Dork, April 2024 (Bleachers cover) by Dork

** PLUS **

GOSSIP

FLETCHER

KID KAPICHI

WAXAHATCHEE

BLU DETIGER

DOWN WITH BORING.

DELLAXOZ

EMPRESS OF

+ LOADS MORE

ISSUE 86 · APRIL 2024 · READDORK.COM

Conan Gray

ELECTRIC DREAMS

girl in red DOES IT AGAIN

Caity Baser

STILL LEARNING

Lizzy McAlpine NEW DIRECTIONS

MASTER

WORK

INDEX.

BACK ISSUES! Want to complete your collection and grab Dork covers with all your faves? Get ‘online’ and head on over to shop.readdork.com and find our complete back catalogue, available while they last.

Issue 86 | April 2024 | readdork.com | Down With Boring

Hiya, Dear Reader.

If you ignore our big Hype List set of covers at the turn of the year, this month’s is the first edition since November of 2022 where we’ve featured five fantastic acts on the front of the magazine. And, if we’re honest, we’re not sure if we’ve ever welcomed a gang as bright, bubbly and brilliant as this month’s crew. There’s barely a corner of modern pop not touched by Jack Antonoff. As he reunites with Bleachers for a fourth, self-titled album, we head over to flashy Paris to eat fruit and shoot the breeze with a true master at work. girl in red is what we like to refer to as prime Dorkcore. A two-time former cover star back for her hat trick, her second album sees her donning “worlddominating confidence” to brilliant effect. “Everyone should just be making jokes all the time,” she says. Too fucking right. Also back for another bash at a Dork cover is Conan Gray, packing what’s set to be one of 2024’s great pop albums. Working with the legendary Max Martin, it’s the most fun we’ve had in ages. As is Caity Baser - a true force of nature, she’s probably one of the most exciting, attitude-packing potential pop superstars around. As she drops her mixtape ‘Still Learning’, she’s “not a Taylor Swift just yet,” but “one day, I will be”. That’s the kind of vim and vigour we want from a superstar. Lizzie McAlpine is another from the very top of the tree, too. Back with a third album that sees her pushing into new territories, her goal is “just to not give a fuck”. You and us both, Liz.

readdork.com Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jake Hawkes, Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Scribblers Abigail Firth, Alexander Bradley, Ciaran Picker, Dan Harrison, Emma Quin, Jack Press, Finlay Holden, Kelsey McClure, Linsey Teggert, Minty Slater-Mearns, Neive McCarthy, Rebecca Kesteven, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Bella Peterson, Cody Critcheloe, Corinne Cumming, Derek Bremner, Frances Beach, Holly Whitaker, Jamie MacMillan, Jennifer McCord, Kaio Cesar, Molly Matalon, Patrick Gunning, Sarah Louise Bennett

Top Ten.

Hype.

Incoming.

FRANCIS OF DELIRIUM AARON WEST & THE ROARING TWENTIES COLE BLEU

22. 24. 25. 26. 27.

DELLAXOZ O. C TURTLE SIIGHTS DEAD PONY

74. 75. 76. 77.

BLEACHERS GOSSIP CAITY BASER FLETCHER

78.

WAHAHATCHEE FIGHTSTAR CHASTITY BELT MOBOS 2024 LAURA JANE GRACE TEENAGE KICKS: PHOEBE GREEN A DAY IN THE LIFE OF... BIG SPECIAL

28. 36. 40. 46. 48. 54. 58. 64. 66. 72.

BLEACHERS FLETCHER CONAN GRAY EMPRESS OF GIRL IN RED GOSSIP CAITY BASER BLU DETIGER LIZZY MCALPINE KID KAPICHI

79. 79. 80. 80. 80. 81.

THE LAST DINNER PARTY NIEVE ELLA DYLAN ZARA LARSSON KIM PETRAS LIZZIE ESAU PINKPANTHERESS

82.

NOAHFINNCE

6. 7.

Intro. Stephen Ackroyd ‘Editor’ @stephenackroyd

8. 12. 14. 16. 18. 20 20

Features.

Get Out.

Backpage.

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

With FRANCIS OF DELIRIUM‘s debut album ‘Lighthouse’ a little over a month away, Jana Bahrich is opening up and hoping it takes her to Hobbiton.

4. DORK

LIGHTS

Words: Stephen Ackroyd.

THE BEST HAPPENING

STUFF N O W.

→ In a world where stale authenticity

and overwrought emotion are so often held up as the currency of the realm, Francis of Delirium crackles with a spark of genuine artistry. With the release of latest single ‘Give It Back To Me’ and the anticipation building around debut album ‘Lighthouse’, there’s a palpable sense of excitement about what’s coming next. Jana Bahrich, the creative force behind Francis of Delirium, has already made waves with three critically acclaimed EPs: ‘All Change’, ‘Wading’, and ‘The Funhouse’. These records, brimming with raw alt-rock excitement, angst, and grunge darkness, have set the stage for the project’s evolution. With ‘Lighthouse’, the sound is shifting to embrace a more vulnerable and open sonic palette, weaving in elements that resonate universally. The album, with tracks like ‘Real Love’ and ‘First Touch’ produced by Catherine Marks (Boygenius, Wolf Alice) and the rest self-produced with frequent collaborator Chris Hewett, already feels like a potential future favourite. On a seemingly ordinary day, filled with simple pleasures, Jana is doing pretty well. “I had a pretty chill day,” she shares as we set the stage. “It’s quite warm out, like 13 degrees, so I was able to bike around without a jacket, which I like because jackets make me sweat too much, even if it is cold. I work at a radio station every Thursday, so I hosted my show and then went for a swim at the pool nearby. I used to run quite a lot, but I’m trying to choose swimming over running now; I feel like running makes me sick. Every time I run, the day after I wake up, I have a cold. I don’t know if it’s related or just a coincidence, but I’m trying to abstain from running these days.” It’s an obvious line, but there’s no need to run when you’re rising as quickly as Jana currently is. The latest teaser of the forthcoming album, ‘Give It Back To Me’ stands out not just as a song but as a statement of solidarity and support within a community. “It’s about showing up for your loved ones when you can and being able to lean on them when you need to,” Jana explains. The track, born from a session where Jana stood, guitar in hand, in a makeshift vocal booth, marks a departure from her usual songwriting process. “Normally, I sit down while writing songs, but the

TOP TEN

“I FELL IN LOVE, AND IT JUST SEEMED LIKE MY WHOLE WORLD WAS OPENING UP” JANA

BRAT POP

BAHRICH

day we were writing ‘Give It Back To Me’, I was standing in this little vocal booth set up at Chris’ house. I wrote a constrained to the usual big shows, lot of the album on acoustic guitar, but chart success and world domination. that day, I was using my little red Fender Really, she’s just looking to hang out Telecaster. I tuned it down to drop C, with some little dudes for a good and the song just kind of exploded into second breakfast. “I hope the album the room. I really love a song with a slow will take us to Hobbiton,” she admits. build, so it’s been a form I’ve been trying “It would be pretty awesome if we got to get right for a while.” to play some shows or a festival in New ‘Lighthouse’’s closing track, Jana Zealand. I watch the Lord of the Rings reflects, “It feels like a really anthemic every year, and I would love to see some and hopeful way to end the album. of the places they filmed in. By putting it at the end, I wanted to “Really, if people just connect with show how after you experience love the album and we can tour more and or heartbreak and you come out of it, more, that would be the dream,” she there’s so much growing you do, and adds, taking things back to the day all that love that you’re left holding, job. “Playing shows is really one of my you can give to the people around you. favourite parts of all of this.” I like that being the message we end In a time when the world often feels on, that you continue to show up for fragmented, Francis of Delirium offers your community and the people you a message of hope and unity. From love, and they will also show up for you.” the personal revelations that shaped The journey to ‘Lighthouse’ has been ‘Lighthouse’ to Jana’s aspirations for → Charli XCX is back with ‘Brat’, set to be her boldest and most provocative album yet, one of personal and artistic growth. “I the band’s future, reflect a deep-seated arriving later this summer. With a roster of heavyweight producers including Easyfun, A.G. think we had tried writing a little bit belief in the power of music to bring Cook, Hudson Mohawke, and Gesaffelstein, Charli has crafted what she describes as her before going on tour in the US in 2022, people together. As she embarks on “most aggressive and confrontational record,” while also delving into her most vulnerable but we were pretty unsuccessful. Most her next chapter, Francis of Delirium moments. of the writing happened after that invites us to find solace in their sound, ‘Brat’ is said to be a club record at heart, signalling a return to Charli’s dance music roots, tour, and after the tour, we did with a reminder that, in the end, we’re all an area where she has always excelled and felt most at home. It’s commitment is evident Soccer Mommy. Writing our last EP, navigating this chaotic, beautiful life from the lead single, ‘Von Dutch’, which matches high energy and relentless innovation, plus ‘The Funhouse’, had felt really dark together. ■ a Really Very Good video featuring violence in an airport. and heavy, and that was reflective of my headspace at the time; going from that to going on tour in the US and making friends and finding our way across this huge country felt like flying. Then I came home and fell in love, and it just seemed like my whole world was opening up, which led to our sound opening up and being brighter and fuller.” Jana’s creative vision extends → St. Vincent has returned with news of her beyond the music itself, with the visuals seventh full-length studio album, ‘All Born for ‘Lighthouse’ playing a crucial role in Screaming’. Set for release on 26th April via conveying the album’s narrative. She Virgin Music/Fiction Records, it’ll be Annie Clark’s took on the ambitious task of creating first self-produced record. “There are some all the single covers, each telling a story places, emotionally, that you can only get to by that parallels but also diverges from the taking the long walk into the woods alone—to songs. “I carved into Linobloc to tell find out what your heart is really saying,” Clark this story of a couple that meets when says. “It sounds real because it is real.” they’re young and stays together into Created with what a press release describes as “a highly curated dream lineup of friends” – older age,” she explains. “Getting the Rachel Eckroth, Josh Freese, Dave Grohl, Mark idea to tell a story which paralleled the Guiliana, Cate Le Bon, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, story in the songs but veered off in its Stella Mogzawa and David Ralicke – the record own direction with the album art was is previewed by a first taster, ‘Broken Man’, really exciting. I’m proud that I followed → Twenty One Pilots are set to streaming online now. through with that and executed that release their new album ‘Clancy’ on 17th May. Arriving exactly nine idea.” years to the day since the release Hope is a prevailing theme on the of ‘Blurryface’, the record is coalbum. “There’s a purity to the love produced by Tyler Joseph and Paul songs on the album; they feel youthful Meany, who previously worked in their presentation, like there is no on ‘Trench’, and features the lead trick or sense of being jaded. It felt single ‘Overcompensate’. The important to commit to the feeling and album promises to tie together the to have hope in what love can give you, storylines that have been woven even if it doesn’t work out.” through their previous works, As for the future, Jana’s hopes aren’t marking the culmination of a decade-

SCREAM QUEEN

TØP STUFF long narrative journey.

READDORK.COM 5.

DOT DOT DOT...

GO WEST

→ Wunderhorse (pictured) have joined the bill for next year’s Dot To Dot Festival. The band are leading the second batch of acts for 2024, which also includes The Magic Gang, Antony Szmierek, Home Counties, Lizzie Esau, Bleach Lab, Gurriers, The Bug Club, Infinity Song, Ducks LTD, His Lordship, Cosmorat, Tim Atlas, Anna Erhard, Lucy Tun, C Turtle and loads more. They join a line-up that already features headliners – and former Dork cover stars – Jockstrap, plus their first 15 spotlight artists for 2024, Aziya, Florry, Hovvdy, Jianbo, Gglum, Kaeto, Man/Woman/Chainsaw, Mary In The Junkyard, Nate Brazier, Panic Shack, Picture Parlour, Rushy, The Dare, Trout, and Welly. Dot to Dot takes place in Bristol on Saturday 25th May and Nottingham on Sunday 26th May. Visit dottodotfestival.co.uk for more information, and alttickets.com for tickets.

With new album ‘In Lieu Of Flowers’, Dan Campbell is set to expand the evocative and story-rich saga of AARON WEST AND THE ROARING TWENTIES, blending heartfelt narratives with his signature musical ambition – but could it be the final chapter? → “The graffiti on the wall says ‘Fuck the

→ SZA is going to headline a day of BST Hyde Park 2024. She’ll perform at the event on 29th June, with support from Sampha, Snoh Aalegra and more to be announced. Stevie Nicks, Kylie, Stray Kids, Andrea Bocelli and Robbie Williams will also headline other days. Last year’s event saw headline sets from P!NK, Take That, Blackpink, Lana Del Rey and more. Visit bst-hydepark. com for more information.

6. DORK

Words: Alexander Bradley.

SZA AT BST

Tories’ / Outside a takeaway, we’re eating on the street,” opens ‘Alone At St. Luke’s’, the new single from Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties. Urgent and alert, the track fizzes with the energy of a singer revelling in the opportunity to be back on the road with his band. For Dan Campbell, the puppeteer behind Aaron West, this was one of those moments where fiction and reality blurred. “That is literally what the graffiti said,” he smiles, but the opportunity to share the sentiment was an open goal he couldn’t pass up. Having first toured the UK with his band The Wonder Years back in 2007, the singer has witnessed in snapshots the growing disdain for conservatism at the same time as more active interests in politics amongst young British people. He’d still happily swap the US for a place with universal healthcare and gun control, but the similarities between politics on both sides of the pond are apparent to him. “It seems like it is not dissimilar to American politics,” he reasons. “There is this Conservative Party that is racist and transphobic and regressive in every way, seems to be trying to cut the NHS which, I can tell you as someone that does not have single-payer healthcare, is a bad idea.” Healthcare played a big part in the last Aaron West single, ‘Paying Bills At The End Of The World’, released last month. With Covid as its backdrop, the Americanasoaked tune finds Aaron navigating the pandemic with the anxiety of what getting sick without health insurance would look like. Jump forward two songs on the spectacular third full-length instalment of the Aaron West saga, ‘In Lieu Of Flowers’, due in April, and the protagonist arrives alone at St. Luke’s in Glasgow. Reunited with his band following the events of the last album, Aaron West is riding high on a wave unlike anything we’ve seen before. “We’ve been thinking / As long as we’re still here / We might as well be drinking,” the chorus goes with gang vocals roaring on the final line. Narratively, the downward spiral started in ‘Alone At St. Luke’s’ is the set-up to Aaron’s journey on ‘In Lieu Of Flowers’, but facing up to alcoholism has been a long time coming for the character. It’s been 10 years since we first met Aaron West, in which he faced a series of tragedies through miscarriage,

“I WANT TO MAKE SURE I DO JUSTICE TO THE HEAVIER TOPICS AND EVEN THE LIGHTER ONES” DAN

CAMPBELL

grief and divorce on the debut album ‘We Don’t Have Each Other’. The sum of each loss turns the character onto a destructive path that eventually lands him in jail following a bar fight on the second album, 2019’s ‘Routine Maintenance’. The wake-up call and the chance to start afresh on that album creates the illusion that his problems have been solved. So ‘In Lieu Of Flowers’ finds Aaron West confronting his alcoholism once and for all. Following the freedom to tour again post-pandemic to suddenly being isolated again, all within the three and a half minutes of ‘Alone At St. Luke’s’. And if you didn’t get that tonal shift from this single, it’ll hit like a tonne of bricks once the next track, ‘Whiplash’, kicks in. Doubling down on the stark contrast of the partying, it’s a track which Dan refers to as “The eye of the storm.” Unable to draw on his own experience as someone who doesn’t drink, Dan reached out to those around him when it came to staying true to the story. “I don’t write about these things flippantly,” he says. “If I wanna write about Aaron and his alcoholism, I’m gonna speak to friends that have struggled with it, and I’m gonna speak to friends at different places in their life with that, and I’m going to interview them. I wanna make sure I get it right. I want to make sure I do justice to the heavier topics and even the lighter ones,” he adds. ■ Read the full interview on readdork.com. Aaron West and The Roaring Twenties’ album ‘In Lieu Of Flowers’ is out 12th April.

NEW

WAY

After a period of making assertive changes in pretty much every aspect of her life, COLE BLEU is back with a whole new sound.

Words: Finlay Holden.

→ Over the last three years, it feels like

we’ve gotten to know Cole Bleu a fair bit: The Let Go’s 2022 mixtape ‘Delete My Feelings’ introduced a self-questioning artist keen to unmask their desperate and disparate emotions; last year’s five-tracker ‘CRUSHED!’ saw the singer step out under her own name as a confident performer with a new pop-fuelled direction. Now, though, as she moves continent, finds a new team of collaborators and pushes an agenda of empowerment, we can finally experience the unfiltered joy that Cole Bleu has been searching for. “Honestly, you don’t realise how much it affects your mood,” she explains from her new apartment. Trading the grey skies of Liverpool for the LA sun has done a world of good. Embracing an alternate version of the music industry, Cole is quickly finding that our American counterparts are far more upfront about their perspectives. “In England, everyone is passive-aggressive all the time. I can be here for those moments, but it was literally 24/7. Everyone here says exactly what they feel about you no matter what, and you just have to take it. I respect that; at least you’re not lying to me. Also, people do NOT stop working here. It’s really hectic and non-stop, but things do happen faster here because of that.” A fast-paced environment is exactly what Cole needs right now as she affirms a new identity, stepping away from the world of her ‘CRUSHED!’ mixtape, which was formed back in the world of Tesco meal deals and good Indian takeaways. “People loved those songs,” she declares. “Not gonna lie, they objectively slap. The choruses are relatable and deliver hard, but I was falling into the trap of doing what every early twenties girl is doing; writing songs about guys, being upset about them. It made it hard to distinguish who I was amongst all of that; I didn’t feel like I was doing enough to set myself apart. I knew what came next had to be really different.” Reinventing herself is hardly a new hobby for this multifaceted artist, having already explored an indie-alt project and quickly diverted into a bubblegum pop direction (“I like to implode things and

“FOR ONCE, I DON’T FEEL SCARED AT ALL” COLE

BLEU

start from scratch, it seems to be my favourite thing to do!”). Never satisfied with feeling comfortable, a whole new niche had started to form before her last release was even off the ground, taking Cole by surprise as much as anyone else. As she recalls, “Last February, I started going into this more R&B-leaning direction – I have no idea where it came from. I was doing this new thing that felt untouched and foreign to me, but I quickly started writing loads. None of my musical references sounded anything like that, so it must’ve been some switch that went off in my brain, and I’ve been writing in this vein for a year.” ‘Any Way’ is the first track of this new chapter to reach our ears. “I read this interview with Troye Sivan about his new record,” she reflects, “and he was saying, why can’t we just write about having a good time? Why does everything have to have this deep underlying meaning? That is exactly how I feel; music is supposed to be just pure fun sometimes, and I’ve never experienced putting out something like that until now.” As well as Troye Sivan and Madonna, Cole Bleu is reaching for a previously untapped pool of influences. Having expressed past (and ongoing) love for BROCKHAMPTON, Dominic Fike and Remi Wolf for being “raw and real while living amongst palm trees”, she is instead now shooting for the pop excellence of stars like Britney Spears, Charli XCX and Gwen Stefani. “I’ve looked up to strong frontwomen my whole life,” she clarifies, “but for musical influences, I was very much about what’s new now, and how can I fit into that? I wanted to go back to what my 10-year-old self wanted to be and was trying to be. I was trying to do the edgy, artsy thing, but now I’ve realised, nah, girl, that’s not who you are.” That sentiment is perhaps the most potent in this next chapter for Cole Bleu. “I’m not obsessed with being anyone else anymore; I just want to be me,” she affirms. “When I first moved to England, I needed people to know who I am and that’s all I was focused on. In pursuing that, I was not living as myself; I wanted to be someone else all the time. That’s no fun, and it doesn’t translate for long. Now, I feel really secure in who I am as an artist, who I want to be and what I want to do. That’s why I’m so excited right now, and for once, I don’t feel scared at all.” ■

TOP TEN

JOLLY GOOD, CHAPP → Chappell Roan has announced a new headline tour for later this year. With a run of shows across Europe this September, she’ll play London’s Eventim Apollo (10th), Manchester O2 Ritz (13th), Glasgow Saint Lukes (15th) and Dublin Academy (17th). The dates are in support of her 5* debut album, ‘The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess’, which came out last year. She’s also set to support Olivia Rodrigo on a bunch of US and Canada dates this summer.

SHACK BY THE SEA

→ SON Estrella Galicia are going to hold a micro-festival in Brighton. The event will take place at the Prince Albert on 23rd March, with performances from Panic Shack and Platoid, plus DJ sets from Kike Louie, Lee Petryszyn and Henry WP. Billed as a night of Live Music, Beer Culture, and Positive Impact via a beach clean-up and waste transformation, it follows similar events in London.

READDORK.COM 7.

INTRO. THE BEATING HEART OF POP NONSENSE.

Examining her 30s with the help of a few new pals, WAXAHATCHEE has come roaring back with an assured new album that’s brimming with confidence. by MARTYN YOUNG. photography by MOLLY MATALON.

8. DORK

INTRO

f releasing her album in the week the world shutdown in March 2020 wasn’t discombobulating enough, the fact that the record would go on to be her most successful and critically acclaimed was even more mindblowing for Katie Crutchfield. ‘Saint Cloud’ was a landmark release in Waxahatchee’s 15-year recording career. A bittersweet moment for Katie as she had the best work of her life but couldn’t fully enjoy it, while for many, it will go down as THE pandemic album alongside Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’. Fortunately, the world is in a very different place now, and Katie is looking to expand and capitalise on that record’s riches with her follow-up album ‘Tigers Blood’. “I’m banking on the hope that there’s not another pandemic in the middle of this cycle. Of all the things that could go wrong, I’m hoping that that doesn’t go wrong,” she laughs. ‘Tigers Blood’ is yet another staggering work by one of the premier songwriting voices of modern times, but it’s a record that feels like an

“I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’LL DO FOR MY NEXT RECORD, BUT I REALLY ENJOY BRINGING IN ARTISTS THAT I REALLY LIKE” KATIE CRUTCHFIELD READDORK.COM 9.

INTRO

evolution of work Katie has been doing for a number of years now. “If I’m zoomed out looking at my whole catalogue, it feels like In 2018 I made this whole EP with Brad Cook called ‘Great Thunder’ and then from there, I made ‘Saint Cloud’, my album with Jess Williamson as Plains and now ‘Tigers Blood’,” she explains. “It feels like before I started working with Brad and after. Contextually, it fits within that family of post-working-with-Brad records so well. It feels like such a natural progression.” With such a strong creative partnership firmly established, Katie and Brad set about crafting a record in the image of the previous ‘Saint Cloud’, which acted as something of a reset point in the Waxahatchee story. After some deliberation, they established the creative path for the record once again with a strong collaborative principle. “With ‘Saint Cloud’, we didn’t have a ton of pressure. I knew I was going to make a pivot, and the sound of ‘Saint Cloud’ was going to be different than my last few things,” says Katie. “In that way, there was some freedom in it where we were like, people are either going to love it, or they’re not, but this is what I have to do creatively. There was a confidence in that. With this one, because of the reaction to ‘Saint Cloud’, we felt a bit of pressure to follow it up. We were really not sure what the approach should be. Should we go for something bigger and more ambitious, whatever that means? We had to figure out what that meant. We brought MJ Lenderman [from the band Wednesday] in, which happened on a whim early on, and after he left, we talked and said the confident choice is to do just what we’d done before and don’t get too fancy with it, bring some great musicians in the room and do what we did with ‘Saint Cloud’. MJ Lenderman’s aesthetic would carry through the record and blend with my songs. After so long writing songs, Katie had enough confidence in her own songwriting ability to know that they could resist any desire or expectation to reinvent as the beauty of Waxahatchee was always present in her songwriting and melodies. “I understand that pressure to reinvent because I felt that too, but I felt so relieved in that moment where me and Brad were having that conversation about let’s not do that, let’s keep it super simple,” she admits. “I don’t know what I’ll do for my next record, but I really enjoy bringing in artists that I really like. My songs are my songs, and they’re going to carry onwards, and if I’ve done my job, they’re going to be good enough, and they just need a bit of elevation to be as good as they can possibly

10. DORK

be. Bringing in people that I’m really excited about in the moment has been working for me.” The songs collected here are among the brightest and most expansive of her whole career, from the swelling anthemics of opener ‘Three Sisters’ to the heartstopping vocals of ‘365’. “I followed the melodies as they were hookier. I knew that, and I could feel that,” says Katie. The duo of Katie and Brad managed to harness these bigger songs while still capturing a gentle intimacy at the same time. “I don’t think we ever would have made a pop record, but when you have some kind of breakthrough, that door opens, and it’s tempting to walk through,” she says. As she looks back on over 15 years as an artist, right back to when she was in punk band P.S. Eliot with her sister Allison and her first primitive recordings as Waxahatchee on the lo-fi wonder debut ‘American Weekend’ from 2012, Katie palpably feels a different person but in what ways does she still feel the same? “I spend so much time thinking about how different I am that I don’t ever really think about how I’m the same,” she ponders. “With every album, I’m chipping away at a specific point of view, and a voice, and that’s all present on those early records. I made ‘American Weekend’ when I was 20. Everything in my life was different, so it’s hard to relate to that person, but I do think the original point of view I had of trying to find a way to be honest, access some darkness and try and write things really true to my experience, all of that is still there.” With success on a sustained level now a very real thing, Katie has adapted to a changing musical landscape. “I’ve also changed, and as I’ve been doing this professionally for

“IT’S A LITTLE MORE CULTOFPERSONALITY NOW THAN IT WAS IN 2010”

KATIE CRUTCHFIELD

longer, my priorities shift around too,” she explains. “When I first started, it was all just for the love of the game. It wasn’t about making money or being able to do music full-time. Now it’s higher stakes and my job and my life’s work, so it’s a little more pressure, and there’s more eyes on it, and with that comes a certain amount of responsibility. TikTok certainly didn’t exist 15 years ago, and the way people present themselves is different. It’s a little more cult of personality now than it was in 2010. I just really want my music to be in the foreground and me to be in the background.” While she wants her personality to be largely in the background, it’s her personal reflections and ruminations that give her songs such huge emotional resonance. ‘Tigers Blood’ sees her going deeper into some of the themes she established on her last album. “’Saint Cloud’ was a lot about my sobriety. In some ways, that was a bit of a crutch as it was just easy to say it was a record about my sobriety. It was, but it was about a lot of other things, too. It was deeper than that, and I took a lot of different paths through that, and this takes up where that left off,”

she says. As a companion piece to ‘Saint Cloud’, the album very much takes up the next chapter in the story. “I’ll have six years of sobriety this year. I’m in a different place with it. When I was writing ‘Saint Cloud’, my skin was crawling with anxiety, and I’m not really in that same place with it. I’m a bit calmer. It’s a state of the union of my life. Because my life gets stranger and stranger the longer I’m doing this, I’m trying to write in a way that’s true to my experience but ambiguous enough that it can be relatable to the listener. It’s a lot of classic mid-thirties stuff; being in a long relationship and ending some friendships with people I’ve known for a long time.” With lucidity and calmness both in her work and her personal life, Katie Crutchfield is truly thriving, and her latest Waxahatchee record is a testament to her songwriting endurance and proof that if you’re actually really, really good at something, you’ll get your flowers. Let’s just hope this time she doesn’t have to endure a global pandemic at the same time. ■ Waxahatchee’s album

‘Tigers Blood’ is out 22nd March.

by arrangement with uta

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH LUGER

OCTOBER

14 THE NICK RAYNS LCR UEA

26 MANCHESTER ACADEMY 1

24 LONDON 25 TROXY BRISTOL O2 ACADEMY

NOVEMBER 16 ROCK CITY NOTTINGHAM

15 OXFORD O2 ACADEMY

FRI 17 MAY SWX BRISTOL You’re not going to heaven

JUNE 2024 23 Manchester, New Century Hall 24 Leeds, Brudenell Social Club 25 Birmingham, XOYO 27 London, O2 Forum Kentish Town 28 Brighton, CHALK 29 Oxford, O2 Academy Oxford 30 Bristol Sounds

with The Breeders, Ty Segall, Squid and many more!

