DIY December 2024 / January 2025

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A CAREER IN MUSIC STARTS AT BIMM

Ding Dong merrily on

into

advent calendars and

the mulled

so

that’s left for 2024 is to share our picks of the best new artists around - and what an issue we’ve got in store for you!

This month we’ve been tickled pink (quite literally) rounding up the new acts that we think will with punk’s most exciting new duo Lambrini Girls taking the helm as our cover stars, ahead debut ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’. Plus, they’re backed by an all Nieve Ella, Matilda Mann, Luvcat, mary in the junkyard and loads more, proving that 2025’s new music quota is set to be pretty rosy after all…

As ever, we’d like to wish a big thanks to our Class of 2025 sponsors BIMM University, Super Bock, Fender and Q Acoustics; but most of all, thank you to our readers! We hope you have a fabulous festive period, and we’ll see you back here in 2025.

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

Scan

From ascending faves to returning heroes and a whole host of Certifably Massive Stars, 2025 is already shaping up to be a big year for incoming albums. Here’s the lowdown on what we know so far…

2025 SPECIAL!

Nova Twins

After the phenomenal success of their second album ‘Supernova’, 2025 will boast a new era for the boundary-pushing rock band. We caught up with the pair to fnd out more…

Words: Sarah Jamieson

It’s no secret that the last three years have been dizzying for Nova Twins. Having kicked off their second album era with the storming ‘Antagonist’ back in October 2021, since then things have only got wilder for the duo, formed of vocalist / guitarist Amy Love and bassist Georgia South. Following its release in June 2022, ‘Supernova’ has earned them a slew of plaudits and award nominations – including two BRIT Award nods and a shortlisting for the 2022 Mercury Prize – while their live shows have continued to grow bigger and more frenzied with every year.

Having released their 2020 debut ‘Who Are The Girls?’ during the pandemic, the upward trajectory of their second was an even more surreal trip for the duo; the result has been the kind of headspinning ascent that’s left them still reeling at what they’ve racked up in its wake. “I defnitely feel like, when we’re in the middle of it all, we don’t actually process it,” Amy nods. Even during their current period of relative downtime, Nova Twins are still all systems go, with a handful of shows in Paris scheduled for a few days’ time.

“It’s just happening, and you’re too busy trying to take on the next challenge, and you’ve got all these different emotions, like excitement or nerves or other things that you’re processing,” she continues. “I think we’ve only just stopped for the last few months and now it’s like, ‘Oh my God, yeah, we did do those things!’ We’ll watch a video back or someone will say something to us, like, ‘Oh, you did this girls, how did it go?’ and we’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we did do all of that…’. Then you really acknowledge and can appreciate that we have had an amazing journey when, especially in this climate, it’s really hard for bands.”

While this whirlwind of success is something that the pair are undoubtedly grateful for, there’s always another side to the coin: the question of how to follow it all up. Set to launch in early 2025, the band’s third album is now complete, but working on it wasn’t without its trials. “It was a more challenging album for sure,” Georgia confrms. “This felt more like the natural pressures of a second album, because ‘Supernova’ was obviously written in the pandemic under less pressure.”

Having spent a signifcant time on the road over the last few years, readjusting back to quoteunquote normal life also fed into that general feeling of uncertainty over their next steps. “We got back and we had to decompress for a month or so because we’d been nonstop touring,” Amy explains. “We were like, ‘We don’t know ourselves, we haven’t lived, we just lived in a van’. But when you do decompress, loads of things come to the forefront and obviously life hits you; suddenly we’ve got loads of inspiration and stuff to say, but then sometimes we’ve not. Sometimes it was diffcult because we just felt nothing. Then we’d take a step away from it, come back and it would be better.

“It was just a really human experience writing this album,” she continues, “because the frst album, we had all our lives to write it, and the second

album, no one really had any expectations of us. But then this one, it was like: ‘Supernova’! Bang! Okay! There were pressures but then we had to really be like, ‘Hang on a minute, that’s not why we got into this’. You have to leave that aside. As long as we both love the end result, that’s what matters. We just went with our old guns for that.”

Written throughout last winter (“In darkness!” Amy chips in), the gears really shifted for Nova Twins’ third full-length when they headed over to the States earlier this year to open up for a little rock band called Foo Fighters. “When we went to America and did the Foos shows, we literally had been in our bedrooms just writing this album for four or fve months,” Georgia says. “We felt so good doing them because we love to play live. We’d do the shows and then, in between, we’d record the album in Vermont with Rich Costey. I think it was perfect that we got to kind of be a live band again and be in that space.”

Having worked with the same production team for both their previous releases, on Album Three the pair decided to try something new. Spending around three and a half weeks in Costey’s residential studio over two different sessions, the experience provided a much-needed contrast to the colder climes of the initial writing process. “Vermont was beautiful,” Georgia nods. “It was amazing to record it [there], just surrounded by so many felds and nature, which was really great for us too.”

The decision to work with Rich wasn’t just down to his stellar production and mixing CV, either. “He’s done a lot of bands that we love,” Amy nods to his eclectic resumé, which boasts the likes of Muse, Death Cab For Cutie, Biffy Clyro, Jenny Lewis and Sam Fender, among many others. “It was just something that felt right, and his energy is very calm. There’s no ego with Rich, he is just a really nice guy.”

While they’re still keeping most of the album’s details hush-hush for now, there are a few more tidbits that they offer up. “There are no synths on the album,” Georgia confrms. “It’s still very much [us using] our pedal boards as you know how we love to create things live.” “We’ve used three drummers,” Amy adds. “The drums were done remotely, so one was in LA, one was in the Netherlands and one was in Milton Keynes…”

As for lyrics, they’re keeping similarly schtum for now, but it does sound as though there may be a concept at play… “As ever, we just write what we feel at that moment,” Amy notes. “I think what’s really fun about this album, lyrically and sonically, is that we play on a contrast of light and dark; you know, kind of opposites. You really go [between] different things.” What’s in store might be a secret for a little longer yet, but one thing’s certain: after the big bang of their career-changing ‘Supernova’, there’s no holding Nova Twins back. D

“We’d do the Foo Fighters shows and then, in between, we’d record the album in Vermont. I think it was

Photo: Federica Burelli

The Horrors

Line-up changes and lengthy pauses could have derailed The Horrors permanently. Instead, sixth LP ‘Night Life’ sees them re-emerging streamlined and strong.

M‘Night Life’: The Horrors’ imminent sixth LP and an album that’s been a long time coming. After the release of 2017’s ‘V’, and despite a handful of gigs and “paletterefreshing” industrial rock EPs in 2021’s ‘Lout’ and ‘Against The Blade’, the band were presented with their frst sustained period of pause and refection in their nearly 20 years of existence. Coinciding with all this too were some signifcant internal changes. Founding members Tom Furse and Joe Spurgeon stepped aside to focus on other commitments, while guitarist Josh Hayward – although still touring with the band – was only available for feeting studio visits, leaving the responsibility of LP6 resting squarely on the shoulders of vocalist Faris Badwan and bassist Rhys Webb. There was “no question”, says Faris, that there would be another Horrors record, but how it would come to materialise was less certain.

“It feels like a reinvigorated project.”Faris Badwan

“There were no gigs, no live shows. Nothing on the horizon for the band to actually be doing,” says Rhys. “I’d literally forgotten what it was like to be in a band! But I felt like we still had a lot to say and do. [Making ‘Night Life’] was a new experience for us,” he continues. “It made Faris and I work as a team, more than we had done before, because the group had always been fve individuals. This whole album process has brought us closer together.” “It’s more streamlined, isn’t it?” Faris chips in. “Our writing partnership has become the core of the band. It feels almost weird saying, ‘Yeah, we’re really happy with how this is going’, because it’s without a couple of the original members. But the truth is we were really excited with the songs.”

In between all-nighters in Rhys’ London basement, and a DIY home

studio at a Tottenham AirBnB with new recruit – and now fully fedged Horror – Amelia Kidd, the bulk of these songs crystallised during a non-stop six week stint in LA with producer Yves Rothman. During their daily walks to and from the studio in full view of the Hollywood hills, the band were exposed to, and drew inspiration from, the city’s “gritty” underbelly. “It’s such a strange place,” says Faris. “You get to see the polar opposites of human life. There’s so many homeless people and it’s really broken down and depressing in one sense, and then on the other hand you’ve got this glamorous side. It’s quite dark underneath. There’s an emotional weight underneath the fippancy.”

As indicated by their commitment to weathering line-up changes and marathon studio stints, The Horrors – as they readily admit themselves – are an “all or nothing” proposition; an unyielding organism forever re-adapting to ft its climate. Their drive to sculpt cohesive, gloomy and glistening worlds seemingly too remains unbroken, no matter what form it has to take. “Even though it’s not completely, it feels like a re-invigorated project. We found ways of pulling [the album] together because we absolutely believed in it,” says Faris. “It meant having no money for like, years. It meant spending all our available time doing these songs. It’s a testament to how much we believe in the band.”

“The whole thing’s had a bit of a magical quality to it,” says Rhys. “I can’t really put it into words, but there’s just been something in the air. To me, it’s an instantly classic Horrors album. It’s exactly what we think The Horrors should be doing and should be… our bleak and haunting best!” ‘Night Life’ is out 21st March 2025 via Fiction. D

GET EXCITED ABOUT...

Massive artists. Massive albums. Massive bangers (we hope…)

Lady Gaga – LG7

If the whomping beats and black bile-drenched video for frst single ‘Disease’ are anything to go by, ‘LG7’ looks set to fnd Gaga back at her mad and brilliant best after a lengthy foray into grown-up artiste land. Pop whippersnappers watch out: mother has returned.

Skepta – Knife and Fork

On 1st January, Skepta announced that he’d set the dinner table for ‘Knife and Fork’; 11 months later, and we’re still hungry. Since then, the grime pioneer has dropped four singles – let’s hope the full satiating LP is imminent.

Sam Fender – People Watching

You know what they say about Sam Fender news – you wait ages for some and then it all comes at once. First there was a hastily sold-out arena tour, then a stadium announcement, and now we’ve only got until 21st February to wait for LP3 which, judging from its title track, is going to be truly anthemic.

Lorde – TBA

Lorde has been keeping news about the follow up to 2021’s ‘Solar Power’ close to her chest – so close, in fact, that the grand total of teasers so far has amounted to a sub-two second clip on an Instagram story. What those two seconds says about ‘L4’? We have no idea. But if it’s even a fraction as genius as her verse on Charli’s ‘Girl, so confusing’ remix then we’ll be happy.

Lana Del Rey – The Right Person Will Stay

Having already told the world that her 10th would see her going country and working with musician Luke Laird, Lana switched up the title from previously announced ‘Lasso’ to ‘The Right Person Will Stay’. Whether that means we’re in for an alligator-themed opus dedicated to her new husband, who can say! But we’re strapping in for 21st May.

Photos: The Horrors, Marcell Rév

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IN THE STUDIO 2025 SPECIAL!

Tunde Adebimpe

As frontman of TV On The Radio, Tunde Adebimpe spent the frst section of the century at the forefront of New York indie cool. With his solo debut, however, he’s aiming to satiate a different kind of need.

Tunde Adebimpe believes in the power of music; that, at its best, a song can be a spell – “an incantation to bring things into your life or something to break a hex with”. Over the last decade, he’s not been casting a lot of them. Best known as frontman of New York ‘00s indie trailblazers TV On The Radio, the band’s last record was 2014’s ‘Seeds’ while, in the interim, Adebimpe has been spending more time on screens than on the airwaves, landing acting roles in Hollywood blockbusters including Spider-Man: Homecoming and this year’s Twisters. However, since casually beginning work on what he thought might become his frst solo record back in 2019, life threw a series of hurdles in his way that demanded some extra magic to pull him through.

“I had a lot of family losses in that time. My sister who is my closest friend passed away while I was writing this record, so the process of making it was like building an island that I could go to and be in control of this one thing when I couldn’t control anything else that was happening,” he explains, speaking from his home studio garage in Los Angeles. “It was like building a shrine to her and people who’ve passed away in my life to just say, ‘Thank you, I love you’.”

Writing with longtime friend Wilder Zoby (himself, a frequent Run The Jewels

collaborator), Adebimpe describes the process – despite the sadness surrounding it – as open and playful. “It’s like being in a new city where you’re like, ‘I can do whatever I want because it’s not a worn path yet’,” he suggests. The frst public step down that path, meanwhile, came in October with the air-punching forward-motion of ‘Magnetic’: a track that could sit alongside TVOTR’s most potent, and whose rallying cries, written from the middle of grief, gained a new layer of perspective upon their release shortly after the US election result.

“‘Magnetic’ is a symbol for bringing things together to be able to get a 3D view of it; that you’re the one that has the power to change these things. If you have a working map of the chaos in your head, you know the parts that you need to take care of and the bits you need to get rid of,” Adebimpe says. “One of the frst lines of the song goes, ‘In the age of tenderness and rage’ [which was taken from] a photo of a young woman holding a sign at a protest saying, ‘This is the age of rage and tenderness’. And that just landed because that’s exactly what this is.”

The album – set for release in 2025 – will come via legendary indie label Sub Pop: a ft that makes total sense but that, laughs Adebimpe, was a long time in the making. “I had a bunch of demos in 2019 and decided to shop them around and see who might be interested in putting them out aaaaand nobody wanted to do it,” he snorts. “I defnitely had a big moment of, ‘Ohhhh right! All of that cultural capital I thought I’d amassed in the early 2000s, maybe that’s just… done!’ So I felt like I was at square one in some ways but that was fucking great because it’s liberating to just go back to the ground foor and think: nobody cares about this except for me.”

Now fnished and fne-tuned, however, undoubtedly a legion of fans old and new will care about Adebimpe’s return. Not only is he sitting on a solo debut that sparkles with the vibrancy that’s always infused his work, TV On The Radio are also back and on the road for the frst time in half a decade. “For the time being”, he says, his focus is back on music. “I hope the record is inspiring and comforting to people,” he smiles of the forthcoming release. “And if it’s not, you can turn it off!” D

“It was liberating to just go back to the ground foor and think: nobody cares about this except for me.”

GET EXCITED ABOUT...

Massive artists. Massive albums. Massive bangers (we hope…)

Finn Wolfhard – TBA

Though best known for his acting in Stranger Things and more, Finn has already clocked up a solid indie career with two bands – Calpurnia and The Aubreys. Debuting solo material at a couple of shows earlier this year, it looks like his new project could fle next to Car Seat Headrest and the like, with an album purportedly in the works.

Squid – Cowards

Squid’s third, they say, is about evil: “Nine stories whose protagonists reckon with cults, charisma and apathy.” Landing on 7th February, the record is preceded by lead single ‘Crispy Skin’ – possibly the most uncomfortably tactile title we’ve heard in a while, but a twitchy, melodically inventive entry point nonetheless.

Self Esteem – TBA

‘Prioritise Pleasure’ catapulted Rebecca Lucy Taylor from underground fave to household name and West End star. A new song ‘Mother’, debuted live, suggests the feminist fre is still raging but in new, danceadjacent directions, while recent Moonchild Sanelly collab ‘Big Man’ showcased even more sides to the resplendent polymath.

Biig Piig – 11:11

In our October 2024 cover feature, Biig Piig told us that the aim of her long-awaited debut was for people “to be able to lose themselves and dance and have a good time, even through the sad bits.” Landing on 7th February, ‘11:11’ is set to have plenty of opportunity for both refection and bops, combining Jess Smyth’s love of the rave with an innate sensuality.

JADE – TBA

Since launching her post-Little Mix solo career with warped, wonderful mission statement ‘Angel of My Dreams’, it’s been obvious that JADE is no average pop girlie. From popping up in a Fontaines DC vid to recruiting Ncuti Gatwa to compere second single ‘Midnight Cowboy’, she’s carving out a path to her debut that’s chock full of excitement and surprise.

Damiano David – TBA

Bored of being a full time lusty rock god, Måneskin frontman Damiano David’s frst solo forays have been ballady and epic (‘Silverlines’) and surprisingly pop (‘Born With A Broken Heart’). A full length, then, could go anywhere: more news as it comes…

Photo:

Xaviera Simmons

Ray

Bull, Chloe Qisha and Disgusting Sisters make for an eclectic but memorable show for The Great Escape’s First Fifty

It’s another busy night at The Victoria for the Brighton festival’s annual East London launch.

Photos: Emma Swann

Afrm highlight on the London live calendar every year, The Great Escape’s First Fifty launch has returned once again to not just showcase the frst slew of artists confrmed to play at next year’s edition of the festival, but to equally celebrate the Hackney area for its incredible venues and music community. As ever, the festival’s taken over eight venues for the occasion, with various buzzy new names taking to their stages across the night, but it’s slightly down the road at our own takeover of The Victoria that things are really kicking off.

Call it the extended fallout of a post-lockdown party mood or just something chaotic in the water, but from Confdence Man to Lynks and beyond, there’s an awful lot of fun being had on the alternative world’s stages right now. Into this lineage come Jules and Josie, aka Disgusting

Sisters – two IRL siblings who splice ridiculous hairbrush choreography and tracksuits with a niche they’re calling “cunty poprock”. Think Romy and Michelle doing Dream Wife karaoke and you’re somewhere close. Their debut single ‘Killing It’ (now offcially released via Speedy Wunderground) comes on like Aussie trio Haiku Hands replete with kitschy gun fngers, while the rest of tonight’s set is a wonderfully silly demonstration of a family in-joke gone further than either of them intended. If Mighty Hoopla isn’t on the phone to Disgusting Sisters right now, they’re missing a trick.

DISGUSTING SISTERS

the ingredients in place to end up somewhere special.

In stark contrast, tonight marks only the third ever live outing for Malaysia-born Chloe Qisha but, suit-clad and supremely confdent, you would never guess it. The viral success of this summer’s second single ‘I Lied, I’m Sorry’ – an irrefutable earworm that deftly skips from deadpan speak-sing to effervescent pop chorus – can’t have hurt her swagger, but there are proper hits-in-waiting that back it up too. ‘Sexy Goodbye’ comes on like The 1975 doing ‘Funky Town’, all bubbling synths, listed girls’ names and breezy melodic smarts, while ‘Scary Movie’ nods to Olivia Rodrigo’s way with a mid-tempo hit. Still in her earliest stages, Qisha already has all

Taking another sonic swerve from the effervescent pop of Chloe’s closing gambit ‘I Lied, I’m Sorry’ come Brooklyn duo Ray Bull, with their warmly-hued brand of indie soft-rock.

Closing the night to a dedicated and giddy crowd – it’s perhaps unsurprising to hear this lot have gathered a sizeable following on TikTok – the duo punctuate their swooning musical wares with a wit and humour that only strengthens their appeal: “This is the last show of our massive UK tour,” deadpans the band’s Aaron Graham, “we few in yesterday and leave tomorrow.” It’s their soaring viral hit ‘The New Things Die’ – from last year’s EP ‘Easy Way To Lose’ – that stands out most tonight though, with its emotive lyrics and nostalgic melodies working together to create the kind of evocative offering that’s easy to fall for.

Lisa Wright, Sarah Jamieson

HELLO 2025!

January: the post-festive comedown month. A time of crap weather and crashing back down to reality. Well, not on our watch! In the spirit of combatting the January blues and providing a handy crib sheet on who to keep your eye on over the coming 12 months, for more than a decade DIY have been creating our own tradition that’ll help you ring in the new year with gusto.

Returning to the hallowed walls of Shoreditch’s Old Blue Last, our Hello 2025 series will once more see us throwing four totally free entry parties, with four red hot new artists playing each night. Landing every Tuesday throughout the month (that’s 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th), you just need to register your interest ahead of time via Dice and then get down early, as entry is on a frst come, frst served basis. This year, we’ve got a red hot roster of new talents coming up for you from future pop faves to alternative hellraisers. Headlining Night One, jasmine.4.t - the frst ever UK signing to Phoebe Bridgers’ Saddest Factory Records - will be teeing up her boygenius-produced debut LP ‘You Are The Morning’, while on Night Two, we have Mancunian indie star-in-waiting Chloe Slater topping the bill. Fresh from supporting Stevie Nicks this summer (!!), Catty will close out the evening on Night Three, and we’re bringing things home in wonderfully chaotic style with word-of-mouth live circuit sensations, Alien Chicks. Check out the full line-ups over on diymag.com, head over to Dice and we’ll see you in the new year.

