wider world, and I think maybe we feel a bit fortunate that when our generation came up, we were allowed that mental freedom without the oppression of the next twenty years.

“The first icon of this century is Greta Thunberg, and the fact that we’re looking at a 17-year-old girl… I’m a 40-year-old man and I aspire to be what this 17-year-old is!” he laughs, self-deprecatingly. “I just feel like they have an inner conscience and an inner responsibility that we were fortunate enough not to have [needed]. It’s so tough for that generation, no wonder they take things seriously. No wonder they’re looking at the older generation and saying, ‘You fuckers have left us in this shit position’. And that older generation, they can’t for a second understand it.

“It’s as close to the ‘60s as we’ve been in recent times,” he nods, referencing the divide that’s become all too clear between the newest generation and that of our parents and grandparents.

“The youth couldn’t understand why the Vietnam War was happening, and the [older generation] couldn’t understand why these young kids just wanted to make love and not give a fuck.

That’s where we’re at just

now, but you know what?

The next generation always knows best, because it’s their fucking reality.”

Closing an album that grapples with contradiction and turmoil, it’s on final track ‘Cop Syrup’ that all these lucid observations and animated points reach a head. A mission statement of sorts, the track is a disorientating ride through scorched screams and pummeling percussion, before a mesmerising - and somewhat creepy instrumental takes over for much of its six-minute length, pushing things to an almost maniacal brink.

Lyrically, it succinctly sums up those feelings of personal and political concern - “I’m not dumb, and I’m not blind / You don’t have to be cruel to be kind” - while still providing a sense of closure: “I’ve been saved from the darkest place / I’ve embraced the need to live”. It’s the final line - a swift kick of “Fuck everybody, woo!” - that hits hardest.

“It’s a song, for me, that only our band could or would do,” claims Simon aptly.

“It’s got one of my favourite lines from the whole album, and that song is just exactly where my head is at: if you want to make change, do it yourself. You need to get stuck in because there’s no point in being in the shadows anymore, especially if we want to retain what I think makes people great - which is probably the most wanky sentence I’ve ever said!”

As for why it’s the record’s final track? James tell it like it is: “I just don’t know what you can put after, ‘Fuck everybody, woo!’” “You just can’t go anywhere after that,” Simon laughs. “It’s just the greatest closing line of all time.”

‘A Celebration of Endings’ is out 14th August via Warner. DIY

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SAFE

IN

DE TE RM I N E D TO BREAK THE CYCLE OF RELENTLESS TOURING AND RECORDING, THE FIVEY E A R P R O C E S S OF MAKING ‘ W O M B ’ HAS BEEN SOMETHING OF A L E I S U R E LY PURSUIT FOR PURITY RING. A CERTIFIED H O M E B O D Y, M E G A N J A M E S WOULDN’T C H A N G E A THING. W O R D S : J E N E S S A WILLIAMS.

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M

egan James’ family are partial to a big reunion.

The latest was 150-strong in Montana, with glorious sunshine beaming across the lake. Everything was bliss, until suddenly it wasn’t. Out of nowhere, an enormous storm hit - trees falling to the ground, deck splintering in half. Megan, meanwhile, was somewhere in the middle, doing what everybody should in a crisis - calmly making pizza.

“It’s funny, because the whole time it was happening everyone was running around and things were smashing on the ground. There’s broken glass everywhere, and I’m just there carrying on...” she laughs. “It was just total havoc. And then 10 minutes passed and it was all over; we were all inside watching these beautiful pink skies. You kind of realise that things can get heavy, but there’s always a reason to stay and be present and keep going.”

This act-of-God moment, immortalised on recent single ‘Pink Lightning’, came to be a fairly formative metaphor for the return of Purity Ring. Known for their intimate brand of ‘future pop’, the Canadian duo (completed by multi-instrumentalist/producer Corin Roddick) have earned a dedicated following thanks to their otherworldly atmospherics and distinctive vocals, filed next to the likes of Grimes, CHVRCHES and FKA twigs. Yet, contrary to the traditional tour-release rota, the duo have always been willing to take the time required to craft the exact record of their imaginations. Their latest, ‘WOMB’, has taken them five years; previous record ‘Another Eternity’ took them three.

Megan recognises this to be a luxury that many bands can’t afford, but considers it essential to the alchemy of the band. “I feel like I have to take some time to settle back into myself in order to make music again,” she explains. “It’s always been something I’ve struggled with. When we first started, and we were touring in like a little Volkswagen hatchback, I brought so much shit with me. I hate the feeling of being without something.

I would pin things I found in antique malls to the inside of the car like a bedroom, just to feel a bit warmer and comfier.

“Staying home a lot more and being settled, the record really flourished from that,” she continues. “Corin and I have always been long distance and had to travel to get together and write, and I’ve always wanted to be able to make something at home instead. I’m really glad we did - I think the record is a lot more comfortable because of it.”

Seeking comfort, from that zen-like mid-

storm state to the cosy internal cocoon of its album title, is the main preoccupation of ‘WOMB’.

“I’m trying to define the struggle in relationships, the ones that are really intimate,” Megan ponders.

“It’s the ultimate question of family gatherings and personal politics; how do you cope with all the different people’s opinions? So I guess it’s kind of about looking at why those conversations are hard, and how we can choose to make them more about love.”

It’s difficult not to hear ‘WOMB’ as a synaesthetic imagination of love and all its complexities, built around a thick production spectrum of reds and pinks. Whether it’s the pulsing thump of ‘I Like The Devil’, the delicate-yet-ominous ‘Peacefall’ or the very literally-titled ‘rubyinsides’, the record deals in matters of the heart in a way that feels particularly visual and colourful, like a soundtrack to an epic animated movie or open-world computer game.

Fittingly then, ‘Pink Lightning’ was released via a website puzzle that required users to click around the ether to reveal the link; spreading like wildfire across Reddit and [gaming community] Discord, it made for the perfect introduction to a record exploring human connection. “It was really satisfying to

SOUND

“I want people to be in the womb with me!

‘Welcome to my womb!’”

- Megan James

watch, because the record really is about community,” the singer enthuses. “It was like, ‘Yes, this is what I wanted!”

And if community is the aim, then live shows - when the touring circuit is back in action - will be a huge part of this new era. “We don’t have everything figured out and it’s all in drawings at this point, but we really want it to feel warm and quite literal,” Megan explains. “I want people to be in the womb with me! That’s the aim at this point - ‘Welcome to my womb!’”

It’s a pretty lofty offer but, for the first time, it’s something Megan feels Purity Ring are ready for: a new sense of candour, the sort that only comes from the wisdom of maturity and the time to take stock.

“I’ve dealt with my feelings, and this is me trying to figure out how to explain them so, by default, other people can deal with theirs,” she says. “Things are pretty scary right now, and when we need reassurance we go to music and the people closest to us. I hope that in whatever way people listening take it, they somehow feel that sense of comfort and warmth.”

‘Womb’ is out now via 4AD. DIY

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CLOSE-KNIT COMPADRES “This is the closest thing to family that I have.” – Austin Boylan 36

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Maybe don’t give up the day job, lads.

COOKING HOT DOGS IN THE SHOWER. WRITING LOVE LETTERS TO DRUM KITS. FINDING ENLIGHTENMENT IN PUDDLES. WELCOME TO BOBBY’S MOTEL, AND MEET ITS FANTASTIC, FRENZIED ROCK’N’ROLL RESIDENTS, POTTERY. Words: Will Richards. Photos: Jenn Five. rigin stories may come in many forms, but the genesis of Pottery's debut album 'Welcome To Bobby's Motel' began with what the band's singer Austin Boylan calls the greatest night of his life.

Making an overnight tour stop at the wonderfully appropriate town of Weed, California, the Montrealbased quintet’s plan to stay in an idyllic cottage in the mountains was derailed when the owner forgot to book a snow plough to clear the road. Instead, the band were left to spend the evening in a single motel room with only each other, a stash of hallucinogens and some bargain hot dogs for company.

“Oh, you’ve never seen a hot dog be flushed down the toilet? It’s the funniest thing.” – Tom Gould

“We thought we'd take acid in the mountains and it'd be really beautiful, and we ended up in a one-bedroom motel room with no microwave and all these hot dogs,” bassist Tom Gould remembers with a wry smile. “It's always where I picture Bobby living,” he adds, their debut album’s titular character loosely having become an emblem for the band as a whole.

And how did the group’s LSD-addled brains try to get around this particular quandary? “We tried cooking them in the shower under the hot water,” drummer Paul Jacobs winces. Because of course.