May 05 Bristol The Louisiana 15 Manchester Yes (Basement) by arrangement with toucan talent agency by arrangement with CAA

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STAR INTRO

Returning for their first gig in

over eight years, FIGHTSTAR have a lot to celebrate.

by ALI SHUTLER.

t’s a month before Fightstar headline Wembley Arena to celebrate their 20th anniversary, and it’s slowly dawning on them just how much there is left to do. The band haven’t started rehearsals yet, but they have been revisiting their ferocious four-album back catalogue and sorting out things like lighting and sound. “Did you know Wembley Arena doesn’t come with its own stage? You need to bring your own,” says vocalist Charlie Simpson with a grin.

Right now, the mood is a mixture of “epic awesomeness and total ass-flickering dread”, according to drummer Omar Abidi. “That mixture of excitement and nerves will push us to make something really special, though.” “It’s the biggest show we’ve ever done by quite some stretch,” adds Charlie. “There will be a lot less nerves when we’re all in a room together, though.” Which has always been the driving force for Fightstar. The band first formed in 2003 while Charlie was still very much a part of Busted, a pop-punk group who pulled heavy influence from Blink-182 and Green Day but were still lumped in with pop groups like Sugababes, Atomic Kitten and Blue. “There was no real ambition to Fightstar, other than make the music we wanted to make,” explains Charlie, who first bonded with Omar and guitarist Alex Westaway over a shared love of Rage Against The Machine with mutual friend and bassist Dan Haigh getting involved shortly afterwards. “It was quite insular,” continues Charlie, just four mates making music in a “shitty” rehearsal space in Clapham. “We were just doing it for our own enjoyment… and I don’t think that’s ever changed.” Debut album ‘Grand Unification’ came in 2006, with ‘One Day Son, This Will All Be Yours’ released the following year. “I don’t think people expected that much from us,” says Charlie. “People have tried these extreme genre shifts before, and more often than not, they don’t work out. I always believed

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this band would, though, because I genuinely believed in what we were doing. There was nothing fake about Fightstar and people connected with that.” The band became a part of the snarling Britrock scene alongside the likes of Funeral For A Friend, Biffy Clyro and Bullet For My Valentine. In 2009, Fightstar shared ‘Be Human’ but went on hiatus shortly afterwards, with Charlie launching a folk-tinged solo project while Alex and Dan formed celebrated synthpop group Gunship. There was no bad blood between any of the members, and they reunited in 2014 for a ten-year anniversary tour and new album ‘Behind The Devil’s Back’. “When we wrote ‘Grand Unification’, there was no pressure to impress anyone or live up to anyone else’s expectations. We had the same mindset for ‘Behind The Devil’s Back’,” says Omar. “If we made another record, I would want it to be the same,” adds Charlie. “Those two records really reflect the unadulterated sound that is Fightstar,” continues Omar. “If you look at our repertoire over the years, there’s a certain loyalty to what has been our most genuine and no-bullshit writing.” “Some of the things we did on those records were just so unnecessary, but by the very nature of what we’re doing at Wembley, those songs found their way into people’s lives and stuck with them,” says Charlie, who’s constantly asked about what Fightstar are doing next. “To be part of someone’s life like that is an incredibly humbling thing.” “I don’t know why it resonated at the time, I don’t know why it’s still connecting today, but I know what Fightstar’s music does for me. Our entire mantra as a band is light through darkness. It’s hope over fear. Fightstar’s music can be brutally heavy, but there’s a lot of heartfelt hope to it,” he continues. 20 years on, are the band worried about reconnecting with the fire and fury that drove those early records? “A lot of the fury wasn’t personal,” explains Charlie. “Sure, there are songs like ‘Death Car’ that are deeply personal, but that first record was a concept album about the universe and creation, death and destruction. Everything that followed was us looking out at the world and our reaction to it.” This year not only sees Fightstar

“OUR ENTIRE MANTRA AS A BAND IS LIGHT THROUGH DARKNESS. IT’S HOPE OVER FEAR” CHARLIE SIMPSON

headline their biggest ever show, but Busted continue a victory lap that’ll take them to Download. “That would never have happened 20 years ago,” Charlie grins, with heavier bands like My Chemical Romance getting bottled at the festival in 2007. “There was a time when Busted fans would have hated me doing anything with Fightstar, and Fightstar fans would have felt betrayed knowing I was back with Busted. That tribalism

always annoyed me because it felt so unnecessary, but thankfully, those walls have come down now.” “Stepping out onstage at Wembley Arena will be incredibly humbling but there’s also a sense of vindication to it as well,” continues Charlie. “It will validate all the difficult decisions we made throughout our career in an attempt to do things the way we wanted to do them.” ■ Fightstar play London’s OVO Wembley Arena on 22nd March.

UK Tour

Thursday 02 May

Friday 28 & Saturday 29 June

Electric Ballroom London

Komedia / Bath by arrangement with ATC Live

THE CRITICALLY ACCLAIMED ALBUM ‘BUNNY’ AVAILABLE TO BUY & STREAM NOW

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LIVE. LAUGH. INTRO

“I MIGHT ALWAYS FEEL SORT OF LOST AND STUCK, BUT THAT’S OKAY”

CHASTITY BELT’s fifth album ‘Live Laugh Love’ encapsulates their journey of living, laughing, and... err... loving with sincerity and a touch of sarcasm. by LINSEY TEGGERT.

ive Laugh Love. It’s a phrase is currently studying in London “We don’t have much time when you’d likely associate with a Chastity Belt didn’t let distance or a we’re all free to get together to record tacky cursive wall sign or a pandemic get in the way of creating these days, so we had the attitude of cheesy wellness influencer, their fifth record. It may have taken we’ll organise it when we can and just not an album title from one of them almost five years to finish, but see what happens,” says Julia. “We Seattle’s coolest indie bands. there was no rush or worry. It was even had a session over Thanksgiving Yet for Chastity Belt’s fifth album, it always inevitable. where we ended up having a couple kind of makes sense: the four-piece “At this point, it feels like we’ll be of Thanksgiving feasts together; we have never taken themselves 100% together forever, so I don’t think not played charades and made paper bag seriously, but they’ve always been creating another record ever crossed hats and wore them around the table sincere, poking fun at themselves any of our minds,” Julia states. “We for a candlelit dinner!” and the world around them, but in all have an unspoken agreement that That sense of self-acceptance and a way that feels authentic rather we’ll keep doing the band at whatever quiet self-assurance is also something than glib. “It’s kind of sarcastic but pace feels good for people. I realise that appears thematically throughout also earnest because if you think that the last few years haven’t been ‘Live Laugh Love’. “A lot of my songs about it, the songs are sort of about easy on other bands, but we felt this end up being about that,” Julia muses. living, laughing and loving,” explains sense that we’d been together for so “Realising I might always feel this way, guitarist and vocalist Julia Shapiro. long that we were going to be okay at sort of lost and stuck, but that’s okay. In the fourteen years that they’ve the end of this.” It’s about sitting with that rather than been a band, they’ve certainly done With three separate recording a hell of a lot of living, laughing and sessions set across three years, some loving to the point where they share bands may have lost momentum, but both the same musical language Julia explains that for Chastity Belt, and an unbreakable bond. Despite it was refreshing to not put pressure currently living in various states and on themselves to go into the studio even countries - Julia and drummer and immediately have an album Gretchen Grimm are both based in afterwards. It allowed them to actually Seattle, bass player Annie Truscott be present and enjoy the time they lives in LA, and guitarist Lydia Lund managed to get to spend together.

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JULIA

SHAPIRO

trying to fight it, realising that this is just me and it’s part of my personality.” Amongst all the living, laughing and loving, over a decade of playing together has provided a whole lot of learning, too. “I feel like my main piece of advice to myself would be you don’t have to do anything; it’s fine to say no,” says Gretchen. “Even though there are some good stories, we played some insane shows back then that we wouldn’t say yes to now! It’s about realising that it’s okay to do whatever feels right.” Maturity and introspection aside, Chastity Belt will still always have time for their goofy sides. While ‘Live Laugh Love’ is more subtle with it there’s no ‘Cool Slut’ or ‘Pissed Pants’esque titles here, there’s still room for playfulness, as if that wasn’t already signalled by the wacky wavingarms inflatable guy that graces the front cover. Check out the video for ‘Hollow’ that pokes fun at influencers and features Chastity Belt having their own go at a TikTok dance, trying on clothes fresh out of ‘Sheit’ packaging and rocking out in front of a neon ‘It’s a vibe’ sign. Fingers crossed, we get to hear that Medieval jig they recorded during the ‘Live Laugh Love’ sessions, too... ■ Chastity Belt’s album ‘Live Laugh Love’ is out 29th March.

STEEL

CITY LIMITS

INTRO

FLO, NOVA TWINS, ALUNA,

SUGABABES and more visit

Sheffield for the MOBO Awards

2024.

by ABIGAIL FIRTH.

he first award of the night goes to Potter Payper’s ‘Real Back In Style’ for Album of the Year, a tough category as he went up against huge records like Raye’s ‘My 21st Century Blues’ and Stormzy’s ‘This Is What I Mean’, but the rapper’s long-awaited debut LP took the big one. Following a true breakthrough year, Raye went home with a well-deserved Best Female Act award, while Central Cee capped off his with a Best Male Act gong and a Song of the Year award for the chart-topping, record-breaking Dave collaboration ‘Sprinter’. After picking up the Mercury Prize last year, Ezra Collective took Best Jazz Act, while Best R&B/Soul Act went to the enigmatic Sault, who sent Little Simz to collect their award on accounts that they didn’t want to reveal their identities. Elsewhere, Little Simz collected her own award for Best Hip Hop Act, and Best Grime Act went to Manchester native Bugzy Malone, the latter noting in his acceptance speech, “When I first started out, no one in the north was making money”, and reiterating the importance of the show’s temporary

move to the northern city. It’s one of a few changes the MOBO Awards have made since revamping the ceremony for its 2021 comeback. The last event in 2022 saw the introduction of an award for Best Dance/Electronic Act – this year snagged by underground provocateur Shygirl – and Best Alternative Act, rallied for by rock duo Nova Twins, who presented this year’s award to heavy metal veterans Skindred. “I’ve been watching the MOBOs for years and wondering why there’s no rock bands, why there’s no alternative,” said Skindred frontman Benji Webbe ahead of the show. “I think the MOBOs represents a lot more than people think, and the music that we make is definitely Black music as much as it is heavy metal music.” Of the addition of the Best Dance/ Electronic category, nominee Aluna said, “This really is such a monumental moment because a lot of us have been working for change across the board,

FLO GIVE AN UPDATE ON THEIR ALBUM PROGRESS Stella: She’s hiding! But she’s sounding amazing. Reneé: Too good! I’m sorry! Stella: We had a session with Darkchild, and it was really cool to work with him, obviously he’s so talented. Jorja: We do have a song coming – it is coming – soon! Reneé: Very soon, we promise! There obviously will be a live show, tour, off the back of the new project, but we’re doing Coachella and Governor’s Ball this summer which will be lots of fun!

and there’s so many key components that can really move the needle, and one of those is having the Dance/ Electronic category at the MOBOs, and I really hope that all the other award ceremonies take note.” Looking to both the future and the past, the MOBO Awards also honoured Sugababes with the Impact Award, having changed the course of British pop music twenty years ago and are still going strong with their original lineup, who performed a medley of early hits on the night. Speaking immediately after their win, longest-standing member Keisha Buchanan said, “I think the goal really as an artist, people think it’s about the Number 1s, which we’ve had, but it’s actually about longevity. This is the stuff of dreams, to be able to have your music received so well all these years later. We’re so glad our music is timeless, and we’re so grateful people are still interested.” Trailblazing grime artist Ghetts was also honoured with the Pioneer Award, shouting out those who came before him in his acceptance speech. In a chat after his win, he clarified, “The garage lot and the junglists, those are my elder statesmen; those exact artists had their own moment at the ceremony, as DJ Spoony rattled through a set of garage classics. Giving a powerful performance of ‘Double Standards’, he addressed global conflicts as images of flags bordered the stage. It brought home what the MOBO Awards are truly about; pushing for change and giving a voice to those often overlooked by more mainstream ceremonies. ■

NEW MUSIC IS COMING FROM NOVA TWINS THIS YEAR Georgia: We’ve been hiding away writing our next album, so there’s gonna be new music [in 2024], which I’m really excited about. We’re gonna be back on the road... Amy: ... supporting Foo Fighters, and we’re really excited about it. Our minds have blown at that one. Georgia: We manifested that one big time.

“THIS REALLY IS SUCH A MONUMENTAL MOMENT” ALUNA

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INTRO

LAURA JANE GRACE navigates a whirlwind of life-changing events and creative bursts in her latest album ‘Hole In My Head’, capturing the essence of living fast and embracing the chaos. by ALEXANDER BRADLEY. photography by BELLA PETERSON.

aura Jane Grace has been making up for lost time. Living fast and getting older. “It’s been kind of fucking crazy, to say the least,” she admits and smiles. “But it has been good.” She got engaged over Thanksgiving following a good, old-fashioned, headover-heels whirlwind romance with the comedian Paris Campbell. Married by Christmas. Followed by a honeymoon. Then she played some shows in Greece. Recorded a song with two members of the Greek punk band Despite Everything. Then, a car accident later that week back home in the US. She got a couple of tattoos. Recorded an EP in Mississippi. Jammed with Dinosaur Jr and members of Sonic Youth, Bikini Kill and Patti Smith Band for a project. “Just wild fucking times,” she adds while reeling off the list of events. What else? Well, she was also given the keys to the city of Gainesville, Florida, and she had a whole day dedicated to her in October. And she caught Covid for the fourth time, too. Despite the odd drunk driver and bout of Covid, though, there is no stopping her at the moment. The car crash did have her momentarily considering whether it was the universe telling her to reign it in a little bit, but there seems to be a kind of runaway train energy behind her at the moment. The music is already back piling and so when it comes to catching up to discuss her latest release, the “new” album feels stuck in the past tense. It’s been about a year since ‘Hole In My Head’ was finished, but, as detailed, she’s lived a life in the last 12 months. Still, while choosing not to bitch too much about the glacial progress of her record label in getting this album out, Laura assures that she still recognises herself on these songs. “It is still representative of me,”

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“I DON’T FEEL LIKE MY BRAIN IS MY FRIEND MOST OF THE TIME. IT SAYS TERRIBLE THINGS TO ME” LAURA

JANE

GRACE

she begins. “I think maybe it also already know how all the songs work within your brain chemistry that are demonstrates to you what you see live and to feel confident in them in just pathways to get wired, and that’s is not always reality and that there’s that way. That’s the best feeling when life,” she explains. It does come with a very snappy more depth than if you’re just following you’re releasing a record, as opposed to worrying that, ‘Oh, I hope these songs chorus, though. A chorus which someone’s life on social media. “But, yeah, definitely a lot has work live’. It’s like, ‘No, they’re all good’. attributes her addled brain to having happened since recording it,” she They work live. So I just hope people spent her youth addicted to alcohol, like the recordings of them,” she says. weed, porn and cocaine. While not one concedes. Those recordings are the snapshot to “party” anymore (as she puts it), the The album started to take shape in 2021 and was written on the road while of Laura Jane Grace navigating the consequences have taken their toll. “I wish a lot of the time I wasn’t taking on those first tentative solo post-pandemic world of 2021-2022. shows that followed the pandemic. It She documents a miserable 42nd having the thoughts I was having. My was finally recorded in St. Louis, a city birthday on ‘Tacos & Toast’ where brain is fucking trash. My brain is… I new to Laura but a city that she quickly she sings about getting a line tattooed don’t feel like my brain is my friend felt at home in and, in her opinion, through the name of an ex. She sings most of the time. It says terrible things imbued itself into the bones of the about opening up to find love again to me and tells me to do terrible things. on ‘Cuffing Season’. She sings about And it’s like a daily exercise in impulse album. Written in middle-of-nowhere the hard feelings she’s got on ‘Hard control,” she admits. “But I think that’s most people, too.” hotels, unmemorable backstages Feelings.’ It’s a song about “how you and airport lounges, much of this get to a point in life and the choices ■ Read the full interview on readdork. album has already been tested live on you make kind of become you, and com. Laura Jane Grace’s album ‘Hole In audiences around the world. In fact, there are certain things that happen My Head’ is out now. some tracks for this album have spent almost three years cycling in and out of Laura’s setlist. It’s a reverse from the norm, but for Laura, it takes a lot of the pressure off. “It is a good feeling when you’ve written a record on the road and

POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES

PRE-ORDER THE DEBUT ALBUM NOW ALBUM OUT 10TH MAY

BIGSPECIAL.CO.UK

THIS MONTH...

PHOEBE GREEN

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, PHOEBE GREEN TAKES US THROUGH SOME OF THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO HER DURING HER TEENAGE YEARS.

(Firstly, this was so hard to do because I wanted to also add Lady Gaga’s entire ‘Fame Monster’ album, but because I couldn’t choose, I gave up.)

Gerard Way

Action Cat Gerard Way was one of my favourite people ever when I was a teenager, I thought he was so cool, and I wanted to be just like him. I love My Chemical Romance, obviously, I love the theatrics of it, but his solo album ‘Hesitant Alien’ came out when I was sixteen, and it felt so vibrant; I adored it.

Grimes

Genesis Grimes made music I really had never heard anything like before. It was so free and exciting. I discovered this song on a playlist on 8tracks; I completely forgot that existed until now!

DAY

Lorde

Ribs ‘Ribs’ is one of those songs that brings back so many memories for me; we went on a school trip to New York when I was in Year 10; I was listening to it and looking out the window of the coach, wondering if I would still listen to this song as an adult and remember what it was like being a teenager. It’s so funny to think about how far away adulthood seemed then.

Marina And The Diamonds

Teen Idle Marina and the Diamonds was an artist my best friend Isobel introduced me to. I was so infatuated with the character she created for herself, telling stories through songs that might not have even come from personal experience. It made me realise that you can still feel a full range of emotions when listening to a

song, even if you can’t directly relate to it.

Daughter

Youth This song really does take me back to my angsty midteens; what an iconic era. I also discovered this song online - probably on Tumblr - it really was a place for mentally unstable adolescent girls to thrive, and I am still recovering from that period, haha. You’re A Germ Wolf Alice really soundtracked my teen years, especially when I started going to gigs in Manchester after school (they must’ve wondered why I needed to go to the dentist so often) and discovering my music taste. I found them so inspiring as a girl who wanted to make indie music.

Piledriver Waltz Arctic Monkeys were obviously a staple for me growing up; I loved feeling represented by the northern dialect and was really into the romanticisation of mundane moments. Alex Turner’s songwriting has truly inspired so much of mine, I think I really enjoyed the rowdiness and crudeness of some songs and the intimate, gentle nature of others.

Arctic Monkeys

Panic! At The Disco

Wolf Alice

THE LIFE OF...

BIG SPECIAL

You know what’s easier than following around your fave pop stars, day in, day out, to see what they’re up to right that minute? Asking them. This month, we nab CALLUM MOLONEY from BIG SPECIAL. 7:00AM → Alarm. Snooze. Alarm. Snooze. Alarm... Panic that I only have 10 minutes left to get ready before my taxi to the train station turns up. Despite years of early starts working as a van driver, I’m still completely useless at mornings. Anything happening pre-10am is an affront to my human rights and shouldn’t be allowed by law. I jump in the taxi, and as he pulls away, I realise I haven’t brushed my teeth. Luckily, big man Sadiq has a piece of gum for me.

myself into an empty seat. I’m meeting Joe in London today for a photo shoot and some secret little meetings. It’s all been kicking off like mad in the run-up to our debut album, ‘POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES’. All this stuff is completely new to us both, so after a few coffees, the tiredness makes way to nervousness. I distract myself by making a gig poster on my iPad to promote our hometown gig in May and chuck it on social media.

8:30AM → After a healthy and dignified

11:00AM → Me and Joe rendezvous at

sprint through the busy station, I make my train by a gnat’s bollock and throw

20. DORK

the photo shoot location. He tells me he saw “the evil ginger guy from the TV show

Traitors” getting into a cab near Euston while talking to an old lady, and how he wanted to yell out to her, “DON’T TRUST HIM”. I agree that he shouldn’t be trusted, and I’m surprised he is still showing his face in public. Joe’s wife, Mini, has baked us some banana bread to get us through the day. The punkest of all fruits AND breads in one. It’s 10/10. We get in and meet the team who are all lovely and professional, but I can tell we are both a bit on edge still. Having a camera pointed at you, which isn’t a speedometer, is weird. I Irish up our coffees to try to loosen us both up, and quickly, we are back to our normal daft selves, prancing around and having our photo taken. It’s a hard graft, this rock’n’roll business, but someone’s got to do it. 1:00PM → We wander ‘round in search of

a pub lunch. For some reason every single place we go into isn’t serving food, so we settle for a £7.80 Guinness. We moan about the price of pints, discuss the north vs south divide and how the midlands has its own cultural identity and is always undeservedly left out of the conversation, and how we have more canals in Brum than Venice. Thus fulfilling the top three “Midlanders in the Big Smoke” stereotypes. Eventually, we realise we have to dip to our next meeting.

Northern Downpour

Panic! At the Disco truly takes me back to the chaotic nature of my adolescence; I was so obsessed with their lyricism and how flamboyant they were in their early career. I loved the burlesque imagery; it made me feel so grown up, like I was gaining an insight into what adults did on the weekends. ■ Phoebe Green’s EP ‘Ask Me Now’ is out 24th May.

getting a third round and rush to navigate the tubes. We talk about what a mental feat of engineering they are as we make our way deep underground, thus fulfilling the fourth “Midlander in the Big Smoke” stereotype. We’ve got the tram in Brum, but it’s a bit wank, and it stinks of piss. 7:30PM → Me and Joe part ways at Euston.

It’s emotional, as it always is.

8:30PM → Without thinking, I grab myself some salmon sushi to scran on the train. Probably the biggest prick move I have ever done, and I’d like to take this moment to apologise to all the passengers on carriage D. I also farted… Glad to get that off my conscience. I do my Spanish Duolingo and read some emails from our producer Mike and sound guy Stu about our upcoming tour in South America. I realise that I can’t really speak Spanish or “sound guy” at all… I think I’m fucked. I quietly eat my nigiri and try to ignore everyone’s laser beam eyes. 11:00PM → After delays in Swindon (bloody Swindon), I’m finally home to play fight with the dog and hear about my fiancé Billie’s day. My angels.

6:00PM → Realise we didn’t have time for

12:00AM → Try to get an early one because I’m up on the vans tomorrow. This new life of music is class, but it’s basically just living off credit cards and tick, so I still have to hold down a normal job. It’s like living two separate lives or having an alter ego. Just like Clark Kent and Superman, if Superman’s only power was transporting vans up and down the motorway, and Clark Kent was in a punk band. ■

7:00PM → Realise we’ve fucked it again by

Big Special’s debut album ‘POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN BLUES’ is out 10th May.

4:00PM → After more meetings in edgy little rooms with cool music playing (yep, proper comfy in all this cool stuff… Not out of our depth at all), we’re back to the pub for another £7.80 pint.

another round and move our trains back a little bit so we can chill.

KID KAPICHI THERE GOES THE NEIGHBOURHOOD THE NEW ALBUM OUT NOW

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THIS

MONTH

NEW MUSIC FINE

ART

→ Kneecap have announced their debut album. The Irish rap trio – Mo Chara, Móglaí Bap, and DJ Próvaí – will release ‘Fine Art’, produced by Toddla T, on 14th June. They’ve also shared new single, ‘Sick In The Head’. Talking about the track, the band explain: “When working on the album we had periods of great productivity but also periods with a total lack of anything creatively. Towards the end of recording we hit a proper wall and this is the result. Our mental health was being tested and we said f*ck it it we’re doomed to mental torture we want to have some money to get through it. We’ve had enough of it while being broke round Belfast.”

UP BOREDOM

WITH

→ Bored At My Grandmas House, aka Leeds-based Amber Strawbridge, has announced her debut album. ‘Show & Tell’ – which follows on from debut EP ‘Sometimes I Forget You’re Human Too’ – will be released on 7th June via CLUE Records / EMI North. It’ll be accompanied by a London headline date at MOTH Club on 16th October. “The main overall theme of this album is connection,” she explains. “Connection with myself, connection with the world and connection to the people around me who I love. This album is for me first and foremost and was a way for me to internally process. The origin of these tracks all stem from me wanting to understand these connections and process my emotions surrounding them.”

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DELLAXOZ Manchester teen DELLAXOZ is a genre-defying newcomer looking for connection and embracing being weird. Words: Martyn Young.

ellaXOZ is part of a number of artists who broke through in the peak creative days of early lockdown with brilliantly creative and instinctive lo-fi alt-pop music. A bedroom producer working on her own, 19-year-old Daniella Lubasu from Manchester started making waves first on TikTok and then with her debut EP, 2022’s ‘THE DELLA VARIANT’, and now she’s back with a brand new EP and an expanded creative vision as the Gen Z visionary expands her multigenre literate alt-pop into ever more creative lanes on her dynamic new EP, ‘DELLAIRIUM’.

music from different genres. I haven’t shown it so much as my discography is still small, and I’m still growing as an artist, but over time, I’ll show that my music is not about a genre and just a feeling of what sounds good.

“I’M QUITE RESERVED, BUT WITH EACH SONG I RELEASE, I LET PEOPLE INTO MY WORLD A BIT MORE”

How do you think you’ve developed as an artist since you’ve been doing this? I released my first song when I was 15. Naturally, as you get older, your stuff is more mature. The more songs that I write, I’m getting more honest and real with the things that I say. I’m quite reserved, but with each song I release, I let people into my world a bit more. If you look at this EP, ‘DELLAIRIUM’, DELLAXOZ and the last EP lyrically, it’s more open. Hey DellaXOZ, how are you feeling I still love the old stuff, but the more I do you strike that balance? with a new EP on the way and lots of write, the more it expands. I just want to keep it really human. I exciting pop stuff happening? hate it when people say this artist is I’m excited about it. I’ve been really What about production-wise? just this thing or that thing. People looking forward to releasing this music I’m working with new people. When aren’t just one thing, and you can’t just for a long time. I’m excited it’s finally I first started making music, I never put them in a box. I see my music as happening. worked with anyone. I still love the that. I don’t want to just be someone stuff, but working with other people, who writes sad songs or happy songs How would you characterise your I have fresh ideas coming in. I’m still journey as an artist so far? Things producing by myself and trying to find or angry songs. I want to do everything. That’s human. feel like they’re really ramping up out as a producer what is my proper now? sound with a lot of experimentation. The last song, ‘It’s All Good, Kid’, is I feel like it’s exciting because I’m building my audience and my small What’s your first creative impulse? Is a really amazing dream poppy song with a positive, uplifting message. little community. There are so many it words or production? Where did that come from? people when I go online, and I see their I think I’m an artist, and everything I wrote that song for me because I was videos saying, ‘I love DellaXOZ’ and else comes under that. I’m also a people are agreeing. It’s weird to see producer and a writer. All those things writing really pessimistic breakup songs, so I didn’t want it to be like, people in different countries listening make DellaXOZ. ‘This is the life, and you’re going to be to me. It’s slightly nerve-racking because I love all the stuff that I put When did you think this was going to sad all the time’. I wanted that to be visible on the EP and have that balance out, and I have to top it each time. be an actual thing? between sadness and happy stuff. I kind of didn’t think that at first. I What were your formative musical would just make music and put This is your first collaborative work, and cultural touchstones growing something out. In lockdown, I posted so who did you work with, and what up? on TikTok that one of my songs was did that bring out in your artistry? I grew up listening to everything. My coming out in a few days, and it had I worked with quite a few different parents are from Congo, and being in a little moment, and I was like, ‘Oh, people, like Mack Jamieson and Jessie the UK, I’d also be listening to lots of people actually like my stuff’. I’ve Munro. I think it sped the process other random stuff. My parents would always wanted this and now I can see up. When I make music by myself, always play Congolese music in the signs of it starting to happen. I’m crippled by perfectionism, and car, but they’d also listen to the radio. I’m thinking too much about trying When I was in primary school my dad What’s your vision for DellaXOZ the would play all the hits of Rihanna and artist, and how are you bringing it to to write really good lyrics because I don’t want to write something terrible. Beyonce. My mum loves old-school life, especially on your new EP? When I’m in the studio, I’m not really stuff, like 70s rock, and she showed me I want to give people something they thinking about that, and I’m in the people like ABBA. It’s a lot of different can relate to and something where things. they can say that song was there for me studio to come out with a song. I when I was going through something. I always have something I want to say, How have those early introductions want to soundtrack people’s lives, and but I’m not really aware until I’m in the studio. Whatever wants to come out to music shaped you now? write relatable stuff, and give that to It has shaped me in the way that I don’t people. will come out. listen to stuff because it’s a specific genre. I think if it sounds good, it What qualities do you think the most The EP has a brilliant mix of dance sounds good. I appreciate a lot of beats and a real emotional core. How vibrant pop music should have in

2024? I think with alt-pop music and current music, it shouldn’t sound like anything. When you look at a current playlist like ‘Our Generation’ and you listen to it, people wouldn’t have made that ten years ago. People have no formulas and are just experimenting. It’s less formulaic and people are expressing themselves more and having fun. That’s what I’m doing. When I worked with Mack Jamieson and made ‘Boring’, I was stressing a bit, and I was like, this needs to be weirder. That’s what I’m doing these days. I want to do something that hasn’t been done before More weirdness, please. Weirdness is underrated. So, what are your ambitions for the rest of the year? I’m planning to connect and reach more people. In lockdown, that was the height of my TikTok. My top song, the hype for that, started in lockdown, so I want to go back to that and connect with people because if I can do that, I’ll have music that people really like. I’m performing a lot more. I have my first headline show this month. I want to be discovered by new people. Where do you possibly see yourself in ten years’ time? I think most artists, if you ask them, will say they want to be Taylor Swift big, but it’s not that I want to be famous, but I just want to have a community and know that I have a group of people that are the DellaXOZ fans and come to shows is all I want. Do you have any interesting passions or obsessions our readers might be interested to find out about? I crochet, but I’m not sure how interesting that is? It’s very interesting. I write, but that’s kind of related to music. I just like doing regular things. I go to uni. That’s not that interesting. I do English literature and creative writing. What do you like to crochet? Have you made anything impressive? I’ve made two tops and jumpers, and I made half a Spider-Man gilet, but I gave up. ■

READDORK.COM 23.

