DIY November 2021 by DIY Magazine

DIY ISSUE 113 • NOVEMBER 2021 DIYMAG.COM ISSUE 111 • SEPTEMBER 2021 DIYMAG.COM

courtney barnett

is finding beauty in the little things.

give peace a chance

Years & Years | Snail Mail | IDLES

Amber Mark | Kim Petras & more

The New Album

Out November 12th 2 DIYMAG.COM

Photo: Eva Pental

November HELLO

Question!

In honour of Ms. Barnett gracing this month’s cover, we slightly tenuously ask… what are the worst barnets (of the hair variety) Team DIY have indulged in over the years? SARAH JAMIESON • Managing Editor I once disastrously attempted to bleach a section under my fringe; it went so badly that my hairdresser genuinely asked if I’d actually used Toilet Duck… EMMA SWANN • Founding Editor I’ve tried just about every colour under the sun to wildly varying degrees of success as an adult, but it’s still the short bowl cut I once had - and hated - as a child that had me teased for “looking like a boy” and would only grow out via becoming a mullet. LISA WRIGHT • Features Editor Circa the start of 2009, I

attempted to dye my very short, fringe-heavy ‘do blonde. It went wrong; I went ginger; a few weeks later La Roux became the biggest new pop star in the country; constant piss-taking ensued. LOUISE MASON • Art Director The first time I ever went to a hairdresser I arrived holding a photo of Natalie Imbruglia from the ‘Torn’ video and left with deep sadness in my heart. ELLY WATSON • Digital Editor The look on the hairdresser’s face after I emerged from lockdown with a self-bleached Dua Lipa fringe said it all…

Editor , s Letter

Over the course of the past eight years, Courtney Barnett has delighted listeners across the world with her wry and witty observations on life at large, but it’s with her newest album that she’s discovering joy in its smaller and more peaceful corners. For her first appearance as a DIY cover star, we reconvened with the Aussie singer-songwriter in California’s Joshua Tree to discover exactly what led to her new record - and, perhaps, mantra - ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’. Elsewhere this month, we hang out with IDLES at their Terminal 5 show in New York, delve into the concept of love with Snail Mail and get an idea of what to expect from the new album - and era - of Years & Years. Plus, we gather a host of our fave acts - Shame! Lynks! Connie Constance! Baby Queen! - all in one room to dissect 2021’s best and worst moments. What better way to draw the year to a close… Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

Listening Post

ORLANDO WEEKS - HOP UP Following on from last year’s more introverted debut solo LP ‘A Quickening’, the former Maccabee’s second is a joyful thing specifically designed to fill in the positive gaps left out before. Hopeful listening as the grey days set in. VLURE - EUPHORIA Glaswegian agitators VLURE might constantly sound like they’ve been swigging Buckfast down a back alley, but the Scottish newcomers’ mix of punk and synths is already making a noise even greater than their own considerable racket. Debut EP ‘Euphoria’ is set to land in January; it’s an uncompromising affair. METRONOMY - SMALL WORLD Though knowing return single 'It's Good To Be Back' finds Metronomy in jaunty form, forthcoming February LP 'Small World' promises to be a more pared back listen than much of the leftfield dancefloor innovators' canon, featuring more guitars than ever before.

ISSUE PLAYLIST Scan the Spotify code to listen to our November playlist now.

C O N T E N T S

Joe had taken the talks about IDLES’ new album cycle a little too literally.

NEWS 6 YEARS & YEARS 1 0 K I M PETRAS 1 2 HALL OF FAME 1 4 J ELANI B LACKMAN

NEU 20 GRACEY 22 GEESE 24 STATIC DRESS 26 SIPHO

FEATUR E S 28 COURTN EY BA R N ET T 36 THE GREAT 2021 D EBATE 40 SNAIL MA IL 44 FUR 46 AM B ER MA R K 50 IDLES REVIEWS 54 ALBUMS 68 LIVE

Shout out to: Pooneh, Meesh and Team Barnett for your work on the gorgeous Joshua Tree shoot, the Old Blue Last for the roundtable room hire, Patrick @ Technique for the transatlantic IDLES help, Niall at the Shacklewell Arms for giving DIY IRL a new home this month, and state51 for your continued support / factory use / catering. God bless you all.

Founding Editor Emma Swann Managing Editor Sarah Jamieson Features Editor Lisa Wright Digital Editor Elly Watson Art Direction & Design Louise Mason Contributors Alisdair Grice, Bella Martin, Ben Tipple, Cady Siregar, Chris Taylor, Cordelia Lam, Elvis Thirlwell, Emma Wilkes, Eva Pentel, Gemma Samways, Georgina Hurdsfield, Ims Taylor, Jack Doherty, Joe Goggins, Louis Griffin, Max Pilley, Pooneh Ghana, Rosie Hewitson, Varun Govil, Will Strickson. Cover photo and this page: Pooneh Ghana.

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

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the

tour

2022

Thu Fri Sat Thu Sat Fri Sat

19 20 21 26 28 24 25

May May May May May June June

BRIGHTON Centre BOURNEMOUTH International Centre BIRMINGHAM Resorts World Arena LONDON The SSE Arena, Wembley MANCHESTER AO Arena DUBLIN The National Museum of Ireland GLASGOW Colourboxx, Bellahouston Park

yearsandyears.com aegpresents.co.uk / axs.com / seetickets.com

ON SALE NOW

THE NEW ALBUM

An AEG Presents, SJM Concerts and DF Concerts presentation in association with One Fiinix Live

OUT FRI 07 JAN

Time

NEWS

My criteria [for the new album] was that it had to make me move and dance and feel good.”

Didn’t your mother ever tell you, no feet on the table!

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Following a star-making turn in Channel 4’s award-winning It’s A Sin, Olly Alexander is preparing his next steps as a newly-solo artist as new Years & Years LP ‘Night Call’ beckons… Words: Rosie Hewitson.

hough Olly Alexander’s star has been consistently on the rise since the early ‘10s, 2021 will undoubtedly go down as the year the multi-hyphenate performer crossed into the next level.

Back in January, while most of us were barely moving from the living room sofa, Olly was causing Channel 4 viewers to burst into uncontrollable sobs with his portrayal of Ritchie Tozer, the shame-filled gay actor at the heart of Russell T. Davies’ astounding AIDS drama It’s A Sin. No sooner had he finished the press cycle for the show - which broke All4’s streaming records and inspired a four-fold increase in uptake during February’s HIV Testing Week - than the next big career move followed: in March, it was announced that Years & Years, the three-piece band he had fronted for more than a decade, would continue as a solo project. A new single, ‘Starstruck’, ensued in April, followed swiftly by a remix featuring none other than Aussie pop queen Kylie Minogue. Next came a BRITs performance alongside Elton John, in which the pair covered the Pet Shop Boys single which inspired the name of Davies’ hit drama. Summer 2021 saw Olly make his publishing debut, contributing an essay about PrEP to the anthology ‘We Can Do Better Than This: 35 Voices on the Future of LGBTQ+ Rights’, followed in October by another Kylie collab, ‘A Second to Midnight’. And after announcing his first solo album ‘Night Call’, Olly will round out 2021 prepping for its release in January. Even without the worst health crisis in living memory going on in the background, it’s exhausting just thinking about everything the actor and singer has been up to recently. “Right from the start, this year has felt like a bit of a whirlwind,” he agrees, speaking over Zoom from his North London flat. He’s slightly surprised, he confesses, at just how positive the reaction to his first acting role in five years ended up being, despite his own immediate excitement at the prospect of being involved with the project. “When I read it I cried, like proper sobs, and a lot of us cried at the read-through. So right from the start, it was a deeply emotional project to be involved with, but you don't really think about the kind of reaction that it’s gonna get,” he explains. “I was definitely taken aback by the intensity of people's reactions. But I mean, It's A Sin is the first AIDS drama on British TV and it's 40 years after the crisis, so I guess it's not that surprising in some ways that there’s been such an intense reaction. It really opened my eyes to just how much has been left unsaid, and how much still has to be explored from this time in history.”

Ascend To

One unanticipated outcome of the drama’s overwhelming success was that Olly suddenly found himself a spokesperson for the issues raised by it - a role that he has been happy to take on even if it does cause him some consternation. “I do have a lot of

I’d love to make my own arthouse horror movie, or a TV series that's like Twin Peaks meets Queer As Folk...” anxiety about taking up space and saying the right thing,” he admits, “but everybody really wanted to engage with the subject matter publicly, and [talk about] how HIV had progressed since what the show is depicting. I think we all felt that it was just so important that it went beyond what an actor's responsibilities typically are. There was a conversation between people who had watched the show about getting Channel 4 to put a disclaimer at the end of the episode to point people towards resources. And I'm really happy we did that because I think it really made a difference.”

fter the trials and tribulations of 2020 forced the then-band into hibernation, the additional eyes on Olly also spawned a revived anticipation of Years & Years’ next output. “Once It's A Sin came out, everything happened so fast. I felt like I had to put something out because I had people's attention, to be like, ‘I'm a solo artist now, here's the song!’ And then it just kind of didn't really stop!” Olly recalls. But though everything might have moved pretty quickly following the announcement, the decision itself was a long time coming for the frontman and his former bandmates, Mikey Goldsworthy and Emre Türkmen.

had this tendency to really overwrite my songs or overthink every decision, and it's not the most freeing thing to do. I think you're kind of at your best when you're just being yourself and having fun, so I just felt I just appreciated being able to do that. I was like, ‘OK, that's what this album has to be’.” And like the current Kylie singles, Years & Years’ first solo LP is set to be an upbeat and dance-driven delight. “My criteria was that it had to make me move and dance and feel good. I wanted to just go into the studio and try and have fun, because the only time I was getting to move during lockdown was when I was making music,” Olly explains. “I really got back into listening to a lot of dance music, things like SBTRKT, and Little Dragon and Disclosure. And doing It's A Sin, I was listening to loads of ‘80s stuff - disco, Pet Shop Boys. And I really like the ethos behind a lot of that electronic dance music from that time, it being about

liberation on the dance floor. So I have some collabs on the go that are more in the dance music world; it’s all pretty pumping,” he promises. And as for the acting? He confesses that his recent lauded performance is a tough act to follow. “I haven't really found anything that good yet, so I don't have any plans. But I do think it'd be fun to like, make my own thing...” Olly teases. “This is like a real shot in the dark, but I’ve been saying it in interviews because it’ll force me to follow it up: I’d love to make my own arthouse horror movie that’s also quite funny. Or maybe a TV series that's like Twin Peaks meets Queer As Folk...” He’s already a singer-songwriter, actor, campaigner and essayist. Who’s to say that Olly Alexander isn’t about to become your next favourite screenwriter, too? ‘Night Call’ is out 7th January via Polydor. DIY

‘Gram on the

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

“The pandemic happened and I think we just hit a reset button,” he continues. “Like a lot of people, I just had all this time to really reflect on where I wanted to go and what was really going on with me. Over the year I continued making music, and then we had this conversation where we were like, ‘Oh, we're such a different band now than we used to be, what is the best way to move forward?’” For Olly, being able to get into the studio and continue making music throughout the pandemic was a lifeline among all the uncertainty. “It's always been precious to me, but it became even more precious. And I think it really changed the approach that I had,” he explains. “When you’re making any creative thing it can be really easy to get in your head. I feel like I've

Big D Energy. (@wetlegband)

When your head wants to play ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’, but your hand wants to play ‘Wonderwall’. (@ellieciararowsell)

Having won over the entire living human population, Billie Eilish had started working her magic on the undead. (@billieeilish)

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C H A R LOT T E C O R N F I E L D HIGHS IN THE MINUSES NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

GOOD MORNING B A R N YA R D NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

DIY in deep Not content with giving you one all guns blazing print cover star a month, we recently launched our brand new digital cover series DIY In Deep: a monthly, online-centric chance to dig into a longer profile on some of the most exciting artists in the world right now.

Our second DIY In Deep cover star is pop queen-in-waiting Kim Petras, who digs into her forthcoming debut studio album from within the whirlwind of her busiest year yet. Keep reading for an extract, and head over to diymag.com/kimpetras to peep the full feature. Words: Elly Watson.

“Bubblegum pop gets such a bad rep of not being real music and being shallow, but to me it was always an escape.”

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s è r T e u q fi i n g a M was like, ‘Megan Thee Stallion, I’m a horse, I love you!’” Kim Petras laughs. It’s maybe not a traditional way to greet one of hip hop’s leading ladies, but when you’re at the mega famous, invite only Met Gala, wearing a custom Collina Strada gown complete with a 3D horse head corset lovingly dubbed by Petras as “the horset” - how else are you meant to introduce yourself?

“It was a big hit in the bathroom,” Kim smiles. “I was passing it around to everyone, like Lily Rose Depp, and people were fascinated by it. He didn’t try it on, but Kit Harrington was like, ‘Oh my god, the horse!’ And I was like, ‘Jon Snow?!’” Outlandish but also lighthearted, Petras’ outfit did precisely what a Met Gala ensemble is designed to do - Kim’s ode to horse girls becoming a pop culture talking point, with a skit about it making it into the Emmys, and people jokingly referring to the evening as ‘the Ket Gala’ afterwards. “Some people hated it and some people loved it,” she shrugs. “That’s kind of always the reaction I want from things.” The glitzy event, hosted at New York’s Met Museum in September, was the cherry on top of what the 29-year-old pop star describes as “the craziest week” she’s ever had: a sevenday stretch that could be summed up perfectly, she says, by the often-memed Lady Gaga “no sleep, bus, club, another club, plane” viral clip. “It was literally the VMAs, then the next day the Met Gala, and Fashion Week happening while all of that’s going on,” Kim explains. While she concedes that the all-go lifestyle can be really intense at times, it’s one that Petras has fantasised about since she was a kid. “It feels like my dreams came true,” she smiles. “I love being in the car standing up because your dress can’t get folded, and changing in cars from making it last second to a show. The adrenaline from it is the best thing in the world.” Although Kim has been a rising star since 2017, the increasing stack of invites to exclusive events over the past year has pushed her even further into the mainstream spotlight than before. First gaining attention when her debut track ‘Don’t Want It At All’ rocketed to the top of the Spotify Viral chart on its release five years ago, her 2019 debut project ‘Clarity’ saw her praised for her sweetened pop bops, whilst her spooky Halloween trilogy ‘Turn Off The Light’ has become a huge hit, earning her a staunchly loyal fanbase. Fast forward to 2021 and Kim’s consistently adding to those achievements, not least with her already iconic August MTV VMAs performance, where she arrived complete with a pink car

to perform new single ‘Future Starts Now’. Rivalling the horset in head-turning outfits, the pink latex number she wore to perform was inspired by her love of bubblegum pop - having previously cited the likes of Britney Spears and Jojo as influences. “Bubblegum pop gets such a bad rep of not being real music and being shallow, but to me it was always an escape, and the fantasy of the glamour of it was what really made me invested in it and made it its own world,” she explains. “When I would put on Gwen Stefani songs, I would forget about school and stupid

“I think for me, my personal goal is just being seen as a good artist, without the ‘trans’ in front of it." people I didn’t like and not being popular and shit like that. I would just go to a different place and I think that’s art, and it takes skill to make something catchy and sticky, and I think it’s a good thing to make pop! So I just wanted to turn it around like, I am bubblegum pop. I love it!” Not only doing her part to praise the genre, the performance was also historic, with Kim becoming the first out trans artist to ever perform at the VMAs, having transitioned at the age of 16. “Being trans and performing at the VMAs is, for me, something I’ve never seen,” she says. “I hope it inspires other trans artists. I don’t want to be the last - that’s important to me. There was Amanda Lear in the ‘70s who had disco hits, and she’s never talked about really and nobody knew she was trans; she came out and it almost ruined her career years after she had hits. It’s so crazy. “I think for me, my personal goal is just being seen as a good artist, without the ‘trans’ in front of it,” she continues. “I don’t see anyone saying, ‘And here is cisgender, male, straight artist Drake’, you know? You just talk about the music, so that’s important to me. I’ve worked on being a songwriter and writing pop songs my whole life, and that’s what I’m proud of. That I’m transgender, I’m proud of it, but it says nothing about me or anyone, you know?” Read the rest of DIY In Depth’s October edition with Kim Petras over at diymag.com now.

NEWS

Hall Fame of

PEACE - IN LOVE

Rewind to nearly 10 (gulp) years ago, when B-Town was the indie capital of the country, and four charity shop-clad young men arrived to lead the new charge. Words: Lisa Wright.

snort-out-loud one-liners or generally giving off the hedonistic aura 013 may be less than a decade ago, but it might as well be of life as one big party, the quartet were a technicolour breath of a lifetime. The interim years have battered the world from fresh air and debut LP ‘In Love’ their manifesto. every conceivable angle, forcing us to dodge the threat of constant bad guys and a deadly plague like a particularly If calling themselves Peace wasn’t enough to show that the band unenjoyable arcade game. It’s no wonder, then, that the dealt in big, overblown sentiment, then ‘In Love’ hammered the alternative soundtrack of the last few years has point home. Full of heart-on-sleeve tales of romance and been one categorised by punk vitriol and rumbling lust, their debut ran the gamut of love’s spectrum anxiety - the spoken word tirades and angular - falling head over heels on ‘Lovesick’, trying to THE guitar jabs of recent times a sonic translation forget a former flame on ‘Toxic’ and getting of a society collectively tearing its hair out hot under the collar on ‘Waste of Paint’. in despair. Musically, meanwhile, Peace may have been tailor-made for sweaty festival sets, 2013, however, was different. A but throughout ‘In Love’ lay anthemic comparably halcyon era pre-Brexit, hooks for days, strung together with ‘90s pre-Trump, pre-Covid and preReleased: 25th March 2013 baggy wig outs and cheeky unexpected basically everything else, it was a Key tracks: ‘Follow Baby’, ‘California Daze’, highlights: let’s not forget, after all, more innocent time when four twenty‘Wraith’ that for their first year in the public eye, somethings from Birmingham with a Tell your mates: When Peace signed their Peace’s crowning live set moment was the predilection for ludicrous fur coats and record deal, one of their requests (which ten-minute slow build of ‘1998 (Delicious)’. Oasis could swagger in and give the was granted) was a billboard in their indie world a humorous, twinkle-eyed kick hometown reading ‘What the Along for the giddy ride of their first moments up the backside. fuck, Birmingham’. in the sun came a host of other Birmingham scene OGs - Swim Deep and Superfood amongst From the opening fuzzy riff of debut single them. Before long, the newly-christened ‘B-Town’ was ‘Follow Baby’, Peace - helmed by brilliantly ridiculous churning out bands faster than you can say ‘high speed train frontman Harrison Koisser - set out their stall as the band to Euston’. As for Peace? Following two more albums and more lolz that always looked like they were having the most fun. Whether than we’d dare to count, they seem to have quietly called it a day. pumping out unashamedly massive bangers indebted to Britpop For a glorious time however, the love was mutual. DIY and classic indie (everything from The Cure to The Charlatans got a not-so-subtle nod), peppering their live shows and interviews with

FACTS

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the

“What comes out in this project is the MC in me.”

LIMIT

With his new ‘Unlimited' Mixtape’ project, and a casual Gorillaz collab and O2 Arena performance under his belt, Jelani Blackman is fully hitting his stride. Words: Elly Watson.

