DIY, September 2019

ur u

l t i m a te g u

ide

t th

Pl u

yo

o

s,

e

FREE. SEPTEMBER 2019. ISSUE 89 DIYMAG.COM SET MUSIC FREE

BLOOM IN

SIX ALBUMS IN AND METRONOMY ARE STILL BLOSSOMING

2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize Congratulations to our twelve shortlisted albums

#HyundaiMercuryPrize 2 DIYMAG.COM

SEPTEMBER

Editor’s Letter

Question!

Billie Eilish drew one of Reading festival’s biggest ever crowds at the tender age of 17. What, pray tell, were Team DIY’s biggest achievements at that age?

SARAH JAMIESON • Managing Editor I somehow managed to persuade a PR (who we still work with!) to let me interview Paramore for my lil’ music website.

Even travelled to Wolverhampton to do it!

EMMA SWANN •

Founding Editor I got introduced to Milton Keynes’ only (and sadly long-gone) indie/rock night - and its £1.50 pints of snakebite and black. A formative experience in so many ways.

LISA WRIGHT •

Features Editor I won the very niche title of Best Young Actress in North East Essex. It

was for playing Maid Marian in a panto, which probably says all you need to know about the calibre of the award.

LOUISE MASON • Art Director I walked across China with some strangers which didn’t feel like a big deal at the time but now feels completely crackers.

ELLY WATSON • Digital Editor Maintained my spot on the barrier at Reading the whole day, lasting on nothing but half a Haribo, and stroked Matt Berninger’s leather jacket when he ran past me.

Ever since Metronomy’s Joe Mount told us that one of the tracks on their new album was inspired by Twenty One Pilots, let’s just say we’ve been intrigued. Now that the wait is over for the now five-piece’s sixth album, we can assure you it’s as ambitious and delicious as hoped. After all, who doesn’t fancy a bit of salted caramel ice cream to send off the summer?!

September’s bumper issue also packs in Mystery Jets and LIFE, both tackling big issues on their latest records, Dubliners Girl Band and their cacophonous return, a dive into Pixies’ new record with Black Francis, and a few nostalgic moments with Bombay Bicycle Club at their recent live shows. Plus, we’ve dedicated a whole 16 pages to celebrating the 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize - dig into all twelve shortlisted albums now!

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

Listening Post What’s been worming its way around DIY’s collective ear-holes this month?

FOALS EVERYTHING NOT SAVED WILL BE LOST PART 2

Read what Yannis has to say on the band’s second album of the year on p12.

KING NUN MASS Packed with heart-on-sleeve future anthems, the Londoners’ debut is worth the wait and then some, trust us.

BODEGA SHINY NEW MODEL

The New Yorkers may be more melodic on this mini-album, but they’re still the same witty post-punkers at heart.

3

NEWS 6 B O M B AY B I C Y C L E CLUB 12 FOALS 1 6 H A L L O F FA M E 22 DECLAN MCKENNA 24 FESTIVALS

F E AT U R E S 52 METRONOMY 60 GIRL BAND 6 4 B R I T TA N Y H O W A R D 66 SQUID 68 LIFE 72 PIXIES 76 MYSTERY JETS

NEU 26 FEET 2 8 A R L O PA R K S 33 OMAR APOLLO

REVIEWS 80 ALBUMS 92 LIVE

Shout out to: Hotdog Studios, PIAS for taking us to Hull and back (ho ho ho), the many and various O’Neill’s that have hosted us for Sound of Summer, Reading Festival and all who sail within her, Christoph at Ypsigrock, and Ólöf Arnalds for ensuring our art director did not have to sleep on a Sicilian pavement.

Founding Editor Emma Swann Managing Editor Sarah Jamieson Features Editor Lisa Wright Digital Editor Elly Watson Art Direction & Design Louise Mason Contributors Alex Cabré, Ben Tipple, Cady Siregar, Charlotte Krol, Connor Thirlwell, Diva Harris, Felix Rowe, Gareth Lloyd, James Bentley, Joe Goggins, Louisa Dixon, Matt Charlton, Matthew Davies Lombardi, Patrick Clarke, Rhys Buchanan, Samantha Daly, Sean Kerwick, Thomas Hobbs, Will Richards.

Photographers Ed Miles, James Kelly, Mike Massaro, Percy Walker-Smith, Robin Pope, Sharon López.

Cover photo: Ed Miles For DIY editorial: info@diymag.com For DIY sales: advertise@diymag.com For DIY stockist enquiries: stockists@diymag.com DIY HQ, Unit K309, mThe Biscuit Factory, 100 Drummond Road, London SE16 4DG

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

4 DIYMAG.COM

PRESENTS

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MYTICKET.CO.UK

5

Back

Club

After literally having the blues and shaking them loose,

Bombay Bicycle Club are rejuvenated and ready to take on the world again.

Words: Elly Watson.

6 DIYMAG.COM

There are some triggers that instantly transport you back in time. It might be the smell of a certain perfume, or a walk down a particular street. But, for a jam-packed Islington Assembly Hall on an early August evening, it only takes the dimming of stage lights and the familiar opening riff of ‘Emergency Contraception Blues’, and suddenly the whole room is back in 2009.

For those of you needing a refresher (shame on you), the track marks the opening of Bombay Bicycle Club’s debut and Certified Indie Classic ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’: the record that established the group - Jack Steadman, Ed Nash, Jamie MacColl and Suren de Saram - as frontrunners of indie’s late ‘00’s glory days. Now, a full decade since its release, the album is responsible for reintroducing us to its authors all over again; following the band’s decision to shatter our collective hearts by going on indefinite hiatus back in early 2016, the record’s 10th anniversary is what spurred the band’s recent return.

when you’re only 29!” agrees Jack.

Deciding to play together again after three years of pursuing other projects, the conversation about celebrating their debut quickly turned into jam sessions. “We were initially a little rusty but also nostalgic playing songs that have been around since we were teenagers,” they said in a statement published to their website this January. “More than anything it just felt great to be in the same room playing again. It made us realise what a good thing we have and has given us renewed energy and enthusiasm for the future.”

“We thought we needed to take a step back and miss it again.” Jack Steadman

“We were in this pub actually!” beams bassist Ed over a table in Hornsey’s Great Northern Tavern, reminiscing about his and frontman Jack’s conversation regarding reuniting for the event. “I was saying, ‘I think it’s really good, I’d be happy to do an ‘I Had The Blues...’ thing’, and I think everyone was on board with that after a while. But then doing something ‘looking back’ when everyone’s still in their twenties seemed like a really silly way of doing it, so we decided to do Bombay properly again. Do the ‘I Had The Blues...’ thing, but make new music and look forward.”

“It felt weird to do a reunion or anniversary show

A loss of enthusiasm and excitement was what initially led the group to go their separate ways back in 2016. Having been in the band since their mid-teens, and with four albums underneath their belt (completed by 2010’s ‘Flaws’, 2011’s ‘A Different Kind of Fix’ and 2014’s ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’), the group found themselves wanting to explore other avenues. “A lot of bands turn into sort of companies almost,” explains Jack. “You just go on tour because you need to keep the company going and people don’t even like each other anymore. You see bands like that on stage where they’re just playing the festival to take the cheque. You can see that scary nightmare almost in the future, so with us we thought we needed to take a step back and miss it again.”

And off they went to explore different paths. Both Jack and Ed continued making music - Jack with jazzy project Mr Jukes and Ed solo, under the guise of Toothless, which featured Suren on drums - while Jamie went back to university. “It made me realise how much I missed doing Bombay Bicycle Club and how much I’d taken it for granted,” says Ed. “We were doing it for so long, and I expected it to be plain sailing when I did my own thing and realised that it wasn’t. Both in the company and in the band and making music, all the rest of

They made it through the wilderness, somehow they made it through...

7

it. And then on top of it, I, as well as everyone else, grew as a person outside of this thing that we’d had in our lives since we were 15. Everyone’s a better musician now, and everyone’s grown up a bit. Everyone’s lived life outside of the band.”

They may have grown up, but the intrinsic Bombay magic is still there. When the band take to the Islington stage for the last of their four-date comeback tour, their career-spanning set is just as sharp as it was way back when. “It felt exactly the same in a really nice way, like nothing had changed,” Jack emphasises. “But then, outside of that, everything’s different. That’s the whole reason you take a break. You need that fresh perspective on touring and spending time with each other, and it’s when it becomes mundane that you take a break.

“Now, the last couple of shows that we’ve done have been the most exciting thing in the world. You can see it in the audience as well which is the most beautiful thing. When we started out, a lot of our fans were our age and they were very young shows.

Now, I look into the audience and it’s people our age as well having grown up with us, and you can see in their eyes that they’re having

those memories too. All of the comments after the show were like, ’It reminded me of a happier time in my life’, which is sweet. Also it’s important that we’re putting out new music so it’s not just nostalgia forever.”

Debuting the first taste of new music at the shows, we’re treated to but-one newie in the form of ‘Eat Sleep Wake (Nothing But You)’ - their recently-released comeback track, and the result of the very first night of a writing session in Cornwall. It’s the first glimpse into their new record, which the guys are keeping hush hush about at the moment, but is likely to land next year. Working with producer John Congleton after a recommendation from Wild Beasts, they’ve already got four tracks laid down and will be heading out to LA to record more towards the end of the year.

“He’s got a completely different workflow to us,” Jack smiles about the producer. “He’s the most spontaneous, go-with-the-flow kind of guy. I think that kind of tension can lead to something really great sometimes. It’s not always pretty, but it can create really interesting results. He’s driving us to stop thinking about it. It feels right, so let’s do it!”

“The last couple of shows that we’ve done have been the most exciting thing in the world.” - Jack Steadman

For the OG Bombay fans, there are also some intriguing updates.

Following the more eclectic palette of their last record, now the group are excited about returning to some good old-fashioned, guitar-driven classics. “There was so much stuff on the last album that you can kind of, in hindsight, see was leaning towards almost a Mr Jukes album,” Jack recalls. “It was very summery and electronic, and almost just veering away from guitar music. Now that I feel like I’ve done that, we can just concentrate on making good guitar music again.”

Photo: James Kelly.

Back and stronger as a unit than ever, Bombay Bicycle Club are now ready to start writing their next chapter. Later this year, they’ll be taking us back to where it all began with that promised anniversary tour, but then it’s full speed ahead into their future. “I think I’m gonna get emotional,” grins Ed. Us too guys, us too. DIY

8 DIYMAG.COM

3

UK TOUR 2020 1 TUESDAY 25 FEBRUARY

LONDON THE O2

2

2 WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY

MANCHESTER ARENA

4

3 1

FRIDAY 28 FEBRUARY

GLASGOW THE SSE HYDRO 4 SATURDAY 29 FEBRUARY

BIRMINGHAM RESORTS WORLD ARENA AXS.COM | TICKETMASTER.CO.UK GIGANTIC.COM | ALTTICKETS.COM SEETICKETS.COM

LANADELREY.COM

THE NEW ALBUM NORMAN F ★★★ ING ROCKWELL! OUT NOW A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS, DHP, REGULAR MUSIC & CPL PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PRIMARY TALENT INTERNATIONAL

9

SHOW ME THE PUPPY WE LOVE DOGS. YOU LOVE DOGS. HERE ARE SOME POPSTARS’ DOGS.

This month: JOSH FRANCESCHI, YOU ME AT SIX

Photo: Eva Pentel.

Name of pup: Harley Age: 4 Breed: French bulldog Favourite things: His favourite things to do are fart, snore, cuddle, lick things, chase things and go to the pub because he gets all the attention. Quite a ladies’ man actually.

Please tell us a lovely endearing anecdote about your dog: Every smart person on the planet is aware that dogs are intuitive beyond belief. My Mum has had a fear of dogs since she was young. He could tell he had to put in an extra shift with her, and be more gentle and less playful in order for her to get over her fear.

I’ll never forget a few Christmases ago when she picked him up and put him in her lap, the whole room pretty much burst out laughing.

He’d done it. He’d reversed her fears.

NE WS On the

‘Gram

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

No one was reeeeally anticipating the farmer era of Anteros, let’s be honest. @anterosofficial

WHAT LEDGE THIS MONTH: POSTMAN MAX

slowthai is really taking this whole pre-Hyundai Mercury Prize prep thing seriously... @slowthai

Here at DIY, we love music (duh) but we also love LOVE. And when one of our faves plays out our Love Actually daydreams right in front of our very eyes? If you were at Green Man, you might have noticed a group of friendly postmen wandering around, delivering inter-festival mail. What’s in your postbag, you might have asked? Maybe a love note for that bloke you met across an IDLES moshpit? A desperate apology for the person you spilled a pint on at 3am? For The Big Moon’s Jules Jackson though, there was an altogether bigger surprise. Walking on stage at the end of the band’s set, the singer’s beau got down on one knee, delivered a tearinducing speech and popped the question (don’t worry, she said yes).

Cheers to them both!

S P OT T E D

Believe it or not, pop and rock stars sometimes do normal things, too. They get lost, go food shopping, and catch buses – all sorts. This month, we clocked a fair few of them roaming around…

Lots of ‘slebs milling around Reading’s schmoozefest guest bar, including Rita Ora, Nick ‘Grimmy’ Grimshaw and Alex from Glasto (!); Fred from Spector watching The Vaccines’ secret London show; Ben Blaenavon getting excited about Bombay Bicycle Club’s return.

10 DIYMAG.COM

Marika’s Superman impression could do with some work, tbh. @marikahackman

REEPER BAHN FESTIVAL MUSIC, ARTS, FILM, WORD, DISCOURSE

SESSIONS, SHOWCASES, MEETINGS, NETWORKING, AWARDS

FOALS, FEIST, DERMOT KENNEDY, AURORA, DEAN LEWIS, SLEAFORD MODS, ELDERBROOK, PENGUIN CAFE, SASAMI, CELESTE, CHARLOTTE LAWRENCE, DONNA MISSAL, ONE TRUE PAIRING, CARLIE HANSON, TOGETHER PANGEA, PARTNER, ALI BARTER, SPORTS TEAM, THE JAPANESE HOUSE, SEA GIRLS, PORTICO QUARTET, DOPE LEMON, GEORGIA, BILLIE MARTEN, SEBADOH, IDER, MATTIEL, JUSTIN JESSO, THE SUBWAYS, AZIZA BRAHIM, TSHEGUE, SUZANNE SANTO, TAMIKREST, WE WERE PROMISED JETPACKS, JAMES TW, BUGUS, LES AMAZONES D’AFRIQUE, EFTERKLANG, JUNGLE BY NIGHT, HATARI, HÄLLAS, ISHMAEL ENSEMBLE, JONATHAN BREE, BAD CHILD, YAK, ALGIERS, AMERICAN AUTHORS, ARLO PARKS, MID CITY, YOUNG THE GIANT, STARS, ATA KAK, ALYONA ALYONA, BLANCO BROWN, BOBBY OROZA, DRAMA → AND MANY MORE REEPERBAHNFESTIVAL.COM

→ 18 – 21 SEPT. 2019 HAMBURG/GERMANY funded by

supported by

11

Organiser: Reeperbahn Festival GbR & Inferno Events GmbH & Co. KG

Track b y

Track:

Inside ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 2’ Chomping at the bit to hear the second part of Foals’ epic two album double-whammy? We got Yannis Philippakis on the blower to talk us through what’s coming. Spoiler alert: it’s Very Very Fucking Good. Interview: Lisa Wright. Photo: Alex Knowles.

1. RED DESERT

There's something about 'Red Desert' that sets up the landscape to come.

Jimmy wrote it and it's an excerpt from a longer piece. I remember hearing it and thinking it would be perfect for a film score.

With these records, we felt it was nice to have [instrumental] spaces built in, with more segues and transitions. If you listen from the start of 'Moonlight' to the end of 'Neptune', there's a complete thread all the way through.

2. THE RUNNER

It hits right out of the gate.

'Sunday' and 'I'm Done With The World...' [from the first record] end in lots of imagery of fire and the world being devastated, and this record exists in the wreckage of everything that came from that.

There's an element that's abstract, but all the lyrics should feel like they're in the here and now. There are lyrics about running through the embers and the roads, and finding a sense of purpose. And it has a big riff straight from the off. .

3. WASH OFF

'Wash Off' is a bit more wild, and there's a lust for life in it; it's about trying to find selfish reasons to keep on going and enjoy your life. There are echoes between it and 'The Runner', and we felt that they fit

12 DIYMAG.COM

musically together. They're buddies.

4. BLACK BULL

I wanted it to be like a conflicted diary of masculine confusion and negative tendencies - to write whatever I wanted and be this spiteful character. I'm a step removed, but there are definitely resonances with more of the grandiose, crazy feelings you can get from playing a show. I feel like there's a character I morph into sometimes on stage which has got this over-the-top arrogance to it, and I wanted to can some of that and put it into a song.

6. DREAMING OF

We wanted it to have the same spiky energy as some of our favourite Pixies tracks; it started off as a pop track, and then it got weirder. There's a sense of regret in this song, of tapping into a small-town feeling of trying to escape.

For me, it's set in Oxford and I don't know where that came from but it's a homage. I remember the feeling of us leaving the city, and any time you transition into a new place you end up dwelling on these bittersweet feelings towards a place that you have to move on from.

6. IKARIA

5. LIKE LIGHTNING

It came from a riff that had been hanging around for a couple of years and we were really excited by how knuckle-dragging it was in a way, and the physical pleasure of playing that groove. That's something we wanted to tap into more on these albums - going with the heart over the head sometimes and not overworking the music. I wanted 'Like Lightning' to have this sense of paranoia. It's got some of the cockiness of 'Black Bull' in it, and a survival instinct, but it's on the run now.

It's tweakier. We're super excited to play this one live; it's gonna be a banger.

'Ikaria' is named after Icarus, and it segues into the next track. 'Dreaming Of' is the end of Side One and then you go into Side Two which is starting to move away from Britain and the context of [modern society] and into this departure. All these tracks have more links to Greece.

7. 10,000 FEET

I was really inspired by a story I read of this architect from Mexico called Barragán who was cremated and there was a fight over his ashes. The compromise was to take some of them and turn them into a diamond ring. I was pretty struck with that, and this song and 'Neptune' are about these strange, modern forms of death – being

turned into a diamond and changing states, like a modern day Icarus.

8. INTO THE SURF

There are threads that run through all these [final] songs, and on 'Into the Surf' there's this shadow of death, of someone not returning from a voyage.

There's a type of Greek folk song that's always to do with the immigration of Greek people and how dying on foreign shores is always viewed as the worst fate - to die far away from your home and your family.

'Surf Pt I' [from the first record] is a chop out of a part of 'Into the Surf' and I thought it was nice to have that link as a tease.

9. NEPTUNE

'Neptune' is about trying to escape and mortality, where going into space or dying is the only solution.

It's a kind of out of body experience where you're leaving behind all the mess; there's a sense of inescapable fate to it, where you're wanting to pass on into a place that’s away from all this. And then whatever happens next, whether it's in another record or whatever, will be what happens next. It felt like a fitting way to end a long journey.

'Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 2' is out 18th October via Warner. DIY

“On these albums, we wanted to go with

the heart over the head.”

- Yannis Phillipakis

NE WS

13

NE WS

The 1975

PEOPLE

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

“Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! It’s Monday morning!” screams Matty Healy in the blood rush of an introduction to ‘People’, ushering in The 1975’s latest era. Following on from the sombre but incredibly poignant and powerful version of their eponymous track that will open ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ - as narrated by Greta Thunberg - their newest offering is, well, more akin to the intense screamo of Underoath than the band who once released ‘Chocolate’. After the all-round victory of their 2018 album ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’, it’d be easy to assume the band had finally hit their peak, hitting the jackpot of both critical acclaim and commercial success. It takes all of about ten seconds for ‘People’ to smash through it once more. A melding pot of Death From Above, Refused and even a touch of Primal Scream, their new track is, admittedly, a deliciously divisive affair; all dirty and deranged, propelled along by breakneck drums and gnarly guitars. But if ‘The 1975’ was a rousing rally call for change and rebellion, then this is its answer: there’s no going quietly now. (Sarah Jamieson)

The Big Moon IT’S EASY THEN .....................................

From a band whose standout moments have always been their most rambunctious, ‘It’s Easy Then’ is a curveball, and earworm of the most subtle kind: a few spins on repeat and the chorus will be wedged firmly in.

Throw in Jules Jackson’s resigned delivery (“I’m so tired of being capable” is a sucker-punch of an opening gambit), swaying gang vocals, and it’s one hell of an understated bop. (Emma Swann)

14 DIYMAG.COM

Swim Deep

Declan McKenna

Pumarosa

Made for festival fields and indie discos alike, ‘Sail Away, Say Goodbye’ has an ‘80s feel that’s part New Order, part Pet Shop Boys. Frontman Austin Williams recently tweeted that the song “might be our Mr Brightside”, and, though it’s unlikely to be played on Popworld’s sticky dancefloors at 2am, the catchy chorus and buoyant synths would make Brandon Flowers and co proud. (Dominic Penna)

On his return with ‘British Bombs’, Declan McKenna subverts expectations with a scathing stream of social consciousness, aimed at foreign policy disasters past and present. The same indie pop bounce of his debut is on show, but the track benefits by also taking the odd cue from Pulp. Political without being preachy, and with hooks that won’t leave your head, this is Declan’s most mature effort yet. (Dominic Penna)

Driven by a rattling drum and bass beat and sparkling synth melodies, the debut single from Pumarosa’s second album ‘Devastation’ sounds like pure, unadulterated chaos from the offset.

Isabel Munoz-Newsome’s hypnotic vocals provide a mysterious focal point that has more than a touch of darkness to it, and this is reflected in the new video which features candlelit rituals and night vision spooks. (James Bentley)

SAIL AWAY, SAY GOODBYE ..........................................

BRITISH BOMBS .....................................

FALL APART .....................................

15

NE WS

of

Fame

Disclosure - Settle

Infectious and imaginative in equal measure, the polygonal ‘Settle’ propelled the Disclosure siblings – and their convoy of featured vocalists – into the mainstream limelight, twisting definitions of dance music and pushing the genre into exciting new frontiers. Words: Gareth Lloyd. Photo: Mike Massaro.

In early 2012, social media was revealing its new relationship with electronic music. It all started in a tiny corner of YouTube - channels uploading deep house accompanied by artistically-shot images of scantily clad girls curled up in doorways gazing out at sunsets.

This pairing of melodic house with fashion photography was reflective of a changing landscape. Dance music’s popular image was being pulled away from underground shirtless sweatboxes with wild-eyed ravers and into new territory as an idyllic soundtrack to Instagrammable paradises. And for a fleeting moment, it looked like teenage brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence were set to become the flag-bearers for the genre’s woozy wander into sunset-soaked swimming pools.

The signs were all there: they were young, talented DJs coming of age in an imageconscious world producing effervescent, sample-heavy house that struck a chord with their contemporaries. But it never really happened. Disclosure’s imagination and curiosity got the better of them.

Instead of simply churning out more agreeable beach bops, the duo chose to trawl the attic of electronic music for something more. They started to simmer the restless pops, chops and squeaks that dominated their self-released

16 DIYMAG.COM

THE

FACTS

Released: 31st May 2013 Stand-out tracks: ‘Latch’, ‘F For You’, ‘White Noise’ Tell your mates: Howard and Guy both originally thought the album’s runaway hit ‘Latch’ was “too weird for the radio and not clubby enough for the clubs.” Well, they showed themselves, didn’t they!

debut EP; instead laying down satiny synth lines on which the fidgety snare drums could catch a breath. It all came to a head in 2013 with ‘Settle’. At the tender ages of just 21 and 18, the precocious siblings turned out the definitive dance record of the moment - an electronic tour de force that transcended genre leanings, skyrocketed the pair to headline slots, and thrust a group of talented singers into the public eye; featuring artists Sam Smith, AlunaGeorge and Jessie Ware would all shoot to fame following featured appearances on ‘Settle’.

