DIY, Feb 2019

Free • Issue 82 • February 2019 DIYMAG.COM • Set Music Free

HIGHER STATES

How Oscar Pollock’s personal soul-searching sent SUNDARA KARMA’s sound skywards

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With Very Special Guest (Birmingham, Southampton & London only)

2019 UK & Ireland Tour . 28 March - The Academy Dublin SOLD OUT . 02 April - Barrowland Ballroom Glasgow SOLD City OUT . 04 April - Rock Nottingham Extra Date Added due to Demand

. 05 April - Rock City Nottingham . 06 April - O2 Victoria Warehouse Manchester . 08 April - O2 Academy Bristol . 09 April - O2 Academy Sheffield . 10 April - O2 Institute Birmingham . 12 April - O2 Guildhall Southampton . 13 April - O2 Academy Brixton London Livenation.co.uk - Sundarakarma.com A Live Nation, DF Concerts, DHP & Friends presentation by arrangement with Primary Talent International

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QUESTION! As we open the first issue of 2019, a belated Happy New Year, readers! How long, you may wonder, did Team DIY keep their New Years’ resolutions for?

SARAH JAMIESON •

Managing Editor While I’ve managed to keep up with reading lots of new books, the whole ‘break from drinking’ thing I planned lasted approximately three and a half days. Oops?

EMMA SWANN • Founding Editor If I choose something I’ve not done this year (skydiving, swimming with dolphins, crack), does that count as still kept?

LISA WRIGHT • Features Editor I make resolutions to become a more well-rounded human basically every day, so it being January 1st doesn’t really make any difference. Another day; another vague attempt not to be a twat.

LOUISE MASON • Art Director It was to never use the word ‘ace’ ever again, and I broke it 2.3 seconds ago.

WILL RICHARDS • Digital Editor An astonishing 13-hour stretch in my flimsy plan to go vegan for 2k19. Don’t @ me.

RACHEL FINN • Staff Writer I cancelled my Dry January on precisely the 7th January after being offered a really nice glass of wine. Oops.

LISTENING POST

EDITORS LETTER Hello you lovely lot! It’s officially a new year, DIY are back - with the cold climes of January finally behind us - and we’re facing firmly forward for our first issue of 2019! So while all of you are contemplating whether or not to renew your new gym membership, we’re here to tempt you with a buffet of incredible new musical delights (and the photo below of Oscar Pollock’s incredible pup, Ziggy.)

First up? It’s kings of transformation Sundara Karma, who are gearing up to release their positively magical new album ‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’ this year and, believe us, it’s not what you’ve come to expect from the Reading boys. Elsewhere, we hear the frankly batshit story of Yak’s new album, get welcomed into the Better Oblivion Community Centre, and learn, er, a little too much about Du Blonde’s toilet habits…

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

What’s been blasting from speakers in the DIY office this month?

STELLA DONNELLY BEWARE OF THE DOGS To say DIY HQ’s been waiting for this one is our biggest understatement of the year so far - and the Aussie’s delivered! Bonzer!

KAREN O & DANGER MOUSE LUX PRIMA Cinematic, luscious, expansive… you could throw a thesaurus at ‘Lux Prima’ and it wouldn’t come close to the gorgeous moods this meeting of musical greats have made here.

CHAI - PUNK Who is the best boi of the issue?

Yes you are. Yes you are.

The follow-up to 2018’s impeccable slice of bubbling post-punk is an explosion of neon colour, E-numbers and anything else hyperactive.

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CONTENTS NEWS

6 BLAENAVON 8 FOALS 10 EX HEX 12 SIGRID 16 HAVE YOU HEARD? 18 HALL OF FAME 22 FESTIVALS NEU

24 NO ROME 26 FUR 28 HELLO 2019 33 WICCA PHASE SPRINGS ETERNAL FEATURES

34 SUNDARA KARMA 42 MAGGIE ROGERS 46 YAK 50 DU BLONDE 54 BETTER OBLIVION COMMUNITY CENTER 58 FIDLAR

Founding Editor Emma Swann Managing Editor Sarah Jamieson Features Editor Lisa Wright Digital Editor Will Richards Staff Writer Rachel Finn Art Direction & Design Louise Mason

Contributors Alisa Wylie, Ben Lynch, Ben Tipple, Cady Siregar, Chris Taylor, Connor Thirlwell, Eloise Bulmer, Jake Kennedy, James Bentley, Jenessa Williams, Joe Goggins, Matthew Davies Lombardi, Nick Roseblade, Sophie Walker, Timmy Michalik.

Photographers Burak Cingi, Gaëlle Beri, Hannah Diamond, Janine Van Oostrom, Jenn Five, Patrick Gunning, Phil Knott, Phil Smithies, Robin Pope, Ryan Johnston.

Cover photo: Hannah Diamond.

This page: Jenn Five.

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

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DIY HQ, 23 Tileyard Studios, London N7 9AH Shout out to: Arch One Studio, House of Vans London, Ziggy Pollock, all at ESNS, the Borovicka one of the lovely Slovak bands handed us there, The End Karaoke bar (and whoever took a kebab shop flag there), KLM’s at-seat service, The Old Blue Last for having us all month, Matty Healy’s Auto-Tune, a Sainsbury’s for opening next to DIY HQ (on print day no less!).

REVIEWS

62 ALBUMS 76 LIVE

DIY is published by Sonic Media Group. All material copyright (c). All rights reserved.

This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of DIY. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which Sonic Media Group holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of DIY or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions.

Distributed nationally.

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DON’T FEED THE POP MONSTER THE NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

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NEWS Get Excited About...

BIG ALBUMS BIG ALBUMS COMING UP IN 2019 COMINGUP

The journey to their second record may have been more chequered than anyone could have expected, but with ‘Everything That Makes You Happy’ Blaenavon are drawing strength from struggle and coming out fighting. Words: Rachel Finn.

T

he ‘difficult second album’ is a cliche because it’s often actually true. From the pressure of wanting to explore sonic pastures new while still pleasing an already-established fanbase, to balancing a steadily-expanding touring schedule, navigating your way around LP2 can be a minefield. But for Blaenavon, the road to what would become ‘Everything That Makes You Happy’ proved more painful than most.

The Hampshire band released acclaimed debut ‘That’s Your Lot’ two years ago while all barely out of their teens. But things took a turn when, towards the end of a hectic 2017, frontman Ben Gregory experienced what he describes as a “stress-related breakdown” before being hospitalised for a month over Christmas.

In a touching letter shared last month, the singer explained how in the lead up to his hospitalisation his behaviour had become “erratic and confused” and how he hadn’t slept for days, leading to some friends taking him to A&E at a hospital in Hackney. He then spent just over four weeks in the ward, taking part in

talking therapies, art classes and group mealtimes.

His experience in hospital, his subsequent recovery and his journey back to writing and playing shows alongside his bandmates - bassist Frank Wright, drummer Harris McMillan and new guitarist Scott Roach - form some of the central themes of the band’s second record.

“It was strange and it was difficult, but I met a lot of really wonderful people and learnt a lot whilst I was there,” he says of the experience. “Unfortunately, quite a bit of [the album] is about needing to reach out for help but not really knowing how to do it, which is sad really. Some of it is a bit more light-hearted, which is the good news, and some of it is kind of poking fun at myself a little bit…”

This duality is laced all over lead single, ‘Catatonic Skinbag’, which tackles the inertia of “not being able to get out of bed so you don’t have to worry about any of your actual problems” over a grungy guitar-line and direct, anthemic chorus. Marking a bold new direction for the group, it’s the first glimpse of an album Ben says he knew he wanted to make throughout his time

“If I share what happened to me, if it can help even one person, then it’s worthwhile.” - Ben Gregory 6

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in hospital.

“I’d had a strong concept and narrative that I wanted to put across in the second one,” he explains. “I had my guitar when I was in there and I was thinking about music a lot and [how] I never expected something like that to happen to me.”

Ben credits producer Catherine Marks (who’s previously worked with Wolf Alice, The Big Moon and Foals among others) as being the stabilising force in the recording process. “I found it a lot more difficult than making the first album, as you can probably imagine. But I was lucky enough to be working with Catherine who, aside from being an amazing producer and probably the most hardworking person I know, was such an incredible friend to me during that time,” he explains. “I don’t really feel like I was ready to be in there and to try and make the album at that point, but at the same time it would have been worse to sit around and wait forever.”

The decision to share the reason behind his time away from the band in such a candid and open way wasn’t one that came easily, but eventually it became the obvious choice - both as a means of explaining the album’s narrative and offering the chance to help others who may be struggling with similar experiences, “It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s something I’ve thought about every day and every night before I go to sleep [for the past year],” he shares. “It’s something that I’ve really slowly come to terms with and, because of that fact, I think I was maybe kind of expecting everyone else not to think it was such a big deal. I thought if I share what happened to me, if it can help even one person, then it’s worthwhile.”

A year on from the experience, Ben is doing significantly better and hopes that, despite the album’s difficult origins, it’s still a record that gives a message of positivity.

“When people struggle with these things, often there are deeper-rooted issues that they need to come to terms with, but at the moment I’m kind of just trying to do it by the book. Do all the things that sound boring that are good for you and make you feel good, like eating well and drinking water and doing exercise because it makes your brain happy,” he adds.

“I find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that things seemingly that basic have control of my mental state, but they do.

I’ve just been trying to do all that stuff, and just talk to professionals and close friends when things are going wrong instead of bottling it up, because that doesn’t end well, unfortunately.”

‘Everything That Makes You Happy’ is out later this year via Transgressive. DIY 7

“I feel like we’re in a creative peak.” Yannis Philippakis

Get Excited About...

BIG ALBUMS BIG ALBUMS COMING UP IN 2019 COMINGUP 2019

One band member down but two - two! - new albums up, Foals are charging into 2019 with a new lease of life and world domination at their fingertips. Words: Lisa Wright.

W

hen you’ve been a band for over a decade and then one of the cogs is removed, it can break the entire machine. Yet when bassist Walter Gervers decided to leave Foals ahead of beginning work on the follow up to 2015’s ‘What Went Down’, the now-quartet decided to use their new dynamic to their advantage.

Initially unplanned, the double whammy comes simply from reaching a natural creative purple patch. “There was a lot of material, but also we just loved it all; we didn’t feel like there was anything that was chaff,” says the singer.

“We were concerned that we didn’t wanna make some kind of indulgent prog record, but the feedback from everyone was that it was all too good to lose...”

“We physically couldn’t write in the same way anymore because we couldn’t just get in the room and bash everything out with two guitars, keys and bass,” begins frontman Yannis Philippakis, “so it meant between us it was more fluid. Edwin played bass, I played some bass; I was producing more so I’d sit back in certain ways that maybe I haven’t done before. It lead to this creative peak that I feel like we’re in because we mixed stuff up and shuffled the deck a bit.”

The first taster - and a pretty damn good signifier that they weren’t wrong - comes in the form of lead single ‘Exits’.

Following in Foals’ tradition of curveball album introductions, it nixes ‘What Went Down’’s gargantuan riffs in favour of something more electronic with a heavy groove.

Lyrically, meanwhile, it sees Yannis turning his gaze outwards. “It deals with the perilousness of the situations we find ourselves in as people,” he explains. “Every time you open up a newspaper, all the bees are dying and civil liberties are being infringed and the world is going through all these things; I think everybody feels exasperated at how to deal with it, so the song is dealing with that frustration.”

Recorded and entirely self-produced by the band with Yannis at the helm in Peckham, following an enforced break where the four members “allowed our worlds to get smaller and domestic again until that got unbearable,” the tactic worked so well that the band are now sitting on not one but two new albums - ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1’ and a second half, set for release in the Autumn.

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Thematically frustrated it may be, but Foals are clearly having no such troubles themselves. Welcome to the year of the horse.

‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1’ is out 8th March via Warner Bros.

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Get Excited About...

BIG ALBUMS BIG ALBUMS COMING UP IN 2019 COMINGUP 2019

Returning with a second slab of fuzzy riffage, Washington power trio Ex Hex are keeping it classic and adding a little...

Def Leppard to the mix? Words: Lisa Wright.

hen you consider the influences Ex Hex - the US trio fronted by former Wild Flag member, 90s alt-rock lynchpin and general badass Mary Timony - might channel, you’d be forgiven for not immediately sticking a Yorkshire cock rock group front and centre. And yet, as we discover speaking to the singer on the phone from her home in Washington, DC, it’s Def Leppard - or, more specifically, the production of Leppard’s go-to guy Mutt Lange - that’s been one of the driving forces behind forthcoming second LP ‘It’s Real’. “I missed the boat on Def Leppard when they were really popular because I was a punk,” she laughs,” but then I came around to it in the last five years and started getting really into the production on ‘Hysteria’ - it’s like ‘Loveless’ by My Bloody Valentine or something. Mutt Lange is basically a genius.”

You can hear it laced all over the record’s 10 tracks, too.

Where critically-acclaimed 2014 debut ‘Rips’ came out of the traps in a barrel of Thee Oh Sees-esque garage riffs and big, bright, immediate hooks, their second often runs with a dirtier ‘80s rock swagger. Yet, though the presentation is different, the directness of Ex Hex is still the priority. “To me the hardest thing to do is to make something that’s simple

but really good,” she explains. “It’s a really hard road to get there, and the amount of effort it takes is so much more than something that’s complex.

“I’ve definitely made music that has a different intent, that’s more of a diary entry or about figuring out where my brain is, but with Ex Hex it’s more of a craft. We’re trying to make songs that we’d like to play a million times and that’s not always easy to do.”

However, if all this talk of craft and diligence sounds a bit like hard work, then fear not: ‘It’s Real’ is anything but a slog. Ex Hex have basically put in the hours stripping their wares down to their most classic bones and translating their deeply unfashionable new influences into something fresh so that you can just sit back and press play. “I like that [they’re unfashionable] because I don’t wanna feel like we’re following a trend,” laughs Mary at our summary. “We really spent a lot of time making sure that we’d just wanna listen to this record a lot; it’s something I’m trying now I’m almost 50...”

‘It’s Real’ is out 22nd March via Merge.

“The hardest thing to do is to make something that’s simple but really good.” - Mary Timony 10 diymag.com

BRUTUS NEW ALBUM ‘NEST ’ COMING MARCH 29TH TOURING ACROSS UK & EUROPE IN APRIL / MAY WEAREBRUTUS.COM

L ATE ST RE LE ASE S FROM HASSLE RECORDS HASSLE RECORDS .COM

PRESS CLUB DEBUT ALBUM ‘LATE TEENS ’ OUT NOW TOURING ACROSS UK & EUROPE IN APRIL / MAY PRESSCLUBMUSIC.COM

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Get Excited About...

BIG ALBUMS BIG ALBUMS COMING UP IN 2019 COMINGUP 2019

Tipped by basically everyone on the planet as one of 2018’s most exciting breakthrough stars, Sigrid is striding into 2019 with a debut that should justify all the hype. Words: Lisa Wright.

“I

t’s weird with a debut album, because it’s like: duh duh duhhhh! The debut album!” begins Sigrid, eyes widening for dramatic effect as she dissects the road to her forthcoming first full-length. “And of course I feel that too, but I don’t want to put too much pressure on myself because this is only the first of many and that’s exciting.”

Considering the now-22year-old spent this time last year being plastered at the top end of every hype list going, Sigrid seems remarkably chill about the whole business of following it up. “When I was in the UK for the March tour [last year], I really noticed that things were different. There were a lot of people waiting outside the venue, and then on the November tour it felt like basically everyone from the show was waiting around,” she remembers.

“Of course I was a bit scared about how much my life would change, but really I’m completely fine...”

Heading into the release of ‘Sucker Punch’, Sigrid’s got good reason to be feeling pretty assured.

Full of emotional, nuanced bangers and whittled down from around 80 demos taken from over the last five

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years, it’s an album that benefits from being given perhaps more time to come together than the pop buzz machine normally allows.

“The songs that didn’t make it were the ones that felt too safe, and the ones that made it are the ones that are personal and have something special - at least to me,” she says.

“I really want people to go on an emotional rollercoaster. I want them to feel everything. I want them to reflect on their own lives when they’re listening to it and I hope they can recognise themselves in it.

I don’t write a diary, but this [album] is kind of the diary.”

She pauses. “That’s a bit weird sharing your diary with everyone...”

Possibly yes, but in opening the book, Sigrid’s started to concoct a wideeyed world that’s hard to resist. ‘Sucker Punch’, as she says, is just the first chapter. “It’s all consuming; I don’t do anything else than music. OK yeah, I do laundry but apart from that it’s mostly music,” she laughs. “But I’m so hungry and so ambitious and I feel so lucky. I want to do everything!”

‘Sucker Punch’ is out 8th March via Island.

“I want people to go on an emotional rollercoaster.

I want them to feel everything.”

P R E S E N T S

The Triumphant Return of

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The World’s Number One Entertainers

ETON ALIVE UK TOUR 2019

MONDAY 19 AUGUST 2019

SPECIAL GUESTS

MARCH NEWCASTLE BOILER SHOP ★

11 LEAMINGTON SPA ASSEMBLY 12 LEICESTER O2 ACADEMY 13 NORWICH UEA WATERFRONT 17 IPSWICH CORN EXCHANGE 18 NORTHAMPTON ROADMENDER 19 MARGATE DREAMLAND 20 BEXHILL DE LA WARR PAVILION ★ SOLD OUT 25 SOUTHEND CHINNERYS 26 READING SUB 89 27 OXFORD O2 ACADEMY

01 02 LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY 06 YORK FIBBERS 07 HULL ASYLUM 08 MIDDLESBROUGH TOWN HALL 09 LEEDS STYLUS 13 HOLMFIRTH PICTUREDROME 14 SHEFFIELD PLUG 15 MANCHESTER ACADEMY ★ LD OUT SOCENTRE 16 KENDAL BREWERY ARTS MAY 21 LINCOLN ENGINE SHED T OU SOLD 22 STOKE SUGARMILL 02 PORTSMOUTH PYRAMIDS 23 BIRMINGHAM O2 INSTITUTE 03 BOURNEMOUTH OLD FIRE STATION 04 SOUTHAMPTON ENGINE ROOMS APRIL SOLD OUT 09 DERBY THE VENUE 04 WREXHAM THE LIVE ROOMS 10 CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION 05 CARDIFF UNIVERSITY Y PLAS SOLD OUT 06 BRISTOL O2 ACADEMY ★ 11 HITCHIN CLUB 85 IN ASSOCIATION WITH ATC LIVE

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Get Excited About...

BIG ALBUMS BIG ALBUMS COMING UP IN 2019 COMINGUP

From last minute album drops to surprise double records, in music world we can never truly predict what’s around the corner. But this much we do know: some bloody massive artists are going to put out some inevitably bloody massive releases in 2019 and we’re bloody massively excited about it. Here’s how they’re shaping up so far.

Lana Del Rey Vampire Weekend ‘Father of the Bride’ Now that Ezra’s settled down with actor Rashida, does that mean the singer’s named Vampire Weekend’s longawaited fourth LP after... Quincy Jones?!

Seemingly so, but the legendary funk producer doesn’t seem to have had much influence on ‘Father of the Bride’’s sound if warm, enveloping first tracks ‘2021’ and ‘Harmony Hall’ are to go by. The band have stated that they’ll be dropping two songs - loosely grouped as companion pieces each month until March, then the full, 18-track record is set to land later in spring. What a tease.