“D

amon gave me some good advice,” begins Jelani Blackman. “He was like, ‘Just breathe and take your time’. Because obviously when you’re hit with the wave of that many people, you can over-egg it because you’re over excited or think you need to do too much. So yeah, he was like, take your time, and it was fine! It didn’t feel weird. I felt very comfortable, which was surprising because there was 20,000 people there…” Recounting the story today with effortless chill, the West London rapper is actually recalling the careermaking moment he stepped out on stage at The O2 earlier this year with Gorillaz. Yes, he’s talking about THAT Damon. Called up by Albarn to feature on the title track of August EP ‘Meanwhile’, Gorillaz had previously included Jelani in one of their playlists before asking if he’d be free for some studio time. “It was like, OK cool, they know who I am, which is nice,” he laughs. “I’ve been a fan for pretty much my whole life and they’ve been very influential. I think ‘Clint Eastwood’ was the first track that I learnt all the words of the rap to. It was just different! It was a different style of rap and it really resonated with me. I didn’t realise until later on how groundbreaking that approach to rap was, and what they do and continue to do in terms of the way they traverse genres. “The session was sick and the energy was really great,” he continues. “They had an instrumental and I was like, ’That’s the vibe’. It happened in honestly like, half an hour. I wrote the whole thing and recorded it all in one take. The rest of the time we just spent chilling!”

And did Damon offer up any other nuggets of advice mid-chill? “I think just generally about the music and the craft, and about following the direction of what you think [is best],” he says. “That’s what I’ve always done, but it’s not always the easiest route. And that’s what they’ve done and it’s always worked for them. I think now I’m most in the pocket of being able to know what I want to do, which has been good.”

iding high after the release of his ‘Average Joe’ EP in 2019, lockdown forced Jelani to have a rethink and refresh, channelling the energy he would have been using whilst touring into creating what would become his recently released full-length debut project, ‘Unlimited’. “I feel like it’s very representative of me in a way that nothing really has been to the same extent before,” he explains. “There’s been a gap sometimes between my music, and what I like to do live, and my personality - but this feels very clear. I think the clarity is what connects with people because it sounds like me; it sounds like what I play live; it sounds like what I look like. It’s very much me as an artist and I’m happy that I’ve got a full length project that presents that.” Though its core is rooted in his live set and the energy he brings to performances, the inability to actually play the songs he was making in real life often left Jelani feeling lost. Frustrated by what could have been and the uncertainty of the future, he recalls thinking: “Will I ever be able to do this again? Will I ever be able to play these songs live?” Transforming those thoughts into the music, Jelani began to funnel the feeling and the energy of his future live outings into the songs. “Some of those tracks were very cathartic, they helped me through what I was experiencing,” he notes. “In it, there’s a lot of just me, and one of the things I used to do - which I had stopped - is to just [have] fun with it! And there’s a lot of bars in this project. I didn’t MC properly for time as Jelani, and I forgot how much I loved it. Slowly over the last couple of years, I realised how much I like doing it and how much that was really the roots of my musical performance and my musical artistry. That’s what comes out in this project, the MC in me.” Above all though, he can’t wait to step foot on stage again, and he’s eagerly awaiting the chance to give his tracks their live outing. “I love the music I’m making now, and I think that that does come through and it’s infectious,” he beams. “I hope that people come away [from the mixtape] wanting me to play their city. That’s why I’ve made it. I’ve made it to play, and that’s what I want to do.”

SONG WARS! THIS MON TH:

STOCKHO SYNDROMLM E

Muse v One Direction Of all the words in all the world, sometimes artists just plump for exactly the same ones. But which of these identically-titled songs is technically, objectively the winner? Ready, set, FIGHT!

MUSE Year released: 2003 How has it aged? This probably depends on whether you yourself are suffering from the eponymous response in reference to the space-rock trio. So for most, not great, album ‘Absolution’ marking the turning-point from being one of Britain’s biggest rock exports to being that *and* a punchline. What’s it saying? “This is the last time I’ll abandon you,” repeats laser-loving warbler and frontman Matt Bellamy, supposedly because he’s suffering, but curiously also… is it a threat? Will he never leave? Banger rating out of 10: 6: it could go harder, nor is it fully ridiculous.

ONE DIRECTION Year released: 2014 How has it aged? Much has been said by the band, post-hiatus, of the conditions in which they’d record albums: between mattresses in hotel rooms, in a van parked somewhere in one of the giant stadiums they’d be headlining… Couple this with how pop production has been regularly outdoing itself in the years since, and the fact this sounds, well, pretty basic to 2021 ears should come as no surprise. What’s it saying? Opening gambit “Who’s that shadow holding me hostage? / I’ve been here for days” sounds far more ominous than the song’s supposed theme of being so in love with someone you don’t want to leave them suggests. If it’s a barely-coded message from the track’s co-writer Harry Styles, then the answer is almost definitely Simon Cowell. Banger rating out of 10: 7. The chorus is, to be fair, a bop.

RESULT:

One Direction edge it thanks to its singa-long-ability (and no Matt Bellamy).

‘Unlimited’ is out now via 18 Records / eOne Music. DIY

ADELE Easy On Me Is it any surprise that even just a snippet of new music from Adele is still enough to send the world at large into a frenzy? Absolutely not. It’s little shock then that with her newest musical offering, she’s managed to surpass even her own dizzying success once more. While she herself has said forthcoming album ‘30’ includes some her most intimate and personal work so far, there’s an aching pain at the core of ‘Easy On Me’ that’s enough to send even the most stony-hearted of listeners into fits of sobs. Pretty much business as usual for the superstar, then. (Sarah Jamieson)

NOVA TWINS Antagonist

BODEGA Doers JACK WHITE Taking Me Back One of last year’s standout TV moments was Jack White’s first-rate turn as a last-minute sub on SNL, as heroically bombastic as you’d expect - and with a bonus tap in honour of the late Eddie Van Halen. So it’s not like anyone’s exactly forgotten how hard he can go. But mere seconds into ‘Taking Me Back’, a track which perhaps incongruously for his persona in the public consciousness is released as part of the latest Call of Duty trailer, whatever might’ve fallen away since 2018’s ‘Boarding House Reach’ showed a somewhat more experimental side, returns with as much force as the in-your-face riff. A verse-as-hook, Jack spitting venom with his words; it takes the best of what solo Jack is about and smashes it into one four-minute beast. (Emma Swann)

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Giving us a taste of their second album, ‘Doers’ sees Brooklyn’s Bodega refining their acerbic worldview with a noticeably more robust sonic presence. Channelling post-punk revival sounds - alongside just a touch of Beastie Boys-like vocal attitude - the group’s latest single takes off with a masterclass in dancy basslines. With lyrics taking aim at the surreal impact of the self-help industry through tongue-in-cheek Daft Punk references, they set a high bar for the rest of their upcoming album. (Varun Govil)

SUNFLOWER BEAN Baby Don’t Cry After following 2019’s ‘King of the Dudes’ (an EP as stellar as it is gloriously raucous) with the more wistful standalone number ‘Moment in the Sun’ last year, Sunflower Bean have switched gears a little once again as they prepare for 2022. The trio’s ever-evolving sound this time makes like a Weezer B-side: ‘Baby Don’t Cry’ is pure ‘50s-inspired harmonies juxtaposed with vaguely emo lyrics, in this case appearing to be an attempt to quell over-reflection on, well *insert vague gesturing towards the world at large*. (Emma Swann)

Following the release of their debut album ‘Who Are The Girls?’ last year, Nova Twins are back with a banger. Unleashing raucous new track ‘Antagonist’, the thrashing new’un is described by the pair as a “defiant tune about self-belief, how you can summon the inner strength to be ready for whatever comes at you”. Another clear example of the duo’s refreshing and explosive take on rock, get your finest head banging skills ready for this one. (Elly Watson)

It's now full speed ahead as 2022’s musical extravaganzas begin to reveal their lineups. First up, though, is meeting some future favourites.

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT The Great Escape gets a massive preview this month, as London hosts a mini-takeover of the festival’s early confirmations. The Great Escape might be some six months away, but the Brighton bash is already amping up the buzz, taking over a handful of London venues (and Brighton’s own Chalk) this month, celebrating the first 50 names confirmed for it as part of the aptly-titled First Fifty. In addition, a number of sets from acts based outside the UK will be streamed online via the festival’s website.

The buzzy Brighton newcomers take on our quick-fire Q&A. Describe your music to us in the form of a Tinder bio. Electronic dance music meets guitar band wonky slink pop. What’s your earliest musical memory? Finally getting to choose the CDs in my [Leila Deeley, guitar] dad's car on the way to school. Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out (and why)? Courtney Barnett! Her observational style of lyricism has been a huge inspiration for the way that we like to write our music.

A host of NEU faves are set to appear both irl and digitally, with Miso Extra, Gustaf, Kills Birds, Wallice You’re from Brighton - how and ENNY among them is the scene there at the plus we’ll be returning to AT FIRST FIFTY moment? Are there other Hackney Wick’s Studio Wed 17th Nov artists breaking through 9294 to host Priya Studio 9294 at the same time that you Ragu, Sipho (see • PRIYA RAGU • take inspiration from? p26 for more on him), • SIPHO • Bands like Porridge Radio, Lime Garden and • LIME GARDEN • Penelope Isles, Holiday Daisy Brain. • DAISY BRAIN • Ghosts have all sort of paved the way in Brighton and have definitely been big inspirations for us over the past couple of years.

DIY

Festival

GET TO KNOW… Lime Garden For those headed to The Great Escape next year, what would be your one Brighton tip? Google 'pre-historic seagull Brighton’. Also if you're at the bar, ask for a shot of 'Tuaca'. Who is your dream collaborator and why? We would love to collaborate with Metronomy on something, they are a big inspiration for us. What three words would you use to describe your live set? Dance, party, yes. Musically or otherwise, what are you most looking forward to into the new year? We've got some super exciting gigs and tours that we're patiently waiting to announce. If people could take away one thing from your music, what would it be? To relate to our songs. We love hearing the different meanings people find within our music and the idea that everybody has their own personal perspective on the same song is super exciting to us.

NEWS IN BRIEF

Billie Eilish will headline Glastonbury (22nd - 26th June), making her the youngest solo performer to take top spot on the Pyramid Stage (Ash bassist Mark Hamilton was three months younger than Billie will be come June when the trio stepped in as headliner in 1997). A mammoth list of acts have been announced for Roskilde (25th June - 2nd July), with Dua Lipa, Tyler, The Creator, St Vincent, Arlo Parks, Poppy, Moses Sumney and IDLES among them. Oslo bash Øya (9th - 13th August) has confirmed artists including Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds, Aurora, Beabadoobee, Pa Salieu, Bikini Kill and Bright Eyes among its first confirmations. Mad Cool (6th - 10th July) has added to its already-stacked lineup, with Florence + The Machine, Glass Animals, Chvrches, Easy Life and Four Tet joining the likes of Metallica, Pixies, Phoebe Bridgers, Wolf Alice and Deftones.

Photo: Katy Cummings

Bob Vylan, Smoothboi Ezra and Enola Gay are among the latest additions to Dutch showcase event ESNS (19th - 22nd January), joining previously-announced names such as Yard Act, CMAT and Daði Freyr.

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IDLES, PUP, Rolo Tomassi and Lauran Hibberd are set to appear at 2000Trees (7th 9th June), with The Wytches, Baby Dave, Katie Malco and Chubby and the Gang also among the new names confirmed. Dua Lipa, Jessie Ware and Jehnny Beth will play Polish event Open’er (29th June - 2nd July) alongside The Chemical Brothers, Michael Kiwanuka and BADBADNOTGOOD.

GRACEY

After years behind the scenes, GRACEY is stepping into the spotlight and ready to rival Robyn for the sad banger crown. Words: Elly Watson. Photos: Eva Pentel.

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The first post-lockdown night out was always going to be a slightly scary one, but when it’s the BRIT Awards, you’re up for Best British Single, and you’re staring directly into the eyes of Taylor Swift, you can understand why heightened nerves might be the order of the day.

“Talk about imposter syndrome, it was mental!” GRACEY laughs. “I just fangirled, I was so uncool. When I saw Taylor Swift, I had to pretend like I was on my phone, and I was like, ‘Don’t fucking cry!’. Everyone there just seemed so cool and I’ve got fucking gemstones all over my eyes and I’m wearing a literal gem choker, like what the fuck am I doing?!” Nominated for her 220 Kid-featuring breakthrough single ‘Don’t Need Love’, which gained the singer a Top 10 in the UK singles charts, GRACEY may have felt out of place, but her credentials firmly sit her at pop’s top table. See, while her name may be new to most, she’s already been a firm behind-the-scenes songwriting staple for years, joining production team Xenomania and penning tracks for mainstream heavyweights including Kylie Minogue and Rita Ora, all while still in her teens. Biding her time to break out on her own, she cites wanting to create something different as the impetus to push herself into the spotlight. “I always wanted to be an artist, but I just didn’t want to do anything that felt really generic,” she notes. “I was writing for other people so much, so if I know another artist can cut the song or sing the song, then I don’t want to do it.” A huge fan of pop music - and having grown up watching “hours and hours” of videos of Gwen Stefani and Hayley Williams GRACEY pinpoints her love of lyricism as an inherent part of her musical identity. However, it wasn’t until she lost her voice directly after putting out her first single that it all clicked into place. “I had vocal nodule surgery and I just couldn’t vent out any of these feelings that I was going through because I’d lost my voice,” she recalls. “I think from that point onwards, I decided that I really wanted to use the voice as an instrument and have that as a huge thread. Some of my favourite artists like Lorde and Sia, they use the voice as the key instrument. Even if you’re not singing in English - for most people around the world it’s not their first language - you can feel the emotion in their voice, and I think that was a huge key in my music, trying to make the emotion [present] in every part of it.” Emotion is something that GRACEY’s music has in bucketloads, and embracing the fact that she wouldn’t be able to hide behind anyone was one of her biggest challenges when stepping out as an artist in her own right. “I found it really, really difficult and I didn’t realise how anxious I was,” she recalls. “I think sometimes when I write

music, I use it as a way of getting out things that I’d never really say, even to myself.” Fresh from the release of her most personal project to date, last month’s EP ‘Fragile’ was born after her most recent heartbreak following a split with a notable boyband frontman. Exploring her feelings post-relationship, the EP also takes a poignant look at the online bullying she faced in its aftermath (‘the internet’), with its creation ultimately helping her through. “I’m a lot more assured in myself, and I’ve really worked hard on it this year, because it’s been such a mental year,” she explains. “You have to look into yourself and be like, I’m fucking really proud of myself. I feel like I’m a good person. That’s all you have to say: you’re fucking good enough. And if someone on the internet wants to tell you you’re not, just fuck them. “I genuinely don’t know how people that don’t do music or some sort of art form manage to get through [troubled times], because I feel like there’s a reason I went through it,” she continues. “It’s not like it’s changed the fucking world, but it helps me compartmentalise, like, that was that stage of my life, I wrote this, I felt this way.” Embracing her emotions and allowing her vulnerability to shine through, ‘Fragile’ finds GRACEY packing pop bops with poignant punches and she’s now ready to claim her spot amongst the heartbreak anthem greats. “Why are there not enough ‘Dancing On My Own’ songs out there for all my heartbreak huns that need to be crying on the dance floor!” she laughs. “That’s what this EP is, just a lot of pre-drinking with tears and tissues and going out to the club and being OK with being heartbroken for a minute.” Cheers to that. DIY

“I was writing for other people so much, so if I know another artist can sing the song, then I don’t want to do it.”

GEESE On Dan Carey-produced debut ‘Projector’, Brooklyn teens Geese are channeling inner city anxiety and a maximalist spirit. Words: Lisa Wright.

We wanted to be like Radiohead meets Yes meets religious experience.” Cameron Winter “I think what this record says is that we really thought this would be the last Geese album. The performances are emotionally-driven because we really thought it would be our last project as a group,” declares frontman Cameron Winter. “We’d finished it up in 12th grade, and everyone had plans to move to different states and start different lives.”

However fate - or, more specifically, Partisan (home to IDLES, Fontaines DC et al) - had other plans, and last month’s debut LP proper ‘Projector’ marks not only a fresh platform for the band, who’ve been playing together since they were 12, but a visceral, eclectic new set of voices within 2021’s broad guitar scene. Hailing from Brooklyn and with South London producer-du-jour Dan Carey (black midi, Squid) on board for the record, there are a number of obvious boxes you could put Geese in - with smudges of each finding their way into the moody Interpol anxieties of breakthrough single ‘Disco’ or the tricksy guitar interplay of ‘Fantasies / Survival’. More than any of that though, ‘Projector’’s most evident characteristic is of an almost overwhelming volume of ideas - something the band have been playing with since those formative,

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pre-teen moments. “In our extra-curricular music club [at school], they’d put you in a band and you’d do classic rock covers, so then when we made our own band outside we were like, we’re gonna break away from that and make the coolest, craziest shit ever,” grins Cameron. “We’re gonna have five synths on stage and be like Radiohead meets Yes meets religious experience. We wanted to be the most insane 14-year-old band of all time.” Within their current output (‘Disco’ is, essentially, four songs rolled into one), the quintet are arguably still implementing a more refined version of that. “I think we’re basically trying to take all of that influence and dial the sound back and hone it a bit more, even though we have a tendency to still try and do everything we possibly can,” concedes drummer Max Bassin. And, having self-released a now-deleted early album back in 2018 that they joke as having “a very weird cult of a cult of a cult following”, now ‘Projector’ has gone from their ‘last record’ to the one that’s taking them out of college (sorry, teachers) and around the world. “It was perfect timing,” Max nods. “Now we’re like, let’s see where this music thing takes us and how far we can go with it.” DIY

CHRISSI The rising songwriter crafting instantly-magnetic sonic gems.

RECOMMENDED

When your brother is Mercury Prizeshortlisted Berwyn, it’s likely you’ve got some impressive musical flair, and sister Chrissi is showing that in bucketloads. With only a handful of singles out in the world, she marks her influences as within the worlds of R&B, soul and pop, but it’s her warm and magnetic vocals that instantly draw you in, as her mesmerising songwriting recounts heartstring-pulling tales. LISTEN: Self-described “bad bitch song” ‘Lady Kisses’. SIMILAR TO: A musical bear-hug.

neu

VIJI VLURE Filthy and furious Glaswegian electronic punk.

MEWN

Dancefloors are normally a place for escapism and joy, but what if you kept the pulsing beats and turned them on their menacing head? Such is the question that Glasgow quintet VLURE seem to be asking - nay, demanding on their cacophonous opening moves. Their first trio of tracks, completed by recently released rager ‘Heartbeat’, are aggressive things that marry ‘90s synths, punishing industrial beats and singer Hamish Hutcheson’s frustrated roar. You can practically hear the vein popping out of his neck. LISTEN: Debut EP ‘Euphoria’ is coming in January. SIMILAR TO: A very, very angry rave.

Dirty Hit’s latest alt-pop prodigy. Combining grunge influences into sweet indie-pop sounds, Viji is the latest of Dirty Hit’s roster set to make a mark. Wrapping up her tracks in nostalgia-fuelled fuzziness, last year’s debut EP ‘Are You In My Head?’ saw Viji praised for her mesmerizing songwriting and lo-fi sweetness. Now venturing into even grungier territory, she’s gearing up for a vibrant next step. LISTEN: The effortless cool of latest track ‘Suck It’. SIMILAR TO: What Beabadoobee probably listens to.

