DIY, October 2023

Away

Holly Humberstone Bombay Bicycle Club The Kills Soft Play + more

DREAM JOB TOUR 2024

WED 13 MAR THE NICK RAYNS LCR (UEA), NORWICH

THU 14 MAR ROCK CITY, NOTTINGHAM

FRI 15 MAR O2 ACADEMY GLASGOW

SAT 16 MAR O2 APOLLO MANCHESTER

SUN 17 MAR NORTHUMBRIA UNIVERSITY, NEWCASTLE

TUE 19 MAR MANDELA HALL, BELFAST

WED 20 MAR VICAR STREET, DUBLIN

FRI 22 MAR INVISIBLE WIND FACTORY, LIVERPOOL

SAT 23 MAR O2 ACADEMY BRISTOL

MON 25 MAR THE DOME, BRIGHTON

WED 27 MAR EVENTIM APOLLO, LONDON

TICKETS ON SALE NOW

Question!

For her debut solo shows, cover star Lauren Mayberry has been walking on stage to Liza Minelli’s iconic ‘Maybe This Time’. What would Team DIY choose as their entrance song?

SARAH JAMIESON Managing Editor

Is it bad that it would probably be a toss up between Katrina and the Waves’ iconic summer hit ‘Walking On Sunshine’, and Limp Bizkit’s less wholesome ‘Break Stuff’? Depending on the day, of course…

EMMA SWANN

Founding E ditor

My brain immediately went to Black Sabbath’s ‘Paranoid’, and tbh even after thinking further I don’t think I can top it in any way. Or the Nolans’ nostalgia TV mainstay ‘I’m In The Mood For Dancing’, maybe, for a bit of intentional contrast.

LISA WRIGHT

Features Editor

Frankly appalled that we’ve all let ‘UK Hun’ slip into the mist, so would personally love to bring the “bing bang bong”s back to the stage.

LOUISE MASON

Art Director

I’d hire the German folk singer we saw playing a cover of ‘Blue (Da Ba Dee)’ by Eiffel 65 on harmonica at Reeperbahn last week (he possibly wasn’t on the official line-up).

DAISY CARTER

Digital Editor

Taking a cue from the feted return of SOFT PLAY (who iconically always start with the Vengaboys), I’d go for something equally toe-curling/crowd pleasing - maybe Las Ketchup, or that National Express song?

Editor's Letter

Ever since they broke through more than a decade ago, we here at DIY have been lowkey obsessed with CHVRCHES. So earlier this year when the band’s Lauren Mayberry announced she’d be striking out on her own, we couldn’t have been more excited to hear more. That’s why we’re thrilled to have her return to the cover to offer a first glimpse into her new solo era, and to hear what it means to be entering this new chapter of her creative life.

It’s another big month all round, too! Elsewhere in our packed October issue, we dive into the undefinable new album from Bombay Bicycle Club, get reflective with Holly Humberstone as she preps her debut album, and herald the long-awaited return of SOFT PLAY. Plus, there are chats with vibrant stars like Bambie Thug, SIPHO., Dorian Electra and Creeper - it’s a big ‘un!

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

Listening Post

JELANI BLACKMAN - THE HEART OF IT

Featuring guest spots from Kojey Radical, Biig Piig and Bob Vylan, his debut is as wide-reaching as that list suggests. Flitting easily between gravelly baritone and whipsmart rap flow, ‘The Heart Of It’ promises to reach for exactly what it says on the tin.

JOCKSTRAP - I<3UQTINVU

Ostensibly a remix album of last year’s debut ‘I Love You, Jennifer B’,‘I<3UQTINVU’ is - of course - far weirder and more experimental than your average ‘put a donk on it’ reworking. But then what else would you expect?

CHVRCHES - THE BONES OF WHAT YOU BELIEVE

With Lozza on the cover and CHVRCHES’ debut turning 10 this month, of course we’ve been rolling back the clock and tucking back into all the electro pop meat on those particular ‘...Bones’. A decade on, ‘The Mother We Share’ still absolutely slaps.

code to listen. October

playlist

Bambie Thug by Louise Mason (p18)

Contributors: Alex Rigotti, Bella Martin, Ben Tipple, Chris Taylor, Crystal Bell, Dan Landsburgh, Ed Lawson, Ed Miles, Emma Wilkes, Jack Terry, James Hickey, Joe Goggins, Louis Griffin, Louisa Dixon, Mia Smith, Otis Robinson, Rhian Daly, Shervin Lainez.

“Making shit together again feels amazing. Playing live, you don’t get that buzz from anything else.”

- Isaac Holman

PLAY

time

If it weren’t for Blur, Soft Play might not be here right now. Indeed, not so long ago, Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent had semi-resigned themselves to never making music together again. The question of “Is this it?” had been raised in a loose manner, and though they’d tried writing together again - and it went wellthey weren’t seeing enough of each other for their creative flow to gush back into life. Isaac had even got himself a ‘proper job’ as a gardener, and he was loving it; “It’s so grounding, and it just takes you somewhere else,” he notes. He’s still doing it part-time now.

There may well have been a vision of his future where, instead of performing the duo’s 2018 song ‘Magnolia’ in front of heaving festival crowds, Isaac was growing actual magnolias. Last Christmas, however, an opportunity to support Blur at their Wembley Stadium reunion shows was dangled in front of the Tunbridge Wells duo, and it seemed too exciting not to seriously consider.

“We were like, ‘Well, they’re one of our favourite bands…’” recalls Laurie. “That opportunity presenting itself to us gave us a massive kick up the ass.” And so, the pair committed themselves to doing the necessary work to resurrect the band. Starting with a name change. “It was something I’d known that, if we were going to get back together, we needed to address,” the guitarist says. “We needed to look at how our relationship was and, if we [were to] do it again, how we were going to be with each other.”

They didn’t even end up getting the Blur gig in the end, but the work had already been done. Then again, it might not have been the only possible thing that could

have saved Soft Play either. “I think we probably would have found our way back to each other again,” Isaac reckons, “but I don’t know when that would have happened or how.” “I needed something to pull us back,” Laurie adds. “Once that got rolling again, the magic was there.”

The lights were out for Soft Play for almost half a decade. In that time, Laurie began living what he calls a more “intimate life”, centered around being there for his family and raising his young children. Both he and Isaac agree that it was vital for them to disentangle their identities from their occupations; when your job is your passion, it’s easy for the line between work and life to become fuzzy, and for what you do to swallow your sense of self whole. “We’ve done it for so long, and I felt like it was every part of me,” nods Isaac. “I didn’t really have much of a life outside of it. I think having that time off was really helpful as well for me to work on the shit that was actually important.”

Crucially, the time and distance they had in their break afforded the pair a rejuvenated passion for the things that make their jobs worth doing - writing music, creating, making a noise on a big stage - the stuff musicians actually sign up for when they join a band, rather than being entangled in the industry machinations. “Making shit together again feels amazing,” says Isaac. “Playing live, you don’t get that buzz from anything else. Our job is to make stuff.”

“The other stuff taints it,” furthers Laurie. “I feel like that’s why I got jaded towards the end of our last spell as a band, because we - or rather I - was definitely focusing too much on

Back with a new name, a new track and a new BFF of the unlikeliest kind, Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent are ringing the bell on the next era of Soft Play. Words: Emma Wilkes. Photos: Dan Landsburgh.

the industry bit and not the creative bit. Now, it feels good to have our heads aligned and to really understand what’s important to us. We’re not taking it for granted anymore.”

Their live comeback this summer was explosive. It began with a headline slot at Cheltenham’s 2000trees in July and, six weeks later, they made a surprise appearance at Reading & Leeds, packing out the tent and receiving the rowdiest kind of heroes’ welcome. “It was completely wrong and right. Everything had changed, nothing had changed,” Laurie recalls. “There’s something we share that no one else will ever share apart from us in that moment, hitting our drums and strings in the same time. There’s such a synergy between us. But then it was also like, ‘What the fuck?! There’s people here and we’ve not been here for years’. That’s been a really humbling experience. It’s good to have those roots and re-establish them.”

Nestled among their big hits in the setlist was a new song: the snotty, adrenaline-fuelled rager ‘Punk’s Dead’, which doesn’t so much take aim as lob tomatoes at the idea of political correctness taking the venom out of the genre. As fiery it sounds, however, it’s almost aggressively cheeky, and pushes Soft Play’s fun side into the spotlight.

Isaac and Laurie went this way because they were following a gut instinct. “When we’re in the studio, laughing, making music, that’s the essence of what our band is about,” says Laurie. “If you look at our most popular songs, they always have this element of comedy. That was something that we wrestled with for a long time, because we didn’t want to be

a funny band, because then it becomes your thing - ‘Oh yeah, they’re the funny ones’. But now we’ve come to the acceptance that that’s what we’re fucking good at.”

Listen to the track’s bridge, meanwhile, and you’ll hear a familiar voice who was ingeniously assigned lines such as “Snowflake, snowflake / Cherries on the woke cake”. After they were unable to get a children’s choir to sing the bridge because of the swearing, Isaac and Laurie called in a favour from a new friend, who just so happened to be the most punk and not-at-all punk guest they could have had – Robbie Williams.

“I woke up to a video message from Robbie about a year ago,” Laurie recalls. “He was like, ‘Hi Laurie, it’s Rob. Hope you don’t mind that I got your number. I want to make music like you guys’. At this point, we weren’t even making music. I said ‘What the fuck?’ and showed my partner, and she was like, ‘Yeah, that is Robbie Williams’. That then sparked a WhatsApp relationship.” Robbie wasn’t available for the ‘Punk’s Dead’ video shoot however, so they decided on the obvious next idea – filming his part remotely as a Teletubby sun.

More music, meanwhile, is on its way, with Soft Play aiming to have a new album out next year. Back in action and having fully regained their mojo, Laurie stresses that ‘Punk’s Dead’ “isn’t an accident”; they’ve rediscovered the joy in making music, and when the album drops, you’ll be able to feel it. “It feels like people just want it heavy,” says Isaac. “People want something loud, and they want to go to gigs and have fun. We want to facilitate that. It feels like it did when we started again.” 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.

Beware, the journalist who ever gives Caroline less than four stars… (@carolineplz)

New for A/W 23: matching your jumper to your… floorboards? (@squidbanduk)

In the immortal words of ‘Rock DJ’, he’s making you feel so nice. (@robbiewilliams)

It feels good to have our heads aligned and to really understand what’s important to us. We’re not taking it for granted anymore.” - Laurie Vincent

DIY In Deep is our monthly, online-centric chance to dig into a longer profile on some of the most exciting artists in the world right now.

DIYin deep

STAR

What’s the price of fame, asks hyperpop pioneer Dorian Electra?

According to third album ‘Fanfare’, it might just be a five-dollar Minion with a strap-on.

Words: Alex Rigotti.

TREATMENT

“What people will say behind an anime avatar on Twitter is radically different from something they would say to somebody face to face.”

Somewhere in Houston, Texas, a 14-year-old Dorian Electra was doing what any other teenager was on the Internet circa 2006: ignoring stranger danger and making virtual pals. “I was really obsessed with The Horrors,” they remember with a smile, “and my first experience of being online was curating my presence within that fandom community. That’s where I really learned about a personal brand, as cringe and millennial as it is to say.”

It wasn’t just friends that Electra made, however. The band inspired them to make their own music videos set to their music, which they even managed to hand to the band at a gig in LA. Electra was living the life of a stan well before the term officially entered the dictionary, but they didn’t know that, a decade later, they’d be collaborating with frontman Faris Badwan and gaining a few stans of their own. Now, those stans are the subject of the 31-year-old’s newest album: ‘Fanfare’.

There are plenty of hyperpop figures nowadays, but Electra’s approach has been a unique one of spreading ‘popaganda’. Briefly flirting with songs about libertarianism in 2010 (which they’ve since denounced), Electra then started writing histories of the clitoris and vibrators for Refinery29, set to pop music. They would later break out with two studio albums, 2019’s ‘Flamboyant’ and 2020’s ‘My Agenda’; ‘Flamboyant’ took on masculine gender stereotypes and flipped them into relatable, parodic tropes, whilst ‘My Agenda’ documented a fictional conspiracy theorist watching their country fall to “the gay agenda”.

To see an artist approach such nuanced, contemporary issues and distil them into its most entertaining elements is already admirable, but there was an extra layer to Electra’s growing fanbase. The hyperpop scene has partly become defined by its queer online communities that champion fellow queer artists, but as a genderfluid person, Electra represented a diminutive niche in an already marginalised community. Genderfluid identity at the time of their debut releases was vastly misunderstood, and Electra is quick to notice how much times have changed. “I don’t like to make this the centre of the conversation for my music, but 2018 to 2023? Huge shifts!” they confirm. “You could Google a list of queer artists in 2017, and it’d be Troye Sivan, Cakes da Killa, Kim Petras. Now it’s everyone, which is amazing.”

It’s a shifting world that they’re releasing this month’s third LP into then, however Electra was also negotiating some personal shifts of their own. After releasing ‘My Agenda’, going through relationship issues, and dealing with a vocal cord injury, they were faced with an existential crisis. “What does my life look like now?” they recall. “What motivates me? What makes me happy? What do I want to write about?”

Their answer is delivered in the breathless, verbose manner characteristic of their ever-curious

personality: “Fame, fandom, the Internet, the cult of celebrity, the industrial production of celebrity under capitalism and how fandom is the new religion.”

To dig further into the subject, they turned to Kaitlyn Tiffany’s book

Everything I Need, I Get From You: a journalist-cum-1D-stan account of the importance of fandom. “She felt like she was making a difference and she was fighting for a just cause. Who doesn’t want to feel like they’re a part of something like that?” Electra reasons. “It might be getting an album to Number One, or doing something to their competitor so they weren’t in the charts. Human beings are wired for meaning and community, but community is not something that capitalism is into.”

One of the resounding emotions present across ‘Fanfare’ is the increasing absurdity of capitalistic greed, something they illustrate in ‘Manmade Horrors’ and its litany of eye-scouring imagery: “You may live to see a Minion with a strap-on / Live to see a slutty Mao Zedong thong”. Technically it wasn’t a strap-on, Electra clarifies. “It was a crochet minion with a sock for people with penises, you could put the penis into the nose,” they laugh.

What concerned them was that such demand for irritating, chipmunk-voiced marketing shills was becoming increasingly inescapable. “There’s a factory somewhere in the world that is probably using toxic chemicals to produce this one-off item, and somebody is being exploited for the purpose of a joke that you can purchase for $5 and get delivered to your house in two days or less,” they argue. “It’ll be in the back of your closet, and eventually in a landfill. But the reaction that I see so many people having around me is that I can’t help but have to laugh at it.”

If Rule 34 of the internet dictates ‘if it exists, there is porn of it’, then Electra has discovered another rule: ‘if it exists, there is a way to profit from it’. The ability to capitalise off anything is taken to deliriously creative heights on

‘Sodom and Gomorrah’. Though it is about “anal sex, basically”, the music video questions what it would be like if those cities became tourist attractions, with its own merch.

“I got really obsessed with souvenir shops when I was on tour last year,” Electra explains. “I was visiting Italy, thinking about how you can buy a T-shirt that has Roman emperors on it. That was literally a murderous dictator, but when it’s separated by enough time in history, it just becomes yet another thing to make money off of. It’s so funny and bizarre! I’ve always been fascinated with that, especially the way that mediaeval stuff is so romanticised now aesthetically, but that shit was horrible. Mad people were being oppressed everywhere.”

Electra has long explored history in their music, but they also found it an apt metaphor to describe the mechanisms of Internet anonymity on ‘anon’. “What people will say behind an anime avatar on Twitter is radically different from something they would say to somebody face to face,” they deadpan. “On the one hand, it’s empowered people to develop queer identities online before they ever felt comfortable coming out to their family – that should be celebrated. But by the same token, you can also explore dark and hateful identities. People feel powerless in their own lives because they’re politically and economically disenfranchised and turn to these platforms online to exercise what they feel is some sort of power.

“You give people that much power and you’re looking at mob rule,” they conclude. “It just feels very medieval to me in a lot of ways, and the anonymity fuels it because it’s really a lack of accountability for what you say and do online.”

Read the full feature online at diymag.com/ dorianelectra

‘Fanfare’ is out now. DIY

DECLAN MCKENNA Nothing Works

To suggest that Declan McKenna is growing into himself as a songwriter may be a tad too cliche given that he was still a teen when he first broke through, but there’s a wonderful lightness of touch that runs through ‘Nothing Works’ - and, indeed ‘Sympathy’, also from his forthcoming third album - that suggests he’s found a rhythm to his songwriting: unafraid in equal parts to embrace pop’s bombast and allow himself the space to be a little weird. An enviably immediate chorus is paired with some humourously self-aware lyrics (“Not like I’m up-and-comin’ anymore / So what if they hear me singing ‘I love war’?”) to suggest that if this is how Declan works his way through his writer’s block, most other songsmiths would gladly swap. (Bella Martin)

HAVE YOU HEARD?

MARIKA HACKMAN No Caffeine

Thematically a league apart from 2019’s sexually charged ‘Any Human Friend’, Marika Hackman has now turned her attentions to the opposite end of the emotional spectrum. ‘No Caffeine’ functions as a to-do list in the event of a pending anxiety attack: “Occupy your mind / Don’t stay home / Talk to all your friends, but don’t look at your phone / Scream into a bag / Try to turn your brain off”. Shifting sonic dynamics and varied instrumentation echo the building tension of pre-emptive panic, but in terms of her art, Marika remains firmly in control. (Daisy Carter)

BLINK-182 One More Time

While blink-182 obviously made their name on the riotous pop-punk that defined their early releases, the trio can still do tenderness well: case in point, the title track of their forthcoming album ‘One More Time’. An ode to the three-piece’s recent reunion following the news of Mark Hoppus’ cancer diagnosis (“I wish they told us, it shouldn’t take a sickness / Or airplanes falling out the sky”), the track bears more than a few callbacks to their iconic 2004 hit ‘I Miss You’, but this time, with an even more poignant and personal touch.

(Sarah Jamieson)

EMPRESS OF & RINA SAWAYAMA Kiss Me

Theirs is already a combo primed to send fans into raptures, but add in slick production and an iconic video with copycat-ready costuming and you’ve got a potential modern classic on your hands. A track of dualities, this acts as the sonic equivalent of a shoulder-perching angel and devil: on the one hand, you’ve got a gentle piano melody and visuals of its winged singers; on the other, a pumping, heartbeat-esque beat and shots of a rather biblical burning tree. Showcasing the best of both vocalists, ‘Kiss Me’ is a noughtiestinged earworm that finds Empress Of and Rina meeting in melodic harmony. (Daisy Carter)

LYNKS New Boyfriend

As far as call-and-response crowd moments go, the latest from Lynks will surely land 2023’s award for sagest advice. Yet while your Great Aunt Gladys might not be down to “Say it with me: friends don’t give each other head!”, for those more on board with their witty electroclash, ‘New Boyfriend’ should keep appetites firmly whetted. All sleazy guitars and the sort of thumping pulse that nods to Gossip, Peaches and other queer dancefloor innovators, Lynks is earning their place in the lineage. (Lisa Wright)

Prima Queen & Shanghai Baby shine at London’s latest SON Estrella Galicia microfestival

For those in the know, these events are fast becoming some of the most anticipated gigs in London. Words: Daisy Carter. Photos: Alex Amorós.

Bridging the gap between this capital and Madrid, the current series of gigs hosted by SON Estrella Galicia bring together music and beer - natural bedfellows if there ever were two - for memorable nights which showcase exciting new artists from both Spain and here in the UK in a way that puts positive cultural impact firmly front and centre.

And the latest iteration is no different: heading over to Hackney in the late afternoon sun, it’s as if the SON Estrella Galicia team have blessed us with some unseasonable Spanish warmth. Over at record shop / bar hybrid The BBE Store - a stone’s throw from tonight’s venue, Paper Dress Vintage - us amateurs are put through our palatal paces with a unique beer tasting experience, during which we learn how brewing ingredients are not so different from the instruments in a band; whether talking about beer or music, both are a delicate balance of their constituent parts. Merging the evening’s core tenets in symbiotic harmony, the activity also acted as a cultural exchange of sorts, promoting a sense of camaraderie and community amongst the British and Spanish punters alike.

Paper Dress is busy from the off, as crowds admire the second hand clothing pop-up - courtesy of local illustrator Tim Rockins - and enjoy aromatic, beer-matched street food, soundtracked by the DJ stylings of psych collective Mandrake Handshake Everything about our surroundings feels considered and considerate, looking to the future in terms of championing both sustainability and ethical consumption, and fresh musical talent.

The buzzy courtyard quickly empties, however, as soon as we’re informed that the first band of the evening - Madrid’s Shanghai Baby - are about to take to the stage. The project of former Hinds bassist

Ade Martin, they power through material from last year’s debut ‘EP01’, as well as trying out newer cuts and unreleased tracks for size. As their first ever London gig, it’s incredibly well-received, and recent single ‘Is This The Right Time’ is a particular highlight: its scrappy, Strokes-esque guitars inject some movement into the packed crowd, while Ade’s accented vocals bring depth and texture to the song’s English lyrics.