HYPE

THIS

MONTH

NOT YOUR

“OUR HEADSPACE IS USUALLY JUST DO WHATEVER THE FUCK WE WANT!”

NEW MUSIC

ON NELLY

→ Nell Mescal is about to release her debut EP on 3rd May. “’Can I Miss it for a Minute?’ is a concept EP written about growing up, moving away, friendship breakups and trying to navigate between current emotions and negative memories,” Nell explains. “Each song tells a part of the same story with a beginning, middle and an end. Some songs written in the moment and some written in retrospect. It talks about my life and how I deal with experiences that have shaped me. Most importantly I think it’s about moving on from things that used to have a hold on me.”

EVERYONE’S A (LIP) CRITIC → Lip Critic have announced their debut album. ‘Hex Dealer’ will be released on 17th May via Partisan Records, and is teased by new single ‘Milky Max’. The news follows on from their recent drops ‘The Heart’ and ‘It’s The Magic’, with the NYC-based electronic punk band recently inking a record deal with Partisan Records.

PARIS TOUR

→ Paris Paloma has announced her first-ever UK headline tour. The run will kick off in Birmingham on 1st May, and includes further nights in Edinburgh, Manchester and Bristol before culminating in London on 7th May. The news follows on from her singles ‘My Mind (now)’, ‘drywall’, ‘labour’ and ‘as good a reason’, and coincides with a support tour alongside Maisie Peters.

24. DORK

Experimental, expressive and a whole load of fun, O. are one of the most exciting new prospects in an age. Words: Stephen Ackroyd. Photography: Holly Whitaker.

HYPE

f there’s one thing O. aren’t, it’s boring. Emerging as a beacon of raw, unbridled energy, Tash Keary (tub thumper extraordinaire) and Joe Henwood (sax symbol) - for it is they, etc - have already delivered some standout wow moments from the creative sanctuary of their Peckham studio. Their journey, a tapestry woven with the threads of spontaneous jams, electrifying performances, and an unyielding drive to push sonic boundaries, had humble beginnings as Tash started learning the drums as a 9-year-old looking to bash out some self-expression. The only musician in her family, it felt more a hobby than a calling until she joined grassroots music organisation Tomorrow’s Warriors in 2018, becoming part of their Female Frontline band. Now embedded in London’s jazz scene, it was only a matter of time before she crossed paths with Joe, building a reputation in the capital after a decade with afro-jazz outfit Nubiyan Twist. Meeting after being hired for the same gig in 2019, an immediate chemistry blossomed over the Covid lockdowns of 2020 as they formed a bubble and started to improvise. It was last year’s standout EP ‘Slice’ that saw them firmly burst through with a flourish, though. Probably one of the most exciting, experimental, and intense releases of 2023, it balanced on the edge of chaos in the best possible way. Now, finally, they’re ready to jump in both feet first. Fresh off the back of their first headline tour (“We’re pretty tired but

chuffed with how it’s all gone”), their debut album ‘WeirdOs’ is now firmly, officially on the books. “We’ve been writing and gigging the songs over the past year or so,” they explain, finally getting into the studio with Speedy Wunderground label boss and production mastermind Dan Carey last September. “Over two weeks, we tracked all 10 songs live, then added some double tracking, reamping, effects, and percussion.” Their approach to music is refreshingly straightforward yet deeply intuitive. “We write all of our music in our cosy little studio in Peckham,” they continue. “Our headspace is usually just do whatever the fuck we want! Sometimes, we’ve been listening to lots of a particular artist or genre, and we take inspiration from that, but most of the time, we just see what comes out.” Navigating the creative process with a blend of meticulous planning and serendipitous discovery, O.’s ethos remains steadfast: to embody the unrestricted essence of their live shows within the album’s grooves. “The main goal was to capture and recreate the energy of our live shows,” they explain. “Dan had seen us play lots and wanted to use his production skills to replace the energy you get from us playing through big PA systems. We also wanted that raw live sound of microphone bleed, low editing, and in-the-moment decision-making.” This ambition led to a recording process that was as much about capturing moments as it was about creating music. “Every time we recorded a song in the studio, we

“THE RECORD IS PRETTY AGGY AND DARK, BUT, LIKE... IN A HOPEFUL WAY”

Their sound is a mosaic of their eclectic tastes, a testament to their versatility and refusal to be pigeonholed. “There are loads of genres that we love, which come from jazz, which made it interesting to both of us. Neither of us studied it enough to ever think of ourselves as jazz musicians. It’s influenced how we play our instruments, but generally, we think O. is more driven by rock, hip hop, dub, Sheffield bassline, and dubstep.” In terms of debuts they admire, the list is a pretty decent marker for the levels they aspire to. From Caroline (“it’s so beautiful and original”) to Gorillaz (“for its genretreated it as a performance. Sometimes, we spanning heaviness”) and Kaytranada’s recorded two or three songs back-to-back to ‘99.9%’ (“so many bangers on one record”), recreate the chunks of tracks we’d play at a each one is a record packed with identity gig. One night, we played all 10 tracks back- and ambition. to-back in one long, sweaty session and “The album name is inspired by people picked the best ones. It was kinda cathartic, not looking for perfection, but for the songs coming up to us after shows and saying, ‘this that felt the most raw, the most like we were feels like music for weirdos’,” Tash explains in the announcement for the record. Add a few inches away from it all falling apart.” to the fact they were once told after a gig Themes of aggression and joy run deep they sound like “Jason Derulo on acid”, and in O.’s music, a duality that defines much of their work. “We’re both into channelling there’s a heady mix brewing away. feelings through our music. That’s usually O.’s journey is one of fearless exploration anger but a lot of joy, too.” and boundless creativity. With ‘WeirdOs’, “It means the record is pretty aggy and they invite listeners into a world where dark,” they continue, “but, like... in a hopeful genres blend, emotions run high, and music way. It’s like when you finally get to release all your anger, and then you’re like, shit, I feel knows no bounds. It’s a testament to their vision, a debut that promises to leave a so much better now.” lasting impact. But also, one where a little Their background in jazz, though foundational, is just one of many influences mystery is appreciated. “Thank you for not that inform their sound - a springboard into asking us about our name,” they finish. As if the vast expanse of their musical influences. we ever would. ■

C TURTLE Not just another London band, C TURTLE are capturing the essence of creativity and collaboration in their Really Very Good new album, ‘Expensive Thrills’.

Words: Stephen Ackroyd.

→ If you’re a newish band from

London, you probably have a story that visits a few key landmarks. You’ll be able to talk about how you cut your teeth playing gigs at The Windmill, building a buzz amongst those in the know with their ears to the ground. You’ll have a few decent support slots under your belt. Maybe you’ll have grabbed a spot at one of the capital’s standout festivals, say Mirrors or All Points East. There’s an established route to these things - a reliable journey from zero to potential buzzy heroes. But to suggest that C Turtle are in any way a band running through a template would be nonsense of the highest order.

Just because there’s a legitimate pathway to increased attention through London’s vibrant music scene doesn’t make everyone who treads it a simple facsimile of their peers. C Turtle began life as the solo project of photographer-slashvideographer-slash-musician Cole Flynn Quirke (“I’ve published a few books - right now, I’m really into Japanese photography”) before he encountered Mimiko McVeigh on a shoot. The two teamed up to experiment with home recordings, leading to a speedy realisation that Mimi should join what was clearly now a band as a vocalist and guitarist. Bassist Finlay Burrows signed up after he and Cole bonded over

their mutual love for Taiwanese film A Brighter Summer Day and bands like Sonic Youth - yes, they are both very cool - with drummer Jimmy Guvercin completing the gang. That’s very much the vibe they give off now, even spread across the city at different stages of their day. Settling in, Cole is enjoying a day off. Mimiko has basically just woken up, while Finlay is just back in from work. All more relaxed than Jimmy’s current setting - a Soho pub, “currently dodging advances from a drunk Scotsman”. They’re a band ready to go places in 2024. Freshly back from visiting his Dad in China, Cole is yet to break any resolutions, though “loopholes have been discovered”. Jimmy, meanwhile, has already shaved half his head (“Surmise from that what you will”) - but there’s more on the agenda than just that. Their upcoming album, ‘Expensive Thrills’, is a fuzzy, fantastical collection that should mark a serious step up for the

“WE WERE WAITING FOR THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITY” COLE

FLYNN

four-piece. “We had the songs for a while,” explains Cole, “but didn’t release them because we were waiting for the right opportunity to put them out in a way that we thought would do them justice.” Recorded “over 2-3 days in the summer”, it was a whirlwind production. “I honestly can’t remember,” Mimic admits. “It’s gone by so quickly.” Quick, perhaps, but at the same time, the culmination of a much longer journey. “It was a classic first album case of slowly building up this set of songs while doing shows over a period of about a year or so and then finally getting them down onto a record,” Finlay explains. “Having played them a lot before really helped in that regard.”

QUIRKE

Finding space for both scuzzy riffs and existential reflection, it’s an album that sounds both effortless and accomplished. As they look ahead, C Turtle’s ambitions stretch beyond the confines of London’s music scene. Joking about a potential name change (“Dickleback,” in case you were wondering), Cole dreams of recording with icons like Jim O’Rourke, Steve Albini, or Weasel Walter, while Mimiko aims to expand and conquer, bringing their music to new audiences across the globe. Jimmy’s wish for a “live collab album with Boris in Chislehurst Caves” might take a bit more doing, but it’s good to have ambitions, right? There’s certainly nothing template about that. ■

READDORK.COM 25.

HYPE

D SIIGHTS

→ Life is too short to not say how you feel.

Life is also too short to not listen to music Following tour dates with the likes of Dylan and Griff, hotly-tipped Dublinthat makes you feel and moves you. When Glasgow duo SIIGHTS are eyeing up a new EP. Words: Neive McCarthy. it comes to SIIGHTS, the two go hand in hand. Mia Fitz and Toni Etherson have mastered the art of honesty at all costs, all while making music that manages to be upbeat and fun but still completely stirring. They evoke those feelings that come with wearing their hearts on their sleeves in every beat and riff, ensuring their listeners feel it with them just as deeply. “As songwriters, I think the only songs we feel would be right coming from us are ones where we are honest and don’t shy away from whatever we’re going through,” muses Mia. “We write about life, the good and the bad, as honestly as we can. That’s the main thing we want to come across to listeners. We’re being honest, and we’re not shying away from it. Obviously, it does require you to be quite vulnerable and strip away your own insecurities or fears…” Toni jumps in: “You put yourself at the mercy of that for the greater purpose of what you’re doing. Music really is a purpose for us, and art and storytelling. We use our experiences as a catalyst to share and hopefully help people and soundtrack those moments for us. There’s a community feeling in there.” Their latest single, ‘Words’, is a perfect example of the ethos at the heart of a greater saying that this SIIGHTS. An ode to overthinkers and those THIS MONTH IN project – the song is exactly who find themselves spiralling with every ‘Through Thick what they’re going new romance, ‘Words’ is a brutally honest and Thin’ EP. through right now take on dating in a modern age, both fearful The successor – that just makes and glimmering with hope. A driving bass to 2023’s line adds a levity to the track’s anxieties, the us feel so amazing ‘Somewhere pair’s harmonies making everything feel that that we can share Between Lost & little bit more manageable – it’s alt-pop with something that Found’, the EP can help people.” a real, human core. is something Mia and Toni “We wanted to write something that bigger and more have built a real touched on some of those anxieties when ambitious for the you’re in that early stage of liking someone,” kinship with their listeners from MIA FITZ duo. The making Mia explains. “It’s battling between being of their previous vulnerable and taking that step forward and this foundation. releases taught Their previous putting yourself out there.” them a lot, but there was also a lot to be single, ‘Miss You’, builds a sonic world The guarded stance but willingness to unearthed through playing live. Spending that is sprightly and compelling; sparkling plunge in anyway will be familiar to a lot of the last year playing a number of support their listeners, as is part of SIIGHTS’ charms. guitars, synths that practically bound about slots, they discovered new scope and this space. Yet, in this world, they give STELLAR STARS Amongst their upbeat bangers, they weave potential within their realm – crucially, on home to a tale of getting lost in grief and tales that are very real and grounded in → Been Stellar have announced the release nostalgia that seems at odds with the bright tour with Dylan last spring. their own experiences, many of which are details for their debut album, ‘Scream From “We had to leave the studio and go instrumentation. For SIIGHTS, however, it universal. New York, NY’. Set to arrive on 14th June out on tour for two weeks,” recalls Toni. creates a dreamy harmony that allows you “We’ve all been there, and we wanted to via Dirty Hit, the news comes alongside a “Through that experience, we got to connect to feel your feelings to their fullest while put it out there that it’s completely okay first taster, ‘Passing Judgment’. “We were with people and perform live. I think then remembering that light at the end of the if you’re finding yourself in a talking stage finishing “Passing Judgment” in the midst bringing that back into the studio certainly tunnel. Their familiar narratives may echo or a failed talking stage,” continues Toni. of our first tour in the UK. Playing through helped us have a clearer vision.” close to home for some listeners, but they “That’s actually a lot of people’s story at the it a bit differently each show, we were SIIGHTS have a truly captivating moment. It’s an anthem for those people and always afford some kind of levity to pull learning to look at the song from different balance in their hands. Their ability to build them through. for anyone who has an anxious attachment angles. The recording feels live because of “It hopefully makes people feel less alone,” connection through hardship and light style or might notice themselves catching this process — there’s a chaotic feeling in whilst creating music that is innovative and the drums and bass that wouldn’t be there says Mia. “If we’re honest about something feelings for someone and wrestling with the magnetic is a rare but magical gift. In their if we hadn’t finished writing it live,” shares reality of having to overcome some fears. It’s that we’re going through or struggling lead vocalist Sam Slocum, “Lyrically I was pursuit of honesty and sincerity, SIIGHTS a little bit of encouragement in there that life with, it feels a very personal thing to be thinking about why we judge the world offer a refuge and solidarity to their listeners writing about, and it can be very vulnerable. is short, and either way, whatever happens around us, and how passing judgment on that is empowering and reassuring, and they But sometimes, they are the things that you will feel more empowered for taking someone or something is usually rooted in seem set on extending that power far and resonate with somebody else.” that step. Some of the messages we’ve had being unsure in oneself.” wide. ■ ‘Words’ and ‘Miss You’ form part of have been so validating from other people

“WE WRITE ABOUT LIFE, THE GOOD AND THE BAD”

26. DORK

NEW MUSIC

DEAD PONY HYPE

DEAD PONY make themselves impossible not to watch with their raging debut album, ‘Ignore This’.

Words: Ciaran Picker. Photo: Derek Bremner.

“WE KNEW WE DIDN’T HAVE TIME TO MESS AROUND” ANNA

SHIELDS

The danger with having such vivid imaginations, though, is that there are almost too many ideas to pick from. Luckily, the band’s close friendship means they are able to be totally honest with each other. “Most ideas I bring to the band Anna tells me are ‘fucking shite’, so I’ve given up now,” Blair grins. “No! That doesn’t happen!” Anna laughs, “I’m just not gonna sing a song I don’t like; it goes back to wanting the band to sound a certain way; we just want to put

out our best stuff.” The interaction between Blair and Anna here, but also between all four band members in their high-intensity and high-quality live shows, are stronger than ever after the rigid writing process that resulted in this first-class debut. Stuck in the Scottish Highlands for fourteen days straight, writing a song a day, it took everything the band had to keep plugging away at the project. What was a pretty draining experience, though, added resilience to both the band and the LP. “It’s sort of impossible to not play our songs huge and energetic, but towards the end we did have to make a conscious effort to keep the energy up,” Anna remembers. Being a band at the relative start of their career, though, the time pressure meant that they didn’t really have a choice. “Talking to other bands about it, I think we did it in a pretty unconventional way,” Anna remarks. “We just had to be super regimented because we knew we didn’t have time to mess around.” voice actors or anything, just Dead Pony.” → The modern-day music business is a fickle beast. The The band didn’t settle for the first recording, though, “Voice actors?” you may ask. Well, as the album artwork reliance on algorithms makes it too easy to overlook acts with Blair spending days mixing, layering, and re-recording might suggest – a selection of VHS tapes featuring images who have something to say and, importantly, an innovative guitar lines to create the exact sound to fit. In many ways, of the band and hiding easter eggs for the goodies within and ear-catching way of saying it. Enter Dead Pony, the not settling is Dead Pony’s key characteristic. The arena– there is something deeply cinematic about the album. snarling Glaswegian quartet who are coming for you. Yes, worthy songwriting ability that was evident on early Inspired by some of their favourite films, Dead Pony have you. crafted a record that gives the feeling of late-night channel- releases like ‘Sharp Tongues’ or ‘Sex Rich’ has morphed Working away for the past five years, including support into something sonically more venomous and lyrically more hopping, except in this case, there’s something worth slots for CHVRCHES, Nelly Furtado covers, and a main vulnerable. watching on every side. stage set at last year’s TRNSMT, they’ve had enough of The subject matter of ‘Ignore This’ holds glimmers Drawing inspiration from a zombie apocalypse, bodybeing ignored. And with debut album ‘Ignore This’, they of impish charm in songs like ‘X-Rated’, but also has snatching, or a troop of brainwashed super-soldiers, much deliver body blow after body blow, pulling no punches. introspection sprinkled throughout, with references to of this album is just massive. Anna’s soaring vocals go Combine the tongue-in-cheek energy of pop-punk, body image, questioning your personality, or feeling like a toe-to-toe with Blair’s deafening guitar lines. The rhythm breakdowns and structures of dark electronica, and the social pariah, all making an appearance. section – bassist Liam Adams and drummer Euan Lyons headbang-inducing melodies of nu-metal, and you get Anna opens up about this deep dive into more personal – blast their way through the LP, with throbbing basslines somewhere close to the hook-heavy hard rock feel of this topics: “In the past, I would write lyrics that I thought were and bombastic drumming driving the record forward and record. It’s always difficult to meld multiple cross-genre cool or that I could sing well. But with ‘Ignore This’, we put keeping the intensity up, especially through the insane influences and still keep an identifiable and individual three-song run of ‘IGNORE THIS’, ‘MK Nothing’, and ‘AWOL’. so much of ourselves into it; it’s emotional and personal sound, but Dead Pony have got it on their first try. because it’s about what’s inspired me and what’s got us The moments that reverberate around like a Part of this comes from the band’s total ownership of this far.” T-Rex stomping toward a truck in Jurassic Park are their music, with guitarist Blair Crichton not only lending It’s hard to think of any band out there right now that are complemented by shorter tracks that act as an ad break, his trademark riffs and licks to proceedings but also doing it like Dead Pony, especially on their first album. In producing the complete project. “We’re such control freaks,” letting you catch your breath before another gripping fight letting their true selves shine through, both personally and scene. Opening track ‘the antagonist is ignorance’, which vocalist Anna Shields reveals. “No one outside of Dead musically, they’ve created a blockbuster of a record which acts as a foreboding prologue for the ensuing onslaught, Pony understands how I want this band to sound, so it is will send their already box office live show completely off sees Blair take over main vocals for the first time in the last important that we can basically do what we want.” Blair five years, evidence that Dead Pony are constantly evolving the charts. Malevolent, magical, and more than a bit mad, agrees, adding, “We had the option to have collabs and Dead Pony have made themselves impossible to ignore. ■ and inventing. features, but a debut needs to be a standalone thing, no

READDORK.COM 27.

MASTER COVER STORY

28. DORK

AT “I WORK These days, JACK ANTONOFF might be better known for being the go-to producer for a galaxy of iconic superstars, but as he returns to BLEACHERS for their self-titled fourth album, he’s embracing the “really big band that still feels like a secret” .

BLEACHERS

spend all my time doing these different things, but I don’t spend any time asking why I do them,” says Jack Antonoff. In two weeks’ time, he’ll win Producer Of The Year for a recordbreaking third time at the 2024 Grammys, thanks to his work with Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift. Right now, though, he’s sitting in a Parisian hotel during Fashion Week to talk about Bleachers’ rousing self-titled fourth album. “I always mean to figure it out, but I never do,” he says. “I just do what compels me, I guess.” The trilogy of Bleachers albums that came before it – 2014’s ‘Strange Desire’, 2017’s ‘Gone Now’ and 2021’s ‘Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night’ – saw Jack “mourning the past and yelling at the future” as he tried to work through the death of his younger sister Sarah, who passed when he was 18. “They were all about grief and loss through the lens of time and how that changes.” This new record is very much about the present, though. Again, he’s not entirely sure what sparked the shift in perspective. Perhaps it was getting married to actor Margaret Qualley last year or the growing bond between the other members of Bleachers, but he didn’t run away from those feelings of being right here. “I was just happy to be writing,” he admits. “I don’t write unless I’m frantically called to it because it seems like an unfair thing to do to yourself otherwise,” says Jack, who believes songs are only worth pursuing if they’re about things you don’t know. ‘Bleachers’ was written about “distant voices within yourself, weird feelings, and trying to figure it all out. I just feel a huge sense of relief that this album actually happened,” he continues. “Being compelled to write is such a rare and powerful feeling.” “It’s pretty hard for albums not to be cathartic,” he adds. “They’re all mountains. You get through them, or you get over them.”

by ALI SHUTLER.

READDORK.COM 29.

COVER STORY

“I JUST DO WHAT COMPELS ME, I GUESS” JACK

ANTONOFF

Still, ‘Bleachers’ feels very different to other albums the band have released, says Jack. “It’s not a big pivot left or right. It’s just this huge sense of drilling deeper.” That idea of going further and further is “what I’ve been really interested in with all my work lately,” he adds, ordering a Diet Coke to go alongside the sparkling water and fruit plate. “Let’s rack this fucking bill up,” he grins. Across the album, there are huge, life-affirming choruses driven by sheer terror and quiet moments of defiant self-confidence. It’s sincere, hilarious and warm. The thunderous ‘Self Respect’ was inspired by a studio session with Florence And The Machine, who came up with the line “I’m so tired of having self-respect”. It’s very rare that a studio session with someone else will turn into a Bleachers song, but it sparked something within Jack, who spun it out to explore the very human desire everyone has to be liked. “Everyone is just trying to prove that they’re alive and they matter, and they’re here, myself included,” says Jack. “It’s a beautiful concept in theory, but right now, it seems like people are defining themselves by what they hate, and that’s really exhausting. Everyone is so eager to eat one another alive.” Elsewhere, ‘Ordinary Heaven’ features an inspirational spoken word section from skateboarder Rodney Mullen about carrying on “until the wheels fall off ” before the dreamy track explores the comforting bliss of falling in love. That romance continues across the gorgeous ‘Tiny Moves’ while ‘Alma Mater’ is a fuzzy celebration of friendship and the safety that it offers. It’s playfully weird and, like the band who created it, comfortable in its own skin. The drifting closing track ‘The Waiter’ deliberately offers a dot dot dot to the whole story. “It’s cocooning this idea of having seen too much, which is just how I feel sometimes,” says Jack, with the track offering bruised optimism. That bloodied hope can be felt across ‘Bleachers’. Previous records have desperately searched for optimism, but this one knows it there. “It feels like the sun is pouring in through the window to me,” says Jack. “This record feels like a brand new thing.” “That hope was inherent because I was writing so many love songs,” he continues with a bulk of ‘Bleachers’ written after he met Margaret. There’s still a darkness to the record, though. “That edge is always there. In fact, it gets more intense when you have something to lose,” he offers. “Falling in love also does something funny to people. Most of us create this mythological, emotional armour about why we’re so bad at relationships,” he offers, with people blaming everything from their parents and their upbringing to the amount they

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work. “It’s like that great Wolf Alice lyric [from ‘Don’t Delete The Kisses’], ‘Love, maybe it’s not meant for me’, which I think is something everyone can relate to,” he explains. When you realise you just haven’t found the person you were meant to be with yet, “you’re left with the realisation that maybe you’re not this incredibly broken thing. I found it really interesting to explore all the ways I beat the shit out of myself beforehand,” says Jack. In the studio, Bleachers were also able to reference their own back catalogue or moments that happen on stage, instead of channelling The Beatles, Bruce Springsteen or synth duo Suicide to spark a new idea. It adds to that sense of newness and is why the record is self-titled instead of using the working title ‘Tribute Living’. “For your first album, those references help you discover who you are, but bands just get better the longer they’re together, so long as you don’t hate each other,” offers Jack with a grin. “I’ve never been in a band for a fourth album before.” The lineup for Bleachers has mostly been the same since they released their first album a decade ago. That same group of people has also played on multiple albums from Taylor Swift, Lana Del Rey and St Vincent. “A lot of people think Bleachers is just me, but really, we’re a band who can play anyone under the table,” he says. “Realising we’d created enough of our own mythology meant we could really plant our flag in the ground. This feels like the most crystalised version of Bleachers,” said Jack. The last Steel Train record was also a self-titled one, but fans don’t need to be worried about the end of Bleachers. “I hope that isn’t the curse,” he says. “It was the best Steel Train record as well, but Bleachers is just deepening and deepening. There’s absolutely JACK more to come.” Because of his high-profile production work, “Bleachers has been able to become a really big band that still feels like a secret,” says Jack. “It’s a rare, special thing,” but he has no fear about the best Bleachers album potentially letting the cat out of the bag. “There is this insane aspiration in the music we make, and I’m no way shy about that. It’s not out of greed, though; it’s just because the bigger the shows get, the more it makes sense,” says Jack. “It feels like this inside joke. The more people that are in on it, the more powerful that is.” He’s stopped trying to predict what certain songs will mean to people. “The ones I think are real motherfuckers and will tear people apart are usually the ones that become party songs, while the fun ones end up depressing people.” It creates this “grand mystery” for Jack. Inside of trying to pick it apart, though, “I feel like it’s become my purpose to create gathering places for people. Touring is a lot like what I imagine religious people get out of church.” Thanks to the vulnerable, heartfelt lyrics and the bombastic rock’n’roll, the audience has also “always been really protective of Bleachers,” says Jack. No matter how big the band gets, “I don’t think that will ever go away,” he offers, refusing to use the word fan. “I’ve always been right there with them.”