Grimes

‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’

Lana Del Rey’s forthcoming fifth has been slowly teased in typically elusive style. No big interviews, no dramatic returns, just a series of casually-unveiled tracks with nostalgic, Super 8-style videos to match. The songs themselves, however, aren’t quite so easily pegged. While recent offering ‘hope is a dangerous thing for a woman like me to have - but i have it’ is classic Lana - all misty-eyed melancholia and sad self-reflection ‘Venice Bitch’ is a hazy, nine-minute epic, while ‘Mariner’s Apartment Complex’ positions her as a kind of Mother John Misty. Intriguing.

TBA

She’s not quite up to Charli XCX levels of delay, but safe to say the route to Grimes’ fourth LP hasn’t exactly been smooth. Originally expected to follow 2015’s ‘Art Angels’ in 2017, she then took to social media to declare the “music industry is trash” before disclosing a clash with her label that would go on to repeatedly set back the record. Now, however, she’s supposedly on course to release two new albums and – hallelujah! - we’ve even had a taste of one in the form of throbbing, industrial bop ‘We Appreciate Power’ (featuring best pal HANA). Fingers crossed the progress continues.

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The 1975

‘Notes On A Conditional Form’

The second part of The 1975’s ‘Music For Cars’ era, ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ follows a mere six months after the cultural colossus that was ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ and is birthed from a whole new set of sessions and recordings.

Prolific? Scarily so. A bit insane? Of course. But that’s Matty Healy for you.

And judging by the creative sweet spot the frontman seems to be in at the moment, we wouldn’t bet against it being even better than their gamechanging current LP. That clever bastard.

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VAMPIRE WEEKEND Harmony Hall

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

Barely 20 seconds into new song ‘Harmony Hall’ (which begins with a gorgeous, fiddly acoustic guitar line that the band teased with a 120-minute loop of, no less), Ezra’s instantly recognisable vocal soars in. “I made a vow in summertime,” he says, and it feels like returning home. Channelling classic songwriters of the 20th century - there are more than a few strokes of Paul Simon and Joni Mitchell evident - the track is a warm, hearty embrace. As a sprightly, bouncy piano line rolls in for the track’s pre-chorus, it’s joined by soaring, layered vocals that collide to make a joyous racket. Of all the experimentation five and a half years could’ve brought for Vampire Weekend, ‘Harmony Hall’ sees them refining, expanding their palate subtly and gorgeously, and putting a smacking big grin on everyone’s weary, worn January faces. (Will Richards)

2021

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

Continuing the crate-digging sampling nature that peppered the impeccable ‘Modern Vampires of the City’, ‘2021’ creates minimalist warmth with its use of a Jenny Lewis vocal snippet and the synths of Japanese musician Haroumi Hosono: fitting really, as the latter’s work was written for cult simplicity-loving homeware shop Muji. Lyrically, it makes like today’s ‘When I’m Sixty Four’, as Ezra Koenig wistfully croons “2021, will you still think about us” as if it’s somewhere on the distant horizon. Well, if we’re allowed to be nostalgic about 2016 (which is, after all, literally when it all started going to absolute shit), why not? (Emma Swann)

Have you Heard?

FOALS

Exits ..........................................

Foals have, to date, undergone a gradual but definite progression.

‘Exits’ ties it all together wonderfully. Across six minutes it channels the intricacy and inherent weirdness of ‘Antidotes’ and the airy playfulness of ‘Total Life Forever’, while the towering riffage of ‘What Went Down’ bubbles under the surface. Musically uniting their past and lyrically confronting the paranoia that we’re all feeling, it could be their definitive statement. (Will Richards) 16 diymag.com

SPORTS TEAM

M5 ..........................................

Speaker phones. Air fresheners. A spoken word section about an Aldershot roundabout.

If there was any risk that indie’s premiere twinkleeyed narrators of British suburbia wouldn’t go all-in on a track literally named after a Midlands motorway, then... well, you clearly don’t know Sports Team at all. It’s utterly ridiculous, but also a big fist-pumping banger - a niche that’s fast becoming entirely their own. (Lisa Wright)

BLAENAVON

LITTLE SIMZ

A few weeks back, Blaenavon frontman Ben Gregory posted a brutally honest note detailing a breakdown he experienced at the end of 2017.

Expectedly, then, catharsis comes pouring out of comeback single ‘Catatonic Skinbag’ from its opening squeal of feedback. Their message is delivered with such power that it becomes a hand on the shoulder in tough times. It helps, of course, that it’s also a thunderous rock song that will inspire as much moshpitting as it does soulsearching. (Will Richards)

‘Selfish’ finds Little Simz on cerebral form. Enlisting the vocals of West London singer-songwriter Cleo Sol on the track’s dream-like chorus, the track showcases the rapper’s talent for slick, sophisticated songwriting, her lyrics a statement of the importance of knowing your own self worth. Adding Cleo’s soulful vocals make for a more contemplative cut. Judging by her latest move, it looks like Little Simz’ ‘GREY Area’ might be her boldest album yet. (Rachel Finn)

Catatonic Skinbag ......................................

Selfish ......................................

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TGE PRE SENTS IN A SSO CIATION WITH THE B OX PLUS NE T WORK

SPOTLIGHT SHOW

BRIGHTON DOME 09·05·19

L E W I S C A PA L D I ✚

KARA MARNI

EASY LIFE

CORE PROGRAMME

AJ TRACEY I TA L I A 9 0 CHILDREN OF ZEUS INDOOR PETS GREENTEA PENG SPORTS TEAM C O N N I E C O N S TA N C E M U R K A G E D AV E SELF ESTEEM LEWSBERG THE HOWL & THE HUM PRIESTS PIP BLOM TROPICAL FUCK STORM ZUZU K AW A L A JUNIORE THE BETHS LIFE SAM TOMPKINS SKYND CRACK CLOUD BOBBIE JOHNSON MAISIE PETERS JOY CROOKES JOCKSTRAP A K PAT T E R S O N L DEVINE ED THE DOG STEAM DOWN PA G A N JEFFE MILLIE TURNER BRUTUS ELDER ISLAND VIAGRA BOYS YVES TUMOR THESE NEW SOUTH WHALES W A LT D I S C O SHEY BABA LISA O’NEILL RADIANT CHILDREN THE JUNGLE GIANTS S O A K E D O AT S SICK JOY SULLII C H A P PA Q U A W R E S T L I N G THE SNUTS SQUID REN BEA1991 SONS OF THE EAST CASEY LOWRY TRIPLE ONE BRÍET KRUSH PUPPIES KOJAQUE MALIHINI BIG JOANIE ZOONI VULPYNES HAZE BUZZARD BUZZARD BUZZARD ANY OTHER CABLE TIES WESTERMAN CALLUM PITT A M Y M AY E L L I S BLACKOUT PROBLEMS WINSTON SURFSHIRT (SOLO) CAN’T SWIM TAW I A H FUZZY SUN NICE BISCUIT SUPERLOVE GIRL IN RED PONGO M O N T Y TA F T WHISPERING SONS G U C C I H I G H W AT E R S K W E N G FA C E TA L O S COCAINE PISS A R C H I E FA U L K S CHAI WOOZE LIZA OWEN COUNTY LINE RUNNER K I Z Z Y C R AW F O R D AMANDA TENFJORD TIANA MAJOR9 G W E N I F E R R AY M O N D JC STEWART PEARL CHARLES M AT H I L D A H O M E R A LT O PA L O EASY LIFE DBOY B L A C K W AV E .

WASUREMONO THE MAUSKOVIC DANCE BAND FA R A J S U L E I M A N WEIRD MILK J U S T M U S TA R D MALPHINO NIA WYN G E N T LY T E N D E R DRAX PROJECT T H E N U D E PA R T Y APRE PENELOPE ISLES GIUNGLA BODY TYPE RICH AUCOIN D U E N D I TA PETROL GIRLS B I T C H FA L C O N H A G G A R D C AT PSYCHEDELIC PORN CRUMPETS HORROR MY FRIEND E M I LY B U R N S H I M A L AYA S HAND HABITS JVCK JAMES BROEN FIEH REBECCA GARTON CELESTE IRIS H E AV Y B E AT B R A S S B A N D KINGSWOOD BIIG PIIG SHADED JACK PERRETT MOTHERHOOD EMERSON SNOWE SIR BABYGIRL B E S S AT W E L L ALEXANDRA STRÉLISKI ALFIE TEMPLEMAN A L LY S H A J O Y D AY O B E L L O R A O U L V I G N A L STONEFIELD KIAN GIANT ROOKS MALIK DJOUDI BYOB B E F O R E S T.

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Frank Ocean - channel ORANGE The making of a superstar, seven years on Frank Ocean’s debut full-length remains a landmark moment - a portrait of sexuality, faith, love and growing up. Words: Will Richards.

A

mong Odd Future’s lineup of misfits and hellraisers, there was always something different about Frank Ocean. On debut mixtape ‘Nostalgia, Ultra’ he sculpted covers of the likes of Coldplay and MGMT into intriguing new shapes alongside a host of promising originals.

It was on the eve of the release of major label debut ‘channel ORANGE’, though, that he grabbed the headlines. Posting a note to his Tumblr page, the singer - born Christopher Breaux - detailed a relationship he had with a man four summers earlier. “Most of the day I’d see him, and his smile. I’d hear his conversation and his silence… until it was time to sleep. Sleep I would often share with him,” he wrote. It allowed him to make his biggest artistic statement yet with his full, unabashed truth out there for the world to digest. “I feel like a free man,” he finished. “If I listen closely... I can hear the sky falling too.”

The same freedom is spread all across ‘channel ORANGE’: a sprawling, hour-long odyssey on sexuality, faith, love and growing up that positioned Frank Ocean as one of the most talented songwriters alive. It still stands tall almost seven years later.

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‘Swim Good’? Course he can.

The Facts Release: 10th July 2012 Stand-out tracks: ‘Super Rich Kids’, ‘Pyramids’, ‘Lost’ Tell your mates: Frank titled the album in reference to his synesthesia - orange was the colour he claimed to see on that famed summer he first fell in love.

“My eyes don’t shed tears, but boy they bawl when I’m thinkin’ about you,” he sings in opener ‘Thinkin Bout You’, referencing the first love of his letter. It’s the first glimpse of an album that gives a window into an artist on the brink of superstardom. Musically, it’s a masterpiece too. From the smooth-as-hell ‘Sweet Life’ to ten-minute epic ‘Pyramids’ and the taut ‘Lost’, it brings in a world of influences and moulds them into something staggering.

Thematically, ‘channel ORANGE’ tackles the problems of being handed everything on a plate (‘Super Rich Kids’), drug addiction (‘Crack Rock’) and plenty more across its length. And though it’s an incredibly personal record, it also plays out as a fascinating portrait of the wider world.

Dipping into the often turbulent lives of strangers while leaving the door open for the listener to form their own opinions, it manages to be a largely selfless album, yet one which made the singer a superstar.

It’s this quality of storytelling that kept us by the phone for the seemingly never-ending run-up to the eventual release of follow-up ‘Blonde’ with such enthusiasm, waiting for more windows into the world from an artist of real importance. DIY

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DIY’S PICK OF

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

BRING JÄGER CURTAIN CALL TO AN ECLECTIC CLOSE IN GLASGOW

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Demob Happy Nationwide, from late February

The city’s local scene shone during the final show of the series. Photo: Ryan Johnston. t’s no secret that Glasgow has always been a bit of a creative epicentre for music and so it feels somewhat apt to draw this year’s Jäger Curtain Call to a close within the darkly wonderful city. Taking up residence in the confines of The Blue Arrow - an underground bar which possesses all the electrifying intimacy of a jazz club - on the infamous Sauchiehall Street, tonight’s show offers up a real taste of the talent that lies within the heart of the city’s music scene.

atmosphere, the band constantly veer between giant, foreboding scuzziness and precise but maniacal guitars, with ‘Transit Paul’ boasting hints of demented surf pop buried within its hazy layers. Their most recent track ‘La Peste’ - recorded for Jäger Curtain Call itself - is a rough and ready but powerful highlight, its jarring keys and jagged percussion working to heighten its cacophonous conclusion, which soon roars into disorientating life, capping off a brilliantly unhinged set.

Tonight’s openers, The Lawnmower, may still be new, but their live set is already a delight. Falsetto vocals and slick guitar hooks reign supreme throughout their set, marking the duo out as an intriguingly pop-ish prospect among the rest of the bill.

In almost direct contrast, LYLO are a set of smooth operators.

Moving from high energy tracks through to meandering jams, their offerings fuse together jazz and pop in an almost effortless way.

An altogether infectious set, it’s a perfect high to end the night upon, and demonstrates the breadth of creativity bubbling away in Glasgow.

(Sarah Jamieson)

Unsurprisingly, the gritty garage rock of Sweaty Palms is satisfying from the off. Masters in creating a palpable 20

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The Brighton-based trio follow their Jack White support slot with a deluxe version of last year’s ‘Holy Doom’ and these dates in Manchester (24th February), Birmingham (25), Edinburgh (26), Newcastle (27), London (1st March) and Brighton (2).

Petrie

19th February, Moth Club, London The genre-disregarding pair follow last year’s ‘Self-Destruct’ EP with this one-off show at the glittering confines of the old East London servicemens’ club.

Nelson Beer 11th February, The Waiting Room, London Moody vibes, electronic pop and a penchant for vest tops is the way of the Swiss Londonbased DJ and singer who heads to East London this month.

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

RAG’N’BONE MAN . WOLF ALICE NILE RODGERS &. CHIC .

ECHO & THE BUNNYMEN IDLES LEWIS CAPALDI KATE NASH . THE GO! TEAM . BAND OF SKULLS

HYPNOTIC BRASS ENSEMBLE . THE BIG MOON . SEA GIRLS . THE JOY FORMIDABLE WARMDUSCHER . FLAMINGODS . ELVANA . THE SHE STREET BAND IRIS GOLD . LAUREL . SAINT AGNES . MEGGIE BROWN . HONEY LUNG THE HOWL & THE HUM . MONTY TAFT . BIG SOCIETY . SHIIVERS . FOXE + MANY MORE TO COME

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EROL ALKAN . SIMIAN MOBILE DISCO . NORMAN JAY MBE FLEETMAC WOOD . LA FLEUR

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: DELIA TEȘILEANU . EMILY DUST . 4 TO THE FLOOR . TASTY LOPEZ

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DICK & DOM DJ BATTLE HOW TO TRAIN YOUR DINOSAUR LIVE MR BLOOM & HIS BAND WOODLAND TRIBE

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COSTUME PARADE CABARET . DOG SHOW . TALKS WORKSHOPS . WELLBEING HOT TUBS . SWIMMING POOL REAL ALE . TOP FESTIVAL FOOD + MORE

Twisted Creatures THE 2019 STORY

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Sound As A Pound Shame, Blaenavon and Confidence Man have joined the Sound City bill.

Shame, Blaenavon and Confidence Man are three of the latest acts to be added to this year’s Sound City.

Taking place across Liverpool’s Baltic Triangle, Soak, Stella Donnelly and Estrons are also set to appear. They’ll be joining the likes of Loyle Carner, Mabel and The Magic Gang at the festival, which will run from 3rd to 5th May.

Standon Deliver Wolf Alice are set to headline this year’s Standon Calling.

Wolf Alice have been confirmed to headline this year’s Standon Calling, alongside the previouslyannounced Rag’n’Bone Man. That’s not all: DIY faves IDLES, The Big Moon and Kate Nash all appear on the bill, along with the likes of Echo & The Bunnymen, Band of Skulls and Lewis Capaldi.

Standon Calling takes place between 25th and 28th July in the grounds of Standon Lordship in Hertfordshire.

Lost in Texas Even more ace new acts are Austinbound for this year’s SXSW. With a matter of weeks until this year’s shenanigans kick off throughout Austin, Texas, another list of buzz-friendly acts has been announced for SXSW. Class of 2019 aces Anteros are set to play, as well as Neu faves Orchards and Another Sky, plus Pip Blom, star drummer Georgia, Lafawndah and Swedish star Yung Lean.

They join faves such as Sports Team, Fontaines DC, Black Midi, Nadine Shah, Squid and Whenyoung at the event, which takes place from 11th to 17th March.

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diymag.com

Sun, Sea & Even More New Bands Sports Team, Easy Life and Girl In Red lead the latest round of acts set to play The Great Escape.

The Great Escape have announced a new batch of acts - 100 names in fact - to play this year’s event.

Class of 2019 acts Sports Team, Easy Life and Westerman are among the new confirmations, as well as Girl In Red, Gently Tender, Italia 90, Chai, LIFE and Mykki Blanco.

The festival takes place across venues in Brighton between 9th and 11th May, and had already confirmed acts including Fontaines DC and Self Esteem as part of November’s First Fifty event.

Chappaqua Wrestling

First Fifty FONTAINES DC

The Howl and the Hum, Chappaqua Wrestling The Macbeth, London.

Photos: Emma Swann

Every November, The Great Escape hosts First Fifty, previewing its next edition with a series of London shows, showcasing…well, the first fifty bands to be announced for the next Brighton buzzfest. DIY’s show tonight at The Macbeth in Hoxton showcases three very different sides of the guitar music spectrum.

First up are Brighton bunch Chappaqua Wrestling, who are cut from a similar cloth to The Magic Gang, all honeyed harmonies and swirling riffs. They’re then followed

by The Howl & The Hum from York, who take a folk rulebook and tear it up before remoulding it.

Fontaines DC have relentless momentum behind them right now, and it all comes flooding out at the tiny Hoxton boozer. It’s with ‘Too Real’ that the band really explode, while a melee of bodies begin crashing into each other, while guitarist Carlos O’Connell scales a speaker stack and starts playing head tennis with a chandelier - it’s exciting, reckless and blisteringly loud.

When they depart without a word, they leave behind a trail of destruction, and a flag in the ground as a punk band that could go very, very big places. (Will Richards) Fontaines DC

The Howl & The Hum

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NO ROME

As Dirty Hit signing Rome Gomez plays his first London show at The O2 (!) alongside The 1975, we meet the Manilaborn popstar-in-waiting who’s championing acceptance and challenging outdated cultural stereotypes.

Words: Will Richards. Photo: Jenn Five.

Barely any musicians play their first ever London show at the cavernous O2, but even fewer are quite like No Rome.

23-year-old Rome Gomez is currently on a tour in support of The 1975 - his first ever tour, no less - but, sitting backstage before the second of two nights at the megadome, not a flicker of nerves passes across his face. Releasing debut EP ‘RIP Indo Hisashi’ last summer - a four-track blast of glossy pop, full of character - he’s become one of the buzziest acts around almost overnight. Later this evening he’ll solidify all this hype on one of the biggest stages possible. His early set incites the front row screams of a soon-to-be-superstar and, when he joins Matty Healy and co on stage during their set for a run-through of unfairly catchy collab ‘Narcissist’, he commands the stage.

Born in Manila, Rome grew up with the presence of the UK’s alternative ‘80s stars looming large: My Bloody Valentine, The Cure and New Order were always on the stereo courtesy of his father. Also punctuated with a lot of pop (he cites Madonna and Janet Jackson as formative favourites), his early recordings mixed these worlds beautifully. Even from the early days, he had all the personality of a star, but with none of the homogenisation. His bio reads: “no rome is an art project by rome gomez: a personification of teen love, melancholy & everything in between”.

to be a part of. “The UK uses bigger words,” he theorises.