A quick stint outside (and a round of cold beer) brings respite from the heat of the upstairs venue, but punters are long past caring about matters as trivial as temperature by the time Prima Queen pick up their instruments. Led by core duo Kristin McFadden and Louise Macphail, they’re a band who have made emotionally driven, heart-on-sleeve songwriting something of a signature, but that’s not to say they’re lacking in punch. Far from it, in fact - from the very first chords of opener ‘Chew My Cheeks’, the crowd are singing along near word-perfectly, be it to tracks from the debut EP ‘Not The Baby’ or the more archival singles ‘Milk Teeth’ and ‘Brownstone’. Even as an observer, the bond between the pair is tangible, and they share smiles and exchange onstage patter with familiar ease.

Herein lies the singularity of Prima Queen - the pair know each other so well, you’d be hard pushed to guess whose experiences informed which songs, were it not for one or other of them taking the lead on vocals. They explore topics which are so personal yet so universal - heartbreak, homesickness, dementia - with sensitivity and honesty, but are equally as capable leading the crowd in a gutsy, impassioned chorus of “you don’t know that I’m fucked up” during set closer ‘Eclipse’.

As hordes of people spill back out into the courtyard behind, it’s clear that the night could easily continue long past last orders if noise curfews permitted. A celebration of emerging artists and a combination of cultures, the SON Estrella Galicia showcases continue to prove that good music really is an international affair. DIY

Shanghai Baby

Shanghai Baby

Prima Queen

On The Record is a chance for DIY’s esteemed writers to wax lyrical about the subjects close to their hearts and populating your timelines. This month, Lisa Wright on why Olivia Rodrigo topping Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage next year would be a headline set for the history books. Illustration: Karagh Byrne

When Olivia Rodrigo announced the world tour for her all-conquering second LP ‘GUTS’ last month, there was a notable gap in the calendar at the end of June. It’ll inevitably be filled with a Glastonbury 2024 slot; that’s a relative no-brainer. But we’re going one further: promoting the 20-year-old pop sensation to the very top spot wouldn’t just be good 4 u (and her), it’d be the smartest move that Glastonbury themselves could make.

Cometh another raft of festival season announcements, cometh the same old frustrating sticking points - namely the still-rampant gender representation gap, and the lack of fresh artists being elevated to headline status. The replies from festival bookers are generally the same too; that it’s a pipeline problem, that without support and investment in artists that would correct these issues earlier down the chain, it’s impossible for them to take a punt in a saturated event market. Essentially, ‘We’ve got to sell tickets, and we know that booking Muse for the 90th time will do the job’.

Glastonbury, however, has always been exempt from this argument. The festival sells out immediately, way before any artists are announced. Sure, this status is partly based on a history of big-name, savvy booking, and we’re not saying that if they popped a reunited Aqua atop the Pyramid, people wouldn’t notice. But in terms of supposed ‘risktaking’, Glastonbury is the one place that can take a punt far more easily than others.

They’ve got great form for it too. When Dave Grohl broke his leg in 2015, Florence + the Machine stepped into Foo Fighters’ weighty shoes and have been bona fide festival headline slayers ever since. Stormzy’s 2019 appearance was not only pivotal for the man himself, but proved the festival’s relevance to a new generation, while Billie Eilish became Glasto’s youngest ever headliner in 2022, underscoring her

phenomenal progression to the top of pop’s tier. In 2023, however, they played it frustratingly safe. Elton was an undeniable one for the ages and Arctic Monkeys are always a solid bet, but three-for-three elder(ish) male headliners unsurprisingly caused some backlash.

And so to Olivia. Much like Billie’s debut Glastonbury performance in 2019, which had to be upgraded due to sheer demand, when Rodrigo slayed the Other Stage in 2022, it felt like a true moment. Since then, ‘GUTS’ has only seen her star rise astronomically further; at the time of writing, ‘vampire’ is on its 12th week in the Billboard Top 10 while the album itself outsold the rest of the UK Top 10 combined on its first week of release. The comparisons to Eilish’s trajectory are undeniable, but what would make Ol-Rod such a glorious headliner - one to rile up the grumpy old men and send the kids into a flurry of excitement - is just how much the singer wears her youth with unabashed glee.

Debut ‘SOUR’ is an album that could only have been written by a teenager (albeit an extraordinarily talented one) in the flurries of dramatic hormonal emotion; ‘GUTS’ is a coming of age album that’s completely OK with its protagonist still being a work in progress. Has there ever been a Glastonbury headline set so unapologetically aimed at Rodrigo’s demographic, one that stomps and strops and cheers and cries with gusto, and wraps it all up in an aesthetic that’s pure stickers-on-notebooks and sleepovers with your mates? Add to that her previous form in creating Glastonbury moments, having brought out Lily Allen for a duet of ‘Fuck You’ just as the US senate was overturning Roe v Wade and you’ve got the potential for a headline like no other.

Not only has Olivia Rodrigo got the ‘GUTS’, you bet she’d have the glory too. DIY

“Not only has Olivia Rodrigo got the ‘GUTS’ to headline Glasto, you bet she’d have the glory too.”

BLANCO WHITE

BEAVERTOWN PRESENTS:

HIGHSCHOOL + L’OBJECTIF + TERRA TWIN

FEEL IT

WE ARE HOUSEWORK

JOSEPH LAWRENCE

LUZ

KAMILLE

BARE JAMS

FEEL IT

IRAINA MANCINI

HAND HABITS

MICHAEL ALDAG

DHANI HARRISON

DHANI HARRISON

FEEL IT

ALICE AUER

TRAMA – BAILE FUNK HALLOWEEN

LIZZIE BERCHIE

BELLAH MAE

DEYAZ

ELINA

FEEL IT

LEXIE CARROLL

HAUNTED HOUSE: ABANDONED THEATRE

SIPPRELL

KASSI VALAZZA

“Bambie Thug was born out of me finding myself.”

Bambie Thug

Flick through Bambie Thug’s music videos and it’s impossible not to be drawn into their bewitching universe. Whether channelling The Ring’s Samara Morgan via cowboy chic in last year’s pummelling single ‘Tsunami’, or bringing to life the Powerpuff Girls’ sinister nemesis HIM for the scorching ‘Egregore’, their otherworldly creativity is boundless.

you know? But I didn’t want to just be a pretty face, and a pretty voice. I want to scream and shout, I wanna rap, I wanna do everything.”

Even in the two and a half years since Bambie released debut single ‘Birthday’ - a slinky, hyperpop-indebted ode to celebrating in style - their discography has grown broader with every release. From the thumping, seductive rap of ‘P.M.P’ to their most recent dance-flecked stormer ‘Last Summer (I Know What You Did)’, it’s clear that very little is sonically off the table.

“Definitely when I started in the industry, it was still very much genre-focused,” they offer up. “Whereas now, it’s so much more acceptable for artists to fuse and shift. I find so much inspiration in so many different forms of music, and I was brought up on an extremely eclectic musical background. I love it all, I’m greedy.

“This project is really just no constraints and a shapeshifter,” they continue. “I feel like, as a queer person and a nonbinary person, I am a bit of a shapeshifter anyway; I’m never gonna put a wall in front of myself or tell myself that I can’t do something - that makes me want to do it more. If someone says that to me, I’m like, ‘Screw you, I’m gonna show you…’”

Meet the otherworldly, self-dubbed “ouijapop” star whose creativity knows no bounds. Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photos: Louise Mason.

That mentality also extends to the characters they’ve inhabited in their career so far. Tapping into their love of musical theatre, their ability to shift not just musically but visually has allowed them to vibrantly flesh out the world of Bambie Thug. “I love being creatures and characters,” they say, “but sometimes characters are a bit of an armour. When I’m not in an amazing mental space, they’re things I can pull on, but they’re all still facets of me.”

An ambitious but intensely personal project on all sides (“I have dyslexia and I’m ADHD, so I need to be emotionally involved and invested,” they note), it’s perhaps little surprise to learn that their next move - the release of new EP ‘Cathexis’ - will build on that theme. Delving into the beating heart of their most recent relationship, the eclectic seven-track release finds Bambie reflecting on the heartbreak they felt after discovering their partner had been cheating (‘Last Summer…’ and the soaring pop ballad ‘Love Bites’), but serves as a reminder that they’re too strong to let that sadness overcome them.

“I’d been a songwriter and in the industry for a while before I birthed Bambie Thug,” they explain, a few days on from their latest “super inspiring” video shoot for forthcoming single ‘Love Bites’. For an artist with such a clear vision, it’d be easy to assume Bambie’s self-dubbed “ouija pop” project was born from a meticulouslyplotted concept; in reality, it stemmed from craving the freedom to truly be themself.

“I was with different management at the start of my career who wanted me to be a certain way,” they explain, hinting at their previous project - a more “bubblegum pop” affair. “At that time, I had also just got out of musical theatre college, and hadn’t come out as queer or nonbinary yet. When I was 27, I changed my name to Bambie and I started working with TYLR RYDR, and in the first session, I was just like, ‘I’m sick of what I’m doing, I wanna make witchy music! I wanna be me!’ I guess Bambie Thug was born out of me finding myself; changing my name, coming out, and taking off the coats that had been put on me by other people.”

Having grown up in the rural Irish countryside where “everyone knows everything about you”, it was only after getting some distance that Bambie felt the opportunity to finally be their authentic self. “I guess at the time, I was kinda conforming to [the idea of] being a ‘pretty girl’ with a pretty voice

“I had to have ‘Bye Boy’ come after ‘Love Bites’ because regardless of how someone might have hurt you in some way, it’s like, ‘Yeah, but you’re still strong as fuck’,” they grin. “I’m just way too strong for that! No man, no man is gonna me feel bad forever! Songwriting really is more of a therapy for me, and this has been a really healing EP for me, even though it’s like, ‘He broke my heeeeart…’,” they sing in a faux country accent before laughing. “Really, he broke my heart for me to find my heart.” DIY

UNIVERSITY

KINETIC NEWCOMERS WHO ARE TRANSGRESSIVE BY LABEL, TRANSGRESSIVE BY NATURE.

If UNIVERSITY were a character from first year halls, they’d be the one smoking rollies and ringleading nights out to all the city’s underground venues, already disillusioned with the institution of higher education. And as a band, they seem similarly inclined - latest single ‘Notre Dame Made Out of Flesh’ is just as visceral as its name suggests, thrashing along at breakneck speed for over a minute before its howling opening lyric: “I don’t want to be my dad / Or anybody from the past”. There’s an EP due next month: expect distorted breakdowns, snarling vocals, and utterly unrestrained fervour.

LISTEN: The aforementioned single is more than enough to satiate your cravings until a longer project arrives.

SIMILAR TO: The explosive, rallying-against-the-world angst of early FIDLAR.

ANTONY SZMIEREK

SPOKEN WORD POETRY

TAKEN TO THE CLUB. Initially a published novelist before switching lanes, the innate wordsmithery of Manchester’s Antony Szmierek is still there for all to seeeven if he’s now deploying it against the sort of pulsing beats that are more ‘lighters up’ than library. This year’s EP ‘Poems to Dance To’ feels like the beginning of an inevitably upward trajectory, while recent single ‘The Words to Auld Lang Syne’ is significantly vibier than the classic NYE dirge.

LISTEN: ‘...Auld Lang Syne’ also manages to namecheck ‘Disco 2000’ in its first verseimpressive!

SIMILAR TO: Mike Skinner meets Fred Again..

PENELOPE SCOTT

SELF-AWARE OUTSIDER LAPTOP POP.

Take a cursory look at the internet’s descriptions of Oregonbased Penelope Scott and you’ll find everything from ‘bedroom bitpop’ to ‘pop-punk’ to ‘indie-folk’, such is the largely indefinable recipe that the 23-year-old has cooked up over two self-released albums to date. We’ll add another to the mix: if The Moldy Peaches’ Kimya Dawson had come of age in the 2020s, we’d bet she’d be making these sort of witty, self-lacerating, purposefully lo-fi gems too. Whichever way you look at it, Penelope’s onto something all of her own.

LISTEN: Recent single ‘Gross’ precedes the release of a new double EP, set for November.

SIMILAR TO: A thoroughly modern one-woman band.

SANS SOUCIS

THE LONDON-BASED ITALOCONGOLESE STAR MAKING ELOQUENT ELECTROPOP.

Named after their childhood nickname - and the loose French translation for ‘carefree’ - Sans Soucis’ brand of R&Bimbued electropop might be sonically serene, but their offerings delve much deeper beneath the surface. Take their most recent single ‘Lost When I’m Around You’; a gorgeous, breezy track laden with harmonies, it also reflects on the impact of periods for gender non-conforming people, and the wider censorship of bodies in a patriarchal society. An artist making music that’s both whip-smart and powerful, yet insatiably catchy all at once.

LISTEN: ‘I Know Your Present’ is another heady but invigorating track.

SIMILAR TO: Solange, James Blake and Little Dragon are just some of their influences.

NEU Recommended

�

ĠENN

MESMERISING ART-PUNK THAT PAYS LITTLE HEED TO GENRE BOUNDARIES. Hailing from various corners of Europe, Brighton-based quartet Ġ ENN have gained a cult reputation for their dynamic, hypnotic live shows. The four use their songs as vehicles for exploring notions of identity and belonging, finding strength and solace in their mutual, deeply forged bond. Upcoming debut album ‘Unum’ - literally translated from Latin as ‘unity’ or ‘oneness’ - combines influences as disparate as psych-rock and jazz standards, creating a whole that’s magnetic, intriguing, and distinctly Ġ ENN’s own.

LISTEN: Rooted in the Maltese genre G ħana, there’s something beautifully uncanny about the melodic ebb and flow of ‘Calypso’.

SIMILAR TO: The sonic crossroads where jazz, Eastern folk, and contemporary punk intersect.

Vanilla Jenner might have spent her early years in Austria - an epicentre of classical music - but from a young age the rules and rigidity of the genre were clearly destined to be an ill fit. “I was never that interested in the theory; that was never my thing. With guitar I was like, ‘Ah, let’s just play four chords in my room over and over and hum over it…’” she laughs, tooth gems glinting and bleach-blonde hair scruffed up in a clip. “I was very much approaching it as a songwriter instead of learning guitar as a crazy skill. I would be a lot better at instruments if I practised like they told me to practise at school…”

Instead of poring over textbooks, however, she began striking out independently, cultivating the identity that would go on to infuse the gauzy grunge of her musical project, Viji. Aged 15, she spent a term in Colorado where her listening habits were turned upside down. “My friends there introduced me to a lot of music I didn’t know. The Breeders; Bikini Kill; we listened to ‘Totally Crushed Out’ by that dog a lot - I got into all of it just through depressed friends who were like, ‘Listen to this!’” she laughs. “Elliott Smith is like, my everyday companion.” After school, she made the move to the UK, wanting to break away from Austria’s largely nonEnglish-speaking music scene into a place with wider potential.

It’s a mix of intuition and ambition that’s been there from the start. “I did think at 12 or 13: I want to be a rock star. A pop star, rock star, just a star… I didn’t really think about doing anything else,” she notes. And, having released a debut trio of EPs via Dirty Hit (2020’s ‘Are You In My Head’, 2021’s ‘Suck It’ and the following year’s ‘Cali’), her new home of Speedy Wunderground is proving a fertile base for both.

Written and recorded collaboratively with the label’s

Dan Carey, Viji’s incoming debut LP ‘So Vanilla’ is a record that’s wonderfully, woozily out of step with the current market of hyper-polished pop. From the tumbling melodies of opener ‘Anything’, through the tetchy prowl of ‘Karaoke’, to the bare bones acoustic melancholy of ‘Blanket’, the record weaves between energy levels but maintains a sense of both sonic and emotional grit throughout.

“We were conscious of keeping it purposefully raw to preserve the energy of the live show; of not making it super polished or perfect because the music I listen to is not like that,” Viji explains. “I know it’s 2023 but it doesn’t all have to be super clean and sanitised…

“Lyrically it all blended [together with ideas of] memory, romantic boredom, tiredness… It’s quite a depressing record!” she continues. “All my favourite artists and movies, everything has dark twists, so everything I consume is on the darker side of entertainment.” Shimmeringly narcotic recent single ‘Down’, she explains, is literally about the fear of being too happy to be inspired. “If you live a happy life and you don’t really have anything to say, you’re gonna struggle to have that drive. If you’re just happy, why do anything?!”

Emerging after a steady gestation period with a record that makes a clear, cohesive statement about exactly what kind of artist she wants to be, Viji might be at risk of falling into her own happiness trap. But on ‘So Vanilla’, she’s proven herself anything but plain.

DIY

Viji

“I did think at 12 or 13: I want to be a rock star. A pop star, rock star, just a star…”

Fall into the fuzzy fug of Vanilla Jenner’s narcotic, ‘90s influenced guitar world. Words: Lisa Wright. Photo: Emma Swann.

BuzzFeed NEU �

All the buzziest new music happenings in one place.

The PLAYLIST

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

METTE - FOR THE PEOPLE

BY INVITATION ONLY

One of the South Coast’s buzziest new bands, HotWax have shared details of their second EP ‘Invite me, kindly’, which will land later this month. It comes hot off the back of debut ‘A Thousand Times’, which was released back in May, and the two projects will be combined for physical release on vinyl and cassette.

Explaining the process behind ‘Invite me, kindly’, vocalist Tallulah Sim-Savage has said: “I felt I had lots of phrases saved up in my head that I couldn’t wait to put into my lyrics. The EP looks at themes of acceptance to people who have hurt you before, letting your doubts leave you and feeling free. Playing these songs live this summer has been so refreshing, I still feel so passionately about a lot of the lyrics, which makes it feel very therapeutic to perform.”

To mark the news, the trio have also shared a new song, ‘Phone Machine’, and have scheduled an EP launch show at Brighton venue DUST for the EP’s release day. Listen to ‘Phone Machine’ over on diymag.com now.

A NIGHT OF FIRSTS

Next month - on Wednesday 15th November, to be exact - East London will become even more of a live music hub, as The Great Escape launches its 2024 edition with a series of First Fifty showcases. Taking place across eight venues, the event will platform a selection of the first fifty artists announced to play Brighton’s annual new music celebration next May - including Picture Parlour, Trout, and Cardinals, who DIY will host on our very own stage at The Victoria.

Elsewhere on the line-up, Big Special and King Isis will be taking to MOTH Club’s gold-spangled stage, while Oscar Browne, Gia Ford, Emmeline, LVRA , and many more will grace beloved East London venues such as Folklore, Paper Dress Vintage, Two Palms, and the Shacklewell Arms.

Tickets for each of the First Fifty gigs are available to purchase via The Great Escape’s website; it promises to be a memorable night of the best new music around, so what are you waiting for? We’ll see you at The Victoria on the 15th!

NOTE TO SELF

Dublin quartet SPRINTS have announced their debut LP, ‘Letter To Self’, slated for release on 5th January 2024 via City Slang. It’ll act as the follow up to last year’s EP ‘A Modern Job’ and most recent single ‘Adore Adore Adore’, which will also feature on the album.

To coincide with the news, they’ve also shared a blistering new track, ‘Up and Comer’, of which lead vocalist Karla Chubb has said: “[It’s] a pretty dry take on a fear and self consciousness that has been ruminating in me since I picked up an instrument. This innate fear that maybe I would always be ‘good for a girl’, but would I ever actually be great? It’s an invisible narrative that has been constructed by the doubts and negativity I’ve been fed by others, as well as my own imposter syndrome. It’s a song that takes aim at the idea that some of these traits and behaviours may almost be hereditary, and instead of letting that continue to hold me back, finally break free of the expected, embrace the anger and let it rip. The only way is forward.”

The band also have a huge run of live shows scheduled, including a slot supporting Suede in December and a fourteen-date headline tour through April and May next year - check out their full list of upcoming shows over on diymag.com now.

Fresh off the Barbie set, and having appeared in music videos alongside Rihanna (as well as in films and musicals like Cats and Hustlers), now the multi-talented METTE turns her hand to her own solo music for a pop moment on ‘FOR THE PEOPLE’. It opens with a smooth, bubblegum-bright couple of lines, but soon devolves into a darker, dancier cut, her voice husky and understated above a pulsing synth bass. It’s impressive how much infectious energy she whips up with only a couple of layers of sound, but the minimalist production gives way to focus on METTE’s suave precision and easy knack for a hook.

DAMEDAME* - ‘A STRANGER’

DAMEDAME*, it seems, are keeping their cards close to their chest. They’ve hardly a social media presence to speak of, and the comment section of their singular Instagram post is populated with side-eye emojis. ‘A STRANGER’ is their debut single, and it’s landed straight on the official soundtrack for EA Sports FC 24 (the next FIFA game, to you and me). But beyond the smoke and mirrors lies a propulsive statement of intent: swirling layers of vocals and distorted electric riffs surround the track’s rapid heartbeat of a drum line, conjuring vignettes of hazy nights and heady intoxication. Your move, DAMEDAME*.

