DIY, October 2024

ON HER LONGAWAITED

DEBUT, BIIG PIIG IS LEAVING THE COMPETITION GREEN WITH ENVY.

OCTOBER 14, 2024 - CHALK, BRIGHTON, UK

OCTOBER 15, 2024 - NEW CENTURY HALL, MANCHESTER, UK

OCTOBER 16, 2024 - BUTTON FACTORY, DUBLIN, IRELAND

OCTOBER 17, 2024 - QMU, GLASGOW, UK

OCTOBER 18, 2024 - SWX, BRISTOL, UK

OCTOBER 19, 2024 - O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON, UK

NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

DIY

FOUNDING EDITOR

Emma Swann

MANAGING EDITOR

Sarah Jamieson

FEATURES EDITOR

Lisa Wright

DIGITAL EDITOR

Daisy Carter

DESIGN

Emma Swann

CONTRIBUTORS

Alex Doyle, Alex Rigotti, Bella Martin, Ben Tipple, Charlotte Grimwade, Charlotte Patmore, Christopher Connor, Corinne Cumming, Ed Lawson, Gemma Cockrell, Gemma Samways, Hazel Blacher, Joe Goggins, Louisa Dixon, Matt Ganfeld, Matthew Pywell, Neive McCarthy, Otis Robinson, Rhys Buchanan, Phil Taylor, Rishi Shah, Sean Kerwick, Sophie Flint Vázquez, Tilly Foulkes, Tom Morgan.

From frst meeting Lava La Rue and joining NiNE8 Collective back when she was in college, to emerging as a latex-clad empowerment queen in the video for last year’s ‘Watch Me’, it’s safe to say that Biig Piig has been on a bit of ‘a journey’ over recent years. Now, she’s set to make her biggest move yet and, as she gets ready to announce her debut album very soon, we’re thrilled to have her grace the October cover, where she gives us an exclusive taste of what to expect.

And that’s not all! Elsewhere we dive down a surreal rabbit hole with Pixies’ Black Francis; dig into Orla Gartland’s high-fying new era, and delve into the far-reaching world that Bastille’s Dan Smith is building with his new project, ‘& (Ampersand)’. So go grab yourself a cuppa, put your feet up and get stuck in…

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

to listen to our October playlist now.

NEWS PERFECT PAIRS

On his new project ‘& (Ampersand)’, BASTILLE’s Dan Smith is diving further into the art of storytelling, shining a light on some of history’s most intriguing pairings.

Words: Sarah Jamieson

Mining the pages of myth and history isn’t exactly new territory for Bastille frontman Dan Smith. Cast your mind back 14 years, for example, to the release of the band’s debut 7” single. Nestled alongside the soaring heights of ‘Flaws’ was the similarly anthemic ‘Icarus’: a track dedicated to one of Greek mythology’s more ambitious – albeit doomed – characters. It’s perhaps little wonder, then, that when faced with the band’s frst real downtime since those early tracks were released, he would fnd himself returning to similar ground. For Dan, the intimate process of songwriting has always been somewhat at odds with the extroverted role of being a frontman. Even when DIY spoke to him in the early throes of the band’s career, back in 2013, he told us point blank that “music was always a hobby, something I did for fun”. Today, his use of songwriting as a way to unwind is still very much present and so, having spent the better part of a decade living out of a suitcase whilst touring the world, when he fnally touched base it was via his favoured outlet that he sought solace.

Forced to halt Bastille’s endless schedule during the pandemic, Dan penned an initial pair of tracks – ‘Bonnie & Clyde’ and ‘Leonard & Marianne’. Soon, a new chapter began to take root. “I guess I must’ve seen them written down together with the ‘&’ in the middle, and thought, ‘That’s really interesting’,” Dan explains today of the beginnings of ‘& (Ampersand)’, as we meet in a hotel in his hometown South London. “I immediately thought that it could be a fun project to explore the idea of these pairs of people, and then I wrote a bunch more but [I was] slightly worried that I was falling down the trap of it being 20th and 21st century romantic couples. Whilst that is potentially really interesting, I wanted it to be more than that.”

It was then, after writing ‘Marie & Polonium’ with collaborator Ralph Pelleymounter [of To Kill A King], that the goalposts were shifted again. “That was a helpful turning point: [the songs] could be about a pair of people, a person and their idea, a person and their reputation. That song was really helpful in steering that; it’s helpful for me to have rules, and set myself little tasks. I love it when I’m writing. That’s why I really enjoy writing for flm, and for other people. The changing

of the rules there basically opened it up to absolutely anything.”

Initially beginning as a solo endeavour that wasn’t guaranteed to see the light of day, Dan felt that, regardless, these songs should live in a different sonic world to that of his main job. Similarly to the band’s ‘Other People’s Heartache’ mixtape series, the project is billed as ‘Bastille Presents’ – releases that are not strictly Bastille, but play a key part in their wider universe. Here, it sees Dan move away from the bombastic nature of the band’s regular output and into a more intimate, hushed environment.

“I had done a song for a flm a few years ago called ‘Hope For The Future’ which was sonically quite ethereal and acoustic,” he explains of this move. “I had in my mind how much I loved that song, and wanted to make an album adjacent to that sound. That was helpful in terms of there being a sonic world for it to exist in.”

Continuing the MO of changing things up, after penning 17 tracks, he began to share them with a select few friends for feedback and decided to hit the ground running (“A few people that I’d sent them to were like, ‘This is great, you should just get on with it’,” he notes). Rather than work in the South London studio he and his Bastille bandmates would normally frequent, he instead assembled a new cast of “musicians, friends and collaborators” and booked into a residential studio for three weeks; a frst for the frontman.

“I know that the idea of going to do a residential recording is really normal for most other bands and musicians, but it’s just not something we’d ever done before,” he says. “It feels like quite a big ask of other people to step away, to essentially put your life on hold for two or three weeks. But to do that for the creative process was brilliant because you all have this weird, shared goal in a bizarre musician parallel universe. It’s a fun little bubble that you live in. I’m such a loser,” he laughs, “I made survival kits for everyone with incense and some ‘&’ Zippo lighters, some relaxing candles, and a little cyanide pill box flled with Nurofen. I was like, ‘Fucking hell, it must be a nightmare to spend three solid weeks with me…’”

Instead of the more regular ‘shift’ feel that had settled in around his work closer to home, the new location and dynamic added a fresh energy to the whole process. “We had three rooms on the go; trying to do 17 songs in three weeks was quite ambitious but we managed to

“I had a lot of nervousness around some of these stories, and trying to represent people who are mammoth, titan figures and did amazing things.”

– Dan Smith

do it. Because you know it’s temporary, you’re working from when you wake up to when you go to bed, and part of the fun was having different people come in at different times – it was like guest stars in a sitcom.”

Opening up the musical side of things wasn’t Dan’s only priority. Glance down the tracklisting of ‘& (Ampersand)’ and, chances are, you’ll recognise a variety of his protagonists. But for each of the more notable lives explored – Marie Curie, Oscar Wilde, Emily Dickinson, Eve (the Bible version, not the rapper) – Dan wanted to expand his remit to highlight some of history’s lesser known but equally inspiring characters. In order to do so, however, he needed some help, and turned to friend, academic and podcaster Emma Nagouse.

Tackling the songwriting with an admittedly varied approach to his studies (“There was defnitely a lot of Wikipedia-level research…” Dan caveats), it was nonetheless equally important for the pair to fesh out the characters’ historical context outside of just the album. And so, Muses was born; a companion podcast series which dives into the internal lives of the record’s cast, while refecting on Dan’s own interpretation within his tracks.

“In anything in life, understanding context is really important to me,” Dan notes. “The way my brain works, I need to know what I’m walking into and what’s going on. Unpacking and learning stuff like that with Emma, and the researchers we’ve worked with, has been super interesting to me. With the podcast, I sort of wanted to be – as I feel I am in life – the interested idiot, who wants to learn and understand the nuance. So, we were trying to bring a bit of that to this, and challenge

ourselves to try and think, ‘Who was this person? What was life like when they lived? What were the challenges they faced?’ And then, after the fact, why were they remembered as they are and is that right? Is it wrong? Is it unfair?’ It’s been a really fun thing to be involved in.

“I think, as well, I had a lot of nervousness around some of these stories, and trying to represent people who are mammoth, titan fgures and did amazing things. As a self-loathing idiot questioning who am I to write about these people and stories – and that’s a whole other conversation – it was an interesting thing to navigate. I think the thing that will surprise people is how funny [the podcast] is. Hopefully it toes the line between a bunch of really interesting things you wouldn’t have known, even if you think you know these people, but not delivered in a heavy-handed or educational way.”

An ambitious, detailed project that goes way beyond the regular remit of an album, it sounds as though, after more than a decade of band life, ‘& (Ampersand)’ has provided the creative relief that Dan had begun to crave – so much so, in fact, that he’s already working on new tracks.

“[There was] part of me that potentially wanted to stop doing music a few years ago and do another degree or retrain,” Dan admits, “but in the best way, this has kind of been like that. Getting to work with a bunch of academics, do research again, deep dive into all these lives and then, at the same time, learn guitar and work with loads of new people… It’s sort of been the tonic. It’s felt like going back to school a little bit, doing a bunch of stuff that’s outside my comfort zone.”

‘Bastille Presents: & (Ampersand)’ is out 25th October via EMI.

“[There was] part of me that potentially wanted to stop doing music a few years ago and do another degree or retrain.” – Dan Smith

Meet The Cast

As you may have guessed by now, ‘& (Ampersand)’ dives into the lives and legacies of some pretty iconic fgures from history, but not all of them are as well-known as they should be. Here are just a couple of the album’s incredibly interesting players…

Eslanda Robeson

A truly remarkable woman, Eslanda Robeson not only graduated from Columbia with a degree in chemistry in her early twenties, but she would be the frst person of colour to head the surgical pathology unit of the NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, before becoming an anthropologist and civil rights and feminist activist alike. In the track ‘Essie & Paul’, Dan takes a closer look at her marriage to performer Paul Robeson – whom she would go on to manage – which was revolutionary in its own way too.

Julie d’Aubigny

Musicians and artists have always tended to have quite famboyant lifestyles, but few seem to scale the same heights as this French opera singer. “She is this fucking incredibly charismatic, world famous opera singer,” Dan tell us, “who was also an amazing sword fghter and broke one of her girlfriends out of a nunnery by burning it down, and was pardoned twice by the king of France.” Curious to hear more? Of course you are: enter ‘Mademoiselle & The Nunnery Blaze’.

Edvard Munch

While most people will defnitely be familiar with Munch’s most famous work – his instantly-recognisable 1893 painting The Scream – it’s on ‘Blue Sky & The Painter’ that Dan explores the Norwegian expressionist’s relationship with his depression and anxiety, and how that would go on to shape his life’s work. What’s more, the singer flmed its accompanying video while foating in the middle of the Sargasso Sea on Greenpeace’s boat, because of course he did.

SOMEDAY, NOW UK TOUR

IN THE STUDIO Antony Szmierek

Having just announced his conceptual, cosmic frst fulllength, ‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’, Antony Szmierek gives us an insight into his ambitious distillation of life, the universe, and everything.

Words: Daisy Carter

Being a musician, Antony Szmierek reckons, is a lot like being a teacher. He would know; up until this time last year, the Manchester wordsmith spent his days working in a school for pupils with special educational needs while moonlighting as an artist around the city’s poetry and gig circuits. To say his words have struck a chord with people is something of an understatement; they’ve been read at weddings and funerals, inspired tattoos, and were used by the BBC’s Newsnight to epitomise the complexity of national feeling after England lost the Euros fnal this summer.

“It is a responsibility, I guess,” he says of the many, often deeply emotional messages he receives from those his words have touched. “But in the same sort of way that it was [a responsibility] when someone knocked on my door at 3:45pm and said, ‘I’m upset, can I come and sit in here?’. I’m still being a form teacher, just in a more showy way –it’s just giving them songs to help them through the day.”

We’re speaking on video call about a month before the announcement of his debut album. “I probably look like I’ve got the coolest Zoom background ever, but I’m actually just at Lily’s in Leeds,” Antony smiles, as his girlfriend – and frontwoman of the Mercury Prize-winning band English Teacher – pops her head around the door to deliver him a cuppa. Having had to keep details under wraps for some time, his excitement at the prospect of fnally discussing the record is palpable. “Unfortunately,” he laughs, “I think you’re going to get the brunt of everything I’ve wanted to say for two years.”

Akin to his apparent, oft-touted forebear Mike Skinner, the poignancy of Antony’s poetry comes from his uncanny ability to express ideas and emotion with deft clarity, unshrouded by fowery metaphors or abstract imagery. It’s specifc enough to feel authentic, yet leaves enough room for listeners to overlay his words with their own experiences. He provides the outline; we colour it in. “Up until this point, I very consciously wanted [my songs] to be for the collective ‘we’,” he affrms. “And I think that’s why [breakout track] ‘The Words

To Auld Lang Syne’ works so well in a live setting, because people can put their own breakups and hopes and dreams into it.”

For this frst full-length, however, he was determined to think even bigger. As far back as ten years ago, he knew his ideas would eventually manifest themselves as a longform project – be it a novel or, as it turns out, a record. ‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’, then, has in some respects been in gestation for a decade; a concept album built around our yearning for purpose and permanence in a world that is inherently transient.

Its title and eponymous opening track are “a little nod” to Douglas Adams’ ‘Restaurant At The End Of The Universe’ – the second instalment of the classic novel series which originally inspired last year’s ‘A Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Fallacy’ (you can take the boy out of the classroom…). That, Antony explains, is the only track from either of his previous projects – 2023 EPs ‘Poems To Dance To’ and ‘Seasoning’ – to have been carried forward onto the album. “It was going back to ‘Hitchhiker’ really, that was the frst piece. I knew I needed that on the album to make the narrative make sense… I needed to write the conclusion of what that frst track was.” He pauses, then laughs: “Maybe I’ll stop doing sci-f shit for the second album.”

For now though, time, space, and “sci-f shit” are frmly on the table. Not that it’s immediately apparent on frst listen – lyrically, he still speaks to universal, markedly human experiences. But when you take a step back and consider ‘Service Station…’ as a whole, the patterns of each song align to form a constellation. In the album’s opening number, we meet a cast of recurring characters, the threads of whose lives intersect at the titular service station before diverging – and converging again – over the course of the record.

“That frst track is me – or the narrator, I guess –walking through the service station and everyone’s there,” nods Antony, counting off the various personalities on his fngers. There’s “Angie and her hen do” (who reappear in closer ‘Angie’s Wedding’); “the yoga teacher” (semi-inspired by Jarvis Cocker, whom Antony tried to nab for a guest spot on the record); and “the two who fall in

“Everything seems to be winking at something [these days], and I didn’t want to do that.”

love in ‘Rafters’” (known only as “the Patron Saint of Withington” and “a pound shop Geri Horner”).

“You see everyone – all these people who are trying to change things and get people’s attention – and they’re all mentioned again in the fnal track,” he explains. “On the surface, it’s a wedding, but in my head it’s a place beyond – maybe heaven, or just this imagined place where ‘the doers and the dreamers’, as it says in the song, end up.”

And where, we wonder, does Antony Szmierek fgure among these characters? “There are two songs – ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’ and ‘Crashing Up’ – and they’re just me,” he replies. Purposely placed to follow a euphoric, keys-led number, ‘Restless Leg Syndrome’ in particular is an anxiety-fuelled, moving monologue contemplating the point of it all; essentially a poem over an ambient beat, it’s the morning after the night before, the comedown after the high.

“It’s hard to hear myself say those things, because it is so raw,” Antony nods. “But I think all good art is sincere and honest. There’s that line in ‘Hitchhiker’ – “Everything’s ironic now, isn’t it? Post post-punk” –and I like that to an extent, but it’s not what I want to make. Everything seems to be winking at something – sometimes literally [by] wearing masks or a costume

– and especially on those songs, I didn’t want to do that. I feel like those few tracks are a real introduction to me as a person.”

Musically, too, there’s a real earnestness to his choices. Where in the past he’d “kind of purposely always looked away from ‘90s, Madchester stuff,” ‘Service Station…’ and ‘Angie’s Wedding’ – the two tracks bookending the album –instead lean into his city’s sonic heritage, echoing the record’s conceptual circularity.

“That frst tune is almost like a Primal Scream song, and ‘Angie’s Wedding’ started with Orbital’s ‘Belfast’ as a reference point,” Antony explains. Heading into the studio with producer Max Rad in Bristol, he aimed to evoke ‘90s fgureheads like The KLF and Happy Mondays – an acknowledgement, he half-jokes, that “that’s kind of what I’m doing 30 years later – playing dance music with a live band, with a Mancunian chatting shit over the top. So why not nod in that direction a little bit?”

Besides Max, he also worked on production with Luis Navidad in London and Robin Parker (who also plays synths in Antony’s live band) in his Manchester home, while all the album’s vocals were recorded in Cheetham with Dean Glover. “I think it could have easily been me and one producer in a room for three

weeks, and that’s kind of what I thought making an album was,” Antony says. “But this wasn’t like that –it’s been all over the place.”

An apt way to bring to life a project so expansive in both name and nature, the ad-hoc conception of ‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’ gave Antony the space to fnally realise the full scope of his creative vision – and, he suspects, broaden his demographic horizons beyond ‘FFO: ‘A Grand Don’t Come For Free’’. “That’s what’s really exciting about putting it out,” he enthuses. “It’s a proper introduction, and I feel like those comparisons will probably change now. Or, hopefully, it’s its own thing. I wanted to subvert expectations, but there aren’t any expectations yet. No one’s really met Antony Szmierek, the artist.”

And in the meantime, The Streets are still “a pretty handy elevator pitch” – a useful touchstone, we suggest, for those conversations with curious Uber drivers? “Nah,” Antony grins. “I just tell them I am Mike Skinner.”

‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’ is out 28th February via Mushroom Music / Virgin. DIY

Photo: Zak Watson

in deep

“ISince the release of 2019 third album ‘KIWANUKA’, its eponymous author has won the Mercury Prize, become a father twice over and wrangled a new sense of self-confdence in his own decisions. New album ‘Small Changes’, then, is the result of some altogether bigger ones.

Words: Sean Kerwick

’m no longer just trying to shut my eyes and survive,” Michael Kiwanuka explains, calling while in transit from Paris. “Now I really cherish, endure, enjoy and savour the moment.” When DIY catches the singer-songwriter, he’s just experienced a particularly notable one of those moments. Mere minutes before, his new album ‘Small Changes’ was announced to the world. “It’s a mad feeling,” he beams as the French capital whizzes by in the background. Is it still the same rush, fourth time around? “It still feels just as exciting and thrilling. It’s the reminder that, ‘Oh my gosh, I get to do this for a living’,” he nods. “Before, I’d fxate on all the things that are going wrong, but now I’m way more [present].”

This newfound ability to open up the aperture seems to have been fuelled by a number of notable life and career changes. He enjoyed a career high in the communal low of COVID, picking up the Mercury Prize for his triumphant, self-titled LP ‘KIWANUKA’ in 2020. Though the celebrations took place in something of a lockdown-imposed, diluted atmosphere, its effect on the singer was reinvigorating. “I took loads of confdence out of that strange time. I didn’t expect to win and realising people were really listening to this music was really exciting,” he refects.

His realisation clearly trailed behind that of the rest of the world. Kiwanuka bagged the BBC Sound Of award on his debut back in 2012; second album ‘Love and Hate’ topped the charts, plus he stands alongside a select few artists who’ve racked up three Mercury nods – a 100% success rate for every album he’s released. Modesty has always been a key thread of Kiwanuka’s calm, considered personality, which often stands at odds with the attention around him, and it’s this outlook that has rewarded him with a certain level of anonymity despite his success; a raw talent with his feet frmly on the ground. Rather than relying on an invented persona or trend-hopping to sell his music, he appears to be entirely dedicated to serving the songs – but now, that inbuilt modesty interlocks with a newfound confdence.

In 2022, he embarked on a postponed tour which allowed him to experience something of a startling career jump. “The crowd and the size of the venues had completely changed from before, it was an amazing feeling. You get the wind in your sails and start to create more and get excited. It proved to me that following your own nose actually works.” He pauses. “And then the world’s your oyster”.

During that period, his nose was telling him to focus on the bigger picture. “For the frst time, I felt like I didn’t have to prove myself through every single note,” he suggests. “The energy of that album was to prove that I was an artist who was worth people’s time and ears. There was a lot I wanted to say that people maybe necessarily didn’t know I had in me.”

The album triumphed with its defant exorcism of identity, politics and love, seeped in all the pain, confusion and joy that comes pre-baked into those topics. His Ugandan surname was centred all-caps on ‘KIWANUKA’ for a reason: once upon a time, professionals around him in the industry suggested changing his surname to improve his chances of breaking through. On the joyously rattling ode to self belief ‘You Ain’t The Problem’, he broke free of the self-doubt that often plagued his early career: “I lived a dream / I hope to be who I believe in / I used to hate myself, you got the key / Break out

the prison,” he sang. Fourth LP ‘Small Changes’ was forged in the cathartic afterglow of that time.