“It’s normal for you guys, and I really admire that. I was trying to use these words, but when I was writing with some people, they’d say ‘Maybe that word’s a bit too big to be in this song?’ But I’d say ‘That’s the point though! These aren’t the words you hear in songs, so let’s put them in there, because these words exist!’” The first word he tried to squeeze in?

Narcissist. Racking up 23 million Spotify plays to date, we think he’s done just fine. “I wanted to make sure that no-one’s ever put that word in a pre-chorus before,” Rome chuckles.

This desire to learn and adapt to new worlds is integral to No Rome: he also wants to champion a demolition of the stereotypes so often levelled at the culture he comes from. “I was from this country that not a lot of people knew existed anyway,” he reflects. “Most of them already have this stereotypical idea: ‘Oh, Asians don’t really do much, or think much, or speak English very well. They will never get our culture!’

It’s crazy. These are things that come with being of that race, and I feel like the more I just keep on doing what I’m doing, people will just realise, why am I treating this Filipino friend in my life like shit? This guy’s probably smart as fuck. He’s probably cooler than I am!”

“My music is always tackling something that’s usually unspoken in pop music.”

It was when he was discovered by Samuel Burgess-Johnson - artist and regular collaborator of The 1975’s - that the wheels really started rolling on a dream that had been bubbling for years. Put in touch with Matty and Dirty Hit, an instant spark was evident.

“When I was writing in Manila,” Rome begins, “songs sounded way more colourful than they already were, because I was always in the sun. Everything’s extra bright and everybody’s extra bright. It’s the people I meet, the bus rides that I take.

Moving to London was all totally different.”

An artist that’s always learning, his move to London allowed him to immerse himself in a culture that he’d always wanted

His mission also punctuates ‘RIP Indo Hisashi’. “It’s always tackling something that’s usually unspoken in pop,” he says of the EP, which is set to be followed up by another short project.

“One song on the EP is about a guy being cheated on,” he begins, “which I think is such a male thing to not talk about, because they wanna say ‘no, we’re hard, and we’re tough’.

It’s nice for someone - especially a 5’ 4” guy, an Asian dude - to talk about these things. I’m waiting for a bigger platform an album - to properly go into it.”

If, as he’s suggesting, what we’ve seen of No Rome so far is him simply dipping his toe, then we’ve got a hell of a lot to look forward to. DIY 25

FUR’s jumble sale wasn’t going briiiilliantly.

FUR Giving ‘60s-influenced guitar sounds a fresh and modern twist, meet the Brighton bunch already

neu

making their mark with a little help from some more modern tools. Words: Rachel Finn.

Form a band, write and record a few songs, make a music video on a shoestring, upload it to the internet and watch it go viral...

It’s the kind of stuff that remains firmly a dream for so many bands - only for Brighton’s FUR, it’s something that actually happened.

When the quartet - singer William Murray, guitarist Harry Saunders, bassist William ‘Tav’ Taverner and drummer Flynn Whelan - shared their video for ‘If You Know That I’m Lonely’ on YouTube towards the end of 2017, they didn’t expect too much. A few months later, the song - a ‘60s-meets-’00s jangly indie-rock bop - began to take off at an alarming rate.

“Countries like Peru, Brazil - they’re all loving it at the moment!”

- William ‘Tav’ Taverner 26

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“It was just after we’d headlined The Haunt in Brighton, which was quite a big show for us.

Literally the morning after it had jumped up to 10,000 views and we thought, ‘oh we only played to like, 300 people but maybe word of mouth...’” Murray laughs.

For the next few weeks, views continued to jump up by 10,000

a day. Soon it was being watched over 100,000 times a week. Today, the video is approaching five million views, all without any major label or commercial sync deal backing.

“And now our biggest fan base is in Indonesia, so that’s cool,” Tav explains. “Countries like Peru, Brazil, they’re all loving it at the moment. We’ve got to work on the UK, I guess!”

This strange series of events led the band to label Nice Swan, as well as to support slots for Miles Kane (“We got pissed up with him which was a laugh,” mentions Tav) and Matt Maltese.

However, as they gear up for the release of their self-titled debut EP - a collection full of nostalgic guitar sounds with a vibrant edge - the band are keen to not let a random success deter them from their long-term goals. “Obviously we’re aware that the views and response from [that first track] aren’t necessarily an accurate representation of where we’re at as a band,” Murray says. “But it makes us want to work harder to get to a certain level because we don’t want to be making flat whites for the next however many years of our lives.”

Five million views down and counting, FUR’s stroke of algorithmic fortune should give them the kick start to ensure that their coffee shop days don’t last long. DIY

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Hello Hello 2019 2019 Every year, DIY descends on the Old Blue Last for a fourweek series of gigs designed to dust off the cobwebs of Christmas, kick open the musical doors of the new year and showcase some of the bands we’re most excited about tearing the next 12 months a new one. Here are some of 2019’s stand-outs, who will almost certainly be gracing a stage near you very soon… Words: Lisa Wright, Will Richards. Photos: Patrick Gunning, Robin Pope.

It’s a testament to the vast swathes of hype following the genre-defying group around at the moment, but Squid aren’t just another bunch with one big tune and a looming sense of panic; with an arsenal of strange, tangential, unlikely bangers and a live show that’s somehow meticulous and careering at the same time, they’ve more than got the chops to back it up. ‘The Dial’ - their barking, cowbell-stomping 2018 single - might still be their current calling card, but if that track hinted at a band going their own sweet way, then tonight shows it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Early set highlight ‘The Cleaner’ is a surreal trip, co-vocalled by guitarist Louis and unhinged, yelping drummer Ollie (the latter, a multitasker of impressive proportions); another track, meanwhile, finds them repeatedly intoning about buying house plants on a trip to B&Q. Sonically, it’s a bit LCD Soundsystem, a bit ‘80s English eccentrics XTC, a bit a whole lot of other things that somehow collide in an idiosyncratic, unpredictable joyride of a set. Like their underwater namesakes, Squid are a band reaching in a whole lot of directions but somehow tying it together perfectly at their core.

Squid

Art School Girlfriend The cerebral melancholy of Art School Girlfriend (the project of Margate musician Polly Mackey) is best suited to the cover of darkness, but there’s an icy edge to her introspective electronics too. Concocting the soundtrack to a brisk walk, collar up, through the city at night, the likes of recent single ‘Distance (Blank)’ take a Zola Jesus-esque pulse but pit them under Polly’s softer, more human vocal.

The random bloke in the crowd who yells “fucking beautiful” midway through the set might not have read the tone of the room quite right, but he’s got a point.

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404

Caro

Though 404 ostensibly make hip-hop, the collective have spent the last few years primarily cutting their teeth live on punk and indie bills. The crossover makes sense. From the first spat bars of their set, there’s a wild-eyed energy here that borrows as much from punk as rap, and it doesn’t take long for a moshpit to break out in response. But while there’s shades of Death Grips (albeit a more cheeky, less gnarly version) and some obvious comparisons to Brockhampton here, there’s also something very British about 404. It’s most exemplified when they bring on singer Silvertongue; though it takes her a while to warm up – her three cohorts’ 100mph energy is a difficult bar to ascend to – by the end there’s an undulating, UK garage lilt to her vocal that gives a different viewpoint to the group.

Leeds trio Caro appear fully-formed. Theirs is the kind of intricate, complex songwriting (think a less nympho alt-J or Gengahr with more of a twinkle in their eye) that demands precision and, from start to finish, the band are impressively tight. Undulating, whipsmart oldie ‘Closet Lunatic’ is still a delight while ‘Eyes On The Ground’ is a strange, prickly thing that somehow seems to sonically reference St Vincent and Bombay Bicycle Club at the same time. Dishing up some twitchy, demi-moonwalking moves and piss-takingly getting the crowd to clap along to a faux-jaunty chorus about death, singer Adam Pardey might channel a strong line in verbally-dextrous tongue-twisting lyrics but – crucially – he’s not the oh-so-serious performer normally associated with this sort of lark. The package is truly exciting and all there; all Caro need is for someone to stick them on a big support tour and watch them thrive.

Lucy Lu Lucy Lu – bassist with Nilufer Yanya – might already be enjoying some success with his day project, but judging by this evening it’ll be scant time before he’s nipping at the heels of his pal. There’s a tangible sense of excitement in the room tonight as the singer – complete with five-piece band including two brass players – takes to the stage.

And though, as he gushingly declares mid-way through, tonight’s packed room is the biggest crowd he’s played to, his heady neo-jazz already feels confident and complex.

There are undulating XX-esque grooves and endlessly soulful touches nestled throughout the nocturnal safety net he creates within the venue; sure there’s a whole swathe of artists residing under this banner emerging from the capital right now, but Lucy Lu could easily become one of the best.

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THE MURDER CAPITAL

HAZE

The next in line for Dublin’s grubby rock’n’roll throne.

Bristol bunch teaming the playful with the brutal.

Before they’d even released a note, The Murder Capital sat alongside Fontaines DC as Dublin’s most exciting new noiseniks via a host of intoxicating live shows.

The music has now arrived in the form of single ‘Feeling Fades’, casting this promise in stone.

Clawing at the darkest, most intense corners of punk, there’s nods to The Fall, Protomartyr and more in the dirgy first cut, and hints at even greater things to come.

‘Piochitas’, the new single from Bristol fourpiece Haze, hangs in the balance beautifully. The track jangles along with infectious momentum via a jumpy guitar line, but always teeters on the brink of absolute chaos.

Channelling the current wave of grubby guitar bands from this country, from Shame to YOWL, the unpredictability of the band’s music is what makes it so exciting.

Listen: Debut single ‘Feeling Fades’.

Similar to: Fontaines DC, Protomartyr.

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD An absurd, exhilarating South London supergroup.

Formed out of the ashes of Nervous Conditions, Black Country, New Road are a supergroup-of-sorts from South London that make frenetic, otherworldly noise. Fusing experimental jazz with apocalyptic noise, the band - who boast members of the similarly buzzy Jockstrap - haven’t released any music yet, but a live video shot at Brixton hotspot the Windmill is enough to more than whet the appetite for what’s to come.

Listen: A stunning live set captured at Brixton Windmill.

Similar to: Putting yourself in the firing line of every possible human emotion in the space of 20 minutes.

RECOMMENDED neu BEABADOOBEE New Dirty Hit signing weaves gorgeous, hushed folk tales.

We often associate Dirty Hit with shiny, experimental pop, so there’s something refreshingly stark and to-the-point about Beabadoobee. Bea Kristi, born in Manila and raised in London, racked up millions of streams on early singles, but it’s with her debut EP that her marker’s really put down: a collection of Elliott Smith-influenced folk ditties that are stunning in their simplicity, worming their way into your head via plucked guitars and pitch-perfect vocals, never to leave.

Listen: Debut EP ‘Patched Up’.

Similar to: Elliott Smith, Big Thief.

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Listen: New AA-side ‘St John’ / ’Piochitas’.

Similar to: A 2017 South London melting pot, with added hints of Blur.

THE

BUZZ FEED All the buzziest new music happenings, in one place.

ON THE PLAYLIST MASTER OF THE UNIVERSE NILÜFER YANYA has announced her long-awaited debut! ‘Miss Universe’ is out in March - get all the details and listen to new single ‘In Your Head’ on diymag.com.

LUNGS ON FILM

LACUNA COMMON Sprightly, anthemic indie from energetic Oxford bunch.

In their short tenure as a band, Lacuna Common have shared the stage with Sports Team, UGLY and more, and share more than a few characteristics with their peers: sprightly, straight-down-theline indie-rock, this is music to bellow along to. Fevered new single ‘Lack Of Knowledge’ is the best example - impassioned indie, delivered in a gorgeously thick British accent.

Listen: The catchy ‘Lack Of Knowledge’.

Similar to: Drinking ten pints and launching yourself into a moshpit.

Danny Nedelko and his HEAVY LUNGS have shared a frantic new video for new single ‘Jealous’, out on IDLES’ Balley Records.

Give it a watch on diymag.com.

FOLLOW MY GIRL (ON TOUR) With her debut album out next month, Amber Bain - aka THE JAPANESE HOUSE - has announced her biggest UK tour dates yet - peep the dates on diymag.com.

Every week on Spotify, we update DIY’s Neu Discoveries playlist with the buzziest, freshest faces.

Here’s our pick of the best new tracks: ANOTHER SKY ‘Apple Tree’ It’s another soaring slice of indie-rock from the rising London four-piece.

PARK HOTEL ‘Make It Happen’ Talking Heads and LCD influences run riot on this cowbelltastic dance romp.

STELLA DONNELLY ‘Old Man’ More biting social commentary with tongue firmly in cheek from the Aussie.

WHENYOUNG ‘Never Let Go’ It’s indie-pop headed skyward on the new one from the Neu faves.

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NEU

BIG INDIE BIG NIGHTS

LIVE

CHILDCARE Two Tribes, London. Photo: Emma Swann.

Before Childcare even take to the stage tonight, it’s clear they’re not just ones to plug in and play. The room is packed, and the crowd spills out onto the courtyard outside, people clambering on benches and beer barrels to get a glimpse. The band clearly know they inspire this kind of devotion.

MUSTSEE SHOWS THIS MONTH

Their walk on music is introduced as a “guided meditation session”, before cult-like statements are read out, with the crowd asked to repeat them back. “All of my houseplants disobey my instructions,” is the first. “When I die, I will die listening to Childcare,” the robotic voice demands.

“I will give my life for Childcare. I love Childcare,” it continues until it’s a bellow, and the band crash into their first song.

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

This sense of theatre defines the band - their chart-leaning pop is instantly appealing in itself, but performed with such vigour that it takes on a whole new purpose. Singalongs, band members plowing into the crowd, and choruses that will be mingling on the radio before long: it looks like Childcare are the whole package. (Will Richards)

CHRISTMAS SESSION The Old Blue Last, London.

Photos: Janine Van Oostrom.

ULYSSES WELLS

Currently supporting Bastille on their run of intimate UK shows, Ulysses Wells is the next act to play Big Indie Big Nights. Come check him out at Two Tribes Brewery on 13th February.

Tonight is the night of the big Christmas blow-out, with four Big Nights alumni returning to the stage.

Glossii are clearly having the time of their lives on stage, their brash indierock constantly threatening to tip over into full-blown punk.

Curators of fuzz Superego are up next. Their festive spirit is strong, with frontman Cam Potts musing on why “your burps taste so good at Christmas” before lurching straight into ‘Pain Relief’ which is all wonky guitar lines and spaced out melodies.

There’s little time for talking as Para Alta barrel through a short set, not missing the mark with their music that falls somewhere between slacker-rock and Britpop.

FOURS have quite the fanbase here tonight, and belt out closer ‘Last Christmas’ with contagious excitement and warmth, leaving them on a sugarhigh after celebrating four exciting new bands. (Eloise Bulmer)

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PENELOPE ISLES

Fresh from signing to Bella Union, the Brighton-based bunch have a slew of live shows planned throughout the coming months: they’re even making a stop over on the Isle of Man! Head to diymag.com for full deets.

MAHALIA

Having braved the snowy streets of Groningen for ESNS last month, Mahalia has announced further live plans for 2019.

The BRITs Critics Choice nominee will play two of her biggest shows yet this April. Find out more on diymag.com.

WICCA PHASE SPRINGS ETERNAL

“I think people thought I was deliberately trying to make bad music.”

From fronting emo heroes Tigers Jaw to making slinky, gothic rap with the Gothboiclique collective, Adam McIlwee’s musical journey has been a restless one. Words: Will Richards.

neu

Adam McIlwee’s musical path isn’t a usual one. Fronting Pennsylvania emo heroes Tigers Jaw through their lauded first two records, the Scranton native’s songwriting defined a burgeoning scene that included the likes of Balance and Composure and Title Fight. From the start, though, Tigers Jaw - and the songwriting of Adam in particular - always felt to be of a different ilk to their supposed hardcore contemporaries. Though backed by a sunny wash of punk-pop guitars, the songs had a gothic heart, and when Adam left the band in 2013, it was this corner of his musical output that he honed in on. Enter Wicca Phase Springs Eternal.

The new project raised more than a few eyebrows with its slinky 808s and Soundcloud rap affiliations, especially from those in the often scarily protective US emo scene he grew up in and ended up a slightly reluctant ringleader of.

“Early on, it was the worst,” he chuckles. “I think people thought I was deliberately trying to make bad music, or trying to troll people and not make serious music. I mean, when I started Wicca Phase, it wasn’t great, as any new project usually is. I was still trying to figure out what it was.”

Over those five-and-a-bit years, Adam formed the Gothboiclique, a collective of like-minded individuals that

included the late Lil Peep. The music - which has seen him collaborate with producers such as Clams Casino - has also morphed into something new. What started as an attempt to get stylistically and culturally as far away from the protective grasp of Tigers Jaw has ended up as its own thing. This progression is solidified on new album ‘Suffer On’.

The first Wicca Phase album Adam has written from the ground up, ‘Suffer On’ mixes blackened, acoustic guitarled cuts with those signature 808s, creating an intoxicating hybrid that foregoes preconceptions, genre boundaries and artistic limitations. It’s the sign of Adam finding his sweet spot, throwing himself into the fire and acting on instinct and bravery. “I think that people are starting to catch on,” he agrees, before letting out an audible sigh of relief.

This fearlessness permeates everything about Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. ‘Suffer On’ is released via emo label Run For Cover and he’s taken the project on tour with hardcore heavyweights Code Orange and Turnstile. “Well, I didn’t get booed off…” he chuckles, reflecting on a recent UK support run with the latter. But despite a few remaining hiccups, with ‘Suffer On’ he’s uniting fans from opposing corners of the musical spectrum, free from inhibition. It might’ve taken a while, but the world is catching up to Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. DIY 33

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Let There Be Light

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Existentialism! Religion! David Bowie! On second album ‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’, Sundara Karma are tackling the big subjects and painting them in their own unique, technicolour palette. And in frontman Oscar Pollock, they might just have a true one-off...

Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Hannah Diamond.

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Sundara Karma’s new album? Full of stone cold bangers.

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“People have said this new direction is quite weird...” - Oscar Pollock

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he quaint village of Pangbourne isn’t a place you’d imagine sees a lot of action. Just outside of Reading, and a short train from London, it may be geographically only a stone’s throw away from the hubbub, but its rural calm and sleepy pace lend itself more to knitting circles than circle pits.

Pangbourne is not, in short, a place that you might guess would birth one of the most bright, adventurous and surprising records to land on DIY’s post pile in a while, and yet it’s here that we find ourselves on a clear, crisp winter’s day to meet Sundara Karma frontman Oscar Pollock.

It’s a specific corner of Pangbourne that we’re headed for namely a vast, sprawling area of field and woodland, situated around the corner from the singer’s cosy family home. Bracing and still (aside from a near constant stream of excitable pups, including Oscar’s own hyperactive hound Ziggy), it’s here that he would come for inspiration and to clear his head while writing forthcoming second album ‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’. It is, we suggest while walking along the singer’s regular route, a remarkably chilled-out spot to craft something so immediately colourful and dramatic. “But nature is colourful and dramatic!