The evening that followed has now passed into legend, and the band proceed to perform

a word-perfect recital of a new game they created that night, the general aim being to “whip the dogs in” and see how many you can make disappear down the U-bend in a single flush. "One! Two! Three! Four! Fiiiiive!" they cackle in unison. “Oh, you've never seen a hot dog be flushed down the toilet?”

Tom beams. “It's the funniest thing.”

“The funniest part of the night,” continues Austin giddily, “was when we were laying down in the grass under this barbed wire, just sitting in loads of trash, and all of a sudden we see this glowing light in the dirt and just think... 'Oh, what the fuck is that?!'

“There are photos of us all huddled together, digging at the dirt, trying to find out what this glowing light is. Turns out it was a luminescent bug or something.”

“His name's Derek!” Tom smiles.

S

pending a day with Pottery is like being beckoned into an unshakeable gang, one compelled to tell you every funny, sad, mind-bending thing that’s ever happened to them at home or on the road. Their conversations are jampacked with in-jokes, but they want to invite you in on them, too.

You can glean as much from watching the band live. A frenetic, fizzing on-stage prospect, their shows are breakneck thrashes through rock’n’roll and punk, and they perform as an undeniable unit. Though Austin is the defacto leader, a compact, 5-ftsomething livewire, the band are at their most effective when all five members step up to the mic at once, turning the frontman’s warped lyrics into booming mantras.

Released last year via label-du-jour Partisan (home to IDLES, Fontaines DC and more), debut EP ‘No. 1’ set the foundations for the impossibly exciting album that now beckons, channelling Television, Talking Heads and the funkier end of the US rock canon into something irresistible in its excitement and energy.

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After a few too many big nights, Pottery were starting to unravel.

‘Welcome To Bobby’s Motel’ takes this to the next level.

“Welcome to Bobby’s Motel, where all your dreams come true,” a booming, digitised voice states over the frenetic opening bars of the album’s title track (originally called the entirely-moreappropriate ‘Blast Off’). What follows is a record that overflows with groove, melody and simple, unadulterated fun. Highlights come in the form of the skittish ‘Under The Wires’, that namechecks the barbed wire under which they made a home on that fateful California night, and the cowbell-tastic ‘Bobby’s Forecast’, which sees Austin geeing up his band mates throughout in the role of crazed conductor. “C’mon!

Gimme the drums!” he demands halfway through, inviting Paul to lead the band headfirst into an irresistible disco beat.

Elsewhere, previous single ‘Texas Drums’ provides a love letter to a particularly wonderful drum kit that

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Paul had the pleasure of playing when the band played SXSW last year. Then there’s closer ‘Hot Like Jungle’, the chorus of which, Paul reveals, is “part of a dirty song that we had to change the lyrics to”. “You know the lyrics, right?” he laughs to his bandmates, before keyboardist Peter Baylis gives us the goods: “If you cum in my sheets, I'mma pump and repeat, now let me love ya,” he winces. For a band who wrote a song imagining Hank Williams taking speed for the first time on their debut EP, maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised.

“There are a lot of bands that are friends because they've toured and played music and it's more professional or whatever, but this is the closest thing to family that I have,” Austin states. And though their debut is an accomplished, technically impressive thing, it’s obvious that fun and passion rank far higher in Pottery’s list of priorities than any careerism. “We just wanna do it our own way, and enjoy each other's company,” guitarist Jacob Shepansky adds. “We're

still 'professional' I guess…”

"We're still pwofeshonal!" Tom mimics, right on cue.

"It took us quite a while to figure out how to sound good live,” Austin adds, “because we all just instinctively tried to turn our instruments up louder than each other.”

"But miiine goes to ELEVEN!" Jacob whines in an impressively terrible British accent.

T

hough a large amount of life within Pottery seems primarily built on tomfoolery, ‘Welcome To Bobby’s Motel’ does cut through to deeper, more serious problems too. It’s most notable on new single ‘Take Your Time’, which Jacob says is about “the bad side of everything”. “Drugs are everywhere in Montreal,” he elaborates. “I come from Vancouver where there's a massive heroin epidemic. You drive

Boylan

“The whole world [of the album] is about being comfortable in a shitty situation.”

– Jacob Shepansky TWO BECOME ONE The cover of ‘Welcome To Bobby’s Motel’, and the accidental first image of Bobby himself, come from a particularly strange place, as drummer Paul explains...

“On the cover of the album, the character Bobby is a face swap photo of me and Austin. The quality was so low-res that it would just look bad if we printed it, so instead I turned it into a cartoon character, and once it becomes that, you’re able to open up a world of possibilities with the artwork and the whole concept for the album.”

through Vancouver and there are tent cities everywhere. It's about that moment of losing control, and barely noticing it or caring that it's happening.”

“Writing lyrics, to me, is like keeping a journal,” Paul adds. “It's so easy to think that you're so special because of the shit that you deal with, but there are a million other people going through the exact same thing, or something ten times worse. As soon as you're honest with yourself in that way, it's going to connect.” “The whole world [of the album] is about being comfortable in a shitty situation, and shrugging it off and just being content,” Jacob confirms “You have to after eating those cold daaawgs

that night!” Peter howls as the band all start laughing again: the seriousness, after all, never lasts too long here.

“Touring the US, we just spent so much time in shitty motel rooms,” Jacob picks back up.

“If you dwell on the fact that you're getting no sleep every night and doing all this shit, then you're gonna get all depressed, so you have to tell yourself that this is normal.”

“There's a little speech bubble on the vinyl version of the album that Paul wrote,” Austin points out, “which says: ‘It's not much, but it feels like home’. That kinda sums it up.”

‘Welcome To Bobby’s Motel’ is out 10th April via Partisan. DIY

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reign in blood Having spent the last few years cementing their explosively heavy reputation, PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS might be inching further into the public eye, but they’re still as unconventional as ever. Words: Sarah Jamieson.

“We’re putting an album out at the worst time in my entire life to have ever put an album out.” - Matt Baty 40

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“I

did have a bit of a sadistic laugh to myself the other day,” comments Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs frontman Matt Baty, on the other end of a Skype call in between stifled, disbelieving laughs. “I said to my partner, ‘We’re putting out an album at - literally, no exaggeration the worst time in my entire life to have ever put an album out.’ It’s like, ‘How have we managed this?!’”

His statement, to be fair to him, is on the money. As the Newcastle quintet were nearing the release of third album ‘Viscerals’ this month, the coronavirus outbreak drastically began to escalate. First, their trip to the US - which included a slot on one of DIY’s SXSW stages - was cancelled, before the entire UK went into lockdown. Since then, venues and record stores have been closed and their upcoming UK tour has been pulled, but the band’s newest is still set for release, right bang in the middle of the biggest disruption to day-to-day life in modern history.

It isn’t, however, something that’s getting them down. “We’ve got so much to be grateful for,” he affirms, “and that’s what’s keeping us afloat.” Having spent the first part of their career wedged firmly in the underground, the quintet’s recent successes might come as something of a surprise, but they’re also rightly spurring them on.

From their tongue-twister of a moniker - apparently nabbed from a friend’s ‘terrible band name’ - to their theatrical but brutal live performanc-

es, Pigs x 7 (as they’re more informally known) are a band who’ve never worried too much about convention.

Yet lately they’ve become radio mainstays, and their forthcoming November tour includes two shows at London’s 1,500-capacity Electric Ballroom.

“I mean, it’s obviously exciting, but sometimes it’s a little bit surreal; you’ll find yourself in situations when you’ll pause for breath and be like, ‘What on earth is going on? How has this happened?’,” he laughs. “A lot of things kinda clicked into place for us that I actually didn’t think were all that possible for a band like us, I suppose.

We’re enthusiastic and ambitious and driven, but we’ve experienced a lot of things that have far exceeded our expectations.”

It was just three years ago, after all, that the band released their first album proper, ‘Feed The Rats’ - its bludgeoning riffs and dense haze running to 40 minutes over just three tracks. Follow-up ‘Kings of Cowards’ was an arguably looser record with just as much of a punishing sonic energy, however its potency and subconscious lyrical themes (after completing the record, Matt realised how much of it dealt with “sin and guilt”) soon opened them up to a whole new audience. “The radio play and the wider exposure, that’s not something we set our sights on,” he caveats. “The reason we started the band in the first place was just to do some really good live shows and meet people.”

Yet now, with ‘Viscerals’, things are set to move up another notch.

Recorded once again in Newcastle’s Blank Studios - run by guitarist Sam Grant - there’s an urgency to the charged guitars and the singer’s booming vocals that feels thrilling.

