Dork, August 2023 (Georgia cover)

DOWN WITH BORING.

Georgia

ISSUE 79 ·AUGUST 2023 · READDORK.COM

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Issue 79 | August 2023 | readdork.com | Down With Boring

Hiya, Dear Reader.

We’ve all heard of the concept of the bucket list, right? A selection of things to do before you die - long-held ambitions, wild hopes, the real top-drawer experiences you need to hit before it’s too late.

While you shouldn’t worry that your beloved Dork is on death’s door (fighting fit and able, thanks), this month sees us ticking off one of those big moments. At least, as far as its megalomaniac editor (it’s me, hi!) is concerned.

Professional objectivity cast aside, blur are the greatest British band of their generation.

Hell, some probably aren’t ready to hear it yet, but I’m pretty sure they’ll give anyone from any era a good game. And now, they’re on the cover of Dork. Fucking hell.

While many of their peers have just leaned in to the nostalgia circuit, or are too busy having ‘family drama’ to get back on stage, blur are still proving they’ve got that magic spark. I’m writing this right after seeing them deliver quite probably the best stadium-level show I’ve ever seen at Wembley (more on that next issue), and just a couple of weeks before their ninth studio album ‘The Ballad of Darren’ hits. A record comfortable in its own skin, embracing the passage of time but still offering up something genuinely impactful - even into their fourth decade as a going concern, blur mean something.

For now, though, we’ve got that bucket list to complete. Can someone get us Taylor, please? Thanks.

‘Editor’ @stephenackroyd

readdork.com Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Scribblers Abigail Firth, Finlay Holden, Jamie MacMillan, Jessica Goodman, Melissa Darragh, Neive McCarthy, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Christina Choi, Derek Bremner, Em Marcovecchio, Finlay Holden, Frances Beach, Jennifer McCord, Jono White, Lloyd Wakefield, Nicole Busch, Olli Appleyard, Patrick Gunning, Pedro Becerra, Phoebe Fox, Reuben Bastienne Lewis, Sarah Louise Bennett, Scarlet Page, Tom Pallant PUBLISHED FROM WELCOMETOTHEBUNKER.COM

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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.

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INTRO. THE BEATING HEART OF POP NONSENSE.

A chart battle, sold out shows - YARD ACT’s debut album was a genuine sensation. As they return with their first new material since, it’s time to head to ‘The Trench Coat Museum’...

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Patrick Gunning.

4. DORK

READDORK.COM 5.

INTRO

'FYI' THE

Political music is becoming a parody of itself"

NEWS

JAMES SMITH

unannounced second album. “I did get caught up caring about what people thought about me, and I still do,” he continued. “It’s a hard thing to let go of.”

Despite clocking in at over eight minutes long and tackling “ego and future”, ‘The Trench Coat Museum’ isn’t exactly dripping with self-indulgence.

Instead, it’s an existential crisis wrapped up in a pulsating blast of euphoria, which the band believes is what the world needs a little more of right now.

“Political music is becoming a parody of itself,” explains James. “I’m very sceptical about how many people can do it, and be interesting with it,” he continues, saying how easy it is to fall into a rhythm of anger. “Writing about how shit everything is, as if it’s some enlightened view, just dates things.” After touring the world for the past year, the band also found themselves asking if they wanted to keep hammering home the same, frustrated point.

“Really, you want to elevate a mood, and right now there’s a hedonism that is surging through people that comes from being told we’re fucked on all fronts. It’s ‘100% Endurance’, isn’t it?” he asks, referencing the band’s own ode to living in the moment. “If we’re all going to die, why not just have a good time. People are pushing for a more elevated and excited way of living. They’re finding joy where they can, rather than allowing themselves to be crushed.”

“If music and writing is a personal journey, I don’t want to box myself in by constantly telling myself how shit everything is. I want to find something new,” James continues as Jay explains how constant anger is “not great for your own personal well-being either.”

Yard Act decided to return with ‘The Trench Coat Museum’ because it was the first track they finished with co-producer Remi Kabaka Jr., but they couldn’t make it work as part of their upcoming album. “It feels more like an advert or trailer for the second record because it sets up all the themes,” says James, who’s convinced that if it does well, the label will try

6. DORK

IT’S SUN, SEA AND SEAGULLS FOR DEC → Declan McKenna has returned with his first new music of 2023, new single ‘Sympathy’. The track is our first taster of the follow-up to 2020’s second album ‘Zeroes’.

“It was important to use fewer words and not over-explain things this time around,” Dec explains of the track. “Sympathy doesn’t have a complex message, and, in itself, encourages simplicity and directness. It feels like a dream about love and compassion, it wants us to let go of inhibitions and allow ourselves to truly connect with others rather than overthinking and hiding your feelings away. Or put even simpler, it’s about peace and love.”

DREAM and shoehorn it on at the end of the next record as a kind of end-credits song. “But there’s no space for it on the vinyl, so it doesn’t count,” he says. “It feels like a standalone. It sets out our stall that we’re not going to do the same thing again but it also doesn’t say where we go next.”

There have been clues that Yard Act have been looking to shake things up. On their recent headline tour of the UK, dubbed a farewell to ‘The Overload’, breakout track ‘Fixer Upper’ was noticeably absent from the setlists. “Well, some of them are going to have to go,” shrugs James who saw it as a chance to test the waters.

“Let’s take out one of the big ones and see if we survive without it.” The only backlash they received was a handful of people on Twitter and that doesn’t really count, does it?

“I don’t want to be one of those bands that keeps releasing new albums but only playing one song off it,” he continues. “If you get stuck doing it, you can never escape it.” They also want to avoid becoming a band who never

plays any of the hits. The trick is apparently to keep writing bangers. The dream is, in five years’ time, to have a perfectly quartered wheel on Setlist.

FM, with Yard Act playing five songs from each album.

“Sipho’s doing an orchestral album, Jay’s been put in charge of the dance album, Ryan’s doing the hardcore punk album and I’m overseeing them all,” says James, refusing to confirm if he’s joking or not.

“You’ve got to move on and dropping ‘Fixer Upper’ was a step towards that,” he adds.

“Putting out new stuff and feeling like you could get laughed at or be about to properly embarrass yourselves is an important thing,” says Ryan. “It means you’re pushing yourself.”

“There have also been times where we think we’ve gone too far, but as soon as you put James’ vocals on it, it feels like Yard Act,” adds Sam. “Because of that, we don’t need to be fearful.”

The response to ‘The Overload’ helped with the band’s confidence as well. “I trust the vast majority of

people who like us, like us because they get that we’re going to do different stuff,” says James. “I see the reaction ‘100% Endurance gets and how it’s connected with a broad church of people. That fills me with hope. I’m really excited about the second album. I’m so confident in what we’ve made, I’d really love everyone to like it, but I’m not scared.“ “I definitely don’t want to stay in my line,” continues James, with the band more creatively ambitious than they’ve ever been. “Listening back to that first album, I can hear a band tentatively doing stuff but never fully going for it.” ‘Trench Coat’ alongside whatever follows, is Yard Act at their most confident. “I just want to do great shit, and whilst we’ve got a bit of a spotlight on us and a label giving us money, let’s not shrink on that. Let’s blow all the money on stupid, brilliant stuff that’ll help us try out ideas. I’m not arsed about making lots of money,” he shrugs. “You get free coats from fashion designers when you’re famous; you don’t need much more.” ■

TEAM

→ Taylor Swift and Paramore are teaming up for the former’s UK & European The Era’s Tour dates next year. Running across the summer, the plan does rule Taylor out of her predicted Glastonbury headline slot for 2024, but she’s making up with it by bringing her mate Hayley and co. along for the ride. By the time you read this, all the tickets will have definitely sold out. Sorry.

IT

TAKES

GUTS

→ Olivia Rodrigo has announced her new album, ‘GUTS’. The record will arrive on 8th September, and was recorded with her ‘SOUR’ collaborator Dan Nigro. “For me, this album is about growing pains and trying to figure out who I am at this point in my life,” she explains.

“I feel like I grew 10 years between the ages of 18 and 20—it was such an intense period of awkwardness and change. I think that’s all just a natural part of growth, and hopefully the album reflects that.”

THE HALO TOUR 2023 BAKAR

DON’T FORGET YOUR HALO’S 28.11

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TICKETS ON SALE NOW A LIVE NATION PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH WASSERMAN MUSIC

IT’S HARD TO PRETEND THAT YOU DON’T CARE

INTRO

Breakups are tough, whether it’s the love of your life, a summer fling, or your favourite coffee shop coming under new ownership (don’t ask) - but right now, it’s friend breakups that have NELL MESCAL‘s attention.

GREAT YEAR. Undeniably one of the buzziest artists on the planet right now, she’s returning with her new single ‘Punchline’ and the announcement of her first full UK and Ireland tour.

It arrives in the middle of a huge summer for her, which has so far included support slots at stadium-sized venues with P!NK, Florence + the Machine, and Dermot Kennedy, and with a full festival season still to come.

When we catch up, it’s the morning after the last of her trio of Irish shows with Florence, which saw Nell and fellow Irish icon and supporting artist CMAT join Florence on stage for a rendition of her track ‘Mermaids’.

“It’s definitely a wild experience,” says Nell. “I had to tell the band not to get too used to stadiums for the shows. Anytime I get to play a show, no matter how big or how small it is, it’s just so fun. Getting to be in a room with people that want to hear the music is really untouchable.”

Born and raised in Maynooth, Ireland, Nell moved to London just before her 18th birthday to start her music career. Now 20 and four singles in, she’s already making her mark. Switching it up with every release, her tracks so far have featured emotional piano balladry (‘Graduating’), indie pop bops (‘Homesick’), and sprawling breakup hits (‘In My Head’), ‘Punchline’ moves again in another direction, merging the theatrically of her ‘In My Head’ and the deceptive cheeriness of ‘Homesick’.

We caught up with Nell before her busy festival season takes hold to get the lowdown on ‘Punchline’ and what’s coming up in the second half of 2023.

Last time we spoke, you were just starting to play live shows.

How are you feeling about touring now?

It’s been so fun. I was talking with my band the other day when we were playing a show for Dermot Kennedy, and we had only met that week a year ago. So it’s been a crazy, crazy year, and I’m so lucky that I get to play shows like that and that I get asked to do them. It’s just so surreal.

You’ve been playing the new single live too. What can you tell us about it?

‘Punchline’ is a song about when a

8. DORK

Is the single part of a bigger project?

I’m still releasing singles at the moment. I’ve been having a really fun time trying to figure out my sound and figuring out what the next step is, and getting to play these shows has been really cool.

Getting to play the songs before they’re out is such a luxury and such a cool experience because you kind of engage what people are liking, but also the songs that I really love that go down well, I’m like, yes! But there’ll probably be something a bit bigger next year.

It does feel like you’ve done something different every time.

I think that’s just how my writing has been. I feel like I haven’t been really too strict on making it all the same structure. It’s been really nice that I’ve been allowed to do that and been supported doing that because I know it’s not always like that. A lot of the time, it’s like, “Write a hit, write a pop song!” and I’m like, I want to write about a friendship that didn’t work out, and I need 10 days to process it!

There’s still more music to come this year that I really, really love. friendship ends too soon, and you have to act like you’re fine with it in order to win the friendship breakup. It’s a song about when friends who know you so well and know how you’ve been hurt before can kind of use that to their advantage when they want to hurt you and kind of trying to spin it back on them, but it doesn’t really work that way. It’s very hard to pretend that you don’t care when you do. I wrote it in my bedroom last year when I was feeling those emotions.

Friendship breakups are definitely an underrated pain.

They’re so difficult. They can take a toll on your whole body when it happens because these are people that are supposed to be there when everything else falls away. I’m very lucky I had something like music to throw myself into after lots of crying

and hugging my parents. Going into details is so funny because when I write songs, that just is everything. I feel bad for the people when I write them because I’m like, they definitely know that this must be about us because every detail is there, but it’s just hidden in different ways. Friendship breakups are just a part of life, and they can be so crucial and so important for growth. So I’m very grateful that I’m at a point now where I’m ready to release songs instead of wallowing and still writing about the same experiences.

Do you have any favourite friendship breakup songs?

See, when I go through something, I’ll listen to the saddest song you can imagine. And then I’m like, yeah, amazing, I’ve done it; this is the song that was written for this exact situation. I like to listen to

Friendship breakups are just a part of life; they can be so important for growth" N E L L M E S CA L

And you’ve just announced a tour; tell us about that.

I can tell you that it’s gonna be really, really fun. We’re doing south to north of the UK; it’s my first time doing a headline UK tour, so I’m very nervous. But I think if I don’t do it now, I’ll be so nervous and I won’t want to do it for a very long time. It’s just a strange thing, doing a headline tour in a country that you’re not from and trying to get people to care about it. I’ve done two headline Irish tours now, and every time I’m really stressed, but every time it’s like people coming out to support an Irish artist, which is so lovely. So my fingers are crossed that it’s gonna be a good tour and people get tickets, but if not, it’s just gonna be really fun because I get to do it with my band and play these songs, and we’ve been having such a good time playing them.

I’m really excited; I think it’s gonna be really cool. ■

Words: Abigail Firth. Photo: Em Marcovecchio

a song by The Gloaming which is called ‘Fáinleog’; I have a tattoo of it, and it’s this really beautiful folk Irish Trad song. Every time I listen to it, I’m like [blubbering] because it’s just so good. I feel like that’s the song I use to get through the most difficult things in life.

→ NELL MESCAL IS HAVING A

MAX COOP ER3D/AV 29.09.23 30.09.23 08.10.23 SOLD OUT 13.10.23 14.10.23

BUNNY TOUR 2023

BRIGHTON Chalk BIRMINGHAM The Mill CARDIFF Tramshed GLASGOW St Lukes NEWCASTLE Boilershop

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

FEET ■ DIVORCE ▲

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10 NOVEMBER ■ 22 NOVEMBER ▲

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH ATC

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH LITTLE BIG AGENCY

FRI 13 & SAT 14 OCTOBER

SWX

BRISTOL

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D

SOL SOL March 16th, 17th, 18th OUT OUT

O2 Forum Kentish Town London

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH ATC

by arrangement with x-ray

T I C K E T S

A V A I L A B L E

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INTRO

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Nicole Busch.

With her new EP ‘Mr Big Shot’ out now, WALLICE might see herself as normal, but her music is anything but, in the best possible way.

I try not to make trendy music" WA L L I C E

→ THE TITLE OF WALLICE’S BRILLIANT NEW EP ’Mr Big Shot’ doesn’t entirely reflect how the musician sees herself.

“I flew business class for the first time the other day, and I was so excited about that,” she beams. “I was also far too nervous to attempt to go and say hi to Alex G at catering at a festival the other day, so no, I’m definitely not a big shot.

It’s just funny though, isn’t it,” she says, continuing the trend of tongue-in-cheek titles that started with last year’s ‘90’s American Superstar’.

Wallice may see herself as very normal, but her music is anything but. The last time she spoke to Dork, she’d just signed to Dirty Hit and was about to play her first headline shows after releasing her debut EP ‘Off The Rails’ in 2021.

Since then, she’s developed a passionate fanbase thanks to her snarling, vulnerable coming-of-age guitar anthems and has grown into one hell of a performer. “I’m very comfortable on stage now,” she explains. “I don’t really get nervous anymore. It’s just excitement.”

In a few days’ time, Wallice will play her 100th proper live gig (she keeps a running tally in the notes app on her phone) after starting the year supporting The 1975 in arenas across Europe, Australia and Asia. “Those shows were way bigger than anything I ever dreamed of playing,” she says, explaining just how vast a 10,000-capacity room looks from behind the microphone.

“It was crazy to think the songs that I made with (producer) Marinelli, who I’ve known since I was ten-years old, got me here. We made them in his childhood bedroom before we had any knowledge of how to be successful, and I ended up playing them to thousands of people on the other side of the world. There were also a few people every night that knew a couple songs, which is incredibly cool,” she beams, with countless more people flooding her DMs and calling Wallice their favourite new artist.

It’d be very easy to be overwhelmed, but at no point has Wallice felt like things have happened too fast. “I’ve been working towards this for so long. The last few months of touring has been the most I’ve ever done and I’ve been home for maybe 15 days in the last three months, but it’s literally the dream,” she says, wrestling with the ever-familiar niggles of jetlag. “It’s everything I wanted since I was a young girl, but never thought possible.”

It’s given her a confidence that can be felt across ‘Mr. Big Shot’, a dreamy 6-track EP that sees Wallice sure of the world she’s building. “I don’t know how to explain it, but it just feels like a step-up from my other records, which have been character-based, kitschy and not necessarily based in reality,” she says, describing ‘Off The Rails’ as a “cowboy, coming-of-age” record while ‘90s American Superstar’ was as fantastical and extravagant as the title suggests. “’Mr Big Shot’ has more authentic stories and feelings. It’s more thought out than just a collection of spur of the moment decisions. It’s more mature,” Wallice adds, but fear not.

“There’s still a lot of humour in it,” she promises.

‘Why Do You Love Me?’ and ‘Loser At Best’ are Wallice’s versions of love songs. “They’re not too sappy. They’re more self-deprecating,” she explains, with the rest of the EP continuing to explore coming-of-age as a young adult.

10. DORK

The explosive ‘Prepaid Wireless’ was written after Wallice’s mum moved from LA to Georgia, meaning she no longer saw her every few days. “It felt like my whole world was crashing around me, because it was such a big change,” she says while ‘Quarterlife’ is the big sister sequel to ‘23’ and sees Wallice explore the pressure of maintaining a certain level of hype. “When I take away the numbers, I do feel like I’m building an audience that genuinely relates to what I’m putting out, but when has that ever stopped someone comparing themselves to others. It’s so easy to be so hard on yourself,” she explains.

“I try not to make trendy music. A song might have a TikTok moment but then never be played again,” says Wallice, who’d rather craft a body of work that means something than chase instant gratification. “I just hope these songs help people feel less alone in the complicated feelings of growing up, love and relationships,” she explains.

The fact they’re all big, triumphant bangers comes directly from those giddy live shows.

For the first time, Wallice also worked with other musicians to create ‘Mr Big Shot’. ‘Prepaird Wireless’ was co-written with Jonny Pierce from The Drums (“I’ve loved his music since I was 14”), ‘Why Do You Love Me?’ was created alongside The Marías’ Josh Conway while Two Inch Punch helped out with ‘Loser At Best’.

“I was really nervous ahead of those sessions because I’ve only ever really worked with Marinelli before,” says Wallice, with her long-term producer still heavily involved in shaping ‘Mr Big Shot. “I had imposter syndrome and was constantly asking myself, ‘why would this person want to write with me? They must have been forced’, but I came out of every session with a cool song, so I feel more confident about my abilities now.”

The record even sees Wallice taking direct inspiration from Radiohead, one of her favourite ever bands, on closing track ‘Disappear’. “Hopefully, it’s unique enough that it grows past those ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’ comparisons,” she says. “I didn’t go into this EP knowing what I was going to make, and I’m never seeking out specific sounds. I’m just influenced by what I’m listening to, and I’ve had the same music taste since I was 12,” she explains. “That’s why my music sounds cohesive, but I never want it to be the same song over and over again, either.”

And after the release of Mr Big Shot and the celebratory headline tour, Wallice will enter “debut album creation mode, which I’m very nervous and excited about,” she reveals. There’s a handful of songs that she thinks will make the cut but she knows that’ll probably change when she actually gets back into it. “I want to have so many songs to choose from, and I want to play it at a bunch of festivals next summer,” she says, longing to connect with more people. “I want the record to still be relatable but, once again, a step up from everything that’s come before.”

“Honestly, it’s just going to be a continuation of what I’ve been doing though,” she adds, confident in the world she’s been building over the past two years. “I already know I’m going to make something I’m very proud of.” ■ Wallice’s EP ‘Mr Big Shot’ is out now.

INTRO

A

DAY

IN THE LIFE OF...

TEN TONNES 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, Ten Tonnes lets us in on what he’s up to.

9:00AM → - Wake up. It’s 28° today, a beautiful sunny clear day. Hay fever season is officially upon us, so I take copious amounts of hay fever medicine and drown my eyes with eye drops. Then have a shower, brush my teeth, get ready for the day.

10:00AM → Breakfast, and I’m afraid to admit I’m part of the overnight oats brigade. I have mine with berries, a banana, and some honey.

The plan for today is to finish a couple of songs I’ve been demoing and get ready for my new single to come out tonight!

11:00AM → Spanner in the works. Two days prior, I had a late-night brainwave and bought an inflatable kayak online, and it’s just arrived. My previous plans for the day go out the window for now.

12:00PM → I ended up spending two hours on the river, and it was genuinely the best day I’ve had in a long time. This is my official endorsement for buying a kayak.

2:30PM → I’m back home. The rest of the day is going to be a letdown now following that but we soldier on.

3:30PM → I have finished up one demo and started working on the next. For lunch, I have some watermelon and some salad and some hummus. Also made some iced tea earlier, so have that as well.

4:00PM → Film some videos for posting

about the new single out tonight. It’s the last single before the album release, and it’s a song I’ve been waiting a long time to get out into the world.

5:00PM → - Finishing up the second demo and replying to emails. I have an in-store tour at the end of July, and there’s a bit of planning required. Can’t wait to play some acoustic shows and catch up with everyone.

I run through a couple of new songs on my guitar.

6:00PM → To the pub. It’s still about 25°, and I’ve had multiple texts about having a pint, so who am I to say no? Quickly eat before I leave and then straight to the pub garden. Beautiful.

8:30PM → Back home, put on Curb Your Enthusiasm and catch up with my #pals.

Start to wonder if my day was exciting enough for the Day In The Life piece I need to write.

12:00AM → New single comes out! Always such a buzz to release music and see the response. I wrote the song three years ago now, so it’s a nice feeling of closing the loop. Then it’s time to watch some YouTube videos of people camping in Alaska and then sleep. I hope this wasn’t too boring. Get a kayak.

Ten Tonnes’ album ‘Dancing, Alone’ is out 28th July.

READDORK.COM 11.

ROOTS MANUEVERS INTRO

SUNDARA KARMA are a band constantly on the move, but with their new single, ‘Friends of Mine’, they’re reacquainting themselves with their roots.

Words: Stephen Ackroyd.

→ THE INDIE-ROCK LANDSCAPE IS ALWAYS FERTILE GROUND FOR UP-ANDCOMERS – new bands here, emerging scenes there – but as the machine eats up and churns out fresh blood, only a handful carve out a distinctive space to stick around and make a lasting impact. One band that has undeniably managed to do so is Sundara Karma. After yet another creative swerve, they’re back, reintroducing themselves with the rip-roaring new single, ‘Friends of Mine’.

For now, though, frontman Oscar Pollock is looking forward to spending the day in the park with a good book, far removed from the hustle and bustle of the tour life that’s doubtlessly around the corner. The band, he explains, have been on a bit of a rollercoaster since their ‘Oblivion!’ EP, released in 2022.

They’ve been finding their footing amidst the challenges life throws their way, slowly but surely.

That footing feels pretty sure with ‘Friends of Mine’. A confident, bombastic banger, it’s no wallflower.

“I wanted to test the waters and see if I still had the knack for writing a decent indie tune,” Oscar says, “and I think I still can. I’ve shied away from that sound lately, but it feels like the right thing to do at this point.”

A track that’s an ode to friendship, it carries a fresh sound reminiscent of what the band was doing on their first album, ‘Youth Is Only Ever Fun in Retrospect’. That record fizzed with excitement, lighting up a scene and propelling the band to a triumphant show at London’s Brixton Academy as a crowning glory. After that point, they flew off in new directions, attempting wilder, more creative swerves. Never anything less than brilliant, that initial blast is still cherished by many – for good reason, too.

“It’s an attempt to immortalise the ephemeral ‘good times’ I’ll never get back,” Oscar offers. “I think it’s a song that our fans will resonate with. We’ve been exploring some different sounds recently, and we’ve had to do some convincing along the way.

But sometimes, you gotta give the people what they want, especially when it’s what made them fall in love with your music in the first place.”

It’s clear that ‘Friends of Mine’ signals a return to the band’s roots, taking fans back to the days of their debut. Oscar explains, “As I learn more about myself as a songwriter, I have a clearer view on what certain projects should sound like, and I think maybe I’m only just appreciating what Sundara Karma does best.”

When it comes to finding creative inspiration, Oscar’s approach is one of laidback spontaneity. “I’ve also not really been seeking out inspiration in a conscious way recently; I’m more going with the flow, seeing

12. DORK

We’ve been exploring some different sounds recently" O S CA R P O L LO C K

where life takes me, and trying to not get in the way of things,” he shares, though he admits he’s been “revisiting a lot of the music I grew up with.”

While ‘Friends of Mine’ does have a certain nostalgic tinge to it, Oscar is pretty plain that he thinks the indie scene could be a bit more inventive with itself. “Honestly, I wish I could say it has evolved,” he considers, “but not really. It’s one of the things that saddens me most about the genre. It’s very backwards-facing in terms of its references and aesthetic. I would still like to see a larger space created for underrepresented communities. I would like to see artists be more distinctive and brave with their output.

It really feels like peak saturation right now!

I don’t want to come across as a cynical person, though. I’m only saying this because I know we could all be doing so much better.”

Despite the concerns, the band’s future seems bright. Their new music is practically begging to be played live – there’s news on that coming soon, apparently – and album three is basically done (“I’d say we’re about 99.8% there”).

It’s not been an easy road – Oscar admits to “battling with depression”, something that he’s been dealing with since his early 20s.

“There was a brief moment just before the pandemic when things felt really great,” he admits. “I was in a wonderful relationship, and life felt almost dream-like, but somehow the self-sabotage streak in me didn’t let all that last long at all. The thing with depression is that it eats away at your confidence and corrodes your self-image to the point where you either don’t recognise yourself or you hate yourself because what you end up seeing in the mirror feels too brutally true.”

Hold that mirror up to Sundara Karma, though, and you’ll find one of the most inventive acts of recent years reflected. In doubling back to where they started, they’re certainly not just treading old ground.

That rollercoaster may loop around, but it’s anything but a flat and boring ride. ■ Sundara Karma’s new single ‘Friends of Mine’ is out now.