On another album, the warbling ‘Latch’ would have comfortably stood alone as a dancefloor stomper, but with Sam Smith serenading through the twinkly synthesiser, the track takes on a whole new meaning as a love song. Friendly Fires’ Ed MacFarlane elegantly weaves his way between the garage loops on ‘Defeated No More’.

What’s so striking about ‘Settle’ is the way it rides the wave of a popular trend but remembers how dance music got there in the first instance, resulting in a smorgasbord of genre influences with its own accessible sound. To think, they could have just been flavour of the month. But Disclosure never wanted to settle… DIY

17

SAT.07.SEP.19

FRI.04.OCT.19

MON.21.OCT.19

THU.24.OCT.19

WED.25.SEP.19

FRI.11.OCT.19

WED.25.SEP.19

TUE.15.OCT.19

THU.24.OCT.19

SAT.26.OCT.19 WED.16.OCT.19 TUE.01.OCT.19

THU.17.OCT.19

WED.30.OCT.19

THU.03.OCT.19

18 DIYMAG.COM

THU.17.OCT.19

SAT.16.NOV.19

WED.11.DEC.19

SAT.02.NOV.19 PHOEBE BRIDGERS

TUE.19.NOV.19

FRI.21.FEB.20

AMERICAN FOOTBALL TURNOVER SHEER MAG ACROSS 3 STAGES AT LONDON’S HISTORIC ROUNDHOUSE, PLUS STAGES AT DINGWALLS AND CAMDEN ASSEMBLY. INCLUDING: ADA LEA, ALFIE TEMPLEMAN BIG JOANIE, DISQ, JUST MUSTARD TAYLOR JANZEN AND MANY MANY MORE PLUS INTRODUCING THE NEW MIRRORS USA INDIE-ROCK PUB QUIZ

ROUNDHOUSE >LONDON

WED.30.OCT.19

SAT 02.11.19

WED.26.FEB.20

MIRRORSLONDON.COM

WED.20.NOV.19

MON.04.NOV.19

FRI.29.NOV.19

THU.05.MAR.20

FRI.15.NOV.19 TUE.10.DEC.19 THU.26.MAR.20

19

NE WS HUNTING FOR THE SOUND OF SUMMER

B

ack in June, we began the hunt for the UK’s best new band through the Sound of Summer competition, with Jack Daniel’s and O’Neill’s, and now we can reveal six brilliant new acts who are heading to the final round.

After winning their heats across the country, London’s Swimming Girls and Oxford’s Lacuna Common are two of the semi-final winners who’ll be fighting it out for a chance to be crowned the Sound of Summer 2019 champion. The four other acts competing for the final prize include Reading’s Long Day Late Night, Glasgow’s Naked Feedback, Birmingham winners Porcelain Hill and Nottingham champions Our Fold.

What’s the next step, you ask?

The six finalists will now compete to play this year’s edition of Jack Daniel’s Presents alongside Biffy Clyro on 17th October, as well as three regional shows in the run up. The winning band will play three free shows across the UK, alongside some special coheadliners - check out the details below. The decision will be decided by a panel of music industry experts, and will be announced by 11th September. Stay tuned to find out the winner!

HIT LIST In the market for more than just new music? We’ve got you covered.

This month, we’re putting our best foot forwards with some true treats for your feet. Shoe goes on; shoe goes off...

FILA PROVENANCE TRAINERS Give a good performance. Your friends at Jack Daniel’s remind you to drink responsibly.

Jack Daniel’s and Old No. 7 are registered trademarks. © 2019 Jack Daniel’s. All rights reserved.

Live the Spice dream with these freshest of creps, complete with chunky heels so you can lord it over those who don’t have footwear as good as you. Mwah ha ha.

RRP: £85. Buy it: fila.co.uk

VANS COMFYCUSH Who said that style and comfort couldn’t coexist? Prove those fools wrong with Vans’ springiest new model: typically top-notch trainers with a new sole that’ll give you those ‘walking on a cloud’ feels.

RRP: £60. Buy it: vans.co.uk

ON THE ROAD

The winners of the Sound of Summer competition will play three free shows across the UK to help them warm up for Jack Daniel’s Presents later in October. Head to diymag.com for more info and to sign up for free tickets via Eventbrite.

OCTOBER 2nd King Tuts Wah Wah Hut, Glasgow w/ Crystal 3rd Jimmy’s, Liverpool w/ Trudy and the Romance 4th The Hawley Arms, London w/ Italia 90

20 DIYMAG.COM

FRED PERRY DESERT BOOTS Some footwear may go in and out of fashion, but certain shoes are your tootsies’ equivalent of the little black dress: timeless. Invest in a good desert boot (and these are very good desert boots) and live the Graham Coxon dream forevermore.

RRP: £85. Buy it: fredperry.com

PRESENTS

TICKETS AVAILABLE AT MYTICKET.CO.UK

21

SPONSORED

DIY’S PICK OF LNSOURCE

DECLAN MCKENNA

In desperate need of a live music fix but can’t decide where or who?

If you feel too spoilt for choice, here’s just a few of LNSource’s upcoming shows worth getting off the sofa for.

Has Something To Say

Sun Silva

After releasing debut ‘What Do You Think About The Car?’ back in July 2017, Declan McKenna is back - and he’s not fucking about. New track ‘British Bombs’ comes as another pre-cursor to his second album which he’s been busy working on in a Nashville studio. While Declan’s music has always been fizzing with ideas and colour, the lyrics in this new airing raise vital questions about Britain’s involvement with the sale of arms. In many ways, it’s a straight up anti-war song from the indie dreamboat. We called him to discuss how his “space cowboy” record is shaping up. Interview: Rhys Buchanan.

Hey Declan! How’s Nashville treating you?

I’ve really fallen in love with it. I’ve got my whole band out here and we’ve been having a really great time making a record.

I’ve spent the last six months just twiddling my thumbs waiting to record this thing and now I’m here it’s all systems go.

Your politically-charged new single ‘British Bombs’ is out now, what’s the idea there?

The concept started from discussing war and Britain’s role in it. The whole time I’ve been alive we’ve been engaged in the selling of arms, and we’ve impacted lives all around the world because of it.

It doesn’t feel like we’re at war, but in the modern world you don’t need to feel like something’s happening for it to be going on somewhere else in the world.

Would you say there’s very much a punk rock message behind it?

I wanted to go for that sort of energy but to make a track that felt a bit more modern.

I wanted to do it in my vein of doing things and to make it a pop song. I think it’s important because that helps people engage with the music if it’s infectious.

One thing The Clash did very well was to

22 DIYMAG.COM

mix their brand of punk and their ideas with the pop of the time. They channelled the sounds that were on the radio with their message and it was a beautiful combination. I guess I’ve tried to do that in a way. I’ve tried to make something that’s both lyrically and musically of the present. I feel like ‘British Bombs’ is a song that could almost only be coming out in this little gap since Boris Johnson has become Prime Minister.

Did you go into this second album with any big ideas?

It’s actually a little bit space cowboy, I think that’s part of my inspiration for coming to Nashville, but it’s far from a country record.

It feels like a big story really, I love writing in stories and I think I’ve had some time to link things up in my head with this album.

I remember Paul McCartney talking about ‘Rubber Soul’ and saying that they wanted to get weird but do it a little bit at a time.

Then they did ‘Revolver’ and ‘Sgt. Pepper’ and by then it was super weird. I think that sentiment stuck with me and I like the idea of things getting gradually strange. This album is a step in that direction, it’s my ‘Rubber Soul’.

‘British Bombs’ is out now. DIY

The Old Church, London, 18th September The Londoners released acoustic EP ‘Silhouettes’ back in July - now they’re planning this one-off acoustic live outing at Stoke Newington’s Old Church before they head out on tour with buzzy newcomers Kawala.

Mikill Pane Moth Club, London,

20th September This Hackney headline will be the East London rapper’s first headline show in six years - and follows the release of new album ‘The Night Elm On Mare Street’ last month.

Annabel Allum The Waiting Room,

London, 11th September The Manchester quartet hit the capital hot on the heels of latest track ‘Dice’, released last month.

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

23

festivals

s festivals festivals festivals fest DIY STAGE 21/9/19 Molotow

Preview

SPORTS TEAM ALI BARTER PARTNER TOGETHER PANGEA

REEPERBAHN FESTIVAL 18th - 21st September

This month sees the world’s eyes head towards northern Germany for all things buzzy, as Hamburg’s Reeperbahn district plays host to the festival that takes its name for a week of live music. The Japanese House, Squid, Black Country, New Road and Gently Tender are among the acts headed to the event - as well as Sports Team, who’ll be playing the DIY stage at infamous cult venue Molotow.

If that wasn’t enough, we’re also travelling to Hamburg via Berlin alongside CD Baby, hopping on a train to be entertained by a gang of bands handpicked by German industry bods - and our own Bloxx, who’ll play in our carriage, natch - along the journey.

Q&A: BLOXX Vocalist Fee Booth looks ahead to possibly the group’s most unusual gig to date.

Hello, Bloxx! What’s new in your world?

Loads of new music and exciting things! Also a new member in the form of a pet dog on the way!

You’re going to be playing on a train, which is pretty unusual. Where’s the most unusual place you’ve played a gig before this?

I think a train wins. We have played in cafes and in business offices before, which was wild for us. …and what is your favourite form of transport, overall?

Definitely boat. I love a good boat.

Hamburg is a city well-known for its party atmosphere: what does a Bloxx party consist of?

It’s no party without inflatables and beer pong. Gin doesn’t go a miss either. Good game of Cluedo too.

Have you played in Germany before?

We played a show in Berlin which was really cool. We’re excited to come back, it’s so beautiful there!

What is quite literally next for you?

Writing sessions, and maybe a Wingstop for dinner. New music soon too.

24 DIYMAG.COM

tivals festivals festivals festival Q&A: SPORTS TEAM We interrupt frontman Alex Rice’s Ashes viewing to find out how they’re preparing to hit Hamburg.

Hi Alex! How has Sports Team’s festival season been?

It’s been great. Truck was incredible, it feels like the new Reading. It’s where alternative music still wins, it’s still king.

Have you played in Hamburg before?

Not Hamburg. We have done some dates in Germany, though, when we were with Hinds. We did Nuremberg, Munich, and Berlin. It was great, I just remember going round the markets in Nuremberg in the snow. Very nice.

Hamburg is known for its destination stag parties.

What would a Sports Team stag do be like?

[TV chef] Rick Stein has been to Hamburg, hasn’t he? [laughing] It’s a port, right? What’s the dish they only serve in Liverpool? Labskaus or something like that? We’d go for Labskaus, then to some tavernas, I think, a few quiet

drinks, then hang around the docks, just loiter.

And what’s next for Sports Team?

We’ve got a lot of touring to do. Our own to announce at some point. We’re doing a run of dates with Pale Waves which will be a lot of fun, and also some with Two Door Cinema Club. We’re playing the Millennium Dome! That’ll be great. It can feel quite stale [there], I think, so we’re trying to work out a way to do something a bit more than that, and basically just blow Two Door Cinema Club out the water every night. I did read an interview with

them and I think we’ll get on loads, it was like ‘We met the singer and he was sitting with a glass of wine and a Juul’ [laughing] and I thought that was pretty cool.

At the moment we’re in the studio working on the album, which is getting there. Very nearly done.

We’ve been in Wood Green for two weeks, and we’re going to finish it in Greece. Nobody does real stories around albums, like it used to be there’d be a real narrative on how it was written, how it was recorded. So that’s what we’re going to do.

As well as hosting a DIY Stage at Reeperbahn 2019, we’ll also be appearing at the event’s special Training Day. DIY & CD Baby will be hosting three panels on Saturday 21st September at the city’s Schmidt Theater - see you there!

25

“I’m telling you man, ‘Crazy Frog’ was a seminal moment in music…”

26 DIYMAG.COM

before it was finished because we’d built this tower of beers that fell over during the headliner’s set.”

Haphazard West Midlands band FEET don’t do things by halves. A glance at their YouTube account reveals music videos featuring alien abductions, cowboys armed with kettles, and rainbow-coloured parasols. Beyond that, hours of footage of boozy nights out and general mischief dubbed ‘FEET TV’ litters their online presence. As the band enter today’s East London record store meeting place, meanwhile, offers of coffees are quickly disregarded in favour of something stronger: “They’ll want alcohol,” their accompanying pal nods sagely as we put away the mugs.

Formed while at university in Coventry, the band initially bonded over the music society that they “ran into the ground” there. Counting The Kinks, Parquet Courts and The Stone Roses among their influences, they’re adamant that the Britpop-revivalist tag they’ve been lumped with is “bullshit”; more of note is their chameleon-like tendencies.

Seeming to change their skin with every new track, they don’t give each other an inch of space on songs like the admittedly Blur-esque ‘English Weather’ and wonky, stop-start single ‘Petty Thieving’. Each is its own wild nugget, complete with a moreoften-than-not equally odd back story (more on that later…).

Cracking open a round of brightly-coloured tinnies, it emerges that FEET have a long and troubled history - in the minds of former neighbours, at least. The band first upended from Coventry to a barnyard in Bedfordshire in 2016, which amounted to a less-than-fruitful season of songwriting. “We wrote about two songs in two months,” notes handlebar mustachioed lead singer George Haverson. “It was during a heat wave, so we just sat outside drinking Carling most of the time.” Guitarist Callum Parker, also sporting some striking facial hair, pipes up: “There was an incident with a quad bike and some combine harvesters...”

Despite being scouted by Felix White’s YALA! Records and taking their particular strain of mayhem up and down the country and further into the bosom of the music industry, the band’s reputation for vibrant live sets shows no sign of letting up any time soon - and they’ve got big ideas about where to take things in the future, too. With dance routines already an integral part of the show, FEET are looking to the “theatre element” of artists like OG firestarter Alice Cooper and, er, Earth, Wind & Fire to guide them. “Ozzy Osbourne paid someone to fire a dwarf out of a cannon in the 1980s,” says George. “I think we’d definitely aspire to be able to do something like that - as long as we had the dwarf’s consent,” he caveats.

Indie’s bizarrest new bunch, leaving a trail of madcap destruction wherever they go.

Words: James Bentley.

Photo: Percy WalkerSmith.

“We’re going to make a fool out of ourselves one way or another when we play live,” Callum shrugs, referring back to a recent show where the neck of his guitar snapped after he threw it at someone.

“I just want people to come and dance,” continues George. “If every show was like Saturday Night Fever, I’d be really happy.”

And if you think their dancefloor-favouring influences are a little out there, then FEET have only just begun. On insanely-titled forthcoming debut album ‘What’s Inside Is More Than Just Ham’, the stories somehow (!) - get even more colourful. “It’s a love story told from the point of view of a

“If every show was like Saturday Night Fever, I’d be really happy.” - George Haverson

The quintet - completed by guitarist Harry Southerton, bassist Oli Shasha and drummer Ben Firth (formerly of Dead Pretties) - then moved onto a retirement village near Portsmouth shortly after, where, perhaps unsurprisingly, “everyone was really old,” says Harry. “Nobody liked us because we were really loud. Everyone was telling us we were disrespectful and ruining their community,” adds Callum. “I’m sure we were talked about at a lot of book clubs.”

Even their first show was like something out of a Young Ones episode. “It was an absolute shambles,” recalls George. “It was a charity acoustic show, and we covered ‘Under The Bridge’. Someone was playing a cajón [a sort of percussive musical box]. We were asked to leave

hot dog,” explains George of the title track. Obviously. Jagged indie bop ‘Ad Blue’, meanwhile, refers to the time Oli accidentally put diesel engine coolant in the kettle, while ‘Axe Man’ is about the time Callum found out his house had been robbed when he popped home to cook a frozen pizza on the way to the pub.

With their sights set on eventually cracking America, Australia and Japan (lord knows what they’ll make of them), FEET are suitably excited about the potential of adding any new adventures to their gaggle of stories. “That’s why we started a band, I guess,” says Harry. “To feel like we’re on holiday more often”. Pack your suitcases, it’s gonna be a wild ride. DIY

27

ARLO PARKS Wise words and heady, soulful bedroom pop from the young Londoner.

Words: Lisa Wright.

neu

It’s Arlo Parks’ 19th birthday and, as the occasion dictates, she’s got a prosecco in one hand and a slice of Colin the Caterpillar in the other. But that’s about where the similarities end between the rising young star and most people her age.

Recently signed to Transgressive following the release of last year’s breakthrough single ‘Cola’ and its following EP ‘Super Sad Generation’, the musician’s blend of nuanced, observational poetry and smooth bedroom beats straddle the line between youth and something far more timeless. Case in point, recent single ‘george’ - a lilting summer jam that riffs on cadabout-town early 18th century poet George Byron and transposes his womanising ways into a modern playboy who woos ladies by playing MF Doom.

“Books and words were always my refuge,” she explains.

“I was quite a loner when I was younger, and if there was a story with people who were super popular and going on adventures, then I’d read about it and feel like a part of it.”

Taking up poetry-writing at the start of her teens, Arlo soon also picked up a guitar and began writing songs, cribbing influence equally from the wordsmiths that informed her increasing literary passions and a series of “really intense genre phases” of musical love. “I totally had my emo

28 DIYMAG.COM

phase,” she laughs, “and I was super into really hard rap as well. I say that to people and they’re like, ‘But you make the softest songs?!’ It’s like, yeah, but everything I listen to, I take something out of it.”

Aside from ‘Cola’’s literal mention of emo lord Gerard Way, the subtle influence of that genre’s emotional rawness and hip hop’s lyrical prowess is written all over Arlo’s work.

Citing the perhaps-more-evident likes of King Krule and Leonard Cohen as other inspirations, what unites these disparate ideas is the singer’s knack for sonic picturepainting; her’s are songs that pull you into a scene as adeptly as any of the best poets or novelists.

On ‘Super Sad Generation’, that manifests itself as four subtle, smart musings on “unconventional love”, from ‘I Like’’s take on “consumerism and how we love to have things” to ‘Romantic Garbage’ and its talk of “love that consumes you”. Currently in the studio ahead of her first European tour in support of Jordan Rakei, Arlo’s next steps feel limitless. “I’m interested in people, that’s what I like writing about,” she nods. “What we hate and how we hate; love and disgust... I feel like doing music helps me come to terms with stuff. I feel so much more comfortable in myself because I’m doing something I love.” She pauses and laughs, booze in hand like a normal 19-year-old. “Yeah!”

DIY

“Books and words were always my refuge.”

METROPOLIS MUSIC & THIS FEELING BY ARRANGEMENT WITH SOLO MUSIC AGENCY PRESENT

XLVII H E A D E D F O R T H E W AT E R T O U R 2 0 1 9 PLUS GUESTS (EXCEPT WHITBY)

STAR CROSSED SPECIES TOUR 2019 03.10 - NEWCASTLE THINK TANK 04.10 - GLASGOW STEREO SOLD OUTPETE’S 05.10 - EDINBURGH SNEAKY 10.10 - LEEDS BELGRAVE MUSIC HALL SOLD OUT INSTITUTE 11.10 - MANCHESTER DEAF 12.10 - LIVERPOOL EBGBS 16.10 - CARDIFF CLWB IFOR BACH

17.10 - BRISTOL THE LOUISIANA SOLD OUT ARMS 18.10 - SOUTHAMPTON JOINER’S 19.10 - BIRMINGHAM CASTLE & FALCON 23.10 - NORWICH WATERFRONT STUDIO 24.10 - LONDON OMEARA 25.10 - BRIGHTON GREEN DOOR STORE OUT SOLDFOUNDRY 26.10 - SHEFFIELD THE

NOVEMBER W E D 0 6 N O R W I C H W AT E R F R O N T S T U D I O THU 07 BIRMINGHAM 02 ACADEMY 3 FRI 0 8 M A N C H E S T E R N I G H T & D AY C A F É MON 11 LONDON OMEARA TUE 1 2 B AT H M O L E S W E D 1 3 C A R D I F F G L E E C LU B THU 14 BRISTOL THEKLA FRI 1 5 B U D E F O L K F E S T I VA L SUN 17 SOUTHAMPTON JOINERS MON 18 BRIGHTON KOMEDIA THU 21 EXETER LEMON GROVE THU 28 LIVERPOOL LEAF FRI 2 9 W H I T B Y PAV I L I O N DECEMBER SUN 0 1 E D I N B U R G H C AV E S MON 02 GLASGOW STEREO TUE 0 3 N E W C A S T L E C LU N Y WED 04 LEEDS BRUDENELL METROPOLISMUSIC.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK SEETICKETS.COM WILDWOODKIN.COM NEW ALBUM OUT 04 OCTOBER

METROPOLISMUSIC.COM BANGBANGROMEO.COM

A METROPOLIS MUSIC, CROSSTOWN CONCERTS, DF CONCERTS & FRIENDS PRESENTATION

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY

“WHERE TO SEE THE NEXT BIG THINGS FIRST”

“KEEPING ROCK N ROLL ALIVE”

RADIO X

GIGWISE

September

26 • Sheffield O2 Academy2 27 • Preston The Ferret 28 • Liverpool O2 Academy sold out 29 • Birmingham O2 Institute3 Oct 2 Sheffield, Record Junkee

Oct 3 Glasgow, Broadcast People Oct 4 Manchester, Night Oct 5 Brighton, Hope & Ruin

SKIDDLE.COM

Oct 9 Cardif f, Clwb ifor Bach

Oct 10 London, Thousand Island Oct 11 Guildford, Boileroom Oct 12 Birmingham, Sunflower Lounge

THISFEELING.CO.UK

METROPOLISMUSIC.COM

SEETICKETS.COM

October

01 • Cardiff Clwb Ifor Bach 02 • London The Lexington

03 • Nottingham Rock City (Beta) 04 • Northampton The Black Prince 06 • Oxford O2 Academy2 07 • Norwich The Waterfront 08 • Hull The Adelphi 09 • Aberdeen Drummonds 10 • Glasgow King Tut’s 12 • Middlesbrough Twisterella 12 • Manchester Neighbourhood Festival

Metropolismusic.com Ticketmaster.co.uk Seetickets.com Debut Album ‘Matador’ out now on Modern Sky UK A Metropolis Music, AMG, SJM Concerts, This Feeling & DF Concerts presentation by arrangement with ITB

VISIT METROPOLISMUSIC.COM FOR TICKETS + TO SIGN UP FOR LATEST ANNOUNCEMENTS

29

LAUNDRY DAY The Tyler, The Creator-tapped NYC collective.

MEALTIME Woozy alt-pop Manchester.

six-piece

from

Mealtime are getting ready to serve you up a feast. That’s if you like your dinner laced with a healthy side dose of altpop at least. Hailing from Manchester, the six-piece create woozy electronicpop numbers, which blend sugary sweet elements with experimental production to create something buoyant and fun. Inspired by LCD Soundsystem, Hot Chip, and Justice, the sextet underline their songs with darker edges to give you that extra something special with every earful.

Listen: ‘Teef’ is a brooding pop number perfect for a moody late bus ride home.

Similar to: Those mates who listen to shitty ‘00s pop on the regular but are still cooler than you’ll ever be.

With BROCKHAMPTON’s Romil Hemnani on board as a mentor, LAUNDRY DAY (all caps too, obvs) are the latest genre-fusing boyband getting ready to break through. Already with a hefty discography, the five-piece group blend hip hop and pop elements, layering them with production effects and maybe throwing in some distortion for good measure.

Their latest record ‘HOMESICK’ is full of angsty millennial anthems, and will have you hooked in no time.

Listen: Last year’s fab debut ‘Trumpet Boy’ came out before they’d even finished high school. Wubu2?

Similar to: The second best boyband since One Direction.