Jack started writing for Bleachers while on the road with pop trio fun., who were enjoying the success of 2011’s global hit ‘We Are Young’. “Everything was good, and I was busy, but I kept having these strange desires to write music that took me down this grimy path and away from the flowers and light. It was the most inopportune time as well, but I was compelled to write,” explains Jack, who’s never been one to shy away from that inspiration. There were no ambitions for the project beyond selfexpression, but once ‘Strange Desire’ was finished, Jack felt intent on “hand delivering it to the world.” Since then, every Bleachers album has come with the same energy. “We’re going to tour hard on this record,” promises Jack.

“RIGHT NOW, IT SEEMS LIKE PEOPLE ARE DEFINING THEMSELVES BY WHAT THEY HATE, AND THAT’S REALLY EXHAUSTING”

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ANTONOFF

“I’ve always played with a bit of a last night on Earth mentality. That’s just how I grew up playing,” he continues, coming up alongside the punk scene in New Jersey. “I’m really jealous of people who perform sitting at a piano because I look like I’ve run every marathon by the time a Bleachers gig is over. We don’t do encores because we can’t. We play until there’s nothing left.” Jack goes on to say the desire to play live helps him stay in touch with himself. “I’ve always needed to be in the studio, and I’ve always needed to be on tour. It’s just reached this grand scale now.” That grand scale has seen Jack work on some of this decade’s biggest albums, including Lorde’s ‘Melodrama’, Taylor’s ‘1989’, St. Vincent’s ‘Masseduction’, Florence And The Machine’s ‘Dance Fever’, The 1975’s ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’ and Lana Del Rey’s ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’. Despite the Grammys, the Number 1s, and the amount of people who truly adore those albums, a vocal minority routinely accuse Jack of creating bland pop music. “The idea that any of those records sound similar is absurd,” he says, shrugging off the criticism with a grin. “Fuck it.” “You never want to do the same thing twice,” he continues. “You always want to do things that fulfil you

BLEACHERS

“IT FEELS LIKE THIS INSIDE JOKE. THE MORE PEOPLE THAT ARE IN ON IT, THE MORE POWERFUL THAT IS” JACK

ANTONOFF

and excite you, and that’s always something new. Exploring the unknown is when you can create something really explosive.” As Bleachers, he’s also hopped on a remix of Taylor’s ‘AntiHero’ and guested with Lana on her song ‘Margaret’. “I used to be more anxious about being misunderstood. I wanted to keep Bleachers and the records I produced as separate things, but that was never really the truth. There’s always been so much crossover in the studio, and my life is really a community,” he explains. “It was exhausting pretending otherwise.” The “powerful” Bleachers audience helped him make peace with that. “I’ve laid down that armour now,” he says. “Sometimes I get this fire from people misunderstanding what I do, though.” He also creates records with the trust that they’ll find their audience. When they were released, Lorde’s ‘Solar Power’, Taylor’s ‘Reputation’ and Lana’s ‘Chemtrails Over The Country Club’ were all dragged through the mud but have become celebrated in recent months. “You can’t make music for anyone. You make it because you feel it,” says Jack. “You can’t be afraid to bother your audience either.” Sometimes he makes music knowing fans will love it; sometimes, he makes tracks that he knows will piss them off. “All that matters is giving people the truest expression of yourself.” That’s what connects. “Bleachers’ music is just very specific, so when people connect to it, they just connect all the way,” he says of the intense bond between artist and audience. “We don’t leave a tonne of space for the casual listener. In fact, I think all the music I make is like that.” As frustrating as it can be at times (“I have a phone, and I’m not above anything”), the opinions of others “drift away” whenever Jack is in the studio or on the road. “That’s probably why I spend so much time there,” he says. “You’re constantly in argument with yourself and trying to understand what you feel. You’re in deep conversation with your audience and with unknown parts of yourself.” There’s not much space for social media discourse. When Bleachers first started out, Jack wasn’t as sure of himself and had to work to not let the opinions of others

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“WHEN YOU’RE BUILDING SOMETHING THAT COMES FROM THE SOUL, YOU REALLY DON’T NEED THE OPINION OF SOME FUCKING GUY” JACK

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ANTONOFF

influence him. “When you’re building something that comes from the soul, you really don’t need the opinion of some fucking guy,” he says. “Artists, and people in general, are fragile.” “You just have to make sure you let the right people in,” he continues, refusing to shy away from the world. “I’ve worked really hard my whole life to make my process, whether it’s Bleachers or collaborations, really protected,” says Jack. When he was making ‘A&W’, one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved songs to be released last year, it was just him, Lana and sound engineer Laura Sisk in the room. “I don’t think we played it for anyone else, and if we had, I bet we would have got some weird reactions,” he says of the seven-minute epic. “I have a short list of people I play things to because I know their only motivation is what the music makes them feel.” Jack doesn’t have a hitlist of dream collabs either. “Being able to work with someone is so much more than just adoring their work,” he explains. “It’s about where they want to go, me

understanding that, and then us being able to do something together.” There is an obsession with finding out how things are made, says Jack. “People see my name on all these records that have done well, and they want to know what the secret is,” he continues. The real secret is that he doesn’t know. “The truth about music is that at any time, what you make could either make all the money or no money. Stuff connects, or it doesn’t,” he says. “I’ve been really inspired lately, and that’s been great. If you locked me in a room, I don’t know if I could come out with anything good though,” he continues, adding that the creation of ‘Bleachers’ felt like a “fever dream”. Getting in a room and making music with his friends makes Jack feel “alive”, and even when he’s by himself writing for Bleachers, he’s thinking about playing live and having that conversation with his audience in real time. “Music is inherently built on community,” he says. “The fact I can have that means a lot to me.” It’s an outlook inspired by Jack’s

BLEACHERS

“PEOPLE SEE MY NAME ON ALL THESE RECORDS THAT HAVE DONE WELL, AND THEY WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE SECRET IS” JACK

ANTONOFF

teenage years, growing up as part of New Jersey’s vibrant DIY punk scene, which eventually transformed into the emo explosion of the early noughties. “It was such a special time. It’s looked back on so fondly now, but there was so much shame about being an emo band back then,” he says. “Now it’s bigger than ever, and it’s still so influential. Artists are mining all these bits from it, sometimes unknowingly. I think people miss the community of it because it was the last real scene before the internet blew things up. You couldn’t recreate that now,” he says, before offering to spend the next 45 minutes talking about that scene rather than his own music. Jack approaches putting on tours with the same community-led spirit. “Whenever we put a tour on sale, myself and the people I work with have to spend hundreds of hours stopping the industry exploiting fans.” As a rule, Bleachers don’t do VIP tickets, paid meet and greets, or commemorative tickets, but that doesn’t stop venues from trying to offer them. “It’s insane, embarrassing and gross capitalism at its worst, and that’s before we get to scalpers and [dynamic pricing]. It feels like everything has become about squeezing as much money as possible out of kids, which is really sad. Live music should be aspirational. It should be about people coming together and being equals,” he says. He also donates a portion of each ticket sold to The Ally Coalition and their work supporting LGBTQ+ Youth. “I’m always focused on my audience, but as my music starts to reach more people, it’s an interesting thing to ingest because there’s such a purity to what I’m doing,” Jack offers. “Some people need to be seen by strangers. Some people need to be completely alone. For me, I need to have this combination of incredible solitude and this little community around me.” “Ultimately, the process is no different than when I was a kid,” says Jack. “Sure, the studio is nicer, the hotel is nicer, and I get a better seat on the plane, but the writing has always come from a deep part of your soul.” “It’s definitely funny that the landscape of my world now, which does seem so massive at times, is bizarrely similar to how I was making music as a teenager. It’s something I’m really happy about,” he offers, but he knows it’s not exactly the same, playfully shutting down our suggestion that the tight-knit musical collective made up of his friends and global superstars is actually the world’s biggest DIY punk community. “That will get you killed, saying that,” he smirks. “If you go into a room with some instruments and make something you love, there’s a chance other people will love it too.” ■ Bleachers’ selftitled album is out now. READDORK.COM 35.

FLETCHER combines her trademark wit and unflinching honesty for a second album that’s both relatable and addictive. by ALI SHUTLER.

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FLETCHER

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“I

’ve always wanted my art to be a true embodiment of the human experience, which is so brutally glorious,” says Fletcher. True to form, her swaggering second album came about following a period of intense soulsearching. After being forced to cancel a string of headline shows due to health issues, she found herself asking who she was without the applause and the acclaim that had come with the release of her long-awaited debut album ‘Girl Of Your Dreams’. As much as it sucked at the time, Fletcher now views that forced pause as a gift. “I was able to get back in touch with why I make music and why it moves me,” she says. “Songwriting has always been a tool of selfreflection,” explains Fletcher, who’s made a name for herself with a unique blend of deep, reflective, heart-on-the-sleeve lyrics and bold, outlandish pop. “I’ve been looking for ways out of my pain. I’ve been looking for ways to deal with my mental health and heartbreak. I’ve looked for ways to feel good, to love myself and experience joy.” People have turned to her music for the same reason. At different points in her career, Fletcher has turned to girls, tequila, nature, touring and her relationship with her fans to provide some sort of

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understanding. “I guess I’ve been searching for an antidote my whole life,” she says before leaning back. “Turns out love is the ultimate antidote.” It might sound like the sort of journey that results in a polished album with a neat beginning, middle and happy end, but that’s never been Fletcher’s style. “There was a period in my life where I wanted to tie the bow on top of the pretty, perfect package, but that’s just not me,” she explains. “I am this beautiful, beautiful mess of creation, chaos, love, and pain. That is the human experience, and if anybody tried to tell you otherwise… they’re lying to you,” Fletcher whispers. Rather than chasing a carefully planned vision, ‘In Search Of The Antidote’, just sort of happened, according to Fletcher. “It feels like it wrote itself because I was going through it all at the time.” Even closing track slash album destination ‘Antidote’ stumbled into Fletcher’s lap. “To be honest, ‘Antidote’ came about because some girl said to me, ‘I might just be the antidote to your chaos’.” Fletcher’s instant reaction? “That’s a fucking crazy lyric. It’s where this whole world was born from.” Fletcher is in London for a pre-emptive celebration of ‘Love Is The Antidote’, with the rest of her day dedicated to meeting fans and signing records. “I’m feeling antsy. I’m feeling nervous. There’s always this level of anticipation before a record comes out,” she admits. “But ultimately,

I’m excited for people to hear it.” Fletcher says this record “feels like it’s from a more evolved space” than ‘Girl Of Your Dreams’ and breakout EP ‘The (S)EX Tapes’. “I’m always shifting and evolving, but this feels like the most healed I’ve ever been,” she says. Sure, fans constantly joke that Fletcher has “never healed a day in her life” because of the carnage that fuels her lyrics “but that crazy shit is the healing,” argues Fletcher. “I can be the most healed and the most insane.” Much of that healing comes from Fletcher embracing who she is and what she’s capable of, with ‘In Search Of The Antidote’ as unapologetic as they come. Boisterous opening track ‘Maybe I Am’ sees her asking, “What if I believed all the things the internet has said about me?” before taking listeners on an emotional ride through selfdoubt and uncertainty. It ends with her “finding my own truth through all that noise”, while ‘Doing Better’ is the follow-up to ‘Girl Of My Dreams’ track ‘Better Version’. “That song ended with me singing, ‘And now some other person’s going to get the better version of me’, so I was forced to ask what the better version of me is doing, and is it actually better?” explains Fletcher, with the track also dealing with the aftermath of viral hit ‘Becky’s So Hot’. Written about accidentally liking a photo of an ex’s new girlfriend on Instagram, it sparked conversations about what should be on the table for songwriters

FLETCHER

and what should be kept private. ‘Doing Better’ quickly points out that “your girlfriend never thanked me, for making her go viral” with a shit-eating grin, before referencing Fletcher’s onstage appearance with Miley Cyrus at her televised New Year’s Eve bash. “There was so much going on at that time, but ‘Better Now’ is a song about poking fun at myself for being so cocky,” says Fletcher, who undercuts all that bravado with the line, “Smiling on the outside, dying on the inside”. “I put so much effort into creating this facade of not giving a fuck, but it’s just not true. I’m a crybaby bitch,” says Fletcher. Elsewhere, ‘Lead Me On’ tackles familiar, bittersweet heartache, but ‘Eras Of Us’ finds closure for a past relationship, while ‘Pretending’ is a giddy anthem for falling head-over-heels in love. ‘In Search Of The Antidote’ really is an album that embraces the carnage at every turn. “It feels like a declaration of what Fletcher is,” she grins. “I think what I love so much about this record is that there really is a mix of everything. Love may be the ultimate antidote, but this record explores love in all its infinite manifestations,” says Fletcher, looking at the l-word through joy, pain, rage and jealousy. “I let any version of me that had something to say have the mic,” she continues. “If you give a voice to the icky, sticky, hard shit in your life, that’s what heals.”

Fletcher’s always been drawn to music. “It’s been my way of processing emotion, but it’s also been an avenue of exploration,” she explains, with songwriting helping her understand things like her sexuality. “Music just pulls this deeper truth out of me that I can’t access in conversations with friends or in therapy. There’s something about being able to put a pretty melody to potentially unhinged thoughts that sugarcoats it.” Despite how personal it is, though, Fletcher’s music has constantly resonated with fans on a deeper level that goes beyond impressive streaming stats. “I have such gratitude for that,” she says. “To me, that is success.” Her live shows have become “the ultimate celebration of being able to speak your

truth.” “There’s so much beauty in that, and I love that I’m able to curate these environments where people can show up as themselves and be so passionate, loud and outspoken,” she states. It wasn’t always the goal, though. “When I first started out, I was driven by awards and achieving things. It’s beautiful to have ambition, but I soon realised that what I wanted was to feel connected. I wanted to help other people feel FLETCHER the full range of the human experience, whether that’s rage, pain, anger, lust, desire or elation,” offers Fletcher. “Maybe that’s why my music is connecting, because we all have such a desire to feel it all.” ■ Fletcher’s album ‘In Search Of The Antidote’ is out 22nd March.

“I put so much effort into creating this facade of not giving a fuck, but it’s just not true. I’m a crybaby bitch”

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E L E CTRIC

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CONAN GRAY is embracing vibrant new horizons as he meets his prime pop potential with ‘Found Heaven’. by NEIVE MCCARTHY.

CONAN GRAY

ven when you think you’ve seen and felt it all, something new is always around the corner. Life is full of surprises, good and bad, and there comes a point where you have to embrace that - which is what Conan Gray is learning to do. Delivering his unexpectedly poptastic third album ‘Found Heaven’, Conan returns victorious and growing with each track. A world away from its predecessors, ‘Found Heaven’ is a surprise, for sure. “I think it’s hilarious,” Conan smiles. “I made the album with the intention of wanting to surprise people and giving people something they weren’t expecting. Now that it’s here, I’m like, ‘What if it’s not what they’re expecting?’ I very much did what I was hoping.” For those expecting more of the melancholic worlds of ‘Kid Krow’ and ‘Superache’, ‘Found Heaven’ might be a bit of a shock to the system. It’s a vibrant, technicolour jaunt through synth-heavy havens and dancefloor tears. Still, some things never change – for Conan, the nerves around the album’s release remain even four years on from his first. As he has always done, Conan has crafted an album cut from his very core – the inner workings of his mind and feelings are lit by the disco ball at the album’s centre. It joins a parade of albums documenting his life and career, each new experience cast under that glow. “It’s really weird because I have time capsules of when I was 17, and also now at 25 – it’s a whole life recorded in music,” muses Conan. “Music is such a powerful descriptor that when I hear songs that I recorded when I was 17, it brings tears to my eyes because I can hear him; I can hear that version of me. This album is a little bit funny because it was the best time of my life and also the worst time of my life. Subconsciously, you can hear the songs I wrote at the worst time and the songs I wrote when I was really fucking happy.” Born from a time that arguably saw the most change in Conan’s life so far, ‘Found Heaven’ is built on a narrative of new emotions – falling in love, having your heart crushed, navigating life in your twenties. Each scenario brought something fresh, something unrecognisable, and the result of those experiences were transformative for Conan. When it came to actually making the album, the experience in itself felt new in different ways, too. Such an unfamiliar time in his life bled into the sound, transforming Conan’s artistry into something new and fresh, too. “I never really thought I would make three albums. I never thought I would make one album, to be completely frank,” reflects Conan. “When I was faced with making it, there’s just no blueprint. With your debut album, you kind of know what you’re supposed to do – you’re establishing yourself, saying hello. Your second album continues with that. With your third album, there’s no blueprint of what to do. I knew that, and since I had the opportunity to make something, I thought I’d just make something different. “The album ended up being this capsule and very much being a concept album. It’s very unanimous. I don’t know what my next music will sound like; I know it won’t sound like my old music. It’s this beautiful bubble of this time in my life. I really wanted to surprise myself and make myself laugh – laugh at everything that happened and smile at it and not feel like the music has to

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sound miserable just because it was. Now, when I look back at it, it’s all hilarious to me.” With the tools to reconcile this new version of himself and find some beauty amongst the pain, ‘Found Heaven’ proved to be a deeply invigorating experience. It became a source of light in the dark – a way to spin these things to alleviate the heaviness of those feelings and became an act of excavation. “Writing music is my main way of processing all emotions,” explains Conan. “By the time a song comes out, I’ve usually healed past what I’m talking about. It was a huge healing thing, and I’ve never felt stranger in my life than when I was making this album. I was in this headspace that was so different than I’d ever felt before, and I was experiencing all these new emotions for the very first time. I was falling in love, then I was heartbroken all of a sudden – there were all of these crazy mixtures of things. Writing has helped me feel past it but brings up other aspects all the time. It’s weird because you write about these things, you feel better, and then you sing the song six months later, and you’re like, ‘Wait, ouch, that kind of still hurts’. It’s a weird thing.” That pain is laid out on these tracks but made more palatable and lighter by the sheer scope of the sonics – it’s like nothing Conan has done before, dazzling, larger-than-life iterations of pop that see Conan take on a new role. He acts as a kind of ringleader, masterfully commanding the stage and handling his emotions with care until the raw pain eases into a dull ache. Of course, such a change of pace took considerable work for Conan to achieve. “It was hard because I had to completely deconstruct all the things that I’ve defined myself as,” he considers. “I think that’s kind of your twenties in general. It’s taking all the things you think you are and challenging them and being like, is this really who I am, or is this just who I told myself I am? And so, with the album, every time I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t do that, I don’t make this kind of music’, I was like, but why? I had to see. This whole album is me thinking, why don’t I do this? Let’s think about that. It was all about trying something different. It wasn’t this wild, throwing myself to the wind, who gives a fuck. I really give a fuck – let’s really think about why I am the way I am.” In diligently getting to the root of who he was and what he might yet be, Conan managed to capture a freedom in the sounds of the album.

In true Conan Gray style, there’s no shortage of lyrics that make you feel like someone has just taken a hammer to your heart. Before, he might have seemed to be languishing in those moments, but here, it feels like he is set free just by uttering those feelings that have festered. “It’s strange because this is the first time that I’ve made an album and been really torn about what I should say because when you’re going through a breakup, there’s so many things that you don’t say. Now, I’ve said that because they’re on the album.” “You can never really get closure from a person,” says Conan. “There’s only so much closure someone can give you – you have to give yourself the closure; that’s the only way at the end of the day. That’s the thing about getting over things. You never get over something. You just become a different person. Everything that you do forever changes you, and I feel forever changed.” ‘Killing Me’ is filled with hurt, pleading to be set free from this situation, but in setting those anguished words to this neon-lit, synthladen soundscape, he seems to almost unchain himself. He says his piece and does so in a way that you can’t help but dance to, despite everything that has led to it. With a permanent shift going on internally, his artistry needed to reflect that. “I wanted to make the sound so different because I felt really different. I was in a completely foreign part of my life that I, one, never expected myself to be in, and two, didn’t know how to handle at all. There were all these feelings I had never felt before, and I needed to bottle them into something I could see so I could understand it. I needed to make an album that represented how this feels so that I can pick apart why I feel this way.” A space to share his narrative, not mince his words, and find genuine joy in channelling these things proved invaluable for Conan. In a lot of ways, it’s a reclamation of power. Yes, someone might have caused hurt and pain, but in allowing himself the space to accept and then understand that there is some victory to be found – even if it just lies in finding some peace. ‘Found Heaven’ doesn’t shy away from those feelings in the slightest, no matter what form: ‘Winner’ is a declaration of hurt in every note, ‘Miss You’ is an upfront echoing of regret. There is no dilution, and there is something truly empowering to be found in that.

“I MADE THE ALBUM WITH THE INTENTION OF WANTING TO SURPRISE PEOPLE” CONAN

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GRAY

CONAN GRAY

“I REALLY WANTED TO SURPRISE MYSELF AND MAKE MYSELF LAUGH” CONAN

GRAY

“It’s definitely about embracing those emotions,” Conan confirms. “Instead of looking at those emotions and being scared of them, it’s about being like, what a great thing that I got to experience that. I got my heart totally wrecked when I was making this album, and instead of being like, ‘Fuck you, this fucking sucks’, I’m so happy that I got to experience that. For so many years of my life, I hid in my bedroom, I didn’t do anything, I never put myself out there, and I never dated anyone. Then something happened to me, and I thought, wow, it’s time to stop wasting my life. I’ve got to experience these things; I’ve got to try and fail and make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen in any of these situations is that things don’t go the way you want. Just because something doesn’t go the way you want doesn’t mean that it’s not exactly what was supposed to happen. This whole album was a challenge of shut the fuck up, get over yourself, try some things.” That attitude lent itself to creating the sonic world for ‘Found Heaven’ – one that expanded outwards, played with range and saw Conan working with a range of big-name producers to inject a freshness to match his new outlook. Max Martin, Greg Kurstin and Shawn Everett all made their mark on the album, ensuring those new experiences were documented musically. “It was a very, very interesting experience because it was all very new to me. I knew I wanted to work with a bunch of different people to just push myself. I’m someone who gets so stuck in comfort zones. This whole album was about pushing myself out of my comfort zone, so I knew I wanted to work with different people and see what would happen. It was a huge learning experience, and I wouldn’t trade it for anything. It was so, so cool to see what I would do. It felt like conducting an orchestra. Every person I

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“I HAD TO COMPLETELY DECONSTRUCT ALL THE THINGS THAT I’VE DEFINED MYSELF AS” CONAN

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GRAY

worked on the album with had a very different skill – putting them all together to try to make an album that was cohesive was a really fun challenge.” In working with such a variety of talented producers, Conan was able to unlock sides of himself that he might not have otherwise. Across the album, his vocals bend, pushed to the limits of his range and morphing him into a different kind of talent. Conan commands each track, with the energetic, electric instrumentals a weapon he wields expertly. It’s an unlocking of true pop potential, spilling out masterfully. “I’d always really wondered what would happen if I made an album like this,” recalls Conan. “I think younger Conan would find it all really entertaining. A true pop album like this and an album that really pushes me to do something larger than myself, has always been a question I’ve had. I didn’t know what that would look like – I just had to try it and see what would happen.” In letting go of those ideas that might have held him back and allowing himself to become encompassed in the possibilities of what might happen, Conan has poured more of himself into the album than ever before. ‘Kid Krow’ and ‘Superache’ were innately personal and from the heart, but here it feels like Conan has truly relinquished himself to this project. Existing in the world of ‘Found Heaven’ has seemingly been an immersive, enveloping experience. “It was a pretty tumultuous time of my life, and I’m excited that the period of making the album is over and I just get to live it. I’m excited to get to play the songs for people and not have them festering in my bones anymore. There’s a lot of anticipation when you’re waiting for an album to come out. As long as these songs are only being heard by me, then I’m still dealing with the emotions. Once they’re out, they get to be redefined. They take on new meanings that don’t have anything to do with the specific people I wrote them about; it’s kind of a relief.” There’s no doubt, however, that Conan’s interest in how they will be redefined will not wane. With an intimately close relationship with the fans who have followed his career from the very beginning, he has, in fact, already had the opportunity to see some of those reimaginings – at a special listening party for some of his oldest supporters, he ensured they were some of the very first to hear ‘Found Heaven’. “It was so special,” Conan says. “I was really emotional during it because a lot of these people are people that watched me grow up, but I don’t think they realised that I also watched them grow up. I’ve known some of these people since I was in high school, and they were in high school. It’s a crazy thing. I knew that the first people I wanted to play the music to were the people who actually listened to the music. We had a lot of fun, drank hot chocolate and coffee in a cabin in the woods, and listened to the songs. They’re going to be

CONAN GRAY

“THIS WHOLE ALBUM WAS A CHALLENGE OF SHUT THE FUCK UP, GET OVER YOURSELF, TRY SOME THINGS” CONAN

GRAY

brutally honest with me, and it was really fun to see their experiences. I know them really well, and they’ve been a fixture of my life since I was 17 or 18, so it was really special.” From his early days of releasing originals on YouTube, to ‘Crush Culture’ and now to tracks on the album like ‘Alley Rose’, Conan has offered a vulnerability and an openness in his music that has resonated with his fanbase. The journey he has been on throughout the making of ‘Found Heaven’ will be familiar to many of them. Conan acknowledges how re-examining who you are, having your heart crushed, picking yourself up and dancing again are all hallmarks of your twenties. In as much the way Conan has a time capsule for each phase of his life, his listeners too, have these moments attached to his songs, immortalised in their own way. “I just write about my life, and I consider myself a pretty fucking normal person – I don’t think I’m some fucking miracle,” laughs Conan. “I know that the things that I go through are things that other people go through. I started writing songs because I’ve always felt generally pretty alone and lonely. As I’ve written more and more songs, I’m starting to realise that I’m really not alone at all. Everything I’ve ever been through, even if it’s extremely niche, there are millions of people who have been through the exact same thing. There’s been a lot of comfort in finding out that I’m just very much not special at all. I love that about writing songs. This album is another part of that. It sounds different, and it looks different, but I know at the end of the day, they’re just emotions that everyone has felt.” Ultimately, that’s the magic of ‘Found Heaven’ – and perhaps the found heaven itself. There are going to be difficult, dark times, and there are going to be moments of despair, but there is a real beauty in feeling those things so deeply and knowing that you are not the only person to have experienced these things. There’s something heavenly in reaching that point, and that’s what Conan stumbles upon here. It might be gut-wrenching at times, but his new music feels celebratory; there are still things to be experienced and felt, and they have the potential to change you again and again. ‘Found Heaven’ is a surprising turn, but the way the last few years have changed Conan Gray leaves him at his most powerful – brave, bright and better equipped to navigate whatever his next steps might look like. ■ Conan Gray’s album ‘Found Heaven’ is out 5th April. READDORK.COM 45.