PLUS SPECIAL GUESTS

JEALOUS NOSTRIL

OCTOBER ‘23 TOUR Wed 04 GLASGOW St Lukes Thu 05 NOTTINGHAM Rescue Rooms Fri 06 LONDON EartH Theatre Sat 07 NORTHAMPTON Black Pince Sun 08 BRIGHTON Concorde 2 Tue 10 CARDIFF Clwb Ifor Bach Thu 12 NEWCASTLE Northumbria Uni (Reds Bar) Fri 13 MANCHESTER Academy 2 Sat 14 BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute2 Sun 15 SHEFFIELD Leadmill A Crosstown Concerts & Academy Events presentation by arrangement with ATC Live

NOVEMBER 03 BATH KOMEDIA 04 BIRMINGHAM TOWN HALL 05 SOUTHAMPTON ENGINE ROOMS 07 LEEDS STYLUS

08 GLASGOW ORAN MOR 09 NEWCASTLE WYLAM BREWERY 10 SHEFFIELD FOUNDRY 11 MANCHESTER NEW CENTURY HALL 14 LONDON HEAVEN

A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS, FKP SCORPIO & FRIENDS PRESENTATION

BY ARRANGEMENT WITH PURE

A CROSSTOWN CONCERTS & DF PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH X-RAY

Appearing Live & In Person

THE HOOSIERS The Confidence Tour, 2023 plus special guests 

plus special guests

CIEL

▲

Thu 28 Sep: Bristol, Thekla ▲ Fri 29 Sep: Leeds, Brudenell Social Club ▲ Sat 30 Sep: Sheffield, Leadmill  Sun 01 Oct: Newcastle, Boilershop  Mon 02 Oct: Glasgow, St Lukes ▲ Tue 03 Oct: Manchester, Gorilla  Thu 05 Oct: London, Koko



uk tour

november 2023

02 Hertford Corn Exchange 03 Southampton Joiners 04 Leeds Belgrave Music Hall 05 Penrith Brunswick Yard 07 Newcastle The Cluny 09 Edinburgh Mash House 10 Glasgow Broadcast

11 Nottingham Bodega 12 Sheffield Foundry 13 Oxford Bullingdon 15 Birmingham Hare & Hounds 16 London Village Underground 17 Bristol Strange Brew 18 Manchester Deaf Institute 19 Brighton Patterns

a Crosstown Concerts & Friends presentation by arrangement with ATC Live the new album This House out 01 Sep on Full Time Hobby

T I C K E T S

A V A I L A B L E

SEETICKETS.COM ALTTICKETS.COM @CROSSTOWN_LIVE

F R O M

GIGANTIC.COM TICKETEK.CO.UK

/CROSSTOWNCONCERTS

TICKETMASTER.CO.UK

@CROSSTOWNCONCERTS

INTRO

WE’RE LETTING EACH OTHER TAKE CHANCES

→ FIVE ALBUMS DEEP, and Local Natives

know a thing or two about getting through a tough spot. Their new record, ‘Time Will Wait For No One’ was created during a particularly difficult period for the group and very nearly saw them hanging up their band hats after more than a decade of intense creativity together. Now on the other side, they have an album that shines with both vulnerability and resilience.

Ryan Hahn and Nik Ewing reflect on the band’s creative process, the personal experiences that shaped their music, and the challenges they faced along the way.

Sometimes an act needs to stop, take stock and find a new spark. With their latest album, ‘Time Will Wait For No One’, LOCAL NATIVES are a band refreshed.

When did you begin working on the record, was there a defined starting point? What was your headspace like at the time?

Ryan: We first went into the studio to record with John Congleton back in April 2021. It’s a little harder to define when we start writing a new album; I try to more or less be writing all the time. But I will say when we started recording, it definitely felt like the least prepared we’d ever been to go into the studio. We had a lot of song seedlings and rough sketches but nothing 100% ready to go. I think we all hoped we’d just find it in the studio, and it would immediately click back together. The truth is that it took us a minute to find our footing again. One of the first things we worked on was a demo called ‘Transistor’ (not a 311 cover) that I thought would be a slam dunk for us, and it sort of just fizzled out in the studio. Thankfully a few weeks later, things were flowing much better, and I ended up salvaging a part from it to write a new song called ‘Just Before the Morning’.

You’ve described the last few years as a period of metamorphosis for you all; how is that reflected in the album’s sound?

Ryan: Like everyone else, the last few years were bizarre and difficult for all the obvious reasons. What was strange for our band is how inseparable and intertwined our 5 lives had been for over a decade.

We’d gone from living in the same house to touring relentlessly and never really slowing down. The album cycles defined our lives. I think, in some ways, the time apart may have been healthy for us. Some

14. DORK

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Christina Choi

You guys are about to release a new album, congratulations - how are you feeling about it at the moment? What’s the vibe in camp?

Ryan: Thank you! It’s exciting and strange.

We didn’t plan on this much time passing between our last full album and this new one. It’s not for not making music. We’ve actually made a lot of it, individually and as a band. We’ve lived with some of these songs for a while now, so now I’m stoked for people finally hear them and for them to take on a different life of their own. The vibe in the camp is great. The band text thread is full of funny memes; we’re feeling good. Even more so than with past albums, it feels like a new era for us as bandmates.

of us were getting married and becoming fathers. I started producing and writing for other artists. Kelc and Nik put out solo albums. When we got back together, I think we were able to bring these new individual experiences into LN. We’re much more confident in the studio environment than we’ve ever been, and we’re letting each other take chances and try things that, in the past, we might’ve shied away from.

Halfway through making the album, you played a show at the Greek in LA and were on the verge of collapse. Was there one specific thing you took out of it that allowed you to move forward?

Ryan: Yeah, that was a really bizarre experience. We were finally back together, playing our first show after our longest time away. We were playing a sold-out show at one of our favourite venues in the world. And yet there was such a complicated, heavy feeling in the air. We’d rented a rehearsal space for a few days to get us and our crew ready, but we spent almost half the time around a table outside having intense, emotional conversations.

A couple of us had this feeling that it

It took us a minute to find our footing again" RYA N H A H N

could be our last show. I can’t speak for everyone, but for me, what I took away from it was gratitude for my bandmates. It was a realisation that together we make a sound that only the 5 of us can make together. If one of wasn’t there, it would change the sound fundamentally. For all the difficulties and push and pull of making music with bandmates, there is something deeply rewarding about sharing the experience together.

Does the album deal with many difficult subjects?

Nik: ‘TWWFNO’ was made in a pretty dark Local Natives time. We thought we might not continue as a band at a certain point in making this album. A lot of individual and collective depression, isolation and then, obviously the immense loss Kelcey experienced. All of that obviously bleeds into the music we made, as it’s always quite personal. A lyric like “There’s so much I want to tell you” can take on an entirely different meaning from when it was written to when we’re feeling disconnected from each other mid-album creation.

Where have you been looking for creative inspiration, in general, lately?

Is there anything you’ve been returning to?

Nik: We were finishing up LP6 in the studio, and the Coachella livestreams were happening. Ryan and I stopped everything we were doing to watch Jai Paul’s set. I also ride for Frank’s Coachella set.

Local Natives’ album ’Time Will Wait For No One’ is out now.

GIRLPUPPY FRI 21 JULY FOLKLORE

BONNY DOON TUE 24 OCT THE LEXINGTON

LOKKI TUE 25 JULY SERVANT JAZZ QUARTERS

MANSUR BROWN SAT 28 OCT LAFAYETTE

BOYGENIUS SUN 20 AUGSOLD OUT GUNNERSBURY PARK

COUCOU CHLOE MON 30 OCT VILLAGE UNDERGROUND

CAT CLYDE TUE 22 AUG THE OLD CHURCH STOKE NEWINGTON

BLONDSHELL WED 1 NOV LAFAYETTE

ROUGH TRADE RECORDS PRESENTS 15 YEARS OF THE QUIETUS TUE 5 SEPT ELECTRIC BRIXTON

ART SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND THU 2 NOV ICA

THE NATIONAL TUE 26 SEPSOLD OUT ALEXANDRA PALACE WED 27 SEP ALEXANDRA PALACE SKINNY PELEMBE WED 11 OCT SCALA HAND HABITS MON 16 OCT OMEARA

DOG RACE THU 9 NOV THE WAITING ROOM EGYPTIAN BLUE THU 9 NOV 100 CLUB KETY FUSCO SAT 11 NOV ICA DEVENDRA BANHART WED 15 NOV TROXY SODA BLONDE WED 22 NOV THE LEXINGTON

BC CAMPLIGHT THU 23 NOV O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE MOIN WED 29 NOV STUDIO 9294 YVES TUMOR WED 29 NOV O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN GEORGIA THU 30 NOV THE COLOUR FACTORY GILLA BAND MON 4 DEC FABRIC YEULE MON 11 DEC OUTERNET LAURA MISCH TU 12 DEC HACKNEY EARTH LANKUM WED 13 DEC ROUNDHOUSE JOCKSTRAP THU 14 DEC BARBICAN

PARALLELLINESPROMOTIONS.COM

FESTIVALS.

Y Not? ALL THE NEWS FROM THE FIELDS.

28th-30th July 2023

Pikehall, Derbyshire

Must see...

Who you should check out at Y Not 2023.

MAISIE PETERS → Pop sensation Maisie Peters brings her catchy melodies and relatable lyrics to the stage. Expect a captivating set filled with hits from her charttopping new album ‘The Good Witch’

PHOEBE GREEN

→ Not only is Phoebe absolutely bloody brilliant, but we get the impression from her Twitter feed that she’s up to something new. Might be worth a look, yeah?

PANIC SHACK

→ Want a good time?

Want to see one of the best new bands in the country? Go see Panic Shack. It’s that simple.

16. DORK

Sea Girls Q&A

→ As the summer sun begins to shine, the anticipation for Y Not Festival 2023 is heating up. This year’s line-up is a veritable feast of musical talent, with a diverse range of acts set to grace the stages of the Derbyshire-based festival. Among the highlights are the anthemic indie-pop quartet, Sea Girls. The band are riding high and ready to bring their infectious energy to the festival crowd. We caught up with frontman Henry Camamile to chat about their recent successes, new material, and what festival-goers can expect from their set.

Hi Henry, how’s it going? What are you up to today?

Hey, it’s going good; the sun is shining.

I’m gonna see if I can write a song this afternoon.

You finished up last year playing Alexandra Palace - how was it?

The perfect gig to end the year; it’s something we looked forward to for a long time. Amazing crowd, amazing fans!

We had a proper party after to celebrate with lots of friends. I love bumping into fans who came to that gig and that tour.

Were there a lot of nerves beforehand?

I don’t know about nerves, but we don’t like waiting around that much. When it’s the last few hours before playing a show like that, you just wanna be playing it.

Did it set a new benchmark for you?

What are you aiming for next?

It was our biggest headline gig so far. We felt ready to play it and loved playing it. I’ve been to a lot of gigs at Alexandra Palace over the years, and it’s nice to be among those artists I’ve seen there. We are always aiming for bigger we have a huge ambition, and it’s just about enjoying it along the way. I just love the culture we have with our fans and what we are achieving.

What have you been up to since that gig?

One really special day, we played a couple shows to raise money for War Child as part of Brits Week at the 100 Club in London. It means a lot to be in a position to raise money for a charity like that.

Then we’ve been doing our thing, staying creative. Been to a bunch of gigs, big and small. I got a new favourite band,

HotWax. Saw them at the Lexington a couple months ago and couldn’t believe how good they were. It was like a perfect gig, you know when you see something amazing for the first time that sounded so good? I was like, “Is this a different set of speakers they’ve got on for these guys?”

You’ve been teasing new material how’s it sounding? What’s inspiring you at the moment?

Our new material feels really fresh and gives its own identity. Always inspired by what’s going on in our lives. We are enjoying being a band. We played a new track at a festival recently, and it felt like an anthem already.

Must see...

Here’s some of the best bits from 110 Above Presents OTHR

COACH PARTY

→ With their debut album on deck, Coach Party are whirring up nicely to become one of the must see bands of this summer’s festival season. Do not miss.

CAITY BASER

→ If you’re looking for acts nailed on to be performing as part of 2024’s Buzz Parade, Caity Baser is sure to be a headline name.

Already dropping megabops, she’s the real deal.

When do you think we’ll get to hear some?

When you see me next, I’ll show you some stuff on my phone.

You’re playing Y Not this year - are there any acts you’re particularly looking forward to seeing or catching up with there?

It’s a strong lineup, isn’t it? Love Wunderhorse; they really became a band favourite this year. ‘Teal’ and ‘Purple’ are both amazing tunes. Amazing stories in them I really connected with, so it would be nice to catch them. I have mutual friends, but we’ve never actually met.

If we are there when Maisie Peters is playing, I’d catch her set too.

Do you hang around at festivals after your set?

Normally we will stay at one after playing if it makes sense and get friends to come along. Had such a good time at Glastonbury last year with our mates.

Backstage areas were made the most of.

Have you ever discovered a new favourite up-and-coming band at a festival before?

A lot of the time, we’ll see a sick new artist or band, and that’s kinda how we choose who to support us on tour.

If you were booking your own festival, who would you like on the lineup?

Hmmm, The Prodigy, Kings of Leon (cos I love their story), Wolf Alice, boygenius (Oli is a huge fan) and Taylor Swift cos my girlfriend loves her.

Is there anything else we should know?

Always something else. ■

110 Above Presents OTHR

Gopsall Hall Farm, Leicestershire 10th-13th August 2023

→ This year, 110 Above is doing something a little different. Described as “indie’s best kept secret”, the small but perfectly formed festival has garnered a reputation for not only putting on a great event, but also spotting new names early and placing them into perfectly curated line-ups where they can truly shine. For 2023, they’re badging as OTHR Festival, with attention centred on the magical Old Town Hall and Gopsall Inn stages. Pausing the Commune and Elizabeth stages, they’re putting everything they have into the rest of the event, bringing back secret spaces and hidden gems. With a limited capacity, the bill certainly isn’t holding back. So much so, that we (yes, us, Dork, hi - Ed) have signed up to the party.

We’re curating the Friday line-up of the Gopsall Inn stage, and we’ve invited some of our favourites down to join the party. So, you can expect Courting (more on them over the page, ‘FYI’), Swim School, Humour, Lizzie Easu, Mollie Coddled and Delights all to make an appearance. You don’t get more buzzy and brilliant than that.

Of course, there’s loads of great stuff to see across the rest of the festival too. You’ll notice a few choice picks to your left, but you’ll find loads, loads more over on the 110 Above website at 110above.com. We’d recommend you get over there immediately, before tickets sell out.

WALT DISCO

→ Frankly, Walt Disco are one of the best bands Scotland has produced in ages, and Scotland produces lots of great bands. A highlight of any festival they play, the same will be true here.

BLACK HONEY

→ Former Dork cover stars Black Honey are actually veterans at this festival thing by now not old and boring, just really, really fucking great.

CRAWLERS

→ Now firmly in their stride as an annointed new band heading right to the top, we’re pretty damn confident that by this time next year, Crawlers will be playing big stages at the biggest festivals. It’d be rude not to indulge early doors.

READDORK.COM 17.

Big Fl INTRO

18. DORK

lex

INTRO

Gearing up for album two, and with a new single just landed, COURTING have returned at their genre-hopping best.

Words: Jamie MacMillan.

refused to follow the standard Indie Band Does Debut template. “I have a real hate for when you just sum up Back with the first taste of new music since their debut all your singles and put five in a row on it,” nods Sean. “It album showed there was far more to them than just feels very corporate. And then it’s not a piece of art; it’s live chaos and online antics, Courting are getting used a compilation. I wanted to come straight in with a proper to embracing the new - and the importance of being album and do what most people would do as a second committed to ‘the bit’. Their new bop, ‘Flex’, is all about album, I guess. What we did just got all these really the art of performance. Or is it about the performance creative urges out of the way, and I think we’re now a of art? Both, or neither? Can we somehow blame lot more narrowed down in what Alex Turner? That seems fair. we’re doing. We’ve essentially had Anyway, Courting frontman Sean a practice run to just make an even Murphy-O’Neill is just enjoying the better album.” intrigue, though. “We’ve just made A subject that Sean has regularly it unnecessarily confusing,” he returned to in interviews is guilty cackles. “It’s really weird.” Oh good. pleasures and his passion for them Written before ‘Guitar Music’ came talk of the new music and how much out, ‘Flex’ is a proper bop. Taking the of it is the kind of thing the band band’s fascination with referencing loved when they were 13 sees him pop culture to its natural next go back to it. “Everyone secretly level, it even comes complete with loves a dubstep drop or a horrible a cheeky little pinch of a *very* pop-punk riff,” he laughs. “It’s like famous Killers line (Sean remains going to a theme park or watching optimistic that they won’t turn up Top Gun; it’s easy relief. It’s funny, demanding payment.) “I religiously and it doesn’t have to do anything read things about our band - which I super clever. shouldn’t do,” he grins. “And there’s “I think everyone enjoys that when someone on Reddit who constantly they’re 13 because it appeals to hates us because of how much we something really basic in you that reference things. They’re gonna is just fun. And when people grow fucking hate this song. I know it kind up, they try and say, ‘Oh no, it’s too of dates songs, but I don’t care. It’s obvious’. I don’t like that. We want an exercise in world-building, rather to do the really obvious things that than just trying to name-drop pop everyone secretly wants but is culture things.” afraid to admit.”

Let’s get into their world, then. As Sean allows us to pry into the new anyone who follows the band online record a little bit, describing it as will know, they’ve been Up To Stuff ‘anthemic’ and reveals a few nuggets in the last week or so. The traditional about it - expect more genreonline clean slate has been followed hopping, with country songs, pop by posts about stage plays and songs, weird songs and a pop-punk performers. “I really like films where track that he describes as “probably they nest other performances within the best song we’ve ever written”. the film,” explains Sean. “It’s like a “We arguably change genre more play being in a movie. So we wanted S E A N M U R P H Ythan we do on the first album,” he to write a song that could also give O’NEILL says, clearly excited and impatient off the atmosphere of a short play or to get new music out there again. theatrical performance.”

Courting have always seemed to Sean describes the band’s initial walk a fine line between nonsense hope that ‘Flex’ feels “over-the-top and actually being dead serious and celebratory”. “It’s kind of a linear about their work. These new songs follow firmly in narrative in the style of a fake character dealing with that tradition. “It’s a balance,” agrees Sean. “It’s about success and fame,” he says - leading us to ask whether showing you can be dumb and pretentious at the same; it’s a depiction of the band entering their pop star era. that’s our whole thing. We are silly, but it can still hold a “This is a full turn,” he begins. “That whole album was lot of artistic merit.” Sean likens it to 100 gecs’ opening about how you can be an experimental artist but still ‘10,000 gecs’ with the THX film company sound effect. make really poppy and catchy songs. You don’t have to “It’s near genius, but it’s so dumb,” he laughs. “You know alienate people through being experimental.” where you are if you hear that. You know they’re gonna If ‘Guitar Music’ was a series of left turns, glitchy hyper do something ridiculous in a second, and that’s what we pop nestling in next to indie bangers, then what next? want to do.”

“We’re pulling back from making it so maximalist,” he Courting living through both their pop star era and ‘doing says. “And taking everything that we were trying out something ridiculous’ era? Now that’s a flex. ■ Courting’s there and making a more nuanced version of it. We had a single ‘Flex’ is out now. They play Dork’s Day Out on real intention to try and do something and show that we Saturday 5th August at London’s Signature Brew weren’t doing the same thing as everyone else.”

Blackhorse Road; plus, Y Not? Festival from 28th-30th The reactions to their debut were mostly hugely positive, July: visit ynotfestival.com for more information. in many parts *because* of those risks being taken. It → Guitar music is over, and the pop star era is here.

There’s someone on Reddit who constantly hates us because of how much we reference things.

They’re gonna fucking hate this song"

Dork’s Day Out Signature Brew Blackhorse Road 5th August 2023 → Yep, it’s finally here. On Saturday, 5th August we’re delighted to welcome you to the second annual instalment of our mid-summer blow out, Dork’s Day Out. A full day of brilliant music, lovely beer and peerless vibes, it takes place at London’s Signature Brew Blackhorse Road - and we’ve got the final line-up additions for you too.

Joining a bill that already features headliner Thomas Headon, our favourite chaotic indiepopsters Courting, and hot new talent like Swim School, Honeyglaze and Pixey are Hype List alumni Talk Show, and the magnificent Jo Hill.

We’re also delighted to welcome The Amazons down for some DJ based action, as well as the rather cryptically titled ‘Dork All-Stars’, which sounds rather like we’re hedging our bets on who exactly is going to treat you to 2 hours solid of Carly Rae Jepsen. You’ve been warned.

If you haven’t got tickets yet for what is set to certainly be a day of the summer, you can grab them now for £17.50 + booking fee from Dice, or head to readdork.com for more info. We’ll be bringing you full coverage online and in a future issue, so keep ‘em peeled. See you there!

READDORK.COM 19.

YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BEST NEW NAMES.

THIS

MONTH

IN

NEW MUSIC

IT’S DEBUT ALBUM TIME FOR HOLLY HUMBERSTONE → Holly Humberstone has announced her debut album, ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’. The record is set for release on 13th October, with the news accompanied by two new singles – ‘Antichrist’ and ‘Room Service’.“This album is an exploration of the two sides of myself that coexist,” she explains.

“One side, the introvert who wants to board the windows up and shut the world out, writing about wanting to escape my surroundings and the confusion of life on the road last year. The other side of me, the extrovert, writing about a budding relationship, deep connections and love.”

SLANEY BAY HAVE A NEW EP ON THE WAY → Slaney Bay have announced a new EP. ‘Why Does Love Mean Loss?’ is set for release on 29th September, preceded by early teaser single ‘EST’.Frontwoman Cait Whitley says: “‘EST’ tells the tale of a love interest moving away. The whole song is imagined to take place inside an airport. You’re trying to psych yourself up to convince them to stay… but their boarding time is suffocatingly close. Is this your final chance to confess your feelings before they move to the Eastern Time Zone?”

20. DORK

PICTURE PARLOUR

our music. I care about my identity as a working-class girl being shat all over. I care about the hate being sent our way. I care about race erasure for one of our band members and personal attacks and misogyny. It’s rooted in that, and I know people don’t like to accept that.” Katherine pauses. “Also, like people pretending to know us, that’s weird! Apparently, someone was saying that they know our guitar tech?! We don’t have a guitar tech!”

Only one track deep, and everyone’s talking about PICTURE PARLOUR. Maybe “That would make my life a lot easier,” smiles Ella. it’s time they shut up and listened.

“The bottom line is, we came down to London and have made “I remember as we were driving the band they are today. ourselves a nice little fucking life → IS THERE A MORE TALKED down to London, without anyone “What we bonded over was 80s, that we’re proud of. We got lucky ABOUT NEW BAND AT THIS we knew living there, if we can in the process, and I hope it keeps VERY MOMENT THAN PICTURE 70s, even 60s classic rock, but have our first show at The Windmill fusing it with modern womanhood happening for all new bands. For PARLOUR? With one track out in in Brixton, then that would be a whoever! We are really proud of the world following a slew of talked- and power. I guess we were just dream,” smiles Ella. “When we got a bored of not having that around. what we’ve released, and we’re not about shows that quickly made response from Tim at The Windmill, When I was a kid, I would have going to stop,” states Katherine. them a word-of-mouth sensation, we were like, oh my god, oh my god, Evidence of that determination there’s buzz, and then there’s BUZZ. died to have seen a young femalefronted working-class rock band on oh my god!” can be seen directly in what Yes, it’s fair to say Picture Parlour The show proved to be a pivotal the cover of a magazine. It would Picture Parlour were doing as are the talk of the town. moment, with the bubbling South the comments piled in. “We were “It’s been surreal actually getting have just changed my life as a kid, London scene firmly embracing honestly, and that was something literally making a demo as it all music out there,” states singer the oozing star presence of a band we bonded over. We wanted started to come in. We were in the Katherine Parlour. It’s only a day who were primed and ready to middle of making this demo, and since their debut track ‘Norwegian this to be ambitious-sounding, fire their starting pistol into the big, grandiose, unapologetic. All we were like - can we even carry Wood’ landed after months of night sky. Live, Picture Parlour of those things that we value in on today? Then we were like, no, anticipation. “Like, to see that are an unstoppable tidal wave women in rock like Patti Smith fuck that. We all put our phones reaction of people liking it, it’s of superstardom. Leaning into and Stevie Nicks, for example, but in a box in the corner of the room, been….” There’s a pause. “There’s crooner-Vegas swagger, scorching also in femme like the T-Rexs, the and by the end of the day, we came an elephant in the room, but it’s riffs and arena-sized auras from a Bowies, the Elton Johns. These away with the sickest demo. Like been a crazy 24 hours.” band who understand how to put powerhouse and classic modern it actually, yeah… it did motivate We’ll get to that in a bit. “It’s on a show, it’s an experience that musicians, we wanted to inject and fuel us.” weird because I didn’t feel any has you walking away with a new some of that inspiration into our In defiance of them all, Picture pressure at all,” reflects guitarist K AT H E R I N E favourite band. own stuff.”

Parlour’s ambition can only be the Ella Risi. “I just felt excitement.

“There was a magic in the room,” PA R LO U R As the world opened up, they biggest. Already feeling like a band Then it’s out, and you’re in this recalls Katherine. “Hearing people, destined to take on the grandest of whirlwind of, okay then, now what? were left with a decision, as actual humans, be like - that in stages, if there’s a band to catch in Where do we go next? What should Katherine remembers. “We didn’t front of me has just happened, have the pressure of playing live 2023 before they go stratospheric “It’s fucking ridiculous,” states we release next?” because we physically couldn’t, but and I enjoyed it. That was like, they’re right here.

Katherine. “I feel actually upset It marks the grand reveal of WHAT? We need to do this again when it did open up again - it was “It’s a continuous evolution, I about it because it may sound a band whose journey began immediately! Just to make sure it’s cheesy, but my working-class like, what do we do? Do we stay in guess.” admits Katherine. “Now during lockdown when the idea actually real.”

Manchester? Do we just try and we’ve got ‘Norwegian Wood’ out, identity is so important to me. of stepping into a venue to see a From that point on, Picture make something happen?” it does feel like we’re established.

That’s something that I cherish. band seemed distant. Both based Picking themselves up, enrolling Parlour became the underground What do we want to do next? I That’s what my Dad instilled in me, in Manchester (Katherine originally band that everyone in London HAD y’know? Work hard, have ambition; guess it’s not good to have that big from Liverpool, Ella from Yorkshire), in masters degrees part-time to see. Constantly playing live drew you’re no better or worse than (“so we could say to our family expectation, but there’s nothing they were quickly drawn to each attention, and before they knew and friends that we’re moving to that’s going to stop us. We’re ready. any rich or poor. I’m so proud of other. it, everyone was paying attention.