“It’s an album I wouldn’t have had the confdence to do fve or 10 years ago,” he muses. “I wanted to focus on my voice, the songs and the space; if it was 10 years ago I would have had a different attitude, throwing in fast guitars, strings and choirs. That’s not to discredit the sound of those records – there’ll be albums like that again – but I’m not in that headspace now.”

While the bombasity of orchestras and choirs have their place, it’s dialled down on ‘Small Changes’, contributing to a sparser atmosphere which pulls focus to the drums, guitar, bass and vocal. The strings underline rather than overstate; their measured application recalls Arctic Monkeys’ ‘The Car’ at times. As a result, the songs here reveal themselves over repeated listens – not quiet, but rawly purifed. ‘Lowdown (part i)’ is a stripped back shuffe, simmering with a demolike quality which is gently warmed by a glowing organ and a terrifc, buzzy guitar solo.

This intimate backdrop provides a perfect accompaniment to lyrics that are largely preoccupied by the smaller things in life – perhaps owing to the fact that Kiwanuka and his wife are now parents twice over. The album reveals small peeps into domesticity, the title track swirling in the heavy atmosphere of an expecting couple; “All this time we knew there was something in the air,” he sings over strikes of glimmering keyboards and a dusty drum beat.

Opener ‘Floating Parade’ fnds his perspective shifting. “I’ll be a full-on child for a while,” he sings against the gentle thrum of an acoustic guitar. Background harmonies and strings subtly surface like a magic trick, giving the sensation of a pupil widening. “I wanted to write [about] this time with that wide-eyed view of the world,” he explains. “It’s about having a young family, but it’s also about getting older.” That perspective is refracted by the album’s stark cover, which cranes down towards a young boy, two different hands reaching out to him. “It looks like he doesn’t know which way to go,” he offers. “It’s a gripping photo.”

While parenthood clearly seeped into Kiwanuka’s songwriting thematically, its round-the-clock commitments also provided some unexpectedly useful creative parameters. “You don’t have as much time, so you basically learn to trust your intuition more and follow the frst initial feeling or idea straight away,” he refects. “Whereas before I had a lot of time to sit and ponder it, start doubting it, try something else just in case – endless options. I’d end up not doing anything for like, two hours, and a lot of that is nerves because you don’t want to listen back to something that’s not working. You don’t want to face the music – literally.”

The responsibility of parenthood brushes shoulders with the counterbalance of childlike play across the record’s creation. “When you go to a studio and you think you KNOW the thing, it’s quite hard to MAKE the thing,” he suggests. “The cool and clever idea you thought you had isn’t usually that good. Creativity is always best when you view it like a kid; it feels like that’s when you’re yourself.”

‘Small Changes’ is out 15th November via Polydor.

Read the full feature at diymag.com/michaelkiwanuka. DIY

[Winning the Mercury Prize] proved to me that following your own nose actually works.

Photo: Marco Grey

NEWS HAVE YOU HEARD?

Some of the biggest and best tracks from the last month.

DAMIANO DAVID Silverlines

JADE

Midnight Cowboy

SPRINTS Feast

Three guesses likely wouldn’t land you anywhere near the surprising solo debut of Damiano David, lead leatherwearer of Italy’s premier sex rockers Måneskin. Eschewing the lusty glam-rock of his day job in favour of meditative lyrics about seeking peace and the sort of rousing theatrics that are more Broadway than Coachella, the notable production credit for Euphoria soundtrack-creator Labrinth perhaps underscores the intention of ‘Silverlines’ best: dark, atmospheric and as grand as they come. Lisa Wright

Where superlative debut ‘Angel Of My Dreams’ immediately launched JADE’s post-Little Mix solo career into a whole different stratosphere of the skewed and self-referential, bonkers and brilliant, ‘Midnight Cowboy’ cements the idea of each release as its own production. Introduced by Ncuti Ngawa before strutting into a thirsty hybrid whose pulse nods to both Madonna’s ‘Vogue’ and underground vogue balls, replete with NSFW puns (“Put me in reverse / Bitch, I’m a girl cow”) and a perfect splice of shimmering pop and snarling rap – aided, doubtless, by RAYE’s co-writing credit – JADE’s second is a whole world in 200 seconds. As Ncuti concludes: “THAT is a performance”. Lisa Wright

Since releasing their tour-de-force debut

‘Letter To Self’ back at the start of the year, Dublin’s Sprints have barely stopped for breath. And, though their blistering rock is an art form that’s arguably best appreciated live, follow up ‘Feast’ is more than enough to sate appetites until their November UK run. A grunge-infuenced introduction to new guitarist Zac Stephenson, the single – along with its must-watch accompanying video – fnds the band dining at the twin tables of enforced religious devotion and suppressed sexual desire. The Last Supper, but make it sapphic. Daisy Carter

POPPY they’re all around us

When Jordan Fish departed Bring Me The Horizon at the end of 2023, the question on many lips was regarding who he’d work with next, and in Poppy, he’s surely found a perfect match. Where her last album ‘Zig’ saw her swerve closer to pure radio pop, it’s on ‘they’re all around us’ – the lead track from next month’s ‘Negative Spaces’ – that she screeches full-speed back towards the metalcore she firted with on 2020’s ‘I Disagree’. Opening with an assault of blastbeats and screams before switching to a sugary sweet chorus, it’s this balance of extremity that suits her completely. Sarah Jamieson

FKA TWIGS Eusexua

FKA twigs is back with her frst taste of her third album, and it’s a sparse yet sensual ode to the LP’s titular concept – a self-coined term for a sort of primal euphoria.

Inspired by Prague’s rave scene, the minimalist techno offering lays gossamer, quasi-ecclesiastical vocals over a bed of bubbling synths that together make for a sensory siren call that’s near transcendent. In the singular artist’s own words: “EUSEXUA is a state of being. EUSEXUA is the pinnacle of human experience.” Sign us up. Daisy Carter

Photos:

Petros,

Sam Cannon, Niamh

Barry, Jordan Hemingway

FESTIVALS

IECHYD DA!

Leeks, daffodils, Tom Jones, Wrexham AFC… The list of things that Wales has become renowned for goes on, but later this month, the capital will have only one thing on its mind: offering up tons of incredible music as part of this year’s S n Festival.

SŴN FESTIVAL

17th – 19th October, Cardiff

Cardiff is set to transform into a new music haven, with the 2024 event playing host to all manner of ace artists, including punk provocateurs Lambrini Girls, breakout duo Good Neighbours, and mind-melting Leeds outft HONESTY, as well as Mercury Prize winners English Teacher, and DIY fave Antony Szmierek. Placing a considered focus on Welsh talent and Wales’ grassroots scene, the event will have fve stages on its opening night (at Clwb Ifor Bach, Tiny Rebel, The Moon and Fuel), before expanding its scope to include programming at Tramshed, Jacobs Antique Market, Cornerstone and Porter’s for the remaining two days.

And what’s more, we’re thrilled to say we’ll be hosting our very own stage at Jacob’s Basement, joined by a frankly stacked line-up boasting the likes of mary in the junkyard, Cosmorat, Aziya, Fräulein, and the uncategorisable, indefatigable (but relentlessly fun) Alien Chicks. We caught up with the trio following their recent ‘Indulging The Mobs’ EP…

Q&A Alien Chicks

Your debut EP ‘Indulging The Mobs’ has an air of the uncanny about it – familiar themes or motifs are distorted and made more dynamic in a Frankenstein-like sonic collage. Can you tell us a bit more about the project’s inspirations?

We wanted an EP which is cyclical. Firstly, it starts and ends on the same riff, and also the frst and last chords of each successive song make sonic sense next to each other. This means the EP can be played on loop as one continuous song. We wanted the tracks themselves to contain themes which are relatable and have snippets of different stories to them, while musically we’re massively inspired by bands like black midi, Pixies, Ocean Wisdom, and Joao Gilberto.

The EP also showcases a real breadth of sound. Why did you make these stylistic choices, and what did you want them to say about you as a band?

We love music that has many key, tempo, and genre changes throughout, as we get bored of playing/listening to the same phrase over and over again. We enjoy challenging write music in different genres since we fnd it more satisfying, and make a continuous effort to ensure that no two songs are the same. Also, Joe has

ADHD, and we think this comes across in the songs!

Tell us about the most memorable gig you’ve played to date.

Playing in Scunthorpe is defnitely up there! There weren’t many people in the crowd so we decided to get extremely drunk before the set to see whether we could still play our songs or if it would be a complete car crash. Thankfully, it was the former and we celebrated by having quite a few more shots and a club night out with the locals. It ended up with the bass player throwing up in a plastic bag in the hotel room and chucking it down the road out of the hotel front door as there were no bins (just like in North London)…

You’re going to be heading to S n Festival this month – have you been able to play in Cardiff much before now?

Yeah we’re buzzing! We’ve played in Cardiff twice at The Moon which is opposite Clwb Ifor Bach – we’ve always had good crowds there. We’ve heard great things about S n Festival and we’re playing there the day after supporting The Libertines in Glasgow so it’s gonna be a crazy weekend!

And is there anyone else on the bill you’d like to catch while you’re there?

Defnitely English Teacher – we’ve seen them at a few festivals since we supported them on tour last year and it’s great to see them doing so well. Maruja, we’ve been wanting to see live for ages – love their energy. Lambrini Girls, WuLu, Automotion... There are so many good bands playing!

FESTIVAL NEWS IN BRIEF

Live at Leeds In The City (16th November) has unveiled the fnal additions to its 2024 lineup. Some of the just-announced artists are Marika Hackman, Willie J Healey, Heartworms, Phoebe Green, Moonchild Sanelly, and Cardinals, all of whom join an already-stacked lineup led by headliners Everything Everything and English Teacher

Brighton’s Mutations (5th-9th November) has announced that Warmduscher, Sprints, CASISDEAD, and BC Camplight are among their 2024 headliners. The festival – which takes place across nine grassroots venues in the coastal town – will also see the likes of Coach Party, GROVE , Lime Garden, Willie J Healey, VLURE and many more will join the fun over the course of the event.

The frst 40 names have been confrmed for next year’s edition of ESNS (15th-18th January), with the likes of LUVCAT, Personal Trainer and MRCY all set to appear. Other acts set to play the Dutch showcase event – which takes place across the city of Groningen – include Night Tapes, Liana Flores and the excellently-named Baby Lasagna

The Great Escape (15th17th May) will kick start its 2025 edition on Wednesday 13th November with its annual series of First Fifty launch gigs. Taking place across eight East London venues, the event will platform a selection of the frst ffty artists announced to play Brighton’s annual new music celebration next May – including Chloe Qisha, Ray Bull, and Disgusting Sisters, who DIY will host on our very

Photos: Anya Rose, Emma Swann

NEU

New artists, new music.

Dua Saleh

The musician and Sex Education star guides us through their apocalyptic R&B debut: a parallel of toxic love and the decaying environment.

Words: Alex Rigotti

“Ithink we’re in a relationship with the earth,” asserts Dua Saleh. The musician and actor hasn’t even had the chance to have their morning coffee, but they’re up at the crack of dawn in LA to talk to DIY about the slow decay of our planet. “We found ways to exist and to grow and to learn from the earth. But now the earth is responding to our toxicity – and we’re quite literally crumbling.”

Those are the lofty stakes at play on Saleh’s debut, ‘I SHOULD CALL THEM’. Though they’re best known for their groundbreaking role as non-binary character Cal Bowman in Netfix’s Sex Education, Saleh was frst and foremost a musician, having released their debut EP ‘N r’ in 2019. Now, the Sudanese-American polymath has returned with an album that appears to celebrate the ups and downs of chasing love in your twenties. But, as hinted at by the extraterrestrial aesthetics and dark mood, there’s a deeper allegory at play: environmental chaos.

Recorded right after Saleh wrapped Sex Education’s fnal season, they note that the parallels in Cal’s narrative arc and their own lived experiences began to seep through to their music. “[That] season made me refect on my mental health issues and where I was as a kid in uni,” they explain. “And I think I really legitimately had the same experience. So there’s a lot of Cal in my music.”

Though they more explicitly explored that link in 2021 EP ‘Crossover’, it prompted Saleh to refect on their past relationships. Among the dystopian landscape of ‘I SHOULD CALL THEM’, Saleh’s ballads about love are the most true to reality in the record. “On this album, the experiences that were most important to me were the human experiences,” they say, citing the “bliss and joy that queerness can offer to sapphic couples, and maybe the toxicity that’s a little cheeky and the naughtiness that comes along with being in your twenties and fguring out how to date and not be an asshole.”

At the same time, Saleh began connecting their love life with their relationship to the planet. As they were recording their debut, the Dakota pipeline was being built through their home state of Minnesota, and the Sex Education set in Wales was hit with huge foods. “There was a lot of environmental decay that I was constantly being met with,” they recall. As such, Saleh’s love story is set in an apocalyptic version of earth, which deteriorates around them.

“There’s a lot of metal music at the end [of the album] –which is kind of a lot,” they laugh. “But I think that’s me articulating sonically through the production that the earth is falling apart. These two lovers are intertwined at the end of it, embracing each other as the world [crumbles] – and that’s kind of what we’re doing with earth.”

‘ISHOULD CALL THEM’ uses fantastical visuals not only as a means of escape from the dreary realities of the world, but also as a way of recentering the self. People of colour and trans people, Saleh explains, are often denied their basic humanity through various forms: access to care, and kindness from others, to name but two. For them, futurism is “a way to reorient yourself and to

allow yourself to have a spacious understanding of your full creativity.”

They cite the doctrines of Afro-futurism and animé as ways of unlocking this potential. “It’s these characters transforming into fgures that have huge muscles or have wings or can fy, and [through them] I’m able to tap into infnite forms of sacred wisdom and knowledge. I think that’s something that a lot of trans people have access to and that they already are doing constantly, which is why queer people are so artistic.”

‘I SHOULD CALL THEM’ is also a love letter to R&B, and incorporates a multitude of genres along the way including jazz and hyperpop. Saleh says it’s a way for them to “heal that younger version of myself that wanted to be Ray J,” they laugh. “I wanted to be an angst-flled R&B lover boy. I haven’t really consistently stuck to one genre, and I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could showcase my loving sentiments towards R&B in a way that expresses the full breadth of my humanity.” Though there are few nonbinary people working in R&B today, Saleh says there’s a lot of room for queer expression within the genre – and that extends to the guests they recruit. Gallant uses his incredible falsetto to “hit notes that are higher than I could probably reach”, while Ambre is able to intone “bass-flled notes”.

The album is an interesting full circle moment for Saleh. Having studied pop culture as a specialism at Augsburg University, they acknowledge the irony of now being part of it from their specifc vantage point. “I feel like there’s a lot of my unique experiences that have led me to be critical of what’s happening in the world,” they explain. “I studied GWSS [Gender, Women, Sexuality Studies] and sociology. So I’m constantly confronting myself and confronting the world with critiques that will shine a light on our love for one another. And I feel like a way for us to be compassionate to one another is to care about the environment.”

But ultimately, Saleh insists that despite its dense narrative, their music is a part of a core mission to bring that love to everyone. “As a trans non-binary person, I see that there are not many places for trans and queer people to breathe in this political landscape,” they say. “I’m hoping that my music will offer people a break from that: to sing along to my songs, and not feel like they’re being consumed by the propaganda machine that’s working to actively kill us off within society at this moment.” DIY

“I’m constantly confronting myself and confronting the world”

Photo: Rhianna Hajduch

Faux Real

Straddling the line between serious and surreal, brothers Elliott and Virgile Arndt are creating a new strain of performance-art-pop-rock in their own mirror image.

Words: Lisa Wright

What exactly is Faux Real? Live, it’s a spectacle – an all-singing, all-dancing party of synchronised choreography and in-your-face audience interaction.

On this month’s debut album ‘Faux Ever’, it’s a sparkling trip through ‘80s synths via hyperpop, Eurodance and the sort of effects you might fnd soundtracking a particularly tense game of Mario Kart. Conceptually, it’s a reaction to both the traditional alt-rock scene and the industry game as a whole. What Faux Real isn’t, according to brothers Elliott and Virgile Arndt however, is a band. “We jokingly call it a ‘band’ with the air quotation marks,” Virgile chuckles as Elliott nods: “We just use the term ‘duo’ because it means nothing apart from the fact there’s two of us, which is a mathematical certainty.”

The Los Angeles-based brothers have been building their own insular world since they were kids. Prone to playing make believe and inventing their own fun, Virgile recalls a friend recently distilling their childhood vibe as not-too-dissimilar from their status as musicmaking adults. “I asked them what our reputation

was as brothers in school and she was like, ‘You guys were just the weird kids who were off to the side doing weird shit that nobody really understood’,” he notes.

These days, the pair’s particular niche of ‘weird shit’ is polarising audiences in all the right ways. Having both played in more traditional indie outfts, their coming together as Faux Real marked a commitment to doing things entirely differently. They would have no musicians on stage. They would dress purposefully as a symbiotic unit (today, the brothers are sporting matching wide-shouldered leather biker gilets). They would play with the “used car salesman persona” they felt was a byproduct of the “hustler mentality” new artists were forced to adopt to make themselves known. Some people loved it; some people were baffed; all of these responses were embraced.

“We’ve noticed the three stages of reactions at Faux Real shows. A lot of people are straight-up offended. Second stage it turns into curiosity and bewilderment, and then the third stage is people understanding that it’s serious but there is humour [involved too] and it’s meant to be high energy and fun,” suggests Elliott. “But there are some shows where we’ve felt a hostile

reaction and it’s exciting, it really is,” says Virgile. His brother agrees: “Feeling confused and upset is also valid. I know I get a lot from those emotions. I like to watch shit flms for that reason because creatively it’s important to know where you stand.”

On ‘Faux Ever’, the duo might be presenting a project that’s determinedly left-of-centre, that’s like fltering Confdence Man’s knowing kitsch through an uncanny John Waters lens, but it’s also, says Elliott, the most authentic they’ve ever been. “Over the years we’ve evolved to be versions of ourselves that, personally, I feel are more true than we were even before the project,” he explains. “I feel so much more ‘me’ now. I was searching and, in a way, it took this stance of being extravagant and doing exactly what I wanted to do to shed the layers I was putting on.”

Increasingly then, the Arndt siblings are prioritising the Real as much as the Faux – just in their own unique way. As Virgile notes, “A friend of ours, Kirin J Callinan, said something once that really stuck with us: ‘I’m not being serious, I’m not being funny, I’m being a secret third thing…’” DIY

“There are some shows where we’ve felt a hostile reaction and it’s exciting, it really is.” – Virgile Arndt

Photo: Daniel Everett

NEU Recommended

Dog Race

Chloe Qisha

The Malaysian-born, UKbased singer that’s set to take pop by storm. Due to play her frst London live show as this issue goes to print – with another turn next month when she plays our stage at the First Fifty – Chloe Qisha may only have two tracks out in the world so far, but judging how quickly she’s drummed up over a million Spotify listens, she’s already turning the right heads. While her debut ‘LCV Home Video’ shimmers with an elegant darkness, pairing classic songwriting with broody piano, its follow-up ‘I Lied, I’m Sorry’ is an entirely different beast, all taught and frenetic, pop-ready energy.

Musical mutts who take the rosette for Bedford’s best in show. It’s not often you stumble upon something truly singular, but Dog Race make for a brilliantly bizarre proposition: part post-punk grit, part Gothic fever dream, they’re eerie, urgent, and completely compelling. Vocalist and frontwoman Katy Healy (no relation, thankfully) performs with the fervency of a person possessed, and, if we had to approximate, the band’s recent releases lie somewhere between The Cure, Cocteau Twins, and Walt Disco.

LISTEN: “God this band is so fucking good.” – internet guru Antony Fantano on ‘The Leader’.

SIMILAR TO: Open day at the local cult.

LISTEN: Her debut track is truly bewitching; and just try not to hear the echoes of ‘Hey Jude’ or ‘Where Is My Mind?’ in certain moments.

SIMILAR TO: Somewhere in the glorious middle between Sarah Kinsley and Ol-Rod.

Luvcat

A rock’n’roll cabaret of intoxicating thrills.

According to enjoyable rumours surrounding Liverpool’s Luvcat, the singer ran away to Paris with the circus as a teen. That tale might be a tall one, but the infuences it nods to – decadence, escapism, glamour, vaudevillian romps – feel perfectly in line with the world she’s already building in her early singles. Debut ‘Matador’ and follow-up ‘He’s My Man’ are in turns a curious folk-cabaret and a seductive murder ballad; with a string of buzzy sold-out shows, Luvcat feels primed to prowl straight into the theatrical lane

The Last Dinner Party have opened up.

LISTEN: ‘He’s My Man’ has already racked up two million streams in fortnight. SIMILAR TO: Lana at the Moulin Rouge, but in Liverpool.

Getdown Services

The uncategoriseable Bristol duo putting the pun back into punk.

