Dork, February 2020 by Dork

Down with boring.

T H E BI G M O O N ! B LO S SO M S! SO C C E R M O M M Y ! M U RA MAS A! GEORGI A! HA RRY ST YL ES! LOADS MOR E!

are ‘back’ with a f**king awesome new album, eh?

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB Everything else has gone wrong! At least

Issue 40 February 2020 readdork.com

VICTORIA PARK LONDON E3

TAME IMPALA CARIBOU

GLASS ANIMALS WHITNEY

ROLLING BLACKOUTS C.F. KELLY LEE OWENS

HOLY F + MANY MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED

INDEX

** SUBSCRIBE TO DORK AND SAVE MORE THAN 30% A YEAR ** Subscribe at readdork.com now

February 2020 | readdork.com | Down With Boring

Ø4 2Ø

Intro Hype

ED’S LETTER BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB

They’ve been away, but they’re back! Back!! Back!!! with their best album yet.

After a barnstorming debut album - and a Mercury nod to boot - The Big Moon are reborn, and better than ever.

SOCCER MOMMY

With her palette in place, Sophie Allison has a theory all of her very own.

S tephen

Ø7

Features Incoming

HMLTD

GEORGIA

Not content with delivering some of 2019’s biggest bangers, Georgia has a whole album of them for 2020.

MURA MASA

With a cast of notable mates in tow, Alex Crossan is in the form of his life.

Allie X

5 Lily Moore

Best Coast

49 Liz Lawrence

Billie Marten

31 Lucy Rose

Blossoms

With a debut album finally locked and loaded, HMLTD are ready to stand on their own terms.

1Ø

** BAND INDEX ** BAND INDEX **

GENGAHR

With Bombay Bicycle Club’s Jack Steadman in the chair, Gengahr are free to be themselves.

Bloxx

DRUG STORE ROMEOS

Freshly signed to Fiction Records, three piece Drug Store Romeos are ready for dream pop romance.

BLOSSOMS

More than just another indie band, with their new album, Blossoms are ready to prove they’re much, much more.

‘EDITOR’ @STEPHENACKROYD

22 MUNA

Mura Masa Bombay Bicycle Club 26, 46 Nasty Cherry

12, 49 22

Brian Fallon

11 No Rome

Brockhampton

5 NOISY

Caribou

12 Poliça

Claud

24 Rae Morris

Dan Deacon

47 Rosaliá

Drug Store Romeos

Dua Lipa

Dune Rats

Ed O’Brien

Far Caspian

Fletcher

Frances Quinlan

Gengahr

16, 49

Georgia

10, 47

Girl In Red

2Ø

42, 48 Marika Hackman

Sam Fender

Sea Girls

Sharon Van Etten

Silverbacks

Sløtface

Soccer Mommy

Squirrel Flower

Stormzy

Supergrass

5, 48

Tate McRae

Taylor Swift

Grimes

18 The 1975

Haim

17 The Amazons

Harry Styles Hayden Thorpe HMLTD

4 The Big Moon 36, 49 12 The Killers

7 The Wants

Holy Fuck

46 Twenty One Pilots

La Roux

47 Twin Atlantic

Lauran Hibberd

22 Tyler The Creator

Lewis Capaldi

15 Vukovi

Liam Gallagher

18 Wargasm

ON THE DORK STEREO THIS MONTH... HARRY STYLES

TAME IMPALA

FINE LINE

The Slow Rush

Look, Dearest Reader. We have to admit, we weren’t quite as cockand-indeed-ahoop about our Hazza’s debut album as some, but the follow up. Yes, Mr Styles, you can stay. ‘Adore You’ is O�icially Ace.

Kev’s back with a brand new album ahead of a headline appearance at All Points East this summer. Expect vibes.

LAUV

Changes Taken from the

former Dork cover star’s debut album - due ‘imminently’ ‘Changes’ is a birrova low key emosh-o-bop. Yes. That is a thing. Shut up.

understand we’re sort of enamoured with Sophie Allison’s second full-length. It’s a corker!

BEABADOOBEE

SOCCER MOMMY

Don’t You (Forget About Me)

If you read the feature from this month’s issue, you’ll

The best cover version of 2019. No question. No arguments allowed.

Color Theory

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THE BIG MOON

You’re not daft, Dear Reader. You’ll have noticed already. Not content with having two covers on our last issue, we’ve decided to do it again - and what a lovely pair we’ve got, too. We’ve long been champions of The Big Moon - they even graced the front of one of our very first issues back in 2016 - but we’re sure of one thing. Their new album, ‘Walking Like We Do’ is glorious. That we can match them up with returning heroes like Bombay Bicycle Club is even better. Returning after a spell away, their comeback record ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ is a remarkable piece of work - quite possibly their best to date. Both bands will be teaming up for a UK tour around the time you read this - you really should make sure you’re there. That’s not all we’ve got in the way of exceptionally good news this month, though. With everything from the magnificent Soccer Mommy to the poptastic Georgia, via indie legends Blossoms and more, 2020 is off to a great start.

26 46

INTRO IF IT’S NOT IN HERE, IT’S NOT HAPPENING. OR WE FORGOT. ONE OR THE OTHER.

“FUCK THE GOVERNMENT AND

FUCK BORIS” Styles, Stormzy and a tiny Camden show. Harry is on a charge.

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Helene Pambrun.

HARRY STYLES’ SELF-TITLED

debut saw the artist out to prove he was more than just the one with good hair from the world’s biggest boy band. Reflective and leaning heavily into the teenage dreams of being a rockstar, it saw our Hazza confidently take the spotlight on his own and top all our wildest expectations. Album two sees Harry with nothing left to prove to anyone but that doesn’t mean he’s settling for more of the same. From the open-armed discomfort of ‘Falling’ through the beating infatuation of ‘Adore You’ to the closing balance of ‘Fine Line’, Harry wears his heart on his microphone stand but he never shies away from what’s being said. It’s a record about acceptance and live, that quickly becomes a cause for celebration. As he takes to the ridiculously small confi nes (for his standards, FEBRUARY 2020

DORK

anyway) of London’s Electric Ballroom to celebrate the launch of ‘Fine Line’, a glorious swagger takes centre stage. The opening parade of ‘Golden’ quickly transforms into a jubilant festival anthem with a real lust for life before the decadent funk of ‘Watermelon Sugar’ takes the party to another level. Playing every song from the new album is a bold move considering it’s been out for less than a week old, but there’s a trust in the music and rightly so. The opening moment of each song inspires an eruption of energy and excitement that refuses to quit. The community latches onto the sound of the times’ anthem of ‘Treat People With Kindness’, pushing the evening to new heights as it bursts with joyful optimism. “Maybe we can fi nd a place to feel good, and treat people with kindness,” hollers

the room, fi nding it all around them. The message is echoed later as Stormzy joins Harry onstage for a gleaming performance of ‘Vossi Bop’. Seeing the pair sing the line “fuck the government and fuck Boris” is a thing of beauty, but more so is the fact these two artists, who’ve come up in entirely different ways, are using their platform to support and uplift rather than competing. Elsewhere, there’s a gleeful cover of Lizzo’s ‘Juice’, a rampant reworking of One Direction’s ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ and a festive rendition of Paul McCartney’s ‘Wonderful Christmastime’ before the rock and roll star of ‘Kiwi’ closes out the night in wonderful, jubilant excess. Tonight is a joyous launch to a record that glimmers with hope, as Harry Styles cements his status as a national treasure. Listen to him at all costs. P

HARRY STYLES CEMENTS HIS STATUS AS A NATIONAL TREASURE. LISTEN TO HIM AT ALL COSTS

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‘FYI’ 110 Above has confirmed a load of bands for 2020’s festival, including The Amazons and Sundara Karma. The Leicestershire event will take place from 13th-16th August, with further sets from Bad Sounds, Bloxx, Gengahr, Rhys Lewis, Al�ie Templeman, The Pale White, Larkins, The Mysterines, Saytr Play, Noisy and Bessie Turner.

Supergrass are going to play a show at Scarborough Open Air Theatre. The UK’s largest open-air arena, they’ll perform at the venue on Saturday 20th June. “Everything aligned for us to make this happen for 2020,” says drummer Danny Goffey.

Brockhampton have announced an upcoming UK tour. Starting off in Bristol on 18th May, the tour will include two nights at London’s Brixton Academy, in addition to stops in Birmingham, Manchester and Glasgow. The accompanying tour press release advises we “stay tuned for more from Brockhampton coming soon”. Oooo-errr.

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Allie X has announced her new album, ‘Cape God’. Due for release on 21st February, the release will be accompanied by a headline tour that includes a night at London’s Heaven in June. “If I had to make a mission statement for this record I would say: Cape God is a liminal space I created to explore my repressed feelings and perhaps create a different outcome,” she explains. Obviously.

Photo: Sarah Louise Bennett.