If we can play bigger and better where myself and the band come “I was kind of aware of Katherine London and their first reaction not “We had no idea how the industry being, ‘what the fuck!’”), without from, and it does upset me that the gigs. We can release albums… we through social media and, y’know, any friends, they headed to London. worked,” admits Katherine. “So to want it all. We want this.” target’s on the wrong head. They gave it the classic stalk,” cracks suddenly get emails from people “It was the scariest thing,” notes Their significance now, after couldn’t have jumped on a more Ella. “We had mutual friends, and asking for more info about us and Katherine. “We were like, oh god, every reaction seen, may be more rickety bandwagon there; you’ve I was like - I’m gonna get them to for demos and stuff… we thought what are we doing?” Diving in important than ever. As Ella notes, got the wrong dudes!” link us up. We ended up having a it was a scam! Sian had to email “Going through uni and stuff being “It’s frustrating that you ended jam round at Katherine’s place, and blind, they feverishly emailed and people she knew asking if we were searched for any shows to put one of very few women in the whole up feeling a responsibility to immediately it was like I’d known being scammed!” them on (“We got aired by a lot of class, it just automatically sets the then explain your whole family you my whole life. All of the things The connections made during them,” laughs Ella). precedent of like - this is not your history,” continues Ella. “People we had in common - musically, those initial shows and the fever Months went by, with their space. I hope when we’re on stage, should definitely call out things personally, where we came from - it rush that came from all those dreams driving the hope that in the industry, completely agree there are young people and young just felt like a real moment. From lucky enough to be in attendance with that, but don’t create a false women in the audience who look at that point forward… well, I kinda just someone would take a chance on wanting more (including a certain them. Refusing to compromise narrative without knowing the that and go - I’d love to do that one stayed at yours for weeks. It was Courtney Love) became the on the vision they had in mind facts… Some of the stuff being said day, and like, it’s actually possible.” like, let’s write, write, write!” foundation for Picture Parlour I can’t actually believe is still being and without the financial means “It’s a wider thing, too,” notes “We wrote so much,” picks up to begin their launch into the said in 2023.” to record their music in a way Katherine. “If there was something Katherine, “and the way we made “People don’t stop to think,” adds to take away from coming to see music together - it was like finishing which would match their insatiable stratosphere. “We were so lucky to meet the people we did, but it didn’t Katherine. “I get it because this is hunger, doubts unsurprisingly each other’s sentences. It was one one of our shows, I would just want wider than just music. There’s social, you to walk away with a skip in your of those moments where you’re kicked in. Yet it couldn’t grind down come from...” Katherine pauses. political… I mean, we could get into like, this is what we as individuals that connection and knowing that “What were they saying? Our dads step. That’s my favourite kind of everything about the state of the have been waiting for. We’d done something special was in the works. who have Wikipedia pages?” show, where I leave, and I’m like country and the unfairness we see. fuck I feel good. I don’t want to go our own projects, we’d worked jobs, In the 24 hours since that Bringing in bassist Sian Lynch Nepotism in music is such an issue home now. That’s the kind of thing and we’d done uni, but that was the and drummer Michael Nash after anticipated debut ‘Norwegian in the same way it is across various that I’d love this band to grow to be. first time something just clicked.”

Wood’ landed, amid the blaze of meeting through a Facebook ad parts of society. People just seem Creatively bouncing off one celebration, the ugly side of social Just a place for people to go vibe, (“which sounds well dodgy when ready to misdirect anger towards another, Picture Parlour is theatrical, you say it out loud, but it wasn’t,” media has forced its way into leaving with a skip in their step.” people, and I just hate the fact personal and powerful in equal the frame, with comments, lies, So, that question about why laughs Katherine), Picture Parlour that it’s a bunch of young women. measure. “When we wrote together, rehearsed and rehearsed and then accusations and insults thrown so many people are talking about Who are working class. Like, ahhh, we had this shared vision,” recalls about as to how a brand new band them? Well, the answer is simple: rehearsed some more just waiting Katherine, pulling back to those could make such a splash with their you’ve picked the wrong one!”

Picture Parlour are THAT fucking for their opportunity. Then they “I don’t care what you think about good. ■ early days and how it shaped into very first release. finally got a response.

Words: Jamie Muir. Photo: Jennifer McCord.

When I was a kid, I would have died to have seen a young femalefronted working-class rock band on the cover of a magazine"

READDORK.COM 21.

ELLIE DIXON

Words: Sam Taylor.

Using everyday objects to craft alt-pop magic, Ellie Dixon is one of a kind.

→ ELLIE DIXON MAKES

ALT-POP THAT’S FUN WITH A CAPITAL F, U AND N. In a similar vein to the likes of BENEE and UPSAHL, her new EP ‘In Case of Emergency’ showcases her talent for not only elevating everyday frustrations into inescapable earworms but also spinning low moments into three-minute pockets of you-can-do-this reassurance.

Hello Ellie! How are you? Are you up to anything fun today?

I’m doing great, thanks! I’ve got a much-needed day off today after two months of touring and playing Glastonbury, so in true rock’n’roll fashion, I’m cleaning my garage, haha.

What was the inspiration

behind your new song ‘Bounce’?

Was it an easy birth?

‘Bounce’ started on a day when I was sampling loads of random objects in my bedroom, and I twanged a ruler against a table to make that bass sound you can hear through the verses. I fell in love with the weird Zelda-desertworld sound, and the rest of the song developed very quickly. I had this image in my head of me in the middle of the desert, bouncing away from the stresses around me.

Can you tell us a bit about your new EP? What’s it about?

This EP means a lot to me. My world has changed massively since everything blew up for me two years ago, and I feel like I’ve had ten years of experiences in

two. These four songs capture a turbulent time for me mentally, and I feel like they provide such a range of laughter and pain and silliness. It’s about self-care, coping mechanisms, and different methods I’ve used to navigate my own mental health. I want this EP to be there for my listeners when they need something to get them through.

You’re pretty adventurous with finding new sounds in unexpected places what’s been your favourite unconventional instrument so far?

I think the ruler twang baseline in ‘Bounce’ has to be my favourite so far. It isn’t really a sound I’ve heard anyone use before, and it brings me back to school when

I was sampling loads of random objects in my bedroom" E L L I E D I XO N

we’d fling our rulers against the table and see if anyone could actually make it sound like music.

What is it that attracted you to that style of recording, it sounds really fun?

I started making music when I was 14 with a mic and a laptop in my bedroom, so recording has always been very informal for me. I’m self-taught on all the instruments I play except piano, so I’ve always just messed with things to see what would happen. I was also very inspired by early YouTube musicians like Walk Off the Earth, Dodie and Paint, who all leaned into this homemade sound that just made my brain tingle. I would have such a blast trying out all the different objects we had lying around the house and challenging myself to recreate songs without proper instruments.

What do you most like writing songs about?

Mental health is really my biggest inspiration. I don’t always set out to write about a specific topic, but it always comes back to my headspace, how I’m feeling, and what I’m going to do about it. I love writing songs as advice for myself in the hopes that other people will find them useful too.

What would you say has been the biggest factor in your success so far? What keeps your fans coming back for more?

This is a great question. I think my fans connect with my love and curiosity for sound and wordplay.

There isn’t any thought to what a song ‘should’ sound like, and more just what I would like to hear.

I really lean into what my weirdass brain wants to listen to. ■ Ellie Dixon’s EP ‘In Case of Emergency’ is out 21st July.

22. DORK

THIS

MONTH

NOW WHAT BUZZ

WE

IN

NEW MUSIC

THAT’S CALL BANDS

→ The Last Dinner Party have announced a new UK tour. The band – joined by fellow up-and-comers Picture Parlour – will head out from 8th October, with the run including a night at London’s Earth. “The autumn odyssey is here!” they comment. “We shall be traversing the sticky floors of the UK’s finest watering-holes and bringing our dulcet tones to all who would lend us an ear. Ready the spears, the mandolins, the chariots, the crossbows and the crowns.”

YOWL HAVE ANNOUNCED THEIR DEBUT ALBUM → YOWL have announced their long-awaited debut album. The news arrives alongside the release of their new single ‘Idiot Daughters, Idiot Sons’, with ‘Milksick’ set for release on 14th September via Clue Records/ EMI North.

MAY-A HAS A NEW EP, ‘FYI’ → MAY-A has announced new EP, ‘Analysis Paralysis’, set for release on 1st September. The news follows on from the Aussie singersongwriter’s recent drops ‘Your Funeral’ and ‘Sweat You Out My System’, plus recent support tours with both 5SOS and Wallows

BLUSHER

With a joyous enthusiasm for both community and having fun with music, Blusher are here to stay.

Words: Ali Shutler. Photo: Jennifer McCord.

We would have loved to see a band like us when we were younger" J A D E I N GVA R S O N FAV R E T TO

The group met up, bonded over the likes of Kesha, MUNA, The OBJECTIVE IS JOYOUSLY STRAIGHTFORWARD. “We want Black Eyed Peas, Robyn, Charli XCX, as well as MGMT and LCD to make music that feels like Soundsystem, and wrote their you’re on a night out with your first song together. Released last friends,” says Lauren, one-third year as their debut single, ‘Softly of the kick-ass Aussie pop trio Spoken’ is a shimmering chunk of that stole the show at The Great euphoric pop that isn’t afraid of a Escape earlier this year. little venom. “From that moment Lauren, Jade and Miranda on, we knew this was something had been working as solo artists special,” says Jade and Blusher in the Australian music scene was born. but connected over “wanting to The group spent the next year make energetic, dance-pop music” following the bleakness of COVID- writing songs for their debut EP, ‘Should We Go Dance’, while the enforced lockdowns. “We’d had month leading up to their first run enough of sad music; we needed an outlet to make something really of live shows was spent with a movement coach. “If we’re going fun,” says Jade. “We just wanted to do it, we’re really going to go to collaborate,” adds Miranda.

→ BLUSHER’S MISSION

for it,” explains Lauren. “We’re not afraid to lean into exactly what the songs are about or be as confident and ridiculous onstage as we are in the studio.” Live, their giddy catharsis is backed by dance routines and props.

The trio were all such fans of each other’s music before they officially formed Blusher, and that “absolutely hasn’t changed”, says Miranda. “It’s amazing to be onstage and see someone in your own band do something incredible. We just fangirl for each other, which isn’t an experience you can have as a solo artist.”

Each of the five tracks from ‘Should We Go Dance’ shows off a “different side to the Blusher

world”, and in the studio, the trio much it means to people.” would make time to show one The entire record has that another the strangest, most leftsense of empowerment, but field tracks that they’ve been Lauren says it wasn’t a conscious vibing with in-between sessions. effort. “It just comes naturally “It’s so nice to draw from these from the conversations we were other influences and put them having,” and the excitement of through the Blusher filter,” says being together in a room with likeJade. “We love straight downminded friends. the-line pop, but we also love Elsewhere the personalityit when things are less obvious driven videos for tracks like and more weird.” Already Blusher ‘Backbone’ see each member of aren’t afraid to play outside of Blusher take to the spotlight. contemporary pop to make things “We’re just trying to convey that feel exciting. “There’s a lot of trust there’s space for everyone in the in that,” adds Jade. music industry,” starts Jade. “If “Allowing ourselves to we feel so comfortable here, so experiment and not leaving can others.” anything on the table has been All three members of Blusher really important to us,” says wanted to get involved in pop Lauren, with all three members music because of its power to of the band dedicating years to transport. “I’ve always found so crafting perfect pop songs. “We much joy in music, but it’s also know what we’re doing, and we offered a beautiful hiding place know how to do it well.” when I needed it,” says Lauren.

‘Should We Go Dance’ is a “I’ve been obsessed with celebration of female friendship pop from an early age,” admits and having one another’s back Miranda. “It creates this whole through it all. “It’s got the grit and world you can escape into, which the glamour of a night out,” offers is why we wanted to put as much Miranda. “It’s sparkly pop, but we effort into the visuals as we did wanted to leave in a few of the the music. We want people to mistakes and the laughs. There’s feel like they’re part of this band a real emotional spectrum within as well.” the music,” she adds.

Jade grew up watching her “It might be selfish, but we parents perform in an ABBA wanted to make the kind of tribute band. “I saw people crying music that we want to hear. This and dancing to ABBA’s music, record is what we’d put on while and the energy, the excitement, it we were getting ready to go really is the best thing imaginable. out or to send to a friend if she Pop music really can transcend was going through a breakup,” everything negative.” continues Lauren, with all the “We’ve been doing this for a lyrics drawing from the trio’s own long time individually, and even in experiences. “Dance music can our lowest points, we’ve not been be such a healing force. If you’re able to quit the obsession or turn having a hard time, it can instantly off the passion. I think that means make you feel better and take you we’re on the right path,” offers somewhere else.”

Lauren.

Another reason Blusher That joyful Blusher world is became Blusher was for Lauren, already proving a hit with fans, Miranda and Jade to work with and while the band are ready to people who weren’t blokes. “The take this project “to the highest of tough thing about being a woman highs,” they’re far more concerned in the industry is just not having with creating jubilant gigs right enough people to look up to. Only now. “Hopefully, people are able to 3% of producers are women, so it’s find what they need in the music really cool that with our band alone, and that it offers positive energy,” we have three producers,” Lauren says Miranda. said in an interview last year.

“There’ll be a time in our career “We would have loved to see to write a comedy musical and a a band like us when we were time to teach other women how younger,” continues Jade. “I hope to produce,” adds Jade. “We’re so Blusher gives as much power and in it for the long haul, and we’re confidence to young women as so excited to just yet see where possible. We were all such fans it goes.” ■ Blusher’s debut EP of pop music during our early ‘Should We Go Dance?’ is out teenage years, and we know how now.

READDORK.COM 23.

ON LOVEJOY...

“Will and I really connected a few years ago in 2019; we became friends and started writing music together. When COVID happened, we stopped writing music together because we were in different places, but he very much inspired me; I like to think vice versa as well because when we met, we just had this love for making music, and even though we had our own jobs and we would talk about YouTube and stuff like that, he’d come over to my house to write music with Joe. That was our favourite thing to do, and it’s really nice to see how we both continued to do that. We’ve aligned at times to do shows together, and there’s been a few times where he’s outright helped me write a little thing. One of my first experiences when I came down to Brighton to move here was going to one of Lovejoy’s rehearsals and hearing them write ‘Pebble Brain’, so I got these really early versions of these songs. It was a very emotional thing for me; all of our successes are very emotional things.”

24. DORK

JAMES MARRIOTT Words: Abigail Firth. Photo: Em Marcovecchio.

From YouTube to Twitch to ‘rising musician’, JAMES MARRIOTT is set to be the name on everyone’s lips this summer.

He continues, “Ever since that I caught a bug for it, I love UNDERNEATH OUR LOVEJOY writing music, even if it’s in a COVER ANNOUNCEMENT: really emotional point in my “Biggest dorks I know fr”. It’s life, where I’m trying to write from James Marriott, a fellow YouTuber turned Twitch streamer about something completely irrelevant from myself, I find it turned musician who’s just been really cathartic regardless, to on tour with the band across explore my own views or my own the UK. emotions. That’s my best way With an almost equal level to do it. I have therapy, and a lot of hype to his band buddies – of time, we talk about my lyrics indicated by the fact that it’s because that seems to be my barely midday, there are already most honest version of myself.” queues of fans waiting to watch James was a self-proclaimed his performance in Jubilee theatre kid, pursuing singing, Square for The Great Escape dancing and acting (an aura that and we’re advised to keep our he still has today, according to a shoot in the studio rather than fan’s mum who called him out on on location for that very reason. it after watching him perform at James’ musical career has been a gig), and was always interested on a steady rise since his first in being on stage. Initially, single release in 2020. that desire for an audience So we sit in the back of a manifested itself online, where he café in Brighton, where James earned himself over two million currently lives, to catch up about subscribers on his YouTube it all. “Oddly, I kind of made a commentary channel, but his name for myself taking the piss dreams of becoming a musician out of other YouTubers’ music,” remained in the back of his mind. he says about the transition Growing up, James’ dad was a between careers. “So I knew there pianist, which led to him and his was going to be pressure there. sister taking piano lessons, too, But there was no point in my although he quit after getting too mind where it feels like I doubted competitive. An unlikely family myself.” outing then led to James picking Embarking on his musical up the guitar. journey in the depths of the UK “I went to an Abba tribute lockdown of May 2020, James concert,” he explains, “and I released his debut single pointed to the bassist and went ‘Slow Down’ (which he dubs ‘I want to do that’. My dad was “horrendous”) back then, quite like, no chance, and bought me publicly finding his musical feet. a guitar instead. So I bought a It’s a very different soundscape Beatles book and went through it to the one he dabbles in now, almost immediately. It was quite veering into a synthetic 80s natural for me playing guitar. sound rather than his current After I got through that book, I mid-2000s indie references. just started writing my own “I wanted to write something music; there was no in-between.” which people would respect,” he With the first of those songs says, talking about where he wanted to go from there. “I’ve making their way into the world always been a bit of a people in 2020, he’s since followed pleaser, so I wanted to write that up with a steady stream of things where people would be singles and EPs, including the like, ‘Oh, he can do it’. I think ‘No Left Brain’ EP in 2021 and last people were surprised when year’s ‘Bitter Tongues’. With each I released [follow up] ‘Him’ release, he’s been pushing himself because it was like, he’s not just to be more ambitious, but it’s a guy that someone has sent proving a little hard because he’s an instrumental to, and he’s put still so new to this. some shit lyrics on top; it’s like, no, “The limitations of my writing he actually wrote this, which I did.” are the limitations of my playing, → A TWEET POPS UP

I made a name for myself taking the piss out of other YouTubers’ music"

J A M E S M A R R I OT T so I have to improve in order to write more complex things, which, I don’t know, there are times where I’ll hear a melody in my head, and I can’t play, but I

have to work it out and get better and learn the technique to do it. So it’s kind of a backwards way of approaching music, but I love it. People can tell if you’re releasing music to sell out or to just have another platform where you’re earning money, or if you’re making music because you want to do it for yourself. I like writing music and putting it out there because I like connecting with people. People can tell that even in my first song, which was trash,” he reiterates.

Acknowledging he’s come on leaps and bounds since he’s now sonically closer to where he wants to be as he gears up to release new material this summer. A child of the internet, James’ reference book plays out like an Inbetweeners soundtrack, shouting out The Strokes, Bloc Party, Foals and, erm, Kelly Clarkson (“Her vocal production is great! It’s just in your fucking face all the time,” he says) as his

main inspirations.

“I’m so terminally online. Can’t help it, unfortunately. But I was a big gamer, so a lot of the music I’m inspired by is stuff that I played on a console. I love nostalgia; I am somewhere between Guitar Hero 3: Legends of Rock and any FIFA soundtrack between ‘06 and ‘13. The number of artists I found from FIFA soundtracks; that’s how I found The 1975, which is so weird to think about.”

With an album on its way, he’s just released the first single from it, ‘So Long’, which in stark contrast to how he talks about his older tracks, calls it the best thing he’s ever made. Coming next is the deeply personal affair, ‘Romanticise This’.

“It’s essentially a song about suicidal ideation,” he explains. “So what I find interesting about the song is every time I’ve shown it to someone, and I’ve gone, what do you think it’s about, they’ve said something different. For me, it’s a story about how you romanticise when you’re feeling in a really dark place. You hear a lot of stories about people going through breakups and then someone threatening to hurt themselves because of it. Or, in my case, feeling like sometimes when I’m in a really dark place, someone in my life attempts to romanticise it and be like, ‘Call me one more time’, so that’s what that song is about. It’s a hardhitting emotional banger that means a lot to me.”

While ‘Romanticise This’ has been locked away, ‘So Long’, on the other hand, had plenty of previews, having been played live since James started gigging last October. With his first tour in the bag this past February and a support slot with Lovejoy already ticked off, James’ first festival season is now in full swing, beginning right after our chat today at The Great Escape and winding up in August with a massive slot opening Reading Festival’s Saturday main stage.

Not bad for a lad still figuring out the guitar. ■ READDORK.COM 25.

BEST DAYS COVER STORY

by Jamie MacMillan

photography by Reuben Bastienne Lewis

live photography by Phoebe Fox, Tom Pallant

Some bands exist outside of the hustle and bustle of the day-to-day noise.

With their latest big return, BLUR aren’t just sailing the breeze on the nostalgia circuit, though. With a run of chaotically brilliant tiny shows under their belt, plus a pair of massive headline dates at London’s Wembley Stadium, they’re about to drop their ninth album, ‘The Ballad of Darren’.

Sounding the best they have in a decade or more, there’s life in the old dogs yet.

26. DORK

HE RUMOURS HAD BEEN SWIRLING AROUND FOR A WHILE, but a fair amount

of The Internet Has Broken still greeted blur’s ‘surprise’ announcement of their return towards the end of 2022. When frontman Damon Albarn hinted in an interview a few months back that “2023 is my year”, maybe we could have guessed that he was talking about more than the confirmation of a huge Wembley show or two. However, the news of a ninth studio album, ‘The Ballad Of Darren’, was altogether more surprising and threw up one of the most important questions of our time… who the hell is Darren?

We’ve been here before, of course. This latest return is the third ‘surprise, we’re back!’ moment of the last few decades. But this time feels different. Their comeback single ‘The Narcissist’ revealed a band fully at ease with themselves, their age and their place in the world. But as the handful of warm-up shows they played in relatively tiny venues showed, this would be far from a simple trip down memory lane or a money-grabbing exercise.

This was A Proper Band Again, enjoying each other’s company amidst the grime and sweat of playing in small rooms once more.

Grinning and laughing throughout each show, it’s apparent that being back together on stage

means much more than you would expect with a band this far along a career not short on high points. Being in blur meant being in the full glare of paparazzi flashlights and on the front pages of every newspaper. Even the serious ‘grown-up’ ones. Think your current favourite band has a lot to deal with? These guys ended up on every TV news programme in the country just because they released a single in the same week as a rival band.

Why, though, Dear Reader, should you care that blur are back? The last few years have seen the Nostalgia Train billowing out smoke like never before, and they’re not the only ones to return from the Age Of Britpop.

Jarvis Cocker has been wiggling his hips all over the big stages with Pulp for a few weeks now, another band that soundtracked an entire generation before seeming to disappear as quickly as they entered the national consciousness. Meanwhile, the rumours and shadow of an Oasis reunion have been hanging over us ever since they first fell out at least until Liam opens his mouth on Twitter to provoke another ‘nope’ from Noel in an unending cycle of brotherly ‘love’. That brief period of music and culture in the mid-90s has become almost a tiresome cliché, such is the frequency those who lived to see it (and

BLUR

S READDORK.COM 27.

COVER STORY

“BLUR IS SOMETHING THAT NONE OF US CAN WALK AWAY FROM AND NOR WOULD WE WANT TO”

ALEX JAMES

can still remember it) insist on dragging it back up. The story of how Britpop emerged from a period of musical angst and despair, riding hard on the grungy heels of Nirvana and Pearl Jam, has been told a thousand times over. “’British pop,

28. DORK

that will never work!’” bassist Alex James laughs, recalling the initial reactions to the world that blur’s breakthrough second album, ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’, was born into. Full of eccentricities and weird characters, the record set the musical tone for the next five years and beyond.

As well as defining an era musically, blur, at the very least, renewed, if not reset, the template for every band you love that came after. Live shows that permanently teetered on the very edge of chaos led by a frontman who was always getting himself in trouble during interviews? Sure sounds familiar to at least a couple of groups these days, while Carl and Pete’s Libertines bromance wandered into view following the familiar footsteps of Damon and guitarist Graham Coxon. Speaking your lyrics over a bouncy indie banger instead of singing them? It’s got nothing to do with your Vorsprung durch Technik.

But let’s be honest, it all comes down to the songs. ‘Parklife’, ‘The Universal’, ‘Song 2’, ‘Girls & Boys’, ‘Beetlebum’, and yes, even ‘Country House’ - they came to define what is an Indie Banger as well as being the soundtrack to an age when guitar bands ruled the roost. So yeah, when a group as important and era-defining

come back with some top new tunes, it’s worth getting very excited indeed.

THE ONLY THING FASTER THAN THE BIG BANG-LIKE EXPLOSION OF BRITPOP was its rapid collapse a

few years later. For blur, the good times initially ended in 2003, a full stop Alex once described as “the best thing we ever did.” While he concentrated on making cheese and running Feastival (“I’m in a great band, I don’t want to start another one,” he laughs), drummer Dave Rowntree moved into politics and became a Labour councillor, as Graham juggled a solo career with providing soundtracks for The End Of The F***ing World and, recently, becoming one half of The Waeve. Damon, of course, became bigger than ever with Gorillaz while managing to set up about nineteen other bands and projects in his not-exactly-spare time. Their first reunion in 2009 led to one of the most iconic Glastonbury headline slots of all time before what again seemed a possible permanent ending to the story in 2015 following the release of their eighth album, ‘The Magic Whip’. It looked like there was finally no distance left to run. Until now.

It’s comforting that not only do they seem to be back and surrounded by their old magic once more, but the air of chaos that was always present with them is still there - with Graham having disappeared, roaming across five floors of an Amsterdam hotel looking for a toilet at the exact time our interview is set for.

Currently juggling being on tour not only with blur but with The Waeve too, he is giving Damon a run for his multi-tasking money. You wouldn’t know it, however, as he smiles happily through our chat.

A thoughtful interviewee, he regularly pauses to think about what he wants to say, cheerily admitting when he doesn’t have an exciting answer to avoid simply making one up. Bassist Alex, meanwhile, is ridiculously excited throughout, laughing and bouncing in his seat and talking at a rate of at least a million words per minute - often answering the next three questions before there’s even been a chance to get the first one out. In short, they couldn’t be further away from the jaded music veterans one might expect.

The reaction to their return and the euphoria surrounding those warm-up shows has played a big part.

Both Graham and Alex nod in full agreement when asked if they were surprised at the response. “Yeah, it has surprised me!” laughs Graham. “It’s made me think, well, where the hell were you last time? Maybe I shouldn’t have been amazed, but it does feel like there’s a massively more renewed interest in the band than there was a few years ago. It might be because the 90s are meant to be in, or guitar bands are meant to be in.

I know younger musicians are listening to blur a lot more. Maybe it’s ignited culturally in peoples’ brains more than before.”

“I think it surprises all of us,” nods Alex. “You never really know until you’ve

BLUR

put a show on sale, but eight years is half a generation. You don’t know whether anyone’s even going to buy a ticket. But last time, people would say, ‘My mum and dad like blur’, and now it’s ‘My kids love blur’. So there was this sense that maybe the songs had found a new audience.”

The band are painfully aware of their Elder Statesmen position in music, of course. “It’s as long now from blur in the 90s as it was from blur in the 90s to the Beatles,” points out Alex. “It’s a bloody long time, and a lot has changed. But a big one is still a big one. People like Adele are impossible to escape. She’s like a black hole. And Taylor Swift is bigger than The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson and Madonna put together. It’s bonkers.

It’s a lot harder for a band to thrive and survive the way that we did in the early days.”

FOR A SOLID WEEK OVER THOSE WARM-UP SHOWS, social media was

awash with scrappy and sweaty videos of blur back in action. Plainly delighted to be back on stage and in each other’s company, it was a balm to anyone worrying that this was a quick cash grab. All four seemed to have reverted back to their former selves, with Damon becoming a chaos magnet once again as he wandered around the stage, a patient sound guy permanently on duty unwrapping the rest of his band from his mic lead. Graham and Alex again can’t stop grinning as they talk about the shows. The latter, in particular, was happy to finally receive some praise from his teenage daughters. “Normally, all I get

at home is ‘shut up, fatty’, and that’s on a good day,” he says sadly. “But after the Eastbourne show, they were like ‘you’re so cool; we’re so proud of you’. I had to say that that isn’t all I do. I also make some good cheese, you know!”

He returns to a more serious note. “I never know if any show is going to be our last, but I think we’ve all realised that blur is something that none of us can walk away from and nor would we want to.

There are always some terribly depressing divorce rates getting published, and the divorce rate with bands is 99.9%. Most bands end up hating each other, so I guess it’s a testament to all our patience that somehow it’s just always worked when it’s the four of us in a room.”