“Because so much had happened

since the release of ‘King of Cowards’, we were only very infrequently getting together with the purpose to write new music,” he explains of their off-the-cuff way of working this time around. “We had to use that time, so, while a lot of the album was part written and rehearsed, there were big swathes that we needed to work out. But we have a very good sense of what we do well as a band, and we know what our DNA is.”

Along with its decidedly more intuitive musical nature, the lyrics on this record follow a similar pattern. Tying neatly with the album’s title, Matt was keen to avoid any particular themes and work more subconsciously. “I certainly didn’t wanna force anything,” he nods. “I thought that would be quite a crass thing to do. I was just letting my voice go in the practice room, trying to keep up with the volume, and just push things out, I guess. Coming up to recording, I was getting really stressed out, the words weren’t coming, but it was just a case of doing a bit more experimentation and opening up my voice.”

It’s a method that’s yielded undoubtedly strong results - ones that could make Pigs’ star rise even further. But with a few notable visuals coming to the fore over the record, don’t worry that the band are making any concessions just yet. “I mean, I reference blood a lot...” he laughs wryly, nodding to the not one, but two songs (‘Blood and Butter’ and ‘Crazy in Blood’) with the word in their titles.

“That wasn’t something that I was set on when I started writing…”

‘Viscerals’ is out now via Rocket Recordings. DIY

Pigs x 7 had come up with a novel workaround for the food shortage.

41

The Brightest Flame Reaching in and willfully emboldening himself, on ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’ - his fifth LP as Perfume Genius - Mike Hadreas is burning harder than ever. Words: Gemma Samways.

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“When I was writing this record I realised I really was starving for MORE feeling, MORE connection, MORE in my life.”

I

t’s 9am in Los Angeles, and Mike Hadreas is reflecting on the utter weirdness that is daily life in the middle of a global pandemic.

“You know how cats can tell that an earthquake is going to happen?” he chuckles over Skype, swaying in circles as if hypnotised, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. “I mean, spiritually and emotionally, I’ve felt like that for a long time...”

Gallows humour has always been the performer’s default, an outlet almost as vital for processing his anxieties as his brutally honest output as Perfume Genius. In conversation, these two personality traits seem to co-exist on a knife-edge. One moment he’s cackling at the memory of some salacious gossip, the next he’s exposing the darkest parts of his psyche, visibly close to tears. It’s this unfiltered hon-

esty that makes the 38-year-old so hugely likeable; more than most acclaimed musicians, you can’t help but still will him to thrive. Not that he needs anyone’s help on that score.

Shape’ was framed as the sound of Hadreas turning a corner emotionally, having been written from a place of stability. On ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’, the grounding seems less black and white.

In the decade since his devastating debut ‘Learning’, the Seattle-born singer-songwriter has blossomed exponentially with each release, from the lo-fi confessionals of 2012’s ‘Put Your Back N 2 It’, to the dissonant textures of 2014 breakthrough ‘Too Bright’ and the electronic-tinged tenderness of 2017’s ‘No Shape’. Continuing the trend, his latest LP represents another huge leap forward creatively. For a while it was ‘No Shape’ that was somewhat misleadingly touted as “an American rock’n’roll album by big American pop star Perfume Genius". It’s with this fifth studio album that he’s finally met the brief.

“Um…” he hesitates, shifting in his seat uncomfortably. “I mean, I still feel this root of stability; this safety in my relationship and myself that was really hard to build up. It took a lot from me, living against my instincts, to get there. But at the same time, I think in tandem with getting healthy and preparing myself for all the stuff I need to do for work - and how anxiety-producing all that is - I've kind-of ended up retreating into myself, hiding and detaching. I disconnected from the world, and disconnected from myself in a lot of ways.”

Packed with bold, brilliant songwriting, ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’ finds Mike retrospectively addressing the lack of representation he felt growing up by essentially rewriting the Great American Songbook from a queer perspective. As he explains, “I've always listened to a lot of classic music and ballads from the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s, but I've never fully felt included in them, or that they were sung with someone like me in mind. And so I've had to make that for myself.”

To achieve this, he assembled an all-star supporting cast including ‘No Shape’ producer Blake Mills and legendary session musicians Pino Palladino (Elton John, D’Angelo), Jim Keltner (John Lennon, Bob Dylan) and Matt Chamberlin (Tori Amos, Alanis Morissette). Stylistically, the record varies hugely, from the Cyndi Lauper-inspired funk of ‘On The Floor’ to the swampy guitars of ‘Describe’, via ‘Jason’ - a burst of baroque-pop that sets a tale of transactional sex to a shimmering harpsichord melody. Ask the singer, however, and he’ll describe the collection as “one of the most sonically cohesive I've ever made.”

W

here his first three records found him processing the traumas of addiction, depression and chronic illness, ‘No

It was this desire to close the gulf that inspired the album title, as Mike explains.

“When I was writing this record I realised how disconnected I was and how much I really was starving for MORE feeling, MORE connection, MORE in my life.

And that hasn't been very easy to figure out, because I had thought that in order to stay healthy and to stay sober - and to show up for my job and to make this music - I needed to be far away from my feelings or only pull them out when I was required to, during a song, or for an hour onstage. So I was like, ‘Well, maybe I can bring some of the stuff I feel when I'm writing into my daily life’.”

Equally influential was his work with choreographer Kate Wallich on 2019’s touring show The Sun Still Burns Here.

A collaborative project unifying dance and music, it found him co-directing and composing the soundtrack as well as performing with her company The YC, dancing alongside his long-term boyfriend and bandmate Alan Wyffels.

Having lived with the debilitating effects of Crohn’s disease and struggled with his body image his whole life, Mike found the experience both hugely challenging and deeply rewarding.

“I would cry all the time, you know?” he sighs, leaving a huge pause before continuing slowly. “I've always been obsessed with leaving and being something else; of restlessly wanting out [of my body]. And with dancing, there was this new language that made me feel really satisfied just being there. I mean, it was mixed with absurdity and fantasy, but we created a world that I felt like I was connected to, and I was in. I think I just need to let some of that fantasy into

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“I’ve always been obsessed with leaving and being something else; of restlessly wanting out [of my body].”

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my real life, and not have it be so... clinical and cold.”

Ultimately, these experiences fed deeply into the lyrics that would become ‘Set My Heart On Fire Immediately’, too. “The themes of craving community and connection - it was very much influenced by the dance,” he nods. “It changed my relationship with my body and it forced me to attach. I talked previously about being detached: dance forced me to be hyper-present and hyper-connected to myself, and in the moment with my body, and in the moment with other people's bodies. I rearranged what I thought I wanted in my life, and what I thought I was looking for. It shook me up, for sure.”

T

he experience

speaks of how immeasurably Perfume Genius has grown as a performer in the last decade.

Where his very earliest shows famously found him hunched behind his keyboard, eyes clamped shut through fear, he’s now a magnetic physical presence, commanding the attention of the audience with his fluid poses. “It’s pretty wild,” he concedes of the progression. “What is required to make me feel uncomfortable and like I'm really pushing myself is so much more than it used to be. In the beginning I would get off stage after just sitting and singing with my eyes closed for 40 minutes or whatever, and I would just be wiped out. And now, literally, I try to physically knock myself out onstage.”

Perfy G: quite literally at the cutting edge of pop.

This aggression is reflected in the record’s rugged cover art and promo pictures, which find Mike variously stripped to the waist, smeared in dirt, and wielding a sledgehammer. It is, undoubtedly, the most masculine expression of his identity yet. “I feel like that naturally,” he says of the image change today, adding with a laugh, “And, in a fun way, it has the same amount of performativity as if I was wearing ruffles and a hip bustle or something.”

And yet, in some respects

the singer remains very much as he ever was.

When pressed for his proudest achievement in the decade since ‘Learning’, he cites his continued emotional honesty. “I feel like I've Over the past always come from the decade, Mike right place. I'm talking Hadreas has a lot about how I feel gone from timid emotionally and my emoter to an anxieties and blah blah alt-pop star in full blah, but in the end, bloom. Here’s a when I write, I know lil’ recap... when the song is real, and when it's going to be helpful,” he smiles.

“And wherever I've been emotionally or Learning (2010) circumstantially, I've An astonishingly never lost that. Bestark, largely cause [helping others] self-recorded is ultimately what frees debut, pairing you from your own lo-fi piano with feelings. It's the most unflinching purposeful thing I've confessionals on ever felt.” subjects as painful as addiction and With the benefit of abuse. hindsight, we ask what advice he’d offer to the Perfume Genius starting out ten years ago. “Well, it's always Put Your Back N 2 the same,” he replies It (2012) softly, but without If ‘Learning’ was hesitation. “‘You're the soundtrack to OK. You're OK exactly a man teetering where you are. You can on the brink, this look at yourself in a studio-produced picture from five years second LP was the ago and remember sound of Perfume how much you hated Genius learning to how you looked, and trust again. how you were embarrassed, but look at how sweet you were!