Manchester quintet making bright,

brilliant psych-tinged curios. Manchester newbies Mewn might still be relatively under the radar now, but we’re earmarking them early for exciting things. Why? Because in recently released debut EP ‘Landscapes Unchanged’, they manage to somehow recall the widescreen exultation of Arcade Fire, the curious olde English eccentricities of The Good, The Bad and The Queen and some touches of Syd Barrett psych, and pack it all into five wildly intriguing tracks that feel both familiar and new. Get involved. LISTEN: EP closer ‘I’m Only Talking’ is a slow-building, seven minute delight. SIMILAR TO: Arcade Fire’s unassuming British cousins.

MISO EXTRA

The London-based singer and producer that’s

giving new music a fresh flavour. Self-described as “umami for the ears”, London’s Miso Extra may have only released two tracks so far, but they’ve been more than enough to whet the appetite. Melding together an array of cultural and social reference points, the English-Japanese singer and producer uses her bilingual lyrics and swelling production to spellbinding effect. Unique and delicious to the last drop. LISTEN: Latest track ‘1013’ takes the frustration and disillusionment of current life and makes it mesmerising. SIMILAR TO: “Umami for the ears” really does cover it.

I never want anything to be the easy way, or the conventional way of doing things.” - Olli Appleyard

Static Dress

Meet the creative force behind the Leeds hardcore punk band who are burning the rulebook and building a new world of their own. Words: Sarah Jamieson.

To say that Olli Appleyard is committed to his vision is somewhat of an understatement. “Genuinely, there’s never anything that’s gonna be straight forward with this project,” he offers up of Leedsbased quartet Static Dress, the newest hardcore punk band turning heads in the UK rock scene. “I never want anything to be the easy way, or the conventional way of doing things.” As if to prove as much, the frontman is currently a few days into a solo stay at the band’s rehearsal space, where he’s attempting to finish work on their forthcoming EP - and its companion comic book, of course - ‘Prelude: Official Soundtrack’. “It’s cold!” he remarks, when asked how it’s been going in the bunker. “But it allows you to shut off from everything else and focus on the important goals at the end. I find it kinda therapeutic doing this.” Less your run-of-the-mill band and more a full blown art project, since Static Dress’ emergence in 2019, Olli has been meticulous in growing their conceptual world. From the visual styling of their videos so far, through to the aesthetically considered ways in which they’ve announced live shows on social media, each accompanying element receives its own thorough treatment. “I wanna constantly strive to do something new and, going forward with projects, I want to be able to drive it forward without taking inspiration from [any other] things,” Olli enthuses. “Right now, people are making music to be ear candy, and it’s given to you on a plate; every week music is becoming more and more disposable. But I think if I can create a social campaign where I can make a song or video last longer than the three minutes that it exists in your ears or in your eyes, then that’s success to me.” It’s a similar mantra that’s shaped their approach to ‘Prelude: Official Soundtrack’. Originally an EP that was never intended for official release, earlier this year the band burned copies onto CDs and sold them at the Slam Dunk festivals. After some reconsideration (“People on our team were like, ‘We should put it out’, fucksake!”), another new window into Static Dress’ world was opened. “We released these songs as demos, and even in the CD cases themselves there were tons of mysteries for people to solve; it was about giving people a bit more of this band,” Olli nods. “Then I wanted to start doing a comic with an artist that I’m engrossed by, so we just started talking about the idea and this EP has become the soundtrack for that. We started doing more soundscape stuff, and we’ve based all of the comic book panels around the sound design on the EP. This whole project will then work as a prologue for what’s to come.” Nothing conventional to see here, then.

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All the buzziest new music happenings in one place.

BUILT IN A DAY No Rome will release his debut album next month. 'It's All Smiles' will be out on 3rd December, was produced by Rome alongside BJ Burton and The 1975's George Daniel, and features brand new track 'When She Comes Around'.

LOVE SHACK Starting this month, we’ll be relocating to East London’s Shacklewell Arms to bring you more DIY IRL live nights full of your favourite new bands. On 22nd November, Rachel Chinouriri will be tingling your spines with a stripped-back set, supported by BB Sway and Aziya. While on 7th December, we’ll be plugging in and turning it up with headliners Talk Show, plus support from Fräulein and a DJ set from recent Jägermeister Musik artist ZAND. Tickets for both shows are available now from dice. fm, and head to diymag.com for all the details.

LATE NIGHT REELING Merseyside noiseniks The Mysterines have announced details of their debut album. The band's first full-length is titled 'Reeling' and will be released on 11th March 2022. “It’s a pretty ambiguous title for most people, but for me ‘Reeling’ sums up every emotion of the album in just one word,” says the band’s Lia Metcalfe. “It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do.” Revealing new single ‘Hung Up’ alongside the news, she adds, “‘Hung Up’ is pretty self explanatory and I intended it to be that way. It’s also a very revengeful song.” The band also head out on tour across the UK and Ireland from mid-March, including shows at London's Electric Ballroom and Brudenell Social Club in Leeds.

“I made this song after watching the Björk live version of her album 'Vespertine'," says Rome of the song. "And I wanted to make a song that was heavy on the strings but after days of working on it I eventually brought it to a more guitar driven song. I sent this song to BJ and he came back with something much more than I expected, with more textures and stronger bass sounds and just better structure really and we just went crazy on it.” The album was recorded back in Rome's hometown of Manila after the pandemic stopped his returning to London. Watch the video, also filmed in the city, on diymag.com.

THE

BUZZ FEED

PLAYLIST

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:

LIME GARDEN CLOCKWORK Not since The Big Moon first popped up to illuminate the indie-sphere have we wanted to be in a girl gang as much as Lime Garden. With every new move, the Brighton quartet have added another earworm to their arsenal; now, fifth offering ‘Clockwork’ arrives to show they can do moody swaggers just as successfully as a brighter, more Britpop-influenced bop. Full of dead-eyed vocals and luring bass lines, the clock is surely only ticking towards imminent domination.

FRÄULEIN BY THE WATER South London duo Fräulein’s latest may supposedly be about the romanticised nature of looking back on your past, however ‘By The Water’’s skeletal stalk and PJ Harvey-esque subtle menace sound far more visceral than any childhood nostalgia trip we’d like to partake in. Helmed by Joni Samuels’ deft vocals - an exercise in control and release - the pair are already building an evocative world, despite only being on single #3.

PRIESTGATE BEDTIME STORY Recently signed to tastemakers Lucky Number, rising Yorkshire five-piece Priestgate are stating their intent with new track 'Bedtime Story'. Part dream-pop, part gothic-tinged indie, the sparkling song could effortlessly ease into the soundtrack of a US coming-of-age flick, and their compelling sound and lyricism has already seen them likened to The Cure and The Maccabees.

ENOLA GAY SCRAPPERS Never has a song title fit so perfectly with its author as ‘Scrappers’ does with Belfast belters Enola Gay. Yes, they might be railing at belligerent bouncers, drunk on power, but the quartet’s frenetic punk racket and wild-eyed delivery sounds like it’s permanently about to try and offer you out for a fist fight in a car park. We’re sure they’re nice boys, really.

Want to stream our Neu playlist while you’re reading? Scan the code now and get listening.

“My friend said the new song sounds like a Black Meatloaf - it’s surprisingly dramatic, I can’t lie…”

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Sipho: you can’t hold a candle to… oh.

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Over the past 12 months, 21-year-old Birmingham boy Sipho has been ticking off all manner of career goals - from signing to Dirty Hit to releasing July’s debut EP ‘AND GOD SAID…’ - but there’s something pleasingly full-circle about his latest milestone. From Birmingham to beaming into the nation’s living “The first meeting when I met my manager he was like, ‘We’re rooms, 21-year-old gonna do Jools Holland, man’, and now it’s coming up on Sipho is making cathartic Saturday,” he tells us, begrudgingly sipping a Coke (“This stuff’s masterpieces with a trash”) and decked in a T-shirt adorned with the face of labelmate twinkle in his eye. Words: Leo Bhanji. Lining up on an episode of the iconic TV institution Lisa Wright. Photos: that also features even greater musical institution Elton John, it’s a Jillian Edelstein. not-inconsiderable achievement for someone who, only three years ago, was gearing up to throw their life into a sports science degree. Sipho (pronounced See-po), however, is so chilled about the event that he may as well be recounting a recent trip to the corner shop. “As much as it freaks everyone else out, I’m surprisingly calm about this stuff. It’s a day at the office,” he shrugs. Well, it’s a day at the office where you could potentially earn several promotions in the space of three minutes… “It’s like a stockbroker innit? If you make the right decisions and the right moves, then it goes in the right direction,” he counters. “I have different opportunities sometimes and I’m very blessed with that. But I feel like, because some of my close friends are artists and make music, they helped instil the idea that the people who I look up to are just doing the same shit as me and they’re my peers, so if they’re able to do it then why can’t I?” It’s an attitude that marks the singer out as more assured and grounded than his still-young years might imply, and it’s written all over his music - the sort of cathartic, weighty offerings that seem at odds with the affable jokester with a Ralph Wiggum tattoo sat here today. So far, the narrative around Sipho has been of a childhood spent wrestling with religion as part of the Seventh Day Adventist church; today, he decides that the only real sacrifice he had to make was giving up bacon. “I did the church thing, everyone’s done the church thing, but my parents weren’t that strict,” he shrugs. “I’m not saying the people in [the church] weren’t mad cunts. But my family weren’t mad about it, it’s just something we do that’s part of the culture.” Enthusiastically reeling off endless artists who’ve influenced him over the years, from Jim Reeves and ‘80s pop duo Roxette to Alexisonfire, Lil Wayne and Meek Mill, and declaring that his Jools performance would consist of him peeling off his skin to reveal five pigeons stacked on top of each other (spoiler alert: it didn’t), Sipho is eager for people to understand all sides of him. Yes, he makes emotional music that pulls from the electronic, gospel and R&B worlds, resulting in the sort of heavyweight beauty that could see him aligned with the likes of Moses Sumney, but he’s also a young man from Birmingham who likes a laugh. And, as he points out, once you bare all in a song, there’s not a whole lot of room left for pretense. “I’ve literally told [the world] all of my inner dark secrets and the primal shit that goes on inside of me, so how could I then walk out [puff-chested]? Fuck that!” he exclaims. It also points to a wider theme that runs throughout ‘AND GOD SAID…’ and the music Sipho has made so far: of giving a more rounded voice to his experience as a young Black man than is often afforded in the public eye. “[That record is] an exploration of those aspects of my identity, as someone who’s seen particular sides of me and my existence - as well as people around me who are like me - emphasised more than other parts,” he explains. “I guess it was me putting a microscope on the effects of that, as well as showing what the actual other side is - not just this overly masculine, almost terrifying aesthetic with no feelings [that’s often presented], but the human side. I’ve got a teddy bear necklace around my neck! I’ve got Ralph Wiggum on my arm! This shouldn’t be a rare space, so I guess I’m just trying to normalise being me.” Next up is this month’s new single ‘Beady Eyes’ - a dark, undulating offering that he describes via a series of comedic grunts and grimaces as “some moody shit”. “It’s loud and brash and toxic; my friend said it sounds like a Black Meatloaf - it’s surprisingly dramatic, I can’t lie…” And while Sipho’s nods to the hairy ‘80s rocker might be more of a gag than a genuine comparison, his talent is no joke. As he says himself, “There’s only so much time on this earth, we can’t be doing nonsense.” DIY

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A slower pace and more than a little self-reflection paved the way for ‘These Things Take Time, Take Time’: a third album that finds Courtney Barnett shedding the cynicism and making room for joy.

steady

goes as she

Words: Gemma Samways. Photos: Pooneh Ghana. 29

xtending 2km north of Melbourne city centre, Brunswick Street’s bustling stretch of secondhand shops and boutiques, venues and restaurants has long been a hub for the music community. Head a little further north and hang a left - past Route 46, but before you reach the manicured greenery of Edinburgh Gardens - and you’ll find Rae Street. A little more laid-back than Brunswick Street, its quaint Victorian cottages are increasingly inhabited by young families, and interspersed with an ever-growing selection of cute coffee shops and delis. Courtney Barnett was locked down here for the majority of 2020, subletting an apartment from a friend, and found herself quickly assimilating into the neighbourhood’s leisurely pace of life. “I’d wake early, get a coffee and sit in the window, maybe reading a book or writing a little bit,” the Sydney-born singer-songwriter recalls, speaking over the phone from Joshua Tree, California. “I took up meditating. Sometimes I could meet my best friend, and we'd go for a walk together around the neighbourhood. Another friend gave me this little portable watercolour set, so I’d start playing around with that, or working on some writing stuff.” Courtney immortalises her tenure on ‘Rae Street’, an amiable, altrock amble that she first shared back in July as the lead single from her third solo album, ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’. Playing to her strengths as a perennial people-watcher, the song stitches together a series of vivid vignettes from local life - from interactions between dog walkers and the activities of DIY enthusiasts to the irate parents scolding their wayward offspring - and culminates in a chorus with the irony-laden refrain, “Time is money, and money is no man’s friend.” For all the anxiety underscoring the period today, looking back, Courtney largely feels thankful. “I mean, the whole thing was quite a lesson in patience, which is kind of where the album title comes from,” she laughs, conceding, “[that] it was probably incredibly important to have that kind of reflection time.” Certainly, opportunities to pause have been few and far between in the decade since her debut EP, ‘I've Got a Friend Called Emily Ferris’. Courtney had become adept at managing a borderline-unmanageable workload, writing and promoting two solo albums - plus a collaborative collection with Kurt Vile - in quick succession, and undertaking gruelling tours that kept her from home for months at a time. As they say, it all worked brilliantly until suddenly it didn’t. Part way through the punishing live schedule for her last LP, 2018’s ‘Tell Me How You Really Feel’, she hit a wall. You could argue the clues were already there in that record, which saw her airing longheld anxieties on songs like ‘Crippling Self-Doubt And A General Lack of Confidence‘, and vividly evoking feelings of frustration and claustrophobia. Discussing the period in a Vice feature earlier this year, however, Courtney recalled feeling “down on myself and exhausted”, going on to clarify: “Not exhausted of touring or music, but just of life.” A hard reset was required, even if nobody could have anticipated the circumstances in which she’d finally be forced to take a break.

eflecting on the period pre-pandemic today, she’s keen to discourage reductive readings of her mental state. “There are moments where things are hard in life, but I think the hardest thing is that then that becomes my story, like, ‘Oh my god everything's so sad!’ And it's just not true,” she explains. “You know, we all have moments in our life - ups and downs - and I guess a lot of mine are highlighted because they’re caught on tape, on my albums. But I don't want to paint this picture of pure misery. Because I think I just kept writing, and trying to make the next thing.” Though she’d started the writing process long before lockdown happened, the sudden gear shift had a significant impact on the way she would go on to reappraise her initial song sketches. Now living a simpler existence - instead of relentlessly rolling

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Sometimes you’ve got to go all the way down the wrong path to go back and

find the short, easy answer.

forwards, focused on the bigger picture she could at last stop and take joy from the small details of life. The brilliantly buoyant indiepop of ‘Write A List Of Things To Look Forward To’ was inspired by her experiences of doing just that, an activity she was encouraged in by a friend. That sentiment is even more succinctly expressed on ‘Here’s The Thing’ in the touching lyric, “It's these small thrills that get me through the day until the next one.” “I love that line,” Courtney beams, her notoriously low-key demeanor temporarily deserting her. “I think it's so important to look at the little things in the world that are beautiful, and to not let all the bad things of the world take over; don't pretend that they're not there, but don’t let them ruin the beauty.” If that all sounds easier said than done, Courtney is living proof that you can retrain your brain to abandon these destructive thought patterns. “It’s one of those things that I'll just be forever learning, and making mistakes, but I’ll keep on trying,” she explains, self-deprecatingly. “For example, when I hit some sort of wall [while] working on a song, there are always the voices in your head saying negative things, telling you to give up and move on to something else. It's almost comical in a way, but it’s about taking the thought out of your head and talking to it in a nice voice, saying, 'I appreciate your input, but I'm just not going to take it on right now. And I'm just going to put you over here, and I'm going to keep on with my work.'” Though Courtney is now laughing at the absurdity of the scene she’s just described, she stands by her methods. “It's about addressing [negative thoughts] in a neutral way, instead of allowing them to take you over and send down a tunnel of darkness, or squashing them completely and pretending they don’t exist, which is also unrealistic. Because those doubts do exist, and they’re there for a reason: to protect us from our fear of failure, and to make sure we don’t get hurt by the world. But you just have to say, ‘Well, I appreciate that, but I'm just gonna try anyway’.”

t’s tempting to read this newfound enlightenment as a natural byproduct of Barnett maturing. Having just turned 34, was this simply a case of her shedding some of the insecurities that had plagued her throughout her twenties? “It's hard to know,” she replies, contemplating the question deeply. “But again, it goes back to the album title, ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’: it just takes time and space to figure that shit out.” One thing’s for sure, that sense of calm permeates the record’s arrangements - which tend to err on the side of simplicity bar the occasional flourish of Wurlitzer, and are largely centred around sonorous guitar textures, gentle vocal harmonies and the metronomic tick of drum machines, programmed by Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint no less. In fact, between them, Courtney and Stella play every instrument on the record. Friends since 2017 - when they were introduced by their mutual friend Kurt Vile - today Courtney cites the drummer’s can-do creative approach as a good foil for her own predilection for pessimism. “Stella brings positivity and confidence, but also she’s brilliant at problem solving. You know, I will go down that tunnel of, ‘This isn’t working because I'm no good and it's because this song is just really bad. And maybe

Doubts exist to protect us, but you just have to say, ‘Well, I appreciate that, but I'm just

gonna try anyway.’”

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everything so far has been a mistake, and blah, blah, blah,’ and it just gets worse and worse. Whereas she would just be like, ‘Why don't we just take out the guitar and use a piano instead, or slow it down to half speed, or just try something drastically different?’ And sometimes that's the answer: sometimes you’ve got to go all the way down the wrong path to go back and find the short, easy answer.” Just as influential on the album was Courtney’s voracious music consumption. Quarantining alone, with seemingly infinite time on her hands to devote to focused listening, she set about exploring some of the epic back catalogues that had previously intimidated her, by artists including Joni Mitchell. “I had always told myself I didn't have the time to listen, or that with the amount of music in the world, how could I ever possibly listen to it all? And it turns out the answer is, you’ve got to start somewhere!” she laughs. “That's probably one of the other little lessons I learned: just start right here.” Arthur Russell was another key discovery, as well as a host of ambient and experimental instrumental albums including ‘Promises’ - Floating Points’ Mercury-shortlisted collaboration with Pharoah Sanders and The London Symphony Orchestra - and ‘Thursday Afternoon’ by Brian Eno. Perhaps most intriguingly, Mort Garson’s 1976 album ‘Mother Earth’s Plantasia’ became a key touch point too: a cult classic that was originally created on the premise it would encourage houseplants to grow. Lyrically, Courtney’s pen is trained on a distinctly weighty selection of subjects, including time, distance, friendship, and death. ‘Before You Go’ combines the latter two themes particularly beautifully, finding her extending an olive branch to her lover immediately after an argument, with the explanation, “If something were to happen my dear, I wouldn’t want the last words you hear to be unkind”. It’s a lyric emblematic of the emotional candour that now characterises her songwriting, where previously she would bury feelings beneath droll witticisms. That’s not to say there’s no humour to be found in her work anymore. Quite the contrary: ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’ features some of her funniest lines yet. “Don’t stick that knife in the toaster, baby, life is like a roller coaster,” she deadpans on ‘Take It Day By Day’, while ‘Rae Street’ finds her making hairpin turns between critical thinking and trivial observations to comic effect. But for the first time ever it feels like Courtney is no longer delivering jokes as a deflection technique, a fact she acknowledges explicitly on ‘Oh The Night’ in the line, “Sorry that I’ve been slow, you know it takes a little time for me to show how I really feel”. “I love that [people are seeing] that,” she smiles. “It’s something I've definitely noticed in the process [of making this album], just how much humour is a defense. It’s like, ‘I'm gonna

It's so important

to look at the little things in the world that are beautiful, and to not let all the

bad things take over.”