Not that there weren’t a huge amount of nerves going into this comeback, though. Alex talks of meeting Dave outside Damon’s studio before their first get-together in December and describes the drummer as “pale, scared and shocked”. “He was like, ‘I don’t think it’s gonna happen,” he remembers, “but we played a couple of songs, and everyone came bouncing out going WAAAAAH. We’re doing a new record and the show, and it’s suddenly from nought to light speed in a heartbeat.”

“I never really expect to make any of the records that we make,” admits Graham.

“We’ve never really liked doing shows without having something new to play. It feels slightly fraudulent in a lot of ways to just go out and do shows with nothing new to talk about or listen to.”

At first, the guitarist thought it would

“WE’RE A GOOD JUDGE OF WHAT IS GOOD AND BAD. WE’RE QUITE HARSH ON OURSELVES” G R A H A M C OXO N

be just a new EP, but it seemed that Damon, as is his way, had been beavering away on his own writing the tracks that would become ‘The Ballad Of Darren’.

“He’d been writing songs on days off throughout the Gorillaz tour,” explains Graham, “I don’t know whether he was writing it with blur specifically in mind, but a lot of the songs seemed to fit. I think writing songs for another band while on tour with someone else was an interesting thing for him to do.”

Damon himself admits that the songs came in a flurry. “Opposite my hotel room was a fantastic mural of Leonard Cohen,” he said just before their first show back, “I just didn’t think about it. I wrote from the heart. When I got back, we just started, READDORK.COM 29.

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and we crashed into the studio in January.”

With this batch of demos plonked in their laps, it seemed easy to switch their minds to making a new record.

“What ended up being ‘The Ballad’ had been around for a long time as ‘Half A Song’ [a track featured on Albarn’s 2003 vinyl-only collection ‘Democrazy’], but it hadn’t found a chorus,” Graham remembers. “But that arrived with a lovely chorus which was great news. Then a few more arrived, and some new ones.

And so that was it. We thought we better just get on with it.”

Get on with it, they did, landing in the studio just a few weeks later with no pre-production. Graham and Alex still admit to feeling the nerves beforehand. “It’s slightly daunting making a new record at this stage,” admits Alex, “because what if it’s rubbish?”

Meanwhile, Graham nods knowingly at the prospect of a beloved band returning with sub-par work. Alex describes those early days in the studio as “the world falling away” when the dynamics that have served the group so well for 35 years came flooding back immediately. “It was joyous, effortless and weightless,” he grins. “I think guitar players and singers maybe need to feel like they’ve suffered a little bit for their stuff to work, but for bassists, it’s just like riding a bike. The record’s not trying to tick boxes or trying to be anything. It just sounds like four guys expressing themselves like friends.”

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“IF WE DON’T KEEP HIM FOCUSSED, HE’LL BE OFF WRITING ANOTHER FUCKING OPERA, AND WE LOSE HIM FOR ANOTHER TEN YEARS”

ALEX JAMES

It’s something Damon has addressed with what seems like a sense of awe. “I think the most amazing thing is we managed to write a record, rehearse it and put out a tune two weeks after finishing it,” he marvels. “That’s how I kind of dreamt it should always be.”

Their hands forced by that lack of time, Graham describes making ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ as an intense but equally relaxed challenge.

Deliberately understated, it isn’t the sound of a band trying to recapture the past, instead embracing where

they are now. “I think we’re a good judge of what is good and bad,” he says. “We’re quite harsh on ourselves.

The thing is, we have to think that what blur have done is good enough.

And Damon obviously has to feel that way, like he said what he needs to say.”

He says he was pleased when he realised how emotionally open and less vague Damon’s lyrics were this time round, even if he was still having to second-guess them by writing his guitar pieces before they’d been finished. “When he put the vocals on the album, I was like, ‘fucking hell,

he’s singing really beautifully’.”

There’s a poignancy and melancholy to the lyrics to ‘Barbaric’ and ‘Far Away Islands’ that make the heart itch, while ‘The Heights’ is a beautiful tribute to the fans that have kept them going for so long on a track that Graham describes as “more anthemic than blur has ever been before”. The band are buoyant at this stage of the album’s pre-release, though Alex laughs as he says the band are famously not good at spotting what’s in front of them.

“One thing I’ve learned is you never really know what you’ve done until about five years later,” he grins. “We all thought ‘Song 2’ was a B-side because you can’t really hear the words, and it’s less than two minutes long, so useless for the radio. None of us even thought ‘Country House’ was a single! But this feels a bit like when ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’ came out in that we’ve actually done what we fucking wanted, and we don’t care what anyone thinks.” He immediately contradicts himself with a chuckle. “Well, actually, we do care what anyone thinks, but when you feel like you don’t, that usually means you’ve done something great.”

IT CAN STILL SEEM LIKE A MIRACLE that the band even got

back to this point. The relationship between Damon and Graham was one of the defining images of the Britpop era - one that seemed fatally wounded when the guitarist left the band during the stormy sessions that surrounded ‘Think Tank’ back in 2003. With their friendship long since patched up, one of the joys of the first shows back this time around was seeing them back giggling at each other on stage. There’s a long pause, but an even longer smile, when Graham is asked if he had missed his stage presence. “I do miss it, and I really enjoy it,” he says eventually. “Being on stage is really about living in that exact second.

And I think because we are having a good time and it’s relaxed, we are clowning around a little more. I can sometimes look at him and think, ‘I feel VERY awkward’, but he does a fantastic job. He has a job that he has to do, and he does what he needs to do to get through that song and be entertaining. Sometimes what do you say? Sometimes you say something really weird, and that’s what Damon’s for.”

The frontman memorably managed to lose his gold tooth during the Eastbourne show, somehow spitting it out mid-song.

Graham rolls his eyes dramatically when asked for the latest gnasher update. “I’m not sure about the saga of the tooth…” he sighs. “I think it’s back. But I tell him all the time! The thing is, I’m missing that same tooth,

BLUR

so now we talk a bit about dental work every now and then. I don’t think I’ve even lost a shoe at a gig. I might have done. I do like to have everything quite organised, no loose items, really. It’s a bit like going through an airport, everything on a little grey tray….”

Now, here’s an exciting fact for you. The tooth was retrieved by blur’s long-term security guy and general fixer of calamities, a chap by the name of Darren Evans (* INSERT SHARP INTAKE OF BREATH*). “Darrens come from a certain place in time,” muses Graham when I ask about the titular Darren before wandering down a cul-de-sac as an answer.

“Growing up, there were Darrens, but obviously, Damon being called Damon meant he came from a certain type of background.

Graham’s quite neutral, I think. I’m not quite sure how fashionable Darren is as a name now.”

We never quite manage to get a firm answer as to why the album was named after Darren in the end.

“In a similar way to how ‘Ernold Same’ was every commuter that you used to see on the train, but it is loosely based around Darren,” he nods. “His face is on some of the t-shirts. So it’s kind of pretty much about him. But it’s not about him?”

That’s that *definitely* cleared up, then. Cheers Graham.

Damon wasn’t much more help in a radio interview when the album was announced either (“Darren is many people, it is directly one person,” he said). Later, he revealed at a show that the album was indeed named after Evans - partly because he nagged him for years to finish ‘The Ballad’. What a ride.

There’s a stack of reasons why so many legacy artists eventually come back around - many of them cashbased - but the power of nostalgia can be a wonderful thing. blur carry some serious history with them, and when you bring it up with them, they embrace it fully. None of that playing it cool malarkey here.

The evidence is widely available online - especially in the cult video ‘Starshaped’ that came from following the band on the road in the early 90s. Freely available on YouTube, it came to define that period in indie with its no-holdsbarred content that a lot of bands nowadays would get warned away from showing unless it made a good TikTok. Both Alex and Graham grin when we bring it up. “’When was the last time you were sick outside an airport?’” says Graham selfmockingly, shaking his head about one memorable moment. “I haven’t watched that for ages! It reminds me of a very strange year for me READDORK.COM 31.

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when I went through a heartbroken time and was hitting the beer quite a lot. Rightly or wrongly, we’ve never been afraid to make fools of ourselves and to be human and absurd. Because it IS absurd.

We’re very serious about the music, but there has to be some awareness that the whole thing is absurd.”

Alex remembers that period as being “chaos and carnage”. “I think it’s all more sort of controlled, more carefully marketed and cleverly husbanded now.

But this was all just pure fucking chaos and manure. But great, great things came out of it.”

Graham picks up the thread as well. “When blur was beginning, we looked back at bands like The Who,” he remembers. “We liked the chaos, and we were scruffy. And that sort of chaos and abandonment isn’t really there in a lot of music now. It’s to be quite smart and organised and business savvy nowadays, but that approach didn’t really exist

"IT’S ONLY WHEN WE GET BACK TOGETHER THAT YOU GO WOW, PEOPLE REALLY DO CARE" ALEX JAMES

when we started. All your heroes were drug addicts and alcoholics, pretty much.

They were all maniacs. So that’s how we thought it was done. That doesn’t mean we’re drunk and high when we’re playing, but there’s a sort of level of intensity you have to have. Otherwise, there’s no point.

You’ve gotta commit! All kids want the chaos. That’s what they want.”

With Pulp also back on the road, there’s just one band from The Big Britpop Three of the 90s who still need to get their act together. There was a period when blur and Oasis were rarely mentioned without the other popping up in the same sentence, so you’d imagine that all sets of Gallagher eyes (and brows) are firmly fixed on what’s happening here.

“It’s just such a terrible shame that all my favourite bands seem to hate each other,” says Alex. “I don’t think New Order and Hooky will ever be friends, Johnny Marr and Morrissey… It’s such a shame that bands tend to end up 32. DORK

alienated from each other or exiled from their most popular material. It’s all so messed up that bands end up hating each other and feeling that they don’t want to play their big hits, you know?”

So, is that ‘Country House’ at Wembley confirmed? “I can not confirm or deny,” the bassist laughs. “It’s just such a shame that songs that define you kind of become a ball and chain. I guess because we don’t do this very much, we’re just doing it for joy and for shits and giggles.”

Juggling setlists after nine albums has even been a pleasant chore this time around, with the band employing someone to mediate and pick it for them. “It’s actually brilliant,” says Alex.

“Because the main thing is keeping Damon focussed because he has a very, very short attention span. If we don’t keep him focussed, he’ll be off writing another fucking opera, and we lose him for another ten years.”

For now, having fun is more than enough. “I think we’re really enjoying the playing,” says Alex. “There’s a kind of effortlessness to it, without wanting to sound like a wanker. You walk on, and you go, wow, that’s a big crowd. And by the time you walk off, you’ve completely shrunk it in your heads. So Wembley should really be a homecoming.”

Damon describes the prospect as blur being at “our most purest and most uncomplicated.” We ask Graham what he thinks about Wembley, and of course, he doesn’t go down the obvious route, more excited at the prospect of how high he can chuck his (doubtlessly priceless) guitar. “This photographer, Phoebe Fox, was taking photographs, and she managed to get a picture of me throwing it 20 feet,” he ponders. “There’s a lot of height at Wembley, so I’d like to get 30 feet. That will be great. That wasn’t the question, was it?”

No, it wasn’t Graham, but it’s fine.

“You forget it’s not just the reunion for us,” smiles Alex. “It’s really touching and wonderful. It’s only when we get back together that you go wow, people really do care. It’s wonderful.”

With our chat coming just a couple of days after Glastonbury, where rumours continued to swirl around secret sets or future returns to the headline slot, the bassist is pretty firmly dismissive (without denying it outright).

“Glastonbury was a very, very special gig the first time we got back together,” he says. “I don’t think we’ll ever top that.

And I mean, if blur were gonna do one festival in Britain, it should be fucking mine, quite frankly.”

Whatever happens in the future, the band seem set on just existing in the moment. “Even when we actually did split up, it didn’t take us this long to get back together and play some shows,” says Alex. “So I think I’ve come to realise it’s very precious what we’ve got, all those years playing together. It’s a gift.”

As the saying goes, some gifts just keep on giving. ■ blur’s album ‘The Ballad Of Darren’ is out 21st July.

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photography by Jennifer McCord

by Martyn Young

Embarking on an introspective journey, MAHALIA’s triumphant return with ‘IRL’ reveals her evolution as an artist, navigating challenges, embracing authenticity, and leaving an indelible mark on the British R&B scene.

WHEN YOU’VE BEEN AWAY FOR A FEW YEARS AS AN ARTIST, you’re always

looking for the perfect way to return. How can you reassert yourself and shake things up? As far as comebacks in 2023 go, there’s nothing more powerful than Mahalia’s ‘Terms & Conditions’. “I wanted to burst out of the gate,” she explains excitedly. “The first single is very hard to choose, but you can either ease in or burst out, and I just wanted to say: I’m here.

I’m back. It’s coming.”

What’s coming is her stunning second album ‘IRL’, and it’s a record that establishes Mahalia firmly at the top table of British R&B. Full of confidence, ambition and a desire to create a true legacy for herself and her music, she’s making a statement on her own terms.

Everyone has known for a very long time that Mahalia was something special.

Even going back to when she was first signed to Asylum/Atlantic Records as a precocious 13-year-old talent in Leicester, she was destined for greatness. Indeed, the accolades and the achievements of her first burst of fame and creativity culminating in 2019’s critically acclaimed debut ‘Love and Compromise’ make for impressive reading.

There are the Grammy and BRIT Award nominations, the two MOBO wins for Best

Female Act and Best R&B/Soul Act, as well as the huge festival shows and playing with the likes of actual Adele. Rarified company, indeed. It’s the reality of her journey so far and how Mahalia has the power to shape her destiny that characterises ‘IRL’ and shows us a new side to the supremely talented singer.

“Very simply, it’s been a fucking uphill climb,” she exhales as she tries to contextualise her rise. “At times, it’s felt like I’ve been running a marathon. I didn’t have the overnight success trajectory. That wasn’t really on the cards for me. Everything that I’ve done and every gig that I’ve done has gotten me to this point. Starting as a 13-year-old kid in Leicester, going to school and picking my GCSEs, to becoming a signed artist. From busking in the streets to playing open mics and playing shows.”

Hard work and passion were the things that drove Mahalia through her teenage years, and now, aged 25, she’s able to look back fondly on that period despite the struggles.

“It’s funny when people talk about the grind because I feel like for a lot of people now it’s quick,” she says. “You might have a song that’s doing really well on TikTok or has a viral moment online, and everything goes crazy.

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“For me, it’s always felt like a grind, and I’ve loved it. Based on the person that I am, a quick trajectory would have freaked me the fuck out.

I definitely work better with slow and steady. It’s been a lot of work. I definitely felt like I was in the gutter for a lot of it. With that work comes incredible reward, though. Every time something happened, like last year when I won a MOBO, I cried from my seat to the podium, and I kept crying at the podium. Some people might not understand that response, but it’s because of the work and the time leading to that point.”

Mahalia’s music falls within the great tradition in British pop and R&B of using their own heritage and distinct voice to mesh with a broader aesthetic to create their own singular style. The importance of coming from Leicester and embracing the regional quirks has played a big part in her development from an early age. It’s a true melting pot of diverse influences.

“When I was a kid, I was surrounded by music all the time,” she explains. “My eldest brother was playing everything. He was playing all the hip-hop, my second brother was playing all the pop but the cooler pop. He was playing Britney and JoJo. Which is so funny because he’s now a rapper, and I don’t think he

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remembers the time when he was a pop kid,” she laughs. “My parents played a lot of reggae when I was a kid. Reggae is probably what.

Reggae is what really made me find happiness in music. There’s nothing like it. Some of the music that used to fill the corridors, whether it be Bob Marley, most of the time it was Damien Marley, and really getting to experience music in such a way that it makes you feel happy about your day.

Reggae really does something to me.

It would signify my mum cooking in the Kitchen. It would signify my dad doing work in the garden. It had images for me. That was the beginning.”

From that beginning, Mahalia began to take on her own musical passions. “A major turning point was when I picked up the guitar,” she smiles. “There was an artist I loved as a kid called Corrine Bailey Rae. She was also mixed, which I really related to, and she played the guitar and sang. I was like, oh, I want to be this girl. That was when I started playing.

Around that time when I grew up in Leicester, the only things we were listening to were Arctic Monkeys, The Kooks and Jamie T. For a long time, I was inspired by those kinds of bands.

I was inspired by how they would talk about stories, and I think that’s how I get my conversational style. Alex

"I don’t want to tell everybody this is what you should do, but I’d like to offer some of my 25-year-old wisdom"

MAHALIA

Turner would literally write a song and sing it like he would say it, and that’s what I try to do.”

In her Dork cover last year, amazing UK rapper Enny similarly enthused about her love of Alex Turner and his wordplay, and it’s clear that the Sheffield legend’s influence goes far beyond their typically indie lane. For Mahalia, it was the feeling of home and those very specific regional accent details that made them even more special.

“He used to say ‘owt’,” Mahalia grins. “I always say Leicester is not the north, but if you go to Leicester and listen to people talk, the accent has so many hints of northern in there. I think that’s why we love them because we do say ‘shut up’, and we do say, ‘come shop with me’.

I was trying to say to my boyfriend, because he’s from London, when we were at school, and the teacher was getting us in trouble, we’d say, ‘Miss, we ain’t done owt’. He’d never heard that before. I think that’s why Alex inspired me. There were so many things in his lyrics and songs that related to us growing up in Leicester.”

As she developed and experimented with different sounds and styles, Mahalia’s voice became her calling card, and it’s that beautifully dextrous, nimble and super soulful voice that makes her debut album such a gorgeous listen. But, despite its success and undoubted lushness, there was something else that was needed to give her music a spark to take it to the next level. Struggle was once again to ultimately turn into salvation as she had to try to navigate getting through the pandemic while processing just what the hell she was going to do with her music next. The events of those years were unforeseen but crucial in shaping the tone and spirit of that all-important second album.

“After the first record, we hit the pandemic pretty quickly,” reflects Mahalia. “I feel like I was on one trajectory; I was definitely moving through life too fast and not really taking time to look at anything.

When the pandemic hit, it hit me

like a fucking school bus. I felt like someone had stolen something from me. For a while, I was really angry.”

Like everyone, though, initially, the early pandemic phase wasn’t that bad. “I enjoyed the first month. I became a stoner for the first time in my life,” she laughs. “I was drinking a lot of wine and reading a lot of books. I enjoyed that time, but when it got to 4 or 5 months, I just lost my shit. I think it was the first time that I really had to stop and take a look at my mental health and think, is this depression, or is it not? Am I ADHD, or am I not? Honestly, it was therapy for me. I started therapy midway through the first year of the pandemic, and that is where I did all my growing. When I really got to get under the skin of Mahalia, the artist, and Mahalia at home. I also got to figure out that I really haven’t been that happy over the last few years.”

In the middle of this inwardlooking pandemic-induced inertia, Mahalia began writing. “That was how I started writing my second album,” she continues. “I was becoming a different woman. I wasn’t on that trajectory any more. I was on a different one and had to figure out how to do that one. From album one to ‘IRL’, it felt like a huge development for me. It has reflection as well. I got to reflect on the girl I was then and the girl I am now. The title-track ‘IRL’ is basically about me as a kid and how much I wanted to be a singer. I got to spend all that time and therapy and really get to grips with who I was.

That’s why some of the album feels quite reflective because that’s what I was doing at that time.”

The reflective quality gives the album a real calming lucidity and clarity. Mahalia is at ease with who she is and recognises the struggles she’s had to get there. “There’s a word that labels tend to use, and that’s aspirational,” she states. “I’ve always hated that word. Labels tend to use it in relation to artists where they say you need to be aspirational.

People need to aspire to be like you.

No, not aspire to be like you. Aspire to BE you. My thing was always that

MAHALIA

I was too relatable. I thought that you could be aspirational by being relatable. I think people can fall in love with you and want to be like you because of your relatability and your honesty.

“In the beginning, I wanted to act like a friend to fans; I can’t text my fans and speak to them on the phone because that would be thousands of people, but I wanted them to feel like my songs were also written for them. That was my goal when I was a kid, and that’s always been my goal. With this album, I want people to come away from it and say Mahalia showed me something or taught me something.

The goal has been to be a kind of big sister, friend, and mentor, and I think you can be aspirational and be that person. The album finishes on ‘IRL’, and the last part of ‘IRL’ starts by saying, ‘So my last piece of advice’. That really is who I am.

I don’t want to tell everybody this is what you should do, but I’d like to offer some of my 25-year-old wisdom.”

Through making the album, Mahalia worked predominantly with the same team she collaborated on with the first album with JD Reid, Max Pope and her partner Benjamin Hart who played an ever bigger role on this album.

“I wrote most of the album with my partner. I think that in itself was a learning curve for both of us. We were having to write songs sometimes about each other in the same room.” Perhaps this gives the album some of its intimacy and closeness. “I was really surprised at how hard I found it in the beginning,” she admits, though. “I was surprised that after a two-year break, I couldn’t just get started immediately. I had to ease myself back in.

“That was the first thing that freaked me out. One thing that I’m very happy I did on this record is I worked with a lot of the same people over and over again; I think that allowed me to find my voice as an artist. A lot of making music nowadays, half of the session is meeting people and trying to say hello and get a vibe from each other, and then you’ve got to write a song. I find that process excruciating. It was nice to work with the same people and not have to do the getting to know each other, and come into the room and immediately start creating. The start of the process was horrendous for me in my head as I just didn’t know what to do, but finishing the album and then looking back on it, I had so much fun making it.”

One of the most striking aspects of the record is the featured artists that drop in and complement READDORK.COM 37.

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"It’s a strange thing to have labels in your ear all the time saying you need to make TikToks" MAHALIA

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Mahalia’s central character. “All of these features came around super organically.

Everyone on the record I’m a really big fan of already, which always helps. I definitely took the lead with it,” she explains. “The first feature I got was JoJo,” who’s on the whip-smart anthem ‘Cheat’. “That was crazy for me and felt like a real full-circle moment. I loved her so much as a kid, and being able to do that was amazing.

“The two that I got around the same time were Joyce Wrice and Destin Conrad.

Everybody knows how much I talk about R&B and the importance of it, and how brilliant a genre it is. I’m definitely not shy about saying that the UK needs to do more to support R&B artists, so I wanted to make sure I had that on the record. Destin, I love you. He got me through the first lockdown 100%. Joyce, I think, is brilliant, and I really wanted to have another great girl on there.”

After lifting some new talent, the final two features are modern legends of the game. “The final two, I went with Kojey Radical, who’s like my big brother; I

wanted to have another moment with him. Stormzy was huge, though. I think everyone was expecting me to make a rap record with Stormzy, but I decided to get him to sing. I’m hoping that it’s going to be a few first dance songs.”

Indeed, the desolate plaintive quality of Stormzy’s voice on the gorgeous ‘November’ is a jaw-dropping album highlight.

While the album is reflective and inspiring, it’s also super fun and ebullient.

Mahalia knows how to have a good time, and she’s not afraid to tell you she’s doing just that. She also revels in the drama and the outlandishness of songs like ‘Cheat’ and ‘Terms & Conditions’, which have a real cinematic quality flourished by swirling strings. There’s also one other thing Mahalia wants you to know on this record: she’s very funny and recognises that there’s always room for a bit of nonsense in pop; she very much gives down with boring energy.

“One thing that I hope people feel from me that I’ve always loved doing is trying to put moments of comedy in my songs,” she says excitedly before offering the example of album highlight ‘It’s Not Me, It’s You’, which features a welcome shout out for classic classroom game Heads Down, Thumbs Up as she sings about her crush hopefully picking her. “That’s my favourite line!” she cries.

“That song is my favourite because of that first verse. If you really get it or you read it, not to blow my own trumpet, but it’s a really intelligent but funny verse.

The reference to playing Kiss Chase in the playground. With the Heads Down, Thumbs Up thing, if I had a crush and he was the runner, he had to pick my thumb because if he didn’t, it would be the end of the world.

“These feelings don’t just start when you get older; it starts when you’re a kid. I love that imagery of being a little girl in the playground and Jake coming over and kissing me in Kiss Chase and running away and how we can have those things mirrored in our adult life. You can kiss a guy on a night out and never hear from them again. We are all grown from the moment that we come out of the womb.

Everything that happens in our lives affects us in our adult lives. That’s going to be the song that people find and fall in love with.”

It’s those moments of joy and how the little things in life can be so powerful that make ‘IRL’ what it is. It’s important to embrace that in a music environment where the pressure is ramped up like never before, something that Mahalia is very conscious of. “It feels really different with the age of social media changing every day,” she says. “Coming out of the pandemic and having to relearn certain things was really difficult. TikTok is not the easiest app to use and understand.

I actually find it really easy to use as a consumer because you’re just scrolling. As a creator, though, I’ve found it the hardest.

It doesn’t always feel natural.

“For a lot of us, we’ve been trying to

MAHALIA

figure out how do we stay true to ourselves but still be a part of this new age of creators. The thing that’s making it so difficult is the pressure from labels to be on TikTok. If the label weren’t pushing so hard, many of us would have found our way there anyway. It’s a strange thing to have labels in your ear all the time saying you need to make TikToks or make this song go viral, because I just don’t care about that. Why don’t we just make music and release it and see what happens?”

One of Mahalia’s main passions is passing on her knowledge and experience to a younger generation, but she fears for how this generation can navigate an increasingly harsh landscape. “I do a lot of talks with younger kids. I’m not a pessimist, but I definitely tell them,” she continues. “When I was at school, we used to have artists come in and give talks and stuff. I remember all of them would come and talk about what an amazing thing it is to be an artist and how brilliant it was. As a kid, I was like, wow, wow, wow and now that I’m older, I’m like, do you know what, guys? You could have given me a little bit of warning or something because it’s not an easy ride. To exist in the music industry, your skin has to be thick. I thought I had thick skin, and sometimes things will happen, and I’ll say, wow, that really hurt. It’s important that kids understand that you don’t have to be on TikTok just because the world is telling you to, or post everything on Instagram. All of us artists are just trying to be artists, and everything else is just noise. Blocking out that noise is very difficult. All I can say is, I’m very happy that I managed to slightly establish myself before all of this because I can’t imagine trying to come up right now in this industry.”

Mahalia cites the success of her friend and collaborator Raye as an example of someone staying true to themselves, riding the industry storm, and finding a new way forward. “It’s amazing. We’re the same age, and I’ve known her since she was 17, so we’ve always been in the industry doing the same stuff together.

It’s lovely. I actually saw her show in New York and went to see her afterwards and just burst into tears. She’s somebody who really has worked her absolute arse off for this. Raye is somebody who’s had massive success in songwriting and in music and has been able to do things in life that most 25-year-olds haven’t been able to experience and have an incredible life, but this is her time to have the incredible career that she deserves.”

She sees someone like Raye’s success as an example of the artist taking back some element of control after years of being ripped off and exploited. “This is also why labels are scared,” she adds.

“They’re scared that artists are going to start seeing that we don’t need you anymore. Artists want to make money.

Even for me, it gets exhausting knowing that my label are seeing the benefits of my music, and I don’t yet. That’s something that I talk about with younger artists.