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HMLTD EDITION Not long ago, HMLTD were the least ‘major label’ band to be signed to one in years. Now, they’ve cut ties and finally have a debut album to deliver. HMLTD SHOULD EITHER HAVE

exploded or imploded by now. Back in 2017, they rode in on a tsunami of hype, sending quick-penned journos into a frothy-mouthed frenzy of superlatives. The UK’s most thrilling new band! 24/7 art project! Guitar music’s greatest hope! The most shocking part? Their flamboyant genre-swerving output was worthy of the praise, if only because it was impossible to pin down in print. Fast-forward to 2020 and instead of detonating HMLTD have reached a crossroads. The band have cut ties with their corporate overlords Sony (“I sold my soul to the devil tonight/And I’m still pretty fucking poor,” frontman Henry Spychalski yelps wryly on ‘LOADED’), they’ve sadly lost keyboardist Zac, and they’ve finally sat down and written a bloody album. “Oh, and I’m working in Peckham’s pre-eminent pizza chain,” Henry adds. “Being a musician doesn’t pay that well unless you’re Rihanna.” It’s a pretty idle Sunday afternoon when we call Henry, and he sounds suitably content. “I’m just having a really, really lazy Sunday, not even a hangover Sunday. I actually didn’t do anything last night.” He speaks slowly, carefully choosing each word. It’s a marked change from the writhing contortions on stage that so set quills a quiver, but HMLTD

have always enjoyed playfully toying with contradictions. It was that oxymoronic tendency that saw HMLTD sign with Sony in the first place. For a band dedicated to throwing hyperactive experimentation and in-your-face glam pop in a musical blender, they seemed like unusual bedfellows. Still, the group snapped at the opportunity to retain creative ownership while using the massive reach of a major label. Of course, with Sony now a supposed quarter

we didn’t feel comfortable doing, but we never at one point really felt like that was happening. The way that’s described makes it sound as if it’s a specific action or event that happens, whereas it’s actually a slow, incremental, insidious process by which they gradually take more and more, and you give more and more, and the psychology of the relationship slowly changes.” In fact, from an outside perspective, HMLTD initially seemed to beat the devil at his own

"WE TRIED TO GIVE THEM AS MUCH REASON TO DROP US AS WE COULD. WE WENT ON WRITING STRIKES" of a million in the hole for a record they never released, something had to give. “We were warned by everybody around us that they would take creative control and that we would be coerced into doing things that

game. Their infamously welldecorated live shows were gaudier than ever, they went from headlining Scala to playing dates with Nine Inch Nails, and the production quality of their music videos scaled up massively without sacrificing

READDORK.COM

Words: Blaise Radley.

their scrappy DIY charm. Still, as time passed that initial momentum seemed to fizzle - the live dates dried up, and, after the release of a wellreceived but far from impactful EP in 2018, the band appeared to enter a state of silent stasis. “We just tried to give them as much reason to drop us as we could... We sort of stopped writing and went on writing strikes. It was a shame that it got to that point because there were people that we really liked within Sony. That’s something that we should stress to mention. The issue is more just the general drive for profit you get in these organisations where everybody’s job is on the line. It’s this very destructive process with a life force of its own where everyone is answerable to shareholders ultimately, and you’re just an asset in an investment portfolio.” In some ways, it’s clear HMLTD knew what they were getting themselves into. In the band’s last interview with Dork in 2017, guitarist James said: “I’d like to see our popularity grow until it was so strong that there’s a big, big backlash at the beginning of 2019 – that would be the ideal.” There’s something prophetic in those words, even if it played out far more rapidly. In fact, the backlash came later that very year courtesy of a Vice article querying whether the band was appropriating queer culture. Again, Henry paints Sony as restrictive handlers. “The Vice article came out, and we felt like it had really dramatically misinterpreted what we were doing in a way which really upset us because we always see ourselves as doing something really positive, which is offering a critique of monolithic, toxic masculinity. We wanted to release a statement, and I think that Sony’s approach was basically to just sweep the matter under the rug. That was frustrating for us because this was really important to our mission statement, and we didn’t feel like we had the actual chance to express it.” There’s a calmness to Henry’s unpacking of the situation - you sense whatever fist-clenching or screaming into a paper bag needed to be done, has been done. “In terms of the artistic opportunities that it’s afforded us, I think it’s actually been a great process. To get where we are now, this is the only way that things could ever have possibly happened, and I’m happy with where we are now. You know, we’ve got a great album, and it’s coming out in February with a great label, and I’m just feeling extremely positive.” Still, the costs of the band’s time in corporate purgatory are pretty obvious. “Some people felt alienated from the creative process, Zac first and foremost. Obviously, we’re

INTRO

"WE ARE REALLY JUST MASSIVELY OPPOSED TO IRONY" responsible for letting that happen. That was a real shame, but he has contributed to a lot of the songs on the album, including my favourite song, ‘Mikey’s Song’, which was written mostly between myself and Zac. We’re still on really good terms.” Unsurprisingly that album, titled ‘West of Eden’, was at the heart of FEBRUARY 2020

DORK

the power struggle. The very act of its creation speaks to HMLTD’s tumultuous two years, veering from the finest studios in all the land to, well, a flat in London. “We finished the album in our bedrooms using a cupboard as a vocal booth.” Still, Henry seems unphased. Quite the opposite, in fact. “A big part of the process of Sony is that there

were never any limits because there wasn’t a time deadline, and there were basically no budgetary constraints. The lack of limits I think drove us a bit crazy. “The creative process has gone back to how it originally was before we signed with Sony, and in the early days of Sony. We don’t have the same financial resources, but we’ve also realised that we don’t need them. You can do things a lot cheaper on a shoestring and still make really incredible and exciting music. You don’t need massive bags of money to do something really artistically amazing.” What’s perhaps most surprising about the band’s laser focus in getting West of Eden finished by any means necessary is that early

on, they rejected the idea of an album entirely. “It tends to only be patrician listeners who actually take the effort and time to listen to an album in full. So in that sense, it felt slightly out of place in the modern context.” What changed? “Well, I think we realised that an album was an opportunity to do something really artistically ambitious, to create a whole story and a grand work with an overarching narrative. That story is basically our story.” Fittingly for an album that’s such a personal tale for HMLTD, the songs on the album span many eras of writing, including the band’s first full-blown crossover hit ‘To the Door’ and never-released fanfavourite ‘Where’s Joanna?’ “What makes us such a colourful act, is the fact that we explore so many different genres, so many different styles.” In many ways, though, Henry argues, the whole thing chants in unison. “What really connects the songs is the ideas behind them, narratively and conceptually, and also the eccentricity and the focus on just trying to write a good song, and not create something bland. That’s what really bored us about guitar music and alternative music generally, is that with so many artists it felt like all their songs sounded roughly the same. Part of that comes from a place of irony and sort of cool self-detachment, which is a really terrible trait of contemporary culture; this focus on coolness and irony.” When we mention David Foster Wallace (like every good, annoying English Literature student) and his concerns about the commercialisation of irony, Henry lights up immediately. “We do see ourselves as basically a ‘new sincerity’ band, and we are really just massively opposed to irony. It creates these layers where it’s virtually impossible to tell what the true meaning is.” Regardless of their rapid genre changes and ever-cycling lycra costumes, you can tell HMLTD are only ever being themselves. If ‘West of Eden’ is the purest distillation of what it means to be HMLTD then, it stands to reason it must be pretty out there. “Maybe it’s because I’ve been so bound up in the struggle of creating it, but I think that the album that we’ve written is - and I don’t want to sound arrogant because generally I’m an incredibly self-deprecating person, so if I’m saying this I must mean it very much - I really think that we have written an incredible album.” They might not be the UK’s most thrilling new band anymore, but the prospect of finally hearing a full project is still pretty damn exciting. P HMLTD’s debut album ‘West of Eden’ is out 7th February.

FEBRUARY LIZ LAWRENCE 19 COLOURS, LONDON FEBRUARY SAINT PHNX UK TOUR MARCH IRIS 03 CAMDEN ASSEMBLY, LONDON 13 MARCH TORS SCALA, LONDON FLETCHER MARCH UK TOUR MARCH POPPY UK TOUR LARKINS APRIL UK TOUR MAY BAMBARA UK TOUR MAY JC STEWART 20 SCALA, LONDON L DEVINE MAY UK TOUR

INTRO

SEEKING THRILLS 2019 saw Georgia return with a string of absolute bloody bangers. Now, as 2020 rolls round, she’s proving there’s far more from where they came. Words: Martyn Young.

THE DAWN OF A NEW DECADE

brings with it a host of new dreams, new sounds, new ideas and new possibilities. For DIY producer and now bona fide popstar Georgia, the first few weeks of 2020 see the longawaited release of her second album, ‘Seeking Thrills’. One of the first great records of the decade has arrived. “It’s very exciting that it’s fi nally coming out, and it’s in 2020, the fi rst week of the decade,” exclaims Georgia as she relaxes at home on some pre-Christmas downtime. The album marks the beginning of a new musical decade but actually is the culmination of a period of reflection and regeneration. She spent the last few years immersing herself in dancefloor culture and the electronic sounds that she loves to create a record that takes you on a dizzying sonic journey through dance music’s hyper thrilling landscape. In truth, the album could have come out at any point in the last year. It’s been trailed by a number of storming singles including the now defi ning bangers ‘About Work The Dancefloor’, and the song that started this whole wave of excitement ‘Starting Out’. There has been a real buzz about Georgia for a long time now. It’s something she wanted to wait to fully capitalise on rather than jumping in at the wrong moment. “This album has been an interesting process,” she explains. “I fi nished it about a year and a half ago. With FEBRUARY 2020