FOR YOUR

CONSIDERATION Following a breakup, EMPRESS OF’s new album sees her living her best life and having a blast.

by ABIGAIL FIRTH.

o make her fourth album, Empress Of escaped to Miami. After having her heart broken by a director, getting out of Los Angeles – where she’s been based for most of her career – was likely necessary. What came out of the endeavour is Empress Of’s glossiest, sexiest, campiest album yet. Titled ‘For Your Consideration’ after the Oscars campaign her ex was running when they split, it’s an unapologetic single girls album, and ironically, her most collaborative. By contrast, her relationship status has changed again since writing the record, so she isn’t bitter about having to promote an album about severe singledom on Valentine’s Day when we speak from her hotel room in Shoreditch. A little jet lagged and still coming down from the adrenaline rush of playing her first show back in months in London the night before, Empress Of (Lorely Rodriguez to her mates) is just about awake for our chat. “The first song was written about falling in love with a director,” she explains. “[About] him kind of love bombing me. It was my first time getting love bombed; it was like a whiplash. Then, the next day, he was announcing his ‘For Your Consideration’, and I wrote the song and sent it to him. It just kind of went from there, wanting to try to figure myself out through this process.” Rejecting the introspection often explored in her previous albums, ‘For Your Consideration’ starts quiet and heartbroken, swiftly moving into

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EMPRESS OF

“I RENTED A CONVERTIBLE, I WAS AT STRIP CLUBS; THERE’S SOMETHING SPECIAL ABOUT MUSIC IN MIAMI” EMPRESS

something more daring. Writing while rebounding and swiping on dating apps for the first time, the album marks a narrative departure from her last full-length, ‘I’m Your Empress Of’. That too centred around themes of loneliness and disconnection, but this time, she’s revelling in it. “I’m not moving on, as the phrase, but like, just being in that moment. I think of so many songs on the record, like ‘Baby Boy’, the lyrics are ‘You’re not my love for life, you’re my love for now’, and it’s this kind of playful thing. There are so many moments, like ‘Preciosa’, I’m saying in Spanish, ‘I want to be your thing, I want to be precious’. It’s this fleeting feeling. It’s hot. It’s sexy. I’m trying to feel sexy in this uncertainty. To aid that feeling, Lorely – for the first time since her debut releases – flips between singing in English and Spanish throughout the album. Working with future reggaeton producer Nick Léon

and flying out to his base in Miami to do so, the glamour of ‘For Your Consideration’ is rooted in Lorely living it up in the Floridian city. “I DM’d him asking if I can I come out to Miami, and he was like, yeah, for sure. I rented a convertible, I was at strip clubs, I saw him DJ until four in the morning, I was on the beach. I don’t know, there’s something special about music in Miami, and I think that’s why a lot of artists go and work there, like J. Lo and Rosalia. It’s fabulous.” Singing in Spanish for the saucier portions of the lyrics works perfectly; think of the way Rosalia makes the track ‘HENTAI’ sound like a heartfelt ballad; that’s sort of the vibe here. “I was working with a close friend, Jarina DeMarco, who co-wrote some songs with me in Spanish, I just wanted to explore that side of myself, and the lyrics are so flirtatious. There’s one line that I say in Spanish that I think is the best line

on this album; when I wrote it, I was like, that’s a bar. Oh my God. It says, ‘tengo la boca abierta pero no estoy cantando’, which is ‘my mouth is open, but I’m not singing’. I was like, you know, oral or whatever, but as a singer, the way I sing it in Spanish, it’s so confident, it’s so swaggy, it just feels very fluid.” Also on the album are Rina Sawayama - whom Lorely supported on tour at the end of 2023 - on the dreamy single ‘Kiss Me’, and MUNA, on closing track ‘What’s Love’. Both features feel like perfect additions, with Lorely admitting that hearing Rina’s verse for the first time had her screaming in the car and that working with MUNA felt like a manifested dream, and the collaborations didn’t stop there. “I produced pretty much all of the last album, and I think when I produce, I just like to make dance music, and for this record ‘For Your Consideration’, I had so many collaborators and co-writers, I was searching for sounds. I worked with some producers who produced and wrote ‘XS’ with Rina [Sawayama], some Caroline [Polachek] stuff, and some Carly [Rae Jepsen] stuff. I worked with Umru, who’s part of the PC Music world, really throwing in people from all over the spectrum of pop. I think it’s really fun when I get in the room with those people because I’m not gonna make a song that sounds like any of those artists, but it’s really fun for me to use those textures and sounds.” It all works together to usher in Empress Of’s big pop girl era. Elevated by campy visuals and bigger production, ‘For Your Consideration’’s sonic landscape is as vast as Lorely’s ambition. From the sweaty Miami clubs to the top of the Hollywood hills, she cultivates the sound of letting go and starting again, using her breathing as a beat across the record that grounds it amongst the wobbling club synths. As the cycle goes on, she’ll be returning to the stage for a bigger and better tour (few details as of yet) this year. But with so many changes to her process this time around, how was she feeling with extra cooks in the kitchen? “It was only overwhelming at first when I had to establish my role in the room. It’s funny when you go into pop, like even when I’m at a photoshoot or something, and the hairstylist is asking me, ‘How do you choose your producers?’ And to me, the question is weird because I’ve always been the producer.” ‘For Your Consideration’ marks the longest gap between Empress Of projects so far, with Lorely turning out her first three albums with just a couple of years between them, but her vision for this one is fully realised. Embracing changes to her life, sound and process, she acknowledges the fact that she’s not your average pop star, but truly, she’s all the better for it. “Don’t remind me! Someone wrote like, her last album was four years ago, and I felt put on blast! I’ve been writing this record for two years, and the truth was, I just wasn’t ready to write a record after ‘I’m Your Empress Of’. This album is so sonically different from that record, and that took time to step away from. There are people who put records out every year, but I want to make something that feels like I conceptualised it, you know? And it just took me time with this one. I had to arrive somewhere. It just took four years; I’m not mad about it. I don’t think it works in the economy of today’s music. But I don’t care.” P Empress Of’s

album ‘For Your Consideration’ is out 22nd March.

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COVER STORY

48. DORK

by ALI SHUTLER. photography by DEREK BREMNER.

As she returns for her second album, GIRL IN RED’s Marie Ulven is embracing joy and self-discovery.

“E

GIRL IN RED

veryone should just be making jokes all the time,” says girl in red’s Marie Ulven. “Laughter is just so cool.” That smirking desire to have a good time fuels her maximalist new album, ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’. It’s a world away from the delicate but crushing heartache that drove girl in red’s breakout hits ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’ and ‘Summer Depression’, but this new era is all about having the best time possible. That excitement is reflected in the giant hand-painted banner that screams ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ and doubles up as the album’s cover, while the music builds on the giddy, stadium-baiting pop of debut album ‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’. As huge as that record was, sounding perfectly at home in arenas and stadiums via tours with Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, it also desperately clung to whatever tiny moments of optimism that Marie could find. By contrast, ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ embraces pure, unadulterated glee at every turn. “With that first album, I was searching for joy. I was hoping that I’d be fine,” she explains. As ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’’s blossoming opening track ‘I’m Back’ says, ‘I believe there’s hope for me’. “The past two years have actually been really joyous,” Marie adds. “I’ve been figuring out how to deal with anxiety, I’ve been going to therapy, I’ve just been really happy. This album is all coming from a place of truth,” she promises. “Also, I’m easily bored and want to try new things that I think are fun. I want to do things that are interesting instead of trying to make something overly sad or seem smart,” she continues. “Fun is the new rock’n’roll.” It’s not as simple as that, though. One moment, Marie is telling us how “there are no skips on this album, every track is my favourite”, but the next, she’s admitting she never really knows how

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COVER STORY

good an album actually is. “There have been so many second albums where an artist has clearly lost it after spending a couple of years on the road. That’s been my biggest fear.” “There are so many feelings and thoughts behind this album, it’s almost too much for me to explain,” she adds. Ping-ponging between swaggering confidence and something more anxious is exactly how ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ was made, though. After eventually releasing delayed debut album ‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’ in early 2021, Marie spent the rest of the year “being a normal 22-year-old”. She spent time with her girlfriend, her friends, her family. “There was a lot of hanging out. I very much leaned into being in my early 20s,” she says. “I know that sounds stupid,but I don’t get to do that very often.” When she first started out, she was so determined to make something of girl in red, she spent every possible minute working on new music and would “punish” herself for having fun. Then, when things started taking off, she

hit the road hard to make things as big as possible. Now, though, she’s happy and enjoying the life she’s made for herself. However, that didn’t exactly lend itself to being creative, especially when previous girl in red songs have brutally tackled everything from shitty mental health to unrequited love. Treating herself to some of the finer things in life only

“I’ve been figuring out how to deal with anxiety, I’ve been going to therapy, I’ve just been really happy” MARIE

50. DORK

made things harder. “I was eating in Michelin-starred restaurants, and that’s so not relatable,” Marie grins, laughing at the idea of a fine dining album. “I felt like I was losing myself. I tried to force myself to write sad songs, but it just wasn’t happening.” Making that debut album felt like a purge, and it took Marie a while to even realise there was a second album to make. “It’s very easy to

ULVEN

overthink things, and it’s very easy to smother your own project.” After a year of wrestling with herself, Marie was backstage in Austin when she came up with the song that became ‘Doing It Again Baby!’. “It immediately felt so cool. It sparked this new energy and new vibe.” From that moment, Marie knew girl in red couldn’t make another sad album. “That’s just not where I was. I had to embrace who I was and make whatever wanted to come out.” Things came together quickly after that. “It felt like the best shit I’ve ever made, which is pretty much the concept for the whole album,” says Marie. “’I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ basically means I’m making a better record than the first one,” she continues, while the title-track was originally called ‘The Apple Song’ because it provides the same technicolour energy that Coldplay’s ‘Viva La Vida’, Jet’s ‘Are You Gonna Be My Girl’, Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’ and Gorillaz’ ‘Feel Good Inc.’ brought to iPod commercials in the noughties. “Everything about the album is about feeling so good about something, but it’s also about being insecure,” says Marie, who’s struggled with feeling comfortable onstage and often questioned her own abilities. Talking to Dork last August, Marie explained how she

GIRL IN IDLES RED

was so worried about this album not being good enough; it was making her sick and keeping her up at night. “What’s the point of making music when the world seems so unfair,” she asked. However, earlier that same year, she was reminded about the power a good pop song wields. “People have told me that my music has literally saved their life, but I also think I have no talent a lot of time,” she admitted, before ultimately ending up on the idea that “music is so important because it’s so human.” “It’s this fine balance,” she adds today, before revealing she’s set to promote the record with a series of billboards that read: “I’m putting out a new album, what if it sucks?” “The thing is, you have to have some level of self-esteem to try and do anything in this world. There needs to be some sort of confidence to share your art. Coming into my 20s, I definitely lost a lot of my ‘I don’t give a fuck’ energy,” says Marie. “And if you don’t realise you’ve lost that part of you, and you don’t try and get it back, you completely stop trying new things. You stop pushing yourself out of your comfort zone.” You make safe, predictable art and shy away from the world. ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ is anything but. “I definitely have a very strong

“I was eating in Michelin-starred restaurants, and that’s so not relatable” MARIE

sense of impostor syndrome, but I’ve realised you can think that you’re the shit and also think that you absolutely suck. It’s fun to be both. On this album, I’ve leaned into being playful again. I’ve leaned in to being bold,” she continues, with the record full of “ballsy shit”. The explosive, snarling ‘Phantom Pain’ sees Marie “trying to capture the feeling of being absolutely blinded by love. You know the love

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that just fully consumes you and makes you go absolutely crazy,” she asks, while the twinkling, groovedriven ‘A Night To Remember’ is about the night Marie met her girlfriend. Then there’s the Sabrina Carpenter-featuring ‘You Need Me

Now?’ which is goofy, excitable but heartfelt. Originally, I had a line about wanting Ariana Grande to feature, but she didn’t want to, so I was having to do it myself. That didn’t seem cool enough, though,” says Marie, who then reached out to Sabrina. “I love ‘Feather’, I love ‘Nonsense’, and I think ‘Emails I Can’t Send’ is such a sick album. I knew she could bring something to the song that I couldn’t.” It was an instant yes, with Sabrina telling Marie that she’d even burp on a song if it’s what Marie wanted. “I found that so funny,” says Marie. The pair wrote the lyrics together, and Sabrina smashed her part out in just four hours. “It’s just got this wonderful ‘fuck you’ energy.” “A lot of duets or collaborations feel very calculated, but I wanted something exciting and surprising,” Marie continues. “It was the same when I made ‘Serotonin’ with Finneas. It’s a weird song, but it feels fun, and I want more of that. It’s about allowing myself to have weird ideas and trying them out instead of being really serious all the time. It’s possible to be serious and have fun with it.”

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COVER STORY

“People have told me that my music has literally saved their life, but I also think I have no talent a lot of time” MARIE

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The other side of the coin sees the epic, pleading ‘Pick Me’ explore jealousy and “feeling like your partner is going to leave you at any second, which is one of the things I’ve been struggling with the most,” Marie admits. “Even admitting I can be jealous feels really humiliating,” but she has no intention of trying to seem perfect. Continuing that energy, the nightmarish ‘Ugly Side’ sees her embracing her bad qualities. “It’s about all the parts of me I feel like I’m hiding from people,” she says. “I’m just saying it out loud that I’m not perfect, and I have bad sides, but I can still be cute and lovable. I just want more duality in the world; I want more space for people to be people.” “It’s fun to dive into these different personalities,” she adds. Staying true to her lived experiences, the record ends with the brash, twisting ‘★★★★★’. “That song is just me debating whether the album is really shit or not. I’m asking if it’s a mess or if I never miss. Those are my two moods, I guess. It’s a summary of what I’d been feeling throughout the process.” ‘★★★★★’ also references a number of sculptures Marie made for this album and is planning on exhibiting at some point in the future. There’s a giant bronze die with the number 6 on every side, and there’s a neon sign that says 10 out of 10, but that first 0 deliberately flickers. “All of them refer to some level of luck or a score a critic might give the album. I just wanted to build on the idea of self-esteem, how you see yourself and how that changes when your art meets the world,” explains Marie. She’d forgotten how nerve-wracking releasing music actually was until she began to tease playful, revealing lead single ‘Too Much’. In the comments, someone said the snippet sounded like something children’s music brand KIDZ BOP might make, and Marie “literally spiralled for a whole week thinking the album sucks. I told myself I shouldn’t be making music, and I’ve had my head up my ass for so long with a label that’s just been everything’s great.” When the full song was actually released, though, it was met with a wave of positive excitement. “It’s such a radio banger, isn’t it?” she says today. “I realised I put way too much of my value in other people’s reactions to my music. I’m constantly walking a fine line between feeling like I’m worth anything and how quickly that can get torn down. I think everyone goes through that, though,” she says. Despite that, ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ never plays it safe. “This album definitely feels like a risk,” says Marie. “It’s very natural, though. I couldn’t have written anything else.” “The title-track is the complete opposite thing to a sad song. It feels like the type of song that should be playing in your head when you’re walking down the street and feeling incredibly cool, but there’s something scary about doing that,” she continues, still asking, what if it doesn’t connect? And with ‘Phantom Pain’, she can already picture the TikTok videos comparing it to ‘We Fell In Love In October’ and saying she dropped off. “I felt the same way about ‘Serotonin’. I was really worried it was too graphic and that loudly talking about insane, intrusive thoughts was going to get me cancelled, but that really

GIRL IN RED

“I‘ve found my way back to my worlddomination confidence” MARIE

resonated with so many people.” “Both those songs do things that I felt were missing in my music,” she adds. “I just miss the sound of someone feeling cool.” “It does seem like the world has been saturated with sadness,” Marie offers. “It’s like the industry has realised that kids are sad, so they’re getting 20 songwriters in a room to write about being depressed, but there’s no actual emotion behind it. I don’t fuck with that. The perspective of people who are actually struggling is still important, and sad songs are still really beautiful,” says Marie, with ‘Pick Me’, ‘I’m Back’ and ‘New Love’ still tapping into the more melancholic side of things. “Isn’t it interesting how my first reaction to

ULVEN

writing music that wasn’t sad was being worried it wouldn’t connect, though? I really had to convince myself to just be myself.” “Who knows, the next album might just be really fucking sad. I’m probably not happy forever, but I am happier than ever,” Marie continues, quoting Billie. “It’s funny how her first album was very sad, and her second album was about being happier, so I can’t be the only one experiencing this.” She’s already “collecting” ideas for the next album because she doesn’t want to wait three years again, with one song built around the idea that people who don’t overthink things are happier. “I’m just going to keep going and see what happens.” “I definitely had a dip in my ambitions after

releasing ‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’,” admits Marie. “I had conversations about how I was maybe just meant to stay at the level I was at. I felt like I was settling for what I had, not what I wanted,” she adds, after spending years telling people she was set to take over the world. Instead of a defence mechanism to tackle how quickly things had blown up after the release of her first few songs, though, the idea of World In Red was “all confidence,” says Marie. “Making ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ has reignited those ambitions. It reminded me I have so much more to me than the small guitar songs I was making seven years ago. I’ve found my way back to my world-domination confidence. I want that jetsetter life. I want to do everything I can.” Alongside the early critical acclaim, girl in red was championed as a queer icon, thanks to her to-the-point songs about queer romance. “I don’t think I was ready for that at the time. I was desperate to be seen as a normal person because that felt like too much,” she says. “It’s been three years since I’ve put an album out, so I’m definitely just grateful that I’ve ever had the chance to enter people’s hearts and ears musically. For them to also connect me to something greater than just the music that’s incredibly cool. If I can be a queer icon for you, that’s fucking sick. But remember, there’s a chance I might fuck up,” she adds. That confident return was also sparked by girl in red’s time supporting Taylor Swift on her mammoth Eras Tour, with Marie playing venues that were bigger than anything she’d ever seen before. “I realised I could be playing in those places one day. It definitely ignited something in me. Just being in those spaces was really inspiring. Seeing that many people coming together through music, that just fed my ambition.” She told Taylor’s booking agent she’d be playing the same venues one day. “I hope people can hear how much fun I had making this record,” says Marie. “I want to encourage people to have fun. There’s something beautiful about lightness.” ■ girl in red’s album ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ is out 12th April. READDORK.COM 53.

POW -ER FEATURES

One of the most powerfully fun bands to come out of the 00s, GOSSIP are back with their first album in over a decade.

by LIAM KONEMANN. photography by CODY CRITCHELOE.

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GOSSIP

t’s Valentine’s Day, and things are off to a chaotic start. There has, perhaps, been a misunderstanding between Dork and Gossip. A slight timeline tangle regarding the events of the twelve years between the band’s last album, ‘A Joyful Noise’, and their newest, ‘Real Power’. One of us has got our maths wrong. It’s not Beth Ditto. “What if I was so mad?” She asks. That’d be fine. We’d just claim connection problems and end the call. Beth laughs. “Just run into the street screaming.” It’s always good to have a backup plan. So what has actually she been up to in the intervening decade, between Gossip albums? “You know what’s so funny to me?”

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FEATURES

she says. “We’re such old friends, and we’ve gone through so much shit together that it doesn’t feel like any kind of reunion.” Making music with Gossip again, Beth says, is like riding a bike. They’ve been together in their current iteration on and off since 2003, and you get the sense that even after they formally ‘disbanded’ in 2016, they were never truly broken up. Their official split lasted just three years, ending, at least temporarily, when they embarked on a world tour to celebrate the tenth anniversary of their fourth album ‘Music For Men’ in 2019. Just over a year later, Beth shared a picture of the three of them together in a studio. They officially announced this particular reunion, or at least ‘reunion’ to everyone who isn’t Gossip, in November last year. The time away hasn’t worn down any of their edges. ‘Real Power’ is unbridled Gossip. From the Motown-infused ‘Act of God’, through the contemplative ‘Peace and Quiet’ and the art-rock love song ‘Give it Up for Love’, the album shows off the many faces of a band fully in control of their powers. “Hannah and I are six months apart, and I met her when she was 17 and I was 18. When I met Nathan, I was 13 or 14. When you’ve known people that long, you know each other inside and

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out, so it doesn’t feel any different,” Beth says. What’s changed is the world. The music industry, constantly in flux, is drastically different than it was even five years ago, let alone in 2012 when Gossip last released an album. “The business has changed,” Beth says. “I think that’s the weirdest thing for all of us.” It’s not that the band have no idea what’s going on or how things work. It’s just that the difference is so pronounced, and things change so fast - especially, Beth points out, when we’ve all essentially been hidden away for about three years in the middle there - that it can make your head spin. “Post-Covid, we all kind of crawled up to the surface and looked out, and we’re like, ‘This is not the same’,” she says. Not long after that great resurfacing, Beth started trying to put together a second solo record. Writing and recording in one blended process out in ultra-legendary producer Rick Rubin’s Kauai studio, it soon became clear that what she was actually trying to make was a new Gossip album. She called in bandmates Nathan Howdeshell and Hannah Blilie, and things got a lot easier. Of course, say ‘studio in Hawaii’, and it might conjure a luxurious image. Not quite the case in real life, Beth says. “Kauai is one of the smaller islands; it’s more rural and has more of a small-town vibe. It’s very different than you would think,” she says. “So a lot of the things we were doing in the studio were very piecemeal. When I got there, we had to build the vocal booth.” She sounds, it has to be said, absolutely delighted about this. “One of the things that would happen often is that the electricity would go out. You couldn’t run two things at once,” she says. To get around the issue, they had a backup generator that could kick in as needed. It also led to a sort of writing prompt. “Rick hollered up to me and Dylan, the

“I FELT REALLY PROUD TO BE IN A PLACE WHERE PEOPLE GAVE A SHIT” BETH

DITTO

GOSSIP

“WE HAVE EVERYTHING TO LOSE AND EVERYTHING TO GAIN” BETH

engineer, and he was like, ‘Is that the real power?’ And I was like, oh, ‘Real Power’ could be nice,” she says. “I don’t usually work that way - not to get like, ‘Listen, honey, my process is very serious’ - but I don’t usually start with a thing and write around it, but I was like, oh, I can work with this.” The spiritual sequel to ‘Standing in the Way of Control’, ‘Real Power’, is a tenacious dancepunk song about collective action and agency, stamped all over with Beth Ditto’s trademark belting vocals. Loudly defiant, classically Gossip, the song was born out of the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, and particularly the events that were unfolding in Beth’s home city of Portland. Looking at the news coverage, you’d have thought the whole city was on fire. Particularly in the US right-wing media, the reports made it look like the world was coming to an end. At the time, Beth was in Atlanta on a job that should have taken three months. It ended up taking nine. The extra time meant that not only was she away from home for longer, but that she could witness in real time the way that events were being portrayed in other parts of the country. “When I would go outside the city and talk to

people, they really thought it was Mad Max ruins,” she says. “I had that reaction more than once. I had it from a woman I was ordering funeral flowers from. When she heard I was from Portland, she literally gasped and was like, ‘Are you okay?’ and I was like, ‘Are you okay?’ I didn’t realise what she was talking about.” The vilified image on the news wasn’t one that Beth recognised. When she returned to Portland, she could hear the chanting in the street and helicopters flying over her house. “I grew up in a place where I ran as far away as I could as young as I could, and I’m proud to be in a place where if push comes to shove, we’re gonna get angry. I was just like, don’t come for my city,” she says. “I felt really proud to be in a place where people gave a shit enough to go out in a lockdown and to get mad enough or be hurt enough to make themselves feel heard.” The sentiment echoes throughout the album

DITTO

- there’s a reason that ‘Real Power’ is the titletrack. Through songs about love, chosen family, collective power and letting go, the album reaches out a hand and pulls the audience close. Straight down the centre of it all, there is a deep seam of gratitude. Despite the fact that Beth is an atheist, the album opens with the lines, “Every beat of my heart is a merciful act of god.” There is anxiety there, too, of course - based on the fact of being alive in the world right now, and especially in being a queer band in a world where hard-won victories are less assured than they’ve been in years. But Beth is prepared to take the fear and the gratitude as two sides of the same coin. “With change, there’s always going to be turmoil. It’s always going to feel frightening because we do have something to lose,” she says. “And I think that should be fuel. It definitely is for me. We have everything to lose and everything to gain.” “We’ve already seen what they’re capable of. We’ve already seen people being treated like shit. We know that fight is hard. That’s nothing new to us. We already fucking know that. So it’s like, let’s go.” P Gossip’s album ‘Real Power’ is out 22nd March.

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WHAT COVER STORY

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CAITY BASER

With her new mixtape ‘Still Learning’, CAITY BASER is embracing the crazy side of pop. From hyperactive chaos to introspective brilliance, her path to Main Pop Character looks set.