You might think you want to go and sign

for £4 million, god, at the minute, it’s a few million quid because you have to think about that stuff. When you receive that money, that’s money that you owe back. In order to pay that back then, your music has to be extremely successful, and if you’re not extremely successful, you will never see a penny for your music ever. To me, that’s terrifying. It’s really important that young musicians see how the industry works before they put their names onto anything.”

When Mahalia looks back to when she was 13 and signing her first deal, it feels like a lifetime ago. “As you do when you’re a kid, I think I thought, oh, this is nice. I’ll do this for a bit, and then I’ll do something else,” she laughs. More than ten years later, she’s artistically thriving like never before with a defined vision and massive ambition for the future. “The plans are coming together,” she says excitedly. “The reason why I wanted to create this ‘IRL’ world is I really wanted people to come and see me in random places. I’ve been doing some pop-up shows. I did a Sofar Sounds thing in somebody’s living room in New York and a gig in a brownstone in Brooklyn. I’m trying to do stuff where people can come and see me in a calmer setting. I do Mahalia Presents, where you get to see me host and be myself. I want people to understand my world and the world I’m trying to create. I think there’s going to be a lot of installations and pop-ups to try to get people in real life with me.”

In a world where it’s sometimes unclear where the virtual world ends and real life begins, Mahalia wants to emphasise the distinct human emotions

"I want people to understand my world and the world I’m trying to create" MAHALIA that make real life both so powerfully moving but also challenging and often life-affirmingly brilliant. It’s also a record about people and our closeness to people and the people who help us thrive and grow, as well as maybe make us despair too. Mahalia concludes by talking about the album’s scene-setting intro, ‘Ready’, summing up everything she wanted to say. “The thing with ‘Ready’ is it doesn’t necessarily tell you what the album is about, but it’s an important song in encapsulating the last four years and says I didn’t think I was going to get here, but I’m here, and I’m ready. It talks about everybody in my life. It’s a song about me, but it’s also a song to say it takes a village.”

Mahalia’s irl village seems like a lovely place at the moment, and she’s delivered one of the albums of the year to soundtrack it. ■ Mahalia’s album ‘IRL’ is out now.

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COVER STORY

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GEORGIA

by Martyn Young

photography by Derek Bremner

From intimate beginnings to global stages, GEORGIA’s ‘Euphoric’ chronicles her journey of selfexploration, delivering a captivating fusion of dance, vulnerability, and musical innovation.

“SOMETHING HAPPENED TO US ON THAT STAGE...”

Georgia has just come off after performing at BBC Radio 1’s Big Weekend in Dundee, and she’s a little bit excited. Her set was the first time she had played live with her new band, Charlene on drums and Cat on bass, marking the beginning of Georgia’s new era as a pioneering pop innovator moulding the transcendent power of dance music through her own singular songwriting vision. Also, quite the occasion for your first show together - in front of thousands of people at a festival. In many ways, it sums her up, though. Fearless and ambitious, with her third album ‘Euphoric’ Georgia is setting out on another dance adventure.

Still giddy from the high of performing and with the hubbub of actual current pop

legends like Niall Horan and Lewis Capaldi backstage, it’s a special moment. It’s clear that the rush of the experience will take a minute to process. “All the prep you can do can never really prepare you for it,” she says.

“There’s something quite magical between us three that feels very natural. It feels really good and exciting.”

These kinds of experiences are what Georgia lives for, and they provide the spirit that runs through all of her music. The world as it is in summer 2023, though, is a distinctly different place than back in January 2019 when Georgia released her epic club culture odyssey of a second album ‘Seeking Thrills’. Back then, the future seemed one of hedonism and blissful relief.

‘Seeking Thills’ is not only a brilliant album, but it now stands immortalised as one of the last released when things were normal.

Unknowingly, it transpired that Georgia lit the touch paper for an explosion in dance music reacting against the grim READDORK.COM 41.

COVER STORY

early pandemic days with ‘Seeking Thrills’ followed by Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’, Jessie Ware’s two disco epics, Kylie’s disco album and the rise of dance as a cultural force again, with artists like Fred Again.. and the whole super exciting Loud LDN drum’n’bass scene, including Venbee and Piri. As a figurehead for the genre within the pop space, Georgia can appreciate the huge explosion in the last three years but also has a little bit of perspective.

“I feel like dance music took on this whole new identity throughout the lockdown,” she explains. “My non-cynical head says that dance music is a wonderful medium for collectivity, and it’s all about the dancefloor; it’s all about expression and dancing. People were starved of that for two years and were turning their bedrooms or kitchens into dance floors. Sharing something became a big want during those two years. Dance music has that special thing with everyone dancing on a dancefloor. My cynical head says it’s just very trendy. The trends on social media became quite danceled, and a lot of people capitalised on that.”

The gap between albums is nearly four years which is fine, perfectly normal, but in today’s hyperspeed culture, it feels like a

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lifetime. That period of isolation and reflection, though, was crucial to the genesis of ‘Euphoric’. “I dealt with it how I know best. I locked myself away in the studio and started writing songs,” reflects Georgia. “That’s basically what I like to do. I found it quite inspiring, particularly through the two years of the lockdown. There was so much time but so many things going on where people were reevaluating their lives. There was a lot to process. Songwriting helped me. I didn’t want to write a depressing album about how fucked up the world is. I saw a lot of beauty in the world in those two years. I found humanity quite amazing with how much we can take as human beings with the loss and how resistant we can be and how collective we can be.”

‘Euphoric’ is, in part, a response to the changed landscape in both the world in general and Georgia’s life at the time. “I didn’t want to go in and write ‘Seeking Thrills’ two,” she says. “I felt like I was in a different mindset. I wanted to create a dance record that was less focused on drum machines and production and more on songs and experimentation. I was listening very heavily to Madonna’s ‘Ray Of Light’ and the very 90s William

"I didn’t want to write a depressing album about how fucked up the world is" GEORGIA Orbit productions. Sounds that took you from in the club to out of the club. They’re still danceinfluenced, but it’s more like you’re on an island in Thailand. I think that’s what I was yearning for. My imagination was that I wanted to be in front of the sea and on the beach, but I wasn’t. I was at the bottom of my garden in London. I wanted people to feel that sort of escapism on this record. I didn’t want it to sound confined to clubbiness.

Rostam had a massive part to play in that, and he shared the vision with me. We were able to really achieve what we wanted to. “ Rostam, of course, is the ex-Vampire Weekend sonic visionary who has been at the vanguard of exciting alt-pop for over a decade now, working with all sorts of different people.

For Georgia, it would be her first experience working closely with another producer. “He’s fascinating.

He’s such an amazing human being, so creative and so sensitive,” she says as she describes the experience of working with him. “It was very natural. It wasn’t like my record label going; you should work with him because it’s trendy.”

She goes on to giddily tell the story of how they got together after Rostam heard Georgia’s demo of her song with Mura Masa, ‘Live Like We’re Dancing’. He was immediately hooked. After exchanging messages, it became clear that Rostam was focusing on the thing that Georgia really wanted to develop, which was her voice. “I was really taken back, so I messaged him back and said thanks so much; this means the world. It’s really nice that you’re concentrating on my voice. Not many people say that to me. He said, you’ve got a great voice. For me, that was very encouraging. I was striving for this record for my voice to be centre stage. I didn’t quite know how to do it on my own because I wasn’t brave enough.”

In Christmas 2019, Georgia

found herself playing shows in LA with a bit of downtime and got in touch to see if Rostam wanted to do some work together, and a little bit of pop magic happened. “On that first day, we wrote ‘It’s Euphoric’. It felt like it was just meant to be,” she exhales. They immediately resolved to work together on the album, and then, of course, everything stopped.

The hope that they could soon reconnect, though, was a driving force through the pandemic. “It helped that I was going to be going to LA to take these demos to him.

There was a goal and something driving me. In Christmas 2021, I was there in LA.” Georgia had previously been an artist that was almost entirely self-sufficient, from her songs to her production to her live shows.

Working closely with Rosam, though, did not necessitate a change in her way of working, and it was more an equal musical partnership as they conjured up the atmosphere of ‘Euphoric’.

“I wanted an adventure,” she says excitedly. “He had been following my career and knew that I was a producer. He knew it was part of who I was as an artist. It was a total musical exchange. Almost like a collaboration, really. We both entered the project with an openness. I wanted to learn from Rostam, and I think, in some ways, he wanted to learn from me. It was really interesting between us two.

We didn’t have anyone else apart from Joey, his engineer. It was very intimate and worked well for my self-sufficiency. For me to feel open enough to record my vocals, the encouragement he gave me for that was so valuable.”

It was undoubtedly a big upheaval moving to the other side of the world to make the album, though. “It was a risk. There was a risk that I was going to go there and we wouldn’t get on, but that risk is part of what the record is about,” she admits. “I had this mantra of give it a try and see what

GEORGIA

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"I wanted to be in front of the sea and on the beach, but I wasn’t. I was at the bottom of my garden in London" GEORGIA

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fucking happens. If it doesn’t work out, it’s not the end of the world. If it does, hallelujah, this is great. Music-making can sometimes be confined by other people’s opinions and what’s hot right now; I didn’t want to fucking have any of that. I just wanted to go in and be open to a new experience.”

The concept of euphoria began to emerge as the encapsulating force behind the album. Often, you can think euphoria has to be something wild or thrilling, but instead, you can find a sense of it in your own special experiences, which is something Georgia found out while making the record. “It just felt like the right word to sum up the whole experience for me. The experience of going to LA, writing with Rostam and experiencing the ups and downs of living in a new environment,” she reflects. “It’s also a word that’s positive, optimistic and resilient. We need a bit of euphoria.

It just put a nice blanket over all the songs. Very often, we’re told to forget

experiences because it’s on to the next thing, but I just felt it would be lovely. I remember sitting on Mulholland Drive and looking out at LA and thinking, fuck me. You can see the panoramic view of this city that you’ve always known about, and suddenly you’re there, and it’s like, wow, this is magical. I just had a moment where I thought that life could just change like that. I think it’s important to appreciate those things.”

If ‘Seeking Thrills’ was a very physical record, defined by the feeling of a mass of heaving sweaty bodies in the club, then ‘Euphoric’ is a more spiritual and reflective collection. It has a beautiful airy quality; there’s weightlessness and delicacy to its soft-focus dancepop bops. It’s also a deeply human and emotionally vulnerable album. “This is the beginning of the real songwriter in me,” says Georgia proudly. “We were looking for space amongst the mixes.

That was very intentional, but it’s very hard to do. We were conscious of not throwing too much in the mix. We wanted this lightness to the tracks. We wanted it to sound organic even though it’s electronic music.”

On the song ‘Give It Up For Love’, there’s a beautiful moment towards the end where Georgia sings, ‘If you’re seeking redemption, if you’re seeking salvation’, providing a link to the last album. Previously it was thrills and primal urges she was seeking as she looked for the unifying force of the club; now, Georgia is reflecting on how she can find joy within herself. “That is a really important lyric on the record,” she explains. “It sums up my frame of mind when I was writing the album.

The feeling of just letting yourself go.

The lockdown was that for me. I was reevaluating certain aspects of my life and personal things that were going on. I really like the lyric, ‘Just when I thought that I should give up, that’s when I found love’. That really was me in the three years of making this record. I was at my lowest point; then I was at my highest point.”

The album ends with perhaps the most open and vulnerable Georgia has ever sounded on record on the sparse ballad ‘So What’. “I wrote that song with Justin Parker, who wrote ‘Video Games’ with Lana Del Rey and ‘Stay’ for Rihanna, so I very much went in with the intention that I wanted to write a ballad. I wanted to do it in my style, though, and together, we wrote that. We were both in a very vulnerable place at the time. There was something about the lyric ‘so what’ that had resilience in it. Shit happens. At least you gave it a try.”

“I think that optimism is important in life,” she continues. “In true Georgia style, there is more continuity, but I throw you here, and I throw you there, but I do think it’s a really optimistic record. I always describe it as this technicolour of sounds. That’s why we did the album artwork with all the

GEORGIA

explosions of colours. I just wanted people’s imaginations to be explored. It feels like the start of more exploration into how far you can push the boundaries of pop music.”

Despite being focused on calmness and beauty, there’s still plenty of room for bangers, and here they are a source of joyous, ecstatic relief, amplified even more by the softness that surrounds them. ‘All Night’ is one of those insane moments of release driven by an utterly mad and addictive synth riff. “I think it might be bagpipes actually in one of those weird EDM plug-ins,” she laughs.

“We didn’t want to make a floor on-thefloor record the whole time, but the bits where they are really dancefloor shine.

I was very influenced by Daft Punk’s ‘Discovery’ with that song. That’s why it has that ‘One More Time’ like vocal effect on it. I love that song. That was one of the first songs that I demoed.”

With dance music once again becoming a vital force in pop, it feels an exciting time to be an electronic pop artist. Still, Georgia is wary of falling into the nostalgia trap door that sometimes pop can hover perilously over, particularly with the current trend for interpolating old songs in the style of a Hollywood movie reboot or just simply speeding the whole thing up x5.

“What annoys me is following music trends on social media or TikTok,” she says. “It’s just so shit. It turns pop music into a homogenised sound. The best pop music that is successful and big is the pop music that sounds like nothing else.

Billie Eilish sounds like nothing else.

That’s the pop music that feels in its own lane. Madonna sounded like nothing else. There is some fucking great music being made out there. I don’t want my record to sound like anything else.

That’s my goal.”

No longer just the dazzling multiinstrumentalist doing everything herself on stage through a kind of lo-fi selfsufficient prism, Georgia is embracing collaboration like never before, with everything filtered through her distinct vision. She’s always writing both for herself and other people, including even certified legend Shania Twain. “With age, the idea of collaboration is more exciting for me. It was so amazing working with Shania,” she beams. “She was so encouraging. Her work ethic is amazing. It was a pinch-myself moment. I’m only working with legends now,” she laughs.

Despite how exciting her solo shows have been over the years, she knew she had to do something different to bring ‘Euphoric’ to life on stage. “I want to try to translate this new music in the most authentic and best way. It was a collaborative record, and live it needed to have that energy, and I can’t do that on my own. Rostam said, ‘You’ve got to get a band’. When she found Charlene and Cat, that was the first step to forming the all-new Georgia live experience. Now, it’s all about honing

that set and ramping things up for a year of festivals and touring. ‘Euphoric’ is very much an album designed to be heard in wide open spaces and lived out in the world.

Despite killing it at one of the biggest pop festivals of the year and making an album full of pop wonder with her voice in full bloom, Georgia still struggles to see herself as a fullyfledged pop star. “I don’t feel like a pop star. I don’t know what that is. My idea of a pop star is Beyonce,” she laughs.

Maybe the inherent sonic innovator and disrupter in her perhaps keeps her one step removed, but the beauty of music in 2023 is pop has no barriers, and there are few better examples of anyone fusing joyous pop with musical innovation right now than Georgia. Pop stars can be whoever we want them to be, and nothing is more euphoric than pop at its best.. ■ Georgia’s album

‘Euphoric’ is out 28th July.

"It was so amazing working with Shania; it was a pinch-myself moment. I’m only working with legends now" GEORGIA READDORK.COM 45.

FEATURE

Peace

“We’re

by Jamie Muir

portraits by Patrick Gunning

and we’re back”

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e

PEACE

They’re back! PEACE have a new album - one you can already listen to, if you buy a ticket to a show. We’re willing to go a couple of steps further, and join them for an entire mini-tour. What could go wrong?

→ A SERVICE STATION ON THE M4.

9:30AM. Harrison Koisser is draped in a gleaming yellow jacket emblazoned with the name Joe, sunglasses firmly on (“I just love the fact it says Joe,” he later remarks) as Peace embark on their first run of shows in nearly four years.

“Come have a look at this,” he smiles, ushering Dork towards a bold black van. In the back is a Tetris-stacked array of boxes, bags, wires and equipment - it’s fit to burst.

“Yeah, probably should have got the bigger one,” he laughs. Welcome to Peace 2023. A band with ambition and feverish dreaming, still driven by that core of what made them special from the very beginning. When people ask why, they ask why not?

Three dates in four days is the sort of lightning-bolt shot of adrenaline Peace have become synonymous with. That bright fever of excitement and lush showmanship has set them apart as one of Britain’s defining guitar bands of the 21st century, and now, it’s time for a new era. Perched outside Bristol’s The Louisiana as the sun coats the venue in scorching Bank Holiday rays, Harry’s got his approach nailed down and ready to go.

Nerves, right? “Honestly, because what we’re doing on stage is so complex… I think I’m just in a state of shock,” he cracks. “Fate has a way of punching at you, so if I just wish for the thing I don’t want, I’ll get the opposite.

Best result? Everything breaks.” Tour has truly begun.

Peace make chucking the rulebook out the window seem like an everyday thing.

Bold, bright and maverick in nature, they’ve continued to throw technicolour paint over naysayers and cynics, all with a wink and smile, basking in the jubilant chaos of it all.

Nestled in the tiny confines of a venue they last played almost 10 years ago, their latest evolution may just be their greatest to date.

“It’s starting to feel real now,” reflects Harry later, perched alongside brother and bandmate Sam in the hotel-room-esque dressing room. “I have no idea how people are going to react to it. Like, is it music to dance to? Is it music for people to observe?

Is it music to rock out to in the way that it’s put together? We’re about to find that out in a very real way.”

If things sound different, then you’re right. The wall-of-sound production that now comes with Peace live is quite the setup. A vibrant mix of monitors, speakers, electronics, drum pedals and sample-soaked twists, it’s all stemmed from the creations and time spent together in a place simply known as The Rectory. Almost mythical in nature, it birthed ‘Utopia’ - Peace’s fourth full-length which is both out now for fans who’ve bought a ticket for this run of shows, but also not yet officially released. With longtime members Doug and Dom stepping away from the band (on very amicable and friendly terms), it saw Peace starting something different.

“Creativity always comes at its best when there’s a catalyst,” explains Harry.

“Something which forces you to do something a certain way. When Dom and Doug left, it was like, well, let’s make music with what we have here. We have all this equipment that was made for big live rock shows with big amps and big… stuff. It was like, let’s not bin them but use them.”

The result is a show unlike any other, with Harry and Sam firmly in the middle, wrapped in all-encompassing sound. “Growing up, I used to spend a lot of time not only at gigs with bands, but in Fabric and The Rainbow in Birmingham, which was very techno, minimal and house in terms of dance music. This setup is kinda both of them simultaneously -

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FEATURE

you get the kick of a live band but with the electronic side of things. Hearing them together, it feels quite ultimate for me, in a way.”

“Someone we’ve worked with since day one, who signed us to our first record deal, came and saw us rehearse the other day and was like, ‘You’ve finally cracked the code with Peace. You finally worked out how this band should sound’.”

Soundcheck done, plugging into place the setup they’ve spent the past year tweaking and fixing in a garage; the mood is high. “THIS. SALAD.” comes the cry from the dressing room, following Harry’s discovery of a salad waiting in the fridge. “It has to be fun, doesn’t it?

Fun and not boring,” he asserts, turning to his brother. “Like, Sam - I just asked if you knew how to make a website. He didn’t, but then he did.”

“Yeah. I’ll experiment and fuck around,” returns Sam. “We just started Googling ‘How to build a website’. That’s how we made it,” smiles Harry. “The machine at the centre of this show full of samples; it’s all not being used in the way it’s meant to be,

but same thing - just Google it. Honestly, it is GREAT. I recommend it.”

That sense of adventure is everywhere. “I feel like everything we’re doing now, it’s definitely a revolt on our behalf against doing another album and just being in a band in the way that we’d done the first three. Because it became so predictable. To be honest, by the time we did the third record, I was like - I can’t do this. Everything was so marketing, so boring, and I was just kind of disengaged.

Probably didn’t do any good for the record, but I can’t do very regimented systems, so this time, let’s just do whatever we want. It’s more exciting.”

Briefly adamant that a ‘banging classical music playlist’ would go down a storm for tonight’s pre-show soundtrack, it’s quickly abandoned before they settle on a much more in-line ‘New Year’s Sleaze’ playlist. “You know I did a bit of street art in Bristol once?” notes Harry. “I wrote ‘TESCO SUCKS’ and signed it off Bansky.” Yes, Dear Reader, the typo was brilliantly deliberate.

What doesn’t suck is what follows. In true Peace fashion, fans tear up and dive

into every moment - even when Harry acknowledges that their first technical malfunction has indeed happened.

Ever-learning, they rip through an uncompromising set of new and old feels for a triumphant way to kickstart their new chapter. As Harry wanders over post-show, he grins. “You know what, live music needs a bit of chaos….”

“SO, THE SECOND MACHINE HAS BROKEN.” It’s the afternoon of Day 2 of the Peace tour, and the second main piece of equipment needed for the set has stopped working. A homecoming night at The Mill in Birmingham is full of sentiment and meaning that the band will reflect on later, but right now, a solution needs to be found.

Harry wanders over to the fridge.

“You know what? It’ll be fine.” He pulls out a wrap that doesn’t quite get the same reaction as yesterday’s salad. He pauses before turning back. “You know what, this is like Bin Cake,” he begins. “Like, if a cake slid into the bin, there’s still a lot of cake which is perfectly edible and hasn’t touched anything in the bin. You can salvage a lot of cake, but the problem is it will always be Bin Cake. You can think about it with relationships too, and not just romantic ones. Once it’s gone in the bin, it will always be Bin Cake.”

“Anyway, that wrap looks like it’s been in the bin.”

If a calming influence is required, then Harry is here. Where Bristol served as an opening welcome, Birmingham naturally has its own position in Peace folklore.

Simply walking down the street with Harry and Sam sees people turning their heads, whispering under their breath about whether that was Peace or not. It means something more here.

“Being in Birmingham feels really significant,” Harry acknowledges later.

Technical bugs solved - thanks to the high-tech approach of using a thumb to wipe away some dust - and there are genuine nerves in the air. “What’s crazy is we went to the town hall today, where we’re playing later in the year, and I suddenly realised the journey that we’ve been on. It’s more significant than I give it credit for. That sense of occasion I felt was almost overwhelming, like maybe we actually have done quite well for ourselves?”

An interruption from the Peace crew asks whether Harry has been watching

Queer Eye again. “I have been watching quite a lot of Queer Eye recently. I’ve got Karamo [Brown, from Queer Eye] ‘s voice in my head, saying: and now you need to grow. I’m like, fuck yeah I do, man!”

A band playing around with how music can be revealed to the world, reactions for the likes of ‘Good Jeans’, ‘Polly With The Perfect Hair’, ‘Darkness On The Dancefloor’ and ‘Happy Cars’ point to how their new setup and drive has taken them into some of the most complete music of their career so far.

“Everything about what we’re doing there is literally another experiment,” Harry admits. “We were sat talking about the way we wanted to release this record, and the idea of releasing it only to fans who came to see us came up. It asks so many questions, like how they would work in the set? Would they need to be slowly introduced, or does it need to be out in the wild for it to really affect an audience? We’re finding that out.”

With a newfound spirit of doing exactly what they want, it means every step now falls to them. While the current website bandwidth means that “it literally costs us exactly what Spotify would have paid us to put it on there, so now we’ve inverted the already not-ideal payment structure of the music industry,” as Harry cracks, ‘Utopia’ is expected to see life on a special vinyl of the record and even a different version to land on wider platforms in the future.

The Mill tonight holds a lot of history.

Formerly The Rainbow Warehouse, it was where Peace played one of their biggest early shows and where they’d regularly come for Zombie Prom indie club nights.

“The Rainbow was our stomping ground,” they both acknowledge, immediately catching the eye of someone they know as they peer through the windows of the pub on the corner of the street.

Queues are soon lining the block, with one fan explaining outside: “I came here from Edinburgh because they’re my favourite band.” He pulls down his shirt to reveal ‘In Love’ written on the top of his chest. “For my mum’s birthday, I covered ‘California Daze’, and I’ve never been able to see them live. I had to come.”

It’s a story repeated in different forms throughout the venue, with couples who met at Peace shows or devoted fans desperate to see them once again.

“It’s always been mind-boggling and overwhelming to see the amount

"I can’t do regimented, so this time, let’s just do whatever we want.

It’s more exciting" H A R R I S O N KO I S S E R 48. DORK

PEACE

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"Fate has a way of punching at you, so if I just wish for the thing I don’t want, I’ll get the opposite.

Best result?

Everything breaks" H A R R I S O N KO I S S E R of people into our music, and the milestones that come with it,” says Harry. “We’ll never be those people who are like - oh, we don’t give a shit; it’s all about us. It’s simply not true. This is a democratic thing. If the people don’t like it, then that’s not good,” he laughs. “We clearly aren’t making music solely to give people what they want though… because NOBODY asked for this,” he adds with a crackled smile. “I want people to accept what we’re doing, though”.

Friends gather nearby in a local bar, as the walk-back sees Harry and Sam nervous about what lies ahead. It’s undeniable how important tonight’s show is as a moment where Peace return to the place where it all began. “Bristol was great, and we had the enormous technical failure we were after from the moment we walked on,” Harry laughs, “but I was sat in the pub then swinging back and forth because now we are facing nightmares unimaginable. Things could go wrong in ways we NEVER could have predicted.”

“I’ve already asked the lighting guy earlier if he can do lights that are so impressive that even if we are not making sounds, people will be impressed by us. He said, absolutely - and tell you what boys, if all your shit breaks, I’ll just start DJing.”

No DJ set is required. Met with a thunderous response, Peace turn The Mill into the sort of erupting volcano of pits, parties and passion that only they can. It’s written across their faces as they head off stage before bounding back on for their deserved encore. “Wait!” stops Harry. “Can someone Google how long we should wait for an encore?”

Post-show, a slew of friends and family come flying into the dressing room. If Bristol was officially Peace returning, then tonight is Peace announcing they are BACK in a big way.

All of a sudden, Doug emerges at the entrance, arms wide. “We are STILL the best band!” he exclaims. Tonight is when Peace came home.

HOW TO FOLLOW SUCH A HIGH FOR PEACE? “So about an hour ago, that speaker was on fire,” says Harry. It’s mid-afternoon, and there’s no such

thing as a quiet few hours for Harry and Sam. “Yeah, it was shooting like thousands of volts of electricity through it, and it literally set on fire with smoke coming out of it. I’ve accepted now that we’re just in a final coliseum of a great duel against an unimaginable force,” he stories. It’s beginning to feel like that, yet Peace take it in their stride.

Taking a walk across Stratford with the Olympic Stadium in the background, the pair take stock of an important week which started with the unknown and ended with the sort of acceptance that Peace’s new era secretly needed.

“Last night, it just felt like everyone was very accepting of what we have become, and the new elements were really absorbed by people in a positive way. It was a big fear that all these things we’re introducing, would they be rejected or accepted? Any artist who says they don’t care what the audience thinks is so full of shit! I don’t think it’s even insecurity, but the audience and fans are the most important part in this picture, so saying you don’t give a heck what they think is bullshi-”. Harry’s attention is drawn to a huge canal area where suddenly a whole world of people have emerged from. “Sorry, this place is CRAZY!” “It has quite literally been an electrifying experience,” Harry notes ahead of turning the clubby confines of Colour Factory on its head with the sort of triumphant powerhouse set that leaves no doubt about the band’s intentions. If anyone’s forgotten, then think again. “It’s been a lot warmer reception to the new songs than we thought, which gives me a lot of confidence.”