CHLOE QISHA

RAY BULL

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DIY’s Christmas Gift Guide!

Left all your seasonal spending ‘til the last minute? Never fear! DIY is here with our one-stop shop for all your present-buying needs.

TECH MERCH TREATS

Q Acoustics M20

Powered Speaker

Want that step-up to powerful, roomflling stereo sound without the hi-f hassle?

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Native Instruments Maschine Mikro

Fancy yourself in DIY’s next Class of… issue? Get your hands on Native’s compact beatmaking companion - a one-stop shop to make beats, play melodies and build tracks at home or on the go. Complete with Maschine 3 software, now there’s nothing stopping you.

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Fender Stratocaster Mustang Micro Pack

Want to fex your axe muscles but don’t know where to start? Fender’s got the perfect pack. Featuring their iconic, lightweight Squier Affnity Strat plus a versatile Mustang Micro amp, it’ll help you sound like a pro - even if you’re a total beginner.

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Bose

QuietComfort Earbuds

The ultimate in water-resistant, noise-cancelling headphones, featuring Quiet and Aware modes for different settings and holding a whopping 31.5 hours’ charge, these Bose buds will keep your favourite tunes sounding sharp all day long.

RRP: £179.95

Buy it: bose.co.uk

Lambrini Girls Cunty Cap

Wanna be in our Class of 2025 cover stars’ gang? Of course you do when it also involves faunting your own cuntyness (defnitely a word) and shocking any local squares while you’re at it.

RRP: £25

Buy it: lambrinigirlsband.co.uk

Liam Gallagher Christmas Jumper

Get revved up for next year’s reunion shows and feel supersonic all season by wearing your favourite Gallagher on your chest. Extra points if you’ve got a brother called Noel who hates it.

RRP: £24.99

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Kate Nash’s Bum

The ‘Foundations’ singer has joined OnlyFans and the tabloid rags are predictably outraged, but if you read a little closer, Kate is actually selling pictures of her posterior to make a comment about the increasingly prohibitive cost of touring. It’s a bum deal, and we’re here for her rear. Priceless onlyfans.com

Charli xcx T-shirt

Not just a nod to THE defning album - nay cultural takeover - of the year, but also a not-sosubtle declaration of how hard you want to go during the festival party season, Charli’s got you covered for those Christmas morning accidental hangovers. Don’t blame us Mum, blame the T-shirt.

RRP: £35

Buy it: charlixcx.com

Edmunds’ White Christmas Cocktail

Rich, creamy AND vegan-friendly, get your hands on Edmunds’ new seasonal treat - a moreish mix of Horchata cream liqueur, vodka, amaretto and festive spices - for a plant-based alternative to your classic festive glass of B*****s.

RRP: £39.95

Buy it: edmundscocktail

Mouse and Grape Christmas Hamper

Nothing says ‘treat yourself’ like a wine and cheese combo, and Mouse and Grape know exactly how to excel in both. Their festive hamper includes a bottle of white Rioja, two artisan cheeses, posh crackers and honey: turn up at your family’s with this and you’ll be the chosen child forevermore.

RRP: £65

Buy it: mouseandgrape.com

Ghost Whale’s Alcohol Free Selection Box

Let’s be real: Christmas can often get a bit much, so if you need a bit of light relief in between feasting - or, tbh, if boozing just isn’t your thing - then south London craft beer specialists Ghost Whale have got your AF needs covered. With over 50 alcohol free beers in stock (with tons of different styles to boot), these selection boxes come with either 6, 9 or 16 cans of the good stuff - what’s not to love?

RRP: £17 - £44

Buy it: shop.ghostwhalelondon.com

12-month DIY subscription!

The ultimate treat (OK, so we’re biased…), why not give the gift of continued musical discovery and joy throughout the whole of 2025 with a subscription to your favourite three-letter print mag! We’ve already shown you a bunch of the artists we’ll be keeping an eye on next year, so what are you waiting for?

RRP: £40 + P&P

Buy it: shop.diymag.com

We’re a quarter of the way through the century, and while scenes have come and gone, sounds have warped and changed, and jeans have gone from baggy to circulation stoppingly tight and back again, one thing has remained true: that no matter what the year, there’s always bound to be bunch of new stars ready to make it sound amazing. And so, without further ado, let us introduce you to the people set to do exactly that for 2025: 11 fresh faces that are fushing us pink with excitement. Go on then, dig in!

Lambrini Girls

Jacob Alon

Confdent, clued-up and uncompromising, Lambrini Girls’ message of empowerment and inclusivity has been pissing off all the right people. Readying for the release of debut LP ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’, Phoebe Lunny and Lilly Macieira have got all the ingredients to become Britain’s next vital punk band.

Words: Lisa Wright

Photos: Corinne Cumming

Content warning: the following interview contains material relating to eating disorders.

It’s the 6th of November, a few hours since America has decided to vote a convicted sex offender into the most powerful position of offce in the world, and Lambrini Girls aren’t surprised. “If I was in an American’s position and I had to vote for a psychopath convicted felon who’s a rapist; who’s also extremely pro-genocide, who’s racist, homophobic, a misogynist who wants to erase trans people, then of course you’re going to do anything you can not to get that person in,” says vocalist and guitarist Phoebe Lunny. “But then to vote for someone who is representing the Left but your beliefs and values don’t correlate, that does [just] feel like the lesser of two evils.” “You can see the rise of the Far Right all over the world, in the Netherlands, in Germany; with our government, the Conservatives have been going further Right,” nods bassist Lilly Macieira. “It’s fucking devasting to wake up to this result but I was anticipating it; there’s such a rise in hatred throughout the world that it doesn’t shock me. The future is looking really bleak.”

The world that Lambrini Girls are casting their incendiary gaze on might be feeling bleaker by the day, but in the four years since they formed, the Brighton-based duo have set about using their punk-shaped musical bombs as a force for good. Visceral, funny and no nonsense, but also fuelled by empathy and with the emotional and political intelligence to back it up, Lambrini Girls aren’t just another band of sloganeering young upstarts: they’re the real deal at a time when we need it the most.

Sitting down with the pair over pints and cigs, a chat with Lambrini Girls involves buckling up and strapping in. If the tracklist of January’s forthcoming debut LP ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ reads like a fring line of society’s ills, from the police brutality of ‘Bad Apple’ through the workplace harassment of ‘Company Culture’ to the gentrifcation of ‘You’re Not From Round Here’, then in conversation the two friends are just as revved up. Over two hours, they aim their crosshairs at TERF Twitter ringleader Graham Linehan (“a fucking horrible man”), Matty Healy (“a prick”) and the fnancial elitism of the London music scene (“it makes me angry and it makes me sad”). They’re rightfully frustrated but they’re also determined to do their part in calling for change.

“When I started [doing music] it was very much just like, ‘I want to be in a cool band’. But then from 16 onwards I got really invested in politics and it then became apparent that maybe I could marry the two together,” says Phoebe. “You can really get people’s attention through art. It’s about expression and showing your frustration but it’s also such a good tool to make people turn their heads. If you’ve got a message then it’s the perfect accessible medium for it, and then if you can do well enough, you can get in front of audiences that weren’t designed

for you and ruffe some feathers and I think they’re invaluable spaces to be in. The majority of people might be pissed off, but maybe it’ll make one person question it.” Lilly picks up: “Our ethos is that we want to be in places where people don’t agree with us. We’ve said it from the get-go – we don’t want to be screaming into an echo chamber; we want to use our platform to change minds.”

Entering the breach of these conversations hasn’t been without its challenges for the duo. At a Hamburg headline date, they were met with an aggressively negative reaction to their chants of “Viva Palestina”. “A quarter of the crowd joined in and the rest of the crowd kicked off at us,” recalls Phoebe. “There was real anger so our instant panic reaction was to meet that with anger. We said, ‘If you are not pro-Palestinian this show is not for you so get the fuck out’, and the room ended up going from 200 people to about 30. From an educational standpoint, maybe it wasn’t our best moment but it was a learning curve.” Meanwhile the band have, on more than one occasion, felt the wrath of the online TERF brigade for their vocal support of trans rights.

Last summer, at a festival show supporting Iggy Pop in Crystal Palace, Lambrini Girls performed in front of a fag bearing the slogan ‘Trans Lives Fucking Matter’. Soon after, they found themselves receiving hundreds of messages, private DMs and emails, instigated by Linehan and his followers. “I got really paranoid and really scared from seeing this stuff because it was just constant, with people sending you really weird, violent, aggressive messages,” Phoebe remembers. “I was genuinely terrifed that some cunt was gonna come to one of our gigs and Molotov cocktail us.”

When a quote from a subsequent interview with Kerrang! in which the vocalist declared “I will scrap any TERF, any day, in person” was then picked up online, the band were keenly aware of dealing with the matter correctly – not just for their own safety, but for that of the community they were trying to advocate for. “I didn’t want to put it on Twitter because it would be infammatory and like shaking a bunch of wasps in a jar,” says Phoebe. “I think it’s really important to be vocal about trans rights, but as two cis-presenting, AFAB, white, blonde girlies, we’re coming from a lot of privilege. So it’s very easy to go online and say ‘Fuck you TERFS’ and hit them with a load of statistics but then I have the privilege to then close my phone. It’s really important that when you say something, you’re not just setting it on fre and then walking away because you have a responsibility there.”

“I was genuinely terrifed that some cunt was gonna come to one of our gigs and Molotov cocktail us.” - Phoebe Lunny

One of the bands at the forefront of this year’s festival boycotts, which began with SXSW due to its ties to the US military, Lambrini Girls even found themselves facing the wrath of their own community when logistical issues (their Visas meant they needed to enter America before they could cancel the show) required them to take a couple of extra days to pull out. “I saw the same people that were coming for us and trying to cancel us for being performative even after we explained our situation celebrating Kneecap who pulled out the day after us. And that felt like it was because we were women, if I’m being honest,” says Phoebe. “We were held to a much higher standard because we are women and our existence in the music industry is inherently politicised,” Lilly nods. “It was glaringly obvious that we were being held to a much much higher standard by these people, and that felt really unfair.”

Riled up and pissed off, it was with a self-proclaimed “fre under [their] arse” that Lambrini Girls then headed into the studio to lay down their debut. “I think recording the album was like walking into a room with two middle fngers up,” says Phoebe. “If you don’t like this I don’t care, because this is what we’re doing.” With only two weeks to get the job done, slotted in between touring, for Lilly the speedy process was a lesson in trusting her gut. “We want to be taken seriously as musicians but really we don’t need to

“We want to be in places where people don’t agree with us; we don’t want to be screaming into an echo chamber.”

- Lilly Macieira

overthink it so much to show off our musical skill,” she says. “I know our skill level despite the fact that we get underestimated all the time and our musicality gets overlooked a lot. I know that me and Phoebe are great musicians and I’ll say that with my chest.” “We get called a three-chord punk band and we use at least seven chords!” laughs her bandmate. “Come on!”

The combination of speed, instinctiveness, a wealth of builtup frustration plus a hefty store cupboard of booze worked wonders; ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is a frecracker of a mission statement that trades equally in anger and heart, gags and very real gripes. Though Lambrini Girls might have not had, as the old saying goes, a lifetime to make their debut, they did have a lifetime of shit experiences at the hands of the patriarchy to pull from. When, on ‘Company Culture’, Phoebe sings, “Smile and ignore that my boss wants to fuck me”, it’s based on a very real boss at a very real job.

“One job I had was for a big company, and on my frst day there my coworker showed me a picture of his dick,” she recalls. “The line about my boss is satirical but I have done that because I was backed into a corner where I was reliant on that job so I smiled and I nodded because I had no other option. That song is a very visceral take on the experience of being a woman in the workplace and I don’t think any of it is exaggerated whatsoever.”

On ‘Big Dick Energy’, the band rage at performative “white knights” asking for pats on the back while women still walk home fearing for their safety. “By the time I was 21, I’d already been stalked and sexually assaulted on multiple occasions, and that’s not a shocking statement because it’s the same for all of my friends,” says Phoebe plainly. “I don’t know a single woman that hasn’t been assaulted,” says Lilly. “It’s a universal experience, and that’s 50% of the population. Being a woman is not being a minority.” A particularly important moment comes, meanwhile, with ‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’: a wry, self-lacerating look at the struggles of living with an eating disorder that gives a voice to a topic so often shrouded in secrecy and shame.

“It’s crazy how much of a role shame plays in it when it’s literally the entire world shoving it down your throat your whole entire life,” says Lilly. “Eating disorders are a psychological and societal issue and there is no sensitivity around it. I’d been discharged from hospital for bulimia because I’d gotten so unwell they thought I had brain damage, and I explained to

Lunny

“It’s no coincidence that bands like Inhaler are doing very well and that’s fucking Bono’s son.” - Phoebe

my GP that they’d told me I had quite a high BMI and my GP agreed. I wanted to hang up the phone; it was so triggering, and there was no sensitivity whatsoever.” “I just wanted that song to make people feel like they’re not on their own with it,” nods Phoebe, “because I don’t know any friends who are girls or queer people who haven’t suffered with it in some way.”

For all their justifed fury at much of the systemic lot that’s been dealt to them and the groups they stand with and for, perhaps Lambrini Girls’ greatest strength is in their ability to critique their own place within it. While Phoebe grew up in Brighton and went to a “bang average state school,” Lilly moved from Germany to Portugal to England, and attended private school. “It’s really important to be transparent about these things; I would never sit here and say I didn’t grow up privileged because I did,” she explains.

When her dad passed away, Lilly was able to put a lump sum of inheritance money into funding Lambrini Girls’ 2023 EP ‘You’re Welcome’: something the band readily admit was instrumental in getting them to the buzzy position they currently fnd themselves in. “If I didn’t have the money from my dad passing away to put into the band at that exact moment, it would have taken us a lot longer to get here,” she says candidly. “Being a musician takes so much work and time and sweat and tears; for any band starting out, it’s not self-sustainable. Things have gone quickly for us because we had this money that we were able to put into the band when it was the right time to strike. And there are so many bands that don’t have that to dip into.”

‘Filthy Rich Nepo Baby’, Phoebe explains, isn’t about saying ‘eat the rich’; instead it’s a critique of an industry that only allows access to people who have the fnancial backing or connections to be able to weather the crippling costs of initially making their name. “Success is bought. We wouldn’t be doing this interview now if we didn’t have a press person that City Slang our label is paying for,” she says. “You need money behind you, or nepotism, and it’s no coincidence that bands like Inhaler are doing very well and that’s fucking Bono’s son.

“If we hadn’t had that £6k to put into the EP, if Lilly wasn’t in this band, I wouldn’t be in a band that was doing well because I don’t have the means. You can be the most talented cunt. You can be the most engaging musician who is doing something quote-unquote important. You can be all those things and still be fucking slept on because in order to be a successful musician you have to give every single bit of the essence of your being; all of your time needs to go into this thing. And unless mummy and daddy are paying your fucking rent, you can’t do that.”

‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is a debut that should position Lambrini Girls on the frontline of young British punk. Championed by Bikini Kill legend Kathleen Hanna, recently taken on tour by Amyl and The Sniffers and IDLES, and with their star rising across the Atlantic as well as on home turf, they’re a band – on record, on stage, in person – to believe in.

As their debut clicks to a close though, there’s an altogether more freewheeling parting message that Lambrini Girls leave us with. A ravey party-starter entitled ‘Cuntology 101’, the track comes on like a manifesto for IDGAF feminist hedonists throughout the land. It’s all, well, very ‘Brat’ tbh… “It wasn’t meant to be ‘Brat’! When we wrote that, ‘Brat’ wasn’t released yet. I actually freaked out a bit because then ‘Brat’ came out…” Phoebe says, gritting her teeth. “Nah, it’s different though,” counters Lilly as a glint enters her eye: “It’s Brat but it’s completely different but it’s still Brat.” 10/10 gag aside, the bassist actually makes a very solid point. Instead of model-flled parties and buckets of cocaine, ‘Cuntology’ champions a far more relatable kind of freedom where “doing a poo at your friend’s house” and “shagging behind some bins” are the ultimate acts of self-love. Like Lambrini Girls themselves, it’s funny and loud and messy, but also full of empowerment and questioning the status quo; sticking two fngers up to how girls ‘should’ behave.

As we enter into the unknown of 2025, Lambrini Girls’ visceral wares and vital words – their calls to accept yourself, fght the oppressors and be kind to each other – feel more than ever like ones that bear repeating. “We’re at a point where we’re starting to break through now, and so the point of this band is to garner as much of a platform as we can,” says Phoebe. “We want to shout this shit from the tallest tower and maybe change some minds.”

‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is out 10th January via City Slang.

“I don’t know a single woman that hasn’t been assaulted. It’s a universal experience.” - Lilly Macieira

The Palestinian-American singer has already changed the game for Arabic-speaking artists in the West. Heading into 2025, she wants to invite the whole world in.

Words: Rhys Buchanan

Photo: Karine Lubany

Lana Lubany can pinpoint the exact moment she found her true voice as an artist. The breakthrough came in the middle of a particularly tough chapter at the end of 2021 for the Palestinian-American songwriter, who had previously spent the best part of her lifetime trying to come to terms with her real identity.

“I was really not in a good place, I was very depressed and desperate for things to work with my art because it hadn’t clicked for a very long time,” she tells DIY from her temporary tour basecamp in Istanbul. “I wrote an unreleased song with a few Arabic lyrics in the verses and, whenever those particular lines came around, something just felt different. It was a gateway and it changed everything for me.”

It was no coincidence that the next song she penned next was viral hit ‘THE SNAKE’; a monumental moment for Arabic music as a whole, the bilingual ballad effortlessly bridged both worlds to create something truly immersive. Set over an ethereal acoustic guitar line, the anthem builds into a gripping slice of alt-pop as she fickers between Arabic and English: “Bright yellow eyes / Staring into my soul / Singing sweet lullabies / While they measure my skull.”

Since that game-changing moment, Lubany has continued to effortlessly invite listeners into her own vivid world, assuming her position as a trailblazing voice at the very forefront of Western-Arabic music. Growing up in Palestine before moving to London to study music in her early twenties, she says it was a lengthy journey to becoming this open and comfortable.

“I grew up not having any representation,” she explains. “I never intended to be so vulnerable with my music. It was a scary experience but I had to become the person that I needed growing up.” Lubany says the journey came with its own obstacles along the way. “You have to really dig deep and look within to tap into something that you’re afraid of,” she continues. “As soon as I wrote a song that had Arabic in it, everything clicked. It helped me accept myself after a long identity pursuit.”

With Lubany leading the way, it feels like there’s no shortage of Arabic artists fnding global stardom right now. Having opened for her friend and viral rapper Saint Levant for a run of sold out shows across Europe earlier in the year, does she feel like the narrative is beginning to shift? “I think there’s defnitely a lot more people out there providing people like me representation,” she says. “That part of the world is being explored more through the arts and that’s so cool; suddenly there’s exciting things coming out of the Middle East and its diaspora. I don’t know where it’s going to head but I know it’s going to go far and it’s an honour to be a part of it.”

She also attributes parallels to breakthrough artists in Western culture, with a standout 2024 moment coming when she supported The Last Dinner Party earlier in the year. “I learned so much through watching them perform every night, they’re very inspiring to watch. I love artists who build worlds and it was so fun performing on those big stages to a lot of people who didn’t know me necessarily.”

Having spent so much time on the road this year, Lubany has been able to see the impact her music has had on the Arab diaspora frst hand. “I’ve had people come up to me and say that, because of my music, they feel proud to be Arab now,” she muses. “I think that was so beautiful and such a privilege. “I’ve had

so many people tell me that they want to learn Arabic through it as well which is really special.”

Given the weight of the ongoing crisis in her home nation, it’s understandable that the shockwaves coming from the Middle East initially brought about a creative pause at the start of the year. “I took a little break; I kind of got a little shaken up by everything going on so I wasn’t able to create in the way that I normally could and I wasn’t able to focus,” Lana says. But after some time for refection, the musician realised that her art is a form of defance. “I realise now it’s more important than ever to focus on art and to be telling my story,” she nods. “That’s my way of communicating and that’s my purpose.”

