DIY, October 2022

OcToBER HLLEo

QUESTION!

Yeah Yeah Yeahs are on the cover and Arctic Monkeys are revving back into view. Sounds about time for an indie disco, but what requests are going to the DJ?

SARAH JAMIESON • Managing Editor

While ordinarily I’m begging for ‘Mr Brightside’ like the basic bitch I am, I also have a hankering for a bit of CSS - ‘Let’s Make Love And Listen To Death From Above’, please!

EMMA SWANN • Founding Editor

‘House of Jealous Lovers’ by The Rapture is the greatest song of all time, bar none.

LISA WRIGHT • Features Editor

As someone who ran an indie club night for many years I can say that the best song is scientifically ‘The Rat’ by The Walkmen or ‘Deceptacon’ by Le Tigre and I will not hear any more on the matter.

LOUISE MASON • Art Director

The Breeders please, and The Kills and The Organ, and maybe anything else that sounds like a b-movie horror film.

ELLY WATSON • Digital Editor

If Babyshambles’ ‘Fuck Forever’ ever comes on, cover your ears because I’m screaming every word.

EDITOR'S LETTER

Let's just get it out in the open: here at DIY, we bloody love Yeah Yeah Yeahs. For full context, back when they opened for LCD Soundsystem at the first All Points East festival in 2018, we all went along as a team and, during their set, genuinely had a bit of a transcendental moment.

So, when the iconic trio finally announced their return earlier this year, we were positively giddy with excitement. And you can probably just about guess how thrilled we are to finally have them on the cover. So without any further introduction, we give you our October 2022 cover stars, Yeah Yeah Yeahs...

They're not the only DIY faves you'll find in our pages this month: we get reunited with The Big Moon, talk life and death with Sorry, and bring you our verdicts on not one, but two of this month's - nay, the year's! - biggest albums; Arctic Monkeys and The 1975. Talk about a big month! So, go on - get stuck in!

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

LISTENING POST

GARY NUMAN - CARS

All this talk of ‘The Car’ has got us putting on our driving gloves and flicking through the stereo of alternate automobile-related musical endeavours. And while props must be given to other classics of the oeuvre - Rihanna’s ‘Shut Up and Drive’, Elastica’s ‘Car Song’, er… ‘The Vengabus’? - of course, Gazza is the king of the carpark.

OUTKAST - DRACULA’S WEDDING

Cometh October, cometh spooky season and the chance to use that Phoebe Bridgers skeleton merch to its full potential. While you’re doing so, why not slap on Outkast’s 2003 funky cut ‘Dracula’s Wedding’, and enjoy Andre3000’s spookily relatable line, “You're all I've ever wanted, but I'm terrified of you”. Chilling, eh?

ROBBIE WILLIAMSSING WHEN YOU’RE WINNING

While we might spend the majority of our time here at DIY HQ repping the best new bands the planet has to offer, sometimes you’ve just got to admit that a night spent watching Robbie doing a big pop show is a night well spent. So this month, that’s what we’re going to do. Fight us.

October playlist

Scan the Spotify code to listen.

WORKING MEN’S CLUB

`

Across a truly singular career edging its way ever-closer to the two-decade line, Arctic Monkeys have become the masters of pre-album speculation and hype. Where other artists choose visibility, Alex Turner and co choose mystique; where many adhere to variations on a sonic formula, you truly never really know which way this lot are going to swing; where the rollout for a record increasingly involves releasing the maximum possible singles to court streams, by the time seventh album ‘The Car’ reaches your ears, you’ll likely have heard a maximum of two tracks.

It’s all part of why Arctic Monkeys remain the band history will remember as defining a generation and why, on the eve of their next opus, we’ve been on the trail of exactly what they’ve got in store…

ON THE ROAD at Reading & Leeds & Primavera Sound LA

There’s a tangible spark in the air at Reading, and it’s not just the growing embers from a field of tents about to be burnt to smithereens. Crowning the weekender’s Saturday night is the long-awaited return to UK soil of - arguably, probably - the best band this country has turned out this century. The day when ‘The Car’ starts its engine and shows us which road its authors have been secretly driving down on the path to LP7. Except, for the most part, it doesn’t: save for the debut of funk-laced, bass-strutting newie ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’, tonight is more an exercise in looking in the rear view mirror. But what a view there is to behold when they do.

Though tonight won’t quite land at the absolute peak of the Monkeys’ most iconic moments (their 2013 Glastonbury headline circa ‘AM’ remains the all-time bar for how to launch an album campaign), there’s still nothing but joy to be found from reuniting with one of the best back catalogues in modern music. An early salvo of ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, ‘Brianstorm’ and ‘Crying Lightning’ kicks things off with a bang, while the sultrier wares of 2018’s ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’ mix with broodier cuts from across their canon (‘Pretty Visitor’, ‘Do Me A Favour’) to create a tempestuous mood cemented by the cathartic purge of ‘505’. Maybe they need to pop a little more oil in the engine for the encore; we’d switch out ‘One Point Perspective’ and ‘Arabella’ for a couple more upbeat bangers. But by this point, the band have earned the right to do whatever the fuck they want knowing that the criticism will only ever be measured against their own infinitely lofty standards.

Flash forward a couple of weeks and, approximately 5,437 miles away from Reading, we find ourselves in Los Angeles’ State Historic Park for the first ever West Coast version of Barcelona’s finest festival, Primavera. Delayed for two years due to the obvious, the park gates finally open for three days of sunshine-soaked music from the likes of Lorde, Giveon, Shygirl and Nine Inch Nails, but it’s the Monkeys’ turn seeing out the final night that provides the undisputed weekend highlight.

From the fans on the barrier holding up signs saying “I wanna be your vacuum cleaner” to celebs including the cast of Stranger Things bobbing their heads in the VIP section, the four-piece easily draw the biggest crowd of the weekend, and the typically cool and collected LA festival-goers finally let loose when the band waltz onto the stage to drop opener ‘Do I Wanna Know?’.

A sleek and impressive set that sees them basically providing a greatest hits performance, AM classics including ‘Teddy Picker’ and ‘Knee Socks’ are among the faves getting an outing. And while we only get two numbers from 2018’s ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’ (‘One Point Perspective’ and the title track), we are treated to that same taste of upcoming AM7 record ‘The Car’ with ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’.

Banger-packed from start to finish, Alex prowls across the stage with the kind of swagger you only have when you know that you’ve crushed it. And when they kick into their final three song run of ‘505’, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ and ‘R U Mine?’, there’s no doubt in anyone else’s mind that they’ve done that and then some. (Lisa Wright, Elly Watson)

Uh oh, Alex has lost his train of thought again…

Photo: Pooneh Ghana

ME & MY MONKEYS

A couple of DIY faves tell us what Alex Turner and co mean to them…

MONKEYS

The Car (Domino)

If 2018’s lunar venture ‘Tranquility Base Hotel & Casino’ had long-time Arctic Monkeys fans in disarray, the Sheffield icons ditching pomade and rock riffs for a louche lounge sound, it’s unlikely ‘The Car’ will win back many defectors. But on the seventh album by the band who need no introduction, you sense that blazered auteur Alex Turner is having too much fun to care. Its ten tracks of lavish soft-rock feel like the album the 36-year-old has long aspired to make - for better or worse.

on the

’Gram

IZZY B. PHILLIPS Black Honey

“I don’t care what any of you basic ‘AM’ fans think. ‘Tranquility Base…’ is art. ‘AM’ is also good btw, as is ‘There’d Better Be A Mirrorball’ and everything they have made, ever. Alex Turner’s keeping that classic shit alive and I’m so glad he doesn’t show us his breakfast and make TikToks about his wardrobe. I like how he does what he wants, and I remember exactly where I was - standing on my own still wearing braces in the school hallway - when I heard ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ for the first time. Someone said he records everything on a tape recorder: 6 stars out of 5 from me.”

In the past, cinephile Alex has flirted with the world of film. On ‘AM’ he referenced Scorsese; across the ‘Tranquility...’ campaign he became a bearded director himself, brandishing analogue cameras on stage and in videos. In 2011 he scored Richard Ayoade’s indie flick ‘Submarine’, however despite there being no movie for it to accompany, ‘The Car’ is Alex and crew’s most soundtrack-like work so far, flowing together in one long movement made cohesive by Bridget Samuels’ lush orchestral arrangements which adorn it.

From the gut-wrenching crescendo of ‘There’d Better Be A Mirrorball’ through the title track’s Moody Blues percussion, echoing like far-off thunder, to the strings on ‘Hello You’, which seem to snake around Matt Helders’ unfaltering drums, the Monkeys have never sounded more evocative (even on ‘Sculptures Of Anything Goes’, whose chilling build-up harks back to ‘Humbug’’s eeriest moments). Hints bubble through that it’s still a rock group you’re hearing - ‘I Ain’t Quite Where I Think I Am’ suggests Stevie Wonder’s ‘Superstition’ and their own heady hit ‘Why’d You Only Call Me When You’re High?’, while bursts of Jamie Cook’s glam guitar electrify ‘Body Paint’’s epic outro - but the band and orchestra meld seamlessly, never once feeling bullied together.

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 catchup on music’s finest phototaking action as of late.

CONNIE CONSTANCE

“They remind me of when I first felt part of something. I was sitting at the back on the bus in my first year of secondary school blasting ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’. A boy came and sat next to me and asked to share one of my iPod shuffle headphones, and all of those teenage emotions of feeling like a weirdo paused while that album was blaring and what I thought was the coolest band in the world was shared, validated and amplified.”

Examine its script and ‘The Car’’s wheels start to loosen. Alex’s dazzling wordplay has long been the golden arrow in the Monkeys’ quiver. Here, though, his lyrics are so dense and elusive they contradict the sincerity of some songs and ultimately feel detrimental. “Come over here and give your buddy a hug,” he sings on ‘Jet Skis On the Moat’. “It’s alright if you wanna cry”. The touching sentiment conjures images of male friendship or discussions of mental health, but it’s overpowered by the aesthetic of “smoke, pyjama pants and a Subbuteo cloak”. A single line from ‘Hello You’ reads, “As that meandering chapter reaches its end and leaves us in a thoughtful little daze, this electric warrior’s motorcade shall burn no more rubber down that boulevard”. Good songwriters don’t spell out everything for the listener, sure, and Alex’s ability to toe this line makes his voice so enigmatic time and time again. And yet, in parts of ‘The Car’, style overpowers storytelling and leaves some songs feeling empty.

As many of their stadium band contemporaries get comfy releasing variations of the same album twice every decade, slowly crawling towards legacy status, Arctic Monkeys’ keenness to explore new styles is commendable; broadening their repertoire will serve them better in the long run than bashing out updated versions of ‘Teddy Picker’ with every release, even if some fans would prefer it. While ‘The Car’ ought to land them a shot doing the next Bond theme, is it likely to reach the stratospheric success of their early material? Probably not. But after all, the journey is more important than the destination anyway. (Alex Cabré) LISTEN: ‘The Car’

Name a more iconic duo (@selfesteemselfesteem)

Hey Ellie, how’d you think Liz Truss is faring so far? (@ellieciararowsell)

Matty, phone home. (@trumanblack)

“McBastard!” drawls Yard Act frontman James Smith in a thick Scottish impression, having misheard the name of the McFly / Busted supergroup. “Somebody’s poisoned my loch and I’m gonnae get to the bottom of which one of yas did it.” Sitting in the dressing room of Birmingham’s O2 Institute, McBastard, he decides for a hot 15 seconds, will be the protagonist of the band’s second album. Five minutes before that, he had been adamant the record would be “a concept album about a roadie for U2”. Neither, we suspect, is likely to materialise but such flights of fancy are par for the course when you’re shooting the shit with the UK’s most amusing breakthrough band.

Of course, we’re not just here to witness James’ fairly impressive accent collection. Joining the Leeds quartet for weekend one of their long-postponed DIY Class of 2022 tour (ah January, you truly were wishful thinking…), we’re here to watch the band lay waste to some of the country’s much-loved small venues - ones they could fill several times over, these days.

And if our first stop at Oxford’s Bullingdon, where we’re joined by tour supports English Teacher and Lime Garden, makes for a solid Friday warm-up, then Saturday night at Bedford Esquires and Sunday in Brum are properly rowdy, moshing parties. For the tour, the band have decided to let the audience choose the setlist, picking shout-out requests in chunks of three and letting the evening steer its own course. On all three nights, oldie ‘Peanuts’ gets a look in, with an audience member getting plucked from the crowd to attempt its spoken word section; in Birmingham, the lucky duo get bestowed with a Top Trumps card each upon completion - “No one,” nods James sagely, “leaves empty-handed at a Yard Act show”.

From the sublime (an extended edit of ‘Tall Poppies’, complete with impromptu, intense monologue) to the ridiculous (a ringing, Brian May-style riff of ‘God Save the Queen’ from guitarist Sam Shjipstone), there’s no moment of the gigs that aren’t rinsed for every particle of entertainment available. It’s been nine months in the making, sure, but for these dates, Yard Act have birthed some classics.

(Lisa Wright)

YARD ACT

Talk us through the Yard Act pre-show routine...

James: There’s usually a huddle or something but with these shows we’ve just…

Ryan: Gone for a Chinese meal.

James: I’ve eaten like a king since Thursday. I’ve had Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and me and Ryan are going for a curry tomorrow so I’m basically a wellseasoned traveller. So I’ve just been eating a large meal and hoping it passes before I go on stage and have to jump around.

We saw you did an impromptu cover of ‘Chaise Longue’ last night in Bedford - how did that come about?

James: I think someone shouted for ‘Payday’ but it sounded like Wet Leg, then Sam just started playing it and then Jay and Ryan joined in and I laced the vocal on top, Yard Act style. It was loads of fun actually, people loved it, but we won’t get into the habit of playing Wet Leg every night to appease people.

Next stop is your biggest UK tour to date! What’s the plan?

James: For the next shows we’re expanding to

a five-piece with saxophone and keyboards. We might get a lighting engineer, we’re starting to take tentative steps towards being more professional. This is the last hurrah for me to prance around. We’re learning how to be a band on a big stage but I don’t think we’ll ever forget the little stages.

Can you imagine what a Yard Act arena show would look like?

James: It’s hard because I imagine a lot more bands would want to do more [audience interaction] but trying to hold an arena based on stupid remarks people shout doesn’t really work. I was thinking we could get a text-in screen and people could just send in their comments.

Ryan: What else could we do that’s not just becoming Muse? We could have a stage set.

James: I had an idea to melt a load of shopping trolleys into a small mountain and have a Yard Act flag through the middle, with one of Shippo’s many fans blowing it. But our logo can look a bit dictator-y; at one point I did think of having five Yard Act flags around the venue but it starts to look a bit fascist…

THE VIEW FROM YOU

Charlie Panic Shack were great and I’ve been excited about Lime Garden for a while. I’ve seen Yard Act before and they’re amazing every time; they’re always funny and they’re always different every time.

Alex & Izzy

Alex: I booked these tickets last December and it’s been a ballache waiting for it. I was excited that this would be the first time I’d see Yard Act and I’ve already been to London to see them support Jack White, so it’s been a long time coming but tonight was 3000% worth it.

Izzy: It was absolutely amazing, one of my favourite gigs ever. I loved it. They’re perfect.

Finn & Adam Finn: We got on stage to do ‘Peanuts’ for the second time and it’s the best time we’ve done it so far.

Adam: Yard Act are so fun. They change the setlist every time, it keeps it fresh.

Finn: It’s good to see a band who don’t just do the same thing every tour. The last one we went to two or three dates on the tour and each one was different.

ENGLISH TEACHER

Thanks for being part of the tour! How was it for you and what were the highlights?

Lewis: We had a great time, I think my favourite was probably in Stoke, which is something I never thought I’d say. I reckon the main highlight was realising people would be willing to pay for us to draw a quick portrait of them. I think we’ve found our true calling; all gigs from now on are pre-drawing warm ups.

It’s been nine long months since the show was originally meant to go on the road, what new music have you been working on in the interim?

Lewis: Some new songs have a lot more electronic elements, some are more guitar based. In general we’ve been aiming to incorporate a wider range of instrumentation and styles into the car crash of genre that ends up becoming an English Teacher track. We are just a generic guitar band but if we can fit a cello into a track we will find a way.

For those that missed you on this tour, how would you describe the English Teacher live experience?

Lewis: Visceral, intense, emotional, technically impressive rock and roll music supported by us, English Teacher - a band who writes last minute setlists on tissue paper.

Yard Act

English Teacher

English Teacher

Lime Garden

knowwhaddya

Djo?

“I think art has lost a lot of withmystery social media.”

Joe Keery is explaining his alter ego Djo (pronounced Joe): a lank-haired ‘70s businessman in a big suit, wheeling through an even bigger Rolodex. “It’s just sort of a vehicle for me to not have to be myself…” he suggests. Fans of the global superstar actor’s musical pursuits will have become familiar with this version of Joe who first emerged last year ahead of the release of his debut solo album, ‘Twenty Twenty’, a psych-rock record that proved his musical chops.

“It started because the concept for the last album was this guy listening to this record as a pre-show ritual,” he explains. “And then it ends right before he goes on stage. But now it’s kind of taken a different thing; I guess on stage it frees you up a little bit. I also really love like, David Bowie and those glam rock guys. So playing some sort of character allows you to be maybe a little bit larger than yourself. And it went hand in hand with also trying to take away any preconceived notions people might have because they see the guy from the show up there. I’m kind of always like, ‘Is this something I still want to do or not?’ But it’s continued so far, and it’s been fun to do.”

The show Joe refers to is, of course, monster success story Stranger Things, in which he plays the loveable Steve Harrington. Steve is on hiatus right now, but Djo is back again for second album ‘DECIDE’ – 13 snaky synth-pop tracks that borrow from influences such as Daft Punk, Tame Impala and The Strokes. Whatever Djo does out of office hours sounds like a lot of fun.

Today, we’re chatting with him over Zoom. He’s in Rome, on a break from filming Finalmente L’Alba, a new Saverio Costanzo movie co-starring Willem Defoe and Lily James. There’s no sign of his on-stage persona today: the wig’s gone, and he’s sat in his kitchen chomping on a cracker, sporting a Faux Real sweatshirt -

merch for the English synth pop band who feel very much in both Joe and Djo’s wheelhouse. His hair looks great.

“I grew up loving Daft Punk and more recently Parcels: those guys are really doing an interesting thing. Also L’Impératrice, I think that’s how you pronounce it” - It isn’t, but good try - “and so I’ve always loved the full body of sonic quality that synthesisers can create,” Joe explains. “That was something I tried to include a little bit on the first record, but I was also really focused on writing a record that could be performed live. But when I took that limitation away on this one, it sort of opened the door to maybe be more influenced by those sort of bands.”

’DECIDE’ was made with producer Adam Thein who worked on ‘Twenty Twenty’, but this time the process was more collaborative, the pair crafting the songs together. The main difference between this record and his debut is the lack of guitars. Joe recently said that he found ‘Twenty Twenty’ to be “basic”, so this time the synths are the star, all held together by some tongue-in-cheek lyricism and killer basslines. It’s a record to move to, to fuel some fun.

But for someone who’s constructed this bizarro stage persona and sings

“Go fuck your mother” in a perfect falsetto, it’s clear Joe is also a proper muso. He nerds out over the writing and creation of his tracks and, like many musicians, likes to talk about it at length: “I really love the layering and the arranging of music. It just brings me joy. Like when you have a drum beat that fits well with the bass part, and then you write a guitar part that complements it well, and a key part and it all sort of works in conjunction. Then you listen to it and it’s just like, ‘Oh, man, I just made that and it feels really good. So I just kind of got hooked.”

’DECIDE’ is out now via AWAL. DIY

Read the full feature at diymag.com/djo.