Sleaford Mods but jolly? Soft Play but for the dancefoor? Though Bristol’s Getdown Services – aka Josh Law and Ben Sadler – might nod to other pairs of peers, their blend of laugh-out-loud lyrics and music that veers between working men’s club funk and actual club bangers is marking them out as an increasingly singular proposition. Following last year’s debut LP ‘Crisps’, and this summer’s follow-up EP ‘Crumbs’, they’ll be embarking on a sold-out UK tour next month. Getdown, if you can.

LISTEN: “I’ve had more warnings than I’ve had Wispa Golds, and I’ve had about nine of them this morning,” goes ‘I Got Views’. SIMILAR TO: Warmduscher’s naughty little brothers.

CATTY

The fery sonic fallout of a cancelled Vegas wedding.

“Deliberately hurtful in one’s remarks; spiteful” – the dictionary defnition of this pop-rock riser’s name may not paint the best of pictures, but in practice CATTY is making a convincing case for bringing bitchy back (within reason, obvs). This summer’s ‘I Wish I Gave You Hell’ is a rage-fuelled stomper that packs the same cathartic punch as Olivia Rodrigo’s ‘good 4 u’, and latest single ‘Actress’ has more than a hint of post-breakup Miley. Her recent turn on the support bill for Stevie Nicks’ BST Hyde Park headline, meanwhile, proves that in practice, revenge can be oh-so-sweet. Miaow!

LISTEN: Debut EP ‘Healing Out Of Spite’ (inspired by her aforementioned abandoned nuptials) lands this month.

SIMILAR TO: When ex-Disney girls are set free from their corporate chains.

How would you describe, in less than 10 words, the ethos behind Nice Swan?

No bullshit, just good tunes.

What was the initial motivation for starting the label? Tell us a bit more about those early days.

Pete Heywoode: Alex and I frst worked together when I was running my old label, RIP Records. He brought a young band from Stockport called Blossoms my way, who he was managing at the time, and so I released their debut EP. Alex had been working in the major label world for a few years and was ready to start his own venture – he came to me with the name and asked if I’d like to team up. Our frst release was a three piece from London called Dead Pretties – Wunderhorse frontman Jacob Slater’s frst band.

What are some of your highlights or most memorable moments since founding Nice Swan?

Pete: Aside from discovering and showcasing new talent, we’ve always used the label as part of our management business model. Everyone we manage has also come through the Nice Swan label – Pip Blom, FUR, Sprints, English Teacher, The Rills, and Human Interest – so every success we’ve had with those artists, either during or post Nice Swan, would be highlights for me.

English Teacher winning the Mercury Prize; FUR headlining festivals in South-East Asia; SPRINTS selling out their entire worldwide tour; Pip Blom being on Times Square’s biggest interactive billboard (it’s 100 meters long!); Sports Team getting a No. 2 album – all these things stand out, but sometimes the most exciting moments are just those frst radio spins or great reviews. The early moments are just as rewarding as the bigger ones that come down the line.

The label itself might be relatively small, but your roster boasts some big-hitting names, including this year’s Mercury Prize winners English Teacher. What’s the signifcance of recognition like this to you, and to the independent music landscape more broadly?

Alex Edwards: Having worked so hard as an independent label in a scene that struggled to break through when we frst started as a team a decade ago, winning the Mercury Prize was a truly signifcant moment for us. It represented ten years of blood, sweat, and tears. We’ve always aimed to shine a light on the various regions of the UK and Ireland (and Amsterdam) throughout our decade together, without getting too caught up in the noise of London. The fact that English Teacher, a band from Leeds, were the frst Mercury winners from outside the capital in ten years highlights the challenges we’ve faced. But honestly, having each worked in the music industry for nearly 15 years now, it feels like the best time ever to be in a guitar band and based outside of London.

What’s one piece of label-running advice you’d give your younger selves?

Pete: Don’t worry about making mistakes, it’s part of the process – learn from them.

Photos: Lillie Eiger, Lily Doidge, Maya Whittaker, Sion Waters, Nat Traxel

total tommy

Laying the cards of her life fully on the table, Australia’s total tommy injects a slice of redemptive vulnerability into her rock.

Words: Tilly Foulkes

The bleak stretch of 2020 might have been a cage for most but for Jess Holt – otherwise known as total tommy – it seemed like the perfect time to uproot her whole life and move 430 miles away.

Switching from the “grit and grime” of home city Melbourne to Sydney, she found herself metamorphosing, writing in ways that were increasingly assertive and vulnerable. “I used to hide behind a lot of metaphors and worry like, ‘Oh man, what if my mum hears this?!’” she laughs over Zoom. “But now I just don’t care. I’m pretty scathing with my lyrics at the moment!”

We’re catching up around her debut full-length release ‘bruises’: a 12-track “indie-grunge” album that tackles everything from doomed romance to the anxiety of being just a bit TOO high. Long gone is the electro-pop of her previous project Essie Holt, replaced now with Garbage-inspired, thrashy guitars interlaced with ‘90s pop sensibilities. “I feel like such a different person to when I made those Essie songs,” she continues. “I went through a bunch of stuff that impacted me, like huge changes – I came out, I moved cities, I met my wife, and just everything is so different. Even looking back at those pictures of me I’m like, who is she?! All this life stuff’s just given me much thicker skin.”

Overhauling her life in such a way allowed total tommy to develop a confdence that oozes from ‘bruises’. Here, she owns her mistakes with self-assurance and forgiveness, admitting to the wrongdoings she’s committed as well as accepting those that have hurt her. “The album’s bruises are about the marks left on me and others,” she suggests. “Over the years I’ve realised I’ve hurt a lot of people, and hurt myself too. It’s about coming out the other side of that – being accountable but also understanding that those situations that were so painful at the time didn’t last forever. Bruises heal, you know.”

total tommy wrote these songs with a live audience in mind, wanting to inject her work with the adrenaline of rock. This is an album meant to be heard as loudly as possible, lashing around in a music venue, screaming along to the lyrics. The set is so “high energy” that Jess has had to commit to a new gym routine. “[I’m] running along on a treadmill; I don’t wanna lose my breath halfway through the jumping and singing, so now I’m just training hard for it!” she laughs.

What stands out is total tommy’s bracing honesty in examining herself and her actions. A confessional songwriter to the core, but without any hint of self-pity, on her debut Jess owns everything she’s done and radically forgives herself for it. Full of undeniable nerve and openness – plus some sonic big-hitters to boot – she’s a captivating new presence in rock. DIY

“Situations that are so painful at the time don’t last forever. Bruises heal.”

Photo: Jamie MacMillan

THE NEU PLAYLIST

Fancy discovering your new favourite artist? Dive into the cream of the new music crop below.

Fuzz Lightyear – My Body

Newly signed Leeds four-piece Fuzz Lightyear not only have one of the best names going, but, with latest single ‘My Body’, they seem to have landed on those magic ingredients that elevate a song from good to great. Relentless guitars, big metronomic drums, a rapid pace, and furious vocals set the scene, while lyrical themes of personal boundaries and our place in society are worthy and intriguing. It’s loud and no-nonsense, but it’s the adept, energetic delivery and the track’s progressive rise and fall that elevates it above the noise. Many have attempted this, and many have failed. Step up Fuzz Lightyear. Phil Taylor sm^sher – the reaction

Contending with a loosening grip on reality, ‘the reaction’ sees sm^sher – aka Imogen Mason –dimming the lights and tightening the rhythmic notches until all residual lucidity dribbles away into a smoky, brutalist ether of choppy, industrial techno beats. Something akin to if PVA were replaced by heavy machinery and their mainframe was hacked by an evil supercomputer, ‘the reaction’ will funnel you down a factory conveyor belt of Imogen’s own mind, pulverising you before slicing, dicing, and baking at 1000 degrees. Hazel Blacher

Liza Lo – Gipsy Hill

Liza Lo’s ‘Gipsy Hill’ is a tender and melancholic ode to the feeling of slow separation from a place that once felt like home. Inspired by her fve years in South London, the track features Liza’s evocative vocals layered over stripped-back acoustic guitar and subtle strings, capturing a wistful blend of indie-folk and pop that’s reminiscent of the likes of Alice Phoebe Lou and Julia Jacklin. Following her recent UK headline tour and signing to Gearbox Records, the track continues to solidify Lo’s rise in the indie-folk scene, bringing raw emotion and poignant refection to the forefront. Gemma Cockrell

piglet – White Knuckles

On new single ‘white knuckles’, piglet offers another compelling preview of his upcoming EP, ‘for frank forever’ – a project dedicated to his late friend. Here, the Irish-born, South Londonbased artist (aka Charlie Loane) delves deeply into the raw emotional terrain of breaking free from a toxic relationship, with poignant lyrics that encapsulate both the heartache and liberation that come with fnally seeing through a manipulative partner and choosing self-care over continued suffering. The track serves as an evocative refection on the clarity that can emerge from painful realisations, and his return signals a continued commitment to the deeply personal and thought-provoking. Gemma Cockrell

UPDATE YOUR EARS!

Find the Neu Playlist on Spotify:

The Buzz Feed

Hitting The Road

Nottingham quartet Divorce have announced that their anticipated debut album will be entitled ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’, and will be released on 7th March 2025 via Gravity / Capitol. Having initially formed in 2021 via the Midlands’ burgeoning grassroots scene, the four-piece have since gone from strength to strength, releasing two EPs –2022’s ‘Get Mean’ and 2023’s ‘Heady Metal’ – and forming part of DIY’s Class of 2024 last year.

Combining country, indie-rock, folk, and pop, ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ sees Divorce hone their distinctive amalgamated sound and land on 12 tracks that explore memory, belonging, and a deep sense of place (namely, their beloved Midlands), all of which are manifested in the fctional location of Goldenhammer. “We’re very proud of ‘Drive to Goldenhammer’,” the band have shared. “We got to make an album the way we wanted to, kept the weird parts in, followed the warmth and didn’t overthink it. This album pays homage to seeking place and home; one of the great human levellers. Much of life feels at odds with this particular need. And to Goldenhammer; you are a reason to keep driving. We will fnd you again and again!”

Alongside news of their new album, the band have shared its lead single, ‘All My Freaks’ –check out its irreverent video on diymag.com now.

Hometown Glory

Palestinian-American artist Lana Lubany has shared her latest single ‘NAZARETH’, alongside news of a brand new EP. The London-based singer is set to follow up last year’s ‘THE HOLY LAND’ EP with her forthcoming offering ‘YAFA’, a six-track release that will also feature her recent evocative singles ‘PRAYERS’ and ‘ANOTHER YEAR’. Set for release on 31st October via AWAL, it sees her collaborating with producer Ben Thomson. “My upcoming project ‘YAFA’, named after my hometown, incorporates pieces of my upbringing and experiences that have shaped who I am today,”

Lana has said of the release.

“It explores identity and belonging in an environment where you don’t always feel welcome. I’ve always felt like I was in between worlds – an outsider. After having fnally accepted my own identity, I was met with yet another struggle to gain acceptance from the world. While navigating these obstacles, music has been my healing point, where I felt like I could fully be myself. ‘YAFA’ the project is a safe space for the in-betweeners and beyond.”

Alongside her newest track – “a fun, carefree song about a safe, comfortable community led space”

– she’s shared an accompanying video, which was flmed in Jordan and directed by Joel Barney, with production by Sonder. Check out the video on diymag.com now.

Twists And Turns

Following on from the release of her double-single earlier this summer, Matilda Mann has now shared details of her anticipated debut album, ‘Roxwell’. Her frst full-length will follow on from last year’s ‘You Look Like You Can’t Swim’ EP and is set for release early next year, on 28th February through 7476. Billed as “an intimate portrayal” of her recent years, the album will include her recent releases ‘Meet Cute’ and ‘Tell Me That I’m Wrong.’, as well as her brand new single ‘Say It Back’, a more rock-leaning offering than its predecessors. Listen to it over at diymag.com now.

Speaking of the album as a whole, Matilda has said: “Every song feels like a part of me, and I’m so, so excited that it’s fnally coming out. It explores various types of love, the experience of growing up and refecting on the past, the struggle of not being able to give someone your all, getting stuck in the past, and accepting what you can’t change. It’s everything I want to say and more.”

Photos: Flower Up & Rosie Sco, Joel Barney, Katie Silvester

Havingblazedanintoxicatingtrailofseductive,bilingual alt-pop, fliting betweengenresbutkeepingconfidentsensualityatth

thecore , afer half a decadeofworld-buildingBIIGPIIG is finallygetingreadyt o a n n

u n c e

r n o f c l ub s andbedrooms, get ready to follow Jess Smyth into temptation.

Words: Gemma Samways

Photos: Charlote Patmore

t a bustling photo studio in Hackney Wick, it’s just like any other Tuesday morning, except Jess Smyth has a python coiled around her neck. Intimidatingly beautiful in its intricate gold and brown markings, for the next hour it’ll be found freely encircling Smyth’s arm, caressing her clavicle and peeking down inquisitively from her head, its forked tongue ficking tantalisingly close to Smyth’s ear. As a style concept, it’s giving Garden of Eden-meetsBritney at the 2001 VMAs – but with the addition of two waist-length braids and some barely-there couture, courtesy of rising British knitwear designer Paul Aaron. When we catch up over Zoom a few days later, Smyth is still buzzing.

“I’ve always wanted to pose with a snake,” she enthuses in her soft Cork lilt. “I love the way it forms around your shape and the patterns it makes – you start to move with the snake and mould yourself around it. So there was this real sultry, dangerous feel to [the shoot], but because snakes are quite peaceful animals I found the whole experience very calming.”

Sensual, ambitious and completely in control: you could say the cover shoot’s concept neatly mirrors Smyth’s creative approach as Biig Piig. Certainly, in the seven years since her debut single, the Irish singer has grown steadily in confdence, picking up co-signs along the way from A-listers including Lil Nas X, Glass Animals – who she supported on tour – and Billie Eilish, who named her 2019 track ‘Shh’ as her favourite song to relax to.

Where her earliest EP – 2018’s ‘Big Fan of the Sesh, Vol. 1’ – saw her fltering alt-pop sensibilities through the prism of smoky soul and jazz-tinged hip hop, last year’s ‘Bubblegum’ mixtape set bulletproof melodies to club-friendly beats. She upped the ante again at the end of 2023 with standalone single ‘Watch Me’. A self-confdent bop powered by one of the flthiest bass lines this side of Benny Benassi’s ‘Satisfaction’, its bold promo featured Smyth fexing in latex, fanked by female bodybuilders. Devised and co-directed by Smyth alongside NWSPK, the premise for the video was for it to “feel very editorial and immersive, and for it to play with femininity and sexuality.”

Where some young alternative artists might have toned down the visuals for fear of being badmouthed by the usual rockist bores, freedom of expression has always been a no-brainer for Smyth. “As a woman, your femininity will always be something that people try to weaponise against you,” she shrugs. “Men will make you feel insecure about your confdence – that you’re full of yourself or something. But to be confdent in your appearance or in what you say or how you live your life shouldn’t be seen as something outrageous.

“I haven’t always been assured and confdent – it’s something that’s come with age and experience and being more daring in my art. But as women we’re still fghting to be in certain spaces, and we’re not going to be undermined for being in our truth. I like to take the power back in a really strong way, because I’m not gonna let the fear a man has put into me stop me from living my life.”

As a woman, your femininity will always be something that people try to weaponise against you.

It’s my duty as an artist to speak about issues. And being Irish, I feel very strongly when there’s fuckery going on.

t’s this same quietly defant energy that the 26-year-old is taking into the next phase of her career, as she prepares to unveil her frst full-length collection. And after three EPs, a mixtape and a handful of standalone singles, to say her soon-to-be-announced debut album is long-anticipated is putting it mildly. “I didn’t ever want to put something out I wasn’t proud of so it’s taken a minute,” says Smyth, justifying the delay. “Also, a debut album always feels like quite a scary thing, you know? But I think I had to get to a point where I was just like, actually there doesn’t need to be all this pressure, it’s just the frst album, not the last thing you create ever.

“Maturity-wise, too, I’m at a different stage in my life now, and I’m just a bit more present and secure in myself,” she continues. “I mean, there are defnitely still sprinkles of chaos in my life, but on the whole I feel more grounded and settled, thanks to therapy and a few big life lessons.”

If Smyth had ever felt unmoored previously, it’s little wonder. Born in Ireland, hers was a pretty peripatetic upbringing, following her parents between Cork, the Costa Del Sol and West London as they pursued various jobs in hospitality. Without the luxury of laying down long-term roots, adaptability quickly became Smyth’s coping mechanism. Today, she views that quality as a mixed blessing. “I’ve always got itchy feet,” she refects. “Even when I left home, I felt like I was moving around a lot in London. But also it’s been a nice thing to be able to do – especially growing up – because you get to experience different places and meet different people, and it gives you an open-minded outlook.”

Though always interested in music, Smyth’s introduction to songwriting came while studying Music Tech at Richmond College. There she connected with classmates Lava La Rue and Mac Wetha – her future collaborators in prolifc arts collective NiNE8. Outside of college, she’d join them in cyphers [improvisational rap circles], before moving from freestyling to crafting her own material over Mac’s bedroom beats. Almost a decade later, Smyth still enjoys similarly off-the-cuff creative methods. “I’ve been working in proper studios with producers for the last three years now and I love the process of going in with nothing prepared, and then jamming for a while,” she says. “Just fguring out how you connect with the producer until you fnd your fow – it’s like having a conversation.”

For the album, Smyth has called on many of her long-term collaborators including Mac, Maverick Sabre and Zach Nahome (PinkPantheress, Loyle Carner), plus ‘Bubblegum’ co-writer Andrew Wells (Halsey, Ellie Goulding) who worked on forthcoming single ‘Decimal’. An unapologetic pop moment, spiritually the song picks up where ‘Watch Me’ left off, celebrating a steamy triste over the shimmy of distorted funk bass, cowbells and synth arps.

Smyth describes the track as “almost feral”, conveying what it feels like to be totally consumed by desire. “There’s nothing like the feeling of being able to switch off from the rest of the world and just be completely present,” she nods. “For me, that’s what the club environment is – it’s a place where time doesn’t really exist; a space that the outside world can’t touch. You disappear into it and come out exhausted, but with your soul replenished.”

Just as the song’s setting recalls Smyth’s formative experiences at raves and house parties, the verses zone in on another key facet of her creative DNA, fnding Smyth whispering sweet nothings in her second language. “Lyrics in Spanish to me are always the most personal,” she explains. “I think because I was one of the frst people in my family to be able to speak the language, it became a very personal thing to me and the place where I would express private thoughts or feelings. But my Irish and Spanish heritage have both helped shape me in a lot of ways. In Ireland, history is kept in poetry and stories and song. Even when history is wiped you can’t get rid of a song or a melody, which is why my Irish roots are so strongly tied to music.”

ecorded at Motorbass – the Parisian studio of the late Philippe Zdar, one half of iconic French duo Cassius –‘Decimal’ seems to have captured some of the group’s playfulness by osmosis. Smyth agrees: “The environment defnitely does infuence [the music]. It’s a space that you walk into and you want to make music straight away. All the incredible records that they’ve made there – you can feel it in the walls.”

Meanwhile, the French connection doesn’t end there, as electrohouse producer and sometime Ed Banger-remixer Surkin takes the reins on another album track. Smyth recalls their collaboration being a bit of a curveball. “It’s very soft – so different to the dance-heavy electronic world he resides in. I don’t think either of us thought we’d go into a session and make that.”

Softness is a quality that infuses many of the album’s genre-fuid productions, from gently rousing torch songs to quietly anthemic

indie-pop. In the case of lead single and record opener ‘4AM’, the stripped-back verses are cocooned in the warm rumble of bass guitar, eventually ebbing away to reveal a shimmering chorus underpinned by four to the foor beats. As ever, Smyth’s diaphanous vocal lends an intoxicating intimacy to proceedings, as she delivers some of her most emotionally vulnerable lyrics to date.

“Oh, you could have hit me with the bad news frst,” are the album’s frst words. In the chorus she soothes, “I know you don’t want to be alone ‘cause no-one does,” the subject of the line left purposely ambiguous. “I think I’m addressing whoever needs to hear it, to be honest,” Smyth refects. “Because I’m defnitely addressing myself at a point in time, but I’m also saying that to anyone that’s felt like they’ve been in that place.

“I mean no one wants to be in a very dark place, do they?” she questions. “Because it’s something you can really lose yourself in. So it just felt like a bit of a mantra in the middle of the chorus –that idea of holding onto that thread and not losing it.”

Smyth always knew that ‘4AM’ would start the album. “It’s an important track to me,” she explains. “It feels like one of the most honest ones, because it’s an honesty that takes us to places that we don’t want to admit sometimes. I thought it was important for me to put that at the front, rather than hide it behind more upbeat tracks.”

Where ‘Bubblegum’ was billed as a snapshot of a very specifc period of time, her debut examines scattered experiences from the past two years, be that specifc moments or certain relationships. Smyth defnes the album’s key themes as love and intimacy, loss and loneliness, departures and the hope for new beginnings, as she reckons with her standing in the world in her mid-twenties. While she won’t be drawn on the personal context behind the theme of loss, she concedes, “I’ve learned not to run away from things because it’s always going to catch up to you. There’s no easy fx, even when it feels like there is – it’ll come back on you 10 times harder. And you’ve got to just make sure that you’re as present in life as you can be.”