Turns out things especially take time when you decide to have a nap whilst doing them DIYMAG.COM

try to be funny or try to pretend I don't care about something because I don't want to have the fear of being hurt.’ And I think there's lots of funny little lines on this album, but that defensiveness seems to have dropped a tiny bit, which feels nice to me.”

illing the space vacated by cynicism, listeners will find joy, and lots of it; a fact that can feel ironic considering the environment in which the album was initially conceived. Written in the midst of Australia’s devastating bushfires and Trump’s disastrous re-election campaign, in the aftermath of COVID and of the police brutality that triggered 2020’s Black Lives Matter protests, Courtney sees the political context inextricably interwoven throughout, even if those references aren’t explicit.

BARNETT’S BACK CATALOGUE

TAKE A LITTLE TIME AND DIG BACK THROUGH COURTNEY’S OTHER SONIC GEMS... ‘The Double EP: A Sea of Split Peas’ (2013) Technically a compilation of her first two EPs, ‘A Sea of Split Peas’ was the record that first introduced the rest of the world to Barnett’s freewheeling songcraft, which was liberally doused in deliciously deadpan humour. ‘Sometimes I Sit and Think, and Sometimes I Just Sit’ (2015) As well as bagging her an array of ARIA nominations and a GRAMMY nod for Best New Artist, Barnett’s debut-proper cemented her as both the queen of character studies and a master of unshakeable, alt-rock earworms. ‘Lotta Sea Lice’ (2017) Bringing a much brighter association to the pairing Kurt and Courtney, ‘Lotta Sea Lice’ saw Barnett collaborating with kindred spirit and fellow slacker-rock enthusiast Kurt Vile for a set seamlessly mixing classic Americana, psych and ‘90s alt-rock influences. ‘Tell Me How You Really Feel’ (2018) Following her own advice for the follow-up proper to ‘Sometimes I Sit…’, Barnett really didn’t hold back on ‘Tell Me How You Really Feel’. Dissecting her own personal struggles with self-doubt and anxiety, and calling out patriarchal violence and toxic masculinity, it remains her most searingly honest outing yet.

The most overtly satirical moment arrives on ‘Rae Street’, seeing her skewering tokenistic gestures in the line, “All our candles, hopes and prayers, though well-meaning they don't mean a thing unless we see some change”. Courtney is the first to admit that she still hasn’t mastered the balance between words and action, and though the lyric is intended to be slightly tongue-in-cheek, it still provides some much needed food for thought in an increasingly performative society. In this respect, she’s something of an anomaly. Completely at odds with our culture of oversharing, Courtney proves a fiercely private interviewee and seems palpably uncomfortable under press scrutiny. As a result, it’s often quite difficult to know to what extent you’re getting the true essence of the individual behind the art. But perhaps that question will be finally answered in her forthcoming documentary ‘Anonymous Club’, directed by Danny Cohen. Utilising Dictaphone audio as well as more traditional filming techniques, and documenting a period encompassing the fraught final stretch of her last album tour, up until her first day in the studio for this record, it promises to “delicately and intimately explore the inner life of an artist in conflict with herself”. Allowing such intimate access feels extremely out of character, so why was she even interested in being involved in the project in the first place? “Because Danny's my friend and we've got a special connection,” she replies. “And so I trusted him to tell a nice story. But I think at the start I was just imagining someone documenting the shows and the tour, and how nice it would be to have a document of that, looking back in 40 years or something. I guess at the start, I didn't really consider just how personal it might get. And watching it back was pretty life-changing, for sure. “It’s the equivalent of hearing yourself talk on the radio for the first time: seeing yourself reflected back through someone else's vision, and you look or sound completely different to how you thought you looked or sounded. So part of it is kind of confronting, but for the most part, I think it's a good project. I think Danny did a really thoughtful job.” The film is currently penciled in for a UK release sometime in spring 2022, and in the interim Courtney will be back on the road for a sprawling US tour that runs from November right through to February. Which begs the question, just how does she feel to be finally relinquishing the slower pace of life she so enjoyed back on Rae Street? “I think after such a big break, there's a whole new level of gratitude for performing and touring,” she responds, smiling. And armed with a fresh perspective, new coping techniques and some of the strongest songs of her career to date, Courtney Barnett could scarcely be better prepared to tackle the next chapter. ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’ is out 12th November via Marathon Artists. DIY

THE

Oh 2021, you’ve been a real one. A year that will largely be remembered for being slightly less of a total shit show than the one that came before it, we can’t say we’ll actively miss you, but you came good in the end babes, and for that we’ll raise a glass.

Interview: Lisa Wright. Photos: Louise Mason. Venue: The Old Blue Last, London. 36 DIYMAG.COM

Over in the music corner, the ever-winding rollercoaster of life continued to throw up its fair share of peaks and dips, too. Festivals gleefully returned while Kanye’s sense of judgement left the building once more; Billie continued her world domination, Lorde and her bum set out to soundtrack the summer, and we crowned the most-talked-about Eurovision winners since four sparkly Swedes made an unlikely hit about Napoleon’s downfall. And so, as tradition dictates, we sat four of our faves Eddie and Josh from Shame (singer Charlie Steen, FYI, was off taking his driving test - good luck road-users of London…), Baby Queen, Lynks and Connie Constance - down for a pint and a conflab about what went down. Here we go…

“ABBA’s my worst fear. When ABBA comes on, it’s really stressful for me.” - Connie

Let’s start on a positive note - what’s been everyone’s highlight of this weird old year? Connie: I did my first stage dive. It was quite short, and I went straight into my friend’s forehead. I stayed afloat and then got pushed nicely back on stage though; it was actually very nice. Lynks: More like a trust fall. Your fans have got your back. I did my first stage dive this year too; it went very well, but a stage dive should look really unplanned whereas you could see me on the barrier gearing myself up. There was nothing punk rock about it. Baby Queen: I did the worst thing at Reading Festival. I was playing on the same stage as girl in red, and I’d watched her in Leeds when she sprayed this water bottle over the crowd and it looked so cool. So I tried to do that, took the cap off the bottle and all the water just hit one guy squarely in the head. Lynks: You’re looking awfully dry sir!

Not ideal. Did anyone pick up any more successful hobbies during the many lockdowns? Eddie: I got quite good at cutting people’s hair. I gave my dad a bona fide skin fade, and graded it. Lynks: Before the pandemic I was using a mixture of hot glue, hand sewing and desperation to make my outfits, but then I finally invested in an actual sewing machine and it’s the best decision ever. Connie: I learnt to braid my hair, so now I save loads of money. It takes so long, so now I can just put something on Netflix and do that for five hours. Lynks: You two should do a collaborative hair salon. Baby Queen: I just got really into new video games; there’s this adventure horror game where you have to make decisions to escape each room and there’s this one woman with a long neck who follows you. Eddie: [To Josh] Didn’t you build a games console? Josh: Yeah...

Constance

Eddie: You kept pretty quiet about that - you built a whole computer! OK, on to the serious stuff. This year, Måneskin became 2021’s unlikely success story, winning Eurovision and now becoming the multi-million streaming face of Gucci. Are we on board? Baby Queen: He’s SO FIT. Connie: I don’t know what we’re talking about… Eddie: During the Eurovision they panned the camera to him, and apparently he was just picking up a piece of broken glass but it really looked like he was doing a line. Connie: Noooo! Eddie: Am I on board with them? Yeah? I feel like no one who’s won Eurovision has ever… oh wait no, ABBA. Connie: ABBA’s my worst fear. When ABBA comes on, it’s really stressful for me. Lynks: What did they do to you? Connie: They didn’t do anything apart from exist. Lynks: I like Måneskin being a very vocally queer rock band. [Apparently] some of the members identify as queer, so them winning Eurovision in a year when there’s been so much homophobic shit going down in Europe is very, very cool. Josh: I liked when Lordi won like, 15 years ago and they were all dressed up as pirate monsters. Lynks: God, imagine dressing up as a monster to sell your music. So cringe…

“I want to get back into making chutneys and spreads. I’ve had to spend too much time on music this year” - Lynks

Speaking of things that could be construed as cringe, what did everyone think of Kanye’s wild ‘Donda’ promo? Connie: “Donda, Donda, Donda…” Baby Queen: He’s a twat but I do think he’s a genius, his early stuff is amazing. As soon as I saw him and Kim Kardashian at the Met Gala dressed as stockings, I mean… Connie: I like that there are people in the world that just want to troll. Lynks: I had hours of entertainment off the ‘Donda’ stadium tour, I went down deep dive YouTube holes, so I’m happy it exists. I think it has one really good mixtape worth of songs on it, but it’s just as long as four albums. And of course, most recently, Sam Fender earned himself a few comedy points when he appeared on the BBC Breakfast Show with a roaring hangover. Ever shamed yourself whilst doing hungover pop star duties? Eddie: There was that time you [Josh] and Steen did that filmed thing in a record shop in Amsterdam. Josh just has a scarf over his head and his voice is so weird, flicking through records occasionally going, ‘Oh Christ’. Josh: There are all these comments from Dutch people going [puts on a quite good Dutch accent], ‘Oh, Josh is so stoned!’. Baby Queen: I had a really bad moment at Boardmasters when I ate a mushroom chocolate. I went out into

38 DIYMAG.COM

“No one told me playing festivals would be this good, and I just never ever want to lose that feeling.” Baby Queen

Meet The Gang

Who:

Baby Queen

Notable 2021 moment: Releasing her first mixtape, playing her first proper live shows, growing the Baby Kingdom into a stan accountmaking internet force.

Who: Bassist Eddie Green and guitarist Josh Finnerty from lovable post punk tykes,

Shame

. Notable 2021 moment: The band kicked off 2021 in style, releasing second LP ‘Drunk Tank Pink’ within January’s first fortnight and scoring their first UK Top Ten album in the process.

Connie Constance

Who: Notable 2021 moment: Notching up a Radio 1 Future Artist nod in August, before following it with September’s cracking ‘Prim & Propa’ EP.

the crowd and my little cousin was with me who needed to pee but he didn’t want to go to the bathroom, so we made a circle for him to pee in the middle of, and I’d eaten this chocolate, and I just heard this girl go, ‘Oh my god Baby Queen, can we get a picture!’ and it was like, NOT NOW. Connie: A child is peeing and I’m on shrooms! Baby Queen: I’ve got way too many of those stories. Next festival season, it’s going to be different. Did you all get to play some lovely festivals? Josh: I actually think watching Lynks’ set at Latitude was my highlight. It was on the main stage and everyone in the crowd was really amazingly confused but really happy. Everyone really liked you, and Charlie [Steen] came out which was fun, doing his dad dancing. Eddie: The fact you taught him [a routine] is amazing in itself; he was in the toilet psyching himself up for ages to go on. Lynks: Apparently he gets way more nervous doing our little dance than your entire hourlong set. Is he a natural dancer? Eddie: No no, Christ no. Lynks: He’s like, it’s 4am at the afterparty of the wedding and dad’s had one or two too

Who:

Lynks

Notable 2021 moment: Featuring on Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes’ new LP (and popping up during their Download headline); opening up Latitude’s main stage, hosting their own TV show...

many and he breaks out his old choreo from a stage show back at school. It’s very that, but in a beautiful way. Baby Queen: Festival season was fucking mindblowing because I literally signed my record deal over Zoom and then never played one show

until two months ago. The first thing I felt when I got off the stage was that I just don’t want to lose it; no one told me it would be this good, and I just never ever want to lose that feeling. Fingers crossed it’s only positive moves from here! Any resolutions for 2022 whilst we’re in the futurefacing spirit? Connie: I just want to tour all year and perform every single day. Baby Queen: I look back on this year-and-a-half since starting to release music, and there are so many decisions that I regret, so I feel like next year and moving forwards I don’t want to compromise on anything. If I believe that something’s wrong then I don’t do it. I want to say ‘no’ more. Lynks: I want to get back into making chutneys and spreads. I’ve had to spend too much time on music, my jam business is really falling behind. Connie: Do you make chutney?! Lynks: Well, I DID! Josh: I feel like I need to get more flexible. Baby Queen: Body-wise or time-wise? Eddie: In every aspect. Josh: I’ve been back on stage and I’m just out of breath and sweating. Lynks: Oh, YOU’RE sweating? Try wearing a full latex gimp suit! It’s actually horrible. I’ve got a picture of me taking my suit off and it looks like I’ve jumped in the sea. And on that note, onwards to 2022! DIY

LOVE

40 DIYMAG.COM

LETTERS After the runaway success of her debut album ‘Lush’, Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan faced some of her most challenging life lessons yet. With new album ‘Valentine’, she’s offering up even more of herself. Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photos: Louise Mason.

t’s a weird thing,” Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan lowers her voice mid-sentence, “being a confident woman…” She’s almost raising an eyebrow conspiratorially in jest, yet is deadly serious all the same. She sits back in her chair and grins. “And I feel it constantly!” Confidence, perhaps unsurprisingly, has played an integral part in Snail Mail’s career so far. Back in 2018, Lindsey released her debut album ‘Lush’ just a week before her 19th birthday; that same day, Rolling Stone would name her an “indie-rock prodigy” and the hefty praise didn’t stop rolling in. Applauded for the ways in which it deftly navigated the often confusing and disorientating final years of teenage life, ‘Lush’ was a debut that officially propelled her into the spotlight as the bright new hope of indie’s next generation. “I was young and it just happened really fast for me. It’s hard to make sense of that,” the now-22-yearold reflects on those early years that surrounded the release of her debut. “[Starting out], we did it in a way that was really DIY; we played house shows, we booked our own first tour, we were sleeping on people’s floors. Then almost immediately we started getting offered tours, and agent, manager and label offers. That was so confusing to make sense of. It was really instant and it made working really confusing.” The “reasonable doubt” - as she calls it - began to seep in. “It was like, ‘Oh cool, I struck gold one time

but that doesn’t mean anything about me as an artist or a writer.’” Alongside her fast rise to prominence came a more internal kind of challenge. Much like many young stars before her, Lindsey found herself struggling with the coy, girlish narrative that was being pinned to her work. “I’ve always felt like a confident woman but it felt like I had to dull that down when I was presenting my teenage self,” she explains. “Like, ‘I’m bold but I’m kinda meek too’, when realistically I was like, ‘This album is great!’” she laughs. “Now I’ve just become a lot more in tune with the things that I like about myself. Not to make it like this - because it’s not usually my tea - but it just feels crazy that all of my favourite artists that are men are confident and everyone loves them for it. Like, what, Liam Gallagher?! Holy shit! So, I just felt like, ‘Why am I holding this back?’”

ollowing several years’ worth of touring, by the time she came to begin work on what would become her second record, Lindsey found herself at somewhat of a loss. While life on the road saw her real world stand almost still (“I didn’t have shit to say [anymore],” she states, “I was just hoping I would have some meaningful experiences”), it was only upon her return that things began to finally catch up with her. “A ton of stuff happened that made me feel like I emotionally went from 16 [years old] to wherever I am now,” she explains. “The character jump is crazy. I kinda think I only became self-aware within the last year?” While a person’s transition into adulthood always presents its own unique set of challenges, it’s the central heartache explored in new album ‘Valentine’ that seems to have presented Lindsey with the steepest learning curve. Throughout the record’s ten visceral tracks, her emotions are palpable and raw, veering from confrontational (‘Ben Franklin’) through to the more vulnerable and internalised ('c. et. al.’,

"I’ve always felt like a confident woman, but it felt like I had to dull that down when I was presenting my teenage self.”

Spoiler Alert!

Despite the fact that ‘Valentine' hasn’t even hit the shelves when we speak to Lindsey, she already drops in a hint (well, more than just a hint really…) as to what we can expect next from Snail Mail. “I don’t know when the demo record is gonna come out… I’m giving myself away! I’ve just been saying it all the time! I’ve always been against demo records - you know, that whole, ‘If I didn’t put it out the first time, why would I now?’ thing - but these demos are really magical. They’re honestly quite uncomfortable to listen to, because the sadness is just something else. You can really hear it, and you can almost tell I’m writing the songs right when I’m in it, there’s almost tears on the tracks… But, at the risk of sounding like I’m exploiting my experience, it’s easier for me to work through stuff and process it if I’m putting it into poetry.”

‘Automate’). “The experience that I’m talking about taught me a lot,” she nods. “My relationship with love is so different nowadays. While the first [record] was a lot of imagining and trying to have an understanding of love - wanting it, wanting my crush to like me, all that stuff - ‘Valentine’ is kinda about the danger and the issues with being a human that falls in love with concepts, as love is between a human and a human. [I learned] so much about myself.”

ove wasn’t the only curveball that life planned to throw her way either. Towards the end of 2020, Lindsey was admitted to a rehab facility in Arizona, as referenced in a lyric on ‘Ben Franklin’. A line - “Post rehab I’ve been feeling so small” - that has already garnered considerable attention even ahead of the album’s release, her stay might have been due to “issues stemming from a young life colliding with sudden fame and success”, but it also would go on to offer up a new perspective for the singer. “The thing I’ll say about rehab is…” she begins candidly, “I didn’t wanna go. I fucking hated it, it sucked. I didn’t have music in there; I didn’t have my phone, and I couldn’t listen to anything. So I was calling my bassist Alex, who’s also my best friend, to put ‘Vox Celeste’ by Deerhunter on over the phone, through the rehab landline. It was crazy because it just sounded like static! But just loving music that much… There was a guy who worked there who was just the sweetest person I ever met and I learned a lot just talking to him. He restrung a guitar for me that didn’t have any strings, and let me listen to ‘Vox Celeste’ on his phone. That just rejuvenated my interest in what I was doing.

“My relationship with love is so different nowadays.”

“Hello yes, this is Lindsey. Have you been involved in an accident that wasn’t your fault?

42 DIYMAG.COM

“Right before I left, I was like, ‘I’m not finishing this fucking album. I’m tired, and this is hard and is taking too much and not giving me enough’. But after I got out, I was like, ‘I love music, let’s finish this record!’. That clear-headedness is really key in a job like this. You can’t be a wrecking ball; you have to know what’s up or else you’re gonna fuck yourself. It’s not glamorous or attractive, it’s sad and horrible. In a generous sense, the job puts so much pressure on people and there are so many circumstances that are fucked up, so you have to be good with you.” A conscious but liberating decision, her sense of selfacceptance is something that’s fed directly into every corner of ‘Valentine’. Beyond the bold instrumentation - “If it’s right, I love grandiosity,” she notes - and the album’s whole aesthetic style, Lindsey’s feeding more of herself into her work than ever before. Ultimately, she’s confident in herself and no longer plans to pretend otherwise. "I have a compulsion to be really honest, and that’s sometimes for better or for worse,” she divulges. “I mean, I was writing all of it in real time, so all of the emotions are really raw. When I wrote ‘Ben Franklin’, there was more than one line where I was like, ‘I don’t wanna put this out, I don’t wanna say this!’” she mockingly grimaces. "You know, the rehab line, and then [the line] ’Honestly, sometimes I hate her just for not being you’? That’s mean! It came into my head and I was like, ‘…it’s good though!’” she laughs. “I don’t wanna come off mean, but I don’t think it works for me if I try to put how I look over the art. If I look kinda desperate, or [show] these unattractive traits of myself, that’s where I’m at! That’s what I have to say! It’s not necessarily doing me any favours; it’s a personal decision to do it. But I also feel like I can’t help it. I don’t wanna make music otherwise.” ‘Valentine’ is out now via Matador. DIY

WHEN YOU WALK AWAY Limited edition LP, CD and digital out now!