Don’t you think?” he chuckles in response. And it’s this seemingly innocuous comment that seems to sit at the heart of ‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’.

Though the record’s 13 songs might burst with ideas (recent, brilliant single ‘One Last Night On This Earth’, he tells us, was originally comprised of 88 different instrumental tracks) and ring with flamboyance and theatricality, there’s something far more nuanced and gentle at its core than just a bit of surface razzle dazzle. Sundara Karma’s second album is one that tackles identity and personal growth, spirituality and selfreflection and finds in its primary author a sensitive voice with more wisdom than his 23 years should dictate. It’s a record that asks big questions and offers up, if not an answer, then at least a bold, positive moment of respite from the eternal search for it.

“There’s a lot of awful things going on at the moment, and you can bow down to the negativity or you can say yes, this is awful but you’re not going to get rid of negativity by being negative,

so why not have fun?” Oscar says. “Why not embrace colour and carry levity with you? Nothing is forever and everything passes, so why not try to enjoy things?”

T

hough there are still familiar tropes to be found from the band’s hyper-articulate debut ‘Youth Is Only Ever Fun In Retrospect’ (Oscar has not, it’s safe to assume, put down the books in favour of a summer spent watching Love Island), there’s a joyfulness present across its follow up that feels different. Whereas before you might have reasonably labelled the frontman’s references to Plato and philosophy lofty or earnest, now there’s an underlying sense of humour to Sundara Karma that balances out the vision.

It’s a new outlook that seems born from a myriad of progressions and realisations, both personal and professional.

First pricking up ears with a series of early releases on tastemaker label Chess Club Records before putting out their debut in 2017, Sundara Karma - completed by guitarist Ally Baty, bassist Dom Cordell and drummer Haydn Evans rounded off the cycle for album one with a Top 20, a Brixton Academy headline show and a huge, victorious homecoming at Reading Festival. Though now they say that they never felt the pressure of a huge spotlight (“Even today I’ll tell people we did Brixton and they’ll be like, ‘Did you?!’” laughs Haydn, swigging a pint of Stella at a Wetherspoons we descend on later that week for a full band summit), the fact remains that the four friends had already ticked off a good many items on music’s to-do list by the time they were only just in their twenties.

It’s an impressive timeline, but one not without its own issues.

In a previous interview with us, the band all stated that they weren’t totally happy with the release, and that their youth and inexperience lead them to somewhat compromise. “[When you’re new to the industry] you change yourself to fit a role of somebody you should be and it’s a total lie,” said Oscar. “Once that whole thing was over we had time to realise we were losing sight of what it is we are and want to be and the music that really fulfils us.”

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Now, the band are pragmatic about their first steps - “We made that last record when we were 20 to 21 and that’s a strange age to be at, regardless of creative output,” nods the singer - but the onus from the start of album two was not to make the same mistakes. “When you get to 22 or 23 it’s still a strange age, but I think you’re a little more sure of yourself and you know yourself a bit better,” he continues. “Fearlessness comes from confidence, and I think we were more fearless on this one, for sure.”

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onically, fearlessness is a trait that makes itself abundantly known throughout ‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’. From the exuberant, technicolour stomp of ‘One Last Night...’ to the heavenly burst that opens ‘Illusions’ and the slow, sad sway of ‘The Changeover’, even the tracks released to date hint at a wildly varied, confident sonic palette. Then there’s the irrepressible Boney M disco strut of ‘Symbols of Joy and Eternity’ and twitchy, dancefloor banger ‘Higher States’, the clipped, ‘Sound and Vision’-era Bowie of ‘Little Smart Houses’ and the elegiac, vocally-affected title track.

Across the album, there’s little that’s predictable and much that’s actively surprising.

this quartet are flying the flag for something altogether more imaginative and fantastical. “It wouldn’t be authentic for us to be like, ‘Oh, we’re just being real’,” says the singer, adopting the universal voice of the credibility troubadour. “People can [be real] in different ways, and that’s why people love different things because it feels authentic to them. But personally, I’m very much drawn towards anything that distorts reality. The intriguing thing about someone like Bowie is how detached he was from identity - or from a single identity at least. To me, the most attractive thing with many artists that I admire is their ability to shape-shift. My idea of reality is that it isn’t a fixed thing, that it’s something that’s constantly changing.”

“The process of writing this record was transformative for me.”

- Oscar Pollock

Hunkering down at West London’s RAK Studios for 30 days last summer with the height of the heatwave blazing down outside and the dream of football coming home still alive, the four unanimously describe the month that they spent creating the record as “the best of [their] lives”. Chicken or egg, who can really say, but the good vibes and sense of freedom are tangible. “Even when we were in the studio with Alex [Robertshaw of Everything Everything, who produced the record], you could feel things clicking together. There was no sense that the path was uneasy and we were going downhill too fast and we couldn’t keep up. It was going along at its own pace and we were just fortunate to be along for the ride,” says Ally. “We even said when we were doing it: just enjoy this moment,” nods Dom. “It was very pure,” Oscar affirms.

The aim, says the singer, was to create something “really grand and theatrical”. “Drama is something I’ve always been interested in,” he explains. “At school, it was what I was drawn to more than music - mainly because my

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music teacher didn’t like me. He told me he hated music with guitars in it once. Awful.” And while that teacher is likely kicking himself these days, it’s this inextricable sense of theatre that’s setting Oscar and Sundara Karma increasingly apart from their guitar-bearing peers. If the trend for guitar bands in recent times has been towards the gritty and unadorned, then

A

s you might have gathered by now, Oscar Pollock is not your average 23-year-old. On sitting down for a chat in his mum’s garden, post-woodland walk, the first thing he comes out with is a musing on immortality and nature, and of how the latter should remind us that “everything is impermanent and, now more than ever, we need to love ourselves and love each other and love our planet”.

That previous idea of shaping and moulding your identity is something that comes up, too. Growing up as a young child in Singapore, before coming back to the UK but still moving around a lot, he’s familiar with change and the eternal tug between adaptation and keeping hold of your core that gets trickier with age. “I think maybe if your parents go through a divorce or something like that, it’s quite an early reminder of there being a deadline to things,” he muses, puffing on a roll-up as his dog hops up beside him. “Maybe it started there. I’m not too sure though.”

Influenced by these experiences he may be, however Oscar is clearly an active seeker out of his own future. He’s been reading and exploring the ideas of different religions, thinking about ethics and, across the writing of ‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’, wrangling with the biggest subjects of all: “Who am I? Who are we? What are we doing here? Why are we here? Those are the questions that I was definitely asking myself,” he says.

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What exactly IS Ulfilas’ Alphabet?

Sundara’s second has a pretty extravagant sounding title. But what exactly does it, y’know, mean?

Oscar: “It’s about creating the gothic alphabet. I was reading a book on gothic literature, and I remember really liking the aesthetic of the words together. So there’s a little bit of it just looking nice together, but the meaning fits in so well with the record too. The idea of faith and of language, which can be so unifying, to tell your version of truth - perhaps without considering if it’s right for the other person.

It’s interesting, the idea that you can think you’re doing good for someone but you might not be. The conviction I wish I was convicted to a faith in that way, life would be a lot easier…”

Haydn: “Join a cult?

Start a cult?! We already have…”

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Oscar was contemplating the best way to show his mum his half-naked torso turned into a Grecian statue on this cover…

Photo: Emma Swann

[of Ulfilas] is incredible;

“I think it comes from pain,” he continues. “I think if you’re really one of those people that’s happy with everything and happy with what you’ve got then you’re not forced to do much searching. And [it’s about] acknowledging that there is pain in life and pain is unavoidable, but suffering is optional.

Everyone puts on a facade that they’re indestructible but we’re all so fucking fragile, and I think it would be beautiful if we acknowledged that a bit more and gave each other that confidence to accept those parts of ourselves.”

Though the album doesn’t claim to answer any universal concerns, it does document one person’s explorations into them and offer something of an open hand. “There was no sitting under the Bodhi Tree moment,” he explains, referencing the Buddhist tree of enlightenment. “It’s all gradual and I’m definitely still not there yet, but the process of writing this record was transformative in a really good way for me.

“It’s about faith and fear, about how some people have faith in the unknown and some people really fear it. And as trite as it might be, I think it is [about] love. It can be a very vague concept, but I think that’s the thing that will make you happy. You don’t need to complicate it and there’s a million ways to get to that place. Acceptance of yourself but also not thinking about yourself too much; I think that’s when you can get depressed, when you think about yourself a bit too much. But when you think about your friends and other people around you and how you can be of benefit to them, I think that’s what love really is. But you have to love yourself before you can get to that place.”

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celebration in the face of horror,” explains Oscar. “People have said this new direction is quite weird, and I can understand why people would think it as well. But it’s just stuff that I liked.

That’s it. I wish I could say more! It’s just who we are; it feels so natural.”

Fully taking ownership of his own creative vision, the singer has also directed each of the band’s videos for the record including a particularly endearing clip for ‘One Last Night...’ featuring a budget tin foil robot falling in love, popping to the pub and having to fight off DIY fave Matt Maltese for the affections of his lady. “I think that might help the feeling that [the record is] in its own world, because it’s all come from within us,” he notes. “There’s not been an outside voice putting their input into it.”

“I’m very much drawn towards anything that distorts reality.”

- Oscar Pollock

rom all of these thoughts, Oscar and his pals have conjured up a visual identity for ‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’ (named after the creation of the gothic alphabet and, fittingly, a man who tried to form a language so that he could be understood) that’s unpretentious and entirely out of step with their peers. On their early press shots for the album, Oscar is stood in a flowing blonde wig and cowboy hat, with his band mates in primary colours and dangling earrings. In the video for ‘Illusions’, the wig returns as the singer adorns a ghostly, ethereal Ophelia-esque white dress. If the visuals caused something of an eyebrow raise upon announcement, then their intentions are far less dramatic. “I think that [first] image and the other ones we’ve released so far tap into the light-heartedness of the record and the themes of

And it does. By throwing out the expectations of what a guitar band in 2019 should or shouldn’t do, following their own path and fully embracing their frontman’s inquisitive, unusual mind, Sundara Karma have made a record that bursts with curiosity and excitement. It’s an album that’s sonically joyous and lyrically complex, and no better exemplified than on its opening track - the questioning ‘A Song For My Future Self’. “The idea came of my life advancing and [what if] the decisions I make and the roads I choose to go down are all the wrong ones?” Oscar explains. “This image of myself later on in life that’s bowed down to an easier way of getting through things and not being true to your vision; that’s what the song is about.

I thought it would be nice to write this song that I could listen to in the future and think, did I end up like that, or am I OK?” With a voice growing more singular by the day and a band able to express it in increasingly more vibrant, vociferous ways, we’d put a tenner on him being just fine.

‘Ulfilas’ Alphabet’ is out 1st March via Chess Club / RCA. DIY

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After an unexpected viral video kick-started her music career, with her debut album ‘Heard It In A Past Life’, Maggie Rogers is ready to take the spotlight firmly into her own hands.

Words: Rachel Finn. Photos: Jenn Five.

“Y

ou know, there’s a lyric in ‘Light On’ that says, ‘Crying in the bathroom, had to figure it out / With everyone around me saying you should be so happy now’. And it’s like, that’s what my year was like.”

Nestled into a booth in a restaurant attached to East London’s Ace Hotel, Maggie Rogers is mid-press run for debut album ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ - a trip that will take her from London through Europe and then back to New York, playing a mix of her own headline dates as well as a series of arena support slots for Mumford & Sons. It’s been tiring, the Maryland-born musician admits, but today, she seems confident and “at peace” with the whirlwind of the past few years.

‘Heard It In A Past Life’ is an album that charts Maggie’s “overwhelming” range of emotions since her 2016 breakthrough when, then a student at New York University, she played her song ‘Alaska’ for a visibly moved Pharrell Williams during a class group discussion. The video went viral and, with it, transported Maggie from recent graduate to upcoming pop sensation in a matter of months. A packed touring schedule followed, quickly followed by an EP, 2017’s ‘Now That The Light Is Fading’, and a career in music that she wasn’t always completely sure was for her.

pauses. “Touring is really tiring. Some people love it, some people don’t. I’m still figuring it out.”

Millions may have watched the video of a then 22-year-old Maggie and the superproducer, but with ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ she’s keen to make her name on her own terms. Possessing an uncompromising direction of creative vision, she names time constraints as the most difficult part of making the album, being under more pressure than ever before to deliver. Her label, she explains, “very much wanted me to have a radio hit or me to go in and write with all these top [producers]. They saw my potential to be a pop star, sort of wanted to pressure me into that and it’s not who I am. I feel proud of the work that I’ve done and I also feel really proud of the lack of compromise that exists on the record.”

“There were a lot of people waiting for me to say some dumb shit about Pharrell…”

“I had to learn how to do press and how to talk to reporters and have my photo taken and how to be on the road, but I feel like it’s anyone in a new job, there’s a lot to learn really quickly… I mean that’s the craziest thing, you’re absolutely fucking exhausted,” she admits. “It’s not a natural thing to move every day. That’s why it was so traumatising. I was really tired and there were a lot of people, I dunno, waiting for me to say some dumb shit about Pharrell. I don’t know, you’re going to use that as a quote…” She

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he may possess a huge sense of pride in her music now, but Maggie’s future as a performer and producer hasn’t always been a given.

She arrived at music via a detour in journalism, interning at Elle and Spin and working as an assistant editor on Lizzy Goodman’s book ‘Meet Me In The Bathroom’, a 2001-2011 oral history of rock ‘n’ roll in New York. “I’ve done a fair amount of these!” she says, referring to our interview.

“From your side and from mine. It’s interesting, I went through this really long period of writer’s block and I sort of realised that instead of telling my story I could just tell other people’s and that was interesting enough for me for a little while, but I never felt completely fulfilled by it or like there’s a story that I have to tell. And the work I make in music, it’s for me.”

This awareness of both sides shows - both in the way she pushes for more specificity in the questions she’s asked and seems sensitive to how her words will be portrayed. She’d rather not talk about how she sees her music career expanding over the next few years (“I mean I could bullshit my way through

It’s not that bad!

Present Tense

Don’t jump, Maggie!

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that answer but I think I’d rather not.

Leave the future to unfold for itself...”) and, despite having worked with huge pop producers Greg Kurstin, Rostam and Ricky Reid on the album, she’s reluctant to talk about it as a pop record, explaining “I inevitably just believe genre exists to sell music, not to make music…”

She is, however, often refreshingly open about her own struggles, both personally and as a performer. On the day of our interview, it’s not long after her set at last summer’s Reading Festival, where someone accidentally unplugged some of her and her band’s gear, meaning they arrived on stage late and had to cut their set to just a handful of songs. “It’s kind of just how it goes. It’s not worth panicking cause then you can’t really think about it clearly,” she shrugs. “I feel like the only thing to do is be like ‘OK, what’s within my control, and what’s not within my control’.” Not only that, but being scheduled to play at the same time as Post Malone on the main stage meant the crowd was sparser than expected. “[It] was a bummer… If I wanted to make music I thought people were going to like, I would be Cardi B and I’m clearly not.

I think she’s so authentic to her, but you know there’s a reason people went to Post Malone’s set and not to mine and that’s ok.”

It’s been a strange few years for Maggie and ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ catalogues that. On it, there’s ecstatic highs but also the sense of fear and isolation that comes with being given an incredible opportunity and finding out it doesn’t necessarily mean everything in your life just falls into place.

“I made the EP so I could try out making pop or making dance music and then actually sort of ended up missing some more human elements,” she says. “So the record is about this crazy time in my life where everything changed and I fell in love and fell out of love and fell in and out of love with music too. I mean, there was a time when I didn’t know if I was really going to do this.

“But I think the record is about me really powerfully and poignantly choosing this and deciding that this is what I love and this is what I wanna do,” she adds, “instead of having the internet really beautifully choose for me.”

‘Heard It In A Past Life’ is out now via Polydor. DIY

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“I feel really proud of the lack of compromise that exists on the record.”

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I

“

t’s weird, isn’t it?” Over the course of an hour, those are the words Yak frontman Oli Burslem says more than any others. Sometimes they’re in response to a question, sometimes seemingly apropos of nothing other than whatever is going on inside his head as he stares out of the window.

“Dry January,” he sighs after one instance, picking up his cup of tea as buses and cars roar past outside the East London cafe we’re currently sat in. It should be noted that Oli is probably the last person you would expect to partake in an alcohol abstinence campaign. Later, he’ll jokingly explain the band’s finances now they’re signed to Virgin EMI by saying: “£400 a month isn’t going to go far, is it? Not when you’ve got a massive boozing appetite. That’s like, a day!”

Despite that, he’s doing well so far, though finding it a bit longwinded. “I feel like it’s been ages but it’s been two days,” he says. “It was the World Cup that did it for me.”

“That was half a year ago,” says drummer Elliot Rawson, half amused, half exasperated. Oli either doesn’t hear him or just doesn’t acknowledge him and continues on.

“I said during the World Cup, ‘I’m gonna drink every day.’

Someone would ask me to do something at one o’clock and I’d say, ‘I can’t at one, it’s Colombia versus Japan.’ I’d be at the pub watching Pointless waiting for the football to come on, drinking. If I start drinking again, that’s basically another two years disappeared out of my life.”

He’s referring to a time that was more than a little chaotic for the band. Founding member Andy Jones moved to

“I was thinking, ‘Right, this is it.

Be normal for one day...’”

- Oli Burslem 46 diymag.com

Australia and Oli followed him there for a while, via Japan, but was soon stranded, having spent all of his money.

Once back in London, he had to live out of the back of a car while trying to figure out how to make another record.

“I can’t put it in any kind of order in my head, what happened,” he says now. “I was pretty fucked for most of it, which is a bit boring after a bit. It’s been a bit of a daze for many reasons. In certain states that we were in, it was quite hard to operate in those two years or be productive, or just about manage to do a gig. I think the proper last gig we played with Andy was the Scala and I remember thinking, ‘Oh, that’s the last gig we’ll ever play. We’ll not do that again.’”

Somehow, Oli and Elliot managed to stick together and, with new bassist Vinny Davies, make astonishing second album, ‘Pursuit Of Momentary Happiness’. It’s a record that howls and sighs through manic post-punk, beautifully tender psych, and some of Yak’s best songs yet; a kind of blood-letting for all the chaos that was swirling around them as they made it. Its title feels fitting for the band, and particularly their frontman, of late. “There were loads of times we’d be at parties, raving, going out until all hours, and that seemed to give me the most happiness,” Oli says.

“But also at the back of your head, that’s probably not the idea of any kind of longevity of happiness. Also if you have a lot of highs and lows, then there’s the matter of the comedown.”

He shoves another bite of his toastie in his mouth and, just when you think he’s finished on that point, begins explaining where the album title came from. “There’s this local street guy,” he says, prefacing the anecdote with another “it’s weird.” “He’d pulled a knife on me before. He’s coming down the street and I was like, ‘Oh, it’s this guy again, I hope he’s in a better mood’. He was asking for a fag or drugs or whatever. I didn’t have anything so I was like, ‘Pursuit of happiness, mate.’ And then he said, ‘Oh, it’s only momentary.’ That was after the song so I was like, ‘Woahhh!’ I remember thinking that’d be a good title.”