She smiles: “There’s a lot of refection. But then that’s the whole reason I found music – it was a space for me to do that. So when it came to an album, I wanted to make sure that the songs felt like they were pulling you into the world. As a songwriter, that immersive quality has always been something that matters to me.”

myth’s world-building extends to the album’s visual offering, which will arrive with a one-minute video vignette for each track directed by Claryn Chong (Holly Humberstone, English Teacher). The flms follow one of fve interlinked characters – one of whom is played by Smyth – each representing an experience the album speaks on. As Smyth’s star continues to rise, so too do her budgets, and she’s relishing the opportunity to expand the horizons of this project, looking to artists like Doja Cat, Rosalía and Doechii for inspiration. If she hopes to ascend to their level of success, her timing could be perfect.

With the experimental, personality-led pop of Charli, Chappell and Billie currently dominating the discourse, Smyth seems set to launch her album into a particularly receptive climate. If audiences are looking for their next alt-pop hero, they could do a lot worse than Biig Piig on a project reportedly inspired by jungle, heavy techno and old school country music. Of course, Smyth’s hopes for the album are much less to do with commercial clout and more about enduring human connections. “I’d love audiences to not feel as alone with things,” she explains. “To be able to lose themselves and dance and have a good time, even through the sad bits.”

Dancing through her emotions is what Smyth is gearing up to do this November and December, as she opens for Aurora across the US. Having recently performed a private performance for Chopova Lowena’s London Fashion Week show, these will be her frst proper live dates since the Gaza Aid beneft she organised at Shoreditch’s Village Underground back in January. Curated by Smyth herself, the line-up featured Kojaque, Lava La Rue, Maverick Sabre, Mac Wetha and Yunè Pinku, and raised over £11,000 for refugee charity Choose Love.

Where many artists are afraid to alienate fans by taking a position on the ongoing Israel-Palestine confict, it’s heartening that Smyth has no such qualms. “It’s my duty as an artist to speak about issues,” she explains. “And being an Irish artist, I feel very strongly when there’s fuckery going on.”

On a creative level, the power of collective action has always been integral to Smyth’s music, be that in her earliest solo experiments with Mac Wetha or the EPs she’s made with NiNE8

BIIG VIIBES

Jess Smyth has already created a host of standout visuals to fesh out the aesthetic world of Biig Piig to date. Dig into a few of them…

‘Lavender’ (2021)

Taken from her lusty EP ‘The Sky Is Bleeding’, ‘Lavender’ and its seductive video, which sees Smyth living out her fantasies at a masquerade sex party, began a whole new era of Biig Piig: sensual, confdent and brilliant.

‘Picking Up (feat Deb Never)’ (2023)

Shot in one evening in LA, directed by fellow NiNE8 Collective pal Lava La Rue, and embodying the messy, glorious hedonism of a big night out, ‘Picking Up’’s video is a perfect snapshot of youthful freedom.

‘Watch Me’ (2023)

A visual smorgasbord of latex outfts, female bodybuilders and multiple versions of femininity, the track marked Smyth’s directorial debut alongside NWSPK. “I wanted to build a surreal world of strength through movement,” she explained of the vision.

and her own bedroom-pop side-project Salmon Cat. “From the very beginning, the musicians I’ve met, the friends that I’ve made and the place that London is have all fed my creativity so much,” she says. “The rooms and the places that you end up kind of being surrounded by, and the music you end up listening to inspires everything you make.”

In this sense, the ordinary becomes extraordinary – another recurrent idea on Biig Piig’s imminent debut. Looking back on her journey to this point, Smyth is hugely proud. “I’ve learned so much. Even things I would do differently in the future, I don’t regret doing this time because I’m just so happy the album’s written itself the way that it has,” she smiles. “In doing it, I’ve learned that music is still something that will always help me out of spots and make life amazing and better.”

Biig Piig’s debut album will be released in 2025. DIY

The

club environment is a place where time doesn’t really exist; a space that the outside world can’t touch.

Make up: Georgia Hope Hair: Tommy Taylor Clothing: Coat and skirt – Agro Studio; Dresses – Paul Aaron; Top – Ray Chu Snake: Tanuki

INTO the WOODS

Four decades in and PIXIES remain one of the most consistent,

Words: Lisa Wright

Trying to keep up in conversation with Charles Thompson IV is not too dissimilar an experience to hitching a ride on the surrealist sonic train that’s carried his alter ego, Black Francis, and his band Pixies down the tracks through rock’s most wild-eyed backwaters for the past nearly 40 years. Both are unique ways to spend your time. Highly entertaining, wonderfully weird, prone to non-sequiturs and extremely fond of an immersive tale, the two versions of the man are clearly two sides of the same coin save for one key point: on stage, Black Francis has never been known to utter a word of chat, while on today’s call Thompson does not stop.

If the image of the frontman, carved over eight studio albums and now – with the advent of this month’s ghoulishly-titled ‘The Night The Zombies Came’ – an imminent ninth, is one of a howling musical shaman, dredging up grizzled tales of monsters and men from life’s murky depths and delivering them with a feral scream, then today at least he’s more of a friendly uncle. Peering down the Zoom lens of his phone, he careens animatedly between topics, often ending up in a completely different place to where his initial thought began: “How the hell did we get on this? What was the question?!”

If you want an album that explains itself simply, well, go listen to another band. If you’re after a brief submersion into the singular mind that’s helmed one of the greatest, most adventurous and juxtaposed canons in modern music, however, then Black Francis is your man. It’s all, he suggests, about following your brain down the rabbit hole. “Rabbit holes: that’s a popular word in the modern vernacular. ‘I really went down a rabbit hole the other day with this whole seed oils thing’,” he mimics in his most rabbit-holey voice. “I would say a lot of our songs are very rabbit hole in nature. For example, the [new] song ‘Chicken’. Even though it’s just a little ditty, it’s a little rabbit hole of the expression ‘running around like a chicken with your head cut off’. It’s a bloody, violent moment right? So I was thinking, is it really like that? The chicken is dead, because the head has been removed from the body. It doesn’t get any worse than that, right? Your head’s been removed!

“Also, coming out of the pandemic, I had chickens for the frst time in my life. I didn’t slaughter the chickens, I only took them for their eggs, but then the coyotes came. I’m not the best survivalist but I got some eggs for a few months…” He pauses briefy for breath.

“So I’ve been thinking about chickens a lot, and I was thinking, if I did want to eat the chickens, I guess the old school way to do it is just to break their necks or pick them up and chop real fast? And then I guess I’d understand this expression I’d heard my whole life!”

As is the way with Pixies albums, ‘Chicken’ arrives as but one in a number of distinct vignettes that peep into the eerier quarters of consciousness (or lack thereof). ‘Jane (The Night The Zombies Came)’ gives the record its title via a tale of a man slain while walking in the woods; ‘I Hear You Mary’ speaks of “runaway gargoyles” and “broken tombs,” while ‘Ernest Evans’ depicts “the king of the god damn twist” through the sort of immediately world-building sub-three minute surf rock stomper that no one does quite like them.

As is also the way with the Massachusetts titans, within every moment of visceral frenzy remains a heightened sense of melody, of keeping things perversely pretty throughout it all; this is, lest we forget, a band that could nestle the clipped bark of ‘Dead’ next to populist hit ‘Here Comes Your Man’ on ‘Doolittle’’s hallowed tracklist and think nothing of it. Coming into the fold on the album, and replacing bassist of ten years Paz Lenchantin, was Emma Richardson, formerly of Band of Skulls. Her voice, says Black Francis, lent a new dynamic to the tracks. “I’m enjoying her voice. We have a little bit of a binaural world of two voices in the Pixies repertoire, so it’s exciting for me to be singing with a new voice,” he nods before a glint comes into his eye.

“And this is gonna sound weird, and it might be because we’re getting older now, but more and more,” he chuckles, “it’s as if the attributes of actual pixies – actual little people that live in the forest – those are the things that we, in a soft way, are kind of looking at, and I would say [Emma is] very pixie-esque. I don’t know how to defne it but certain people, they’re defnitely not pixies. They could never be. They could be perfectly fne people, whoever they are! But they could never represent little green people that live in the forest. But some people ft that role, and we sort of ft that role a little bit, so it’s comforting when we have a pixie come in and it’s like, ‘Oh yeah, you’re from the forest too!”

T“ The parameter of a popular song is a keyhole into a door that has a much bigger [thing behind it].”

hough their personnel may once more have shifted, the methods remain the same. Rather than channelling some sort of divine inspiration (“I hardly ever hear shit in my head”), the frontman describes feshing out the world of a Pixies album as like peeping through a series of windows into the band’s collective galaxy. “The parameter of a popular song – a three minute rock song – is a keyhole into a door that has a much bigger [thing behind it]. I can’t put that huge picture in my keyhole; only so much of it will go through. It’s become almost a random selection and a lot of times music is like that for me,” he says. “The songwriting

A STORY

BLACK

“[Making records] is not about inspiration per se; the inspiration is secondary almost. The inspiration happened long ago when we were young. It’s interesting, Joey [Santiago, guitar] and I are the same age and we’re both ostensibly from Massachusetts but in his particular nuance his family are from the Philippines, so by the time he arrived in the United States he was already schooled in The Beatles. When I was seven years old in 1972 I was schooled in a similar sort of way and The Beatles would be the core of that. Listen, the guy I learned how to scream from was my neighbour and he was a musician. He had a fower shop and I used to deliver fowers for him, but he was a musician in his spare time. He was from Thailand and he was bald and he wore a Beatles wig when he’d do his gigs with the Thai wedding bands in LA. So my point is, by the time Joey and I hook up a few years later as teenagers, we’re both card carrying Beatles fans even though we’re young. I don’t know how I got onto all that. I’m on my second espresso…”

part is the part when I’m sat at the keyhole and I’m deciding, as the interpreter, what I see.”

From the mouth of most other musicians, it could seem like an abstract statement. But over the decades, from their original tenure until ‘93 and their subsequent reunion that’s now celebrating 20 years in itself, Pixies have – more than most –created an entire universe for themselves. Flag bearers of a whole oft-imitated style of loud-quiet-loud dynamics (so much so that a 2006 documentary about the band was called just that), they’re undeniably one of the most infuential groups still in existence. For his part, Black Francis isn’t getting complacent. “I don’t think that all of it is amazing,” he says of his back catalogue. “A lot of it is OK, and occasionally something goes, ‘Ding ding ding!’ But I’m never quite sure which is which, so the best thing for me to do is keep my head down and keep doing it.”

These days, a whole new generation are clocking onto the band via their perhaps surprisingly active TikTok presence. More than 35 years after the release of ‘Where Is My Mind?’, the track has its own trend page. “Thinking about [young people] and what they respond to, I don’t know what it is in my own music but it’s got this folk thing that a lot of people are comfortable with even if it isn’t necessarily nice-sounding all the time?“ he suggests. “I’m not trying to convince anybody of anything. I’m not trying to get people to join my army. It’s completely expressive and sometimes sing-songy and sometimes not, and sometimes silly and sometimes angry and sometimes quiet and sometimes loud. And well, why would something go in all these different directions? I don’t know, but I was watching this thing the other day about the Japanese puppeteers…” And off he goes down another alley of thought.

On the cusp of 60, it’s fair to say Black Francis is not like most men his age and Pixies are not like most bands of their tenure. They’re not continuing to make and release records out of any desire to notch up bigger and greater successes, but they also clearly see no world in which they’d stop. The frontman has

considered what getting older at the helm of the band might look like. “We haven’t had to make any adjustments with anything to do with our physical bodies yet, but I don’t imagine there’d be a problem with doing that because we’re artists so whatever. We’ll just David Byrne the shit out of it. We’ll go ask him what to do. We’ll all have kazoos or something. This is art – sorry! This is what we can manage!” he laughs. But whether they’re sat down or standing up, giving it a lungful or parping the hits out on a kazoo, it’s hard to imagine Pixies plugging up the creative keyhole any time soon. “We just make records,” Black Francis shrugs. “Isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?”

‘The Night The Zombies Came’ is out 25th October via BMG. DIY

Photos: Travis Shinn

BEAVERTOWN FREQUENCIES:

JOHN + TV PRIEST + THE PILL

WILL VARLEY

THE HOWLERS

FEEL IT

BRENN! BRENN!

STEVIE BILL

PEARL CHARLES

CASTELS

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FAITH

DAN CROLL

TAMZENE

BBC INTRODUCING LIVE!

BAILE TRAMA

JOHN PAUL WHITE

GIZMO VARILLAS

STRAND OF OAKS

JUNIOR BROTHER

NATURE TV

FEEL IT

BILLIANNE

BEX FEEL

A LITTLE SOUND

CLIMAX UK

ALLMAN BROWN

BEAVERTOWN FREQUENCIES: SLOW FICTION + SANDHOUSE +MAXWELL VAREY

TENDAI

TREVOR HALL

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KENYON DIXON

WE ARE HOUSEWORK CALLUM BEATTIE

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DIRTY

RHYTHM HORIZONS

WE ARE SCIENTISTS (MATINEE + EVENING SHOWS)

JUAN WAUTERS

STOLEN GIN

DORA JAR

THE CLAUSE

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OLD DIRTY BRASSTARDS

SAM RECKS

HARRISON STORM

FRED ROBERTS

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GENERAT

STUDENTS BY DAY, STADIUM-SUPPORTING STARS BY NIGHT, THE LINDA LINDAS ARE EVOLVING INTO NEW SCHOOL PUNK SUPERHEROES. WITH FANS FROM PARAMORE TO THE SMASHING PUMPKINS, THEY’RE YOUR FAVOURITE BAND’S FAVOURITE YOUNG BAND.

WORDS: RHYS BUCHANAN

“We’re in a prank war with Green Day,” informs The Linda Lindas’ vocalist and bassist, Eloise Wong. “Before the show yesterday, they taped Mila’s drumsticks together and sabotaged our bass drum!” Calling DIY from Austin, Texas during a momentary bit of downtime on the road supporting the punk titans, the rest of the band – Bela Salazar (guitar, vocals) and sisters Lucia (guitar, vocals) and Mila de la Garza (drums, vocals) – almost telepathically yell in chorus: “We’re winning though, obviously!”

As you might have already guessed, The Linda Lindas haven’t had your average summer vacation. While their school pals have spent the long sunny months like most other teens around the world, hanging around skateparks and binging on the latest Netfix offerings, the four best mates have been touring America with their heroes turned friends in Green Day, The Smashing Pumpkins and Rancid on an epic 27-date stadium tour.

That’s all well and good until the tour spills into the school year. The tough reality of juggling life in America’s most promising punk band and that of an everyday student (all band members, bar Bela, are still studying) hits home right at the start of today’s chat. “I mean, right after this I’m going to go and cram homework for the rest of the day,” moans Eloise, drawing chuckles from the band.

By now, however, this balancing act has become business as usual for the LA four-piece, who have effortlessly embraced the rock star life since a viral library performance of their no bullshit, riot grrrl anthem ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’ beamed them around the world back in 2021. The video – now nearing two million views – bagged them a multitude of famous fans and a deal with legendary punk label Epitaph, who release their second full-length ‘No Obligation’ this month.

The double life does have some perks though. Eloise reminisces how, “One time after school we went and got bubble tea with Karen O, which was so cool!” Bela also recalls a mad moment: “I didn’t go to my graduation because we had to go and play in Europe like, two days before. I think I graduated though.” Lucia puts on a concerned grin. “I think my math teacher is coming to the LA show, so that will be… interesting.”

Navigating viral fame and subsequent real world success can be a tricky endeavour for the most seasoned of artists, let alone four teenage schoolmates. Bela says that day-to-day routine is what keeps them grounded. “When I do go to school, I try not to tell anybody about the band; it’s a place where I can just be normal like everybody else,” she notes. With gossip spreading around school halls and social media like wildfre, however, it’s an impossible task to keep their rapidly ascending star a total secret. Eloise admits that “people know all about us – but we have really good friends who aren’t weird about it and I’m grateful for that.”

Having drawn a minority of haters and cynics in the beginning (much like any recipients of a moment of overnight stardom), The Linda Lindas have done a perfect job of scaling up and showing they deserve a seat at the table since their 2022 debut album ‘Growing Up’. “There’s always going to be doubt for anybody doing anything in music,” says Bela. “We just have to keep moving forward and keep going. We do deserve to be here and every day gives us a little more confdence in ourselves.”

Perhaps the biggest testament to that fact is the band’s list of famous fans, which read like a who’s who of rock royalty from their more immediate infuences in Paramore, The Breeders and Yeah Yeah Yeahs to the likes of Blondie and The Rolling Stones. Are they getting used to that kind of attention? “Every time something comes in we’re just mind blown,” says Bela. “Like, The Rolling Stones

ON NEXT

support was ridiculous; they’ve been around forever. That’s the shit that made our grandparents realise like, ‘Wow, OK, this is what you do’.”

A band determined to be much more than a fash in the pan, it’s the longevity of those icons that impresses The Linda Lindas the most. “What’s cool about these people is that they’re still doing it on their own terms and they still have that passion for music and their work. It’s something we hope to have later on too,” says Eloise, before Mila adds: “We’re always trying to have fun in the moment and appreciate what’s happening and learn as much as possible.”

Given their eye-watering live CV, it’s not surprising that you can hear that main stage confdence fzzing throughout ‘No Obligation’. By watching their heroes from the wings night after night, Eloise says they’ve levelled up themselves. “We’re learning so much, like how to fll this giant stage or keep the crowd engaged and keep having fun with it,” she says.

The Linda Lindas’ second is an album written with those massive football stadiums and baseball parks in mind, yet there’s a variety that complements the confrontational punk with which they initially struck such a chord. Take dreamy recent single ‘All In My Head’, which packs the sweetened vocal of peers like Indigo De Souza as Eloise crackles with teenage turmoil: “It’s the loneliness that I hold so dear / It’s the loneliness that I could never fear.”

With bucket list moments whizzing by them like the headlights of oncoming traffc, the band say just trying to have fun in the studio was the most important thing. “It’s just about enjoying it, that’s why we started the band in the frst place,” says Mila. “We just love playing together and that’s why we do it.” Eloise echoes this sentiment. “We had so much fun in the studio this time around. We were [mainly] thinking about how sick everything was sounding.”

Although they’ve seen more of it in the last few years, the band’s worldview hasn’t shifted much. Given three members aren’t old enough to vote, they’re using their platform to make their own mark on the future of America. Eloise explains: “When we’re playing to so many different people in so many states, we may as well use that platform. Every show, I’ll encourage people to vote and hopefully we’ll have a female president sooner rather than later.” Bela quietly muses with wide eyes –“The alternative is certainly pretty scary.”

Having thrown themselves into new experiences without skirting around such big narratives, the band have had to grow up fast in the last few years – a subtle evolution which can be heard lyrically and sonically on ‘No Obligation’. “We’ve defnitely changed as people,” refects Eloise. “We also got better at our instruments too, so we learned how to express ourselves that way. It’s just different, we just write about what’s going on and what’s changing in our lives and world.” Perhaps like any good friendship, trust and maintaining the fun have been the most crucial ingredients in the eye of the storm. “It helps that we’re sharing everything with three other people before we’re sharing it with the whole world,” says Bela.

For Eloise, that’s pretty much the essence of what punk stands for in the year 2024. “I think that punk is whatever you want it to be. It’s doing what you want with your friends and not caring what other people might think about it,” she says. “It’s about amplifying your voice because nobody else will and doing what you feel matters. It’s whatever you make it to be, it’s building a community.” By those metrics, The Linda Lindas are as punk as they come.

‘No Obligation’ is out 11th October via Epitaph. DIY

“PUNK IS DOING WHAT YOU WANT WITH YOUR FRIENDS AND NOT CARING WHAT OTHER PEOPLE MIGHT THINK ABOUT IT.” – ELOISE WONG

Photo: Jessie Cowan

LESSONS IN

In the aftermath of significant loss, SOCCER MOMMY’s Sophie Allison has translated the grieving process into emotional fourth studio album, ‘Evergreen’.

Words: Matthew Pywell

istening to ‘Lost’, the opening track on ‘Evergreen’, fans of Soccer Mommy will instantly recognise the sense of startling intimacy that presided over her breakthrough 2018 album ‘Clean’. Returning to a sound that favours acoustics, it provides the platform for an exploration of loss and grief, which Sophie Allison has been dealing with in the wake of her 2022 album ‘Sometimes, Forever’.

‘Evergreen’ deals with a complex range of feelings. How can you capture the grieving process on record and translate such a contrasting period of time? For Allison, the answer lay in directness.

“When I was writing these songs and demoing them, it was just me and an acoustic guitar,” she begins. “On this record it feels like there’s a lot of stuff accompanying me; we have pianos and lighter things that help the song rather than obscuring what the original picture was.”