Joe Keery’s already won the hearts of the world on screen, and with second album ‘DECIDE’, his alterego Djo is aiming to do the same on the musical stage. Words: Charlotte Gunn.

FRED AGAIN..

Danielle (smile on my face)

With the first preview of his third ‘Actual Life’ album (‘January 1 - September 9 2022’ if you want to be specific), Fred again.. continues his diaristic approach to making music, fusing samples of people and their stories with his joyous house beats. Across the first two ‘Actual Life’ albums, he mixed the introspection and sorrow of his lyrics with music that bursts with joy and release, and the thumping ‘Danielle (smile on my face)’ is one of his best yet. “If I die in your arms, there’ll be a smile on my face,” the titular Danielle sings – with Fred himself joining in later on – but the energetic beats behind it make it sound like triumph instead of despair. “You make me wanna face it,” Fred sings at the track’s close, with his subjects and collaborators once again helping him dance through tough times. (Will Richards)

SOUNDSYSTEM new body rhumba

For anyone lucky enough to have caught LCD Soundsystem at their Brixton Academy residency earlier in the year, the question as to whether James Murphy’s troupe of disco infiltrators have still got it as a live entity is null and void; James could, we suspect, be in his pension years and still be able to instigate the most joyous party on the block. That they’re still able to knock out funky, excitable gems like ‘new body rhumba’ - LCD’s first new music since 2017’s ‘American Dream’ - however, is cause for true celebration. The ingredients are simple; James’ inimitable falsetto, a playground chant of a backing vocal, a bassline built for a wiggle, some infectious hand claps. But as ever with LCD, the result is bigger than the sum of its parts - the clever, clever bastards. (Lisa Wright)

YOU HEARD? HAVE

PARAMORE This Is Why

A band always focused on continually evolving, after five years away, the return of Paramore is certainly a welcome one. Finally arriving with the first cut from their sixth album after weeks of teasing, and a hefty US tour on the horizon, ‘This Is Why’ once again sees the band grow even bolder and more confident in themselves. Funky licks of guitar come accompanied by Hayley Williams’ soft lilting vocals in a manner reminiscent of those on ‘Petals For Armor’. And much like her

solo albums, ‘This Is Why’ arrives with a bite: “If you have an opinion / Maybe you should just shove it,” she coos, before the angular dance-punk of the track’s chorus shudders into life. Building upon the technicolour funk of previous album ‘After Laughter’, their latest, instead, has a darker heart; one that mirrors the disillusionment of our current times (“This is why I don’t leave the house”), while possessing the kind of stomp that The Rapture or Yeah Yeah Yeahs would be proud of. A defiant introduction to the band’s new era, it marks another invigorating new turn for the trio. (Sarah Jamieson)

STORMZY

Mel Made Me Do It

There are few times when, after listening to a track – or, to be completely honest, watching an accompanying visual, for that’s the way to experience this release – when a brief step away from the screen is needed

MEET ME @ THE ALTAR Say It (To My Face)

‘Fuck the haters’ may be an adage as old as time itself, but what does recycling tropes better than pop-punk? The first track shared from Meet Me @ The Altar’s debut album, ‘Say It (To My Face)’ makes great use of all related cliches – down to the protagonist living in his parents’ basement - and fully flexes on keyboard warriors, ‘Shout Out To My Ex’-style. “Really wish I could stay, gotta fly to LA / Play a show at the Wiltern,” they say, between gang vocal-fuelled choruses and all the requisite punky bounce the trio are quickly perfecting. (Bella Martin)

Stormzy as lead artist in over two years, is exactly that. So preposterously long the video, it even plonks an ad break in its centre, it’s an immaculately-pitched show-andtell: an artist taking his audience on a cinematic journey, spending the first eight minutes listing accomplishments (expensive watches; cars; celebrity friends, “Headline Reading and Leeds like it’s easy”) while scenes ooze with complementing opulence. And then just at the point he’s really hammered home how damn successful and revered he is… “Cars don’t make you this lit / The money don’t make you this good / The plaques don’t make you this cold / Give a fuck what my shit sold…” “To make a classic, yeah it takes ages,” if this is just the first track of something, what could possibly follow?

(Emma Swann)

HALL FAMEof

Santigold - ‘Santogold’

Splicing genres before it became the most overused term in the canon, Santi White’s late-‘00s debut was an innovative album ahead of its time. Words: Lisa Wright.

Back in the mid-late ‘00s, when indie nights sweated it out on every second London street and alternative oddballs had legitimate charting singles, the constant turnover of exciting movements and scenes was rapid. Where the apex of nu-rave peaked somewhere around the beginning of 2007, by 2008 the zeitgeist had morphed once more; from Klaxons, CSS, New Young Pony Club et al landing like a brief tornado of hedonism, 2008 gave us MGMT’s ‘Oracular Spectacular’, Metron omy’s ‘Nights Out’ and Friendly Fires’ self-titled debut - albums that maintained the fun, but hinted at a little more longevity.

Into 2008 too, off the back of early singles ‘Creator’ and ‘L.E.S Artistes’, came Santi gold’s (then known as Santogold) eponymous debut. And while now, ‘Santogold’ sounds like the defini tion of that period - one that would logically next give way to the likes of La Roux, Little Boots and other synth-minded soloists - at the time, Santi White’s eclectic merging of ideas felt fresh and notably different to her peers.

THE

Released: 29th April, 2008

Key tracks: ‘L.E.S Artistes’, ‘Creator’, ‘Lights Out’

Tell your mates: While touring in support of ‘Santogold’, the singer opened up for the likes of Kanye West, Beastie Boys, Björk and, er… Coldplay.

Taking a genre amorphous approach most akin to the dancepunk-fusing sensibilities of LCD Soundsystem or, her most frequently-stated comparison, the globally-reaching sounds of MIA, the album took the squelchy electronics already populating indie dancefloors and added elements of hip hop, dub and more. Though its artwork featured a deadpan Santi vomiting a pool of gold glitter (ring ring, is that #indiesleaze calling?), its contents reached far higher and wider. Open ing with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs-esque peak of ‘L.E.S Artistes’, ‘Santogold’ traversed through a Clash-recalling bass prowl on ‘You’ll Find A Way’ via Spank Rock-featuring dub on ‘Shove It’. ‘Creator’’s juddering motif recalled peak Maya Arulpra gasam; ‘Lights Out’ was pure driv etime, Cars-style ‘80s good vibes; ‘Unstoppable’ brought in Diplo on production duties to pit monotone vocals with a bubbling, minimal funk beat, while ‘You’ll Find A Way’ conclud ed the album with dark, almost industrial electronics.

Perhaps it’s because the Philadelphia-born musician was no newcomer to the game. Aged 32 when she released her debut, she’d already been a record label A&R, fronted a ska band and written for the likes of Lily Allen before launching her own career.

Varied and exciting, the result was an album that felt simultaneously of its time and ahead of it, that nestled happily alongside its peers while evidently reaching for somewhere different. And though Santi has never quite scaled the popular heights of her debut since then (new album ‘Spirituals’ - her first since 2016 - was released last month), ‘Santogold’ remains a record able to stand up to any of the era’s best. DIY

N

U �

SpecialInterestNEU

Special Interest have never sounded more direct than they do on ‘Midnight Legend’. The New Orleans band have spent the past half-decade of underground releases establishing a formidable reputation as one of the most vital, highenergy outfits in the US, positioning themselves at the raging intersection of DIY punk and dancefloor hedonism. With this song, though, those instincts are channeled into a slightly slicker package; the vocals are smooth, the energy emerges from a gently insistent rhythm and, by the end, you have a melody humming inside your mind.

To the band, this is nothing more than a natural progression. “There’s an underlying noise on that track, mostly on the guitar,” says bassist Nathan Cassiani. “It just has to be there, that’s just who we are.”

“I’m interested in electronic textures that are mangled and distorted-sounding, and we’re always going to hang onto those things,” adds Ruth Mascelli (synths). “For ‘Midnight Legend’, it just came out fully-formed; it was like the song already existed. We’re just following what we all find moving.”

Born from the outrageously fertile musical palette of their home city, Special Interest’s music bursts with life in the way that most bands can only dream of. 2018’s ‘Spiraling’ and 2020’s ‘The Passion Of’ brought them alternative acclaim, and the same primal, visceral thrills run throughout next month’s Rough Trade debut ‘Endure’only this time with a broader range of textures.

For a band so closely associated with their frenetic live shows, having the art of public performance taken away from them was especially difficult. For vocalist Alli Logout, renewed inspiration came from a somewhat unlikely source. “We went to Berghain on our day off in Berlin and I met Kelela,” they say. “And I didn’t know her but I had a full-on conversation with her about playing live music and it was really beautiful. She said something to me that really stuck, which was about learning how to push with your voice. I learned to move people more with my voice, rather than with the high energy performances that we’re used to doing. The last tour we did, it was like, ‘Oh, OK, we can do ALL of this; we can have these insanely high energy shows, but I can also just sit back and sing and just feel it and move people in that way’.”

Anyone familiar with Special Interest’s live shows will have mental images of Alli lying on their back, screaming like a whirligig of provocative punk fury, and the band are keen to stress that those days are far from behind them. “That ain’t going nowhere, that’s never going to go away!” the vocalist says, reassuringly. “But I do think there are some things that are shifting that are really exciting.”

“WE’RE ORIGINALJUST ROCKERS.” - Alli Logout

The subject matter of ‘Endure’ also reflects the difficult times that birthed it. ‘Midnight Legend’, for example, is actually a study into, as Alli puts it, “how devastatingly lonely we

Across the release, we get the contemplative, eightminute epic ‘L.A. Blues’ rubbing shoulders with the taut and abrasive ‘Foul’: tracks far apart in tone but united in sentiment and commitment. “I think a lot of the things that might seem leftfield that we’re doing on this album are actually just things we’ve been interested in the whole time,” explains Ruth. “We’re just getting more comfortable experimenting and playing with each other, and just doing something different.”

The record’s genesis was during the summer of 2020, a time of unease and uprising. The band wrestled with the turmoil of the day and their results present a mix of escapism and a gritted determination to restore fairness and sanity to our society. “That was definitely a mood, and not a great one,” reflects Nathan on those long, hot New Orleans summer nights during the making of the album.

“We wrote songs that were working some frustrations out, and also some that were a little bit freer in nature, just to have some sort of enjoyment.”

all are”. Game-changing single ‘(Herman’s) House’, meanwhile, reflects on the story of New Orleans’ Herman Wallace - a Black revolutionary campaigner who spent four decades in solitary confinement for the alleged killing of a prison officer, only to be released days before his death. “His story is so intense,” says Alli. “Even in confinement, he was able to actually continue dreaming and striving towards liberation and that’s very inspiring. The song is a way to remind myself to keep dreaming and to keep building.”

What remains unshakably true about Special Interest, however, is that even with bigger label backing, they’re still maintaining that fiercely independent streak. They take pride in being responsible for every little detail of their output, a group of equals that stand by everything they do.

“Special Interest are different to a lot of bands right now,” says Alli. “We are actually a band. It’s not one person’s backing band with one person having all the ideas, it’s fully a collaboration. A lot of bands aren’t like that anymore. Isn’t that what real bands do? We’re just original rockers.”

Having set the underground alight for some years with their incendiary dancepunk, the New Orleans group are dreaming big with ‘Endure’. Words: Max Pilley.

Humour

Having cut their teeth individually through a catalogue of “amazingly shit” bands around Glasgow, Humour were born from the abundance of free time granted by the pandemic - a period that allowed them to morph and grow before making themselves known to the wider world. “I listened to some old stuff earlier and it’s completely unrecognisable,” vocalist Andreas Christodoulidis recalls.

“I used to just speak everything. I had the words, which I was happy with, but I didn’t know how to deliver them.” “We had all of that time to just try different things,” guitarist Jack Lyall goes on. “I remember going past Andreas’ room and he had tutorial videos up, where a guy teaches you how to sing like a screamo band.”

It was only when ‘Alive and Well’ - the song that would go on to become Humour’s second single - had come to a point of creative stagnation, however, that Jack suggested Andreas shout the lyrics as loud as he could, lighting the touchpaper on what would become the band’s unhinged style.

Though an influx of angular post-punk artists have surfed into public consciousness on a sea of wise-cracking lyrics and choppy riffs over the past few years, the Glaswegians are crafting their own space

NEU

within the genre: shifting the parameters of the category to expand its possibilities. Andreas summons a cast of characters via a range of vocal deliveries, posing anxietyinducing hypotheticals through erratic and discordant verses which are bookended by rousing choruses that bring to mind Britain’s indie-pop class of the mid-’00s.

“The spoken-singing comparisons have been the trickiest thing we’ve been asked, because - aside from some obvious overlap - I don’t think we sound too much like any of the bands in that scene,” guitarist Ross Patrizio reasons. “It’s nice to perform with a few of those bands now, but I don’t think we did a very interesting version of the post-punk talk-singing. Our songs had to become a more stressful, unpleasant thing before we made something that we found interesting.”

With this natural affinity for writing through the guise of the neurotic, and a debut EP entitled ‘Pure Misery’ ready to arrive before Christmas, the band’s singularly-worded moniker lands with a touch of irony. “We liked the idea of a name that could conjure an image without committing us to a big statement,” says Ross. “Especially when we weren’t sure what that was going to be.”

“The word ‘humour’ is an interesting one, considering Andreas can write about some pretty bleak things a lot of the time,” Jack adds, before passing the baton back to Ross in the adjacent Zoom window: “It’s all sort of sinister when you say it like that, isn’t it?” dIY

Carving out a neurotic niche of unhinged indie, you’d be wise to get a sense of Humour sooner rather than later. Words: Matt Ganfield.

“Our songs had to become a more stressful, unpleasant thing before we made something that we found interesting.”Ross Patrizio

JOESEF

A NEW SCOTTISH HEARTTHROB READY TO TAKE OVER.

When he spoke to DIY in 2020, Joesef described his influences as “fucking about until something sounded good,” and this instinctive method of following his nose has taken him to brilliant places. A heartthrobin-waiting, his music has buckets of personality, even when he’s singing about hopelessness, and musically draws from the funky end of Unknown Mortal Orchestra.

LISTEN: New single ‘It’s Been A Little Heavy Lately’ perfectly captures his ability to craft a song that’s thematically downbeat but funky as hell.

SIMILAR TO: Kevin Parker if he did way more crying.

ROWDY INDIE SCOUSERS WHIPPING UP A STORM.

If we’d heard Stone during lockdown, the frustration of not being able to launch ourselves into a moshpit of theirs would have been too much to take. In that way, they’re a perfect post-pandemic band, formed during COVID but now really taking over with raucous live shows and playfully rowdy indie bangers delivered by charismatic frontman Fin Power, who sings of British minutiae with a deliciously strong regional accent. But you’ve got to catch them live.

LISTEN: New song ‘Waste’ is a frantic mission statement.

SIMILAR TO: A Scouse Jamie T with dirtier guitars.

JOYERIA

PART STEPHEN MALKMUS, PART THE NATIONAL, ALL FANTASTIC.’

There’s a certain type of wonky lollop that Pavement do like no others - except, it seems, London-via-Canada’s Joyeria. On debut EP ‘FIM’, half its wares are idiosyncratic indie romps a la the above; the other half sit in the realms of Matt Berninger’s emotional miserabilia.

Then there’s the strange conversational interlude of ‘Decisions’ which takes us to more than the sum of its parts - a description that also fits.

LISTEN: ‘Colour Film’ is pure slacker indie joy (with added screams!)

SIMILAR TO: A lost record collection relic that’s actually completely new.

Recommended

NEU

HANNAH JAGADU

THE SUB POP-SIGNEE TURNING HEADS BOTH SIDES OF THE ATLANTIC.

Already, Hannah Jagadu has signed to Sub Pop records, released a stunning EP in 2021’s ‘What Is Going On?’, and supported the likes of Faye Webster, Metronomy, Arlo Parks and more, all before she’s even legal to drink in her native US. It’s little wonder as to why the Texas-via-New York singer’s attracting so much attention, either; her offerings so far have been gorgeous, while her early tracks were produced using just her iPhone 7 and few other tools of the trade.

LISTEN: Last month’s ‘Say It Now’ treads the line between vulnerable and bold perfectly.

SIMILAR TO: A mix of Clairo’s intimacy and Beabadoobee’s scuzzy guitars.

�DYLAN

GEN Z’S NEW POP FRONTRUNNER.

Describing herself as a “rockstar stuck in a pop star’s body”, rising star Dylan has already scored huge support slots with the likes of Ed Sheeran and Tate McRae, alongside an Island Records contract, thanks to her magnetic pop songs. Infusing rock riffs with undeniable pop melodies, she’s set to release her new mixtape ‘The Greatest Thing I’ll Never Learn’ later this month and fully take her spot as your new favourite pop star.

LISTEN: ‘ 22 million listeners can’t be wrong about her euphoric bop ‘Nineteen’.

SIMILAR TO: Suffolk’s answer to Olivia Rodrigo.

NEU

Going back to their alternative roots, Glasgow quartet Dead Pony are making primal rock designed to stir up the party. Words: Emma Wilkes.

Dead Pony

During lockdown, Anna Shields found comfort in nostalgia, drifting back to the music she had on repeat as a teenager: Paramore, My Chemical Romance, Green Day, with some nu metal thrown in for good measure. The frontwoman had started her band not long before the pandemic, and Dead Pony had still been trying to figure out exactly how they wanted to sound when the world went haywire. “For a while, we were just experimenting with different sounds, following what other bands [in our hometown of] Glasgow were doing at the time, and taking a lot of inspiration from our peers,” she recalls.

However, when she and her bandmates returned to the albums that got them so invested in music in the first place, they felt inspired. True, Dead Pony doesn’t really sound like Paramore, Green Day or My Chemical Romance (in fact, they share more sonic lineage with Wolf Alice, Queens of the Stone Age or The Mysterines, perhaps), but connecting with their musical upbringing reminded the quartet that they wanted to be alternative.

For guitarist Blair Crichton in particular, there was something else about the artists he grew up with that he wanted to carry into

his own band’s music. “I realised the thing about music that I really loved was when it had a crazy energy to it, and I could feel that energy just from listening to the music,” he says. “[We want to] transfer that crazy, primal energy to someone else, and make them feel pumped.”

Dead Pony’s rocket-fuelled new EP, ‘War Boys’, does that in spades, with plenty of creative flair to match. Much of its songwriting is inspired by Mad Max: Fury Road, with its title referencing its antagonist’s radiationpoisoned soldiers. “We like the post-apocalyptic vibe because it feels cinematic, but it feels so real as well,” says Anna. “So often, I turn on the news and I’m like, ‘God, it feels like we’re in a movie right now’. I don’t really like writing music that’s incredibly blunt - I like to write music that can be interpreted in 100 different ways.”

“Movies are a really good conduit to creativity,” Blair agrees. “We want to make music that’s powerful and angry, and [while] political music has its place and everything, I feel like I’ve heard it being done so much. But if you can take the vibe from a world like Mad Max, you can create a really cool piece of art.” DIY

“We want to make music that’s powerful and angry.”

- Blair Crichton

�

THE PLAYLIST

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

Buzz Feed

All the buzziest new music happenings in one place.

IT’S HOTGETTING IN HERE

Yorkshire-born, South London-based post punkers DEADLETTER have announced news of their debut EP. ‘Heat!’ comes in at five tracks and is preceded by the angular angst of ‘Weights’ with its nihilistic message of “Life imitates art, you say/ In which case art must be utter dismay”.

“We’ve learnt more about who and what we are creatively, so the music we make can now be driven by this self-awareness to thematic consistency,” says frontman Zac Lawrence of the EP, which is released on 18th November. Find out more via diymag.com

GEMINI RISING

4AD-signed multi-hyphenate singer/rapper/producer HAWA is set to release debut LP ‘HADJA BANGOURA’ on 4th November. Written largely in Conakry - the capital of Guinea in West Africa - the album reflects HAWA’s childhood growing up in the country, as well as her transition from her orchestral roots as part of the New York Philharmonic to the broad spectrum of her current output.