There’s a resulting sense of pride and freedom in her latest EP ‘YAFA’: a love letter to home and her Palestinian culture. The EP is a beacon of hope, celebrating the real Palestine and its people. “It’s important to tell the stories of the things that I’ve seen,” she says. “I love the culture, the people, and I want to bring that representation through. I think you do have to tell real stories of people because we’re not numbers. In the news we’re not humanised and art can really humanise people.”

The most direct way Lubany tells those stories is by leaning into her own family heritage. On ‘YAFA’’s meditative and otherworldly title track, she samples an emotive recording of her own late grandmother discussing her home as a dramatic synth swells around it. “It was really important to me to tell her story within mine because obviously they’re very interlinked,” she smiles. “Family is such an important part of my artistry and my life.”

The release also broaches the struggle around her identity. On the haunting and dramatic ballad ‘I WISH I WAS NORMAL’, one of the very few lines in English yearns, “I wish I was born without something to say”. She says the line came from a particularly diffcult time. “I was just wishing I was making songs about normal topics like boys or something,” she explains. “I ended up writing that song which is very vulnerable. It defnitely helped me through the healing process that I was going through back then.”

Having already proven herself a master when it comes to world-building, Lubany hopes to keep laying more bricks in the new year as she works towards a bigger body of work. “I’m defnitely going to be dropping a bunch of music that will hopefully build up to an album at some point, it’s just a matter of being ready,” she says. Moving forward, the mission statement remains frmly the same: “I feel like I need a place to belong but I also want to invite other people into my world. Whether you’re third culture kids or not, whether you’re Arab or not, whether you’re an outsider or not, I want to create a world for people who need that space to be themselves in.”

“I’ve had people come up to me and say that, because of my music, they feel proud to be Arab now.”

“If you just take all the lumps and bumps out, you’re making it more boring.”

- Clari Freeman-Taylor

Torchbearers for London’s grassroots scene and capital-C creatives, mary in the junkyard are the classically-trained, offbeat trio here to explore where the wild things are.

In a year that’s been nothing short of triumphant for left-of-centre art-rock bands (see: Fontaines DC, English Teacher), there’s been one who’ve emerged as a standout candidate for the next in line. As soon as they landed onto London’s small venue circuit, a word-of-mouth buzz surrounded mary in the junkyard unlike anything an algorithm could muster. Still only teenagers, it quickly became clear that this trio weren’t a run-ofthe-mill indie band; nor, as it happens, did they ft the blueprint of the archetypal ‘South London sound’. Instead, Clari Freeman-Taylor (vocals, guitar), Saya Barbaglia (bass, viola) and David Addison (drums) craft something entirely atypical. And, from those excited early murmurs, came last year’s self-described “fearless” debut single ‘Tuesday’; its uncanny vocals and ebbing bassline speaking of a band who, in more than one sense, frmly inhabit their own world.

“We need to go and collect a moth before heading to the venue tonight,” David tells us cheerfully, speaking from the centre of a pink yarn spiderweb during today’s shoot as the greatest hits of Girls Aloud jangle in the background. “We’ve got a secret show at Windmill,” Saya says by way of explanation. “It’s just for our mailing list.” For those in the know, said moth is part of a fantastical menagerie of papier-mâché creatures that populate the stage at their every headline show. Usually, it can be found in the company of a yeti; both are of the band’s own making, and feature in a number of their superlative music videos. “I think visuals are really important,” Clari picks up later, as we settle into the cosy confnes of a nearby coffee shop. “Like in the way you would read a storybook and have pictures [in it]... whenever we have a song, I always get quite a clear picture in my head of what the video should be, or what the art should look like. That feels like a really exciting part of [the band].”

Indeed, there is something endearingly uncynical about mary in the junkyard – not because of their age, or their experience (which is considerable, anyway), but because their approach to their work is so unconstrained and playful. Discussing the differences between playing live – their preferred medium – and recording, Clari notes that “if you just take all the lumps and bumps out, you’re making it more boring.” Instead, the way they write is “more through-composed”; as with classical music, “it’s all about the dynamics”. “You don’t really return to anything that’s been there before, it’s more like a journey,” she continues. Thematically speaking, the band talk of monsters and fantasy realms with the same nonchalance as they do this cafe’s toastie menu; far from the grey slate of realism, theirs

is an intricately textured artistic landscape in which imagination is king.

Latest single ‘this is my california’ is a prime case in point. Due to be released the very evening of our conversation (“Oh shit, is it out yet?” asks Saya), it’s their frst new music since this summer’s debut EP ‘this old house’, and posits a visionary alternative to the notion that Hollywood-like materialism is somehow universally aspirational. “That song is quite nostalgic,” Clari says, musing on their new offering. “[It’s about] the idea of success or happiness that I felt were the things you were meant to want [growing up], but instead feeling much more connected to the sky, or trying to get really, really high up on stuff.” She pauses, considering how to best convey her childhood thought process. “When I was younger, I used to be in this kind of dissociative state. I used to like climbing on a lot of things; that was the main thing I did to feel better, because it was kind of taking me out of the world. I think for me, investing in this kind of fantasy is really cathartic.” Her dream, then, is less West Coast beaches and more other-wordly wonders. “Yeah,” she laughs softly, “that’s my California.”

Following the eerie beauty and creeping claustrophobia of ‘this old house’, their new release also marks a subtle but signifcant shift towards warmer, more spacious sonic climes. “To be honest, I think I’ve been changing recently,” continues Clari. “I feel like I don’t want to write so much about dark things. I know this song is kind of dark, but in songwriting I’m trying to explore a bit of a softer side – something a little bit kinder or just less spiky.” Sometimes, this can be the harder feat; shadowy landscapes and mysterious visions, we suggest, provide more effective emotional camoufage. “Writing in more of a fantasy way is a bit easier for me,” she nods. “It feels nice to be able to tell a story. Sometimes you don’t want to write in an obvious way about your own life, because that feels a bit… I mean, I used to do it a lot more, but now that we have audiences and people to show the songs to straight away, I guess I feel a little bit more shy.”

It’s no wonder really; at any given London show, it’s more than likely that a decent number of people know mary in the junkyard not just as performers, but as people too. Having grown up in the Hertfordshire market town of Hitchin, David and Clari frst gravitated towards each other because, she explains, “there were a couple of bands, but it was defnitely like, ‘Woah, you play guitar? I want to be your friend’.” Not only did this mutual love of music serve as a rock-solid foundation for friendship, it also proved to be quite the contrast to their current life in Saya’s capital city stomping ground. “I feel like I haven’t met anyone who’s not alternative in such a long time, that I’ve forgotten what the world is actually like,” Clari smiles.

Words: Daisy Carter

Photo: Emma Swann

All three of them had dabbled in various projects prior to forming the band. Clari and Saya had met aged 14 at classical music summer camps before working as session musicians, while David and Clari were part of an indie-rock outft called Second Thoughts back in Hertfordshire. This time around, however, David affrms, “has defnitely been more serious”. From busking on the weekend in St Albans to playing their frst show at Stockwell’s Cavendish Arms, mary in the junkyard was their shared introduction proper to the close-knit community of London’s independent scene. “To be honest, I hadn’t really listened to or heard much rock and alternative music before [then],” notes Saya. “This band and this community was the turning point.” Far from feeling oversaturated or competitive, joining the scene, David says, “felt more like being embraced by a music sphere that was already there.”

Continuing, he explains: “Especially after we started playing at Windmill – Tim [Perry, booker] was really supportive of us, and gave us two shows a week for about a year, just playing frst on; we got to meet lots of different bands and play on lots of weird lineups.” More than perhaps any other venue in London, Brixton’s Windmill has a certain mythology surrounding it, thanks to the signifcant part it’s played in the stories of shame, black midi, Goat Girl, Black Country, New Road and countless more. Have the band ever felt any sense of pressure with respect to joining this lineage?

“I do think it feels quite cool to be part of a scene or a history, so I’m happy to be associated with it,” David offers, while acknowledging that “I really love those bands, but I don’t think we continue that sound as such.” Clari agrees: “I think the way we connect with Windmill is more through its DIY-ness –the personality of the venue is really nice.” Its magic, Saya says, is thrown into particularly sharp relief “when [the band] go to different countries or places with much smaller music scenes, and people have found this thing called Windmill on Youtube [via the likes of beloved gig chronicler Lou Smith] and they really, really connect with it.” She shrugs: “What I’m trying to say is, in London some people are like, ‘No, we’re not a Windmill band’ because that’s basic or something, but it’s actually just so special.”

“There was someone called Matty from Germany who came over because he was

doing his school dissertation on Windmill – in German!” David laughs. “So he interviewed us about what we think about it and stuff.” “A lot of people do that,” Clari rejoins, “we’ve had a couple of documentaries talk to us. There was also this magazine made by a guy living in Mexico; I don’t think he’d been to London, he was just self-publishing a whole magazine about its music scene.”

As a band that has essentially come of age in such venues, and as people who have been shaped by the communities therein, the current crisis of survival faced by the UK’s grassroots sector is a blow mary in the junkyard feel deeply.

“Everyone in London – musicians, at least – has a lot of love for these places,” says David. “I don’t know if anything will be properly protected unless the government cares to do it… and I don’t have much faith in that really. But,” he continues, “I do think that live music is such an important thing to… well, all humans really, [so] that whatever happens, new places will start up.” “In spite of everything,” Clari murmurs, almost imperceptibly, before smiling: “Fuck the government.”

In an age where art is increasingly internetcentric, and artists are increasingly confronted with industry oversaturation, mary in the junkyard are symptomatic of a live-focused, engaged musical underbelly that’s not just enduring, but thriving. As Saya puts it: “Confdence is something you don’t really think about consciously, but the people who are listening are extremely dedicated – to the point where they’ll get on the bus and sacrifce an evening to come and see us live. That’s already about 20 times more effort than following [on Instagram] or watching a reel.”

We check the time again, to see if ‘this is my california’ has arrived yet, before the band’s attentions turn back to their imminent show at their spiritual home (and the whereabouts of that pesky moth). “It sold out in about an hour,” Saya says of tonight’s celebratory single launch. “It’s free, but still,” she smiles, “they clearly care.”

“I feel like I haven’t met anyone who’s not alternative in such a long time, that I’ve forgotten what the world is actually like.” - Clari Freeman-Taylor

Over three early EPs, Shropshire-born Nieve Ella has steadily come into her own as an infnitely relatable, Gen Z indie icon in the making. From Fender fandom to personal style, now she’s learning to lean into herself more than ever.

Words: Nick Levine

Photos: Ed Miles

Like any fast-rising star, Nieve Ella is still feeling out her boundaries. The 22-year-old says she “can understand so much” why Chappell Roan told fans in August that she needed “to draw lines” between herself and an increasingly large and demanding fanbase. “I’m not at the level where people are coming up to me every single day, so when they do I’m like, ‘Let’s have a conversation. You wanna take a photo? Let’s do it’,” she says. “But if that happened to me everywhere I went, I probably would feel the exact same as her.”

Nieve grapples with her growing profle on ‘Sugarcoated’: a driving highlight from her third and most recent EP, ‘Watch It Ache and Bleed’. Released in October, the eight-song set cements her status as Gen Z’s real and relatable indie queen. When she sings, “I’m burning the candle at both its ends / How can you handle a thousand friends?”, it’s a reference to the whiplash she felt as she embarked on nationwide headline tours and support slots with the likes of Dylan and girl in red. In September, she opened for the latter at London’s 12,500-capacity Wembley Arena.

“I was so fed up and frustrated when I wrote that song,” Nieve says. “I felt like people on the internet and at shows thought I was this happy, sweet person. And I AM happy and I CAN be sweet, but I’m also so sensitive.” The Shropshire-born musician adores performing, but still struggles with the idea of having “thousands of people staring” at her on stage. “And when you’ve got people on the internet wondering where you’ve been because you haven’t posted on TikTok for three days, that’s just mind-boggling,” she adds.

Social media also evokes mixed feelings in the singer. On the one hand, she likes to unwind by watching Instagram Reels of “people cooking food or giving birth”. But on the other, posting can feel like homework. A week after she created a second, more low-key TikTok account – “It’s not private,” she says, “but I don’t share it anywhere” – it had already attracted 7,000 followers. That’s a fraction of her main account’s 114,000, but it still heaps pressure on her. “When I started my new TikTok, I felt like I could post whatever I wanted,” she says. “But now there’s more people on there, I’m like, ‘Oh crap, I need to post something before people start asking what’s going on’.’’

Of course, TikTok has been integral to Nieve’s rise from the start. She built a fanbase on the app during the pandemic, frst by posting covers, then her own indie pop originals. When lockdown gripped the country in 2020, Nieve Ella Pickering (to use her full name) picked up a guitar belonging to her late father and learned to play from online tutorials. Songwriting came naturally – “I don’t actually know how I taught myself,” she says – and a Sam Fender gig proved formative. When she made the 30-mile trip from her “tiny” Shropshire village to the bright lights of Birmingham, her hero didn’t disappoint. “I was pretty drunk, but the way he used instruments with lyrics that are so deep-cutting, it just blew my mind,” she says.

TikTok also introduced her to Finn Marlow, her guitarist, songwriting partner and “best friend in the world”. Nieve recently moved to London, but today she’s speaking to DIY over Zoom from Maidenhead in neighbouring Berkshire, where she and “the boys” – Marlow and her producers – are working on new material. Over the last four days, they’ve written “seven

“My goal is to be that woman producer who brings in younger women and makes them feel comfortable [in the studio].”

“I feel like I’ve made a statement with my music now – people know who I am.”

or eight songs”, and the creative rush spills over into her conversation. Candid and chatty, she says she’s “not a worldly person” and confdes that she initially struggled with “fnding the right words to use in lyrics” – an insecurity that stems from “always being in the lowest sets for English” at school. But both in person and in her songwriting, Nieve is a born communicator. She says that single ‘Ganni Top (She Gets What She Needs)’ – a stirring standout from her recent EP – represents the “part of me that’s crazy and wants to tweet 20 things in a day”. She feels an even deeper connection with her 2022 debut single ‘Girlfriend’, which she still considers “the most important song” of her career because it made the Radio 1 playlist. “That just brought me so much more confdence,” she says. On this ringing guitar ballad, Nieve paints a vivid portrait of a chaotic situation – dating someone who already has a partner. “She took me to her apartment and now I’m wanting her garments instead of you,” she sings with a sigh.

Early song ‘Blu Shirt Boy’, which was partly inspired by Harry Styles, has fared less well in her estimations over time however. “What people don’t know is it’s not just about Harry Styles,” she explains. “I wrote it during this whole phase of being obsessed with Harry, but also being obsessed with this [other] person. But all that stuff I wrote about [in the song] is gone now. I’m just so over it – I don’t want to talk about it and I don’t want to sing it.”

Nieve only played her frst gig in August 2022, a couple of weeks after she released ‘Girlfriend’ on AWAL Recordings, the indie label she signed to after building TikTok buzz. Early on, she was paired with an older male producer who told her she should be making “girly pop music”; a sexist suggestion that the rock-loving musician rejected. But now she’s found collaborators she feels comfortable with, Nieve is more open to expanding her guitarled sound. “I feel like I’ve made a statement with my music now – people know who I am,” she says. “So if I want to be ‘girly pop’, I’ll be ‘girly pop’. I have so much more freedom to do that now.”

Nieve was drawn to performing from a young age, but whenever she tried out for the school play, her lack of confdence scuppered her chances. Still, she had enough childhood chutzpah to audition twice for Britain’s Got Talent: frst as a solo artist, and then as half of a duo called Inseparable. The frst time, aged just six, she got “so scared” ahead of her audition that her mum let her pull out. The second time, a slightly older Nieve and her guitar-playing bandmate made good progress until they fell out with one another. “We didn’t really live up to our name,” she notes wryly.

Nieve says throwing herself into the reality show jamboree was the frst time she ever experienced imposter syndrome, although she “didn’t know what that was” at the time. “Everything you

see on TV is real,” she recalls. “You’re in this big waiting room with people doing magic tricks all around you and [producers] coming over to interview and slap a sticker on you. It’s such a weird experience.” Overall, though, she looks back at the show positively because it made her realise she wanted to be an artist. “I didn’t make it onto the actual TV show, but I’m glad about that now, because if I’d been on TV, I wouldn’t be making this music.”

Even with the constant pressure to sate her online following, Nieve is happy with where she is now. “I love this job so much and I’m grateful, but it’s just hard sometimes,” she says. Her main aim for 2025 is to “keep releasing new music and showing people who I am”, though she wouldn’t mind another plum support slot. “But I only want to go on tour with artists that make sense – artists with fans that I can imagine liking my music,” she says. Currently, Sam Fender and Wolf Alice are top of her wish list. “And I’d get to watch their show every night!” she adds with a laugh.

Beyond this, Nieve has “big dreams” of teaching herself to produce her own music. She also wants to expand her palette of collaborators so it isn’t just “the boys” downstairs. “Maybe in LA there are way more female producers and writers, but I feel like I don’t experience that a lot here,” she says. “My goal is to be that woman producer who brings in younger women and makes them feel comfortable [in the studio].” Having been in songwriting sessions

with older men she didn’t gel with, she knows frst-hand how stifing this dynamic can be. “It’s really diffcult to open up to anyone about your feelings – even the people I write with now, who are my best friends,” she says.

Building a musical community is clearly important to the singer. Before she moved to the capital a couple of months ago, her London base was the family home of fellow indie wunderkind Fred Roberts. “We’re two musicians who found each other at the right time. We make different music but have the same dreams and goals, which is so inspiring,” she says. Nieve also appreciates that she was lucky to have somewhere to crash when money was tight early on. “If I ever win an award, they’ll be the ones I thank,” she notes.

Now, when she returns to her Shropshire village, she realises she’s on the right track. “I don’t care if people stare at me because of my hair and eyebrows, which they do because it’s that kind of place,” she says. “I want to be that person who’s so free and does whatever she wants. I want to be the most me I can be.” It’s still relatively early days, but no one would deny that Nieve Ella is well on her way.

The sweet, soulful union of two industry pros, MRCY are bringing people into the fold in their droves – no begging required.

Words: Rhys Buchanan

Photos: Ed Miles

“T

here was this instant chemistry when we met,” beams Barney Lister, just moments after wrapping up the day’s sunglasses-clad photo shoot with MRCY counterpart and vocalist Kojo Degraft-Johnson. Given that the pair have managed to infltrate playlists and festival main stages like a household name this year, the beauty isn't lost on either that they frst connected over a chance Instagram message only a few years back.

Chatting as they top off a triumphant frst headline tour to complete this breakthrough period, it’s more than understandable that the two men of MRCY are all smiles right now. “It’s all very exciting,” says Kojo. “We could only hope to have done a fraction of the things we’ve experienced this far. Looking back on how it all started is a common occurrence, but it’s about taking the whole journey as a blessing.” However, given that the pair had both already enjoyed a wealth of success on their previous pathways behind the scenes, their trajectory is far from an instant one.

Hailing from Huddersfeld, Barney picked up an Ivor Novello award for his work on Obongjayar’s 2020 track ‘God’s Own Children’, while South Londoner Kojo has collaborated with an array of game-changing talent including Little Simz and Cleo Sol. Yet together, they manage to cultivate a soulful sound that’s infnitely bigger than the sum of its parts. “Culturally speaking, we’re from two completely different places but we do have a common ground which is soul music,” explains Barney. “That’s what brought us together and we’re getting more of our personality into the music with every tune we make.”

Although there was an instant connection on the musical front, perhaps most vitally they found an immediate friendship. “We just have a lot of fun together,” says Kojo. “We’ve got the same sense of humour, we have such a good time; we couldn’t do this if we didn’t click like that.”

As they talk giddily about MRCY’s career to date, it’s instantly clear that stepping into the spotlight has come naturally, but Barney insists they’re learning each day. “We’re not only growing and taking from each other but also from the experience of being on the road and playing shows,” he nods. “That really informs what we’re doing next. There’s a lot of pressure on and a lot of work to do, but enjoying the process and having fun with it has been crucial.”