Doing away with the more experimental and saturated feeling of ‘Sometimes, Forever’, ‘Evergreen’ is a journey of vast darkness and light in fuctuating measures. ‘Some Sunny Day’ is a hazy mirage of a song, with dream pop atmospherics conjuring images of sunshine breaking through a window that’s been shut for too long. At the other end of the spectrum is ‘Dreaming Of Falling’: a track akin to being swallowed by a void and plummeting down alongside the musician.

“Grief defnitely isn’t linear. I wanted the album to have this back and forth between feeling like you’re sad and drowning in that feeling. Sometimes feeling all of this is actually beautiful and very lifting,” she says. The record suggests that there’s no right or wrong way to go through the grieving process; that it’s fexible and can affect you for the rest of your life. ‘Dreaming Of Falling’’s lyrics toil with the idea of reminiscing: “And I can feel the memory tainted by the way I’ve changed / Yeah, I could look back but it’s not the same / I see from the shadows now”. It’s something that Allison has been thinking about a lot.

“I think, with a lot of memories, they’re tainted. Looking back at this totally normal memory now has a pain to it because of someone who’s gone or there’s something missing,” she suggests. “You can move on from that in certain ways but it’s going to

have a different sheen to it. Within that song it feels like being stuck between having to move forward and wanting to hold onto the past, but you can’t go back to how it ever was.”

When we look at grief from an outside perspective it can be easy to see it strictly as a negative experience and an isolated one. Allison credits her partner Julian for supporting her and says that leaning on her friends for distraction has been incredibly valuable. It also cannot be understated how much of a role positivity plays in loss. “There are so many moments in these songs where things feel like beautiful reminders and that’s what makes them painful,” she says. “It’s not all ‘everything is awful and you never want to think of someone again’. Death is normal. We don’t have things forever and it’s important to realise that’s normal and okay.”

Album closer and title track ‘Evergreen’ hits this bittersweet nail on the head. Allison still clearly feels the presence of the person she lost but it’s never portrayed as a wholly terrible thing. Instead, it feels like an everlasting legacy imprinted on her that she will carry forever. It’s where the album’s balance between loss and healing reaches a critical and poignant balance.

Now entering her late twenties, Allison has learnt a lot about herself over the last few years. When thinking about her progress as a songwriter since her breakthrough as a teenager, she still recognises parts of herself in those old songs but is keenly aware of the difference. “I still feel a lot of the things I felt on my earlier stuff. [But] I had to relearn some of the songs for the last shows we did in America and some of the things I was saying I was like, ‘Wow, I would never say that now!” she notes. “A lot of the emotions still ring true but my songwriting has evolved. Now I have a deeper understanding of why I feel certain ways and when I’m lying to myself.”

Often recognised as a largely autobiographical musician, Allison notes that fctional characters give her a chance to overcome writer’s block. One of the best tracks from 2016’s ‘For Young Hearts’ was ‘Henry’: a folk-laden vignette that swooned for the imagined protagonist, who left a trail of admirers but did little to reciprocate. Having characters as a blank canvas rather than drawing from reality is

“We don’t have things forever and it’s important to realise that’s normal and okay.”

ACCEPTANCE

something she notes comes more easily to her, and on ‘Evergreen’ we get a similar taste with ‘Abigail’ – an ode to her Stardew Valley character. It feels completely standalone, as suddenly we’re catapulted into a technicolour world which wouldn’t have looked out of place on 2020’s ‘Color Theory’. An ode to escapism, we hear of Allison’s willingness to be totally devoted to Abigail in complete fantasy. “I love to escape into a world that can really hook me,” she says. “I love to escape when I have free time and just really delve into something. [Stardew Valley] is just really calming to me, talking, getting crops, completing long storyline plots and dating all the villagers; that’s everything I could want in a game.”

Just like small distractions with friends, video games and the escapism they bring can be crucial in avoiding overwhelming feelings. The last time Allison talked to DIY in 2022, she spoke of experiencing all-encompassing emotions, before quickly moving on to other ones in a state of push and pull. Since then, the process to learn more about herself has continued and she’s been working on her sense of perspective. “The mindset is really important,” she notes. “I think you have to allow yourself to feel things but also not make them worse than they have to be. Seeing both sides of things is very hard to do but it’s important not just for things like this but for everyday life.”

The period after Covid was a particularly challenging time as she found herself avoiding people after shows while still being active on social media. But being avoidant wasn’t solving any of her problems. “Since then, I’ve wanted to change that, I’ve been trying to face a lot more head on and that’s brought up diffculties, but also brought up places where I feel like I can do

more than I thought I was able to do,” she says. “There are times where I’m proud of myself, and sometimes I’m not; it’s a tumultuous road but it feels like a road to better and better places.”

Across ‘Evergreen’, we hear the hauntings of the departed and experience Allison’s wrestling with the ever-twisting throes of change. On her fourth record, Allison’s greatest strength as a songwriter is her ability to translate the crossfre that grief brings. We’re caught between the past, present and future, looking to move on but scared of what we might lose if we do. But it ultimately feels like a homage to the legacy our most cherished friends and family have in our lives. On ‘Sometimes, Forever’, Soccer Mommy was having a hard time accepting the impermanence we can feel in life, but ‘Evergreen’ speaks to the ripples we’ll continue to have long after we’re gone.

‘Evergreen’ is out 25th October via Loma Vista. DIY

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO SOCCER MOMMY

Ahead of ‘Evergreen’, dig into the best of Sophie Allison so far…

‘Your Dog’ (‘Clean’, 2018)

Arguably THE Soccer Mommy song, people fell in love with ‘Clean’ upon hearing ‘Your Dog’ and its bittersweet contrast between pining affection and outright refusal to be taken advantage of.

‘Circle The Drain’ (‘Color Theory’, 2020)

Brilliantly skirting the realms of stoner rock, ‘Circle The Drain’ feels like a sweltering well of sound, slowly drawing you into its grasp.

‘Shotgun’ (‘Sometimes, Forever’, 2022)

The most experimental era of the Soccer Mommy catalogue to date, ‘Shotgun’ is punctuated by explosive atmospherics that feel like watching a paint gun fre in slow motion.

“My songwriting has evolved. Now I have a deeper understanding of why I feel certain ways and when I’m lying to myself.”

Photos: Anna Pollack, Zhamak

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READY OR NOT

When Peace Okezie, otherwise known as Master Peace, was named as this year’s recipient of the hugely prestigious Ivor Novello Rising Star Award back in May, the 24-year-old’s subsequent red carpet conversation was loaded with the experiences of what had come before. “To get appreciated and seen for my work – for more or less the frst time properly,” he noted. “It’s mad.”

Awarded to the country’s most promising songwriters (and decided by a team of songwriting experts), the win came among a year of objective successes for the Londoner. In March, he released critically-acclaimed debut album ‘How To Make A Master Peace’ – an Indie Sleaze 2.0 record that cherry-picked from the most hedonistic ends of ‘00s Britain in ways that fell right on the zeitgeist. In 2024 alone, he collaborated with Metronomy and Santigold, dance star TSHA and rapper Wale. Live, he’s a proven force who’ll round out the album cycle this month with a hometown show at Camden’s 1,500-capacity Electric Ballroom. And yet, says Peace, every victory has been an uphill struggle.

Ahead of the album’s release, he requested to be let go from his previous record deal with EMI. “I wasn’t dropped, I wanted to go. I just didn’t like it there and I didn’t think they cared so let’s not waste anyone’s time,” he says. “I’d sell out shows and do more tickets than half the artists on their roster. I wasn’t streaming well but I had fans. But then a kid can walk in and get a through ball into the stratosphere and it was like, ‘what the fuck?’. I’ve just always got to work harder and it’s been like that since the beginning of time.

Now a fullyfledged Ivor Novello winner, the industry should be plain sailing for MASTER PEACE. But, ahead of this month’s latest EP, he explains why there’s still far too much fighting to be done.

Words: Lisa Wright

“I was asking Santigold how she stays motivated and she just said, ‘This is it. This is just how it’s always been’,” he continues. “Name me one Black pop superstar in the UK right now on the level of someone like Harry Styles? There’s not one. And when you deep it like that it makes you look more into it. Same with indie music – okay, Bloc Party, cool, but who else is there? So for me, I can win an Ivor, I can sell out a tour, I can get in the charts but it’s still [very hard]. Whereas everybody else, they’re hailing them. I’ve sat down and spoken to Rachel [Chinouriri] about it and it’s like, they don’t want us to come through. We’ll give you the crumbs.”

In conversation Peace is charisma personifed, delivering each answer with the kind of warm yet incredulous laugh that’s surely come from years of being proven unfortunately right. But underneath his affable demeanour, the point remains: despite cosigns from all the right corners, Peace has still found himself fghting to get a look in.

A current bugbear is with the rapid ascent of The Dare – essentially, the American electroclash counterpart to the resurgence Peace has spent the past few years trying to bring back on UK shores. Fuelled by memories of listening to The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem and MIA on the soundtrack of ‘00s sci-f drama Misfts, with an album cover shot by iconic Skins photographer Ewen Spencer and an Adidas trackie aesthetic, ‘How To Make A Master Peace’ was the perfect party precursor to BRAT summer. “Then The Dare gets the [fast pass] and now it looks like I’m his son, whereas if you do your research then that’s my son!” he hoots, halflaughing, half-serious. “So again you fnd yourself

thinking, ‘Why am I doing this?’ But I ain’t a victim. I come from the mud. So it goes over my head because I know what the bigger picture is.”

The bigger picture, this month, lands quite literally in the form of ‘How To Make A(Nuva) Master Peace’: an EP-shaped extension of the album that brings in a new lane of pop-leaning commercial dance to the mix. Inspired by the likes of Disclosure, Deadmau5 and even David Guetta – “but old school Guetta when he was cooking, not the rubbish we get now!” – it’s the frst step of a new phase in which Peace is once more trying to jump ahead of the curve. “I’m fucking off the guitars man! Not in the way that I’m never revisiting it, but everybody makes indie now. When I came in, everybody wanted to be a rapper so I fipped it and made indie music. Now everyone makes indie music, so… “ He shrugs, by way of a conclusion to the sentence.

Having enlisted Georgia for one of his debut’s danciest cuts ‘I Might Be Fake’, the new lane isn’t a total curveball but, much like that album’s efforts to build a whole retro-nodding world, going forward the musician is similarly ambitious. If tracksuits were the uniform of LP1, then LP2, he says, will be “leather, high heels, hot pink”. “It’s gonna be very zesty, I’m excited,” he continues with a grin. “We were in the hood for the debut album, then we won an Ivor so we’ve got a little bit more money now and we’ve gotta up the swag a little bit, make it a bit more in your face. I wanna make a crazy thing and it be risky as fuck but that people will talk about forever. I’ve been obsessed with a lot of ‘80s people like [‘Super Freak’ singer] Rick James: that bad boy, curly hair swag… leather and Maison Margiela boots… that’s where the budget’s going.”

The frustrations are still more than real, but Peace is also charging ahead regardless. He tasted a particularly sweet moment at the Ivors ceremony when, stepping up to receive the trophy, he spotted his old record label on another table. “Out of all of it, them being there was banter. One of their artists was up for the same category too…” he chuckles. But as he moves forward, the main thing Master Peace wants is for Black indie artists to simply be offered a seat at the table.

“Rachel is big in my eyes right now,” he says, talking once more about his friend and peer, “but she’s not as big as The Last Dinner Party and she makes good enough music to be in the same realm. If we’re gonna give these people a chance, then give someone like Rachel a chance to really cut through and get the same love they’re getting. She just cancelled her tour because there’s no money and that’s why I go back to the frustration, because the opportunities – where there are any –are very slim.

“When you’re always getting sidelined, when you’re pushing against the grain and doing things that people haven’t done yet…” He pauses: “Nobody that’s made [the sort of] album that I’ve made has won an Ivor Novello, but nobody’s chatting about it. So what do I need to do for everyone to say, ‘Maybe he’s valid?’ I’ve got the fans, I’ve got the following. We’re over here so if you ain’t catching up, that’s fne. We’re gonna do whatever we need to do and then, when it’s time, you’ll realise.”

‘How To Make A(Nuva) Master Peace’ is out now via PMR. DIY

“Name me one Black pop superstar in the UK right now on the level of someone like Harry Styles? There’s not one.“

Photo: Royd Ringdahl

PURE

BALANCING HER SIGNATURE

SONGWRITING CANDOUR WITH SIDE

PROJECT FIZZ’S FLAIR FOR POP

MAXIMALISM, ORLA GARTLAND’S SECOND

SOLO OUTING ‘EVERYBODY NEEDS A HERO’ FINDS HER FLYING HIGH AND PUTTING FAITH IN HERSELF.

WORDS: DAISY CARTER. PHOTOS: NICOLE NGAI.

“Idon’t always feel so represented when I listen to straight-up pop music, because I think, ‘Life just isn’t this simple’, you know?” Orla Gartland shrugs. “Break up songs and love songs are so black and white sometimes, and that’s just not my experience of relationships. My experience of relationships is knotty. It’s ‘I love you, BUT…’”

They may not make for your typical Top 40 fare, but those four words could well be a neat subtitle for ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ – Orla’s ambitious but nevertheless earworm-packed second solo outing. A nuanced, considered exploration of a relationship’s in-betweens – the vast swathes of feeling that are neither grand declarations of adoration nor barbed post-break-up exchanges

– it’s an album which, in her own words, “brings a little spotlight to the sticky feelings”. Tracing a zig-zag through the air with her fnger, she explains: “The line is like this. It’s never simple. But that’s what a lot of pop music does – it rounds the edges off.”

It’s just as well, then, that Orla herself has always favoured slightly blunter angles. Having been a stalwart presence in the alt-pop sphere since her 2019 debut EP ‘Why Am I Like This?’ (the title track of which made her even more of a cult name when it featured on the soundtrack for Netfix’s Heartstopper), she’s since carved out her own niche at the crossroads between musical accessibility and emotional complexity, deftly exploring love, life and early adulthood in a way that truly resonates with young people navigating the same.

If her lauded frst full-length, 2021’s ‘Woman on the Internet’, cemented her as a master of this craft, then the fantastical interlude of FIZZ – a passion project-cum-supergroup she formed with best friends dodie, Greta Isaac and Martin Luke Brown –allowed her to take things up a notch, dipping her toe into more audacious, ostentatious waters.

We’re now almost exactly a year on from FIZZ’s soaring debut release ‘The Secret To Life’, and Orla’s landed back on Earth – in Devon’s Middle Farm Studios, to be precise. She’s holed up in the West Country haven when we speak via video call, attempting to fnd a solid wif connection before a day of recording live sessions for ‘...Hero’’s imminent arrival. Something of a home away from home, this is where she crafted both solo albums and FIZZ’s full length, fnding focus within its four walls.

“When I’ve worked on music in London, I always feel like there’s something on in the evening and I’m just running around like a fucking headless chicken,” she grins. “Plus, I feel really comfy here. I haven’t been in a lot of fancy studios in my time, but RAK and Abbey Road and all those kinds of spaces [aren’t] inspiring to me at all. They’re really stiff and posh, and I just don’t get on well in places like that. There are amazing instruments here and it is like an absolute playground, but it’s also very unpretentious.”

As it turns out, familiarity breeds not contempt, but content. Though she self-confessedly “can get a little bit micro-managey,”

Orla explains that the collaborative process of making the FIZZ record allowed her to

approach ‘...Hero’ with an open mind, imbuing her newborn with a sense of striking dynamism. “Because I care so much about what I do, I’m sometimes slightly precious about my projects,” she says sheepishly. “But with FIZZ I realised I didn’t do that because I just trust those guys completely – with my whole life, let alone a song. “A similar thing happened with Dec,” she continues, referencing the new album’s storming Declan McKenna collab ‘Late To The Party’. “I hadn’t had anyone feature on a [solo] song before, and I also don’t LOVE the culture of just giving the second verse to some random artist you don’t know just to have your song do bits.” There’s a slight pause, as Orla gives the wry smile of someone to whom authenticity and artistic integrity clearly mean a lot. “Dec was my frst choice for who I wanted to do it and he was down, which was amazing. So once he was in, it was just like ‘run wild! You’re here for a reason – do your thing!’”

This creative self-assurance isn’t anything new, per se; she’s always released her solo work via her own self-described “little label” New Friends. But on ‘...Hero’, Orla began to back herself more than ever before. “The older I get and the more I do this, the more sure I become that it just fts my personality to do things that way. I like being the boss, basically,” she smiles. “It’s not a question of authority necessarily, but I do think [being signed to a bigger label] just waters down the art a lot of the time; if there are lots of cooks in the kitchen, that’s where it can all get a bit murky.”

She notes that, in a post-‘Taylor’s Version’ world, there’s a far wider understanding of what it means to be independent and to own your own masters. Although her experience of self-releasing is “unhinged and very full on”, it’s also “incredibly important to [her]”. “What I love so much is not having someone breathing down my neck saying ‘the track list isn’t ready’ or ‘that song’s not good enough’,” she explains. “That’s the holy grail, in a way – the prize of all the hard work and having to self-fund it is that I get to call those shots. Yes, I might not have the marketing or the reach of someone with hundreds of thousands of pounds of Universal money behind them, but holistically, I do just feel so proud of this music. There’s a correctness that feels worth the slog.”

Simultaneously her boldest and most vulnerable work to date, it’s little wonder that ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ is the source of so much pride. ‘Three Words Away’, for example, indulges in industrial percussive textures and gloriously groove-laden horns; ‘The Hit’, meanwhile, is a folk-tinged, gently undulating confessional of codependency. “It was a conscious choice to commit to whatever decisions I was making more,” she nods. “Like, if a guitar part is going to be there, it should BE there. I’m so comfortable in this space and am around a lot of people that gas me up, to the point where I can give it everything I’ve got.”

Last time DIY caught up with Orla, for an early LP2 preview, she hinted that the album was “me moving a little bit away from ‘nice’ and a bit more towards being quite unapologetically loud”. Here, the likes of ‘SOUND OF LETTING GO’ and ‘Late To The Party’ see her come good on that promise.

“IT’S IMPORTANT TO ME FOR MUSIC TO NOT TAKE ITSELF SUPER SERIOUSLY, BECAUSE THAT’S JUST NOT WHO I AM AS A PERSON.”

“I gave you your favourite t-shirt / She gave you trust issues,” she sings on the latter – a stomping, semi tongue-in-cheek

HEROINE

rage at her partner’s exes that’s both bolshy and brilliantly fun.

She grins: “I think something I learned from FIZZ is that it’s important to me for music to not take itself super seriously, because that’s just not who I am as a person. I remember when I frst came to London, I kept writing songs like I was Laura Marling – everything was really minor and moody. And I thought, ‘Why isn’t this working?’ And it was because I’m not like that. I think you have to kind of flter your disposition [into your music], and the humour is important to me.”

Ultimately, it’s this commitment to being wholly herself which makes Orla’s second such an intriguing proposition. Offset against the humble sincerity of ‘Simple’ or the fnger-picked intimacy of ‘Mine’, the pulsing beat of ‘Backseat Driver’ and cocky swagger of ‘Three Words Away’ reiterate that no person – and no relationship – is 100% perfect, 100% of the time. “Exactly. ‘If you really want me / Take me as I am’,” she affrms, quoting the record’s driving lead single ‘Little Chaos’. “That’s what a good relationship is, isn’t it? It’s bringing all of that to the table and having someone who holds all of it.”

And, though ostensibly a record about her current long-term relationship, in the end ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ is as much about Orla’s relationship with herself as it is her partner.

One aspect that’s particularly – but subtly – powerful, we suggest, is that it explores love from the perspective of a queer songwriter without that framing having to be explicit. LGBTQ+ artists are often treated in terms of their sexuality before their personality, but here, it’s all just Orla.

“It’s an undercurrent that runs through everything,” she nods. “The bi experience is so interesting to me, because sometimes I just don’t feel straight enough to be straight, and sometimes I don’t feel queer enough to be in those spaces either. It’s funny – there’s all these tropes of being greedy, or being indecisive, and I actually think it’s an incredibly lonely experience.” She gives a slightly self-deprecating laugh.

“I’m not out here trying to represent all the bi people, but that is [my] perspective and that is a lot of what makes being in a relationship complicated for me and other bi people; there’s this sense of the other side of you that you might be neglecting.”

When it comes to being a hero, then, Orla is of the opinion that very few of them really wear capes.

Rather than referencing the lycra-wearing, powerwielding Marvel types (something she says “made me cringe every time I thought about it”), the album cover – which she devised alongside creative director and fellow FIZZ member Greta Isaac – plays with sartorial stereotypes and a rogue phone wire to represent not the people who can move mountains, but the people who are doing their best.

“When I made the songs, I was thinking a lot about the feminine urge to do it all; that’s kind of where the hero thing came from,” she says. “That’s certainly my experience, and I see it in my mam, her mam, my aunties, and so many of my female friends. There’s this kind of manic spinning plates energy.” She illustrates: “I want to be thriving in my career, a great partner, a great friend, to go to the gym fve times a week… I don’t know where it comes from or what I’m trying to prove – or even to who, half the time – but I’m curious about it.