I

f anyone else told you that story, you’d immediately call them out for spouting cynically-concocted bollocks. But, with Oli, it’s always hard to tell whether something’s true, a complete fabrication, or a mixture of the two. He’s the kind of person who seems to roll through life, getting into scrapes, mishaps

A Series of Unfortunate Events ...And how Oli Burslem turned them into Yak’s unlikely second triumph.

Words: Rhian Daly. Photos: Emma Swann.

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like, ‘OK, I’ve taken this a bit too far now.”

and odd situations without even trying. A conversation with him is one that’s peppered with tales where you’ll never quite figure out if he’s having you on or not.

That sentiment is one that may well have popped into Oli’s head more than once over the last two years. Yet, on the record’s title track - a twinkling waltz given a scruffy edge by his slurred delivery - he sighs, “If nobody felt anything […] that just ain’t living”. It seems to suggest that maybe the wildcard singer doesn’t really mind being in the eye of several storms at once. “I suppose so,” he shrugs. “We do see people just get on with it. I’m not one of them though.

It’s nice to feel things occasionally...”

During this particular conversation, he keeps any truly wild stories to himself, only hinting once at a night on tour that ended in a police chase. Press him for details and he’ll grin mischievously and reply: “I couldn’t possibly say.” Earlier, while talking about a day in the studio after Vinny joined the band, he gives a little insight into the workings of his brain as he tells a tale about deciding to cut his own hair while pissed, but only managing one clump before passing out.

“Then I got to the studio first [the next day] and had a very peculiar haircut,” he continued. “Vinny’s never cut hair before but I thought he’d be able to. So we got the kitchen scissors out of the rack and I stood in the car park.

He did a great job.”

He pauses before quietly dropping the pay-off. “I thought if there was a murder there I’d be done for the DNA.”

But does everything need to be quite so extreme all the time? Elliot lets out a wry laugh at the question, as Oli leans back and smiles.

“Not necessarily, no,” he concedes, before clutching at the silk pyjama shirt underneath his jumper. “I put these on last night, I woke up this morning and the alarm went off.

Usually I snooze it but it was like, ‘That’s off now. I’m a good guy.’ Slid out of bed, kettle’s on. I was thinking, ‘Right, this is it. Be normal for one day.’ You always wanna be something you’re not, don’t you?” That may be, but really, as ‘Pursuit Of Momentary Happiness’ shows, Yak are more than alright being their ridiculous, radical and - yes - weird selves.

“If you have a lot of highs and lows, then

the matter of the comedown.” - Oli Burslem

there’s

Later, the frontman dishes out some more illuminating assessments of himself that you might have already worked out by now. “I’m always a bit dramatic,” he says at one point. “I think I ran away to the circus when I was seven and got lost, got freaked out. As you get older and realise you haven’t changed a lot, you try not to be as melodramatic.” He pauses for the briefest of moments before he corrects that fragment of a yarn sandwiched between his self-analysis. “I think it was a fair, that’s what it was. Andy’s dad found me somewhere in the middle of nowhere and it was getting dark. I remember starting to be

Normality’s overrated anyway.

‘Pursuit Of Momentary Happiness’ is out 8th February via Third Man Records / Virgin EMI. DIY

LOND e ve n O N : W h e r tu e home ally retur he n his c for a stint ed ar. in

TOK sing YO: W i n s p e r we h e r e t h n o f t i r a t i o n t fo r c e he p re r o c a t t h e a t i ve ess st a rt .

NAS T h i H V I LL rd M E a n R : Hom e c o e of rds .

y nt a r ome of M g suit r in r u e here f ‘P nd ing o s wa b e, b u t w mak ’ took it lo g The e s h s pine ve r t Hap all o en? e tman fron has Oli b t ex a c

he here ord with H: W ec PERT ped to r son (and t m deca ’s Jay Wa hing). t D PON sically no a did b 49

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Ambition

Blonde

Not how we’d normally use a chair, but you do you, Beth.

name), and her first to emerge as an entirely self-produced, selfdirected, fully-immersive beast.

On 2015’s ‘Welcome Back To Milk’, Beth Jeans Houghton re-emerged under a new moniker with directness and riffs at its core.

Now, with follow up ‘Lung Bread For Daddy’, Du Blonde is tgoing even further along her own sweet way.

Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Phil Smithies.

“I

’ve always been very strong in my opinions and beliefs of how I want to be. There’s never been a point where I’ve been uncertain in how I want to sound, or what I want to wear or say,” begins Beth Jeans Houghton, the artist behind Du Blonde.

“But, the music industry being as it is, if you’re young and being perceived as female then you’re in a position where no one will take you seriously with a lot of things.

So it’s been a long time of trying to figure it out. Working towards this idea of success and then realising it’s actually someone else’s idea of success, and that you never wanted to be famous anyway, so why are you compromising yourself artistically?”

Sat in the corner of a Dalston bar, clad in a fur coat and flares and fresh from the release of recent single ‘Buddy’ - in which she submerges herself in a bath-full of tinned spaghetti for the selfdirected accompanying video - it’s hard to picture Du Blonde as an artist who compromises. But it’s taken the singer nearly a decade in the industry to get to the point of ‘Lung Bread for Daddy’ - her forthcoming third album (the second under the Du Blonde

First entering the public eye in the late ‘00s with folk-tinged project Beth Jeans Houghton and the Hooves of Destiny, the then-teenage singer inked a deal before releasing debut ‘Yours Truly, Cellophane Nose’ in 2012 to a slew of praise, thus declaring her a kind of Florence Welch in Wonderland figure. When she resurfaced three years later with a different name, a new meaty, riffy sound and wearing nothing but a fur coat and fluffy merkin on the cover of (truly excellent) second LP ‘Welcome Back to Milk’ then, it’s fair to say that people were slightly surprised.

But, explains Beth, her output had been playing catch up for a while by that point.

“I had a lot of frustration after the first record. I loved it and I’m glad I did it and I stand by it all, but I wrote those tracks when I was 16, recorded them between 16 and 18 and then released them when I was 21. So it’s the difference between being a young teenager and a young adult,” she explains.

“I’d changed so much and I felt that, even though people were reacting well to the record, it wasn’t me. That was the main thing about [starting this project], thinking, I’m gonna make what I wanna make

“Having a different name means I can walk out on stage and whatever I do, that’s Du Blonde and then I can go home and be Beth and be my weird self,” she says of the change in thinking. Yet ‘Lung Bread for Daddy’ seems to go a fair way to bridging the gap between the two sides of the now-29-year-old.

It’s a record that’s artistically full of life yet underpinned with a strain of darkness and vulnerability much like a conversation with Beth herself.

C

heesy as it may sound, but in an age when anyone can and frequently does (hello, yodelling Walmart boy) become a chart prospect overnight, it’s refreshing to find someone who hums with the frequency of an artist in its truest sense. Sit down with Beth and her conversation is filled with talk of her illustration and animation projects, of a childhood spent dreaming of “the West Coast music scene and taking trips across America” and a young adulthood spent actually doing it.

“If someone was like, here’s £100k and here’s a house you can buy and you can live in it, I wouldn’t do it,” she nods. “I want more stability, but my idea of stability is to be financial stable enough to do all the things I’ve always wanted to do. I want to have an art exhibition and I want to finish my book and all of

“The more open I can be about gross stuff, the less I feel worried about it.” finally. Something simpler, with more blunt lyrics, where I can call a spade a spade.”

Informed by a nomadic lifestyle spent in and out of LA, where she “never really lived anywhere for more than a couple of months,” that first Du Blonde record rings with big yet consistently surprising melodies and a feeling of exploration.

these different things.” And on one side it’s this hunger for creativity that shoots throughout her current work - from the strange metaphors and purposefully grotesque titles and phrases that run within it to the complete audiovisual world she’s creating alongside.

But there’s a relatable sense of doubt and honesty beneath the

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seeming self-confidence (“I’m not as extroverted as I seem...” she chuckles at that assessment) that makes Du Blonde a far more empathetic author than on first merkin-clad glance. Take new track ‘Holiday Resort’, in which, over fuzzy, simply-strummed chords she sings “Spoke to my doctor, he said I’m past my peak / All my eggs are dying, in my twenties I’m antique”. “My mum owned her house when she was 21 on the wage that she made, and I think, well what the fuck am I doing?!” she says of the track. “But then you look around and everybody else is like that too.” Shortly after in the track, meanwhile, she serves up a natty one-liner about sitting in her room “pulling pubic hairs from the crotch of [her] swimming costume”. It is, we note, kind of brilliantly disgusting. “But that’s what my life is!” she laughs. “I’ve always felt like the more open I can be about gross stuff, the less I feel worried about it. In all of my relationships, I’ve had a real issue with shitting near the other person if I know that they’ll hear it or smell it, to the point where I’ll be constipated for a week. But then my last boyfriend, I accidentally farted in front of him a couple of times and he didn’t give a shit. I felt so free! I accidentally shat myself in 52

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front of him because I had sepsis and I didn’t care! If you can either find people who are OK with you being human, or you can just be like ‘I am human’ then that’s so freeing.

“I spent so much of my life with depression and feeling ashamed of it, having eating disorders and being really secretive. Even when I started taking medication for depression, I thought, oh you’ve got to be careful who you tell because all these people have these ideas of if you should or shouldn’t be doing it. I think I just got to a point where I thought, I’m just gonna be completely honest and whatever people think, I don’t care because I’ve been honest and I know what I need and I’m happy with it.”

And the same evidently rings as true for Du Blonde. On ‘Lung Bread for Daddy’, the singer is finally throwing away any last vestiges of outside expectation, fully taking the reigns and doing entirely what she wants to do. Luckily for us, it sounds pretty damn good, as well.

‘Lung Bread for Daddy’ is out 22nd February via Moshi Moshi. DIY

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Better Oblivion ommunity enter C C 54 diymag.com

Two of alt-folk’s finest songwriters have come together for an album that’s urgent, gorgeous and a restorative slice of comfort.

Come in.

WORDS: WILL RICHARDS.

W

hen Conor Oberst popped up as a guest vocalist on ‘Would You Rather’, a highlight from Phoebe Bridgers’ 2017 debut ‘Stranger In The Alps’, there was palpable chemistry. The pair’s voices wormed in and out of each other on a chorus that’s breathtaking in its simplicity, before colliding together on an urgent final run-through, the Bright Eyes singer’s husky whirr and the newcomer’s soaring tones fitting together with ease.

Conor saw the singer play in Los Angeles back in 2016, and was so struck that he asked her to send him the album before its release. Later, he invited her out to support him on the tour for his solo LP ‘Ruminations’, and a seed was planted for a collaborative partnership that has since blossomed.

“I was spending a lot of time in LA in the last couple of years, and I ended up hanging out with Phoebe and her friends a lot,” Conor explains, over the phone from his native Omaha, where he and Phoebe are recording in the run-up to Christmas.

“They’re always working on songs together, and trying to write for different people’s records, and their own records, so it’s a cool scene to be around.” He continues: “[There are] a lot of songwriters that are happy to share their songs and so we just wrote one of those songs on a whim, and then it turned into...’let’s do another one!’ And then ‘maybe we’ll make a single!’ and then…” Well, then it turned into the Better Oblivion Community Center.

R

eleased at the end of January - the same day it was announced - ‘Better Oblivion Community Center’ is a pure collaboration, a record that pushes both their musical boundaries to their

limits, before sticking itself back together and becoming something new, fresh and unexpected, all while keeping their idiosyncrasies intact. Written together from the ground up, it doesn’t feel like an album of two halves, as records like these so often do; throughout its ten tracks, they trade verses, soar together on urgent choruses, and overlap like fish down a stream.

Despite this instant sense of harmony between the pair, it was their contrasting outlooks that made the record thrive, as Phoebe explains: “I tend to gravitate towards people who have very similar sensibilities to me, [especially] when I’m writing for my own project, and the reason this snowballed into a completely different project is because we started writing songs and realised it doesn’t sound like either one of our styles, but a weird combo. I tend to be super autobiographical, and it was really cool to step out and not do that.”

Across the record, there’s plenty of the kind of confessional songwriting and earworm melodies that both singers have been separately known for - breezy lead single ‘Dylan Thomas’ would fit nicely on Bright Eyes’ ‘I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning’, while first track ‘I Didn’t Know What I Was In For’, which starts with just Phoebe and an acoustic guitar, spins the kind of story that made ‘Stranger In The Alps’ such an alluring debut, but it’s the album’s left turns that really make it shine. ‘Exception To The Rule’ starts with the pair’s reverb-drenched vocals set under a thudding synth line before the catchiest chorus of the whole record bursts out of nowhere, while ‘Sleepwalkin’’ sees a Bright Eyes-esque verse turn down an alleyway and become an expansive, anthemic rock song by its chorus. ‘Big Black Heart’, meanwhile, menacingly builds from a slow, fluttering intro into a gargantuan conclusion, Phoebe’s voice reaching a furious new height. It’s surprising, intoxicating, and the crowning moment of a record that pushes boundaries across its duration.

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S

nowballing from the writing of the now-suitably-titled ‘I Didn’t Know What I Was In For’, the album came together with few hiccups in early 2017, before being put to tape last summer, with help from members of Dawes - frequent collaborators of Conor’s - as well as Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Nick Zinner, who adds guitars to ‘Dylan Thomas’ and closer ‘Dominoes’. “I collaborate with people a lot as far as arranging songs and whatever, but it was interesting to write every song together, start to finish,” Conor reflects.

“It came very naturally, but also there’s a natural push and pull. To me, writing is a solitary thing, and then

to get a chance to work on something to the point that it makes both of us happy. I mean, Phoebe’s probably a bit more of a perfectionist than I am, so it was good for me to have her be like ‘You know what, let’s go back and think about that one verse again - we can come up with something better than that’ and I think both of us were pushing each other to make it a little better, or different to our own stuff.”

In keeping with the album’s spontaneous creation, its release came with very little build-up or anticipation, allowing it to be digested in one chunk and come with the fewest number of preconceptions possible. It deserves it, too; clocking in at just 40 minutes, ‘Better Oblivion Community Center’ flows perfectly. “I didn’t want people to make assumptions as to what it’s going to sound like,” affirms Phoebe. “I don’t know what that even is really, but even just releasing one song [in advance]... I think the songs are pretty different from each other on the record, so if we were to release one, people might make assumptions as to what the entire record sounds like, and so it just felt fun to me to have no hype, no anything, just ‘here it is!’.”

“It’s a fun surprise,” agrees Conor. “For people that like both of our music, or like either of our music, here’s ten new songs to listen to.”

“I think Phoebe’s an amazing songwriter, one that doesn’t come around that often.” - CONOR OBERST

“I feel like the coolest part of it was our differences as writers.” PHOEBE BRIDGERS

Conor, especially, would be forgiven for staying in his comfort zone, but the project shows a continued willingness to collaborate, learn and improve, and on ‘Better Oblivion Community Center’, it brings fantastic results. “I guess I’ve always maybe not been the best at my....

I could’ve made smarter moves career-wise, and done things that made more sense,” he reflects, half-chuckling. “Everyone will say, ‘So...how many bands do you have?!’ But to me, I like making music, and making music with my friends. It’s something that always revitalises my creative self, to do it with a new person and welcome new ideas. Of course I still like making music with my old friends too, but I like having new perspectives, and I think Phoebe’s an amazing songwriter, one that doesn’t come around that often, so to get to do a whole thing with her was really cool. It definitely reenergised me.”

“And you’re alright I guess…” Phoebe quips back. “It’s nice seeing you learn from me as a songwriter! That’s the gratifying thing for me,” she finishes with a chuckle, “teaching you how to write songs.”

‘Better Oblivion Community Center’ is out now via Dead Oceans.

DIY

“What’cha thinkin’ about?”

“Cuuuute stuff.”

56 diymag.com

57

With the release of ‘Almost Free’ upping their game and then some, FIDLAR’s Zac and Elvis delve into the delicate balance between fantasy and reality. Words: Ben Tipple. Photos: Phil Knott.

California

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S

ince the release of their 2013 self-titled debut, Los Angeles punks FIDLAR have embodied the turbulence of rock’s melodramatic sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll mantra. Their sun-kissed vibe has, until now, always accompanied frenetic odes to hedonism. On third LP ‘Almost Free’, however, the quartet marry decadence with a harsh dose of reality. And as Zac Carper and Elvis Kuehn sit down to discuss how far they’ve come, speaking from the city which has inspired much of their sound, it marks a milestone in a career of extremes.

“The world is fucking crazy,” utters frontman Zac suddenly as an almost involuntary response to a question about the album’s themes - ones that, in part, battle with the pros and cons of chemical escapism. It’s something the FIDLAR vocalist has experienced first-hand, giving up the sauce and Class A’s completely back in 2013, and now dabbling more reservedly. The fallout of his stormy relationship with drugs is littered across ‘Almost Free’. “Why does staying sober make you feel like a loner?” he asks on ‘By Myself’, a song that equally acknowledges the perils and temptations of substance abuse. Much like the rest of the album, it never fully commits to either. The record as a whole pushes and pulls between full escapism and the difficult truths of everyday life and society, its ultimate aim to find the means to cope with reality and the comfort in that.

“It’s about things that are going on in our lives,” Zac continues, “but we live in LA. [So that] ends up seeping into most of the stuff. Most of the material relates back to the city in some way.” This relationship with their pleasure-soaked home town host of countless parties and home to a juxtaposition of stereotypical sun-soaked culture and its darker undercurrent - may have always partly informed their music, but on ‘Almost Free’ it’s a vital backbone that runs throughout. As they sing on glammy early album highlight ‘Flake’: “I think you’re a fake/ That’s OK, this is LA.” Indeed, it’s telling that the record opens with tales of gentrification, displacement and the fakes and flakes that tend to follow them out of the woodwork; there’s an unsettling despondency that often underpins the band’s (completed by bassist Brandon Schwartzel and drummer Max Kuen) sound. No matter how bad - or occasionally good - things get in their lyrics, there’s an unmistakable feeling that it’s all just temporary, and it’s one only highlighted by the band’s way with a deceptively upbeat hook.

Dreaming

“Our music is about trying to feel more alive,” Elvis explains. “We like to write fun songs that are joyful sounding and that are fun to dance to, but the

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Love

CALIFORNIA

FIDLAR’s love-hate relationship with LA is embedded into a whole lot of their music. With that in mind, Zac and Elvis break down what there is to love about the Golden State’s largest city.

SURFING “If you want to surf, it’s a sick spot,” Zac says of Topanga Canyon, one of the only few un-dammed waterways in the area. It sounds idyllic.

TACO TRUCKS Famed for its Mexican street food, LA has a lot to choose from. “La Estrella on Eagle Rock is the best one,” says Zac. WEATHER Zac jokes that it’s a balmy 30 degrees, taking time out to convert Fahrenheit to Celsius. “I like it... when it’s not freezing.”

LIVE SHOWS “The Troubadour is really cool,” Elvis recommends. “It’s a legendary LA venue and it’s been here since the ‘60s. I like the old institutions that are still around. It’s an awesome place to see.”

HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD “Not Hollywood Boulevard,” Zac laughs. “Don’t go there.”

content that we’re singing about is not complete fantasy.