DORK

the success of ‘Starting Out’ it made us all think that we wanted to make sure the album was on the same production level and is as exciting for people to listen to. The album has gone through some changes as a result of the unexpected reception that we got from the singles.” Wary of the pitfalls of hype without substance, she took a different approach this time out. “It is very much just following the principle of we don’t want to drop the album until there’s enough momentum that people will want to buy it as opposed to just hype which I had for my fi rst record in 2015,” she continues. “It was just all hype, and we put the record out, and it did well critically, but nobody else really heard it. All I want is for people to hear this record, so we had to give it time to breathe.” The album is the product of a newfound lucidity and clarity in Georgia’s working process. “The vision was to make something that was far more accessible than the fi rst record,” she explains. “As much as I love the fi rst record and it was an important moment for me, in hindsight listening to it I realised it all needs to go up a step. The songwriting, the production, the lyrics, the singing, it all needs to be on the next level up. I was very aware that I needed to strip back the music and fi nd a direction for this record that wasn’t so experimentally mixed up. I wanted it to be a cohesive body

of work.” While not a concept album, it is a record clearly defi ned by Georgia’s musical passions cultivated from her childhood growing up with musical parents (her dad was in pioneering 90s dance act Leftfield). “The album is very much influenced by the dancefloor and dancefloor culture,” she says. “I grew up in the UK rave scene. I was brought up amongst bass drums and synthesisers. As a kid, my mum took me to Leftfield gigs and raves and seeing all these people together under one roof was a big fascination of mine.” The collective and transcendent experience of feeling the music and feeling part of something exciting became a key theme of the record. As she began to delve further back into the history of dance music a vision emerged: “I got particularly interested in early to mid 80s music, especially bands like Depeche Mode and artists like Kate Bush, Eurythmics and Pet Shop Boys. I was wondering where they were getting their inspiration from with their drumbeats and synth sounds. It led me to Chicago House and Detroit techno. When I returned to the story of the beginnings of dance music in Chicago and Detroit i felt an emotional connection. I was obsessed with trying to understand the songs of that era and the whole cultural phenomenon around clubs. I found the direction of the

"I LIKE DARKNESS IN POP MUSIC, PEOPLE LIKE BILLIE EILISH ARE SO FUCKING COOL"

INTRO really hard existence, and they’re singing about how house gave them a home and a community. The pairing of darkness versus euphoria and positivity was interesting and I related to that. In my songs, I often sing about emotive things but pair it with inventive production and mad sounds.” It’s defi nitely a good time to be pairing weird sounds with pop hooks and a bewitching shade of darkness. “I like darkness in pop music,” says Georgia. That’s why I think people like Billie Eilish are so fucking cool.” While ‘Seeking Thrills’ has a number of turbo bangers that break the banger scale it’s also a nuanced and balanced record that takes you in different directions. “It was really important not to just have banger pop songs throughout the whole thing,” she says. “I’m interested in records like ‘Hounds Of Love’ by Kate Bush where you have amazing pop songs but also these weird and explorative pieces. I don’t think I could ever write an album that was just one thing. People now more than ever want something that is going to take them on a journey, something that is weird and undefi nable. That’s why Billie Eilish is making such a statement in pop music because you can’t really defi ne who she is. It’s wicked to have pop stars like that.” ‘Seeking Thrills’ is a record that came around at the right time for Georgia and inspired her to come out of a rough personal period: “I was on a personal journey with this record as I stopped drinking, I became really fit, I lost a lot of weight and became really interested in nutrition. In hindsight, I was going out to try and seek thrills through writing these songs.” The album is about inspiring people to take their own journey and make their own experiences. “It’s a collection of songs that I wanted to empower people and make the listener feel like they could check in on themselves and take themselves off to a dance floor or do something different, take a chance or take a risk,” she says passionately. As we enter a new decade, it’s the perfect time for Georgia’s thrill-seeking music to truly take fl ight. P Georgia’s album

‘Seeking Thrills’ is out now.

‘FYI’ Taylor Swift has confirmed she’s headlining Glastonbury 2020. What’s long been expected is now o�icial Swifty will top the bill on the Sunday of the event. She’s the second headliner to be revealed, after Paul McCartney was announced for Saturday Pyramid Stage duty. “I’m ecstatic to tell you that I’ll be headlining Glastonbury on its 50th anniversary,” Taylor tweeted. “See you there!”

Brian Fallon has announced his new solo album, ‘Local Honey’. Due out on 27th March, the news arrives alongside new single, ‘You Have Stolen My Heart’. “‘You Have Stolen My Heart’ is my most direct attempt at a love song,” says Brian. “I wanted a song that wasn’t aware of what it was or wasn’t, it was just true.”

The 1975 have postponed their European tour so they can finish their new album. The band have pulled their previously-announced February dates - they’ll now take place in October.“We understand that this will be the cause of upset but rest assured the delay will make for the best shows possible,” they explain.

The Great Escape is taking to the road in 2020, for two warm up events. The Road To The Great Escape will take place in Glasgow (9-10 May) and Dublin (11-12 May) in the days leading up to the main Brighton event, which is held between 13th and 16th May 2020. Featuring up to 30 emerging artists across multiple venues, they’ll perform before making their way to the south coast.

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music within that.” The pop music she wanted to create was inspired by the past but also imbued with the energy and cross-genre experimentalism of today. At its heart, though it had to have great songs. ‘Seeking Thrills’ masterfully gets the balance right between pristine pop songwriting and electronic experimentalism. “The lyrics became part of the whole idea of the dancefloor and empowerment, what it means to be all together collectively sharing a space. Being free and able to express yourself,” she outlines of her songwriting process. “I was thinking of the album for about a year before I got around to writing the songs. I wanted the songs to be good. I wanted to feel confident in songwriting. In order to do that I went back to classic songwriters that I admire like Joni Mitchell and Neil Young.” The realisation that she could write massive accessible pop songs but still do everything on her own and indulge in all her mad sonic fantasies was akin to a musical epiphany. “This was a real life-changing record,” she proclaims proudly. “I found the process really fun. It was a joy to do. There were obviously really hard moments, and it was a struggle, but the whole idea behind it was tracing music from where it comes from and how it influences other cultures and the journey the music is taking.” The dance floor is where the album really comes alive, it’s a place of ecstasy and euphoria but also can be lonely and despairing. A duality that Georgia recognises in her music. She thinks back to her musical touchstones of 80s Chicago house where largely black and gay communities faced untold oppression and segregation, and they found their salvation together on the dance floor. “I have to go back to Chicago house. In studying and understanding and listening to those songs what I loved was that it was really emotional. There was a yearning and a searching and wanting for something else to happen. Joe Smooth’s formative house classic ‘Promised Land’ is the perfect example of an emotionally searching lyrical song. It’s about how to be gay and black in Chicago in the 80s was a

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‘FYI’

For his second album, multi-talented producer Mura Masa has brought together both sprawling influences, and a bunch of his famous mates. Words: Jake Hawkes.

Lovebox Festival has announced its first acts for 2020. Next year’s event will be headlined by Tyler The Creator, Khalid and Disclosure - the latter of whom will be giving their only UK festival performance. They’ll be joined by the likes of FKA Twigs, Charli XCX, Anderson .Paak & The Free Nationals, Jorja Smith, Hot Chip, Little Simz, Mabel and Peggy Gou, with more to be announced. Held in London’s Gunnersbury Park between 12-14th June, tickets are on sale now.

Radiohead’s Ed O’Brien is set to release his first solo album ‘early’ this year. Working under the name EOB, the guitarist has already debuted a 9-minute long epic title track for the record, ‘Brasil’, which is streaming online now.

Caribou has announced his new album, ‘Suddenly’. Due on 28th February via City Slang, the record is preceded by new single ‘You And I’ and accompanied by a UK tour that’ll see him headline London’s Brixton Academy. He’ll also put in an appearance at Tame Impala’s day of All Points East.

Hayden Thorpe is going to perform at brand new music and arts festival, Aerial. Set to debut in the Lake District from 26th-29th March 2020, the festival is aiming to “bring a contemporary twist to the area’s renowned art forms, celebrating the Lakes as a place of continued inspiration for the next generation of artists.”

FEBRUARY 2020

DORK

AT AGE 23, ALEX CROSSAN (OR MURA

Masa for anyone that doesn’t know him personally) already has a Grammy, and a headline show booked at Alexandra Palace in London. When we were 23, we were still paying off our student overdraft. So yes, if you’re asking, we are a little bit jealous. When we catch up with him, he’s just got off a ‘mini-tour’ in Asia, playing to 2000 people in Japan, which is “pretty bizarre for a guy from Guernsey,” in his own words. He’s also running a bit late due to rehearsing with his new live band which he’s planning to use at that ally pally gig we mentioned. With all that plus a new album on the way, it’s amazing he has any time spare at all. “It’s all a bit mad,” he laughs when we mention how packed his schedule is. “But that’s just the nature of it I guess. I was touring the first album for two years, or two and a half, and in that time I basically walked away from making too much music. I did the odd single here and there, worked with some other people on their albums, but I didn’t even approach making album number two, I was just at a loss as to what to do next. “The idea with that first album was to explore every facet and every angle of pop music which was interesting to me at the time,” he continues. “And that meant going all over the globe with the features, and it was so broad and far-reaching that it left me wondering what to do next – I took a year out just to figure out what the hell I was going to do. Then someone, I absolutely cannot remember who, which is a shame because this was one of the seminal moments in the new album, but someone said ‘Why don’t you just do what you want to do?’ Which sounds blindingly obvious, but honestly I just hadn’t thought of it!” He laughs again. “I was so busy thinking about one-upping myself on the last album or refining what I’d done or just doing it all again. I was so worried about the whole sophomore album curse that I was kinda paralysed for a while. But once I’d been given that advice, I realised that what I wanted to do was write an album about nostalgia, because nostalgia has become such a strong theme in my life. “With that in mind, it makes sense for the album to be so sonically different from the first one – or it does to me at least. It’s drawing from a whole different set of genres to the first one, genres that I consider to be quite formative in my childhood. Obviously, I’m twisting them in ways that make them a bit more up to date, but what you get at the end of it is essentially an alternative guitar album, which is... different to the debut.” That last part is said with a big dose of understatement, as anyone who’s heard

the album will know. Gone are the highprofile pop and rap features over glossy beats, swapped out for a more carefully curated list of guests, often against a slower, more guitar-driven backdrop. To top it all off, a lot of the singing is done by Alex. “I wanted to change the idea from being about exploring popular music to being about something much more personal,” he explains. “And with that, it made sense for me to take more of a front seat as far as the songwriting and singing goes. That did take away some of the room for features, but it meant I could make sure that all of the guests on the album reflected the concept I was writing about. All of the guests either already write about the things I was