For Peace, reborn and reconfigured, this week has proven that what they’re doing is right. More than anything, it’s about having fun with it all. What comes next, once the tour bus is home? “We’re very ambitious about touring and the show that we can put on,” Harry confidently states. “There are a few venues and shows that we’re looking at.

Shows that can feel like defining shows.

We’re into decade two of the band, which feels like a natural second era for us.”

There’s already talk of a next album

on top of ‘Utopia’, with “this run of shows really proving to ourselves that this works. Making a record that reflects that this works… use those tools to their full potential. It’s somewhere between Daft Punk and The White Stripes but not in any way related to either of them. I think we’ve just got to make that record, whatever we’re doing in there [on-stage] - we should probably get on that very soon.”

“You’ve got to do things that make life interesting. Today, we walked into the venue, and there was a giant disco ball there, and I was like - fuck yeah! You’ve got to find things that make life less repetitive, and most of the time, those things aren’t making the most profit or the most sense.” Harry pauses. “Or any sense at all in any way,” he laughs.

The Peace ride is one stacked with stories and with plenty more to tell. “I don’t know what being the biggest band in the world means now. I think there’s certain pressure on artists to be that, and it’s just so unbelievably boring.

We’re in the Wild West, and we’re all just

looking at a burning bin… though I quite like standing around a burning bin, to be honest.”

“Despite every moment this week where something technical went wrong during or before the shows, even then, we make it work. So like I was saying, what does it mean to be the biggest band in the world, and I guess what does success look like? How you define success is a grey area, and I don’t think I know what success looks like to us. I don’t know what failure looks like to us either.

“We’re too confused to fail,” he cracks.

As Peace set fire to Colour Factory (not like that this time) for a night of sweaty and palpable release, that magic is ringing in the air once more. Harry stands in awe of the reaction in front of them, and it serves as the perfect culmination of a week where the road was reclaimed as Peace’s. “I honestly have no words,” he motions as the packed, intimate club screams back every word. “We’re Peace, and we’re back.” ■ READDORK.COM 51.

NATURAL DISASTER FEATURES

After the better part of two decades as half of indie-rock icons Best Coast, BETHANY COSENTINO is breaking out on her own.

By Martyn Young

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L R

BETHANY COSENTINO

"What do I have to lose?

I might as well try to do this differently"

→ WITH OVER 15 YEARS IN THE

GAME WITH HER BAND BEST COAST, Bethany Cosentino is very much a pro when it comes to the business of indie-rock. There comes a time in every person’s life, though, when you feel you need to shake things up. On her stunning solo debut, ‘Natural Disaster’, Bethany is redefining herself as an artist. “I’m really excited for the world to hear me in a different way.

People have never heard me like this before.”

Life in 2023 for Bethany is good. Well, as good as it can be in a world full of chaos and disaster.

She’s obsessing over her love of reality TV - “I’m a big Bravo fan, so I watch all the real housewives, and Vanderpump Rules is a big one. We just had a big Super Bowl in the Vanderpump Rules world,” she laughs - as well as finding her feet as a newly minted solo artist.

While Best Coast are still very much a thing, this record is an adventure for Bethany as she questioned her place in the music world and sought a new path.

“The last Best Coast record came out in February 2020, right before into rooms with people and said Covid,” she begins. “We were out here’s an idea that I have, and I on tour promoting the record, want help to stretch this and see and two weeks into it, the world where it can go. shut down, and we had to cancel “With Best Coast, it always everything. We had kept trying worked that I would write a to rebook things, and then they song and send it to Bob. It had would fall through. a blueprint, and Bob would “I very much felt like the come in and take some of the universe was pointing me in the references and ideas that I had direction of exploring something and Bob-ify it, and it became different. I had always thought to a Best Coast song. Bob and I myself about the idea of making a always did that. We would always different type of record. A sound collaborate separately. We were that I knew wasn’t going to be never together in a room until we Best Coast, but it was always actually made the record. an afterthought. Covid was this “I would go into these opportunity for everybody to look designated writing sessions with at their life and say, what do I want people, whether it was Butch to try to do differently?

Walker, my producer or some of “I have a million friends who the incredible people I got to write took pottery classes, I took with that I’m a huge fan of, like a pottery class too, or made Ruston Kelly, Matty Diaz, and Jeff sourdough bread, so I thought, Trott, who is Sheryl Crow’s main maybe I’ll write a different style writing partner. Because I was of song. It was that period we all getting out of my comfort zone in went through where it was like, the first place, I was like, what do I what am I doing? That was what have to lose? I might as well try to pushed me to create something do this differently.” new and see what happens here.”

The ability to freely work with The product of this period of other people also enabled a reflection is ‘Natural Disaster’, an change of mindset that helped album that is the most diverse centre the record. “The age that and distinctive of her whole career, I’m at, I’m a lot less stubborn in with Bethany’s voice and force of approaching things with a punk/ personality very much front and DIY mindset,” she says. “That’s not centre. It’s a moving and inspiring to say that’s gone away because listen which takes in themes of I do still very much consider growing older, finding your place myself to be very DIY, but I was in the world and navigating the like, I don’t have to be so precious wild and uncertain times we live about sitting here and thinking in. Featuring some of her best and every single drop of this has to most sharply defined songwriting, be just me. It was very helpful for it takes in country pop, strippedme to shift my perspective and back pure balladry, power pop and allow other people in to help me a general sense of freewheeling finish these songs. I think the final joy. product is magical.”

“The way that I approached You can hear that magic in the songwriting for this record was perfect radio rock of songs like very different both in terms of the single ‘It’s Fine’ or the ringing both the way that I wrote and how bright anthem ‘For A Moment’.

I collaborated with people,” she These songs all feel distinctly says of the process of making the Bethany, powered by the spirit of album. “I co-wrote a lot of songs her younger, more idealistic self on this record. I brought songs and the reflective and perceptive

BETHANY COSENTINO

woman that she has become.

This is an album she could only have made with all the wiseness accrued over a long career.

“I think of songwriting and performing and just being a creative person in general as a workout,” she reflects. “It’s like flexing a muscle, and each time you do it, you get stronger and stronger. I’ve been in this industry for over 15 years, which is so crazy when I say it out loud. That’s 15 years of experience and learning the hard way about certain things that don’t work for me. Certain places that I can’t allow my brain to travel to. It has a lot to do with the personal work that I’ve done on myself and my commitment to try to not spiral down the black hole of angst and despair like I used to when I was 25 and just being a grown-ass woman.

“When I started Best Coast, I was 22 years old, and my worldview was pretty small. My worldview has expanded in a really incredible way. I don’t think I could ever have made a record with this much confidence and perspective because I just didn’t have it yet.”

It’s an album that isn’t afraid to get into what it’s like to grow older and the different hopes and fears that come with it. “The core message was a record that was like a coming of age story but not a teenage coming of age story but a mid-30-something coming of age story,” she laughs.

“The way I’ve experienced the world in the last few years, particularly living in America with the political and racial chaos, and waking up every day to a different disastrous headline, it was like, how do I walk through this with hope and faith and also allow myself to have those things and not be like this is so cheesy I can’t believe you’re this person now?

“That’s the thing that gets me out of bed in the morning, though,”

she adds. “If I didn’t have hope and faith, I’d probably just stay in bed all day staring at Twitter and saying we’re doomed. I only have one life, and I want to live it the best that I can. I tried hard to make a record that touched on all the chaos of the world.

Obviously, the title-track is ‘Natural Disaster’, and there are a lot of nods to climate change on the record. How did I keep the joy that I experience in me while also existing in the world as it’s changing.”

The starkest highlights of ‘Natural Disaster’ are when Bethany strips almost everything back on the heartfelt piano ballads ‘Easy’ and closing track ‘I’ve Got News For You’. “I’ve always been very vulnerable and honest in my songwriting, but with Best Coast, I felt like I had to mask a softer side of myself,” she admits. “I felt like the Bethany of Best Coast was very angsty. I would let a little bit of the loveydovey side of me come out, but it was always shrouded in craziness.

This collection is me allowing myself to publicly declare that I am a soft person.”

She uses her passion for astrology to illustrate where her more gentle side comes from. “I love astrology,” she says. “My sun sign is Scorpio, but my rising sign is Cancer. Scorpios are known for being a little bit intense and reserved, and Cancer is known for being very soft and emotional.

They say in astrology that, actually, your rising sign is who you authentically are. This record encapsulates that side of me, the Cancer, soft emotional side that does just want to be loved and held and feel safe in a world that often does not make you feel safe.

“I don’t think I’d ever have been able to express things like wanting to be a mother in a Best Coast song. I would have covered my eyes and cringed

and said no, no one can know this about me. Just being Bethany has allowed me the confidence to say I want that. It’s really interesting the way that I feel I’ve watched myself evolve throughout his process.”

The album is a record about living in the moment and making the most of life. “The song that conveys the message of the album is ‘For A Moment’, which is really about the understanding that nothing is guaranteed,” she explains. “If nothing is guaranteed, why not lean into love, lean into joy, experience all of life in its hard times, wonderful times and mediocre, boring times? Even if you’re only experiencing those things for 30 seconds, it’s like having a container in yourself where you can store these really big important, beautiful moments that push you through when you look around, and the world is burning down.

“The record doesn’t feel like it belongs to one genre or category, and that was the thing I was most proud of. Every song feels like it can live on a different playlist. I wanted to make something that gave people hope and joy in a time of real joylessness.”

The freedom to finally make this album comes from a muchchanged musical landscape from when Bethany first emerged making lo-fi bedroom recordings back in 2008. “Because the industry is so different and in a lot of ways collapsing and having to be rebuilt, there are no rules to be beholden to.,” she says. “You can do whatever you want. You look at pop music, and the things that are popular now exist in so many different categories. There doesn’t feel like there’s this one thing that you strive to be. I try to see the silver lining that nothing matters anymore, and you can do whatever the fuck you want.”

With that newfound freedom of expression, the possibilities are endless for Bethany. “I see this as the start of a new chapter.,” she says excitedly. 15 years in and making the album of her career, Bethany Cosentino is beginning to rewrite her pop story, and we’re very much here for the ride. ■ Bethany Cosentino’s album ‘Natural Disaster’ is out 28th July.

READDORK.COM 53.

Static s FEATURES

STATIC DRESS don’t believe in conforming to the narrow expectations of genre or image. As they rework tracks from their debut album ‘Rouge Carpet Disaster’ into new, radically different statements, they’re raising the bar for everyone.

By Ali Shutler. Photography by Olli Appleyard.

Still, there’s a lot more of that “Rather than writing something to come. Next year, Static Dress basic like ‘you left me, and I’m THE MUSIC, I want you to see will join Bring Me The Horizon upset’, I wanted to write about what we’ve created with Static on their Nex Gen UK arena tour something which has meaning, Dress and be impressed,” says alongside breakout hardcore metaphor and people can pull vocalist Olli Appleyard. mob Bad Omens and Cassyette. their own ideas from,” says Olli.

With a revamped take on “They’re going to be the biggest Typically songs start with a real’90s hardcore and ’00s emo, shows we’ve played, which is life situation, and he’ll create a alongside a commanding use crazy, but we’re just going to character, a plot and a narrative of visuals, it’s little wonder turn up and play our best,” says from there. “It means our songs the Leeds four-piece have can be aggressive, upset or become one of the most visceral, Olli, having already supported Bring Me in Europe earlier this violent because they’re not just admired rock groups around. “I year. “That was overwhelming, about us.” He says that distance don’t want people to think it’s about appeasing others, though,” but we know what we’re getting is also important for the fans. “If into this time around. We’re just I told you a song was just about he adds. “If we wanted to be a better band now.” me not being able to get home the biggest thing in the world, I However, Static Dress’ one night, it’d completely ruin definitely wouldn’t be screaming latest track couldn’t be further everything that the song means all the lyrics. All I want to do from an arena rock banger to you.” is create, inspire and have fun as the reworked take on “It comes across in the with it.”

‘Such.A.Shame’ from ‘Rouge performance as well,” continues Sticking to that ethos, Carpet Disaster’ sees the Olli. “I really want to make Static Dress approach things sure people actually feel it. differently. Debut album’ Rouge snarling guitar band go jazz.

“The original song was Everything about Static Dress is Carpet Disaster’ was available about evoking emotion.” to listen to months in advance if written when we were listening ‘Such.A.Shame (Smoking you could solve a series of clues, to bands like Kings Of Leon, and you can hear that dusty, Lounge Redux)’ is the second while they’ve also been known Americana vibe. It’s almost redux version of a ‘Rouge to share tracks via VHS tapes. gospel in places, but there’s also Disaster Carpet’ track to be It means fans can really dive a darkness and a moodiness to released, following on from’ deep into the world of Static Courtney, Just Relax’ (featuring Dress. “When I originally started it,” explains Olli, with the lyrics talking about heartbreak, regret World Of Pleasure), with Static this band, I wanted to get and emotional warfare. For Dress planning to release people invested and give them the redux version, though, Olli reworked versions of the entire something entertaining, rather album in the coming months. than being background noise for had the idea for the video first, inspired by a local jazz club “There are some songs that do someone else’s conversation,” that champions intimacy and not sound anything like the says Olli, explaining that he original,” Olli teases with the always wanted to focus on every the actual music over anything else. “I imagined what this nice, decision to revisit the album small detail of the group. relaxing place would be like if it driven by the feeling that there But in recent months, it’s was in this sick, twisted world was “just more to be explored.” become apparent that Static where everyone is decaying.” Of “We’re not the best at Dress are so much more than a course, the perfect soundtrack promoting things, and we’re not cult concern. to that is a song featuring the sort of people who will shout Take their last-minute nothing but stripped-back jazz about how good something is,” addition at Download Festival piano and vocals. says Olli. So instead of dabbling earlier this month, where ‘Such.A.Shame (Smoking in TikToks or making reels the band had the unenviable Lounge Redux)’ is a million for Instagram, he wanted to task of opening the festival’s miles away from what you hear create something “familiar but massive outdoor second stage on ‘Rouge Carpet Disaster’ different.” shortly after midday when really, visceral rock like theirs is but makes perfect sense “It also allows us to typically suited to dark, intimate considering how every song experiment and incorporate tents. “People were going harder on that record sounds unique. sounds that we’ve never gone Static Dress’ debut album than I would, and it’s my band,” near before,” which will help confidently pulls influence laughs Olli, reflecting on the the band navigate where they from the likes of Taking Back masses of circle pits and crowd go next. “I don’t want to give surfers. Alongside the dedicated Sunday and Paramore but too much away because things fans, the set was one of those takes it one step further. “We always change but going magical festival moments didn’t want to be a replica forward, I think we want to do where the crowd gets caught band, doing something that had more collaborations – either up in the chaos despite clearly already been done,” says Olli. musically or visually,” he not knowing what was going “We wanted to make the most explains. on. “It was incredible, and I’m diverse, current record we could.”

“It’s interesting that we live not going to forget it in a hurry,” Lyrically, they also cut the in this time where a band can admits Olli. known with the unknown. look heavy, but not sound it, and → “EVEN IF YOU DON’T LIKE

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"Without wanting to sound bigheaded, I want to be making people want to try harder" OLLI APPLEYARD

it still works. I wonder if you we’re tired of how things operate, can flip that on its head and and it got painted into me being make something that doesn’t this very argumentative person, look heavy but actually is,” he who was angry at everything. continues. “We just want to keep That’s really not the case,” he branching out into different explains. “We do want to be sonic and visual territories to a force to be reckoned with, make something interesting.” though. We put so much effort That’s been the band’s into every single element of this mission from day one. Formed band, and we just want to let the from the ashes of various local art speak for itself. If someone bands, Olli had planned on using feels threatened by that, maybe Static Dress like a portfolio, so they should up their own game. “ that when it inevitably failed, he “Without wanting to sound had something that would show big-headed, I want to be making off his talents as a videographer, people want to try harder,” he musician and world-builder. adds.

However, three hours after he Despite everything that’s uploaded debut single ‘Clean’ to Youtube, all his expectations had happened since those early days, Olli doesn’t believe the been smashed. “From there, it core ambition behind Static was thinking on our feet,” with Dress has changed. “Ultimately, COVID providing a blessing in we just want to be putting disguise as it allowed him the out art that makes people go time to nurture and shape the project into the force it is today. ‘wow’, whatever the format,” he In those early days, Olli would explains.

“I don’t think arena headline talk about pulling from the shows are the end goal, really,” stylised worlds of hyper-pop he ponders. But if they were and rap instead of being just to happen, he already has the another band dude in a t-shirt staging in mind. That’s Static and had no issues calling out how “lame” the rock scene felt in Dress for you, always creating, never standing still. ■ Static places. It gave him a reputation Dress’ album ‘Rouge Carpet as an antagonistic force, out to cause trouble whatever the cost. Disaster (Redux)’ is out 15th “I have no problem saying that September.

c shock STATIC SHOCK

READDORK.COM 55.

FEATURES

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STOP. LOOK. LISTEN.

OSCAR LANG

OSCAR LANG’s ‘Look Now’ album takes listeners on a heartfelt journey of self-discovery, embracing simplicity and vulnerability.

By Steven Loftin. Photography by Jono White.

laden, indie-pop prize, Oscar the same he wants to have in his assumed it was all in hand, and music. Admitting that for years The indie bop master has been his new chapter was ready to be he was “putting on a persona”, finding his feet over the course written. And then he went through mostly influenced by the likes of of his career. And for a while, he that timeless muse - a breakup.

Mac DeMarco, Oscar nods that thought he’d found them. From Swiftly changing lanes, the he too was “trying to be the silly, his start on his early bedroomday after the breakup with his goofy, guy because it’s easier to recorded EPs to the gleaming childhood sweetheart, Oscar make a joke out yourself before studio-session-rife debut ‘Chew was scheduled for a songwriting somebody else.” Though he The Scenery’, it all felt like he session. Thus an outpouring readily admits, “I can be a silly was heading where he needed began. With all the emotions and goofy guy sometimes, but most of to be. But, as he soon found out, feelings hot on his heels, he threw the time, I’m pretty normal, [just] sometimes looking back is the himself into the only thing he going through the motions.” only way forward. could – writing music.

Most important for Oscar this Resorting to a singular room in “This record was the thing that time around was delivering these a Liverpool studio, Oscar’s second matured me, to be honest, and diaristic entries with enough album, ‘Look Now’, is a return to the year surrounding it was the vigour to not be depressing. It’s those bedroom beginnings, with first time in my life that I have something distinctly noticeable the distinct understanding that truly been on my own,” he recalls. about ‘Look Now’. There’s no sometimes less is more.

“That’s why I touched upon it on sense of marding around in the “After my last record was ‘When You Were A Child’. Since mire. Instead, there’s an uplift finished, I found it difficult,” he I was a kid, I’ve always been that hooks itself behind the starts. “I was trying to do indie surrounded by family, and then I ever-weighty notions. “I didn’t rock music for a while because was in this relationship. And then want to go full, whiny, tortured I was really into it. And then I I was finally on my own - a full-on artist,” he explains. “I wanted realised - and I had this feeling adult in my own place. I’d never people to relate to it. I didn’t want with my last album - that we had been alone like that. So I had to it to bring people down; I wanted almost done too much.” learn to be comfortable with being to hopefully lift people up and That’s not to say his soiree into alone, being an adult, and being by process emotions that they’re being a studio musician wasn’t myself. This record was the thing going through and not bring them worth it. Specifically mentioning that would distract me or move down and put them in horrible Liverpool’s Parr Street Studios, me forward.” headspace.”

“That’s where Coldplay did their That’s not to say he’s a It also meant that as he was first few records,” he says. “So one-trick pony; in fact, he penning the tracks, he wound up I was sitting there playing the also mentions another form of unpacking his innermost feelings. first song I ever learned on piano, reckoning with this alone time “A few of the tracks on this album, which was ‘Clocks’, on the piano cooking. “I make incredible tacos,” when I used to listen to them, they where they played it. So doing sometimes would make me cry.” cool shit like that was just the best, he beams. “I’m all about getting Specifically mentioning ‘Crawl’, but I did it for a few years and then properly authentic with it. I buy the dried chillies, and pressure he says, “I’ve gotten to a place realised that while I love that side cook them for like four hours. I where I’ve sat with it for a year, of music, that’s not truly the side do dinner parties for my mates of music that I love.” so it doesn’t quite make me go because I just love to cook for But before he could make to the same place, but definitely people. I’ve always thought it’s the realisation that, as he puts when I first listened, it was kind of like building a song - but at hugely therapeutic to get out the it, “a certain je ne c’est quoi” was missing, he had a different vision the end, you get to eat it, which is emotions that I was feeling.” in mind. The initial plan for ‘Look even better.”

The breakup also has a cheeky Now’ was something more discoBut that authenticity he hand in ‘Look Now’’s first single. focused. With his eye on a synthpours into his Mexican food is ‘A Song About Me’ was inspired → OSCAR LANG HAS ARRIVED.

"I didn’t want to go full, whiny, tortured artist" OSCAR LANG

“That’s why I called it ‘Look Now’,”

by Oscar’s ex asking him to, erm, he explains. “It was very much a not write a song about her. “A day declaration of this is the first time after I spoke to my ex-girlfriend, and I was going through this thing, I truly felt a record was wholly me.” she said, ‘Don’t write a song about From the subject matter to the sounds in particular, “I’ve always me’.” So, obviously, “I was in the wanted to evolve my sound. You studio, and it just fell into place,” can hear it in my other stuff - I’m he says with a sheepish grin. trying to sound like someone else,” Another part of this new chapter for Oscar is his openness. he admits.

The good thing about all this He’s now more forward in what he ripping of hearts from his sleeves wants to discuss, particularly in chats and interviews. “There were and scribbling them down on paper is that it’s given Oscar a things I didn’t talk about for two or three years, [including] the fact chance to reflect on how far he has come. that my mum had passed when “I don’t know if this is good, but I was seven,” he says. “It took a I feel emotionally hardened.” He while for me to open up to saying chews on the words for a beat. these things. I don’t know why…

“If that makes sense? I’m just [maybe] I didn’t want any sort intrigued to see where the next of sympathy or anything. I didn’t writing cycle takes me because want to throw out some X-Factor this breakup and how I felt was sob story.” so instrumental in the writing.

All of this openness and And I think throughout my music, vulnerability is in the name of there’s been constant waves and maturation. Oscar now knows cycles. You can almost see my he’s able to “recognise patterns mental health, it dips and goes, when I’m falling into these lows. and you can hear it in the music.

I’ve been able to talk to my family Hopefully, the next one is going to a lot more, and my friends, in this be on an up, and I might return to last year to open up because I the fun disco and be in the mood couldn’t avoid the fact that I was for a little boogie!” Just don’t so miserable.” forget to invite us for tacos, yeah?

This is why this new album ■ Oscar Lang’s album ‘Look Now’ is out 21st July. is an important step for Oscar.

READDORK.COM 57.

INCOMING. THE NEW RELEASES YOU NEED TO KNOW

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

blur

The Ballad of Darren

★★★★

→ Nostalgia is one hell of a drug.

Bands long since anointed to superstardom, returning from a time when the musical world was smaller and the menu more limited, hitting the big gig circuit, reheating those past glories. Remember when

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you were young? When everything was less awful? Wasn’t that great?

That’ll be £80, please. Don’t forget the merch.

But that’s not blur. Though Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave may have signed up for a summer of big shows - including two triumphant nights at Wembley Stadium they’ve something new to show for themselves too. ‘The Ballad of Darren’ - their ninth studio album - is a perfectly pitched statement of where the band find themselves in 2023.

Arriving 32 years since their debut, it’s a perfect mix of past and present - while also proving there’s always going to be a future for an act that always shines brightest when fate brings them back together again.

While 2015’s ‘The Magic Whip’ was a better-than-just-good record, it was also one that had an unusual birth - pulled back together by Coxon from an aborted unplanned Japanese recording session after a cancelled festival appearance. Albarn’s lyrics were only written after the rest of the band presented him with the music. This time around, their iconic frontman was front and centre, laying down demos while on the road with Gorillaz. The result is an album that is packed with raw emotional intent.

To say it’s blur embracing their age would be somewhat of a stretch - ‘St. Charles Square’ is a scrappy, screaming nod to their punkier edge, impish and unapologetic in a way that recalls many of their most

iconic stands - but throughout, they feel at ease as a band in their fifties, still able to connect with those of a much younger vintage. ‘Barbaric’ may sound musically bright and breezy, but the melancholy-soaked lyrics offer up something altogether more heartbreaking, while lead single ‘The Narcissist’ has the tinge of a band stepping back from the light, recounting past glories but understanding they’re not done yet.

The anthemic edge which so often elevates blur above their peers remains in check too - ‘Avalon’ and its wistful, vivid imagery bleeds into closer ‘The Heights’, tugging at the heartstrings before fading into a wave of distorted fuzz. It’s more of a potent ellipsis than a full

stop on a record that both carries blur’s legacy forwards, and proves it’s far from over. Carrying their past while still living in the present, it walks the perfect line between memories of The Good Ol’ Days and something fresh and new. Unlike any of their previous work, it’s a vibrant testament to their constantly creative spirit. ‘The Ballad of Darren’ is - if nothing else - confirmation that blur are very much a going concern.

While there may be prolonged periods spent away - perhaps long enough to make us ask the question if they’ll ever return again - their artistic journey is far from over. As ‘Far Away Islands’ offers, “I know you think I must be lost now, but I’m not anymore.” STEPHEN ACKROYD

INCOMING

PVRIS

RECOMMENDED

Evergreen

RELEASES

★★★★

→ “Pray for better times, because something doesn’t feel right,” sings Lynn Gunn on ‘I Don’t Wanna Do This Anymore’, the direct opening track to PVRIS’ fourth album ‘Evergreen’ that sees her ready to walk away. And who could blame her for feeling disillusioned? After taking ownership of the band she’d always steered for 2020’s ‘Use Me’, the album was hit by numerous delays. Lynn’s response is ‘Evergreen’, a pulsating electrorock album that’s as ambitious, artistic and brilliant as anything PVRIS have ever put their name to. There’s a fierce air of defiance to ‘Evergreen’, making for a gorgeous record that sets up the future perfectly. ALI SHUTLER

The Japanese House

In The End It Always Does

→ Distinctly raw and real, ‘In The End It Always Does’ is The Japanese House entering the era she was always born to headline. World, you better keep up.

Claud

Killer Mike

Supermodels

Michael

★★★★

→ Claud’s second album ‘Supermodels’ is a brilliantly crafted collection from a songwriter who has developed into one of the finest around, meshing bittersweet reflection with whip-smart humour.