CAITY “I by MARTYN YOUNG. photography by SARAH LOUISE BENNETT.

t’s been amazing, stressful, perfect, gorgeous, stunning and terrifying,” says Caity Baser breathlessly as she describes her ascent towards the summit of Mount Pop over the last four years of madness. “Every single emotion that you could feel is how it’s been. But mainly just amazing and exciting as it’s been my dream forever, and now I’m doing it.” Doing it would be an understatement; the 21-year-old sensation from Southampton is a living and breathing embodiment of all the joyous ridiculousness of pop music, doing things very much on her terms and bringing her huge personality to life in different ways. The bonkers journey of Caity Baser is firmly gaining momentum in 2024, though, with her second mixtape and biggest collection of work yet, ‘Still Learning’. All in a day’s work for a pop star who was born to do this. There are a few artists in our orbit who truly embody the ethos of Down With Boring, and perhaps none more than Caity Baser. For Caity, the pop star life never stops. As we meet her today, she’s preparing for a sold-out headline tour, getting ready for the Brits having just come back from the Grammys in LA. She’s probably made around 179 TikTok videos, and she has a truly outstanding bright red hat on her head in the style of a massive strawberry, accessorised with an oversized pair of shades. An iconic look. “I just decided to put it on my head today because I felt like it,” she smiles. Things are swiftly ramping up for Caity as we approach release, and she’s very much in the zone. “There’s no such thing as quiet time,” she says. “There’s no such thing as quiet time. I’m at rehearsals, and as soon as we finish, I’m going back to rehearse. I’m a busy girl. I’m doing actual pop star work. It could be worse.” When Caity released her landmark EP ‘Thanks

For Nothing, See You Never’ last year, Dork described it as “Pop chaos in the best tradition”, so a year later, just how chaotic is life for Caity Baser? “It’s even more chaotic than it was before,” she exclaims. “Whatever I thought was chaos back then is just easy now. I’m very comfortable in chaos. I’m very sweet being everywhere and having all these things going on because my brain works at a million miles an hour. I love it for sure. It keeps it exciting and keeps you young.” Perhaps the secret to Caity’s success is that hyperactive million-miles-an-hour brain. It’s a frenetic sensibility that drives her impulsive and instinctive pop smarts and her ability to create a lasting impression. When you first discover Caity Baser, you’re either going to fall instantly in love or be utterly bamboozled and retreat to something more sedate and gentle, but you’ll certainly never forget her. For four years now, since she first emerged in the pop consciousness to brighten up the dark days of peak pandemic, Caity has been making a scene. Caity’s magpie-like impulses to try out numerous musical forms have been heard throughout her work so far as it jumps from classic pop to rowdy indie punk to smooth, luxurious jazzy stylings to big balladry, all centred with the throughline of her attitude and energy. “I love everything,” she explains. “I grew up listening to every kind of music, from Motown and 50s music to boy bands and pop girlies. I really love proper British-sounding music. I’m influenced and inspired by everybody. I’ve taken characteristics from loads of different artists, put them into what I like and what I would do, put my own little spin on it, and made a little crazy genre called crazy pop.” At school, growing up in Southampton, Caity wasn’t quite the rebellious, nihilistic, no-filter queen that you might imagine encountering her today. “I was the bestest girl in the world,” she laughs. “I was well-behaved. I didn’t ever get into trouble. I worked hard, but I was always quite

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COVER STORY

“I GREW UP LISTENING TO EVERYKINDOF MUSIC, FROM MOTOWN AND 50S MUSIC TO BOY BANDS AND POP GIRLIES” CAITY 60. DORK

BASER

crazy, if that makes sense? Just ‘woo look at me’ sort of thing. That stayed the whole time, and I’m just more confident with it now.” It was around this time at school that Caity was bitten by the songwriting bug. “I made a song called ‘Superman’ when I was in a caravan park in Cornwall, and I sang to my family, and it was the shittest song ever, and they were all like, that’s amazing you’re going to do great things,” she laughs. Sadly, she can’t remember how the song goes. “It was about wanting to be able to fly and be a man. It was weird.” As she continued to fall in love more and more with music, Caity would find ways to indulge in her true passion. “All throughout school, I would take myself off to the music rooms and play piano and make songs. I didn’t really believe in myself at all in school, but I really responded to my teachers and people older than me with more knowledge,” she says. “I remember we got set a task in Year 8 to write a song and compose it. Everyone did a little tune on the piano or a little guitar riff, but I made a full song with piano and lyrics and structure, and my music teacher listened to it and went, ‘What the fuck Caity?! That’s insane’. I was like, ‘Thank you, yeah, it is insane. This is great’. So I just kept on doing it. Ever since then, I wrote songs every day in the piano room, but that was the moment when I was like, slay queen.” Despite her obvious talent and passion, it wasn’t clear how Caity was going to get her break in music, and as the pandemic struck in 2020, she hit upon the idea to release some of her numerous songs online and post them on TikTok because why the hell not? “I didn’t have a plan at all,” she explains. “I didn’t know what was going to happen to the world because we were in lockdown. I literally was just like, lol. I had nothing else to do, and I love singing, and I wanted to be a superstar, so I just wanted to post something, and I did. That’s why I’m here.” There was one pesky inconvenience that she had to get out of the way, though, before she could truly begin her mission. Lasting a grand total of three shifts at the Co-op in the summer of 2020, Caity knew the pop life was calling. “I literally did my first shift and was like, cool, whatever,” she explains. “I did my second shift and cried the whole way through it, and then on my third shift, I didn’t even do it. I just walked in and said I quit. I said not for me; I’m going to be a pop star. Sorry. And my manager was like, all right.” Perhaps that manager can get a plaque displayed above the Co-op door saying, ‘Top pop star Caity Baser worked here for three shifts’. “World’s shortest career,” she laughs. Her impulsive decision to quit her job is an example of when Caity Baser says something, she does it. She literally was off to be a pop star. Those early songs, beginning with a viral hit, the lilting ‘Average Student’, were a massive success and the birthing of an instant pop personality. Beginning in 2021, a string of singles followed, each highlighting more and more of Caity’s distinct style, and she started to get some genuine proper hits like her first Top 20 single ‘Pretty Boys’ and numerous collabs and high-profile live slots as she began to integrate

CAITY BASER

her self more and more in the UK’s dance scene with people like Sigala and Joel Corry as well as her work as a prominent member of the Loud LDN collective of all female and non-binary artists all with a common vision to forge a new inclusive future for dance music. So, big things all around with a critically acclaimed EP and a musically dynamic mixtape. Everyone was starting to know who Caity Baser was, but crucially, did she really know who she was? “It was chaos. Last year I did 60-something shows in the summer,” she says as she remembers her mammoth touring schedule as she played seemingly every festival under the sun. “In between, I was doing studio sessions and not really thinking about the next thing. I was just making songs for the sake of making songs and enjoying myself in music. Once festival season ended, though, everyone was like, what’s next? What does all this mean? What’s the message? I was like, I literally have no idea. I dunno. I didn’t have time to think about what I wanted to put out. It was just, when am I going to sleep next? It wasn’t top of my priorities, then I was like, what is my priority? What am I doing? I have no idea what any of this stuff means.” For maybe the first time in her creative life, Caity had a pang of self-doubt. “I was really mean to myself because I was thinking, why do I not know what I’m doing?” she continues. “I have all of this stuff and all of these amazing songs. I’m a shit artist, blah blah blah. Then I thought, what if that’s the whole point of the mixtape? That I just don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m learning as I go along? That’s where the idea came from.” The result of this period of reflection is ‘Still Learning’, a 13-track mixtape that finds Caity going ever deeper into both her own psyche and her own inimitable glorious pop exuberance. It captures every dynamic of the Caity Baser experience, from the in-your-face braggadocio of ‘I’m A Problem’ with its wild cries of having “Big Dick Energy” to the tender and heartfelt universalism of the closing track ‘I’ll Be Here For You’. It was important for Caity that the message of the mixtape and her own period of self-discovery carried through in the music as she recognised the themes of self-doubt and aimlessness were shared by a lot of people in a modern society that places so much value on people being seemingly so focused and driven. “There’s so much pressure, especially now, for everybody,” she says. “You even have young people, like 13-year-olds, moaning because they haven’t got their life figured out, and I’m like, what? What do you mean? Chill out, take a breath, enjoy every experience - the good, the bad - and just learn as much as you can.” It might seem a short period of time since her emergence into the spotlight, but there’s a big difference between the wide-eyed dreams of a 16-year-old aspiring superstar and someone who is now 21 and has experienced some of the buffering and grind of daily life that we all go through. Caity has released that it’s okay to be just a little bit messy. “The minute I started teasing the mixtape I got messages from people of all ages saying that feeling never changes,” she says. “You’re always learning, and you’re always figuring things out. It’s a good message to tell everyone that it’s fine if you don’t know what you’re doing because neither do I, and neither does anybody. Just grow and

change. Changing isn’t a bad thing. I hate when people go, ‘Ugh, you’ve changed’. Good! You haven’t. You just need to grow and learn and take every experience on the chin.” The changes Caity has experienced have seen both the primary aspects of her character amplified as she engages with her twin primal emotions of rage and internal reflection. “I’ve developed more confidence and more angst,” she says of her progression as a songwriter. “When I first started listening to music, and I listen back to my first ever EP that I released, I sound so innocent and so sweet and adorable. The next one is a bit more gobby and empowered, and this next one is even more so. The more I live, and the more I learn, I’m like ‘FUCK THIS Rwaaarrrrrrrr’. I just go crazy,” she laughs as she throws her head back with a glorious cackle. As well as her development as a writer, Caity is 100% on point as a dancer with a sharp eye for choreography and creating a visual world for her songs to live in. This is one area in which she’s always excelled. “I’m going to toot my own horn, but I think I’ve always been an excellent performer,” she proclaims. It should also be made clear that here at Dork, we endorse any and all forms of horn-tooting by pop stars. Caity continues to toot away: “I’m not going to lie. My best quality is the way I perform. I love to

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COVER STORY

GET A HOBBY WHAT DOES CAITY BASER LIKE TO DO IN HER SPARE TIME, THEN? My hobby is the ocean. The ocean. Ocean creatures. Sharks and whales and stingrays and dolphins and boats and everything. I love the ocean so much. Are you a fan of the aquarium, then? Yeah, but I get sad at the aquarium because they’re all just in a cage. I went the other day, though, and I did have quite a fun time. I’d rather just be out and about in a nice tropical area where I could go for a swim and be greeted by lots of ocean friends. I love sharks; they’re my obsession. They’re just massive and adorable and so cute. I find them so beautiful. I love all animals, but I particularly love the sea, ever since I was a baby. I think it’s so alien-looking, but so gorgeous.

62. DORK

perform, and I think it’s the only time I feel true happiness.” Does Caity feel like a different person now, though, compared to the carefree kid who just quit her job for pop superstardom? “I feel older than I am,” she reflects. “When I go back home sometimes, not with my friends, but when I’m around people my age, I’m like god??!! There’s so much more to life, they’re crying over a boy, or they’ve got all these problems, and I’m just like no queen. The world is huge. Like taxes, what is that??!! That’s what I think about now. Tbh, I don’t actually think about it, my dad thinks about it for me, but it’s just the pressure and the thought of it.” It’s hard to believe that in the technicolour world of Caity Baser, she might have to spend even one millisecond thinking about something as mundane as taxes, so shouts to her dad for taking on that task. On ‘Still Learning’, though, there is much more real-life emotion and a reflective quality at work amongst the high-energy turbo bangers. The songs with a deeper meaning are still huge, but they have a lyrical message that’s more resonant than before. “I’ve expressed more emotions on this mixtape,” explains Caity. “Normally, my response to every situation is anger and shouting, which is good, but also, I’ve learned it’s sometimes not good to do that. Sometimes, it’s better to just sit and think about things and then go back to it and maybe cry a little bit or isolate yourself. I think there’s a more vulnerable side to me that people haven’t seen a lot of, so I’m excited to explore it. It’s mainly just chaos and vibes, but there’s a deeper meaning to this than the one before.” The best thing about Caity Baser’s work is the duality between the unabashed silliness and fun of her songs and the undoubted emotion that is there in the subtext, and when it comes to the fore, it’s even more powerful. The push and pull of emotions and heightened feelings amplify each other. “That’s genuinely my response to almost every situation - ‘LOL, DON’T CARE, HAHAHA, SILLY GIRL’, and then like a week later, I’m like, ‘Oh, I fucked up a bit there’ or ‘That’s a bit shit’, then the next week I’m like, ‘Haha it’s all gone, it’s fine’,” she says with a sharp perspective on her own emotions. “It’s like the stages of grief. Deal with it in your own little way, regroup, get over it and move on,” she continues before adding with perhaps tongue ever so slightly in cheek, “Live, Laugh, Love, woooohhh.” The one song that encapsulates the feeling of attitude twinned with emotional development is empowerment anthem and mixtape highlight ‘Oh Well’. “I made that song when I was really going through it,” she explains. “I was falling out with my friends and being a bit of a dickhead, and they were being mean. I was in a situation where I felt like I’d lost everything, but it was all sort of out of my control, and I was angry at that because I couldn’t change it. I just had to look at it and go, oh well. Once I put that statement on the situation, it was funny. ‘Oh well, whatever’. But I had to go through that first to realise

that.” It might seem on the face of it that Caity revels in forever being frivolous and silly, and that might be 75% true, but it’s not all purely laugh a minute. “There are definitely things that I’ve not found humour in and times when I just cry and cry and cry and cry, but that doesn’t really happen anymore. I’m a very level-headed person who can see everyone’s point of view. That’s where I’m at. That’s what ‘Oh Well’ has empowered me to do. Whenever I go through something, and I’m like, ‘Ohhh, this is fucked!’ I listen to that song, and I’m like, ‘Woooo, oh well!’” Despite her success, one part of Caity’s life hasn’t changed, and that’s how she writes songs. “My creative process has stayed the same,” she says. “The way I make songs is I go through something no matter how good or bad it is. From start to finish, what I was wearing, what day it was and how I was feeling. That’s never really changed. Sometimes, it happens in my bedroom, sometimes in the kitchen or sometimes in the studio. Now it happens more in the studio because I go in and say, ‘Guys, this has just happened, and I’m fucking fuming’. Or I’m sad, or I’m happy. I go through something and talk about it. That’s why I love going out and making mistakes and being an idiot; it will make a great song. It’s all in the name of content, fine, why not?” For Caity, nothing is off-limits creatively. There haven’t been any occasions when anyone has dared to say to her, ‘No, you can’t do that’. “Everyone is on board with it. ‘The more insane, the better, Caity’, they say. Just go in and lose your mind, and I’m like, ‘Can do, I’ve already lost half of it’,” she laughs. Despite being so instantly recognisable in a more sanitised pop landscape, Caity doesn’t really see herself as a disrupter or an antidote to more anodyne or simply boring music. “Everybody has got their own little vibe,” she says. “Some people that really enjoy acoustic sets would come to my show and go, what the fuck is this noise? Everybody is doing something different, but my whole thing is to stand out, so I guess that I do,” she laughs. “My thing is just being a chaotic ball of chaos anytime I do anything.” It must be hard to withstand the pressure to always be on, but there’s no sense of ramping up any aspects of her character for the persona. “I’m lucky because the person that you see on social media and the person that you see on stage is who I am,” she says proudly. “I’m like an excited child, and I’m living my dream, so I’m just as excited as everyone else that’s watching. Of course, I have my off days, but when I do, I just stay at home and be sad.” In many ways, Caity Baser’s success is a very modern one fuelled on the all-encompassing power of social media and sites like TikTok. TikTok has been around as an influence on pop music for over six years now, so it’s natural that the way artists interact with the platform has changed and will continue to grow and evolve, particularly in light of recent developments where Universal Music Group, the parent company of Caity’s

CAITY BASER

“I’M NOT A TAYLOR SWIFT JUSTYET;ONEDAY,IWILLBE” CAITY

BASER

label, have refused to licence their music on the platform in a financial dispute. Not that this is of the slightest concern to Caity, though, as she made light of the now music-less videos on her TikTok feed and explained how the process is just a means to an end now and just another tool. “I see social media as just a promotional friend. I don’t see it as social media anymore because that’s the way the world is now. Music is social media. You have to be everywhere and do all these things all the time,” she says. “It’s great because you can reach so many people, but I think that’s how I use it differently because I used to post, ‘Here’s me and friends on my 18th birthday’. Now I’m like, ‘I’ve made a new song!!!!’ It’s things to back up what you can do. Here’s my song on Spotify, but also, here’s my song on every fucking social media platform, and here’s me doing different things on every fucking social media platform. It’s just things for people to watch. I can reach my fans on social media. I’m in all these group chats with them. Instagram have a broadcast channel where I can just talk at them for ages.” Ultimately, the human connection is more powerful than any algorithm or platform. “All I want to do is perform and make songs and sing them. If social media crashes tomorrow, it would be annoying, but it wouldn’t be the end of the world,” she says. As she embarks on the next phase of her career, Caity begins to very gently think about her legacy, and how that can unfurl and what she wants to do. “I just want to gather as many troops as I can and empower people to have fun and live hard and do what they want,” she exclaims. 2024 is going to be a huge year for Caity Baser. “My main ambition is to reach as many people as I can and put on the best shows that I can. Energy, vocally, everything. I just want to level up from previously. A lot of people saw me last year, but this is a new year, and people haven’t seen me perform yet, so I just want to come in and wow everybody, and they’d be like, ‘Woahh, level up’. I want to meet as many people as possible. My favourite thing is going to shows and meeting people. I just want to stay happy and healthy and slaying.” With a brilliant mixtape and her joyous kaleidoscopic pop vision being brought to life on stages all across the country, Caity is setting her sights on the very top of the pop mountain, and like everything she does in life, nothing is off limits. “I think I’m big, but I’m not a Taylor Swift just yet; one day, I will be. In my heart of hearts, I feel like the best.” Maybe one day we will get the full Caity Baser Eras experience, but right now, the ‘Still Learning’ era feels like a whirlwind ride through the brilliantly creative mind of a pop star who is unfiltered, fearless and making a statement everywhere she goes. P Caity Baser’s mixtape ‘Still Learning’ is out 15th March.

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FEATURES

BLU DETIGER’s ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ marks a bass-driven indie-pop evolution, capturing her distinctive path through personal growth and imposter syndrome in a debut that challenges the status quo. by ABIGAIL FIRTH.

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BLU DETIGER

ometimes, a person is born with such a name they cannot pursue any career except pop star. Think Madonna and Beyoncé, more recently Dua Lipa and Harry Styles. Add to those ranks Blu DeTiger, whose preferred instrument, the bass, would normally see its player pushed to the side, but Blu is having none of that. An almost lifelong bass player, Blu rarely, if at all, saw female bass players front and centre growing up, leading her down her own path all the way to her debut full-length ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’. When we meet via Zoom to chat about her album, Blu is back in her native city, New York, following a trip across the Atlantic to London, then LA, then back to NY, where she’s not tired but rather looking for a Valentine’s Day party to go to that evening. The past couple of weeks for her feel like a snapshot of the hectic few years she’s had since her bass covers gained traction on TikTok in 2020. Offline, she’d built a name for herself as a touring musician for acts like Caroline Polachek and Fletcher, as well as playing bass for Bleachers and Olivia Rodrigo. Alongside that, she’d been making her own music, dropping the EP ‘How Did We Get Here?’ in 2021, which she also toured extensively. Phew. “It feels weird,” says Blu from her bed in New York, “because I feel like so much has happened in the past few years. I was basically touring an EP for years, which is kind of crazy, BLU just waiting for that moment for the album. “I’ve done quite a lot of stuff since my EP came out,” she downplays. “So yeah, we’re in a whole new wave right now.” First picking up a bass guitar at the age of seven because she was inundated with girls who could sing and play guitar, but hardly ever bass – “I just wanted to be unique and a little bit different,” she says – and noticing how it went hand in hand with the drums, which her brother played, she fell in love with the instrument and never put it down. She notes how lucky she was to find her passion early on, landing herself gigs at a very young age, including one at Manhattan’s iconic club CBGB before it closed in 2006 (Blu was born in 1998, if you want to do the maths). She also credits her upbringing in New York as a crucial component in developing her early interest in music and, eventually, her solo sound. “I think the energy of New York, like the hustle and the grit and the edginess, comes across on a bunch of the tracks. When you’re born and raised here, it’s always gonna be ingrained in you no matter where you’re writing or wherever you are. And the influences of the people that have come up playing in New York, just getting that energy there was really important.”

That grittier vibe remains on ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’. It’s cool and effortless, never ramshackle or thrown together, but certainly not blindingly polished. It’s a coming-of-age record at heart, developed over the course of three years, give or take, and almost by accident – some of the tracks date back to her first writing sessions in Los Angeles in 2021 – and follows Blu’s journey as she moves from her hometown to LA. “It was definitely a big transitional phase for me, where I was like moving to a new city and living on my own for the first time,” says Blu. “I was dealing with a lot of imposter syndrome. I just signed to a label; everything happened so fast with the pandemic and building a fan base online. I went through my first relationship and breakup throughout the whole album process, so there are some songs about that. “Honestly, it’s about growing up, and learning to love where you’re at, no matter where you are. If you’re at an extreme high and you’re loving life, learning to love that, and then also, if you’re at a low and you’re heartbroken and whatever, also learning to enjoy that almost and learn from it.” One of the record’s quieter moments, bluntly titled ‘Imposter Syndrome’, is an older bass ballad that almost didn’t make the final cut, but Blu changed her mind when she realised how honest and relatable it felt.

Elsewhere on the record, Blu brings campy breakout pop star Chappell Roan into the writers’ room for ‘Hey You’, the sassiest track on the record, boasting lyrics about Blu’s Forbes list inclusion (“I’m flirty, and I’m 30 under 30”) amongst others about reinvention. The rest of the album’s influences read like Spotify’s Indie Sleaze playlist, as Blu cites Robyn, Gorillaz, The Strokes, LCD Soundsystem, CSS and The Ting Tings as artists who’ve inspired her over the years. “It’s the stuff that I grew up listening to, very New York,” she adds. It’s her most experimental and expansive work yet, not just pulling from her old favourites, but veering off into ballad territory (‘Imposter Syndrome’), breezy indie-pop (‘I’ll Never Tell’), and 100 gecs-fuelled distortion (‘You Say’). Blu’s instrument taking centre stage makes ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ one of the most bass-heavy breakthrough records since Thundercat’s rise in the 2010s. Although her playing on tracks like single ‘Kiss’ easily recalls his, Blu admits she found few female bassists who were doing what she wanted to do growing up. “There’s definitely a bunch of female bass players that I love, like Tina Weymouth and Este Haim and Meshell Ndegeocello and Carol Kaye. They weren’t doing the exact same thing, but their playing influenced me for sure.” And Kim Gordon? “Oh yes! I don’t know why I forgot to say her because I’ve been thinking about her so much. Sonic Youth is the dopest shit ever.” With her foundational years behind her and a debut on the horizon, Blu is looking forward as she continues her one-of-a-kind artist journey. While it hasn’t always been easy for her, she’s positive about the way she’s navigated the industry so far. “What I’m realising more and more is that I’m creating my own path and my own lane. When you’re an artist, there are different kinds of artists that come DETIGER before that pave the way, and I feel like it’s been harder for me to find someone “As an artist, it’s really easy to doubt yourself. that I can really relate my experience or my artistry When you’re making an album, especially since it to. There are different people I can point to that have inspired me, obviously, but in terms of, like, the lane takes so long, you really have time to sit with it and as an artist of a female bass player who sings and be like, wait, is that song bad? Should I put that out? produces in the mainstream pop space, it’s hard. You know, there are so many decisions you have to Like, I can’t think of anyone else. It’s been quite make. I had to deal with that a lot over the past few interesting doing my thing and just trying to figure it years, kind of learning to trust myself.” out along the way.” That became easier when she started While she might not have it entirely figured out, collaborating with cult indie pop legend Uffie for the the future looks bright for Blu. The album rollout tracks ‘Expensive Money’, which features Blu doing promises more touring in 2024 – her favourite part up Uffie’s talk-rapping over a laidback tropical beat, and, of course, the place where she’s been able to and ‘Latency’, a gristly, urgent Le Tigre style indie really hone her craft – featuring a show built on the banger. “She is such a legend,” Blu says of Uffie. “Any lyric knowledge she’s gathered from touring with the big leagues. And until the next album comes around she thinks of, they just sound cool, automatically. Having her in the room also gives me the confidence (she jokingly suggests it’ll be called ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything Part 2’), she’s learning from her own to trust myself a little bit more, too. She’s such a lessons to feel happy with where she’s currently at. good energy; sometimes, if you’re in a session and “I don’t think anyone will ever have everything you think of something, you’re like, oh, that’s stupid they want, you know?” she concludes. “So that’s or whatever. She’d be like, no, that’s actually so the point of the album title. It’s like learning to be sick, and I’m like, wait, you’re right. It’s nice to have satisfied with never being satisfied. Of course you someone there that you trust to confirm your weird want it all, you can have it all in different capacities, thoughts.” but I definitely really love my life.” P Blu DeTiger’s debut album ‘All I Ever Want Is Everything’ is out 29th March.

“I’M CREATING MY OWN PATH AND MY OWN LANE”

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COVER STORY

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LIZZY MCALPINE

I Shedding commercial concerns for a yearning to be her authentic self, LIZZY MCALPINE’s new album ‘Older’ is an evolution that marks out an artist in pursuit of genuine self-expression. by LIAM KONEMANN.

t’s morning in Hawaii, and Lizzy McAlpine is just easing into the day. We are two months out from the release of her third album, ‘Older’, and the music industry machine is whirring back to life. These are the early days of a new cycle of gigs, interviews and social media sprees with her at the

centre. Usually, she’d be bored of the songs by now. An album takes a long time to make, and inevitably by the time you’ve written and rewritten them, recorded and then re-recorded, you start to become detached. You get detached, you get bored. Or at least she has in the past. Not this time. “I think it’s a testament to how much the songs feel like me, because I didn’t really get bored of them,” Lizzy says. “I wasn’t like, ‘oh, suddenly these don’t feel like me anymore’, which is usually what happens, and especially what happened with ‘Five Seconds Flat’.” On ‘Older’, an exploration of upheaval and personal growth set against the backdrop of a dysfunctional relationship, Lizzy looks back at the turbulence of her early 20s and charts a new path for artistic fulfilment. Turning away from some of the influences and techniques of her earlier work, she shares something altogether more authentic. With each new album, Lizzy is moving closer to a sound that feels like her. In interviews ahead of the release of her second album ‘Five Seconds Flat’ at the age of 22, she reflected that her debut ‘Give Me A Minute’ - and, presumably, the 20-year-old who made it - now felt impossibly young. At 24, she’s leaving the artist she was on album number two in the rearview as well. While ‘Give Me A Minute’ resonated with fans and critics for its poetic lyrics and relatable themes, ‘Five Seconds Flat’ pushed Lizzy into the stratosphere. A sonic mish-mash of some of the biggest indie artists of the decade so far, the album made her an indie pop darling and social media superstar. At first, it seemed like a dream come true. She had made the kind of album that she thought people would like, and they did. And for a while there, Lizzy liked it too. Two years on, she feels very differently. “To me, it sounds like I was trying to make what other people thought was cool,” she says. “Now that I look back on it I’m like, who is that person? Who was making that? It doesn’t sound like

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COVER STORY

me. It sounds like it was made to sound like what people thought was cool at the time.” If the intention was mass appeal, then ‘Five Seconds Flat’ hit its target. It isn’t fair to say that Lizzy McAlpine got her start on TikTok, but it would be stupid to pretend it didn’t make a difference. Her song ‘Ceilings’, initially an album track appearing halfway down the listing on ‘Five Seconds Flat’, went mega-viral on the platform at the start of 2023, almost a year after the album came out. A sped-up version of the song’s final plot-twist verse was layered over literally hundreds of thousands of videos, replicating themselves seemingly endlessly. Lizzy’s vocal - pitched up to the point that she sounds like a singing bluebird in a 2D Disney movie - soars over clips of young women in fairytale dresses running through the woods, or the rain or along the beach, like the climactic scene in a romance epic. About a year later, it’s still her most streamed track on Spotify by a margin of several hundred thousand. ‘Ceilings’ was next level, but ‘Five Seconds Flat’ was a success even before it broke the viral barrier. It spawned two North American tours in 2022 and early 2023, and kicked off collaborations with Niall Horan and Noah Kahan. And yet, it didn’t feel as good as it should have. It didn’t feel as good as ‘Older’. “Sure, it was successful,” Lizzy concedes. “But now I’m not so concerned with that. I just want it to feel good. The difference between the two albums - sonically and the way I felt making both of them - is pretty wild.” There was no one moment where she realised she needed to change direction. It was more the build up of a dozen different things, all feeling slightly wrong, slightly not what she expected or found fulfilling. And then there was the touring. What might have seemed like a dream from the outside an artist’s first-ever headline runs off the back of a dizzying second album after their first was released into a closed-down world - didn’t feel that way in real life. The situation produced one of ‘Older’’s musically brightest tracks, the brassy ‘All Falls Down’, which Lizzy filled with lyrics about “feeling lost and weird about everything”. “Twenty-two,” she sings, “was a panic attack.” There’s a touch of old Hollywood glamour to ‘All Falls Down’, a horn section bolstering Lizzy’s soulful, sunny vocal. At first glance, the whole thing belies the dark subject matter. But the contrast brings out another layer of the lyrics - a kind of defiance, given that she’s now looking back on things from a better place. “It’s weird, because the lyrics are not as happy as the track would have you believe,” she says. “I love a juxtaposition in a song. It’s fun because it feels like you can dance to the song but listen to the lyrics, and you’re like, ‘Well, actually, this is kind of depressing’. But I like that.” She can laugh about it now, but it’s clear it was a difficult time. “Not having a stable… like, anything, was really messing with me. I wouldn’t get enough sleep, because I can never really sleep on the buses, and then I would get sick. Then I would be miserable. It just wasn’t fun for me,” she says.

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“The difference between the two albums sonically and the way I felt making both of them - is pretty wild.” LIZZY

MCALPINE

LIZZY MCALPINE

The physical pressures weren’t the only thing weighing on her, though. There was also the issue underneath all the other issues. “I was also playing this music that felt so inauthentic to me. I felt like I’d have to go up onstage every night and put on a persona which was so draining for me,” she says. “I was like, this doesn’t feel like who I really am, but I have to pretend like it is for right now. Because that’s what people came here to see.” It takes a toll. Maybe just as much as the not sleeping, as being kept awake by the road scrolling under you as you try to drift off in a narrow bunk - feet first, in case of a hard brake - getting up on stage and playing songs you no longer feel you can stand behind wears away at you. “It was exhausting, having to do that every night. And I wasn’t actively thinking about it like that,” says Lizzy. “Back then I was kind of like, okay, this is just what I have to do. This is what people do. I just have to go up onstage and pretend, basically. “I didn’t think that wasn’t normal until I took a step back.” In the face of all this, across the three-year project of writing ‘Older’ and rediscovering herself as an artist, Lizzy cancelled some shows and reconsidered the way she was working. Through the gradual process of writing and recording the album, she found her priorities shifting, prompting a reassessment of what it is that she’s actually pursuing with her career. It’s worth noting, on top of all of this, that she’s been working on this record since she was about twenty-one. Your early twenties are almost always a time of upheaval and change as you grow into the person you’ll be in your mid-20s, and maybe beyond. You commit to things that don’t end up working for you, and you start again. Most of us have the benefit of doing this beyond the public eye. Some of us have to do it on stage in front of hundreds of people. “I started making this album and I was a completely different person. I was stuck in this cyclical relationship that I was writing the album about. I was stuck in a lot of situations that weren’t right for me,” she says. “And in the middle of the three-year process, everything shifted. I met my boyfriend. I switched management like, three times. And my values were shifting - my goals, and what I wanted to say as an artist, what I wanted my art to be like - it was all shifting based on what was happening in my life and everything I was discovering along the way.” This sense of trying to extricate yourself from the things that are bad for you comes through most powerfully on ‘Drunk Running’. A bruised meditation on dependency, memory - and, yes, alcoholism - ‘Drunk Running’ is one of ‘Older’’s standout tracks, simultaneously tender and powerful, guilty and assured. Initially written in response to the slow death of a difficult relationship, the song took on a different meaning the more that Lizzy’s life and artistry began to change. “A lot of the songs were about a past relationship that I was in - we would just go back and forth, over and over,” she says. “It just never seemed like there was an end in sight, and every time I would see him, it would just be the same.” After the relationship was over and Lizzy was dating someone new, she saw her ex out at a bar

with some friends. The distance between them put things in perspective. “It was the strangest thing. I was seeing how he was in a very bad place. When we were together, he was drinking a lot of alcohol, and it was even more apparent after we were not speaking anymore,” she says. She first wrote the song to process that moment. But as time passed, and after she had written ‘Older’’s title-track, she began to see her own work in a different light. Many of the lyrics, about letting go of what is bad for you and moving on, could be just as applicable to her own period of growth. There was a lot to reckon with.