HUMOUR - BIG MONEY

The flagship single to launch their forthcoming EP ‘A Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me’, this latest cut from the Glaswegian five-piece is ambitious in scope and original in subject matter. It explores concepts of colonialism and capitalist greed via the character of a 19th century rubber baron. Frontman Andreas Christodoulidis’ anguished, almost frantic vocals foreground a textured wall of feedback-fueled breakdowns, while the track’s monochromatic visuals evoke a modern day Mr Kurtz. Heart of Darkness indeed.

TRINKET - FIGURE SKATER

If the newest single from New York trio Trinket actually did attempt the pirouettes and leaps of its chosen sport, you sense it would land flat on its rear fairly quickly, such is the woozy lilt of its shoegazey guitars and ‘80s lo-fi sensibilities. But never mind that this particular ‘Figure Skater’ wouldn’t last five seconds on the ice. Instead, the group have created an enveloping three minutes of sweetly warped delight in the vein of Alvvays or Camera Obscura that’s equally as poignant in its own fuzzy ways.

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

Get To Know…

TROUT

As mentioned across the page, DIY will be taking over The Victoria in Dalston as part of this year’s First Fifty, where we’ll be playing host to a raft of brilliant new acts, including Liverpoolbased artist Trout.

Ahead of the showcase (on 15th Novembermark you calendars now!), we caught up with Cesca to find out a little bit more about their project, and their latest EP ‘Colourpicker’.

What was the first gig that you ever went to?

Honestly I don’t remember what the very first was, but my first big gig was The Dave Matthews Band, as cringe as that is. It was a family outing and I completely lost my mind as they were my absolute faves.

Who were some artists that inspired you when you were just starting out (and why)?

Angus Young for the shorts alone, and Karen O because she does not care.

BIG REVEAL BIG SPECIAL’S

To celebrate new single ‘Desperate Breakfast’ the Midlands duo played a special, one-off gig in Bethnal Green’s Billy’s Cafe. Here’s what went down. Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photos: Dan Landsburgh.

It’s not often that a beloved greasy spoon plays host to the buzziest of new bands, but then again, it’s not often that a band like Big Special roll into town. Celebrating the release of their newest single ‘Desperate Breakfast’ in the entirely on-brand location of Billy’s Cafe, the Midlands duo have given the East London spot a whole new lease of life for tonight’s one-off performance; it’s just the smell of the deep fat fryer that gives it away…

With coffee cups swapped for tinnies, and tables, chairs and appropriate condiments stacked away, a keen crowd pack into the intimate space for the pair’s ear-blistering set. Recent single ‘THIS HERE AIN’T WATER’ is a cathartic opus, with Joe Hecklin’s vocals moving effortlessly from its soulful, scorched chorus through to its more gruff

verses, while ‘SHITHOUSE’ is as powerful as its name implies, with drummer Callum Moloney hitting the skins so hard he soon causes damage. “I broke a stick in a greasy spoon!” he triumphantly declares, before Joe replies with a deadpan wink: “That sounds like a euphemism…”

Their aforementioned new single further showcases their talent for balancing things on a sonic knife’s edge, with its forlorn, crooning opening (“I toast my tea in mourning / For a morning come too soon”) transformed into a frenzied narrative around the daily slog of working life, before they round things off with a handful of as-yet-unreleased tracks for good measure. Arguably the most raucous guests that Billy’s will have visit for a while, Big Special’s set won’t be forgotten any time soon. DIY

You’ve been based in a few different places, having grown up in Copenhagen and moved to Wales when you were a child. How would you say this has informed your music?

Travelling, seeing new things and meeting new people are what inspires me now to write, and I think all that moving around as a kid gave me inspiration from a young age for my music. It was somewhat unsettling but also exciting, and defo gave me a travelling bug. It gave me something to write about too as I had nothing else to say at 10 years old!

You’ve got synesthesia - can you explain the influence this has on your work?

It usually aids my songwriting. It helps me to know what direction a song needs to go in, in terms of its colour and texture - the same with production too. It’s distracting in other parts of my life sometimes, but when it comes to creating things it’s pretty great.

Why was it important for you to self-produce your debut EP, ‘Colourpicker’?

It didn’t seem ‘important’ at the time, but now I realise it probably was. The production is like an extension of my songwriting, and I can’t imagine just stopping after the writing part. It’s so personal to me so I couldn’t imagine handing it over to someone else, for now at least. I’m glad I didn’t, and that I can say I produced this EP myself feels really good

Trout plays the DIY Stage at The Victoria in Dalston as part of The Great Escape’s First Fifty on Wednesday 15th November. Tickets are available now.

NEU

Creating their own Pilgrim’s progress via a trinity of mythologyfuelled, modern folk EPs, Tapir! are a band firmly in their own lane. Words: Daisy Carter. Photo: Louise Mason.

“Well, there’s this little creature called The Pilgrim, and it’s in a different universe - but it’s kind of our universe as well, and it goes on a journey.” This, according to drummer and cellist Wilf Cartright, is the OAP-approved summary of Tapir!’s creative output thus far; at least, that’s how he described the band he’s in to his grandparents. Four of the enigmatic six-piece are chatting to DIY in unseasonably sunny South East London, a scarlet papier-mâché head having been brought along, mascot-like, for the interview too. For anyone with even a passing acquaintance with Tapir!, the elephantine headwear will likely be familiar: featuring in their Instagram posts, music videos and live performances, the costume pieces serve to bring the character of The Pilgrim - and, in extension, the universe it inhabits - more tangibly into our realm.

“It’s all about trying to make it more than just ‘band plays gig’,” bassist Ronnie Longfellow explains. “Yeah,” laughs lead vocalist and guitarist Ike Gray, “even if the lasting impression we give is, ‘Well, they’re weird’.”

From their early shows at East London’s iconic George Tavern to signing to Heavenly, Tapir! have always operated outside any typical conceptions of what being a band should entail. Alongside music, their work encompasses paintings, puppetry, film and more, while collaboration (namely with producers Joseph Futak and Yuri Shibuichi, and folk duo lilo) is a core tenet of the project. “Other people getting involved allows more to come from it, and creates a community,” says Ronnie. Wilf agrees: “The project is very much alive. That’s sort of why we

did the three acts - we want to be involved in this thing as it grows and evolves.”

These “acts” refer to their soon-to-be trifecta of EPs which, in the new year, will be combined into a debut album: a multidisciplinary narrative record following The Pilgrim’s journey across land (2022 debut ‘Act 1 (The Pilgrim)’), sea (this summer’s ‘Act 2 (Their God)’) and space. “The final EP is based around the final ascension up the hill,” Ike notes. Tapir!’s work draws inspiration from mythology, and thus religious or folkloric allegory can be found if the listener chooses to hear it. But the band take pleasure in the idea that The Pilgrim’s narrative doesn’t prescribe a single meaning. “I think people connect with folklore and folk music in this age due to some sort of speculative interpretation of the past,” muses guitarist Tom Rogers-Coltman. “It’s almost like nostalgia for something that never existed in the first place. But if you make your own folklore through, say, an album, you can create this alternative nostalgia that everyone relates to in a different way.”

“It’s that fixation on trying to find purpose,” continues Ike. “It’s important to have that, but then so is acknowledging that maybe sometimes there isn’t the finality we crave, whether that’s in terms of religion or other things in life.” And if that sounds expansive and cinematic in scope, it’s because Tapir! are both those things and more. Defying definition and eluding explanation, they’re leading usmuch like The Pilgrim - to an unknown, but welcome, destination. DIY

“It’s all about trying to make it more than just ‘band plays gig’.”Ronnie Longfellow

EYES

STEPPING SIDEWAYS AFTER A DECADE FRONTING CHVRCHES, LAUREN MAYBERRY IS LAUNCHING A SOLO ERA THAT LETS ALL OF HER SUPPRESSED FEMININITY, THEATRICALITY AND RAGE FLY FREE.

WORDS: CRYSTAL BELL. PHOTOS: SHERVIN LAINEZ.

OPEN

EYES

WIDE OPEN

All my twenties were spent in a context where you’re the only woman in a structure that’s not designed for you.

For years, Lauren Mayberry told herself no. Don’t wear that. Don’t write those kinds of lyrics. Don’t say that on the record. Don’t do anything outside of the band. Don’t be yourself, not entirely. Call it an exercise in self-preservation, in learning how to adapt and make yourself smaller. However, on a Saturday night in the trendy Williamsburg neighbourhood of Brooklyn, New York - the second stop of her first solo headlining tour - she’s finally allowing herself to fully take up space.

Floating around the stage, she dances and twirls in an intimate haze of red velvet and glitter, jumping on the luminescent beat to “a bunch of songs you don’t know,” as she jokingly tells the crowd in her sharp Scottish lilt. One of those propulsive pop songs, ‘Change Shapes’, finds the 35-year-old shedding her skin: “I bend over backwards / Tiptoe along every wire / I guess I’m quite the actress / No one knows I’m a liar… I change shapes ‘til I get what I want from you”. This acute self-awareness cuts through the evening’s pulsing nocturnal energy like a knife.

She designed the show with Bob Fosse’s Cabaret in mind - dark, lush and theatrical; a rousing palette of carménère and stardust - as evidenced by the pre-show playlist, which concludes with Liza Minnelli’s ‘Maybe This Time’. The set is a short and sharp 47 minutes long: eight new songs and a lone cover of Madonna’s ‘Like a Prayer’, Mayberry’s signature soprano tone sounding celestial. Emerging through a cloud of smoke, standing on the same stage where, a decade prior, her band CHVRCHES performed one of their first gigs in New York, she gazes into the audience, morphing before their eyes into a bona fide pop star.

Before kicking off the tour, Mayberry had released just one single, the tender piano ballad ‘Are You Awake?’ - co-written with Tobias Jesso Jr and her friend Matthew Koma, who also produced much of her forthcoming solo album. The quietly jarring track sounds nothing like the layered synth patches of CHVRCHES, the Glasgow-born trio Mayberry has fronted since 2011. The track scorches the earth of what came before it, defying expectations, yet it wasn’t ever her intent to even release it. “For a long time, I didn’t want to do anything outside the band. I didn’t want to let people down,” she begins, settling into the makeup chair for today’s cover shoot, as a single swoop of bold, crimson graphic liner is drawn onto her eyelids.

She thought ‘Are You Awake?’ would be just another file on her computer, and its lonely ruminations would remain scribbled in her notebook for her eyes only. Amid studio sessions for CHVRCHES following the release of 2021’s ‘Screen Violence’, however, Koma convinced her otherwise. “He was like, ‘You have all these ideas, you should do something’,” she recalls. “And I was like, ‘Shut the fuck up, man. What am I going to do? Why would I be doing that?’ And then he was like, ‘Why would you NOT be doing that?’ It had occurred to me, but it was helpful to have somebody be like: you’re allowed to do that, you know. It’s alright to do that. Don’t worry about the consequences of something you haven’t even done yet.”

The black socks Lauren is sporting today read ‘Diva’: a souvenir from the afternoon she recently spent perusing the current V&A exhibition of superstars past and a word that her new era feels like it’s somewhat attempting to reclaim. On the same day, she had taken the first press shots of her solo career. She recalls it feeling like a surreal moment she wanted to bottle up and keep in her drawer forever; a celebration of glamour and divadom, a glimpse into her future on the eve of her creative rebirth.

There’s a distinct narrative about frontwomen who break away to pursue solo careers which never applies to men who do the same thing. “When female singers do something outside the band, it’s viewed quite differently,” she says. “Some people use Gwen Stefani as a verb. You wouldn’t say that about a male frontperson. Nobody’s saying Thom Yorke doing a side project takes away from Radiohead. I feel like so many of the interviews we’ve done so far, I’ve been like, ‘I’m not breaking up the band. Don’t be angry at me’.”

If fans were angry, you wouldn’t know it by looking at the sales; tickets for the US leg of this debut solo tour sold out in minutes, most of them purchased in blind faith. But anyone following CHVRCHES’ trajectory over the past decade knows they’ve always been a word-ofmouth band. They attracted an initial following on SoundCloud with their rich, immersive soundscapes, arranged by producers and multi-instrumentalists Martin Doherty and Iain Cook. Lauren’s crystalline vocals soared above the synths, defining CHVRCHES’ sound for a generation of music bloggers. By the time the band signed a record deal in 2013, they were already a live fixture, selling out shows locally and beyond.

At the time, performing as a trio was an adjustment. Before the band, she played keys and drums in the post-rock outfit Blue Sky Archives; when she sang, there were always instruments to hide behind. In CHVRCHES, however, it was just her and the mic. “I hung onto that mic stand for dear fucking life,” she laughs, recalling the group’s first album, ‘The Bones of What You Believe’. A “type-A researcher” at heart (she holds degrees in law and journalism), Mayberry began to study how frontmen used their physicality and mannerisms, trying to contort herself into a masculine mould.

“I was 23 when I met the guys and 24 when we started working [together],” she says. “In hindsight, when I look at it, I’m like, ‘Oh yeah, that’s the end of my girlhood’. And then all my twenties were spent in a context where you’re the only woman in a structure that’s not designed for you.”

Mayberry has a complicated relationship with the word frontwoman. She never wanted to be the face of the band and, as the spotlight grew, she tried to shrink herself. She didn’t want to be the girl in the band who was pushed to the front to sell albums and increase ticket sales, so she wore less make up on stage, dressed in baggier clothing, did anything she could not to attract the ‘wrong’ kind of attention. But none of these moves stopped people from projecting it onto her regardless. “You’re either this sexualised coquette who clearly can’t be involved in any of the creative because you’re just there to get leered at, or you’re this aggressive bitch,” she says. “Neither of these personalities is true. They’re just stereotypes and archetypes of women.”

In 2013, Mayberry penned an essay for The Guardian: “Objectification, whatever its form, is not something anyone should have to ‘just deal with’,” she wrote. The explicit DMs and online sexual abuse didn’t stop; in fact, it got even more violent and cruel. She doesn’t regret speaking up, but she’s not sure she would make the same decision now. “When I look back, I’m like, for better or worse, it solidified an identity for the

Ch, ch, ch, ch, Changes…

The MO for Lauren Mayberry’s new project has been to switch up her norms and fully lean into herself. Along the way, there’s been some revelations…

ON MAKING VIDEOS...

When we were making the video for ‘Are You Awake?’ I was like, ‘Fucking hell. I’ve never played an instrument in a video, ever.’ How do I move when I’m playing piano when people are watching me? I only ever play piano alone in a room where you can hunch over like Sméagol and bang away at the keys until you get what you want. I was like, ‘Oh, I have to perform…’

ON DIVADOM…

I love pop music, and when I think about who my favorite artists are, they are pop divas and indie rock divas, but I never think about myself like that. Growing up, my two favorite things were Annie Lennox and Whitney Houston. I always loved the idea of it, but it wasn’t something I ever wanted for myself. So I kind of came here accidentally.

ON WOMEN…

I’ve been in bands since I was 16, and other than two weeks when I was like 16 and there was another girl in the band, I’ve never been in a band that wasn’t just straight guys. And obviously, that’s gone very well for me. And I’ve met a lot of really lovely straight guys. But that is quite odd as a creative person that I’ve only ever created or played within that context.

My gender and my body were always talked about at me - I was never really a part of that conversation.

band in a way that I think was positive,” she explains. “Because everything up until that was more like, ‘Does she want to do an interview where she’d wear a pretty dress?’ But I think if I knew then what I know now in terms of what the after-effect would be, it would have been harder to make that decision.”

Having opened up about the daily harassment she encountered online, her pain became an open goal for people to exploit. “The question I used to get in interviews was, ‘What’s it like to be a girl in the band?’ And then it’s like, ‘Oh, that’s awful, so… rape threats on the internet - how does that make you feel?’ They don’t want the answer; they just want to tick it off their list. Then it moved on to, ‘How do you feel things have changed in a post-#metoo universe?’ It’s an evolution of the same question. I don’t think it’s a change if somebody is only changing their actions because they don’t want to get caught. Then the only reason you’re apologising is because you have to.”

She unpacks these feelings with depth and scathing precision in the song ‘Sorry, Etc.’, in which she screams, “I sold my soul to be one of the boys” over big, filthy synths. It’s a head-thrashing banger, inhabiting a similar space as CHVRCHES with its noisy dynamism and undercurrent of melancholy, but digging even deeper into the murk. Her direct lyricism has never sounded so unrestrained and filled with rage and, compared to the hushed heartbreak of ‘Are You Awake?’, the emotional scope of the record starts to crystallise.

For all of her anxiety about what people might think about her new music - and there’s a decent amount of it - she sees it as an opportunity to feel deeply without judgement. “I feel like there’s just certain things that you won’t write if you’re part of a collective unit, especially as the only female in the band,” she says. “I wouldn’t ever have tried this in my twenties.”

That doesn’t mean the ideas weren’t present. There are dozens of notebooks and jars in Mayberry’s house, brimming with words and phrases that she’s scrawled onto scraps of paper over the years, stockpiling them away for future musings. She’s very particular about the size and colour of her Post-It Notes, and she prefers to write with one of the dozens of hotel pens she’s stolen over the past decade (mainly for sentimental value). A tactile songwriter, she explains that she likes to hold the pen in her hands, feeling it glide onto the paper and savouring the sound of its scratches as her “messy, soft, vulnerable” thoughts flow onto the page.

Fiona Apple, Jenny Lewis, Tori Amos and PJ Harvey are cited as a few of Mayberry’s most formative influences in life and in the music she’s been working on. They’re women who pour themselves and their experiences into their art; storytellers who craft an image so vivid and emotionally charged that it places the listener alongside them in the room where it all imploded — the sadness, love, and self-discovery. “I don’t think that you could do any of that in the band,” she says, “so it was nice to dig into those things that feel a lot more specifically female in their storytelling and visual language.”

She creates a Pinterest mood board for every project, pinning images from film, fine art, and photography. It often starts with a visual reference or a colour that evokes a feeling. “When I think about the colour scheme for the

In The Setlist

Take a sneak peek at some of the new songs Lauren’s been showcasing on tour.

‘BIRD’

The current set opener, in which she breaks free from her cage and plots a “bittersweet escape” from the paradigm of perception over layered vocal harmonies and a pulsating rhythm.

‘UNDER THE KNIFE’

A sparkling heartbreak ballad that lands as one of two “depressing slow songs” on the setlist. Mayberry conveys the ache and emotional scars of a past relationship.

‘CROCODILE TEARS’

A new wave kiss-off that finds Mayberry bristling at a grown man who cries wolf to get his way with some energetic howling of her own. She whirls around the stage but doesn’t dance around her feelings: “I don’t really want to hear it from you, babe.”

record, it’s all reds, greens, metallics, monochrome,” she says. “But when I think about the music, it feels less polished than people have heard - intentionally less polished but not less thought out. The way that I’ve been writing, it’s like: lyrics first, title first or concept first. Then it’s like, ‘OK, what would that sound like?’”

For her live shows, meanwhile, she prioritised setting a mood over bringing in fancy production but didn’t skim over any details. “I wanted it to feel very physical and visceral,” she says. “Within the budget, that meant glitter curtains, flowers and gloves.” The intuition on stage also comes from the camaraderie between her and the band of women and nonbinary musicians she assembled for the tour. “I’m in a girl band, finally!” she exclaimed during the first show at a neon-lit club in Washington, DC.

Mayberry has discovered a more profound sense of community on the road. “It’s a very different energy,” she says. “I don’t know how to describe it. It’s a different level of interpersonal care.” The band have matching water bottles that they bought during

a Target run. They drink wine at the end of the night and do face masks together. They discuss their favourite fizzy water flavours and dissect episodes of And Just Like That... Most importantly, they check in. Their “pre-show thing”, as Mayberry calls it, is telling each other what they’re most grateful for that day. It helps her get out of her head, to stop spiralling over the dozen things that can go wrong at any moment and focus on the present.

While she’s grateful for her CHVRCHES bandmates and their empathy, it never felt like this. “I can code-switch into music dude very easily,” she says straightforwardly. “But no music dude has ever switched into my reality. And my reality is Fiona Apple and Liza Minnelli.”

There’s an element of escapism to the world Mayberry is creating. The drama is heightened yet grounded in terrifyingly real emotions, as illustrated through a series of spoken-word vignettes that break up the set and “put the songs a bit more in context”. Her voice pitched lower and more resonant, she quotes Margaret Atwood and reads excerpts from several of her most sacred texts: Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, Janice Galloway’s The Trick Is to Keep Breathing, and Zadie Smith’s On Beauty. “They’re books that have been important to me, especially when thinking about this record,” she explains. “I’m just a dramatic bitch.”

It’s partly a joke delivered at her own expense

— her favourite kind of defence mechanism. Yet, watching as the number of face jewels multiply around her eyes throughout the duration of today’s cover shoot, there’s also an element of truth to it.