Listen to the dappled trap beats of lead single ‘GEMINI’ on diymag.com as a taster for what’s to come.

DOG RACE • TERROR

The debut single from the Bedford-based quartet was borne out of vocalist Katie Healy’s experiences of night terrors. Written during anxiety episodes, Katie says she “tried to encapsulate something that spoke of a period of turmoil but important growth in my early twenties” in the song. She and the band do this via impassioned, erratic vocals, but the music that sits behind it is purposeful, catchy and even jangly at points. A new act well worth paying attention to.

IDLE HOURS

FRENCH DISCONNECTION

Manchester’s Idle Hours describe their music as being inspired by “science-fiction novels, religious exploitation, extraterrestrials in theme parks and the desire to escape from reality.” On recent single ‘French Disconnection’, taken from debut EP ‘The Fourth Wall’, they dive headfirst into escapism via shuffling drums, shimmering guitars and deliciously northern vocals.

HEARTWORMS

CONSISTENT DEDICATION

Jojo Orme, the performer behind the Heartworms moniker, clearly likes to dwell in the shadier corners of life. ‘Consistent Dedication’, her debut for Speedy Wunderground, has an aura of spiky, Siouxsie Sioux discomfort to its goth guitars, while vocally Jojo’s mantra-like, rising screams of “Ugly is the man / He’ll chew his eyes” enchant like an evil spell we’d rather not be on the receiving end of. Unnerving, in the best possible way.

DREAM DINNER PARTY

With The Great Escape set to take place from 10th to 13th May next year, they’re giving us a little taste of the magic we can expect via this year’s First Fifty. Taking place on 15th November, there’ll be eight exciting music showcases happening across East London, and we’re joining in on the party; we’ll be hosting a big DIY knees-up at Moth Club with The Dinner

Party, Nell Mescal and She’s In Parties

Other acts set to perform across the evening - and therefore, down at Brighton for The Great Escape in 2023 - include Witch Fever, Grove, Jessica Winter and Joey Valence, along with many more. What a way to kick things off!

NEWDAD • ILY2

It’s been a slow and steady crawl towards a debut LP for Galway shoegazers NewDad, but this standalone cover of Charli XCX’s ‘ILY2’ hints that, when they do finally go for the big one, it might be a little more pop-minded than we first thought. Adding a fuzzy slant to the original, the result is pure ‘80s perfection, like a cross between The Cardigans and Mazzy Star (plus a little XCX sparkle).

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

NEU

Take one listen to the debut song from Atlanta’s Lowertown and it’s hard to comprehend the situation in which it was born. A warm but haunting track that, even with its rough-edged charm, feels accomplished in its own right, ‘George’ would be the first tentative step from a duo that five years on, are getting ready to release their first album proper. Rewind the clock back to its creation, when the pair had finally decided to give making music a go, however, and things were a little different.

“I’m really shy,” offers up one half of the band, Olivia Osby. Sat next to bandmate Avsha Weinberg, she’s detailing how it felt to first sing in his presence, back when the pair were just 16. Having met one another in a high school maths class, it then took them another seven months to finally decide on giving a band a go.

“The idea of performing in front of someone literally scared the shit out of me! That first song we recorded together, we were in his studio in his basement and he was like, ‘We’re not leaving until you sing in front of me’. It took about three or four hours to get me to actually sing, and I was crying like, ‘I really can’t sing in front of you, this is too much!’ But eventually we did it and broke the ice,” she laughs. “No pain, no gain!”

Spurred on by a feeling that “whatever we were about to do was gonna be really good, it was gonna be really genuine,” Avsha’s gut instinct to push through was on the money. Since then, the duo have released three EPs (including last year’s ‘The Gaping Mouth’) and caught the attention of Dirty Hit, who signed them before they’d even graduated. And while their earlier work may be more closely tied to their experiences of youth, the end game’s always been to create something much wider.

“Our goal was never to convey this youthful nature, which was inevitably in our music at the beginning,” explains Avsha. “Each project is very much the closest we can get to reflecting what’s happening [in our lives] right then. The record we made when we were 16, we were young; our purpose was to figure out how to capture being young and intimidated and confused. We always try to be genuine to how we’re feeling when we’re writing a record. It’s trying to chronicle our lives a little bit.”

Gaining experience and confidence - and ultimately just growing as people - the past five years have led to the pair opening themselves up even further on forthcoming debut full-length, ‘I Love To Lie’. Again aiming to chronicle their lives and mood, it was a move to New York that first propelled the duo to expand their sonic palette, before a recording trip to

Weinberg

“IT’S NICE TO HEAR PEOPLE WHO EMBRACE A MANIC WAY OF LIVING.” -

London where they worked with producer Catherine Marks turned the tables again.

“I knew we wanted to write some heavier music, because we were both really angry at that time in our lives, especially living in New York,” Olivia offers up.

“Then a lot of the quieter stuff came when we were actually in London recording, and we got really sad.”

What did London do to you?! “Oh my god, what did London not do to us!” Avsha quips.

“I had just gone through a break up, so I was really in my feels,” Olivia notes, “and we had both just turned 20 so we were contemplating our mortality as people, not being teenagers anymore. It was just a lot of existential feelings I guess.” “We were also there in the dead winter, in the middle of the [pandemic] tier stuff,” adds Avsha, “and then we got COVID…”

A melding pot of differing styles, ‘I Love To Lie’ acts as a potent journey through the band’s psyche, hung together by the vulnerable lyricism that Olivia has become known for. The likes of opener ‘My Friends’, with its breakneck punk spirit, and the frenetic spiralling of ‘I’m Not’ - Avsha’s first time singing lead vocals - sit shoulder-to-shoulder with the dark reflection of ‘It’s It’s It’s’ and the gorgeous swoon of ‘Waltz in Ab’, an ode to a friend of Olivia’s who was sucked into drug addiction, that also saw Avsha use his classical piano background to stunning effect. “We’ve ne ver made anything like that before,” Olivia nods, “so I’m very proud of that one specifically.”

As for what they’d hope listeners might take away from the album, in reflection of the eclecticism that runs through it sonically, they hope it encourages people to embrace their multitudes. “I always feel like it’s nice to hear people who embrace a manic way of living,” Avsha says. “You know, it’s OK if you’re not stable; that’s what makes you unique and gives you your own voice. It’s about embracing the manic nature of being alive and being a person.” DIY

Lowertown

In five short years, Atlanta’s Lowertown have graduated from high school classrooms to the Dirty Hit roster. On their debut album ‘I Love To Lie’, the duo are expanding their horizons even further.

Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photo: Savannah Hughes.

An unrivalled beacon of technicolour, cathartic bliss, Karen O, Nick Zinner and Brian Chase still feel like the magical unicorns of New York rock. Returning with their first album in nearly a decade, ‘Cool It Down’ is here to remind the world that no one does it quite like Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Pooneh Ghana.

HE ESSENCE OF YEAH YEAH YEAHS,

after all of these years, is still in the name. Three affirmative shouts of positivity that invoke joy and excitement, rallying enthusiasm and rousing punk spirit, it’s a giddy explosion of a phrase that begs for exclamation marks and fists pumped gleefully in the air. ‘Three affirmative shouts of positivity’ could also describe the trio of old friends who’ve been making music under the moniker for the past two decades. And if any year blessed with a Yeah Yeah Yeahs album is one to be thankful for, then in 2022, the return of Nick Zinner, Brian Chase and the magnificent shining beam of a frontwoman that is Karen O feels something like relief.

“I was talking to a friend who said that ‘The people who need you guys need you more than ever these days’,” nods Karen. “So coming back and feeling needed and knowing we needed it just as much, we were matching the audience’s joyful reunion. There was a palpable love and excitement in the air.”

ANIMAL MAGNETISM

Across ‘Cool It Down’, there are primal images rooted in nature and the environment.

Karen explains why…

Karen: We were coming out of one of the worst wildfire seasons in LA in 2020, which left a deep impression on everyone living here. California’s been very much feeling the effects of the climate crisis; it’s a bit more sheltered in New York but over here, it’s really in your face with the wildfires and the droughts and air quality and the extreme heat. It really made an impression on me so I was speaking to that. With the wolves, I’m trying to be in tune with animals, nature - a little bit tongue-in-cheek but acknowledging that humans are animals, man, and we often forget that! It’s fun to get in tune with your animal nature but it’s also more important these days to be more aware of that because we’re so disconnected and that’s part of the problem.

If love can be measured in applause, then at this summer’s Primavera Sound in Barcelona (alongside a couple of warm-ups in LA, and London’s Brixton Academy), the trio were the entire festival’s sweethearts. Returning for an encore of hedonistic debut album classic ‘Date With The Night’ following a victorious hour’s set, the band received the festival equivalent of a standing ovation: a whooping, hollering, drawn-out tumult of love that left them looking visibly overwhelmed. “It was pretty spectacular,” Brian recalls. “Everything felt so new and fresh again - it was pure excitement on every level.”

But more than just excitement, there’s something about Yeah Yeah Yeahs these days that feels transcendent, even spiritual. It’s not that the trio have lost any of the creative, rebellious spark that first propelled them to fame at the turn of the century, but there’s something bigger at play too: a slice of pure, bright-eyed goodness, fighting against a world gone rotten. “For me, it’s just being 1000% in this moment with the audience and everyone on stage in this really blissful, united state of just pure presence,” says Nick. “I’m not thinking about whatever technical shit I have to do; everything becomes so locked in and rapturous, it’s really one of the greatest feelings.”

“In the beginning [of the band], I think a lot of what we were feeling was about pulling the rug out from under the audience a bit - being more provocative, trying to stir up a maelstrom of sorts; this psychic, sexual, self-destructive fugue,” Karen continues. “There was more of a commitment to chaos [before] and those things that move you when you’re really young, like sex and love and hate and pain. But these days, it feels like it’s transcending all those things. These days it feels more like a lift - I wanna lift ourselves and whoever’s out there higher and higher…”

I

f there’s undeniably a lot to be low about in the world right now, then ‘Cool It Down’ - Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ fifth album and their first since 2013’s ‘Mosquito’ - does nothing to shy away from this reality. Opening with the apocalyptic grandeur of Perfume Genius-featuring lead single ‘Spitting Off the Edge of the World’, it sets its stead out from the off as a record rooted in primal sensations, where catastrophic wildfires burn all around and life feels reactive and terrifying and perpetually uncertain.

Though there’s an escapist element to their shows and their presentation, the band, says Karen, have always stared life head-on. “I feel like we’re pretty confrontational. I think we do like to rouse our audiences and we want them to escape themselves as far as not being self conscious and trapped in the jail of your mind that you live in - we want people to break free of that. But I don’t think we shy away from emotions that people are sometimes scared of dealing with, like loss or losing control or sexual desire,” she begins.

Instead, on their latest, the trio somewhat Trojan horse their subjects, cloaking this imagery in sonic beauty and euphoria. ‘Spitting…’ might be about imminent environmental collapse, about “standing on the edge of a precipice, confronting what’s coming with anger and defiance”, but longtime collaborator Dave Sitek’s production is rich and lush, with orchestral strings elevating things towards the heavens. Recent single ‘Burning’ conjures up

Louise Mason.

dancefloor drama, while playful highlight ‘Fleez’ writhes down in the dirt of civilization whilst nodding to ‘80s dance-punk heroes ESG.

“Music is one of those funny languages where you can be talking about something quite intense or serious or heavy, but the feeling of it is completely the opposite,” says Karen. “I made that discovery in 2020 when I did a cover of [Queen’s] ‘Under Pressure’ with Willie Nelson; I’ve heard that song hundreds of times but I don’t think I’d ever clocked what it was actually saying. But we did this very stripped down version, and I looked at the lyrics with a different sentiment, and it was like, ‘Wow’. They’re actually addressing some pretty weighty stuff but when you hear it you feel totally high and charged.

“I think that’s the beautiful contradiction of making music and why it’s been, for so many years, one of the main vehicles that can enact social changebecause when you put it in that package, it’s so much more palatable for so many people that wouldn’t be able to digest it in any other way, so I was trying to access that,” she continues.

“I don’t wanna hear heavy songs that make me feel really heavy, I wanna hear heavy songs that make me feel great. There’s a rich history of them; Bob Dylan has so many heavy songs that make you feel important by just listening to them. I can do this! I can change things! That’s one of those superpowers of music.”

On top of all this, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, reunited in their own little writing bubble for the first time in a long time, genuinely WERE feeling great. At the start of the ‘Cool It Down’ sessions in 2021, Nick and Karen began, as they always do, with a no-pressure jam session to ease themselves back in. A “family tradition” they’ve employed since the early days, Karen recalls this instalment as being one of “pure happiness”. “Of course the stuff we were writing about had some big and challenging feelings in it, but I think there’s the personal part of it where it feels like we’ve been a family for over 20 years now and we’re just so happy to get to do this again,” she smiles.

“Now with Yeah Yeah Yeahs, maybe because subconsciously we know that we have a fan base and it’s gonna make a lot of people happy to hear something too, it really starts to feel bigger than us when we start to make music. Yeah Yeah Yeahs is this established phenomenon, and we still can’t quite understand why it happened or what it is, but it takes on a life of its own quite quickly. We’re excited and we’re giddy to do it again, but it becomes bigger than us quite fast.”

Speaking from three corners of a Zoom window, with Karen and Nick beaming in from their respective homes in LA and Brian still residing in New York (wearing, as if to hammer the point home, a T-shirt emblazoned with the city’s name), the easy warmth of the Yeah Yeah Yeahs family dynamic is clear to see.

Karen (screen name, Karenoia; prone to an infectious giggle) flits between playfully teasing her bandmates and generously checking their opinions after giving her own; Nick is the cheeky-but-deadpan figure sitting bottom left, customary shock of black hair still giving him the aura of a displaced Tim Burton character; across the screen from him, Brian is more sporadic in his interjections, but each one comes delivered with bright, puppy-like enthusiasm.

For a trio who came to epitomise a certain type of untouchable cool, who’ve sat as New York’s ultimate art band - the wildcard, feral explosion next to The Strokes’ leather-clad insouciance - there’s always been something strangely wide-eyed about them too. Yes, Karen may have spent her early stage years deepthroating the microphone at every opportunity, but her glittersoaked, rainbow stagewear is like a little kid’s dream of a pop star come to life. Where most bands - where most peoplegrow up and lose their sense of wonder, Yeah Yeah Yeahs never have.

“I think that’s kind of crucial, that state of innocence, because it’s something that everybody has inside of them no matter whether you’re my Dad who’s 80 or a teenager. There’s no real explanation as to why we’re so connected with that, but you watch Brian behind the drums and he’s like a Muppet - it’s almost like he should have ropes holding him down otherwise he’ll literally launch into the air and never come back because he’s flying. And Nick’s more of the stormy child, but you kind of look like a child Nick,” she chuckles, addressing the guitarist, “you haven’t aged. He’s the immortal of the band… So I don’t know why we have that quality so much about us, but it does seem like our essence is that.”

Take their series of DIY lockdown performances, recorded inside a cupboard in Karen’s house and posted to Instagram. Decorating the makeshift den with streamers and glitter curtains, filling it with balloons and wearing an outfit that may or may not have been all the items from a kid’s birthday party glued on to a wedding dress, Karen and a Zoomedin Nick and Brian run through

BAND IS SUCH A BIG PART OF ME, DOWN TO EVERY CELL IN MY BODY.” - NICK ZINNER

Five albums in, you’d have thought Karen could afford an umbrella by now.

“WE WANT PEOPLE TO BREAK FREE OF THE JAIL OF THEIR MINDS.” - KAREN O

a beautiful, particularly pandemic-poignant version of ‘Maps’ to celebrate the band’s 20th anniversary. It’s both mad and gorgeous, sweet and meaningful; a bright and brilliant exterior with a bloody beating heart underneath.

“It couldn’t be more ABC-123 when it comes to a Clark Kent / Superman situation,” she explains of the importance of their aesthetic. “It couldn’t be more like I’m putting on a superhero costume. There’s only been a couple of very rare occasions when I’ve performed in jeans and a leather jacket and it’s felt really weird; it felt like my cover’s been blown, it did not make sense to me…”

You could argue that there’s an adjacent duality that runs throughout ‘Cool It Down’, too. Though there are tales of hunger and pains, of - on penultimate track ‘Different Today’ - a world that “goes spinnin’ out of control”, sonically the album contains some of Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ most classically beautiful work to date, strings and dramatic flourishes dominating ‘Lovebomb’ and spoken-word closer ‘Mars’ ending the record like a dawn chorus .“The dictate we self-imposed early on was no rules, no stylistic limitations. And the second part was, ‘Does this give me goosebumps?’” explains Nick of their choices on LP5.

The results are sometimes grand and gorgeous, sometimes still itchy and playful, but most importantly, they just sound like that particular alchemy that is Yeah Yeah Yeahs.

If much has been made recently of the ‘00s indie nostalgia resurgence, then perhaps this band epitomises the real longing hidden behind it all. The trio began in an era devoid of social media, where the NYC scene eulogised in Meet Me In The Bathroom - the prolific period that birthed The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, Interpol and countless others - was tangible and real, based in sweaty gig venues and late night bars instead of online and apart.

Looking back at photos from the time, grainy Myspace pics taken on terrible early camera phones, there’s a sense of lawlessness and hedonism that feels lightyears away from the curated Instagram feeds of the more recent past: an environment ripe for nurturing creativity and encouraging the self-expression at Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ technicolour heart. “There wasn’t cancel culture back then; because of the way these things are being implemented, art feels more policed than ever,” suggests Karen. “There’s a purity of being in the moment and being a part of a scene, and it felt less fragmented and more insular and tangible [then]. It’s harder these days

to have that link to a time and a place and a community.”

“I don’t know if we knew how good we had it at the time. We were in our early twenties, playing shows every night with these incredible bands who were our friends who sounded amazing and whose music was so original, but that was just regular life,” picks up Brian. “After 15, 20 years you can look back and contextualise it, but when you’re in it, it’s [just life]. It was incredibly freeing; I don’t know if people can imagine what that’s like now, to not have to post and to have that freedom.”

During the pandemic, Nick too found himself going back through the archives. Having documented the band’s journey from their earliest days, he spent months going through the photo boxes, “just cataloguing and re-examining it all, and seeing it from a new light. Looking back at our experience with the perspective…” “You were getting sentimental!” teases Karen. “Plus a sprinkling of sentiment!” the guitarist acquiesces with a smile. “It was one of those things where it’s like fuck man, you realise what a beautiful, incredible experience this is, and the appreciation that I gained for it was huge.”

One photo that struck him was taken backstage at a show in 2002, right at the start of the bandbefore ‘Fever To Tell’, before the countless other hits, when the trio had no idea of the whirlwind trip that was about to become their futures for two decades and counting. “It was of you Karen, [making this] smaller gesture that struck me in a different way, that somehow felt more precious. Maybe it’s an innocence or something,” he muses.

For many years now, the gestures have been necessarily bigger: ones that can command the largest stages across the world, that - coming back after several years away - still feel like that giddy punch of glee. But at their heart, though the world around them may have changed irreversibly since those first carefree days, Yeah Yeah Yeahs are still that same beacon of light in the darkness.

“To me, because it’s something I’ve done for 20 years, the band is such a big part of me down to every cell in my body that it feels so right when we’re all together and playing together,” smiles Nick. “When that’s happening, when we’re playing and just doing our thing, it’s great. I feel complete.”

‘Cool It Down’ is out now via Secretly Canadian. DIY

CHECK THE DISCOGRAPHYYY

Not in possession of the band’s masterpieces to date? Sort it out!