That sense of fun and freedom pulsed through May’s eighttrack release, ‘Volume 1’. Just take breakthrough single ‘Lorelei’ which foats in its own timeless portal, the sweeping composition evoking the likes of Michael Kiwanuka or Khruangbin, while Kojo’s powerful vocal oozes with warming imagery: “The summer storm's still on my mind / Still get lost on you from time to time.”

A sound totally unconcerned with current trends, Barney says the pair’s main goal is to unlock a feeling in their audience. “As soon as it moves someone slightly spiritually, the music takes on its own existence,” he says. “That’s all I’ve ever wanted to try and do as a writer.” He explains it’s something he admires in his own heroes. “When I hear the right music at the right moment, it does something to me that nothing else does. It’s all about the feeling you get, it alleviates everything else in the room and just moves you, that’s what I want to make happen.”

Evidently, MRCY have already been stirring up that feeling in some true legends of the game. As well as opening up for Loyle Carner at All Points East this summer, Elton John recently spun the duo on his Rocket Hour podcast. Kojo laughs modestly: “That was quite surreal.

“We’ve got the same sense of humour, we have such a good time; we couldn’t do this if we didn’t click like that.”

– Kojo Degraft-Johnson

Getting encouragement from anyone is amazing because we’re baring our souls.”

His mind pivots to a more everyday connection. “We met someone at a show recently who got into a relationship because their common interest was ‘Lorelei’. That’s amazing to hear because that’s just real life shit. For us to play a part in the beginning of a beautiful thing like that is just crazy, it’s hard to fathom but music has the power to do that and it comes through us being honest and telling our story.”

“That’s been the point from the start,” continues Barney. “I wanted to fnd someone I could do this with because I wanted a vehicle to make music in our own way.” He says that remaining true to themselves has been important when it comes to crafting a timeless sound. “It’s hard to not think about trends and what’s cool, but you’ve got to shut that off. We’re developing all the time but sticking to your guns is key.”

As the operation scales up even further, the trust the pair have already found in each other is becoming more important than ever. “That’s getting stronger each day,” says Barney. “The more experiences that happen to us and the band, you can’t help but feel closer. It’s a special thing.” “It makes me less envious of solo artists who have to do it by themselves,” Kojo nods.

“Although we’re experienced in the industry, I still think we’re lucky to be going through it together for the frst time.” Barney picks up: “The most terrifying thing for anyone making music is actually releasing music. That’s the scariest bit. But once it’s in the world, it feels easier. Playing shows and connecting with people is just an absolute joy. It feels like you’re delivering something that makes people happy and, especially at the minute, that’s really important.”

Being exposed to some trailblazing talent in their previous creative capacities, they explain, has helped hone their vision. Having worked with Obongjayar not just on that award-winning track but also on 2023’s Ivor-nominated ‘Sometimes I Dream of Doors’ LP, Barney pinpoints the genre-defying rapper’s “toughness and strength” as particularly inspiring. “I’ve always really admired him because he’s always been completely authentic and nobody could change the way he works,” he nods.

Meanwhile, in recent years, the UK’s contemporary soul landscape has been taken to another level. Just this summer, Michael Kiwanuka brought his own golden, era-defying voice to a sun-soaked Pyramid Stage for the frst time. “Michael is a big connection for us personally because his music feels so real and so legit,” says Barney. “It’s very cool but also anyone can appreciate it. We’d love to be in his world; we both really look up to him.”

The key to cutting through the noise, he suggests, is in remaining authentic. “It’s a patience game and you have to be strong with your ideas and your intentions. Music is so easy to make these days; you can knock it out in no time. But to create a real sense of belonging it needs to be heard live and by as many people as possible, and I think performance is a huge part of that.”

With the scene in such rude health, are MRCY themselves daring to dream of one day reaching such lofty heights? Barney sounds serious about their own trajectory. “We’d love to get to a point where it’s connecting to that many people on stages of that size,” he nods. “You’ve got to have something to aim for, but you’ve got to make sure you don’t get lost in the ambition. We appreciate where we are now, but if that day comes our gratitude will be off the scale.”

Looking ahead to the new year, the pair are eager to take the next step on the ladder. Kojo crackles with excitement. “It’s going to be more music and more shows and trying to take as many opportunities to put ourselves out there doing this thing,” he smiles. Barney concludes: “It’s about moving forward while being honest and true to ourselves.” 

“It’s hard to not think about trends and what’s cool, but you’ve got to shut that off.”

– Barney Lister

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Just two songs in, Edinburgh’s Jacob Alon is already delivering the sort of emotionally-fooring, community-fostering gems that cult heroes are made of.

Words: Lisa Wright

Photo: Emma Swann

“For my whole life, I’ve worried about the future, but for the frst time I’m just certain that this is where I should be.”

“It’s pissing it down outside. It’s freezing and the Edinburgh streets are pouring with rain, and then from a distance you see the warm glow of this rustic tavern that’s skinnier than a ballerina with an eating disorder,” narrates Jacob Alon. “All the windows are steamed up, and people are pressed against them, smudging the condensation across; cheeks and arms and shoulders. You go in and you can barely move, but it’s completely silent with everyone listening to this one person in the circle, singing their heart out.”

The scene the Scottish songwriter is setting might sound like the opening sequence of a particularly poetic Christmas flm, but in fact Jacob is walking us into The Captain’s Bar: the charmingly pokey folk pub that frst allowed them to road-test their talents, and that has helped nurture Jacob into one of the most vulnerable, gorgeous and utterly devastating musicians we’ve heard in a long time. “At frst, I thought it was quite intimidating, like it was a place you could only play if you were trusted and one of the ‘good folkies’,” they smile, “but I realised so quickly that they just wanted you to give your truth. I feel like this group of folkies were all the shoes that didn’t ft, that know what it’s like to stand on the outside, so their hearts are so much more open. There are certain spaces I’ve felt that aren’t as kind as that.”

Kindness and acceptance are concepts that flter throughout Jacob’s conversation; music, for them, has provided a sanctuary that for a long time felt out of reach. Growing up in Fife, they explain, there were not a lot of opportunities not just for creatives, but for personalities to thrive away from the delineated, traditional paths. Non-binary and neurodiverse (Jacob has Tourettes, which manifests particularly in heightened, pressure situations), they explain that a lot of their early life was one categorised by different forms of disconnect. “The world with a neurotypical standard means that, if you deviate from behaving in a certain way, it can feel deeply lonely sometimes,” they say. “And then [the local scene] was just bands and straight guys all doing their thing. Even though I felt such a home in music, it was never anything I saw as something I could take further.”

Riddled with a lack of self-belief and in pursuit of the approval of their family, Jacob set about studying for a career in medicine. Clearly an ill ft, the way they speak of that period of selfsupression is heartbreaking. “When it comes to love, it’s very conditional in my family. I think part of me just really wanted to be loved and to be seen, and I thought the only way I could feel that is if I was exceptional or the best or if I saved the world. But I just don’t think anyone should carry that on their shoulders,” they say, softly. “I became really depressed and I just didn’t have the words to say: ‘I’m here. I’ve worked hard to be here. Why am I not happy?’ And I think it was just part of my soul that knew I was living my life for someone else.”

Eventually, during lockdown, they fnally made the decision to quit and, bolstered by the support of their new chosen musical family, give their art a real go. “I just felt like I was wasting away and it was there the whole time: music had always been the companion,” they say. “For my whole life, I’ve looked back and reminisced and worried about the future, but for the frst time

I’m just certain that this is where I should be. And it feels like I’m making an impact through this; I don’t know why I never thought that could be a thing…”

Delicate and raw, flled with the pain of lived experience but drenched in the beauty of someone who still wholeheartedly believes in hope, from debut single ‘Fairy In A Bottle’ - a fnger-picked well of Jeff Buckley-like emotion - Jacob’s music has immediately been resonating in all the ways they used to think impossible. Last month, they joined a rare cohort of musicians to have been invited to perform on Later… with Jools Holland with only one song to their name. The experience, they say, was “magic”, but writing the song itself was an even bigger release.

“In some ways it was the scariest one to start with, which is maybe why it was right. To me, it encapsulates the essence of this project - it highlights very directly a feeling I’ve been discovering and working through,” they explain.

“I have this affnity to the world of dreams and the world of fantasy - sometimes to my detriment - and I think through trying to protect myself from pain, I chase the things I know I can’t have. My whole life, I’ve thought of love the wrong way and I think a lot of people can relate to that.”

They’ve described hushed and tender followup ‘Confessions’ as “a soft hand tracing the stretch marks left behind by a once messy, awkward, painful, and frightening realisation of my queerness”, and it’s to this community that Jacob hopes to provide a particular solace. There is, they say, a constant friction that comes from living as a queer person in the world.

“Sometimes it feels like no matter how much we come to terms with things, the world doesn’t feel like we ft into it. We confront those feelings every day in small moments, and sometimes that’s internal but a lot of the time it’s the world that tells you in its subtleties,” they say. “And that might not just be a dirty look or someone beating the fuck out of you, sometimes it can just be in not seeing someone like you represented anywhere.”

For Jacob, seeing fashes of an alternative way to be was monumental. “Bowie was really instrumental in infuencing me,” they nod.

“I remember seeing him when I was 13 and thinking, ‘Wow, that’s allowed?’ It just unlocked something.” With a third single - a new favour with “a lot of stomp and sass to it” - due in January, their frst UK tour the same month and an album on the way, their hope is that, having helped fnd a light within themself, their music will do the same for others needing a hand in the darkness.

“Seeing people like Chappell Roan today, and these amazing queer fgures that are so mainstream versus when I was growing up and it was all Top Of The Pops and X Factor where there was a certain type of celebrity that was designed to feed the most masses, it’s amazing,” they say. “It’s amazing when you stand with your community and you can see these [things trickling down]. Particularly people of colour in the trans and drag world who’ve just fought so much and made so much change - it’s great because now the world’s better! It works! I’ve got hope, and even now when it’s really hard in the world, I believe in love, I really, really do.”

“Maybe I’m just a bit loopy, but I really think it’s there if you just look for it – a kind of magic in the everyday.”

Shrouded in mystique but primed for an imminent step into the spotlight, Luvcat is the rapidly-rising dark-pop purveyor who’s beloved in name and bewitching in nature.

Words: Daisy Carter

Photos: Ed Miles

From busking on the streets of Liverpool and touring with The Waterboys, to meeting one of her bandmates while skinnydipping and performing on a riverboat in Paris, there’s a distinct sense that Luvcat has already experienced more than your average twenty-something. “I feel like I’ve lived ten years in the past couple,” she affrms, tucked in the corner of a Stoke Newington pub a stone’s throw from the sultry ambience of local bar and today’s shoot location, Doña. “I’m very adventurous; I love spontaneity and just being whisked away and living a little bit dangerously… to the dismay of my mother,” she laughs. “I just chase what makes me feel alive; your year feels way longer if you cram loads of new, sometimes uncomfortable shit into each day. That’s what my dad always taught me as a kid: comfort is killer. You’ve gotta always have that bit of abrasion when you’re young, otherwise you don’t grow.”

Fittingly, the latest of this cat’s nine lives is perhaps her wildest yet. Though she currently only has a trio of singles out in the world – and self-confessedly was “playing to no-one in South East London six months ago” – Luvcat has already amassed a devoted following of ‘Kittens’ who pack out venues and know her every lyric, even those of songs not yet released. “There’s one fan who’s fying out to Japan in January; he comes to all the shows,” she notes, her Scouse accent thick with disbelief.

While Luvcat herself can’t quite ascertain exactly why people have connected with the project so strongly (“Maybe it’s because I’m really into documenting some of the mad characters I’ve met,” she humbly offers), from where we’re standing, it’s not hard to understand. Drawing on the same sense of high-stakes Gothic romance as Wuthering Heights, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, or even Saltburn, Luvcat channels the drama of obsessive, possessive love while simultaneously grounding these grand fantasies in everyday locales, like a Liverpool pub (‘Matador’), or a French restaurant in Soho (‘Dinner @ Brasserie Zédel’).

Hers is a world in which passion is a prerequisite, and elopement an expectation. Unsolicited Instagram DMs and endless Hinge talking stages, this ain’t. “For now, I’m only really interested in writing about love, because I just think about boys all the time,” she says with a laugh. “I’m not really well-versed enough in politics and whatnot to write a political anthem.

I just stick to what I know, which is fantasy and men.”

Epitomising the Gen Z idea of ‘main character energy’, Luvcat weaves allegorical imagery into her own experiences of love, lust and libertines, making for expertly-sketched, deliciously evocative character studies. “Often,” she smiles, “I actually rein in the stories, ‘cos they’re more outrageous in reality…” Take her hypnotic debut ‘Matador’, which frames a relationship gone awry as akin to the bloodsport that inspired its name (“I just wanted love / You wanted gore”), or its follow up ‘Me And My Man’ – a slinking murder ballad that’s just as enchanting and disquieting as Nick Cave and Kylie’s ‘Where The Wild Roses Grow’.

Simultaneously whimsical and visceral, Luvcat frames danger and desire as two sides of the same red-blooded coin. However in practice, this translates to an affnity for a type of man she calls (only half-jokingly) “tall, dark and loathsome”. “I just love a hellraiser,” she shrugs, grinning. “I wanna feel on the edge of my seat. I gravitate towards hyper-creative [people], minds that are constantly turning. I wanna be questioned and I want someone to pull things out of me rather than just coast along.”

As conversation turns to her mum – “a total glamour puss” who is “just really brave and bold” – and her “cool as fuck” dad, whose record collection shaped her music taste, it’s clear that lukewarm affections and beige niceties have never really been part of Luvcat’s emotional vocabulary. “Obviously it’s so nice to have [someone] sweet,” she continues, “I’m not saying I just want someone to turn my life upside down. But right now, when I’m young, I’m not seeking anything other than crazy passion. My parents are madly in love, and have been for about 35 years; my grandparents were madly in love for 64 years. So I’ve had incredible, mad love around me as a kid. Maybe I’m just a bit loopy, but I really think it’s there if you just look for it – that kind of magic in the everyday.”

Luvcat might be looking for magic, but when it comes to her career, there’s been a hefty dose of making her own luck, too. Having written “quite serious, folky” music as a teenager, she cut her teeth busking before being picked up to support The Waterboys on their 2017 tour when one of the band’s members heard her covering ‘The Whole Of The Moon’ in the street. A stint in Manchester and various musical pursuits followed, until she offcially assembled the Luvcat band late last year and began peddling her wares around London’s grassroots gig circuit.

“It defnitely makes you stronger,” she says now of those years spent orbiting the industry.

“It’s not my frst rodeo, essentially. Obviously, I believe I’m very privileged and blessed to be where I am right now, but I feel like I’ve grafted and worked my arse off. I never stopped kicking the door down, basically, and I just carried on evolving when it didn’t work.”

The evolution, it’s safe to say, has been extraordinary. Having landed on a formula that’s veritable catnip – ahem – to hopeless romantics and goth pop afcionados alike, she blew up on TikTok earlier this year, the comment sections of her videos packed with people begging her to self-release the songs they featured. Since then, she’s bagged a slot playing All Points East (her frst ever festival), supported fellow theatrical troubadours The Last Dinner Party on their recent UK/EU tour, and notched up over 10 million Spotify streams on only three tracks.

Far from the 10-second hook purveyors of your typical viral hit, Luvcat instead taps into a contemporary yearning for mystique and escapism via older, vaudeville aesthetics and Lana-esque Hollywood glamour. So cohesive is the vision, there’s almost a sense that she intentionally waited until every element was just-so before raising the curtain on ‘Matador’. “That’s totally not true at all,” she says, shaking her head with a smile. “It was all [a series of] accidental little things. Everyone now associates leopard print with Luvcat, and the video that went viral of me wearing leopard print [performing a pre-release ‘Matador’ live back in April] was the frst time I’d ever worn it in my life! It was just because my mum was like, ‘Oh, here’s a nice dress’. She shrugs: “There was never any plan, but I’ve just kind of ran with it. The aesthetic of the videos and stuff is just who I am – that’s just what I’ve always been into.”

Keeping The Cure – specifcally, the ‘Lullaby’ video – as her artistic North Star (they did inspire the project’s moniker, after all), Luvcat always knew that her visual world would be an essential piece of the puzzle. Faced with delivering music videos “on the cheap” without ever compromising on vision, she and her “best mate of 10 years” have devised the creative direction for every single so far themselves. “There were literally three people who made the last two videos; there was no big team,” she confrms. “And I’m proud of that – nothing got diluted that way. Retaining my independence and keeping it feeling DIY and real is important ‘cause it makes me feel a bit nauseous, the thought of having a big operation right now.” She pauses, clearly reluctant to get too carried away. “Maybe one day, we could have that Hollywood [production]. But right now, we’re playing in pubs!”

Much as she’s enjoying the madness, she does admit that the sudden surge of attention has been, at times, “overwhelming”.

“As in,” she clarifes, “it’s hard to process – I’ve been making music and busking on the street for a long time, so [going from] being pretty much unnoticed, to suddenly having music connect and people knowing every lyric on a tour where we’re just opening the bill… I don’t really know how I’m supposed to comprehend that.”

Looking at other artists whose walk has taken a similarly sharp incline, it now seems par for the course that, at some point, particular corners of the internet will take issue with her success, positing origin story conspiracy theories or claiming that actually, it’s all been an inside job. “I mean, I’m very sensitive, so god help me if they all turn on me…” she replies. “I’m just gonna keep my head down, keep making tunes, keep playing shows. If you just keep writing cool songs and making art; if you care about all aspects of your art, and just keep making the shows bigger and bolder… I think I’ll be fne.”

Because ultimately, in the face of online noise – be it good or bad – it’s still the in-person moments of connection that truly matter to Luvcat. “The shows are what make it real,” she nods. “We were having a drink in this random fucking bar on tour somewhere – in a town we’d stopped over in, not even a town we were playing – and a girl came over and asked, ‘Are you Luvcat?’. I just thought, ‘Wow, the power of posting little shitty videos of you in the pub singing – that’s incredible’.

“Every time I’m about to play a show,” she continues, “I think, ‘Why have I chosen this life?’, because I have terrible stage fright and feel so ill. But as soon as I’m onstage it goes away, and it’s just pure euphoria. There’s nothing quite like when the sound’s good and you’re all sinking into the tune and there’s some sort of strange magic on stage. It comes along once in a blue moon, and that’s what keeps you going.”

Like an addict who can’t quite shake the habit – or, indeed, two lovers drawn repeatedly back together – Luvcat’s relationship with performing is just as seductively potent as the characters she portrays in the songs themselves. “It feels intoxicating; it’s totally consuming,” she sighs. She can’t help herself – and neither, it seems, can anyone else.

“I never stopped kicking the door down, and I just carried on evolving when it didn’t work.”

They might regularly be joking, but they’re not a joke. Instead, Josh Law and Ben Sadler are having the silliest fun and turning it into musical success.

“When someone’s leading the stupidity then it allows everyone else to feel at ease.”

- Ben Sadler

Words: Lisa Wright

Photo: Ed Miles

It’s not often you fnd yourself on a chilly winter’s day, watching two fully-grown men try to wrestle themselves into infatable famingo outfts, but it’s not often you come across a band like Getdown Services. As bemused passers by (and one very angry dog) in Victoria Park will attest, Josh Law and Ben Sadler are not people who take the accoutrements of burgeoning hype very seriously. Yet though their music – one-liner-laced, spoken word rants hooked over dancefoor-ready beats –their on stage performance (“It’s like Butlins’ Red Coats. Karaoke. Your dad. I dunno…”), and their affably unassuming demeanour might go against everything the algorithm says should equal success, it’s on a steadily upward trajectory that the two Bristolians fnd themselves heading into 2025. Debut LP ‘Crisps’ has become an underground sleeper favourite. Their winter UK tour was completely sold out. Next year, they’ll support former Class of 2024 graduate Antony Szmierek on the road. The two frontmen, it seems, are more surprised about their current turn of fate than anyone. “It’s a weird thing to get my head around because I do think we’re good but it also feels like a private joke between me and Ben so it’s weird that anyone really gets it,” muses Josh, now de-famingoed and nursing a Guinness. “You just have to accept that they do and try your best to invite people in.” However, though Getdown Services might never have expected to get anywhere further than the local venues they cut their teeth in for their frst two years as a band, it’s with this spirit of accessibility and fun that the entire project has evolved.