The original recording is just Slowthai ranting and shouting in different voices, assuming all these different characters for like... 20 minutes? And he doesn’t repeat himself once! “Obviously the full version didn’t quite make it on the album,” he continues. “But we’re doing a coffee table book to accompany the release, and the full transcription – done by me – is in there, all that yelling will be available for anyone to read. The version that is on the album I think sums up that feeling of nostalgia versus reality perfectly. Because he does mention gentrification, but the key thing he’s talking about is just change and how we perceive all the different times in our lives. It’s a different flavour of nostalgia to the rest of the album, but it’s just about going home, really. His mates say he’s changed when actually everything’s constantly changing, and that’s definitely something I relate to, even though Guernsey might move at a slower pace.” This sense of nostalgia springing directly from how the world keeps changing is a motif that Alex comes back to throughout the interview, saying: “I guess what it’s really about is whether this nostalgia which permeates everything is a good thing. Whether we should be looking back for hope and comfort, or whether we should be pressing on. It’s a topic that the album doesn’t really come to a conclusion about, but my personal opinion, which is probably injected into the album somewhere, is that nostalgia can be really useful. It’s a way to learn from history, as well as being a safe place away from... these times, which are confusing and pretty miserable, particularly for my generation - without getting too preachy!” “It’s a pretty broad topic, but I got really into this one aspect of it called hauntology, which is from a book by a guy called Mark Fisher. I’m now going to completely butcher the explanation of hauntology, but basically, it’s about 20year cycles and culture being caught up in its own past, and that really informed a lot of the things I was talking about throughout writing the album.” Nostalgia and memory might be big themes for the album and for Alex, but there’s still one particular trip down memory lane he doesn’t want to take. “I don’t google myself, but not because of bad reviews or anything, I just really don’t want to get confronted with a press shot from 6 years ago where I look like a complete nob, and to know that it’s just sitting there forever. I think I’d say that’s the worst part of being a musician, nothing like that ever goes away.” P

"I GUESS WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT IS WHETHER THIS NOSTALGIA WHICH PERMEATES EVERYTHING IS A GOOD THING" trying for, or I knew their voices would lend well to writing about nostalgia and regressiveness, and this feeling of melancholy that comes along with that territory.” These themes show across the whole album, but nowhere more clearly than on the Slowthai-starring ‘Deal Wiv It’, pushed as the lead single and one of the most unique songs on the album. “It definitely sticks out,” Admits Alex. “It’s the most raucous tune on the album, and it’s also probably the only moment on the album which gets close to hip hop, which is a bit of a sticker-outer, if that’s a word [it isn’t, but we get the idea – Ed]. “I think what made gave me the idea for the track was working with Slowthai on Doorman and just chatting to him and hanging out. I got this real sense that he was a guy who loved where he grew up and would have a lot to say about not just his childhood but his experiences in the area. So I asked him, and I was explaining all the influences I was feeling, all these punk records. And I suggested the idea of a track which wasn’t a rap song per se, but more just him yelling this horrible diatribe instead, and we went from there.

Mura Masa’s album ‘R.Y.C (Raw Youth Collage)’ is out now.

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MASA EFFECT

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ROSALIÁ

Making Brixton Academy feel almost too small, she’s already a pop sensation. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Frances Beach.

FEBRUARY 2020

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INTRO

‘FYI’

Ritual Union has confirmed a load of acts for 2020, including Marika Hackman (pictured), Boy Azooga and Squid. Also playing the Bristol event, are Rozi Plain, Willie J Healey, John, Klangstof, Porridge Radio, Talk Show, Pet Shimmers, Peaness, Leif Erikson, Social Contract, Lynks Afrikka, Premium Leisure, Wych Elm, and Be Good. Ritual Union will take place on 28th March. Tickets are on sale now.

Twenty One Pilots have announced a brand new show for this summer in Dublin. The band will perform at the RDS Arena on 25th June, just a few days after their appearances at Hurricane and Southside festivals in Germany (19th-21st June), and somewhat suspiciously right before Glastonbury is held. ‘Hmmmmm’, etc etc.

MUNA LANDING

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Frances Beach.

“I FEEL A BIT SILLY SAYING THIS sometimes,” starts Naomi McPherson before breaking out into a grin. “But I do personally believe we’re the greatest band in the fucking world.” And tonight at London’s Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Muna play like it. From the opening serenity of ‘Grow’ that sees Katie Gavin alone onstage, drifting in and out of the spotlight and singing “I want to let go. I want to grow,” before joining the crowd at the front of the barrier and watching the rest of the band tear into an epic rock and roll explosion, this evening is one of joyful surprise. Earlier on, the brilliant L. Devine kicks things off with a set that grew in assured dance. Sticking to the front of the stage from the opening skip of ‘Peer Pressure’, L. Devine commands intimacy, even in a big ol’ venue like this. There’s the flicker and flash of ‘Like You Like That’, the roaring distortion of ‘Nervous’ and the stripped back strength of ‘Daughter’, “written about my first crush but the world didn’t agree with us being together.” Lighters in the air quickly turn into a strobe-lit dance party as the glinting wonder of ‘Peachy Keen’ and ‘Runnin’’ close out the set with untethered energy. Unapologetic and enjoying every moment, the excitement is deserved and impossible to refuse. Muna’s ‘Save The World’ is an album about self-acceptance, self-love and self-empowerment. Turning inwards, the trio found reason to carry on and tonight, they share those lessons with the room.

‘Number One Fan’ starts the all-out celebration of self, full of ridiculous glee and sparking something in the room, it’s a track that refuses to be ignored and it sets the tone perfectly as Muna, rock stars and best friends, lead the way forward. ‘Stayaway’ glistens with atmospheric reflection and the will to continue before ‘Never’ burns bright, purging the darkness with a scream and a stuttering guitar solo. A rare outing from ‘If U Love Me Now’ deals with anxiety, ““It takes me away from this connection,” explains Katie of her experience with it. “Instead of being connected, I’m thinking ‘you’re going to fuck up and they won’t like you anymore’.” but the crowd rallies around her. “Shall we get back to the bangers,” she suggests as Muna throw everything they’ve got into the closing third of the set. ‘Good News (Ya-Ya song)’, ‘Hands Off ’ and ‘I Know A Place’ all inspire jubilance. The band providing a sanctuary from the world outside but it’s the trembling ‘It’s Going To Be Okay, Baby’ that sees them at their very best. A parade of self-growth and a reminder to believe in yourself, the swelling anthem is vulnerable but honest, unashamed and immovable. It bottles everything that makes Muna special and amplifies it from the rooftops. So iconic, like big, like stan, there’s not a single person leaving the room tonight who doesn’t also believe that Muna are the greatest band in the fucking world right now. There’s also the very real chance that they believe in themselves a little more, which is a gift few bands can offer. P READDORK.COM

AFTER A SUMMER OF BLOCKBUSTER festival appearances, Rosaliá has quickly become one of the most talked about pop stars around. This time last year, she was playing the 1000 capacity Village Underground. Tonight, she’s sold out Brixton Academy and based on the people still after a ticket, she could have comfortably gone bigger still. Her flamenco-inspired dance anthems go hand in hand with sunshine and escape but tonight, she proves she’s more than a holiday romance. From the opening Pienso En Tu Mirá, the show blends arena spectacle with house party chaos. It’s impressive, larger than life but inspires participation as the fierce stamp of ‘A Palé’ and the haunting ‘De Madrugá’ quickly set the pace for the evening, flickering between relentless energy and soaring, soul-bursting emotion. ‘Barefoot In The Park’ sees her at the very edge of the stage, tranquil and lost in the moment while a speech about her love of flamenco and what tonight means to her inspires deafening cheers. It takes just one second of an a capella rendition of ‘Catalina’ to silence the room completely though. Things might have changed quickly for Rosaliá but she’s never lost an ounce of control and tonight, she wields that power with pride. Across the twenty-three tracks, Rosaliá bounces between the hectic and the heartfelt as she redefines what latin-pop can be. The room hangs on every word she says, and moves to every percussive beat. The ‘Cry Me A River’ sampling ‘Bagdad’ shimmies under starlight while ‘Milionària’ is fierce but never stops smiling. The beat-heavy ‘Con Altura’ sees Rosaliá and the dancers onstage snap into synchronicity as the polish of the show shines bright but the rampant reaction of the room couldn’t be more real or from the gut. More than a spectacle, Rosaliá is a new generation of pop star that has to be seen, be heard, to be believed. “This has been the best year of my life,” she beams towards the end of the night and despite all that she’s achieved, all that she’s inspired, you know this is just the start. P

Isle of Wight Festival has announced its 2020 line-up, and it’s.... well... it’s something. A double header of Lionel Ritchie and Lewis Capaldi? Sure. A closing set from Duran Duran? Yeah, why not. Sam Fender, Maisie Peters and, um, Dido? Knock yourself out. Yep, the Isle of Wight 2020 line-up has a bit of everything, if your everything is stocked in Tesco. There’s also headline sets from Snow Patrol and The Chemical Brothers, plus Pete Tong and his Ibiza Classics, Becky Jill, James Arthur, Supergrass, Happy Mondays, Primal Scream, Shed Seven, Example and ‘more’. Tickets for The Isle of Wight Festival 2020 - held between 11th and 14th June 2020 - are on sale now.