FEVER TO TELL (2003)

The debut that started it all, ‘Fever To Tell’ showcased an onslaught of personality that could go from two-minute dancefloor blitzkriegs (‘Pin’, ‘Tick’) to their own brand of grizzled joy (‘Y Control’). ‘Maps’, meanwhile, remains one of the best love songs ever put to tape.

SHOW YOUR BONES (2006)

Kicking off with the opening acoustic chords of ‘Gold Lion’, ‘Show Your Bones’ found the band widening their remit and revelling in new dynamics and tricks. Less scratchy than its predecessor, it embraced possibility without losing its core.

IT’S BLITZ! (2009)

Get the glitter cannons out and hot foot it to the dancefloor, the exclamation point in ‘It’s Blitz!’’ title wasn’t kidding. Yet while uberhit ‘Heads Will Roll’ and ‘Zero’ marked blistering, euphoric highs, the likes of ‘Runaway’ pointed to a band who’ve always been able to suckerpunch with emotion too.

MOSQUITO (2013)

Purposefully lo-fi, ‘Mosquito’ threatened a return to their early days but instead provided a slice of anxiety nestled among its still-infectious wares. Even lead single ‘Sacrilege’ held tension within its sonic highs.

l z

E very few months, Mykki Blanco will scroll through their Twitter

notifications and see a tweet that reads “Mykki Blanco is so underrated,” or “The world never gave Mykki Blanco their flowers”. For the boundary-blurring star, it’s a bittersweet sentiment.

“Maybe I should talk to a therapist about this,” they laugh. “What happens when, for your whole career, you search your name on Twitter and someone’s like, ‘Mykki Blanco doesn’t get enough recognition’? When this has happened for a decade, you’re like, ‘Wait, did you not see that thing I just did? That thing has half a million views. Did you not catch that?!’”

First bursting onto the scene in 2012 with the fiery opening declaration of viral hit ‘Wavvy’ (“I’m the motherfuckin’ rookie of the year”), Mykki has spent the past decade establishing themselves as a trail-blazing figure. Hailed for their genresplicing take on hip hop, Mykki has collaborated with a host of huge names, from Kanye West to Kathleen Hanna, all while asserting themselves as an out and proud queer artist in a historically closed-off industry.

Yet despite their success and influence, Mykki is still constantly written into the underdog narrative. “I know in the beginning of my career, I had songs that, if the world hadn’t been such a homophobic and transphobic place, probably would have been even bigger singles for me,” they note today, speaking to DIY as they make their way through customs at a US airport. They describe themselves as in a “perpetual state of being discovered”, but a wish to change this clearly isn’t the driving force. “I’ve consistently continued to give out quality and really good work. Would I love to have another ‘Wavvy’ moment? Sure. But I’m not in a studio risking it all to have a hit.”

“I’m happy about my trajectory,” Mykki shrugs, before bringing up a tweet from friend and fellow rapper Cakes Da Killa which sums it up perfectly: “Imagine doing something that wasn’t considered cool for years to then have it become cool years later and people tell you NOW you have to play by the rules set by people who didn’t even pioneer the shit in the first place.”

Mykki Blanco

“People have archived me before my time,” Mykki says. “People talk about me like I’ve existed for 25 years! I understand because what I was doing and how I did it, and everything that was happening at this certain cultural acceleration point, it was all very serendipitous. I understand why people consider me a pioneer.”

New album ‘Stay Close To Music’ finds Mykki defying expectations once more. Formed from the jam sessions that also resulted in last year’s minialbum ‘Broken Hearts & Beauty Sleep’, they set out to create a “shoegazey, dream-pop, rap record,” naming artists such as Connan Mockasin, The Beach Boys and My Bloody Valentine as their main inspirations. Purposefully shifting their mindset from making “club bangers”, they found themselves listening to Lou Reed, Modern Lovers’ Jonathan Richman and Tom Petty while creating the LP.

“People would be so surprised to know that Mykki Blanco is one of the biggest Tom Petty fans,” they joke. “But in trying to expand my own sound, Tom Petty has been a huge inspiration. They helped me get out of the hip hop box, and they’ve really helped my mind expand about what’s possible for my songwriting.”

For the new record, Mykki opted to stop sampling, only using the samples that they created themselves in order to forge a new sound - or their selfdescribed “new alchemy”. “I know that I had made singles and projects that people liked, but for myself, just Mykki, had I made a release where I felt I could listen to it front to back and be like, wow this is a full sonic journey? I don’t think I had done that yet. It was important for me to do that.”

Teaming up with a host of collaborators on the record, from Devendra Banhart and R.E.M.’s Michael Stipe, to newer names like LA singer and cellist Kelsey Lu, Mykki notes their love of collaborating as what keeps them connected to audiences. “I have a talent for combining people that would never normally be on records together,” they smile. “Bringing together ANOHNI and Kelsey Lu, bringing together MNEK and Saul Williams, me collaborating with Jónsi from Sigúr Ros?! I would never have expected to be on a record with Jónsi!”

It’s Jónsi-featuring album closer ‘Carry On’ that provides one of the most striking moments on the record. Allowing themselves to dive deeper into more honest

has spent a career creating their own path and leading by innovative example. On indieleaning new LP ‘Stay Close to Music’, they’re offering up yet more surprises.

Words: Elly Watson

“It’s been fun to continue to surprise people because they really thought I was a one trick pony.”

I understand why people consider me a pioneer.”

songwriting, they rap on the track, “Black and gay / I wonder if they’ll ever claim us /HIV, I’ve got HIV, can I still be famous?”. A bold and unshakable statement, they continue: “I got to win, I got to fight / For every little queer, for every kid alone with fear, every kid that’s dressing up and dressing out just being them.”

“One thing that I always have to talk about, which is just the truth, is that me and Cakes Da Killa and Big Freedia, we were artists that from the beginning were extremely open,” they note. “Our openness is what caused all the taboo and all the discussions, and it may have opened doors but it also closed a lot of doors. You know, someone like Frank Ocean and Lil Nas X weren’t open when they had their first hit moment. I can’t culturally talk about how that is not significant. It made a difference that these people were closeted when they first came out and had their first big hits.”

Mykki goes on to add: “Sometimes I wonder, ‘Wow I should have been way more strategic’, but there’s no way if I wasn’t true to myself in the beginning that I would be a pioneer. It was never part of the cards for me, I was going to be myself no matter what.”

/ Use me as a damn weapon”. “That song talks about so many multi-facets of being in a Black queer body, and of being used and politicised when it’s convenient by the left,” Mykki explains.

A shapeshifting and surprising record, ‘Stay Close To Music’ once again finds Mykki doing the unexpected and excelling within it: the true sign of a trailblazer. “When you know you’ve created a really strong body of work, but it’s unlike anything you’ve ever put out, that makes you scared and uncomfortable,” they admit. “All I know is that I believe in this record. It has been a journey with me with these singles. The reception has been good, the streaming has been good, but that initial gut reaction from people has been missing at times. What I’ve had to learn to understand is that that doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy the music, it’s just they weren’t expecting it, you know?

DR BLANCO WILL SEE YOU NOW…

Turns out, Mykki’s ingenuity doesn’t just apply to creating boundary-breaking music. Now, they’re setting their sights on new plains…

‘S

tay Close To Music’ also offers a spectrum of other poignant moments, with Mykki citing ‘Your Love Was A Gift’, featuring Beyoncé collaborator Dianna Gordon, as one of their favourite pieces of work to date. “Those lyrics are so honest and they’re so true to real things I’ve experienced,” Mykki shares, noting the line “I’m not a secret, don’t keep me locked away”. “That goes out to my ex-boyfriend. When I say the lyrics, I get a funny feeling in my chest.”

Elsewhere, the powerful ‘Your Feminism Is Not My Feminism’ with Ah-Mer-Ah-Su finds Mykki singing, “How I look make you think you can talk to me / Ain’t the same show but shit I’ll let you walk with me / Judge a book by the cover now you half stepp’n

“I’m 36, but by the time I’m 46, I want to be two years into grad school. I want to study environmental sciences, but I never finished my undergrad, so for me to study I’d need to go back to school and finish that. So what I’m doing is, because of my career experience, I can enter a lot of fine art colleges. So what I will do is enter under the guise of fine art, and then I can study environmental studies under the guise of fine art. I have a friend who’s a career academic and she was like, ‘You can totally do that! You’re so smart for thinking of that!’ Because it’s fine art, they can’t tell you what you can study and what you can’t!”

“It’s funny because you don’t have control over how other people perceive you, which is a consequence of being human,” they smile. “It’s been so fun for me these last few years to continue to surprise people because they really thought I was a one trick pony.

No, babe!”

‘Stay Close to sic’ is out 14th October via Transgressive.

ircle

“It’s a bit more love-y, and a bit less nasty. Most of the songs boil down to that.”

- Asha Lorenz

“

our months after the record came out I was in Sainsburys and someone came up to me and was like, ‘You’re from Sorry, aren’t you? I really like your debut album!’” Louis O’Bryen, one half of the Londoners’ songwriting partnership, laughs. “That was the first time I’d actually had [someone] other than our friends have a reaction to it.”

Releasing their debut - 2020’s superlative ‘925’ - amid a world cut adrift from reality, Sorry’s introduction to the world of a proper, fully-fledged band was an odd one. “It was super strange,” Louis continues, “but at the same time, everyone was in the same boat. What was going on in the world was f f so crazy, [so] at the time it didn’t feel that bad.” He pauses to think. “Now when I look back, I do feel a bit sorry for us. There was no real human reaction to it. It doesn’t really feel that real if you’re just releasing it digitally and the only reaction you get to it is from the internet.”

It’s hard not to feel the backdrop of the pandemic bleeding into the writing of the North London quartet’s second album, too; even its title, ‘Anywhere But Here’, speaks of isolation, of longing for a world beyond your bedroom. For a band that released their debut at the tender age of 21, has it been a period of swiftly growing up? Louis nods. “When you’re [that age], you think you know everything about the world and you can see that in our songwriting. We were… not arrogant, but just young, and the emotions on the first album were a bit goofier and more tongue-incheek.” Asha Lorenz - his musical co-conspirator - nods: “I think we hid behind less gimmicks in this one, and tried to be a bit more raw and honest.”

As such, the songs on ‘Anywhere But Here’ feel earnest in a way that Sorry’s music hasn’t before. The chorus of album opener ‘Let The Lights On’ finds Asha exclaiming “I love you, I love you!” - a world away from the aloof, cool persona she embodied on ‘925’. The lyrics feel audacious

Life of

Fin their honesty. “Even with the song titles, you can see that,” Louis agrees. “They would always come back to the main hook in the song - like ‘There’s So Many People Who Want To Be Loved’. We should have shortened that, that’s a ridiculously long title, but we wanted it. That idea reflects the honesty, and the brazenness of the lyrics.”

Love surfaces so often on the record, it feels like a character unto itself. From the first halcyon days of a new romance to the embittered ashes of a breakup, ‘Anywhere But Here’ finds endless inspiration in romance. “Yeah, it is a bit more love-y, and a bit less nasty. Most of the songs boil down to that,” Asha grins. “A few songs were written from a [previous] relationship, and some were written from a new relationship, and I learned that I definitely thought I would never feel this way from a different person, or [that] this sadness I felt was new sadness, but after the next breakup I felt the same things. I realised it wasn’t specifically about that person, it happens again and again. Acceptance, trying to let go and the small deaths in life, is what the album’s most about.”

It’s

a far cry from the Sorry of the past, who seemed more interested in the grimy edges of society where love seemed to come a distant second to lust. Have they always been drawn to the seedy underbelly of polite society?

“Growing up here, you spend a lot of your time out at night going through the underworld of London, and that’s when a lot of experiences occur, in this hazy world,” Louis explains. “There’s that great Leonard Cohen album, ‘Death Of A Ladies Man’, where it’s really dark and quite naughty and sexual. It’s always been a part of what we find interesting in art. Asha, for instance, loved Cabaret when she was growing up, and films like Enter The Void.” Asha chimes in: “Yeah, I like Cabaret! I watched it in the theatre, actually, with my dad. The label gave me tickets for my birthday, and it was cool because they inverted all the meanings of the songs. A song that was happy in the film was sad in the theatre, so it was cool because the play took on a whole different meaning.”

It’s not the only anecdote about Asha’s family that intrigues; a chance line in a press release explains that Asha’s mother worked as a death doula through the pandemic. “You go and be with people when they’re gonna die, or help their family out to prepare for the death of someone,” she explains of the role. “So yeah, that was quite a weird job for a bit, but it was cool. She used to help pregnant women in prison, so she was more into birth before, and then she did this death doula job but it’s quite a long process to become one. It was romantic, the stories that she [told].”

It feels central to the album, these feelings of cycles, of births and deaths, of love and heartbreak. Louis agrees. “For us, that idea is always the one. I mean, it’s been around [forever].

If I’m not actively trying to write a song about something, that’s just what I start writing about.”

And for Asha? “Um, it’s just going through the motions, bro. Going through the motions...”

‘Anywhere But Here’ is out now via Domino.

DIY

Staring down the big questions and tackling existentialism in their own idiosyncratic way, ‘Anywhere But Here’ is showing the world a new, evolved Sorry.

Words: Louis Griffin. Photos: Louise Mason.

BAND (FKA GIRL BAND) HAVE NEVER BEEN ONES TO PANDER. ON ‘MOST NORMAL’, THEY’RE EMBRACING THAT ETHOS FULLY, WITH AN ART-FOR-ART’SSAKE RECORD THAT STRETCHES FROM THE SILLY TO THE SUBLIME.

hen you make the kind of music that has almost no traditionally mainstream potential, it takes the pressure off. “Full creative control and no commercial value!” proclaims Gilla Band vocalist Dara Kiely of their priorities. “Steve Albini said that if you’re reliant on your art for financial income, you then start making your creative decisions based on that rather than the love of it,” adds his bandmate Alan Duggan. Not that the Dublin outfit are unsuccessful by any stretch - we’re speaking with the critically-acclaimed musicians in the cosy offices of their esteemed label Rough Trade, after all - but the four members still all work their regular jobs on the side. Would they not like to live entirely off their art? “I’m not sure…” Alan says.

For one thing, the extra income means that in 2019 the band were able to start investing, getting hold of the necessary gear to turn their rehearsal space into a small studio. With a professional producer in their midst in the form of bassist Daniel Fox, and a record label happy to hand over full creative control, it’s their ideal setup. “We never really wanted to do a record with some huge name producer in a studio on the other side of the world, that’s not our vibe even if the money was there - which it’s definitely not,” says Alan. “I feel like that [impulse] was always there; we were always trying to be more and more self-sufficient, but now we’ve started investing in that.”

It meant that, as musicians at least, Gilla Band were able to weather the stops and starts of the pandemic

relatively easily. During the downtime of lockdown, they were able to experiment on their own, Alan playing around with a new set of synthesisers, Dara with Logic on his laptop. “I had an infinite amount of takes, changing melodies and writing more lyrics,” recalls the frontman. When they were able to get together again in their studio space, he continues, “it was then possible for [the band] to have more of a say on things rather than saying, ‘Is this OK?’ at the last minute.” Ireland’s stringent and repeated lockdowns could be frustrating, Alan acknowledges, but “once we were able to get down there, it was really creatively fruitful. I’ve always been jealous of the artists who could just write music in a studio and record as you’re writing, and now we’re able to do that too.”

FWor the first time in a career pocked with setbacks (their second album ‘The Talkies’ took four years to record due to Dara’s mental health needs requiring a brief hiatus, coupled with multiple show cancellations), there’s a sense of stability behind Gilla Band. Having changed their name from Girl Band in order to, as they put it, “negate any unfortunate role [they’ve] played in propagating a culture of non-inclusivity in music or otherwise”, new album ‘Most Normal’ feels like the start of a new era for the group.

The record arrives as their most coherent release to date, and also their most multi-faceted. You can hear the effects of the more detailed recording process in the way each dizzying shift in momentum - from the ecstatic industrial drone of opener ‘The Gum’ to the sudden crash of eardrum-piercing noise that punctures the hypnotic rhythm of ‘Binliner Fashion’; the fuzzed-out ambient interlude of ‘Gushie’ to the distorted dark psychedelia of ‘Pratfall’ - feels like it makes perfect sense, while simultaneously subverting all expectations. Experimental as they are, almost all the songs are short and snappy. “We wanted to be tight and direct in a way that we’ve never been before,” says Alan.

In part, they took inspiration from the way hip hop pushes production boundaries. “A big one was Earl Sweatshirt’s ‘Some Rap Songs’,” Alan continues. “The way you get pulled from one track to the other by this heavy-handed production, these huge filter sweeps, the way it can cut the sound completely then just come back in. Our album doesn’t do the same thing, it doesn’t sound like a hip hop record, but it was definitely a reference point more than wanting it to sound like a garage-rock record or a post-punk record. I do love a lot of bands in those worlds but, in terms of inspiration for the album, there wasn’t so much. I don’t really feel like we

“HIP-HOP WAS A REFERENCE POINT MORE THAN WANTING IT TO SOUND LIKE A POST-PUNK RECORD.” - ALAN DUGGAN

“Bread, milk, those crisps in the shape of teddy bears for a treat…”

exist beside bands like that so well.”

The way Dara’s vocals are produced is often stunning, fading in and out of clattering noise. Sometimes it’s pushed into all-out abstraction as on the post-modernist weirdness of ‘Capgras’, while at others - such as single ‘Eight Fivers’ - it’s made the stark focal point as the rest of the band hammer maniacally in the background. On the latter track in particular, the band show that they’re not afraid to own their ridiculousness. “I spent all my money on shit clothes!” Dara howls over and over again atop an industrial churn, before essentially just listing different shops: Debenhams, Spar, Aldi, Lidl. “Pretty fuckin’ deep, right?” the frontman jokes (incidentally, both he and his bandmate attend our interview impeccably dressed).

The song, he explains, is based on a bit by the Irish comedian Tony Cantwell, “and then I just had fun with it,” says Dara. Though the harshness of much of their music might sometimes see the group pegged as po-faced noise-merchants, a sense of humour is equally core to their practise. “After gigs, sometimes people will come up to me covered in sweat like, ‘AAARGH!’ and want us to be angry with them, it’s a bit strange,” says Dara. “I think people are sometimes a bit underwhelmed when they meet us as they think we’re going to be really serious,” Alan adds.

Gilla Band, however, believe that heaviness and humour don’t need to be separate things. “Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave are both very funny,” Dara points out. “On our first record there’s a song called ‘Pears For Lunch’ with the line ‘Ate eight bananas and I thought about a jog / Legged it around the gaff and took my top off / I look crap with my top off.’ I went up to Alan and said, ‘I’ve put a lot of effort into this, I’m a bit scared.’ He looked at it for two seconds and just pissed himself laughing. I often really dislike it when lyricists have no humour at all. It’s just a bit emotionless.”

Dara’s bandmates laughed too when he delivered them ‘Most Normal’’s album closer ‘Post Ryan’, in part because of the way it mixed the funny and the intense. On the one hand “he’s shouting about crisps”, Alan recalls with a chuckle, but on the other it’s the record’s most soul-bearing moment. Gilla Band had challenged their singer to entirely abandon the poetic and abstracted imagery that has defined his work so far. “I really love Dara’s lyrics, but they can be really cryptic, so we thought something direct and contrasting could be cool,” Duggan says. He turned in a track that hints at themes of breakdowns, recoveries and “inevitable depression”. Writing it was “a naked feeling,” Dara recalls. “I had to leave the room when I showed it to the lads.”

“I hid behind the surreal / I’m a bit too much,” Dara sings on the song - an overt admission that perhaps this change in style is one that might be here to stay. “I think it’s my favourite track on the album for that reason, because it scared me a lot,” he says. It’s not as if he’s shied away from the personal before. On ‘Prolix’, the opening track of ‘The Talkies’, the band used a recording of a panic attack Dara suffered during the session, but sharing that “was a different kind of fear”. “We used it because we happened to record it and we thought it was interesting,” he explains. “With ‘Post Ryan’, I was more concerned about what the rest of the band thought than anything else.”