First becoming friends in a Year Nine music class more than a decade ago, when Ben and Josh fnally decided to ditch their serious interim bands and reunite, they knew they just wanted it to be a laugh. “We found some people to be quite cold and gate-keepy. Plus, because we were also quite terrible, people didn’t really give a shit,” Ben recalls of their preGetdown outfts.

“So when it came round that we’d do [a band together] again, we just fgured we’d do it on our terms.”

Initially making music without any intention of playing live, when they subsequently were offered a handful of early gigs, they had to fgure out what that would look like.

“The frst gig we did, we had keyboards and Ben was playing bass and we had other instruments; we were trying to sing. And then the second gig was at our mate’s wedding and it was just a karaoke session really,” recalls Josh. “That’s when it put the idea in our head, even though we probably didn’t realise at the time.” “It was like a vessel to allow everyone else [to have fun],” Ben continues. “When someone’s leading the stupidity and being bottom of the pile in

terms of humiliating themselves then it allows everyone else to feel at ease. I don’t mind degrading myself; you don’t mind degrading yourself…” “I actively enjoy it!” Josh chuckles.

“Well, when I’m with you…”

Everything for Getdown Services has been a similarly plan-free process of working it out as they go along. With a background as a guitarist (Josh) and drummer (Ben), the band’s distinctive stream-of-consciousness style (sample lyric from ‘Crisps’: “Everyone’s dressed like Doctor fucking Who in here / Why’s he got a bookbag?”) came as a result of neither bandmate having any experience of writing or being a frontman. “We’ve never been writers. It never really interested me before. The spoken word element is because we don’t know what else to do. My girlfriend’s a writer and it seemed like this alien skill to me,” says Josh.

“It feels like with the music, we can get our creative stuff out, and then with the lyrics it’s getting our mental health problems out. They’re completely disjointed; they’re not the same thing,” he continues. “We’re genuinely out of our depth when it comes to vocals so we’re trying to keep it as honest as we can. If you don’t know what you’re doing it’s hard to know if what you’re doing is good, but you do know if you’ve been honest or not. So that’s a good test: I don’t know if it was good but I know it was honest and that’s all I can do.”

It’s this lack of formality or box-ticking that’s perhaps the duo’s best quality. Though there have been no lack of young alternative groups railing at the state of things in recent years, Getdown Services operate somewhere between the surreal observations of Dry Cleaning, the sweary annoyance of Sleaford Mods, and two blokes in a pub putting the world to rights. Some of their songs talk about landlords and gentrifcation, but they also talk about telly and snacks and poo. “I don’t think anything political in our music is trying to achieve anything beyond vocalising how we feel,” shrugs Josh. “Anything political is political by chance because it comes under the umbrella of things that bother us.”

As the momentum around the band has increased, however, so has an inclination to somewhat level up – albeit in their own way. Though the beauty of a Getdown Services live show is in its chaos, the two friends want it to be chaos of the good kind. “We want to respect the people giving us their time and money so we’re taking it more seriously, whereas before we were a bit more throwaway and didn’t really give a fuck about any of it,” says Josh. “There are people that like what we do, so let’s try and make it good. That’s how much the ambition has grown: let’s try and be a good band.”

They suggest that their new material – the next steps on after both ‘Crisps’ and this winter’s ‘Your Medal’s In The Post’ EP – is taking the band down a route that’s “a bit more personal, maybe less humour”. “But there is a song where Josh shouts a quote from Planet of the Apes…” Ben caveats. “Yeah it does feel a bit ridiculous to say that this new stuff’s all serious and then the frst song is us shouting like monkeys, but it’s defnitely changed!” his bandmate says. Yet whether lyrically serious or silly (and given their subsequently-dropped festive single ‘Dr. Christmas’, we’d gauge they haven’t entirely moved over to the former camp), you sense that Getdown Services will always be in it for the right reasons. “People can make their own minds up, but for us it’s just a way to enjoy something we like doing together anyway: taking the piss, making each other laugh, and doing music,” says Ben. “So we’re just doing that, but putting it on a stage.”

After a whirlwind 2024 that saw her perform with Coldplay at Glastonbury and win her second Ivor Novello award, the SpanishAmerican singer is ready to show off even more sides of herself with debut album ‘Slowly, It Dawns’.

Words: Sarah Jamieson

Anyone who happened to fick on the telly during Coldplay’s record-breaking Glastonbury performance back in the summer was in for a real treat. Not only was it the ffth time that Chris Martin and co took to headlining the legendary Pyramid Stage, they also brought along a whole cast of talented names to help them do it, including the likes of Little Simz, Elyanna and Femi Kuti; even Michael J Fox joined in for a glassy-eyed rendition of ‘Fix You’.

For one of their guest performers, though, their appearance really was a full circle moment. “I was looking up and seeing all these A-listers looking down at me and watching me go on,” Victoria Canal says today, nearly fve months on from her turn performing ‘Paradise’ with the band, “and it was just more people in the crowd than I’ve ever seen in my life. It was a trip.”

Having spent a handful of her early years playing Coldplay covers in restaurants (“My identifer when doing cover gigs,” she told BBC Breakfast back in July, “was that I could do any Coldplay song”), it’s little wonder that the experience felt more than a little otherworldly for the singer. After dedicating much of her childhood to studying classical piano and opera, Victoria began to write music in her early teens before releasing a handful of EPs by the time she was 22. It was after an April Fool’s joke back in 2018, however, that she frst caught the attention of the Coldplay frontman, thanks to a mocked up Rolling Stone cover reading ‘Victoria Canal wows Chris Martin at a clown’s birthday party’. A mutual acquaintance forwarded the cover on to the man himself and the rest, as they say, is history: Martin introduced her to Parlophone Records in 2021, and she signed with the label the following year.

“I was mostly just impressed at how many moving parts there are that, as an audience member, you have no idea about,” she refects now of her Worthy Farm turn. “Those couple of days rehearsing with them and then doing the show, it was such a masterclass in how to put on an amazing show at such a high level for so many people. It was so inspiring to see, to just see it function at such a high level. I’ve done so many gigs in my life but never have there been hundreds of crew members around making sure every little detail is sorted and that everything’s

falling exactly when it needs to. I felt like a very happy cog in the machine of making it happen.”

Victoria’s appearance at Glastonbury hasn’t been her only pinch-yourself moment in 2024 either. Just a few weeks prior to her visit to the Tor, she found herself back on the red carpet at the Ivor Novellos for a second time; having received their Rising Star award in 2023, this year she claimed the Best Song Musically and Lyrically prize for her dramatic opus ‘Black Swan’.

“Wow, that’s crazy that also happened this year…” she says, remembering that it was, in fact, just a few months ago. “That was an amazing day and I got to meet Paul McCartney, which was just the dream of all dreams, and he was very kind to me,” she nods. “I got to perform at the ceremony, and it was just such a cool run in with a lot of people that I really admire, like Lana Del Rey and Paul… To hear them congratulate me and say that they liked my song was… it was just very exciting.”

Having rounded out the year with a series of headline shows across the US, UK and Europe (“The London show was my favourite show I’ve ever played,” she says. “It was my biggest headline show to date; I had a string section and a whole band and it felt really satisfying”), when we speak the singer is spending a few days at an artist residency in Normandy where she’s planning to get a little rest before her next chapter begins to unfold: the release of her debut album.

Set for release in January, ‘Slowly, It Dawns’ is not just the culmination of three years’ work for the singer, but a record that shows a wider breadth of her talents than ever before.

“Defnitely going on tour with Hozier was the catalyst for that,” she explains of her new, expanded sonic scope. “I think seeing just how varied his music is and how huge it could be, and experiencing those fans that are young, queer and very sentimental, I was really inspired by what my show could become and what my music could sound like. I took the pieces of what inspired me about his show in terms of the grandiosity and used it as inspiration for my own recording process and songwriting.

“I defnitely wanted to keep the more intimate, singer-songwriter, bedroom style stuff that is so close to my heart, but I think the album is split into two sides,” she notes. “Side A is this much more confdent, unhinged side, which did take a lot of inspiration from that time, and then Side B is the much more introverted, wounded, wiser side.”

Keying into the old school approach of splitting a record into two distinct sides, the album begins with the more carefree fun of ‘June Baby’ before moving into the sultry firtation of ‘California Sober’ and the hedonistic rhythms

of ‘Cake’ which, Victoria explains, represent the earlier phases of life. “To me, the firty, sort of overconfdent, naive side is emblematic of younger life. You know, you’re 18 or 19, you’re going out, you’re trying things for the frst time, you’re trying to discover who you are and maybe overshoot.

“I think the main thing is that I just had fun,” she says of her approach when writing those songs in particular. “Music is mostly such a brooding, sorta weepy experience for me – and that is where my heart lies, but I just wanted to test myself and see if I could genuinely have fun and not restrict myself in any way. All the songs on Side A, I felt like they were just a result of me being like, ‘Fuck it, I’m going to make whatever I want today’, and yeah, it did kind of fow; particularly the music and production elements. I think we were just having so much fun, so it felt easy.”

It’s in the album’s second half – around the existential lullabyesque ‘Vauxhall’ – that things shift to a more refective, introverted space. “I really liked the idea of bookending the album with ‘June Baby’ as Track One and ‘swan song’ as Track 12, sort of from beginning to end of life and basically a coming-of-age story,” she explains. “There does come a point where you wake up and you’re 24 or 25 and you’re like, ‘Oh jeez, what was all that?’ and ‘I should probably get serious now’. The rest of the album from there becomes more wise and more refective and self aware, which is much more how I feel in my life now.”

While her debut mostly explores new territory for the songwriter, there are a few familiar faces within the track listing. “Those songs, they’re sisters and they deserve a long life,” she says of the record’s fnal two tracks, ‘Black Swan’ and ‘swan song’, which previously featured on her 2023 EP ‘WELL WELL’ and 2022 release ‘Elegy’ respectively. Did she always plan to include them on her full-length? “I did, yeah. I just felt like I didn’t want to leave them behind and they’re so representative of who I am and the deepest part of my soul. I wanted to make sure that they got their moment again; it feels really right to me.”

There’s something poignant about the fact that, through the writing of the album, it’s still the songs she wrote some years ago that speak to Victoria most now. “I think that’s part of the concept behind the album too,” she agrees, “that it’s cyclical. You’re born and you live and you die and you’re born again. Even within your life; maybe it’s not a literal death, but it’s an ego death or it’s the death of an idea of yourself. That’s also part of the reason I called the album ‘Slowly, It Dawns’, because it feels like a sunrise and eventually the sun sets but it will rise again. It is interesting, and it really is based on where I am in my life that I feel more like ‘Black Swan’ and that Side B energy versus like, confdent, loud, unhinged Side A energy.”

An album of intense honesty that also celebrates the multitudes of the human experience – whether foolish and loud, or meditative and quiet – ‘Slowly, It Dawns’ aims to move away from the highly-curated snapshots of life that society seems so intent on projecting, to showcase it for the contradictory muddle that it can actually be. “I think that’s one thing that I just don’t see too much of online, particularly with really established artists that I follow, for example,” Victoria offers up. “It’s like, they can be this one thing, all the time, and it’s always energetic and it’s always happy and it’s always lively and they’re always performing and whatever,” she says.

“But, for me, I just fnd that there’s like… I call it the God and goblin complex.” Two halves of the same emotional coin, much like the two sides of the album. “I’m a fan of music and I feel like I’ve been searching for an artist to admit that they are both this and that, you know what I mean?” she asks. “I’ve decided I can basically be that person.”

‘Slowly, It Dawns’ is out 17th January via Parlophone.

“Music is mostly such a brooding, sorta weepy experience for me, but I just wanted to test myself and see if I could have fun.”

Photos: Martina Matencio

Viral smash ‘Home’ announced their arrival to the world, now Oli

and

are ready to show what else they’ve got up their sleeves.

Fox

Scott Verill

Words: Adam Davidson

Photos: Ed Miles

“We’ve never been through it [before], so there’s no answer for it. Even when we look to our left and right at our peers in London, they’ve not been through it either. It just doesn’t happen that much,” begins Oli Fox, one half of Good Neighbours. “We feel very lucky, but at the same time we are absolutely knackered…”

It’s little surprise that Fox and bandmate Scott Verill are feeling the onset of exhaustion – and not just because they’ve spent the past half hour leaping in the air on space hoppers for today’s photoshoot. Clocking up one of the biggest viral hits of the year in ‘Home’ (322 million Spotify streams and counting), before releasing their self-titled debut EP in October and heading out on tour in support of global superstar Benson Boone, it’s been a whirlwind year for the pair to say the least.

Though Oli and Scott only joined forces in 2023, both musicians had been slogging it out on the circuit for many years before. South Londonborn Scott began his career in childhood band The Theory of 6 Degrees, becoming one of the youngest groups to perform at Glastonbury when he had only just hit his teens before moving onto a succession of solo guises. Similarly, Colchester-born Oli had been rising through the ranks with his own solo work, touring with artists such as Sigrid along the way. Coming together, however, something immediately clicked. Good Neighbours might be an overnight success story, but the men behind it have spent a long time putting in the hours. “We’ve gone through the same thing as we’ve both been artists before and then turned writers. Then we’ve had this song that’s almost like, fallen in our lap that has had that effect and gone worldwide,” says Oli. “Even if you do try to prepare yourself, nothing can quite prepare you for it.”

‘Home’ contains a special full-circle moment for Oli in particular, as the track samples Damon Albarn’s iconic Omnichord OM-108, which he used to make Gorillaz’ classic hit ‘Clint Eastwood.’ Growing up in Colchester, the musician went to the same sixth form as Albarn and was inspired by the images of Blur performing in the common room. It was a surreal moment, then, when Good Neighbors were allowed access to their idol’s instruments in the studio.

“Whenever I was doing my music tech, I had [photos of Blur] on the wall as an inspiration. What he’s gone on to do is sick, he’s defnitely someone we take inspiration from creatively,” says Oli. “I don’t think he’s ever been pinned into a genre and we are keen to keep that going for us. The second it becomes something that people can put their fnger on, it feels suffocating.”

Part of this versatility was spawned from both members’ stints penning music for other people: a section of their careers that also inadvertently led to Good Neighbours’ own joyous sound. Becoming “bogged down” by some of the “sombre” projects that they were

working on, the duo would collaborate on making “the most audacious thing we can write, that isn’t too deep.” That idea became their manifesto and ultimately their secret to success; its spontaneity providing a level of freedom that both artists had lost over the years, and rekindling a child-like innocence in making music.

The project, too, became a reaction to the selfserious music populating London’s alternative scene at the time. “We got bogged down by all the music that was so self-deprecating,” says Scott. “There was a period about fve years ago where it was really introverted, Americanised and full of self-loathing – which we love! – but at the right time. There was a gap to make yourself feel good that we wanted to fll.”

Good Neighbours are undeniably a serotoninboost for the ears, but their music isn’t just a “big thumbs up”. “Songs like ‘Home’ have an introspective nature to them as they come from a deep place, but the way we put them across is light-hearted,” suggests Oli. “We were quite intent on having open conversations, especially with a lot of our age group who are now starting therapy for the frst time. It’s nice to be able to paint those problems on quite a big scale so they feel like it’s quite accessible.”

The day we speak, Good Neighbours are winding up a UK tour with American singer-songwriter Benson Boone with the second of two nights at London’s O2 Academy Brixton. The duo recall that the ‘Beautiful Things’ singer was one of the frst big celebrities to reach out about the success of ‘Home’ and subsequently invited them on the run; winning his fans over has been the result, they explain, of projecting total confdence and approaching the support slots like the old football adage, “give them no respect”.

“We go out with the impression that we are here to own the venue,” grins Oli. “We’ve led with confdence on every single show. We know what we are good at, which is creating a party atmosphere. If you go there a little bit meek and too gracious to be there you can be ignored, but our music is in your face.”

When an artist has a huge breakthrough single so early on in their career, it can be diffcult to navigate that success and avoid becoming a one-hit wonder. Good Neighbours had this experience following the success of ‘Home’, but have been steadily laying the groundwork to ensure that the momentum continues. “This year has been a case of putting a face to a name and trying to catch up with our song that is running away from us,” says Oli. “It now feels like the message has been heard by a lot of crowds around the world and I think now everyone’s waiting for us to inform them on what the next step is, which we feel really confdent about.”

With plans for their debut album in place, plus a North American support tour with Foster the People lined up to kick off 2025, Good Neighbours are intent on spreading their positive vibes across the globe.

“The second it becomes something that people can put their fnger on, it feels suffocating.”

- Oli Fox

West London singer-songwriter Matilda Mann is a true romantic, and on her gorgeous debut album ‘Roxwell’, she fnds herself exploring every personal corner of it.

Words: Sarah Jamieson

Photos: Emma Swann

Matilda Mann might have a hectic 2025 ahead of her, but among plans to release her debut album and head out on her biggest UK headline tour yet, she has another task in mind. “I just want to be Cupid basically,” she grins, when the subject of her tour matchmaking scheme is brought up. “I just love love!”

For any budding singletons out there, the singer has your back. Last month, she took to her TikTok channel to explain her idea, which will see her attempt to set some of her audience up with one another when she plays her recent single ‘Meet Cute’. While she may still be fguring out some of the fner points of her blind date plan, suffce to say she’s excited about it. “I think it’s really daunting to just go up to someone, and you never know if they’re gonna say yes or if they’re already taken,” she nods. “But if you’re put in a position where it’s like, ‘Why not!’ It’s just funny!” she, quite literally, giggles: “Tee hee hee!”

For Matilda, love is a subject that’s endlessly fascinating. Granted, it may not be the most unique of inspirations, but its intertwined sense of both universality and uniqueness is something she can’t help but be drawn to. “Everyone experiences love in every way, in some form or another; whether it’s platonic, family or a loved one,” she explains. “Two people in love are two very different lives that no one’s lived before, so of course, you can’t really reach the end of it.”

In many ways, Matilda is a songwriter in the most classic of senses. Having grown up on a sonic diet of The Beatles, Joni Mitchell, Norah Jones and more (courtesy of her parents, who were equally “obsessed with the music itself, and all the backstory behind everything”), it tracks that – even before offcially reaching her mid-twenties – she’s carved out a path as an eloquent storyteller, with a keen eye for detail and feeling. “I think it’s the only thing I could do,” she says of her frst forays into music as a pre-teen. “I had a go at songwriting when I was 10. It was obviously terrible and I had just learned the word ‘decade’, so that’s in one of my songs about 12 times,” she laughs, “but it’s something I just always really enjoyed.

“Music is something I always naturally picked up on when I was little and something that I enjoyed every aspect of,” she continues, “the theory and choral music and playing in bands

and singing and instruments and stuff. I just have a fascination for all of it.”

Having attended the BRIT School for sixth form, even then Matilda hadn’t quite realised her hobby could translate into a career. “I guess if you go there, you have some thought of wanting to do something within the music world. I did think I would maybe be a music supervisor or work in some sort of music, creative, something…” she trails off. “But I really actually just didn’t think that being an artist was on the table – I just wrote songs and then I was like, ‘Well, I don’t know who’s gonna sing them so I guess I will’.”

Since her years there, she’s shared three EPs (her 2020 debut ‘Because I Wanted You To Know’, its 2021 follow-up ‘Sonder’ and last year’s ‘You Look Like You Can’t Swim’), been a runner up in Glastonbury’s Emerging Talent Competition and racked up a few million streams for good measure. What’s perhaps more surprising, though, is that despite her often heart-wrenching work – take ‘The Day I Met You’, the hushed opening track of her 2023 EP which could reduce even the hardest of souls to a glassy-eyed mess — she doesn’t actually consider herself too emotionallydriven. “I think I’m not actually that emotional a person,” she shrugs. “I’m a very logical thinker and feeler, I guess; I kind of look at my emotions and examine them. I feel them but I’m also really aware of what I’m feeling and why, and I fnd it really easy to write out what I’m feeling in a very specifc way.”