A. SWAYZE & THE GHOSTS Tasmanian devils with a sideline in early ‘00s garage rock.

Internet culture and our incessant checking of small glowing screens isn’t exactly the most original of subject matter, so it’s just as well A. Swayze & the Ghosts have a knack for a chorus: latest track ‘Connect To Consume’ has them listing social networks like they’re a terrace chant.

Add a sprinkling of Television’s Tom Verlaine in frontman Andrew Swayze’s vocals, and a fondness for garage riffs that harks back to the early ‘00s and the Tasmanians will have you hunting down well-worn baseball boots, skinny jeans and leather jackets in no time.

Listen: New single ‘Connect To Consume’ is an earworm and a half.

Similar to: Turn-of-the-Millennium garage rockers if their dirty habit was Instagram.

RECOMMENDED GIA FORD The sharply-dressed latest buzz-magnet from Dirty Hit. If the fact her first outing was a low-key pop bop, all ‘80s shimmering production and (possibly) nostalgia for a memory that never even existed isn’t enough, then the stunning video for ‘Turbo Dreams’ is ripped straight from a Gucci lookbook: more florals than the Chelsea Flower Show, with a cute love story to boot. The latest act on the Dirty Hit conveyor belt of buzz, by the time the six-track ‘Poster Boy’ hits in October, there’ll be a lot more people saying her name.

Listen: At the time of writing, just ‘Turbo Dreams’ (sorry!)

Similar to: Fellow ‘80s-indebted subtle synth pop fans Shura, MUNA and Empress Of.

30 DIYMAG.COM

PLAYLIST

KATE TEAGUE Wistful

Missisippi

singer-

songwriter.

That this Mississippi-viaAlabama singer-songwriter has shared stages with Lucy Dacus and Haley Heynderickx should come as no surprise.

Through singles ‘Gilly’, ‘Low Life’ and ‘Good To You’, she’s showcased a vocal that brims with emotion while floating effortlessly over a sound that veers between gorgeous folk, Americana and dream pop.

It’s like a sonic sigh (in the best way possible, of course).

Listen: A self-titled debut EP is released on 20th September.

Similar to: Sipping an icecold whiskey on a porch in summer. Possibly.

BUZZ FEED

All the buzziest new music happenings, in one place.

ON THE

THE

Every week on Spotify, we update DIY’s Neu Discoveries playlist with the buzziest, freshest faces. Here’s our pick of the best new tracks: THE WHA ‘Innocents’ TO HELL N BAKAR Class of 2019 star Bakar has shared a video for his song ‘Hell N Back’, the track set to feature on forthcoming release ‘Will You Be My Yellow’.

Watch on diymag.com now.

Chess Club’s latest signings are just out of school, have played just one gig outside their native Kilkenny, and judging by debut single ‘Innocents’, might just have a nifty line in indie bangers to come. Think north of the border neighbours Ash rather than the dark post-punk of Dublin’s recent exports.

MISS JUNE ‘Anomaly’

The One That I Wants New Yorkers The Wants have returned with new single ‘Fear My Society’ahead of a handful of UK live dates this month, and our DIY x Alt Citizen NYC show on 25th October.

Find out all the info on diymag.com.

Somewhere between ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ and Green Day’s ‘Brain Stew’ just with a whole lot more grunge attitude thanks to Annabel Liddell’s sneering vocals, the New Zealanders’ ‘Anomaly’ features on debut album ‘Bad Luck Party’, out this month.

CURRENT AFFAIRS ‘Cheap Cuts’ Written as a response to the cuts in public service funding, ‘Cheap Cuts’ winds Joan Sweeney’s vocals around a suitably wiry guitar riff, and pounding bass line. More exciting stuff from the Glasgow-based group.

DEB NEVER ‘Swimming’

Girl$, Girl$, Girl$ Manchester newbies Badgirl$ have shared latest track ‘Stella’, “a bit of a homage to Jamie T,” they say. Just as well, really. Listen on diymag.com.

Pal of Brockhampton (she features on ‘NO HALO’, fact fans), Deb’s latest, featured on the newly-released EP ‘House of Wheels’, is a deft slice of emo pop.

31

NEU/LIVE VISIONS

Various venues, London. Photo: Louise Mason.

H

ackney’s Visions, now into its seventh year, has become something of an institution. Taking place months after new band explosions like SXSW and The Great Escape, the festival’s line-ups historically collect the very best of the buzz. On a mercifully sunny day in London Fields, 2019’s edition is no different.

are caged in by the heavy crowd. “I promise this is the only time I’ll wear a vest on stage,” declares peroxide blond frontman Harrison Swann as the band blast through ‘80s postpunk influenced gems like ‘Fast and Loud’. Earlier in the day, Great Dad also impressed with tracks like ‘Blood Dirt’, performed noisily but also offset with moments of restraint and tension.

Earlybirds and music-industrytypes-who-haven’t-been-tobed-yet flock to Hangar at 1pm, where the music kicks off with a considerable bang. It’s a peculiar slot for Scalping. Channeling both Aphex Twin and Lightning Bolt, the industrial electronic outfit perform at the kind of volume that could perforate eardrums.

Back at the Hangar, full capacity has been reached for Black Country, New Road, who are proof that postrock is very much back in fashion.

Fans of Mogwai and Slint will undoubtedly marvel at the mixture of crunching guitars, violins and weeping saxophone solos. Sudden rhythmic shifts and epic dynamic swells are fashioned as Isaac Wood’s quivering vocals provide a focal point to the cacophony of tracks like ‘Sunglasses’ and ‘Athen’s, France’. (James Bentley)

Madcap performer Lazarus Kane is followed by a particularly sweaty performance from Talk Show, who

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

Lady Bird

Lovable Kent punk trio Lady Bird have already built up a reputation for positive, perspiration-filled live shows; they’ll be hitting up London’s Moth Club on 11th September as part of Jager Curtain Call, with YOWL and GURU in tow.

Lazy Day

Following the release of EP ‘Letters’ earlier this year, Lazy Day will be heading out on a headline tour from early October, hitting up cities including Belfast, Leicester and Liverpool. Full details can be found on diymag.com.

Art School Girlfriend

The Margate-based singer-songwriter is heading out in support of July cover star Marika Hackman from late September, in Bristol, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester and finishing at London’s Islington Assembly Hall.

32 DIYMAG.COM

“No more EPs, I’m an album boy now!”

OMAR APOLLO

The Mexican-American

neu

artist bringing funk-filled fun into the modern age.

Words: Elly Watson.

Omar Apollo is meowing down the phone. No, he’s not having an existential crisis (we hope). Instead, the 22-year-old is demonstrating what he picked up from his most recent vocal lesson. “It opens you up! It’s crazy!” he enthuses about the interesting technique. “My real goal [in life] is singing, and I literally want to be the best version of myself, so I train a lot.”

Omar would be the first one to admit that he wasn’t blessed with a natural voice, but he’s always had an ear for music. Growing up listening to Metallica, alternative artists and the traditional Latin music his Mexican parents would play around the house, he knew that becoming a musician himself was what he needed to do. “After I figured out how to sing, I was like, ‘Now I can start making music!’,” he laughs.

Having mastered the art of carrying a tune, the then-17year-old saved up for a laptop, crafting his own material in his makeshift bedroom studio before a friend urged him to upload his music to Spotify. Sharing ‘Ugotme’, a jazz-

tinged indie number, it quickly got playlisted and shot the Indiana-born artist into the music world’s consciousness, although the ever-chill Omar wasn’t too fazed. “I’m just gonna move how I move,” he asserts when asked about the hype. “I’m just having a good time.”

His rapid rise continued with last year’s debut EP ‘Stereo’, an ambitious and imaginative record that saw the musician blend elements of funk, jazz and rap into slow-burning sizzlers while singing in both Spanish and English. Where ‘Stereo’ flickered between influences, however, his latest EP, April’s ‘Friends’, finds Omar with a much more succinct and suave musical approach. “There’s been a lot of growth in different ways,” he explains. “Now, it’s more thought out and more structured. But that’s what’s cool about ‘Stereo’.

I don’t want to knock it because it’s just like it’s own thing, you know? Whereas ‘Friends’ is more like a musicallyeducated part of me.”

Weaving between dancefloor-ready numbers like ‘So Good’ and the folk-influenced melodies of its title track, his second EP glistens with a Prince-like swagger and the promise of what’s to come. With his debut album around the corner - “no more EPs, I’m an album boy now!” - Omar is adamant about continuing to push himself. “I’m never trying to put out the same shit. If I did it, I already did it, you know? I’m trying to keep getting better as an artist and make better music and make better songs, that’s the goal.”

Keep on meowing, bbz. DIY

33

NOTHING GREAT ABOUT BRITAIN

34 DIYMAG.COM

In The Running...

A look into the 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize shortlist

Title Sponsor 35

The 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize shortlist is…

Cate Le Bon Reward p40

Anna Calvi Hunter p38

black midi schlagenheim p39

Fontaines D.C. Dogrel p43

IDLES Joy as an Act of Resistance p44 Little Simz GREY Area p45 Title Sponsor

36 DIYMAG.COM

In The Running... 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize

Foals Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1 p42

Dave Psychodrama p41

NAO Saturn p46

SEED Ensemble Driftglass p47

The past twelve months have seen the release of many exceptional albums by artists from Britain and Ireland, and now it’s time again for the Hyundai Mercury Prize to shine a light on twelve of them.

From the unparalleled pleasure and pain explored in IDLES’ second record ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’, to the antagonistic bite of slowthai’s ‘Nothing Great About Britain’; the fierce exploration of gender and sexuality on Anna Calvi’s ‘Hunter’, to the musical ferocity of black midi’s ‘schlagenheim’, 2019’s shortlist is both incredible and important, covering all manner of subjects, styles and genres.

Over the next sixteen pages we aim to explore all twelve of those shortlisted albums and reflect on exactly how they’ve helped shape the musical landscape this year.

This section is brought to you by DIY and Hyundai.

slowthai Nothing Great About Britain p48

The 1975 A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships p49 Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

37

Anna Calvi Hunter

W

hile her third full-length album might feel like a deliberate statement on topics of gender and sexuality, instead, it’s an individual sharing her personal feelings and creating something that she really could have used while growing up. With flourishes of gothic brilliance, brash pop dreamscapes, and most importantly, tracks that shine a glorious light on a female protagonist, Anna Calvi tells us more about ‘Hunter’.

‘Hunter’ is quite an ambitious record in itself, did you go into it with a big idea?

I think it’s something that gradually showed itself actually. I didn’t know what it was going to be before I

started writing songs, but once I’d written a few songs then a theme started making sense to me. It excited me to play on the idea of exploring gender and some kind of femaleness but not in the traditional, stereotypical way.

I guess the idea of pleasure also came through and that led me toward writing the songs for the rest of the album.

Was it important for you for the music to be as powerful as the lyrics themselves?

I wanted the sentiment of the song to come across even if you weren’t listening to the lyrics. I wanted the music to be high energy, galvanising and asserting a sense of freedom and exploration.

I also wanted to capture a

combination of beauty and ugliness, as well as strength and vulnerability. I wanted the music to express that as much as the lyrics.

Have you had much time to reflect on how the record has been received?

It has been a really crazy year since I released the record. It’s been great and I have had time to really appreciate the things that’ve happened since. I’ve been really busy with Peaky Blinders [writing the score for the new series] and lots of other stuff, but to play ‘Hunter’ live has been so much fun. It’s been great to get that direct audience reaction to it. It’s been really fun. I think because it’s such a visceral record, it’s very high energy and I feel that it’s encouraging for the audience to react in a more visceral way compared to my other albums. That’s been a lot of fun to explore and play with.

What would you like to be the main message from ‘Hunter’; that it’s quite an empowering listen?

I was interested in exploring the female protagonist because I feel tired of being made to see the world through this one lens that doesn’t necessarily fit with me. I like the idea of making a record that I could have got something from as a teenager.

That was what was in my mind as I was making it really. I’ve had such nice feedback as well, which is really incredible. It really means the world to me that it could be that for anybody.

“I wanted to capture a combination of beauty and ugliness, as well as strength and vulnerability.”

38 DIYMAG.COM In The Running... 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize

black midi schlagenheim

Every track feels distinctly complex, challenging, and provocative.

H

aving successfully been the ‘most-talked-aboutband-of-the-weekend’ at pretty much every major new band festival in the world this year, black midi have built a reputation for making an impression.

The big question has always been “can they make it work on record?”. Debut album ‘schlagenheim’ is a pretty definitive answer.

making of Can, Lightning Bolt and Sonic Youth. But since the band betray all popular notions of genre, structure and melody, perhaps it’s better to leave expectations at the door.

For the uninformed, black midi are a young, unassuming fourpiece who met at the BRIT School in Croydon (best known for churning out pop stars like Adele, Jessie J and Katie Melua).

Drummer Morgan Simpson is a show-stopper who puts The Muppets’ Animal to shame. And their influences include 20th Century classical pianist Bartók and rapper Danny Brown though neither of these are in any way audible on the record.

‘953’ opens the record with spiky guitar riffs, atonal fretwork and ear-bleeding distortion. It features a sprawling middle section that provides some quiet time for Geordie Greep’s croaking vocals, before a clattering climax sees the band slow all the way down to a crawl. ‘near DT, MI’ alludes to the water crisis in Flint, Michigan as bassist Cameron Picton screams

The music of ‘schlagenheim’ is something far more explosive than any of this. Inside lies a host of angular acid-punk tracks, full of polyrhythmic noodlings, spaced-out ambient phases and freeform beats that seem to be playing inside their own universe. A decent reference point would be prog titans King Crimson, post-rock pioneers Mogwai, or the avant-garde noise-

Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

“dead in the water” over a tower of tension-building guitars. And ‘western’ features jaunting basslines, synthesizers and even a banjo across an eight-minute runtime of flowery guitar instrumentals. No two songs are the same, but every track feels distinctly complex, challenging, and provocative.

Awarding black midi the Hyundai Mercury Prize would be a ‘f*** you’ to textbook, melody-rich, verse-chorus pop. This prodigious bunch have already thrown the rulebook out the window on their debut - they’ll be trashing libraries for album two.

39

Cate Le Bon Reward

C

ate Le Bon’s fifth album had a colourful conception. It wasn’t even necessarily meant to happen. Uprooting from Los Angeles, she moved to “a remote village in Cumbria” to live in solitude, undertaking a furnituremaking course as a means of respite from her established life. Now she’s faced with the possibility of becoming the first Welsh act to win the Hyundai Mercury Prize.

Funny how life goes, isn’t it?

“Music became my cathartic outlet at night, it became my hobby again.”

“I initially went there to take a break from music,” she explains. “I’d changed the architecture of my life almost entirely in one fell swoop, and I think I just needed to readjust my relationship with music after so long. I was involved in furniture school for a year and it was pretty all-consuming, and quite tiring. But ultimately music became my cathartic outlet at night, it became my hobby again. I spent a lot more time sitting and playing the piano than I would have if I was intentionally trying to make a record.”

A year on from those fruitful evenings in the Lake District, the completed album had undergone some significant transformations, picking up various musical textures during recording sessions in Stinson Beach, California, and “magical” Joshua Tree.

Warm synthesiser melodies and brassy horns are a mainstay, while angular post-

40 DIYMAG.COM In The Running... 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize

punk guitars and krautrock rhythms define highlights like ‘Mother’s Mother’s Magazines’ and ‘Magnificent Gestures’ respectively. Cate’s siren-like vocals, though, are the defining feature of the album. Somehow both mournful and hopeful at the same time, they endow the record with a rich sense of emotion.

“It’s the feeling of wanting to be able to completely annihilate your own identity and do whatever the f*** it is to feel excited,” she says. “As I was writing the music I was listening to people like Kate Bush, Pharoah Sanders and Arthur Russell. All of these people who are just free and making authentic music they just allow themselves to do it. That’s the feeling I wanted to capture.”

The completed album is a journey full of subtle nuances and secrets - but the message is ambiguous.

“There’s a strange relationship laid out in the meaning of the word ‘reward’,” she says. “It sort of dictates something that can be taken advantage of. It’s seemingly a very positive word until you start thinking about it - it’s almost something a bit sinister to me.”

“I suppose through the course of that year I realised that you have to kind of dictate your own reward, and that’s the best relationship you can have with it.”

Dave Psychodrama

D

ave’s ‘Psychodrama’ arrived in a cloud of anticipation and controversy after the album’s lead single ‘Black’ was added to Radio 1’s A List. Some listeners kicked back against Dave’s razor-sharp take on black identity and deemed the track “racist against white people”. The very fact that these people took issue with such a startling portrait flagged a clear disconnect, a lack of understanding and an urgent need for somebody to educate them about the truths of black culture on a mainstream level. In those 3 minutes and 48 seconds, Dave proved he was the man to do it.

While ‘Black’ was an accomplished piece in its own right, the release of ‘Psychodrama’ proved the track was just a singular part of a much broader, more complex puzzle. The LP’s 11 tracks are framed around a therapy session giving the 20-year old rapper license to explore his upbringing in Streatham, his battles with mental health and the characters who have populated his life in a neat, compelling manner. This sequencing trick is credit to Dave’s flair as a writer dazzling wordplay greets the listener at every turn, each song is so densely layered with lyrical ideas, yet the message still hits on the first spin.

His lyrical prowess shines most brightly on ‘Lesley’ which documents a toxic relationship in freefall. Its epic instrumental spirals alongside the unravelling complications the rapper examines over its 11-minute running time which doesn’t once let your attention wriggle from its grasp - “I don’t know myself no more,” goes the forlorn refrain.

Like life itself, both light and darkness dance in and out of frame throughout.

‘Black’ is simultaneously a celebration and a critique of black culture. On ‘Location’ Dave takes a moment to indulge in the successes his career has brought him, later he returns to these symbols to place them under deeper scrutiny on ‘Environment’ “You see our gold chains and our flashy cars / I see a lack of self worth and I see battle scars,” he raps.

With reviews raving and streaming records smashing in its wake, ‘Psychodrama’ hit the Number One spot in the UK album charts.

Seldom has such a seminal piece of work graced the top spot, and seldom has a talent such as Dave been around to package up the complexities of our times in such compelling fashion. ‘Psychodrama’ embodied Dave’s transition from promising upstart to a bonafide voice of a generation.

‘Psychodrama’ embodied Dave’s transition from promising upstart to a bonafide voice of a generation.

Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

41

Foals Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1

W

ith the first instalment of a twoalbum epic, ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 1’ found Foals crafting expansive landscapes and immediate bangers in one swoop.

Guitarist Jimmy Smith reflects on the release.

were worried people might feel cheated, so we damage controlled it by saying don’t worry, there’s another one!

We’ve done loads of music!

We were worried people might think there was a lack of quality control, but I guess no one’s heard the second one yet so they could still think that...

Were there any apprehensions in holding back some material and releasing the record in two parts?

I think we handled it quite well by saying that there was another part coming.

Because it’s 10 songs and one’s just an ambient track, after waiting three years we

And now you’ve been validated here too!

Well, the first part has.

If the second one gets a nomination too then that’ll be total ultimate validation.

And if it doesn’t, it’ll be like someone choosing their favourite twin.

Yeah, we’ll have to put that

one up for adoption, focus all our energy on the better one...

Looking back with some distance now, what are you most proud of in the record?

I’m really glad we didn’t hold ourselves back. There are some songs on the first part like ‘Sunday’ and ‘Syrups’ that were really difficult to record and went through so many different guises before they ended up as they were, so I’m so pleased we managed to push them over the finish line. The sessions were so long; we were recording for nearly a year and it was so frustrating at points. Getting tracks to their end point and being happy with them is all you can ask for.

Yannis [Philippakis, vocalist] has been quoted as saying this album is the “defining expression of the band” - what does it say about Foals now?

It defines us right now, I hope not forever but if that’s the last thing we put out I’d be very happy with it. It’s cool that we can be at this point where we’ve been around for so long and we’re still able to release so much music where we experimented in the studio and pushed ourselves. We’re not bored and I don’t think the music is boring, and it’s being recognised as well, which is great.

“I’m really glad we didn’t hold ourselves back.”

42 DIYMAG.COM In The Running... 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize

Fontaines D.C. Dogrel

“I just think it’s an honest album.”

D

ublin quintet Fontaines D.C. have already seen huge success with debut album ‘Dogrel’; having charted at Number 8 in the UK, the band have subsequently spent every weekend since touring its wares in a different city across the world. We spoke with guitarist Carlos O’Connell at the end of a huge tour cycle.

What were some of the things that you wanted to explore with ‘Dogrel’?

It was trying to explore whatever we thought was necessary, trying to give each song the best arrangement and not trying to limit ourselves to one sound. That’s the main thing. And to try and subvert any cliches that came up as much as possible and just to talk about our lives and experiences in Dublin as honestly as we could, without any bulls***.

It’s been received so well, how has that felt?

Good and bad. It’s really great obviously, but it’s hard to make it feel real. People might expect for you to be over the moon but especially when it happened so suddenly like it did for us, it all exploded, and that’s the point where you lose track of feeling of what’s what. You’re expected to feel over the moon about everything but you don’t really have time to process everything. Sometimes it’s just realising that you can’t feel those feelings sometimes because they make you feel down and empty, but I think that’s to do with not stopping. We haven’t really had time to stop and take it all in.

Why do you think people love it so much?

I just think it’s an honest album. Musically, we didn’t try to do

anything that was [already] being done. We didn’t approach this album as something that would get us success, which I think happens a lot. I think the fact we didn’t do that is refreshing. And it’s honest, it’s sincere. People identify with certain lyrics for different reasons. I think the live performances - we’re not really about performing, we just play how we feel on the day - I think that’s something that’s good about it. We’re always going to play an honest show, we’re not going to pretend. I think that honesty, you can’t ignore it, and a lot of people need that nowadays.

How has being shortlisted felt?

It’s one of those things that none of us set out to form a band to get an award, we all just wanted to write tunes with our mates. All this

Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

extra stuff is really nice and heartwarming and you can justify it to your parents and your family! The thing that really makes it worthwhile is the same thing it always was; going into a room and writing with the lads.

I don’t think any of us knew that much about the Hyundai Mercury Prize before. And an Irish band has never won it, so it’s not really hugely talked about. I was excited last year when [producer] Dan Carey said “This album is going to be shortlisted for the Mercury. 100%.” I got really excited then, but that was September last year, so I kind of feel like it wasn’t really that much of a surprise! I already thought that we were gonna get it because Dan Carey said it!

43

IDLES Joy as an Act of Resistance

W

hat a year it’s been for IDLES. It feels like mighty second album ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’ was never going to be absent from this glimmering list, and rightly so. In the middle of finishing off festival season duties, we caught up with frontman Joe Talbot to reflect on the journey of the record so far.

You’ve had so many beautiful moments off the back of this album, have you had a chance to step back and look at the journey?

I don’t tend to sit back and look at it because I’m in it and that’s enough. I’m not surprised by anything that’s happened to us because we created this narrative over twelve years.

We’ve meticulously built this journey, there haven’t been any big surprises because we’ve planned this and worked our asses off. When I say we planned this, we didn’t plan to get shortlisted for the Hyundai Mercury Prize, we didn’t plan to tour America and sell all of the dates out. You have everything in small and manageable chunks, we work hard for those, everything is in our sight all the time. It’s all a gift, that’s not bulls***.

This isn’t Saturday morning TV, it’s a gift and I love it.

A lot has been said about the lyrical themes of the record, but boiling it down to the core, it’s just your feelings based on circumstance?

That’s absolutely true. It’s always circumstantial, the album we’re writing now is circumstantial. It’s something I want to explore

with the next album after the third one as well. I’m not good at writing stories and extracting myself in terms of inventing characters and stuff. All I have is what I have in front of me. As a point of honesty, I can’t create something that isn’t there.