The fact that, on ‘Most Normal’, Gilla Band are focusing purely on pleasing themselves has led to a record that strikes a dazzling balance between intensity and restraint, seriousness and silliness, accessibility and experimentation. With their foundations now laid so strongly, there’s no telling what might come next.

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Turns out, when you call a song the same name as one of your mates, things start to get a little confusing…

Dara: Our friend Ryan thinks the song’s about him because we wrote a different song for his 30th birthday, a happy birthday song. Then the next time we were in practise, we called it ‘Post Ryan’ as a throwaway name. Now I keep getting phone calls saying, ‘So that bit in ‘Post Ryan’, that’s actually about me doing this, isnt it?’ It’s not about you at all! Your name was a placeholder!’

There’s also a line in that song - ‘They call me safety thumbs’ - because that was my name in the band for a while. We were in an Uber and it was going too fast, and instead of holding the two seats in front I was so nervous I was just holding my thumbs up and grinning.

“I OFTEN REALLY DISLIKE IT WHEN LYRICISTS HAVE NO HUMOUR AT ALL. IT’S JUST A BIT EMOTIONLESS.”

- DARA KIELY

“I THINK THE VARIANCE OF SONGS ON THIS RECORD APPEALS TO THE FRANTIC NATURE OF WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE WORLD OR WITH ME.” - Molly Rankin

HOME & A W A Y

AFTER FIVE YEARS AWAY, ALVVAYS’ THIRD ALBUM ‘BLUE REV’ SPEAKS TO THE PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF A BAND MAKING THEIR MOST AMBITIOUS MUSIC YET.

Words: Matthew Pywell.

Molly Rankin is taking DIY through some of the various reasons as to why the world has had to wait five years for Alvvays’ new album ‘Blue Rev’. With no new music arriving since 2017’s ‘Antisocialites’, die-hard fans may have been tempted to put up ‘Wanted’ posters, but much of that delay, it turns out, was due to a series of very unfortunate events…

“I was broken into, then the following night my friends came over to soothe me and, while that was happening, there was this really irregular rainfall and the basement [with the band’s gear in] started flooding while we were there,” the vocalist recalls. “So we were grabbing blankets and anything we could to mop up the water. Had we not been home, it would have been completely destroyed.” Add to that a pandemic shutdown, and you get a scenario far from ideal for a band still brimming with ideas.

Made up of Molly, guitarist Alec O’Hanley, keyboardist Kerri MacLellan, drummer Sheridan Riley and bassist Abbey Blackwell, the Toronto-based troupe have always - much like their creative reference points The Smiths - been masters of the bittersweet, marrying colourful melodies with sometimes bleak lyrics. On their 2014 self-titled debut they used these tools to punctuate the chaotic expectations that being in your twenties provides; 2017’s ‘Antisocialites’, meanwhile, brought the pressures of adulthood ever closer in a frenzied romance arc. Yet now, with the band’s members all in their thirties, Alvvays are reflecting in a different way.

The title ‘Blue Rev’ is a nod to Molly’s teenage years growing up in the isolated town of Cape Breton in Nova Scotia. It’s a drink that some say tastes like cough medicine, but nonetheless was the youthful alcoholic beverage of choice.

“I got a message from one of my friends the other day and she said she saw it in the liquor store and can’t even look at it,” she laughs. “I don’t know why it permeated our culture in the way that it did. I’ve actually never had a cold one; it was generally pulled out of someone’s backpack in the woods. You’re sort of desperate for whatever alcohol you can get your hands on when you’re a teen...”

Home is important to Molly. Cape Breton stands as a completely different environment to the bustling city she now calls home and the opening track on ‘Blue Rev’, ‘Pharmacist’, brings forth ample nostalgia for her birthplace. “There have been elements of that [nostalgia] on our other albums, but I don’t think that it really touched on the unique Nova Scotia cultural experience [before],” she says. “[The song isn’t] really about my personal life, but there are enough touchpoints that encapsulate youth in the maritime.

“It’s a beautiful place and the people are so friendly and very funny,” she continues, “but returning to where you’re from is such a rush of different feelings when you’re trying to grapple with the way things used to be. Fronting the different experiences you had in your youth, I find that really overwhelming, just making peace with that.”

’B

lue Rev’ is an album that explains a lot about where Alvvays are, not only as a band but as people too. Isolation has always been key to the way Molly has written her lyrics, having spent time on Toronto Island alone when writing ‘Antisocialites’, but now she understands the importance of these creative boundaries more than ever. “I know that I like to be alone, that’s something I know for sure. I need to be secluded from everyone else in order to conjure up something really meaningful and find those emotional lifts,” she says.

However, though many of the songs on the band’s third were born from solitude, they contain emotional multitudes bound to connect in far bigger, wider ways. Carving out your own path and forging ahead is a key theme on the record. Throughout, you’ll find characters making their own choices and taking uncertain leaps of faith. “I put my money on a horse who won’t be steered on any course or lane,” goes ‘Tom Verlaine’ while on ‘Pomeranian Spinster’ we meet a protagonist

Family Portrait

The cover photo for ‘Blue Rev’ is of Molly and her parents climbing out of a boat - a picture she discovered while returning to the family home for the holidays.

“The first time I saw the photo I couldn’t believe it was real. The sky is so wild and it’s just this looming chaos that’s behind this really familiar kind of parental support and comfort. I just couldn’t believe how beautiful it was.”

whose life seems to almost entirely thrive off chaos but is admirably determined to follow her own direction.

‘Belinda Says’, meanwhile, details a character who becomes pregnant and, in spite of town gossip, decides to start a new life in the country. “The idea of a leap into the unknown is such a beautiful image to me. Especially with a child, taking that risk and evading whatever baggage is left behind to start this new journey, it’s about the bravery that’s involved in that,” Molly says.

In a slightly self-deprecating manner, Molly conversely describes herself as a “meek” person. Not being a natural extrovert meant that being the leader of a band wasn’t necessarily an easy fit and, from starting Alvvays until now, there have been a series of learning curves. “I really learned my lesson about just using my instincts and advocating for those and being able to articulate my needs,” she nods before laughing: “That was definitely something that took time for me to learn how to do so I can stand up for myself and prevail.”

You can find her humour littered throughout ‘Blue Rev’. Often self-referential, sarcastic or deadpan, lines such as the wry “Belinda says that heaven is a place on Earth / Well, so is hell” speak to a band with a darker side than some of their sparkling melodies might first suggest. It’s a huge part of how her lyricism illuminates the characters she writes about, and on ‘Blue

Rev’ she weaves these tales into Alvvays’ most diverse and ambitious record to date - one that pulls from shoegaze, new wave, dream pop and beyond.

Yet it’s the variety of feelings that is equally impressive. Across the album, there are moments where you could swear you were seeing stars for the first time, as guitars combine into helter-skelter epiphanies before the quieter moments bring a pause of much-needed breathing space. It’s a gift to be able to wield all of that into a record that still feels like its own microcosm. “I think the variance of the songs on this record kind of appeals to the frantic nature of what’s happening in the world or with me,” Molly considers. “It is a bit of a variety record, so connecting all of that was a task, making it feel like one full thought.”

Five years might have been a long time coming, but it was necessary in order for Alvvays to grow alongside their songs. Returning with their finest work yet, they’re more refreshed than ever.

‘Blue Rev’ is out now via Transgressive. DIY

“I KNOW THAT I LIKE TO BE ALONE, THAT’S SOMETHING I KNOW FOR SURE.” - Molly Rankin

aking in the sights of the quaintlynamed Sunset Park, just around the corner from Birmingham’s O2 Academy, The Big Moon are in unusually subdued spirits. Guitarist Soph Nathan has spent much of the past 24 hours pointing a hair dryer at her sore back, and Celia Archer is lying face-down on a metal bench - ”We’re in mourning,” lead singer Jules Jackson explains, glumly. The cause is a very long story involving a broken-down tour van in Spain, airline baggage restrictions and international freight gone horribly wrong; to skip straight to the ending, half of the band’s live gear has essentially disappeared into thin air.

Though fans and friends have quickly rallied around, lending everything from guitar pedals to stray flutes for earlier dates in Sheffield and Brighton, it’s clear that feeling so suddenly unprepared has knocked the band for six. Months of painstaking rehearsals now feel slightly “undone,” according to Soph, while drummer Fern Ford admits she’s been struggling with her planned live setup - a mish-mash of complicated sample triggers - with so many missing parts.

Much of The Big Moon’s disappointment ties directly into their fierce levels of ambition for this month’s third record ‘Here Is Everything’, as well the way they think they’re sometimes perceived as a band. While the quartet’s brilliantly wide-eyed debut ‘Love in the 4th Dimension’ enjoyed its fair share of raucous live outings, the touring journey of its intricate, more introspective follow-up ‘Walking Like We Do’ was effectively cut off by the pandemic; the record missed out on a jubilant summer of

performers between records. It leaves them in a strange predicament now.

“A lot of the time the way we’re spoken about, or what

people think of us, is like, ‘Awww, The Big Moon!’” reckons Celia. “We really wanted to be like, ‘BAM! BAM! BAM!’ on this [tour], but we’re still having to be like, ‘LOL’,” she offers, with a despairing comedy shrug. “We were slick as fuck,” says Jules, “and it’s frustrating to end up winging it.”

Still, very little of this anxiety manages to elbow

- JULES JACKSON

its way onto the stage. Later on, Fern’s usual trumpet solo in the middle of ‘It’s Easy Then’ becomes a brilliantly comic moment instead as the drummer stands up and does absolutely nothing while lit by a starkly theatrical spotlight. For ‘Barcelona’’s lilting woodwind intro, Celia and Jules perform spot-on vocal impersonations of flutes, to huge cheers.

Pre-show, meanwhile, the band soon brighten up after collecting their thoughts on the whole debacle. “Anybody else feel like this is well-needed therapy?” Jules laughs. Soon enough, they’re back to joking about the sheer ridiculousness of the last week, which has involved a lot of frantic asking-around, and a desperate nationwide hunt for a particular guitar pedal called a Big Muff.

“Everything we do is just… hope,” ponders Celia, taking a moment to get philosophical. “We hope our gear gets here in time, we hope this show goes ahead. We found out our lighting guy always

brings a bath bomb with him on tour because he doesn’t have a bath at home, and he thinks that maybe one hotel that he goes to will, and then he can have a nice bath with his bath bomb.

That is hope! It’s the epitome of pure hope!”

H

ope is also something that runs through The Big Moon’s music in spades. On their debut, ‘Formidable’ was a tight-knit celebration of the magical bond that first brought the band together, while second album standout ‘Your Light’ dug out a glimmer of promise in a fuckedup, dark world that “never needed gravity to drag you down”. Hope is also what propelled The Big Moon to keep on pushing after their first attempt to record Album Three essentially fell to pieces; though the band mixed and mastered an entire record in early 2021, the music just felt weightless, and wasn’t working.

After those initial attempts to record in a couple of weeks with a producer fell apart, the band took a big step back - Jules was focused on becoming a mother for the first time, and the rest of the quartet split off to do other jobs during the pandemic. “We were separated into these different planets for a while,” Jules says, “and were apart for so long. We had a bad experience in the studio first, and then I had the baby and it became even more shredded. We were all like, ‘Oh my god, what’s gonna happen?’ To come back together and recommit,” she adds, wistfully, “it’s like renewing our vows.”

“When we all met each other, it was kind of like magic,” Celia continues. “We’re all friends of friends - we didn’t grow up together or anything like that - and it felt like, ‘I’ve only just met these people and I really love them! And it worked!

The band was taking off, we got a record deal… Amazing. This time though, it felt like… ‘Oh, I really want this. This is something special that we have, and it’s worth working out and fighting for’.”

And though Jules’ songwriting has become thornier and more complicated over time, ‘Here Is Everything’ ultimately comes from a similar place where hope eventually prevails, no matter

“THESE ARE LOVE SONGS, BUT THEY’RE ALSO SONGS ABOUT STARTING TO FEEL LIKE MYSELF AGAIN.”

Here Is Everything The Big Moon Could Possibly Think Of To Sample Listen out and guess the tracks, it’ll be fun!

Mini Moon

Fern: I was looking after him, and he was making some cute sounds, so I thought why not?

Snacks

Celia: Jules and Fern ate a packet of crisps, for percussion.

Cookware

Fern: There’s a baking tray with a fuckton of reverb on it.

how messy or intangible life can seem. Even as she processes her fears about parenthood on the record, the joys of seeing that first positive on a pregnancy test (‘2 Lines’) and meeting a new tiny person for the very first time (‘Wide Eyes’) trump every moment of uncertainty.

“For about half the album, all the songs are quite questioning, like: ‘What kind of parent am I going to be? Why am I bringing a child into this world? During a pandemic?! Like, what the hell am I doing?!’” Jules says. “Then the songs I wrote post-birth are these massive, exhausted, hormonal love songs! There is a massive release from that, and a big joy in that. These are love songs, but they’re also songs about starting to feel like myself again.”

In several songs on the record - especially ‘High and Low’ and ‘This Love’ - Jules’ vocal is exposed and ragged; you can hear the torn edges of her voice. Sticking with these raw recordings, taken from the earliest demos she recorded at home, feels most “honest”, she explains.

“I recorded ‘Satellites’ when I had the worst morning sickness and felt like I was going to die. I feel like you can hear it in my voice; it’s a very unsure song.”

On that track in particular, she rages at the carefree existence of her former childless self while hunched over the loo in a state of severe nausea.

Capturing these kinds of unglamourous moments and talking openly about the stigmas pressed upon new mothers felt important to Jules, who continually found herself seeking out other people’s stories when she was struggling. As well as pouring her experiences into the record itself, the musician recently wrote a candid newsletter expanding upon her difficulties as a new mum and the intense shame she felt at not being able to breastfeed. “I felt like a giant failure,” she wrote. “I remember feeling very disengaged from reality. Eventually I gave up, I formula fed, and I learned by myself that it was all bollocks and I didnt need to feel bad.”

“When I couldn’t breastfeed, or while I was pregnant, I just devoured other people’s stories of how they felt,” Jules says today. “I was on Mumsnet every night trying to work out how to use my nipples properly; I read every single thing about breastfeeding that was on the internet, and it feels important to me to add my

story to that pile. I think it helps. We’ve had so many nice messages from people saying, ‘I’m going through this right now’.

“While you’re pregnant, you’re treated like royalty. You go to hospital every couple of weeks and everyone’s like, ‘Oh, have a seat!’ You get all these injections, and everyone’s constantly looking out for you,” she adds. “After you give birth, you get this one visit from a health visitor who comes around and sort of asks in this embarrassed way… ‘Are you OK?’”

Juggling parenthood with touring hasn’t always been easy, but returning back to live shows last summer after the uncertainty of the pandemic “felt really good,” Jules says. She explains that the main challenge comes in the shape of logistical planning, coupled with the fact there are few blueprints out there for parents in bands in terms of what to expect; men, notably, rarely get asked about how they find things. For Jules, the backing of her bandmates has helped no end. “It felt really good to bring baby backstage last festival season. You guys were all godmothering, and I felt really supported. It was amazing.”

All three of Jules’ bandmates are god-mums to Mini Moon. “She’d been trying to ask us for days,” Soph laughs. As the band’s singer grew more and more nervous about her announcement, the rest of the group’s worries mounted; “We were like, is she going to leave the band?” Celia recalls in horror. Jules eventually popped the question at a big round table in Halifax. “It was like the meeting of the five families [from The Godfather],” Celia chuckles.

In a ceremonial passing of the baton, Pho - the band’s unofficial mascot, a toy puffer fish originally purchased at a service station - now belongs to Jules’ kid. “In the early days of Baby Moon, Pho met baby,” says Celia. “He has fulfilled his destiny as a soft toy and has become a child’s toy,” Jules says. “It’s sausagey and dirty. Like everything in my life, it’s a bit squished, a bit stained and bobbly.”

“Urgh, I’d love some pho,” declares Soph, wrapping things up. “There’s a place in the shopping centre!”

‘Here Is Everything’ is out 14th October via Fiction. DIY

When on the road, you have to take your naps where you can get them.

For the better part of the last decade, The 1975 have become renowned for refusing to take the easy road. Lofty self-imposed deadlines announced in the middle of festival sets? Check. A pair of humongous albums, all part of one stacked “era”? You betcha. Even more recently, they became one of the most subversive acts in music when stepping into the Reading & Leeds headline spot following Rage Against The Machine’s controversial cancellation; a feat that saw an even split of excitement and

And yet, for their next act, they’re continuing to surprise. While previously, the band have never shared an album less than fifteen tracks long (2018’s ‘A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships’, fyi), it’s with their newest full-length that they’re going rogue in a wholly different way: by releasing a concise record of just

A far cry from predecessor ‘Notes On a Conditional Form’’s mammoth 22-strong tracklisting, on ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’, they’re taking a somewhat more stripped-back approach. While previously, their albums have delved and darted around sonic influences like a musical pinball machine, here the formula is a little more straightforward.

Granted, some things remain the same: their eponymous opener is present and accounted for, but has once again evolved from the “Go down / Soft sound…” versions that

live on their first three records. Here it opens with a series of chiming piano chords not too dissimilar to those from LCD Soundsystem’s heart-swelling ‘All My Friends’, before the track descends into a lamenting on modern life, with Matty Healy’s lyrical prowess as sharp as ever (“Whimsical / Political / Liberal / With young people as collateral”) on both the track, and throughout.

On the whole, they continue building upon previously-laid foundations: ‘Happiness’ - in all its funky guitar lickin’ glory - seems to pick up where ‘The Sound’ left off, while the whole record comes imbued with the kind of sparkly ‘80s pop sounds seen on ‘If You’re Too Shy (Just Let Me Know)’ that become potent in their hands. The sugary hook of ‘I’m In Love With You’ is utterly inescapable.

What is different here, though, is the presence of an outsider. Having only ever previously worked as a closed unit with the band’s George Daniel taking on primary production roles, the arrival of producer-du-jour Jack Antonoff can really be felt; his fingerprints abundantly clear in the Bleachers-esque bounce of ‘Looking For Somebody To Love’.

‘Part of the Band’ comes flecked with warm strings that conjure up echoes of Bon Iver, while the glitchy opening of ‘About You’ is probably the closest to ‘A Brief Inquiry…’’s effervescent grandeur that we’re served here. And granted, there is no trance-tactic ‘Shiny Collarbone’ or an entire track narrated by Siri, but maybe that’s for the best. And while it would be easy to write off the record as a little one-dimensional - at least in comparison to the depths trawled on their earlier works - there is something strangely satisfying about its consistency and confidence. Have no doubts, ‘Being Funny…’ is most certainly still The 1975; they’ve just refined their pop nous that little bit more this time around. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: 'Looking For Somebody To Love', 'About You'

YEAH YEAH YEAHS

Cool It Down (Secretly Canadian)

Noughties alternative is back in vogue. Dubbed ‘Indie sleaze’, faithful followers too young to remember the era pore over Topshop chic, sweaty club gigs and guitar bands of the age; relics often immortalised through the pixelated haze of Sony Ericssons and nascent digital cameras. Yeah Yeah Yeahs are one of the movement’s leading troubadours, their sound and look synthesising the tenor of the times. And after almost a decade away, ‘Cool It Down’ brings their sound kicking and screaming into 2022 where, if anything, it sounds more relevant than ever.

Arriving with their scope locked on climate change in thunderous comeback statement ‘Spitting Off the Edge of the World’ - blistering synths and wailing guitars prevail, their scuzzy sound perfectly preserved after lying dormant all these years. “Cowards, here’s the sun / So bow your heads,” the opening commands fiercely. ‘Lovebomb’ demonstrates the trio’s knack for creating drama with Karen O’s breathy vocals retracting into spoken word while a dense swell of strings and feedback morphs slowly

beneath it.