“My heroes are the people around me that I perceive to be navigating life in all its ups and downs and [are] retaining their sense of identity through that. I don’t think heroes need to be these aspirational people on pedestals that we’re looking up to. I think it’s almost more meaningful when they’re people we know in complete detail.”

Between the space-claiming, remit-pushing bangers and the understated beauty of its quieter moments, ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ is at once messy and mature, a true-to-life encapsulation of what it is, really, to be young and in love. “As a person and as a personality, I’ve still got so much learning and growing to do,” Orla smiles. “There’s still a wavering sense of fnding myself, but [this record] feels so much more sure of itself than album one, and everything that went before it. It is a process, but I love that; if everyone was just making music when they were a fully formed, fully realised person, I’m not sure how interesting that would be.”

‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ is out now via New Friends.

DIY

“A LOT OF WHAT MAKES BEING IN A RELATIONSHIP COMPLICATED FOR BI PEOPLE IS THIS SENSE OF THE OTHER SIDE OF YOU THAT YOU MIGHT BE NEGLECTING.”

WITH A LITTLE HELP FROM HER FRIENDS DECLAN MCKENNA

A pocket guide to Orla’s mates and musical collaborators.

From breakout teen to indie-pop stalwart, our Dec hardly needs introducing. Now three albums and nearly a decade into his career, he also boasts an uncanny Macca impression (seriously, look it up).

DODIE

A veteran of indie YouTube, dodie was going viral long before the clock app came along. With two Top 10 EPs and a Number Three album, her intimate solo work lands right in the sweet spot between commercial success and cult adoration.

GRETA ISAAC

A whizz in both the recording and design studios, Greta has a string of solo singles besides FIZZ, and helped bring the visual world of ‘Everybody Needs A Hero’ to life.

MARTIN LUKE BROWN

Having cut his teeth as a co-writer and producer for the likes of BTS, Dylan, Jacob Banks and more, Martin’s debut solo album ‘damn, look at the view!’ landed last year.

“WHEN I MADE THE SONGS, I WAS THINKING A LOT ABOUT THE FEMININE URGE TO DO IT ALL.”

REVIEWS

This issue: SOPHIE, Porridge Radio, Laura Marling, Pixies and more.

A welcome celebration; an answerphone message revisited.

SOPHIE

The decision to release the eponymous fnal record from late pop pioneer SOPHIE is one innately riddled with challenges. Not only does it face all the typical criticisms of a posthumous album, it also stands in comparison to the monolithic legacy of her debut and only full-length record, the GRAMMY-nominated latex pop behemoth ‘OIL OF EVERY PEARL’S UN-INSIDES’: a project so defnitive and singular it’s near-impossible to fathom a successor.

The album also bears the weight of uncertainty from the producer’s devoted fandom. Though social media discourse has primarily consisted of a grateful embrace of unreleased music, it’s also provoked debates on the record’s authenticity and dated sound. ‘SOPHIE’, a record near-fnished at the time of her death in 2021, certainly has integrity, being “lovingly completed” by her brother and studio manager Benny Long, so says the press material. But for a good chunk, it revisits a bygone hyperpop soundscape that predates the inventions of 2018’s ‘OIL…’ – an archaic move that understandably calls to question the artistic license required of its yearsdelayed release.

Yet to belie the continued reverence of this sound – one that SOPHIE helped to frst create, that

constitutes such a strong part of her legacy – would be a disservice to its timeless transgression. It is still, of course, scaffolded by rubbery, post-humanist, avant-garde, hyper-commercial bubblegum pop; a capturing of the artist’s otherworldly philosophies and intangible satire. See, for example, the arid, dystopian synths on ‘The Full Horror’, the sprawling trance of 2019’s ‘Plunging Asymptote (feat. Juliana Huxtable)’ or the cutesy sky-high vocals of ‘Why Lies (feat. BC Kingdom and LIZ)’. Then there’s the satiating queer euro-trance and gritty, synthy ragers that colour the record’s mid-section; the flthy ‘Berlin Nightmare (feat. Evita Manji)’ and shivering coldsweat of ‘Gallop (feat. Evita Manji)’ expertly follow the free-form high of ‘Elegance (feat. Popstar)’.

It’s here that ‘SOPHIE’ is most affecting. Where her irreplaceable ability to manipulate the texture and temperature of sound is its most potent, it’s like an old friend has returned. Later, the off-piste ebullience of pop entries ‘Exhilarate (feat. Bibi Bourelly)’, ‘Always and Forever (feat. Hannah Diamond)’ and ‘My Forever (feat. Cecile Believe)’ signal the return as bittersweet. Indeed, given the context, this posthumous self-titled release feels more commemorative than conclusive. It’s a welcome celebration; an answerphone message revisited. It’s no ‘OIL…’, but it’s pure SOPHIE. Otis Robinson LISTEN: ‘Elegance’

PORRIDGE RADIO

Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me

Secretly Canadian

At certain points on Porridge Radio’s fourth studio album – swelling opener ‘Anybody’, say, or the hauntingly raw ‘Lavender Raspberries’ – there are dense, crescendoing arrangements that hit as cresting waves, threatening – but never quite managing – to drown frontwoman Dana Margolin completely. Written off the back of a period of intense touring and romantic tumult, ‘Clouds In The Sky They Will Always Be There For Me’ is in many ways a record of treading water; it’s a body of work that documents not the shipwreck nor the rescue, but rather the furious, beneath-the-surface efforts to keep oneself afoat. Inspired by professional burnout and personal heartbreak, it tackles the thorny question of how artists can invest so much of their identity in external channels – in their work, in their relationships – without losing grasp on themselves in the process. It makes sense that all 11 tracks on ‘Clouds…’ began life as poems; where 2020 breakout record ‘Every Bad’ found Porridge Radio amid a sea of post-punk peers, here Dana’s lyricism and delivery land closer to the depth of feeling of Sharon Van Etten or Weyes Blood (‘Wednesday’; ‘In A Dream’), their evolution over the album’s course refecting its slow but sure tilt towards thematic light. Initially, there’s a sort of ragged desperation to her vocal tone, particularly in ‘Anybody’’s urgent “I’m trying to reach you” refrain. The strings-led ‘God Of Everything Else’, meanwhile, sees her light a quiet fre of resilience, sipping on the volatile, vulnerable break-up cocktail of loss, self-loathing, jealousy and anger (“It’s not that I’m too much / You just don’t have the guts”).

The record’s electronic-tinged midpoint ‘You Will Come Home’, then, acts as the eye of the storm, a place of emotional purgatory in which Dana yearns for more certain days (“I would do anything to see what I’m waiting for”). And it’s this sense that mental and emotional progress can so often be so hard-won that makes the fnal fourish of triumphant closer ‘Sick Of The Blues’ all the more satisfying; here, Dana’s voice still has traces of that same ragged desperation, but this time, there’s an audible edge of defance – of hope. Daisy Carter LISTEN: ‘Sick Of The Blues’

A record of hard-won emotional progress.

Both stunningly intimate and endearingly raw.

LAURA

MARLING

Patterns in Repeat Chrysalis / Partisan

Laura Marling’s rightly-lauded last album, ‘Song For Our Daughter’ (2020), saw her achieve the supreme feat of creating an intensely moving body of work around an imagined child; in the four years since, she actually has become a mother, and the result is ‘Patterns In Repeat’ – a tapestry of love, lineage, and the inextricable links between parents and their children. Now eight albums in, Marling has always mined emotional depths with only the most simple of tools – namely, an acoustic guitar and that singular voice – and here, her signature understatedness is taken even further. The record features no drums at all; instead, each track is blanketed by swathes of lush strings, any additional embellishment having been deemed surplus to requirements. As such, ‘Patterns In Repeat’ is both stunningly intimate and endearingly raw; recorded in Marling’s home studio with her child there in the room, there are aural fngerprints of domesticity – her baby’s gurgling, or the shake of a dog collar – stamped across the fnished product, enduring testaments to the context of its creation. The love of a parent is an obvious, palpable throughline – opener ‘Child Of Mine’ is the purest distillation of such, a pact made and promise sworn: “Last night in your sleep you started crying / I can’t protect you there though I keep trying / Sometimes you’ll go places I can’t get to / But I’ve spoken to the angels who’ll protect you”. Around this central spool, however, are wound the threads of the myriad other emotions parenthood awakens. ‘Looking Back’ (written by Marling’s own father when he was in his twenties) and the incredibly poignant ‘Your Girl’ (which lands like a response to the call of ABBA’s ‘Slipping Through My Fingers’) both speak to a renewed, acute awareness of the passing of time; centrepiece ‘The Shadows’ is a refective rumination on how the start of one chapter necessitates the end of another. The twinned ‘Patterns’ and ‘Patterns In Repeat’, meanwhile, see her consider her own childhood through a different, more empathetic lens, having gained a deeper understanding of the behaviours and decisions of her parents.

“I want you to know that I gave it up willingly / Nothing real was lost in the bringing of you to me,” Marling sings softly on the titular closing track. Ahead of giving birth, she has said she faced the internal question of whether motherhood would dilute or extinguish her artistry. ‘Patterns In Repeat’ is a deft and conclusive answer. Daisy Carter LISTEN: ‘Patterns In Repeat’

Photos: Renata Raksha, Steve Gullick, Tamsin Topolski

A clear creative vision.

ORLA GARTLAND Everybody Needs A Hero New Friends

Following both 2021’s debut full-length ‘Woman On The Internet’ and her work with indie supergroup FIZZ, who released ‘The Secret To Life’ last year, Orla Gartland’s second fnds her at her most brash and bold, the record revolving around a clear creative vision. She uses dark humour and angsty cliche to embrace inner turmoil, and it’s the awkward everyday moments that make for the most interesting musical ones: “No woman can be an island, but I can sure as hell try,” she sings on the closing title track. There’s a ‘90s infection through most of the record, particularly on ‘Backseat Driver’ and ‘Late To The Party’, the latter also featuring a guest spot from Declan McKenna. She veers between guitar anthem overload and folky calm in the likes of ‘Mine’, and alongside the thumping drums and relentless basslines, Orla’s voice is a soaring constant, ‘The Hit’ and ‘Who Am I?’ highlighting her dexterity. Effortlessly jumping between belted choruses and wistful pauses for vulnerability, she orients herself around the conficting forces of uncertainty and longing. Charlotte Grimwade

LISTEN: ‘Late To The Party’

SLØTFACE

Paradise Pop. 10

ANTI-

Christian Lee Hutson is a storyteller above all else, and it has never been clearer than on ‘Paradise Pop. 10’. Opening track ‘Tiger’ has an almost unnerving stillness to it. For the most part just vocals and piano, it immediately demands attention. Though that quiet is not a mainstay of the album, it is an arresting tool to immerse one into this world even more. ‘Carousel Horses’ signifes a move towards a more animated side of the singer — earnest harmonies, and guitars that feel simultaneously euphoric and distressed. Those emotions are woven into every riff and drumbeat; his lyrics are often gently delivered and yet able to hit with intense force, best heard in the piano-led, spatial ‘Flamingos’. Lyrically, the record feels like an exercise in catharsis, while sonically it’s like the exhale of relief which follows. Wistful and tenderly so, ‘Paradise Pop. 10’ is completely entrancing. Neive McCarthy LISTEN: ‘Flamingos’

Film Buff Propeller

There’s something wholly satisfying to the opening of Sløtface’s third full-length – and second with founding member Haley Shea as the focus. The rollicking ‘I Used To Be A Real Piece Of Shit’, as fully front-facing as its title suggests, immediately evokes the early excitement that surrounded the Norwegian band as they emerged in the middle of the 2010s. To say this energy sustains itself through the record’s eleven tracks would be somewhat of an exaggeration – the overarching concept of taking tropes from flm and TV leads ‘Charlie Calls’ and ‘Tired Old Dog’ falling somewhat fat, as if there’s a direct reference missing somehow. ‘I Confess, I Guess’ too is a little too mid-paced to leave anything to hold on to. But where the songs work with and without context, it’s a joy, in particular the staccato, Biffy-echoing guitars of ‘Ladies Of The Fight’, the gigantically pop punk ‘The Great Escape’ that’s an ideal foil for Haley’s vocal, and the delicious literal roar that is the cherry on top for chaotic closer ‘Quiet On Set’. Ed Lawson LISTEN: ‘The Great Escape’

LEON BRIDGES

Leon Columbia

If Sunday morning was an album, Leon Bridges’ self-titled third offering would be it. Dripping in his now-characteristic warmth, it’s abundantly clear from the off that Leon’s richly soulful vocals are primed for that time. ‘When A Man Cries’ feels like being on the precipice of something huge, and it soon proves this to be true – the drums that come in halfway through are transportive. And it’s a sparkling, tender journey that the singer embarks on. On ‘Panther City’, he evokes dappled light and laughter in the car — the guitar tone is golden, and the nostalgia is a hit to the chest. Leon has always been a master at such wistful reminiscence, and here is no exception. Rock paper scissors, the smell of gumbo, whiskey and ginger – he deftly narrates specifcities until they become something universal. The sun-soaked, mellowness of his lyricism is truly evocative — every anecdote brings you right into the thick of this world, sweltering under the Texas heat he so lovingly depicts. ‘Ain’t Got Nothin’ On You’ is a saccharine, heart-on-sleeve ode to a lover, while ‘Laredo’ is a groove inviting contemplation of connection that takes you by surprise. ‘Leon’ is a rich, romantic collection of songs, a love letter to love and to his hometown of Fort Worth, Texas. That adoration is captured in every note and guitar line. Ultimately, on ‘Leon’, Bridges crafts an album that is at once deeply personal, and yet expansive and shared. Neive McCarthy

LISTEN: ‘Laredo’

Having been recorded alongside January’s ‘Wall of Eyes’, there’s every reason to presume a record titled ‘Cutouts’ consists of tracks The Smile opted not to include on that second full-length. With that in mind, it doesn’t surprise that the record is similarly atmospheric in nature – from the noodly ‘Eyes & Mouth’ to the swooping ‘Tiptoe’ via ‘Don’t Get Me Started’ which ebbs and fows itself into a dubby breakdown towards the end of its runtime. Equally, it’s only really the record’s closing tracks that offer something of a hook, ‘No Words’ going from a church bell-like loop to propulsive drums and a tempered motorik style, and closer ‘Bodies Laughing’ making use of acoustic guitar and an almost foat-along vocal turn from Thom Yorke. With the sum of the trio’s musical parts now known, and this quite literally coming from the same sessions as their previous, to summarise ‘Cutouts’ as more of the same might seem a tad obvious a statement to make, but it’s just about the most accurate. Ed Lawson

LISTEN: ‘No Words’

Photo: Jack Bool

CHRISTIAN LEE HUTSON

SOCCER MOMMY

Evergreen

Loma Vista

Grief is a diffcult feeling to reckon with. But on her fourth album, Sophie Allison – aka Soccer Mommy – does exactly that: from accepting time’s slow destruction (‘Changes’) to feeling stuck in the past (‘Thinking of You’), each track on ‘Evergreen’ is hauntingly beautiful. While Sophie has always been an acclaimed songwriter, here she harnesses the power of her talents and hits home with uncomfortably relatable lines like “I don’t want to be let down / By another perfect memory” (‘Evergreen’) and “And I can feel the memory tainted / By the way I’ve changed” (‘Dreaming of Falling’). By enlisting producer Ben H. Allen III (Animal Collective, Deerhunter, Belle and Sebastian), ‘Evergreen’ moves away from the shoegaze of 2020’s ‘Color Theory’ and the glitchy synths of ‘Sometimes, Forever’ (2022) and instead boasts breathtaking arrangements of acoustic guitar, futes and strings that pair impeccably with her lyrics; the drum build-up in the chorus of ‘Driver’ gives the song a playful edge, while the fute and string outro to ‘M’ is one of the album’s best – and most chilling – moments. Elsewhere, ‘Abigail’ is a dreamy, kick-your-feet-in-the-air love song, which gets even better the moment you realise it’s about the purple-haired Abigail from Stardew Valley. Similarly, ‘Salt in Wound’ pairs mournful lyrics with rock-infected riffs to make a deceptively upbeat earworm. Much like grief, ‘Evergreen’ has its highs and lows, but ultimately, it makes you feel less alone and like you’re going to be OK. Sophie Flint Vázquez LISTEN: ‘Abigail’

POM POM SQUAD Mirror Starts Moving Without Me

City Slang

PIXIES

The Night The Zombies Came BMG

If one takes 2022’s ‘Doggerel’ as cementing the idea of a Pixies 2.0, the record which fully realised the glimmers of greatness that threatened through 2016’s ‘Head Carrier’ and 2019’s ‘Beneath the Eyrie’ while discourse raged (and rages) on, then, to make like its protagonists and borrow a phrase from our French cousins, plus ça change. ‘The Night The Zombies Came’ is unmistakeably Pixies: ‘Kings of the Prairie’, ‘Johnny Good Man’ and opener ‘Primrose’ perhaps the most ‘them’ of all. There’s some choice wordplay, from the lost dog ballad ‘Mercy Me’ including the invocation “…and I prayed to Saint Bernard”, to closer ‘The Vegas Suite’ managing to rhyme “save us”, “hate us”, “forgave us” and the titular “Vegas”. And, of course, there’s another new bassist, the record featuring the debut of Band of Skulls’ Emma Richardson. It’s when the pattern deviates somewhat from the expected that ‘The Night The Zombies Came’ is at its most exciting: the ’50s sonic cues that peppered ‘Doggerel’ remain, but the spite doesn’t. If ‘sprightly’ was a surprising descriptor last time around, then try jolly and dreamy (‘Hypnotised’), and genuinely pretty (the sprawling yet infectious ‘The Vegas Suite’). The exuberant blues-punk romp of ‘Ernest Evans’ is a delight as is the ’70s punk of ‘Oyster Beds’, while ‘Motoroller’ treads the new/familiar line with enviable dexterity to leave an open-ended question: does it sound like something else, or has everything else just borrowed from Pixies? Emma Swann

LISTEN: ‘The Vegas Suite’

FINNEAS

For Cryinʼ Out Loud

Polydor / Interscope

For a man with 10 GRAMMY Awards to his name, it’s taken a surprisingly long time for FINNEAS to come into a solo sound that feels recognisably his own. Rightly hailed for his game-changing production work alongside sister Billie Eilish – a canon that will forever be written into the annals of history as shifting the course of pop music for an entire generation – his output under his own guise has, until now, felt decidedly less singular. Though 2021 debut ‘Optimist’ was a solid collection of radio-friendly songwriting, the necessary personality to lift him out of his sibling’s shadow seemed lacking.

It’s a shame that internet discourse, in the way it seems to always do, pitted Pom Pom Squad’s Mia Berrin against Olivia Rodrigo back in 2021 because both made use of similar visual tropes. As, notwithstanding the notion of setting two women of colour against each other being an issue in itself, there is ultimately much on ‘Mirror Starts Moving Without Me’ that the masses won over by ‘GUTS’ would very much enjoy. Pom Pom Squad’s second full-length presents a protagonist uncomfortable in their own skin, using at frst a synthetic pop palette and later (and far more successfully), a more familiar grungy guitar sound. ‘Messaged’ and ‘The Tower’ both bristle with unease as they offer big guitars, while the stunning ‘Montauk’ and album centrepiece ‘Everybody’s Moving On’ are folky, if not almost country in their sound, following a Bright Eyes-Jenny Lewis-Best Coast lineage. The industrial ‘Villain’, on which breathing sounds manifest percussion, makes like a homage to Billie Eilish’s ‘Bad Guy’ (although, it should be noted, a recent tour alongside Poppy may also point to her track ‘Anything Like Me’). A little of the opening tracks’ emotional impact is lost in their sugary, pixel-perfect presentation, particularly the otherwise punchy ‘Street Fighter’ – but that aside, ‘Mirror Starts Moving Without Me’ is a rewarding listen. Bella Martin LISTEN: ‘Montauk’

Much that the masses won over by ʻGUTSʼ would very much enjoy.