INTRO

Three albums deep, and Gengahr - with Bombay Bicycle Club’s Jack Steadman in the production chair are free to let their ideas bloom. Words: Charlotte Croft. Photo: Jay Whitehead.

THREE FULL-LENGTH’S IN AND NORTH

London four-piece Gengahr are no longer sweating the small stuff. “It’s always hard for artists to get over the hump of the second album,” lead vocalist and guitarist Felix Bushe considers. “It’s a liberating feeling getting to your third one.” Back in 2015, the band released their debut, ‘A Dream Outside’, which slotted them into the realm of psych-pop, and with Tame Impala’s ‘Currents’ and Unknown Mortal Orchestra’s ‘MultiLove’ also out that year, they were in good company. Three years later, they returned with their second album, ‘Where Wildness Grows’, which showed more of an indierock edge, but not without the psychpop polish they do so well, showcased effortlessly in tracks such as ‘Before Sunrise’. Now, the band are fully in their stride, and the creative process looks a little different. “We’d been touring a lot over the first two albums,” Felix explains, “and the way the third has been written reflects that. We didn’t spend as much time in the rehearsal room working on ideas collectively - it was a lot more isolated. I was working on ideas on my own and being sent ideas from other members of the band, so it took quite a long time for us to get it from that stage into learning how to play the songs and playing as a band before recording them.” Gengahr also enlisted the help from Bombay Bicycle Club’s Jack Steadman to produce the album, offering up another piece to this new and exciting FEBRUARY 2020

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creative puzzle. “We’ve always self-produced, and although we’ve worked with some very talented producers and engineers, we haven’t really ever worked with someone like Jack who’s also a musician himself - it’s almost like having an extra member of the band. The opinions aren’t just purely sonic, they can be a lot more about the arrangement and have an even more detailed analysis of the song. “It was refreshing, and it did help with the dynamic as well. We spend so much time together that having a new person in the room makes everyone up their game a bit. We all really wanted to put in a shift and make sure that we were being as creatively involved in it as we could be.” It’s no secret that there’s been a rise in DIY recordings over the last few years, with more artists than ever before making material sat at their laptops, plugins all within arms reach. Gengahr have dipped more of their toes into a DIY approach during the recording of ‘Sanctuary’, which shows they’re taking more creative control, choosing a system that works best for them. “The process was very different to what we’ve done before. A lot of the stuff that was on the album came from the original demos that were either recorded at my own house, or [that of] whoever had recorded bits and sent those over. So much of the pre-production was done at Jack’s house after - we took them in and worked on some of the parts and the

INTRO

"IT’S HEALTHY TO REMAIN AMBITIOUS"

‘FYI’

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arrangements.” echos feelings of discontent and Spending less time in the studio wanting to avoid uncertain pressures. allowed them to be freer of time “The demons on your back tonight constraints, too. “You go in [to the have really taken hold / But if you set studio] watching the clock, hoping that trap again, nobody else to call / you’re getting enough done each day Believing things you can’t accept will because you know how much money never set you free / You’re holding up the it’s costing,” Jack reflects, “whereas stars again, weighing down,” Felix sings if you’re just working from home or against a juxtaposed backdrop, with an working from your own laptop, you can indie-pop pep in its step. do things at a very relaxed pace; you can We can find sanctuary in a whole host take your time.” of things - whether that’s going for a The new dynamic also has the added run, or tuning in to your favourite TV bonus of allowing each individual show after a long day. In Gengahr’s case, within the band to really shine through. it was putting pen to paper and bringing “More than ever, our own songwriting these new songs to life, which was personalities come out in the tracks also the outcome of pushing through quite a lot,” Felix agrees. And with some uncertain times together and personality comes the experiences coming out the other side stronger than that make us who we are, with themes before. Felix explains: “We’re always of escapism trickling through the fulllonging to find that sense of satisfaction length, and more personal musings and comfort, and not just in my own from Felix becoming an even bigger personal terms. The band went through source of inspiration. some very turbulent times.” “A lot of the album is centred around The band had previously parted the separation between me and my ways with their manager and stepped wife,” he explains. “We got married last out into the unknown, unsure of where December, but when her visa expired, their next steps would take them. “We she had to leave the country. Trying to didn’t really know where [‘Sanctuary’] sort that out and having a long-distance was going to end up, so there was quite relationship for a a bit of doubt clouding year and a half was around what we were a big driving force doing, but we were emotionally for what confident that we had a the material was good album’s worth of about.” material, had a really good Despite its more time making it with Jack, sentimental themes, and [knew] we’d figure ‘Sanctuary’ still out a way to make it all carries an upbeat happen.” Gengahr groove to Although the band it, tracks such as are feeling more The first line-up announcement for Latitude ‘Heavenly Maybe’ content, they’re far from 2020 has been revealed, offering enough discocomplacent. “We still with Haim, Liam Gallagher flecked sounds and don’t feel like we’re quite and The Chemical Brothers swag to pull shapes to ‘there’. We’re kinda happy topping the bill. at any indie club night. with where we’re at and This year’s edition of the event will also play host “Structurally, Jack excited about what’s to the likes of Charli XCX, enjoyed [‘Heavenly coming. It’s healthy Phoebe Bridgers, Inhaler, Maybe’] a lot,” says to remain ambitious Marika Hackman, Michael Felix. “That sort of and expand on what Kiwanuka, Local Natives, song is right up his we’ve already achieved, Kawala, Girl Ray, The street, and [he] really Futureheads, Joy Crookes but I don’t think we’re and loads more. latches onto the more anywhere close to feeling The news means Liam dancey stuff.” It’s as though we’re done. Gallagher will be headlining something that can There’s so much more we both Latitude and Reading & be heard throughout want to achieve. We’re Leeds this year, while Haim Steadman’s solo get their first slot at the top getting better as a band of a major UK festival, as we album under the and continuing to learn await news on a third album. moniker Mr Jukes, or and listen to those around “Latitude has always been even the likes of ‘Carry us. The more time we get one of our favorite festivals Me’ in Bombay Bicycle to do music, the happier to play,” explain Haim, “now Club’s ‘So Long, See we are so excited to come we are.” P Gengahr’s back and headline” album ‘Sanctuary’ is out You Tomorrow’. Latitude 2020 takes place 31st January. The lyricism in between 16th and 19th June ‘Atlas Please’ also at Henham Park in Suffolk.

INTRO

BANGERS THE BEST NEW TRACKS

‘FYI’ Liam Gallagher is the first headliner to be unveiled for Reading & Leeds 2020. The annual weekender will take place from 28th-30th August, with Liam the very first name unveiled from the bill so far. Tickets are on sale now. Last year’s festival was headlined by Twenty One Pilots and Post Malone (co-headlining), The 1975, and Foo Fighters.

Dua Lipa has revealed the title of her new album, and a whole European tour for 2020. Her second full-length will be called ‘Future Nostalgia’, and is set to arrive later this year. We’ve already heard the two tracks from it - the title track, and bangertastic lead cut ‘Don’t Start Now’.

No Rome

Trust3000 (ft. Dijon) 2020 should - in theory - be the year we fi nally see No Rome arrive with a fulllength record, but with his selection of regularly arriving EPs he’s already proven to be quite the pop polymath. ‘Trust3000’ is the latest smooth as silk bop to arrive from an artist who feels to have his fi nger fi rmly on the zeitgeist’s pulse at all times.

Dua Lipa

Future Nostalgia The best pop stars don’t stick to the expected. As she rolls up to album two in 2020, Dua Lipa is certainly looking

FEBRUARY 2020

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at fi rming up her status in that top tier, and if there’s one thing ‘Future Nostalgia’ does, it’s defy conventional logic. A strutting, sparkling disco gem, it oscillates from spoken word to all-out bop. Is it brilliant? Is it bobbins? If anyone can pull of a pop hit featuring the word “pants”, it’s probably our Dua, right?

Sam Fender

All Is On My Side What a 2019 our Sammy F had, eh, Dear Reader? From BRIT Awards to smash hit albums - and even the odd magazine cover - it’s no wonder he’d want to celebrate. That’s the reasoning behind this, a studio recording of long

Get the latest bangers at readdork.com or follow our Brand New Bangers playlist on Spotify. Check out all these tracks and more on Dork Radio now at readdork.com/ radio

term live ‘fave’ ‘All Is On My Side’. Typically swoonsome faire, it’s proof if needed as to just why Sam Fender is everyone’s favourite radiofriendly lad.

Stormzy has announced a huge UK arena tour for September. He’ll be on the road for much of the year in support of his second album. ‘Heavy Is The Head’ - executively produced entirely by Stormzy himself - features guest vocals from Aitch, Burna Boy, Ed Sheeran, Headie One, H.E.R., Tiana Major9 and YEBBA.

Grimes 4ÆM

With much-anticipated new album ‘Miss Anthropocene’ imminent, we’re approaching the climax of a period of challenge and change for an artist that once felt untouchable. But while personal relationships and controversial tweets may have posed questions, there’s no doubting that - when it comes to the music - Grimes remains a unique and enthralling prospect.

The Killers’ new album ‘Imploding The Mirage’ is coming this spring, and they’ve announced a UK tour to celebrate. The dates will see them perform a number of stadium shows - including the Emirates in London - with support from Blossoms, Sam Fender and Manic Street Preachers.

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DRUG STORE ROMEOS DREAM POP TRIP-HOP TRIO DRUG STORE ROMEOS JUST INKED A RECORD DEAL WITH FICTION RECORDS.