Their debut ‘Super Monster’ was obviously brilliant, but this feels like a step up. Everything hits harder, both sonically and in terms of feels. Claud has that perfect knack of hitting you with a line or a melody that just stops you in your tracks. From the clever, witty and beautifully lovely ‘Paul Rudd’ to the defiant anthem ‘The Moving On’ and the yearning slow burning rock epic of ‘Glass Wall’, Claud displays all their considerable facets as a songwriter. A gem of a return. MARTYN YOUNG

Bethany Cosentino

Natural Disaster

★★★★

→ Having risen through the ranks as half of Best Coast, Bethany Cosentino breaks off and bares all with her solo debut, ‘Natural Disaster’. Setting aside her LA cool-girl aesthetic, she finds a new start exploring her more vulnerable side. While her work with Best Coast was definitive of the surf-rock style, ‘Natural Disaster’ sees Bethany take to Nashville. Her croons remain beautiful and thoughtprovoking, and her talent shines through; there is a definite sense of indulgence as she explores her sound. This is just the start for an artist rekindling her individuality.

MELISSA DARRAGH

Mahalia IRL

★★★★★

→ “You thought I was finished,” Mahalia sings on the opening line of her latest album, ‘IRL’.

Rest assured, she’s far from it.

In fact, it feels like she is just getting started. Of course, her earlier albums were fired up and

Georgia Euphoric

★★★★★

→ Every album Georgia has released so far has evoked the transcendent power of dance music in different ways. Her debut was that instinctive primal rush, while 2020’s ‘Seeking Thrills’ captured the peak of hedonism.

Three years later, and she’s now taking her electronic odyssey to more spiritual pastures with the beatific reflection of ‘Euphoric’.

Undoubtedly Georgia’s best collection of songs yet, it sees her reaching a new level as both a singer and a songwriter. The concept of euphoria can mean different things, but for Georgia, the album highlights a very personal kind of euphoria that’s both resonant and compelling.

MARTYN YOUNG

ferociously displayed her sheer talent, but on ‘IRL’, Mahalia comes into her own more than ever.

She takes absolutely no prisoners as she steps into a higher version of herself. The cheaters, the liars, the gas-lighters and everyone in between – no one stands a chance. Her straight-up, scathing yet cut-open lyricism invites you to transform from listener to confidant – hearing her every woe and simultaneously being lifted up alongside her, ‘IRL’ is no doubt an emotional journey, but it’s a pleasure to be a part of it with Mahalia.

Leaning into that early 2000s R&B sound that suits her style

so much, ‘IRL’ is overflowing with powerful moments of joy, as on ‘In My Bag’, and even more incendiary moments of anger like ‘Cheat’. ‘November’ is joyously sweet, silky vocals rising in a sincere serenade. ‘Isn’t It Strange’ is something of a self-callout, made all the more bearable by a sick backbeat and gorgeous vocals. It’s every side to Mahalia on show here, something that she embraces with open arms; ‘IRL’ finds stable ground to move forward on. Mahalia has settled in herself, and the result is a noholds-barred mission statement of love and letting go. NEIVE MCCARTHY

glaive

Lauren Spencer-Smith

★★★★

★★★

i care so much that i dont care at all → Brimming with confidence, glaive imbues his scrappy yet beguilingly detailed poppunk and emo fuelled blasts with all the passion and vitality of youth on anthems like ‘the prom’ and killer singles ‘the car’ and ‘as if’.

Normal convention would suggest that a debut album is the first step in an evolution for an artist, but for glaive evolution is constantly happening. Trying to navigate growing up and finding his way in the world, his debut record highlights how far he’s come. A journey from making niche, experimental sounds into some of the biggest and most widescreen pop-rock anthems you could hope to hear. MARTYN YOUNG

Mirror

→ There’s a lot to like on Lauren Spencer Smith’s heartfelt and emotional debut album ‘Mirrors’, but also a sense that this is an artist at the start of their journey, capable of special things but searching to find their own distinctive voice. The run of ballads and sky scraping anthems, including towering highlight ‘That Part’, are hugely impressive, but at 15 tracks long it could do with a little more dynamism to lighten the heavy atmosphere just a touch. If you’re looking for someone with an incredible voice to put their arms around you, give you a big ol’ hug and cry with you then Lauren is here. MARTYN YOUNG

→ Run The Jewels may have been what catapulted Mike from the hip-hop scene into the mainstream, but this album will secure his legacy.

Do Nothing

Snake Sideways

→ Dark themes are aplenty, but Do Nothing find some optimism amongst it all.

Authentic and ambitious, they’ve crafted a truly impressive debut.

Christine & the Queens Paranoia, Angels, True Love

→ It can be a difficult listen at times, but that’s the point, and it stands as Christine and the Queens’ most powerful work.

Maisie Peters The Good Witch

→ With her chaos magic still as strong as ever, Maisie Peters isn’t just a good witch; she’s a great one.

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D

DOWN ON THE FARM

GET OUT

Words: Ali Shutler, Jamie Muir. Photos: Patrick Gunning, Scarlet Page

Surprise guests, buzzy newcomers, and a familiar dose of chaos - here’s what went down at GLASTONBURY 2023.

FOO FIGHTERS

Pyramid Stage, Friday

→ Yes, The ChurnUps were the Foo Fighters all along. Surprise? Not really. But with a crowd that ranks up there with Worthy Farm’s most impressive, they’re a band on a mission. It might not go down well with some to suggest it, but giving Dave Grohl and co a tight hour to smash out some hits is a triumph. There’s no time to overly extend those iconic songs when you’ve

got a lot of material to fit into a much shorter timeframe. It creates an urgency and emotion that feels like a release. While the Foos have played live since the passing of Taylor Hawkins, including some seriously emotional tribute shows, Glastonbury’s magic ground always adds an extra significance, even for a band from the other side of the pond. They’ll be back, Dave promises. Soon too. While he pushes a 2024 tour, you can read the subtext.

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Dylan

BBC Introducing Stage, Friday

→ Speaking of Arctic Monkeys, it’s been nine years since Alex Turner had the first and last word on that ol’ rock’n’roll is dead debate with that smirking BRIT Award speech.

Still, this weekend is proof that the next generation of guitar heroes are thriving.

The likes of Nieve Ella and Coach Party continue to grow into undeniable forces to be reckoned with over on the BBC Introducing stage, while Dork faves Pale Waves take to the Woodsies stage with the swaggering confidence of a band who now knows exactly where they fit into the scene.

It’s perhaps Dylan who shines brightest, though. She may introduce ‘Girl Of Your Dreams’ as her “wannabe rockstar” song and ask the crowd to go nuts for its sneering guitar solo because her dad is in the audience, but there’s not a moment of her fiery 30-minute set on the BBC Introducing Stage where she doesn’t look every part the swaggering rockstar.

From the achingly powerful ‘Lovestruck’ through the venomous ‘Someone Else’ to the sleek, bombastic hammer of ‘Every Heart But Mine’, Dylan effortlessly dances between classic rock and polished pop. New, currently-unreleased song ‘Liar Liar’ is more chunky than anything she has released so far, and sees polished vocals wrestle with fierce drums and snarling guitar. It already feels very special.

“What do we think,” she asks the crowd with a smirk.

Later, Dylan performs a joyous cover of Harry Styles’ ‘Kiwi’ and her own ‘You’re Not Harry Styles’, which today is a glorious kiss-off to an ex who’s currently sat at home while she plays her very first Glastonbury.

‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ closes out the set in thunderous fashion, with a little synchronised dance routine thrown in for good measure. That rock & roll, eh?

Shame

Woodsies, Saturday

→ Things go up a dial when Shame jump in for a mid-afternoon stormer of a set that finds them at their most complete as a band. New album ‘Food For Worms’ already marking out as a future Album Of The Year,

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ARCTIC MONKEYS

Pyramid Stage, Friday

their full-throttle live show remains as incendiary as ever – the likes of ‘Fingers Of Steel’, ‘Concrete’ and ‘One Rizla’ lighting up a jam-packed Woodsies stage that spills out into the fields around it. With gold hot pants and a sprawling sound, today is the crowning moment that Shame have been pointing to for a while. As ‘Gold Hole’ rings out, their reputation as both a great live band and a leading force in modern guitar music in general also stands loud and proud. Hot pants included.

Lizzo

Pyramid Stage, Saturday

→ It’s hard to argue that Arctic Monkeys, Guns N’ Roses and Elton

John aren’t (at least mostly – Ed) a good set of festival headliners but going into Glastonbury, it felt like giving Lizzo the top slot would have made things great. Today, she proves she’s more than ready for the most commanding slots without ever really trying. The stage show is flawless; the messages of selflove, community and empowerment speak to that magic Glasto vibe and pop bangers like ‘Juice’, ‘Good As Hell’ and ‘2 Be Loved’ are absurdly brilliant when sung by tens of thousands of people. There’s even a snippet of Coldplay’s ‘Yellow’ for good measure. She sets a bar so high Guns N’ Roses really didn’t stand a chance, and even Elton John needed to bring out the big guns to make sure he wasn’t schooled by

→ Friday Night. Glastonbury 2013.

As the opening kicks and riffs of ‘Do I Wanna Know?’ (out at that point for a matter of days) lights up Worthy Farm, it signalled the start of a bold new era for a band that could have called it quits there and then and still stood as one of the all-time most influential British acts. Ten years on, Friday Night at Glastonbury 2023, an era-defining night sets this apart – however you choose to judge it – as Arctic Monkeys crowning glory.

It’s not just that Arctic Monkeys are the British band who have – arguably – defined this century.

It’s hard to sum up their influence and legacy, yet they’re still carving their own path far removed from any nostalgia show. It’s written across the Pyramid tonight.

‘Sculptures Of Anything Goes’ isn’t how most would kick off a festival headlining set, but it throws any expectation aside.

What follows is a production of Arctic Monkeys viewed through the here and now.

‘Brianstorm’. ‘Snap Out Of It’.

‘Don’t Sit Down Cos I Moved Your Chair’. ‘Crying Lightning’. ‘Teddy Picker’. The opening section pulls from across all corners of their star-studded career to date. Alex Turner’s stage presence may have gone through various forms over the years, but tonight it’s nothing short of captivating. Part James Bond villain, part Vegas crooner, he stalks the stage, every word commanding attention. The uncompromising, swaggering innovation is there for all to see – a band who firmly believe in every decision they make, regardless of what anyone else might think.

They may have already been

on the road playing massive arena shows, but Glastonbury will always be a moment for any artist.

Whether it’s the crunching riffs of ‘Arabella’, the singalong licks of ‘Do I Wanna Know?’, the grounded rawness of ‘There Better Be A Mirrorball’ and ‘Perfect Sense’ or the sheer pandemonium of ‘505’, ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’ and closer ‘R U Mine?’

– there’s enough in there to call it a greatest hits set from a band who, even when recalling their past glories, never want to abandon their present.

Refusing to take the easiest route, when cuts like ‘Mardy Bum’ or ‘Fluorescent Adolescent’ come, they arrive from the perspective of a band who’ve lived on the top of the pyramid (pardon the pun) for over fifteen years. In full command of who they are and what they’re about, it’s a confident headline turn that lesser bands would shy away from.

There have been many Arctic Monkeys moments through the years, yet tonight at Glastonbury feels different. A crowning return from a band who will go down in the history books as one of the alltime greats and one who shaped music culture whilst firmly sticking to their own path – their headline set at Glastonbury 2023 may prove divisive to some looking for an echo of a different time, but it’s also playing out exactly as they intended.

‘The Monkeys Are Back On The Farm!’ proclaims Alex Turner halfway through the set. Friday Night. Glastonbury 2023. Arctic Monkeys can still stake a claim as the most important band of the 21st century. There’s no arguing with that.

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this fiercely poptastic show.

Lovejoy

BBC Introducing Stage, Sunday → It’s been around a year since Lovejoy played their first shows, yet today, they are playing the biggest festival on the planet. That sort of rise doesn’t just come out of nowhere: their fizzing blend of stonking hooks and razor-sharp anthems have found a place in the hearts of millions (quite literally), with the sort of connection to fans that most bands would only dream of. Drowned-out screams ring around the BBC Introducing stage from the moment they step out, frontman Will introducing themselves as a little band from the South Coast – but what lights up from there is anything but small.

Crunching riffs and cuts from latest EP ‘Wake Up And It’s Over’ bounce off whip-smart anthems sung back at top volume. Most could only dream of such a response, but for Lovejoy, it’s a reality. Their first Glastonbury is certain to not be their last, and on the evidence of the sheer hunger shown today, there ain’t no stopping them now. The revolution continues.

Maisie Peters

Other Stage, Friday

→ Taking to the Pyramid for the first time can be a whirlwind of pressure – the sort of big-time statement many only dream of reaching. From the first note, Maisie Peters seems perfectly at home. A powerhouse set of effortless pop perfection, it turns an early festival slot into a headline turn of her very own, from an artist ready to become that bonafide superstar she’s always been born to be. ‘Cate’s Brother’, ‘Body Better’ and a bouncing ‘Lost the Breakup’

are pure bolts of electricity as Maisie embraces the biggest of stages with ease. As she notes during ‘Rockstar’: “the irony is Glastonbury, who’s the rockstar now?”. There’s only one answer. Maisie Peters is ready to takeover.

The Last Dinner Party Woodsies, Saturday

→ Plenty of other artists have their sights set on Glastonbury’s top slot as well. Yes, The Last Dinner Party may only have one song to their name, but their giddy, 45-minute set on the Woodsies suggests the best is very much yet to come.

‘Burn Alive’ is a suitably theatrical opener, ‘Feminine Urge’ is playful yet venomous, while upcoming single ‘Sinner’ is jaunty but comes with a devilish glint in the band’s eye. The brooding ‘Lady Of Mercy’ is tinged with sadness, while ‘Godzilla’ couldn’t be more wonderfully outlandish if it tried. The Last Dinner Party are delicate one moment, thunderous the next. By the time they launch into the already-commanding ‘Nothing Matters’, it’s obvious that this group are something very special indeed.

It’d be easy for a new band to stumble in the spotlight of one of the world’s biggest stages, but The Last Dinner Party are beaming throughout. They’ve been waiting for a chance like this to show the world what they can really do. Still, it doesn’t feel like they are ever trying to prove themselves. They know what they can do and other people will catch on in their own time.

After leaving the stage, the band burst into tears of triumph while the Woodsies long-serving compare explains how Coldplay played the same slot, on the same stage, many years ago and even they hadn’t

pulled a crowd of today’s size.

Maggie Rogers

Other Stage, Saturday

→ Further up the bill, Maggie Rogers’ sunny slot on The Other Side is a moment of sheer Glastonbury magic. Her 2022 album ‘Surrender’ was recorded just up the road, with Maggie and her band even making an impromptu winter visit to Glastonbury for inspiration. The Feral Joy tour that followed felt viciously defiant in the search for a good time, but today feels more like a victory. From the epic ‘Overdrive’ through the flickering ‘Want Want’ to the fiery ‘Shatter’, Maggie and her band twist uncomfortable emotions into pure euphoria while a reworked ‘Alaska’ is simply astounding. The reflective burn of ‘Fallingwater’ is similarly emotional before the final ‘That’s Where I Am’ feels like a big, communal purge that we’re still thinking about days later.

Lil Nas X

Pyramid Stage, Sunday → Sure, Glastonbury may have booked the formidable Blondie and the still brilliant The Chicks to perform before Elton John on the Pyramid Stage today, leaning into that comforting warmth of nostalgia but it’s Lil Nas X that feels most like the Rocket Man’s successor.

Back in 2019, he performed his first ever international show on this very stage, joining Miley Cyrus for ‘Old Town Road’ and from the moment he returns to Glasto’s biggest stage today and launches straight into the sleek, energetic ‘MONTERO (Call Me By Your Name)’, he absolutely owns it. It’s impossible to argue with the hammering ‘Don’t Want It’ and a wonderfully over-the-top ‘Old Town Road’ but Nas knows he isn’t playing to his typical crowd, with

the heaving field home to clusters of people sitting in camping chairs, waiting for the main event. Leaning into this, he includes snippets of Nirvana and Michael Jackson to help ease newcomers into his world, while a dance-heavy interlude is soundtracked by pop anthems from both Rhianna and Beyoncé. The polished performance may be heavy on choreography and otherworldly creatures, but it only adds to the carnival atmosphere that Lil Nas X creates. The party then gets taken up a notch via a guest appearance from Jack Harlow for ‘Industry Baby’.

It’s an outstanding hour of music that’s impossible for anyone but a legend to follow.

Caroline Polachek

Woodsies, Sunday

→ Coming directly before Elton John’s final ever UK show can be an even bigger challenge if you’re not at the Pyramid, but if there’s anyone capable of seizing that challenge, it’s Caroline Polachek. With slick, all-

encompassing production, it’s pure theatre – an assured display of pop brilliance. Leaning heavily on new album ‘Desire, I Want To Turn Into You’, ‘Welcome To My Island’ sees singalongs erupt, whilst a special appearance from Weyes Blood on ‘Butterfly Net’ sets soaring vocals even higher. The result is euphoric.

By the time an anthem like ‘So Hot You’re Hurting My Feelings’ wraps up proceedings, Caroline Polachek’s challenge is completed and more.

CHVRCHES

Other Stage, Friday

→ Back in 2019, CHVRCHES closed out the cycle for ‘Love Is Dead’ at Reading & Leeds. The gig was as electrifying as that pop-facing album demanded, but backstage, vocalist Lauren Mayberry told Dork: “This is probably the first time in the band where I feel like I want a fucking break,” following a load of internet hate for the band daring to suggest that maybe collaborating with someone with a long history of violence towards women wasn’t the best thing for another artist to be doing.

Even ‘Final Girl’, the centrepiece to follow-up album ‘Screen Violence’, saw Lauren admit that she’d considered chucking it all in. On Friday, CHVRCHES ended

CMAT Woodsies, Sunday

→ True Glastonbury moments are easy to define. There’s a feeling of celebration and recognition of a great artist setting out their stall.

On that criteria, CMAT may just claim the entire weekend, with a set that goes far beyond just another stop on her rise to ‘the top’. Bursting with a contagious energy that quickly sweeps the entire crowd, Ireland’s Best Popstar does what she does best.

Soaring anthems, laugh-out-loud moments and a continuous run of brilliant songs combine to signal the arrival of a future Glastonbury icon. Dance routines, the splits, pogoing masses and more leave Woodsies beaming from ear to ear – with fresh tracks like ‘Have Fun’, ‘Whatever’s Inconvenient’ and stunning newbie ‘Where Are Your Kids Tonight?’ perfectly matching

faves like ‘2 Wrecked 2 Care’, ‘I Don’t Really Care For You’ and ‘No More Virgos’.

Drawing the crowd in, it’s like everyone is immediately best mates with the best rockstar in town – probably because CMAT, too, has been at the festival since Thursday. Yet it’s the closing moments of her set that truly reach deeper. Following a party of the highest order, with rapturous applause refusing to die down, CMAT stands in awe. She offers up an emotional reflection on playing to 5 people just 4 years ago and writing closer ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’ in her bedroom, crying and staring in the mirror.

Now with thousands packed in just to catch a glimpse – it marks a full-circle moment of validation.

There are tears of happiness onstage and off it. That’s how you do a special moment.

READDORK.COM 63.

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but also one of the most beloved.

Mission accomplished.

VLURE

Bread & Roses, Thursday Woodsies, Saturday → It feels like Rina Sawayama is on another level to the rest of the festival entirely, though. Her impassioned, visceral speech about racism and control will rightly be the biggest takeaway from her 60-minute set, but let’s not gloss over just how phenomenal the entire show is. From the impressive boxing ring-meets-industrialrave stage set-up through the electrifying dance routines, the various costume changes and the weaving arching narrative, Rina’s set is theatrical, flawless and fucking stunning.

It needed to be to match the commanding back catalogue Rina’s built over her past two albums. From the soaring ‘Hold

RINA SAWAYAMA their ‘Screen Violence’ era at Glastonbury’s Other Stage, and they couldn’t look more sure of themselves. From the snarling ‘He Said, She Said’ through the brooding ‘California’ to a viciously emo ‘How Not To Drown’, it’s clear that CHVRCHES’ fourth album is their most accomplished, with the trio weaving their pop, rock and electronic influences together beautifully. It’s a polished performance, but the band haven’t lost their punk scrappiness either.

A wardrobe malfunction causes the band to restart the defiant ‘Final Girl’, with Lauren later using it to her advantage. “There are optional crowd participation moments in the next song,” she says before a triumphant ‘Never Say Die’. “I just got really embarrassed on the BBC, so it would be nice if you did.”

A brief interlude follows before she returns to stage dripping in fake blood, with the band’s usual glitter now doused in gore. A final trio of ‘Asking For A Girl’, ‘Clearest Blue’ and ‘The Mother We Share’ sees the band end their set in euphoric fashion. “Be good, but not too good,” Lauren encourages, with the band ending this cycle at the peak of their power.

Blossoms & Rick Astley Woodsies, Saturday

→ Glastonbury’s Secret Sets are the stuff of legends. Over the years some of the biggest bands on the planet have rocked up at the last minute to shock Glasto’s masses (hell, the Foo Fighters bloody did one yesterday). Yet, Blossoms and Rick Astley reviving their The Sound Of The Smiths dream team for a special show at Woodsies on a Saturday evening may just be the most Glastonbury of Glastonbury Secret Sets.

Served firmly with a grin and a smile, what follows is a joyous celebration

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of one of the most influential bands of all time. With a party atmosphere bouncing across Woodsies, it’s a nostalgia-soaked set where band and audience come together to belt along to beloved indie bangers. ‘This Charming Man’, ‘Bigmouth Strikes Again’, ‘The Boy With The Thorn In His Side’, ‘Panic’ – it manages to feel both like a treasured memory in waiting for everyone gathered and a night hanging out with your mates at the same time. Arms wave in the air to ‘Girlfriend In A Coma’, Rick + Blossoms down shots of Jaeger and Rick’s baby blue suit is forever ruined by sweat. You’re left with nothing but jubilation; a Glasto moment built firmly in fun and release.

As Rick calls for the pegs to be taken off the Woodsies tent “to blow the fucking roof”, a run of ‘Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want’, ‘How Soon Is Now’ and a drowned out singalong to ‘There Is A Light That Never Goes Out’ rounds out a performance built for Glastonbury. A guilt-free hour where taking yourself seriously is thrown well and truly to the side, it’s anything but boring. That’s something we can get behind.

Carly Rae Jepsen Other Stage, Friday

→ While the indies and rockers of Glastonbury may spark discourse, there’s but one undefinable truth on Worthy Farm. We do not deserve Carly Rae Jepsen. With a set that sparkles with pure pop perfection, she’s an antidote to an avalanche of opinions and hot takes. There’s only one line with Jeppers – unadulterated brilliance. Kicking off with ‘Surrender My Heart’, ‘Run Away With Me’ is an early win. ‘Call Me Maybe’, arriving halfway through the set, is enough to get Ed Balls emotional (no, really), while ‘I Really Like You’, ‘I Didn’t Just Come Here to Dance’, and an impossibly fun ‘Beach House’ all land flawlessly. As ‘Cut

to the Feeling’ blows the doors off, Arctic Monkeys may have factually headlined the Friday of Glastonbury 2023, but can you really claim that Carly Rae Jepsen didn’t?

Nova Twins

Other Stage, Sunday

→ Earlier this month, we saw breakout rock duo Nova Twins absolutely own Download’s Apex stage during their own set, before joining headliners Bring Me The Horizon for another impressive performance. They’ve never been afraid of straying outside the typical rock lane though, and today, at Glastonbury’s The Other Stage, they show just how far they can go. The band are easily the heaviest thing performing on Glasto’s main stages this weekend, but their fusion of rave and metal never feels jarring or out of place. Set opener ‘Fire & Ice’ doesn’t exactly ease the busy crowd into the chaos that’s about to unfold, but the huge pop moments sit perfectly next to a chugging breakdown. ‘Cleopatra’ sees vocalist

The Girl’ through the hammering ‘Dynasty’ to the sheer ferocity of ‘STFU!’ and a cover of Limp Bizkit’s ‘Break Stuff’, every song feels like a moment, while a giddy run of ‘Beg For You’, ‘Comme des garçons (Like the Boys)’ and ‘XS’ is untouchable. Despite the scale of the show, Rina doesn’t get lost in the bombast either, with a smirking onstage costume change allowing her to gently mock the crowd for being “too quiet” while the closing ‘This Hell’ is transformed into a bellowing call-and-response. It’s a slay of the highest possible level. To further drive home that superstar message, she joins Elton John on the Sunday night to perform ‘Don’t Go Breaking My Heart’ and once again, steals the show entirely.

→ It’s Thursday night at Glastonbury.

Everyone is primed for the sort of big weekend that can’t be matched.

Never has a moment more suited to the all-encompassing chaos that VLURE bring. It’s the perfect setting to show off their uncompromising and blistering live show. The first of four appearances from a weekend, ‘Cut It’, ‘This Fantasy’ and ‘Show Me How To Live Again’ lay waste in a manner only VLURE can. As fans crane their necks to look in, the sweat-dropped pill-punk sound runs from start to finish. VLURE do what they do best – pull you into a world of darkness and unbridled release, served with a dose of the euphoric and spiritual that leaves you changed. There’s no band like it. Like they say – “they fucking send it.”

Lana Del Rey

BBC Introducing Stage, Sunday

Amy Love confidently show off her superstar vocals while bassist Georgia South is clearly already a guitar hero and ‘Taxi’ gets the whole field jumping. The epic ‘Sleep Paralysis’ sees the band continue to toy with genre boundaries before a fiery one-two of ‘Antagonist’ and ‘Choose Your Fighter’ inspires actual circle pits with the pair running down to the front row to whip the crowd into a frenzy. Is there anything Nova Twins can’t do?

Panic Shack

Truth Stage, Thursday

→ Deep in the heart of Shangri-La, Panic Shack’s early evening slot on the Truth Stage is the sort of feel-good call to attention that truly wakes up Glastonbury 2023.

Crunching riffs and a penchant for the fun and mischievous ring true – whether it’s synchronised dance moves, fist-flying breakdowns or fizzing punk fury. Combined, it’s a set that lays out a marker for why Panic Shack have become not just one of the most exciting new bands,

→ Whilst Guns N Roses’ reputation for the unpredictable may have waned over the years, that enigmatic presence now lies with the headliner based on the Other Stage instead. Whilst Lana Del Rey’s frequency of shows here in the UK may have waned over the years, her star power has done the opposite. It’s why tonight’s headline performance feels all the more special. The staging feels pure grandstand: backing dancers, a lush set-up and the sort of atmosphere that you’d usually expect for royalty – Lana commands it with ease. ‘Blue Jeans’, ‘Ride’, ‘Young & Beautiful’ all the way up to ‘A&W’ and ‘Ultraviolence’ are served up like you’re watching an Oscar-winning motion picture. Yet what makes Lana so beloved is that penchant for ramshackle fun – Glastonbury witnesses it first-hand after a halfhour delay in coming on forces Lana to end the show early, the power cut, denying her even an amplified goodbye. If any moment can define this historic night for Lana Del Rey, it’s the image of her down at the front, singing along to ‘Video Games’ as the entire field croons along with her. For most, it’d be a disaster.