You had nothing to worry about - you were OK. You just needed to Too Bright (2014) be quiet with yourself Mike embraces and relax on the world abrasive textures a little bit, and just be. with help from PJ Harvey-producer “I mean, I know I'm goJohn Parish and ing to look at a picture Portishead’s of myself five years Adrian Utley. from now, and be like, Heteronorma‘What are you doing? tive-bating banger Why are you freaking ‘Queen’ remains a out? Why aren't you huge standout. being more grateful and just feeling and doing stuff?’ But it is what it is. I think over the years I've learned, No Shape (2017) at least intellectually, From the stringthat that's available flecked intimacy of to me.”

‘Every Night’ to the rococo trills of ‘Slip ‘Set My Heart On Away’, ambition Fire Immediately’ proved the unifying is out 15th May via quality of his fourth Matador. DIY LP. Warped pop par excellence.

Perfume Genius: Through the Years

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REVIEWS



THE STROKES The New Abnormal Even if The Strokes never released another note of good music again, history would still remember them as the band who changed everything. Strolling into view as the millennial bells clanged a new era into existence, they gifted the world with flawless debut ‘Is This It’ before 2001 was out and inspired a new, invigorated tribe in their wake. From dishevelled head down to Converse-clad toe,

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(Cult / Columbia)

you can thank Julian, Nick, Albert, Nikolai and Fab for basically every good indie band that’s come since.

It’s why, though the quintet haven’t released a truly great album since 2006’s ‘First Impressions of Earth’, they still elicit more blind, fervent faith than most. Yet, from 2013’s disjointed full band effort ‘Comedown Machine’ through his abrasive subsequent project with The

Voidz, in recent years there’s no-one Julian Casablancas has seemed to want to be less than Julian Casablancas from The Strokes. That is, until now. Because, from the first needling burst of Albert Hammond Jr’s instantly-recognisable fretwork on opener ‘The Adults Are Taking Over’, ‘The New Abnormal’ feels like the legendary New Yorkers finally having fun, loosening up and learning to love what

They’ve remembered exactly how magical they can be. made them great again.

Insouciant, effortless cool; shimmering, effervescent melodies that cut through the street-smart danger; the ability to sound vitally alive whilst simultaneously not giving a fuck: all the traits that underpin the band’s best songs are present and correct, from ‘Dancing With Myself’-aping recent single ‘Bad Decisions’, to the twinkling, yearning ‘Selfless’. The Strokes’ fifth isn’t a regressive attempt to make ‘Is This It’ 2.0 - there’s little here that would fit easily on that sparky, youthful first record - but it still rings with a more mature, yet tantalisingly familiar energy.

On ‘Why Are Sundays So Depressing’, Albert and Nick Valensi’s guitars dance around each other, Julian opining about a romantic game of cat and mouse; ‘Eternal Summer’, meanwhile, ricochets between cooing falsetto and grizzled chorus howl. If the latter’s bridge (“Summer is coming / Won’t go away / Summer is coming / It’s here to stay”) is a bit of lyrical clanger, then it’s also a slight misnomer: from

abandonment to self-doubt, the ideas laid bare in the singer’s un-showy rhymes run the full gamut of melancholy reflection.

The record’s highlights, too, are polar opposites. ‘Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus’ is an absolute suckerpunch with the kind of build-ups and pay-offs that unashamedly want to be massive; ‘Not The Same Anymore’, meanwhile, is perhaps the prettiest track the band have ever laid to tape. But, as the random snippets of studio horseplay that link the tracks attest, there’s a sense of fun and freedom throughout it all that’s not felt fully present in years.

You need only reflect on last summer’s All Points East outing which, despite its eventual sound issues, sold out faster than any of the mega-event’s other more modern superstar headliners, to see how much hope people still harbour towards the band. Now, The Strokes seem to have finally remembered exactly how magical they can be too. It’s about time. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Brooklyn Bridge to Chorus’, ‘Not The Same Anymore’, ‘The Adults Are Talking’

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THUNDERCAT It Is What It Is (Brainfeeder)

2017’s ‘Drunk’ saw Thundercat find his footing as a solo artist after building a reputation as a funky gun-for-hire; his pawprints appear most notably on Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp A Butterfly’. This fourth effort is a tight collection of space-funk jams that glimmer with the sloppy whimsy we’ve come to know and love but also reveal a newfound dark side, following the death of close collaborator Mac Miller - which seems to be a lingering omen at the crux

of the LP, attesting on ‘Fair Chance’; “So hard to get over it / I’ve tried to get under it / Stuck in between / It is what it is / Bye bye for now”. Between the slithers of darkness there’s still a lot of fun to be had as his concoction of gooey bass continues to spin otherworldly sonics and grooves, but it’s the moodier pieces that remain the most consistent standouts ‘Unrequited Love’ is a heartbreaking slow jam illustrated by strings drenched in melancholy, ‘Interstellar Love’ builds to a gravitational climax as Kamasi Washington’s sax solo soars above the track’s loose, wild drum pattern. ‘It Is What It Is’ was clearly born out of a trying time. The LP’s darker moments are its most affecting the playful brushes of humour throughout never diminish anything; in fact, they make ‘It Is What It Is’ a richer, more human experience. (Sean Kerwick) LISTEN: ‘Black Qualls’

A SMART POP RECORD DOUSED IN SELFAWARENESS. 

RINA SAWAYAMA SAWAYAMA

(Dirty Hit)

For Rina Sawayama, her JapaneseBritish identity has always been a part of her disposition as a songwriter, whether she means for it or not. The Niigata-born, London-raised musician entered pop consciousness in 2017 with debut mini-album ‘Rina’. An acute, sharp foray into anonymity in a world that doesn’t really let you be anonymous, its success paved the way for this stellar full-length followup. ‘SAWAYAMA’ is a smart pop record doused in self-awareness but still direct in its assertiveness and never not compelling. ‘STFU!’ incorporates an almost nu-metal instrumental and is Rina’s direct response to racist white men and their behaviour towards Asian women. Themes of otherness are hinted across the record; standout ‘Chosen Family’ is about the queer community she has found for herself. She raises questions about pressures of having to mould yourself into what society expects you to be in ‘Love Me 4 Me’, and calls herself out during a time in her life when she was the antagonist of a relationship in ‘Bad Friend’. It’s refreshing to see a rising pop star like Rina speak openly about her own struggles relating to still feeling so ‘other’.

(Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘Chosen Family’

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POTTERY

Welcome To Bobby’s Motel (Partisan)

Montreal quintet Pottery released debut EP ‘No. 1’ last year, and the relentless energy they displayed through that release doesn’t let up on this non-stop jam session. The title ‘Welcome to Bobby’s Motel’ might raise questions about the location and clientele of said establishment, but Pottery have no interest in nailing that down. They maintain a sharp and snappy demeanour throughout, rumbling and rolling with abandon, driving into grooves full of popping drum skins and clinking cowbells, hitting several jaunty peaks like ‘Texas Drums’ with its chant of “won’t you play those funky drums for me”. This ode to percussion is fitting, as drumming dexterity is what gives Pottery their extra dimension, seeing them cruise into dance-punk, disco, ‘60s pop, hoedown, glam and beyond, while maintaining sonic consistency. Even when entering darker territories they keep things jovial, ensuring the album rattles by with spirits high. Their characters are often downand-out losers, badly clothed with peeling skin and no money, but when they come to ‘Bobby’s Motel’ none of that matters.