There’s a lot of reality in it too, and the lyrical content is dealing with real shit. I think there’s a balance there.” It’s a sentiment evident in all that FIDLAR do, but more so on ‘Almost Free’ than ever before. Lead single ‘Alcohol’ sees Zac declare that he’s “going to be OK” before nonchalantly begging for the song’s namesake, meanwhile the brutal bleakness of heartbreak is paired up with their most overtly saccharine melody to date on the K. Flay-featuring ‘Called You Twice’.

“Whether it’s our earlier stuff, singing about partying and drugs, or this newer stuff - we’ve always had this escapist feeling,” Zac says, acknowledging that this type of distorted reality is the band’s bread and butter. But over time these ideas have evolved alongside the band’s own personal experiences. Their debut was released in the throngs of excess, and their second following Zac’s sobriety. ‘Almost Free’ sits in the middle, neither for or against the other, as a nod to the impossibility of full escapism.

Yet, for Zac and Elvis, it’s on stage where they feel furthest removed from the daily grind. “People come to our live shows to not think about any other thing than being at a show,” Zac states with pride, before conversation

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switches in tone to the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris. FIDLAR, who played a show in the UK almost immediately after in the height of fear, were met by a full room. “People didn’t want to go to shows, but they came to our show because they wanted to escape the craziness, the anxiety...” Zac pauses. “Or maybe they didn’t want to waste money on a ticket.”

Creatively, ‘Almost Free’ has, in part, taken FIDLAR back to their roots. It may have taken longer to come together than ‘Too’, but it sees the band retain all of their urgency whilst adding some extra polish courtesy of producer Ricky Reed. “For this record it felt like were going back to how we did it in the beginning,” says Elvis. “90% of what you hear was started in Zac’s studio. It was like how we did it for the first record, but we added Ricky into the mix.

He helped us go back to that way of working. He told us to keep the demos because there was some sort of magic to them.”

“Ricky was also so good at hearing things that we weren’t,” adds Zac. “We had demos from our studios, but sometimes you get stuck on stuff and he was so good at twisting it. I think it was a little more freeing. We had that freedom to make what we wanted to make.”

“Any stereotype that people have tried to pin us down with, we’ve gone in the opposite direction.” - Zac Carper The result places ‘Almost Free’ as the quartet’s most diverse release to date. From a band who have consistently reimagined their otherwise skate-ready sound, the thirteen tracks are potentially their most claustrophobic. Yet, at the same time, they play with vibrant sounds - from the bounce of ‘By Myself’ to the explosive force of Beastie Boys-esque opener ‘Get Off My Rock’. The record’s most surprising moments, meanwhile, come in the thunderous, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it ‘Nuke’, and the blues-infused, instrumental title track.

“I think we were just bored,” Zac laughs, discussing these changes. “It’s definitely different to our last record, and that’s the whole point. We went into the studio and we tried to do as many things as we could. We weren’t limited by guitars, bass drums and vocals. Basically, any stereotype that people have tried to pin us down with, we’ve gone in the opposite direction.”

Elvis agrees. “When you write all the time you mentally want to try different things, you know, to challenge yourself.” But he’s quick to shrug off the suggestion that this shift in style and tone is contrived. “I don’t think it was totally deliberate to make a statement to show everyone we aren’t who they think we are, it’s more of a natural evolution.”

Both Zac and Elvis are happy to play with fans’ preconceptions. Although FIDLAR’s themes have remained comparably consistent, the accompanying music has often shifted. Early in their career, the fuzzy grunge of ‘Awkward’ surprised many who were accustomed to the more purposefully frivolous sound of their first tracks. ‘40oz. On Repeat’ - the lead song from ‘Too’ - then sat somewhere between the two before breaking into a nursery rhyme-esque refrain. “Going into making a record and changing it up is actually pretty fun for us,” Zac beams. “With a band like ours, a lot of people just expect it to be the same thing.”

“We aren’t making music to make other people happy,” Elvis jumps in. “It’s to make ourselves happy, and to make the music we want to listen to. Once you get into thinking about what other people are going to think or feel about it, that’s just trying to control the outcome of releasing our music. We can’t control anything apart from what we are putting out there.”

“The reason why we make music is to feel good. It’s what we do and know how to do,” Zac offers enthusiastically before laughing: “We don’t know how to do anything else...”

‘Almost Free’ is out now via Mom & Pop. DIY 61

1. ASSUME FORM 2. MILE HIGH 3. TELL THEM 4. INTO THE RED 5. BAREFOOT IN THE PARK 6. CAN’T BELIEVE THE WAY WE FLOW 7. ARE YOU IN LOVE? 8. WHERE’S THE CATCH? 9. I’LL COME TOO 10. POWER ON 11. DON’T MISS IT 12. LULLABY FOR MY INSOMNIAC

eeee

JAMES BLAKE

Assume Form (Polydor)

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J

ames Blake’s album covers say a lot about his progression as an artist. On his 2011 debut, his face was shrouded and blurred. Follow-up ‘Overgrown’ was clearer, but saw him standing in the distance in a sparse, snowy landscape. Third effort, 2016’s ‘The Colour In Anything’, meanwhile, featured a signature illustration from his namesake, childrens’ illustrator Quentin. All relied on mystery and the unknown. On the sleeve for ‘Assume Form’, though, he’s front and centre, and this straightforwardness seeps into every facet of his fourth effort.

“I will assume form,” he wails, as a chorus bursts out of the album’s opening (and title) track. “I’ll leave the ether,” he continues. “I will be reachable.” The song - a slow, pianoled cut that unfolds slowly - serves as a door opening to

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an album that blows James Blake’s musical and personal horizons wide open. “Doesn’t it seem much warmer, just knowing that the sun will be out,” he offers as the song heads off into the sunset.

After an intimate, minimal pair of albums brought him the adoration of critics and a Mercury Prize win, ‘The Colour In Anything’ was James Blake’s huge, messy dive into something more all-encompassing, and it came with mixed results. Dropped without warning, and running to 75 minutes, it remains praiseworthy in its ambition, if not totally in its execution. ‘Assume Form’ keeps that same desire to break new ground, while taking it to the red line and managing to not outstay its welcome.

James has used high profile features to varying levels

of success on his three studio albums, and the trend continues on ‘Assume Form’. ‘Mile High’, featuring Travis Scott, is pleasant but largely anonymous, while ‘Tell Them’ is smoothed over by the ever-intriguing tones of Moses Sumney. Rosalía then shines on the serene ‘Barefoot In The Park’, but it’s the Andre 3000-featuring ‘Where’s The Catch’ that really sticks. Foreboding stabs of dulled piano creates a base upon which the Outkast rapper smashes through the clouds to deliver a sharp hammer-blow of a verse.

Though the features add texture and variation to a record that’s constantly shapeshifting, it’s James’ solo songs that define the album. ‘Where’s The Catch’ is followed by the gorgeous ‘I’ll Come Too’. A lovestruck ballad, the song glides upon an instantly memorable vocal line via which he

reaches more personal epiphanies. “I’m gonna say what I need, if it’s the last thing I do,” he begins emphatically. “I’ll throw my hat in the ring / I’ve got nothing to lose.”

‘Power On’, which follows the track, is an even more forceful exorcism of past demons and the album’s stunning centrepiece. “I thought I might be better dead but I was wrong,” he begins, reflecting on former mistakes from a new vantage point. As the song draws to a triumphant close, he turns these personal revelations outwards. “If it feels like a home, power on,” he repeats, encouraging others to grasp any opportunity to move forwards and onwards, completely changing his placing as an artist in the process. Where James Blake can go now is limitless.

(Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘I’ll Come Too’, ‘Power On’, ‘Into The Red’ 63

eeee BETTER OBLIVION COMMUNITY CENTER

Better Oblivion Community Center (Dead Oceans)

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The Better Oblivion Community Center emerged a couple of months ago, posting cryptic tweets and sending a brochure that claimed it offered things such as ‘assisted self-care’ and ‘sacred crystal implantation and removal’. But rather than being some sort of dystopian spa, it’s a collaboration between Phoebe Bridgers and Conor Oberst, who after collaborating on tracks and tours, have made an album that combined both of their sounds to create something that doesn’t quite sound like either of them.

Opening with just Phoebe singing over an acoustic guitar, ‘Didn’t Know What I Was In For’ paints the same kind of lyrical specificity and emotive storytelling that made the singer’s 2017 debut album ‘Stranger In The Alps’ so successful. Elsewhere, the album is full of kicking drum beats and the grind of electric guitars: ‘Dylan Thomas’ sounds primed for country rock radio whereas ‘Big Black Heart’ reaches levels of raw, distressed energy that both of their solo work never quite has. ‘Exception To The Rule’ is a real highlight though, with Conor and Phoebe’s harmonising vocals intertwining over a juddering synth, before they cry “Why don’t you want it anymore!” on one of the album’s most memorable moments. (Rachel Finn) LISTEN: ‘Exception To The Rule’, ‘Didn’t Know What I Was In For’

eee CHERRY GLAZERR Stuffed & Ready (Secretly Canadian)

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There’s always been underlying parallels between Los Angeles’ Cherry Glazerr and New York’s Sunflower Bean. Both emerged when still in their teens; both are fronted by ridiculously cool women who also happen to stomp the catwalk on occasion. But while the Beans have steadily upped the classic rock influence on their increasingly radiofriendly arsenal, Clementine Creevy and co have resolutely stayed in the stranger underbelly of guitar music’s backwaters. ‘Stuffed & Ready’ is not a Radio One-courting listen; lacing the frontwoman’s sing-song vocal over gnarly riffs and big, dark, emotionally weighty numbers, there’s something claustrophobic about its overall vibe. ‘Wasted Nun’ is all breathy desperation, ‘That’s Not My Real Life’ adds some Cureesque guitar lines to up the self-doubt while ‘Isolation’ is just as bleak, heart-wringing an effort as you might expect from the title.

While not a record that’s likely to raise their star, ‘Stuffed & Ready’ is one that shows a band resolutely ploughing their own furrow without compromise. An album that suggests its singer may have been through the emotional wringer during its creation, Clementine should at least find some comfort in its cathartic results. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Wasted Nun’

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Clementine had taken her album title a little too literally.

eee BRING ME THE HORIZON amo

(Sony / RCA)

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In 2019, Bring Me The Horizon find themselves occupying strange territory. While legions of fans grew up on the band’s metallic brashness, complete with Oli Sykes’ scorched screaming, it’s no secret they’re no longer the same band that offered up 2008’s ‘Suicide Season’ or even 2013’s ‘Sempiternal’. Having grown into powerful arena-dwellers on previous effort ‘That’s The Spirit’, it’d be easy to assume they’d channel a similar essence on ‘amo’. Instead, here, guitars are secondary to huge synths and pulsating beats. Tracks like the Grimes collab ‘nihilist blues’ and ‘ouch’ take the electronic elements the band have previously flirted with and place them front and centre; ‘amo’ is worlds away from the band’s metalcore roots. And while the expansive production is largely impressive, something just doesn’t quite click into place. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: ‘MANTRA’

eeee YAK

Pursuit of Momentary Happiness (Third Man Records / Virgin EMI)

eee GIRLPOOL What Chaos Is Imaginary (ANTI-)

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Yak’s Oli Burslem seems intent on throwing himself into his art to a semi-ludicrous extent. Case in point: he ended up living in a car for a decent portion of the making of the trio second’s record after pissing his advance away on a global gallivant.

We’re not advocating it as a life choice, but for the wildcard singer, it works; ‘Pursuit of Momentary Happiness’ manages to harness even more of the band’s unpredictable live energy while careering between boggle-eyed riffy bangers and booze-sodden self-reflection in truly inimitable fashion. On ‘Blinded By The Lies’, Oli repeatedly howls to “kick him in the face!” over the kind of fizzing guitars that Jack White (now their label boss) would be proud of; conversely, the title track is a twinkling weeper that sits firmly at the bottom of the bottle. It’s a record that’s rarely predictable, frequently unhinged and utterly indebted to the absolute nutter at the centre of it.

And frankly, if you’re not even a little bit sucked in by the Sabbath psych reimagining of ‘He’s Got The Whole World In His Hands’ that ends ‘White Male Carnivore’ then you probably just need whatever Oli’s having. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Bellyache’

Still in their early twenties, Girlpool’s Harmony Tividad and Cleo Tucker have been playing music together since they were teenagers and ‘What Chaos Is Imaginary’ is already the duo’s third album. But where their earlier tracks erred on the simple side, now their music is a multidimensional, multi-faceted affair, full of fragile introspection and meandering guitars.

There are some highlights here ‘Hoax and the Shrine’ is a minimalist ballad and feels refreshing amidst a collection of shoegaze-y buzz. The title track meanwhile, with its eerie keyboard chords and strings, stands out among the others as one of the album’s more experimental tracks.

But the album sometimes bubbles just under the surface of exploding into something more powerful.

(Rachel Finn) LISTEN: ‘What Chaos Is Imaginary’

Yak

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eeee JULIA JACKLIN Crushing

(Transgressive)

eeee DU BLONDE

Lung Bread For Daddy (Moshi Moshi)

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Trading her previous folk guise for a more direct, uncompromising and riffier slant onprevious LP ‘Welcome Back to Milk’ and now her newest, Du Blonde - aka Newcastle-born, London-dwelling singer Beth Jeans Houghton’s - combination of no fucks given rock’n’roll badassery and more sombre, nocturnal vulnerability is a winning one. ‘Peach Meat’ is an unsettling dirge that comes up for air via a sparkling chorus riff; opener ‘Coffee Machine’ is the cinematic morning-after of a doomed love story, while single ‘Angel’ uses the simplest, scrappiest riffs and Beth’s sonorous tones to make something more than the sum of its parts. Du Blonde continues to be one of UK guitar music’s best kept secrets.

(Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Coffee Machine’

DRENGE

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Debut ‘Don’t Let The Kids Win’ often seemed like an angsty lament on growing up and lost youth, Julia Jacklin making a name for herself as a newcomer with a talent for writing rich indie with a country slant. ‘Crushing’ is more contemplative, flitting between a feeling of intimacy and isolation, with Julia’s aptitude for painting hyper-specific moments or situations stronger than ever. “I remembered early days when you took my camera turned to me, twenty-three, naked on your bed looking straight at ya,” she murmurs on slowburning opener ‘Body’.

“Do you still have that photograph / would you use it to hurt me?”

Unpacking messy feelings over delicate guitars, ‘Crushing’ may have been born from a place of confusion, but Julia Jacklin’s voice sounds clearer than ever. (Rachel Finn) LISTEN: ‘Body’

eeee PANDA BEAR Buoys (Domino)

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‘Buoys’, the sixth album from Panda Bear, is the simplest sounding record Noah Lennox has put his name to - all the neon gnarl and snarl of 2015’s ‘Meets The Grim Reaper’ turned down.

What remains is that reverb-heavy vocal timbre, always seemingly overlapping itself, while strummed and looped acoustic guitars, the sounds of things deflating and a raft of nautical or at least nautical-sounding effects bubble and fizz alongside.

As a stripped-back affair, ‘Buoys’ offers a chance to hear his ear for circular melodies clearer than ever.

Old, but new at the same time, the seemingly limited palette of ‘Buoys’ is single minded and direct.

A stunning, if hushed, indirect hit. (Jake Kennedy) LISTEN: ‘Token’

eee DRENGE

Strange Creatures (Infectious)

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Drenge evolved into a three-piece on second album, ‘Undertow’ - a well-executed adjustment, adding bassist Rob Graham to the lineup.

Since then, the band have continue to broaden their horizons with each release - from that 2015 second effort to 2018’s ‘Autonomy’ EP - blossoming into a cohesive and wellrounded creative statement. Indeed, many of ‘Autonomy’’s key characteristics can be found on ‘Strange Creatures’: archetypal riff-rock buffoonery, volatile guitar/drum interplay, Eoin Loveless’ increasingly bizarre vocal presence. But the end result this time around is less enticing, resulting in a plethora of hit-andmiss garage-rock that expands into structurally sloping poetic misery.

That said, it does possess a handful of standout tracks, most notably ‘Autonomy’ - again, a song found on their EP of the same name - and ‘Teenage Love’, which pops and crackles with a bizarre, cyberpunk quirk.

As a statement, however, ‘Strange Creatures’ limps and sags habitually, never quite succumbing to Drenge’s wishful potential and ruthless attempts at crafting the idyllic garage-rock their previous releases showcased. It’s a shame when the promise never quite delivers.

(Timmy Michalik) LISTEN: ‘Teenage Love’

ALBUMS eee

BEIRUT Gallipoli (4AD)

eee POM POKO Birthday (Bella Union)

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When you consider how damn fun Pom Poko’s debut ‘Birthday’ is, it makes sense that they chose the name they did. Isao Takahata’s 1994 animated film ‘Pom Poko’ features a group of tanuki: puckish creatures of Japanese folklore, trying to scare away the invading humans with a gigantic ‘ghost parade’.

Featuring shapeshifting creatures hellbent on causing pandemonium, the tanuki conjure up a colourful, noisy display of roguery.

Similarly driven by mischief and madness, this Norwegian quartet have created their very own ‘ghost parade’ with ‘Birthday’; a boisterous wake up call that’s difficult to ignore.

At only 29 minutes long, it whips along at breakneck speed, chucking cheeky left turns, colourful explosions and riotous noise out with glee.

Students of jazz, but with a love of avantgarde art punk, Pom Poko bring something chaotic to the table.

It’s their bread and butter; the kaleidoscopic realm in which they thrive. As Ranghild Fangel sings on ‘My Work Is Full Of Art’, “I’ll just let freaky surround me”. With ‘Birthday’, they have, bringing a debut full of fired-up, spiky pop hits.

(Chris Taylor) LISTEN: ‘If U Want Me 2 Stay’

The fifth album from Zach Condon’s Beirut saw him (literally) returning to practices of old. The record was written on the same Farfisa organ used to write 2006’s ‘Gulag Orkestar’ and the following year’s ‘The Flying Club Cup’.

As such, there’s a gorgeous familiarity to the record, but it’s also one peppered with adventure. There’s a wide-eyed escapism to the album, underpinned by its title track. Highlights come in the jaunty, sunny-side-up single ‘Landslide’ and the brisk ‘Varieties Of Exile’, and though there’s little up and down across its length, it’s an immersive world to dive into, and a reminder of Zach Condon’s ability to weave glorious soundscapes. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Landslide’

Q&A Beirut’s latest comes via a stay in Berlin, a look back at his past work and a rather nasty skateboarding injury, as main man Zach Condon explains.

What do you think it is about Berlin that kept you there on a whim?

I’ve always been drawn to Europe for many reasons - a lot of which are better explained by comparing it to what America doesn’t have; beautiful architecture, functional organic cities, rational liberal and progressive ideas (for the most part). But I also felt like the artists and producers working there were very genuine in their work. They seem undisturbed by outside forces and matters of wealth and acclaim and it shows in the work. It struck me that though I had lived in Paris, New York and Istanbul, I had always felt stressed out and often out of place. In Berlin I felt at ease, as though the city doesn’t require you to live a certain lifestyle but rather leaves it all available to you as you need it.

It sounds as if you were quite reflective about your past work in the lead-up to this one; was it comforting to have a catalogue you could refer back to as you wrote?

It was good to look back and feel a sense of the struggle and the triumphs a bit.