’Wolf’ is a sizzling dancefloor banger that wouldn’t be out of place on 2009’s ‘It’s Blitz!’, featuring one of the most epic choruses they’ve committed to tape, underpinned by soaring strings that strike like the Psycho soundtrack under a disco ball. The album contains multitudes in its short eight-song span - ‘Fleez’ spins an ESG sample into a beast of its own reckoning, ‘Burning’ builds thrillingly into a soulful strut, while highlight ‘Different Today’ is a gorgeous slice of melancholia as the lyrics fixate on phrases like mantras: “How the world keeps on spinning / It goes spinning out of control”. It’s an album of incredible pace, visiting multiple dimensions in its running time that just about pushes 30 minutes - but at no point gives off the impression that it’s in a rush to get to the finish line.

Across ‘Cool It Down’, Yeah Yeah Yeahs remain true to their roots without making it sound like a nostalgic grab for previous glory. It’s not hard to understand why there’s such a strong kinship with the ‘Indie sleaze’ movement right now - it turns out Yeah Yeah Yeahs 2.0 is exactly what 2022 needs. (Sean Kerwick)

LISTEN: ‘Wolf’

SORRY

‘There’s So Many People

That Want To Be Loved’, the lead single from Londoners

Sorry’s second full-length, paints a twisted picture of a disconnected city. The band have already drawn comparison between their two records; the first a comparably upbeat exploration of their hometown and the second a more haggard take. It’s this dark underbelly that permeates across the record’s morose tone, bigger and wider than on 2020’s ‘925’ - and altogether darker. It reeks of cobbled back alleys, underground dive bars and flickering streetlights, yet with a playful nod and an unmistakable affection. The band have in part teamed up with Portishead’s Adrian Utley on production duties, inspired by late 20th century songwriters and Stateside experimentalists. The influence is immediate, from the swirling soundscapes on ‘I Miss The Fool’ to ‘Closer’’s modern take on ‘90s alt, and much of the album’s haunting minimalist breakdowns. The stories being told match in tone, driven forward through a tantalising mix of urgency and despondency –mirroring the detached hustle of England’s capital. There’s an inescapable notion of an unknown destination. Sorry are travelling somewhere in the haze of London’s neon lights. Where? Well, anywhere but here. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘I Miss The Fool’

PVA

Even for those who’ve never seen PVA live, it’s impossible not to conjure up visuals when listening to their long-awaited, debut full-length, ‘BLUSH’. Sinister synths rumbling beneath the

lightness of Ella Harris’ voice introduce the record, an eclectic foray into everything from abrasive postpunk to techno to electropop. Openers ‘Untethered’ and ‘Kim’ evoke the strange-yet-inviting darkness of the dancefloor at way past midnight with only the caustic strobe lighting illuminating the writhing, thriving bodies moving to the rhythm. The shimmering soundscapes of ‘Hero Man’, coupled with Ella’s chanting of “Can’t eat, can’t sleep / Can’t go to work / I can’t leave” make for a hypnotic and dizzyingly addictive track; the dark synthpop of ‘Bunker’ and Josh Baxter’s vocals atop the strange, eccentric instrumentation is haunting, the score to a nightmarish fever dream that you can’t seem to ever wake yourself up from. “We’re all born ignorant, but you keep feeding it,” the vocalist snarls on ‘Comforting Eating’. “Comfort eating growing pains until you get sick,” she goes on to mutter in the next line, just one of many examples of Ella’s smart and sharp lyricism. ‘BLUSH’ is a collection of wonderful and curious songs perfect for soundtracking that 3am dancefloor feeling - or maybe just your nightmares. (Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘Hero Man’

EASY LIFE

Where debut ‘life’s a beach’ offered solace via vocalist

Murray Matravers spillall songwriting, follow-up ‘MAYBE IN ANOTHER LIFE...’ feels largely like a compilation of leftovers. Both the buoyant ‘BEESWAX’ and Kevin Abstract-featuring ‘DEAR MISS HOLLOWAY’ display a greater understanding of Easy Life’s rightful claim to the indie pop throne, but a miasma of mid-tempo padding elongates an otherwise fun-packed record of pseudo-conversational songwriting. “I’m in denial, but I do it in style,” postulates Murray on ‘BUBBLEWRAP’, the lovable poster boy of the Leicester outfit candidly delivering his free-flowing, conscience-spilling bars over a fuzzy, piano-driven beat, neatly summarising a jaded generation’s collective mantra. Dropping charming rhyming simile after charming rhyming simile is unfortunately not quite enough alone. ‘MEMORY LOSS’ has a funky dynamism while ‘SILVER LININGS’ feels like a perfect summary of Easy Life’s upward trajectory. Missing the urgency and breathy boyishness of ‘life’s a beach’, Easy Life have kicked up their feet on the hypothetical complimentary loungers and are breezing through this release. Injected with a sinking melancholy and mid-tempo rut that weighs down the record, it is perfectly pleasant, but no more. From the phoned-in BENEE feature on the silky ‘OTT’ to the cornball New Orleans piano man hammering on ‘CROCODILE TEARS’, the record prepares for launch but never quite takes off, leaving a little bit more to be desired from the Leicester outlaws. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: ‘DEAR MISS HOLLOWAY’

 ARCHITECTS the classic symptoms of a broken spirit (Epitaph)

There’s lit tle doubt that Architects are a band at the peak of their powers. Following a Number One album and a slew of huge shows on both sides of the Atlanticincluding appearances at Wembley Arena in 2019 and Alexandra Palace earlier this year - it’d be easy to wonder where they might set their sights next. Their tenth record ‘the classic symptoms of a broken spirit’ answers that question within its opening few bars: somewhere even bigger. While their last album, 2021’s ‘For Those That Wish To Exist’, sounded tremendous, their newest release takes an even heavier turn. Clearly inspired by the magnitude of their peers’ Bring Me The Horizon’s meteoric rise, the likes of ‘deep fake’ and ‘spit the bone’ pack in both huge, industrialised riffs and electronics to epic effect. ‘burn down my house’ is a dark, menacing effort with echoes of cult progressive metallers Tool, while ‘when we were young’ comes complete with the kind of monumental chorus that’s begging to be shouted back at them in arenas. Granted, at some points it does feel a little unrelenting, but the sheer ferocity of this record illustrates a band intently focused on the future, and breaking through to the next level. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: 'burn down my house'

A BAND AT THE PEAK OF THEIR POWERS.

BJÖRK

Fossora (One Little Independent)

At the heart of ‘Fossora’ - which, to be clear, is a full, beating one - sits the push-and-pull between old and new. It’s partially inspired by the death of Björk’s mother and the artist’s ensuing grief, and at the same time features her own children (son Sindri on ‘Ancestress’, daughter Ísadóra on the title track). Enveloping orchestral sounds come from strings, woodwind and brass, while crushing industrial samples or glitchy distorted sounds act as percussion. Vocals take from traditional

choir structures, and become loops and samples, making full use of stereo sound. The three tracks in collaboration with Bali-via-Jakarta DJ Kasimyn show this best, his industrial clamour at odds with Björk’s soft, emotion-heavy delivery. They each up the ante on opener ‘Atopos’; the title track becomes somehow more controlled the more the chaos shifts; ‘Trölla - Gabba’, meanwhile, takes vocal samples and strings to create a wholly ominous mood. Of course, setting a scene is one of many things the Icelandic artist has long excelled at - that this is a journey of an album would come as little surprise to anyone - and elsewhere we’re taken through peaks and troughs as the organic and binary ebb and flow. The dark, looming ‘Victimhood’, almost video game soundtrack in scope, comes followed by a direct contrast with the bright ‘Allow’; ‘Mycelia’, with its use of sampled vocals to echo dance beats, comes before ‘Sorrowful Soil’, which does similar to instead echo choral rounds. Not an easy listen - as one might expect - but definitely a rich, rewarding one. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘Trölla –Gabba’

Alvvays are as good as writing the perfect breakup ode as they are capable of penning the most romantic of all love songs. “Say it’s over, well (say it’s over) / Weekends alone / Does it get easier on your own?” pleads Molly Rankin, with increasing desperation on ‘Easy On Your Own,’ phrasing the statement as a question with an answer that is ultimately impossible to ever find. Alvvays’ third record massively expands the Canadian band’s intricate world of dreamy, shoegaze-inspired jangle-pop. These 14 tracks are so sonically rich with a multitude of textures, each listen peeling back just one measly layer; Molly’s vocal hooks and turns of phrase will remain in your brain days after the last listen. On ‘Blue Rev’, the band revisit what makes Alvvays albums so special - the sugary melodies, the aching yearning of some select lyrics, and the equally witty and deft verses of the others - before breaking it all down and building it back up with even more flavour. It’s an album where the band play with dynamics both sonically and lyrically; there’s dealing with fresh heartache (‘Tom Verlaine’); looking forward to a potential future moving to the country with a baby while admitting that looking ahead is still a terrifying thought (‘Belinda Says’ - the title a sly nod to Belinda Carlisle); and the excruciating ache of endless wondering: “Is she a perfect ten / Have you found Christ again?” (‘Velveteen’). ‘Blue Rev’ is the reflection of a band who know their strengths, keen to immerse the listener in their fantastical world of luscious dreampop that continues the legacy of the genre’s forebears – Big Star, Ride, The Jesus and Mary Chain - while always still injecting their own unique slant. The young love of ‘Archie, Marry Me’ might be interchanged with songs about the kind of heartbreak that only comes with getting older, but boy do Alvvays know how to make a broken heart sound ever so sweet. (Cady Siregar) LISTEN: ‘Easy On Your Own’

THE BIG MOON

Is Everything (Fiction)

Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Big Moon’s third is that, despite its specific subject matter (from the record’s truly iconic cover image of an achingly-pregnant Jules Jackson to the band’s recent interview chat, ‘Here Is Everything’ is very much an album plucked from the maelstrom of new motherhood), you could revel in its wares even if you’d never seen a baby in your life. Listen closely and you can hear the specifics - the positive pregnancy test in rapturous opener ‘2 Lines’; the sleep deprivation of the tenacious, weary ‘High and Low’. But really the main takeaway is emotion: magical, unbridled love on ‘Wide Eyes’; knotty worry on the excellent brooding twang of ‘Suckerpunch’; euphoric relief on ‘Trouble’. Musically, where the band’s debut was a joyful slice of indie innocence and 2020’s ‘Walking Like We Do’ seemed to audibly be attempting to mature perhaps at the expense of some of their original sparkle, ‘Here Is Everything’ lands in the sweet spot; it’s creatively ambitious, pushing the quartet into new ground, but it does so with a renewed sense of fun - whether in the warped backing vocals of ‘Magic’ or the windswept pop sensibilities of ‘Daydreaming’. For a band who’ve always been about big, fuzzy feelings, it makes sense that the biggest feelings of all should suit them so well. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Suckerpunch’

ITS

SITS THE

OF OLD AND NEW.

ALBUMS

TOVE LO

Dirt Femme (Pretty Swede / MTheory)

Tove Lo might fit the description of ‘cult’ act as well as it’s possible to without having literally formed one. Hordes of rabid fans scream at her gigs. She’ll trend online. Countless acts from across genres will profess how they’re fans. And yet she’s barely set the charts on fire even in her native Sweden. Metallic discs’ loss is our gain: Tove’s now able to flex her songwriting as she wishes. And it’s more than fruitful. ‘Dirt Femme’ sees her juxtapose elements ingeniously. If she’s singing in a straightforward manner, on a more direct number, then the music is twisting and turning in offbeat ways: see ‘Call On Me’ with SG Lewis, closer ‘How Long’, or ‘Kick In The Head’, which drops down from a building bridge in a manner not unlike Katy Perry’s ‘Dark Horse’. ‘Cute & Cruel’ sees her team up with First Aid Kit, who bring their acoustic guitar and harmonies yes, but folk be damned, this is pure pop, just delivered differently. Interpolation might be the word on the industry’s lips, like music’s equivalent of film’s endless sequels, but Tove’s use of Hot Butter’s

Q&A

1972 instrumental hit ‘Popcorn’ on ‘2 Die 4’ - weaving it in slowly before the sample proper hits – is no simple quick-fix. And crucially, for a record which owes much to Giorgio Moroder – from the synths that pulse throughout, ‘Pineapple Slice’ is even a candidate for a lost Daft Punk ‘Random Access Memories’ number - is that a key aspect of disco, euphoric music coupled with sad lyrics, is present and very much correct. Opener ‘No One Dies From Love’ does it: “No one dies from love / Guess I’ll be the first” a slice of pure self-pity. But ‘Grapefruit’ goes even further. On its surface, it’s a gorgeouslyconstructed pop song with those same retro synth sounds, banging chorus and a rhythm that ebbs and flows perfectly. Listen a little closer and it’s precisely the opposite. “The swans of the ballet, their skin and their bones / That’s not me,” goes the anticipatory bridge, while angelic backing vocals offer the refrain “What I see is not me.” The chorus repeats in cycles, both as instant earworm and reflection of the relentlessness of which she sings. “One two, grapefruit / How am I back here again? / Three four, lose more / I know my mirrors are lying / Five six, hate this / Take back the body I’m in.” It should probably (and rightly) come with a content warning, but we’ll be damned if it’s not the most real pop moment in distant memory. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘Grapefruit’

<COPINGMECHANISM>

Even with one toe fixed firmly in the pop punk world on last year’s ‘lately I feel EVERYTHING’ (she is one of the many, many names on Travis Barker’s CV, after all), there was always the potential for Willow’s sound to go beyond generic confines and amount to something more eclectic. With fewer hands stirring the pot this time around, she’s had ample opportunity to come even more into her own, pulling off the bouncy, subtly ska-influenced WLW bop ‘hover like a GODDESS’ and introspective guitar pop groove of ‘curious/furious’ and ‘ur a stranger’ with stylish ease. Most intriguing, perhaps, are her forays into post-hardcore, unleashing a tremendous scream over the top of crunching guitars in the dying moments of ‘<maybe> it’s my fault’, but not everything goes quite so smoothly. ‘WHY?’ is a little clunky, coming across as unable to commit to any specific sound or direction, and while ‘Split’ delivers a gorgeous cinematic ending, it treads a slightly disjointed path to get there. Hopefully, however, these might be the last of the teething problems. The thought, the creativity and the lyricism in particular are all constantly commendable – and she can certainly do catchiness too. (Emma Wilkes) LISTEN: ‘<maybe> it’s my fault’

Gearing up for the release of her fifth studio album, her first as an independent artist, Tove Lo fills us in on everything ‘Dirt Femme’ and beyond. Interview: Matthew Kent.

‘Dirt Femme’ is getting closer and closer, how are you feeling?

It’s been a really long process, I’ve had a lot of time to really make it the way I wanted and obviously some songs are extremely vulnerable. As always with me, there are some songs that might rub people the wrong way, but in general this is a milestone for me putting it out on my own label. When you do a really big project, that you put all your heart and soul and blood, sweat and tears into, that feeling of releasing it into the world has always been emotional, but in a good way. It’s not on me anymore, now I just have to let it live its life. I feel very proud of it. I think it’s one of my best albums.

Is that feeling of letting go any less scary now you’re on album five? This feels like [debut] ‘Queen Of The Clouds’. This feels like my very first release. I guess maybe because I wasn’t able to be an artist during the time I wrote it. I wasn’t touring, I was out of my record deal and I wasn’t putting out music. I usually do all those things simultaneously, while making an album. The only thing I was doing was writing and being still in one place. That was very new to me after being on the road for so long and constantly moving for so many years.

’Grapefruit’ is probably your most vulnerable track to date...

It’s a very triggering subject. Hopefully, that one will resonate with people who have struggled with similar thoughts or

have those issues, and that maybe can help them feel less alone. I’ve mentioned in passing that I used to hate my body when I was a teenager, but I never went into how bad it was for me during that time. I was about 20 when I had a wake-up call with a voice doctor who could tell I was bulimic, because I had problems with my voice. I lied and he said “you don’t have to talk to me about it, but I can tell you if you keep treating yourself this way you will lose your voice.” The number one thing that I need in my life is singing, the only thing that’s really making me happy and making me forget how I feel about myself… I’m going to ruin that. It was very much a you’re-stoppingthis-right-now feeling, but first you have to go to therapy, break the behaviour and figure out what was really going on. And once you’ve done that, you have to start working on really loving yourself. Because I did all that, so well, when I became an artist in the public eye that was crucial for me. If this journey had happened to me when I was 17, I’d never have been able to handle it. All the comments and dissecting your looks and your body and everything. Flashing on stage and being very revealing, no retouching photos and trying to keep my body real has been a secret victory for me.

WITH FEWER HANDS STIRRING THE POT, SHE’S COME EVEN MORE INTO HER OWN.

Out Of Heart (AWAL)

Forever going against the grain, FLOHIO has never quite received the credit she deserves. ‘Out Of Heart’ (born of lockdown-induced mental exhaustion) is an irresistible statement of purpose for the South London denizen. Effortlessly conflating the easygoing flow of East Coast rap legends with stories from her Nigerian-via-South London background and the diction and vocabulary of her UKbased contemporaries, she’s an artist tapping into some thing beautiful and novel. Subverting tradition, FLOHIO decidedly puts her more relaxing, ‘singalong’ tracks on the early album before unleashing a far more hard-hitting coda. In the first half, ‘Leash’ hearkens to a CASisDEAD type beat, flirting with celestial synth arpeggios and a more melodious iteration of her bars, embracing confidence while elsewhere smatterings of autotune are welcome on ‘SPF’ and the emotive ‘Grace’. The hooky ‘Highest’ is a hit in the making, with a brilliant chorus structure on the 808-heavy track, FLOHIO making the most of the tools at her disposal. ‘Peace Of Mind’ builds to a distorted zenith before stripping the track to just her bars and a faded piano. She pays subtle homage to Lil Wayne on ‘Cuddy Buddy’, lamenting relationships lost in time, but it’s the second half of the record where she comes into her own. ‘2Hours’ teems with hard-hitting lyricism and pop lustre. ‘Speed Of Light’ bounces incessantly with braggadocious candour, perfectly capturing FLOHIO’s tenacity in a fleeting two minutes. For a record born of fatigue and exhaustion, she imbues a renewing sense of urgency to each bar she delivers. (Alisdair Grice) LISTEN: ‘Highest’

 LOYLE CARNER hugo (EMI)

Loyle Carner possesses a charmingly languid rap delivery. While it works wonders reclined in the melancholic sweetness which crystallised behind the beat-backed lounge instrumentals on first two records ‘Yesterday’s Gone’ and ‘Not Waving, But Drowning’, as a listener you can’t help but wonder whether he’s got any more tricks up his sleeve. Fortunately, he finds his bite on the opening suite of third LP ‘hugo’. ‘Hate’, his most urgent track to date, finds its writer wrestling with himself as a scuttling bassline lurks beneath the surface: “I fear the colour of my skin / I fear the colour of my kin / I fear the colour that’s within.” It sets the scene for the LP’s exploration of the self - specifically his mixed-race identity - ignited after reconnecting with his biological father after entering parenthood himself. This introspection is investigated with some stunning lyrical turns. On the urgent ‘Ladis Road (Nobody Knows)’ underpinned by a glorious gospel sample he raps: “I reached the black man / He wouldn’t take my hand / I told the white man / He didn’t understand”. “I’m black like the key on the piano / White like the key on the piano,” he notes on ‘Georgetown’ before stacking it against the famous John Agard poem. ‘Plastic’ is all slinkybasslines and snapping drums before it becomes distorted and twisted into a sample snagged from a daytime TV broadcast which finds the presenter casually dropping a racial slur. Of course, the downbeat mood Loyle’s made his name with is mined on tracks like ‘Homerton’ which churns brass, piano and subdued backing vocals together brilliantly - however these moments possess more dimension when stacked next to tracks which shake up the formula. On ‘hugo’, Loyle Carner proves his willingness to take risks and it pays off. While it feels like we’re still waiting on a total knockout from him, his lyrical progress and appetite for new sonic territories on ‘hugo’ suggests he’s verging ever closer. (Sean Kerwick) LISTEN: ‘Hate’



MAYA HAWKE Moss (Mom + Pop)

Perhaps it shouldn’t be particularly shocking that someone better known for her work as an actor possesses a singing voice that could be placed in any of a handful of eras. But there’s a charm to Maya Hawke’s here on second album ‘Moss’ nonetheless, which will nod to the jazz age one minute (‘Thérèse’) and ring with ‘70s Laurel Canyon warmth the next (‘Restless Moon’). If nothing else, it alone shows this is more than merely the musical output of secondgeneration Hollywood royalty. It’s to folk Maya leans most often; she has a way with words that finely balances itself between banality and pretension (“Your pencils, your dress socks / Your charger, your bike lock / Anything that’s not in your junk drawer / I wanna be anything you’ve lost that you might be lookin’ for” begins the record via ‘Backup Plan’) that’s ideally suited to her vocal that while whisperadjacent, doesn’t dare descend towards the affected. As while, on the surface, ‘Moss’ is a pretty indie-folk record, there’s more hidden beneath its smart use of layered voice (see closer ‘Mermaid Bar’) or charming acoustics. ‘Sweet Tooth’ sneaks in some alt-rock electric guitar solos that wouldn’t sound out of place on an emo revival number; ‘South Elroy’ features a bridge so anticipatory, you wonder what Jack Antonoff might’ve made of it, had he been behind the desk. There’s a pop sensibility never far from Maya and her collaborators (co-produced by Okkervil River’s Benjamin Lazar Davis, with credits too for bandmate Will Graefe, and fellow folky soul Christian Lee Hutson) that gives the record a well-masked determined nature, simultaneously familiar and exciting. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘Hiatus’

RECO MMEN D E D

member

RINA SAWAYAMA

pop star’s

PHOEBE

The

 PIXIES Doggerel (BMG)

Whether by virtue of naysayers keeping their distance as time progresses, or artists with iconic discographies genuinely all going through a disappointing era, there’s a common pattern to legacy acts’ latter (ie, after what’s commonly decided is their creative apex) work: it’s deemed ‘a bit shit’ and then, magically, they return redeemed at some point, having somehow recaptured what made them turn heads in the first place. Or, of course, they don’t.