“Zip-fresh feel and persistent hooks spin new dreams from old” - Mojo

Right 777MUSIC.NO

Unchain Brighton boys FUR have taken their time, crafting a debut that sits pleasingly out of step with the current indie crop. With ‘When You Walk Away’, they’re aiming to bring even more people into the fold. Words: Max Pilley.

“We wear our hearts on our sleeves and we’ve never felt like we need to do something to fit in.” - Flynn Whelan

44 DIYMAG.COM

hen FUR stepped out onto the stage at The Music Gallery Festival in Jakarta in March 2019, they couldn’t have known what to expect. Two weeks earlier, the band had played a support slot in their hometown of Brighton to a crowd of 200. Gigs like that were their life and they loved it. But as drummer Flynn Whelan sauntered over to his kit to fix his cymbals that night in Indonesia, a cacophony of 5,000 screaming voices engulfed him. “I was just shaking,” says Flynn now. “It was in a tennis arena and it was PACKED, everyone was going crazy.” If their success in Asia seems like an unusual turn of events, then nobody has been more surprised than the band themselves. That they are only now, some two-and-a-half years later, preparing to release their debut album further drives home the idiosyncratic path their journey has taken. That album, ‘When You Walk Away’, is everything that their diverse fanbase could hope for. A joyous listen, it boasts a kaleidoscope of sweet, melodic songwriting that comes good on the comparisons the band have long been used to - from the ‘60s pop masters to the nostalgic Britpop bands of the ‘90s. Produced by Theo Verney (FEET, Lazarus Kane), it’s the sum of their strange experiences to date: a confident, swaggering statement. Arriving in the world at a time when British guitar music has tended towards the fraught and anxious, FUR - completed by singer Will Murray, guitarist Josh Buchanan and bassist William Taverner - offer a brightly-coloured, breezy antidote to the dense, cynical tones of so many of their contemporaries. And although they may not have planned it this way, they can nevertheless see the advantages of standing out from a crowd. “Everything is [about] fitting into boxes at the moment, I feel like that needs to be avoided,” says Josh. “Everyone is doing that same angular style and you need respite from that sometimes.” “We’ve just never been in a scene,” Flynn agrees. “And I think that’s quite good for us. When the scene goes down, everyone goes down in that ship and we’ve avoided that, hopefully. We wear our hearts on our sleeves with the music that we love and we’ve never felt like we need to do something to fit in.”

Melodies

ned

Perhaps their most audacious move on this album is to leave out the single that made their global exploits possible in the first place. “People always [note that] ‘If You Know That I’m Lonely’ isn’t on the album, and I just think, why would you want it to be on the album?” questions mop-topped singer Murray. “You’ve already heard it so many times! That would eliminate you having a new song that could be your favourite song.” ‘If You Know That I’m Lonely’ was a single the band first recorded in 2017 as part of a project orchestrated by Jäger Curtain Call and yours truly, DIY, to give a young band an opportunity in a recording studio. As it stands, the song’s video is sitting on a staggering 20 million YouTube views, with significant portions of those coming from South East Asia and South America. “It’s got to the point now that when we play it live, it almost doesn’t feel like our song,” says Murray. “Looking back on it, it seems completely wild. We’re eternally grateful for it, but it’s never really been our aim to desperately try to achieve it again, because it’s such a one-off thing.”

The band now admit that, at the time, they were frustrated that having such a breakout hit happened at such an early stage in their career, before they even had management or a label deal. “It kind of felt like it came and went,” Murray continues. “But now with the album around the corner, I think the wait and the journey we’ve had is the reason we have an album we’re so proud of. I think if we had been rushed into it four years ago, we would probably have released a debut album that we weren’t happy with. Maybe we wouldn’t even be sitting here.” ‘When You Walk Away’, however, is an album that’s confident in its own skin - one that’s more than just a quicklyconstructed follow up to a viral success story. Tracks like ‘To Be Next to Her’ and the record’s title track shimmer with primary-coloured optimism, sunkissed and bittersweet, with melodies that echo around your mind far beyond their runtime. Even when FUR are in wistful, downbeat mood - as on ‘No Good For You’ - the vocals are locked in such irresistibly addictive harmony that you want to join them arm-in-arm in their wallowing. It’s testament to the closeness between the four band members that they’ve been able to take such unforeseen experiences in their stride and stick to their instincts. Their shared love of classic songwriting forms has been their bedrock and the ultimate payoff is to see that enthusiasm mirrored by the reactions of their own audiences, whether at home or on the other side of the world. “Although we wear our influences on our sleeve,” says Murray, “this album does show people that we’re not just there to be compared to other bands or do something that’s been done before. It shows that we can create our own world.”

‘When You Walk Away’ is out now via 777 Music. DIY

Life, The Universe & Everything

With her long-awaited debut ‘Three Dimensions Deep’, Amber Mark is journeying through the cosmos in search of a higher plane.

“

Words: Cordelia Lam. Photos: Eva Pentel.

f philosophy is the pursuit of the answers to life’s big questions, then call Amber Mark a philosopher. Traveling across continents and cultures on religious pilgrimages with her mother and cultivating a passion for science fiction, the stars and the animated Avatar TV series since childhood, her earliest memories were of looking up at the sky in wonder. Today, she has built her forthcoming debut album - January’s ‘Three Dimensions Deep’ - around a theology of challenging everything. Amber Mark has been grappling with the big questions her whole life.

For Amber, knowing that the universe is expanding brings comfort, rather than concern. “The existence of quantum and theoretical physics is freeing,” she begins. “It gives evidence to the belief that there is something bigger than us out there.” This isn’t a particularly deep and meaningful conversation for her – far from it. These considerations swirl at the front of her mind daily, making their way into dinner chats with friends and populating her YouTube search history. “I don’t understand everything – it can be hard to wrap your head around all the concepts, like higher dimensions, wormholes, and all the math involved,” she continues, “but what’s cool is that I can try to implement these theories in a way that actually relates to my life. A lot of it actually tries to reference and borrow from real theory. The science and the fiction go hand in hand.” Raised by a deeply spiritual German mother, whose wayfaring studies took them from India to Nepal to Berlin, Amber lived at a Tibetan monastery in Northern India for a notable period. “We did these ‘compassion meditations’ using mala prayer beads. I would repeat the same mantra – ‘For the love of the passion’ – over and over,” she recalls. Then came an unexpected awakening that would stay with her for life. “I saw the monks do these week-long retreats in the name of compassion. Then I’d see them turn around and kick

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the street dogs in the area like it was nothing to them.” The casual bloodlust was harrowing. “It came to a point where I couldn’t watch Animal Planet. Seeing people and animals attacking each other became traumatic for me, and still is.”

When people get power, it’s hard for them not to abuse it.”

Chilling as it was, the experience had a sobering effect on Amber’s spiritual education. “In a way, it humanised the monks in my eyes. When people get power, it’s hard for them not to abuse it.” She saw this very human truth of corruptive power manifest in other ways, too. “When some monks and lamas became popular with Westerners, it could get really culty. I saw the darker aspects of religion that flow from following figureheads,” she continues. However, Amber found a way to still draw lessons to take into her adult life. “I separate those experiences from the beautiful, spiritual sides of religion, which I still love and appreciate. Today I still tap into the Tibetan Buddhist meditations I learned how to do as a kid,” she says. She’s disarmingly casual about these memories, which are intense to hear about, even as an observer. It’s clear that the singer has lived her whole life watching and learning, and this comes through in her artistry. Known for its genre-defying versatility and brimming with intelligence, her music is a mirror ball, reflecting her influences with sensitivity and sharpness. “My favourite show of all time is Avatar: The Last Airbender,” she gushes

of one much-loved stimulus. “No matter what I’m doing, it’s always an inspiration to me.” Natively versed in fandom and sci-fi, she cites Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy as one of her favourite books, and even samples the infamous ‘42’ scene from Monty Python’s Meaning of Life on album track ‘On & On’. “We’re having trouble getting it cleared!” Amber moans, “I’m fighting so hard for it!” The storytelling tradition of comic books and the sci-fi canon are important to her. “It’s why I take music videos so seriously. We’re lucky to be able to tell the story of a song through that additional level, and I try to draw from my knowledge base and pay tribute to what I love with my visuals,” she enthuses. “The glowing eyes in the ‘Worth It’ music video are an homage to Avatar, a way to include myself in that universe.” One could say that going to lengths to reference these influences in her music videos is an elaborate form of cosplay. She laughs in agreement: “And let’s not forget, expensive!”

n ode to the higher planes and cosmic orders at the centre of her lifelong fascination, even ‘Three Dimensions Deep’’s title is supremely aligned with this way of thinking. It will be her debut album, despite releasing music and earning industry recognition for over four years. A rich and fully realised body of work, the album took on its existential thesis from scribbles on the back of a crumpled brown paper bag on which Amber had scrawled a nebulous map of ideas and concepts. The central theme? “Figuring out what is going on!” Although it was never the plan to wait so long for its release, Amber has continued to hone her craft and consistently put out interesting and intentional music in the interim. Her debut 2017 project ‘3:33am’ was a complex and thoughtful love letter written in memory of her late mother. ‘Conexão’ was her lustrous, romantic follow-up that called upon soul and bossa nova styles. Over the pandemic period, she charted an unpredictable course of releases ranging from dance, house and stripped down tracks to compelling personal takes on Nirvana’s ‘Heart-Shaped Box’ and, unexpectedly, Sisqo’s ‘Thong Song’.

“The balance between life and death is such a trippy question. I don’t know if I’ll ever find an answer.”

Lead single ‘What It Is’ is very much the thesis of the album. Despite the glitzy, careening pulse of the track, it calls out for a sign, an answer to that central question and the climax of each chorus: what is the point of it all? “That question has always been building inside of me,” she ponders aloud. “Then it just flowered to a whole new level last year.” In the depths of last summer’s political upheaval, sparked by the murder of George Floyd, Amber looked first to society’s institutions for optimism and the promise of change. Instead, she found corruption and smokescreen theatrics at every turn. Her vision was pulled into full, sharp focus. “Here in New York City, I walked out the door every day and just saw suffering everywhere,” she explains. “I thought of the animal kingdom and the way suffering plays out there in its most basic state. Animals kill, consume and sacrifice each other to survive. That balance between life and death is such a trippy question. I don’t know if I’ll ever find an answer.” Tackling the heady world of physics and the cosmos has, however, had the very human outcome of making Amber feel closer to her mother. Those same notions of wavelengths, energetic fields and higher dimensions espoused by her mother - a devout student of Tibetan Buddhism and “total hippie” - found their way back to Amber through the scientific studies she was turning to: “she was talking about the same things, just in a different way.” Amber Mark reintroduces herself with purpose and clarity on ‘Three Dimensions Deep’. The album charts a young woman’s journey through self-discovery and waywardness, spirituality and existentialism, and at the end of it all, her way back to the lessons her mother taught her. “I’ve been seeing my mom in my meditations lately,” she smiles. “She’ll be sitting underneath a tree in the middle of space.” One thing’s for sure – no matter where Amber’s journey takes her, she’ll never be lost. ‘Three Dimensions Deep’ is out 22nd January via EMI / PMR. DIY

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Empire State Mind1 of

It ’s Saturday night in New York City

WITH FOURTH ALBUM ‘CRAWLER’ MAKING SONIC AND LYRICAL LEAPS FORWARD, WE JOIN IDLES IN NEW YORK TO WATCH ITS VISCERAL MESSAGE UNFURL FIRSTHAND… Words: Cady Siregar. Photos: Pooneh Ghana.

and Joe Talbot has Manhattan in the palm of his hand. The audience naturally gravitates towards the IDLES vocalist, like magnets to his energy on stage. Joe punches the air with his right arm, the crowd surges in that direction; he takes a stride to the left, and there the crowd flows. The synergy is like that of a puppet and their master; a conductor with their baton; a snake charmer. “There’s this thing about how certain places in the world make you feel like home,” Joe says, addressing the frenetic Terminal 5 crowd. “This is one of them. I fucking love playing here because of you. Thank you. You make it safe to play new songs. Hopefully we make you feel as good as you make us feel.” IDLES are a week into their North American tour in support of their fourth album ‘CRAWLER’, with just under a month left on the road. These are their first live shows since the pandemic started, a chance to road-test new material from their fourth studio effort to their fans ahead of its release. From the reception tracks such as the ominous ‘Car Crash’ and soulful ‘The Beachland Ballroom’ receive, you’d think they were beloved IDLES deep cuts and not new material. “They get it, they get the message, universally,” the frontman tells DIY from the Terminal 5 rooftop. There’s been an inclement weather warning with thunderstorms promised for later in the evening - typical of the Brits to bring over the rain, eh? But for now, the skies are clear and cool. “The audience is a lot more mixed and diverse - races, ages, genders. It’s fucking beautiful to see.” It is, indeed, a sight to behold. A circle pit is incited before the first song is even played. A young man wearing a bright orange ‘Cheeto’ shirt crowd surfs five times. Throughout the hour-and-a-half set, the mosh never calms - it is always seething with energy, brimming with a restless excitement. Bodies and limbs and torsos are flung together willingly, grins exchanged at the crescendo of each song. The band - with Joe at their helm - are receptive to this energy; the more unruly the audience is, the more frenzied IDLES are on stage. They feed off one another, audience and band; a symbiosis of mutual chaos.

ut IDLES are no strangers to violence. Joe has always been candid about his struggles with addiction, his problems with mental health and anxiety, and his own image, but on ‘CRAWLER’, this introspection is even more vivid, more visceral. The record recounts Joe’s difficult 15-year battle with substance abuse in lucid detail, embedded with descriptions about a narrow escape from death in a car crash and a memory involving him begging for his late mother to quit drinking. “The swell of heaven on my dashboard / I can see my spinal cord swing high,” he sings. Lyrically, IDLES are at their most poignant fourth time around, revelling in the quiet, graphic

imagery of past and current suffering. IDLES have built a reputation for their politically-aware lyrics and social messaging, but on ‘CRAWLER’, the band have chosen to delve deeper into self-reflection, addressing darker themes inspired by the personal. It’s both time and distance - from crowds, from touring, from the world - that afforded lyricist Joe to write about these topics, exploring new soundscapes and methods of songwriting that weren’t previously available. “It’s very liberating to not have the live [arena] be necessary for the album,” explains guitarist Mark Bowen, who also co-produced the record. “‘Ultra Mono’ needed the shows to happen for the context of the work, and now we know we can write without that. ‘CRAWLER’ is a standalone album and it exists purely on its own. I think that, creatively, really inspired us and pushed us out of our comfort zones.” “We’ve got a different relationship with ‘Ultra Mono’ now. With ‘CRAWLER’, we wrote it very much in reflection,” Joe adds. “We had time, and poise, to be able to write very different music to what we were used to. It was all about introspection. We were asking each other about who we wanna be. How do we want to be perceived as a band? Collectively, we become a caricature of ourselves, but we built that caricature as a band. We did that with ‘Ultra Mono’. IDLES is dead, long live ‘CRAWLER’. And that’s everything we’ve learned from our mistakes from that point, and now we get to, with grace, start something new. And something challenging.” The “mistakes” that Joe refers to are written all over ‘CRAWLER’. In ‘Car Crash’, the singer recounts a moment of narrowly avoiding death, the sentiment of feeling all-powerful and invincible until everything changes at the very last nanosecond. “It was a huge turning point in my life, but also not,” he explains. “I should’ve learnt more from that incident. I didn’t die, going 60 miles an hour, crashing into a lamppost. If I’d had a ‘eureka’ moment then, I wouldn’t have struggled with addiction and

The View From The Pi t

Ian, 29: “I buy an IDLES shirt at every show I go to. I’ve been to so many, I’ve lost count. I think I’m almost at show number 20 now or something. They’re fucking awesome.” Anthony, 24: “I think I must’ve broken my pelvis or like, my hip bone. I should probably get that checked... But yeah, super worth it. I definitely broke something.” Jinny, 23: “I feel like it’s the perfect post-pandemic show to go to. It’s just the release. I need somewhere to thrash around and release the energy. IDLES are perfect for that. I needed this a lot.”

“It ’s a divisive, offensive world. But everyone wants to be loved, and everyone wants to love.” - Joe Talbot

fucked up so many of my relationships. That ‘eureka’ moment is very intelligent and forthright. I wasn’t.” But is there not a sense of a retrospective ‘eureka’ moment from looking back on past mistakes in later life, learning from them and moving on as a better, changed person? After all, that anxious sentiment of self-awareness is, essentially, the crux of ‘CRAWLER’...

“Fuck yeah,” says Joe. “Songwriting helps. So does therapy. Therapy helped me compartmentalise my traumas, and to learn self-acceptance. Not to take away my own accountability, but I forgave myself [for those mistakes], while also maintaining a sense of responsibility for the things I did. It’s all I can do, really. To move forward. Revisiting a lot of it just makes me grateful to still be here.”

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Nice of Father John Misty to pop his head in for the evening.

his more considered approach to songwriting is a stark departure to how ‘Ultra Mono’ was conceived. For the band’s third album, Joe would write and record his vocal parts in the booth as they came to him, imbuing a sense of raw urgency in the record. The lyrics themselves, however, remain a point of contention. IDLES received criticism for the quality of certain phrases: “Clack clack clack-a-clangclang / That’s the sound of a gun going bang bang” gained some notoriety, while some just missed the mark, despite their good intentions. “So I raise my pink fist and say / ‘Black is beautiful’,” went ‘Grounds’; when considered alongside - or against - the white gaze, the lyric could be said to ring uncomfortably. It’s the kind of criticism - at some points valid, at others not - that tends to follow any band who have become too popular for their own good, as the baying detractors try to push them into making mistakes, waiting around to pounce. If it’s not accusations that the band have appropriated working class culture, it’s the complaint that their lyrics are there for merely box-ticking purposes. It’s tempting to wonder if IDLES’ careful and considered approach to writing ‘CRAWLER’ was purposely done in order to avoid attracting the backlash that ‘Ultra Mono’ did. After all, the distance that Joe spoke of previously could also apply to the literal act of his own songwriting. Did the band want to ‘fix’ the mistakes of ‘Ultra Mono’? He shakes his head. “I think I’ve been criticised rightfully,” the frontman says firmly. “If you’re an artist and you write lyrics, and you get questions and get criticised, you can’t open a conversation and then complain about the reaction. It’s just how it is. I’ve learned a lot from my critics. I’ve become a better artist than the people who didn’t want me to become a better artist. I’ve always understood my privilege, I’ve always understood my class, I’ve never tried to hide that. But my messaging, my lyrics, can sometimes be confusing. Because you know what? It’s not easy. I’m trying to convey what you want in a way that is understood by everyone. And nuance is lost when you’re writing very short, sharp, rock’n’roll music. My directness sometimes misses the mark. It’s my fault and nobody else’s. If someone reads it and has an opinion on it, I choose to either listen to it or I don’t. But I can’t write a message and then complain that it was heard. It’s just what it is. I just need to be better at what I do.” IDLES’ mantra, from their inception, has always been to embrace vulnerability and empathy. It’s the core of the band, and a motif that they try to get their listeners and fans to understand. Surely music fans should afford IDLES that very same empathy - and forgiving nature - that they are shown? “Also, I wasn’t… in a good place, writing [Ultra Mono],” Joe adds, quietly. “I was in a difficult place in my life. It was dark. I was like a lot of men, big-chested and trying to fight my way [out of it] instead of accepting my accountability, and fixing my problems, and moving forward. But luckily I have a job now that lets me focus and release that energy into it.