I can hear myself battling with the sounds and grand ideas I had while writing. I can also see my faults and shortcomings musically and start to accept them for being an integral part of the music being and sounding human. That’s what stuck out to me a lot. I felt like taking back the ethos of the early recordings and bringing back that obsessive, messy and almost slash and burn style of recording, as well as the unique “Beirut” sound that had developed out of all of it.

After breaking your arm, do you think you’ll ever pick up a skateboard again?!

I wish I could. It’s the only ‘sport’ I’ve ever loved. I still watch it obsessively, know all the new pros and video parts coming out and still feel it’s the most impressive and inventive sport of them all. But I can’t take the injuries anymore. I need my wrists to be functional. I’ve already got arthritic inflammation in my left wrist. Wonderful.

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eeee

WOMAN’S HOUR Ephyra (Practise Music)

eeee METHYL ETHEL Triage

It’s been five years since Woman’s Hour released superb debut ‘Conversations’. With the release of follow-up ‘Ephyra’, Woman’s Hour have announced that the band is no more. “‘Ephyra’ is our eulogy”, they say, “an opportunity to reflect on what happened and embrace what we achieved”. And while the album is thus bittersweet, it is undoubtedly a creative highpoint; an album that seems to express a wealth of complex emotions; vocal harmonies are often isolated from the rest of the instrumentation, creating a confounding sadness. Nowhere else is this more obvious than on the closing track, ominously titled ‘Removal of Hope’. Ultimately, ‘Ephyra’ may have been the demise of this band, but Woman’s Hour have created something truly special in these final throes. (James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘From Eden to Exile Then Into Dust’

(4AD)

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Methyl Ethyl’s third album is choc-a-bloc with hooks and headnodding electro-pop from the get go.

‘Ruiner’ gallops about a swaggering chorus as Jake’s androgynous vocal repeats “that’s not good enough”, before a Tame Impalastyle bass line lays down a solid groove in ‘Scream Whole’. The epic synth stabs on ‘Trip The Mains’ seem to bounce right out of the speakers as the glitter-pop stomper subtly ascends towards its climax. ‘Post-Blue’, meanwhile, is a dusky, arpeggiated synth-bass number that bears similarities with Digital Versicolor’s ‘Glass Candy’.

By the time ‘Triage’ draws to an end it feels like a great journey has been accomplished, partly thanks to expert sequencing that switches between a variety of moods and atmospheres. ‘No Fighting’, ultimately, is a fitting finale - with some of the album’s catchiest vocals declaring “I don’t even want to fight” as pianos and swirling synths conjure up a wicked spell. Methyl Ethel have reached great new heights with this stellar effort. (James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Scream Whole’ 68 diymag.com

Q&A Woman’s Hour were done and dusted, while completed second album ‘Ephyra’ sat unreleased. Fiona Burgess, Will Burgess and Josh Hunnisett explain why it had to see the light of day after all.

What made you begin to decide to release ‘Ephyra’?

Fiona: I always hoped we would release it, but our personal and mental health had to take priority. The act of releasing an album after we’ve broken up is in some ways a conscious act of rebellion. It is a record forged from remains, a kind of post-mortem examination.

Will: When you take everything away it makes you appreciate what you had.

What was the process like of listening back and working out what would comprise the record?

Josh: As I was mixing the record, opening sessions from when we were still together was pretty strange. I was taken right back to sitting in Will’s house working on ideas.

Having spent time addressing my mental health after the break up of the band, it definitely felt like a dangerous position to be getting into. Now I’m missing it!

Fiona: We had a pretty good idea of what tracks would be on the record before we split up, but then after some distance, our decisions became much easier. Funnily enough, ‘Don’t Speak’ wasn’t originally going to be on the record. It was one of our early demos that we always thought of as a segue rather than a song in its own right. But then when I listened back to it I just realised that it needed to be given a place on the album.

Was there always a sense of unfinished business?

Fiona: It was clear that at that time the most important thing was looking after ourselves as individuals. And there was a mutual respect between us that our mental health was more important than our artistic output. But then after about a year, there was a collective desire to release what we’d made together.

I don’t think I could ever really accept the break up until we’d released the music. It was like I needed that closure, and I wanted us to end on a high.

Will: It’s hard to just walk away from something that is a part of you. So yes. I suppose so!

ALBUMS eeee SNEAKS

Highway Hypnosis (Merge)

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Already a figure in the Baltimore-Washington punk scene, Sneaks - aka Eva Moolchan - makes genre-bending music built on foundations of chilled-out post-punk.

While her past offerings have skewed a more bass-heavy vibe, ‘Highway Hypnosis’ is an entirely different kind of entity.

Her newest full-length is swarmed in rhythmic electronic beats resting on samples, synths and loops, at times a dark energy swirling underneath a restless, unsettled, beating sound.

Having already completed a tour in support of Goat Girl as well as several of her own headline dates in Europe, Sneaks keeps growing from strength to strength. Each soundbite from ‘Highway Hypnosis’ is heavy and layered, every track an earworm. Each number clocks in at less than three minutes, and she emphasises single phrases over and over again - most notably in ‘Beliefs’, mutating the melody and rhythm and tone to create a sludgy, murky exosphere that wouldn’t feel out of place playing loudly from the speakers deep into a forgotten ‘90s rave.

“Remove your beliefs and start again / ‘Cause all I want to do is start again,” she mantras repeatedly in a sort of hymn manner, creating an alien world of feelings and sounds that are clandestine and strange and odd but oddly liberating, all at the same time. (Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘Beliefs’

ee ANEMONE

eeee FEELS

eeee LADYTRON

(Luminelle)

(Wichita)

(Ladytron Music / !K7)

Anemone might hail from Montreal but, sonically, their hazy dream pop is straight out of a day spent drinking green juice in LA. Channelling a more floaty Pixx, with splashes of Beach House if they were a bit less po-faced, there’s a general aura of lava lamps that shoots through debut ‘Beat My Distance’. There are intriguing touches to be found, but there’s an intrinsically grating quality that’s hard to shake.

Possessed with the kind of wafty voice that makes you feel like you’re about to be given a lecture on the healing properties of crystals, singer Chloe Soldevilla is the dominant presence across the 10 tracks, but it’s not an entirely enjoyable one.

Maybe we just haven’t found the right lump of jade to soothe our auras yet, but ‘Beat My Distance’ is just a little too airy to land.

(Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘On Your Own’

Some bands sound like more than the sum of their parts. FEELS are one of them. Melodic guitars and playful vocals are at the forefront, with a sensibility that lands neatly between pop and punk. The LA outfit carry it off with gripping energy and infectiousness. There are points at which the bouncier, hookier material comes to the fore, recalling Bleached or the more polished side of SleaterKinney. Where ‘Post Earth’ really soars, though, is at its more ambitious points. The quietly epic ‘Sour’ plays like ‘Daydream Nation’-era Sonic Youth, all breathy, stream-of-consciousness vocals and interlocking distorted guitars. FEELS may take their cues from familiar sources, but in the case of ‘Post Earth’ they’ve crafted a terrific out-andout rock record. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Sour’

After seven years of silence comes Ladytron’s self-titled sixth album.

Aptly-named opener ‘Until The Fire’ leads into the album with the feeling of preparing for battle.

Similarly, ’The Island’ is a pulsating, anthemic number that speaks of the “apocalypse”. It’s all echoed by the cover, of course, with its raging fire at the end of a road.

The heavy electronic beats married with Helen Marnie’s vocals keep a thread moving throughout, a heartbeat of sorts. And while they might acknowledge and heavily reference destruction, they’re able to masterfully combine these elements into a collection of songs with a dreamlike sound, which serve as an electronic, ethereal comfort in a sometimes chaotic world.

(Alisa Wylie) LISTEN: ‘Deadzone’

Beat My Distance ........................................

Post Earth

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Ladytron

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SNEAKS

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eeee

HEALTH Vol. 4 :: Slaves of Fear (Loma Vista)

Four albums into the nihilistic void that HEALTH have carved out, the trio deliver at once their heaviest, catchiest, most decipherable and least predictable album. These long-term fans of impeccable contradictions are tearing up rulebooks quicker than anyone else can write them. The defining aesthetics here are the mix of twinkling synths with guitars shredded to thrash metal levels, all over a soulful vocal that delivers lines of hopelessness and faithlessness with absolute clarity. HEALTH meld the spiralling instrumentation of their earlier work, with the hooky structure of last album ‘Death Magic’ and then coat this creation in the blackest industrial ooze. Forever the outlier, the relentless experimentation and the resistance to the conventional always seemed to leave the trio way off the map. Today though, as the world itself shifts violently to stranger, darker positions, it makes sense to have HEALTH as a landmark. (Matthew Davies Lombardi) LISTEN: ‘God Botherer’

eee BROODS

Don’t Feed The Pop Monster (Neon Gold / Atlantic)

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Q&A The LA noiseniks are heading heavier and darker for ‘Vol. 4 :: Slaves of Fear’: The band’s Jake Duzsik fills us in.

Your music was already pretty dark before the world appeared to start imploding on itself: has any of this had an effect on the record?

We definitely set out to make a heavier and darker record. The decision didn’t come from a political or social imperative on a conscious level, but it certainly feels natural to us at this moment.

You’ve worked once again with Lars Stalfors. What does he bring to recording that keeps you returning to him?

We knew we wanted to make a massive step forward in production before releasing [2015’s] ‘Death Magic’. A large part of what took us so long to finish that record was finding someone who could help us realise the aesthetic we were looking for. We finished that album with Lars and were very proud of how it came out. It’s very difficult for us to be happy with the music we’ve released on a production level. So after finding someone that we work and communicate well with, it feels only logical to keep the creative relationship going.

You recently released a collaboration with Soccer Mommy and Purity Ring; what is it do you think that allows you to flirt with different musicians’ styles so well?

I would suspect that the scoring work we have done over the years has made us more predisposed to being open to working with others, as composing music to enhance a visual element is highly collaborative. Added to that, we are not a genre band and our approach in terms of production is fairly cinematic, which lends itself to a more wide range of styles than if we were limited by a strict instrumentation.

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With this LP, Broods build on the infectious yet ambient structure of 2016’s ‘Conscious’. It’s an experiment in mood, masterfully gliding through the motions of bubblegum sweetness and wistfulness.

Their flair for producing infectious earworms, however, is a constant.

‘Peach’, the forerunner to the release of ‘Don’t Feed The Pop Monster’, sees a progression from minimal synth to breaking a confetti-filled pop piñata.

‘Stevie & Sting’ is a genre-spanning canvas, splattered with throbbing electronic beats, jangling guitars and unforced vocals; like downing a heady cocktail of Chvrches and The 1975. Despite their identity being so closely interwoven with synth-pop, some of the more striking tracks here see Broods moving away from the keyboard, and reverting to more traditional instrumentation. ‘Dust’ employs moody guitarwork and ‘To Belong’ conjures the unlikeliest of grooves while hardly lifting a finger.

‘Don’t Feed The Pop Monster’ is a title steeped in irony: Broods are more than willing to cater to a pop consumer, but do so in a most inventive way.

(Sophie Walker) LISTEN: ‘Stevie & Sting’

ALBUMS eee WHITE LIES Five (PIAS)

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2019 marks a decade since White Lies topped the charts with debut LP, ‘To Lose My Life…’

That they’re still going strong and filling rooms marks them out as indie rock survivors, especially seeing as they’ve done so without any particularly profound sonic progression over the course of the albums that have followed.

Instead, they’ve always flirted with new ideas without ever fully committing; rousing arena rock on ‘Ritual’, panoramic soundscapes on ‘Big TV’, synthpop on ‘Friends’.

‘Five’, meanwhile, feels like an exercise in softness of touch, maybe the most reserved White Lies album to date; there’s less bite than usual in Harry McVeigh’s vocals, and where previously the guitars would be spiky and nudge towards post-punk, there’s languid, melodic riffs on the likes of ‘Finish Line’ and ‘Denial’. Much of the album is set against a backdrop of undulating beds of synth, which is an approach that suits them far better than ‘Friends’’ bouncy take on electronic sounds; ‘Tokyo’ nods cleverly towards New Order, whilst the closing salvo of ‘Believe It’ and ‘Fire and Wings’ finds a pointed, gripping balance between the guitars of the old White Lies and the fluttering keys of this latest iteration. Long-standing followers will lap up ‘Five’; for everybody else, it serves as a neat reminder of their staying power. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Tokyo’

eeee WICCA PHASE SPRINGS ETERNAL Suffer On

(Run For Cover)

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When Adam McIlwee left his post fronting Tigers Jaw, no one could have quite expected his next move: fronting the rap collective Gothboiclique which included Lil Peep.

With ‘Suffer On’, his debut album proper, the songwriter no longer has to prove himself.

As a result, it feels gloriously free (at least musically - its lyrics still focus on despair and depression). Blunt strums of acoustic guitars meet subtle but forceful 808 drum beats on opener ‘Together’, while single ‘Just One Thing’ is a witchy cut that sees Adam stretching his voice gloriously. ‘Suffer On’ sees Wicca Phase Springs Eternal leave all preconceptions at the door. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Put Me In Graves’

eeee QUEEN ZEE

eeee JESSICA PRATT

(Sasstone)

(City Slang)

Queen Zee

Quiet Signs

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‘Queen Zee’ is a riotous and, at times, hilarious debut. Chock-full of spiky riffs and even more spiky lyrics (“Don’t you think he looks like Kurt Cobain? / I said more like Courtney Love when she went insane”) it’s effectively the sound of a band having a blast and not giving a shit if you like it or not.

‘Sissy Fists’ is a standout moment; as maelstroms of guitars and brutal bass lines swirl around, the lyrics get more frantic and terse until a feeling of paranoia and unease permeates its very core. At times it is obnoxious, like all good punk should be, but it is also charming where it needs to be. The jokes are crass but funny and the music loud and brash. Isn’t that ultimately the point?

(Nick Roseblade) LISTEN: ‘Sissy Fists’

Jessica Pratt’s third record is her first to have been cut in a conventional studio - an environment in which it’s difficult to picture her, on the basis of everything that’s gone before. Happily, though, the transition is one that only seems to have served her well; ‘Quiet Signs’ is her most arresting work to date, one on which she’s consistently sprinkled the sparse arrangements with nuanced sonic flourishes.

Most crucially, though, there’s introspection and contemplation. At the heart of it all remains Jessica Pratt’s acquired taste of a voice and her penchant for dainty instrumental work, but the record’s palpable atmospherics might be enough to win over previous detractors. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘This Time Around’

WHITE LIES

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eee RY X

eeee ADIA VICTORIA

(Infectious)

(Canvasback / Atlantic)

Silences

Unfurl

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There’s been no shortage, in recent years, of singersongwriters who want to spin narrative about how isolation helped them produce their best work; ever since Bon Iver the idea of the log cabin in the wilderness has become cliched. Similarly, electronic records that wrap a core of emotional vulnerability up in soft synths and gentle effects have also been in plentiful supply.

California-via-Australia’s RY X, however, has been touting this approach since before it was cool. The product of hibernation near mountains north of LA, ‘Unfurl’ plays like a run-off between the two sides of his approach; mellow beats draped with piano, subtle synth work and handsome, if slight, vocals. RY X is a talented guy with a singular vision, but ‘Unfurl’’s title is misleading - it’s a little too tentative to have fully done so. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Untold’

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A period of personal reflection inspires South Carolina-born Adia Victoria’s second album ‘Silences’. It’s clear her down time was fruitful, even if some of the pickings were rotten: the salvation of ‘Bring it Back’ curdles next to the rancour of ‘Dope Queen Blues’ and ‘Devil is a Lie’, where she admits “I like the things that make me hurt” and meditates on her past drug use. Bedevilled lyrical content aside, it’s the construction of the record that impresses most, Victoria having widened her musical horizons to accommodate theatrical Joanna Newsome-esque orchestral pop, swing and jazz into her more familiar mode of sludgy blues-rock stompers. ‘Silences’ is the sound of an artist hitting her stride; “I like to do things my way or I don’t do them at all’, she sings on ‘Heathers’. And her way seems to be working damn well too. (Connor Thirlwell) LISTEN: ‘Nice Folks’

eeee LE BUTCHERETTES bi/MENTAL (Rise)

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‘bi/MENTAL’ feels like a big musical fuck you to any person who has taken advantage of Le Butcherettes in any regard and it’s pretty brilliant.

No nonsense bass lines married with a take-noshit lyrical content means there’s a strong punk ethos throughout. There’s a ‘cat and mouse’ analogy nestled in there that makes sense in the current climate of powerlessness, but it’s clear here that the metaphorical pussy can and will grab back: “Lay a hand on me / and there will be blood”. It’s all more than fitting for today’s chaotic news-reel as we live in a gag-inducing world.

It serves as a Rennies, almost, but one with sweet and sour taste: not too bitter to swallow, enough to comfort, but making sure you’re actually paying attention to what you’re ingesting. (Alisa Wylie) LISTEN: ‘little/MOUSE’

eee PRESS CLUB Late Teens (Hassle)

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The centrepiece of ‘Late Teens’ both on record and in the flesh is the powerhouse performance of vocalist Natalie Foster. Bearing the hallmarks of the classic rock canon - or, for a couple of current comparisons - Sheer Mag’s Tina Halladay or fellow Aussie Georgie Maq from Camp Cope, her grainy delivery is best when matched in bombast by her band members, guitarist Greg Rietwyk, bassist Iain MacRae and drummer Frank Lees, notably on ‘Golden State’ and ‘Headwreck’. Direct to the point of overwhelming, it is at points such as these where the unruly passion of the band really comes to the fore, hitting you harder than a full can of beer on the back of your head.

Dig a little deeper, however, and Natalie’s tales of anger and self-doubt lack the nuance of her contemporaries. Tracks such as ‘Golden State’ and ‘Ignorance’ prove she’s more than an angry punk, but her preoccupation with describing how ‘crazy’ and determined she is belittles the genuine exasperation in her vocals. It’s no surprise that the chugging anthems and Natalie’s ferocious performances are nailing the live circuit. It’s when translating it beyond the inside of a venue, however, that cracks start to appear. (Ben Lynch) LISTEN: ‘Ignorance’

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eeee BOB MOULD Sunshine Rock (Merge)

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

After two of Bob Mould’s previous three records were written off the back of the death of a parent, he claims to have found a new optimism on life with this album - and with the healthy bite present in the music, it’s made explosively clear.

The eponymous opening track sets the tone for the rest of the record, as a propulsive drum beat fuels Bob’s signature jagged guitar work. The brisk pace and enduring, distorted guitar tone continues doggedly throughout the first half of the record, with his unique baritone sounding as compelling as ever.

It’s not until fifth track ‘The Final Years’ that the album takes a crucial left turn.

This subdued number rides along a gargling bass line, and features a dreamy synth hook that partners Mould’s lamenting vocals. A grunged-up punk cover of Shocking Blue’s ‘60s psych classic ‘Send Me A Postcard’ is an inspired inclusion towards the end, but it’s closer ‘Western Sunset’ that might be the best cut of them all. With melodic chords and a vocal refrain that harks back to 1992 Sugar number ‘Hoover Dam’, it showcases Bob’s songwriting talents at their very best.