So this album isn’t going to be about loss because I haven’t lost anything. I’ve lost something before, momentarily now, I’m not in a point of loss. I’m in a point of fear and anger of where we’re at, I’m in a point of contemplation and I’m in a point of building something.

I’ve got to be in the moment.

“As a point of honesty, I can’t create something that isn’t there.”

The album was also born out of momentum off the back of ‘Brutalism’: was it a natural continuation for you?

It’s always continuing. The momentum hasn’t stopped from the second album to the third either. Once we become bored then it will get boring, we’ve always got things to talk about, explore and improve on so we’ll just keep going until it doesn’t work anymore.

Nowadays, there’s a lack of pompousness in our sort of music because there’s not a lot of money in it. So you can’t stick around and celebrate the same album for three years because nobody will listen and that’s how it is. I think that perpetual motion of art and culture moves so rapidly in our country, that’s something we try to stay on top of. That definitely keeps us on our toes.

44 DIYMAG.COM In The Running... 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize

Little Simz GREY Area

“I

’m Jay-Z on a bad day, Shakespeare on my worst days,” raps Little Simz on ‘Offence’, the opener of her third album ‘GREY Area’. It’s a killer line and one of many assertions spat out by the 25-year-old Londoner across an astonishing record.

‘GREY Area’ hears Simbi Ajikawo at the peak of her powers.

‘GREY Area’ hears Simbi Ajikawo at the peak of her powers. She narrates vividly the complexities of mid-20s adulthood atop a kinetic bedrock of whipsmart beats, huge basslines and riffs that scuff the edges of funk.

“I’m Picasso with the pen,” she blurts on ‘Offence’. That natural poetic talent wasn’t amiss on previous records ‘A Curious Tale of Trials + Persons’ and ‘Stillness in Wonderland’, but on ‘GREY Area’ Simz’s strokes are bolder and sharper. They’re more expressive, too; the record pairing meatier hooks with freeflowing diary entries. Take ‘Therapy’, a brooding hip hop ditty where Simz imagines herself sitting on a counsellor’s couch.

The seemingly exponential growth in contemporary conversation about seeking therapy is upturned. Simz is certain “There’s nothin’ you can tell me that will help me”.

Mental health is just one topic that cements ‘GREY Area’ as a profound record.

The album is preoccupied by the macro troubles of

Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

the world but is refracted through the micro lens of one young Londoner. On ‘Boss’ Simz sticks two fingers up at gender constructs (“I’m a boss in a f****** dress”) while ‘Offence’ hears her redress the balance of a male-dominated music industry. ‘101 FM’ serves the current wave for late ‘90s / early ‘00s nostalgia with 8-bit pentatonic synths and memories of “Playing PS2 / Crash Bandicoot / Mortal Kombat” after musing on race and imprisonment (“Just another black boy in the system doing time in bin”).

Knife crime comes into focus on ‘Wounds’ with Simz referencing her friend who was stabbed to death this year in Shepherd’s Bush (“But we all know how the story ends tonight / He won’t make it back to ends tonight”). ‘Pressure’ details the West’s infatuation with state intervention (“I don’t wanna see no violent troops / Puttin’ out fires that haven’t even been started”) while louche, lounge jam ‘Selfish’ promotes self-care (“My best friend is I”).

‘GREY Area’ invites you to sit in the front seat with a woman navigating life’s twists and turns. Simz might not have everything figured out just yet but that’s OK; ‘GREY Area’ is a triumph in articulating the journey.

45

NAO Saturn

T

hemed around the concept of the Saturn Return the idea that every 29 or so years you undergo an awakening, as you ‘come of age’ when the planet returns to the exact place it was when you were born - NAO’s aptly-named ‘Saturn’ saw her grappling with some big shifts. “I feel like most of my friends were all going through similar things, we hit 26, 27 and were all like ‘Oh my god, everything is falling apart’,” she says, “so even though I’m not that big on astrology, I like that explanation of why that happened to us all at the same time. Even if it’s not real, I kind of like the symbolism that created for me to draw my album on.”

individual. No one wants their music to sound like anyone else, so I was hell-bent on messing with the beats, making them a bit wonky and weird,” she explains. “Whereas this time I let the music be, I was confident and I just didn’t mess with the production too much and let it be a bit more organic.”

While it’s one thing to experience your Saturn returning, it’s another to write an entire record about it. “It is a bit weird to talk about all of that now because it’s in my past,” she reflects, “I’m definitely in a more confident place and a bit happier for sure.”

It’s clear she wanted to create something original.

“I’d spent my time singing for everyone else and I hit a wall.

I was like ‘I’ve got something to say’ and I looked up to artists like Sampha, James Blake, or AK Paul. There was this electronic, soulful sound at that time and so much wicked stuff coming out of the UK. I was inspired by it.”

It wasn’t just her personal life that was changing either; musically, ‘Saturn’ takes a much more intimate turn. With smoother production, there are some new influences such as dancehall and afrobeat coming in to play. There’s a pure sense of vulnerability throughout the album, a mature and vibrant expansion on the sound she forged on her debut.

“I think with the first album, it’s the mindset of making myself

“I felt a real need to be honest with this album and a real need to be vulnerable.”

46 DIYMAG.COM In The Running... 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize

There’s always been a personal feel to NAO’s music, but on ‘Saturn’, things step up a gear. Partly due to personal circumstances, partly down to her development as a songwriter, she admits that she “felt a real need to be honest with this album. As much as I was going through my own personal stuff, I was being bombarded with loads of fake news… I was getting confused myself, I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.

“I found that really disconcerting,” she adds. “As someone who has a public voice, I have the capacity to be as honest as I can.

Even though my music isn’t political or whatever I still wanted to make sure what I was saying was honest.”

SEED Ensemble Driftglass

L

ed by prolific composer and alto-saxophonist Cassie Kinoshi, SEED Ensemble’s 2018 debut saw the ten-strong collective fusing together vibrant jazz and grooves with influences from across their own rich London, West African and Caribbean backgrounds.

We spoke to Cassie, who talked us through ‘Driftglass’’ origins.

Where did the title ‘Driftglass’ come from?

I’m a huge science fiction fan, and I’ve been reading a lot of Samuel R. Delany recently - he’s an AfricanAmerican author who has this collection of short stories from 1971 called Driftglass.

There’s this description of how driftglass looks; how, when it’s carried out to sea by the tide, it’s shaped and moulded differently every time - it’s always evolving.

That felt really relevant to improvised music, and to the sense of community both in the room when we were recording and more generally in the jazz scene in London. A huge part of the album is communication through improvisation.

Would it be fair to characterise ‘Driftglass’ as a political album?

I think the compositions are always going to be reflections of my opinions. I write about what I feel and what I want to express, and a huge part of that, for me, is talking about politics, whether it’s celebrating black British culture, or talking about the negative things in

society that are oppressive to black British people.

That’s something that comes through naturally - it’s not a case of me trying to fit it in.

When an improvisational record like this one receives a Mercury nomination, does it feel like a victory for the entire community?

Absolutely, because there’s all these connections that come with it. It feels as if things are being modernised.

As much as everybody is doing great things as individual artists, and as much as everybody has their own personal voice, there’s a lot of intrinsic connections between players, and it’s great for the jazz community that it’s elevated in this way it just happens that this time, it’s through me. It’s reflective of the hard work of the individual musicians within the band and beyond.

Would the Mercury shortlist be more open to improvisational musicians in an ideal world?

Yeah. I think, as an example, look at Sons of Kemet being shortlisted last year. That is a phenomenal album; phenomenal musicianship, and phenomenal concepts.

The thing is, you’re up against a lot of great albums.

I think maybe the UK is a little behind in recognising the importance of jazz; because it’s an American art form, they see it as something ‘other’. There’s so much diversity in the jazz community in London, so there’s definitely more room for it to be celebrated.

“I write about what I feel and what I want to express.”

Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

47

slowthai Nothing Great About Britain

E

xploring what it means to be British in the age of Brexit and Boris, slowthai’s ‘Nothing Great About Britain’ is a snarling satire of a country that appears to be eating itself from the inside out.

On album highlight ‘Peace of Mind’, he says he only feels “peace of mind when I dream about a life that I ain’t living” - a bar that questions whether we’re collectively stuck in the past, too afraid to accept our decay as a nation and far happier pretending we’re still a force on the world stage.

The Northampton rapper swiftly moves from calling out the Queen and mocking alt-right group the English Defence League to talking up Phil Mitchell, sniffing glue out of boredom and demolishing a plate of jellied eels. Through the record, he questions what it means to be patriotic in a time where our country is split right down the middle, hoping he can find something that unites us, no matter how trivial - ‘Dead Leaves’ sees him praising his nan’s stew - or dark - on the urgent ‘Inglorious Bastards’ he references the dead baby

that crawls on the ceiling in Trainspotting - that might be.

But while his penchant for throwing surrealist British iconography into a blender and laughing as it sprays all over the place is a lot of fun to sit through, he’s at his best when he forces the listener to empathise with the working class.

On this clever debut, Britain’s real stars aren’t monarchs or politicians, but working class mothers (on the heartfelt ‘Northampton’s Child’, slowthai pays tribute to his own single mother) and drug dealers, who both hustle and make the best out of a difficult situation.

He forces the listener to spend time with Britain’s most vulnerable citizens and, instead of looking down at them as write-offs with a Daily Mail gaze, questions whether they were the real heroes all along.

Don’t be surprised if history looks back on this raw and visceral debut as one of the great punk records of the 21st Century, with slowthai having just as much in common with anarchists like Sid Vicious as urban poets such as Mike Skinner and Klashnekoff.

Don’t be surprised if history looks back on this debut as one of the great punk records of the 21st Century.

48 DIYMAG.COM In The Running... 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize

The 1975 A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships

W

hen Matty Healy first kicked off the story of ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ by muttering ‘1st June, The 1975’ while pacing across the stage at Latitude 2017, he probably had no idea of the hype he was stirring up. Having given themselves the ultimate deadline for just under 11 months later, it quickly became apparent that the band’s third album was going to be their most ambitious yet, almost impossibly so.

And, as we would soon discover, it was also set to double in size, becoming the first part of an ‘era’, before bagging them awards aplenty.

A lesson in real life hyperbole, the first taste of the record landed on that fated date, following a fullblown marketing campaign taking over billboards and posters across cities with mysterious slogans and cryptic doctrines. What followed - lead single ‘Give Yourself A Try’ - would become an opening gambit which saw the band setting themselves up for something all-encompassing, even while the album itself was still months away from being finished.

While their previous offering, the mouthful of an album ‘I like it when you sleep for

you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it’ broke down the door and saw them transform from your regular hook-strewn indie band to a more experimental prospect, it was on album three that they really pushed the boundaries. Taking influence from all over the shop - whether the Blue Nile’s ‘Hats’, the robotic voice of Radiohead’s iconic ‘OK Computer’ or the smooth jazz of John Coltrane - it’s a melding pot of modern musical delights. From the earwormy satisfaction of ‘TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME’ to the intensely glitchy ‘I like America and America Likes Me’, via the Siri-voiced discomfort of ‘The Man Who Married A Robot’, this is an album unafraid to pair gigantic hits with introspective musings on modern life. An intensely brave - and, at times, bonkers - pop album that boasts a real heart and soul while still keeping its ever-scrolling finger on the pulse of modernity, it’s gone on to become a chart-bothering record like no other.

And now, with a headlining slot at Reading & Leeds under their belt, and ‘Music For Cars’’ second part on the way in just a matter of months, it’s pretty clear to see they don’t often make bands like this.

An intensely brave - and, at times, bonkers - pop album that boasts real heart and soul.

Brought to you as part of our media partnership with

49

Watch live on BBC Four at 9pm on 19th September.

Hyundai are proud to sponsor the 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize, championing the best of British and Irish music.

Good luck to all the shortlisted albums.

MERCURYPRIZE.HYUNDAI.CO.UK

Title Sponsor 50 DIYMAG.COM

51

a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva ever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva for a forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva orever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva orever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva

Viva

52 DIYMAG.COM

va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever v rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever v rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever v rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo Having beaten toforever v va forever viva forever viva forever viva theforever soundviva of forever their viva fo rever viva forever viva own drum forviva over va forever viva forever viva forever forever v rever viva forever viva forever viva a decade, onforever sixth viva fo va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever v album ‘Metronomy rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo Forever’, Joe va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever v Mount and his rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo idiosyncratic va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever v rever viva forever viva foreverare vivaback forever viva fo cohorts va forever viva forever viva forever that viva forever v and proving rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo anything stillviva goes. va forever viva forever viva forever forever vi Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Ed Miles. rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv rever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva fo va forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viv forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva forever viva

Forever

53

Joe Mount has a theory: young musicians, take note. 13 years and six albums into Metronomy's tenure as critically-acclaimed, publicly-beloved, genre-mashing stalwarts, their ringleader and lynchpin is ready to impart some well-earned wisdom.

“The problem,” he begins, “is ever having an expectation of what you're about to do. So like, I might sit down and think, I'm gonna draw a horse and it's gonna be fucking brilliant. But then fuck! It's not! So then you sit down and try and draw a dog. But then another time I might have accidentally drawn a horse when I was just trying to write a pop song.” Got that?

On to the next lesson.

Now the curly-mopped musician's musings on equine artistic strategy might seem a little... out there on first glance, true. But in many ways, this malleable, open approach to creativity is almost certainly the key to Metronomy's continued brilliance. From the project's first moves in the mid-'00s as just Joe and a laptop, through their stint as a trio, rocking now-infamous nightlight-emblazoned T-shirts and glitchy, pinging dancefloor bangers, to their current status as a fully-fledged, festival-headlining five-piece live band, Metronomy have always followed their nose, occasionally aligning themselves with other bands, but more often bouncing along merrily down their own path. Rather than sitting down and mapping out a boardroom strategy for maximum success, Joe (the sole writer and creative heart of the group) has always seemed like a man more excited by the possibilities of what could happen if you go where the wind takes you - be that in his band's shapeshifting line-up, ever-morphing sound or just the fact that, at 36-years-old, he's recently penned a song called 'Sex Emoji'.

It's why, releasing sixth album 'Metronomy Forever' this month - a 17-song epic featuring both some of their poppiest moments and most unlikely output to date - the record's title feels suitably timeless: a lovingly-scrawled doodle on a fan's notebook for a band who've not so much weathered the tides of a changing industry as happily hopped on board. If there's

54 DIYMAG.COM

one thing Metronomy have always championed, it's the idea of constantly experimenting and remaining open to new ideas, no matter what their source. Yet, for a brief moment in the making of their latest, there was a time when the path wasn't quite so clear.

W

hen the band released previous LP 'Summer 08' back in 2016, they rolled out the record in an unusual way. “We didn't play a show until a year after the record was released,” Joe recalls, as it begins to rain in the Hackney Wick cafe courtyard we're perched in. A delivery of several hundred frozen treats has just arrived at the neighbouring venue where the quintet are set to launch top pop bop 'Salted Caramel Ice Cream' later that day - such is the risky nature of British summertime... “I've got kids now 'Love Letters' was made when I had my first child and we were touring when he was super young, and Benga [Adelekan, bass] missed the birth of his first child because we were on the way back from a gig - so then I had my second child recording 'Summer 08' and I had this unusual opportunity to be there and have a year at home. [And also] it was a bit of a test to see if people will still give a fuck when you come back.”

During his time off from touring, Joe spent a year working intensely with Robyn on her recent comeback album 'Honey', and relocated his family from Paris to the Kent countryside. By last summer, however, with that album in the bag and having settled back into Metronomy's own studio and touring life (fucks from their fans, still very much given), the frontman was able to give an update: the follow-up to 'Summer 08', he told DIY at the time, was “90% done”.

“It WAS done basically,” he explains now, “but I remember giving it to the label and waiting for them to be like 'Yes! Let's go!' and not really hearing that back. So for the first time I felt quite uncertain about what I was doing.

“I always thought, after having this rest, that I needed to come back with the most immediate, poppy stuff of my career. And that's the first stumbling block, because as soon as

A Case For The Defence In case you hadn’t noticed, ‘Salted Caramel Ice Cream’ sounds quite a lot like Lipps Inc’s legendary banger ‘Funkytown’. Let its author explain why...

The thing with that song is it’s a 12-bar blues, that’s the idea.

There are things in music that are just the language of music. So on ‘Love Letters’, when the drums do that thing, it’s the same as every Motown song, or ‘Rocks’ by Primal Scream - it’s a piece of musical language. The same as the guitar part from ‘Insecurity’ it’s Nirvana or The Offspring. So with ‘Salted Caramel Ice Cream’, it’s a 12-bar blues like every kind of blues song for ever and ever.

I actually think it sounds more like ‘Cream’ by Prince: it even says ‘cream’ in it! But it’s playing with that idea, and with the idea of those people who make those comments in the comments section. But I’m 100% sure that no one can sue me. See you in court!

“People don’t like being sold music taste by a computer, but that computer’s got really fucking sick taste in music!”

- Joe Mount

55

56 DIYMAG.COM

you try to write something that's gonna grab people's attention then you can't. It made me think about why I'm doing this and who I want to make happy. And so I started making much more of what I wanted to hear.”

Bedding down into the studio at the bottom of his countryside garden, Joe then set about transforming the material he already had, fleshing it out with stranger flourishes and instrumentals, infused with the playful, excitable mentality of his first musical footsteps, “when you don't have any responsibilities, you just have some beers and a computer”. “I was just mucking around and I had this sense of decompression - finishing a record, being in the countryside, feeling like I'm taking care of what I have to take care of. Having these moments of just making music and not really thinking about it, and that's,” he winks, “when you draw the perfect horse.”

M

aking their first serious forays into the cultural consciousness with 2008 second album 'Nights Out', Metronomy - then comprised of Joe, current keyboard player Oscar Cash and multi-instrumentalist Gabriel Stebbing (who left the band in 2009) - spent their early days in a musical landscape that was all about this kind of anything-goes fun. Nestled in the peripheries of the late '00s' brief-but-bonkers new rave scene, they were championed as part of a group of similarly-minded sonic adventurers that crash-landed in a sea of skronky electronics and underground parties at the end of the decade. “I feel super lucky to have had even a whiff [of that], even if it was a fake scene,” says Joe now. “We were part of this hyped thing and at the time, because we were in the midst of it, you think you're fighting with Friendly Fires or Klaxons for who's gonna win. You don't real-

57

ise that you've all already won.”

It's a generous sentiment but, in reality, most of those bands, from CSS to Shitdisco, will be remembered as mere footnotes in music history. Metronomy however, despite the odds of the scene stacked against them, are still here more than a decade later.

“For a while, a few years ago, I would have still felt connected to it enough to feel vindicated, like 'Ahhh!

You were WRONG!'. But now it's like, well who [would I be] talking to?” he shrugs. “Because none of the other things that were there at the time are here anymore. Hey HMV! Fuck you for not stocking our record! Oh wait, you went bankrupt... There's victims and idiots and all kinds of people involved. But I don't feel vindicated, I just feel lucky.”

it's interesting,” he asserts.

“As I get older I see things that are super interesting because they're just honest. The algorithms that drive Spotify - on one level they're super weird and people don't like the idea of being sold music taste by a computer. But on the other hand, that computer's got really fucking sick taste in music! And that's the thing - it's the sixth record now. I don't think I have to explain [Metronomy] anymore. There's obviously not something fundamentally wrong with what I'm doing, so if it's cool it's cool, and if it's not, it's not.”

More than luck though, Metronomy's continued relevance is evidently born from a far more active refusal not to become either a snobbish muso or an old, whining bore. Affable and laid back to a notable degree, Joe's not the type to spend interviews slagging off his peers in a Gallagher-esque diatribe, but the one time his tongue sharpens is when he's eye-rolling at the tendency for music's elder statesmen to moan about the state of it all. “The Beatles weren't allowing their back catalogue on Spotify or iTunes, but there's a point where you have to realise that if you don't accept it then you'll just be forgotten,” he begins. “It's difficult to say if [streaming is] a good thing or a bad thing, but it IS a thing so tweeting about how little you get for a billion streams is like... urgh, no one cares.

Dipping its toes into sparkling pop ('Salted Caramel Ice Cream', 'Sex Emoji'), guitar-based, emo leanings ('Insecurity', 'Upset My Girlfriend'), warped electronic instrumentals ('Miracle Rooftop', 'Forever Is A Long Time') and influenced by everything from Prince to Nirvana to Twenty One Pilots, 'Metronomy Forever' is an album that practises what it preaches.

It's one indebted to a very modern, exploratory way of discovering music and one that revels in the possibilities that this new reality brings with it. “I’ve been thinking about this idea of a legacy,” Joe nods. “When you're a musician, you get into this trap of thinking that you're an artist in the same way that Van Gogh is an artist, and you think how people will look back on your career. People start to really turn themselves into something they want to be seen as when they're old or dead, but I've been thinking a lot about how weirdly stifling that is. All that really happens is you live your life, you do a load of music, and then 50 years after you're dead people might give a fuck; 100 years after and they probably won't.

“You get people who seem like they've given up on the idea of connecting with young people, but the longer I continue to feel that what I'm doing is of value to a demographic of people that aren't just [getting older with me] then

“With 'Sex Emoji' I had the vocal idea and thought, well I don't know what it's gonna say about me in 20 years but it doesn't really matter! That's how I've been looking at everything.

Anything you do should be for yourself: that's why the

58 DIYMAG.COM

“My Dad asked if I’d written ‘Insecurity’ after a day in the studio with Robyn.” - Joe Mount record has the title, and why it has these more emotional songs and melancholy moments. Because it's all about that head fuck of [realising] that actually what you're doing isn't that important beyond the people that liked new rave. It's just me lightening up...”

H

owever, though Metronomy's sixth isn't a record that tries to define the band, it is an album that still often finds itself documenting a particular period of its centre pin's life. Now in his mid-30s, with two children and in a long-term relationship, the concerns that pepper 'Metronomy Forever' are no longer ones about flirting and falling out of love. Instead, with the same slight tongue-in-cheek gaze that made regional seaside life sound so appealing on 'The English Riviera', this time around Joe's turning his eye to, er, bills. “I used to love grunge, and ['Upset My Girlfriend' is about] that idea of making a grunge song when you're 36 and what you'd sing about,” he chuckles. “And it's not about The Powers That Be, or The Man, or The World. It's like, 'Urgh, I need to get a new car insurance quote'. 'Oh god, I've upset my girlfriend'. My Dad sent me a text about 'Insecurity', and he asked if I'd written it after a day in the studio with Robyn. And yes! I did! But it's not about her!”

Indeed, there are two themes that worm their way into multiple track titles: insecurity, and weddings. It is, in theory, a very midlife crisis train of thought, but really the frontman's just gunning for a party. “I haven't been to a wedding for a long time, and all my friends are going to weddings, and I've become very aware of it,” he frets.

“I'm worried I don't have very close friends because I'm not getting invited to weddings - it's a really boring mundane thing, but out of it came these nice songs about what weddings are. Weddings and funerals are kind of

amazing in terms of what they are and what happens at them; there are a few things that bring a rather disparate group of people together to get drunk, and I really like weddings and I want to go to more of them.” Invites in the post, people.

Antisocial Media Metronomy are a pretty universallyloved band, but it turns out even Joe isn’t immune from the trolls...

The other day, I was looking on Twitter to see if [‘Salted Caramel Ice Cream’] had been played on the radio and you immediately start seeing things you don’t want to see. There’s a currency in being rude about stuff; if you look at anything on YouTube, it’s really weird. I was putting an outside tap on my house and was looking on YouTube for some videos on how to do it, and even on a video for how to install an outside tap there’s people slagging off the guy. Literally on every single video, that’ll happen. There’s this weird race to the bottom with these things. ‘You don’t know what you’re doing! That’s not how you install a tap!’