“I’M NOT IN ANYTHING I

want to get out of,” says Stella Kowalski in Tennessee Williams’ infamous play A Streetcar Named Desire. The acceptance of, and succumbing to being in a favourable scenario is something that resonates with Hampshire-based trio Drug Store Romeos, who take their name from the aforementioned play. What would eventually become the mellifluous sound of the future started off as a hardcore punk band called The Imbeciles. Jonny and Charlie – who play drums and guitar respectively – met while in Year 9 at school. After three and a half years playing gigs to “45-year-old punk men and women” the pair decided that they wanted to be more serious about being in a band. Following the conscious effort to listen to bands that were more “relevant to their age group”, Jonny and Charlie quit their punk band, and by not wanting to completely isolate themselves from the world of music, put up an advert on their college Facebook group in search of a bassist. In a wondrous twist of fate, their advert was answered by vocalist Sarah who by her own admission wasn’t even a bassist. “I didn’t actually play bass at that time, but I really wanted to start making music with people, so I just said yeah.” Emphasising how natural their musical connection was, Sarah adds: “I bought a bass and me and Charlie were up until [the] early hours sharing music. FEBRUARY 2020

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Then we met in the IT suite, and the rest is history!” Taking inspiration from the soundscapes of Bowery Electric, Portishead, and Broadcast; Drug Store Romeos coin their distinctly hypnogogic sound as “dream pop trip-hop”. The term is something that the band feel is most reflective of their debut single ‘Now You’re Moving’ – a spectre of fleeting sounds that draw you into a meditative state. What is the reason in creating a new genre to define their sound? Sarah explains that the band have “always been about making something new and not [trying to] conform to a genre. When someone asks what kind of music you are, it’s an impossible thing to answer so having a phrase like that – even though it doesn’t correlate completely to all our music – is to allow something to create its own meaning.” Charlie adds: “I think trip-hop is an underutilised style in music because there are a few trip-hop bands like Portishead and Bowery Electric, but I think there is a massive hole where bands could use that drum style and the [same] kind of atmosphere, but use it [to make] like a three-minute pop version.” He continues, “A lot of our songs aren’t trip-hop really, so maybe it was a bit bold to put trip-hop in the title. We might back step from that.” In a kind of defiance and sticking to the roots of how she joined the band in a ‘fake it ‘til you make it’ kind of attitude, Sarah adds: “It sounds like a genre, so we’ve

WORDS: TYLER DAMARA KELLY. PHOTO: MELANIE HYAMS.

just got to make it.” about taking their time with While there is the debut single. Instead, serendipitous energy that flowing with the mindset of radiates from Drug Store understanding that there are Romeos, there is also a ups and downs with any burst juxtaposing consideration of creativity, but it’s about that follows everything harnessing them at the right they do. Understanding time. “You can get out of that the impact of cause and hole, and it just takes that one effect, and how you cannot little tidy melody line and all undo something once it is of a sudden you’re like ‘Ah! done was instrumental in I’m a creator; I’m an artist; the decision not to release this is my passion’, and then a single for the three years you do two bad melody lines, that they were becoming and you’re like ‘nope, I am well versed in London’s live just a pile of crap’.” circuit. Jonny explains how To those who are hearing their road-testing method of Drug Store Romeos for the would sometimes be to the first time, it would be an easy detriment of newer songs: mistake to assume that they “Whenever we would write a are still in the toddler stages new song that we would really of their musical careers. In like, we would put it in the live actuality, they’ve already had set. It kind of represented our quite the ride. From cutting sound at the time. Life was their teeth at The Five Bells changing, and the sound was in New Cross, to being the morphing quite a lot, and so wedding band for a certain six months down the road we Breaking Bad actor – they’ve would be like ‘okay, we’re a already played a plethora of different band now’.” gigs. But the most interesting “We kind of [understood] of them all? A nursery. the impact of realising that Charlie’s mum invited the you can’t take back your first band into her classroom of thing, your first impression, two-year-old children, so so it took us that they a while to be could perform [at the point a post-punk THE FACTS where] we’re rendition of + From happy for ‘Old McDonald Fleet, UK more than Had a Farm’ + For fans of six months of allowing the Beach House, this version children to Warpaint being our first participate via + Check out impression a microphone ‘Now You’re to the world.” that was Moving’ It comes as hooked up + Social no surprise to a delay @DrugStoreRomeos then, that pedal, and + See them live: none of the try their tiny They support The band members hands at the Big Moon in LDN on 4th March are regretful instruments

afterwards. (Yes, reader, they gave us a snippet of what it was like, and yes, it is just as magnificently bizarre as you’re imagining.) Charlie describes Drug Store Romeos as an “abstract, playful band”. The kind of people that “think it’s important that every day you look outside and think ‘well, I’m alive!’ and then everything you see, you’re kind of appreciative of and excited by.” Given that their supergroup would consist of Alex G on drums, Henry Rollins playing the harp, Skrillex shaking maracas through a distortion pedal, and Beyoncé on bass, it’s safe to say that they have quite the eccentric imaginations. From sucking on pebbles, to plant consciousness, and an apocalypse at the hands of a satsuma-wielding child; there is nothing you can throw at Drug Store Romeos that isn’t met with a side-splittingly insightful reply – because beneath the mysticism and otherworldly demeanour, is just three friends who have concerted plans to make great music, and have a laugh all at the same time. Now that their first single is done and dusted, they definitely won’t be making us wait another three years for a taste of something new. There are plans for an EP, and the trio are keeping their fingers crossed for some headline tour dates. Drug Store Romeos took their time in releasing their synesthetic sound into the ether, but now they’re moving, it’s going to be hard for them to stop… P

"TRIP-HOP IS AN UNDERUTILISED STYLE"

FIRST ON

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Tate McRae

Teen pop prodigy Tate McRae has come up via appearances on TV talent shows (So You Think You Can Dance: The Next Generation, Dance Moms), and YouTube videos with anything up to an almostunfathomable 30 million views (30 MILLION!!). Her take on dark alt-pop is similar to Billie Eilish (who

actually penned her debut single, ‘Tear Myself Apart’), telling stories of fake friends and turbulent loves.

Silverbacks Have we included Silverbacks in First On before? It’s so hard to keep track. If we haven’t, hurray. If we have, well, the Dublin fivesome are getting a second mention

because their wry punk tunes are bloody great. Deal with it.

NOISY Billed as “a three-piece hybrid of hooks, beats and escapism”, impossible-toGoogle Worthing bunch NOISY - singer/rapper Cody, guitarist Connor, and producer Spencer - are going to be one of the ‘must

see’ acts coming up through this year’s festival season. Catch them at taste-maker events like Live At Leeds, The Great Escape, 110 Above and more.

Wargasm As much as we’d really like to dislike an act called Wargasm (!!!), their bratty alt-punk is really fun. READDORK.COM

HYPE NEWS

What’s happening in the world of new music.

Lily Moore is going to play a headline show at London’s Village Underground. The gig follows the release of her recent mixtape ‘More Moore’, which landed late last year, and will take place on 20th May. Tickets are on sale now.

Fletcher has announced a trio of UK shows as part of a ‘wider’ European tour for later this year. The rising pop talent will play dates in Glasgow (26th), Manchester (29th) and London (30th) this March, including a show at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, which is quite big, really.

Nasty Cherry have dropped their debut EP, ‘Season 1’, and booked a string of UK dates. Fresh from their Netflix series I’m With The Band, the foursome will perform in Glasgow (27th February), Manchester (29th), Birmingham (1st March) and London (3rd).

Leeds newcomer Far Caspian has returned with both new single ‘July’, released via Dance to the Radio Records, and news of an April headline tour. “I’ve been listening to more pop music recently, new and old,” he says, “and I definitely have started to aspire to write songs that are a bit more focused on getting to the chorus and the payoff.” He’ll play Bristol (27th), Oxford (28th), London (29th), and Manchester (30th) ahead of this year’s Sound City Festival.

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HYPE! HYPE! HYPE! Photos: Patrick Gunning.

If you read the last issue of Dork - and if not, why not you’ll be familiar with our 2020 Hype List. Packed with the new bands and artists we think may make an impact in the twelve months to come, this year we decided to bring it to life by inviting a couple of our faves to ‘perform’ in a ‘live environment’. Taking to The Social in that there London, Bloxx and Lauran Hibberd proved exactly why we think there’s genuine pop star potential to be found in both of them. You can check out photos from the show right here.

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CLAUD CHARMING OUTSIDER POP ABOUT THE UPS AND DOWNS OF FIGURING OUT LIFE. WORDS: LIAM KONEMANN. PHOTO: LANI PARILLA.

EVERYBODY, MEET CLAUD.