For the making of its follow-up, FINNEAS decided to change tack. Rather than squirrelling away on his own, he opted to assemble a band of sorts and craft ‘For Cryin’ Out Loud!’ as a collaborative effort, flled with the chemistry of players sparking in the room. Maybe it’s this that makes ‘Little Window’’s dusky Americana or the Harry Stylesesque shimmy of ‘2001’ shine; maybe the ideas on the musician’s second are just simply more interesting. But from the jazz bar piano and wry lyrics of opener ‘Starfucker’ (“You think you’re so underground / But you’re so much less profound”) to ‘Cleats’, which starts off in fairly nondescript jangly territory but takes a rich, unexpected turn in the middle eight, ‘For Cryin’ Out Loud!’ rings with character. Penultimate ballad ‘Family Feud’ could land in the realms of schmaltz were it not for the poignancy of its acutely specifc lyrics: “And you’re only 22 / And the world is watching you / Judging everything you do”. Instead, its inclusion feels notable; a ready nod to the sister that made his star, sat within an album that proves he’s more than capable on his own. Lisa Wright LISTEN: ‘2001’

TOUCHÉ AMORÉ

Spiral in a Straight Line Rise

“I’m bad at taking photos of the people I love the most,” rasps Jeremy Bolm on ‘This Routine’, “I just think they’ll always be there, when we all know that they won’t.” It’s a telltale sign of one of the many spirals referenced in Touché Amoré’s sixth studio album, a record that encapsulates a sonic whirlwind of anger, angst, loss and melancholia thematically in keeping with their recent output, although less singular than before. Its sound stretches the edges of the melody-driven hardcore the band have owned, at times fully embracing the minimalism of scene contemporaries La Dispute or the scuzzy rock of the Lou Barlow-featuring ‘Subversion’. The shifts are subtle but notable, providing another brilliant backdrop for Jeremy’s largely pained candour. Opener ‘Nobody’s’ sets the tone as he declares himself nobody’s business, while early highlight ‘Hal Ashby’ delivers the album’s most powerful lament. “I’ve done what I can do be the glue,” he resigns on ‘The Glue’, pairing shoegaze riffs with understated visceral screams. “I couldn’t see it through,” he concludes. “We caught fre”, snarls Julien Baker, as she returns for the third album running on closer ‘Goodbye For Now’, cementing the resignation that underpins much of ‘Spiral In A Straight Line’. Yet in its fnal moments, Jeremy offers a glimmer of light, another nod to the scattered hope that has founds its place throughout Touché Amoré’s history: “I’ll try to come around.” Ben Tipple

LISTEN: ‘Hal Ashby’

Photo: Bao Ngo

JAPANDROIDS

Fate & Alcohol

ANTI-

The announcement of this fourth Japandroids LP came as mixed news to the faithful; it will be their last. Years of radio silence had led many to conclude that the Canadian duo had quietly called it a day already; instead, they’re back with a parting shot, seven years after the ambitious ‘Near to the Wild Heart of Life’ split opinion. This time around, the title suggests a return to the boozy, fsts-to-the-sky garage rock that they made their name with on ‘Post-Nothing’ and ‘Celebration Rock’, on which the anthemic likes of ‘The Nights of Wine and Roses’ and ‘The House That Heaven Built’ played as paeans to hedonism and revelry. Instead, though, singer and guitarist Brian King is on more refective form. The exuberance of old remains, but it’s tempered with a new self-awareness, as if the band know that this chapter of their lives is closing; ‘Chicago’ rings out with nostalgia, ‘D&T’ balances breezy melody with self-excoriating lyricism, and ‘Fugitive Summer’ simmers with restraint, at least until an explosive coda. ‘A Gaslight Anthem’ laments a broken friendship, while ‘Positively 34th Street’ is the track that captures the record’s central confict better than any other, balancing the storytelling of ‘Near to the Wild Heart of Life’ with the buoyancy of their classic material. There’ll be no tour in support of ‘Fate and Alcohol’, so the album, and particularly stormy closer ‘All Bets Are Off’, are goodbye; by wrestling with the implications of their carefree early years on this fnal release, Japandroids have ensured they’ll be remembered not just as party starters, but as thoughtful songwriters, too. Joe Goggins

LISTEN: ‘Positively 34th Street’

HALF WAIF

See You At The Maypole Loving Memory

If Half Waif’s aim was to refect her surroundings while writing ‘See You At The Maypole’ in its fnal form, then she can consider it a task well done. The seventeen track album is so relentless in its sadness, so emotionally fraught that – owing in part to Nandi Rose’s crystalline, piercing vocal – it’s as if the record could shatter at any moment. She makes use of varied sonic textures: the demo-style drum track of ‘Big Dipper’; the minimalism of ‘Sunset Hunting’; the almost wrong-speed hyperpop beat of ‘Ephemeral Being’; and perhaps most effectively the synth pattern in ‘I-90’, which echoes the bright lights shining through during a night time drive. But the record’s black cloud remains – in fact, it is only in closer ‘March Grass’, with its rollicking drum pattern, that any release emerges. Its lyrics mirror the tone – they reference her miscarriage directly in opener ‘Fog Winter Balsam Jade’ (“You made me a mother”) and ‘Mother Tongue’ (“The red water / Flowed from me”), and elsewhere more generally: see ‘Slow Music’’s “I’m not stuck / I’m just taking my time”; ‘Velvet Coil’’s “I don’t wanna talk / I just wanna hold still”; and ‘The Museum’’s “I wish I was laughing / I just cannot see a way out of this”. ‘See You At The Maypole’ is a challenging listen not through sound or even particularly subject matter, but in not reaching its end under a similarly black cloud as the record itself. Bella Martin LISTEN: ‘Ephemeral Being’

BASTILLE & EMI

Across their 14 years so far, Bastille have regularly pushed against the expectations of your average indie-pop band; from their propulsive breakthrough hit ‘Pompeii’ and its gruesome lyrical roots, through to their ReOrchestrated shows – in which the band reworked tracks from across their discography to perform with a full orchestra and choir – Dan Smith and co. have rarely seemed content sticking to the rulebook. This time, the famously restless frontman has returned to his history-mining roots to create a collection of “story songs”, written entirely from the perspective of characters from across myth and decades of culture. For anyone expecting a new Bastille record under a different guise, look away now; billed under ‘Bastille Presents’ – a somewhat clunky but necessary differentiation – this fourteen-track project is a different beast entirely. Closer to the intimate, acoustic leanings of their standalone flm soundtrack ‘Hope For The Future’, ‘& (Ampersand)’ is ambitious in its scope of protagonists and narratives but gorgeously stripped back in musical nature. As a result, there’s an intimate, hushed feel that accompanies the whole thing, amplifying its spirit as a storytelling vehicle. ‘The Soprano & Midnight Wonderings’ is a particular highlight, with lead vocal duties taken up by band collaborator Bim to create a truly stunning offering, while sonic textures (strings, gang vocals, even lyrics sung in French) are used throughout to help anchor each track’s atmosphere and context. Granted – as the record’s opener ‘Intros & Narrators’ cleverly outlines – these are very much tales told from Smith’s perspective, as opposed to a comprehensive history lesson, but it’s an innovative, immersive and wholly enjoyable project nonetheless. Sarah Jamieson LISTEN: ‘Emily & Her Penthouse In The Sky’

GEORDIE GREEP

The New Sound Rough Trade

While ‘The New Sound’ is primarily alternative pop, signifcant bossa nova and samba infuences run throughout. The musical theatre-infused ‘Holy Holy’, the swooning croon of ‘If You Are But a Dream’, and the prog-rock outro of ‘Blues’ make for a record with 100-turns-a-minute that consistently defes expectations. Lyrically, too, Geordie shapeshifts into an assortment of grotesque characters. While the stalkerish narrator in ‘As If Waltz’ dreams of marrying a sex worker, ‘Holy Holy’ recounts a meticulously organised, self-satisfying “chance” encounter. Meanwhile, in ‘Motorbike,’ the speaker wistfully fantasises about shooting their partner before riding a “brand new V-Max engine.” Absolutely bonkers and utterly brilliant, if black midi’s indefnite hiatus was the high price for ‘The New Sound’, then it was a price worth paying. Sophie Flint Vázquez

LISTEN: ‘As If Waltz’

ALBUMS

FEVER 333

Darker White

Century Media / 333 Wreckords

Across two EPs and two full-lengths, Fever 333 have constructed a visceral and messy sonic palette that traverses rock, punk and hip hop, all scattered across a hard electronic bedrock. It rides frmly on the electric presence of charismatic frontman Jason Aalon; his brash, dynamic voice completely dominates, as adept at triplet rap verses (‘NO HOSTAGES’) as canyon-sized choruses (‘DESERT RAP’) and blood-pumping screams (‘HIGHER POWER’). Matching the incendiary sociopolitical lyrics (“If guns don’t kill people / And people kill people / Then guns don’t kill people / Cops kill people”) is ‘DARKER WHITE’’s pared-down and direct musicianship. This is aggressive music distilled down to its focused essentials; simple bulldozer riffs, huge beats, and violent stabs of digital synths. Across 14 tracks, a touch more loose chaos would’ve made for a more well-rounded album, but this is a minor criticism. An exhilarating, almost exhausting return from the band, whose claws you can practically feel tightening around your neck. Tom Morgan LISTEN: ‘HIGHER POWER’

An exhilarating, almost exhausting return.

THE HARD QUARTET

The Hard Quartet

Matador

CHRISTOPHER OWENS

I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair

True Panther

Back in August, the announcement of this new supergroup raised a fair few eyebrows. The lineup is not one you would logically put together; Stephen Malkmus, indie rock poster boy, playing alongside Matt Sweeney, who’s shared stages with Iggy Pop and Andrew W.K.? Add to the mix Emmett Kelly, a folk guitar experimentalist perhaps best known for his work with Ty Segall, and Jim White, drummer with Dirty Three, and you’ve got a strange brew in the making. No wonder, then, their debut full-length as The Hard Quartet is such an unpredictable ride. There’s all sorts going on: Malkmus indulging in thrashing punk on ‘Renegade’; atmospheric, countrifed interludes like ‘Killed by Death’ and ‘Jacked Existence’; explorative chamber pop (‘Thug Dynasty’); and freewheeling guitars (‘Rio’s Song’). Often, the songs feel improvised, as if the foor was open for any given member to grab it by the scruff of the neck and take it in a certain direction; these moments tend to be the record’s most thrilling, with the stylistic slalom of ‘Action For Military Boys’ being a case in point. Not everything works, but far more does than you’d expect, given how gleefully the band seem to be throwing anything and everything at the wall to see what sticks. Perhaps that’s why supergroups so often founder; the individual members have a tendency to be too precious about their own ideas. For The Hard Quartet, it genuinely feels as if anything goes. Joe Goggins

LISTEN: ‘Action For Military Boys’

CUMGIRL8

the 8th cumming 4AD

Words like ‘authenticity’ and ‘relatability’ might get bandied around all the time in modern music parlance, but for true honesty let us look no further than ‘uti’: the batshit centrepiece of cumgirl8’s latest release. Amid repeated chants of “fml” and “ow” comes the sort of fdgety, uncomfortable ambience that will have listeners wincing in solidarity. Forget Taylor Swift, this is the painful sound of the real female experience. Unsurprisingly for a group whose entire branding is rooted in sex-positive piss-taking, the rest of ‘The 8th Cumming’ is hardly Radio 2 fodder either. Opener ‘Karma Police’ swaps Radiohead melancholia for frenetic pacing and warbling vocals about “mental masturbation”, while ‘ahhhh!hhhh! (i don’t wanna go)’ nods to the goth pulse of Siouxsie Sioux or, to update the idea, the icy stabs of Heartworms. Indeed, much of the record roots itself in the shadier, more electronic underbelly of the ‘80s: a Cure guitar line here, a Kraftwerk nod there, all twisted together by the kind of spidery vocals that arrive like Warpaint at Halloween. ‘The 8th Cumming’ might have humour within it, but there’s also substance to be found among all the bodily substances. Lisa Wright LISTEN: ‘ahhh!hhhh (i don’t wanna go)’

To get here, Christopher Owens had to go through hell. There was a time, over a decade ago now, when his old band Girls looked set to be one of the defning bands of their generation, pairing as they did classic pop touchstones with invention and ambition. Ultimately, the group fzzled as both members struggled with addiction, and in the years since, Christopher has dealt with homelessness, a serious motorcycle accident, and the death of his former bandmate, Chet ‘JR’ White. He has made solo albums before – the strange, baroque ‘Lysandre’, the gospel-tinged ‘A New Testament’ and the loose, light-footed ‘Chrissybaby Forever’ – but none quite captured the magic that Girls’ two records proved him capable of. ‘I Wanna Run Barefoot Through Your Hair’, however, is another matter entirely; suddenly, magnifcently, he has rediscovered the songwriting tools that had been eluding him all at once. Stylistically, the album wanders, so we get blissed-out guitar pop as the record’s backbone, which he demonstrates early with ‘Beautiful Horses’ and ‘I Think About Heaven’. Later, he’ll infect that blueprint with psychedelic looseness on the gorgeous ‘I Know’ and lean into country on ‘This Is My Guitar’ and ‘Distant Drummer’. He fnally plugs in and goes electric on the handsome, reverb drenched ‘Two Words’, before the album closes with seven minutes of pure catharsis on ‘Do You Need A Friend’. The refrain on the latter, “If you really wanna know / I’m barely making it through the days,” hits mightily hard given his recent history, but the track rings out with optimism, the sound of the storm fnally passing. Christopher Owens has emerged from it with potentially one of the year’s best records. Joe Goggins

LISTEN: ‘Two Words’

one of the yearʼs best records.

Photos: Darren Craig, Sandy Kim

JAPANDROIDS

Photo by Jessie Cowan

ALBUMS

HIGH VIS

Guided Tour

Dais

The retro fadeout in High Vis’ opening title track perfectly captures the zeitgeist of their third album, one that pairs Britpop swagger with traditional hardcore fury across eleven tracks that deliberately never fully commit to either style. Now 8 years since he formed the band, vocalist Graham Sayle brims with the notable confdence of a longstanding performer, bringing with him the energy of the band’s celebrated live shows; raw and impassioned, and as understated as it is direct.

Despite being formed in London and in part due to Graham’s Merseyside upbringing, the fve-piece present with a distinct North of England vibe, brilliantly embodied in the Madchester sucker punch of ‘Mind’s A Lie’ which, alongside the mid-‘90s indie stylings of the likes of ‘Feeling Bless’ and ‘Deserve It’, effortlessly hark back to a long-gone era. It’s a masterful concoction, completed by the hardcore pit-ready chug of ‘Drop Me Out’ and single ‘Mob DLA’ for a whirlwind tour harnessing three-plus decades while remaining remarkably current. Ben Tipple

LISTEN: ‘Drop Me Out’

MICHELLE

Songs About You Specifically Transgressive

At the core of NYC-based collective MICHELLE lies an enviable ability to pen sub-three minute pop gems: take the refrain of ‘Painkiller’, the deliciously funky ‘Oontz’, or ‘Mentos and Coke’, on which the chorus is as sugary sweet as the combination in question. Unfortunately, and perhaps surprisingly for a group in which no one member takes sole vocal centre stage, the delivery too often veers towards the featherlight, creating situations in which the songs in question are bona fde bops on paper, but largely unmemorable to the ear. ‘Missing On One’ and ‘Noah’ are ‘70s soft pop, while the 2010s blogger indie and ‘90s R&B of ‘Cathy’ and ‘Dropout’ hint at nostalgia, but via a post-bedroom pop sound that’s closer to ASMR than banger. The title ‘Songs About You Specifcally’ is a wonderfully evocative one that suggests spite; if that were audible, there’d be a handful of pure gems on it. Louisa Dixon

LISTEN: ‘Oontz’

HAYDEN THORPE

Ness

Domino

Most notably, ‘Ness’, the third solo album from former Wild Beasts frontman Hayden Thorpe, is not a record which can be easily divorced from its context: namely using the words and narrative of Robert Macfarlane’s 2019 book of the same name about Orford Ness, a former nuclear testing site on the Suffolk coast. At its best, this allows Hayden to delve into cinematic territory, such as in the (melo) dramatic ‘WTF Is That’, or ‘As’, where Hayden and collaborator Kerry Andrew’s vocals tangle around both each other and a carefully introduced clarinet to mesmeric effect. ‘It’, too, charms in a similar way, contrasting easy listening sounds with uneasy arrangement. On the other hand, what one must assume is a key phrase from the original text – the repeated titular refrain of ‘Song Of The Bomb’ – is delivered in a manner so pointed it falls into cringe (and the way in which the motif reappears later in ‘V.’ suggests this was unintentional). For all Hayden does well in recreating the ebb and fow of storytelling – the use of spoken word; introducing electronic elements in later tracks as to echo the narrative of technological advancement – the literary heft of the record leaves slim pickings for pure listening. The familiarity of the vocal line on ‘He’ provides a satisfactory hook, ‘She’ is dreamy and melancholy, while ‘In The Green Chapel’ combines Hayden’s still-unmistakeable vocal with a softly-plucked guitar line that bears similarity to New Order’s ‘True Faith’. And so while the record’s intention may not be memorability, it does provide its earworm. Alex Doyle

LISTEN: ‘In The Green Chapel’

ELIAS RØNNENFELT

Heavy Glory Escho

Having spent the greater part of two decades fronting restless Danish rockers Iceage, that Elias Rønnenfelt would refuse to tie himself down to one sound on this solo debut is not surprising. But there was somehow always a cohesiveness to his band’s output that doesn’t quite pan out through ‘Heavy Glory’. It’s almost as if the record has been pieced together from three parts: frst, a series of demos (which may indeed ft with the record having begun its life during the singer’s series of low-key fan-booked gigs throughout 2020); second, a handful of tracks that posit Elias as a scratchy, troubadour Mick Jagger (a look which suits him completely, pun intended); and third, a pair of gorgeously-recorded and perfectly delivered cover versions (Spacemen 3’s ‘Walking With Jesus’, retitled ‘Sound of Confusion’, and Townes van Zandt’s ‘No Place To Fall’). Unfortunately, these follow a series of tracks on which Elias tries on others’ identities a little too obviously: the Lou Reed bassline of ‘No One Else’, the Nick Cave gothic of ‘Doomsday Childsplay’ and most obviously ‘Another Round’ on which both vocal and music owe a debt to Primal Scream’s ‘Movin’ On Up’. Musically, where Iceage’s often impenetrable layers surrounded Elias’s vocal and mirrored its ebb and fow, its centre stage focus here instead too often offers a wayward fail. The delivery, too, of lyrics surrounding substance abuse may intend to echo songwriters past, but their directness – and hint of faded glamour – instead sound dated in 2024: “Fucked just like the dealer when the easy cards been dealt” (‘No One Else’); “Storming out a cloud of X, K and cocaine” (‘Like Lovers Do’); “Hit the bottle, wash it down / While there’s still time for another round” (‘Another Round’). These then make ‘Stalker’, a track ostensibly written based on an abandoned novel, just straightforwardly icky in tone.

That somewhere in ‘Worm Grew A Spine’ (which is let down by a chintzy, rudimentary backing), Elias (re?)emerges as a Mick Jagger-Julian Casablancas hybrid with just a lick more folk – arguably a natural step forward from what he’s performed as for 16 years – is possibly too little, too late for the album as a whole. But among this handful of tracks is where this version of Elias – travelling singersongwriter, lost soul, perpetually brooding man in a dark overcoat, whoever he opts to project – makes perfect sense. The ‘60s bluesy pop of ‘Unarmed’ is an ideal case in point, its nostalgic melancholy working in tandem with his dark lyricism, while his abrasive vocal and that of guest Joanne Robertson clash to curious effect on the folkish ‘River of Madelaine’. The covers, meanwhile, are not only perfectly pitched but lusciously recorded, ‘Sound of Confusion’ a warm, pleading take, while ‘No Place To Fall’ fnds the ideal level of stripped-back for Elias’ vocals, as the soft Americana evokes the work of Conor Oberst. In short, there’s arguably a decent EP here, but as an album ‘Heavy Glory’ is a jumbled disappointment. Alex Doyle LISTEN: ‘Unarmed’

THE LINDA LINDAS No Obligation

Epitaph

Anyone who witnessed The Linda Lindas’ viral video back in 2021 knew that the quartet were onto something special but with their second full-length, they prove that their continued growth is just as exciting to witness. Considering the fact that ‘Obligation’ was made in snatches of time during school vacations, spring breaks and days off tour – three of their members are still yet to graduate high school, remember – it’s an impressively cohesive record, which builds on their penchant for hooky punk rock and refnes it into something punchier and more addictive. From the opening screams of ‘No Obligation’ through to the Blondie-esque swagger of ‘Lose Yourself’, via the urgent ‘Resolution / Revolution’, there’s a worldliness present here that many adults still struggle to pin down. If this is what they’ve got up their sleeves for Album Two, bring on whatever comes next. Sarah Jamieson

LISTEN: ‘Lose Yourself’

Their continued growth is exciting to witness.

Photo: Jessie Cowan

“... a powerful tribute to marginalized communities, celebrating their resilience and the beauty in adversity’ they endure daily.” Kerrang!

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FEATURES EPIC COLLABORATiONS WiTH iCONS TRAViS BARKER (BLiNK-182), MiKE SHiNODA (LiNKiN PARK), POWERS PLEASANT AND MORE!