Pixies’ negative energy comes twofold: first, a common belief that the Massachusetts outfit should’ve stayed ‘90s alt-rock icons – in the ‘90s. Second, that nothing post-Kim Deal’s 2013 exit counts. Purists: great for flogging reissues to, terrible to win over with anything new. Black Francis talks of an “extra special energy” surrounding the band in the lead-up to recording; the frontman apparently arrived at the studio with forty songs already formed, and this prolific, free-flowing nature is definitely heard across the record. Sprightly isn’t a word most would’ve considered for Pixies, and yet the likes of ‘Pagan Man’ and the psych-nodding ‘The Lord Has Come Back Today’ are just that. ‘Who’s More Sorry Now?’ beams with dreamy backing vocals. Most songs take musical cues from the ‘50s - the blues of ‘There’s A Moon On’; the harmonies of ‘Vault of Heaven’. That’s not even to suggest – even with the warmth that oozes from Tom Dalgety’s crisp production – they’ve lost all their discordance: “Don’t waste your time on me,” yells opener ‘Nomatterday’, only to switch it up: “Don’t waste my time on you.” Better still, ‘You’re Such A Sadducee’ (sad-you-see) is abrasive, and pure bile. “I’m turning it around / You’re burning it down,” it repeats, no love lost. ‘Dregs of the Wine’ offers a menacing chorus, and ‘Haunted House’ shows off everything they let the next generation of bands borrow, the cleaner guitars echoing Weezer right back at them. “Let it be said I’m a little narcissist / But my favourite rock’n’roll is sealed with a kiss,” spits Black Francis in the expansive and immediate ‘Get Stimulated’, seeming to gather up the whole record in one line: asides that could be loose (‘Doggerel’ in practise) or profound; a reference to Brian Hyland’s ‘60s hit. Cynicism at the door, ‘Doggerel’ is an enjoyable –and exciting – listen. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘Get Stimulated’

BROKEN BELLS

Into The Blue (AWAL)

Given that Danger Mouse has only just released another collaborative effort (‘Cheat Codes’ with rap legend Black Thought) while James Mercer is still touring with his day job, there’s zero sense that ‘Into The Blue’ is a record that was forced. Which is just as well, because often, when an album flits between styles, magpie-like as this does, taking a little from here and there, it’s as if the protagonists are chasing something out of reach. Instead ‘Into The Blue’ comes across like the pair swapping mixtapes; a little ‘60s psych here, some ‘70s soul there, with a smidge of ‘80s R&B between. Still, through the pair’s filter – lush arrangements, a voice that’s just at home in 20th Century Manchester than the same decade in New Mexico - it’s bringing more than a little late ‘90s. ‘We’re Not In Orbit Yet’ could, in different lives, have been a later Oasis release, or like ‘Invisible Exit’ that follows, an early Robbie Williams album track, while the melancholy of ‘Forgotten Boy’ might’ve been expressed almost identically by Richard Ashcroft. The psych spring of ‘Saturdays’ is at once late Beatles, but just as much Super Furry Animals or their baggy brethren across the border. ‘One Night’ makes like both Tame Impala and The Weeknd, its ‘80s synths an echo of the latter’s signature. In lesser hands, this may have presented a mish-mash of confused homage, but here, it’s just a pleasant, nostalgic listen. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘One Night’

GABRIELS

Angels & Queens (Atlas Artists / Parlophone)

We’re told the reason Gabriels opted to release the first half of their debut album this side of the new year is impatience; that teaming up with superstar knob-twiddler Sounwave had them itching to unleash the work immediately. It’s probably a good thing, too, for ‘Angels & Queens – Part I’ is nothing if not an intense listen. That all three have a background in storytelling – Jacob Lusk as gospel singer; Ryan Hope as film director; Ari Balouzian as composer – gives us musical drama alongside lyrical. The menacing string stabs of ‘Taboo’, the contemporary synth sounds of ‘The Blind’, the joyous choral backing vocals that conclude the release echoing the refrain “It’s gonna be alright.” It’s the strings – swooping one song (‘If You Only Knew’), deftly used to provide percussion the next (‘To The Moon’) and yet still able to provide a Motown pep elsewhere (‘Remember Me’) – which share the spotlight with Jacob’s gargantuan, expressive vocal. He booms from the off, opener ‘Angels & Queens’ beginning with just that before crisp ‘90s piano sounds join in. He tones it right down when required, too, the soft instruments of closer ‘Mama’ hushed in similar fashion. There’s so much going on across the release it’s easy to spot how the LA-based outfit have garnered the industry whispers they have so far; and that they were indeed quite right to offer an interlude between this and the record’s concluding half. (Bella Martin)

 SKULLCRUSHER

Quiet The Room (Secretly Canadian)

It takes two minutes for Helen Ballentine’s voice to fully break through the dreamlike whispers of ‘Building A Swing’, a tell-tale sign of the considered leap from 2020’s self-titled EP to her debut full-length as Skullcrusher. The raw beauty of the former has evolved, stepping away from the directly folk-inspired sound –having previously namechecked the likes of Nick Drake - and in her home studio creating something altogether more unique and personal. The likes of ‘Whatever Fits Together’ expand with every listen, with layer upon delicately impactful layer. An early interlude samples Helen playing piano as a child, awash with an ethereal haze that pushes it out of reality. This distorted truth provides the backbone for a record that examines her youth and faces past reoccurring nightmares head on. The impact of both is palpable, an ever-present unsettled tone existing even in the soaring beauty of the aptly titled ‘Outside, playing’. On ‘Lullaby In February’ the two worlds clash with menacing precision as the track devolves into spine-chilling madness. It sets the scene for unresolved self-examination, one that celebrates the darkness as much as the light. With this near-mystical storytelling ‘Quiet The Room’ leans heavily on folk, yet in style it embodies something entirely different. Seemingly on the edge of collapse, it tells a fraught tale of fragile memories that exist on the very brink of reality. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Lullaby In February’

Art Attack

“When the album was in its early stages I first imagined looking into a room through a window. I saw various spaces, many from my childhood, both real and imagined: my bedroom, a face floating in the night, an empty room with a piano, a wrought iron archway, a stone path in the woods, a swing hanging from a tree. I reached out to Cam Robinson, who makes otherworldly miniatures, and we spoke about creating a dollhouse out of these memories. I think the process of building a home through memory and having it turn out as this uncanny yet nostalgic space was deeply related to the process of writing the album. We photographed the house against a black void and once we had the image we wanted, laid it out within an arched border. We felt this would suggest looking in through a window or portal. This colour blue is reminiscent of both an eerie night time and a child’s construction paper. In the end, the cover is liminal and familiar and creepy; I think it visually evokes the essence of this album.”

ALBUMS

JEAN DAWSON

CHAOS NOW* (P+)

“I want it to be like if Morrissey was Black,” said Jean Dawson in these very pages back in 2020 about debut album ‘PIXEL BATH’, sharing his love of questionable alternative icons (also nodding to Smashing Pumpkins and “Warped Tour shit”) as well as hip hop to offer the sources of his own musical mix. Two years on, ‘CHAOS NOW*’ might not have much of ‘80s Mancunian misery in its toolbox, but there’s an exhilarating meeting of grunge, pop-punk and indie with hip hop rhythms: Beck if he’d used a palette of early ‘00s MTV2. First track proper, ‘Three Heads’ makes like Bloc Party’s ‘Helicopter’ at slow speed to soundtrack a nu metal vocal break. ‘0-Heros’ gives Nirvana guitars a stadiumsized chorus, while ‘Screw Face’ and ‘Porn Acting’ could’ve fallen right out of FIDLAR’s catalogue (lyrics like “Day drinking is bad” and “Mum I’m way too high” not harming their cause, either). All slip in Weezer-esque backing vocals for good measure. ‘Sick Of It’ is pure pop-punk enthral, the acoustic-led ‘Bad Fruit’ (with a guest spot from Earl Sweatshirt) and ‘Pirate Radio’ have echoes of Bon Iver, while there’s a smirk towards Billie Eilish’s ‘Bury A Friend’ amid the industrial glitches of ‘Kids Eat Pills’. “Fuck y’all looking at?” asks the intro. A superstar, is the answer. (Emma Swann) LISTEN: ‘0-Heros’

GILLA BAND

Most Normal (Rough Trade)

In music, there’s ‘raw’ and there’s ‘Gilla Band raw’. Suffocating, visceral anxiety not just in the words, but in the music too. Where an ordinary conversation or a trip to buy new jeans feels like the world is about to crumble. ‘Most Normal’ is as Gilla Band raw as they come. And while it sounds exhausting, the way Dara Kiely and co capture the feeling of the inexplicable is something you want to consume you. It’s a test, sure: ‘The Gum’ pummels with stuttering distortion, Dara inaudibly screaming, before the whole thing descends into a carnivalesque orchestra of bicycle horns. And that’s just the opener. But ‘Most Normal’ isn’t just about throwing everything at the wall to make musical tinnitus. A Flock Of Seagulls’ 1982 track ‘I Ran’ provides the backdrop to closer ‘Post Ryan’; it's distorted beyond recognition, but it shows Gilla Band have pop chops. Then there’s the shuffle and funk of ‘I Was Away’, the chiming chords of ‘Almost Soon’ and the dubbed-out bass of ‘The Weirds’ - amid the amp static soundscapes, there’s control in the chaos. ‘If ‘The Talkies’ was an act of putting their audience through the wringer, ‘Most Normal’ is the Irish punk quartet not bothered about making anyone feel comfortable. Uneasy and unpredictable, yet invigorating. (Chris Taylor) LISTEN: ‘Post Ryan’

DRY CLEANING Stumpwork (4AD)

What does a gaming mouse, a jelly shoe, and a tortoise named Gary Ashby have in common? Not a lot really. But they still all tumble from Florence Shaw’s mouth on Dry Cleaning’s second album ‘Stumpwork’. The London post-punks’ follow-up to the spectacularly sardonic ‘New Long Leg’ is less scrappy than their debut, but filled with just as much stream-of-consciousness surrealism. ‘Stumpwork’ is an attempt to make sense of the aftermath of the you-know-what. The tangled emotions of grief and longing. The constant reversals from intense concentration to cold remoteness. Minds wandering in search of distraction or explanation. Florence’s cut-up observations see the group jump, for instance, from sumptuary laws to an incident in Edinburgh with a Kindle on ‘Conservative Hell’. There’s something jarringly funny about hearing her mumble about the economic crisis in abstraction before asking “Is it still OK to call you my disco pickle?” on ‘Hot Penny Day’. ‘Driver’s Story’ even lays critical appraisal bare. “Rough first part / Love second part / It’s cool stuff but we want different styles.” And they do, flicking between distant, sludgy riffs and surprisingly bright melodies. ‘Liberty Log’ echoes the rumbling soundscapes of ‘Kid A’, while Tom Dowe’s guitar on ‘Driver’s Story’ lollops like a slurring drunk. Elsewhere, ‘No Decent Shoes For The Rain’ and the jangle-pop ‘Kwenchy Kups’ feel to draw more from The Field Mice and The Go-Betweens than the oftcited Sonic Youth. It’s unlikely to win over the naysayers, but, for those already enamoured with their kitchen sink Dadaism, ‘Stumpwork’ is yet more magic from Dry Cleaning.

‘Conservative

TEGAN AND SARA

Crybaby (Mom + Pop)

Tegan and Sara certainly haven’t rested on their laurels. In fact, since the release of their ninth album ‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’ - and accompanying memoir High School - back in 2019, they’ve signed up for a TV adaptation of the book, released an acoustic version of their 2004 record ‘So Jealous’, and finished up work on this tenth studio full-length; the latter admittedly being no mean feat in itself. In keeping with the duo’s attempts to continually evolve and experiment (‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’ revisited tracks they’d first written as teenagers), it’s with latest record ‘Crybaby’ that they go for a more maximalist approach. In almost complete contrast to the bare bones acoustics of ‘Still Jealous’, ‘Crybaby’ seems to want to give everything a go: here, the frantic shouts that introduce opener ‘I Can’t Grow Up’ and the sickly synthetic ‘Fucking Up What Matters’ sit alongside the sublime chorus of ‘Yellow’, and the quiet reflectiveness of ‘Faded Like A Feeling’. At times, their ambition really clicks into place (the euphoric bounce of ‘Smoking Weed Alone’, for example), but at others, it feels a bit muddled. Their ambition is undoubtedly to be applauded, but this one’s a bit of a mixed bag. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: ‘Faded Like A Feeling’

BLANCO Stay Close To Music (Transgressive)

For all ‘Stay Close To Music’ isn’t afraid to get weird – see ‘You Will Find It’, a collaboration with folky eccentric Devendra Banhart, as Exhibit One – what’s really notable on this third solo full-length from Mykki Blanco is just how straightforward it can be. Single ‘Family Ties’, with REM’s Michael Stipe, features the guest in wise elder mode in its chorus; Oakland singer Ah-Mer-Ah-Su’s turn on ‘Your Feminism Is Not My Feminism’ centres on a gorgeously rhythmic, hooky refrain, “Your feminism’s not my feminism / Unless it includes all kinds of women.” Jónsi’s feature on ‘Carry On’ sees the Sigur Ros frontman act as a propelling inner voice – and contribute an earworm in the process. Even ANOHNI, who turns up on the album version of single ‘French Lessons’ alongside Kelsey Lu provides something grounding while the trio’s vocals entwine to stunning effect. Elsewhere, it’s the kind of stylistic pick’n’mix Mykki has made their name on: ‘Ketamine’ with Slug Christ nods to the latest iteration of pop-punk; ‘Your Love Was A Gift’ shows a fragility to Dianna Gordon’s vocals amid ghostly production; ‘Trust A Little Bit’ shimmers with a tender nature.

And best of all, it works as a whole.

(Louisa Dixon)

LISTEN: ‘My Feminism Is Not Your Feminism’

THE KIND OF PICK’N’MIX MYKKI HAS MADE THEIR NAME ON.

ENUMCLAW

Save The Baby (Luminelle)

While the bluster that comes with self-describing as “the best band since Oasis” is of levels even Liam G would find impressive, it's also a statement that shows an obvious and tangible level of ambition. And ambition is something Enumclaw evidently have in swathes, especially on this, their full-length debut. ‘Save The Baby’ is decisively from a ‘90s college rock lineage; the likes of ‘Cowboy Bebop’ and ‘Can’t Have It’ a noisier take on the kind of thing that made Pavement returning heroes this summer. There’s just as much a nod to various waves of emo, too – early in the title track, and more recent strains when (one imagines, in an entirely self-aware manner) Aramis Johnson rhymes “It hurt so bad” with “I wish I had a dad.” Yet this isn’t a record solely in thrall of what came before. Where slacker revivalists are often known to dial down the hi-fi, Enumclaw’s first has them using multiple layers at all times - under one, a shimmering synth-like sound; another, slide guitar. Sometimes it’s vocals, with screams that threaten to spill over, or guitars quietly fizzing, as if to echo the bubbling frustration of their protagonists. It's a thrilling ride. (Ed Lawson) LISTEN: ‘Jimmy Neutron’

ABSOLUTE (BEHIND THE) SCENES!

ALASKALASKA Still Life

(Marathon Artists)

Isolation is a word only the most dedicated of introverts are tired of seeing, and yet that’s the vibe that ALASKALASKA’s second puts forward in spades. It’s both via the electronic - the title track, easily the standout doing so via LCD Soundsystem style synth lines and a propelling bassline while Lucinda Duarte-Holman repeats various lines presumably related to our reliance on the plugged-in world: (“I’m looking at the screen… I’m staring at it”) – and the minimalist nature of much of the record - ‘Get Me High’ and ‘Simple’ in particular cold in their aloofness. There’s a disconnect; where previously the group layered sounds to project a kind of warmth, here even the post-punk stabs of ‘Rise and Shine’ lack impact. And while lyrically much relies on repetition, Lucinda’s voice more as instrument of sound than message, the hackneyed “TV dinner / not the news” of ‘TV Dinners’ could only ever prove grating. (Bella Martin) LISTEN: ‘Still Life’

PRETTY SICK

Makes Me Sick Makes Me Smile (Dirty Hit)

Souljas! While recording the live takes to build the songs from. A very long, difficult and rewarding process.

When Pretty Sick’s Sabrina Fuentes spoke to DIY recently, she declared ‘Makes Me Sick, Makes Me Smile’ to be the product of a lifetime spent in deference to the likes of Hole and Smashing Pumpkins. It’s a slipstream of guitar music that’s not been mined by many new bands of late which, coupled with Sabrina’s gnarled-yetmelodic, throaty wares and knack for a nihilistic sentiment, makes Pretty Sick ripe to pick up the baton of sassy angst left by Courtney Love and co. She’s convincing, too. Halfway through the scuzzed’n’heavy ‘Drunk’, she lets out a bloodcurdling howl before repeatedly screaming “Is it everything you expected?” (Answer: no, it’s better), while its flipside, ‘Sober’, is a slow nocturnal misery ballad with a genuinely pretty line in harmonies. Previous single ‘Human Condition’ is a ‘90s grunge-pop earworm that sounds like it should soundtrack Buffy, the Vampire Slayer; ‘Dirty’ marries the grizzled and the sweet supremely, while ‘Self Fulfilling Prophecy’ is more surprising than its title might suggest, beginning with a sweep of sad strings before its introverted, self-questioning lyrics are left to take centre stage. Embracing her musical kindred spirits, ‘Makes Me Sick…’ isn’t just a rehash of her idols, it’s a natural successor. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: ‘Human Condition’

A peek inside the studio with Enumclaw while they put ‘Save The Baby’ to tape.