“If you’re an artist and you write lyrics, you can’ t open a conversation and then complain about the reaction.” - Joe Talbot

“It’s a divisive, offensive world. But everyone wants to be loved, and everyone wants to love. If you’re honest about that, then you’ll get it. The loneliest part of my life was when I wasn’t allowing myself to see the support network around me. You’re never truly alone. We try to make our audience never feel alone. That’s all we’ve ever wanted.” And boy, do the audience in New York City feel it tonight. ‘CRAWLER’ is out 12th November via Partisan. DIY

Man vs Wall: A Study (2021)

Photo: Ben Bentey

At once warm and familiar but simultaneously a little odd.

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The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows (Transgressive)

By this point, 30 years and more than 20 albums across multiple projects into his storied career, it’s largely fruitless to judge Damon Albarn’s next work on his last. In the past twelve months alone, the musical magpie has toured Gorillaz’ most recent album ‘Song Machine’ - a gleeful carnival featuring a who’s who of superstars past and future - and his newest solo project, dedicated to the cerebral landscapes of Iceland, in tandem. The former involved a riotous post-lockdown stop off at The O2, replete with festival flags and chaotic mosh pits; the latter saw him take to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, bringing with him strings and ceremony. Neither option felt quintessentially more or less ‘Damon’ than the other. ‘The Nearer The Fountain, More Pure The Stream Flows’ - technically his second solo album proper, but a record that feels more conceptual and insular than the more straightforward wares of 2014’s ‘Everyday Robots’ - finds a space in the 53-year-old’s canon that’s on the more avant garde end of accessible. Though he’s not reaching for full on ‘Dr. Dee’-style olde worlde operatics, you can understand why he opted for a space like The Globe to showcase these tracks; there’s a spaciousness and theatricality to the likes of the elegiac ‘Daft Wader’ or ‘The Cormorant’’s subtle textures that you can imagine not sitting quite right in the sweaty confines of Brixton Academy. Iceland has been a running fixation for Damon for many years now, since an inaugural visit first provoked a swerve from the Britpop of Blur’s early years to the darker bent of their self-titled 1997 opus. At the start of 2021, he was granted Icelandic citizenship, and his latest was intended as an orchestral piece inspired by his new second home. Since making that initial plan, the singer clearly couldn’t resist adding a few earworms in for good measure: not only are many of the tracks here vocal driven, there are some single-worthy hooks too. Lead track ‘Polaris’ swells with organ chimes and the sort of uplifting melody that’s already proven itself a festival sing-along (bonus points for the moments when a flash of gold-toothed ‘alright guvnor’ accent comes through); ‘Royal Morning Blue’’s rhythm section gives it the aura of a softer Good, The Bad and The Queen offering, while ‘Darkness to Light’ is a gentle, romantic waltz of a thing. Elsewhere, such as on the flickering, tense instrumental of ‘Esja’, or ‘Combustion’ - which begins in twitchy, antsy fashion before turning on its heel into an oompah fairground lollop - you can see more of what you suspect Damon had originally planned. The merging of the two, where classic top lines are underpinned by unexpected arrangements, might take a little longer to get your head around than ‘Parklife’ but rather than sounding confused it’s just… not obvious, which is no bad thing. Perhaps closer ‘Particles’ exemplifies ‘The Nearer The Fountain…’ best: hung around a gorgeous lullaby of a vocal, it buzzes with a sort of unexpected electrical frisson beneath the twinkles, at once warm and familiar but simultaneously a little odd. Remind you of anyone? (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Particles’

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COURTNEY BARNETT

Things Take Time, Take Time (Marathon Artists) “Don’t worry so much about it” sings Courtney Barnett on ‘Rae Street’, the first track from her third album, ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’. It could be a mantra for the whole record, and indeed Courtney’s whole musical existence: feel it out, embrace the imperfect, don’t worry so much. The songs here are teased out from a sketch of a guitar line here, a hint of a drum loop there, and you get the sense that these recordings aren’t far removed from the original demos - and that’s a strength. Numbers like ‘Splendour’ feel well-worn, but never twee. In their immediacy is honesty, realism, and as ever, lurking beneath the sunny melodies are genuinely bare, vulnerable moments. Listening to the record often feels like asking an old friend how they really are, and getting a truthful answer. Still, the album wears slightly different clothes to other entries in Courtney’s back catalogue. Drum machines make an appearance - subtly at first, but eventually on tracks like ‘Turning Green’, they come to define the record. If anything, their presence serves to heighten the feeling that this is as close to a record born of isolation as you’re bound to hear, that Courtney’s chiselling these tracks out on her own. The record isn’t perfect - even in the perfect imperfection that Courtney specialises in. Some more adventurous sonics wouldn’t go amiss, especially considering the diversity of past releases, and the spaced-out tempos can sometimes lead you into a slightly-too-cozy fug. The comparatively spritely ‘Take It Day By Day’ provides a welcome mid-album injection of energy, but it stands out only thanks to the uniformity elsewhere. ‘Things Take Time, Take Time’ is inseparable from the times in which it was made. It’s a strange mixture of comfort and malaise, but it’s probably the most honest document of the past eighteen months, too. (Louis Griffin) LISTEN: ‘Before You Gotta Go’

As close to a record born of isolation as you’re bound to hear.

Photo: Pooneh Ghana

DAMON ALBARN

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LANA DEL REY

Blue Banisters (Polydor)

Lana Del Rey has long embodied a heavily-stylised Los Angeles. Her breakout ‘Born To Die’ captures both the golden shine and the bittersweet ennui of Californian life, oozing with an effortless cool that has followed her through six subsequent full-length albums. Now, even at their most grandiose, the orchestral strings here find themselves wrapped up in Lana’s distinctive and deliberate melancholia. “My body is a map of LA,” she notes in the opening moments of ‘Arcadia’, a track filled with nods to the west coast. This turbulent relationship with her adopted home underpins ‘Blue Banisters’, her second album of 2021 and one that has faced a tantalisingly unexplained delayed release. Originally slated for July under the name ‘Rock Candy Sweet’, the album arrives as a collection of personal insights, each calmly crafting their own scene in a montage of Lana’s life. She fully embraces personal streams of consciousness, not least as she relives the seasons with her loved ones and dogs (which also feature on the cover art) on the album’s title track. It adds another welcome depth to Lana’s sound, one that has largely remained unchanged across the past decade; it remains one of the most iconic and instantly recognisable. That said, ‘Blue Banisters’ does feature occasional dalliances into the new. The late composer Ennio Morricone adds drama with his short interlude, and standout ‘Dealer’ invites collaboration with Miles Kane (with his Last Shadow Puppets hat on). Much like how 2017’s ‘Lust For Life’ saw Lana merge her style with R&B and hip hop, this is her most assertive foray into indie territory, and one that cements both her versatility and her ability to retain her unfaltering hazy atmosphere. It’s in this effortless mix of escapism and honesty that Lana reigns triumphant. The subtle finger-picking of ‘Nectar Of The Gods’ provides the foundation for a song about hedonistic excess. It exemplifies her realities of LA life; filled with choice, simultaneously freeing and claustrophobic. Tales of family and love sit against overindulgence and loss. It’s a record about people and place, and the constant personal tug of war between what you crave, what you love, and what you need. Much like across her catalogue, Lana offers no resolution. Instead, ‘Blue Banisters’ presents a collection of sun-kissed moments and hazy memories, free from judgement and firmly rooted in place. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Dealer’

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IDLES

CRAWLER (Partisan) IDLES have had something of a rebirth, and there’s an argument to suggest they might have needed one. While 2018’s landmark second release ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’ triumphed with its barbed political wit and sepiatoned riffs, last year’s ‘Ultra Mono’ leaned excessively on shoutable slogans at the expense of substance and lacked the same musical variety as its predecessor. By contrast, ‘CRAWLER’ refuses to repeat that error. Frontman Joe Talbot may have called out his critics on ‘Ultra Mono’ standout track ‘The Lover’ – “You say you don’t like my cliches / My sloganeering and my catchphrase” – but for his band’s fourth outing, it seems as if, for the most part, he has taken their words on board. It’s not a bad decision at all. What ‘CRAWLER’ appears to favour instead, aside from introspection, is atmosphere, and it brings fascinating yet brilliant results. Dissonant, sparse opener ‘MTT 420 RR’ feels like a genuine creative risk that could have dragged if handled badly, but it still manages to feel beautifully murky. The first half of the record brings success after success with this approach: ‘The Wheel’ marries the leanest, meanest, grittiest riffs of their career with devastatingly blunt lyrics (“I got on my knees and I begged my mother / With a bottle in one hand, ‘It’s one or the other’”), and ‘When The Lights Come On’, despite its relative simplicity, builds into a quietly elegant, fuzzy

soundscape. Things get truly exciting, however, when IDLES combine the atmospheric with the experimental. Six months ago, it might have been hard to imagine them making anything like the fiftiesinspired rock ‘n’ roll waltz of ‘The Beachland Ballroom’, but its boldness is just one reason why it is such a standout. There’s a disarming grace about it that shouldn’t work with the abrasive edge Joe Talbot’s howls bring, but it does, and it proves that this band are capable of far more. The same can be said for ‘Car Crash’, a sludgy hybrid of post-punk and grime delivered with unpretentious self-assurance which sees IDLES at their most intriguing and even cinematic. If only this was kept up into the second half of ‘CRAWLER’. Despite the screech of saxophone in its midpoint, ‘Meds’ could be wedged into the tracklist of ‘Ultra Mono’ without disturbing its flow, which gives the impression of the band treading old ground. It’s not a disappointing track by any means, but this band have now raised the bar for themselves, and they don’t always clear it. Similarly, as fun as the light-footed bounce of ‘King Snake’ is, it comes off as a throwback to ‘Joy As An Act Of Resistance’, which begs the question: which way do they want to look, forwards or backwards? Equally, at points, their ideas don’t quite sustain their own momentum - the thirty-second ‘Kelechi’ feels purposeless and the softly ambient ‘Progress’ chases its own tail, almost in a pale imitation of what ‘MTT 420 RR’ was trying to accomplish. It’s pulled together by closer ‘The End’, however, which satisfies simply by being lofty and life affirming, declaring “In spite of it all, life is beautiful,” in a manner that befits raising your arms to the sky and screaming for joy. At its best, ‘CRAWLER’ is fresh, bold and inventive in a way we’ve never seen IDLES attempt to be before. What it needs, however, is a greater commitment to being consistently ambitious. (Emma Wilkes) LISTEN: ‘The Beachland Ballroom’

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SNAIL MAIL

Valentine (Matador) The unforeseen yet well-deserved success of debut album ‘Lush’ kickstarted a turbulent period for Snail Mail’s Lindsey Jordan. What followed was change, heartbreak, and a brief stint in rehab. It encouraged her to look further inward, and in the words of the delicately orchestral closer ‘Mia’, to grow up. ‘Valentine’ tells this story with unashamed openness, Lindsey often referring to the work as her at her most naked. ‘Light Blue’ is an ode to her girlfriend at 19. ‘Headlock’ hints at suicide. The unexpectedly upbeat ‘Ben Franklin’ openly references her time in rehab. The album’s name, a romantic reference in title only, is paired with the destruction of “Why’d you wanna erase me”. Lindsey’s growing up does not arrive hand in hand with subtlety. Instead ‘Valentine’ ups the ante on Snail Mail’s often brutal honesty. It also allows Lindsey to explore new sounds. Lead single, album opener and title track ‘Valentine’ presents Snail Mail’s guitar-led melody at its most grandiose. Follow-up ‘Ben Franklin’ cuts through any familiarity, opening the door for the dreamscape of ‘Forever (Sailing)’ and the raw fingerpicking of ‘c. et al.’. The sheer breadth of sound is astonishing, yet easily pulled together by Lindsey’s distinctive wavering tones and lyrical impact. “I gotta grow up now,” she notes on ‘Mia’, “no I can’t keep holding onto you anymore.” With those words, Lindsey cements the catharsis of ‘Valentine’, concluding a record that looks to move forward by acknowledging all that has come before. There’s a profound list of farewells running throughout the record, one as hopeful as it is bittersweet. Ultimately though, Lindsey is looking to the future, both in her sonic development and in her belief in herself. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Valentine’

A record as hopeful as it is bittersweet.

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JON HOPKINS

Music For Psychedelic Therapy (Domino)

After releasing two sister albums five years apart in 2013’s ‘Immunity’ and 2018’s ‘Singularity’, it always seemed likely that Jon Hopkins would make a dramatic left turn when the time came for him to make another record. ‘Music for Psychedelic Therapy’ was apparently inspired by a “life-changing” trip to Ecuador in 2018 and if that sounds fist-gnawingly cliched by now, it’s at least worth assessing where the divergence down this particular musical avenue leaves Jon. This is a clean break from not just the last two albums but what we’ve come to expect from him as a live presence over the past few years; beats are conspicuous by their absence, undulating rhythms are swapped out for the deliberate, subtly shifting likes of the three-piece ‘Tayos Caves’ suite and the longer the album burns unassumingly on, the more you realise that he’s serious when he talks about trance as an influence - more in terms of the word’s official definition, rather than the style of music. Still, ‘Music for Psychedelic Therapy’ feels like it’ll likely be seen as an indulgence rather than an integral piece of the Jon Hopkins canon, especially once he returns to the live circuit in wholesale fashion - perhaps he’ll reinterpret these songs to be more than simply softly anthemic, or perhaps he’ll move straight onto the true successor to ‘Singularity’. Either way, this is handsome, but not essential. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Arriving’

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THE HORRORS

Against the Blade (EP) (Wolf Tone) The Horrors marked their new sonic territory in phenomenal style back in March with the three-pronged aural assault that was EP ‘Lout’, a near-perfect display of industrial noise peppered with techno influences and a level of sheer darkness you feel even their ‘Strange House’-era haircuts would be proud to see in their future. ‘Against the Blade’, another three-track effort, ups the ante even more, seeing the quintet push even further into various extremes to scintillating effect. The lead title track is the best song The Horrors have put their name to so far, a bristling, furiously intense slice of goth-leaning synth pop with both a mammoth chorus and impeccably tense middle eight that can’t help but beg for a circle pit. No less immediate, ‘Twisted Skin’ is built around a giant, skittish riff and Faris Badwan’s not-quite-shout, while ‘I Took A Deep Breath Then Kept My Mouth Shut’, meanwhile - six minutes of stabbing synths and repetitive almost chant-like lyrics - takes ’90s rave into the black: a party, but make it sinister. More of this, please. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘Against the Blade’

Art Attack

“The EP artwork was a collaboration with creative director Bunny Kinney and makeup artist Isamaya Ffrench. Isamaya appears on the cover of ‘Against the Blade’ and the accompanying visuals are an evolved version of the character she created for ‘Lout‘: a mysterious, feral, chimeric creature who has mutated after being raised in isolation in some sort of post-apocalyptic alternate reality. Where ‘Lout’ introduced this character abstractly through Jordan Hemingway’s dark, analogue film stills, ‘Against the Blade’ brings her into the light in Till Janz’s playful, digital world. As we continue to collaborate with Isamaya and different image-makers who capture her, we want to ask: who will she become next when she's finally cast out of the shadows and into the world? We think of this character as a little bit like an updated, reimagined cyber-Sheena, fifteen years after she first appeared on ‘Strange House’.”

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HOLLY HUMBERSTONE

The Walls Are Way Too Thin (EP) (Darkroom / Interscope / Polydor) There’s something beautifully simplistic in the way Holly Humberstone weaves together her understated-yet-epic sound. Second EP ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’ thrives on this push and pull. The heart-breaking ‘Please Don’t Leave Just Yet’ bubbles away under a haunting surface, hinting at a crescendo that rightly never arrives. Opener ‘Haunted House’ spends most of its running time as a gentle ballad before revealing rousing, distorted sounds. Its impact is easily mirrored on highlight ‘Scarlett’. This has quickly become a staple for Holly, landing somewhere between singer-songwriter and minimalist electronica. But it’s the storytelling of the former that underpins the EP’s six tracks, each introspective or third-person tale dark and deeply personal. The gentle build heightens the atmosphere, presenting a subtle but powerful reinvention of pop balladry. A considered use of synths pushes Holly out of any box she could otherwise so neatly be placed into. The result captures raw emotion beyond that of her contemporaries. There’s an expert tenderness to her stories and their delivery, one cut through by often-unexpected melodic switches. Her ability to hold back, to seemingly cut a track short, brims with confidence - none more so than on closer ‘Friendly Fire’’s abrupt ending. It’s this musical assuredness that has propelled her this far. Even with the fact that almost all these tracks have been enjoying mainstream attention for some months prior to release, ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’ continues Holly’s journey as one of the UK’s most exciting new acts. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Scarlett’

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FUR

When You Walk Away (777 Music)

For a debut album, FUR’s ‘When You Walk Away’ does exactly what you’d expect from the band. Their well-worn, bubbly ‘00s melodies meet a kind of ‘60s fuzz that comes together to create a nostalgic cocktail, relentlessly cheerful and utterly infectious. They seem to soundtrack a world that’s entirely their own, subtly surreal but not too far removed from reality. The reeling atmosphere of ‘What I Am’ or the softly-shimmering reprise of ‘When You Walk Away’ balance out the classic rock tones, but it’s hard to pick out standout moments, FUR keeping things very much in the same ballpark all the way through. It’s almost too cohesive; what feels exciting and dynamic on early, sparky numbers like ‘The Fine Line of A Quiet Life’ and ‘She’s The Warmest Colour In My Mind’ feels just a tiny bit fatigued by the end. But maybe that’s what keeps ‘When You Walk Away’ feeling so mellow, despite the high energy levels. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘What I Am’

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BONNIE (EP)

Peace and Offerings (EP)

SPILL TAB

KATY B

(Arista)

French-Korean alt-pop newcomer spill tab is harnessing the influence and relatability of digital collaboration in her EP 'BONNIE' - a modish onslaught of dance-pop, rife with hip collaborators and TikTok-able moments. Flying from the hyperpop highs of 'PISTOLWHIP' to the dreamy psych-rock influenced 'Velcro’ with Gus Dapperton, spill tab shows off her sonic versatility, sponging up her influences to create a sharing platter of anti-pop that sparks all the senses. 'Grade A' dives into the fear of being unable to meet romantic expectations, and shines when JAWNY takes the mic with his devilish drawl, quipping "Lady, you driving me crazy, why you gotta frame me?"; a pleasing antagonist to spill tab's sonic pleasantries. 'Anybody Else' is the perfect midnight love song, filled with whimsical introspection and dusted with a relatable lofi intro/ outro, however together these songs feel disjointed and lacking in thematic unity, both lyrically and musically. While the diversity of styles and experimental moments spell a promising future for the fame-bound pop newcomer, this project lacks the coherency of an EP, more resembling a collection of ideas resulting in a mixtape of sorts. However, spill tab certainly makes her mark here, layering momentum carefully and using the freshness of collaboration to drive the project forwards. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: 'Grade A'