ALBUMS

CARIBOU Honey

City Slang

A project that has built a cult following and a festival perennial, Dan Snaith’s Caribou returns with a sixth outing that rarely puts a foot wrong. Opener ‘Broke My Heart’ is an unstoppable force of nature, its irrepressible energy well-suited for early hours. The title track continues in this vein with pulsating drum loops and electronic grooves: this is pure feel-good music. ‘Volume’ reworks M|A|R|R|S’s iconic ‘Pump Up The Volume’ effectively, to showcase some of Dan’s infuences. ‘Dear Life’ is a thunderous potential dance anthem, while ‘Over Now’ shifts away from the house feel towards a smoother ‘80s vibe. This is 40 minutes of dance magic that showcases Caribou at its best, Dan balances the outft’s trademark sound with potential dancefoor fllers that conjure images of packed clubs. With such a joyous energy across the record, it’s easy to get lost in its layers. Christopher Connor LISTEN: ‘Dear Life’

DOLORES FOREVER

Itʼs Nothing Sweat Entertainment

That Hannah Wilson and Julia Fabrin are both established songwriters for hire is seemingly both a blessing and a curse. The pair’s debut album as Dolores Forever, ‘It’s Nothing’ is packed with well-paced, just-the-right-side-of-formulaic pop tracks from the off. Opener ‘Not Now Kids’ shimmies in on its best Janelle Monáe impression, its earwormy chorus presented like the dividing line between ‘00s electroclash and, well, ‘00s indie. But even impeccable pop songs require similarly perfect pop delivery. ‘Concrete’ goes some distance in evoking The Weeknd’s late-night drive pop, but its obvious lyrics aren’t believable. ‘Split Lip’ nods to Harry Styles in its melancholy, but fails to pack a punch in its production. Meanwhile, for the pair’s honourable thematic intentions – namely, storytelling by women beyond their twenties – ‘Go Fast Go Slow’ is ham-fsted (take “But how the world looks different through the gaze of a guy / I could have been an engineer, a fghter pilot or something,” for one), while doing less with subject matter than the likes of Tove Lo and Charli XCX recently have; ‘Thank You For Breathing’, meanwhile, is so rudimentary one would have to go back decades for it to feel transgressive in tone. Still, these are songs capable of creating glittery pop moments: perhaps ironically and least timely, without the chintzy jazzy keys presented here, one could picture ‘Stop Making It Worse’ ftting a 2010s Katy Perry perfectly. Bella Martin LISTEN: ‘Split Lip’

EPS, ETC*

*anything they refuse to call an album.

SUNFLOWER BEAN

Shake

Lucky Number

On the fve track ‘Shake’, we fnd Sunfower Bean furiously delving deeper into the riff-laden rabbit hole they started down with 2019’s stellar ‘King of the Dudes’ and continued through 2022’s ‘Headful of Sugar’: a vigorous will to explore huge riffs while never quite standing still. The opening title track and follow-up ‘Lucky Number’ manage somehow to both hint at a heavier than ever nature yet temper it somewhat with vocal effects and sonic layering, while the fnal two marry this current turn with the Sunfower Bean of old. ‘Serial Killer’ has echoes of the trio’s frst two albums while vocalist Julia Cumming channels PJ Harvey, and ‘Angelica’ uses that same shoegazey palette to grunge-down their ‘70s blues rock choices. It’s centrepiece ‘Teach Me To Be Bad’ that’s the most exhilarating here, though, the heaviness hinted at earlier fnally beginning to seep through while psych-lite fuzziness and a sizeable guitar solo leaves the track in the mid-point between a less linear Royal Blood and an NYC counterpart to bluesy Californian pair Deap Vally. Emma Swann

LISTEN: ‘Teach Me To Be Bad’

YUNÈ PINKU

Scarlet Lamb Method 808

Miles from the sad girl garage of 2022’s ‘Bluff’ and 2023’s ‘Babylon IX’, third EP ‘Scarlet Lamb’ sees Malaysian-Irish producer-songwriter yunè pinku (aka Asha Catherine Nandy) switch stealthily into gothic soft-pop territory. Take ‘Don’t Stop’ as a case in point, its rough-around-the-edges, brooding bedroom production and grungey breakdowns making it a ‘90s supernatural TV show intro by nature; or ‘Half Alive’ and ‘Midnight Oil’, their remnants of EDM torn apart by mystical and ethereal soundscapes. Long-inspired by the experimental boundary pusher Eartheater, the through-line is clear, and here pinku appears to take notes from other innovators in folktronica and alt-pop. ‘Reckless Sensation’, for example, has all the inspired sonic imagery of a Caroline Polachek cut, calling to mind a surreal purgatory akin to ‘Blood And Butter’, while the depressive night-drive melodrama of ‘Believe’ sounds straight from a Cecile Believe or Hyd writing session. Although ‘Scarlet Lamb’ is a gentle stab in the dark – a self-subversion that doesn’t reinvent the wheel – it does make roads in establishing its own dark-pop mythology, and this transformation is a gutsy 180. And on the whole, yunè pinku makes it work; more importantly, she makes it interesting. Otis Robinson LISTEN: ‘Reckless Sensation’

A handy lil’ list of albums worth getting excited for.

THE HORRORS Night Life

The outft’s sixth album comes with a change in line-up, set for release on 21st March.

DIVORCE

Drive To Goldenhammer

Unlikely to be a spot just off the M1, the Nottingham act’s frst full-length will reach its curious destination on 7th March.

SASAMI Blood On The Silver Screen

Despite its cinematic title, Sasami’s cues for LP3 include Lady Gaga, Britney, Kelly Clarkson and Bruce Springsteen. Out 7th March.

POPPY Negative Spaces

Single ‘they’re all around us’ hinted at an exciting return to metallic riffs and piercing screams, and she’s recruited ex-BMTH man Jordan Fish as co-producer. Released 15th November.

Photo:

Yulissa

Benitez

LIVE

One for the history books.

CHAPPELL ROAN Brixton Academy, London

Photos: Corrine Cumming

In music, some success stories are rapid – a star being propelled into the cultural atmosphere at breakneck speed – while others come good after meticulous planning, each move along the way considered and crafted. Few, however, seem to have grown and blossomed into life with such organic glee as that of Chappell Roan, 2024’s undeniable breakout star.

In the year since the release of her 2023 debut – the chintzy and glorious ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess’ –her own rise to prominence has been like no other. It was Chappell’s US stint alongside pop juggernaut Olivia Rodrigo earlier this year that saw her dedicated, cult fan following begin to expand, before a slew of huge festival slots (via a viral TikTok moment or two) really propelled her into public consciousness; her set at Chicago’s Lollapalooza, meanwhile, allegedly drew the biggest daytime crowd the festival has ever seen. It’s a feat that feels entirely justifed by her brilliant debut and determined hard work, but equally, one that makes her current UK touring run – which was booked well ahead of the pandemonium that now surrounds her – all the more special.

Playing a run of three sold-out shows at the O2 Academy Brixton would normally be the fodder of dreams for artists on their debut full-length’s tour, but somehow, her run here feels like the smallest of underplays. Fans snake through the streets of Brixton dressed to the nines in the standard pop show regalia (cowboy hats, feather boas, sequinned bodysuits and more) while many ticketless hopefuls wait outside the venue, chancing their luck at grabbing last minute entry. Inside, the venue is ablaze with giddiness. The girls, gays and theys gathered inside are barely able to contain their excitement; the singalongs to tracks pumped out across the venue’s PA are wincingly loud, while a slew of A-listers – including Elton John – have all turned up for the occasion. By the time the lights go down and Chappell and her camo-clad band step out on to the venue’s historic stage, you get the feeling some fans might be ready to combust.

The fervour that meets the opening beats of ‘Femininomenon’ is tremendous, with the crowd matching Chappell’s plea to “play a song with a fucking beat!?” with delirious delight. It’s this same dizzying energy that swirls around the entire show from both performer and audience, heightening that lightningin-a-bottle feeling that Chappell seems to so embody. Even against the relatively pared-back stage set (compared to most modern pop spectacles, especially), her show is spine-tingingly good, with the singer’s presence and vocals anchoring the entire thing without the need for extra bells and whistles.

A mid-set rendition of the YMCA-ish ‘HOT TO GO!’ sets the room alight with arms-aloft, camp glee, and the lamenting swagger of ‘Casual’ is potent, while tender moments punctuate proceedings – the one-two of ‘Coffee’ and ‘Kaleidoscope’; the penultimate ‘California’ – with a quietly devastating but poignant power. By the time she reaches the twinkly crescendo of closer ‘Pink Pony Club’ and its glitzy metaphor for community and acceptance, there’s barely a dry eye in the house and a sense of freedom and joy in the air that’s so palpable you can almost touch it. An undeniably special night, with an undeniably special performer, this is certainly one for the history books. Sarah Jamieson

JACK WHITE Islington Assembly Hall, London J

ack White is nothing if not a man who pays attention to detail, so that tonight’s show at a sub-1,000 capacity venue – announced just days prior as part of a series of similarly unpublicised shows – directly mirrors the way in which new album ‘No Name’ was released is entirely by design But what’s more pleasing – and arguably harder to fashion – is how his stage presence echoes it too. There’s minimal production: the lights vary only in their shade of blue and the band are all in black, the only nod to excess being the use of a disco ball and a leather jacket that’s given up on a few sweaty songs in. Together, they make for a compelling show that’s as mesmerising as it is raucous. At one end, ‘Bombing Out’ is every bit the punk riot in real life as it is on record, while a cover of Robert Johnson’s ‘Kind Hearted Woman Blues’ reaches full ‘70s heavy metal blast. At the other, the hip-hop sermon of ‘Archbishop Harold Holmes’ is complemented by a series of spat one-liners on duplicitous politicians in a rhythm pulled directly from a preacher’s rule book, and is followed by a (mostly) tonguein-cheek call for ‘Amen’. It’s a straightforward rock’n’roll show – albeit one with an intermission, as Jack and his band briefy leave around the midway point.

As the show continues, yet more clicks into place. Jack is part-way through a typically erratic guitar solo when keys player Bobby Emmett begins to echo his same refrain on a loop, his action noticed and met with a quick nod before Jack turns and moves over for their movements to gradually converge into one. Where most of Jack’s collaborators have acted as foils – and at this point his rhythm section, longtime live bassist Dominic Davis and drummer Patrick Keeler (also of The Raconteurs), are suitably understated – here, he’s got somebody to match his freak.

Perhaps most telling – both of the evening and of the devil-may-care mood that seems to emanate from the ‘No Name’ release and rollout – is the choice to drop ‘Seven Nation Army’ in mid-set. The song is obviously met with a roar, and Jack goads the crowd into singing along to the riff from the off, before opting instead to close with The Raconteurs’ ‘Steady As She Goes’.

Jack may have earlier jested that this is “the kind of rock’n’roll you’re not gonna get at Wembley Stadium,” but in reality, these are the kinds of set list decisions that he probably couldn’t even make at Brixton Academy, let alone Wembley Arena; and therein lies his enduring appeal. Emma Swann

Like his recent album rollout, itʼs pleasingly contrary.

Photo: David James Swanson

LIVE

REEPERBAHN FESTIVAL

Various venues, Hamburg

Photos: Emma Swann

Across the four-day stint of Reeperbahn 2024, Hamburg’s St. Pauli district must surely have one of the highest concentrations of venues-per-kilometre in Europe. Transforming an area usually known for its stag parties and – ahem – nightlife into a bustling hotbed of new music, throughout the festival there are more than 50 stages for people to weave their way between.

Kick-starting proceedings on Reeperbahn’s inaugural night are the Netherlands’ cult favourites Personal Trainer, who open DIY’s very own stage at the iconic Molotow Club: one of Germany’s most famous grassroots spots which, in its time, has hosted the likes of The Killers, The White Stripes, IDLES and more. With seven band members, one and a half drum kits, and frequent instrument swaps, their

set-up is a busy one, but they balance the tightrope between controlled synergy and playful chaos with aplomb. Moving from Amsterdam to London, next up on DIY’s stage are one of the British capital’s buzziest new prospects, mary in the junkyard. Showcasing wares from their recently released debut EP, the trio’s unjaded affection towards both each other and the room’s packed audience is as wholesome as it is sincere. Indeed, this complete absence of pretension almost makes you forget just how intricate their work really is; then you see Saya Barbaglia change from bass to viola mid-song, or hear Clari Freeman-Taylor’s singular vocals, and their specialness is driven home once again.

yet whose presence is as indomitable as ever.

Foiled for one night only by Goat Girl’s Holly Mullineaux on bass – an honorary Lambrini Girl if there ever was one – frontperson Phoebe Lunny ringleads the crowd in applauding selfconfessed “gay legends,” whipping up mosh pits (“Put your phone down, ‘cos I’m gonna jump on you,” she announces from atop the bar), and chanting for a free Palestine.

A taste of new music scenes the world over.

One of the joys of showcase festivals is getting a taste of new music scenes the world over, and Reeperbahn 2024 delivers such eclecticism in spades. Thursday afternoon brings us back to Molotow Club for Dutch exports The Klittens, whose democratic writing process yields a pleasingly Frankensteined performance that plays with both genre and gender tropes. Outside on the Fritz-kola stage, the ridiculously (but brilliantly) named Leocardo DiNaprio – a German outft – preside over sunshinesoaked punters with woozy guitars and earworm (or should we say ohrwurm) choruses; much like their pseudo-moniker, they’d presumably be right at home at a student night. TOUCHED, meanwhile, command every inch of the sizable Spielbude stage, the cheers elicited by their Guitar Hero rock riffs proving that South Korea’s reputation for hardcore fans should – and surely soon will –extend far beyond pop.

A short walk down the Reeperbahn, and Indra (famously home of The Beatles’ frst show in Hamburg) is tonight playing host to Lambrini Girls – a band from whom by now, we know what to expect,

Having packed out Molotow’s Backyard for their frst show in Hamburg, Sam Akpro and his band offer up a set of perfectly pitched contrast: at times he foregrounds a surprisingly delicate vocal, weaved over a bed of eerie synth work; at others, his bandmates drench things in reverb or push a grunge-imbued instrumental to its biting, gritty limit. It’s a dynamic they wear well, too – neither shy nor arrogant, their understated confdence in delivering what’s asked is hugely endearing, and, after a bout of giddy group hugs, the six depart with the crowd still eager for more.

For a certain subset of people, the recent news that frontman Geordie Greep has stepped away from black midi was seismic. This evening at Knust, though, he assuages any fears of newfound musical

conformity with a performance that cements his solo project as one that’s just as determinedly obtuse. Opening with an extended instrumental number peppered with jazz-informed undulations and tempo changes, he stands slightly hunched over the mic, his vocal delivery as urgent and fervent as a preacher. It’s a masterclass in tension and release, spearheaded by a remarkable technical talent. At the other end of the musical spectrum – and a fair bit more accessible – the Kentucky-born country-pop sensation Tanner Adell treats festival-goers to a pop-up performance

(on a bus, no less) that epitomises just why the genre is having such a moment. Naturally, Beyoncé’s latest oeuvre has something to do with it, but Tanner – who featured on ‘COWBOY CARTER’ – is a gem in her own right. Immaculately groomed yet never taking herself too seriously, she’s a serotonin-boosting ray of Southern sunshine.

Executing a set that starts in the early hours of the morning on a foreign festival’s fnal night is no mean feat, but if anyone can pull it off, it’s Antony Szmierek. The ornately decorated, intimate locale of Prinzenbar proves to be the perfect arena for his party-starting poetry, allowing him to circumnavigate the room and dance among the crowd for the likes of fan-favourite ‘Twist Forever’ and new track ‘Rafters’. Though now a live set staple, his introduction to ‘The Words To Auld Lang Syne’ – in which he explains the bizarre British custom and invites us to wish each other ‘Happy New Year’, whatever the month – is as poignant as ever, while the live debut of his Madchester-infuenced unreleased cut ‘Angie’s Wedding’ seems to move him as much as it does us. The set’s end comes all too soon, leaving chants of ‘one more song’ bouncing off the venue’s cave-like roof – an incongruous yet apt meeting of old and new that, actually, perfectly embodies this festival. Daisy Carter

MARY IN THE JUNKYARD

PERSONAL TRAINER

LAMBRINI GIRLS

TANNER ADELL

SAM AKPRO

LIVE

ALL POINTS EAST

Victoria Park, London

LOYLE CARNER

17th August

Now entering its sixth year, it’s diffcult to recall a time when All Points East wasn’t a staple on the London festival calendar. Helping wind down the curtain on festival season over the course of six all-day bonanzas, it’s morphed into a springboard for frst-time headliners to take their place alongside more seasoned names.

From Bring Me The Horizon’s 2019 showstopper to HAIM’s indie-pop masterclass last year, now this year marks Loyle Carner’s turn to make the step up. Still reeling from the success of 2022’s ‘hugo’, this evening, the local lad is hosting 40,000 revellers in East London to play his biggest headline show to date.

Ascending from cult hero to international rap megastar, Loyle’s (born Ben CoyleLarner)

journey to this point is hard-won. Personifed by his intimate, potent vocal delivery, he’s risen to the forefront of his generation – while frmly carving out his own path – operating in a separate lane to Stormzy’s powerful grime or Little Simz’s grand, slick hip-hop. We’re now in the presence of one of UK rap’s modern-day titans, something Loyle is still processing himself. He’s almost in disbelief that he’s playing after Nas, as he admits on stage: “We just supported Nas!” Stepping on stage for his headline slot, he greets the East Stage with ‘Hate’, arguably the defning single of this ‘hugo’ era that has helped propel him to the next level. From the outset, his stage presence is masterful and consistent, leaning into his impeccable sense of rhythm. ‘Yesterday’ and ‘Homerton’ take on another life, turned up a notch in both intensity and vigour. These are the songs that lifted him to this point, in a place ingrained in their roots: “I used to cycle through this park to take my son to nursery,” he reveals. As freworks cannon across Victoria Park during closer ‘Ottolenghi’, you can’t help but feel that Loyle Carner’s heyday is just kicking off – and long may it continue. Reading and Leeds, you better be watching. Rishi Shah

MITSKI 18th August

As the vast crowd hushes to pin-drop silence the moment cult hero Ethel Cain launches into opener ‘Dust Bowl’, it’s clear that today’s All Points East line-up is unlike any other. Headlined by Mitski and punctuated by unlikely TikTok favourites, today is curated for a counterculture of music lovers. It’s evident in the complete lack of bar or food queues, and the regular wave of diehard punters gliding en masse from stage to stage to make sure not a moment is missed. There’s an unbroken loyalty on display at all ends of the feld, be it for rising star Suki Waterhouse’s retro pop stylings, or beabadoobee further cementing her resounding success story with an effortless, grunge-infused performance in-keeping with the festival’s apparent dress code of baggy jeans.

It’s a unique atmosphere for a line-up of breakthrough alternative artists and, having found unexpected fame from ‘Nobody’ landing hard on Gen Z’s favourite content platform, Mitski is a ftting leader to traverse the bridge between mainstream and counterculture. It’s telling that, at the time of the show, beabadoobee’s third album sits at the top of the UK charts – a far cry from what popular music lovers were listening to just a few years back.

Cue our headliner, sat on a singular chair on a riser under a glaring isolated spotlight. She moves with precision, gliding across the chair and raising it above her head, at times mimicking with her hands the vast instrumentation that underpins her sound. Her occasional addresses to the crowd are full of a distinctive soft charm – a break from her character, she notes, declaring the set a performance piece of sorts – and across 24 songs, she serenades a respectful crowd who are certainly along for the ride. It might be ‘Nobody’ that draws the biggest reaction towards the very end of the set, but Mitski has clearly reached way beyond social media confnes. If fans are looking for substance and authenticity in a scene as hellbent to look back as it does forward, Mitski and all that have come before undoubtedly have those bases covered. Ben Tipple

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

23rd August

The frst day of All Point East’s closing weekend sees LCD Soundsystem returning to Victoria Park six years after headlining the inaugural festival back in 2018. The Brooklyn group’s

LOYLE CARNER

ETHEL CAIN

LCD SOUNDSYSTEM

core infuences of punk and electronica both get their time in the sun during a day which spans both genre and eras with aplomb. For their closing set, the band’s familiar stage setup – a square microphone and archive of classic synthesizers standing to attention beneath a mammoth disco ball – looms into view. Opener ‘Us Vs Them’ shows the band wearing their Talking Heads infuence on their sleeve before hitting their stride with a killer fve song run: ‘You Wanted A Hit’, ‘Tribulations’, ‘Tonite’, ‘Oh Baby’, and ‘I Can Change’. Frontman James Murphy addresses the Victoria Park faithful to dedicate 2007’s ‘Someone Great’ to musician and band affliate Justin Chearno, who recently passed away. “We’re trying our best,” he concludes, before exchanging a tearful embrace with Nancy Whang from behind a keyboard.

For the initiated, LCD’s two hour stretch is near faultless. Robotic beats, effervescent melodies and the heart-on-sleeve sentimentality of Murphy’s lyrics coalesce to produce a serotonin-inducing cocktail which even the chattiest of punters at the back of the vast crowd would struggle to deny. As James and co. complete their set on a hat-trick of ‘Dance Yrself Clean’, ‘New York, I Love You’, and the inimitable coming-of-age romance of ‘All My Friends’, APE’s eye for curating outstanding line-ups prevails to make for an event which rises above its faws and presents a closing weekend for a summer well spent. Matt Ganfield

A closing weekend for a summer well spent.

Photos: Georgina Hurdsfeld, Phoebe Fox, Sharon López