On this tour, Mayberry is reclaiming her loud, vibrant self-expression through the copious amounts of glitter she applies to herself and the flashier, more feminine pieces of clothing she’s been wearing on stage. “I look back on many of those [earlier] experiences, and I don’t think they were terribly positive,” she says. “My gender and my body were always talked about at me - I was never really a part of that conversation. It was quite dissociative.” It’s taken her years and many lyric jars to get comfortable inside her skin again, to feel ownership over her body. “If everybody’s always using my body as part of their narrative anyway, it’d be nice for me to feel more connected to that.”

The process of reconfiguring her relationship with herself, as an artist and as a woman, is something Lauren Mayberry is still figuring out through this project and solo tour. How does one mentally prepare? “Honestly, I don’t know that I did,” she shrugs, the insinuation being that all you can do is simply allow yourself to take up the space. It’s a lesson she learned more than a decade in the making, but as she concludes: “No matter what happens with it, I won’t regret giving myself the permission to do it.” DIY

When female singers do outsidesomething the band, viewedit’squite differently.

Some people use Gwen Stefani as a verb.

From indie beginnings to funk-fuelled solo projects, BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB have proved themselves to be masters of reinvention. On sixth studio album ‘My Big Day’, the quartet are letting their (metaphorical) hair down. Words: Daisy Carter. Photos: Ed Miles.

GGSHIFTIN EARS

Say the words ‘Bombay Bicycle Club’ to someone, and you may get a mixed bag of responses. Perhaps they frequented the (now defunct) North London restaurant chain from which the band took their name, or maybe ‘Evening / Morning’ was a keystone track in their coming of age. Most likely, they’ll recognise these three words because the Crouch End quartet have been an integral part of the UK’s indie landscape for the best part of two decades - no mean feat for four people not long into their thirties.

And yet, to call Bombay a ‘guitar band’ in the traditional sense of the phrase does them a disservice; though they’re often mentioned in the same breath as the likes of Two Door Cinema Club and The Vaccines, they have, over the course of their career, demonstrated a versatility and curiosity that belies that description. Take the decision to follow up their beloved 2009 debut ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’ with an acoustic album (2010’s ‘Flaws’). Or the fact that 2014’s ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ was shortlisted for that year’s Mercury Prize. Or even that, aged 24, the band went on what would be a fiveyear hiatus at arguably the peak of their powers.

Bombay Bicycle Club have been unafraid to turn left at nearly every career junction thus far, and, as the band’s Jack Steadman and Jamie MacColl tell DIY, their sixth LP ‘My Big Day’ may be their boldest move yet. “I was speaking to someone about this the other day, and he said that most bands’ first record after a hiatus tends to be kind of safe, because they’re just trying to figure each other out again, and I think we were,” muses Jamie. “The making of [2020 ‘comeback’ album] ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ was as much about the dynamics between us as it was about making a record.” He pauses, exchanging a smile with Jack. “Whereas this one, we just wanted to say, ‘Nothing is off limits, let’s just have fun with it and see what happens’.”

As such, the eclecticism of ‘My Big Day’, and the happygo-lucky silliness of Bombay’s online presence (see the sidebar for more on that…), reflects not a band who aren’t taking their work seriously, but quite the opposite. Jack feels “a constant desire to prove that we’re not an indie band from the 2010s, and that there’s a lot more depth to our music”, while Jamie ponders that “there is a competitive element that musicians don’t tend to admit to, so yeah, I think you have to keep having that drive.”

This desire to expand their horizons is manifested most obviously on ‘My Big Day’ in the form of featured artists, which no previous Bombay records have formally included. Jay Som, Nilüfer Yanya, Damon Albarn, Holly Humberstone, and an as-yet-unannounced special guest each bring “something different” to the foundations laid by the band; together, this cross-generational list of collaborators reflects the album’s broad sonic palette, and a firm refusal to stagnate.

From emerging artists to household names, the throughline between all those featured on Bombay’s sixth is a genuine admiration on the band’s part. Jack cites “a strong sense that we wanted to work with Nilüfer - we’re all just huge fans of hers”, while the relationship with Holly came about when she invited Jack to perform alongside her at a gig. “Someone introduced me and I was being quite sheepish and insecure,” he says. “I think she’d be surprised to hear how much it meant to us - you can’t really ask for anything more than knowing that you’re inspiring younger musicians.”

Mr Albarn, meanwhile, proved a little more tricky to pin down. “I didn’t have any intention of asking him to be on the record because I didn’t think he’d have time. But I did ask if he could listen to it,” explains Jack. “‘Heaven’ came on and he literally picked up a mic saying, ‘I’ve got an idea’. Part of me was thinking, ‘This is the coolest thing ever’ and part of me was thinking, ‘I know he’s just going to mumble some words and then I’m never going to be able to chase him to finish it’.” “Which is basically what happened,” Jamie interjects, laughing. “Yeah,” Jack smiles, “I think he

What happens, dear reader, is a project that runs the gamut of indie rock and experimental pop, with a slew of zeitgeistcapturing collaborations, and a promo campaign that’s nothing short of slightly bonkers. There’s a huge sense of freedom to it, as if the band - completed by bassist Ed Nash and drummer Suren de Saram - have earned their seat at the table, and now they’re making the most of the buffet.

“The thing that we always try to achieve is to surprise people, and I think we’re still doing that,” explains Jack.

“On this record, with some of the more electronic songs and especially with some of the features, we’re subverting expectations, and I think that gets harder to do the longer you’re a band.”

was driving from Coachella to another gig when he wrote the words in his car on his phone. He’s a hard working guy!”

In a move not dissimilar to Damon’s own musical pursuits, during Bombay’s hiatus Jack began to explore different sonic avenues, the eventual result of which was Mr Jukes. Leaning into his love of jazz, funk, and soul, the collaborative project was Jack’s circuit breaker from “the cycle of record, tour, record, tour” that the band had been in since they were teenagers. For all four members, the hiatus created space for them to develop, both professionally and personally.

“[We have] a constant desire to prove that we’re not an indie band from the 2010s, and that there’s a lot more depth to our music.” - Jack Steadman

ALL PUBLICITY IS GOOD PUBLICITY…

Bombay Bicycle Club are truly entering their ‘anything goes’ era, as evidenced by some of the madcap schemes they’ve recently been rolling out by way of promo…

‘My Big Day’, then, represents the culmination of this growth: it’s got the nostalgic guitars of the band’s early days (‘Diving’); injections of Mr Jukes-inspired grooves (‘Tekken 2’); and an open-armed embrace of looped beats and glitchy electronics (‘Rural Radio Predicts The Rapture’). Lyrically, the title track’s playful rejection of hustle culture sits alongside ‘Turn The World On’’s poignant reflections on parenthood, all these varied elements finding cohesion via what the band affectionately term “The Bombay Machine”.

“I remember someone - maybe even our manager - saying, ‘Just think how sad it would be to not put something that you think is incredible on the record, just because you’re scared of it not fitting’,” says Jack. It’s an expansive philosophy, but one that found them return to their roots to record at a studio in North London - with the notable exception, that is, of that as-yet-unrevealed secret guest, for whom Jack flew out to LA. “It was this very funny scene of an enormous, really expensive mixing desk… and then just me and a laptop in the corner, not using anything in the studio,” he laughs. With Jack taking the production reins, the band had full creative control to realise their vision of reaching back into their discography, while simultaneously pushing the boundaries of what a Bombay record could be. Nothing, it seems, was off the table, yet Jack maintains that “you can only get away with it - and we prove this a lot by doing things like radio sessions - if you can strip it down, play it with two acoustic guitars, and it’s still a great song. I think that as long as we achieve that, then we know we’re doing something right.”

How, then, to sum up Bombay Bicycle Club’s sound? “Well, this is [the problem]!” sighs Jack, mock exasperatedly. “What do you say when a taxi driver asks what you do?” Jamie laughs and shakes his head. “‘Guitar band’ sounds kind of dumb, so I just say I’m in an indie band.” But with the imminent release of ‘My Big Day’, even that seems somewhat reductive (not to mention, well, inaccurate). “Do you remember when you went to HMV as a kid, and there was that big section called ‘rock slash pop’ that had everything?” Jack grins. “Yeah - I think that sums us up quite well.”

‘My Big Day’ is out 20th October via Mmm… / AWAL. DIY

MAKING BALDPOINT (YES, BALDPOINT) PENS

Jamie: Yeah, we have actually put those into production now. If you see a band of four men in their early forties and they all have hair, there’s probably some intervention that’s happened there at some point.

SKYDIVING

Jack: I jumped out of an aeroplane. There have been a few moments where I’ve thought, ‘WHAT are we doing?!’

MEETING ANIMALS AT A PETTING ZOO

Jack: There were rabbits shitting all over us… those bunnies were cute though.

REVISITING THEIR TEENAGE MSN MESSAGES

Jamie: People have messaged me privately going, ‘What are you doing? And also, what dirt does Jack have on me?!’

“With this album, we just wanted to say, ‘Nothing is off limits’.” - Jamie MacColl

Darkest D10

Never ones to do things by halves, theatrical rockers CREEPER have risen from the dead (almost literally) for their new album ‘Sanguivore’.

Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photo: Andy Ford.

icture the scene: goth-rock troubadours Creeper have just concluded their final UK headline show of 2022 to a packed out Camden Roundhouse, with the kind of closing singalong bands can only dream of. Then, just as the final chords of their cathartic hit ‘Misery’ ring out, a figure emerges from the shadows and grabs frontman Will Gould - or William Von Ghould, to use his full adopted moniker - wrestling him to the ground while biting at his neck. Moments after the scrabble, the creature - resembling iconic horror movie vampire Nosferatu - stands triumphant, holding aloft Will’s decapitated head, and the lights go down on the band’s former era.

It’s not exactly your average Friday night. But Creeper’s London show last November was, nonetheless, entirely on brand. Fully committed to theatrical flare, their final act in support of second album ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ didn’t just mark the end of the album’s life (or - spoiler alert - Will’s either) but saw them launch their relationship with new label home Spinefarm, and drop a brand new single for good measure. “There was a phrase that was bandied around on the last album at the [previous] record company that we were ‘too vaudevillian’…” he laughs today. “I always loved it because I was like, ‘We’re trying to cultivate that!’ That’s the point!”

Theatrics aside, it’s little secret that the last few years proved challenging for the band. While their “cursed” previous album saw them at their most fragmented - Will working alone in Los Angeles while guitarist and writing partner Ian Miles recovered in a UK hospital following a mental health crisis - things didn’t improve when the album was finally released in the middle of the pandemic. “It was just such a nightmare, it was just horrible,” Will remembers, reflecting back on their self-inflicted social media blackout in 2019 that led up to the album’s launch. “All the discipline of not posting and not interacting was all for the greater good of the reveal, then as soon as we’d done that big magic trick, the real world had other plans.”

Even after their second album finally emerged in the summer of 2020, uncertainty had bled into all corners of the music world, and with shows off the cards for another year at least, Creeper’s meticulously-crafted concept had nowhere to come to life. “I felt like what we’d made was a real accomplishment and it was really different from what we’d done before,” he nods, “but it didn’t feel like it achieved its full potential. I still think it’s a really wonderful journey it takes you on and I love the characters, but it’s just very painful to listen to.”

It would, however, become a necessary stepping stone for the band. “I hate to say this because I sound like my mum, but as painful as it all was, everything happens for a reason,” Will says. After 2017 debut ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’, the follow-up saw the band head even further down the dramatic rabbit hole, showcasing their “intent to genre-hop” and, in Will’s own words, conditioning their fans “to expect the unexpected properly”.

It would also introduce them to producer Tom Dalgety, who would become an integral player in the creation of their next step, ‘Sanguivore’. Having previously worked with the likes of Ghost, Rammstein and Royal Blood, to name but a few, it wasn’t just an impressive CV with some of rock’s most theatrical names that saw him hit it off so well with the band; his love of composer and producer Jim Steinman, though, really sealed the deal.

heads up!

Prosthetic heads are no joke, as Will and the band discovered after commissioning their very own for their London headline show last year. Here’s a few lessons Will himself has learned after becoming the proud owner of his very own decapitated head…

“Recently, we were going to do some bits at Radio 1 in London and we had to take the head with us. It’s just so odd. It’s so fucking heavy! But I needed it for a photo, and then every time I stopped off somewhere else, everyone just wanted a picture with the head. Now the head’s starting to go bald because everyone keeps holding him by the hair and his hair keeps coming out, because they put the hair in individually!

“Originally when it turned up, it didn’t have any eyebrows or make-up; it resembled me on the last album when I had my eyebrows bleached at that point, and that was odd. So, Charlotte [Will’s girlfriend and make up artist] had to do the make up for it, which was really funny because it’s just odd isn’t it! Then we had to take him to have his hair cut, and she had to sit on the barber’s chair with this head in her hands and just hold it still while our friend Sean cut his hair. It was very, very funny.”

For those who might think they’re unfamiliar with the work of Jim Steinman, think again. The hits he helped produce during his lifetime are arguably some of the late-20th century’s biggest musical moments. Bonnie Tyler’s ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’? Check. Celine Dion’s ‘It’s All Coming Back To Me Now’? You betcha. The 14x Platinum-selling ‘Bat Out Of Hell’ by none other than Meatloaf? Of course he did. He even somehow had a hand in writing a Boyzone song, such is the ubiquitous nature of his work. And so, of course, for Creeper’s next trick, they decided to pay homage.

“We all dedicated the record to Jim and we just got off on going, ‘Oh OK, we’d love to open with this nine-minute epic…’” laughs Will, while also being completely serious. The record’s opening track ‘Further Than Forever’ twinkles with John Williamsesque notes before swerving into full-blown rock opera territory, clocking in at just under ten minutes.

Their grandest statement of intent so far, ‘Sanguivore’ - which follows its ruthless vampire protagonist of Mercy and her journey to rediscover some of her humanity - harks back to the halcyon days of classic rock and power ballads, in what feels like the most distilled version of the band to date. “We just had to go all the way,” Will confirms of the over-the-top, classic-sounding nature of the record. “It sounds like that Jim Steinman quote: ‘Going all the way is just the start’.”

From its larger-than-life Meatloaf-indebted opening through to the dark driving force behind ‘Scared Blasphemy’ - complete with ominous classic horror voice-over - via the eerie Nick Cave-ish swagger of ‘The Ballad Of Spook & Mercy’, and the hefty riffs of ‘Teenage Sacrifice’ (that immediately conjure up a camper take on Judas Priest), little feels off limits or too ambitious for the quintet. “I was talking to [Static Dress frontman] Olli Appleyard and he asked how the record was going, and I said ‘Oh it’s great, Tom’s kicking the last few bits of emo out of it’,” Will laughs. “It’s not that we don’t love that stuff…” he pauses, “but I just don’t think that we could ever have made something like this before.”

As for what the record has come to mean for the band themselves, it’s clearly given them the lease of life they were craving and united them once again. “It was about breathing and giving our band a new life, and the vampire theme felt like the metaphor for that,” Will concludes. “It kinda had to die a death over the last couple of years in order to be born and walk again.”

‘Sanguivore’ is out 15th October via Spinefarm. DIY

“It sounds like that Jim Steinman quote: ‘Going all the way is just the start’.” - Will Gould

LIKE

A PRAYER

Aconversation with SIPHO. is one that overflows with unfiltered joy for music and its every niche. When the Birminghambased musician arrives for today’s interview, he’s carrying a new guitar in a fetching shade of pastel blue that he bought for a steal via Facebook Marketplace earlier on and has trekked across the city to pick up. Hugging a mug of peppermint tea, he spends five minutes animatedly talking through every detail of its construction; dressed in an understated band tee from labelmate Bonnie Kemplay, you could pick him out as a musician in a heartbeat.

Sat outside a cafe on a chaotic street corner of the city centre, we’re here to talk about his debut album, ‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’: a heady blend of all SIPHO.’s (pronounced see-po) influences that should underline this musical curiosity. It takes in everything from Wolf Alice-esque guitars on ‘GLUE’ to junglist drums on ‘SOBER’, all via his soaring, grand-yet-intimate vocals.

The title feels provocative – why ‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’? “Well, the actual song ‘PARANOIA’ was written with Eg White (Adele, Sam Smith, Ellie Goulding). And getting off the tube on the way to his house, it was fresh out of lockdown, just coming into all the cost of living stuff, and Partygate,” he begins. “There was just a stink in the air.” It’s a tension at the heart of the album – one where inner beauty rubs up directly against the chaos of life right now. “Oh yeah, 100%,” SIPHO. nods. “It was, ‘Today just feels fucking weird’.”

“I’ve just made 12 songs of everything I could possibly think of. Shit’s wild, bro…”

A DEBUT RECORD FULL OF SONIC EXPLORATION AND SOCIAL INVESTIGATION, ‘PRAYERS AND PARANOIA’ MAY COME LOADED WITH WEIGHT BUT SIPHO. IS RISING HIGH. WORDS: LOUIS GRIFFIN.

Tips From the Frontline

You learn a lot from making your first record - here’s some of the useful nuggets Sipho picked up along the way.

TRUST YOUR COLLABORATORS

It was me and Joseph Rogers [in-house producer for Dirty Hit] on most of the album. It’s funny, our A&R was always saying, ‘I’ve got you this session, and this session’, but I remember meeting Joe and cancelling [all of] those sessions, because Joe is a really good second ear. And you need a second ear sometimes, because if you have your head in Pro Tools by yourself all day, you’ll have a psychotic break –it’s good to have someone to tell you to fuck off sometimes.

DON’T BE INTIMIDATED BY YOUR HEROES

‘LOCK IT IN’ was me, Joe and Paul Epworth (Adele, Florence and the Machine, Rihanna). He’s someone who’s figured out how to cultivate ideas – but I’m not intimated. We do the same thing, he’s just really good at it. He pulled up to The Church [legendary London studio], and just started going; we got the bassline in, and just went with it.

BE PREPARED

This is so minor, but Paul had a massive caddy in the corner of pens, guitar picks, highlighters, everything. It was a reminder – you need to make sure you have stuff ready and accessible, to just press record and let the ideas happen. It’s very easy, in the rush of the moment, to have something and then lose it, so it’s always those small things. Sometimes I just need an extra pen!

The other half of the title - the ‘prayers’ - is perhaps a more nuanced subject to tackle. On the one hand, religion definitely plays a part in the record: he’s literally kneeling in prayer on the album cover. On the other, early press around his career honed in on his upbringing as part of the Seventh-day Adventist Church, despite his insistence that it wasn’t part of how he saw his music. It’s a focus that feels more related to the fact that he’s a Black artist from Birmingham than anything else, and when this is put to him, SIPHO. and his manager both burst into laughter. “Yeah! Oh my god, sorry – we’ve gone on about this for ages. We even had to make a really intentional steer with this project: no church stuff, nothing, because people lean into that and it does become a very core part of every press thing,” he says, still laughing.

He also sees it with the description of his music as ‘R&B’, even though you’ll just as easily find distorted guitars or manic drums on his tracks. “I’ve just made 12 songs of everything I could possibly think of,” he says by way of a description. “Shit’s wild, bro...” So, what narrative would he rather have around his music? He stops to think. “It’s an excellent question, but there’s only so much I can do to create the narrative,” he explains. “I think I’ve just got to focus on making the music for now. I’m 23, in the middle of a cost of living crisis, trying to become a solid human being and pay my taxes on time. I think right now is not a time for definites!”

There are moments when SIPHO. seems much older. If the outer chaos he mentions is a driving force in his music, then within the world of ‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’ he’s focused on creating a temporary respite from it all. “I feel like it’s the foundation,” he nods of the influence of this external noise. “But it’s not just about me. It expands outwards from me. I was anxious and yeah, I’m talking to myself, but there’s a whole world of people that are exactly like this. I’m not that fucking special, this must be happening to someone else.”

These moments of self-reflection are present right across the album. Tracks like ‘SOBER’ are direct with their confessions: “Hide me from myself / My behaviour is mayhem / Only sober when I inhale.” Meanwhile, the woozy synths of ‘LOCK IT IN’ almost recall trip-hop to begin with, before drums snap into place and he begins to meditate on self-loathing (“Taste the bitterest part of me… Won’t you wish me your worst?”). The universal thread, though, is his ability to transfer this pain into melodies that flit between gritty depths and almost child-like highs, all tied together by the bare honesty of his subject material.

It’s interesting, this focus on how we face life’s headwinds. When asked what non-musical influences have played into the album, he turns to film and TV: The Bear, Uncut Gems, Moonlight. All are very much rooted in reality’s stresses, while also reaching for something intangible, something more. “I feel very grounded, watching all that stuff. Especially the first season of The Bear, where you can feel these are people with real lives, just trying to make something,” he says. “I guess I can connect to that – starting things, making it happen.”

It’s been a whirlwind few years for SIPHO.; he signed to Dirty Hit in 2021, and subsequently released two EPs (that year’s ‘AND GOD SAID…’ and the following’s ‘SHE MIGHT BLEED’) in the run up to this full-length debut. He says he wasn’t looking for a deal, but was spotted by a label A&R at his college’s showcase and things then moved at a rapid pace. Has it felt odd being catapulted into this new world? “I guess I’m just letting them figure me out,” he reflects. “It feels like I was put here for a reason.” The last time DIY and SIPHO. chatted, he’d just achieved a milestone he’d been eyeing for his whole career: a Later... with Jools Holland slot. He hesitates for a moment when asked what he’s reaching for next, before smiling: “Should I say it…? Should I say Mercury Prize…?”