REVIEWS

(Rinse)

Few debuts have landed with such electricity as ‘Katy On A Mission’; “We erupt into the room” an incredibly fitting line to launch a fascinating career. Katy B’s versatile vocals have felt at home over the years on both club bangers and sentimental ballads, and ‘Peace and Offerings’ comes positioned as something of a reintroduction. Her voice is still as distinct as it ever was, only now, the mood is a slow-burning one. Katy is no stranger to bearing her soul in song, but it’s usually been in the context of a smoking area heart-to-heart, thumping bass just on the other side of the door. ‘Peace and Offerings’, meanwhile, is the morning after debrief. This steadier approach leads to some of her most beautiful songs to date. The way she sings of a faded romance on ‘Floating’ is delivered with such a stark clarity full of heartbreak but also understanding. ‘Open Wounds’, with its jazz-tipped, laidback rhythm, is as smooth as silk. Even closer ‘Daydreaming On A Tuesday’, with a rolling breakbeat that leans closer to the Katy B of old, basks in the nostalgic airiness its title suggests. “Wanting you has to be the sweetest form of suffering” she lets loose on ‘Lay Low’, a rare loss of restraint on the EP as emotions gets the better of her. “Big” has often been the defining word of Katy B’s approach to music. Big beats, big vocal runs, big features, big emotions (‘Turn The Music Louder (Rumble)’ a huge combination of them all). But ‘Peace and Offerings’ eschews that for something much smaller. It’s a more intimate side of Katy B. A nuanced, striking and incredibly welcome return from one of Britain’s finest vocalists. (Chris Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Floating’

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PARIS TEXAS

Red Hand Akimbo (EP) (Paris Texas) Strung together by skits narrated by the sort of wayward voice normally reserved for a silk smoking jacket-ed horror film baddie, ‘Red Hand Akimbo’ - the follow up to Paris Texas’ critically-acclaimed spring project ‘BOY ANONYMOUS’ - goes a good way to pushing forward the LA duo’s burgeoning mythology. Self-referencing, tongue-in-cheek playfulness is the order of the day, whether it’s eye-rolling at the puzzlement over their stylistic choices on opener ‘Dr. Aco’s Miracle Bullets’ (“N****s can’t tell if it's rock / Can’t tell if it's rap, I walk in between”) or reserving 30-second closer ‘Epilogue’ purely for a spoken word buddy movie-style outro (“This is where we leave our two heroes / Two boys ready for life, ready for adventure…”). The project of friends Louis Pastel and Felix, the cinematic, wonderfully overblown framing of ‘Red Hand Akimbo’

works because the content within it is equally as unapologetic. If ‘Dr. Aco…’ is correct and certain factions of the world are still scratching their heads at the band’s genre smash, then Paris Texas couldn’t give two hoots about appeasing them; that track is underpinned by the kind of gnarly, repeated guitar riff that wouldn’t sound out of place on a Deftones mosher, while the pair trade verses that barrage you with an edge-of-seat stream of consciousness. N.E.R.D might not be the most 2021 reference to throw out there, but there’s undeniably something of their influence to ‘girls like drugs’ (a nod to the addictive nature of the opposite sex rather than, thankfully, anything more troubling…); ‘RHM’ slows the pace with an overdriven guitar line that pits it in the cross-section between emo and rap, while ‘BULLSEYE’ pulls everything in again, streamlining down to a drumbeat even Meg White would think was simple as Felix’s vocal takes on the dextrous legwork. There’s so much personality across ‘Red Hand Akimbo’, you wouldn’t dare second guess where the duo’s imagination might stray next. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Dr Aco’s Miracle Bullets’

RECO MMEN DED Missed the boat on some the best albums from the last couple of months? Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.

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JOY CROOKES Skin

A record that should, by rights, have the Londoner riding high into the big leagues.

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LITTLE SIMZ

Sometimes I Might Be Introvert Cinematic in its ambition, a whirlwind journey that zips you through various genres, moods and stories.

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POPPY Flux

Industrial noise, glorious cacophony, raw distorted riffs, and banging pop choruses.

REVIEWS

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DEAP VALLY

Marriage (Cooking Vinyl) Deap Vally have never lacked swagger. Their riff-heavy combo has always seen them packing unending amounts of attitude, but on ‘Marriage’, it’s immediately evident that they’re striking out to a magnitude unreached so far. The springboard of Lindsay Troy and Julie Edwards’ characteristic style - fuzzy rock with stormy hooks - means that they were never going to not sound self-assured. But the strength of ‘Marriage' is where the pair deviate from their blueprint, still churning out meaty riffs and belting choruses, but with a bit more fun. ‘I Like Crime’, tongue-in-cheek title aside, is one of the duo’s most carefree cuts to date thanks to some smart synth work. ‘I’m The Master’ is fittingly confident, and is one of the most classic Deap Vally sonic concoctions, but their newfound musical liberation soaks it with fresh power. ‘Marriage’ is the sound of Deap Vally tapping back into what makes them tick, and lays the groundwork for their most exciting era yet. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘I’m The Master’

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JELANI BLACKMAN Unlimited

(18 Records / eOne Music)

The knockout punch. It’s why everyone

Q&A The LA duo talk the collaborative nature of ‘Marriage’, the decision to wait before releasing their third full-length, and how couples’ therapy isn’t just for romantic relationships. Interview: Joe Goggins.

Why has it taken you six years to put out a full third record - why did EPs like ‘Digital Dream’ and ‘American Cockroach’ feel like the way to go instead? Julie Edwards: The problem with a full-length is that so many of your babies get forgotten about. There’ll be two or three tracks that are supposed to be at the front of the campaign, singles or whatever, and the rest of them become deep cuts. To us, that’s tragic. That’s why we made an effort to shine a light on every song by putting those EPs out. It seemed the right thing to do at a time when, more and more, people just aren’t oriented towards the idea of the album as a concept. Lindsey Troy: The old-fashioned idea of an album - the track listing, the artwork - is always appealing to us, but we get that it isn’t to everybody. The record’s title is ‘Marriage’, and we hear all the time about how being in a band is like being in a marriage. Is it true you went to couples therapy? Lindsey: It is. It can be quite intense sometimes. On the road, there’s other people there; crew, friends, whoever. It makes the two-person relationship less heavy - the mood is lighter. It’s not the same when it comes to writing and recording. Julie: And for years, we’ve had the same question over and over - “when are you going to get a bass player? When are you going to evolve 60 DIYMAG.COM

the sound?” So we thought we’d bring in a bunch of different third members. How important were the likes of Jenny Lee Lindberg and Jamie Hince as members of the illustrious supporting cast on ‘Marriage’? Julie: You go into the studio with other people like that, and it’s like you’re a spy; even if nothing comes of the session, you’ve been able to see how these brilliant people work. You’d have to have your head in a block of concrete not to be inspired! Lindsey: And it’s something we’re profoundly grateful for because when you go in fresh with somebody new, it’s like the two previous years of emotional baggage just melt away. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a one-night stand or a monthlong affair - it’s so much fun, you have some real laughs, and you come out of it with some great songs. What else could you ask for? Speaking of collaborations, how was it working with The Flaming Lips on the Deap Lips album? Julie: I can die happy now, basically. It was such a harmonious blend. Lindsey: You realise there’s a reason why they’re so prolific and have made a bazillion albums - they get to the studio at 9 or 10am every day and just create. They don’t take themselves too seriously, obviously, and they helped us so much in our journey - just loosening up, and letting things flow.

watches boxing. The wilfully cerebral might say they love nothing more than a tense, tactical battle, but they don’t. If they’re being honest, deep down all they want to see is someone get whacked in the mouth, really bloody hard. Jelani Blackman’s debut full length, ‘Unlimited’, promises to deliver a glorious knockout punch right out of the gates. ‘Unlimited’ and ‘Secrets’ go right for the jugular delivering the sort of vibrantly aggressive, no-holds-barred beats Giggs was known for all those years ago. Unfortunately though, this energy isn’t maintained. The opportunity for the haymaker vanishes, replaced instead by something much more calm and considered, and you can’t help but feel slightly disappointed. It’s not that the slower tracks are bad, it’s more that they don’t deliver what was promised early doors. Still, as debuts go, you can’t complain. If ‘Unlimited’ is anything to go by, you’d be daft to bet against Jelani Blackman getting that KO next time out. (Jack Doherty) LISTEN: ‘Secrets’

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ANGEL DU$T

YAK: A Collection Of Truck Songs (Roadrunner) What initially began as a creative offshoot from members of Turnstile and Trapped Under Ice has now taken on a life of its own, as the creative collective Angel Du$t. 'YAK...' is lyrically concerned with the mundanity of real life and exploring the beauty within ordinary routine. It captures a warming familiarity through its ballad-driven tracks, slamming snares and leisurely pace, collating the idiosyncrasies of heavy music with the vestige of '90s college rock. Paired with super-producer Rob Schnapf (FIDLAR, Kurt Vile), the Baltimore group tap into elements of surf rock, slacker indie and upbeat country, sometimes dipping their toes ('Dancing On The Radio' feat. Rancid's Tim Armstrong) and other times diving deep ('Yak'). There is a heavy focus on the rhythmic backbone of their songs, melodically supported by xylophone chimes, loose string sections and wavering guitar solos, not to mention Justice Tripp's matter-of-fact delivery floating easily above the calculated instrumentation. You can almost hear the blueprints of a careering hardcore track in 'No Vacancy', presenting Angel Du$t as a band that knows what they can do well, but wish to create a new, more approachable 'hardcore' with their wealth of experience. 'Fear Some' uses a tuned tom and piano stabs to stray into pop-punk territory while 'Yak' verges on a radiant fanfare, complete with brimming horns and euphoric strings. On the flipside ‘Love Is The Greatest’ perfectly captures Justice's candid delivery and ability to create simple-yet-moving vignettes. 'YAK...' is an unmistakable labour of hardcore love, fused by friendship and a combined lifetime of musical experience. All hail the renaissance of pleasantly short albums and the flourishing diversification of modern hardcore. Long live Angel Du$t. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: 'Yak'

REVIEWS

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THE WAR ON DRUGS

I Don’t Live Here Anymore (Atlantic)

The more things change, the more they stay the same for The War on

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GEESE

Projector (Partisan / Play It Again Sam) Brooklynites Geese are the latest to break through via the current post-punk bottleneck, and true to the genre’s staples, debut album ‘Projector’ is overflowing with obtuse, angular oddities. ‘Low Era’ and ‘Exploding House' show their wares off suitably, both full of the types of stabbing rhythms and twisted riffs that helped the style make a name for itself back in the day. And unlike some of their more rigid peers (of which, notably there are currently many), the five-piece are at least unafraid to break away from the fold. ‘Rain Dance’ and ‘Disco’ inject a healthy dose of weirdness to proceedings, taking the group away from the straitlaced towards a strange, jangly krautrock paradise. And by letting their hair down during these moments, Geese manage to add interesting new wrinkles to their sound, suggesting that, in time, the post-punk rulebook could yet be ripped up all over again. (Jack Doherty) LISTEN: ‘Disco’

Drugs. With enough time having passed to reflect on both the cataclysmic success of their 2014 breakthrough ‘Lost in the Dream’, and their GRAMMYclinching follow-up, ‘A Deeper Understanding’, the band - and specifically, frontman Adam Granduciel - can no longer reasonably lay claim to the tag of plucky underdog that their hard-knocks gestation in Philadelphia once afforded them. Like ‘A Deeper Understanding’, ‘I Don’t Live Here Anymore’ cleaves closely to the concept of not fixing what isn’t broken, but unlike that last album, Adam no longer appears content to trade in emotional vagaries; here, he turns his gaze inwards, gently, empathetically. A new father, having welcomed a son named after his hero, Bruce Springsteen, the concept of lineage cuts across the record; he’s both wistful and hopeful on the anthemic ‘Old Skin’ and the soft acoustics of ‘Rings Around My Father’s Eyes’. He has one eye on his own life, but also on where it is he sits relative to the idols that have gradually become his contemporaries. Elsewhere, fans of the songwriter’s lush reinterpretations of his classic rock influences will not be disappointed: ‘Harmonia’s Dream’ handsomely summons the freewheeling sixstring swell of old, while ‘Victim’ is ambitious, putting synths front and centre. The War on Drugs are reliable - not in the sense that they’re workhorses, but more in that Adam’s years-long close study of guitar rock has now evidently become an incontestable mastery. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Harmonia’s Dream’

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KILLS BIRDS Married

(Royal Mountain)

A Dave Grohl approval is a very good sign for any band, and in the case of Kills Birds, it came prior to recording second album ‘Married’, as the Foo Fighter invited them to do so in his own Studio 606. No pressure. The LA band, of course, have delivered on the promise. Blending punk rock energy with precision and unrelenting sonic intensity, on ‘Married’ the group unleash the spirit of punk with sharpshooting smarts. On one hand, there’s the frenetic, 26-second blast that is ‘Woman’, and the other sees them channelling their focus in no less furious ways, whether on the dizzy and fastpaced ‘Wallowing’, or the doom-laden and deliberate ‘Glisten’, the latter a veritable tour of every kind of punch Kills Birds are capable of packing. Nina Ljeti’s vocals are brutal, raging and rasping through the rampage of sound that constitutes the first ten tracks, before the title track and album closer pivots for one last atmospheric flex and she becomes gentle and feather-light. Not for long though, as ‘Married’ closes with the record’s most painstaking breakdown. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Glisten’

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MASTODON

Hushed and Grim (Reprise)

Pioneers of progressive sludge, and trailblazers of deeply personal (and sometimes bizarre) concept albums over the last 21 years, Mastodon never fail to evolve and innovate. ‘Hushed and Grim’ captures a perpetual moment of abject grief, provoked by the death of friend and manager Nick John. Thematically the record concerns an afterlife mythology that professes one’s spirit enters the heart of a tree temporarily in order to ease the transition from the mortal realm into the ‘next dimension’. Nick can be seen in the centre of this tree in the album artwork. Musically, it marries their progressive, industrial sensibilities with a more reflective approach, both sides of the coin exhibited beautifully on ‘Skeleton of Splendor’. While their scorching riffs are still evident on ‘The Crux’ and ‘Savage Lands’, and Brent Hinds’ technical guitars resound dominantly on the ironically-named ‘Peace and Tranquillity’, this album is far more concerned with the space between, ‘Had It All’ pairing evocative imagery with drifting low-distortion moments. In ‘Hushed and Grim’ we are presented with a more contemplative Mastodon, a band who have come to the natural end of toying with existential concepts and are now finding motives to progress their narrative from real world experience. A riveting fullness echoes throughout the record. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: ‘Skeleton of Splendor’

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FINNEAS Optimist

(Interscope / Polydor)

"If I could see the future, I never would believe her," Finneas postulates on anthemic album opener 'A Concert 6 Months From Now', a cerebral introduction to what at first appears to be a throwaway musing over a prepandemic society, but opens the floor for far bigger questions addressed throughout this debut album. 'The 90s' echoes the era's penchant for telling stories, while 'What They'll Say About Us' delivers an arena-size chorus that delicately builds with swelling 808s and dampened drums. The songwriting is faultless, with each track ebbing and flowing carefully, controlled by his minimal synth library and sparse textures that echo the lightness of his GRAMMY-winning work on sister Billie Eilish's reductive pop tunes. Finneas' layered vocals lend emphasis and allure to ballads 'Love Is Pain' and 'Someone Else's Star', sitting neatly on either side of the snarling 'Medieval'; a dark pop saga that delves into the blunt reality of sudden fame. Finneas is careful not to just emulate the work he's best known for, injecting stronger senses of rhythm and a more layered approach to his songs, and he infuses his lyrical content with contemplative studies of the human condition. 'Happy Now' particularly addresses the overbearing feeling of constant dissatisfaction with one's life. What begins as a deeply personal commentary eventually evolves into a worldrenowned producer taking the attention away from his ability to refine others' work, alternately placing the spotlight over his own voice, with its startling ability to carry a tale of kindred love, loss and the weight of fame. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: 'Medieval'

REVIEWS

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PENELOPE ISLES

Which Way To Happy (Bella Union)

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BOSTON MANOR

Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures (EP) (Sharptone) Boston Manor are unafraid. The Blackpool outfit took on a world devoid of gigs with last year’s experimental release ‘GLUE’. Now, out of nowhere, they’re taking on the world once again with ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’. From lead single ‘Carbon Mono’, rapturously received at their summer festival appearances, to every grinding bass note and Vantablackdark vocal hook on the new tracks on show, ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ is saturated with the very essence of the band. In keeping with the title, there is something deeply desperate at these songs’ core, churning and imploring: though the lyrics are outward-looking, ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ maintains a feeling of gripping introspection, and a paralysing need to exorcise it. ‘Let The Right One In' is almost a love song masquerading as barbed-wire heaviness, ‘Algorithm’’s dangerously biting lyrics deal with artistic identity in an industry governed by computer code, and ‘I Don’t Like People (And People Don’t Like Me)’ drills down through the mantra of the title through a gloomy musical backdrop to the very epicentre of existential loneliness. Through its sheer intensity, in both theme and sound, ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ finds itself Boston Manor’s most assertive release yet. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Let The Right One In’

The endearing naivety that sparkled on Penelope Isles’ 2019 debut ‘Until The Tide Creeps In’ has ripened into something far richer, festooned with macroscopic, reverb-smitten production, sumptuous orchestral arrangements, and a deeper, darker plunge into the private wellsprings of wracked emotion. With its conception marred by a turbulence of romantic heartache, lockdown claustrophobia, not to mention numerous line-up changes, ‘Which Way To Happy’ balances the raw confessionalism of its lyrics with the lavish ethereality of sound. On one extreme sits the balladic purity of tearjerker ‘11 11’ (“It’s all changing, going away / Feel like crying everyday”), and on the other, the star-sailing post-rock of transcendent cuts, ‘Sailing Still’ and ‘Sudoku’, Grizzly Bear-esque in their weighty ambition. Between these extremes lies a slew of well-wrought indie-pop songs, blessed by some fulgent guitar-playing and angelic vocal chops of Jack and Lily Wolter, the group’s core duo. Despite its heavier moments, ‘Which Way to Happy’ is a genuinely healing listen; an album to get cosy with while its music lovingly soaks your wounds. (Elvis Thirlwell) LISTEN: ‘Sailing Still’

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IAN MILES

Q&A Frontman Henry Cox tells us about the challenges and joys of Boston Manor making their most decisive music yet. Interview: Ims Taylor. ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ is a surprise release - are you feeling the pressure at all? It’s weird – it’s kind of like ‘GLUE’ never happened, and I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with it to be honest. If I could go back now there’s a lot of stuff I’d do differently. So I think in some ways that meant that this was quite liberating because we got to take inventory and assess and decide what kind of music we wanted to make, so now the writing we’re doing is super focused. But we’ve put out three albums, so at this point you don’t get to put out shit stuff! People’s attention span is very short… well, people’s time is more valuable and in less supply, so if you want people to be dedicated to your band, you’ve gotta come up with the goods. So we definitely want to be very particular about what we put out now. ‘GLUE’ pushed a lot of people’s preconceptions about the kind of band Boston Manor are – did you want ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ to do the same, or to be a restatement of what was really at the core? I think both in a way. We have our sound palette now, our toolshed of tools that we regularly use. But I think we’re always gonna try and do things that are not immediately comfortable, I can’t really justify doing this if it’s not exciting me. We fell back in love with our band making this EP, ‘cause we were really stuck between where we wanted to be and where the scene had put us - I hate talking about it but the whole pop-punk thing is really draining if you don’t see yourself as that thing.