We like Claud. Once upon a time, they made music under the moniker Toast (we like toast, too) but these days their dreamy bedroom pop is coming out under their own name. Which is significant, really, because after a long and somewhat hectic year, Claud is ready to put themselves out there. Their EP ‘Sideline Star’ is a testament to their journey here, with songs about love, friendship and outsiderdom vying for space against a backdrop of transition and shifting identity. The clue here is in the name: that feeling of ‘outsiderdom’, and being left on the margins, is the point around which Sideline Star orbits. It’s also the thing that Claud is actively working to counteract in their music. Already they are crafting an inclusive world around themselves, starting conversations with audiences from the stage and posting their phone number up online in case anybody wants to chat. There is an element of queer community-building going on, Claud acknowledges, but that isn’t the whole story. “I guess the majority of the people who come to my shows are queer,” they say. “[But] I think the biggest thing that I strive towards is [creating] an accepting space no matter who you are. I really like the idea of a group experience, as opposed to you’re going and watching something and then leaving, you know?” They turn this over for a moment longer. “Being queer helps me find a community. But I think everyone deserves the community.” For a while, after a rootless few months where they tried to find their feet in several different cities, the lack of a community really weighed on Claud. After dropping out of university to pursue music full-time, they found themselves adrift in LA, with no real support network to lean on. The sense of isolation came through in their work, with the first few weeks in Los Angeles inspiring ‘Miss You’, a melodic ‘what it says on the tin’ lament on loneliness and longing. FEBRUARY 2020

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“I had just gotten out of a relationship, I was alone in a new city, I didn’t know anyone,” they say. “I didn’t have the capacity to like, tap deeply into my emotions, so I just wanted to say ‘fuck, I really miss you’, and that’s it.” The strange loneliness of being new in town is something of a recurring theme for Claud. When things out West didn’t go according to plan (“I hated LA,” they say) they made like The Wombats and moved to New York. When they arrived, though, they were struck by the same sense of isolation that they had felt in Los Angeles. “I was really lonely because I’ve moved so many times. Every time I move, it’s like I forget how hard it is to move to a new city,” Claud says. “And it just makes me work.” This time, the move inspired ‘Want To’, which draws on a one-sided relationship that they found themselves painfully embroiled in when they first arrived in New York. “I had feelings for this one person, but they lived in this city, and they would only really talk to me when it was convenient for them, and they never really checked in on me or anything. I felt super alone, I guess,” Claud says. As is the case throughout the EP, both ‘Miss You’ and ‘Want To’ show off Claud’s penchant for melodic lightness coupled with emotionally weighty lyrics. “I think I have a hard time tapping into my feelings sometimes, and so when I sit down to write a song, the lyrics often show how I’m really feeling but I keep the melody kind of light,” they explain. “It’s sort of a blessing and a curse.” The combined effect can be charming and heartbreaking at once, especially on songs like ‘Wish You Were Gay’ that speak to an especially vulnerable or painful experience. ‘Wish You Were Gay’ is, in part, a wink to the queer community who - no shade to her - may have felt a bit let down by the Billie Eilish banger of the same name.

Anecdotally, at least, it’s been established that many LGBTQ fans were hoping for a song about the misery of falling in love with a straight person, rather than the plaintive hope that someone who wasn’t attracted to you simply had a different sexual orientation. Never fear, my queer brethren: Claud is here to deliver the banger you deserve. It’s also based on a true story, of course. “I was on my way to a studio session, and I got off the train, and I ran into this girl that I hadn’t seen in a long time. All these feelings that I had sort of rushed back. She was on a date with her boyfriend, and it was like, their like five-year anniversary or something,” says Claud. “I just remembered how it felt the summer earlier, when I just had the biggest crush on her. And I got to the studio, and I started telling the producer that, and I was like, ‘I just really wish she was gay’.” Their producer, as a joke, suggested that they write

"MY WRITING HAS BEEN REALLY FOCUSED ON WHAT IT FEELS LIKE TO BE ON THE OUTSIDE" a song and call it ‘Wish You Were Gay’. “I’m like, ‘yeah, let’s do it!’ And he’s like, I’m joking. Billie Eilish just put out a song called that. It was literally two days after she dropped it,” Claud laughs. After listening to the track, and coming to the same realisation that others were coming to, Claud decided - both for themselves and for the good of the queer community - they had to write a song about this more specific kind of heartbreak. They feel that the two can sit comfortably side by side, neither taking anything away from the other. “I feel like there is room for more than one song with that title. And I felt like it had to be done,” they say. Being in conversation with other artists and making space for people like them has been a

big part of Claud’s life recently. As the EP’s title suggests, they have often felt like they were on the outside looking in. “Especially in high school, growing up, I always felt pushed to the side and never part of anything. I always felt like on the sideline,” they say. “This year my writing process has been really focused on what it feels like to be on the outside of things, and what it feels like to not even feel completely accepted by people you love.” After finishing the EP, though, Claud feels like they are ready to put those themes behind them. “By the time I was done writing [‘Sideline Star’], I was so tired of feeling that way,” they say. “I hope going forward, I allow myself to feel more accepted.” “I think it comes with embracing yourself as much as it does having other people embrace you.” P

THE FACTS + From New York, US + For fans of Shura + Check out ‘Wish You Were Gay’ + Social @claudmp3 + See them live: You can’t at the mo, soz

"THERE WAS A PERIOD WHERE IT WAS TABOO TO BE IN MORE THAN ONE PROJECT, BUT THAT’S NOT THE CASE ANY MORE"

THE WANTS

A SPIN-OFF FROM NY PUNKS BODEGA, THE WANTS ARE GEARING UP FOR THEIR DEBUT FULL-LENGTH. WORDS: JAMIE MACMILLAN.

PLAYING FREE SHOWS IN

slotted into place when bassist Heather joined the band. Playing primarily in their base of New York, the trio began to lean heavily into some classic post-punk sounds as well as a love for performance itself. “I fell in love with Gang Of Four obviously” he begins, “And I’ve always known and loved David Byrne. I saw ‘Stop Making Sense’ [Byrne’s 1984 concert film] so much when I was a kid. I always appreciated that he incorporated elements of theatre into his music. Bands like Gang Of Four, they recognised the artifice and had a real ability to give a message and create a universe with their lyrics and visuals.” Revealing a love of Madchester and trip-hop, it’s clear that with the Wants, Madison has managed with to fuse a very Anglocentric slant on post-punk into elements from his family heritage. “I think that it all started to come together more fully once I went back to Michigan,” he explains. “I am not from Detroit, but my mother lives there. It has a really specific energy, a toughness that comes from a real economic struggle.” Details on any particular ‘concept’ to their upcoming

album are being kept different to London, where if deliberately vague, all you’ve got your vision ready forming part of the theatre and your sound down, you of the release itself. But he can move really quickly. I does reveal a few nuggets. don’t know if that’s the case “When we did the video for so much here.” ‘Fear My Society’, we sought Citing the likes of Black to find these sort of domestic Midi and the sheer wave of mid-western blue-collar hype that swept them to soldspaces. It made me realise out shows with what seemed that thing y’know, when you like a handful of songs to go back home and see how their name as an example of interesting your home was what can happen on this side through the eyes of an adult, of the water, Madison feels all these amazing cultural it is harder to break through things that came from where at the same speed Stateside. I grew up.” And of course, the last few That part of the country, years have brought with them full of families affected another huge factor to slow by devastated industries, things down. When it comes gives the record much of its to Bodega however, he treads impetus and focus. “I think carefully and respectfully. it’s about people trying to “I love Bodega, and my function in an economy role in it. Ben [Hozie, the where you succeed just by frontman] is my best friend surviving and has been really.” for a while. The band But with THE FACTS patiently them, it’s the + From built their first time I’ve New York, US reputation ever been in a + For fans of on the local band and not Talk Show gig circuit, been the front + Check out slowly crafting person. And ‘Fear My Society’ their style and I’ve been in a + Social sound. “You lot of bands” @thewantsband can develop he laughs. + See them live: yourself and The swirling, They tour the UK what you want frenetic from 26th February to do here in guitarist of New York. Bodega is But it’s a little a different

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pub corners and bar basements, building a word-of-mouth reputation as something quite special, The Wants have recently been following in the timehonoured tradition of hype bands across the decades, busily laying the groundwork for their full-blown arrival in 2020. The post-punk trio, consisting of Madison Velding-VanDam, Heather Elle (both also of Bodega) and drummer Jason Gates, have already been pricking up ears with the dark, slinky grooves of ‘Fear My Society’ and the angular rhythms of ‘Clearly A Crisis’. There is a good feeling surrounding Madison as we speak, our chat coming the day after the band’s debut album was finally finished and handed in. Three years in the making, it’s a surprise when he reveals just how long ago The Wants came into being. “Oh yeah, The Wants started at the same time as Bodega. We completed [the record] once before, it had a lot of similar songs, but we ended up refining the skin of them this time around.” Having met Jason back in 2014, he instantly forged a strong relationship with the drummer before the final piece of the puzzle

beast altogether to the captivating frontman of The Wants. “It’s actually helped me to think about the guitar completely separately, to add a texture that isn’t there.” Speaking passionately about the music community that has sprung up around Bodega, it’s clear that this is only the beginning as far as he is concerned. “There was a period where it was taboo to be in more than one project, but that’s not the case any more. You’ve got Crack Cloud and NOV3L, Tame Impala and Pond. We just have a really great pool of people, and I think we’re stronger as a community than we are as a single band.” Talk turns to what 2020 will bring The Wants. A short tour at the start of the year (“It’s too short, I’m very bummed”), and then the album itself. With just two singles so far and a handful of tracks scattered around Youtube, trying to guess what comes next can seem like a futile task. One thing seems clear, and that is ‘Fear My Society’ proving to be an outlier to a much stranger record. “Oh yeah, that one was certainly the most instantaneous, the poppiest. A lot of the record is more experimental, a mashing of electronic sounds,” he warns, although their debut single ‘Ape Trap’ showed that the band can always be relied on to turn these eclectic inspirations into something captivating and heady. “We’re just trying to reflect our live show, be more similar to the electronic stuff that inspires us” he explains, “We learned so much from those shows, you can’t just record an album in the vacuum of your home or rehearsal space. It has to be workshopped.” As anyone lucky enough to have caught them in the flesh can tell, that ambition of sticking to the live experience is a very promising one indeed. Moving down more overtly rhythmic side of post-punk, The Wants are a band that, in a genre that is sometimes a little too earnest and a little too static for its own good, forces change and movement. The Wants could easily become A Need in 2020. P

EVERYTHING ELSE HAS GONE WRONG... FEBRUARY 2020

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Having marked the end of their five-year hiatus with an anniversary trip down memory lane, Bombay Bicycle Club are learning to look forwards. Reintroducing Jack, Jamie, Ed and Suren - determined seekers of positivity in a world of doom. Words: Jenessa Williams. Photos. Sarah Louise Bennett.