As she was trying to pull herself out of the mire of this time, one of the things Lizzy realised was that commercial success, widely seen as the only legitimate measure, held no real appeal for her. The taste of it that she had with ‘Five Seconds Flat’ was more than enough to confirm that. “I thought those were my goals,” she says now. “I thought that my goals were like, ‘Oh, I want to be famous’. And then I had to do the things that I had to do to get there and I thought, oh, I actually hate this so much.” It’s one thing to realise this and to decide to all but turn your back on the pursuit of industrydefined success, and another thing entirely to

“I was stuck in a lot of situations that weren’t right for me” LIZZY

MCALPINE

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LIZZY

MCALPINE

“My values were shifting - my goals, and what I wanted to say as an artist”

COVER STORY

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actually follow through. The value of fame and financial windfalls are pushed on most of us from birth. It’s peer pressure on a mass scale, and how can anyone be expected to hold up under that? But Lizzy has managed it. ‘Five Seconds Flat’ was Lizzy McAlpine playing Phoebe Bridgers’ ‘Punisher’, Holly Humberstone or Bon Iver. ‘Older’ is… Lizzy McAlpine. Having done away with the tuning she used on ‘Five Seconds Flat’, Lizzy’s voice shines through the folky indiepop songs, more assured, more honest, and more like herself. These are songs she can stand behind. From cinematic opener ‘The Elevator’ to yearning closing track ‘Vortex’, the album’s heart is pure, unadulterated McAlpine. Getting here was, she says, ‘excruciating’. While three years is not a long time in the grand scheme of things - some albums take twice that, as Lizzy is quick to note - it felt like longer. “I was met with obstacles at every turn, it seemed,” she says. It didn’t help that for the first eight or nine months she was still working the way she always had before. She started out on ‘Older’ with herself and a producer, recording each element separately and assembling things later. Clean. Something wasn’t clicking. “It just started to feel… not right,” she says. So she found a band and started again, and the album started to open up. Recording live, she says, felt “so much more emotional.” It was very different from anything that she’d done before, and the effect of having a live band in the room adds an entirely different texture to the music. In one particularly quiet moment, there’s the sound of someone pressing down on a guitar pedal. In another, you can hear the creak of a piano bench as

the person sitting on it shifts position. Call it the personal touch. Those little moments bring some of the most affecting songs on the record to another level. ‘Older’ is deeply human by design. This is never more pronounced as on ‘You Forced Me To’, an emotionally raw reflection on an uneven relationship with a hypnotic, musicbox riff. Written in the middle of a recording session for a different track, Lizzy went home and recorded the demo in her old apartment, incidentally capturing the sound of traffic outside. She took the demo to ‘Older’’s first producer, and together they added elements and created a more polished version. When that version of the album didn’t work out, Lizzy took the same demo to show her band what she was aiming for on ‘You Forced Me To’. “They were like, ‘This is it. Just use the demo’,” she laughs. “I was like, I don’t know, maybe. I’d recorded it so shittily, and I wasn’t expecting it to be the final product.” Over time though, the demo grew on her. She came around to their way of thinking. “They were very adamant,” she says. A side effect of their persuasion is that ‘You Forced Me To’ is the one song on ‘Older’ where every writing and performance credit is one Elizabeth McAlpine. Almost by accident, it’s the ultimate expression of what she was aiming for with the whole album. Personal truth. Today as she talks about the album, Lizzy feels like she’s overusing the word ‘authenticity’. But what else is there? “The goal is just to not give a fuck, really. I don’t want to do things just because that’s what people do. It’s like no, I can actually challenge that and do whatever I want to do. Because, obviously doing what everyone else has done was not really sitting right with my soul,” she says. “I wanted to make sure that I was being me. And I want people to see that. I’m not just following in everyone else’s footsteps.” Even if they don’t see it, though, she’s with where this album has taken her. At this point in her career, Lizzy McAlpine is well aware that you can’t please everyone. So you might as well just do whatever makes you feel happiest, and hope that some other people come along for the ride. “No matter what I do, if I follow in everyone’s footsteps or I do what I want to do, some people are going to be mad. No matter what,” she says. “At this point, I’m like, ‘Okay, whatever’. There’s been a huge shift in how I think about my career and how I approach the work now. And I hope it’s apparent in the music, and in everything I do around the music.” ■ Lizzy McAlpine’s album ‘Older’ is out 5th April.

LIZZY MCALPINE

“The goal is just to not give a fuck” LIZZY

MCALPINE

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Neighbourh FEATURES

KID KAPICHI soundtrack for

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deliver a defiant a fast-paced world.

hood watch KID KAPICHI

by STEVEN LOFTIN.

ot much has changed since Kid Kapichi released 2022’s ‘Here’s What You Could Have Won’. With their second album, the Hastings quartet created a snapshot of their surroundings, both immediate and afar, most notably on Bob Vylanfeaturing lead single ‘New England’. But, the trouble is, the country is still in the same state as it was then. “Only for the worse, really, innit?” guitarist Ben Beetham chuckles with disbelief. “When we were starting to write this album, we were like, are we going to sound like a broken record?” vocalist Jack Wilson says. “And it’s like, well, the record is broken!” Under a consistently shit Tory government, the horizon has never seemed bleaker, and it’s in this realm that Kid Kapichi’s new album ‘There Goes The Neighbourhood’ tries to balance hilariously scathing observations with more lighthearted day-to-day topics such as, erm, being scared of your partner’s Subaru-owning brother. Once again, the quartet - completed by bassist Eddie Lewis and drummer George Macdonald - have been digging deep to put the world to rights with Kapichi attitude. “So, yeah, we do probably sound like a broken record because nothing has changed, and things have only got worse,” Jack says with disbelief. “I mean, I would like to see what we would write about if things changed - that would be an interesting album. But for the time being, it feels like there’s still stuff to be said; there’s still more to be said on the same subjects, and things do seem to be getting worse.” Furious single ‘999’ wastes no time in tearing apart the police forces in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder, honing in on the fact that “it’s not one bad apple, it’s the whole goddamn tree.” Then there’s Madness frontman Suggs lending his inimitable voice to apathetic Britain targeting ‘Zombie Nation’, after a meeting backstage. It’s all poured through Jack’s cut-the-crap filter for maximum effect and hits hard in the wake of everything. As for those lighthearted moments, including the buoyant ‘Subaru’ and bounding ‘Get Down’, there’s the nostalgia-soaked ‘Tamagotchi’. Written at the major landmark of turning 30, as the group headed into their third decade, they found themselves attached to those rose-tinted specs of yesteryear. “It was definitely an intentional nostalgia,” Jack explains. “I felt like during Covid we missed two big years, so it crept up a lot quicker than I was anticipating - as I’m sure a lot of people felt. “I don’t know if it’s something that you get more as you get older; now, nostalgia feels like a part of daily life. For me, it was a feeling that I really enjoyed, even though sometimes it can be intertwined with sadness. Whenever I feel nostalgia, it’s normally a really positive feeling, but it’s so transient; you feel it for a second, and then the more you try and feel it, the more it disappears,

and you try and hold on to it. That was me trying to bottle that feeling.” There’s no doubt that the world is moving at a thousand miles per hour these days. With all the noise around us, it’s easy to retreat into those glory days. But that doesn’t stop Kid Kapichi from keeping themselves afloat with a cheeky wink. After hitting the topic of age, out comes a familiar sentiment of the 20s. “We gotta write a TikTok song now so that we can get in there with the kids, their gunge or something... whatever they... oh my god, slime! That’s what I meant, slime!” Jack laughs. “At Christmas, my niece was upstairs in my old room at my mum’s house, going through vinyl and clearing a load of stuff out, and she didn’t know what a CD was, which blew my mind!” For all of the good ol’ days of it all, there’s a sense we’re fighting for a new age - it feels like an apt time for punk bands. While they’re happy to fall under the moniker, Kid Kapichi don’t necessarily totally buy in. “I wouldn’t always be like, ‘Oh, we are a punk band’, I would say we’re a social commentary band,” Jack reckons. “There’s so much stuff that’s going on in the UK, that it leads you down that punk route. I think if we had grown up in a time when everything was great, then I don’t think we would have necessarily gone down that route of music. There are other songs on the album that aren’t strictly punk songs, [but] there’s a lot of punk issues about at the moment, which has kind of turned us into that,” he explains. It seems to be a prevailing idea at the moment. With the likes of IDLES similarly refuting their punk credentials, Kid Kapichi see it as something deeper than a sound. “It’s subversive, using your platform to speak truth to power or,” Ben reckons. “I think that’s why it’s such a popular genre at the moment,” Jack adds. “It’s because people are fed up with not being listened to and very much realising that they’re not being listened to. So that’s why there’s such a big revival in it, which is amazing to see. Sad, but amazing.” When it comes to locking and loading and deciding what they’re aiming at next, Kid Kapichi admit they “try not to overthink the content on each album,” Jack says. “We try and not be like,

‘Right, we’re gonna have five angry songs and five fun songs’. We just write what we’re feeling on that day when we get into a room, and we’ve always kept it like that.” Though he does admit, it’s not always easy. “The further you get down the line, the more you can second guess yourself and be like, ‘Are people gonna like this, or are people gonna get turned off by this?’ For me, personally, I think when the question is, ‘Are people gonna like it?’, and the answer is no, they might not, then you should definitely do it,” he defiantly winks. This hands-off approach cemented itself during the ‘Neighbourhood’ sessions. Letting the song be the song became the motto, “Which sounds really hippie-dippie,” Jack laughs, “but sometimes you can just taste what a song wants to be, and sometimes you should just let it be that thing rather than trying to steer it away from that direction to fit what you think the album wants to be or something - just let the song be what it wants to be and then they will decide amongst themselves what’s the right thing to go on the album.” To be a band like Kid Kapichi, a necessarily cocksure mouthpiece, you need to be brazen and all-in, which Jack and co. have no issue with. “It cracks me up much; the whole JACK WILSON so keep politics out of music thing is one of my favourite things. So many people say, ‘Yeah, I liked it, but keep politics out of music’, and it’s like - music is inherently political. It’s such a mental thing. Am I not allowed to tell you that my roof’s come off unless I’m a roofer? Is that how it is? I don’t have to be a professional in that environment to be able to talk about it - it’s just mental,” he laughs. Even within their factions, they found ‘New England’ stirring the pot. “With that song in particular, it was the first time where we’d spoken about the beliefs of specific people rather than previously it was more speaking about power in general as a system, and there were a lot of people that were our fans that suddenly were like, ‘Wait a minute, don’t fucking say that’, because it was like, if you’re angry about this, it’s probably about you,” Ben gleefully chimes. This is what Kid Kapichi relish in, and are hoping for more of from ‘There Goes The Neighbourhood’. While P Kid Kapichi’s album ‘There Goes The

“We probably sound like a broken record, because nothing has changed things have only got worse”

Neighbourhood’ is out 15th March.

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INCOMING. THE NEW RELEASES YOU NEED TO KNOW

WHAT DO THE SCORES MEAN? ★ Rubbish ★★ Not Great ★★★ Fair ★★★★ Good ★★★★★ Amazing

Waxahatchee

Tigers Blood ★★★★

→ ‘Tigers Blood’ is a testament to resilience, as Katie Crutchfield builds upon the Americana foundation of ‘Saint Cloud’, infusing it with a more assertive indie-rock edge. The album begins with the introspective ‘3 Sisters,’ setting the tone for what’s to come. It’s a record that provides a deep exploration of personal and spiritual growth, reflecting the ups and downs of life while demonstrating Crutchfield’s prowess as a songwriter. An album that only reaffirms Waxahatchee’s place on the indie-Americana throne. DAN HARRISON

BLEACHERS

Kid Kapichi

There Goes The Neighbourhood ★★★★

Bleachers

★★★★★ BLEACHERS’ fourth, self-titled effort sees the band finding new ways to impress.

→ Bleachers’ self-titled fourth album hums into being, exhilaration rife in every single note. It feels like a fresh-faced ode to new beginnings. Those first crisply sunny days after a long winter, the nervous excitement of the first drink of the night, the dizzy tumble into the throes of love – ‘Bleachers’ captures it all from the very beginning of ‘I Am Right On Time’. That feverish anticipation floods through the first track, assuring you that you may well be on the cusp of something bottling magic. It’s an invitation to sit at the table with Jack Antonoff and hear the inner workings of his mind; soulful and sincere, you’d be foolish to pass this one up. Bolting into ‘Modern Girl’, Bleachers provide an example of what they do best: have fun. ‘Modern Girl’ is riotous, a sax-heavy, groove-inducing track, swelling with sheer glee towards a chorus that makes you want to grab your friends and spin them around. It captures that giddiness of knowing that the night is young and there is infinitely more joy to be had. Those moments are frequent throughout the album, balanced by a pensive sentimentalism that seeps through the echoing vocals and liquid instrumentals of

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tracks like ‘Me Before You’. With wry smiles and the quintessential Jack Antonoff knack of making universal feelings sheen with a newfound magic, ‘Isimo’ shimmers with adoration, while ‘Woke Up Today’ is a dreamy, love-drunk escapade through crystalline harmonies, each listen prompting a need to sway along. Of course, it isn’t all cast under a rosy haze – it’s contemplative and grateful in equal parts, landing on a tone of peacefulness underneath that can only come from a period of growth. Though those big, celebratory moments are aplenty, ‘Bleachers’ is a lesson in restraint in many ways, too. It favours tranquillity and spatiality just as much. They may excel at the crowd-ready, arm-waving hits, but there is a beauty in their stripped-back, spacious moments – ‘We Are Going To Know Each Forever’ is all light keys and anguished vocals, but it offers a cleansing contrast in the album. ‘Bleachers’ is the equivalent of the band settling into their skin and finding light at the end of the tunnel. Safe in the knowledge that ups and downs will come in equal measure, it chooses celebration and the magic of potential; revelling in the hope of what might come next and in appreciation for the love they possess right now, ‘Bleachers’ is a gorgeously tender return to form for the band.

NEIVE MCCARTHY

→ It’s easy to understand why Kid Kapichi have a bone to pick with modern Britain. ‘There Goes The Neighbourhood’ sees the Hastings heroes keeping their foot on the throat of the shitty stuff - in their own words “things have only got worse” - but it’s not always presented through a gritty, angry cloud. ‘Let’s Get To Work’ is a motivational anthem for getting things done, while ‘Tamagotchi’ may be pulling references a little long in the tooth for those turning 30 it namechecks, but it’s fantastic fun all the same. DAN HARRISON

NOAHFINNCE

Growing Up On The Internet ★★★★

→ Noah has always had Main Character Energy, but on the aptly named ‘Growing Up On The Internet’ everything that came before is supersized. Sharper, brattier and - dare we say - better than ever, it sees all the necessary edges smoothed off, with the rest left as razor-sharp as possible. Dragging from across the lexicon of heavier music, ‘I Know Better’ is grotty, grungy and glorious, while ‘Alexithymia’ channels rage and confusion brilliantly. Like going from dial-up to fibre-optic broadband, it’s a whole new world. DAN HARRISON

INCOMING

Love Fame Tragedy

RECOMMENDED

RELEASES

Life Is A Killer ★★★★

The albums out now you need to catch up on.

→ An exploration into the very highs and very lows of love and life, ‘Life Is A Killer’ is the bright yet devastating new release from Love Fame Tragedy. Entangled in a mish-mash of electropop, EDM and alt-pop, The Wombats’ beloved frontman, Murph, lays bare a kaleidoscope of his emotions, discussing the good, bad and in-between in excruciating detail, all to the backdrop of a woozy sugar rush good enough to rot your teeth. It feels like the culmination of a lifetime of partying; it’s sweet and upbeat, yet exhausted and remorseful and it’s this duality that makes it so special. EMMA QUIN

The Last Dinner Party

Prelude to Ecstasy ★★★★★

→ The Last Dinner Party were a buzzword long before their debut track graced the airwaves. Featured prominently in 2023’s music tip-lists and whispered about on London’s live circuit, they’ve stood tall, their flair for drama and occasion heralding a sky-high ambition. One of the most exciting new prospects in a decade or more, if this is just a prelude to ecstasy, what comes next could be epochdefining.

Sum 41

Yard Act

Heaven :x: Hell ★★★★

Where’s My Utopia? ★★★★★

→ A truly brilliant debut album can cause a seismic shift. Yard Act know that all too well. ‘The Overload’ was masterful, a scathing, razor-edged statement of a band on the verge of cementing themselves as in a league of their own. It is an album that has afforded them a lot – crucially, the confidence and bravery to go on to make an album as good as their new release, ‘Where’s My Utopia?’.

Declan McKenna

What Happened To The Beach? ★★★★

→ When Dork asked Declan to describe the album to us in three words back in our cover feature last year, he said it was ‘intimate, messy and wobbly’. A perfect way to encapsulate a record of quirky charms and sonic playfulness. We’ve got another three words we can use to define it, though. Really Very Good.

Master Peace

How To Make A Master Peace ★★★★★

→ Master Peace’s debut album is a riotous journey through all of the most fun, thrilling, gaudy and invigorating shades of the noughties indie scene filtered through the smart, cheeky and extremely confident voice of an indie-pop provocateur doing exactly what he wants.

GOSSIP Real Power

★★★★ Few are quite as iconic as Beth Ditto. With GOSSIP back for their first album in over a decade, it’s easy to see why. → Most people will know Gossip as the scrappy, gnarly indie band who produced seminal track ‘Standing in the Way of Control’, as featured on the formative and age-inappropriate ‘Skins’ soundtrack. 18 years after that breakthrough and 12 years since their last record, they’re back with their seventh album. And boy, is it worth the wait. ‘Real Power’ is ostensibly a pop album, which probably isn’t a surprise for anyone who’s been keeping up with Gossip’s ever-evolving discography since their 2001 debut. Predominantly channelling the feel-good forces of ‘70s and ‘80s funk and soul, the trio also bring classic Gossip DIY indie-rock, moments of electrifying synth-pop, and edifying vulnerability on the record’s softer tracks. Anthemic opener ‘Act of God’ is a throwback to the late-noughties

grit that catapulted Gossip into the public eye, while title-track ‘Real Power’ and toe-tapper ‘Give It Up For Love’ would be at home in Nile Rodgers’ discography. ‘Tell Me Something’ transports us to post-punk dark electronica, whilst closer ‘Peace and Quiet’ is an ethereal journey into Beth Ditto’s soul. That the band can so easily transition between genres, almost imperceptibly, is a sign that this band are the real deal. There are two constants throughout the LP. The first is the masterful control of instruments, whether in the form of jangling, shiny guitar lines, crisp yet understated percussion, or seamlessly incorporated synth work. The other is Beth Ditto’s unmistakable vocal. She remains a force of nature, hitting seemingly unreachable falsetto, delivering searing power, but also being able to pare it back when the moment needs it. ‘Real Power’ is just delectable. After twelve years away, they’re back with a vengeance. Welcome back, gang; we missed you. CIARAN PICKER

→ After almost three decades, Sum 41 bid farewell to the scene. But they’re not bowing out quietly. Refusing to settle for a standard 12-track swansong, they’ve spun their final record into a behemoth double album. After straddling the line between genres for most of their career, ‘Heaven :x: Hell’ neatly splits its time between pop-punk and metal, respectively. ‘Heaven’ embodies the quintessential skate punk sound they helped to forge in the early noughties, an animated explosion of youthful energy, while the halfway point marks a transition into heavier territory and is where Sum 41 truly come into their stride. It’s a grand culmination of their work so far. KELSEY MCCLURE

Palace

Ultrasound ★★★★

→ ‘Ultrasound’ documents how love persists in even the darkest of moments, with the album being vocalist Leo Wyndham’s way of coping with his wife’s miscarriage during the initial stages of writing. His vocal performance portrays the intensity of the subject matter, with his falsetto feeling as a skyward scream in ‘Rabid Dog’, while his nonchalant delivery in ‘When Everything Was Lost’ gives a feeling of helplessness. The record has been used as a way to come to terms with grief, questions of mortality and fairness, but ultimately, an ode to strength and a hopeful look to the future. Palace deserve their moment in the sun, and this album proves it. CIARAN PICKER

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INCOMING

CAITY BASER

Still Learning

Blu DeTiger

All I Ever Want Is Everything ★★★★

→ The debut album from Blu DeTiger is a dreamy indie-pop explosion. Bursting with juicy sound and bubbling synthy-ness, ‘All I Want Is Everything’ is a total crowd-pleaser. Each track is vibrant and precisely produced; it’s experimental, unexpected, yet incredibly earworm-ish. The album is beautifully made, and a lot of fun. This is a debut that has been a long time coming; undeniably joyful, it’s a strong musical feat and Blu’s musical prowess as an esteemed bass player oozes through each track With 14 stellar tracks, Blu has given listeners a lot to sink their teeth into. EMMA QUIN

★★★★

Ellie Bleach

Now Leaving West Feldwood EP ★★★★

Trying out identities like a teenager raiding a closet, CAITY BASER is going to be one hell of a pop star. → The mixtape can be anything. An album without the confidence of a label willing to call it a debut? An experimental swing at something that lives in a moment, rather than intended for the permanent record? A palette cleanser to clear the decks before something bigger and better? They’ve all made an appearance over the last decade or so, as that first full-length pushes further and further into a potential pop star’s career path. It’s a transient phase that Caity Baser embraces with both hands with ‘Still Learning’, a collection that weaves left and right, taking no bullshit as it swaggers and staggers down the broadest spectrum of creative paths imaginable. Never short of personality, it’s thirteen tracks of Caity trying on every outfit from the rail for size, adding new dimensions to the full package. Some of it may feel like ‘what if’ episodes - the jazz club swing of ‘Showgirl’ is unlikely to be a final destination

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on her journey - but when playing to her strong suit of snappy, attitude-packed brat pop, there’s genuine main character potential. None of ‘Pretty Boys’, ‘Why Can’t I Have Two (2468)’ or ‘X&Y’ are subtle slices of cooler-than-thou art pop, but writing with big, bold, day-glo neon scrawl, they shake way more than subtly seduce. ‘Oh Well’, though, finds a middle ground, its catchy chorus a testament to Baser’s ability to craft hooks that linger long after the song ends. Whatever the final character of Caity Baser turns out to be, ‘Still Learning’ ignores strong, stable, responsibly set foundations for flights of fancy and unapologetic experimentation. Like a teenager trying out new identities by the month, it makes for a chaotic, dramatic, but utterly brilliant ride. As she sheds her L plates, it’s clear: Caity Baser is here to make waves, not just ride them. STEPHEN ACKROYD

→ Ellie Bleach loves a bit of theatricality; drama seeps its way through the cracks of her earlier works, and on her latest EP, she takes it that bit further by setting the six tracks in the fictional town of West Feldwood with a story that takes several twists and turns as it meanders through its duration. The EP is packed with huge instrumental arrangements too, including a saxophone solo that adds to the already huge air of drama present. ‘Now Leaving West Feldwood’ balances the hilarious and dramatic perfectly, and if this is anything to go by, then Ellie Bleach is set for a big year. MINTY SLATER-MEARNS

The Rhythm Method

Peachy ★★★★

→ The Rhythm Method’s longawaited second album takes the duo of Joey and Rowan’s mix of classic songwriting and witty lyrical wordplay and gives it a significant upgrade in terms of ambition and scope. ‘Peachy’ is a far more dynamic and textured listen than their ebullient but sometimes lightweight 2018 debut ‘How Would You Know I Was Lonely?’. Helmed by Bill Ryder-Jones on production, the progression in every aspect is palpable. This is the album they’ve been waiting all their lives to make and they’ve firmly stepped up to the challenge. A delightful return from a band operating at a new level. MARTYN YOUNG

Empress Of

For Your Consideration ★★★★★

→ Empress Of, otherwise known as Lorely Rodriguez, is arguably one of the coolest artists at work – if that wasn’t already clear, the title-track of her new album ‘For Your Consideration’ makes it abundantly so. Effervescently fizzing between sultry beats and honeyed vocals, it paves the way for an album filled with pulsing, feverish hits grappling with love and heartbreak masterfully. Powerfully selfassured, ‘For Your Consideration’ is steeped in cool from start to finish. Empress Of flits between English and Spanish, shifting chameleon-like through sweltering late-night hits like ‘Preciosa’ and breezy suntinged slices of pop such as ‘Kiss Me’, for which she calls upon the vocal talents of Rina Sawayama. The latter is a standout track, a fantastical, intoxicating moment on the album. Even in the midst of working through heartbreak, Empress Of finds an empowerment in being unguarded; ‘What Type Of Girl Am I’ is a seductive cocktail of breathy vocals and pulsating beats, dripping with smirking confidence. ‘Fácil’ and its quickly-oscillating beats continues in that trend – the unique drum beats of the track push Empress Of higher and higher, rising to the top of her game. Album closer ‘What’s Love’, which invites MUNA to offer their magic, is a meditation of how she reached this version of herself; an ode to love in all its forms, its lesson takes shape against a shimmering, thrumming soundscape that will have you pressing play all over again. NEIVE MCCARTHY

INCOMING

COMING

SOON What’s out in the next few months you should have on your radar.