It’s this quiet confidence, more than the easy gregariousness of his conversation, that feels like the core of SIPHO.. He doesn’t feel overawed by where he is now, or by where he’s going. “I wasn’t expecting to make the album this soon,” he nods, “[but] I thought I’d get here somehow.” Life for the 23-year old might now involve a thrilling debut on a hit record label, but he’s still excited by the Facebook Marketplace guitar from a Birmingham suburb. “We’re still trying to find that magic wand.”

‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’ is out 27th October via Dirty Hit. DIY

‘Til Death Do Them Part

Two halves of a raw rock’n’roll whole, on

The Kills’

sixth album ‘God Games’, Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince’s symbiotic spirit is out in full force.

Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Myles Hendrik.

If, as the saying goes, familiarity sometimes breeds contempt, then there’s a second, altogether more fruitful way of working that The Kills have honed to a fine art over the last 23 years; one where the nth degree of familiarity can coexist with a particular combination of excitement, enthusiasm and maybe just a smidge of healthy nerves.

“I’ll send something over and then I’ll be looking at my phone, waiting, like…”

Jamie Hince finishes his sentence with some comically over-exaggerated nailbiting at odds with the designer shades and midday mimosa sitting in front of him. He’s not talking about a reply from a potential beau, however, but the way that he and bff Alison Mosshart’s sixth album ‘God Games’ came to being as the pair batted ideas back and forth from their respective pandemic-locked homes.

“I’m very good at letting things go. If I write a song and you’re not into it I’ll be like, ‘Fuck it, I’ll write another one’,” Alison continues, addressing her bandmate. “I’m a bit more precious,” Jamie replies, “because you’ll throw 20 songs at me and maybe two of them will work. Whereas I’ll give you two and be like, ‘Pleeeease!!! Like me!!!’”

As both participants crease over into giggles, it’s an endearing window into a rock-steady friendship that’s seen The Kills outlast many of their early ‘00s peers and head into the third decade of their band, as dedicated to their partnership as the first moments that sealed it. Mosshart and Hince might be stalwarts embedded on the frontline of prowling, powerful rock’n’roll but as Alison guffaws when we suggest their elder statesmen status: “But we’re so silly, though!”

Laughter and lightheartedness sits at the band’s core behind the scenes, however from its weighty, apocalyptic title outwards, The Kills’ newest is playing with far more fiery elements. In the

A COCK AND BULL STORY

The painting on ‘God Games’’ cover, it transpires, has a particular place in The Kills’ hearts.

Jamie: It’s a picture of a bull fight painted by a terrible artist that was left on my fireplace when I moved into my house. I used to look at it every day during the pandemic and it made me laugh - this struggle of culture and nature, and how cruel humans are, and how they wrap it up in tradition and embroider it in homoerotic little outfits and call it sport. And then at the same time there’s this amateur painting struggle on getting the shading right on the cape - it really hits all my sense of humour.

Alison: My favourite thing is on the original on Jamie’s mantelpiece, the bull has five legs.

Jamie: I think he painted a leg in a different position and he didn’t cover the original one up well enough; he lost count of the legs.

video gaming world, a ‘god game’, explains Jamie, is a subgenre where you can create and manipulate your surroundings. “It wasn’t lost on me that it’s a bit like the creative world where you make your own little subuniverse,” he continues. “I find myself manufacturing a god so I can move some of my problems and issues around.”

In a state of creative crankiness following the end of touring for previous album ‘Ash & Ice’, Jamie had originally started writing music for a side-project called LA Hex as a way to free himself up. “Every time I picked up the guitar, it was like muscle memory that wasn’t exciting to me,” he explains of the issue. But when he played Alison the demos - distinctly un-guitary ideas that pulled from everywhere, and were supposed to be “absolutely not like The Kills” - she swiftly decided otherwise. “I was like, ‘I’m taking that’,” she chuckles. And so, having reminded themselves that a Kills record could be anything that they want it to be, the parameters for their next material were blown wide open.

For the first time, Jamie worked on his lyrics first, pulling from the more “philosophical, internalised” mindset that came as part and parcel of 2020; sonically, meanwhile, they leaned into the ‘anything goes’ mentality that had been a founding tenet way back when. “When we started this band, we did it as a two piece because we didn’t want to have these restrictions,” says Alison. “I felt like for the first time I could throw all the things I love about music at it, which isn’t just rock music,” continues Jamie, “it’s actually rarely rock music. It’s Dean Blunt, it’s MF DOOM, [and so we were] trying all these things.”

Simultaneously as work started on LP6, the pair had begun to trawl their archives for the first time in a long, long time for what would become ‘Little Bastards’ - a B-sides and rarities collection complete with archival photos and a brief foray into some rare nostalgia. Initially, they were reluctant to indulge - “I never want to look back, especially when I’m in my studio, setting-things-on-fire mode,” notes Jamie - but as they began to trace a line from the pair of young agitators that united in 2001 to the established unit they stand as now, the direction of what would come next started to reveal itself.

“I kept feeling like we were making our first record - that beautiful freedom in an impossible-todescribe way.”Alison Mosshart

“We were working on a song like ‘Bullet Sound’ which had no guitar on it - most of the songs had no guitar on at the beginning because I felt like it was a bit of an albatross,” explains Jamie. “But then listening back to those early songs, I just thought: that’s the THING. We could make a trap song but as soon as I put that slightly outof-tune guitar on it, as soon as Alison sings on it, we’re going somewhere else.”

“The best feeling I had, and I kept saying it in the studio, was that I kept feeling like we were making our first record - that beautiful freedom in an impossible-to-describe way,” picks up Alison. “It felt like the possibilities were endless. For some reason, making Album Six was like making Album One and I just thought, what an incredible feeling to discover 20 years in, and I think that’s the thing that shows me the power of us. I wasn’t searching for that place, it just happened, and that’s testament to how strong this is.”

In some ways, ‘God Games’ is the duo’s biggest departure from what people would think of as ‘classic Kills’ to date. ‘LA Hex’ is morphed into a grand, dream sequence where the dusty heatwaves of the city are practically visible; ‘Love and Tenderness’ has a trip-hop lining, while ‘My Girls My Girls’ is built around a warped synth motif and scattershot drum beats. But really, it’s the same complete trust in each other that’s steered the band on since Day One that’s allowed them to keep on experimenting.

“No one puts the brakes on in this band. ‘LA Hex’ started out as a fucking New Orleans chopped-and-screwed thing and there’s never a point when she’s like, ‘Pfft, I don’t know about that’,” Jamie says of Alison. “She’s always like, ‘Bring it on’, and we both do that. It’s such a fantastic thing that you can really explore the wildest corners of your imagination and you’re never gonna get an, ‘Errr, mate?’” “I get so excited,” Alison nods. “He’ll send me a piece of

music or a drumbeat, and I’ll immediately put my mic on and just see what comes out. It’s like a gift, every time he sends me something.”

23 years ago, Hince picked Mosshart up from the airport and the pair made an agreement as they drove to London’s Gipsy Hill. “We made this pact to be two people together, us against the world, which sounded a little bit silly in my head back then but I definitely felt like that’s what I wanted to be and what I wanted to do,” he nods. “20 years later, I know her like the back of my hand. I know all her strengths. I know she’s got me in certain ways and I know I need to have her back in other ways. There’s no wondering how it’s gonna go anymore; we’re just like an old married couple really.”

The world might have changed immeasurably since then (“I booked a tour totally through the post,” Alison recalls with a laugh of their early days. “I wrote to venues from here to America, and we did a two week tour from responses of, ‘Can we play your club?’”), but there’s a creative romance to The Kills that’s remained throughout. Brimming with both style and substance, they’re the sort of band that make people start bands; that are the dictionary definition of very fucking cool, but that also wear their hearts openly, unabashedly on their sleeves. “We’ve been through so much life together in so many different circumstances. We’ve had every kind of trouble you can think of and we’ve made it through,” Alison nods.

When Jamie Hince and Alison Mosshart were on that inaugural drive, they decided they were in this game for life and, 23 years later, no acts of god or otherwise have changed their minds. “The whole conversation from the airport was: ‘We’re in this forever. Are you in?” grins Jamie. “Yes.”

‘God Games’ is out 27th October via Domino. DIY

THE KILLS RECOMMEND…

Alison and Jamie are voracious cultural consumers, so who better to offer up some top tips for what to hunt out next?

BOOK

Alison: I want everyone to read Don’t Call Me Home by Alexandra Auder - she’s the daughter of [Warhol muse] Viva Superstar, and it’s about growing up in the Chelsea Hotel and it’s absolutely hysterical and brilliant.

Jamie: I’m in the middle of this book called When We Cease to Understand the World and that’s blowing my mind. It sounds really daunting because there’s a lot of mathematics and astrophysics but it’s actually an easy read.

RECORD

Jamie: People will know MF Doom and Madlib, but the Four Tet remix of ‘Madvillainy’ is fucking stunning - it’s got loads of instrumentals on it and it’s amazing. He’s basically rewritten it.

ARTIST

Jamie: Always Jake Chapman, always Tim Noble, always Nadia Lee Cohen.

Alison: I really love what my friend Brad Kahlhamer is doing at the moment. He’s Native American and he does all these incredible drawings and paintings, and makes these big metal sculptures that take up entire rooms and they’re the most incredible things.

FILM

Alison: Triangle of Sadness is one of the best things I’ve seen!

Jamie: I was on an aeroplane and I just wanted to watch something that would make me fall asleep and I thought, Woody Harrelson’s in this, this’ll be good, and then I finished it and I started again. I did not want it to leave my life.

“There’s no wondering how it’s gonna go anymore; we’re just like an old married couple really.”Jamie Hince

A ROOM ONE’ S OWN of

Words: Rhian Daly. Photos: Constantine Spence.

As the days get shorter, the nights longer and the air chillier, the music industry’s wheels begin to turn towards a vision of the future: tips season. Rising artists are anointed as soon-to-be superstars and, in the case of some, the verdict seems to unanimously point towards their coronation as The Next Big Thing. The latter scenario was Holly Humberstone’s fate in the frosty hinterland of 2021, when she was crowned the BRIT’s Rising Star for 2022 and named in practically every ones-to-watch list going, having already placed second on the BBC’s Sound of… list the year before.

“That was a bit daunting,” she recalls now, sitting at a table in a back corner of a London hotel amid another whirlwind day of promo. “The music industry is a scary place and I felt like I had to impress and prove myself to a lot of people – including myself.”

When the now-23-year-old was on the receiving end of these big proclamations, she was only two EPs (2020’s ‘Falling Asleep At The Wheel’ and its 2021 follow-up, ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’) into her career. Although she describes such early recognition as “the most incredible, so sick” confidence-booster, once the novelty of it all wore off, confusion and overthinking set in. With the world watching, the pressure was now on for the singer to live up to the grandiose labels that had been thrust upon her. “I

was like, ‘Oh my god’,” she remembers. “‘I actually have to deliver something that’s groundbreaking and amazing’.”

From the outside looking in, Holly has taken her time since this starry period to slowly work on her debut album, ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’. But, she says, she did initially try to rush it out as a response to the hype around her, attempting to shape the release into the kind that she thought was expected. “I felt like I had to match or top what I’d released before, and I felt quite a lot of pressure to write more bangers,” she explains. “I went through a bit of a really-not-great phase, and the songs I was coming out with were just really not making me very happy, and they just weren’t me. If I’m writing about things I genuinely care about – and not fabricated, crazy love stories that didn’t really happen – then it’s going to be more authentic.”

And so, realising that going full-on banger mode didn’t suit her, she reverted to doing what she’s always done: writing songs that she likens to “diary entries about my life”, with her quiet-butincisive way of capturing specific moments at the fore. Take ‘Elvis Impersonators’, in which she describes missing another sister on the other side of the world, or the longing ‘Superbloodmoon’, where she asks if a lover is looking at the same sky. It was an endpoint that took a while to reach (“Most of the time [in my life], there’s not that much going on,” she laughs. “I don’t have that much drama in my life to be writing songs like that”), but

After a whirlwind entry into the industry, the last 18 months have seen Holly Humberstone ride a wave of self-questioning before emerging out the other side, clearer than ever and with debut ‘ Paint My Bedroom Black’ in tow.

“I felt like I had to impress and prove myself to a lot of people – including myself.”

LONDON INK

Unsurprisingly, there are quite a few Holly Humberstone lyric tattoos being inked these days, but what would the singer herself choose to make permanent?

“I think I’d get one from ‘Room Service’ because that’s one about my friends.

That song is one of my favourites because it’s about people that I love so much – maybe the first line: ‘I am carrying roses to you’. I think it’s very sweet. I remember writing that song and sending it to all my friends and they were like, ‘Is this about us?!’”

eventually, she began to trust herself and follow what came naturally. “I think that’s what the album is now to me,” she nods. “I’m really proud of it and I feel like it’s stayed true to what I wanted to make. It’s my favourite music I’ve made so far because of that – I’m sharing way too much as usual and showing different sides of me.”

With a little bit more hindsight, Holly has taken some lessons from this period too. “Don’t let the pressure change your process – people like what you’re doing already,” she says of the advice she’d pass on to the next wave of artists in the same situation. “Don’t let it change you or make you feel like you have to do anything extra than what you’re doing. Just stick to what you’re good at, trust yourself and try not to let external pressures stop you from loving making music.”

Another byproduct of being granted ‘next in line’ status often ends up being a relentless tour schedule. Over the last two years, Humberstone has hit the road incredibly hard, travelling all over the globe to perform – a dream situation, but also one that turns your whole world upside down and comes with extreme highs and equally as enormous lows.

“Being on tour is a really strange and weird double

life,” she nods. “You have these really intense, overstimulating days where you have shows or you’re in a new city, doing promo and stuff all day. It’s intense and crazy, and then you get to your hotel at night and shut the door and it’s so silent.” For a while, she got into a bad habit of spending hours in whatever temporary lodging she was in that evening, doomscrolling on her phone and “feeling so shit”.

It was during those times, however, that many of the seeds of her debut album began to germinate. After pulling herself out of the black hole of her screen, Humberstone would jot down what she was thinking and feeling. “That was the time I had to write and the time I had the most to say,” she explains. “I felt, at the time, that I was neglecting relationships and my friends back at home and being a not great friend. I didn’t even really have the mental energy to call my Mum a lot of the time, and that’s just obviously really sad.”

For all the bleak times, there were also some of the best times. She points, in particular, to support tours she did with girl in red and Olivia Rodrigo. “It was the most inspiring three months ever,” she smiles of the back-to-back trips. “I got to see so much of America and ended up in places I never thought I’d end up in, and got to see two of my favourite artists perform every night.”

Those tours also helped the singer get out of another unhealthy mindset – one where she saw other female artists around her as competition. The pressures put on women to break through in music before their youth is considered to be ‘gone’ are still prevalent, and Humberstone was sucked into the notion that getting ahead was a race against her peers. “I think because I went to an all-girls school and I have three sisters, there’s always some weird competitive vibe that gets instilled in you from a really young age,” she suggests.

Being around Olivia, and girl in red’s Marie Ulven, getting to know the people behind the music, was a huge help in overcoming this constructed pressure. “They’re literally exactly like me, they’re just real people,” Humberstone smiles.

“Obviously people know their image and how they are online, but to get to know them was so nice – they’re just really normal!” Since then, she explains that she’s shaken off her old outsider ways and become part of a larger pop support network with those two artists and more. “It’s lovely that I’ve got people that I feel similar to me and that I feel like I can talk to about all this,” she nods.

That loosening up aligns with a notable portion of what ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ is all about. If one side of it finds Humberstone “shutting out the world”, then the other feels like her letting love – in all forms – in. On the gently buzzing ‘Ghost Me’, she reminisces about karaoke nights with her mates and urges them to stick by her even in her absences, while on the acoustic

strum of ‘Kissing In Swimming Pools’, you can sense her tumbling into a new romance.

“A lot of the songs are just about how much I love my friends,” she grins. “And hoping they won’t leave me in the dust!” ‘Kissing In Swimming Pools’, though, was written about a new relationship and, despite its gorgeous detailing of new love (“Can we kiss in your swimming pool? / In this bathing suit, I would die for you”), Humberstone says it’s a bittersweet document for her.

“I wrote songs like ‘Antichrist’ and ‘Flatlining’ about relationships that have just been ruined because of my job and not being present or being able to properly give somebody the energy or time that they deserve,” she explains. Even though she was so far away from home, she was willing this new connection not to head in the same direction. “Writing about it connected me back home to that,” she says before confirming the relationship’s fate coyly: “It’s all good, it’s worked out.”

Happily, it’s not just Humberstone’s love life that’s sailing smoothly right now, but just about everything. After refusing to be chewed up by the expectations of the hype machine, she’s stepping out the other side with a triumphant debut album – one not devoid of bangers, but still retaining what makes her so special, and letting us into her unique little slices of life. Next Big Thing?

On ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’, she’s surpassed that label to secure her place as a star who’ll stay fixed in our skies for quite some time yet.

‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ is out 13th October via Darkroom / Geffen / Polydor. DIY

“Because I went to an all-girls school and I have three sisters, there’s some weird competitive vibe that gets instilled in you from a young age.”

 Sampha

LAHAI (Young)

Sampha is quite content with life in the shadows, his skills - most obviously that heartbreakingly gossamer voice - often happy to be uncredited on tracks by everyone from SBTRKT to Kendrick Lamar to Beyoncé. But Sampha is at his best when he allows himself to take the spotlight.

His long-awaited debut, 2017’s ‘Process’, was a perfectlypitched journey of finding purpose in the aftermath of tragedy. Now, in ‘LAHAI’ (named for his grandfather), he’s embracing the unknown, embracing the realisation that relinquishing control can help one see the true beauty of the world.

Inspired by the short story ‘Jonathan Livingstone Seagull’, ‘LAHAI’ is about how finding your community makes all this possible. “Lost the art / Of connection,” he confesses on ‘Rose Tint’, before asking everyone to “gather round”. Those gathering include yaeji and Yussef Dayes (‘Spirit 2.0’), Laura Groves (‘Jonathan L Seagull’), and Sheila Maurice-Grey (‘Can’t

Go Back’). All make small-but-poignant appearances that put Sampha’s thesis of power in community into action. “Faith will catch you / friends will catch you,” he sings on ‘Spirit 2.0’.

But this is still a stunningly personal record. Even as tracks crackle with glitchy electronics or Yussef Dayes’ slick drums, Sampha’s piano - as on ‘Process’ - forms the beautifully ethereal soul of the record. He guides his expertly-crafted melodies, from the beautiful yearning of ‘Dancing Circles’ to the skittering uncertainty of ‘What If You Hypnotise Me?’. Sampha’s mastery of melody is best displayed on ‘Suspended’, a track that feels both claustrophobic and graceful; capturing the idea that love is the escape from the darkness.

It’s been six years since Sampha’s last record which itself came four years after his second EP. It’s clear he likes to let ideas, emotions, and melodies evolve in their own time. Sampha’s voice might be the most instantly recognizable piece of magic in his arsenal, but it’s his patience and craft that makes ‘LAHAI’ such a stunning experience. (Chris Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Suspended’

His patience and craft make this a stunning experience.

 Sufjan Stevens

Javelin (Asthmatic Kitty)

2015’s ‘Carrie & Lowell’ is still widely thought of as Sufjan Stevens’ best, some fifteen years into the American creative’s wide-ranging career. It wrapped his understated musical eccentricities into something beautifully insular and vulnerable, cementing his mastery of writing simultaneously subtle and rousing songs. The album candidly spoke of his mother’s death, offering an artful expression of grief. That five years later, he’d re-emerge with the arguably brilliant tonal sidestep of ‘Ascension’ seemed unusual, if not entirely unexpected given the electronic fluttering of 2010’s ‘The Age of Adz’. In fact, ‘Carrie and Lowell’ sat sandwiched between two altogether more expansive releases, and the signature sound he found himself labelled with – one that subsequently underpinned the melancholy of the ‘Call Me By Your Name’ soundtrack - perhaps lay at odds with the artist as a whole.

Cue experimentation on a massive scale with a range of collaborative albums, and 2021’s five-volume ‘Convocations’ collection, which all feeds into his tenth studio album, ‘Javelin’ - an album that could have easily amped up the peculiar, but one that instead pulls specific elements of each of his eras. Specific fans of ‘Carrie & Lowell’ will be pleased to hear only a single track extends beyond five minutes, and it’s the very one – ‘Shit Talk’ – that perhaps embodies the favourite most. Elsewhere he makes countless nods to his wider works – the bells that dominate ‘A Running Start’ or the grandiose electronics confined only to opener ‘Goodbye Evergreen’ sit among a clear effort to distil the fragility of previous releases.