Instead, her songwriting has occasionally worked to reveal her true feelings before her mind has had a chance to catch up, like a musical game of tarot. “Sometimes I think I feel things subconsciously and I don’t even know that I feel it because maybe it’s slightly suppressed, so when I write songs, I don’t have any limits,” she notes. “I wrote ‘Worst Person Alive’ when I didn’t realise I wanted to end a relationship, and then a month later when I ended the relationship, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I totally wanted to leave this person!’,” she laughs. “I had no idea that that’s actually what I was thinking!”

It’s this somewhat diaristic approach that’s helped to shape her deeply personal debut full-length ‘Roxwell’ – due for release in early 2025. Named after the west London area where she grew up (“I don’t live there anymore, but I don’t think there’s anything else that feels more like me than home”), the album is her broadest work to date. Imbued with a scrapbook-like

“I defnitely fell in and out of love a lot during writing this album, and had very different kinds of loves as well.”

feel, it sees the singer move through different genres and sonic textures, with the primary thread of her own lived experience holding everything together. “A lot of the album is more sentimental,” she notes, “and about the sentimental feeling of love and places; the ups and downs. I defnitely fell in and out of love a lot during writing this album and had very different kinds of loves as well, which I think is also really interesting.

“I think I’m constantly still fguring out what my sound is and what I like,” she continues of the record’s eclectic feel, “but I think that it’s everchanging and always adapting. The thing I’ve mainly liked about doing a full album is I have more space to show a lot more sides of the kind of music I like. There’s a choral piece on it and then there’s quite a few indie songs, and some really folky ones. I really like to just move in between all of the types of songs I like.”

From the scene-setting ‘At The End of The Day’, which opens the album in a quietly refective, intimate manner, through to the more driving indie-rock of ‘Say It Back’, via the gorgeous, ethereal ‘All That Was Said’, ‘Roxwell’ ebbs and fows through a myriad of stories from Matilda’s early twenties, but in a way that still feels intentional and considered. “It did take a very long time. [I wrote] some of the tracks when I was 20, whereas ’Dazed & Confused’ I wrote in maybe August or something,” she notes. “I didn’t want to have a song that was just thrown in there to fll the gap. All of them stand on their own to me. That was really important: that I’d be happy for any of them to be their own single and if any of them blew up or did really well, I’d be really happy and proud about that. I’ll be 25 when the album comes out, so it’s defnitely about the frst intense four years of my twenties, which I think is a very big part of who I am, and what I’m like now.”

While relationships and dating are an undeniably big part of many people’s lives during those formative years, crucially ‘Roxwell’ still fnds ample inspiration outside of those confnes. Across the record, Matilda digs into all the different corners of our lives that are touched by love, and – rather than choose to end the album via a swooning romantic gesture – instead she zooms in on the importance of female friendship with the warm, delicate ‘Girls’.

“I met my two best friends when we were three and then I wrote that when we were 23, so it was after two decades of being friends,” she explains of the tender ode and its place closing the album. “They are still my best friends and we’re so different – we just live such different lives – but we get along just so well in a sisterly way. I think female friendships are such an important thing in your life and they

really make you feel like a girl again. They’re just so important to keep.”

And as for the album’s fnal sign off? In the ultimate show of intimacy, the song concludes with a clip of baby Matilda, bidding her listeners a very cute goodbye. “I think it’s funny that at the end of all of these emotions and everything, you remember it all came from that kid,” she laughs, “and then I say goodbye as I think you should after an emotional journey like that.”

‘Roxwell’ is out 28th February via 7476.

“I’m constantly still fguring out what my sound is and what I like, but I think that it’s everchanging and always adapting.”

ON THE RISE

Q&A CHRISSI

It felt truly incredible! I’d been to the Ivor Novello awards a few years prior and it became a goal of mine to be nominated by 2025. I couldn’t believe how kindly I was treated and spoken about as a songwriter. It means the world to me that I was even considered, there are so many unbelievably talented songwriters everywhere in the world, it’s easy to feel a lot smaller than I am. With their recognition, it really reassured my belief in my writing. I can’t put into words how much it meant to me.

Q&A MASTER PEACE

It was a big big shock because I knew how prestigious the award was and I knew I had just released my debut album and it’s something I’ve always wanted to be a part of, so it was the best thing to happen to me this year.

I think being a songwriter and the history of how they are treated, in terms of fairness and collaboration, can sometimes fall short, whether

it’s with payment or credit. For me, I wanted to they are just as important as the artist and the producer. It’s a big issue that I and others have felt.

taking me more seriously as an artist because the award is genuinely one of the most important ones in the music industry. It’s like the industry’s eyes which then creates more opportunity. It’s genuinely helped my career so much.

I went to Nashville, Tennessee! And Los Angeles! Oh my goodness, it was insane. My Nashville trip was so lovely, I had an amazing time, I wrote great songs with skilled individuals who I now call friends. Exploring the world is

such a privilege but to do what I love, while I’m doing it? I don’t have the words. It was such a pleasure.

My advice would be to live as much as possible, and though I struggle to take this advice myself, don’t force greatness out of yourself. It’ll probably come when you’re in a session you’re dreading because you’ve not bothered session you weren’t supposed to be in. The universe is crazy and you belong in every space you end up. Greatness could happen any day, it takes luck and hard work at your skill I think. Though I’m not sure I’m in a position to give advice just

Q&A NINO SLG

How were you frst introduced to The Ivors Academy? Why do you think being a member of it is so important for young songwriters today?

I was introduced to The Ivors Academy by my manager and I was encouraged by how embracing it seemed for songwriters. I was keen on developing my skills which became evident that The Ivors would aid even more. Being a member of The Ivors is so important because it provides you with a community of mentors and creatives who genuinely want to see you develop and succeed which is a hard thing to come across nowadays.

As part of the Rising Star programme, you’ve been ofered additional support for a series of activations through Amazon Music and The Ivors Academy. Can you tell us how it’s helped to further your career? The additional support has allowed me to attend writing camps, which has aided in my development as a songwriter. It also allowed me to receive more guitar and piano lessons which has helped me to progress with more speed – I’m incredibly grateful for this. My main objective is just improving and by placing me in certain rooms, it will help me build connections with great people and learn from respected peers which will help further my career.

If you had any advice for young songwriters and composers starting out today, what would it be and why? My advice would be to seek guidance or mentoring as soon as you can. I was blessed to be surrounded by amazing people as soon as I started my career which allowed me to be in the position I’m in. The majority of the great things and people we see aren’t entirely self-made and require mountains of work from a team in order to become successful. Of course, develop in your own time and be a master of your craft in all aspects but it’s a journey that doesn’t need to be completed alone.

Q&A BLAIR DAVIE

Earlier this year, you were nominated for the 2024 Rising Star Award with Amazon Music – frst of, congratulations! Secondly, how did it feel to be acknowledged in this way as a songwriter?

It truly was the most wonderful feeling of love and gratification. I was shocked to get the nomination but on the day I managed to try and take a second to really enjoy myself and feel like I’m meant to be there among some of the greatest writers around. It was such a beautiful and inspiring day.

How were you frst introduced to The Ivors Academy and what encouraged you to become a member? I feel like I’ve known about The Ivors for years now without being able to place where the first point of hearing about it was. I knew that they did amazing work in so many aspects of the industry but it wasn’t until I went to the awards this year that I saw its biggest strength; the community that it brings together. To be a part of this big, beautiful echo chamber of people who truly care about the craft of songwriting and the well being of all involved is just an amazing feeling. So much of this journey can be terrifying, so knowing that you’re in the same boat as so many others is both comforting and motivating.

Why is it so important for songwriters to receive this level of support from the industry within their careers?

I think support like this is so gratifying for upcoming artists. Sometimes, especially in the modern day social media era we’re in, it can feel like you’re just constantly shouting into the void with nothing coming back to tell you you’re doing anything right. I know in my heart though that if no one was ever watching, or if no one heard any of my songs that I’d still be writing them.

But to just get a little nod like this to say

“hey, you’ve got this, we see you” is such a lovely motivator. It’s all confidence isn’t it, it just makes you feel like you’re on the right track and that if you keep pushing, good things will come.

INTRODUCING THE RISING STAR AWARD

The Ivors Academy’s Relations and Outreach Manager Jévis Lawson tells us a little more about his role, and the Rising Star’s support system.

“I work with partners and universities to support our membership of songwriters and composers. One key initiative is championing talented 18-25-year-old songwriters through the Rising Star Award with Amazon Music.

Each year, five outstanding songwriters are nominated for an Ivor Novello Award—an incredible achievement in itself—and receive a year of tailored support from us and Amazon Music. From these nominees, one is awarded an Ivor Novello, one of the most prestigious accolades in music.

This initiative reflects our commitment to recognizing and nurturing the next generation of songwriters. Every nominee brings unique needs and visions for their career, and being part of their journey is immensely rewarding.”

Roberto Neri, Chief Executive of The Ivors Academy sums it up: “Empowering and championing the next generation of songwriters is vital to securing a vibrant and sustainable future for music. Initiatives like our Rising Star Award with Amazon Music play a key role in this mission. Over the past year, we’ve had the privilege of showcasing and supporting exceptional talent, and we can’t wait to see who will shine in 2025.”

Tom Winkler, head of publisher, songwriter, and society relations, says: “It’s more difficult than ever for emerging songwriters to break through. The Ivors Academy and Amazon Music is at the forefront of providing songwriters greater access to resources and tools to help them rise above the saturation. By customizing support plans based on each nominee’s goals, The Academy and Amazon Music are offering songwriters global opportunities to advance their craft and expand their collaborator networks.”

ENTER FOR THE RISING STAR AWARD WITH AMAZON MUSIC 2025

There’s no fee – you just need to be aged 18–24, British, Irish, or a UK resident in 2024, and a member of The Ivors Academy. Under 25? Join at a discounted rate.

Head to ivorsacademy.com/risingstar

Songwriters, protect your rights, empower your career and champion your craft –join The Ivors Academy over at ivorsacademy.com/membership.

This article is brought to you as part of our partnership with The Ivors Academy. Head over to diymag.com to read the full interviews from the winner and nominees of this year’s Rising Star Award.

REVIEWS

This issue: Kendrick Lamar, Franz Ferdinand, Lauren Mayberry, Poppy and more.

KENDRICK LAMAR

GNX

pgLang / Interscope

“Before I take a truce I’ll take them to hell with me.” One of rap’s truly premier fgures, Kendrick Lamar has returned with a surprise release that, somehow, nobody saw coming. Having dominated 2024 without so much as a hint of an imminent album, Kendrick’s sixth studio LP is a masterstroke - exquisitely fuelled by his love of his home city of Compton and his rage at his storied adversary, Drake.

Leaving behind the introspective, confessional intellectualism of ‘Mr Morale & the Big Steppers’ for much leaner, more direct, more conventional tracks, K-dot seems to be taking aim squarely at the chartdominating, club-flling rappers he names here. Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg - no one legend is safe from Kendrick’s ire. As if loading up for a battle of the charts, Kendrick recruits the most lethal hired gun of all to produce: Taylor Swift and Lana Del Rey’s favourite collaborator, Jack Antonoff.

It’s an interesting contradiction - the sort that’s followed Kendrick since the early days. By going back to basics, his supreme technical talent - the variation of fow and genius lyricism - is even more obvious. By restricting the scope of the piece, it’s able to reach an intensity that’s not been as often touched upon since 2012 masterpiece ‘Good Kid M.A.A.D City’. Across ‘wacced out murals’, ‘squabble up’, ‘hey now’ and ‘tv off’ Lamar fnds a claustrophobic groove, a pulsating intensity perfectly complicated by Sounwave and Antonoff’s skittish, bubbling production. It’s not an album that overwhelms its guests, nor lets them fully take center-stage, with SZA adding emotion and depth to ‘luther’ and ‘gloria’ for some of the album’s most heartfelt moments.

So consciously West Coast yet so ready-for-MTV, it’s maybe the clearest picture of Kendrick as both a selfaware super-brand and the high-climbing champion of the streets. After so much abstraction, so much thought-provoking chin-stroking, it’s vital and exciting to hear Kendrick speak on himself: “Flip a coin, want the shameless me or the famous me? How annoying, does it anger me to know the lames can speak. On the origins of the game I breathe? That’s insane to me. It’s important, I deserve it all because it’s mine. Tell me why you think you deserve the greatest of all time?” On all the evidence we’ve got so far, it’d take a brave person to argue he isn’t close. Matthew Davies

LISTEN: ‘luther’

Able to reach an intensity thatʼs not been as o en touched upon since 2012ʼs ʻGood Kid M.A.A.D Cityʼ.

Vicious Creature EMI

WLauren at her most emboldened.

LAMBRINI GIRLS Who Let The Dogs Out?

City Slang

Capturing the famed freneticism of their live show with confdence and clarity, each of the eleven tracks on Lambrini Girls’ debut full-length holds absolutely nothing back. ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ is an album that – as expected – is replete with ruthlessly cutting one-liners: “True love is nothing more than the wrong hill to die on” asserts ‘Love’; “You act like I’m your mother and your therapist”, ‘Big Dick Energy’ berates. Clearly, the self-same visceral fury at our capitalistic, patriarchal, racist, queerphobic society that frst drew people’s attention to the duo (comprised of vocalist/guitarist Phoebe Lunny and bassist Lilly Macieira) is still burning strong. But here, there are also as-yet-unseen layers to their rage; indeed, Phoebe is lyrically at her most powerful when she turns her gaze inward, refecting on the individual, personal consequences of these institutional issues.

Among the standouts are ‘No Homo’ – a playful yet actually quite poignant look at the anxieties of navigating same-sex attraction in heteronormative spaces – and ‘Special, Different’, on which the vocalist mulls over the lonely realities of neurodivergence (“Why can’t I just ft in?”). ‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’, meanwhile, is the most vulnerable they’ve ever been on record; taking its title from the infamous Kate Moss quote, this album lynchpin distills their every strength – the no-holds barred honesty and the ire – into a gut-punch testimony of disordered eating and body dysmorphia: “I wish I was skinny but it’ll never be enough” she snarls, encapsulating a whole generation’s self-loathing in a sentence.

Though lyrics are undoubtedly Lambrini Girls’ prime weapon of choice, with Phoebe also spitting home truths about police corruption (‘Bad Apple’), workplace misogyny (‘Company Culture’), industry inequality (‘Filthy Rich Nepo Baby’) and more, the record’s instrumentals nevertheless hold the weight of her words with ease; cleaner, more ambitious, and more diverse than the arrangements on 2023 EP ‘You’re Welcome’, they cement the duo as natural successors to modern punk rock greats like Green Day, SOFT PLAY and Amyl and The Sniffers.

Until, that is, we get to closer ‘Cuntology 101’ – a sudden left turn towards markedly dancier territory, it’s yet another tongue-in-cheek reminder that, for this band, making very serious points has never been mutually exclusive to a bit of silliness. A laundry list of selfproclaimed “cunty” (complimentary) behaviours sandwiching a ‘HOT TO GO!’-style chorus, it’s a ridiculous, brilliant anthem that’s sure to have festival crowds everywhere bodily spelling out the English language’s most taboo swear word with glee.

The continued rise of Lambrini Girls is testament to the fact there’s a genuine, passionate appetite for these things to be said – and said loudly. While detractors might claim that it’s too on the nose – that there’s a lack of lyrical ambiguity, or nuance – the point which ‘Who Let The Dogs Out’ makes spectacularly is that with some things, you need to just be straight (though not sexually, obv). Daisy Carter

atching Lauren Mayberry’s evolution as a frontwoman over the past thirteen years has certainly been captivating, with her confdence and creativity growing around each of Chvrches’ album releases. So, when the Glasgow native announced her solo foray with the haunting single ‘Are You Awake’ and a slew of live shows last September, it felt like the start of a truly exciting new era for the singer. What was less expected, however, was that it’d take well over a year for her debut full-length to land. And while exactly what caused the delays is still somewhat of a mystery, what is certain is that ‘Vicious Creature’ sees Lauren at her most emboldened. Channelling her younger love of ‘80s pop, ‘00s R&B and musical theatre - think Madonna, All Saints and Liza Minelli respectively - there’s an even more distilled sense of her personality across the album’s

twelve tracks, which run the gamut of the female experience in 2024.

Its soaring opener ‘Something In The Air’ sees her face off against conspiracy theorists and mansplainers, before the stomp of ‘Shame’ tries to shrug off patriarchal beauty standards in favour of more mental freedom. Elsewhere, ‘Change Shapes’ is a delicious bop of a track, landing somewhere in the Venn diagram between Sugababes’ ‘Push The Button’ and vogueing, while the frenetic ‘Sorry, Etc’ dives into the complicated tangle of wanting to ft in with her male counterparts (“I bit my tongue to be one of the boys / I sold my soul to be one of the boys”).

An album that manages to be poignant and pointed without sacrifcing any of its unabashed sparkle, ‘Vicious Creature’ adds even more dimension to the Chvrches singer; a sonic origin story that’s been well worth the wait. Sarah Jamieson LISTEN: ‘Change Shapes’

LISTEN: ‘Nothing Tastes As Good As It Feels’

Thereʼs a genuine, passionate appetite for these things to be said – and said loudly.

Photos: pgLang, Charlotte Patmore, Corinne Cumming

FRANZ FERDINAND

The Human Fear

Domino

What should Franz Ferdinand sound like in 2025, more than two decades into their career? It’s a question Alex Kapranos has had plenty of time to ruminate on in the seven years that have passed since ‘Always Ascending’, their last studio album and one that captured them in a moment of transition. That period also encompassed a greatest hits record and accompanying tour, which might have had fans wondering if the creative tank was running low on gas. ‘The Human Fear’ is an emphatic rejection of that idea. A concept album that grapples with myriad manifestations of the titular emotion, it’s fabulously sonically varied; over the course of 35 thrilling minutes, Alex leads the group through a searing kaleidoscope of styles. ‘Audacious’, ‘Build It Up’ and ‘Night or Day’ imbue the angular strut of old with new energy and urgency, but elsewhere, new ground is broken with abandon; the glorious disco stomp of ‘Hooked’ might be the standout, but there’s also ebullient ‘80s synthpop (‘The Doctor’ ‘Bar Lonely’), infectious groove (‘Everydaydreamer’, ‘Tell Me I Should Stay’) and a genuine curveball in the shape of ‘Black Eyelashes’, where Kapranos takes infuence from Los Bitchos, with whom he’s collaborated. If there’s a throughline to the album, it’s that their ‘Hits to the Head’ tour appears to have sharply reminded the band of the evergreen power of the massive chorus; there are plenty here. Alex Kapranos is on typically droll, playful lyrical form, too, grounding the record in Franz tradition, but the sound of ‘The Human Fear’ suggests a band still brimming with ambition. Joe Goggins LISTEN: ‘Audacious’

JASMINE.4.T

You Are The Morning Saddest Factory

That jasmine.4.t should be part of the Phoebe Bridgers cinematic universe is arguably the most glaringly obvious facet of debut album

‘You Are The Morning’. A record brimming with folksy warmth and vivid storytelling, with song structures that build on themselves so smartly as to belie their frequently six-minute-plus length, it brings the phrase ‘match made in heaven’ in mind - particular considering that, as well as releasing through Saddest Factory, these tracks were also produced by Phoebe and her boygenius comrades Lucy Dacus and Julien Baker. More surprisingly, given the record’s sound, is that the experiences that fed into it came via Bristol and Manchester. It’s only the title of ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco Dissociation’ – a song which veers wonderfully into slacker rock territory over an expansive nine minutes – that gives Jasmine’s game away. Away from comparisons to her collaborators’ work, the wonky ‘90s indie of The Flaming Lips and Pavement is heard on ‘Tall Girl’; there’s a Bon Iver softness to ‘Roan’, while the majestic percussion of ‘Breaking In Reverse’ is pretty much Wall of Sound level in both tone and task. This alone makes for a wholly enjoyable record, but perhaps remarkably - at least in a current context - it all accompanies lyrics written around and about Jasmine’s coming out and transition. ‘You Are The Morning’ is flled with huge amounts of positivity that shines on the gang vocals which repeat the refrain “The elephant / Is in the room” on ‘Elephant’; the “You deserve much better” that permeates the title track; even closer ‘Woman’, on which she is joined by the Trans Chorus of Los Angeles, may be plaintive at points but it’s never sad. In ‘Best Friend’s House’, Jasmine sings of fnding solace “In my best friend’s house / In my best friend’s bed / With the curtains closed”, and it’s perhaps this line which sums up the record best, as a safe sonic cocoon. Bella Martin