English Teacher

This Could Be Texas

→ One of the UK’s best up-andcoming bands, Leeds foursome English Teacher are about to drop their opening statement proper - and what a statement it is. Mark this one on your calendar, it’s set to be an AOTY list contender. Released 12th April 2024

Maggie Rogers

Don’t Forget Me

→ “I wanted to make an album that sounded like a Sunday afternoon,” Maggie Rogers says of her very (very) highlyanticipated third album. “Worn in denim. A drive in your favourite car. No make up, but the right amount of lipstick. Something classic. The mohair throw and bottle of Whiskey in Joan Didion’s motel room. An old corvette. Vintage, but not overly Americana. I wanted to make an album to belt at full volume alone in your car, a trusted friend who could ride shotgun and be there when you needed her.” Released 12th April 2024

FLETCHER

In Search of The Antidote

★★★★★ She’s always seemed a potential main pop gal, but this time round, FLETCHER is better than ever. → There has never been any doubt that Fletcher has the chops to make waves with her alt-pop – her debut, ‘Girl Of My Dreams’, had powerhouse vocals and infectious pop beats in droves. And yet, with its follow-up, ‘In Search Of The Antidote’, she blows what came before out of the water. It’s a mammoth – a confessional, earnest journey towards finding love in every aspect of her life, Fletcher delivers her truths and lessons with some of her most electric tracks yet. ‘Maybe I Am’ and ‘Doing Better’ are an anecdotal, honest double act that kick the album into gear with a formidable intensity – acceptance and brutal truths head the tracks up, transformed by pounding riffs into an incendiary statement. ‘Doing Better’ in particular, is a standout track, a rock star outing by Fletcher as she dives into the complexities of

St Vincent

All Born Screaming

→ St. Vincent’s first selfproduced record, ‘All Born Screaming’ sees her push herself to her limits. “There are some places, emotionally, that you can only get to by taking the long walk into the woods alone—to find out what your heart is really saying,” Annie Clark explains. “It sounds real because it is real.” Released 26th April 2024

Maya Hawke

Chaos Angel

→ Billed as an album about falling in love, fucking it up, and getting back up again, ‘Chaos Angel’ finds Maya Hawke coming into her own for a third solo album that weaves a grand narrative routed in magic, beauty, and, well, chaos. Released 31st May 2024

Lake Saint Daniel

Small Thoughts ★★★★

→ Lake Saint Daniel is the nom de plume of Future Teens’ Daniel Radin, and if you’re acquainted with the warm and open-hearted tone of the day job, then much of ‘Small Thoughts’ – in substance, if not style – will be instantly familiar. Radin’s sincerity shines throughout, to the point where cuts like ‘Real Darkness’ and ‘Faithless’ feel like a comforting hug from a plush blanket on a particularly bleak and biting day. And while Future Teens’ punk-tinged pop sound is direct and indie-disco friendly, here, lush instrumentation, slide guitars and wondrously deft arrangements fill out the sound, building on Radin’s hushed vocals and adding colour and verve. ROB MAIR

Grieving

Everything Goes Right, All At Once ★★★★ → Once upon a time, we Brits used to be great at this sort of stuff. Kids Near Water, Seafood, Stapleton; names lost to the sands of time but which left an undeniable footprint. To some extent, it means Grieving’s anthemic mix of post-hardcore, emo, and Britrock is somewhat old fashioned – but for folk of a certain vintage, that shit is both formative and timeless. Opener ‘Brian Emo’ sets the tone for ‘Everything...’, and from then, over 10 further tracks, it just doesn’t relent. Even in its extremities – the knotty, motorik ‘Puritans’ and the propulsive, positively-charged ‘10x Michelangelo’ – Grieving find sonic bliss. ROB MAIR

moving on and spiralling at the same time. ‘2 Things’ begins inconspicuously, a simple piano sequence that quickly becomes one of the album’s most addictive moments – an insatiable beat that brings new meaning to the crying in the club banger. ‘Eras Of Us’ sees Fletcher thrive in her lower tone, her vivid storytelling unfolding over a drum-heavy anthem that relishes in its pain and not holding back. Slowly, the raw pain of the album seems to lessen – the sheer quality of these tracks, however, never wanes. In unwaveringly speaking her truth, Fletcher seems to find the freedom to work her way back to herself, uncovering love in different places and landing on some closure. It’s a high voltage, stirring journey from start to finish, the guitar lines as explosive as the weight of those feelings. A completely exhilarating exercise in accepting your flaws, taking no shit and finding new ways of fulfilment, ‘In Search Of The Antidote’ sees Fletcher taking on a new power, one that can only expand from here on out. NEIVE MCCARTHY

Chastity Belt

Live Laugh Love ★★★★

→ The effortlessly cool Chastity Belt return with another gorgeous album. ‘Live Laugh Love’ is easygoing, understated, yet rich in substance. True to the group’s paired-back style, listeners get to truly appreciate every vocal and every chord. Their modest production style is a welcome change of pace, and, having made music together for over a decade, their musical experience can be heard through each track. It feels like a natural extension of the group’s sound and a continuation of their shared journey. Unpretentious, direct and relatable, they’ve once again delivered a beautiful album. EMMA QUIN

Adrianne Lenker

Bright Future ★★★★

→ Probably best known as lead singer for cult favourites Big Thief, Adrianne Lenker is back with a seventh solo album, ‘Bright Future’. An embodiment of haunting fragility and untold depth, Lenker maintains her position as one of the most distinct and prolific voices in modern music. Her achingly stunning voice shines, nowhere more clearly than in the bravely quiet opener ‘Real House’ and shattering lead single ‘Ruined’. Both tracks are stripped back, letting Lenker’s inbuilt talent for weaving a narrative take control. Upfront lyricism, traditional but masterful soundscapes, and an ambience that feels like home. This is a simply beautiful record. CIARAN PICKER

READDORK.COM 77.

GET OUT. LIVE MUSIC, FROM THE FRONT

THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON, 1 FEBRUARY 2024

You ain’t seen nothing yet. → “I should have planned a speech, really,” says Abigail Morris, who, not for the first time tonight, is at a loss for words. “I’m just happy,” she adds. Over the past twelve months, The Last Dinner Party have gone from scrappy gigs in London pubs to this theatrical, sold-out show at The Roundhouse via a BRIT Award and BBC Sound Of 2024 crown. As much as tonight is a celebration of that giddy journey so far, it’s also a deliberate glimpse into just how big this band could go. Heartworms attacks her 30-minute set with the same determination. A majority of the gig is used to road-test new material, but it never feels undercooked. Moments of glitching beauty stand tall next to cathartic rage as Heartworms confidently moves beyond the gothic post-punk tag that dominated the release of that attentiongrabbing debut EP. Familiar tracks like ‘May I Comply’ and ‘Retributions Of An Awful Life’ have also evolved as Jojo Orme swings between intricate and explosive before the whole thing ends in sheer euphoria. There’s plenty of that with The Last Dinner Party as well, but things start with more restraint. The crowd roars as the band takes to the stage,

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but they reply with a five-part vocal harmony that front already know every word to unreleased tumbles into a gorgeous, slow-burning a capella tracks like ‘Portrait Of A Dead Girl’ and ‘Gjuha’, version of ‘Beautiful Boy’. Following a flurry of but the real magic happens with the wildfire chattering bird song, and with the stage draped singles. ‘Sinner’, ‘My Lady Of Mercy’ and ‘Caesar in white curtains and glowing chandeliers, it feels On A TV Screen’ are already much bigger than like the start of a Disney movie rather tonight’s venue, while ‘Burn Alive’ and Setlist than a rowdy album launch party ‘Feminine Urge’ look set to follow suit. thrown by Britain’s most exciting Beautiful Boy The closing, confetti-strewn ‘Nothing guitar group. It’s not the first dizzying Caesar on a TV Matters’ remains an absolute anthem. Screen turn tonight’s show takes, either. The Feminine Urge Despite the reckless turns the Later, The Last Dinner Party Burn Alive music makes, The Last Dinner Party’s are joined by a number of classical On Your Side Gjuha songs are born from trauma, anger musicians. Led by Aurora Nishevci, Sinner and unease before being forged into the group performs the orchestral Portrait of a Dead Girl ‘Prelude To Ecstasy’ before they something celebratory. Live, that My Lady of Mercy Mirror rework chaotic live favourite becomes transcendent and it’s easy ‘Godzilla’ into a swaggering to see why people believe in the Encore: rock’n’roll number that channels Prelude to Ecstasy fantastical world they’ve created. Godzilla Elton John, Queen and Paramore. During the final song, the audience Nothing Matters Featuring everything from epic guitar showers the band in red roses after solos and sax breakdowns to bongos, dressing up in their finery, while Abigail spends it’s excessive and indulgent, but when have The the majority of the show trying to overcome Last Dinner Party been anything but? the distance between the stage and the crowd. Throughout the gig, the band’s odd indie-pop “We’re so proud we filled this room with people songs champion their own weirdness as they like you,” she says, finally finding the words. ALI twist from spiky rock to flamboyant country SHUTLER without missing a step. The die-hard down the

Photo: Frances Beach.

THE LAST DINNER PARTY CELEBRATE IN STYLE

GET OUT

DONOT DYLAN MAKES MISS... A STATEMENT Tours and shows you should be checking out. Photo: Patrick Gunning.

NIEVE ELLA SHOOTS FOR THE STARS

UNIVERSITY Bristol, Dareshack (18 March), Brighton, The Hope & Ruin (19), London, The Glove That Fits (20), London, Ormside Projects (21), Glasgow, The Old Toll Bar (23), Manchester, Aatma (24).

OMEARA, LONDON, 8 FEBRUARY 2024 Nieve oversees the greatest party going.

Photos: Max Rowley.

Dolls’ ‘Iris’, Flyte’s ‘White Roses’ and 90s classic ‘You & Me Song’ by The Wannadies put fun front and centre. “What ON EARTH is going on?!” Nieve grins as she oversees the greatest party going. ‘Car Park’ and ‘His Sofa’ are immediate indie-rock served up to ridiculous anthemic highs, while the one brand new track unveiled tonight (which practically reaches down into your gut with sheer emotional rawness) makes it clear that even with this sort of feverish reaction, the world has barely scratched the surface of where Nieve Ella is planning to go. As the jaw-dropping build of ‘Lifetime Of Wanting’ is debuted live to a stunned room and ‘Girlfriend’ stamps an exclamation point on it all, a sold-out Omeara already feels too small. Whether it’s the beginning of your story with Nieve Ella or just the glorious next chapter, what’s clear is that all are welcome. She isn’t shooting to the stars alone; she’s bringing everyone along with her. JAMIE MUIR

DECLAN MCKENNA Cardiff, Great Hall, Cardiff University (23 March), Norwich, UEA (24), Newcastle, O2 City Hall (25), Glasgow, O2 Academy (27), Sheffield, O2 Academy (29), Belfast, Ulster Hall (1 April), Dublin, 3Olympia Theatre (2), Manchester, O2 Apollo (5), Leicester, De Montfort Hall (8), Bristol, Beacon (9), Wolverhampton, The Halls (10), London, Alexandra Palace (12), Brighton, Brighton Centre (13), Bournemouth, O2 Academy (14).

INTENT

EVENTIM APOLLO, LONDON, 15 FEBRUARY 2024 “Welcome to the chaos.” → “I don’t want you to sing to me; I want you to scream in my face,” grins DYLAN, commanding London’s Hammersmith Apollo. There’s a smirk of anticipation before she launches into ‘Girl Of My Dreams’, but the rowdy chanta-along is so loud she can’t help but laugh in disbelief. Later, she admits that playing her biggestever hometown show is terrifying, but you wouldn’t know it, as she looks entirely comfortable in the spotlight. Opening act Say Now are slightly more nervy. While DYLAN has already played stadiums and massive festival stages, SayNow only played their first headline show in November and have just a handful of singles to their name. It doesn’t take them long to find their groove, though. The trio pull influence from the pop greats of the 90s and beyond, with flashes of Sugababes, Destiny’s Child and Little Mix throughout tonight’s 25-minute set. Songs tackle shitty exs and toxic relationships, with friendship anthem ‘Better Love’ offering a harmony-led dose of warm empowerment. There’s a soaring cover of Avril Lavigne’s ‘Complicated’ that teases every drop of emotion from the poppunk classic, while ‘S.I.N.G.L.E.’ is as excitable as they come. When it does click into place, Say Now are pure magic. DYLAN has always deliberately straddled the worlds of rock and pop, but that marriage has never looked more powerful than tonight. Taking to the stage, she

instantly launches into a blistering guitar solo and indulges in some synchronised dance moves with guitarist Rosie Botterill without missing a beat. From here on out, DYLAN giddily dashes between the extremes. New single ‘The Alibi’ continues her main pop moment that started with ‘Liar Liar’, and both sound absolutely huge, while the likes of ‘You’re Not Harry Styles’ and ‘No Romeo’ deliver huge choruses over snotty guitar. There are covers of Taylor Swift’s folksy ‘Out Of The Woods’ and Sam Smith’s pulsating ‘Unholy’ that see her put her own twist on the smash hits, before ‘Nineteen’ and ‘Blue’ offer unbridled catharsis. “I wasn’t going to do that song because I didn’t feel like that person deserved it to be played, but I guess it’s better to have loved and lost…” explains DYLAN wih a grin. “Plus there’s the royalties to think about.” With a beefed-up production and no apologies about pulling inspiration from Queen, Guns’N’Roses and Swift, tonight’s gig is a statement of intent from DYLAN as she looks towards that debut album. Two unreleased tracks back up that more ambitious, self-assured attitude as well. ‘Perfect Revenge’ is a country-tinged burst of art-pop, with janky synths undercutting all that polish, while ‘Bad’ is anything but. A hulking rock’n’roll anthem cut with sleek, soulful pop, it sees DYLAN pushing out in every direction. “Welcome to the chaos,” she grins. ALI SHUTLER

TATE MCRAE Dublin, 3Olympia Theatre (17 April), Dublin, 3Olympia Theatre (18), Glasgow, Glasgow Academy (20), London, Eventim Apollo (22), Manchester, O2 Apollo Manchester (24), Wolverhampton, The Civic At The Halls (26)

READDORK.COM 79.

Photo: Frances Beach.

→There’s a moment for every breakthrough artist that has graced these pages where the big leagues come into frame, and their moment is upon them. For Nieve Ella, that time feels firmly now. It may be that only two EPs are out there in the world, but over the past 12 months, she’s built something more. Ahead of tonight’s first sold-out date at London’s Omeara, social media is full of fans sharing their outfits, chatting about meeting up, trading in-jokes and reaching out to those who can’t get in. It’s a community coming together to witness a celebratory release that defines what Nieve Ella is all about. Deafening screams ring out as the singalong refrains kick into ‘Big House’; from there, the room is Nieve’s for the taking. ‘Fall 4 U’, ‘Your Room’ and ’19 In A Week’ are greeted like anthems you’d have storied in tattoos and memoirs, hitting over and over. With a sellout tour awaiting, it’s a line in the sand – a musical jukebox of revelry and dashing against boring. Covers of The Goo Goo

Photo: Patrick Gunning.

ZARA LARSSON IS AMBITIOUS AND VISCERAL AT THE ROUNDHOUSE THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON, 21 FEBRUARY 2024 “Let’s escape to planet Venus.”

Photos: Frances Beach.

→ It’s okay if you don’t know all the new songs, Zara Larsson reassures the crowd of people packed inside London’s Roundhouse. “I barely know all the words,” she admits, as relatable as ever. ‘Venus’, Zara’s third album, may have only been released 12 days ago, but tonight, the crowd belts out every word like they’ve lived with it their whole lives as they desperately cling to the giddy joy it embodies. Zara’s a tough pop star to pin down. Across her 16-year career, she’s been a little bit of everything, but ‘Venus’ sees her really embrace her love of dancepop. There are moments of pain and heartbreak across the record, but each song just uses that as an excuse to love a little harder. Live, it creates a feeling of sheer euphoria. The set starts with Zara appearing via a magic trick before she quickly gets stuck into ‘Venus” sleek title-track. An upbeat number about the otherworldly feeling of falling in love, it perfectly sets up the show’s overarching message of losing yourself in music and community. The tropical pop shimmer of ‘I Would Like’ and the chirping, ABBA-inspired ‘Look What You’ve Done’ continue that glittering getaway. “I hope

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you put on your dancing shoes tonight, London,” says Zara. “And I hope you’re ready to get hot and sweaty. Let’s escape to planet Venus.” The two-tiered production, pulsating visuals and four dancers help Zara create an entire universe to get lost in, while a three-piece band gives her urgent pop a real sense of warmth. Giving space for her club-ready collaborations with the likes of Tinie Tempah (‘Girls Like’), Alesso (‘Words’), Clean Bandit (‘Symphony’) and David Guetta (‘On My Love’) allows the show to easily slide into top gear, while new tracks ‘Ruin My Life’, ‘Escape’ and ‘You Love Who You Love’ continue that urgent quest for joy. There’s a hint of swaggering menace to ‘WOW’ and ‘None Of These Guys’ as Zara finds a new level of confidence, while ‘The Healing’ offers a deliberate moment of stillness and calm. “Don’t worry, we’ll get right back to the dancing,” Zara grins. The closing one-two of ‘Lush Life’ and ‘Can’t Tame Her’ underline the sense of reckless abandon that’s dominated this ambitious, visceral gig, with Zara doing everything in her power to provide as much bliss as possible. ALI SHUTLER

LIZZIE ESAU, BOROUGH COUNCIL AND HUMAN INTEREST TEAM UP FOR DORK’S NIGHT OUT

COLOURS, LONDON, 15 FEBRUARY 2024 Three separate statements of intent. → Returning once more to Colours Hoxton for Dork’s second live celebration of 2024, tonight sees three separate statements of intent, all focused on a fizzing and dead exciting year to come. We’re head over heels. Human Interest have been turning heads across London and beyond for a short while now, but tonight, it’s their evolution and ambition for their biggest chapter to date that lights up Colours Hoxton. Strutting and effortlessly cool in nature, it’s a twisting world that jumps from the swinging pop of ‘Cool Cats’ and the harmonies of ‘Better Press Repeat’ to the enrapturing ‘Shapeshifting’. For Borough Council, US altradio merges with distinctly UK edges to form a mesmerising set. It’s gripping and distinctly their own, weaving the sort of magic you’ll find garnering critical acclaim and slammedout rooms in a matter of no time. ‘Casino’ may have only been released a few weeks ago, yet tonight, it hits like a long-lost classic. Like flicking a flame into a box of fireworks, Lizzie Esau is an explosive rush of energy that rips and pulls at everything around her. With feet firmly planted in soaring pop-rock, tonight is a call-out for the highest highs possible for a show that revels in the fizzing fun of it all. Grungy, punchy and oozing with main stage presence, it brings you into a kingdom only set to grow bigger. As the lights go up and the queues to meet her afterwards pile up, it’s clear Lizzie Esau already has a seat at the superstar table well and truly reserved. JAMIE MUIR

KIM PETRAS OFFERS UP AN ABSOLUTE PARTY

EVENTIM APOLLO, LONDON, 19 FEBRUARY 2024 It’s an evening of euphoric escapism. → After years of flitting between the different corners of pop and trying to find something that felt right, Kim Petras released her empowering, playful ‘Slut Pop’ EP. She followed that up with a guest spot on one of the biggest songs of the year, ‘Unholy’, and a newfound sense of freedom came into focus. “This is the first time I can confidently be myself and not get shoved in different directions or do things to impress people,” she told Dork shortly afterwards. That sense of liberation can be felt across Kim’s debut album ‘Feed The Beast’ as well as swift follow-up records ‘Problematique’ and ‘Slut Pop Miami’. The past twelve months have very much been an era that’s seen Kim gleefully “doing the absolute most I can”, and tonight’s show at London’s Hammersmith Apollo is no less maximalist. After a melodramatic opening video that leans heavy into the worlds of fantasy and sin, Kim appears onstage for the first of tonight’s five acts. As well as celebrating her debut album, this opening foray explores rebellious freedom through soaring artpop but ends with Kim being unceremoniously beheaded offstage. Nothing a quick costume change can’t fix, though, as the second act takes on the bold, garish world of ‘Slut Pop’ via whips, chains, a t-shirt cannon,

early internet culture and every innuendo for sucking dick you could possibly imagine. It’s a far cry from the deliberate, scarlet-soaked opening, but it’s no less defiant while the ‘Problematique’ portion reworks that smirking sense of fun and finds new space to play. The hits portion of the show continues to show off Kim’s range, with both ‘Hillside Boys’ and ‘Can’t Do Better’ adding bristling sentimentality to her ever-expanding repertoire while a closing run of ‘Coconuts’, ‘Alone 2.0’ and ‘Heart To Break’ rounds out an evening of euphoric escapism with mass singalongs. Kim has always delivered a fabulous sense of celebration with her live gigs while pulling heavy inspiration from the pulsating world of club music. From beginning to end, tonight’s show is an absolute party, but it’s more than a rapid-fire set designed to get pulses racing. The whole show is far more considered than anything Kim’s done before, with those very different corners of her extensive back catalogue used to create a focused, unapologetic world where self-expression is king. “Being in a room full of people who understand you and your music is the most incredible feeling in the world,” Kim once told Dork, and tonight, she does everything in her power to spread that connected feeling. ALI SHUTLER

GET OUT

PINKPANTHERESS DONOT MISS... PULLS OUT ALL THE STOPS Tours and shows you should be checking out.

KACEY MUSGRAVES

Glasgow, 02 Academy Glasgow (9 May), Manchester, 02 Apollo Manchester (11), Wolverhampton, The Civic at The Halls (13), London, Roundhouse (14).

ALEXANDRA PALACE, LONDON, 23 FEBRUARY 2024 It’s PinkPantheress’ camaraderie with the audience between songs that makes the show.

Photo: Frances Beach.

→ Transitioning from the For You page to a massive stage isn’t easy. Many of the artists who’ve been fast-tracked to impressive festival slots and big venue bookings after a viral hit have been criticised for their disappointing shows and lack of stage presence. But PinkPantheress might be TikTok’s first proper success story. Although her early tracks spread like wildfire over there, she arrived on the platform fully loaded, with an artistic vision that extended beyond the 30-second clips, a refusal to be tied down to one genre, and both critical and commercial triumphs fleshing out her discography. It’s a journey that’s led PinkPantheress to a sold-out show at Alexandra Palace, just three stops into her first proper headline tour and less than three years after her breakout singles landed on streaming platforms. It’s one of those early tracks that opens the show tonight, Pink stepping out to ‘Break It Off”s thundering drum’n’bass beat, beefed up dramatically with a live band. The introduction of a live band particularly helps Pink cut through in ways she’d struggled to in her early days, her once hushed voice also perfectly clear now. The bag she’d become notorious for carrying on stage with her remains, at least for the

first couple of tracks, before setting it down for ‘Mosquito’, the lead single from last year’s debut album ‘Heaven knows’. A front-loaded set, ‘Pain’, ‘Passion’ and ‘Just for Me’ come and go early on, all strung together so the audience needn’t bother putting their phones down, while the less familiar album tracks shine in the show’s second half. Assisted by showgirls as backing dancers for the Willow collaboration ‘Where You Are’, and ballroom dancers for ‘The aisle’, while she reclines on a chaise longue similar to that featured on the ‘Heaven knows’ album art, she notes that she had to do something special for Ally Pally. She’s also joined by friend and fellow producer-pop-star-multihyphenate Shygirl, lending her the stage for Shy’s track ‘Coochie (a bedtime story)’ and a returning for a performance of ‘bbycakes’, the rework of 2004 3 Of A Kind track the pair collaborated on with Mura Masa. It’s a fun change of pace as the collaborative tracks that fill the second half – that’s ‘Bury me’ sans Kelela, ‘Another life’ sans Rema, and ‘Boys a liar Pt. 2’ sans Ice Spice – mostly involve Pink wandering around the stage until the featured verse passes. Still, it’s not the additional guests or even the production (which includes a stage setup of chandeliers,

candelabras and three ornate mirrors that speak to the audience intermittently, Snow White stylee) that make the show, but PinkPantheress’ camaraderie with the audience between songs. Off-the-cuff remarks like telling a story of how she ‘shaved’ before seeing Panic! At The Disco as a teenager “in case anything happened” as a prelude to the track about exactly that, ‘True romance’, is the kind of internet oversharing that keeps her grounded, as is the moment she says she has tea on her old school teachers, if there’s anyone from her school there. She accepts numerous gifts from the front row, too, including flowers and a K-pop photo card, popping them in her bag each time. It’s representative of the way she’s inched further from the faceless artist she was at the very start; the three giant mirrors surrounding her on stage reflect (sorry) that growth, too. So when the newer TikTok hits come at the end, the inescapable ‘Boys a liar Pt. 2’ and ‘Nice to meet you’, it becomes clear that PinkPantheress kind of balances it all perfectly; the undeniable hits with their innovation, the stage show and its curated randomness, the mystery and the very real person behind it when the illusion briefly shatters. ABIGAIL FIRTH

MADISON BEER Manchester, O2 Victoria Warehouse (22 March), Birmingham, O2 Academy (23), Glasgow, O2 Academy (24), London, Eventim Apollo (25)

BODEGA Bearded Theory’s Spring Gathering, Walton On Trent, Catton Hall (23 May), Bad Dreams, Manchester, New Century Hall (24), Wide Awake Festival, London, Brockwell Park (25), Brighton, Concorde 2 (28), Nottingham, The Rescue Rooms (15 Oct), Leeds, Brudenell Social Club (16), Glasgow, Room 2 (17), Newcastle upon Tyne, The Cluny (18), Birmingham, The Crossing (19), Cambridge, Junction (21), Sheffield, Crookes Social Club (22), Bristol, Beacon (23), London, Village Underground (24).

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ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

NOAHFINNCE

Yes, Dear Reader. We enjoy those ‘in depth’ interviews as much as anyone else. But - BUT - we also enjoy the lighter side of music, too. We simply cannot go on any longer without knowing that NOAHFINNCE owns a lot of.... erm... “dickrelated memorabilia”. What’s your breakfast of choice? Anything involving sausages. Have you ever been mistaken for someone else? Not in person, but since the new Percy Jackson series has come out, a lot of people keep telling me they think I’m Walker Scobell at first glance, which is embarrassing because he’s 15… What did you last dream about? I don’t remember many of my dreams, but the ones I remember are usually ones where I’m getting stabbed. The most recent one I can remember was one where I got thrown out of a building, so not much better. Have you ever seen a ghost? Nah, not a believer in ghosts. Even if they did turn out to be real, I’d probably die tryna convince myself the ghost that killed me was just a gust of wind. If you could be any inanimate object for a day, what would you choose to be? Garden gnome. What is the strangest food combination you enjoy? Okay, so I have two weird food combos that I swear by that apparently really upset people... The first is apple juice and Shreddies. I distinctly remember the moment I masterminded it - I was 10 years old, in my Shreddies

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phase and out of milk, so just poured the Shreddies into my glass of juice and ate it with a spoon. I love apple juice, and I love Shreddies. Why would I not do this? The second combo is Victoria Sponge and milk, which doesn’t sound strange at all, but people think it’s weird that I dunk, like... a whole slice into my milk and eat it with a spoon. If you could time travel to any era, past or future, where would you go? I’d honestly just use my timetraveling powers to travel far enough into the past for me to get my work done, take a bath, and take a nice nap whenever I was too busy. I’d probably use that shit every other day, never be tired and always be in the best mood so I could enjoy every moment to its fullest. Don’t think many people in the past would be that fond of me

for transgenderly reasons, and I think travelling to the future would take out a lot of the excitement of the present.

Have you ever fallen for a scam? Yes, and it’s embarrassing, so I’m not going to elaborate. What fashion would you most like to make a comeback? Wearing onesies everywhere. Too comfortable. If you could be best friends with a celebrity you do not know, who would you choose? Miley Cyrus. How far could you run if your life depended on it? Like… probably quite far, I’m motivated purely by fear of failure, so this works for me. Have you ever had a crush on

a fictional character? Has anybody ever said no to this question? When I was a kid, I had the biggest crushes on Kovu from The Lion King, Peter Pan and Troy Bolton. The only fictional characters I can think I had a crush on as an adult are Dr Gregory House and Roman Godfrey, but they’re both asshole characters which doesn’t really bode well for me, does it? What’s your favourite conspiracy theory, even if you don’t believe it? I met a conspiracy theorist in a bar in Portland who tried to convince me that the government (who, according to him, “is run by Satanists”) releases orbs that make people stupider. He showed me a video of a cat chasing a dust particle that looked like an orb on camera as proof. He had much worse views than

that, which I hate him for, but I admire the commitment to being batshit insane.

What’s the silliest thing you own? My boyfriend commissioned our friend to paint a parody of The Creation of Adam with our pet rats, so that’s definitely high up there. I have a baked bean candle. Also got loads of dick memorabilia for some reason… Mini dick figurines that my friend Nate made, a blowup dick costume; I think I have plastic straws in the shape of dicks somewhere? And an inflatable cock fighting kit (look it up). I think the weirdest part about the dick thing is that I’ve never bought myself dickrelated memorabilia? I’ve only ever been given it by friends or by fans, but I’ve never asked for it? People must just think me saying “I want a dick” was some kind of challenge?

If you had to hide something so nobody ever found it, where would you hide it? Why would I tell you that? How punk are you out of ten? I don’t think anybody is capable of answering this question without sounding like teenage Avril Lavigne in that video where she’s like, “I think I’m just a rock chick, and I like to rock out”. Truly incredible video; I think about it daily. “I like to scream, I like to holler, I like to break things, I like to yell.” What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from a mistake? Don’t attach crocodile clips to your braces and a battery “just to see if it lights up the lightbulb on the other end” because it does, and it hurts. Have you ever lied in an interview? Obviously. Why are you like this? Autism. NOAHFINNCE’s debut album ‘Growing Up On The Internet’ is out now.

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