Instead, fans come away star-struck by a true pop icon. It’ll go down as a pivotal moment. ■

GET OUT

L DEVINE GETS READY TO USHER IN A WHOLE NEW ERA

The Grove, Newcastle

Photo: Finlay Holden.

→ It’s been a while since L Devine has ventured out for a run of headline shows – we’ve seen intimate local dates, support slots and festival sets, but the last time Liv went on a tour of her own, it was filled with the selfaffirming tones of tracks like ‘Priorities’, ‘Girls Like Sex’ and ‘Naked Alone’. Ditching old hits for a set consisting almost entirely of material from her upcoming album, Devine is peachy keen to turn the page into a new era.

Where this might result in a silent, stunned audience for some artists, the crowd tonight are overwhelmingly supportive of this significant homecoming moment; for those who have followed closely, the words of unreleased songs are already forming on lips through the run of ‘Eaten Alive’, ‘If I Don’t Laugh I’ll Cry’ and ‘Laundry Day’.

Treating the crowd to some deeper cuts from 2018’s ‘Peer Pressure’ EP, it’s interesting to observe which tracks Liv chooses to align herself with. Not always choosing the most obvious direction but the one that feels most authentic to her, she looks comfortable amongst the humidity of a sold-out crowd and doesn’t

hold back from throwing herself around the stage.

From gripping the mic with both hands, vibing on a synth pad, and switching between acoustic and electric guitars, L Devine has matured into a wellequipped focal point – with co-producer Julien Flew backing her up along with two extra live additions, the less pop-tinged aspects of her back catalogue really shine through.

Upcoming release ‘Miscommunikaty’ explores “feeling disconnected in an over-connected world”, while the explosive chorus of ‘Hater’ raises the thematic and literal heat to new levels. These ferocious moments are balanced against the solo ballad of ‘Daughter’ and a proper arm-swayer in the shape of ‘Slippin Away’.

Concluding the “best show we’ve ever done” with a belting and animated rendition of current single ‘Push It Down’, there’s both internal and external confidence in these new songs and the new era for L Devine they reveal. A moody, reflective and revitalising vision is not presented as an uncomfortable first step into a new identity, but instead cements a reassured trajectory set to unfold in the imminent future. FINLAY HOLDEN

A DIFFERENT CLASS Photo: Sarah Louise Bennett.

Finsbury Park, London → There’s simply no escaping the nostalgia of Pulp’s second reunion tour. Their original run as a band saw the Jarvis Cocker-led group struggle for recognition for over a decade before 1992’s ‘His N Hers’ tapped into the bubbling Britpop scene that was sweeping the country, eventually turning the Sheffield mob into superstars. A string of other giddy successes followed before Pulp rebelled with 1998’s earnest, eerie ‘This Is Hardcore’. They went on to break up shortly after the turn of the millennium. A brief reunion tour featuring a headline set at Reading & Leeds Festivals alongside a surprise Glastonbury performance followed in 2011,

allowing the group to reclaim their legacy as one of that era’s greatest groups before they disbanded once again.

Tonight’s show at Finsbury Park is the encore to that reunion tour. As the pre-show video introduction explains, “an encore happens because the crowd wants more. They make themselves heard.” And a bulk of the show is driven by a warm, undeniable sense of familiarity.

Cocker rises from the stage for the lusty ‘I Spy’ at the very start of the show, while everything from the dreamy ‘Pink Glove’ to the closing pomp of ‘Razzmatazz’ is bellowed back by the audience. He still does his best to undermine his rock star status at every turn though.

The opening video promises

the audience “a night you will remember for the rest of your lives” before reminding the cheering crowd that this is Pulp’s 527th show. Turning it into a pantomime, Jarvis throws fistfuls of chocolates into the crowd before trying to catch a grape in his mouth, creating a surprising amount of drama in the process.

The rose-tinted ‘Do You Remember The First Time’ is dedicated to those in the crowd that were here the last time Pulp played Finsbury Park, 25 years ago, with Jarvis commenting, “it sounded better tonight”, with a little smirk.

Still, as he explains after a thundering ‘Disco 2000’, “that’s history, and this is today.” Rather than rely on what’s come before, this run of Pulp shows is focused on their present-day prowess.

Backed by a string section, the iconic band sound brilliant, with the moody synths and rattling guitar lines still packing a punch while the ever-shifting stage show has clearly been crafted with care. Perhaps most importantly, though, their spiky songs are still as relevant today.

There’s a timeless to the likes

of ‘Common People’, a biting critique of class privilege badly disguised as a pop song about star-crossed lovers, and the joyous escapism of ‘Sorted For E’s and Wizz’ but the violent, anxious ‘Mis-Shapes’ rattles with a renewed rage. Tonight, it’s dedicated to anyone that went on today’s Pride marches with Jarvis declaring “everybody is worth something.”. Elsewhere, both the meandering ‘Weeds’ and its sequel, ‘Weed’s II give an empathetic voice to refugees, which is seemingly becoming rarer with every passing day in this country.

Rather than a celebration of Britishness, Pulp’s gig is a reminder that there’s still a bitter battle between the haves and the have-nots in this country.

Framing this tour as an encore is a subtle reminder of strength in numbers. Tonight is still more glitzy rock show than fiery political rally, but it never just longs for the glory days either.

If this is it for Pulp, the band are going out on a high, but it feels an encore to the encore wouldn’t go amiss, either. ALI SHUTLER

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IT FEELS LIKE SZA COULD DO ANYTHING NEXT

The O2, London

Photo: Lloyd Wakefield.

HARRY STYLES’ LIVE SHOW IS A CELEBRATION OF LOVE, CONNECTION, AND ABSOLUTE BANGERS

Wembley Stadium, London

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Photo: Pedro Becerra.

→ Harry Styles is a pop star people will talk about for generations. Over the course of three albums and two packed-out world tours, he’s topped the charts and found a home in the hearts of audiences seemingly everywhere he goes. He’s sold out venues around the world, some several times over, and is one of just three musical artists to have a permanent banner hanging in the rafters at Madison Square Garden. He’s broken records, won Grammys, and near-single-handedly revived the feather boa industry – and the list goes on.

When he takes to the stage at Wembley Stadium for the first of four sold-out shows there, the venue erupts into celebration. But tonight isn’t about an artist at the top of their game appearing in front of an adoring audience of thousands (though that also happens to be true). Harry’s show is, as it always has been, a celebration of love, connection, and absolute bangers.

In the city that’s been his base for 13 years, in a venue just down the road from where One Direction first formed, seeing him perform feels especially momentous. “Honey, I’m home!” he sing-songs as he settles centrestage, his own gleeful way of letting the audience know that not only is he exactly where he belongs in this moment, so are they. This place is a safe space, where – as he requests of the crowd at every show he performs – you can “feel free to be whoever it is you’ve always wanted to be.”

His fans welcome that invitation and run with it. There’s sequins and glitter a-plenty,

feathers and rhinestones galore. Giant fruit costumes? There’s so many. It’s emboldened, it’s expressive, and it’s full of joy – and really, isn’t that what live music is all about?

From the moment he first bounds across the stage to the swaggering melodies of ‘Daydreaming’, almost falling onto a podium elevating one of his bandmates in the process, Harry holds the 90,000-strong audience in the palm of his hand. “Okay,” he beams sunnily in response to their sung-along request to ‘Adore You’, “but just tonight.”

For two hours, he treats his audience to a career-spanning set that leaves no era forgotten. ‘Little Freak’ and ‘Matilda’ are made heart-achingly tender in front of a crowd, while ‘Music For A Sushi Restaurant’ becomes a literal jamboree. Teasing the chorus of One Direction’s ‘Best Song Ever’ before launching into ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ prompts an all-out dance party that feels practically euphoric, and a moment of stillness as he drinks in the sight of fireworks exploding during ‘Sign Of The Times’ is enough to have the whole venue swooning where they stand.

He’s not the only one that’ll carry tonight with them. Gathering at the edge of the arena to practice the boot scoot dance routine between bands, joining up in a conga line during ‘Treat People With Kindness’, swaying arm-in-arm with friends and strangers during ‘Matilda’, lying down to look at the stars during ‘Fine Line’, his fans jump heart first into every moment not just with him, but with each other.

Together, they make this surreal, sensational experience feel like home.

This isn’t just Harry’s show; it’s everyone’s.

JESSICA GOODMAN

→ There’s a pop dungeon where artists live, sometimes for years, where they say, “it’s coming!” about an album that’s in the works (ahem, Rihanna, ahem, Sky Ferreira). SZA did a stint down there after releasing her cult and critical fave debut ‘Ctrl’ in 2017.

After a sporadic string of singles from 2020, she dropped the lengthy follow-up ‘SOS’ late last year. It seems she didn’t just spend that time in the studio, flexing her versatility building a huge 23-track second record, but in training to become a fully-fledged superstar.

The sheer scale of the ‘SOS’ tour is staggering; it’s the first of four nights she’ll play at London’s O2 Arena, and the big guns have well and truly been pulled out. Over the course of a twohour mammoth show, she takes us on a nautical-themed journey, beginning perched at the end of a diving board, recreating the album cover while singing the not-actually-included-on-the-album ‘PSA’.

A visual of her jumping off the board plays, and she’s straight into ‘Seek and Destroy’, this time an intricately choreographed number with backing dancers, the screen that played the VT lifting to reveal a harbour stage set. The opening numbers alone set a precedent for the evening, this careful balance of quiet, intimate moments and true star power spectacles, each one as wowworthy as the other.

Because, really, this is the fabric of SZA’s career. She’s built a cult following from her profoundly honest lyricism (that’s reflected tonight in the passion of the attendees, from the fact that every word resonates amongst the twentythousand twenty-somethings here, to the fact that the snaking merch queues are akin to those found at K-pop concerts

hosted at the same venue), but has always had the potential to go majorly mainstream.

From featuring on Rihanna’s ‘ANTI’ before her own debut album even dropped, to redefining the late 2010s R&B sound when that debut came, to pushing herself into new genre territories on ‘SOS’, this tour feels like a crowning moment, and deservedly so.

At 33 songs long, you’d be forgiven for seeing the setlist and thinking “that’s a bit of a slog”, but it actually flies by, filled with daren’t-go-to-the-loo-yet interludes and seamless transitions between the constantly changing set and pace of the show. Even pulling out special guest Travis Scott early on for ‘Love Galore’ can’t distract from SZA’s prowess.

Weaving between deep cuts and huge hits, the setlist includes nearly every song from ‘SOS’ and a hefty chunk of ‘Ctrl’ too, plus a couple of smash hit features, she proves time and time again she can do it all. When she takes to the sky in a lifeboat to float over the crowd for a series of introspective ballads – ‘Supermodel’, ‘Special’, ‘Nobody Gets Me’, ‘Gone Girl’ – she reaches down, the audience members below stretching their arms up trying to reach her too.

In the show’s final act, we’re treated to back to back hits, back on the stage.

The breezy pop of Doja Cat collaboration ‘Kiss Me More’, downtempo romantic bop ‘Snooze’, breakout hit ‘The Weekend’, only briefly breaking out of the underwater world for recent smash ‘Kill Bill’, where samurai silhouettes battle behind SZA, who’s lit in red. She ends with ‘Good Days’, back atop the diving board, this time a golden sunrise behind her. The gorgeous lightness of the closing number and the visual of her high in the sky means that by the time the show ends, it feels like SZA could do anything next.

ABIGAIL FIRTH

REPORT

JESSICA WINTER, MISS TINY AND PLAYBACK MARACAS BRING THE BUZZ TO SON ESTRELLA GALICIA AND PAPER DRESS VINTAGE’S LONDON CULTURAL EXCHANGE

→ As the sun set on London one Thursday night last month, a blend of live music, beer, and sustainability took over the unique settings of East London’s Paper Dress Vintage. The third in an ongoing series of cultural exchanges, the event saw SON Estrella Galicia present some of the buzziest new acts in music​1​.

The evening was ablaze with talent as Jessica Winter, fresh from the release of her critically acclaimed ‘Limerence’ EP, lit up the stage with her electric live set. Winter, a pop provocateur who has shared stages with diverse artists from Death Grips to Rebecca Black, followed innovative new project Miss Tiny. With their intense, experimental art-rock, the duo have been making

waves in the London scene, with a debut EP set to arrive soon. Rounding out the lineup, the eccentric electronic trio Playback Maracas brought a Spanish flair to the evening, the group’s innovative sound — a vibrant blend of indie, house, psychedelia, and cumbia — offering an infectious dance experience to the attendees​.

But the evening was not just about the music. In a testament to Estrella Galicia’s commitment to sustainability, it also featured interactive elements that gave attendees the chance to delve into the brand’s artisanal beer culture, with workshops led by the brand’s beer experts.

You can check out photos from our intrepid snapper Patrick Gunning below.

Jessica Winter ↗

Playback Maracas ↗

Miss Tiny ↗

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Photo: Patrick Gunning.

THE JAPANESE HOUSE CELEBRATES A SPECIAL ALBUM WITH A SPECIAL SHOW XOYO, London → “I’m absolutely shitting myself”.

It’s mere moments into The Japanese House’s first live show in nearly four years, and Amber Bain is feeling all possible emotions. Hours after her second album ‘In The End It Always Does’ has landed, there’s a reason why the tiny confines of London’s XOYO are filled to the brim with fans eager to catch a glimpse at an artist who has always pointed to something more than just the mundane. Tonight, it’s both a welcome return from an artist paving her own path and a glorious next evolution for someone ready to take on the world.

From the deafening reaction that comes from the moment Amber walks out on stage, every step feels right. ‘Sad To Breathe’ and ‘Boyhood’ are swooning in swagger. Decked out with a full band, the lush sounds that bubble across The Japanese House’s catalogue are given

St James’ Park, Newcastle → When Sam Fender announced a headline performance at Newcastle’s famous football stadium, St. James’ Park, the surrounding city sensed that not just a show but a cultural moment was soon to come. When said show immediately sold out and a necessitated second date, that inkling was preemptively affirmed.

Cut to June 2023, and the streets are buzzing with energy. Although monochromatic striped shirts are hardly an uncommon sight up North, there is a unique atmosphere distinguishing this weekend from the usual gameday rabble. You could ask any passerby on the street why town seems even busier than usual, and they’d surely be able to tell you – that’s if you hadn’t spotted the Sam Fender-branded Greggs takeover already.

Hordes of fans are swarming through Strawberry Place, stopping to bask in the sun and enjoy a pint, perhaps tipping one of the many buskers offering various Fender cuts.

the sort of widescreen display they rightfully deserve. ‘You Seem So Happy’, ‘Lilo’, ‘Something Had To Change’, and the drowned-out singalong that comes with ‘Saw You In A Dream’ capture what’s pulled so many towards The Japanese House over the years. To-the-bone tales served up in a dazzling world of sound; a sense of real comfort sweeps XOYO throughout.

Never stopping for breath, it means The Japanese House can go from a lively mover like ‘Maybe You’re The Reason’, to the stripped-raw tones of ‘Chewing Cotton Wool’, and back to the storming ‘Touching Yourself’, all the while still completely connected. Bursting with ideas and with that clear vision firmly in place, the release of closer ‘Sunshine Baby’ perfectly captures a return both wanted and needed in equal measure. Few artists can call themselves singular or stand out, but The Japanese House certainly can. No shitting yourself required. JAMIE MUIR

Photo: Frances Beach

SIGUR RÓS SOFTLY RAGE AGAINST THE DYING LIGHT Southbank Centre, London → Sigur Rós surprise-released ‘ÁTTA’, their first new album in a decade, on Friday; its creation a reaction to how bleak everything feels right now. “We always talk about each album as if it might be the last,” the group’s vocalist Jónsi said in a statement. “We’re always thinking about climate change, doomscrolling and going to hell.” While other groups may offer escapism through distraction, ‘ÁTTA’ is lush, otherworldly and fully immersive, designed to transport the listener anywhere but here.

Tonight, Sigur Rós celebrate ‘ÁTTA’’s release as London’s Southbank Centre, as part of the Christine And The Queens-curated Meltdown Festival.

Reunited with the London Contemporary Orchestra, the trio nestle themselves into the very centre of the stage and launch into ‘Blóðberg’. The set is split into two, with the first showcasing Sigur Rós’ more

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sprawling side. The hushed, nine-minute epic of ‘8’ is given its live debut as is the whispering ‘Varðeldur’, while ‘Von’ and ‘Dauðalogn’ are also dusted off.

After a civilised interval, the second part begins with two tightly-wound, gut-wrenching moments from 2002’s ‘()’ before ‘ÁTTA’’s ‘Ylur’ and ‘Skel’ prove that Sigur Rós can still cut straight to the bone. Backed by an orchestra and without a drummer, the show practically invites Sigur Rós to shake things up, with ‘All Alright’ and ‘Untitled #5 – Álafoss’ replacing the band’s tried and tested setlist.

At times, the show can feel meandering but it’s impossible not to get caught up in the intricate arrangements while Jónsi’s vocals remain a thing of absolute beauty. “The world felt a bit bleak making this album, but maybe there is hope,” said Jonsi when ‘ÁTTA’ was released. “When there is darkness, there is light.” ALI SHUTLER

SAM FENDER EARNS HIS HOMETOWN HERO STATUS

With all the commotion, bustle and t-shirt tans, sight is not lost on the target of all this celebration.

Making their way into the stadium, attendees witness the noodling spirit of newcomer Ernie, the raw rock energy of rising stars Wunderhorse, and delicate but anthemic, heartbreaking but warm songs from Holly Humberstone. It’s all building towards one thing, and as the minutes pass by, a quiet tension seeps into the otherwise lively venue.

An extended introduction from his brass section only heightens that tension, and by the time Sam does walk out on the makeshift stage, a wild black and white ocean of fans is hollering, flags are swinging in flourishes and not an empty seat can be seen.

Although the usual energised starter ‘Will We Walk?’ opens the set, the 90+ minutes to follow are far from an ordinary Fender gig.

Intensity levels rise and dip with ‘Dead Boys’

GET OUT

Photos: Finlay Holden.

BLACKPINK IS THE REVOLUTION AT BST HYDE PARK

Hyde Park, London

and ‘Mantra’ before the first guest appearance of the evening as elder brother Liam Fender – a musician in his own right – joins for a Springsteen cover and swaggers around the stage. As later events will prove, Sam is using his platform to credit those that got him to where he is today; a sibling and The Boss himself have certainly contributed.

‘The Borders’ demonstrates where these Americana-songwriter influences began to impact his output but is quickly contrasted by the jarring ferocity of ‘Spice’ and ‘Howdon

Aldi Death Queue’; the potency of these nowestablished moshpit moments is drastically amplified as a huge standing crowd feels the searing heat of rising flames and is visually bombarded with a deliberately disorienting flurry of colour.

If those tracks are intended to cause chaos, the following block is planned to inspire a far more reflective mindset; ‘Get You Down’ starts commenting on embedded insecurities, ‘Spit Of You’ explores paternal disconnect and the struggles men face while opening up and ‘Alright’ rounds off the arc by proclaiming that there’s still time to work it all out.

St. James’ has historically been a place for people to bond over a common cause in the hope of uniting in support of something greater. Sam Fender today capitalises on that exact energy – one of hometown spirit, loyalty, and passion to spare for those around you – and rallies it around essential topics during a journey that is felt by a 50,000-strong audience.

With the serious stuff out of the way, Sam pays tribute to his lifelong love of AC/DC with not only the man who taught him their songs as a gateway to guitar but also Brian Johnson himself – and he’s still got it. Combining his grizzly vocal chops with Fender’s soaring high notes, the unlikely pair gleefully duet ‘Back In Black’ and ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’.

It’s an unexpected detour, but no complaints are heard.

The main set is rounded out by ‘Play God’, the sharp lyricisms of which started it all, and a euphoric, tear-inducing dedication to those we’ve lost along the way in ‘The Dying Light’; a fitting rendition of ‘Saturday’ echoes throughout the stadium, and the vocal feedback surges for ‘Seventeen Going Under’ and ‘Hypersonic Missiles’. The fact that these two smash-hit singles aren’t even nearly the highlight of the evening says a lot about Sam’s talent, career and potential; there truly is nothing holding him back.

Having not only achieved a monumental dream but smashed it twice, Sam Fender and his band become the first all-Geordie band to ever play the venue; the frontman jestfully imitates Noel Gallagher’s famous “This is history” speech, but in reality, he is not far off the mark. The support rallying behind him tonight is as united as it is deserved, and it even breaks Sam into filming his first-ever on-stage story. Carrying the history of past heroes, adapting those tones into current and revolutionary artistry, and actively inspiring the future of the scene; even if you’ve seen Sam Fender before, you’ve never seen him like this. What is left for him to accomplish in his home city? “Well, we’re gonna have to do this again sometime, aren’t we?” FINLAY HOLDEN

→ Piled into Hyde Park are 65,000 fans (or Blinks, if you’re a purist) decked out in black and pink outfits, ranging from teenagers diligently lining up at the barriers all day to secure their spot, to young girls heading to their first festival, to the parents in tow carrying a pink box after reluctantly parting ways with £65 for a pink heart-shaped hammer, now swinging around in their daughter’s hand.

But they won’t be reluctant for much longer. When BLACKPINK finally take to the stage, it’s slightly later than scheduled but immediately worth the wait. Emerging to the siren call of “Blaaaaack Piiiiiink” from last year’s ‘Pink Venom’, Jisoo, Jennie, Rosé and Lisa kick in the door, and we’re off. A supercharged run through turbo-banger ‘How You Like That’ and the unmistakably sultry ‘Pretty Savage’, performed on chairs at the end of a runway, signal that the group did not come to play.

As is the norm with BLACKPINK shows, a solos portion shows what each member brings to the table. For Jennie, that’s the good-girl-gone-bad electro-pop of unreleased ‘You & Me’ and 2018’s ‘SOLO’; for Jisoo, it’s the hypnotic, plucky swirl of recent single ‘Flower’.

In an alternative universe, Rosé is a beloved indie-pop starlet with a penchant for the confessional; Lisa, a viral rapper peddling boss bitch anthems. Tonight, those realisations come to life on a stadium-sized scale as they perform their tracks perched on a beam and basking in smoke (Rosé for ‘Gone’) and

down the runway with hoards of backing dancers and her own dance break (Lisa for ‘MONEY’).

But it’s when they come together that the magic really happens. Performing both tracks from their double A-side debut - the cheeky, breezy ‘WHISTLE’ and the edgier, braggadocious ‘BOOMBAYAH’ - serves as a reminder BLACKPINK have always had something special, and the hits to match.

K-pop headlining a UK festival has been a long time coming, and there’s no one more up to the task than BLACKPINK. A Korean girl group with a global outlook, the EDM-fuelled tracks that fill the second half of the show and prompt choral chants like ‘Lovesick Girls’ and ‘Playing With Fire’ were built for enormous stages like these and go down a treat now the sun has set.

There’s also the significant effort put into beefing up the already huge tracks for a live performance, playing with a live band and extending intros, outros and dance breaks to allow for costume changes, ensures there’s not even a second of boredom throughout.

By the end of the show, there’s no doubt that BLACKPINK deserve their accolades and the World’s Biggest Girl Group title. An explosive finale of ‘DDUDU DDU-DU’ and ‘FOREVER YOUNG’ concludes a night of relentless smash hits, and above all, relentless fun. As the final track proclaims, “BLACKPINK is the revolution”, it’s hard to dispute the phrase as the girls break yet another record and tread new ground for K-pop on these shores. ABIGAIL FIRTH

READDORK.COM 69.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? Swim School 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 Alice Johnson from Swim School has never fallen off stage and owns an Ed Sheeran Jesus bracelet.

Nobody can confirm the two aren’t related.

Have you ever had a nickname?

So many, but the boys call me AJ.

would it be?

3 little stars, it’s gonna be my next tatt.

What is your favourite time of day?

8pm (but in summer).

What strength Nandos sauce do you order?

Medium, and I’m proud.

If you could be best friends with a celebrity, you do not know, who would you choose?

Taylor Swift.

How punk are you out of ten?

1/10, maybe 2/10.

Have you ever been to a showbiz party?

We once went to Skepta’s after-party a couple of years ago; it was a very random night but a lot of fun.

What is the most irrational superstition you have?

It’s not a superstition, but I have a manifestation note in my phone, and nearly everything on the list has happened, so I believe it.

What’s one thing you can definitely beat the other members of your band at?

Escape rooms (this was proven recently).

What have you got in your pockets right now?

Out-of-charge AirPods; it’s been a long day.

What Guinness World Record would you most like to hold the title for?

Being the best at Catchphrase and escape rooms.

How far could you run if your life depended on it?

Far even though I’m asthmatic.

What is your earliest memory?

Listening to ‘Candy’ by Paolo Nutini.

If you could have a superpower of your choosing, what would it be?

To fly to avoid long van journeys.

What did you last dream about?

My dog.

Which defunct band would you most like to reform?

Sonic Youth.

Who’s your favourite pop star?

Taylor Swift, obv.

If you had to live in a film, which film would you pick?

Twilight, and I’m proud.

What was the last thing you broke?

Probably a guitar string.

If you had a pet dinosaur, what would you call it?

Billy.

Do you believe in the power of coincidence?

100%.

What was the first record you bought?

I don’t really buy records, but the first CD I bought was Paolo Nutini’s ‘Sunny Side Up’.

If you had to be on a TV game show, which would you choose?

I’d kill it on Catchphrase ngl.

Have you ever been in a haunted house?

No, and I don’t want to.

You’re picking a 5-item breakfast.

What’s in it?

Hashbrowns x 5.

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What is the strangest food combination you enjoy?

Pasta and tomato sauce.

What’s the silliest thing you own?

An Ed Sheeran Jesus bracelet I got in 2010 if you know, you know.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

Owning an Ed Sheeran Jesus bracelet.

Which is the luckiest number?

23, I have it tattooed on me.

year, which animal would you pick?

A dog.

What’s the stupidest lie you’ve ever told?

That I care about what misogynistic men in the industry say about me.

Have you ever won anything?

Yeah, I’ve won in life; I’m in a band with my best mates.

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character?

Maeve Wiley from Sex Education.

What’s the best way to cook a potato?

I’ll have to ask Lewis; he’s a pro.

If you had to live as an animal for one

If you had to get a tattoo today, what

What’s your biggest fear?

Falling off stage (it’s never happened).

If you won the lottery, what would you spend the cash on?

I’d buy the most expensive tour bus.

What do you always have in your fridge?

Tomato sauce for my pasta.

Why are you like this?

Don’t know, ask the boys.

Swim School play Dork’s Day Out at London’s Signature Brew Blackhorse Road on 5th August, and 110 Above Presents OTHR between 10th -14th August.

“Gem of the UK festival scene” THE GUARDIAN

THE INDEPENDENT

“Something for everyone at the friendliest festival around” ELLE

20 -23 JULY 2023 : HER T FOR D SHIR E , UK

YEARS & SELF BLOC YEARS ESTEEM PARTY THE HUMAN LEAGUE . . . .

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