“Will anybody ever love me?” he resolutely asks on the stunning, heartbreaking song of the same name. “I don’t want to fight at all,” he repeats with a pained sense of resignation as ‘Shit Talk’ builds to its climatic outro. In these moments, Sufjan returns to his inward observations, swapping out the fundamental social commentary that categorised much of ‘Ascension’. Even on the occasion when the record veers dangerously close to twee (see the nursery rhyme-adjacent ‘My Little Red Fox’), it still presents as a delicate insight back to the life of its creator. If ‘Carrie & Lowell’ is set to remain as Sufjan Stevens’ best, ‘Javelin’ takes a confident stride back into personal territory and certainly gives 2015 a run for its money. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Shit Talk’

 Olivia Rodrigo GUTS (Geffen)

There are many ways to grow up, but perhaps the most telling is when you start to embrace life’s nuance. A teen heartbreak can feel like the obliterating, very literal end of the world; come your twenties, the grey areas and glimmers of self-awareness start to poke through. “I feel like I grew 10 years between the ages of 18 and 20,” Olivia Rodrigo has said ahead of second album ‘GUTS’ - and it shows.

Where all-conquering debut ‘SOUR’ put life-ruining, soul-sucking boys at its centre - boys who betray you; boys who make you doubt yourself; boys boys boys boys boys - on ‘GUTS’, the opposite sex is still firmly caught in her crosshairs but there’s a tongue wedged firmly in cheek here that wasn’t present before. Take superlative recent single ‘bad idea right?’, which channels Wolf Alice’s chanty, moshing sass to such a level that our ‘Liv literally threw its launch party at Camden’s Hawley Arms. Thematically, it’s more of the same; a bad dude that keeps reeling you back in. But add some girl gang vocals, butter-wouldn’t-melt asides, and the general vibe that - as opposed to LP1 - this is albeit temporarily about what’s good for her, and you’ve got something of an attitude glow-up.

Across the record, the winking lyrical smarts are in full flow. On ‘get him back!’, ‘Sucker’-era Charli XCX melodies combine with the sort of punchlines Wet Leg would be proud of: “I want to kiss his face with an uppercut / I wanna meet his mom, and tell her her son sucks”.

On opener ‘all-american bitch’, she sends up ludicrous female standards with a faux-angelic chorus that doesn’t even try to conceal its eyeroll (“I’m grateful all the time / I’m sexy and I’m kind / I’m pretty when I cry”), while ‘ballad of a homeschooled girl’ is knowingly funny

like all the best outsider teen movies (“Thought your mom was your wife / Called you the wrong name twice”).

It’s notable that all the reference points here seem to come from UK indie; though there’s still a good whack of Ol-Rod ballads to be found, it sounds like she’s been voraciously soaking up Britain’s more recent guitar heroes in the interim - not least because the bendy guitars of ‘…homeschooled girl’ sound bizarrely like Peace. It could make for something of a discrepancy between ‘GUTS’’ two main modes. However, aside from the middle one-two of ‘making the bed’ and ‘logical’, which both walk down fairly standard romantic ballad paths, Olivia manages to inject her slower numbers with enough chutzpah to tie them into the more obvious bangers.

Lead single ‘vampire’ is the finest example of this, and a worthy contender for 2023’s best pop song: a track that could so-easily have stayed as a piano lament and stopped there, but instead keeps pushing for bigger and bigger crescendos. Elsewhere, ‘lacy’ is a bitter, almost stalkerish lip curl of a wolf in sweet, sheep’s clothing; ‘pretty isn’t pretty’ is self-lacerating to the sort of deceptive mid-tempo that’s built for driving with the top down, and closer ‘teenage dream’ takes the frustration of ‘brutal’ and finds its fretful flipside:

“You’ve got your whole life ahead of you, you’re only 19 / But I fear that they already got all the best parts of me”.

Kicking into a cathartic purge of a finale, it’s an album closer that recalls Billie Eilish’s redemptive ‘Happier Than Ever’ but with all the worry left in. It leaves ‘GUTS’ very much with an ellipsis hanging at the end of it; a stepping stone in the singer’s journey that shows her growing but not yet entirely grown. But really, despite its own anxieties, Olivia’s second is best categorised by a line in its opening track, before the neuroses can set in. In the words of ‘allamerican bitch’: “I know my place and this is it”. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘vampire’

The winking lyrical smarts are in full flow.

 Creeper Sanguivore (Spinefarm)

Ever since a mysterious voicemail at the end of a Southampton phone number accompanied the deletion of their personal social media accounts, Creeper have leaned unapologetically heavily into theatrics. And after launching their debut full-length ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’ the flamboyance kicked into overload - a staged fallout to end that album’s live run and a surprise beheading have followed, paired with an evolving sound that owes much to composer Jim Steinman and his Meat Loaf muse. ‘Sanguivore’, their third studio album, immediately embraces that influence, launching into an unapologetic nine-minute epic ode to the pair’s ‘Bat Out Of Hell’, and ending with the haunting balladry of ‘More Than Death’ in a touching moment that seemingly lifts directly from the closing moments of their inspiration. But the audible theatrics have expanded, and much of the album jumps across the gothic new romantic soundscape. Listen hard and you’ll find nods to Misfits, Sisters of Mercy, and Billy Idol, while the band’s fledgling punk days morph into Alkaline Trio or AFI dramatics. Far from a mixtape of their forefathers, ‘Sanguivore’ is Creeper at their most joyful. Creatively reunited with founding member Ian Miles, driving force Will Gould (now William Von Ghould) presses his tongue firmly into his cheek in among some of the biggest riffs 2020s rock has conjured up. There’s substance behind the theatrics, and the vampire narrative never feels forced, even as organs take centre stage on ‘Chapel Gates’ and instrumental follow-up ‘The Abyss’. ‘Black Heaven’ in particular presents Creeper like never before, striding out of a Stranger Thingsesque intro into a brilliantly dark ‘80s crescendo. These bold theatrics more than work, and maybe more so than ever, they present Creeper with a clear track to bringing camp, dramatic rock back to the very top of the pile.

(Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Black Heaven’

Electra Fanfare

(self-released)

 The Kills God Games (Domino)

The seven-year lay-off between this sixth album from The Kills and their last, 2016’s ‘Ash & Ice’, represents the longest of the duo’s career. With both Alison Mosshart and Jamie Hince having dipped their toes into different creative waters in recent years - Alison with The Dead Weather, Jamie having recently played a run of shows in Iggy Pop’s backing band - you wonder whether they had perhaps run out of things to say as The Kills. Nudging them back on track this time, after early writing sessions were derailed by the pandemic, was Paul Epworth, a masterstroke choice of producer; on the one hand, an expert when it comes to mainstream polish, on the other, actually their first ever sound man, who worked with them in their fledgling stages in 2002. It means he has an innate understanding of the chemistry that makes the pair tick, which remains at the heart of ‘God Games’ even as it comes over sounding like their most ambitious and handsome release yet. While the scuzzy bluesiness that informed the likes of ‘Keep On Your Mean Side’ and ‘No Wow’ is conspicuous by its absence on the rolling drama of ‘New York’ or the playful rock of ‘LA Hex’, the manner in which Jamie’s guitars complement Alison’s vocals remains almost unnervingly impressive. The latter is on the form of her life here; strutting one minute and vulnerable the next. You wish The Kills were a touch more prolific, especially in recent years, but ‘God Games’, like its predecessors, has proved worth the wait. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘New York’

 Bombay Bicycle Club

My Big Day (Mmm… / AWAL)

While you shouldn’t necessarily judge an album by its guest spots, the cast of Bombay Bicycle Club’s sixth seems to not only cement where the quartet are at themselves, but also how they’re viewed among their peers. Present and correct are modern guitar innovators from both sides of the pond (Nilüfer Yanya and Jay Som), a BRIT-winner (Holly Humberstone), and a bona fide music legend (Damon Albarn); BBC might have started life a decade ago as a fairly straight-up indie band, but now they’re the sort of ever-evolving unit whose little black book is bulging. ‘My Big Day’ is ample proof as to why. A record that feels effortlessly comfortable in its own skin whilst still managing to tread new ground, it’s the best the band have ever sounded. Whether in the buoyant, brass-aping keyboard motif that opens ‘Just A Little More Time’, or the more ominous drums’n’drones of ‘I Want To Be Your Only Pet’, everything rings with supreme confidence. ‘Turn The World On’ is classic, sparkling Bombay, whereas ‘Rural Radio Predicts The Future’’s two-minute instrumental concludes with almost hyperpop bleeps; the Albarn-featuring ‘Heaven’ is loose and trip-hoppy, while highlight ‘Meditate’ (with Nilüfer Yanya) climbs the guitar scales into a twisted climax. A triumph. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Meditate’

 The Streets

The Darker The Shadow The Brighter The Light

(679 Recordings / Warner)

On third record ‘Fanfare’, amid trumpets, saxophones, cacophonies of bombastic vintage synths and electric emo scene pop, Dorian Electra slips into a new outfit: this time, the Elon-Musk-ish, pick-me, terminally online, randomcore nice guys that despise pop culture but love popularity. “They told me touch grass outside / I told them ratio / Go cry,” they whisper on ‘Touch Grass’. It’s the perfect vessel for Dorian to inhabit, allowing them to critique modern fame: the parasocial relationship between uninhibited attention-seeking and the push-and-pull between artists and audience control. It’s a welcome tone change from the violence of the fedora-tipping m’lady boys of ‘My Agenda’, and Dorian further embraces the clownery required of pop stardom. Sexually frustrated fisting anthem ‘Puppet’ is the twisted older brother of PC Music’s industrial hyperpop; whispery vocal control sits alongside a ridiculously fun “D-d-doot-doot-doot” riff on ‘Phonies’; cake is thrown at the Leonardo on ‘Freak Mode’; and the occasional ballad always sits somewhere (see ‘Warning Signs’). Then, as expected, ‘Fanfare’ is surreal and theatrical in new, unexpected ways. Throughout, there’s a soundboard that could be mistaken for boys playing with the DJ function on school keyboards; a hilariously pretentious rumination on coffee grounds acts as bridge on ‘Lifetime’; and a five-minute eerie epic, ‘Yes Man’, feels something like a Lynchian rave. ‘Fanfare’ amalgamates the outside-the-box pop of debut ‘Flamboyant’ with the fearlessly crazed volume of ‘My Agenda’ into a new portrait of the oddities of reality through Dorian’s eyes, with catchier avant-pop than ever before. There’s uncontainable joy that comes with such a brilliantly coherent, hilariously parodic, starkly intellectual, yet undeniably ridiculous record: nobody’s doing pop music like Dorian Electra. (Otis Robinson) LISTEN: ‘Puppet’

It is strange, now, to think of this as the first new Streets album since 2011, when Mike Skinner claimed he was wrapping up the project with ‘Computers and Blues’; after all, he has been releasing new music again under the name since 2017, and playing shows since 2018. That he seemed shy about releasing a full record suggested he was easing himself back in, only popping up when he felt he had something worthwhile to say, which would explain singles that spoke to the moment like the post-lockdown ‘Who’s Got the Bag’, the ‘Brexit at Tiffany’s’ EP, or his experimental mixtape, ‘None of Us Are Getting Out of This Life Alive’. Now, he is going the whole hog with ‘The Darker the Shadow The Brighter the Light’, a sprawling, 15-song effort (if you don’t count a raft of bonus tracks) that comes accompanied by a conceptual feature film that Mike wrote, directed, edited, soundtracked and funded himself. More so than some of his other recent material, the record has a sense of drama and occasion to it, as well as being the most musically seamless album he’s made in nearly twenty years, since 2004’s ‘A Grand Don’t Come for Free’. The issue as he approached middle age was always going to be how he would find new things to say about the club culture that inspired his early work, but on the brooding likes of ‘Troubled Waters’, he paints arresting new pictures of familiar environments. Inevitably, there’s the occasional lapse into self-parody, but for the most part, ‘The Darker the Shadow The Brighter the Light’ has a vitality to it that was perhaps lacking by the time he wound down The Streets the first time around. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Troubled Waters’

DREAMER ISIOMA

THU 5 OCT

CORSICA STUDIOS

LSDXOXO

THU 5 OCT

ICA

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

THE ITCH, MEMORY OF SPEKE + RED IVORY

THU 5 OCT

DREAM BAGS JAGUAR SHOES

RAPTURE DAY EVENT

SAT 7 OCT

HACKNEY EARTH

MITSKI

WED 11 OCT

UNION CHAPEL

SKINNY PELEMBE

WED 11 OCT

SCALA

WTRGRL

WED 11 OCT

THE WAITING ROOM

HAND HABITS

MON 16 OCT

OMEARA

DESIRE MAREA

TUE 17 OCT

HOXTON HALL

BONNY DOON

TUE 24 OCT

THE LEXINGTON

MANSUR BROWN

SAT 28 OCT

LAFAYETTE

COUCOU CHLOE

MON 30 OCT

VILLAGE UNDERGROUND

BLONDSHELL

WED 1 NOV

LAFAYETTE

ART SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND

THU 2 NOV

ICA

ONE WAY OR ANOTHER

COSMORAT, TONGUETIED + SOL CHILD

THU 2 NOV

ICA

GIRL AND GIRL

FRI 3 NOV

SEBRIGHT ARMS

LUCRECIA DALT

TU 7 NOV

STUDIO 9294

DELILAH HOLLIDAY

THU 9 NOV

HACKNEY SOCIAL

DOG RACE

THU 9 NOV

THE WAITING ROOM

EGYPTIAN BLUE

THU 9 NOV 100 CLUB

THE DARE

TUE 14 NOV

CORSICA

WED 15 NOV

THE SOCIAL

DEVENDRA BANHART

WED 15 NOV

TROXY

FRANCIS OF DELIRIUM

WED 15 NOV

THE LEXINGTON

LIP CRITIC

THU 16 NOV

THE WAITING ROOM

LOUIS CARNELL

THU 16 NOV

THE OLD CHURCH

STOKE NEWINGTON

SODA BLONDE

WED 22 NOV

THE LEXINGTON

BC CAMPLIGHT

THU 23 NOV

O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE

MOIN

WED 29 NOV

STUDIO 9294

YVES TUMOR

WED 29 NOV

O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN

GEORGIA

THU 30 NOV

THE COLOUR FACTORY

GILLA BAND

MON 4 DEC

FABRIC

YEULE

MON 11 DEC

OUTERNET

LAURA MISCH

TU 12 DEC

HACKNEY EARTH

RAHILL

TUE 12 DEC

THE LOWER THIRD

LANKUM

WED 13 DEC

ROUNDHOUSE

JOCKSTRAP

WED 13 DEC

THU 14 DEC

BARBICAN

THE BIG MOON

MON 18 DEC

UNION CHAPEL

AN EXCLUSIVE EVENING WITH JOSE GONZALEZ

THU 25 JAN

EARTH

A. SAVAGE

WED 14 FEB

THE GARAGE

GLASSER

FRI 16 FEB

ST PANCRAS OLD CHURCH

Holly Humberstone

Paint My Bedroom Black

(Darkroom / Geffen / Polydor)

The title of her long-awaited debut full-length paints a telling picture of Holly Humberstone, an artist who properly emerged in the throes of home-bound isolation. That ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ is her debut might come as a bit of a surprise – a technicality, perhaps, after 2022’s eleven-track ‘Can You Afford To Lose Me’ came billed as a ‘compilation’. Her melancholia clearly resonates, bolstered by a sense of nostalgia well beyond its years. And while she’s far too young to have been watching ‘Into Your Room’’s references to early ‘00s cult TV sensation The O.C. the first time round, it’s largely forgivable given how she perfectly encapsulates its zeitgeist. In fact, Holly is an expert in capturing a scene. The opening title track plays out in a transfixed darkened room, ‘Ghost Me’ effortlessly projects the chaotic night in question, and ‘Antichrist’ pours with visceral heartbreak. For somebody who spent much of their coming-of-age trapped inside, it’s a remarkable feat, and a thread she has followed across the last three years. And perhaps this is where the magic lies, at once escapist and heavily personal, it’s a dark, pop-perfect, melancholic fantasy. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’

CMAT Crazymad, For Me (AWAL)

On last year’s debut ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’, CMAT swung open the doors to her bold, brilliant world via a set of sparkling heart-on-sleeve anthems, and a good dose of pop culture nous. On its follow-up, though, the ante’s been upped considerably. Arriving with a suitably bonkers concept in tow (involving a 47-year-old CMAT and a malfunctioning time machine), this second album not only delves into the anger and heartbreak of a toxic relationship, but manages to do so with such a deft sense of wit and flare that it’s impossible, as a listener, not to feel embedded within the story itself. Once again, she transforms pop culture into poetry, painting the most vivid of worlds in the process, while her brand of country-indebted pop feels even richer this time around. From the gentle acoustics of the Sex and the City-inspired ‘Such A Miranda’, to the Bowie-esque glam stomp of ‘Rent’’s outro; the soaring sass of the John Grant-featuring ‘Where Are Your Kids Tonight?’ to the glitzy self-aware wink of closer ‘Have Fun!’, ‘CrazyMad, For Me’ is a triumphant whirlwind of pain and self-preservation, which reveals more of itself with every listen.

(Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: ‘Have Fun!’

 Balming Tiger

January Never Dies (AWAL)

Given that we’ve stuck the word ‘alternative’ on just about everything to differentiate it from… well, who really knows, that Seoul-based collective Balming Tiger use it to precede K-Pop in their self-description would be worthy of a quizzical glance were it not for the fact that debut album ‘January Never Dies’ sees them touch on an alternative to pretty much everything going. From the off, it’s a brain-bending journey that swerves on a sixpence: opener ‘BTB’ begins with a cacophonous jazz explosion before diving headfirst into dark, industrial hip hop. ’UP!’ begins as an R&B slow jam before blasting into a chaotic chorus - think the lighter side of Paris Texas, for example, or even Outkast - before introducing gargantuan riffs; ‘Trust Yourself’ would be right at home on a UK festival field with its Britpop bassline; ‘Riot’ seems born of a Los Angeles basement so pure is its sweaty punk; ‘Sudden Attack‘ is every bit its title, meanwhile, as a metallic riff-roar combo meets an R&B breakdown. And while this sonic rollercoaster is a thrilling ride from start to finish, that there’s a sense of positivity throughout (“You can never be perfect / Resistance” goes a rallying cry in ‘UP!’) and the kind of pop culture cliche wordplay that can’t help but raise a smile despite itself (“Super soaker pussy / Got a Coca-Cola body”) makes it all the more fun. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘Trust Yourself’

The shapeshifting Seoul collective spill on the creation of their debut full-length. When, where and how did you record ‘January Never Dies’?

At first, through two song camps, we got a big outline of the songs that make up the album. We rented a house in the mountains for a week, lived in it together, spent all our time together, interacted with each other, and worked. After that, we acted as if we were going to work every day like an office worker in a way that we have never done before. For several months, we all went to the studio between 10am and 5pm on weekdays to work on the songs for the album. Because we have different musical tastes and styles, usually one member takes the key and reads the track and takes a big direction, and the other members add their own touches to the work. As a result, I think the album has a unique and colourful style that is very Balming Tiger.

You obviously take influence from a wide variety of genres and styles; are there any artists you’ve looked up to who’ve done similarly?

We’re all influenced by each other a lot, but for example, Omega Sapien and Unsinkable love rap, Mudd the student has been more fond of rock or funk, sogumm and bj wnjn have been more interested in R&B and soul, and Leesuho is more interested in electronic music. Nevertheless, to pick just one, most of us have always loved Pharrell Williams’ work.

You’ve said you want to show ‘Asian Sexy’ and ‘Asian Cool’ to the world; what do the terms mean to you, and how have you tried to encapsulate them?

We wanted to show ‘Asian Sexy’ and ‘Asian Cool’ through ‘SEXYNUKIM’. Because we think differently about the definition of sexiness, we sang on the track about sexiness that each of us thinks. We wanted to pay attention to the sexiness of each person’s inner personality rather than the external aspect. Similarly, in this album, we use our individual lyrics to tell the story of not being bound by typical established systems or the standards imposed by society, but of moving forward while believing in our own inner selves and loving each other.

Your year has featured a lot of potential highlights, what have been your favourite, and perhaps most surreal moments so far?

We’ve been through so many things this year, from album work to global tours. There are so many unforgettable moments, including meeting and sharing so much time with the members every day for the album, winning The Grulke Prize at SXSW 2023 in March, the beginning of this year’s tour, and inciting a moshpit at the Fuji Rock festival, which was something we’d wanted to do for a long time. Also, we are looking forward to when the album is released. We want to meet you again through Balming Tiger’s first world tour from November and experience more surreal moments.