Ladaniel and Eli turning songs into hits.

Gabe and Eli on a late night adding some zest to ‘10th and J2’. I believe this was also the night we ate a ton of Popeyes for dinner.

CHLOE MORIONDO Suckerpunch (Public Consumption / Fueled By Ramen)

Chloe Moriondo’s reputation has been formed just as much on the Detroit singer’s personality as their musical output. Which makes a key aspect of ‘Suckerpunch’ all the more frustrating: it often drowns in its zeitgeistchasing production. Chloe’s got the knack for a wry lyric – “I’m a punisher / Call me Phoebe” an obvious standout – and the use of pop convention here (huge choruses, anticipatory bridges, familiar chord sequences that have long tapped into emotions) is smart. Their sideways look at fame and performative femininity (opener ‘Popstar’ referencing Christina and Britney while making like an early Katy Perry number; ‘Celebrity’ with the rhyme “TMZ / Watch me bleed out on your street”; the Aqua interpolation of “Come on Barbie / Let’s go party” that features on ‘DRESS UP’) has distinct echoes of Marina’s ‘Electra Heart’. But just as the darkness of ‘Hotel For Clowns’ with its dubstep-like chorus appears to match the singer’s vibe, the track cuts out for a single spoken word “drown”. If there was doubt as to just how post-Billie that comes across, following track ‘DRESS UP’ might as well have pressed a button called ‘FINNEAS’ for its middle eight. Elsewhere, ‘Hell Hounds’ grasps at hyperpop straws, ‘Fruity’ makes such liberal use of vocal effects its potential fun (of which there is plenty) is sucked out, and ‘Hearteyes’ sounds like how Charli XCX was feeling half a decade ago. It’s a shame, as there are plenty of good ideas across ‘Suckerpunch’. It just could’ve done with fewer bad ones. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘Popstar’

 BLACKSTARKIDS

CYBERKISS* (Dirty Hit)

So keen are they to push the idea of ‘CYBERKISS*’ as mixtape not album ‘proper’, BLACKSTARKIDS pepper the release with interludes, quotes, snippets and other sonic ephemera, glitching in and out with references to finding identity on one hand, and ‘50s radio-style intros on the other. It’s charming, sure, but wouldn’t be particularly necessary; the deliberately mishmashed nature of the songs themselves would do the job just fine. Like last year’s ‘Puppies Forever’, ‘CYBERKISS*’ feels a coming-of-age record; where the former centred on the trio’s home turf, here they’re further afield. “The white boys that used to be my bros when we was kids / Seemed to be on the whole other side when we got big… I feel the hate in all the messages they sent through the media /

Sometimes it feels like my hometown is heatin’ up / I ain’t felt much joy since a lil’ pup.” ‘JOY’ pairs direct lyrics with somewhat subdued R&B, the urgency of the trio’s words allowed full focus.

They shine too, when musically hardhitting: the Missy Elliott squelches of ‘SEX APPEAL’; the dancey immediacy of ‘DIGITAL WORLD’; the distorted guitars and bratty yelling that crowns ‘BOYCOTT’ (one just wishes they’d found a thesaurus before using what appears to be 2022’s slur of choice).

‘DO THE RIGHT THING’ while, yes, a reference to the movie, rhymes “Spike Lee” with “Fight me” while the track’s beats nod to the film’s own era. There are some (musical) mis-steps; ‘CARDIGAN’ might be aiming for landfill indie with its chorus but instead comes across half-arsed Busted, and the mild backing of opener ‘HOW TO SELF DESTRUCT*’ jars with the intense vocal delivery, while the likes of ‘PINK STARZ’ and ‘KEEP ME AROUND’ are entirely forgettable. When they’re going fullpelt, they’re electric, though, which alone makes much of ‘CYBERKISS*’ worth a listen. (Louisa Dixon) LISTEN: ‘DIGITAL WORLD’

 WITCH FEVER

Congregation (Music For Nations)

Religion and its wares have been mined for inspiration within art for centuries, but it’s not often explored in the way it is within ‘Congregation’. The debut full-length from Manchester quartet Witch Fever, here faith is surveyed via the first-hand experiences of lyricist Amy Walpole, digging back into her childhood as part of the cult-like Charismatic Church. A means to reclaim the experiences of pressure and control she felt, ‘Congregation’ is a darkly powerful record that sees Amy twisting familiar language and tropes (“Blessed be thy shame / It’s time to let it go”) and giving them a wholly different meaning. It’s also powerful in a sonic way, too; the presence of producer Sam Grant (of Pigs x7 fame) can be felt in the sludgy sledgehammer of ‘Blessed Be Thy’ and the creeping ‘Saw You Dancing’, while the band’s melting pot of personal influences shines through via the grungey ‘Slow Burn’ and mesmerising build of ‘Bloom’. A vulnerable, accomplished but, most importantly, empowering debut. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: ‘Blessed Be Thy’

 PIXEY

Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes

(Chess Club)

Pixey doesn’t half have a knack for a huge chorus. If there’s just one thing to take from ‘Dreams, Pains & Paper Planes’, the Liverpool-based artist’s not-quite-full-length debut, it’s that she’s clearly a natural pop songwriter of the Charli XCX kind. Although it’s only ‘Treat Me Right’, with its spacey production and drum’n’bass breakdown that draws much of a sonic comparison to her Hertfordshire peer’s output, this is a record jam-packed with our Chaz’s speciality – hooks. They’re vocal – ‘Come Around (Sunny Day)’ might have the biggest on show – but often musical; opener ‘Recycled Paper Planes’ makes like Y2K skate anthem

‘Heaven Is A Halfpipe’ with its earwormy guitar loop, while ‘I’m Just High’ does similar with a disco lick. ‘So, Just Smile’ matches its grin-and-bear-it theme with some fuzzy, mind-altering production, while the similarly-subdued ‘Kids!’ has more than an echo of early Wolf Alice. Best of the lot, though is ‘Melody (From You To Me)’ using Pixey’s love of all things ‘90s – bright sounds, baggy beats and noodly guitars (for closest reference, think the playground patchwork of Superfood’s impeccable ‘Bambino’) – to create something truly fun. (Bella Martin)

LISTEN: ‘Melody (From You To Me)’

PARAMORE THIS IS WHY

The trio have finally made good from all that teasing - their sixth full-length will be released on 10th February.

PHOENIX ALPHA ZULU

Lorde sang about it; Bey and Jay made a video in it; Phoenix only bloody recorded this in the Louvre! Out 4th November.

ComingUp SMASHING PUMPKINS ATUM

It’s a three-act, thirtythree track rock opera. Because... no, we’re out. Act I is released 15th November.

REDCAR REDCAR LES ADORABLES ÉTOILES

The latest project from Chris (aka Christine and the Queens) is out 11th November.

PEAK OF

HOT GIRL

READING

Once a destination for alternative and rock diehards, the Reading of 2022 is a broader church, enticing fans of pop and particularly hip hop in through its gates, and finally keeping up with the times by offering a lineup that’s far more diverse than the Readings of old (women headlining again? Finally!)

It begins in suitably outrageous style at Main Stage East with Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes. Their slightly-sunburnt frontman rockets around the stage throughout opener ‘My Town’ and practically barrel rolls over the crowd more than crowdsurfs during the swaggering ‘Tyrant Lizard King’. The apex of the chaos comes, however, after ‘Devil Inside Me’, which he performs in just his boxers, and later, at the behest of the crowd, pulls them down.

The Radio 1 Dance Stage is heaving with people desperate to hear viral sensation PinkPantheress’ ethereal alt pop tunes – in fact, there are rows and rows of punters outside the tent craning their necks to do so. Those lucky enough to make it inside the tent are faced with a rainforest-like climate, stiflingly hot with sweat dripping from the walls, but if they can withstand it, there’s plenty to enjoy, with the sugary ‘Just For Me’ commanding monumental singalongs and bouncy mosh pits.

Little Simz also draws a healthy crowd on Main Stage East, unsurprisingly so given the blinding success of last year’s mainstream breakthrough record, ‘Sometimes I Might Be Introvert’. The delicate quality of her quiet confidence is on full show here as she wraps her tongue around the crisp bars of the likes of ‘Introvert’ and ‘I Love You, I Hate You’, and it’s awe-inspiring to witness, particularly when she removes the giant sunglasses from her face halfway through and the shy wonder on her face at the size of the crowd becomes apparent. Sometimes, Simbi might be introvert, but up on stage, she blossoms.

Tonight’s headliners are history makers - Megan Thee Stallion is not only the festival’s first solo female headliner for 27 years, but the first black woman to do the honours, while Dave, at 24 years old, is the youngest artist yet to top the bill. The former pitches her show as the peak of hot girl summer, full of thumping boss bitch anthems, seemingly endless twerking and sassy one liners (“Loving yourself is hot girl shit!”), but a long battle with security to bring fans on stage causes the show to drag. Dave later states, “I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long,” at the top of a show full of passion and heart.

Heading back in, Saturday afternoon finds everyone’s favourite robot-turned-human Poppy splicing sugary sweetness and hellishly heavy riffs as if they’re the most natural bedfellows in the world. Backed by a band all sporting Catwoman masks and serving up butter-wouldn’t-melt between

Richfield Avenue, Reading.

Photos: Emma Swann.

song spiels, the interim offerings - an opening ‘Concrete’ and a punishing ‘BLOODMONEY’ from 2020’s career-changing ‘I Disagree’ finest among them - are like a Disney nightmare reimagined by Nine Inch Nails: moments of eyelash-fluttering sweetness immediately warped with industrial whelps and an impressively weighty vocal from our titular heroine.

Shortly after, HO99O9 bring their canon of abrasive anthems to the Festival Republic Stage, delivering an energetic set to a sweaty tent intent on creating their fair share of afternoon mosh pits. In the wake of Rage Against the Machine pulling the plug on their headline performance, the New Jersey trio step up to the plate to give revellers their fill of furious, socially aware punk-rap.

It’s a holy trinity of indie over on Main Stage East that lines up to see Reading through to the night. First up and arriving to a ravenous crowd are Fontaines DC, whose transition from rabble-rousing newcomers to a hefty, genuinely important band of their generation couldn’t have gone more seamlessly. We get a rattling ‘A Hero’s Death’ and the moody, brooding ‘Jackie Down The Line’ replete with full arms-behind-back Liam Gallagher turn courtesy of singer Grian Chatten, but there’s no ‘Big’ or ‘Too Real’ - their earliest hits already consigned sadly to the back burner. Still, a moment of pure festival-spirited joyousness arrives during ‘Boys In The Better Land’, when young fan Dexter gets pulled from the crowd to rip through its guitar riff to gargantuan cheers: Alex from Glasto, you’ve got competition.

Wolf Alice open their sundown performance with ‘Smile’, as they continue their ascent towards the summit of the lineup poster. Ellie Rowsell, whose talent was once shrouded in a thick veil of shyness, is visibly blossoming into one of the UK’s most valuable rock stars, holding the gargantuan crowd in the palm of her hand while the band juxtapose the fragile pop of ‘How Can I Make It OK?” with the frantic punk of ‘Play The Greatest Hits’. 2015 single ‘Bros’ makes for one of the day’s most poignant moments, with grainy old footage of the quartet airing on the big screens, bringing a peppering of nostalgia to the dusk-illuminated field.

Co-headlining tonight over on Main Stage West, Bring Me The Horizon indisputably know how to put on a spectacle; there’s whistles and bangs aplenty as the metal titans shower the crowd with flashing screens, pyrotechnics, dancers and even an appearance from unlikely recent collaborator Ed Sheeran for ‘Bad Habits (Remix)’. If some of their lyrics don’t quite stand up to being blasted 50ft high on a screen then, by the end of an enjoyably OTT 90 minutes, maybe you can just accept that nuance isn’t really Bring Me’s thing.

Shaking off the post-Arctic Monkeys-return comedown, Sunday starts with a bang as WILLOW bounds on stage armed with pop-punk gems to help the kids fight off their three-day hangovers with a good ol’ fashioned mosh. Recent single ‘hover like a GODDESS’ from forthcoming LP ‘COPINGMECHANISM’ gets a vibrant outing, but it’s viral hits ‘Wait A Minute!’ And ‘Meet Me At Our Spot’ which get the warmest welcome.

Following her, Denzel Curry keeps the energy, firing off bangers including ‘Walkin’ and ‘Ultimate’, the latter which sees a member of the crowd jump up on stage to try (and fail) to get their 15 minutes of fame. Missed viral moment aside, Denzel is electric and commanding on stage, with the crowd disbanding into mosh pits as soon as he gives the nod.

Over to the Radio 1 Dance Stage and 100 gecs - aka hyperpop heavyweights Laura Les and Dylan Brady - arrive on stage in matching wizard outfits and proceed to make glitch-pop magic for the next 45 minutes. Tracks from their game-changing debut album ‘1000 gecs’ including ‘Stupid Horse’, ‘Money Machine’ and ‘Ringtone’ show the duo at their best, despite sound issues meaning that their bonkers pop lacks the punch it truly

deserves. Ashnikko follows with a masterclass in show-stopping festival sets. There’s sexy dancing, witty stories, and so many bangers there’s barely a time to catch your breath post-busting a move. With highlights including ‘Slumber Party’, ‘Working Bitch’ and ‘Cry’, by the time she closes on ‘Daisy’ there’s no one in the tent not totally buzzing from her infectious energy.

Fresh from a set at All Points East the day before, a slightly-hungover Charli XCX kicks off with fifth album ‘CRASH’ highlight ‘Lightning’, busting moves with her two backing dancers as if she’d gotten her full eight hour sleep in. Packing her set with bangers including early hits ‘I Love It’ and ‘Boom Clap’, the feral scream she lets out after introducing 2016 banger ‘Vroom Vroom’ is equalled by the adoring crowd, who eagerly dance their way over to co-headliner Halsey on Reading’s East Stage.

With many a trending topic having lamented tonight’s late line-up change - Zack de la Rocha’s injury causing Rage Against The Machine to cancel their whole European run - as soon as super-subs The 1975 drop the opening notes of ‘If You’re Too Shy (Let Me Know)’, thundering cheers greet them - and the band use the next hour and a half to prove the naysayers wrong.

“It’s. Just. Fucking. Bangers!” says frontman Matty Healy introducing his band’s set as they power through a self-described “Greatest Hits”. ‘Love Me’ and ‘Chocolate’ get early outings, while the “best 1975 song” ‘Paris’ is followed by a fairly-new addition, ‘Tonight (I Wish I Was Your Boy)’ from 2020’s ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’. Recent single ‘Happiness’ gets a triumphant response before upcoming pure-pop track ‘I’m In Love With You’ has the whole crowd singing along instantly. By the time the group finish the run with undisputed bops ‘The Sound’, ‘Sex’ and ‘Give Yourself A Try’, any lingering doubts have been squashed. An electrifying set put on by a band at the peak of their pop powers and loving every minute of it, their new tagline “at their very best” hardly begins to cover it. (Emma Wilkes, Lisa Wright, Matt Ganfield, Elly Watson)

MEGAN THEE STALLION

WOLF ALICE

REEPERBAHN FESTIVAL

Between the inadvisable side streets and charmingly-titled clubs where nuance goes to die (Sex Palace or Titty Twister, the choice is yours…), Hamburg’s red light district hosts some more PG pleasures in the form of Reeperbahn Festival. An annual, autumnal multi-venue knees up featuring new favourites and a smattering of returning veterans, this year - after two years respectively online and socially distanced - it’s back in full force, and with an artistic calibre worthy of the accolade.

We kick off at Molotow for DIY’s own stage where, in the heaving downstairs venue, Liverpool’s Stone are making their two-day drive to the festival worthwhile. Tearing into their set with the swaggering energy of Britpop’s finest, there’s a spoken word diatribe about Britain’s class system, an impromptu ‘Happy Birthday’ singalong and even an attempt at being as big as The Beatles (“There’s another famous band from Liverpool that came to Hamburg - we’ll try and do the same thing…”) - what more do you want?

clearly reached Germany too: not only are the Brighton quartet nominated for the festival’s rising talent Anchor Award, but they also have Molotow packed to capacity. Even within a short set, you can already see the breadth of their imaginations; ‘Clockwork’ weaves its way in subtly via an ominous bass line, ‘Surf N Turf’ is an effervescent indie gem while the wonky keyboard hook of ‘Pulp’ offsets Chloe Howard’s surrealist lyrics about a man with “blond skin and pulp between his teeth” to delightfully partystarting results.

It’s not just DIY playing host to these musical treats, however, and across the festival there’s plenty of other delights to be found - not least via the endlessly entertaining charm of New York’s Caroline Rose. Now three albums in, Caroline has stared the harsh reality of life as a touring musician in the eye and chosen joy: “If we’re not having fun what’s the point?” she declares. “We make no money, we have no health care but we have the power of rock compelling us”. The power of rock,

when she’s plugged in and giving it the full show, there’s something slightly disingenuous about the schtick. A cover of Guns’n’Roses’ ‘Paradise City’ complete with synchronised jump feels like the opposite of rock’n’roll.

Austria’s Good Wilson pick up the gauzey psychmeets-Americana mantle from the likes of Real Estate and Kurt Vile, championing the kind of breezy, laid back good vibes that make ‘lovely’ a compliment rather than a platitude (extra points go to the audience member who stands diligently blowing bubbles throughout). Australia’s Alex Lahey, makes for an approachable presence in the afternoon sun, introducing the deadpan poppunk of recent single ‘Congratulations’ as a song written after finding out two of her exes had got engaged within 48 hours. Ouch.

It’s left to German-Canadian pop powerhouse Alice to close out proceedings and playing, she tells us, her first club show in years, there’s a visceral energy to seeing songs evidently at home in large spaces squashed up in Klubhaus St. Pauli’s underground, train station-like tunnel. Breakthrough single ‘No Roots’ channels ‘Rolling In The Deep’ with an added funkier bass line, while there’s a welcome icy, industrial slant that adds an edge to much of Alice’s hook-drenched pop. Heaps of fun but with a dark undercurrent, it’s the perfect way to round out Reeperbahn. (Lisa Wright)

Various venues, Hamburg. Photos: Carla Mundy.

A big inter-band pub quiz of sorts, we’ll be grilling your faves one by one. Now brought to you via Zoom!

IT’S YOUR ROUND

THIS MONTH: STEVE SLADKOWSKI, PUP

Where: New Haven coffee shop. Drink: Black coffee.

General Knowledge Specialist Subject: Britpop

When did the infamous chart battle between Oasis and Blur take place? 1996? No, that’s too late. ‘95? Correct!

Justine Frischmann went on to form what band after leaving Suede in 1991? Elastica. Yep!

Which radio presenter is credited with originally coming up with the term ‘britpop’?

Oh boy… Is it John Peel? It can’t be John Peel. I don’t know! It’s Stuart Maconie.

What was the name of the band that Gaz Coombes and Danny Goffey were in before they started Supergrass? I don’t know that one either! It was The Jennifers.

Which actress starred in Pulp’s iconic video for ‘Common People’? Oh my god. British actress? I’m blanking… It’s Sadie Frost!

What is the most expensive spice in the world by weight?

By weight? Saffron! Correct.

In what game is “love” a score? Tennis! Correct.

Where was Tabasco invented? In Louisiana! Yep! It’s still made in Avery Island today.

The duck billed platypus is native to which county? I don’t know!

It’s Australia. That seemed too obvious!

In Greek Mythology, what did Prometheus steal from Zeus to give to mortals? Oh! Lightning! Fire! Correct!

That’s