Here, the scuzz is celebrated, the outside world is non-existent, and there’s always space for another body. (Rob Hakimian) LISTEN: ‘Texas Drums’

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CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS La vita nuova (Because)

‘La vita nuova’ doesn’t feel like a huge step forward from Christine and the Queens, but it doesn’t need to be. So perfect was the sound nailed on her previous record that it ended up serving as a template for a wave of pop acts who followed her. This EP, her first solo release in 18 months, is proof that the French superstar will continue to leave her peers in her wake. Caroline Polachek’s presence on the title track is fitting - 2019’s ‘Pang’ felt like a natural sister to ‘Chris’, and with the two artists combining here, the music is naturally elevated to an even higher plane. It’s a standout track not only of this release but of 2020 as a whole - with fluttering synth pads providing a shimmering and danceable pop blockbuster. The lilting Anglo-French vocals and ‘80s bass swells on ‘People, I’ve been sad’, meanwhile, showcase the raw, nostalgic emotion that “If I get marks Héloïse Letissier out from her ONE more peers. Confined to merely six tracks, the Houseparty ‘La vita nuova’ EP feels like it ends too invite…” soon - and that’s entirely symptomatic of how strong the songwriting is. In 2020, Christine is still truly in a league of her own. (James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘People, I’ve Been Sad’

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DUA LIPA

Future Nostalgia (Warner)

In times of increasing uncertainty and worry, we could all use a little something to uplift us - and Dua Lipa has stepped up to the plate. “I hope it brings you some happiness, and I hope it makes you smile, and I hope it makes you dance. I hope I make you proud,” she said. And, well, ‘Future Nostalgia’ delivers on this and then some. A sassy and euphoric offering, the album sees the superstar embracing her firm position amongst the pop greats. Across its 11-track run, it’s a non-stop party, from the punchy titular opener that channels Prince grooves, to the dancefloor-ready ‘Levitating’, to the goosebump-inducing sample of White Town’s ‘Your Woman’ on ‘Love Again’, and the penultimate ‘Good In Bed’ with lyrics Lily Allen is going to wish she thought of first. By the time closer ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ hits, Dua’s already smashed it out the park, and the euphoric ballad only further cements what this album has proved: Dua will be going down in pop history as one of the best. (Elly Watson) LISTEN: ‘Love Again’

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PURITY RING

Missed the boat on some the best albums from the last couple of months?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

EVERYTHING IS RECORDED

WOMB (4AD)

Friday Forever (XL)

Purity Ring might fancy themselves as the Cocteau Twins of the 21st Century (as evident in their glacial sounds and nonsensical song titles), but new album ‘WOMB’ isn’t quite the modern reinvention it should be. Despite some stellar production and sparkling pop moments, it feels like there’s been little evolution in the duo’s sound in the five years since ‘Another Eternity’. The plummeting bass drones of ‘rubyinsides’ provide a throbbing introduction that borderlines on dubstep.

It’s an early sign that ‘WOMB’ is stuck a little bit in the recent past, but follow-up ‘Pink Lightning’ fares a bit better - a cinematic pop song with a catchy, syrupy vocal melody. The piano refrain on ‘I Like The Devil’ should provide a welcome emotional anchor, but the effect is negated by a cheesy chord progression. It all just feels a bit detached. Fortunately, lead single ‘Stardew’ pulls things back from the brink at the album’s close; it’s a tight, syncopated pop song that reminds us why the duo earned themselves a comeback in the first place.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Stardew’

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LAUV

~how i’m feeling~ No stranger to a pop hit previously, of course, Lauv’s debut is chock-full of slinky pop gems.

Like its first collection in 2018, the Everything Is Recorded project continues to be a celebration of collaboration, a skill XL boss Richard Russell is well versed in; he formed the bridge between Jamie xx and Gil ScottHeron to stunning effect after all. ‘Friday Forever’ is a concept album in the truest sense; each track is even assigned its own designated time to keep up with the narrative. ‘Pretending Nothing’s Wrong’ chops up soul and stacks it against the unique lilt of Kean Kavanagh in thrilling fashion and the strings that tail off the choral hook of ‘This World‘ embody the melancholy one might feel in the blearyeyed light of day perfectly. This is a solid record with a concept that unravels fantastically. A work that calls for more exploration, particularly the mood of its ethereal, dawn-lit closing chapter.

(Sean Kerwick) LISTEN: ‘Pretending Nothing’s Wrong’

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M WARD Migration Stories (ANTI-)

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PORRIDGE RADIO Emotionally wrought but with a knack for a chorus or two, it’s a stellar debut from Dana Margolin and pals.

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SORRY 925

A long time coming (and then some) the North London indie gang’s debut was worth the wait.

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RECOMMENDED

Every Bad

Understatement has always been Matt Ward’s stock in trade, which is possibly why he remains best known in the popular consciousness for his collaboration with Zooey Deschanel in She & Him. ‘Migration Stories’ might be his most impressionistic solo record yet, a collection that began life as eleven woozy instrumentals that came together during sessions in Québec with Tim Kingsbury and Richard Reed Parry. Over the top, Ward spins softly optimistic tales of a borderless near-future in a style that leans toward stream-of-consciousness. Elsewhere, Matt renews his flirtation with country, particularly on an atmospheric version of the age-old cowboy ballad ‘Along the Santa Fe Trail’. Given that his most recent visit to this kind of territory was on the lumpen ‘A Wasteland Companion’ back in 2012, that’s high praise indeed. Matt quietly signposted his intention to tackle the political in his music with 2016’s ‘More Rain’; on ‘Migration Stories’, he’s done so, with elegance. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Unreal City’

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LIDO PIMIENTA Miss Colombia (ANTI-)

Over the course of two decades Lido Pimienta has taken in a host of musical disciplines and consistently imbued her music with political inflections, so there’s a sense this first conventional album release should represent a mission statement of sorts. Accordingly, she bristles bitingly throughout ‘Miss Colombia’ at what she sees as the failure of her compatriots to hold their government to account for rising inequality and violations of indigenous rights. If the subject matter is typically sprawling, the album feels like a relatively streamlined effort. There’s a steady instrumental palette, which lends a throughline and a sense of consistency to the likes of minimal pop track ‘Coming Thru’. There’s no question that a little bit of Lido’s formidable live energy is lost here, but ‘Miss Colombia’ remains a vibrant introduction to her. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Coming Thru’

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Earth

Viscerals

EOB

PIGS X7

(Polydor)

(Rocket)

‘Earth’, the debut LP from Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien might provide moments of hope and compassion across its runtime, but for the majority it feels too indirect and underplayed. Ed relocated to rural Brazil in 2012, and any inspiration from the rhythms and joy of Rio’s carnival is most apparent on the latter half of the appropriately-named ‘Brasil’, with its resonant, grooving basslines and pushing drum beats layered with sequencers akin to those on Radiohead’s ‘The King Of Limbs’ and its remixes. Opener ‘Shangri-La’, meanwhile, energetically lifts and falls with tension, filled with spacey guitars and vibrant percussion. The clear highlight is ‘Olympik’, an upbeat and energetic jam that just keeps twisting and reinventing itself for a solid 8 minutes. But the slower, more spiritual and insightful tracks are where this album is at its weakest - ‘Deep Days’ slumbers, too texturally similar to David Gilmour’s ‘On An Island’, and ‘Sail On’ is characterless and unengaging. ‘Earth’ might be musically faultless, but it lacks the bite of his day job. (Martin Toussaint) LISTEN: ‘Olympik’

Newcastle’s Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs have never been a band to do things by halves: their combination of crunching riffs and full-throated vocals created such a potent blend on 2018’s ‘King of Cowards’ that they went a good few steps beyond just being a cult favourite. Third album ‘Viscerals’ places them in a position to break through even further. Lead single ‘Reducer’ finds them in scintillatingly heavy form, weaving hypnotic patterns while retaining their knack for a gargantuan and weirdly life-affirming chorus. It’s with following track ‘Rubbernecker’ that ‘Viscerals’ becomes truly interesting, finding Pigs x7 hit the intersection of psych and metal. ‘Crazy In Blood’ is testament to this approach: a slow burner that still manages to feel thrilling and far out. In a lesser band’s grasp, this blend could become self-indulgent but Pigs x7 manage to keep the wheels on the track consistently, creating something that feels melodic and widescreen even while brimming with intensity. (Tom Sloman) LISTEN: ‘Rubbernecker’

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CONAN GRAY Kid Krow (Island)

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CAVETOWN Sleepyhead (Warner)

The transition from YouTuber to bonafide pop star can be a difficult one to navigate. Intimate dialogues with your community quickly fall foul to faceless promotional tweets; new adopters question the credibility of your come-up.

At worst, you lose all of the edges and intrigue that people loved you for in the first place. On ‘Sleepyhead’, his majorlabel debut, Robbie Skinner broadly manages to avoid the fate of so many before him. Warming up his trademark bedroom pop without compromising the appeal of its homemade sound, he sticks broadly to the gentle songs his fans love him for, delicately constructing his own identity through each soul-searching experience. ‘Trying’ is easily the standout - a flaws-and-all sentiment of resilience, it’s the record’s one homage to the emo-infused atmospherics he made his name on, and a hopeful sign that those days may not be entirely behind him.