 Priya Ragu Santhosam (Warner)

That ‘Santhosam’ takes its title from the Tamil word for ‘happiness’ should give some idea of what’s inside Priya Ragu’s debut: it’s a record so sonically buoyant one wonders if it shouldn’t have been released in the early summer. The tracks themselves, meanwhile, must surely give an insight into if not what was on the family stereo at the Ragu household while Priya - and brother Japhna Gold, who once again takes on production duties - were growing up, at least what the siblings themselves were taking in. The sounds of early ‘00s radio mainstays are found throughout: as ‘Vacation’ plays cleverly with classic pop chord sequences to instant earworm effect, ‘Easy’ takes in UK garage beats, and ‘Lovely Day’ oozes with smooth R&B. Equally, closer ‘Mani Osai’ showcases a more traditional family affair, with the tabla beat paired with a retro pop sound on ‘School Me Like That’, while the sugary chorus of ‘Adalam Va’ gives way to an infectious rhythm, playing with Tamil influences. Most importantly, though, ‘Santhosam’ lives up to its name, as a record that reflects happiness.

(Ed Lawson) LISTEN: ‘Vacation’

Art Attack

Priya Ragu explains why she chose artist Manuja Waldia to paint the artwork for ‘Santhosam’.

“I discovered Manuja’s incredible work through my friend Kanika at Nobordersshop in India. I instantly fell in love with her paintings, the vibrant colors, and the representation of brown people so I felt very fortunate to collaborate with her for my debut album artwork. The artistic vision was to reflect my roots in Jaffna, Sri Lanka on the album cover, while also showcasing the mountains of Switzerland. Jaffna represents my heritage, while the Swiss mountains symbolise my home. Working with Manuja was a pleasure, as her vision added a whole new dimension to my album; she perfectly incorporated both aspects and allowed me to visually express the duality of my identity as an artist.”

 Kim Petras Problématique

(Republic / Amigo)

Kim Petras has often seemed to be left treading water. Before the release of actual debut album ‘Feed The Beast’ back in June came ‘Problématique’, a record left in “limbo” by her label, leaked and then all but forgotten. Its backup - which arrived this year after a series of interim acclaimed projects peppered the six-year wait for an album proper - made little lasting noise, critiqued as it was against the great expectations set by her gutsy previous work. Doubly troublesome, of course, was that it – and Kim – remained tied to controversial producer Dr. Luke. A bittersweet plateau from a singer who was once a staple of queer pop culture, a woman eternally rooted for: ‘Feed the Beast’ felt devoid of her usual charismatic queer perspective. Not three months later, then - on somewhat of a course-correction - comes a proper release for that original debut; a preppy, Confessions-of-a-Shopaholic trip through French house, guttural dancefloor bass and synthy grooves (albeit one still produced by you-know-who, making its title, well, more than problematic). It largely flashes back to the braver, more glamorous anthemic pop of her breakout era – Kim returning to her niche as the bratty sugar baby of Eurodance. And while her clubby hooks do remain ecstatic, without a proper roll-out, the album remains chained to its history, reading as an anachronistic endeavour to keep firing from pop’s bubbliest machine gun, a distraction until something hits the target. (Otis Robinson) LISTEN: ‘Confession’

 Lucia & The Best Boys Burning Castles (Communion)

Pinning down what - or who - Lucia and the Best Boys are has, since their emergence in the late 2010s, been more difficult than perhaps it should. Emerging from a fertile synth-led Glasgow scene that gave us Walt Disco and The Ninth Wave - artists whose sonic and visual identities appeared fully-formed from the off - between name, line-up and sound changes, it hasn’t seemed to fully ‘click’ for the outfit. And, thankfully, at points on this debut, it does: opener ‘Butterflies’, ‘Love Yourself’ and ‘So Sweet I Could Die’ brim with the kind of bombast usually seen with shoulder pads and voluminous perms. When they amp up the ‘80s theatrics - think Bonnie Tyler after a few Snakebites and an accident with black eyeliner - the crystal-clear nature and range of Lucia Fairfull’s vocal is a perfect match. Unfortunately, there still feels to be a little ‘trying on for size’ during the remainder: ‘Angels Cry Too’, ‘Care’, ‘Hurt Somebody You Love’ and the title track aim for radio-friendly chorus but find grating repetitveness, while on tracks with less impact, the same qualities that elevate the best numbers fall flat. The likes of “Tell me where you’ve gone… please don’t be long” (‘Waiting On You Now’) and “It’s a vicious circle / Scream until we’re purple” (‘Favourite Thing To Lose’) might not be criminal in their obviousness, but Lucia’s is a voice that can’t help but suggest profundity, leading them to stick out painfully. A mixed bag, but one that suggests their stride isn’t far out of reach. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘So Sweet I Could Die’

 Viji So Vanilla

(Speedy Wunderground)

‘Sedative’, ‘Ambien’, ‘Blanket’... that ‘So Vanilla’ is an album that comes partly wrapped in a fuzzy, narcotic cloak is a quality that’s worn plainly on Viji’s sleepy sleeve. However, while the singer’s long-in-the-making debut is certainly a collection that finds itself blinking painfully at the harsh daylight - from the hypnotic grunge of single ‘Down’ to nocturnal closer ‘Ambien’’s repeated intonations of “what’s the point?” - it’s never at the expense of a curiously magnetic melody. There are more obvious big-hitters; opener

‘Anything’ tumbles into action with a carefree sense of abandon, while the tetchy ‘Karaoke’ fuels the activity with an angsty sense of frustration. But whether raising or dropping the tempo, ‘So Vanilla’ pieces together the hooky and the hazy cleverly, showcasing Viji and producer Dan Carey’s obvious synergy and allowing the singer’s pop and alternative sensibilities to become easy, cosy bedfellows. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Down’

Photo: Emma Swann

The new album

CRAZYMAD, FOR ME

13.10.23

Includes the singles HAVE FUN! STAY FOR SOMETHING and WHERE ARE YOUR KIDS TONIGHT? (feat. John Grant)

Hannah Diamond

Perfect Picture

Hannah Diamond has always favoured clarity. The poster child for the original hyperpop ambassadors, art collective PC Music, Hannah swirls through the crystal clear production and raving-but-minimalist electronic pop that the label came to represent. For years, her concept releases straddled the commerciality of pop with a sort of transparent irony: in embracing its building blocks at their most deconstructed and exaggerated – a breaking of the fourth wall - she highlights the glistening beauty of all that pop can be. But behind the curtain is an earnest edge, a wistful melancholia and an unbreakable hope. On second record ‘Perfect Picture’, this vulnerability steps into centre stage. ‘Perfect Picture’ paints the image of Hannah’s interior as snapshots of girlhood, daydreams of stardom, admiration and critique of fame, and a loneliness masked only by fandom. Within the staple, nostalgic, ‘00s bedroomcore she repopularised, Hannah Diamond becomes that poster girl. All the while, her pastel pink pop is at its best yet - cinematic, crystalline, and infatuating, like music has never been so clear and sharp, with intricacies made newly visible. As ever, her gut-wrenching irony is present: in embracing bigger, braver pop hooks as if her survival depends on it. ‘Perfect Picture’ is the pinnacle of today’s hyperpop yet steers away from its once abrasive nature towards a well-rounded, rebooted version: one where all that Hannah is and can be is indeed made picture perfect. (Otis Robinson) LISTEN: ‘Perfect Picture’

YOWL

Milksick

(Clue / EMI North)

There’s an air of malcontent about YOWL’s debut album, Milksick. Then again, that’s always been the London proto-punk quintet’s way. 2019 EP ‘Atrophy’ displayed a band sick of the world’s social and societal issues. Today, ‘Milksick’ is unleashed as a monument to their strife. There’s been the hard graft and the careful attention given to it over the years, but now tracks like ‘Virile Crocodile Sweat’ and ‘Weedkiller’ stand tall, resolute. Indeed, ‘Milksick’ is a collection of cautionary tales for a modern populace, told in an endearingly everyman way by frontman Gabriel Byrde. There are splashes of colour: the closing duo of ‘Billy’s Birds’ and ‘A Birthday With David’ reduce the pace and strip out the intensity. The former is a superb piece of anxiety-riddled work that combines Foo Fighters’ quieter moments with a lilting falsetto that hypnotises and entrances, while the latter is a charming acoustic tune that underpins a deluge-like internal monologue. Unfortunately, though, across these 12 tracks, swathes begin to sound alike - this statue is carved from a single slab, after all. Be it in the formulaic rising and falling of ‘Donkey’s Jawbone’, or the relentless hum of ‘The Farmer’s Big Spade’, the middle of ‘Milksick’ becomes a wash of pissed off yet samey post-punk. YOWL do what they do well, but it feels like they’ve shown their full hand already.

(Jack Terry) LISTEN: ‘Billy’s Birds’

Mitch Rowland

Come June

(Erskine / Giant)

There’s a warmth to ‘Come June’, with its deft use of well-worn chord structures, classic songwriting and its protagonist’s soft vocal to suggest comfort, a cocoon almost, a carefully-constructed quiet to contrast with the chaos outside. And, without putting too fine a point on it, the chaos that surrounded Mitch Rowland around the genesis of this debut album is not the kind which could be understated. A chance invitation to the studio sessions a friend was working on eventually became a multiple GRAMMY winning turn as songwriting collaborator with, and guitarist in Harry Styles’ live band. Naturally, there is overlap, largely in the superstar’s more subdued moments: say, the lilting ‘Canyon Moon’, soft build of ‘Fine Line’ or the delicate layers of ‘Ever Since New York’. But for the most part, ‘Come June’ exists in traditional singer-songwriter territory: not least does Mitch’s vocal bear an uncanny resemblance to that of Elliott Smith, but the instrumentation around him and his guitar is so careful - the lilting piano of ’Goes With Everything’, say, or the shuffling percussion that eggs on a classic rock riff on ‘On The Line’. The standout here is ‘When It All Falls Down’, a swirling, building number. Whether its boxing match is allegory or not - it’s hard not to read the line “Businessmen are cracking up / Watching blood turn to gold” as otherwise from someone who’s lived in the eye of the music industry’s storm for the past few years - the song is still a gut punch. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘When It All Falls Down’

 Animal Collective Isn’t It Now (Domino)

Animal Collective’s 2022 release, ‘Time Skiffs’, felt like a bolt from the blue. A warm, inviting meditation on ageing that felt of a piece with the outfit’s ‘00s heyday. A record full of connection - despite members Panda Bear, Deakin, Avery Tare and Geologist recording it in separate locations around the world. The bones of that record, however, had been formed across the summer of 2019, and it’s from those same fertile jam sessions that twelfth album ‘Isn’t It Now?’ largely comes. Here, Animal Collective swap the Beach Boys references for Alice Coltrane’s sprawling spiritual jazz. There are still plenty of those gloriously contrasting harmonies, but here sounds are given a chance to breathe, to discover their own looping transcendence. It’s felt most keenly on ‘Defeat’, a musical quest through the group’s diverse musical appetites. But as their longest album to date, it’s hard to shift any accusations of self-indulgence: ‘Defeat’ alone clocks up a gargantuan 22 minutes runtime. Similarly, ‘Magicians From Baltimore’ could have been a wonderfully tight piece but overstays its welcome at almost 10 minutes. Still, the blissed-out, spage age ‘Genie’s Open’ and the funky prog of ‘Gem & I’ provide at least a partial argument in favour. And it’s hard to expect anything else from Animal Collective than wilful experimentation. (Chris Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Genie’s Open’

 Cherry Glazerr I Don’t Want You Anymore

(Secretly Canadian)

Cherry Glazerr have made their name by being a rock band who’ll seek to reject almost every cliche the genre can throw at them. Past releases have seen a garage aesthetic blended with sounds borrowed from synth pop, and songwriting that teeters on the edge between outsider and comic. But on ‘I Don’t Want You Anymore’, Clementine Creevy has unearthed a more expansive sound. There’s a variety of sonic colour on display, although the predominant mode is something slower and more atmospheric – ‘Touched You With My Chaos’ is one of the best examples, its chugging emo chords and sludgy drums reminiscent of Basement. Whether the exceptions are the brooding slow burn of ‘60s keys and horns on ‘Golden’, or the sublime ‘Soft Like A Flower’ that borrows from Radiohead and Warpaint alike, the songs are all united in a much darker tone than the outfit’s usual. The most obvious uniting factor between this record and their previous ones, in fact, is their ability to write a whole host of bulletproof choruses, and it’s tricky to imagine coming unstuck from this album any time soon. (James Hickey) LISTEN: ‘Soft Like A Flower’

Sundara Karma

Better Luck Next Time

(Is Right)

With a voice like SIPHO.’s one imagines it’d be all too tempting to stuff a debut album full of big-hitters: crank the power, range and emotions up to eleven twelve times over and call it a day. And indeed, the moments during ‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’ where maximalism meets a cloying crescendo are in fact the record’s least interesting: the Motown rhythm section of ‘LOCK IT IN’ and the piano-led ‘FILL ME UP’ are almost too obvious and lack as a consequence. Instead, where SIPHO. shines brightest is when he’s keeping a little for himself. Take opener ‘ELEVATION’, which contrasts his angelic tone with increasingly aggressive drums and looping backing vocals to claustrophobic ends. Or ‘GLUE’ as it crashes headfirst into hypnotic jungle beats. Those same rhythms are taken down a notch for the gorgeously rich ‘PRAYERS’, making for a trip hop-like number that sounds at once familiar, yet completely new. A solid introduction to a stellar voice - and often texturally fascinating artist. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘PRAYERS’

Sundara Karma’s third could well act as a rallying cry for 2010s indie kids; a call to fish out those checked trousers and Dr Martens. Between the Reading outfit’s 2017 debut ‘Youth Is Only Ever Fun In Retrospect’ and now, the foursome have tried on many weird and whimsical hats - and impressively, they’ve all fit. Here, they find comfort in the past, standout ‘Wishing Well’ a contemplation on lost lovers and lives. Frontman Oscar Pollock’s introspection crescendos in ‘Violence To The Spirit’, an epic stream of consciousness that he follows with boundless energy. These are, of course, songs written for the live arena, with a playful mastery of dynamic once again on show. Charming and nostalgic - both for the band and long-time listeners - ‘Better Luck Next Time’ is like a hug from a warm blanket. Albeit one that smells faintly of dark fruits cider. (Mia Smith) LISTEN: ‘Wishing Well’

SIPHO. PRAYERS & PARANOIA

(Dirty Hit)

February 2024

Sun 18 Birmingham O2 Institute

Mon 19 Nick Rayns LCR UEA Norwich

Mon 26 Cardiff Great Hall

the new album ’everything is alive’ out now by arrangement with primary talent international

TICKETS AVAILABLE FROM SEETICKETS.COM GIGANTIC.COM ALTTICKETS.COM TICKETEK.CO.UK TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

BUNNY TOUR 2023

 hemlocke springs going...going...GONE!

(Good Luck Have Fun / AWAL)

A seven-track release that simultaneously acts as introduction (for anyone who’s preferred to touch grass in 2023) and recap (for the rest) of hemlocke springs’ story so far, ‘going…going…GONE!’ is a charming showcase of cut-and-paste pop that has seemingly taken cues from anywhere and everywhere. ‘pos’, with its delightfully radio unfriendly hook of “I am just the piece of shit I was before” makes like ‘Midnight Vultures’ era Beck in style and storytelling substance, ‘heavun’ uses a similar ‘80s synth palette to genre mainstays Chvrches, while the title track channels The Strokes at their most strippedback melancholy. All the while there are licks, tics and snippets that touch on Sparks (the high notes), ‘50s doo wop (in backing vocals) and space rock (‘enknee1’). ‘girlfriend’, meanwhile remains a pure pop scene-stealer. And, despite the appearance of renowned knob-twiddler BURNS on its credits, none of her gloriously offbeat edges have been smoothed off. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘girlfriend’

 Katie Gregson-Macleod BIG RED

(Sony)

Breakthrough ‘complex’ may have spread like the proverbial wildfire thanks to a certain video app, but its virality was based very specifically on the song’s - and by extension, Katie Gregson-Macleod’s - ability to forge a human connection. Its stripped-back piano-and-vocal nature allowed the Scottish songwriter’s breathy vocal to steal the spotlight, a voice which throughout the ensuing ‘songs written for piano’ EP sparkled as it showed an enviable ability to deliver her lyrics with pitch-perfect emotion. And on ‘BIG RED’, the points where she continues in this vein - the heartstring-plucking ‘Girlfriend’, or soaring opener ‘September’ - are stellar, as she once again uses the everyday to convey full drama. Who knows how, but realising you’ve fallen for someone while specifically on the Jubilee Line is somehow more powerful an idea than doing so without GPS coordinates. There’s a little lost in the production as it amps up - the formulaic build of ‘Your Ex’ borders on cloying; the sentiment of ‘Guestlist’ is lessened in what sounds like a bid for drivetime radio - but when the raw material’s this good, that’s a mere minor quibble. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘September’

Omar Apollo Live For Me (Warner)

On this partial follow-up to 2022 debut ‘Ivory’, Omar Apollo spirals over ice in his car with a starkly shifted perspective on life and death. Across its four tracks, he crystallises his coming out story - and subsequent near-death experience - over transcendental trap; a contemporary fable on queer identity, family and, ultimately, acceptance. Cold opener ‘Ice Slippin’ introduces the EP’s hero in the throes of a spinning vehicle, and later, on the electronic ‘Angel’, Omar’s metallic, airy, autotuned vocals conjure images of a winged chrome figure surrounded by fiery synths, battling his way through uncertainty towards radical self-love. Influences from his past pattern the EP as ghosts - from Prince to Stevie Wonder - while the sci-fi R&B dystopias of contemporaries such as Frank Ocean and 070 Shake help to colour the “icy streets of Indiana.” Inspired and bittersweet, ‘Live For Me’ is just as transcendental as it is grounded: death is both metaphor for coming out and literal demise, and Omar fast realises that fearing death is no good reason not to live. It’s a heart-wrenching tale of loss of control and the catharsis that follows once a feared - but life-changing - truth is unleashed, and Omar’s future R&B is as crisp and suave as ever. (Otis Robinson) LISTEN: ‘Angel’

 Bambie Thug Cathexis

(Haus Of Thug)

With their visual artistry as committed to the bit as their musical breadth, it’s almost as if Bambie Thug is Lady Gaga’s final boss form: their shapeshifting looks reflect a sonic arsenal that, at least on this EP, showcases cues from smoky jazz rooms (‘Eternal Sunshine’) alongside a full on metallic roar (‘Doomsday Blues’). Like Poppy if she paired her noise with a softly-strummed acoustic in place of saccharine vocals, or if Finneas’ production had followed further along the ‘Bury A Friend’ industrial route with Billie Eilish, there’s a serious knack for a pop hook that’s not obscured by abrasive sound choices, but propelled by them. That the subtle chorus of ‘Careless’ is its most infectious might be this introduction’s most curious aspect, were it not for the motif that runs through ‘Last Summer (I Know What You Did)’. Somehow sounding like both Eurodance mainstay ‘Dragostea Din Tei’ in its opening pop form and Lewis Capaldi’s ubiquitous ‘Someone You Loved’ on the stripped-back piano closer and yet absolutely working in its own self. If that’s not the work of a future pop superstar, what is? (Bella Martin)

LISTEN: ‘Doomsday Blues’

ComingUp

DECLAN MCKENNAWHAT HAPPENED TO THE BEACH?

That’s not a beach, Dec, that’s a field. His third album, meanwhile, is out 9th February.

LIME GARDEN - ONE MORE THING

Get saving: the Class of 2022 stars’ debut fulllength will hit shelves on 16th February.

THE VACCINES - PICKUP FULL OF PINK CARNATIONS

With a title straight out of a flu-ridden fever dream, the indie veterans’ sixth will be released on 12th January.

NEWDAD - MADRA

A long time coming, the Irish outfit’s debut will be out on 26th January.

WINTER TOUR 2023

LIVE

Reeperbahn Festival

These days, festival season is basically a year-long pursuit.

Just as the summer field festies bow out, so the new band tipping events begin. Reeperbahn Festival - Hamburg’s annual multi-venue showcase always acts as autumn’s inaugural soiree and, contrary to popular lore, makes a strong claim to pushing the best out first.

From punk basements to fancy theatres to wartime bunkers, for four days everything is a venue, and in 2023 a whole host of exciting talent, old and new, came along for the ride. Here’s a handy round-up of some of the best of them.

Words: Lisa Wright.

HOTWAX

ENGLISH TEACHER

Slap bang in the middle of DIY’s own line-up at Molotow, English Teacher are unrecognisable from the band who first graced our Bank Holiday All-Dayer only two years ago. Vocalist Lily Fontaine’s resplendent ‘fro feels like a visual metaphor for the singer’s growth herself; these days, she’s a frontperson to behold, dead-eyeing the crowd at points, leaning into big, dynamic vocals at others and confidently taking up all the space she needs. Forthcoming new track ‘Nearly Daffodils’ veers from mathy beginnings into a double-mic climax, while finale ‘We Hate Everyone’ feels like a classic, crescendoing album closer-in-waiting. Shout out also to guitarist Lewis Whiting, whose Radiohead-ish fretwork is a weekend highlight.

BIG SPECIAL

Fresh from playing a teeny gig in a greasy spoon back in London, Black Country duo Big Special swap salt cellars for actual cellars on Reeperbahn’s second night. Pitched somewhere between the ferocity of IDLES, the humour of Soft Play and the sizzling soulful vocal of an entirely different playlist, Joe Hicklin and Callum Moloney’s fresh take on punk fills the low-ceilinged basement to bursting. Hicklin paces through the crowd, veering from booming snarl to magnetic croon at the turn of a dime, while the pair’s hilarious stage chat is worth the ticket alone: “He’s the most hydrated man in punk! He drank six litres a day and nearly drowned!”