LISTEN: ‘Guy Fawkes Tesco

Dissociation’

BABYMOROCCO

Amour True Panther

Babymorocco (aka Clayton Pettet, the self-styled “original gay boy of Tumblr”, whose biceps attract their thousands) refutes the queer-baiter allegations that spur controversy among his cult following. Soaked in milk, fexing for Gay Times, he fouts the accusation, confesses fuidity (and irritation) after a forced hand, and persists with exhibitionism. This is pop music, where ironic commodifcation and sexual expression are celebrated, but ambiguity is questioned, even when the answer to “Is Babymorocco queer?” seems irrelevant or obvious. The art school graduate’s disregard for rules - once intending to lose his virginity on-stage - is felt throughout debut record ‘Amour’, where scally masculinity and a noughties sex-positive pop pastiche is upheld by indie sleaze arrogance, spotlighting a rogue sex symbol owning his evasive transience and gender expression. Immersed in turn-of-the-millennium Ministry of Sound aesthetics, Babymorocco raves in a throwback misft party zeitgeist. There’s radio earworm pop (see ‘Red Eye’ and ‘No Cameo’), Euro-trash (‘Elle Aime’ feat. Frost Children), electronica (‘Give Me Luv’) and noughties rave (‘Left U On The Track’), retreading the footsteps of back-of-the-bus-music cultural monoliths like Space Cowboy, David Guetta, Zedd and RedOne. Sometimes, his voice is swamped by monotonous and past-its-sell-by-date imitation (‘Body Organic Disco Electronic’) but after a few spins, his nostalgic deck turns intoxicating, a vision of noughties masculinity and male pop stardom if it knew then what it knows now. ‘Amour’ carries popularising noughties nostalgia with proud sexual fuidity, a reminder that not everything about sex has to be serious, and the gauche doesn’t have to be ironic to have meaningful perspective. Otis Robinson

LISTEN: ‘Give Me Luv’

VICTORIA CANAL

Slowly, It Dawns

For anyone familiar with Victoria Canal’s earlier discography - which, after sharing her frst EP all the way back in 2016, is already plentiful - the opening chimes of ‘June Baby’ might come as a bit of a surprise. Where her most recent releases (2022’s ‘elegy’ and last year’s ‘WELL WELL’ EP) dwelled in the more introspective corners of life, there’s a sunny warmth to the opening track of her debut full-length ‘Slowly, It Dawns’ that feels unexpected but still well-worn. It’s this spirit that’s carried into the frst half of the record via the firtatious strut of ‘California Sober’ and the thrumming, hedonistic vibrations of ‘Cake’, proving Canal has many more strings to her pop bow. For those more enamoured with her intimate, stripped back songwriting, never fear; ‘Slowly, It Dawns’’ second half is as powerful and devastating as ever, with ‘Barely’ standing out as a particularly raw but striking highlight (“We’re all solar systems,” she sings, in an almost whisper, “we’re so fucking small”). That she chooses to close proceedings with the one-two of her previous stand-out singles ‘Black Swan’ and ‘swan song’ makes perfect sense in context, too; the tracks that helped introduce her to the world now become the poignant fnal notes of her newest era. A gorgeous debut. Sarah Jamieson LISTEN: ‘Barely’

The Singing Winds Pt. 3 KOLA

There’s a fascinating shift in the context which frames ‘The Singing Winds pt. 3’ in relation to its thematic predecessors, last year’s ‘The Flames pt. 2’ and ‘The Waves pt. 1’ almost two years earlier. What began as a project of circumstance –working solo with time to ruminate during the Covid lockdowns – now fnds itself sandwiched between huge Bloc Party live dates, the UK indie stalwarts visibly rejuvenated with a new – and increasingly international – audience having discovered their back catalogue. Creating a record single-handedly on his guitar has gone from necessity to choice; now, his solo material can sit alongside his band rather than in place of it. Within this framing, there’s a playfulness on show that perhaps hasn’t been linked to Kele’s work previously. Quite literally, a child’s voice opens the record with “It’s the start of the show” and later peppers throughout the hypnotically bluesy ‘Kintsugi’ with its repeated mantra of “It doesn’t matter if you make mistakes”. ‘Money Trouble’ offers the delightful Britishism “I’m going out out” before ascending into an approximation of club beats – think Disclosure by way of The xx, while the subtle-yet-persistent earworm that ‘Day And Night’ offers channels the sparkly keys of Joy Division’s ‘Atmosphere’ while a clubby beat pulses. It feels almost full-circle, tying Bloc Party’s brand of post-punk with Kele’s more club-focused solo work. It’s not all big-hitters, though. ‘The Arrangement’ is painfully lyrically unsubtle, while ‘Libra Aquarius Gemini’ and ‘Hometown Edge’ feel limited by their inception, as if they need an extra gear to truly shine. And therein lies the crux: as an exercise, a fexing of musical muscles, ‘The Singing Winds pt. 3’ is interesting enough so long as you’re only seeking bops as a bonus. Ed Lawson

LISTEN: ‘Day And Night’

KELE

Parlophone

Photo: Martina Matencio

A gorgeous debut.

ALBUMS

MOGWAI

“How should we follow up our frst number one album?” is a happy dilemma for any band and, with all due respect, surely not one Mogwai ever expected to face. Here they are, though; 2021’s ‘As The Love Continues’ was swept to the top of the charts by both a dogged fanbase and a broader wave of goodwill towards a band that began as disruptive post-rock upstarts, but through decades of being avowedly themselves, have found themselves in the position of alternative national treasures. Any air of triumph that might have crept into this eleventh studio album, though, was quickly extinguished by a period of personal turmoil - particularly the life-threatening illness of guitarist Barry Burns’ daughter that she is now mercifully through the worst of. Those experiences inspired the record’s title, a Glaswegian colloquialism for hell, but whilst Mogwai have conjured up more than their share of doomy, nightmarish soundscapes over the years, ‘The Bad Fire’ is more a testament to keeping the devil off your back than confronting him head-on. With John Congleton decamping to Scotland to take on production duties, some of the most euphoric music they’ve made in a while makes it onto the record; ‘Lion Rumpus’, on which distorted guitars and synths clash, is a case in point, as is the dizzyingly unpredictable ‘Fanzine Made of Flesh’ and the fzzing, reverb-drenched ‘Hi Chaos’. Elsewhere, there’s a palpable nervous energy to ‘Pale Vegan Hip Pain’, while ’18 Volcanoes’ is thick with shoegazey atmosphere, recalling My Bloody Valentine. The album’s centrepiece, meanwhile, is classic Mogwai in both title and sound (‘If You Find This World Bad, You Should See Some of the Others’), but for the most part here, the band have committed to subtle reinvention. Joe Goggins

LISTEN: ‘Fanzine Made of Flesh’

POPPY

Negative Spaces

Sumerian

The chameleonic Poppy has never had a natural form – but her brief previous forays into industrial rock and metal have teased a style that begs to be explored further. Light years apart from 2017’s synth-pop record ‘Poppy.Computer’ but closer to 2020’s gnarly ‘I Disagree’, ‘Negative Spaces’ sees her embrace the heaviness with open arms. With the helping hand of House Of Protection’s Stephen Harrison and former Bring Me The Horizon member turned superproducer Jordan Fish, ‘Negative Spaces’ ebbs and fows between radio rock, ruthless metal and a sprinkling of bubblegum pop. Moreover, none of it feels disjointed, equilibrated by some soothing transition numbers (‘yesterday’, ‘hey there’) and Jordan’s consistent production. Opener ‘have you had enough?’ is a stadium-sized welcome, while the breathless ‘they’re all around us’ and ‘the center’s falling out’ sees the singer’s ear-piercing screams leap into another dimension. ‘nothing’ carries light shades of cyberpunk in the verse, while the one-two of the throbbing ‘crystallized’ and the hook-laden ‘vital’ reaffrm her pure pop prestige. Her sixth album is a masterpiece, showcasing her ability to meld reliable sound palettes with some audacious new tricks. Rishi Shah

LISTEN: ‘have you had enough?’

DITZ

Never Exhale

Republic Of Music

A great crop of bands fusing post-punk and noise rock have materialised over the last couple of years, with the likes of Model/Actriz, Mandy, Indiana, Gilla Band and many others crafting moody, intense and often downright sexy noise-punk that pulsates with abrasive textures and exhilarating rhythms. DITZ are equally one of the fnest UK bands to fuse these two welcome bedfellows, as shown on second album ‘Never Exhale’; a robust, tense and thrilling ten songs atop which the Brighton fve-piece overlay some relentlessly anxious and sometimes hostile atmospherics. It makes for a gripping fusion. The best tracks masterfully build in tension, with the pursuit frequently more satisfying than the kill itself. ‘18 Wheeler’’s bass-led opening will put hairs on the back of your neck, as do the fngernails-on-a-chalkboard guitars that open ‘Senor Siniestro’. The only minor faw, though, is that once or twice, DITZ avoid going fully all-out: on the fascinating post-rock closer ‘Britney’, when its big release fnally arrives, it arrives in the form of a groovy stoner rock riff, rather than the dense, bludgeoning slice of nastiness the track deserves. Minor quibbles aside, ‘Never Exhale’ is a gripping exercise in textured menace. Tom Morgan

LISTEN: ‘18 Wheeler’

HALEY HEYNDERICKX

Seed Of A Seed

Mama Bird Recording

Co

In the six years since the release of Haley Heynderickx’s inwardlooking, stripped back debut ‘I Need To Start A Garden’, there have certainly been no shortage of global crises that have driven humankind even further into the lucent, addictive hidey-hole of their smartphones. On this offering ‘Seed Of A Seed’, the Portland-based singer-songwriter lures us away from our dark, screen-lit rooms and instead down a verdant garden path of delicate and thoughtful folky treasures, shining the crisp daylight on society’s ever-dwindling connection with the tangible, natural world. Utilising an intricate fngerpicking style often reminiscent of seminal folk forbearers like Bert Jansch or John Fahey - the latter of which is even referenced in loose homage ‘Sorry Fahey’ - there’s a timelessness to her arrangements, bolstered by a wide range of instrumentation that gives Haley’s soft, musing compositions a sense of grandeur. From the dynamic boldness of opener ‘Gemini’, to ‘Mouth Of A Flower’’s sweeping violins and evocative natural imagery, and the notably more country feel of ‘Foxglove’ or ‘Redwoods (Anxious God)’, she achieves both a sense of versatility and cohesion on this record, largely lyrically rooted in an ethos of anti-consumerism and slow living. As perhaps one of the most refreshing voices in indie folk, ‘Seed Of A Seed’ sees Haley Heynderickx harnessing a uniquely spellbinding and sensitive power. Hazel Blacher LISTEN: ‘Gemini’

JUANITA STEIN

The

Weightless Hour

Agricultural Audio

Similarly to Laura Marling’s ‘Patterns In Repeat’ earlier this year - another record that saw its author, several acts into their career, stripping things back to their most minimal of ingredients - ‘The Weightless Hour’ feels like a record that could only have been made with age and experience. Eschewing drums throughout and leaning into the folkier side of her songwriting, it fnds Juanita Stein in a refective, measured space - looking back at the giddy, naive early days of her frst band Howling Bells on ‘The Game’, and her Jewish ancestry on the evocative, country-leaning ‘Old World’. Despite the sparser palette, ‘Daily Rituals’ still manages to concoct the brooding, minor chord tension that’s sat at the core of Stein’s best work since those early days, but there are also sweet, simple moments to be found; the lullaby of ‘Carry Me’, with the sound of crickets chirping in the background, is little more than a fnger-picked acoustic and Stein’s underrated, consistently rich vocals. ‘The Weightless Hour’ is a mature record that sounds completely at peace with its place in life. Lisa Wright LISTEN: ‘The Game’

MOONCHILD SANELLY

Full Moon

Transgressive

‘Same again’ might appear as a dismissive turn to describe this third album from South African party starter Moonchild Sanelly, but it’s her ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fx it’ attitude that allows ‘Full Moon’ to continue on the playfully explicit, brilliantly brazen trajectory. Styles twist and turn, from the unabashed radio pop sound that excites on ‘To Kill A Single Girl (Tequila)’ to surprisingly vulnerable closer ‘I Was The Biggest Curse’ via ‘Sweet & Savage’, which has all the mindbending pace shifts of an early 2000s Xenomania production. Lyrically, meanwhile, she barely misses: opener ‘Scrambled Eggs’ serves up the pitch-perfect reintroduction with “It’s your god given duty / To appreciate my booty”, ‘Boom’ compares the prowess of men in different tax brackets in a way best left to the singer’s own delivery and the spoken-word ‘I Love People’ offers the kind of mathematical bars to give Ed Sheeran a lifetime of envy: “I tell him to subtract my clothes / Divide my legs / He adds himself / Multiplies my wet”.

Bella Martin

LISTEN: ‘Sweet & Savage’

SOPHIE JAMIESON I Still Want To Share

Bella Union

Debut album ‘Choosing’ marked Sophie Jamieson out as one to watch back in 2022, and ‘I still want to share’ continues on the same raw, intimate indie folk path. Opener ‘Camera’ places Sophie’s weary vocals at its centre, as strings and guitars combine to create an increasingly grandiose – yet never distracting - soundscape. There is a mesmeric quality to the production on the soothing ‘Vista’, while ‘I Don’t Know What To Save’ builds from a sparse, almost whispered vocal delivery to a euphoric chorus. She balances between intimacy and expanse, the elements sitting together in perfect synergy through harmonic highlight ‘Highway’ and the vulnerable-yet-stunning ‘How Do You Want To Be Loved’. Christopher Connor LISTEN: ‘Highway’

Photo: Evan Benally Atwood

The Bad Fire Rock Action

EPS, ETC*

*anything they refuse to call an album.

ETHEL CAIN

Perverts

AWAL

Hayden Andehönia, the rising force behind Ethel Cain, wants to be more than a musician. She recently revealed her desire to be a flmmaker above all else, expanding her repertoire and with it Ethel’s world, comparing her art to Lord of the Rings and Legend of Zelda, rooted in narrative but with a seemingly endless series of offshoots and side-projects. The notion is carried into ‘Perverts’, a 90-minute, nine-track opus underpinned by an experimental drone and hushed vocals; a vast sidestep from 2022 debut album ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, it’s another layer in an already haunting catalogue of writings, musings and visuals that are steadily forming an expansive universe in Ethel Cain’s name. That ‘Perverts’ purposefully presents itself as a project rather than an album across much of Hayden’s carefully crafted preamble to its release is telling, unfurling as an eerie soundtrack to Ethel’s ever-sprawling story, and an unsettling, contorted collection of sound. The frst glimpse of the project, ‘Punish’, foregoes much of the melody in favour of the occasional doom soundscapes of her debut album proper, while still offering perhaps the most accessible track when sat against the nightmarish spoken-word and jarring 15-minute drawl of the appropriately titled ‘Pulldrone’, or the bleak minimalism of ‘Housofpsychoticwomn’. It also makes it impossible to assess in the traditional sense; a rating feels like a fimsy attempt to quantify the record’s polarising creative confdence. It is by all accounts a piece of art forged in a conceptual space that more often than not foregoes Hayden’s voice entirely, glimmering in the hazy white noise of the past, born from late 1800s folklore and heavily inspired by an ever-twisting cocktail of horror and nostalgia. Respite arrives in its sparse vocal moments, ‘Punish’ accompanied only by the melancholic beauty of ‘Vacillator’, the instrumental reprieve of ‘Etienne’, and the closing moment on ‘Amber Waves’. Elsewhere darkness and doom prevail. Just how enjoyable that is depends entirely on how much you are prepared to embrace the darkness, and to submit to Ethel Cain’s semi-fctional world. Ben Tipple

LISTEN: ‘Vacillator’

Another layer in an already haunting catalogue of writings, musings and visuals.

STELLA ROSE

Hollybaby KRO

That Stella Rose’s full name is Stella Rose Gahan – daughter of Depeche Mode vocalist Dave - allows for both her purported status as NYC indie sleaze revival socialite, and the neo-goth elements that are peppered throughout this short-but-sweet EP. Stella’s moves are on the indie side of this: the synthetic drum sounds that chug through the opening title track are the outlier, with the track otherwise topped off by grungy guitars. Similarly, ‘Beautiful Twentysomethings’ owes much to PJ Harvey in pace and vocal delivery, and New York neighbours Sunfower Bean’s latter heavy turn. It’s fnal track ‘Drugstore Romeo’ which impresses most, meanwhile, as the power balladry of ‘80s flm soundtracks seeps in alongside a suitably atmospheric spoken-word undercurrent. Bella Martin

LISTEN: ‘Drugstore Romeo’

Photo:

Silken Weinberg

FIL BO RIVA

SOPHIE ROYER

BEAVERTOWN FREQUENCIES: HEAVY LUNGS + COSMORAT + THE PILL

HARRISON STORM FEEL IT

WE ARE HOUSEWORK

THIRD MAN CHRISTMAS MARKET FEEL IT

OLD DIRTY BRASSTARDS

OLD DIRTY BRASSTARDS FEEL IT

JAN 10 16 17 24 25 31

JD CLIFFE

FELIX ROSS PACO VERSAILLES DEC 01 02 03 06 07 08 13 15 20 21 31

THE BARR BROTHERS THE BARR BROTHERS NIPPA

FEEL IT

NIALL MCNAMEE BRUNCH + VIBES FEB 01 02 05 07 13 14 15 21 26 28

EMILY BARKER

JOSHUA HYSLOP

SKYDADDY FEEL IT

FINNEGAN TUI

JRK19

FEEL IT

BABYMOROCCO

FEEL IT

TERRA TWIN

FEEL IT

TO WATCH 2025

Since emerging as Litany back in 2015, Beth Cornell has put in the hard yards to get

blistering indie rock

LIVE CHARLI XCX

Permanently putting to bed any lingering doubts that she is 2024ʼs most significant artist.

The O2, London

Even at tube stations in North London, miles from tonight’s O2 Arena venue, it’s impossible to miss the neon green-clad, shade-donning, canned cocktail-clutching hoards making the pilgrimage to North Greenwich - what is, for one night, the world epicentre of pop music. The level of audience effort is equivalent only to what we’ve seen this year for the Eras tour; in place of friendship bracelets, though, this crowd are exchanging cigarettes and sunnies. It’s the pinnacle of a movement that’s spawned think-pieces, fashion edits, and a whole new dictionary defnition. Make no mistake: since the release of her cultural juggernaut of a sixth album, a Charli xcx show is as much about the fans - and the wider mythos of ‘BRAT’ - as it is the woman herself.

That being said, what follows is nothing short of a scenestealing masterclass in performance and artistic power.

The ubiquitous green accents are enough to confrm that really, every one of the 20,000 people here was sold long before we even stepped foot in the dome, but the way Charli commands the space - a handheld mic and one hell of an attitude the sole conduits for her immense presence - is enough to permanently put to bed any lingering doubts that she is 2024’s most signifcant artist.

Throughout the 26-track setlist, there are brief moments where her untouchable, unfuckwithable club kid demeanour slips - only slightly - and we get a glimpse of the sheer joy the crowd’s fervour is bringing her. “We’re the queens of London Shy!” she squeals, grinning at her contemporary and collaborator Shygirl as they strut across the stage’s expanse during opener ‘365’; “I’ll never forget this moment,” she admits later, soaking up an atmosphere that rarely dips below full-throttle feral.

With a discography so stacked with hits as hers, each number is a highlight in and of itself. We get the remix versions of ‘Girl, so confusing’ and ‘Guess’, featuring the Lorde and Billie Eilish verses in all their internet-breaking glory; we get George Daniel (producer, The 1975 drummer, and Charli’s boyfriend) FINALLY doing the viral ‘Apple’ dance; we get multiple outft changes, a roof-raising rendition of 2012 banger ‘I Love It’, and the frankly miraculous feat of transforming an undeniably soulless venue into an endorphin-flled club that’s positively thrumming with life.