There’s still plenty of room to grow, but for now, there’s enough about Cavetown to keep fans around for the ride. (Jenessa Williams) LISTEN: ‘Trying’

Conan Gray is a model modern musician: honest, versatile and unafraid to embrace pop music. Debut album ‘Kid Krow’ is a collection of catchy choruses, big harmonies and lyrics straight out of a high school drama. A true slasher, the YouTuber / singer-songwriter effortlessly jumps between styles, from chart-ready tracks like ‘Wish You Were Sober’, ‘Maniac’ and ‘Checkmate’ that channel pop powerhouses Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran and Lauv to cute interludes like ‘(Online-Love)’, indie rock on ‘Fight or Flight’ and folk balladry on ‘Heather’. This might be his first album but he already has plenty of fans, having amassed nearly 1.8 million subscribers on YouTube, so releasing an album that has something for everyone is only natural. However, the moments of real quality on ‘Kid Krow’ come when Conan the star-to-be takes a backseat and Conan the human takes over. It’s most evident on closer ‘The Story’, an optimistic tale of past loves that rues evil parents and missed opportunities and has him exclaiming: “I’m afraid that’s just the way the world works but I think that it could work for you and me.” This side to Conan, when his music is drawn from raw emotion and not a business plan, makes it clear why he’s already well on his way to being a 2020 icon. (Will Strickson) LISTEN: ‘Fight or Flight’

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Dear Life

I Feel Alive

Kiss My Super Bowl Ring

(Musique TOPS)

Harkin

(Epitaph)

(Hand Mirror)

With a saturation of ‘80s synthwave revivalists, it’s easy to forget TOPS have been there earlier than most.

But on fourth album ‘I Feel Alive’, it’s obvious they’re well-practiced at the craft, conjuring up 35 minutes of their trademark melancholy.

It’s also an album of firsts for them - newly added keyboard player Marta Cikojevic adds a vital new layer. This in turn frees up vocalist Jane Penny to add a couple of flute solos on the record, which is a pleasant surprise.

In fact, it’s the broadness of flavour on the album that is its main strength. The sparse, chilling layers of ‘Ballads and Sad Movies’, or the Joni Mitchell-esque delivery of ‘Take Down’ really show the broadness TOPS are capable of. On top of this, Jane’s vocal is remarkable throughout, ranging from the fragility of Lana Del Rey to the power of Kate Bush. An album with some undeniable gems but perhaps a few too many soft-rock fillers, ‘I Feel Alive’ delivers a genuinely refreshing take on melancholy. (Nick Harris) LISTEN: ‘Take Down’

With ‘Kiss My Super Bowl Ring’, California’s weirdest duo have provided the world with a much needed relentlessly tongue-in-cheek, necessarily unforgiving record. Sonically, it still features the rave textures and processed guitars we’d expect from them, but at points it’s also Wyatt and Fletcher Shears’ darkest and grungiest effort to date.

This is most apparent on ‘A Fool´s Expedition’ and opener ‘Clench To Stay Away’, both being filled with roomy drums and demonic detuned guitars. ‘Sneaky Devil’ powers along with unapologetic drum and bass synths and ‘90s rave drums, not unlike ‘Cloak’ from 2015´s ‘haha’. Notably, The Garden aren’t exactly known for the majority of their catalogue being instantaneous or plausibly direct, yet ‘Please, Fuck Off’ is just that, and a magnificent way to end this twisting record. On the whole, ‘Kiss My Super Bowl Ring’ is interesting and genuine, but most importantly it’s a lot of fun. (Martin Toussaint) LISTEN: ‘Please, Fuck Off’

You can forgive Katie Harkin her tardiness in releasing this long-mooted solo debut. Her days fronting Sky Larkin, the melody-forward pop-rock trio, seem an age ago now; since their last album in 2013, she’s carved out a career as the most in-demand sidewoman in the business, touring the world several times over with the likes of Sleater-Kinney and Courtney Barnett. Sure, Sky Larkin could often be boisterous to the point of verging on bombast, but this is a record that speaks to growing measure and maturity. The moments that recall her riff-driven past are thick on atmosphere, particularly the moody ‘Decade’ and the frosty ‘Bristling’, but often it feels as if the guitar is being used for colour. ‘Harkin’ really takes off when Katie explores new territory; ‘Red Virginia Creeper’ takes its cues from Poliça’s ‘Shulamith’, while ‘Sun Stay with Me’ is driven by an irresistibly groovy bassline.

She was right to take her time - debuts are rarely this refined.

(Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Decade’

BRENDAN BENSON (Third Man)

In The Raconteurs, Brendan Benson’s classicist songwriting and Beatleseque melodies prove the perfect foil for bandmate Jack White’s more uncaged moments.

But Brendan’s seventh solo album, ‘Dear Life’, sees the tables turn. Opener ‘I Can If You Want Me To’ sets the tone, as pitch-shifted vocals and icy Dr Dre-style synth stabs - not elements you’d typically associate with the Michigan songwriter - make way for big primal riffs. It’s a wonderfully chaotic assault built on quickfire tempo changes. Single ‘Good To Be Alive’ finds him back in familiar territory - a classic piano ballad - until another swift about-turn sees it morph into an electro-fused disco strut. Point made, he settles down into his signature ‘70s-infused guitar pop occasionally aided by brass, before ‘Freak Out’ and ‘I’m In Love’ bring out the riffs again.

On ‘Half A Boy (Half A Man)’, the “welder’s son” tells us “there’s more to me than what you see”. There certainly is.

(Felix Rowe) LISTEN: ‘I Can If You Want Me To’

TOPS

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SÉBASTIEN TELLIER Domesticated (Because)

The author Cyril Connolly once said “there is no more sombre enemy of good art than the pram in the hall” and to suggest that Sébastien Tellier is railing against that notion on this seventh full-length is putting it mildly. Now a veteran of the avantgarde French pop scene nearly twenty years after his debut ‘L’incroyable Vérité’, Sébastien takes inspiration on the aptlytitled ‘Domesticated’ from his new state of affairs - happily married with kids. Over the course of eight tracks, he muses on the minutiae of everyday life in typically offbeat fashion. In 52

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THE GARDEN

HARKIN

places, there are some of his most melodic work for some time - opener ‘A Ballet’ is a case in point, laying hazy vocals over a trap beat, as well as ‘Atomic Smile’, an exercise in gently undulating synth. There’s room, too, for the experimentation of old - the noisy breakdown at the midpoint of ‘Domestic Tasks’ is proof positive of that - whilst there’s a burbling, off-kilter energy to ‘Hazy Feelings’.

It’s all pleasant, but feels inessential and - at times - dated, not least because the lowertempo tracks veer dangerously close to sounding like chillwave.

Domestication has not robbed Tellier of his adventurousness, but the killer instinct that defines his best work is missing here: ‘Domesticated’ is a meandering listen. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Atomic Smile’

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RINGO DEATHSTARR

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DO NOTHING

Zero Dollar Bill (Exact Truth)

If Sleaford Mods are the product of all the venom and bile in Nottingham, then perhaps Do Nothing are the city’s more optimistic counter-point. The youthful vigour and laidback swagger of ‘Zero Dollar Bill’ is a far more wholesome post-punk affair than that of their more confrontational neighbours. The EP is packed with wonky basslines, probing guitars and a warbling stream-of-consciousness from singer Chris Bailey, who pleads “Don’t ever leave your wingman, don’t bail on your buddies” on journeying opener ‘Comedy Gold’. He’s the band’s dynamic focal point, asking important questions like “Will you still love me if my hair falls out?” on the kinetic centrepiece ‘Contraband’. With the gentle groove of highlight ‘New Life’, the Do Nothing listening experience is exemplified as a kind of musical sermon. So tight and precise is Chris’ backing that the band as a whole feel less like verse-and-chorus merchants than dynamic storytelling machines. Even over the flashing chords and Talking Heads-like cow bells of lead single ‘LeBron James’, the singer is able to spin a compelling yarn about having dinner with the eponymous basketball star. Throw into the mix a sprinkling of Pulp-like Britpop and you’ve got one of the most complete EPs of 2020 so far.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘New Life’

Ringo Deathstarr (Club AC30)

Texan shoegazers Ringo Deathstarr have never championed themselves on originality, so it’s a feat in itself that they’ve navigated a 13-year career without ever straying too far from a genre that peaked in the mid-‘90s. “I’m just ‘gazin’,” drones Elliott Frazier on the third track of this, their self-titled fifth album. It doesn’t get more succinct than that. The band pay an ambient ode to their dedicated Japanese fanbase with opening track ‘Nagoya’, but elsewhere it’s all a bit of a dirge. The band wear their influences so proudly on their sleeves (or should that be their shoes?) that their work sacrifices any semblance of ingenuity. The result is a derisive retread of sounds that feel well past its sell-by date. (James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Nagoya’

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JERSKIN FENDRIX Winterreise (untitled)

Recently there has been a tangible resurgence of the avant-garde, championed by South London luminaries black midi and Black Country, New Road. Enter Jerskin Fendrix, a respected stalwart of the alternative scene that BC,NR leader Isaac Woods once described as his ‘musical uncle’.