But though it's easy to crack a smile at the changing perspective of Metronomy's chief auteur, what makes it work is how invigorated everything around him still sounds. Metronomy aren't still trying to be the last drug-munching hangers on at the new rave party, but they're also not checking into the old folks home quite yet. They've grown up lyrically, but kept just as curious and broad-minded sonically. Joe Mount might not have aspirations of headlining the O2, but he's exactly the kind of musician who's using his longevity and stalwart status to its best, most creative potential. Yet what does someone so obsessed with not tripping on the uninspired hazards that have befallen so many bands before him do when the years really start adding up? “I feel like the work that had to be done was done with 'The English Riviera'.

That record has given us a career really,” he explains. “But now we're releasing a record and, if it goes well, we'll probably tour it for three years and I'll be almost 40 by the end of that. So nothing drastic, but I don't know what will happen after this.”

'Metronomy Forever', we suggest, either sounds like the beginning of a whole new chapter or an epitaph. “It's quite a good name for either,” nods Joe. “But imagine - IMAGINE - as I keep threatening to do, if you released 'Metronomy Forever', and then you released an album of Rat Pack covers, and then THAT'S the last record. Just intentionally finish on this mega low...”

Giggling to himself at the idea, it's exactly the kind of ridiculous curveball you can imagine the musician doing for no other reason than as a laugh. It'd also be quite the full stop on the 'legacy' that Joe's been trying to avoid thinking about, but really that's exactly the point. With every passing wink and playful surprise, Metronomy are writing themselves into the musical history books more and more. Forever? It's not such a long time.

'Metronomy Forever' is out 13th September via Because. DIY

59

THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE THE 60 DIYMAG.COM

WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL WELL

OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF OF

SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS SOULS

Two years ago,

Girl Band cancelled

their touring schedule and all but disappeared.

Now, Dublin’s surrealist noiseniks are back with apocalyptic second record ‘The Talkies’, recorded in - and reflective of - a grand Irish manor house.

Words:

Will

Richards.

T

he sound that opens Girl Band’s second album ‘The Talkies’ is a disconcerting one. Over a drone-like synth, a voice starts breathing erratically, spinning further out of control with every next inhalation. By the time the track comes to an abrupt end, the panic is visceral.

The voice is that of vocalist Dara Kiely, and the recording comes from a day during the recording of demos for the album where he felt particularly panicked. To try and keep himself on a level, he started practising breathing exercises into the microphone.

The intro, titled ‘Prolix’, is as intense and knife-edged a sound as we’ve come to expect from the Dublin four-piece.

It gathers a far greater meaning, though, when set against the backdrop of the band’s last known movements, years before the announcement of ‘The Talkies’, when they disappeared with no promise of a return.

Back in May of 2017, Girl Band announced that, due to health issues, they were cancelling the rest of their tour dates for the year. The same issues had forced them to shelve a host of European dates the previous year, and the final announcement called an abrupt close to the band’s touring plans for debut ‘Holding Hands With Jamie’.

Following a resultant period of complete silence, many fans believed it to be the end of the band itself as well.

"I think if people thought that we'd disbanded then that's pretty fair enough,” says guitarist Alan Duggan today. He recounts memories of fans approaching them mid-way through nights out in Dublin in the following months, desperately asking if Girl Band still existed, and if a second album was on the way. A simple, slightly shy “yes” was the consistent response. It was never in the quartet’s mind, they say, that they would disband, even though the cancellation of that tour was followed by twelve months of not playing in the same room together.

For the next two years, they slowly carved out what would become ‘The Talkies’ behind closed doors. Those

Photos:

Ed

Miles.

cancelled dates felt like the closing of a chapter for Girl Band, one that then allowed them to write and record a second album away from prying eyes.

It’s a chapter they’d rather remains closed, too. Before today’s interview, DIY receives a polite note from the band. “It’s well known that we had to take time off for health reasons before making this new album,” they write. “However we don’t want the focus surrounding the new album to be defined by this.” It’s a difficult thing for a band to overcome such an intense period of their history, however if any album was going to allow Girl Band to move beyond their storied recent past, kicking on defiantly into a new era, it’s the apocalyptic, surging, stunningly strange next step of their latest.

Girl Band’s second takes the wonderfully odd foundations that ‘Holding Hands With Jamie’ set and pushes them even further into an esoteric league of their own. ‘The Talkies’ revolves around repeated motifs all set in the key of A, with songs interlinking endlessly. The record’s most selfreferential moment, sitting at its heart, is ‘Aibohphobia’, a song named after a fear of palindromes that’s also recorded and sung entirely in palindromes. Not weird and meta enough? Dara suffers from the phobia himself.

Referencing the famous dream sequence from David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, in which the dialogue is played out front to back, the track was recorded, then the audio was reversed into a new version, which the band learned to play, before being reversed again. Stuck together and layered on top of each other, it makes some kind of fuckedup sense. Above it, Dara sings wonderful palindromic nonsense: “Do geese see God?” “Top spot to idiot.”

Across ‘The Talkies’, the lyricist’s words are nothing less than bonkers, adding a whole new layer of surrealism to an album already dripping in it. “Gonna Barbie a Ken on a barbwire fence” is the most twisted threat we’ve maybe ever heard in song, while elsewhere he ponders, “What happened to Teletext?” and references cult Dutch footballer Jaap Stam. Comeback single ‘Shoulderblades’, meanwhile, revolves around the hook “It’s like a hat for Ed Mordake”, referencing the subject of an urban legend who was believed to have an extra face on the back of his head.

61

MADE IN THE MANOR So, Girl Band, tell us a bit more about this fancy house of yours…

Alan: “It’s normally a wedding venue. The grounds are insane.”

Daniel: “There were lots of acoustic possibilities. That’s kind of the main reason we picked it in the end. Well Of Souls, always good. Fancy gaff, always good.”

Adam: “Everyone had their own space to retreat to. If someone’s laying

62 DIYMAG.COM

down a load of guitars, not everyone has to be sitting there watching.

I’m gonna go have a nap instead. Dara had a whole flat to himself, didn’t you?”

Dara: “I had a little granny flat. There was one day where I woke up, had breakfast, went back to bed, woke up again, had dinner, then went back to bed. I was not needed.”

“I think if people thought that we’d disbanded then that’s pretty fair enough.”

- Alan Duggan

As lyric-writing started for the album, Dara decided that he wanted to set himself another challenge: to include no pronouns. “[It’s] something I always wanted to do, because I've never heard an album that does that,” he says. He and his band consciously or otherwise - seem to thrive on doing things that no other band are managing or even trying.

“It was really hard, but I got there,” the frontman chuckles. “There's a lot of 'it's in there. I really can't stand 'forever and a day', 'catch you when you fall' kinda lyrics, and I love the idea of making up fake cliches,” he continues, the song title ‘Salmon Of Knowledge’ immediately springing to mind. “There's a lot of them in there.

I try not to be lazy with that. I'm very lazy when doing it, but the actual words aren't lazy!"

In order to put this surreal vision to tape, the band once again opted for the untraditional. For two weeks in late 2018, the group decamped to Ballintubbert House in County Laois, tucked away in a quiet part of the Irish midlands. A grand old manor house usually reserved for weddings, the band turned it into a studio after being invited down by a friend of bassist Daniel Fox, and the grandeur of its walls is written all over ‘The Talkies’.

“Everyone had an en suite bathroom,” Daniel remembers gleefully of their time in the house, surrounded by gardens that hosted a lake, a maze, an orchard and countless other stately quirks. “There was a lot of waking up in the morning and thinking, 'What the fuck am I doing here?!'"

As well as the distance from the bustle of Dublin and the time alone that their new surroundings brought, Girl Band - predictably - used their grand new home in weird and wonderful ways to enhance the scope of the record.

"There's a cellar,” begins drummer Adam Faulkner. “The back door to the house is the main entrance, and the rooms went down and then up as well. We had drums recording up one level, and we recorded them for the whole record up there, and then we moved them all down into the basement and did a different drum set-up and recorded it all again. On your way down to the cellar, there's a circular stairwell with a high roof, kind of like a tower underground. It got nicknamed The Well Of Souls, and it had this amazing reverb sound. It's pretty much on most of the album."

Their strange and singular approach shows, too. When ‘Shoulderblades’ fully kicks in with a torrent of visceral energy, the drums sound like they’re from another dimension, hitting with sharp blows from every angle, while manipulated guitars and bass are pushed to their shrieking limits. In every way, ‘The Talkies’ sees Girl Band stretching possibilities, using the very fabric of their surroundings to their advantage, diving deep and without shame into the pretentiousness of palindromes while also throwing out the couplet “feel like a chicken, act like a cock”.

Building their songs from the ground up with no traditional structures or chord progressions - “very slowly,” Daniel winces when asked how on earth a Girl Band song comes together - theirs are tracks that don’t make sense when stripped down to the bare bones. "On the first record, we took a [recording] of the guitar with no effects on it and it's so, so funny,” Alan laughs, making dissonant noises imitating the limp plucking of a single guitar string.

"You hear it and think 'Oh god, are we fucking shit?!'" Daniel exclaims.

"If there's ever a power cut, we'll be exposed...”

But it’s this lack of conformity that sets them apart, and on ‘The Talkies’ they test it to the nth degree. And somehow, when the supposedly competing elements of their sound come together - the mix of bashing on drums in a cellar, guitars that don’t sound like guitars and lyrics about Weetabix - they do so in some kind of twisted, perfect bliss.

As crazed final song ‘Prefab Castle’ screeches to a close, an outro slides its way in, and over a tinny instrumental sits Dara’s breathing once again. This time, however, he’s calm and collected, equilibrium finally achieved.

‘The Talkies’ is out 27th September via Rough Trade. DIY

“I love the idea of making up fake cliches.”

- Dara Kiely 63

Shake it out

With Alabama Shakes, Brittany Howard found success beyond anything she could have imagined. Now, on solo debut ‘Jaime’, she’s seeking satisfaction in other directions. Words: Sarah Jamieson.

“I just wanted to do everything and have no boundaries.”

64 DIYMAG.COM

T

he story of Alabama Shakes is one fit for Hollywood. A group of young musicians find themselves propelled from the tiny town they cut their teeth in to selling out shows across the world, before bagging themselves a staggering four GRAMMYs with just their second album. It’s a made-forthe-big-screen narrative that was literally the stuff of dreams - essentially a full-band A Star Is Born. But for frontwoman Brittany Howard, there was always something more, something different, that she wanted to reach for.

Four years on from the release of that second record ‘Sound & Color’, she’s doing just that. “Yeah, I knew,” she begins, on the other end of a call from Nashville where she’s currently preparing for her new album’s release. She’s referencing the fact that, when she booked some studio time back in the second half of 2018, she went in knowing that she wouldn’t be joined by the rest of her band. “I just wanted to do something that was unedited, [and didn’t] have anybody else’s input; I’ve never really done that. I wanted to do something that was very much mine, very much me. [I wanted] to make my own mistakes while recording and have my own triumphs. I just wanted to experience that.”

Things, however, didn’t get off to the smoothest of starts.

Newly-relocated to California’s Topanga Canyon, where she planned to work on the album without the distraction of her day-to-day life back in Tennessee, Brittany found herself hit by a severe case of writer’s block. “I was staying in this beautiful house, with this incredible view, and then I just hated it at the same time,” she explains. “I was supposed to be working, but I didn’t know anybody. But it was definitely time to rise to the challenge. I had already put so much into it that there was no turning back.”

By the time she reached producer Shaun Everett’s LA studio, the singer had six ideas, but planned to play things by ear with her fellow musicians. “I thought we’d just jam it out,” she continues. What she wasn’t expecting, however, was for memories of older tracks - hidden on unused laptops from way back when - to resurface. “It was over lunch when we’d be having random conversations. Someone would say something like, ‘Oh, Prince, wasn’t he a Jehovah’s Witness?’

And I would be like, ‘Ohhh, I have a song called ‘Jehovah’s

Witness’...’ - it was just a working title - and that made me realise I should get someone to pull my hard drive and send us the song. That happened, that became the song ‘Daisy’, and it just kept happening.”

The resulting record, ‘Jaime’, sees Brittany channel feelings and experiences from across her life. With tracks quite literally plucked from across the last decade, it’s a patchwork album that feels rich with emotion, but alive with experimentation. From the infectious funk of opener ‘History Repeats’ to the raw, unfiltered memories she explores in ‘Goat Head’ via the slinky pulse of ‘Georgia’, it’s unafraid to push at the boundaries, both sonically and lyrically.

“I’ve always wanted the freedom to creatively be where I want to, and I don’t think that’s too much to ask,” she confirms, nodding to her previous side projects Thunderbitch and Bermuda Triangle. “You only get one life to live so I feel like you should do whatever it is that you wanna do, and how you wanna do it. I’m just an explorative person by nature. I just wanted to do everything and have no boundaries on it. I just wanted to make music that I felt like I wanted to make.”

And though the record finds Brittany in the midst of redefining her musical self, the making of it also provided an opportunity for reflection. “I’ve been pretty much just touring since 2011, and I’ve never really had a chance to think, ‘Hey, my life’s changed a lot, I’ve changed a lot’,” she explains. “I’ve never really had time to think about that. It’s a strange life. It’s a great life, but it’s very different to the life I had before.

“I had to think about why I do what I do. Alabama Shakes have had a lot of success and I mean, I’ve met the President - the good President!” she laughs, “and I’ve done crazy things with that band that I never thought would happen. But this project was about something totally different: this project was about doing music because I like music, not just to be successful or to make money. It was more about why I want to do this. You know, when we were touring, we were literally gone all of the time, and your relationships suffer for it, and life goes on without you. I realised that if I’m doing this, I need to be doing it for the right reasons and make myself happy too.”

‘Jaime’ is out on 20th September via Columbia. DIY

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Named after Brittany’s sister who passed away as a teen, the singer explains what influence Jaime had on the album itself.

“She taught me how to be a musician. We would write songs together and always be imaginative together. I think I was just inspired to do something challenging, and just do what I want. I feel like she taught me so much about that in the time she was alive - that nobody can tell you what to do, and to not to be afraid of change, hardships or challenges. Just to roll with the punches.”

65

Squid

have spent 2019 staking a firm claim as the UK’s most exciting new band. We join them in London to find out exactly what all the fuss is about.

Words: James Bentley. Photos: Sharon López.

C

ometh the end of another festival season, cometh the crowning of that year’s newest Chosen Ones. Remember Palma Violets? Fat White Family? Wolf Alice?! They all crash-landed as their given annum’s buzziest, most hyperbolically-exciting breakthrough stars. And, for 2019, the band on everyone’s lips is a whole different kettle of fish.

Today, at East London’s Visions Festival, Squid are topping off a summer that’s seen them ignite and conquer every space they’ve found themselves in. Indeed, even at this most tastemaker-attracting of events, they’re the only band to have a queue stretching out the door.

In the dark basement of Hangar, angular guitar riffs and motorik beats meet jazzy post-rock in a performance that unites both the crate-diggers and the party-starters. They’re a muso’s band for the mainstream.

Having previously run club nights in jazz bars and performed in funk and soul covers groups in Brighton, it’s no surprise that the band have keen, eclectic tastes.

“My dad was a diehard [Grateful] Dead head,” begins singer-guitarist Louis Borlase. “I grew up listening to Frank Zappa and Captain Beefheart.” Fellow vocalist and drummer Ollie Judge

chimes in: “My uncle took me to see all these jazz, funk and Brazilian bands. I was like, ‘Fuck, I don’t want to play the cello - I want to be the rhythm section!’.”

Their childhood exposure to some of music’s more esoteric favourites has clearly rubbed off on Squid’s own music. This is, after all, a band who make lyrical references to XTC in their songs, and recorded a cover of Steve Reich’s avant-garde ‘Clapping Music’ in their spare time.

Their newly-released second EP ‘Town Centre’, meanwhile, is a mixture of atmospheric instrumentals and rollercoaster pop jams, channelling everyone from Talking Heads to Godspeed You! Black Emperor. For this impressively broad and vibrant sound they blame producer Dan Carey.

“He’s like our [Radiohead producer] Nigel Godrich,” says Ollie. “He’s very insistent on capturing the energy and the moment, and then just moving on to the next bit.”

“There’s no difference between playing live and recording in a studio,” Louis picks up. “Even when you rehearse, you’re performing to each other. When we play live, I can’t tell whether we’re playing to a crowd, or to ourselves.”

Life Aquatic The

66 DIYMAG.COM

However, though they might think insularly, Ollie, Louis, guitarist Anton

“A review said, ‘Why have one good idea when you can have eight?’ And I think that’s spot on.” Arthur Leadbetter

Pearson, keyboardist Arthur Leadbetter and bassist Laurie Nankivell give off a wild, untameable energy that’s felt by everyone in the room. Down in the basement, there’s barely a moment where a member of the band isn’t brandishing a shaker, cowbell or detached body of a drum kit. So broad are the dynamics that even the most subdued tracks have the audience jumping about in anticipation for the next rocket to launch.

I

t’s been the same up and down the country throughout the past year. The band recently completed a tour supporting shock-rockers Viagra Boys - an experience they describe, tactfully, as “educational”. At The Great Escape, crowds were queuing for them all the way along the seafront.

At a series of Glastonbury shows, meanwhile, they even drew fans in homemade Squid costumes.

Their unconventional nature is their most appealing asset. There’s no established frontperson, no three-minute pop songs, and yet somehow they got heavy radio rotation with a track about houseplants.

No matter how they decide to present it, the band’s talent is plain to see. “I saw a review of [seven-minute juggernaut] ‘The Cleaner’ that said ‘Why have just one good idea when you can have eight?’,” says Arthur.

“And I think that’s spot on.”

Beneath the sonic exploration, there’s also a fantasy element to the band’s storytelling that gives it a colourful charm; half the songs on ‘Town Centre’ are based on Ollie’s encounters with various members of the public while working

at Fopp in Covent Garden.

‘The Cleaner’, he explains, was built around daydreams of what the store’s own mop-wielder got up to after closing time. ‘Match Bet’, meanwhile, is about an interaction with an eccentric Sonic Youth fan who insisted that Ollie deliver a betting slip to the Queen.

Yet, despite being one of the most talked-about acts across this year’s festivals, the quintet are still endearingly modest about their successes.

Their greatest ambition was originally just to be able to play a gig overseas (that one’s been ticked off). Even now, as they prepare to uproot to a barn in Norfolk to write and rehearse more music, their sights are on a dream-come-true gig in Salisbury. “Me and Louis have been going to End Of The Road festival with our families since we were about 11 or 12 years old,” he grins. “We’ve been saying ‘next year’ [we’ll play it] ever since we were teenagers, and we’re finally doing it this year.”

“We don’t know why any of this has happened, I guess we’re just lucky...” shrugs Louis.

They leave the stage with Hangar’s crowd still chanting for “one more song” and, like with every show of theirs, really it’s the rest of us that are in luck.

While there are still genres to be bent and venues to be vanquished, Squid will be chomping at the bit to take on the challenge. “We don’t want to sit still,” Louis concludes. “We just want to keep it moving.”

‘Town Centre’ is out now via Speedy Wunderground. DIY

67

HEALTH& HAPPINESS LIFE

For years, Hull quartet have sat on the peripheries, but recently their socially-charged, politically-engaged punk has started to resonate further out.

We meet the band in their home town in the year when it all went right.

Words: Joe Goggins. Photos: Emma Swann.

68 DIYMAG.COM

“We stopped giving a fuck,”

states guitarist Mick

Sanders, delivering his verdict on the key to LIFE’s forthcoming second LP ‘A Picture of Good Health’. “That’s funny, because I think we actually give more of a fuck now,” drummer Stew Baxter shoots back. A ripple of laughter runs around the sparse tent that, backstage at Hull’s Humber Street Sesh, is presently acting as the four-piece’s dressing room. Later that night they’ll play a huge homecoming show, celebrating an already massive year that’s seen them tour Europe with kindred spirits IDLES, land on the BBC Radio 6 Music A-List and become mainstays on the festival circuit: frontman Mez Green approximates that this is their tenth consecutive weekend on it.

That they’re marking what looks like a long overdue upswing in fortunes by returning to the city that they still call home says a lot about LIFE. They’re a group firmly rooted in the often harsh realities of life in this corner of Britain, but one who simultaneously make it their mission statement to uplift and inspire people all the same. The festival itself, now in its eighth year, has grown from similarly humble beginnings. “The first one was crowdfunded,” says Mez, “and I remember chucking in twenty quid.” It’s now taken over a huge site on the town’s picturesque marina, with a record 32,000 people through the gates on a weekend of huge symbolic significance for the band, who evidently remain fiercely proud of its growth.

“It was born out of necessity, really,” says bassist Lydia Palmeira, “because Hull had nothing like this, where local acts could be showcased and gain a little bit of experience to push them onwards and outwards into the rest of the country. We headlined the main stage two years ago, when Hull was the Capital of Culture, and we were still running stalls selling records; I’m doing that again this year.

There’s a real emphasis on community. The people pulling the pints and emptying the bins are all playing the festival at some point. That’s quite humbling; it’s still very much in touch with the grassroots.”

This sense of camaraderie isn’t just something that LIFE immerse themselves in once a year. They remain at the forefront of Hull’s closeknit music scene, playing key roles in the area outside the arts too. Mez continues to work at The Warren Youth Project in the city, having been there for four years; Stew, meanwhile, recently left after a fifteen-year stint. Lydia manages the record shop that’s attached to it, and the centre sees budding artists given a place to develop their creativity. Mez, though, sees the wider importance of the idea.

“Stew and I worked a lot on talent development there, but it’s about a lot more than that. It’s literally a sanctuary for young, vulnerable people under the age of 25. Somewhere they can come regardless of what crisis it is that

they might be going through in their lives. It’s not just about music; there’s counselling, food banks, sexual health, alternative education, employment services, a lot of open access stuff. It’s a safe space to come in and be who you are,” he explains. “The Tory government have squeezed statutory youth provision massively, and things like mental health in young people have been brushed under the carpet. We’re at a moment where a lot of people are falling through the cracks in society, and we’re just firefighting against that.

It’s sad, but it’s where we are.”

M

ez speaks urgently, passionately, with the same sort of physical energy he expends onstage; the fire with which he delivers his state-of-the-nation lyricism is no act - it’s who he is. His experiences working at The Warren, as well as in his own life and those of his bandmates, are at the heart of what makes the singer’s writing so compelling and intense. “I think on our first record [2017’s ‘Popular Music’], the themes were broader,” he explains. “We were focusing on issues that affect a lot of people - trying to live within your means, trying to get a tin of beans as cheaply as possible in Tesco. The second one is much more about just us a unit. There was a really difficult period of six months that we all had, so it was about our problems. I’m a lone parent, so there was that, and then our mental health in terms of wrestling with isolation, trying to be ourselves, trying to find love again. It was political, but in a personal way.”

Where does that leave ‘A Picture of Good Health’, then? Musically, it’s the most incendiary statement that LIFE have made to date; there’s a furious post-punk framework throughout, all racing drums and freewheeling guitars, and over the top, Mez’s vocal delivery is maniacal and mercurial enough to bring Mark E. Smith to mind. Whether The Fall’s late frontman was ever this politically astute, though, is another matter entirely. As he riffs on futility, boredom, fatherhood, financial difficulty, mental health and the bleakness of the present political climate, Mez sounds every inch the modern-day firebrand.

Mick, on that note, circles back around to his earlier assertion that the record represents fewer fucks being given on the band’s part.

“There was a time when it was a risky and bold move to talk about things like mental health,” he explains, “because there was a pressure on bands to keep up an image of everything being great all the time. For some people, that’s worse than ever now, because social media’s accentuated it, but there’s also a movement of musicians leading a backlash against that, like us and friends of ours like IDLES and Nadine Shah.