Rather than heightening the distance between performer and audience via elaborate staging (save for an elevating scaffold and a rain-making overhead, under which she makes Sabrina

Carpenter’s on-stage antics look positively PG), Charli instead opts to boot down any semblance of a fourth wall with her heeled size fves. Playing up to the 360° camera and shimmying before the ‘PARTY’-emblazoned, intentionally amateur backdrop, she cultivates the feeling that we really are all just accompanying her on the world’s best night out. The key to ‘BRAT’’s excellence is the way this playful depravity sits alongside moments of genuine poignance, and tonight she marries the two spectacularly by running her moving rendition of ‘So I’ - a track dedicated to the late, great, SOPHIE - directly into its remixed counterpart, channelling the grief of losing a loved one into a triumphant celebration of their life. The only thing missing here is ‘I think about it all the time’ - perhaps the album’s most visceral moment, it encapsulates everything that makes ‘BRAT’ such an interesting, irresistible proposition.

We can forgive Charli this one omission, though, as tonight’s extended, eight-song encore is truly the gift that keeps on giving, a dizzyingly brilliant testament to her ability to not only capture the zeitgeist, but shape it herself. Given her stacked little black book of contacts, the question of her bringing out a special guest was not so much if, but who; few people, though, will have anticipated the roll-call of Caroline Polachek, Yung Lean, Robyn, and a returning Shygirl - a lineup that lands like a storming who’s who of 21st century pop innovators.

Polachek and Charli’s duet of the former’s ‘Welcome To My Island’ feels like a baton-passing of sorts, the woman behind last year’s best album joining forces with the auteur of this one’s. Robyn stepping forward to perform her evergreen hit ‘Dancing On My Own’, meanwhile, is a late in the day contender for musical moment of the year: from the second the crowd catches the unmistakable fzz of those opening bars, it’s all-encompassing, wall-to-wall euphoria.

For an artist to occupy such a prominent position at the very forefront of public consciousness is one thing; for them to make good on that promise of excellence is quite another. Charli xcx cemented her place in pop’s history book long ago; tonight, she proves that she’s the one writing its next chapter. Daisy Carter

SET LIST

365 (w/ Shygirl)

360 Von dutch

Rewind

I might say something stupid

Club classics

Unlock It

Talk talk

Apple

So I

So I (A.G. Cook remix)

Spring breakers

Girl, so confusing (Lorde remix)

Everything is romantic

Speed Drive

Sympathy is a knife

Guess

365

party 4 u Vroom Vroom

Everything is romantic (w/ Caroline Polachek)

Welcome to My Island (w/ Caroline Polachek)

360 (w/ Yung Lean and Robyn)

Dancing on My Own (w/ Robyn)

Track 10

I Love It

THE DARE Belgrave Music Hall, Leeds

“Y

ou guys like Charli XCX?” shouts the hazy silhouette of The Dare - aka Harrison Patrick Smith - suited and booted like NYC’s indie sleaze answer to Alex Turner and backlit by half a dozen white, jittery beam lasers. As he zips around, swigging beer and fddling with decks, a pulsing house rework of Charli’s Billie Eilish-featuring, Smith-produced ‘Guess’ remix (which catapulted him into the zeitgeist) blares. “I like her too,” he teases, hurling himself around alongside the crowd. As empty beer cups are thrown, a bra fies towards him through the air - which, judging by his reaction (or lack thereof), may not be the frst time this has happened. All this devotion to reckless abandon is, suffce to say, not the norm for a 350-capacity venue in Leeds.

On a bitterly icy Thursday in November, this is actually the perfect alternative crowd for relative newcomer The Dare’s debut record ‘What’s Wrong With New York?’ - a hedonistic alt-pop bible that intercepts the Brat-summer baton for a nihilist audience that doesn’t want it to end. In the relative intimacy of Belgrave Music Hall & Canteen, the crowd sardines themselves towards the shallow stage, fngers outstretched towards the scuzzy pied piper as he firtily introduces himself: “My name’s The Dare, but you can call me Harrison if you want.” The women not prepared to throw their bras on stage have instead donned matching uniforms of slim-cut suits with pencil-thin black ties, and a few men do the same (though, with their jackets removed, it’s less The Dare and more The Book of Mormon).

This isn’t the type of concert with interludes or intermissions; it’s non-stop, ear-bursting catharsis. The swaggering Smith, an impassioned modern pop rock-star, hangs from the mic right from the wiry introduction of ‘Open Up’ to the set’s closer, the Bloodhound Gang-like fan-favourite ‘Girls’; and near-constantly, the crowd jumps in tandem like a singular possessed entity, chanting lyrics to hyper-sexual ragers like it’s serious sport. His command means there’s no interrupting their

devotion to his party - which at one point he refers to as “an orgy” - and even when the sound system cuts off (twice, mind, which Smith says he’ll make use of by having a few more beers off-stage), they wait with baited breath before returning to their airborne pursuits.

Occasionally, it’s a bit much - Smith reminds them: “if you’re pushing people, don’t do that […] this is just fun, nothing crazy, it’s just music”. At other times, he checks in on the crowd like a trip-sitter: “Hey, how do you guys feel now? Me too, me too,” he answers with a beer-indebted drawl. The only lull is the Coldplay-like ‘Elevation’, a well-earned reprieve that sends a few people to the loos. Returning with ‘You Can Never Go Home’, it’s back to business.

There’s no shortage of The Dare’s on-brand post-irony, either - a world where “everything’s too serious and nothing matters, but like, it’s not, and it does actually,” so says DIY - and despite all his animation, in the end Smith plays the whole thing off deadpan, refuting any passion that could come off as uncool. Flouting the standard concert script, at the back end of the show he announces: “I’m gonna walk off stage and drink seven or eight beers, then you guys are gonna cheer so loud that I’m forced to come back, so, thank you.” Yet, before the crowd has time to raise their decibels, those white lasers strike up, and Smith’s back with ‘All Night’, the room’s chanting fueling this unrelenting sleaze-fest. He latches arms with a fan and drags them on stage, but they’re fast removed by security - much to his regret.

This is the kind of show the crowd seems to have craved. Smashing a cymbal towards them, Smithstill barely visible, the silhouette of any cartoonish metrosexual lothario - embodies and inspires a still-beating post-Covid hedonism, a willingness to go batshit and resist introversion. The Leeds audience, not wasting a second, persists, aware a return to normality awaits. After Smith’s sunnies fy off his head, the track closes and, straight-faced as ever - as if none of this ever happened - he says simply: “Thank you so much. I’ll see you later.” Otis Robinson

Photos: Henry Redcliffe, Frankie Austick

Romance

Jackie

Televised

A

Roman Holiday

Death Kink

Sundowner

Here’s the Thing

Horseness Is the Whatness Nabokov

Boys in the Better Land

Favourite

Encore: In the Modern World

Desire

Starburster

FONTAINES DC Alexandra Palace,

When Fontaines DC eventually headline Glastonburywhich, make no bones about it, we are certain they will one day before too long do - avid cultural commentators will point to this pair of Alexandra Palace shows as the moment that the Dublin quintet sealed their ascendancy. So beyond sold out that, by the time they take to the stage, next summer’s 45,000-capacity Finsbury Park show down the road has also already shed all its tickets, there is such a tangible sense of witnessing

A Moment that you suspect 2025’s massive Oasis reunion shows will likely feel like a bit of an anticlimax by comparison.

It’s not just in the absolutely superlative setlist that the addition of this year’s game-changing fourth LP ‘Romance’ has enabled them to bring to the table, it’s in the whole production: the sort of bold, bombastically confdent show that could be dropped onto any festival stage in the world and win. Perhaps the biggest compliment of all to the cohesion and brilliance of their current aesthetic is that, when an eerie acid green light foods the space behind the opening curtain, silhouetting the musicians as the pulse-quickening creep of ‘Romance’’s title track begins, you can’t hear a single person even thinking about ‘Brat’.

We could write a dissertation just on that opening four minutes and the genius of that track’s ability to rev up an audience into feral levels of energy with the sparest of beginnings and one snarling, guttural drop of both distorted bass and curtain, but there’s barely a moment over the next 90 minutes where Fontaines even waver below their own highest of bars. ‘Televised Mind’ rattles around Ally Pally’s cavernous walls - a taught stalk of a song

London

matched by Grian Chatten’s caged-tiger pacing energy, while ‘Death Kink’ manages to somehow take 10,000 people shouting “shit, shit, shit, battered” and still refrain from sounding like a terrace chant. The youthful vigour of early tracks ‘Big’ and ‘Boys In The Better Land’ are both riotous and strangely poignant. It’s hard to fathom that debut album ‘Dogrel’ only came out little over fve years ago and how far the fve musicians that crafted it have come since; yet for all the creative twists and turns that have followed, those tracks - still so recent, in the grand scheme of life - still feel like an easy ft. Prolifc and consistent at every turn, that they can navigate between those sparky opening moves, to the feshed out clarion call of ‘A Hero’s Death’, via an encore of ‘I Love You’ (Chatten’s peak frontman moment) to the here, there and everywhere brilliance that encompasses their latest only underscores just how relentlessly creative a band they are. It’s easy to imagine there’s probably another few unreleased albums of greatness sitting in the vaults that they just haven’t had time to get to.

It is a true shame when, ahead of a fnal climactic closer of ‘Starburster’, Carlos O’Connell’s organ trips, forcing the band to leave the stage for a full 10 minutes as stage techs frantically rush about trying to restore order. Thankfully, they do, and as a reward for our patience, the band add an extra ‘Too Real’ to proceedings - a sneering shot of energy that ensures the crowd are right back in their pocket by the time ‘Starburster’’s iconic gasps do fnally arrive. It’s already a done deal that Fontaines DC will end up in rock’s history books; not since Arctic Monkeys has a band felt so viscerally capital-i Important to the genre. But tonight feels like the fnal piece of a jigsaw solving the puzzle of exactly how high they can go. The answer, undoubtedly, is limitless. Lisa Wright

Not since Arctic Monkeys has a band felt so viscerally capital-i Important to the genre.

Photo: Pooneh Ghana

FAT

WHITE FAMILY

SOLD OUT

WED 11 DEC THU 12 DEC FRI 13 DEC THE COLOUR FACTORY

LANDLESS SAT 8 FEB

BUSH HALL

GEORGIE & JOE THU 13 FEB

CORSICA STUDIOS

HALF WAIF FRI 14 FEB KINGS PLACE

MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND FRI 21 FEB THE GRACE

SALOMÉ WU THU 27 FEB THE OLD CHURCH

MARY IN THE JUNKYARD THU 27 FEB

FABRIC

SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE THU 27 FEB THE DOME

CHLOE QISHA THU 6 MAR

OMEARA

SHARON VAN ETTEN & THE ATTACHMENT THEORY MON 10 MAR

ROYAL ALBERT HALL

KELLY LEE OWENS THU 13 MAR TROXY

IDER FRI 21 MAR ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL

LUXE

THU 20 MAR ICA

SUNFLOWER THIEVES WED 2 APR ST PANCRAS OLD CHURCH

ROSIE LOWE WED 9 APR ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL

THE ORCHESTRA (FOR NOW) THU 10 APR ICA

BAMBARA TUE 29 APR THE GARAGE

SODA BLONDE WED 7 MAY THE GARAGE

KABEAUSHÉ WED 14 MAY CORSICA STUDIOS

JULIA SOPHIE THU 22 MAY NEXT DOOR RECORDS TWO

MOIN SAT 31 MAY BARBICAN HALL

THE BOY LEAST LIKELY TO THU 5 JUNE BUSH HALL

LIVE AT LEEDS IN THE CITY

Various venues, Leeds

It’s a long-established fact that Yorkshire is one of the UK’s most fertile musical breeding grounds, but there’s been something in the Harrogate water supply of late that’s made the Leeds scene particularly thrive. Walking around the city today, there’s a tangible buzz in the air: the pavements are packed; queues are forming outside venues long before their doors open; and the sun is doing its level best to provide festival-appropriate weather. Because, of course, it’s Live at Leeds in the City – the longerstanding sister event to Summer’s Temple Newsam knees-up – which, on this basis, could well claim the crown for the country’s best multi-venue city festival.

Kicking off DIY’s stage in the main room of Leeds Beckett Student Union, Marika Hackman is every inch the festival pro. Integrating cuts from her intricate fourth album ‘Big Sigh’ with older favourites, she steers the swelling crowd expertly through harmonic beauty (‘Blood’), lip-biting lust (‘Slime), and moving vulnerability: “That was the peak miserable part of the set,” she jokes, “there’s no party like a Marika Hackman party.”

Taking over The Key Club for a riotous thirty-minute set, meanwhile, are London three-piece Alien Chicks, who, having just headlined Brixton’s Windmill last night, are mere hours away from supporting Maruja in Birmingham this evening. The punk outft are as playful and frenetic as ever: the crawling opening bassline of ‘Steve Buscemi’ earns hollers from the nodding crowd, while temperamental closer ‘27

Stitches’ is yet more proof that they’re doing what they love – and doing it very well.

Back at Beckett SU, you can’t help but be captivated by the angelic sound of Essence Martins in the SU’s second room, charming her relaxed audience with a combination of sweet three-piece harmonies and endearing musings on life and love. Over at Belgrave Music Hall, Blossom Calderone is delivering on a similar brief. Having spent much of the year as the ffth live member of English Teacher, she’s now gearing up for the next chapter of her self-titled solo project. At times intensely moving, at others wryly funny, Blossom’s set marries confessional, candid lyricism and stunning vocal runs with stand-up worthy between-song patter.

mum a happy birthday; having dutifully waited until we’ve responded in kind, he then wastes no time in diving straight back into their feverish display. It’s Manchester outft Westside Cowboy who are the new name on everybody’s lips today, following the recent release of their charming debut single ‘I’ve never met anyone i thought i could really love (until i met you)’. Shouldering the weight of vocal duties between them, stretching and altering their vowels in a way that scratches your brain and breaks your heart one sentence at a time (namely, the vulnerable mumble of “[I’ve] done enough in my life to deserve the air I breathe”), their set is an undeniable standout – an impressive, refreshing addition to a sometimes-homogenous musical landscape.

If there’s one band whose Live at Leeds 2024 performance is anticipated perhaps more than any other, it’s English Teacher – the hometown heroes who made history this year as the frst non-London act to win the Mercury Prize in a decade with debut album ‘This Could Be Texas’, thanking their adopted city and its scene in their acceptance speech. It’s clear they – quite literally – wear their hearts on their sleeves too; as the festival app notifes us the DIY stage is now at one-in, one-out capacity, bassist Nick Eden can be seen repping local record shop Jumbo, while guitarist Lewis Whiting is sporting Fuzz Lightyear merch. As individuals and as a unit, their confdence has grown exponentially over the past twelve months, and watching them now is nothing short of a joy: whether whipping up a storm for breakout hit ‘R&B’ and ‘Nearly Daffodils’; calming the chaos for Lily Fontaine’s extraordinary, pin-drop vocals on ‘Blister My Paint’; or airing older gems from debut EP ‘Polyawkward’, English Teacher are utterly in control, and utterly deserving of the crowd’s open-armed adoration.

Punters are spoiled for choice when it comes to rounding out the day, with Everything Everything

Though today boasts some undeniably big-hitting names, there’s a pervading sense that the Live at Leeds line-up is, at its heart, a celebration of tomorrow’s breakout stars. And back at Belgrave, this hypothesis is being proved in real time. London grassroots stalwarts Human Interest are irresistibly cool, fying through fan favourites like ‘Shapeshifting’ and ‘Cool Cats’ before the band’s Cat Harrison comes forward to lie in the middle of the crowd, very much living his words as he gives into the exasperated sigh of the set’s closing lines: “I’m just foating by…” Next up, Fuzz Lightyear might be new to cult label Nice Swan, but they’re well known and well-loved around this city. Somewhere in the middle of their delirious full-send of industrial post-punk, frontman Ben Parry sweetly asks the crowd to wish his

and Lime Garden both packing out Beckett SU and The Wardrobe respectively, but in Leeds, all roads eventually lead to the Brudenell. In tonight’s fnal stretch, it’s over to the iconic venue for London outft Ebbb, who have been winning over audiences with their mix of beautiful choral vocals and brutal electronic instrumentation since their frst shows last year. Closing the show in style, then, are New York guitar hopes Slow Fiction. Stepping onstage at the Brude for what frontwoman Julia Vassallo reveals to be their last set of the year, the band are near faultless, with latest cut ‘Brother’ sitting seamlessly alongside May’s ‘Crush’ EP.

A hotbed of established favourites, exciting new propositions and genuine music lovers – and free from the snobbery or industry over-saturation some showcase festivals can be prone to – Live at Leeds in the City leaves us with one overarching thought: thank god there’s a Summer edition to tide us over until next November. Amber Lashley, Daisy Carter

Photos: Jacob Flannery, James Keane, Lewis Wolstenholme

ENGLISH TEACHER

MARIKA HACKMAN

INFINITY SONG

FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY!

A DREAM GIG CURATED BY...

TONY MORTIMER from EAST 17

HEADLINER: PAUL MCCARTNEY

He’s just such a legend. We [East 17] had a moment in a decade, but imagine being an artist where you had decades: he’s gone through the swinging ‘60s with The Beatles and Beatlemania, then the ‘70s with Wings, then you’ve got the ‘80s, when he was doing duets with Michael Jackson and stuff, then the ‘90s! You know how the Queen was like everyone’s nan? Paul McCartney’s just always been there. I know he’s getting on a bit now, but I’ve never seen him and he’s wonderfully talented. It’s almost as if he could do it for a living.

SUPPORTS: THE WHO AND THE ROLLING STONES

I went proper, original Britpop: The Who would be the openers, and then – well, they wouldn’t like it – but the mighty Rolling Stones. They’re absolute headliners in their own right, but this is my fantasy dream gig, and they are where I put them. Could you imagine the dressing room conversations! That’d be awesome.

VENUE: SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE

I’ve seen people in stadiums, and the sound quality has never been that great. When we played arenas a lot, it was a bit like a giant barn – good, but very big. So I’ve gone for Shepherd’s Bush Empire – we played there years ago and it was heaving, and the energy inside was amazing. So it’d be quite a smallish venue really – a slight underplay for this lot!

WHO ARE YOU GOING WITH?

If not my missus, who’d be able to get me on the right tube without getting lost, I’d

probably go on my own. Because I’d want to write down what they’re doing, the gimmicks they’re using, how many costume changes they’re doing – all this technical stuff. I used to go clubbing and that on my own and I enjoyed it; I didn’t want to press what I wanted to do and all that on other people. No matter who you’re with, you’re looking at the stage anyway! It’s like going to the cinema on your own; it’s just me and the hotdog. That’s all it’s ever been.

WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?

I stopped drinking many years ago – I’m over 50, so I’d have to be careful, otherwise I’ll be right in the middle and then need the loo. So I’d bring a bottle or two of water in with me, ‘cos it gets hot and sweaty real quick. I wouldn’t be leaving to go to the bar – god, think of the songs he’d be playing!

ANY PRE-SHOW PLANS?

I’d be at home, putting some music on, starting to get into the feeling of it. Choosing what clothes to wear and making sure they’re comfortable, ‘cos I’m built for comfort now. Probably popping backstage before they come on, just to have a chat, as you do.

IS THERE AN AFTERPARTY?

If I’m totally honest with you, afterwards would have to be straight to KFC or a kebab shop. Because I think it’s going to get pretty sweaty, so then I need some fuel for the tube journey home, that’s a must. Unless, of course, one of the band wanted to drop me off in a helicopter, they could do that – not a problem.

ANY ADDITIONAL EXTRAS?

I’d probably go with the helicopter home, depending on how sore my feet were. Obviously, Macca would have paid for it, which is nice of him. We’d be continuing the party on the way home with a ‘60s night playlist –and the KFC bucket, of course.

To mark the 30th anniversary of ‘Stay Another Day’ reaching Christmas number one, Tony has partnered with Nordoff and Robbins to raise awareness of how music therapy can beneft young people living with mental health challenges. Find out more at nordoff-robbins.org.uk. D

lafayettelondon.com

Be responsible. Drink with moderation.

Toast to music