Rather than adhere to his contemporaries’ no-wave and free jazz influences, Jerskin instead takes his experimental style and melds it with predominately pop-based traits. The result is a complex LP that references everything from Kanye West to 19th Century romantic poet Wilhelm Müller. It can be a challenging listen at first, with abrupt dynamic switches and abrasive synths initially unnerving. Persevere and you are rewarded with a truly unique musical journey. It’s captivating throughout, from the creeping synths of ‘Black Hair’ to the pounding dance rhythms of ‘Swamp’. An exciting debut that puts a unique spin on an already groundbreaking movement, it’s not to be missed. (Jack Johnstone Orr) LISTEN: ‘Black Hair’

BACK TO THE With Q1: Where did you record the album?

Q2: What could a ‘Zero Dollar Bill’ buy you?

Do Nothing

Q3: What does LeBron James actually have for dinner?

Q4: What ‘Contraband’ are Do Nothing most likely to be caught with?

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From palpable anger to unabridged joy, and every space between.

LIVE …Matty, u ok hun?

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THE 1975 The O2, London. Photos: Patrick Gunning.

SET LIST THE 1975 PEOPLE SEX TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME ME & YOU TOGETHER SONG SINCERITY IS SCARY IT’S NOT LIVING (IF IT’S NOT WITH YOU) MENSWEAR IF YOU’RE TOO SHY (LET ME KNOW) LOVE ME I COULDN’T BE MORE IN LOVE GUYS AN ENCOUNTER ROBBERS FALLINGFORYOU MILK LOSTMYHEAD FRAIL STATE OF MIND THE BIRTHDAY PARTY I LIKE AMERICA & AMERICA LIKES ME HNSCC SOMEBODY ELSE I ALWAYS WANNA DIE (SOMETIMES) THE 1975 LOVE IT IF WE MADE IT CHOCOLATE GIVE YOURSELF A TRY THE SOUND

Matty Healy is angry. As he leans into the crowd during ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’, he spits with a visceral venom that lifts the song to a previously unheard level.

His anger runs throughout the very veins of set opener ‘People’ - a storming, punkinspired number far removed from anything The 1975 have delivered before or since.

It’s mirrored in his curt, nononsense introduction to a replaying of climate change activist Greta Thunberg’s poignant call-to-arms. Not paying attention will piss him off, he notes with sobering force. The O2 obliges as the arena dips to a pin-drop silence, an evident respect for Greta’s vital message.

The passion that fuels both Matty’s anger and activism is deeply engrained across The 1975’s 24-song strong set the longest they have ever played, the frontman reveals with an unmistakable mixture of pride and fear. Even in their softer moments - of which there are many - the band hone in on individual emotions. On ‘Robbers’, one of a handful of songs making an appearance from their debut self-titled album, Matty’s voice is tinged by a gentle snarl. Elsewhere the band opt for deeper cuts than ever before, encouraging comparisons to Icelandic experimentalists Sigur Rós in the vast instrumental atmosphere they command.

‘Fallingforyou’, again from the debut, offers an escapist soundscape. The radio-friendly set stalwarts part ways for the likes of the shoegaze-esque

‘Lostmyhead’ and the gutwrenching ‘I Couldn’t Be More In Love’. Alongside two unreleased tracks, ‘Guys’ and ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’, the expansive set also makes space for further live rarities such as ‘Milk’.

Existing in a sparselyinhabited grey area between pop, rock, punk, electronic and everything in-between, The 1975 have rapidly become veterans at breaking the mould. Most recent single, ‘The Birthday Party’, presents itself as a twee pop ballad; Matty’s whispered tone unfolding in front of a swirling, bubblegum backdrop. Moments later he’s tackling themes of gun violence in the United States. There’s a remarkable confidence in this effortless ability to pull it all together, in crafting a world inside The O2 that is unmistakably theirs.

This world dashes between the powerful and the frivolous, from the punch to the face of ‘Love It If We Made It’ to the pop-perfect ‘Chocolate’. It’s one of dazzling colour and lights.

Much like their previous trip to the capital, the initially simple stage set-up contorts with melting backdrops, vibrant lights and moving platforms. All are perfectly matched with the everchanging tempo of the set which, for almost two hours, envelops the arena in a hedonistic haze, one that jumps from palpable anger to unabridged joy, and occupies every space between. (Ben Tipple)

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NEW COLOSSUS Berlin Under A, New York City. Photos: Louise Mason.

Ahead of the city’s official lockdown two nights later, it’s a reduced venue capacity that greets us for our show at New York’s New Colossus festival. With SXSW cancelled, and certain stages at the NYC event also forced to shut, the financial, professional and personal repercussions have been huge; tonight, with the help of four hardy bands, we try to salvage a slither of joy from the global nightmare happening around us.

Kicking things off in the intimate surroundings of Avenue A’s Berlin are Boston’s Honey Cutt, fresh from the release of LP ‘Coasting’ the night before.

Led by titular singer Kaley Honeycutt, their jangling alt-indie gains a whack of clout on the live stage. Landing along the lines of Chastity Belt, Screaming Females or some of the USA’s other more stormy recent exports, the likes of recent single ‘Fashion School’ are loaded with bite and delivered - fittingly - with the intensity of the last gig in town.

LIFE

BRION STARR

HONEY CUTT

LIFE

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LIFE

New York’s Brion Starr, meanwhile, is clearly adapting seamlessly to the times.

Entering clad in a black face mask and shades, he’s proof that ‘coronavirus chic’ could well soon be a thing, and with an arsenal of effortlessly swaggering rock’n’roll in tow, he and his deadpan band have the wares to back the aesthetic up. ‘The Heart Is A Loaded Gun’ struts like The Brian Jonestown Massacre with a Modern Lovers swing, while a closing cover of George Harrison’s ‘Isn’t It A Pity’ takes the soft sweetness of the original and gives it a tough, streethardened edge.

He’s followed by France’s Marble Arch, who might be named after a distinctly British landmark but who couldn’t be more Parisien if they tried. The recorded project of Yann le Razavet, live they’re a fully-fledged quintet whose brand of shoegaze-inflected new wave cribs a little from the Jesus and Mary Chain, a little from the late-’00s likes of The Pains of Being Pure at Heart and throws it all in

with a healthy dose of pop nouse.

And so to tonight’s headliners LIFE. And while we’ve seen the Hull quartet over the years in more venues than we’d care to count – big and small, from faraway festival stages to back in their native birthplace – there’s a fighting, understandably defiant spirit to tonight’s show that’s even more incendiary than normal. On the semi circular stage, the band are bursting out the seams, bassist Lydia Palmeira looking like she’s about to charge the crowd at any moment and frontman Mez Green regularly all up in their grill – dancing his way to the chorus one minute, and screaming his head off the next. Tracks from debut ‘Popular Music’ and last year’s ‘A Picture of Good Health’ are well-honed beasts these days, the sarcastic lollop of ‘Bum Hour’ and the jagged spike of ‘Hollow Thing’ triumphant, dancefloor-baiting anthems for the end of the world as we know it (for now). At least we went out with a bang.

(Lisa Wright)

BIG THIEF

Hammersmith Apollo, London. Photo: Emma Swann.

It’s a testament to Big Thief’s reputation, which has boomed off the back of two superb albums in 2019 (Grammy-nominated ‘U.F.O.F.’ and follow-up ‘Two Hands’) that they have attracted a bumper audience of 5,000 people for this biggest-ever gig at a grossly-oversubscribed Hammersmith Apollo. It takes some time for the band to truly hit their stride tonight though. With no production to speak of other than the warm, pink glow of the Apollo’s lighting, the band are left to clump together at the front of the stage and make an impression themselves - but they’re initially more focused on each other than the mammoth crowd before them. With scarce, timid audience interaction, crowd chatter disturbs what otherwise feels like a tender rehearsal session. But when Adrianne Lenker and co. hit ‘Mary’ at the midpoint, they truly step up a gear, and from that point onward are unstoppable. Adrianne’s pirouetting vocal captivates the entire audience, while the rest of the band lilt through dynamic peaks and swells, with languid drums and squirrelling guitars.