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We were all a bit burnt out, but these songs just make sense and I think we’re at the time now where we know what is us and what isn’t us. So is ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ the most Boston Manor release yet? Yeah! I’m really confident on this - there’s been stuff in the past where we’ve not been sure that what we’ve made is great, but this is pretty watertight as an EP goes. It’s just a taste of what’s to come really, I’m not putting too much pressure on it ‘cause it’s just to set us up for the next one. That’s gonna be the big record that we make. The next one’s the scary one - that’s why we wanted to test the water with an EP. There’s a lot of variety even across the five tracks of ‘Desperate Times Desperate Pleasures’ - what do you think might surprise people the most about it? ‘Algorithm’ isn’t your textbook heavy tune that you’d expect, but we all love different stuff and pop music, too - we fell in love with this song, it was the first one we wrote for the EP. It was kind of inspired by Lana Del Rey! Stuff like 13 Beaches, and then The Neighbourhood too, our love of pop music and things like that. It’s a bit different but it feels right. Now you’ve found your sound (at least for now), can you define it at all? What does Boston Manor all boil down to? Fuzzy, groovy, hard rock bangers… or post-pop-punk!

Degradation, Death, Decay (Big Scary Monsters)

Acoustic balladry is a deceptively risky musical realm. It’s vulnerable and exposing by nature, and if not handled with care, it can become boring rather than enthralling. However, on his first solo album away from his day job as guitarist of beloved theatrical rockers Creeper, Ian Miles darts nimbly around the potential pitfalls, creating an album that is, instead, darkly enchanting and constantly compelling. ‘Degradation, Death, Decay’ is a rich yet accessible offering abounding with variety, where plaintive, lush full-band numbers like ‘Overwhelmed’ and ‘Blood In My Mouth’ sit comfortably between fragile one-man-one-guitar setpieces such as the folksy jaunt of ‘Sunburn’. However, it’s in these more sparse tracks that Ian shines brightest, performing the likes of lead single ‘Truest Blue’ and unequivocally gorgeous ‘Priority’ with an emotional tremor in his voice that singers with his level of experience cannot often muster. There’s an occasional touch of the dramatic here too in the wintry, eerie ‘I Hope You Choke’, which could fit as well into a Creeper setlist as it could into Ian’s own (there are moments where his tone is reminiscent of frontman Will Gould’s) and the experimental ‘audioclip-11_11_2017’ that flits erratically between music and monologuing. It’s a fine debut to say the least. (Emma Wilkes) LISTEN: ‘I Hope You Choke’

REVIEWS

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HALFNOISE Motif (Congrats)

In what couldn’t be further removed from the glammed-up psych-garage of 2019’s 'Natural Disguise', Paramore drummer Zac Farro AKA Halfnoise flexes yoghurty soft-rock muscles on 'Motif', his fourth LP under the moniker. Soundtracking his romance with partner and collaborator Kayla Graninger (who herself releases Zac-produced music under the moniker Elke), each of the record's eleven lovey-dovey tracks celebrates the progression of their relationship from bud to bloom. With an idyllic string section or salacious saxophone solo never far away, much of the record pays homage to the legends of smooth '70s pop: ‘Superstition’ jives to a squelchy, Stevie Wonder-ish funk; the cool bossanova shuffle of ‘I Think I’ve Fallen For You’ indulges in glowing Bee Gees schmaltz, with much of the record merrily skipping along with a gooyness pooled from the McCartney-E.L.O school of heart-flustering pop. In the sparser, piano-driven ballads (‘That’s Just Why', 'Right On Time’), fans of more contemporary ivorytinkling balladeers such as Matt Maltese will too find much to savour. Lead-single ‘Two of Us’ - a jubilant disco strut - is the freshest cut of the lot, a rare moment where the record transcends its influences rather than bowing down to them. With that being said, 'Motif' is an altogether curious record which lets the world rest assured that, in spite of everything, at least Zac is having a happy time. (Elvis Thirlwell) LISTEN: 'Two Of Us'

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ABSOLUTE (BEHIND THE) SCENES!

THE PARROTS Dos (Heavenly)

The second full-length from The Parrots offers a spruced-up, more festive versioning of the shambling indie found on the Madrid band’s ultra-lo-fi 2016 debut ‘Los Niños Sin Miedo’. Showcasing slicker production sensibilities, and the odd foray into electronic sounds courtesy of The Horrors’ Tom Furse, ‘Dos’ is choc-a-block with impassioned vocals and riotous sing-alongs; the indie galas of compatriots Hinds, or the bawling anthems of Palma Violets spring instantly to mind, as tunes like ‘Just Hold On’, or album closer ‘Romance’ erupt in plumes of unabashed positivity. While this sound embraces the majority of ‘Dos’, the album also drifts into more experimental waters. Opener ‘You Work All Day and Then You Die’ storms out of the blocks with sizzling motorik psychedelia, while the Talking Heads-informed mutant funk of ‘It’s Too Late To Go To Bed’ adds a dash of sultriness. On the whole, ‘Dos’ feels like a band caught in transition. (Elvis Thirlwell) LISTEN: ‘It's Too Late To Go To Bed’

Zac Farro (and his camera) takes us back to the recording of ‘Motif’.

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CONNAN MOCKASIN Jassbusters Two (Mexican Summer)

Connan Mockasin returns with the ‘inventively’-titled follow-up to 2018’s ‘Jassbusters’: ‘Jassbusters Two’. In the same vein as the first record, the album takes place in a fictional universe, where Connan and his band are schoolteachers from a daytime TV show that was never aired. Or something like that – Connan never makes enough of an impression for the concept of the album to matter. The real background is that the collective, fresh from performing the first ‘Jassbusters’ record, decided to hop into a studio while they were still hot and improvise over long takes, from which the album is constructed. You can tell that this is a band with proper chops; tracks like ‘K Is For Klassical’ and ‘Flipping Poles’ are delights, with the latter as the album’s six-minute centrepiece. But it’s hard not to feel that the emotional high notes of the record are dampened somewhat by the less disciplined moments. It’s especially frustrating when Connan has shown that he can write fantastically tight hooks (see: his work with Dev Hynes, or as Soft Hair with Sam Dust). On the whole, there’s a feeling that ‘Jassbusters Two’ just doesn’t quite justify its own existence - like a sequel to a classic film that didn’t really need to happen. (Louis Griffin) LISTEN: ‘Flipping Poles’

Micah Tawlks mixing the album. Recording gear.

The writing room in our apartment in LA where I started ‘Motif’.

Me after a drum take.

Me outside of the LA studio in front of a painted fence.

Coming Up

REVIEWS

BASTILLE - GIVE ME THE FUTURE With a title like that, we want whatever rose-tinted crystal ball Dan Smith’s been staring into. Out 4th February.

BLACK COUNTRY, NEW ROAD - ANTS FROM UP THERE Getting existential on a plane journey, were they? The seven-headed group will release their second album on 4th February.

THE MYSTERINES REELING The Merseyside noisemakers will scream their way to 11th March, which is when this debut lands.

YEARS & YEARS NIGHT CALL The now-solo Olly Alexander will follow chart-busters ‘Palo Santo’ and ‘Communion’ on 7th January.

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Sunshine State (EP) (Chess Club)

Day / Night (Because)

PIXEY

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PARCELS

WEIRD MILK

We Were Strangers (EP) (Weird Milk)

As she begins with the brilliantly perky, just made-for-teen-film montages ‘Life In Stereo’, Pixey asserts her trademark girl band-meets-Britpop sound with glorious conviction. Her knack for a melody shines on the release’s more upbeat moments (‘Life in Stereo’, as well as fellow singles ‘Sunshine State’ and ‘Take Me On’) just as brightly as it does on the rest of the EP, which on the whole leans into a more reflective sound. There’s definitely two sides to ‘Sunshine State’, and the Merseyside singer-songwriter released the dancefloor ready bops first - it would be easy for the rest to feel underwhelming, but she packs the calmer moments with so much atmosphere that they’re just as bright as the singles. Closer ‘Heaven’ is a real highlight, showcasing Pixey’s lyricism amongst the flickering instrumental and ringing in the dusk of ‘Sunshine State’ with gorgeous magnitude. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Heaven’

Aussies Parcels are a latecomer to 2019's double album bandwagon, with a second record that's part sunshine, part solitude. The lighter half of 'Day/ Night' is much as would be expected from the funk-pop outfit, the sundrenched nature of singles ‘Free’, ‘Comingback’, and ‘Somethinggreater’ broken up here by more paredback efforts 'Theworstthing' and 'Nowicaresomemore, before the seven-minute-long ‘Outside’ closes proceedings. Drama reigns on its second part, meanwhile, with the haunting ‘Neverloved’, the falsetto of ‘Reflex’, and ‘Famous’ touching on that perennial songwriting topic of hiding tougher feelings under a smile. It's 'Lordhenry' that's the best of the bunch on this mammoth collection, though, with its ability to shift cadence and mood on a whim, as the vocal line bellows: "All the love, all the lies, you can have it all." (Will Strickson) LISTEN: ‘Lordhenry’

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Queensway Tunnel

Trust Issues (EP) (Big Scary

ZUZU

ORCHARDS

(Planet Z)

Monsters)

‘Queensway Tunnel’ is, as its title suggests, firmly grounded in Merseyside. But listening to the album, you get the sense that it really went the other way round, too the Mersey gave the singer’s full-length debut its distinct emotional depth. It’s intensely personal, a series of love letters and reflections on the trials of your twenties - which means despite its intimacy, it’s also pretty universal. Delivered with Zuzu’s unmistakeable wit and confessional tone, tracks like ‘Bevy Head’ don’t resort to anything other than authenticity to be devastating (“My head is chock-a-block now” manages to be one of the album’s most emotional moments). There are a lot of sad songs, but Zuzu’s pop sensibilities shine even brighter when her lyrics are desolate - her choruses are fiercely, consistently euphoric. ‘The Van Is Evil’’s snarky groove, ‘Toaster’’s soaring sadness, ‘Never Again’’s dark bite – all so different, but cohesive in confirming that Zuzu is a spectacular storyteller. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Never Again’

After setting out their stall with debut full-length ‘Lovecore’ last year, Orchards have wasted no time in turning around this quick fire follow-up. The brooding, atmospheric ‘Drive You Home’ is a rare foray into writing straightforwardly about heartbreak for the Brighton trio, while the guitars on the stormy ‘Bye, Insecurity’ are confrontational. It’s in keeping with the energy of the EP - pointed, even angry at points. In fact, you begin to wonder whether this might be a sharper distillation of what Orchards are about than ‘Lovecore’ was; between the pop swagger of ‘Leave Us Here (We’re Fine)’, which is underscored by freewheeling guitar, and the punky closer, ‘Wonderful’, the band touch upon every aspect of their sonic palette in more concise fashion than they did on their LP. ‘Wrong Shoes’, which sounds like it might have been plucked from Paramore’s selftitled, is the standout, but Orchards’ keen handle on hooks and melody is obvious throughout. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Wrong Shoes’

If there was one single word to accurately sum up ‘We Were Strangers’, it’s ‘classic’. On this EP, the Buckinghamshire newcomers tap into a similar kind of songwriting timelessness as relative behemoths The Magic Gang or Matt Maltese, which is to say it’s meticulously-crafted indie-pop that’s as enamoured by melody as it is nostalgic for a time that quite possibly hasn’t even happened yet. The self-titled opener makes like a ‘70s TV theme, while single ‘Vienna’ is akin to a chirpy Alex Turner (if such a thing could exist). ‘See You Around’ hints at the more jangly side of the early ‘90s, meanwhile, whereas ‘Make It Alone (Lonely Boy)’ possesses a surprisingly sharp funk strut. A short collection that’s retro-leaning, no doubt, but with enough pep with it to avoid veering towards regressive territory. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘Make It Alone (Lonely Boy)’

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CATHY JAIN artificial (EP) (YALA!)

Cathy Jain’s debut EP ‘artificial’ serves both as an apt introduction to the artist, and as a kind of reflection on just what it means to be ‘bedroom pop’ after the world became confined to such spaces. Fittingly, ‘artificial’ is introspective, a kind of sonic escape. The instrumentals are pared back on the surface, but complex underneath: 'green screen’’s mix is a headspin that’s almost too atmospheric; ‘I see us in heaven’ flickers in the background of Cathy’s understated vocals. Expansive soundscapes underpin the whole EP: she set the pace with ‘cool kid’, which opens the EP with a gorgeous, sprawling instrumental. But her vocals are murmured and gentle, drawing the sound from the stratosphere right back into her cosy space. Cathy Jain feels quietly self-assured in the coolness of her delivery and the simplicity of her lyricism – nothing complicates the track or draws attention away from her songwriting. A definite promise of good things to come. (Ims Taylor) LISTEN: ‘cool kid’

LIVE SOUND CITY Various venues, Liverpool. Photos: Georgina Hurdsfield.

hat’s normally a bright-eyed beginning to festival season has morphed into its triumphant closer - Sound City routinely showcases acts that are ready to take on the year, and the world, and somehow this October weekend doubles down as a celebration of a year of success, and a springboard for more to come.

Molly Payton is a fitting beginning to Friday evening in Grand Central, our Main Stage for the next three days: she effortlessly draws in the crowd, though a tad sparse, with her understated rising-star power and enchanting vocals. The venue is the place to be tonight; Molly is followed by SPINN. Their sunny introspection and dreamy hooks are delivered with panache as frontman Jonny Quinn balances sincere, romantic lyricism with somehow shaking his hips for the entire duration of the set, setting a fine example for the crowd to boogie along with. Tonight’s crowning jewel is Beabadoobee’s headline show - between a setlist spanning her discography, and a performance that revels in its relaxed state, she turns the biggest venue Sound City has into one of the weekend’s most intimate atmospheres. She mooches around with her guitar, looking every part the grunge-pop star and delivering huge moments like ‘Care’ with appropriate power. But on older cuts (‘She Plays Bass’, and, of course, an acoustic rendition of ‘Coffee’, the crowd so loud you can barely hear Bea), the unassuming nature that characterised her breakthrough shines through. As Saturday commences, there’s a distinct feeling that most of these acts aren’t going to be playing very many more rooms this small. Kicking things off is

Geiste, who fills the Kazimier Stockroom with ethereal vocals, conjuring an ambience that not even technical hitches can break.

Then it’s over to Jacaranda and local favourites Police Car Collective. Donning a red balaclava, hanging from the low ceiling, and never stopping moving, it seems the venue can barely even contain the band, let alone an audience too. Today is the day for Merseyside talent, and The Let Go continue the trend in style. Arts Club Loft’s ceilings may be high, but the duo are a fighting match, filling the room with their stylish indie-pop. The rain has set in with intent by this point, but the queue snaking round the block waiting to get into The Mysterines’ triumphant Grand Central set aren’t deterred. And once you get in, it’s obvious why – Lia Metcalfe’s entrancing delivery pierces through the intensity of the instrumentals, easily rivalling the sheer power of their gravelly riffs. Courting are here fresh off the back of a huge UK tour, and they give a show that’s worth the hype. A long-drawn-out ‘Slow Burner’ sees frontman Sean Murphy-O’Neill enter the crowd wielding his cowbell to bestow it on audience members - some are shy, but others seem to have been practicing for this moment. The set is punctuated with these mischievous injokes, but it’s also packed with noisy, riffy proof that Courting deserve the local legend status that they’ve acquired. Fast-rising Leeds gang L’Objectif open things up over on Sunday at Grand Central - the crowd is kept waiting, slowly growing, outside the venue till only about five minutes before the band are due to come on, but once we’re in everyone quickly gets into full swing. They make an impressive amount of

noise, delivering scuzzy guitar riffs and commanding vocals with the power of a far more seasoned act.

Police Car Collective

After the Shipping Forecast being constantly full yesterday, no one is taking any chances with sizzling up-and-comers English Teacher. Their set is impossible to pin down – sometimes they sound like they’re at the front of the new guard of peppy, discordant indie-pop-via-post-punk, and then sometimes Lily Fontaine’s vocals drift elsewhere altogether and turn the basement into something otherworldly. The Arts Club Theatre line-up today is a special one - before we get to hometown headliner Låpsley, we have a slew of artists hand-picked by the artist herself to highlight a wealth of female and non-binary talent, and Miso Extra is one of the highlights. With just two songs out so far, her intriguing blend of alt-pop, rap, and lo-fi stylings has drawn in a lot of people, and it’s clear that everyone here likes what they see. When Låpsley takes to the stage to close the festival, it’s with a real sense of pride in the sets she’s following. Between her candid moments between songs, which go from honest (“This song is about feeling empowered as a woman, and that’s quite a new thing for me…”) to brilliantly, rightfully assured (“This is my Mr Worldwide set!”), and her magnetic pop tunes, Låpsley’s set sums up everything that sets Sound City apart: a varied, high-calibre bunch of musicians, and a wonderful, tangible sense of community. (Ims Taylor)

The Mysterines

Beabadoobee

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IT’S YOUR ROUND A big inter-band pub quiz of sorts, we’ll be grilling your faves one by one. now brought to you via zoom!

THIS MONTH: PIXEY

Where: At home, Liverpool. Drink: Cappuccino with oat milk

Specialist Subject: Harry Potter

General Knowledge 1. What is the biggest mountain in Britain? Oh god. Snowdon? It’s Ben Nevis.

1. What are the names of Harry’s parents? Lily and James. Nailed it.

2. Who was Henry VIII’s last wife? Catharine Parr. Yes!

2. What is the name of the secret meeting place of Dumbledore’s Army? The secret room? The managing room? Oh, The Room of Requirement! There you go. 3. What do you recite to close The Marauder's Map? Mischief Managed! 4. What is Voldemort’s Boggart? Oh, I remember this one. Shit… Fuck… I know this! Grimwald? Oh no, I don’t know. It’s his own corpse. Oh? 5. Who killed Bellatrix Lestrange? Molly Weasley.

4/5

3. What is the piece of fruit found at the top of the Wimbledon Tennis trophy? Oh my gosh. A lemon? It’s actually a pineapple. Oh! 4. What is the only vitamin not found in an egg? Vitamin… E? Close. C. . 5. What is the name of the patriarch of the family in the show Succession? No idea. It’s Logan Roy! No clue. Genuinely no clue.

1/5

FINAL SCORE:

5/10

Verdict: “I obviously have a knowledge of fantasy far superior than I do to anything in real life.”

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IN PRINT. EVERY MONTH.

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9TH DEC 2021 JOIN US FOR THE LAUNCH OF OUR CLASS OF 2022 - WHERE WE’LL BE CELEBRATING AN ARRAY OF NEW ACTS HEADING IN THE RIGHT DIRECTION - AT HOUSE OF VANS LONDON.

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