Over the past nine months, Hastings three-piece HotWax have gone from relative unknowns to an omnipresent fixture on the live circuit and, on Saturday night, it shows. A unified frontline, vocalist/ guitarist Tallulah Sim-Savage and bassist Lola Sam rip through the raw rock’n’roll kicks of recent singles ‘Drop’ and ‘Treasure’ with an unwavering confidence. Theirs is a headbanging, hair-dyed slice of the genre in its purest form; delivered by a trio of 18-year-old mates it’s as rousingly uncynical as it comes.

DEADLETTER

Crammed into a teeny upstairs bar, the gold glitter curtain and red lighting that covers the stage might be a perfect fit for Deadletter’s icy glam-punk but the London band could easily have packed out a room thrice the size. Their maths might not be up to scratch (“All we ask is you sing three words, 12 times - that’s 24 words. Oh wait…”), but what they lack in numeracy they more than make up for in the sort of jerking, indie-noir that has echoes of debut album Horrors.

PENELOPE SCOTT

One woman dressed in quasimedieval garb, with a laptop and a mic really has no business being as completely winning as Oregon’s Penelope Scott. There’s a purposeful shonkiness to the lo-fi pop tunes that she sings to that sits somewhere in the venn diagram between hyperpop bleeps and distinctly indie sensibilities, but everything comes cut through with wit and charm for days. Even amidst a truly diverse four days of music, Scott stands out.

Various venues, Hamburg. Photos: Louise Mason.

FAT DOG

Recent Domino signees Fat Dog’s natural environment, like any lazy hound, is indoors - preferably in somewhere dark and slightly too warm. And so whilst it takes a little longer than usual for the South Londoners’ chaotic mix of ravepunk-sax-mania to incite the usual madness outside on Molotow’s backyard stage, by the end they’ve sent a solid portion of the crowd into rowdy spin.

Fred again..

Alexandra Palace, London.

CMAT

OK sure, so our recent August cover girl CMAT isn’t exactly new to these pages, but there’s still a thrill in watching the Irish singer deploy her megawatt star power to fresh eyes and ears. Even playing a fairly sedate afternoon showcase, she sinks into the splits on ‘Peter Bogdanovich’ and instigates a country two-step from the crowd during ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’; for sheer, 360-degree entertainment, there’s no one else across the weekend that even comes close. The ‘C’ in CMAT stands for charisma.

PICTURE PARLOUR

Closing out Saturday night after a four-day festival, it’s testament to Picture Parlour’s undeniable potential that the vintage-clad quartet manage to draw a packed venue out for their midnight set. The biggest reaction might be saved for debut - and currently only - single ‘Norwegian Wood’, but there’s plenty of material in the band’s back pocket that hints at both raw, Joan Jett-like grit and a lyrical strain of Alex Turner-esque melodrama to come.

THE MARY WALLOPERS

Kicking off DIY’s stage at Molotow Club, we’re not sure if we’re in Hamburg or in a particularly uproarious Irish boozer but either way, the craic is high. If Lankum are currently bringing the darker side of Irish folk to a wider audience, then The Mary Wallopers are the altogether more jovial yin to their yang. Tracks from their self-titled 2022 debut are cut from a fully traditional Irish cloth; there’s a tin whistle, a bodhrán drum and uilleann pipes all on show. Mixed with the quintet’s relentless sweary banter, which takes cheeky aim at everyone from the late Queen to their own band members, it turns the venue into a relaxed, welcoming knees-up of the most rousing kind.

It’s no mean feat to sell out the 10,000 capacity Alexandra Palace, much less do so for four consecutive nights within a few minutes of tickets going on sale. But such is the cultural phenomenon of Fred again.. - watch clips of his Glastonbury set and it’s clear that for those who worship at the altar of his decks, this music really means something deeper than just dancing. And as Fred makes his way from backstage for the first of these sold-out hometown shows, sheepishly grinning into a phone camera that’s livestreaming his movements, you can’t help but think that the feeling is mutual: he’s really, genuinely, moved to be here. Settling himself at a keyboard – flanked by onstage accomplice Tony Friend – he’s greeted by a sea of phone cameras. Thankfully, this initial rush of recording soon dies down, and people seem more inclined to enjoy the moment as Fred makes his way to a central platform, treating fans to deliciously heavy renditions of ‘Jungle’ and Skrillex / Flowdan collab ‘Rumble’. This is where the venue’s wraparound stageto-ceiling screens and firefly-like hanging lights come into their own, managing to make the room feel more like an industrial warehouse space than an ornate Victorian hall.

Slower moments – during which fans catch their breath, or share sweaty, swaying hugs with their neighbours – pivot into unreleased, pulsing drum’n’bass ad-libs, while Fred gleefully plays around with dynamics, seemingly constructing his setlist on the spot. Some concepts don’t quite come off: at one point mid-set, the crowd are encouraged to dig outthe engraved acrylic keyrings that were handed out upon entry, and hold them in front of phone torches. The keyrings themselves are a sweet gesture - endearingly uncool and reminiscent of something made with a laser printer in Year 8 DT - but most people abandon the ‘lighters in the air’ moment in favour of good old-fashioned gun fingers. For the most part, though, everyone is utterly in the palm of his hand.

The show is at its strongest when Fred delivers what he has an undeniable knack for – infusing his sample-heavy club music with vulnerability and poignant pockets of emotion. Whether it’s prefacing latest single ‘adore u’ with a touching dedication to both his sister and the brother of sampled vocalist Obongjayar or orchestrating crowd participation for the Romy-featuring ‘Strong’, he manages to tap into what is, really, the very essence of live music: the feeling that you’re part of something bigger than yourself. (Daisy Carter)

If Primavera is essentially Hackney on Sea, and Benicassim aims squarely at the post-A Levels teenage getaway crowd, relative newcomer Cala Mijas - set in the Málagan village on the Costa Del Sol - has already staked its claim in two years as Spain’s answer to All Points East: a relatively compact affair whose credible programming aims heavier and higher than its size might suggest.

Split primarily between three main stages, with a forest dance area pulsing in the corner for the ‘heads, you can whip from one end of the site to the other in under five minutes but catch Glastonbury headliner-level artists while you’re at it. Chuck in a glimmering beach (complete with afternoon local band stage) that’s a short walk away, and there’s already a lot to love.

As with most festivals on the continent, the action starts late and ends much, much later, which means that by the time Foals take to the stage on the first night, the synthy pulse of recent single ‘2am’ has taken on an added significance. Couple that with the epic undulations of ‘Spanish Sahara’ that beam out across the dusty Málagan scrubland, and ‘Mountain At My Gate’ which is delivered against a backdrop of actual mountains, and it’s like Yannis Philippakis and co have somehow magicked this exact environment into existence for their own pleasures. Thankfully for the good folk of Mijas, this trick doesn’t extend to a blistering final third of the set, where a thunderous run of ‘Black Bull’, ‘Inhaler’ and ‘What Went Down’ could equate to some sort of primal uprising - but it’s a neat trick all the same.

Earlier in the evening, punk OG Siouxsie still cuts an effortlessly unfuckwithable silhouette, several decades on from her late-’70s heyday. Booming through the Banshees’ skulking ‘Happy House’ and deceptively upbeat crossover hit ‘Hong Kong Garden’, she sets the tone for a weekend categorised by true performers. Whether it’s Baxter Dury, who cavorts his way around the Victoria Stage, gradually stripping down to a white vest, howling and posing throughout the likes of ‘I’m Not Your Dog’ and new album standout ‘Celebrate Me’, or IDLES, who have honed their stagecraft to an inimitable mix of unhinged ferocity and playful camp, everyone here knows exactly how to put on a show.

It’s a spirit of leaving it all on the field that clearly has not reached Friday night headliners, The Strokes Over on the Sunset Stage, Italian disco purveyors Nu Genea are good vibes personified; earlier in the evening on

Cala Mijas

the Sunrise main stage, meanwhile, Amyl & the Sniffers give a masterclass in how to make the most unrelenting of music an open-hearted experience. Instructing her bandmates to take their “shirts off, slippery boys” before later breaking into a drinking chant and weightlifter poses, Amy Taylor is the undimmable ball of energy that we’ve come to expect. Yet there’s oodles of empathy there too, not least on closer ‘Knifey’ - a frustrated rally against violence to women.

When The Strokes arrive for their packed headline performance, however, the All Points East comparisons ramp up a notch. Where the rest of the weekend’s acoustics are huge and satisfying, yet again the New Yorkers are greeted with chants to “turn it up”; clearly the maddeningly muddy mix is a conscious choice from the band rather than a fault from either festival. Informing the field that he “just woke up”, Julian Casablancas spends the first portion of the set in self-indulgent form, taking a break from his barely audible vocals to fiddle around on a synth and tell the crowd they’ve “got no heart” when his noodles are greeted with a less-thanvociferous reaction.

But then, just as you’re about to throw in the towel, something clicks. ‘Soma’ sounds fresh; ‘Someday’ even better; the cranky oddity of ‘Welcome To Japan’ transports the field into the band’s own twitchy computer game and then ‘Reptilia’ blasts

everyone right back out into the moment, dancing at the altar of one of the best songs of the century. It’s a final 30 minutes of magic that makes Casablancas’ contrary opening all the more frustrating, as though he’s been saddled with this canon of greatest hits against his will. Alex Turner might have crooned on ‘Star Treatment’ that he “just wanted to be one of The Strokes”, but in 2023, Casablancas seems less sure.

While M83 bring the sort of light-soaked, visually opulent set to the Victoria Stage that perfectly offsets the sprightly euphoria of their music, Metronomy are clearly deep in their transitional phase following last year’s more meditative ‘Small World’ LP. The first half of their Saturday night set draws heavily from that album, with a dip into the softer side of their earlier wares (‘Everything Goes My Way’) and recent Biig Piig collab ‘405’. It’s gentle in a way that would never have been applied to the group before, and then… “May I introduce you to the party band of the century!” declares Joe Mount, and we’re into the bleepy bloopy brilliance we’ve always known and loved, from ‘Boy Racers’ to a final blitz through debut album rager ‘You Could Easily Have Me’. It’ll be intriguing to see how Mount and co continue to balance growth and expectation as the years continue.

Though Belle & Sebastian aren’t your classic 2am band, the Scottish stalwarts have a lightness to the likes of an early ‘Step Into My Office Baby’ that somehow works in the balmy night air, but it’s Saturday bill-topper Florence + the Machine who steals the weekend. Playing the final show of her ‘Dance Fever’ tour, there’s an emotional weight on display that’s felt by every one of the wide-eyed, flower-crowned congregation that support the singer as she regularly climbs atop the barrier to grasp at hands and cradle faces.

There’s brief mention of the “life-saving” treatment she received not a fortnight previously following the cancellation of several shows; “Something very bad happened to me a few weeks ago and I’ll talk about it sometime but not today,” she tells the crowd before ‘Morning Elvis’. But whatever the issue, Florence clearly isn’t letting it affect her. Twirling the stage in a purple, iridescent caped dress in front of a white altar, she closes a weekend of superlative characters with a performance that’s in turn otherworldly and wonderfully, swearily human. Such is the reason Flo has become a semi-mythical figure to her numerous acolytes and, as she rounds out the night with a rarely-played ‘Never Let Me Go’ before crescendoing with a final ‘Shake It Out’ and ‘Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up)’, there’s a sense of joyful communion that’s impossible to deny. (Lisa Wright)

Las Lagunas de Mijas, Málaga. Photos: Sharon López.

Baxter Dury

End of the Road

Walking through the terrain of End of the Road’s magical gardens, peacocks roaming around, along with its glorious verdant forest of luminous enchantment, you wonder if you’ve stumbled into an actual wonderland.

With an almost-embarrassing amount of musical riches on this year’s line up, Deerhoof’s maniacal, mind-boggling art-rock is an absolute force through the growing mist on the festival’s opening Thursday. They set the bar high early doors, before headliners Wilco bring a close to the evening, the modern day legends an apt choice for a festival that has made its name on Americana, folk and alt-rock.

Friday’s party starts courtesy of Fat Dog’s stint on the Big Top. Frenetic, frenzied and deranged, the South Londoners’ mix of punk, ska and rave whirls up a circle pit, a dance-off and ultimately just pulverising chaos, showing how they’ve garnered their live reputation. Over at the Woods, meanwhile, Say She She serenade with their fun-filled soothing disco-pop, while caustic New York art-rock-punk outfit Bodega arrive at their brilliant best.

Closing out the Friday in fitting form is Angel Olsen

A delayed appearance - after she was previously booked to headline in 2020 - today finally sees her spellbinding otherworldly cinematic ballads and country folk provide a truly celestial experience over in the Garden. From the spectral soundscapes of ‘Go Home’ to playfully teasing new material, proclaiming “This is a song I wrote last night” before launching impassionately into the more grunge-tinted banger ‘Shut Up And Kiss Me’ from 2016 outing ‘MY WOMAN’, her set is both haunting yet joy-laden.

Saturday, and opening up proceedings at the Garden

is experimental cellist Mabe Fratti, whose set morphs into a splendid cacophony of noise and shoegaze. At the Woods, Amsterdam’s Personal Trainer offer up uplifting and danceable indie numbers while Donna Thompson’s jazz-meets-experimental-pop is an utter delight at The Boat, before further contrast comes via the noise-laden mania of Brussels’ Avalance Kaito and their futuristic experimental post-punk.

Rave-inspired synths are prevalent across the weekend, and PVA - with their brand of blending techno, acid-house and UK bass with post-punk rhythms - provide a fun, sweat-filled affair at the Big Top. Straight after, fellow London outfit Kokoroko take to the Woods stage; they’re also a joy to witness, fusing jazz with Afrobeat.

Next comes a full-circle moment. Having originally formed in order to play End of the Road, Wet Leg’s secret set comes this year sandwiched between main stage moments at much bigger events, such is their rocket ship ascendancy. “Hi we’re Oasis”, the band’s Rhian Teasdale jokes, before hurling into a glorious torrent of indie-fuzz-pop, with the likes of ‘Chaise Longue’ and ‘Wet Dream’ given certified anthemic status . It almost feels surreal; a real ‘you had to be there’ moment.

MADMADMAD intertwine wonky post-punk with intergalactic-disco, space-funk and krautrock early on Sunday, with the three-person orchestra absolutely living up to their name. Meanwhile, the cosmic orchestra that is Teke::Teke - reminiscent of contemporaries such as Goat and Yin Yin - take to a sun-drenched Woods, while Ghanaian Alogte Oho & His Sounds Of Joy are indeed joyous at the Garden, with wonderfully winsome Afrobeat and funk.

The notoriously prolific King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard use their closing slot to finish up a seemingly never-ending tour. Admittedly, the outfit initially bring a more laid-back vibe this evening, but soon, the evereclectic multi-headed hydra showcase a monsoon of riffs. Packed in alongside more serene moments, the fuzz lords underline just how they’ve achieved their status as a cult live force, before closing their headline slot with the psychedelic-proggy behemoth ‘Gilla Monster’. If this is the last time we see King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for a little while - a live Q&A earlier in the day hints that they’re taking time-off to focus on family life - their set doubles as a fitting and wholesome goodbye. An eclectic event packed with charm, End of the Road’s alchemy makes it undeniably special, and a perfect way to send off the summer. (Brad Sked)

Turnstile

Aweek after passport issues forced a last-minute delay to hardcore crossover Turnstile’s anticipated pre-festival warm-up, they launch into ‘MYSTERY’ in front of a perhaps unexpectedly packed-out crowd, seemingly nobody put off by the sudden change of plans. Whether fans accepted their fate and waited it out across the seven days or whether others were ready to snap up the tickets released by those unable to reschedule, it’s testament to the band’s ever-expanding cult following. Fronted by the enigmatic Brendan Yates, the Baltimore troupe are one of only a few in the genre’s history to swap sweaty underground clubs for mainstream festival stages, appearing just at home at a floor show as on the main billing at Primavera or Coachella.

It’s a feat arguably spearheaded by their most recent album, ‘GLOW ON’, having teamed up with Blood Orange and recently dropping reworkings of select tracks with Canadian instrumentalists BADBADNOTGOOD. But it’s one that the five-piece have long been fostering, pairing their hardcore ferocity with a range of influences outside of their direct surroundings. 2016’s ‘Nonstop Feeling’ touched on the heavier side of rap, a thread that follows through to the jarringly uplifting set closer, ‘T.L.C.’ (complete with confetti canon). On stage it translates rapidly into a flurry of energy, breaking up the balls-to-the-wall aggression, not least with the prominent Blood Orange feature on ‘ALIEN LOVE CALL’.

Brendan Yates joins his bandmates in throwing himself around the stage, with even founding drummer Daniel Fang basking in his moment in the sun for a particularly rousing drum solo. And despite the breakthrough accolade of ‘GLOW ON’, the crowd are split equally across the band’s full repertoire, returning the energy in-kind across every one of the band’s nineteen strong setlist. That fans have followed Turnstile so closely during the past ten-plus years comes as no surprise, with the band both on record and on stage playing stronger than ever. Hardcore has always celebrated the underdog, and Turnstile have relentlessly paved their own way to their own blend of mainstream success. Tonight, in Manchester, it’s clear that they haven’t lost any of their brilliance en route. (Ben Tipple)

A perfect way to send off the summer.

Angel Olsen

Various venues, Hamburg. Photos: Louise Mason.

Wet Leg

O2 Victoria Warehouse, Manchester.

Photo: Chris Bethell.

VENUE: RONNIE SCOTT’S LONDON

I was going to say the Royal Albert Hall but I’m not; I’m gonna say Ronnie Scott’s. What I love about it is that it actually is still about jazz music. Every now and again, someone might have a more pop launch there and that’s fine, but it’s an actual jazz venue, and if Ronnie’s ever closes that’s gonna be a bit of a thing, you know what I mean? One of the other reasons I love it is because you can literally hear a pin drop when people perform and I think that’s great.

HEADLINER: FRANK SINATRA

I’d like Frank Sinatra to be doing a warm up show there, because he’s obviously doing twenty nights at the Albert Hall or whatever. I’ve read quite a lot about him, and he had two or three careers really, and I really like the Nelson Riddle [era]. I think he recorded most of those records at Capitol in Los Angeles. When he was really young, I appreciate what he did and all the rest of it, but that’s not when I think of him at his best vocally; I think it was when he got into his forties because he had the maturity to sing those tunes properly. He became the Frank that I love in his forties really, and those are the songs my dad used to sing.

SUPPORT: MARVIN GAYE

By weird chance, his warm up act would be Marvin Gaye. I did wonder about the alive-and-dead thing so if they’re allowed to be dead - if it’s another universe - I’m going with them. It’d be weird if one’s a ghost and the other isn’t! Both of those guys, I’d really, really like to hear them sing. Don’t get me wrong, when I’ve been to see Stevie Wonder, I really admire his vocals; and Al Green, I’ve seen him in America. But if I’m going to see some of the greatest singers of all time, I want a Ronnie’s audience where everyone just shuts up and listens.

WHO ARE YOU GOING WITH?

I’m going with my wife, Lene. She used to work at a record label in Copenhagen doing the promo with me, and the second time we met, we started a relationship. We’ve definitely been to a lot of gigs together, and we love it, but we do say, ‘Oh we must go to more gigs!’ That’s partly because we go to a lot of my gigs, because I have to, and she manages me so she’s at most of them as well. But I still really love [going to gigs] and get really inspired; sometimes it gives me a kick up the arse.

WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?

If it was up to me, we’d be drinking a fine white Burgundy. I’ve become a bit of a wine snob! Not completely though, I will drink almost anything. An old friend of mine - who used to be a production manager - worked for a legendary guy, who would always open a really, really nice bottle of red wine as a show packed up, and he’d give a glass to my friend Lee and a few other people. Then someone asked about it, as it was a really expensive bottle, and he just replied: “Life is too short to be drinking shit wine.” That’s sort of stuck with me!

WHAT ARE YOUR PRE-GIG PLANS?

We’d be going for tapas at a place in Soho called Barrafina. We’ve been to Spain a lot and we’ve gone a bit off the beaten track, and [there’s a big] difference in taste when it comes to what I thought tapas was, and then, when you go to a really great Spanish restaurant and you go, ‘No, that’s what tapas is’. Barrafina is one of them; it feels really authentic to me. It feels like you could be in Spain. And the fact you can’t book annoys the shit out of me but I also kind of love it as well: you’ve just got to be there.

AND IS THERE GONNA BE AN AFTERPARTY?

Well, we’re gonna hang with the guys aren’t we! The dressing room backstage is tiny, but also that’s part of the charm of it, but that would mean Frank wouldn’t be whisked away to another wing. He’d have to be there, and so would Marvin, so we’d definitely be chilling with them backstage, having a chat and all the rest of it.

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