“We’re saying that it’s OK to talk about these issues, and if that alienates people, then fine,” he continues. “We want to show younger musicians that they shouldn’t be afraid to attempt that difficult balancing act of, on the one hand, being in a touring rock band and being in magazines and on the internet, while

69

still maintaining a sense of self.”

In that respect, it seems serendipitous that LIFE should be firing on all cylinders at a time when the political situation in Britain is crying out for a band like them - it surely helps explain the pace of their current upward trajectory. “We’ve been talking about the same things for five-plus years at this point, and maybe it just took things getting really shit for people to take notice,” says Stew, laughing grimly.

“We’ve maybe gotten to a breaking point in terms of where the country’s at - the media cycle has become so saturated that everybody’s starting to search for their own truth.

“I think if there’s anything that sums the new record up, it’s that in times of bleakness, the one thing that does come through is your human nature,” he nods. “That, to me, [means] being honest, and embracing things that make you happy. All music is escapism, anyway. Creatives are trying to express that now, because everything else is so gloomy.

You need that for basic survival. Food, water, and love.

Actually, that’d be a good title for the next album...”

‘A Picture of Good Health’ is out 20th September via Afghan Moon. DIY

“We’re at a moment where a lot of people are falling through the cracks in society, and we’re just firefighting against that.” Mez Green

70 DIYMAG.COM

71

“Would an artist of my generation like to stay mysterious?

Yes, of course.” Black Francis

His Dark Materials PIXIES

Across a long and rich career, have built a canon of strange and singular work. Now, on ‘Beneath The Eyrie’, they’re finally inviting people into their world, but don’t think it’s going to come easy.

Words: Patrick Clarke.

72 DIYMAG.COM

T

o record new album ‘Beneath The Eyrie’, Pixies lived and worked for three winter weeks in a deconsecrated 19th Century church in the tiny town of Hurley, deep in the New York countryside. Outside the church’s doors lies the gorgeous sprawl of The Catskills, almost 3,000 square kilometres of mountains, woodlands, rivers and winding natural paths. There were no friends or family, no visitors or hangers on, only isolation and the album at hand on which they could focus. Perhaps, given its background, it’s no surprise that the new record sounds so richly Gothic. There are curses, witches, drownings, beheadings, crucifixions, cracked bones and a killer catfish among its shadowy procession of images, which are whispered, growled and howled by Black Francis over some of the darkest and dizziest instrumentals the band has ever produced.

But then again, there’s always been a touch of the macabre in the frontman’s writing. Part of the reason that albums like ‘Surfer Rosa’ and ‘Doolittle’ are now regarded as all-time greats is the extreme sense of otherworldliness that the band conjure, a heady blend of obscenity, wit, seediness, surrealism and violence that’s unlike anything any other band has done before or since.

Their music is not quite of this world, which is why it’s a little unusual that, for ‘Beneath The Eyrie’, they let listeners behind the curtain for the first time, documenting the sessions in a podcast diary which breaks down their craft to its fundamental pieces.

“You know, would an artist of my generation especially like to stay mysterious? Yes, of course. But if I was so committed to that idea of mystery and being anonymous, I wouldn’t be talking to you, right?” says a combative Black Francis on the phone from his Massachusetts home. “Basically, someone has got to pay for my recording, and my manager called me and said, ‘Hey, we might be able to pay for your record if you guys do a podcast documentary. I’m not going to compromise my music, even though some people think I might, and I’m not going to have some beer

company splash their logo all over my stage, so I said, ‘Eh, alright.

Sure.’ I just wanna play in a band! I don’t wanna work a different job, I don’t wanna unload trucks or run a bar. I don’t wanna go back to college and learn how to do some other job.”

The band originally tried recording the podcast themselves, but as he puts it, “Our aesthetic was not very mainstream.” Eventually, they invited journalist Tony Fletcher to document the three weeks of recording. “It’s not very weird. If I had my way it would be a lot weirder and a lot more left of centre,” the frontman says of the result, a hint of disappointment in his voice. “But I get it! Would I sit down to watch a documentary about something and walk out just because it’s trying to accommodate a larger audience?

We don’t want to be boring, but it seems like there’s enough of the personal in there. There’s enough verité there going on that I think they’ve done a good job.”

On the podcast, producer Tom Delgaty calls the Dreamland Studio ‘a safe haven from the black bears and the witches’, but Black Francis is reluctant to draw an obvious parallel between the record’s American Gothic aesthetics and the way it was recorded. “We did mention before we even picked that studio that we thought there might be a gothic tone or gothic mood or whatever with the music, but it was never like, ‘Wait! Do not proceed any further, it’s not got enough of a gothic mood!’ It’s kind of like IF something shows up and it seems a bit gothic, we’re gonna try and tease it out. But that wasn’t what we set out to do in some kind of blueprint.

That isn’t really our style.”

T

here’s a sense that it’s not really ‘Black Francis’ - that wild and untameable alterego that’s led Pixies through a searing career - who’s giving this interview, but the pragmatic man behind it, Charles Thompson IV. “I think I’m pretty square, no one seems to be very afraid of me. My children sure aren’t…” he sighs.

There’s a point in the podcast when, recording one of the album’s most nightmarish songs, ‘Catfish Kate’, Tom calls on him to ‘access’ Black Francis to start ‘selling’ the

73

narrative, clearly eager for a bit of his trademark melodrama. “Sometimes I might be trying to do something deliberately flat and bland, a Mick Jones ‘I don’t give a fuck’ kind of thing, but people are always like, ‘Oh, come on, give us a little bit of the ol’ Black Francis!’ Basically they’re saying, ‘You’re boring me right now, this is not interesting enough. Be more interesting.”

However reticent Charles is to bring him out for an interview, Black Francis has served Pixies well, both on their original run of classic records that ended in 1991, and their enviable run of post-reformation LPs. Their new records showcase remarkable creative consistency, and prove Pixies still every ounce as relevant in the fourth decade of their career.

The singer acknowledges, however, that they’ve not been without backlash after founding member Kim Deal, in some ways the cool Yin to Francis’ feral Yang, departed before the release of comeback LP ‘Indie Cindy’. There is, undeniably, a sizeable ‘not the Pixies without Kim’ brigade amongst their fanbase.

Does he think there’s too much made of the line-up change?

“Some people probably do [make too much of it] but it’s their right to,” he replies. “It would bother me if no one came to my gigs, and no one listened to my records any more, but that hasn’t been the reaction.

We’re still playing the same venues, bigger venues than ever actually.

At some point, when the line-up thing starts to get really dogmatic,

That’s our Black Francis, never wilfully following the crowd.

74 DIYMAG.COM

like some sort of religious order that we’re fucking with, that level of discussion, it’s like, ‘Whatever man, where are we going for lunch?’ At some point I just don’t give a shit. It’s one body of work, not two different bands.”

I’m Your Biggest Fan Pixies are taking DIY faves The Big Moon on tour with them this month and, as you might remember from last month’s issue, they’re really quite excited. Here’s Jules Jackson on why she stans the band (and so should you).

What first got you into Pixies?

My big sister’s boyfriend gave me a stack of their CDs when I was 16 - I didn’t listen to anything else for like a year.

What is it about their songwriting that particularly excites you?

They are so inventive. Their songs are always a journey, with so many different unexpected chapters and moments and I find it really inspiring to listen to. There is so much freedom and fun in Pixies’ music.

Why do you think young kids who might not have heard of them should give them a go?

They just do the grunge rock thing better than anyone else ever did it. You may as well get to know the best. Also calling it grunge is a disservice, it’s SO much bigger and brighter and bolder than that. It’s surf rock, wild west Americana, punk-rock screaming and beautiful harmonies and a million other things I can’t properly describe.

What songs/ albums would you recommend as an entry point and why?

I think a good starting point is their album ‘Doolittle’. It has all the poppiest stuff on including ‘Debaser’ which is maybe the best pop song of all time. Then go listen to ‘Rock Music’ and scream your head off.

Francis views Pixies’ sizeable legacy with a sense of almost intense self-awareness. “I’m glad if someone says you’ve got legacy.

I’m glad if someone punches a hole in that and says, ‘Whatever.

You wrote a couple of good songs, you’re not so hot’. I like that too!” he claims. “And I’m not trying to like, rationalise my own work and say, ‘I’ve got A list and B list’, but whatever, we do! We have an A list and a B list!”

Though it’s admirable that the band keep pushing forwards with new records, they’ve undeniably still occasionally rested on that substantial A list - previously touring ‘Doolittle’ in full, and recently giving ‘Surfer Rosa’ the same treatment for its 30th anniversary. But for Black Francis, it’s all part of the game. “That’s just how the format has changed,” he says. “Every few years, we do a themed show. Big deal. What do we do 90% of the time? We play a show where we play whatever the hell we wanna play.”

“I think my artistic integrity has remained intact,” he shrugs. “It’s good enough for me!”

‘Beneath The Eyrie’ is out 13th September via Infectious / BMG. DIY

MUSIC INDUS TRY CONFE RE NC E 14.11.2019

DE

V

TI C r e KE so TS na O te N S sc A o LE t. N co O .u W k

BO

IT Y

EN

LL A

ON

T Y ACC E SSI ATIVI BIL

PM

T

CO

I AT

C RE

O EL

R

BARRAS ART AND DESIGN GLASGOW

75

THE PEOPLE HAVE THE POWER I Mystery Jets have already set their sonic sights on the '80s, America and outer space. Now, on 'A Billion Heartbeats', their feet are firmly back on Earth, documenting the here and now in their most important work to date. Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Sharon Lopez.

t's 2019 and the noise is relentless. The external noise of a world audibly slipping into political, ecological and social chaos, and the constant internal hum of doubt brought about by life reflected and warped by a screen. It's a cacophony that you can try to escape but, as Mystery Jets' Blaine Harrison found out, it's one that perhaps only starts to quieten when you confront it head-on.

When the band finished touring 2016's 'Curve of the Earth' - a “really intense” three-year album cycle that saw the quartet living in each other's pockets, the singer and bassist Jack Flanagan even sharing a bed for half the making of the record (“Nothing happened,” Blaine notes with a chuckle) - they emerged out the other side, understandably in

76 DIYMAG.COM

need of some space. A series of personal events had also taken their toll. Blaine had ended up hospitalised for three months, and Jack, going through a rough patch, temporarily left the band. “I developed a bit of an ego and became a difficult person for a while,” the bassist concedes, now back to his usual, characteristic ball of eager energy. “But I took some time out and decided that I missed these three loves of my life, and came crawling back on my knees.”

With all roads pointing to a well-earned mental detox, Blaine decided to employ his usual creative trick. He would separate himself from the hustle and bustle of the capital and his daily life, head to somewhere hyper-remote and wait for inspiration to strike. “I ended up in this little fishing village in Iceland,” he recalls now, sitting with his

bandmates in the converted tram shed basement studio that they call home, “and songs were coming but I realised I wasn't writing from an isolated headspace, I was writing about home.

“I tried very much to disconnect from it all, but the one day I switched on my data, it happened to be the Women's March. I saw all these pictures, and I had this really strong impulse that that's where I needed to be. Even though I was in this incredibly utopian glacial environment, I knew we needed to go into the thick of it and that's what this record needed to be about: about exactly what's going on now,” he nods. “And when I got home, that was when the songs started to come.”

“I’VE ALWAYS FELT AS AN ARTIST THAT YOUR CURRENCY IS EMPATHY.” -

M

ystery Jets have always been a band associated with a certain romance. The romance of escapism in their early days as thrift shop-clad sonic tinkerers and the wide-eyed, widescreen Americana of 'Radlands'; the pure, heart-on-sleeve rush of romance in its giddiest form on 'Twenty One' and 'Seratonin'. However even the most doe-eyed of daydreamers can't ignore the very modern horrors all around us, and it's into this fragile world that the band deliver forthcoming sixth album 'A Billion Heartbeats'.

Written from within the scrum of it all, Blaine moving into a guardian property above Trafalgar Square where he'd witness weekly protests and see the issues of the nation literally daubed in paint before him, it's an album that's more connected, more rooted in the present than anything the quartet - completed by guitarist and occasional vocalist Will Rees and drummer Kapil Trivedi - have ever released.

“It was [written] during 2017 when all the Brexit protests were happening,” begins Blaine. “The Women's March happened; there were two big NHS marches; Black Lives Matter; the Britain First protest. Every weekend, I'd be woken up by this noise on the street and I'd go down and join the melee as a way of finding out what people were shouting about and what the messages were.”

But rather than soaking in and sending out an album of anger and frustration - the stereotypical sentiments of politically-responsive art - what the singer took from his experience was that, at their heart, these protests weren't about slogans and shouting. They were about people.

“When you see reportage in the media of a march, the lens

Blaine Harrison

77

it's seen through is of kind of a mob,” he continues. “But when you go down there, you have the sense that this is 40,000 individuals with different opinions and views and experiences, and the more you speak to those people the more complex you realise that these matters are.” And from there came a record whose main tools instead lie in compassion, and a desire to communicate and start a conversation rather than end it.

“I've always felt as an artist that your currency is empathy, and there are things you can articulate in a song that are difficult to talk about in everyday conversation,” Blaine says. “But when a listener puts on a pair of headphones, they can feel seen and heard and listened to.”

behind”, to 'Petty Drone' and its themes of technology and surveillance. The ideas Mystery Jets are posing aren't new theories; we all know, on some level, that these fears are everywhere. But they're ones that bear repeating. “What I find quite interesting is that the internet and social media were invented with good intentions and they're very useful things, but they've just become a mirror to who we are,” says Will. “They're these Frankensteins that reveal our ugly nature right back at us and they've become so far removed from their initial practicality. They've become this quagmire of noise and narcissism.”

“One of the reasons mental health issues and anxiety feel like such hot topics among people is because we're living in these bubbles of our own making,” continues Blaine.

“Every time you switch on your phone you're seeing a party you're not at, or a holiday you're not on, or a body you'll never have. You see all these things that fuck with your head, and you've got to ask the question of where this is leading?”

Perhaps the clearest example of this comes in the form of 'Hospital Radio'. Written after Blaine's aforementioned prolonged inpatient stay, it's an ode to the importance of the NHS and an emotional, lyrically hard-hitting listen made all the more weighty by the singer's own experiences. Born with spina bifida, he's spent a lifetime in and out of hospitals and it's a sense of cold, hard reality, of having seen people suffer in the way that only those on the inside of those walls will likely see that informs its vulnerable defiance: “When you’re lying in your bed, raw cold and bleeding, wondering when the hell it all went wrong / Praying that your prayers still hold some meaning, we will be the spell at the end of your tongue.” The 'we' is, of course, the NHS itself.

And, as it turns out, he “You spend time in an NHS found more than a value hospital and you have a real pack of chicken dippers. sense of what the future might look like if you don't fight for it,” Blaine: On New Year’s Day, I went he says. “The album isn't telling to one of the hot springs. I was you what to think, but this [track] feeling a bit miserable as most of is the one case where I felt it was the world does on New Year’s Day. important to communicate quite I sat down and the rain started a distinct message of fingers becoming down and I looked to the ing pointed at the establishment, right of me and there’s fucking because the people that are sufBjörk. It’s like going to Narnia and fering the shortcomings of that meeting Aslan. system the most - people from Will: Did you talk to her? less fortunate backgrounds, and B: You don’t disturb Björk when a growing older population, and she’s in her natural habitat. disabled people - are often the Kapil: She’s oh so quiet... people who don't have a platform to air that voice on.”

Blaine’s Gone to Iceland

The announcement and release of the record itself was even almost delayed when the frontman caught an infection and was forced to spend another stint in the ward earlier this year. Instead, they decided to release the track as the album's first taste, going around local hospital radios before heading to St. Thomas' in London to perform for the staff and patients (“St Thomas' is like the Brixton Academy of hospitals,” Blaine winks).

Across the record, the band tap into a series of very present concerns: from the Will-penned 'Endless City', a look at the difficulties of living within such a demanding metropolis and feeling like your city might be “leaving you

78 DIYMAG.COM

O

n 'A Billion Heartbeats', the band ask these questions and bolster them with a record that's soaring and tender and sparkling as only they know how. Yes, these are songs with more weight than the casual ‘Jets fan might be used to, but they're also ones that approach these topics with accessibility and enough cathartic punch to make you feel like maybe it'll all be OK after all.

Produced by the band themselves for the first time, and recorded across nearly two years of gruelling sessions in their studio, it's a labour of love that sonically fulfils the visions that its lyrics set out. Opener and recent single 'Screwdriver' is perhaps the best song they've ever laid to tape - an enormous, immediate monster of a call to arms, while the title track takes you to the edge of an emotional precipice and closer 'Wrong Side of the Tracks' ends in a moment of hope.

Though, they explain, there is no conclusion to be found here, no instruction that claims to be able to answer the problem, there is a message in 'Screwdriver' that seems at the heart of the matter: “Fight them with love”. “You look at the Tommy Robinson protest marches, or when Farage was doing his campaign trail and it was essentially National Go Throw a Milkshake at a Nazi Week. Whereas I think the message we're trying to put across is just to listen to people,” says Blaine. “We're all together, guys! We've got nowhere else to go! We need to make caring sexy,” he laughs. “That's our mission statement.”

'A Billion Heartbeats' is out 27th September via Caroline International. DIY

“YOU SEE ALL THESE THINGS THAT FUCK WITH YOUR HEAD, AND YOU’VE GOT TO ASK THE QUESTION OF WHERE THIS IS LEADING?” - BLAINE HARRISON

79



CHARLI XCX Charli (Asylum)

C

harli XCX might just be the world’s unluckiest pop star. Signed while still a teenager, eventual debut full-length ‘True Romance’ was a hipster’s wet dream of credits; star alt-pop knob-twiddlers Ariel Rechtshaid and Justin Raisen sitting alongside Gold Panda, J£zus Million and BloodPop. A critical darling, it didn’t, however, click with the public. Chart success did beckon with Icona Pop’s recording of her ‘I Love It’ in 2013, her killer chorus for Iggy Azalea’s ‘Fancy’ the following year, and film soundtrack smash ‘Boom Clap’. But then things stalled: a “punk” record was scrapped. What would eventually become second LP ‘Sucker’ began with revealing she was working with Rostam Batmanglij and Rivers Cuomo - but ended with a long-delayed, messy, split international release, by which time she already professed to “hate” the album.

It wasn’t just all this which made the apparent artistic freedom of mixtapes ‘Number 1 Angel’ and ‘Pop 2’ feel

80 DIYMAG.COM

a futuristic breath of fresh air - but it didn’t hurt. Away from the constraints of an album proper, Charli powered ahead in full auteur mode, taking cues from collaborators SOPHIE and AG Cook’s hyper-real world, while seasoning her vision with fellow leftfield pop voices (MØ, Cupcakke, Mykki Blanco, Jay Park). By the end of 2017, there was no mistaking a new Charli XCX track.

Opening this self-titled third with a track called ‘Next Level Charli’ shows immediately where the star’s head is: “I go hard, I go fast and I never look back,” she states. Yet nextlevel Charli happens, it seems, to be largely a continuation of the same Charli - not least because the already-released Troye Sivan team-up ‘1999’ is easily the record’s standout moment. ‘Gone’ with Christine and the Queens, and the Lizzo-featuring ‘Blame It On Your Love’ both tease their guests’ personalities just the right amount, while her nowtrademark processed vocals suit ‘Thoughts’ perfectly. The more out-there ‘Shake It’, meanwhile, with its cut-and-

TRACKLISTING

paste conveyor belt of features (Big Freedia, Cupcakke, Brooke Candy, Pabllo Vittar), is every bit as compelling as anything she’s put her name to.

Yet, ‘Silver Cross’ and ‘I Don’t Wanna Know’ are largely forgettable, as if Charli’s spiky edges have been sanded off somewhere in the transition to full album. ‘White Mercedes’, meanwhile, is far too similar to Julia Michaels’ ‘Issues’ - and from a songwriter who’s previously spat out first-rate hooks like they’re discarded gum, it makes for an uncomfortable listen. And, as un-luck would have it, that ‘Charli’ didn’t arrive in 2018 means its production comes post-Billie: the crunchy breakdown that could’ve made ‘Click’ a mind-bender, to any ears who’ve wrapped themselves around ‘Bury A Friend’ at volume it sounds, well, kinda meh.

1 . NEXT LEVEL CHARLI 2. GONE 3. CROSS YOU OUT 4. 1999 5. CLICK 6. WARM 7. THOUGHTS 8. BLAME IT ON YOUR LOVE 9. WHITE MERCEDES 10. SILVER CROSS 11. I DON’T WANNA KNOW 12. OFFICIAL 13. SHAKE IT 14. FEBRUARY 2017 15. 2099

If Charli hadn’t made such forwardthinking strides with her mixtapes two years back, both allowing the pop world at large to pilfer at will from her stylesheet and allowing us time to get used to her musical tics - maybe ‘Charli’ would’ve sounded otherworldly. It’s still a worthwhile successor to them, of course. It’s just not the world-beater she’s surely capable of. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘1999’, ‘Shake It’

81



SQUID Town Centre

(Speedy Wunderground)



MYSTERY JETS A Billion Heartbeats (Caroline International)

A long time has passed, and a lot of shit has gone down, since Mystery Jets first burst out over a decade ago. Back then, worrying about being in love with the girl ‘Two Doors Down’ was at the forefront of Blaine Harrison’s mind, but 11 years later, in the midst of our political shitstorm and now on their sixth album, Mystery Jets are ready to tackle troubles more head on than ever before. Opening with blistering guitar-smasher ‘Screwdriver’, a call-to-arms to fight the powers that be with love, it’s perhaps the best introduction to what ‘A Billion Heartbeats’ aims to achieve: to call out what’s going wrong and rouse people to stand up against the bullshit. The poignant ‘Hospital Radio’ is an ode to the NHS among growing fears of its privatisation, whereas the melodic title track describes with cutting frankness mankind’s need to step up and confront what’s happening in the world. But there’s a sincerity that shines through every song, and, above everything, it’s a rallying call for change and action and hopeful outlook on what’s to come. “Be who you needed when you were younger,” Blaine implores on the stirring ‘History Has Its Eyes On You’, an inspiring message from what is set to be an undoubtedly influential album. (Elly Watson) LISTEN: ‘Screwdriver’

82 DIYMAG.COM

Boundary-pushing five-piece Squid make a small piece of history with their second EP. It’s the first extended release by studio-space-cumrecord-label Speedy Wunderground, and on the Dan Carey-produced ‘Town Centre’, the merits of recording everything live, in the dark, in an incredibly short space of time really show. The tell-tale brass that mournfully blows over creaking opener ‘Savage’ immediately draws comparisons to Talk Talk’s ‘Spirit of Eden’. ‘Match Bet’, on the other hand, sounds like Television on their summer holidays. Seven-minute masterpiece ‘The Cleaner’ is the record’s standout. It’s a Frankenstein-like creation that combines the angular danceability of Talking Heads with a lyrical fantasy about… a cleaner! It’s laced with more colourful melodies than you can shake a bag of Skittles at. ‘Town Centre’ is a richly musical and completely addictive listen that shows exactly why Squid are one of the most exciting bands in the country at this moment.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘The Cleaner’

 METRONOMY Metronomy Forever (Because)



LIFE

A Picture Of Good Health (Afghan Moon)

It might be called ‘Metronomy Forever’, but this isn’t a greatest hits compilation.