Searing solos in ‘Real Love’ and ‘Shoulders’ electrify the band’s Neil Young-like live sound, before ‘Not’, which finds all four members of the band harmonising in a commanding chorus, is met with uproarious cheers. It’s the best moment of the night, and judging by the manner in which Adrianne stomps about the stage for the rest of the show, she knows it too. The band’s imperious musicianship then reaches a climax with the jangling ‘Cattails’ and the swaggering ‘Forgotten Eyes’. The best thing about Big Thief’s 2019 records is that listening to them felt like you were there in the room with them. Somehow, hearing those songs performed inside the cavernous Hammersmith Apollo feels even more intimate. (James Bentley)

CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS MOTH Club, London. Photo: Gaelle Beri.

Christine and the Queens looks right at home on MOTH Club’s stage, itself a glittering homage to a time gone by.

Flanked by memorabilia from the venue’s prior life as a servicemen’s members club and backdropped by a gold shimmer curtain, she stands comfortably alone, her sound perfectly mirroring the room’s idiosyncrasy. It’s her smallest ever London show, to mark the release of new EP ‘La vita nuova’. The intimate affair sees her perform the record’s five tracks in full, representing the many sides of Christine and the Queens’ sound, from the minimalist club beats of ‘Je disparais dans tes bras’ performed in French – to the stunning vocal of ‘Mountains (we met)’. The record’s biggest moment is reserved for the title track which sees collaborator and friend Caroline Polachek join Christine on stage, ultimately evolving into a mesmerising dance battle of sorts. It’s all remarkably effortless; Christine arrives

at the otherwise empty stage through the crowd with only a vocal mic in hand. There’s no barrier, no obvious security in sight. Christine, noting that tonight is reminiscent of her early career, cracks jokes. At one moment she finds herself entangled in the gold foils hanging at the back of the stage. She smiles, throwing a knowing eye at her fans, and continues. Throughout her career playing with the notions of femininity and power, with identity and sexuality, tonight cements Christine as a truly empowering voice.

Among the brilliant songs lies a personable, relatable and self-assured individual, one who instils that confidence in a legion of devoted fans.

Closing out an exhilarating evening with the absolutely massive ‘Gone’, in 45 minutes Christine delivers a truly unforgettable evening – one that will live as long as the artefacts on MOTH Club’s walls. (Ben Tipple)

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ORLANDO WEEKS SORRY City Varieties, Leeds. Photo: Andrew Benge.

City Varieties suits Orlando Weeks. Tucked down an unassuming side street in Leeds City Centre, it may not shout about itself much from the front, but once you’re invited inside, it’s a place of majesty, a history of performance embedded inside its velvet-lined walls, cascading down its opulent staircases.

Entering quietly onto the stage, the singer is visibly torn between intimidation and admiration. “I’m struggling to know what to say…this place feels a bit like the Titanic,” he quips, eyes roaming the stalls. “Well, you booked it!” hollers a Yorkshireman from the crowd, ever the pragmatist. A tension breaking-laugh unites the band - there’s only so long you can be nervous in front of a Leeds crowd. With only ‘Safe In Sound’ out in the world as an indication of his new musical direction, the room is impressively full. Respectfully seated, we’re shown that the single is a strong indication of the wider record - a little timid, a little fragile, but growing in confidence towards a chorus. Complex layers of melody recall Radiohead or even Massive Attack much more readily than they do The Maccabees; a couple nearby leave halfway through, clearly feeling missold, but they’re strictly in the minority. Most have put their phones in their pockets, too caught up in the moment to share it with their online mates. With no record yet to cross-reference, it can be hard to pick specifics out of Orlando’s trademark murmur, roaming seamlessly from song to song. Nonetheless, there are definitely a few early standouts. One possibly-titled ‘Lift Off’ is a real treat, trumpets and piano playing hide and seek with one another in a race towards a sunrise cadence. With the album poised for a summer release, things are in excellent, affecting shape. He might be using his voice in ways that would surprise Maccabees fans, but Orlando’s greatest asset is still intact - crafting songs that speak to the challenges and the rewards of growing up, and delivering them with zero pretence or ego. You cannot help but wish him the world. (Jenessa Williams)

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Union Pool, New York. Photo: Louise Mason.

While Sorry have been hot property in London for some time now, you can never tell how these things are going to translate on the other side of the Atlantic. So it’s with no small amount of righteous victory that the band begin their sold-out two night run at New York’s Union Pool tonight. In debut ‘925’, they have a collection of tracks that slope into strange corners, taking unexpected routes and meeting curious characters along the way. But it’s also a record that indisputably lands: one that you’ll find humming, with needling, odd earworms underpinning every twist and turn. It’s with this spirit that the band take to the stage for this evening show. Sampled clips of everything from ‘What A Wonderful World’ to The Jungle Book’s insidious snake theme ‘Trust In Me’ bridge gaps between songs; framed by an arch of glowing bulbs that make them look like a moving painting, it all lends to the aura of twisted theatre. Kicking off with the sleazy slink of recent single ‘Right Round The Clock’, the band veer between dark-hearted sneers (‘In Unison’, ‘More’), genuine tender moments (‘As The Sun Sets’, ‘Rosie’) and grotty backstreet bangers (‘Starstruck’ and a glorious, saxophone-parping ‘Rock’n’Roll Star’). Singers Asha Lorenz and Louis O’Bryen trade parts, the former’s vocal simultaneously childlike and defiant, the latter her more deadpan foil. It’s an unusual chemistry that sums up Sorry’s appeal: the absolute opposite of any kind of guitar-band-by-numbers, everything about them feels hyper specific and singular. Thanking everyone for braving the worldwide corona-panic to come out, the band look visibly relieved that their American dream hasn’t been completely scuppered. But far from winging it, the room tonight is full and the excitement tangible. If they can pull it out the bag in these less than ideal circumstances, imagine what Sorry will be able to do when the world’s back and ready. (Lisa Wright)

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IT’S YOUR ROUND A big inter-band pub quiz of sorts, we’ll be grilling your faves one by one.

THIS MONTH: DEMOB HAPPY

Who: Matt Marcantonio Where: Exeter Drink: Tequila and soda Price: Free from the rider

Specialist Subject:

Conspiracy Theories Which mad man believes that the world is controlled by high-powered lizard people?

That would be David Icke.

Correct.

Which Beatles song, when played backwards, was meant to say “Turn me on, dead man” and thus affirm the (incorrect) ‘Paul is dead’ theory?

There’s a few tracks that are meant to be linked with this.

One’s meant to say “Paul is a dead man: miss him, miss him, miss him”. Now, he was meant to have died in ‘67 in a car crash because there’s a few things pointing to that on the ‘Abbey Road’ cover…

But what is the answer, Matthew?

It’s on ‘The White Album’ - is it ‘Glass Onion’? I’m gonna kick myself.

It’s ‘Revolution 9’.

Some people say famous child beauty queen JonBenét Ramsey is not

actually dead, she grew up to be the famous pop star…

Is it like, Kesha or someone?

Blondie McHeadline Glastonbury?

Aka Taylor Swift?

No. It’s Katy Perry.

What is, apparently, the tell-tale giveaway that the moon landings were faked?

The flag waves and it shouldn’t.

Correct, because there’s no wind in space.

Bruce Lee died of an allergic reaction, but some people claim he was murdered. By who and for why?

Was it something to do with mafia gangs? Did he owe them money?

It was indeed the Chinese mafia apparently for revealing the secrets of karate. What a tinker!

2.5/5 2.5 /5

General Knowledge How much does Old Kent Road cost in a standard game of Monopoly?

Absolutely no fucking idea.

I haven’t played it in about 15 years.

It’s a brown one…

Is it like, £150?

It’s £60 Who wrote the very #metoo literary classic, Lolita?

Is it American…? Is it by Mark someone…?

He’s Russian.

I think we went to a museum of his in Kiev… No, I don’t know.

It’s Vladimir Nabokov.

In which city is Frasier set?

Seattle! I know that! But it’s actually shot in LA. Correct, and some extra knowledge to boot!

Those vibes don’t work for me. Seattle’s grunge;

Frasier’s not grunge.

You cannot argue with that.

What does ‘ATM’ stand for with regards to a cash ATM? Is it Automated Transaction Machine?

That’s very close - it’s Automated Teller Machine.

You can have half.

Name all of the seven dwarves.

Is Lumpy one?

No. OK right. Dopey, Sleepy, Bashful… Randy? Playful?

I’m just gonna say adjectives now… Bouncy? Bumpy?!

Rudolph?!?

It’s Dopey, Sleepy, Sneezy, Bashful, Happy, Grumpy and Doc.

1.5/5

FINAL SCORE:

4/10

Verdict: “I’m just annoyed I didn’t get that Beatles one. I’m very sad for me.”

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