‘Sunshine Rock’ does exactly what it says on the tin. A rock album that sparkles; a taut collection of Bob Mould cuts that fits timelessly into his ever-expanding legacy.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Western Sunset’

eee PERFECT SON

eee TINY RUINS

eeee CASS MCCOMBS

(Sub Pop)

(Marathon Artists)

(Domino)

Perfect Son’s sound is consistent across the ten tracks on ‘Cast’. ‘Lust’ is a fine template for what to expect - a maelstrom of heavy noise created from a canvas of pulsing synths, with dark and stormy guitar chords and bustling, programmed drums. His falsetto vocals are what sets his sound apart from other post-Depeche Mode style artists - he’s a gentle and restrained singer, and his voice often sits atmospherically in the mix like swooping strings.

However, ‘Cast’ generally meshes into a dense blanket of sound too easily, with few variations to the established musical routine.

It’s dark, atmospheric and shoegazey - and as a sonic canvas it works well.

But several of the songs struggle to say anything that’s not already been said elsewhere on the album.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘It’s Your Life’

New Zealander Hollie Fullbrook has a sharp eye for detail. Tautly cryptic, but with a keen sense of place, Hollie is able to build quietly emotive vignettes with ease.

Where the group previously opted for a rigid ‘60s folk revival style, ‘Olympic Girls’ sees Tiny Ruins more eager to experiment.

‘Holograms’ shimmers with a dream pop ethereality more akin to Beach House.

‘Cold Enough To Climb’, with its woozy guitars and reverb-strewn vocals, brings an element of beautiful psychedelia to the record. The brio with which Hollie and her band tackle these tales makes it as though one can physically feel themselves in the moments of which she sings. ‘Olympic Girls’ is Tiny Ruins diversifying their sound and, in the process, unlocking something new and palpable. (Chris Taylor) LISTEN: ‘How Much’

The world may come to an end any day now, but it won’t be glitchy electronica that soundtracks our inevitable armageddon - it’s more likely to be ‘Tip of the Sphere’, Cass McCombs’ ninth full-length.

Here, Cass sheds the pandemic existentialism of 2016’s ‘Mangy Love’ for something less pervasive and all-encompassing; the farther along ‘Tip of the Sphere’ takes you, however, the more sincere - albeit slightly dismal - he sounds.

There’s beauty in his bleakness, though. If ‘Tip of the Sphere’ is in fact playing while the world ends, the cries and paranoia will sound less like an electronic hellscape and more like the Grateful Dead (‘Estrella’) and traditional Indian raga (‘Real Life’).

‘Tip of the Sphere’ is Cass McCombs’ most elegiac and profoundly literary album, a eulogy for the end of times and a mass articulation of the absurd world of modernity.

He disassembles the construct of a ‘political album’ and instead forges a protest for the sake of humanity and humanity only. It’s a wise manoeuvre, too - avoiding becoming an artistic trope, creating something entirely universal while remaining singular and unorthodox. He’s playing on his own terms, and the end result is a near flawless documentation of the end of times.

(Timmy Michalik) LISTEN: ‘Estrella’

Cast

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

eeee TOY

Happy in the Hollow (Tough Love)

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

COMING UP

Self-produced and selfrecorded, ‘Happy In the Hollow’ is TOY at their most ambitious and confident.

The group expand on the sorts of themes and sounds that have made them so distinct while incorporating new layers of heavier krautrock. Indeed, when you take into account that ‘Sequence One’ was written by Tom Dougall as a reaction to the daily post-apocalyptic news headlines, ‘Happy In the Hollow’ almost has a slight dystopian feel - a lyrical stream of consciousness that traces paths of paranoia, love and loss and, finally, optimism for a more positive tomorrow.

‘Happy In the Hollow’ is a sonic survival guide to the post-Orwellian world that is the 21st Century. (Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘Mistake a Stranger’

Olympic Girls

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

SUNDARA KARMA Ulfilas’ Alphabet This month’s cover stars have turned it all to twelve on this second LP. Out 1st March.

ANTEROS When We Land

It’s been a long time coming, but the indie disco floor-fillers finally unleash their debut next month. Released 1st March.

THE JAPANESE HOUSE Good at Falling Another one who’s taken their time, Amber Bain’s long trip comes to albumbased fruition on 1st March.

Tip of the Sphere

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

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EP-OCALYPSE NOW eee PARK HOTEL

eeee SUZI WU

Nothing To Lose (Fauna)

Error 404

(AMF / Def Jam)

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

A lot can happen in two years. The last we heard of Suzi Wu was 2017’s ‘Teenage Witch’ EP, an accomplished introduction that had potential to sharpen its own edges.

Fast forward to 2019, and her brand of occult pop has flourished into something quite special indeed. Her low-register, urbanite tone rings out over the US-influenced production, dripping with macabre, Tumblrpunk influences. ‘Grim Reaper’ is the perfect encapsulation of this, before the title track encourages the sort of twerking that could generate serious injury. It’s modern without trying too hard to be, melding genres in a way that feels authentic to the 20-something listener who thinks nothing of skipping between five different playlists a day. Wondering what 2019 sounds like? This might just be it. (Jenessa Williams) LISTEN: ‘Grim Reaper’

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

Park Hotel have already showcased their ability to mix indiepop vibes and NYC disco motifs to create something uplifting that also hints at darkness. ‘Nothing to Lose’ builds on that, but expands their musical palate.

‘Make it Happen’ starts off with haunting electronics, pulsating bass lines, and New Order-esque beats. The title track sees Park Hotel channel funky postpunkers !!!. Full of captivating melodies and throbbing disco rhythms, imagine the Rapture covering Chairlift and you’re on the right lines for ‘Nothing To Lose’.

When Park Hotel get caught in the groove it all clicks and feels like it could last forever. (Nick Roseblade) LISTEN: ‘My Mind’

eeee FUR Fur

(Nice Swan)

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

Many young bands try to hark back to the golden dawn of pop songwriting, when mop-tops were de rigeur and jangling coos about luurrrve were the order of the day, but few have managed to do it quite as convincingly as Brighton quartet FUR. From the lilting eyelash-flutter of ‘Him and Her’ to the cheeky caper of ‘Angel Eyes’, the whole thing is a throwback to ‘Please Please Me’-era Beatles, served up with a croon born to soundtrack a ‘60s prom. Are the ‘00s indie influences the band claim particularly noticeable? Maybe there’s a tiny hint of a Cribs softy moment (‘It Was Only Love’ et al) nestled in there.

But who gives a shit if ‘FUR’ isn’t particularly forward-thinking when it’s a pure, twinkle-eyed joy from start to finish. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Him and Her’

eee BEABADOOBEE Patched Up (Dirty Hit)

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

A scrapbook of hushed, at times timid confessions, ‘Patched Up’ sounds like the inside of your teenage diary, and through its seven acoustic-led tracks, Manilla-born, London-based singer-songwriter Beabadoobee creates a simple yet affective mood with this debut EP. A self-taught guitarist, who only started playing the instrument a little over a year ago, some of her lyrics are endearingly straightforward, such as the tale of an unrequited crush told in ‘Art Class’ (“You sit across from me in my classroom, but do you even know my name?”). But it’s in songs like ‘If You Want To’, where she brings in a full band and takes her music from a bedroompop project into something more full-bodied, that point towards the future of her sound and how far she could go. (Rachel Finn) LISTEN: ‘If You Want To’, ‘Dance With Me’

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Or should that be BEARbadoobee, amirite?! Guys??

UNLOVED Heartbreak

NIGHT BEATS Myth of a Man

GWENNO Le Kov

CONFIDENCE MAN Confident Music For Confident People

HALO MAUD Je Suis Une île

BOY AZOOGA 1, 2, Kung Fu!

THE ORIELLES Silver Dollar Moment

77:78 Jellies

MATTIEL Mattiel

CHAI Pink

AMBER ARCADES European Heartbreak

MARK LANEGAN & DUKE GARWOOD With Animals

B.E.D B.E.D

Now! (in a minute)

audiobooks

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L IV E THE 1975 ....................................................

The O2, London. Photo: Burak Cingi.

T

here’s a moment during ‘The Ballad of Me and My Brain’, just after the back screen of the O2’s stage has turned into a touchscreen iPhone, a previously-unseen extra portion of the structure opening up for Matty Healy to step into and deliver the song’s conflicted message from inside the belly of the Apple-branded beast, when you realise just how ridiculous it is that one not-even-30-year-old man, born to two TV personalities, has created this entire, arena-filling thing from his mind.

Of course The 1975 is a full band. Yes, by the point of a third consecutive Number One album and this, their second sold-out night at the 20,000 capacity venue as part of an also sold-out tour, there’s a huge team in place around the quartet.

But, following recent superlative LP ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’, it’s becoming increasingly indisputable that the man masterminding the whole thing is more than just a charismatic singer with a good line in quotes. And tonight, as The 1975 deliver an arena show that shows just how creative a modern band can be, it’s the sense that you’re watching something genuinely culturally important that pervades.

Five years ago you’d never have guessed that they’d now be in possession of a group of songs universally praised not only for their inventiveness but their timeliness. It’s these most recent tracks that give the set its biggest emotional punctuation points tonight - during the emotional main set finale of ‘I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)’, the singer struggles to contain his emotions during its last moments.

But the entire production is so relentlessly innovative, so persistently surprising and joyful that it unifies the whole back catalogue without any kind of dip. Huge, artwork-mirroring rectangles rise and lower throughout, helping to frame different scenes; there’s a treadmill built into the stage for ‘Sincerity Is Scary’ so as to replicate the already-iconic video and a technicolour reel of Matty’s name in different typefaces that flashes up in twinkle-eyed deference after ‘Love Me’.

Throughout, a pair of all-singing, all-dancing twins bound around, like the wholesome opposite to most artists’ token sexy backing performers.

It’s a genuinely inspiring thing to behold. One that makes you realise just how much bands can do, how much artists can push it if they have the ideas and the ambition. Stick The 1975 on the world’s very biggest stages - as they’re so clearly about to scale - and you can only imagine what they’ll come up with. (Lisa Wright)

RELENTLESSLY INNOVATIVE.

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BLACK MIDI

ESNS

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

Various venues, Groningen. Photos: Emma Swann.

G

roningen may be known for most of the year as a picturesque university city, but for a few days in January, it plays host to ESNS, where over four nights it showcases some of the best new European acts.

SPORTS TEAM

FONTAINES DC

Slovakia’s The Ills perform one of the standout sets of early Wednesday evening. The post-rock four-piece meld together winding guitar-lines with threatening force and, judging by the queue snaking out of the door to their set, they’re doing something very right.

Mahalia easily flits between soul and R&B, with conversational lyrics that delve into crushes, heartbreak and rejection, almost like she’s reading from a diary.

Taking to a packed Vera, Black Midi’s set is one of astounding intricacy matched with pulverising noise. The four-piece have a thoroughly unusual but fascinating interplay on stage, all held together by the staggering drumming of Morgan Simpson.

Closing things up in the early hours at Lutherse Kerk are KAWALA, whose infectious indie folk tunes meet a welcoming audience.

THE MURDER CAPITAL

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Judging by the massive queue stretching down the street outside Vera, ESNS has more than caught on to Fontaines DC. The hottest ticket of Thursday night, the band justify every bit of hype they have. Grian Chatten barks his way through new single ‘Too

Real’ with rage in his eyes. When a moshpit expands at the front of the venue, the Irish quintet put their stamp down as the band of the festival.

They’re given a run for their money by countrymen The Murder Capital, though. Vocalist James McGovern towers over the crowd centre stage, eyeballing the front row and barking his way through songs of discontent over stabs of Protomartyr-esque post-punk.

Norwegian singer-songwriter Girl In Red only began making her bedroom pop a little over a year ago, but on Friday she’s joined by a full band. A dream pop-heavy twist on a cover of King Princess’ ‘Talia’ is a nice touch and her live show can only go up from here.

A short walk away, Sports Team’s show is a hectic affair. The six-piece band tap into a certain kind of indie nostalgia, with the ambitious bravado of Alex Rice as he slides and shudders around the stage providing exactly the kind of chaos needed to keep the show’s ferocious momentum in action.

“Come closer, you’re making me nervous,” grins Flohio after clambering onto the stage, but if she’s nervous, it barely shows as she turns a moderatelyinterested crowd of head-nodders into a frenzied hub of energy.

As the last kroketten are snagged from vending machine walls consider 2019’s festivals well and truly kicked off.

(Rachel Finn, Will Richards)

WOLF ALICE ....................................................

Brixton Academy, London. Photos: Emma Swann.

B

ack in November 2017 Wolf Alice firmly cemented their indie hero status at London’s huge Alexandra Palace. The headline show came only two months after the release of their since-Mercury Prize winning ‘Visions Of A Life’. Now over a year since they introduced the world to tracks from that album, they round off 2018 with two sold-out nights at Brixton Academy, the first of which unfolds as a fitting close to a triumphant year. The band’s rise, itself as understated as their live performance, sits at odds with their disregard for the norm.

They open tonight with British institution Danny Dyer’s Brexit rant – a nod to their prominent leftist politics - which gives way to the Harry Potter theme. The band members are flanked by two unlit Christmas trees. At the very end, following closer ‘Giant Peach’, the speakers unleash Slade’s ‘Merry Xmas Everybody’, which plays out like dystopian forced joy.

One moment channelling the vocal peculiarities of Kate Bush, the next the socially-charged spit of ‘70s punk, it’s Ellie Rowsell’s profound delivery that holds everything together. Opener ‘Yuk Foo’ is filled with spiteful venom, while the dreamy ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’ is comparably playful. ‘Planet Hunter’, a psychedelic and progressive break from indie-pop tropes, is nothing short of otherworldly.

There’s no space for theatrics; even when Joff Oddie launches his guitar into the air - and catches it - to an audible gasp by adoring onlookers, it’s as authentic as the band’s sound and the message they carry. Tonight’s understated performance highlights a cultivated sound, and a voice that has clearly and positively affected a generation. (Ben Tipple)

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YOUNG FATHERS ....................................................

Academy, Glasgow. Photo: Gaëlle Beri.

I

LI VE

t seems appropriate that Young Fathers play Glasgow on a cold, wet November night. Notably, it’s also St Andrew’s Day. At this sold out show at the O2 Academy, literally everyone - even those in the seating and balcony areas are upstanding as soon as they make their appearance on stage and remain so throughout.

The three men at the forefront - Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham ‘G’ Hastings - are incredible performers. Beginning on ‘Get Started,’ the rest of the set flows seamlessly, the songs blended together beautifully.

They rotate around the stage, ensuring each man gets their moment to shine.

There’s also a drummer and pianist to add the orchestral element heard on their records. Between the fiery passion that the trio emit, there are softer points; ‘Dare Me’ followed by ‘Rain or Shine’. ‘GET UP,’ and ‘Queen Is Dead’ pack the punch that are a reminder of why this band are so widely loved. The whole performance is a masterpiece.

The whole performance is a masterpiece, and proves that shows, and performers like this, can change the world. (Alisa Wylie)

LILY ALLEN ....................................................

Roundhouse, London. Photo: Burak Cingi.

B

ack in the late ’00s, when Lily Allen was an early twenty-something in the imperial phase of what would turn out to only be the first part of a tumultuous pop career, her shows came replete with all the whistles and bangs that a chart-topping pop star tends to command. Fast forward the best part of a decade, and Lily’s first show in her hometown for three years feels like a purposeful step away from any of that. If this year’s Mercury-nominated fourth LP ‘No Shame’ saw the star get back on her songwriting feet, then it did so with a notable change in direction. Tonight, she echoes that with a low-key set up that makes the Roundhouse feel intimate.

Opener ‘Come On Then’ is a lyrically pissed-off, sonically subtle jab at the internet trolls, while the more dubby ‘What You Waiting For’ or reggae tinged highlight ‘Waste’ feel at home in these cooler, less high-shine confines. When she brings out the classics, however, these huge pop hits feel slightly strange served up so differently. ‘Smile’ and ‘The Fear’ are still inarguable bangers, but they feel like the work of a different person to the one strolling around delivering low-key bops about her divorce.

It poses a strange problem. Tonight’s set, and the understated vibe that comes with it, is understandably built to serve her latest album. But the acerbic, twinkle-eyed oldies are still key, and the two don’t necessarily always marry up. As chants of “Lily, Lily, Lily fucking Allen” resonate round the sold-out venue, it’s clear the love is rightfully still there for the singer - and as far as credibility resurrections go, she’s pulled a huge one out of the bag this year. The next step is potentially just learning to have enough fun with it again to go a little bit less slick and throw some of the cheeky charm back in. (Lisa Wright)

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

IT’S YOUR ROUND

Metronomy JOE MOUNT, ey ck Tavern, Hackn Co e Th n: tio ca Lo Cost: £5.95 Drink: Red wine

SPECIALIST SUBJECT: 2008 Q1: Which influential band announced their reunion in December 2008 before going on to sell out two nights at Hyde Park the following summer?

Hyde Park...? Is it Blur?

Correct!

Q2. Where were the 2008 Olympics held?

Tokyo? No! Is it in Brazil somewhere? Sao Paolo? I don’t know.

Nope, it was Beijing.

Fuck!

Q3. Which all-conquering musical film released its first instalment in June 2008?

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Pitch Perfect?

It’s actually Mamma Mia. Oh, OK OK...

Q4. What 5 billion pound machine was switched on in September 2008?

CERN! Otherwise known as?

The large hadron collider.

Correct!

Q5. Which TV personality did Jonathan Ross and Russell Brand famously offend on their radio show in October 2008?

Was that Andrew Sachs?

It was!

God, was that 2008? What a vintage year!

Verdict: Joe might have been sort-of paying attention in 2008, but as for the years before and after - he’s just been too busy writing bangers, alright?!

Metronomy’s 2008 classic ‘Nights Out’ is re-issued for a special anniversary edition on 8th February via Because Music.

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I thought it might have been something servant, but nah.

Tony Blair become Prime Minister?

2000 and...

Nope. Too late.

1998?

1997!

Q4. What is the fifth planet from the sun?

Fifth? Earth is third... I’m gonna guess Saturn?

It’s Jupiter, we’re afraid.

Q2. If you have acrophobia, what are you scared of?

Is it if you’re an acrobat...?

Swinging? No! Being on a rope?!

Distinctly simpler than that – it’s heights.

Oh. Why don’t you just say vertigo?

Q3. In which year did

3/5

SCORE 4/10

Q1: If someone has the letters MRCVS after their name, what job do they have?

MRCVS? I have no idea.

They’re a vet: the last bit stands for veterinary surgeons.

Q5. What is the highest hand in a game of poker?

I’ve got no questions right.

Not in this bit, no. Do you know this one?

Oh, I don’t know...

Give it a whirl!

A royal flush?

Yes!

Wheyyyy!

1/5

Woman’s Hour Ephyra UK Tour The new album - out 15 February via Practise Music on limited edition 12” vinyl and digital

MARCH

11

15

13

19

14

20

Fell Bar Kendal

Headrow House Leeds

The New Adelphi Hull

G ullivers Manchester

The Crofters Rights Bristol

The Prince Alber t Brighton

22

Tufnell Park D ome London **** Q

‘icy electronica noir’ Mojo

‘emotionally fraught slice of synthpop’ The Guardian

‘a perfect reintroduction to the band’s sleek, monochromatic dream-pop sound’ FADER

‘an intimate and candid expression of the clashing grief-stricken mental states that Woman’s Hour experienced’ The Line Of Best Fit womanshourband.bandcamp.com/releases @womanshourband

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