Still, with the number of stone cold belters packed into this sixth album, you’d be forgiven for thinking it were one. Clocking in at a hefty 55 minutes over 17 tracks, it’s the most ambitious project from the group so far, but the interludes don’t feel forced or intimidating - far from it. In fact, stacking up a variety of audacious pop songs almost laughable in their optimism (take the incessantly sparky ‘Salted Caramel Ice Cream’) with broodier instrumental snippets gifts breathing room to what could have otherwise been a messy, overegged affair. For each strobe-lit high there’s a comedown that follows the morning after. ‘Forever Is A Long Time’ convulses like a primordial Daft Punk, ‘Miracle Rooftop’ is the perfect 3am low-key burner, cooler and more in line with Four Tet or Bicep than Metronomy’s back catalogue. Got bangers? You betcha. Look no further than ‘The Light’’s beefy rumble or the scratchy indie-pop of ‘Wedding Bells’ for a degree of dance-ability that delivers perfectly on what the saucier parts of ‘Summer 08’ promised.

Unexpected, indulgent, and an absolute joy, ‘Metronomy Forever’ is a prophecy to get behind. (Alex Cabré) LISTEN: ‘Salted Caramel Ice Cream’

‘A Picture of Good Health’ is LIFE’s third full-length and their most thrillingly vital to date, as frontman Mez Green delivers a searing state-of-the-nation address that acknowledges the struggles of the young in matters financial, emotional, and psychological. They hold a sonic mirror up to those issues, too; the fact that this is the tightest that the Hull outfit have ever sounded only means that there’s a palpable post-punk tension running through, with the snap of Stew Baxter’s percussion, squall of Mick Sanders’ guitars and ominous, omnipresent rumble of new recruit Lydia Palmeira’s bass only lent some off-kilter punctuation by Mez’s freewheeling vocal approach.

It sees him in caged-animal mode one minute - the bleak trapped-by-circumstance ode to boredom of ‘Bum Hour’, for instance - and then adopting a cold sneer the next, with the acidic ‘Niceties’ a case in point. Throughout, there’s evidence of a unique thematic perspective - ‘Half Pint Fatherhood’ details his experiences as a lone parent - but what makes ‘A Picture of Good Health’ so vital is the unshakable sense that the gestation of LIFE’s firebrand formula has run parallel to the country’s political spiral. Now, they’re hitting their stride just as the Brexit void looms. Accordingly, this record is indispensable. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Niceties’



BROCKHAMPTON GINGER

(Question Everything / RCA)

Less than a year since ‘iridescence’, America’s selfproclaimed “best boyband since One Direction” have returned with their most mature and concise work to date. Basically, the boys are sad. Like, real sad, and there’s a dark underpinning running through the entirety of ‘GINGER’. Just looking at the album artwork, you can see that the guys are feeling all the #feels. On opening track ‘NO HALO’, Joba sets the tone, rapping: “Been goin’ through it again / Been talkin’ to myself, wonderin’ who I am”. What follows is a self-reflective record,

confronting their demons with the continued reference to faith and religion becoming a coping mechanism. There are still some bops thrown in there, ‘IF YOU PRAY RIGHT’, ‘ST. PERCY’ and ‘BOY BYE’ are welcome pick-me-ups, and some exciting guest features - slowthai on ‘HEAVEN BELONGS TO YOU’ and Ryan Beatty jumping on several tracks - but this is overwhelmingly a sad album, coming to its climax during ‘DEARLY DEPARTED’ where Kevin Abstract, Matt Champion and, especially, Dom McLennon deliver some of their most raw and unfiltered verses to date. (Elly Watson) LISTEN: ‘HEAVEN BELONGS TO YOU’

Introducing the newest member of BROCK-HOUND-TON...

83



 LIAM GALLAGHER

IGGY POP Free

(Loma Vista / Caroline International)

Why Me? Why Not. (Warner)

Liam Gallagher is many things, of which one is a man who knows what his people want. Massive festival sets - often headlining - jam-packed with Oasis singalongs; albums that don’t feature recordings of scissors. So that ‘Why Me? Why Not.’ is largely drive time guitar rock with nods to the ‘60s (the album is named after two drawings by - who else? - John Lennon, both of which Liam owns) and a deft line in somewhat cringeworthy rhyming couplets (it’s between ‘Once’’s “feels so uncool / just clean the pool / and send the kids to school” and “I’m so low / I’m so high / I’m tight-lipped / I’m Jedi” on the title track) should surprise nobody. That’s not to say it’s entirely basic. Sure, single ‘Shockwave’ and ‘Be Still’ plod slightly, but Liam’s second is a whole lot more sentimental. ‘Once’ is otherwise a rose-tinted look back in time complete with strings, while ‘One Of Us’ is a plea to a long-lost friend (ahem) to rekindle a relationship. Elsewhere, love song ‘Halo’ jams like the ‘Stones’ ‘Let’s Spend The Night Together’, the title track hints at later Weller, and - of course - there’s an unmistakeable Beatlesesque guitar solo on ‘Meadow’. All of which are references welcome to anyone who’s stuck around for Liam’s new stuff.

(Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘Why Me? Why Not.’



PIXIES

Beneath The Eyrie (Infectious / BMG)

In 2018 Pixies celebrated the 30th anniversary of ‘Come On Pilgrim’ and ‘Surfer Rosa’ - two records that cemented their place in indie rock history. It seems that much of the raw sound and bite of those two influential releases has been channeled once again for ‘Beneath The Eyrie’ - the band’s best album since reforming in 2004. Joey Santiago’s licks on ‘This Is My Fate’ hark back to 1987 classic ‘Nimrod’s Son’, Paz Lenchantin does her best Kim Deal on slowburning ballad ‘Los Surfers Muertos’, and scuzzed up blues number ‘St. Nazaire’ finds Black Francis rolling back the years with some blood-curdling screeches. And then there’s ’Graveyard Hill’, a bone-crunching blockbuster that genuinely wouldn’t feel out of place next to the some of the band’s best singles. There’s an enduring concept across these 12 tracks that makes it much more than another late career cash-in.

‘Beneath the Eyrie’ could just as easily be called ‘Pixies go West’, so crammed it is with acoustic desert-rock, cactus-flavoured guitar riffs and stories about silver bullets, birds of prey and American folk legends.

And while it occasionally feels lacking in the kind of explosive energy that made the band such an impact in the late ‘80s, it still captures the spirit of the Pixies in a way that’s extremely satisfying. (James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Graveyard Hill’

84 DIYMAG.COM

After scoring the highest-charting LP of his career with the Josh Homme-dominated ‘Post Pop Depression’ in 2016, the Iggy Pop renaissance continues on what may be his best record since ‘Lust For Life’. It’s also one of the most unique entries of his whole canon. “I wanted to be free,” he said. “So this album just kind of happened to me, and I let it happen.”

The sombre, ambient sounds that score the eponymous title track immediately draw comparisons to two other late-career masterpieces: David Bowie’s ‘Blackstar’, and Gil Scott-Heron’s ‘I’m New Here’. Iggy’s languid, gruff oration on restrained, spoken-word piano piece ‘We Are The People’, is particular resemblant of the aforementioned poet’s prose. And the guitar harmonics and airy pads that open the angelic ‘Sonali’ give way to a jazzy skiffle akin to something more like Radiohead than The Stooges. “This is an album in which other artists speak for me, but I lend my voice”, he says of the record, and therein lies the magic - there is a rich musicality on ‘Free’ that gives the vocalist a fresh platform to be a poetic and lyrical storyteller.

And it’s deeply personal, even sad, at times. “You’ve done it all before, you’ll dread the encore”, he mutters on the languid ‘Page’. It’s the uniquely sombre and contemplative Iggy Pop album we didn’t realise we needed. (James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Dirty Sanchez’



BON IVER i, i

(Bella Union)

Having left his fabled isolation in the past, Justin Vernon has spent over a decade reinventing his sound with the help of an ever-changing backing of musicians. His stripped-back songwriting initially gave way for the grandiose instrumentation of 2011’s selftitled album, which in turn laid the foundation for the challenging ‘22, A Million’. ‘i.i’ traverses the broad space crafted between all his incarnations.

Opening trio ‘Yi’, ‘iMi’ and ‘We’ pave the journey, building from the experimental noise of the intro through auto-tuned vocals to the comparable heaviness of ‘We’. Bridging from ‘22. A Million’ into ‘i.i’, they hurl towards some of Bon Iver’s best work to date. ‘Faith’ soars with an urgency the group hasn’t displayed in years, while the gospel-infused ‘Naeem’ is beautifully devastating. The electronic experimentation remains but is used remarkably sparingly, instead providing the foundation for the record’s truly big moments. There’s little subtlety here. Even at their softest there’s an inarguable assuredness that effortlessly allows the jarring ‘Jelmore’ and the darkly minimalist ‘Holyfields,’ to sit against the Prince-esque ‘RABi’ and the brassfilled beauty of ‘Salem’. A decade on from the pained remoteness of ‘For Emma, Forever Ago’, ‘i,i’ holds the same intimacy and urgency, elevated by years of groundbreaking experimentation. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘We’



GIRL BAND The Talkies (Rough Trade)

It’s easy to salute bands for ‘doing their own thing’, but Irish cult heroes Girl Band really are. Like a scene from Indiana Jones, if another act tried to open their particular ark it might just melt their face off. As it is though, more than ever on ‘The Talkies’ they artfully corral all the vying demons, curiosities and terrors into a devastating cocktail. Dara Kiely’s angular vocal delivery mixes absurd but entertaining visualisations with straight up screams, in a bizarre crossfire of the intriguingly topical and the viscerally primal. Above the relentlessly propulsive drums, the pulsing bass, the scratching and sawing of mechanical textures, he floats in and out of audibility, leaving you knitting together mumbles with moments of absolute clarity, even if it’s just shouting “orange door hinge!”. ‘Going Norway’ and ‘Shoulderblades’ make for surefire off-kilter hits, drawing a neat line between The Fall, Ought and the sound scrapyards make at night. The most extreme journey between noise-fuelled utter destruction and some intelligently-written hooks is the outrageously ambitious ‘Laggard’, which moves from Aphex Twin-style synthetic sirens to a cymbal-only lullaby breakdown. It’s almost delicate and introspective. Almost. No one does what these guys do, probably no one could, and it’s probably not something that you’d dream up if no one else was. That’s what makes it so exciting; not only that they can, but they do it so well.

(Matthew Davies Lombardi) LISTEN: ‘Laggard’

85









Memory

Saves The World

Hoodies All Summer

Hot Motion

VIVIAN GIRLS

MUNA

KANO

TEMPLES

(Polyvinyl)

(Columbia)

(Parlophone)

(ATO)

Not all surprises are bad, as we discovered earlier this summer with the news, out of nowhere, that the long-thought-defunct Vivian Girls had been cooking up a fourth record on the sly in Los Angeles. When the trio first disbanded in 2014, there was a sense that perhaps they had lived and died by the blogosphere’s sword at a time when buzz was king and survival past a second fulllength was unfashionable. A profile on the reunion instead painted a depressingly familiar picture of misogynyengendered fatigue, as well as a similarly well-worn story of a band stepping out of the DIY scene into a media maelstrom that stripped them of their handle on why it was they wanted to play music in the first place. In that respect, ‘Memory’’s title is key. After Cassie Ramone’s stripped-back solo work and Katy Goodman’s slick pop diversions with La Sera, it is remarkable how smoothly they slip back into the old dynamic, as if they somehow trapped the Vivian Girls sound in amber when they put the band on the shelf.

The guitars are still awash in reverb, the percussion remains propulsive, and the deceptively complex vocal harmonisation is the axis around which everything else revolves. What’s new is a feeling of genuine exhilaration - on the freewheeling standout ‘Something to Do’, the infuriatingly catchy ‘I’m Far Away’, and on the gentle breeze of ‘At It Again’ especially. ‘Memory’, is music for the love of it, and unabashedly so. You suspect it was every bit as much an unforeseen gift to Vivian Girls as it is to us. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Something To Do’

Where debut ‘About U’ fostered their dark-pop label, MUNA have expanded their horizons on follow-up ‘Saves The World’. That isn’t to say heartbreak doesn’t feature prominently; the rousing synths of ‘Who’ underpin frustration and rejection, and the Robyn-like ‘Never’ opens with the defining “I don’t know if I like love, I think I’ve had enough”. There’s the melancholy of ‘Navy Blue’, the hope of the climatic ‘It’s Gonna Be OK, Baby’. The whimsically titled ‘Good News (Ya Ya Song)’ delivers pure pop, and ‘Taken’ channels more than a little Carly Rae. As they retain their leftist, queer stance, MUNA turn their vocal activism towards themselves. The result is as wide ranging and as free as the complexity of the individual. It’s an exhilarating ode to self-preservation and to being your own number one fan. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Who’

While the six-year gap between Kano’s last album and its predecessor cast a reflective tone over ‘Made In The Manor’, ‘Hoodies All Summer’ is fixed firmly in the present; there’s a heartbreaking moment on ‘Good Youtes Walk Among Evil’ where he zeroes in on his suit trousers being creased from the sheer volume of funerals he’s had to attend - “welcome to my city,” he raps. His sixth LP seamlessly blends trap beats with soul samples and orchestral flourishes, most compellingly on the stirring ‘Teardrops’ as he lays into the powers that be with a snarl; “Hoodies all summer because teardrops from the sky seem to only fall on you and I”. The true powers of this album shine through as he examines our current splintered society; Kano holds the rhyme and reason to encapsulate it and possesses the angst to make it hit home. (Sean Kerwick) LISTEN: ‘Teardrops’

Temples’ prismatic cuts of modern psych felt aweinspiring even before album one. So it’s no surprise that with ‘Hot Motion’ the Kettering bunch are three for three on epic records that froth with lush, honeyed noise. Uncharacteristically gloomy at times but for the most part curiously disorienting, this time ‘round the riffs are chunkier, the hooks catchier, the lyrics more poetic.‘You’re Either On Something’ and ‘Holy Horses’ boast some of the band’s most saccharine earworms to date. ‘Hot Motion’’s only pitfall comes from frankly how safe it feels.

Sure, it’s bigger and brighter than anything Temples have done before, but its whole aesthetic is still nestled deep in their sepia-tinted comfort zone. Nevertheless, it’s a solid statement that Temples are alive and kicking, drawing fresh inspo from the past without fading into it themselves. (Alex Cabré) LISTEN: ‘The Beam’

86 DIYMAG.COM



BAT FOR LASHES Lost Girls

 BRITTANY HOWARD Jaime

(Columbia)

Across the 11 tracks on ‘Jaime’, Brittany Howard places some tough subject matters under the microscope. She tackles her fraught relationship with religion on ‘He Loves Me’, featuring bursts of sampled dialogue from a sermon.

Later there’s a song entitled ‘Goat Head’ which explores mixed race identity against an impassioned instrumental.

And while the songwriting mainly comes from a place of introspection, the musicianship sounds more communal and playful. Just as ‘Georgia’ threatens to explode into a glossy chorus, Brittany throws a left hook by stripping everything back to a soothing organ sequence. As ever, her voice is magnificent - it’s wielded like a weapon one minute only to be reduced back to a soft purr the next; the latter indulged beautifully here on gorgeous ballad ‘Short and Sweet’. ‘Jaime’ is an album which documents a fierce imagination at play; a truly invigorating piece of work that pushes her songwriting forward. (Sean Kerwick) LISTEN: ‘13th Century Metal’

It says a lot about Natasha Khan, and the astonishingly high standard that she set for herself across her first three albums, that her fourth could be a highly-stylised concept album charting the fate of a would-be bride struck by tragedy at the altar and still, somehow, be seen as a creative regression. ‘The Bride’’s streamlined synth-rock and clearly-drawn thematic arc seemed unusually on-the-nose for a Bat for Lashes record, a feeling accentuated by the fact that it arrived swiftly on the heels of her gleefully untethered collaboration with Toy, Sexwitch. This follow-up, Khan’s second LP since her move from Brighton to Los Angeles, will divide ‘The Bride’’s detractors along the following lines; those turned off by the conceptual side of things will be pleased to hear that ‘Lost Girls’, a treatise on femininity in 2019, sees the artist return to the lyrical ambiguity of old, whilst anybody alienated by her embrace of slick electronic textures will be disheartened by the fact that she’s headed further down that particular rabbit hole this time around - just without ‘The Bride’’s occasional excursion into goth-rock, torch song territory. For the rest of us, Natasha’s first real pop effort since ‘Fur and Gold’ is an impressively lean and infectiously hook-laden romp; doomy disco for dark times. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Vampires’

RECOMMENDED

(AWAL)

Missed the boat on the best albums from the last couple of months?

Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.



MARIKA HACKMAN Any Human Friend

Marika lays it all out in exquisite style on her spectacularly smutty third LP.



JAY SOM Anak Ko Melina Duterte’s second is a triumphant journey full of imagination.



THE MURDER CAPITAL

When I Have Fears An exhilarating debut from the Dubliners.

87





Engine of Paradise

House Of Sugar

ADAM GREEN (30th Century)

Since first coming to attention as one half of anti-folk weirdos The Moldy Peaches, Adam Green has become a bona fide cult hero - a multimedia polymath of the odd, dishing up graphic novels, surreal films and playful lyrics with childlike glee. The humour that characterises his work has, however, always been served up in a perhaps surprisingly tasteful musical package; Adam might be a little sparkle-eyed tinker, but he’s one with a keen line in smooth croons. On ‘Engines of Paradise’, his tenth solo LP, the formula hasn’t changed: a buttery vocal, gentle swoons and the odd lyrical eyebrow raise are still the order of the day. But if it’s a hard gig convincing a new generation that the pretty twinkles of ‘Freeze My Love’ or the genuinely rather lovely lament of ‘Rather Have No Thing’ are actually pretty cool, then maybe his celeb pals will help; featuring Florence Welch and Foxygen’s Jonathan Rado, Adam’s still the pied piper of indie, with a skip in his step and charm for days. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Rather Have No Thing’

(SANDY) ALEX G (Domino)

On ninth album ‘House of Sugar’, (Sandy) Alex G is potentially the most expansive he’s ever been.

While his previous releases came about through quick songwriting and production, the Philadelphia-based musician had been penning songs for ‘House of Sugar’ since 2017, and the album features an array of soundscapes and textures to add to its strange, twisting world. ‘Gretel’ and ‘In My Arms’ are melodic and ever so slightly romantic, but ‘Sugar’ and ‘Bad Man’ are so delightfully strange and weird that you can’t help but want to live in his universe.

“Music makes me wanna do bad things,” he sings on ‘In My Arms’, but you don’t know which side of good or evil the character is on. This state of philosophical ambiguity and the push and pull of boundaries - much like the genres of music ‘House of Sugar’ explores - is the heart of the record. (Sandy) Alex G has always crossed the lines between the reality and the fantastical, and on ‘House of Sugar’, the strangeness of it all is so delightful that you can’t help but come back for more. (Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘Gretel’

 OSCAR HTTP404 (Wichita)

When is an album not an album? Oscar Scheller’s ‘HTTP404’ isn’t, but it is 11 songs long, which… yeah. What it definitely is, though, is a sketchbook of where the songwriter finds himself three years after debut ‘Cut and Paste’. Trying his hand at different types of pop with a rotating cast of pals, he’s at his best when sonically - if not lyrically - chirpy. The Lily Allen-featuring ‘1%’ is undoubtedly the standout here, while the playfulness of ‘Happy Meals’ and ‘1UP’ featuring Mathilda Homer and Sarah Bonito respectively showcases Oscar’s own knack for wordplay. Notable too is ‘Estate Of Mind’, on which Oscar takes a back seat for Tottenham singer-songwriter Miraa May and Coventry-via-West London rapper Jevon to chronicle the city’s streets. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘1%’

88 DIYMAG.COM



VAGABON Vagabon

(Nonesuch)

For all the guitar-led beauty of Vagabon’s stunning debut ‘Infinite Worlds’, the eighttrack album was cut through by a five minute-plus digital exploration of sound, ‘Mal à L’aise’. It’s this that Laetitia Tamko has chosen to expand on this self-titled record that sacrifices almost any semblance of guitar in favour of a largely undefinable sound. In place of delicate fingerpicking arrive sprawling soundscapes such as the ambient ‘Home Soon’, the pained frustration of ‘Please Don’t Leave The Table’, and the understated dreamhouse of standout ‘Water Me Down’. A celebration of the creativity of the marginalised, Laetitia continues the focus on identity and self-empowerment, not least on ‘All The Women In Me’: an ode to the women who have shaped her to fulfil her own independence. The rest of ‘Vagabon’ mirrors this in its sound, audible proof that art is borderless. Self-produced and largely self-performed, Vagabon celebrates her heritage and her community, but most of all her creative freedom to challenge musical boundaries and to break away from the norm. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Water Me Down’







Dancing On The People

Pang!

Tough Crowd

SOFI TUKKER 

KINDNESS

Something Like A War (Female Energy)

Adam Bainbridge returns in 2019 with ‘Something Like A War’, their third full LP as Kindness after five years spent working closely with the likes of Solange, Blood Orange and Robyn. The latter appears here on a total of four tracks, as do a variety of collaborators ranging from Sampha, to Swedish singer Seinabo Sey and South African musicians Samthing Soweto and Vuyo Sotashe.

With such an eclectic consortium of styles making up this record the results are, unsurprisingly, varied. The four tracks featuring Robyn are among the best, with body-moving lead single ‘Cry Everything’ providing a rhythmic foil to the elegant, strings-laden ‘The Warning’.

‘Raise Up’ also stands out, with jazzy piano, brass and a four-to-the-floor dancefloor beat providing some vibrant hooks. House-influenced ‘Lost Without’ features an uplifting chorus and deep, funky bass. But on the flip side, tracks like scuffed R&B pop nugget ‘Hard To Believe’ don’t quite hit the euphoric heights they initially hint at.

At times the album, which has been in production since 2017, feels like it’s stuck in the sound of mid-2010s electronica. Shades of Caribou and Four Tet can be heard amid the brassy horns, shuffling beats and rhythmic vocal hooks. Fans might see this as a boon - Bainbridge picking up from where they left off before their selfimposed hiatus. To others, it may sound like a missed opportunity to establish themselves as a more cutting-edge artist.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Cry Everything’

GRUFF RHYS

NERVUS

(Ultra)

(Rough Trade)

(Big Scary Monsters)

There was a point back in 2018 where it was near-on impossible to avoid Sofi Tukker. Or at least one of their songs: ‘Batshit’ - with the cleaned-up moniker ‘That’s It (I’m Crazy)’ soundtracked an iPhone advert (and, on the way, did a better job of interpolating Right Said Fred’s ‘I’m Too Sexy’ than Swifty ever could).

‘Dancing On The People’ isn’t, of course, a full followup to debut ‘Treehouse’, so to pounce on there being no rival earworm here is a little harsh - but it can’t help but be noticeable. ‘Purple Hat’, from which the EP takes its name, is the most interesting of the six tracks on offer, while ‘Fantasy’ the most radio-friendly if a little beige.

Elsewhere, the stylistic mishmash of ‘Swing’ and ‘Playa Grande’ hit somewhere between Med holiday smash and Eurovision (no bad thing).

Just enough to keep your dancing shoes busy. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘Purple Hat’

‘Pang!’ continues the Super Furry Animals frontman’s tradition of Welsh-language albums, last exhibited on 2005‘s ‘Yr Atal Genhedlaeth’.

Musically, it’s a real culture clash. The title track and opener is all glitchy rhythms, chopped up guitars and beats. ‘Ara Deg (Ddaw’r Awen)’ may well be the first pop song in history to feature both Welsh and Zulu (a surprisingly good match), while ‘Taranau Mai’ transports us to India with processed tabla and hypnotic drone sounds.

But, at times, it does veer dangerously close to easy listening. As the bossa novalite of ‘Niwl O Anwiredd’ rolls on, you might find yourself checking you haven’t been put on hold to a call centre. ‘Pang!’ won’t ever be regarded as Gruff Rhys’ defining work, but is another rich, fun, leftfield collection of songs that shows Gruff Rhys has plenty of ideas left in him yet. (Felix Rowe) LISTEN: ‘Ara Deg (Ddaw’r Awen)’

Nervus are a band designed to rouse the masses. Em Foster’s tales of her struggles with gender dysmorphia and addiction that formed debut ‘Permanent Rainbow’ were presented as a series of hugely evocative and impassioned punk songs, and on second record ‘Everything Dies’ her innate ear for a singalong continued. In most regards then, ‘Tough Crowd’ picks up right where the band left off. ‘No Nations’ is a full-on, ecologically-concerned fist-pumper, whereas ‘They Don’t’ takes a swipe at the government and police force, rallying behind the call “They don’t keep you safe”. Misfires such as opener ‘Burn’ and closer ‘Where D’You Go’, which unfortunately mistakes its protracted outro for an exercise in building tension, do dampen the album’s impact, though Nervus’ buoyant, invigorating energy is hard not to enjoy. (Ben Lynch) LISTEN: ‘No Nations’

89



JERKCURB Air Con Eden (Handsome Dad)



ALEX CAMERON Miami Memory (Secretly Canadian)

“These are true stories, of actual events,” proclaims Alex Cameron, the satirical songwriter who has so far built a career around a series of fictitious characters.

With an expanded range of instrumentation to boot, ‘Miami Memory’ presents something of a cornerstone for the Australian’s career.

Piano-and-organ-laden tracks like lead single ‘Divorce’ and epic ballad ‘Other Ladies’ fuse foottapping Americana with Alex’s own ‘stepdad rock’.

Alex’s hilarious lyrics remain the star attraction, though.

Highlights include the impressively catchy ‘Far From Born Again’ (which rhymes the title lyric with “she’s doing porn again”), and the sombre ballad ‘End Is Nigh’, on which he croons “there’s a guy who thinks I’m fucking his girlfriend, he says he’s gonna make me cry”. When a man can put a verse and chorus together as well as Alex Cameron, he can sing about whatever he wants (whether it’s the truth or not). (James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Other Ladies’

Seven years after Jerkcurb emerged comes first fulllength, ‘Air Con Eden’: a Lynchian prom night woozy with eclipses, chicken bone wishes, slow-motion love affairs and punch-drunk riffs. Jacob Read is a skilful storyteller, and with melancholic, reverb-heavy guitar, a little piano and drum, some horse-hoofed percussion, and occasional angelic vocal interjections, he conjures an entire alternate realm. But ‘Air Con Eden’ is no idyll; despite the sweeping romance of ‘Wishbones’ and ‘Aquarena Springs’, menace and despair lurk. Apocalypse looms on spectacular final number ‘Night On Earth’ - but Jerkcurb doesn’t seem to mind, calmly watching dreamland unravel. Song, album and world end in unison as he croons, ever the romantic: “This desperate moment / Could last forever / And I would be / So happy / To spend eternity / Now I’m with you / ‘Cause you picked me / To end eternity / And I chose you.” (Diva Harris) LISTEN: ‘Voodoo Saloon’



ONE TRUE PAIRING One True Pairing (Domino)

Tom Fleming’s first post-Wild Beasts venture feels like an out-and-out reinvention, enough so to justify releasing it under a pseudonym. His own description of the new sound is ‘neo-heartland rock’ and as much as the sense of palpable anger that runs through ‘One True Pairing’ at the present political climate is comparable to Bruce Springsteen’s undaunted confrontation of working class struggle, he actually conjures up a sonic landscape all his own, one that sets dissonant guitars against retro synths to effects both dramatically imposing (‘Dawn at the Factory’) and infectiously melodic (‘Blank Walls’). Throughout, on matters both personal and national, Tom sounds utterly urgent, lending the whole affair a white-hot crackle of nervous energy. Key ‘Beasts tracks like ‘Two Dancers’ and ‘Burning’ always hinted at him being a singular talent in his own right; ‘One True Pairing’ confirms it. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Blank Walls’

KING PRINCESS Cheap Queen

The full-length debut from Mikaela Straus is bound to be every bit as iconic as the songs she’s already given us from it.

SWIM DEEP Emerald Classics

The Birmingham boys’ third has been some time coming - both ‘To Feel Good’ and ‘Sail Away, Say Goodbye’ feature on it, set for release on 4th October.

FOALS Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost - Part 2

With its epic first part shortlisted for this month’s Mercury Prize, expectations are Very Bloody High for Foals’ second of the year. Out 18th October.

ANGEL OLSEN All Mirrors

She’s previewed the record with the title track - the rest of the follow-up to 2016’s ‘My Woman’ will follow on 4th October.

90 DIYMAG.COM





A Poverty Of Attention

Lookout Low

ROXY GIRLS

TWIN PEAKS

(Moshi Moshi)

(Communion)

Until now, Sunderland has been most musically notable for The Futureheads - thickly-accented types with a keen line in odd time signatures and wonky art rock. Roxy Girls, also from the area, have a similar fondness for ricocheting guitar interplay and broad dialect (an attribute we will now officially, authoritatively dub The Sunderland Sound - no arguments please), but on ‘A Poverty of Attention’ it’s dished up in even shorter, sharper, more frenetic bursts than even the ‘Heads would attempt in their prime. There are nods to Glasgow’s ‘90s art school scene, and more than a whiff of choppy post punk, but it’s in their idiosyncratic humour that Roxy Girls shine. “You’ve got spanners for hands, but that doesn’t mean you’re gonna fix anything,” goes the aptly-titled ‘Spanners For Hands’ - and really, who can argue with that logic? (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Trials and Tribulations’

Chicago-based Twin Peaks are known for their energetic brand of raw garage rock, something that’s reflected in their equally rambunctious live shows. But their more recent ‘Sweet ’17 Singles’ releases channelled a different kind of energy.

Their sweet, Stones-esque, ’60s-infused rock’n’roll became more contained but their energy never left - it was just more mellowed and polished. ‘Lookout Low’ is a band expanding their genre palette and tasting all the styles imaginable - from gospel to soul and beyond and being unafraid to do so.

Just when you think that the quintet have outgrown their ways of the past, though, in comes ‘Oh Mama’, a track that feels like Twin Peaks in their most natural, freeing state - but only because they have been able to step out of their comfort zone and explore endless musical realms. (Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘Oh Mama’



THE PARANOYDS Carnage Bargain (Suicide Squeeze)

Emerging from Los Angeles with primary colours, The Paranoyds immediately slot into the established class of defiant, self-deprecating and bratty alternative American rock bands; “Superiority, that shit’s not for me,” Staz Lindes proudly declares on the scuzzy title track as the band’s mission statement.

While clearly paying homage to the B-52s with vintage Farfisa sounds and selfconsciously trashy choruses (“I’m doing laundry” is the pick of the bunch), The Paranoyds are no one-trick retrospective garage-riffing group, showcasing an impressive diversity across ‘Carnage Bargain’’s rapid-fire 30 minutes. Sat restlessly amid more conventional slapdash romps (‘Egg Salad’ , ‘Heather Doubtfire’), recalling Parquet Courts at their most untamed, are unprovenanced psychedelic organ-jams (‘Ratboy’), or album highlights like ‘Bear’ which elevate the band into unlikely stoner-rock behemoths, albeit for a few adventurous moments. All this means The Paranoyds rarely lose out on intrigue, and aside from what first impressions might show, the Californian quartet aren’t just here to dick around: brilliantly fuzzy and peppedup garage punk on the one hand, a succinct yet tonguein-cheek expression of suburban dissatisfaction on the other, ‘Carnage Bargain’ is a satisfying and engaging debut that offers The Paranoyds up as a group of undeniable promise. (Connor Thirlwell) LISTEN: ‘Bear’



DEVENDRA BANHART Ma

(Nonesuch)

The first noticeable thing about ‘Ma’ is how, well, ordinary it sounds. Sure, it’s packed full of the kind of gorgeous folksy melodies that could’ve been transported in a time capsule from the late ‘60s in California, but it’s definitely not weird.

And Devendra Banhart is a man who’s made his name through weird. It’s a beautiful record, if it takes until the final few tracks to find some of the spirit we’ve got used to.

‘Taking A Page’ combines the odd Dylanesque turn of phrase with some ‘80s radio production, ‘The Lost Coast’ is almost eerie in its darkness, and closer ‘Will I See You Tonight’ sounds positively luscious. But it’s the deliciously tonguein-cheek chorus of ‘My Boyfriend’s In The Band’ along with the introduction of glam towards the end which really stands out.

(Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘My Boyfriend’s In The Band’

91

LIV All hail the king of Hot Goth Summer.

YOUR HIGHLIGHTS Phoebe, London It was my first ever Reading and I got to see one of my favourite bands The 1975 play.

A girl next to me also did the full ‘Sincerity Is Scary’ dance, which was... interesting.

Jones, Bristol The Distillers. I’m glad to say I wasn’t disappointed, their live show is as fastpaced and hectic as ever, and Brody Dalle is an absolute powerhouse.

Jules, Amsterdam Billie Eilish! Someone explain to me why she wasn’t headlining?!

92 DIYMAG.COM

VE NO ROME

I

t’s the most wonderful time of the year. That is, if your ideal festive hangout is a 30 degrees day in August and everyone is in 1975 t-shirts.

READING FESTIVAL

Richfield Avenue, Reading. Photos: Emma Swann.

CHARLI XCX

Kicking the weekend off is No Rome.

Playing to a packed out tent of teens who seem to know every single synth chord, he blasts through hits from last year’s ‘RIP Indo Hisashi’ EP. It all may work towards a similar formula, but that doesn’t make the tunes any less catchy. Finishing on biggest song ‘Narcissist’, it remains his finest achievement, and also gives a cheeky nod to that bloke who’ll be dazzling the Main Stage as tonight’s headliner.

Next up is Charli XCX with a surprisingly early set on the Main Stage. ‘Blame It On Your Love’, ‘Cross You Out’ and ‘Gone’ don’t pack as much of a punch as her older stuff, but the latter does get a hilarious reaction shot on the massive screens of a woman mid-gasp as Charli shakes her arse during the dance break. The crowd raps every word to ‘Fancy’, sings every word of ‘Boys’, and even forms a mosh pit for ‘Boom Clap’.

Blitzing through a load of emo-pop bops from their 2018 debut ‘My Mind Makes Noises’, Pale Waves’ growth as a band over the last few years is the most prevalent thing. Going from shy goths on stage to Heather ripping her jacket open and launching herself into the crowd, their confidence has grown momentously. By the time they finish with ‘There’s A Honey’, there’s not one person in the packed Radio 1 tent not loving every second.

The whole day has, of course, been leading up to tonight’s headliners, and when The 1975 take the stage it feels like the rest of Friday has just been a warm-up. Kicking things off with new track ‘People’, the raucous punk number that dropped the previous night, they soon dive into a set that sees their recent tour set - which has been aired at just about every festival every weekend this summer - given a new shimmer, with added bonuses like ‘Girls’ thrown in for OG fans.

What’s most clear tonight is that they’re buzzing: calling it the “biggest moment of [their] lives”, Matty Healy is visibly shaken, made all the more clear when he gives a speech referencing what went down in Dubai in mid-August when he consensually kissed a boy on stage in the extremely anti-LGBTQ+ state. It’s both a poignant statement and incredible introduction to ‘Loving Someone’, which sees a rainbow appear across the stage. Deft but powerful moments are scattered across the set, including the incendiary ‘I Love America and America Loves Me’, before the lyrics to their new track featuring Greta Thunberg are starkly played out across the huge screens.

The fact that they drop the song midway through makes it even more potent.

With an added electronic preview of next album ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’, and a slew of older hits thrown into the encore for good measure, it’s left up to ‘The Sound’ to close things out. As Matty asks the entire crowd to “fucking jump!” - and they do - it’s really no shock that the day is entirely theirs. A band who’ve spent their whole career subverting opinion, dabbling in reinvention and just feeling genuinely quite important, was there ever going to be a better choice for headliner? Didn’t think so.

Shaking off any post-1975 hangovers, Saturday kicks off

93

KIM PETRAS

BILLIE EILISH

with slowthai in the Radio 1 tent. As soon as he walks on stage, the mosh pits start, the rapper encouraging the crowd to make them bigger and bigger. “Does anyone know a drug dealer?” he asks the adoring audience before ripping into ‘Drug Dealer’, and pints are thrown metres in the air. As he tears through tracks from debut ‘Nothing Great About Britiain’, stripping off into his slowthai-branded boxers along the way, it’s a huge set that leaves the crowd very sweaty and very satisfied. He also gives all the “mandem” a very important motto: “You’ve got to make a girl cum or someone else will.” Important.

Pulling the biggest crowd of the weekend, Billie Eilish may have been bumped up to an afternoon Main Stage spot, but the reaction shows she should be even higher still. Breezing through songs from March’s ‘when we all fall asleep where do we go?’, ‘bad guy’ and ‘you should see me in a crown’ earn circle pits, whereas older material like ‘bellyache’ and ‘ocean eyes’ show off her vocals and magnetic talent. Bounding about the stage with her neon-green outfit and hair to match, we’re calling her as a headline billing already.

despite being fairly small in size, go suitably mental over the six-piece’s set.

Rounding off the night, Peace headline the Festival Republic stage with a set full of bangers. Classic ‘Lovesick’ obviously goes off and is still an absolute bop six years after it was released, while ‘From Under Liquid Glass’ from last year’s ‘Kindness Is The New Rock and Roll’ leads the crowd in a huge singalong. Ryan ex-Superfood hops on stage to join the group for their melodic new one ‘Good Jeans’ before the group cover Cyndi Lauper’s ‘Time After Time’, and give the crowd the big indie disco they were craving.

Sunday kicks off with pop phenomenon, Kim Petras.

Bounding onto the stage with her statement “Woo! Ah!” entrance, she blasts through bops from debut record ‘Clarity’ and her older classics.

With mosh pits forming for basically every song, Bakar storms through tracks from last year’s ‘Badkid’, with ‘Big Dreams’ and ‘All In’ gaining huge singalongs from the packed tent.

Rounding off the weekend, Foo Fighters take to the stage for a monumental, career-spanning headline with some surprises thrown in for good measure. Not that the group need any extras at all. Urging the crowd to give them everything they’ve got, the group tear through a SPORTS set of bangers, covTEAM ering Queen’s ‘Under Pressure’ which sees Dave get behind Taylor’s drum kit which is adorned with a pic of the Gallagher brothers. “How many people wanna see Oasis fucking play a show?” Dave asks to a rapturous reception. Perhaps ending the pair’s feud will be Foos’ latest triumph? By the time ‘Everlong’ closes the festival and a huge firework show follows, it’s a magical and theatrical ending to the entire weekend. (Elly Watson)

Blazing through big hits ‘Margate’ and ‘Kutcher’ and newbie ‘Here It Comes Again’, Sports Team’s Alex Rice spends the majority of the set leaping into the crowd, who,

94 DIYMAG.COM

YPSIGROCK Castelbuono, Sicily. Photos: Louise Mason.

L

ocated in the idyllic Castelbuono in Sicily, about an hour outside of Palermo, Ypsigrock feels like you’ve wandered onto a film set complete with 14th century castle, surrounding mountains and spiralling cobblestone walkways. In Instagram-worthy moments, bands perform in ex-monasteries and the main stage takes place on the castle grounds, meaning there’s a certain magic leant to every sunshine-soaked set.

audience

Cardiff quartet Boy Azooga kick off Friday’s festivities, bringing their psychedelic alt-rock stylings to the Sicilian crowd. Although sound issues mean they’re slightly muffled - who knew the church’s acoustics weren’t built with rock gigs in mind? - the groupshimmy through tracks from last year’s debut ‘1, 2, Kung Fu!’ with style, nonetheless.

Kicking things off on Sunday are Whitney who are immediately gunning for some Molinari shots (a very strong sambuca) as soon as they get on stage, a request eventually fulfilled when their tour manager appears with some shot glasses. “Don’t post this on YouTube,” Julien jokes before debuting some of the brand new tracks, “that shit always sucks.” ‘Before I Know It’, ‘Night and Day’ and ‘Valleys (My Love)’ are set gems and an exciting glimpse at their new album, whereas big hitters ‘Golden Days’ and ‘No Woman’ cement them as one of the highlights of the weekend.

Later in the evening, the Piazza Castello begins to fill as Let’s Eat Grandma bring us into their weird and wonderful world.

Rosa Walton and Jenny Hollingworth rally through ‘White Water’, ‘Hot Pink’ and ‘It’s Not Just Me’, before rounding off the set with the 10-minute-long melodic ‘Donnie Darko’, complete with a brilliant Macarena rendition.

Closing out the first night are headliners The National, and is there a better setting to watch the American indie-rock legends than on the grounds of a castle? Spoiler: there is not. Kicking off with ‘You Had Your Soul With You’ from May’s ‘I Am Easy To Find’, the group rip through fan faves ‘Hey Rosey’ and ‘Don’t Swallow The Cap’, before ‘Green Gloves’ from 2007’s ‘Boxer’ is dedicated to Silver Jews’ “genius, wonderful, brilliant” David Berman. Matt launches himself into the crowd during the anthemic ‘Day I Die’ from 2017’s ‘Sleep Well Beast’, lucky not to decapitate anyone as his mic lead rips over the heads of the swarming

Shaking off the emotional hangovers for day two, Belgian MC Baloji does his best to keep the energy high, opening the main stage with his unique and refreshing hip hop. Later in the night, Belgian-Caribbean artist WWWater - the alter-ego of Charlotte Adigéry - brings her minimal impactful sounds to the main stage, before headliner David August closes out the night.

Next up are the most hyped act of the whole festival. Fontaines DC don’t disappoint. Opening with ‘Chequeless Reckless’, follow-up heavy hitters like ‘Too Real’, ‘Big’ and ‘Boys in the Better Land’ growl with an urgency that echoes around the idyllic scenery, creating a moment of charming chaos amongst the castle grounds. “Dublin in the rain” may be theirs, but Castelbuono in 30-degree heat certainly is too.

To close out, Spiritualized bring their decades-spanning 18-song setlist to an adoring crowd who hang on every guitar lick. Soulful and poignant, Jason Pierce’s voice remains melodic and mesmerising, circling around the grounds with an otherworldly quality that remains long after they’ve finished. As the night ends on the sublime ‘Oh! Happy Day’, it’s hopeful and uplifting, and the perfect magical ending credits to the film-like festival. (Elly Watson)

FONTAINES DC

THE NATIONAL

95

WOLF ALICE

Ellie was very annoyed that someone had taken the last tinny from the rider.

THE BIG MOON

STANDON CALLING Standon Lordship, Hertfordshire. Photos: Robin Pope.

A

fter a week of apocalyptic heat, someone decided to turn the taps on over the Hertfordshire countryside.

Yet, there’s enough at Standon Calling to keep the vibes high even despite some erratic bursts from the heavens. ‘Boutique’ doesn’t do justice to the quaintness and charm of the site; there are as many street food options as there are musical ones (not counting Dick and Dom’s DJ Battle), and designer dogs and not-so-designer children roam free.

Humidity still lingers over the site as The Japanese House takes to the stage on Friday afternoon. An entrancing, ethereal 45-minute set follows, played to a crowd who had just been planning to walk past, but are drawn into Amber Bain and band’s melodic spell.

IDLES provide the closer for day one, and in style. Unkempt, intense, frontman Joe Talbot strutting, swirling and gurning angrily through their back catalogue.

Saturday begins with Elvana. You could describe them as a tribute act, because they are - a mixture of Elvis and Nirvana… which sounds potentially terrible, but with incredible musicality, and a bright pink jumpsuit, they pull it off. Someone backstage suggests it was better than the Nirvana Reading 1992 set that he’d been present for. He appears to be perfectly sane.

The debt of gratitude Friendly Fires owe to Sunday’s headliner Nile Rodgers is dazzlingly, entertainingly obvious. ‘Jump in The Pool’ is disposed of early doors, accompanied by some truly spectacular dad-dancing, and by ‘Paris’, the prodigal sons are embraced as though they’ve never been away.

96 DIYMAG.COM

Across the site, Kate Nash is in full flow. There’s a sense of an artist and performer having found her identity – green hair and boiler suit; thrashing out pop-punk treats such as recent single ‘Trash’ without omitting the songs that made her a household name.

Still on a victory lap from last year’s well-deserved Mercury win, Wolf Alice headline on Saturday night. Their set is bombastic, atmospheric, with not a dud in sight. By ‘Giant Peach’, the audience is in the palm of their paw. Confetti cannons provide a full stop to the day, albeit via missing the crowd, instead blowing onto the backstage tents, making them look like giant muddy wedding cakes.

With Sunday comes The Big Moon, bringing bangers aplenty from stellar debut ‘Love in the 4th Dimension’, and with two new numbers from their forthcoming second sounding incredibly promising.

And then the bloke who’s fond of singing about dancing: Nile Rodgers & Chic close the weekend. There’s no argument as to whether the group have the pedigree for the spot - and whether it’s Chic classics ‘Everybody Dance’ or ‘Le Freak’, or songs he’s worked on with others - ‘Like A Virgin’, ‘Upside Down’, ‘Get Lucky’ - it’s a joy from start to finish.

He invites the crowd up onto the stage for the finale, and the faces up there really sum up the weekend - an eclectic demographic: the old, the young, the middle-aged, the barelyborn… and yes - dogs. Many, many dogs. (Matt Charlton)

97

IT’S YOUR ROUND A big inter-band pub quiz of sorts, we’ll be grilling your faves one by one.

THIS MONTH: DAN FROM BASTILLE. Location: Reading Festival.

Drink: Water (it’s very hot).

Cost: Free! Refillable water bottles FTW.

Specialist Subect:

General Knowledge

Stanley Kubrick films 1. In The Shining, which room is Danny warned to stay out of at The Overlook Hotel?

Jesus, I’m going to do badly in this. The fucking scary one with that naked lady who then becomes really wrinkly - maybe from the bath, maybe from the haunting?

Well, you’re right, but technically it’s Room 237.

2. Apart from Spartacus, in which other Kubrick film does a character jokingly say “I’m Spartacus”?

Why didn’t I pick pizza toppings? I have no idea.

It’s Lolita!

3. What is Kubrick’s longest film?

2001: A Space Odyssey?

No, Spartacus.

Well, the thing with Spartacus is that it’s not actually a Kubrick

FINAL SCORE:

film because he was only brought in at the last minute.

So I don’t count it as one of his.

But that’s just me being a dick because I’m not getting any of these questions right.

Sorry :(

1.How many legs do butterflies have?

Six? Yes! Oh my god, my first right one!

4. What is the password to gain access to the secret party in Eyes Wide Shut?

I can’t remember! It’s the most sterile orgy scene ever. Begins with an F? Almost! It’s “Fidelio”.

2. What are a group of camels called?

I want to say a coven but that’s crows, isn’t it?

It’s a caravan!

5. How many minutes pass in 2001: A Space Odyssey before the first line of dialogue?

A lot of minutes! Probably like 50?

Half of that, it’s 25.

Maybe it just feels like 50 minutes…

3. How many Monty Python’s Flying Circus series were made?

I’m going to say…

Four?

Yep!

0/5

3/10

Verdict: “I’m a certified idiot.” Should probably stick with pizza toppings next time, eh?

98 DIYMAG.COM

4. What is the name of ScoobyDoo’s nephew?

Scrappy!

Instantly. Well done.

This says so much about me that I got Scrappy-Doo over any of my chosen subject…

5. According to Paul Simon, how many ways are there to leave your lover?

Ah, fuck. It’s a classic song! No clue.

It’s 50.

3/5

DIY

TO YOUR DOOR

EVERY MONTH

DIYMAG.COM/SUBSCRIBE

99

19 Nov • London The O2

25 Nov • Glasgow SSE Hydro

bjork.com metropolismusic.com ticketmaster.co.uk gigsinscotland.com A Metropolis Music + DF Concerts presentation by arrangement with WME

100 DIYMAG.COM