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JACK STEADMAN DOESN’T MUCH

enjoy having his photo taken. His bandmates aren’t particular fans either, but for him, it’s a real struggle. There’s the decision of how to pose, how to be, how seriously to play it. “Anything visual basically, anything where you’re being filmed or photographed, is not something you initially sign up for.” His gaze traces the cracks in the floorboards, flickering upwards only to meet his watch, or to catch a bandmate’s eye. Any three of them respond in kind, instinctively willed to make a funny comment that’ll put him at ease. Once the camera is away, and the conversation opened, his shoulders drop. This, he suggests, is a much happier space to inhabit. Joined by guitarist Jamie MacColl, bassist Ed Nash and drummer Suren de Saram, Bombay Bicycle Club emerged in 2009 as one of the more technically proficient offerings of the underage scene. Having played together since the age of 15, they racked up their fair share of festival slots and EPs before their debut album, ‘I Had The Blues But I Shook Them Loose’, solidified them as leaders of a wide-eyed youth movement, tiny pinches of hip-hop and post-punk seasoning their restless guitarwork. Critically, it did okay, but culturally, it meant something more. Incubated in the hearts of bookish teenagers, it laid the groundwork for their slow-burning, metronomic rise to the top of the touring circuit. A rise, which by December 2014, had them standing on stage at a 20,000 capacity Earls Court, knowing that they were about to shut the whole thing down. “I think I got everyone together for a little… chit chat,” Jack admits, a wry smile on his face. “It must have been some time after Earls Court, and I don’t think it came as a surprise – I think I just said that the next album I wanted to make, I wanted to be something different, and not a Bombay project. But that wasn’t the

only reason for going on a break at all – I think everybody needed to get out of the bubble that we’d been living in for our whole lives; our whole adult lives anyway, the formative years. From being teenagers to our midtwenties, the whole time we were being defined as Bombay Bicycle Club. Being a teenager to being in your mid-twenties, we spent being defined by being Bombay Bicycle Club. That’s who we were. I think we were all a bit like, is there something else out in the world?” His bandmates are quick to corroborate the amicable nature

back together making music again, there’s a renewed appreciation for everything. Everyone’s lives stayed pretty intermingled - Jamie and Ed lived together, I was working with Ed, everyone was slightly involved in Jack’s album. All the relationships were definitely still positive. But I think if we’d had gotten straight into recording and then touring another album, I think it would have imploded.” Having diffused the threat of implosion, all four members kept busy. Jack became Mr Jukes for his guest-heavy jazz and hip-hopinspired record ‘God First’, and Ed became Toothless, a manifestation of his own writing experimentations outside of Bombay. Suren played drums for both (amongst other session and touring work), and Jamie went back to school, packing in a three-year degree, Masters and a wedding, at which the band & friends played a supergroup medley of “indie bangers”. All was well and healthy, but for Ed, in particular, an itch had returned - the sort that couldn’t be sated solo. “I guess I can only speak for myself, but in doing my own record, it highlighted all of the things I took for granted being in this band,” he says. “In the two-ish years I was doing that album, I realised that I would be totally up for doing Bombay again. Going from a point where I was totally happy doing my own thing to realising that I would be very excited if there was a chance to do it again… and then that coincided with a ten year anniversary. These things work in different ways for different people, but I think everyone kind of came around at a similar sort of time.” Said ten-year anniversary of ‘I Had The Blues’ lent the band a fairly unique opportunity to test the waters for their return. “It’s odd because when the album came out,

"I HOPED WE HAD A BIT MORE TO OFFER THAN NOSTALGIA, AND I THINK THIS ALBUM PROVES THAT"

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of the break, citing their own exhaustion at the relentlessness of the touring-recording cycle. “The latter half of 2014, I remember going to all these amazing places, but the excitement of touring had just worn off,” Suren admits. “Seeing all these cool things and playing shows just became a bit mundane, which obviously shouldn’t happen. We kind of needed that time away to reset and experience a bit of life outside the band, to be able to look in at it from the outside and realise what a special thing we had. I think now that we’re

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it didn’t do particularly well; I don’t think it even went inside the Top 40, and we certainly never played gigs as big for that album cycle as we did for the anniversary,” says Jamie. “It’s not like revisiting something that is widely considered to be a classic; it felt like a very intimate and special relationship with our fans. We were teenagers singing songs about being teenagers, that was where the connection lay. What was interesting about these gigs is that it also seemed like there were new sets of teenagers discovering it and getting really into it, which was really cool. That was definitely a catalyst for doing a new record - there’s no point coming back and being a heritage reunion act that milks the circuit every five years. I’m the oldest, and I’m only just 30, so yeah, that would be a bit naff. I hoped we had a bit more to offer than nostalgia, and I think this album proves that.” Confusion over younger fan reactions aside (“kids were messaging to say that the new songs ‘slapped’ or were a ‘bop’ - those are good things right?” queries Ed), the hardest hurdle to overcome in the quest for new music was one of confidence. A self-confessed overthinker, Jack’s concern was that in the time away, he might have lost the knack for crafting quality Bombay Bicycle Club songs. “For me, it was writing ‘Eat, Sleep, Wake’ that changed everything,” he recalls. “It wasn’t like we had loads of songs in the bag, but it was just the first song where everyone replied instantly saying it was great. How it works is I send song ideas to everyone, and so I’m just usually sat by my computer, manically refreshing Gmail. You know it’s good when the response comes back really quickly, or sometimes our manager will call rather than email. That’s when you’ll be like, ‘yes, it DOES slap!’” In many ways, ‘Eat, Sleep, Wake’ is, in fact, the outlier of ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’. At large, the record’s subject matter is one that depicts the tension between anxiety and catharsis - recognising that some days are tougher than others, but that there is usually some small moment of joy to be found if you look hard enough. Both lyrically and melodically, ‘Eat, Sleep…’ is something altogether more straightforward - a dreamy look at the allencompassing nature of burgeoning love, a nostalgic return to the energy of their earliest work. “’Eat, Sleep, Wake’ would probably fit on any of our other records, lyrically speaking, and I think maybe it was because of it being one of the first songs to ease me back into writing.” Jack agrees. “As the songwriting progressed over the course of the year, I think I got more confidence to write more about my

own introspection with the world around me, and a bit more personal than just the typical boy-meetsgirl. For me, a lot of the songs I was writing were not necessarily about everyday stress and anxiety, but more of a pervasive feeling that I couldn’t really get my feelings across to people, for my whole life really. And so the music is more like me finally finding the tool to be able to do that properly. It’s not really about lyrics – often people think it’s all about the words that you write, but it’s always just the music matching the emotions that I’m feeling, and then the lyrics are there because we’re in a band and y’know, you need words.” He sits back in his own thoughts, and Jamie chips in, ever the conscientious friend. “I think as well, and I can say this as an observer, it was easier to write about yourself way back on ‘I Had The Blues...’ or Flaws. Whereas as you get older, you maybe want to keep more distance between your personal life and the songs.” Jack nods, and Jamie continues. “That said, to me, it feels like the first one that has lyrics that we wouldn’t have written as teenagers. Whereas the last four, I could kind of place them all within that context of being young, and the concerns of being young. I guess it’s the first album we’ve done, maybe ‘Flaws’ aside, where we’re not trying to hit people over the head with melodies and hooks.” This sense of relaxation is audible in both the record and the way each member speaks of it. One suspects that the opportunity to take stock, leave the room for a couple of years and come back to still find it full is maybe enough to make a band realise that they might have some longevity after all. Having made the decision to work with a producer (2014’s ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ was self-produced by Jack), the ‘Everything Else...’ sessions forced them to get comfortable with shelving the idea of perfection. Teaming up with Jon Congleton (Phoebe Bridgers, Cloud Nothings, Wild Beasts), the new approach was revolutionary - if the first take worked, then it was going on the record. “I think he taught us to not sweat the small stuff, basically,” says Suren. “The last album we had our own studio and all the time in the world, too much time to deliberate over the tiniest little things. We were kind of striving for perfection, whereas with this album it was very much you get a good sound or a good

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take, it might even be the first take, and Jon is like cool, let’s move on. You realise that in recording things 100 times, you can definitely lose the character of what you’re actually trying to capture.” Alongside Congleton’s laidback attitude, Jack also cites his time as Mr Jukes as a pivotal teaching experience of the benefits of letting things go. “I think what I did with that record definitely influenced this one in terms of empty space. I had all these ideas in my head before

doing Mr Jukes and on ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’, they were all just pouring out into this very dense album. I think I got a lot of that out of my system by doing a completely jazz and hip-hop album. Since then, I’ve been able to sit back and relax a bit, strip back some of the songs and just not have as many colourful, eclectic world sounds going on. I think the record sounds better for that. And then the other big thing that has stayed with me is a more relaxed attitude to shows and touring – I

used to be very neurotic and very anxious about playing live, worrying about not only my voice but about everything being perfect. When you go on tour for a while with a ninepiece jazz band, it’s a completely different school of thought, and that really made an impression on me. It was more of this idea of if you relax, you’ll play better, and if you make a mistake, nobody cares. That was a great thing for me to learn - I think I definitely needed that.” This record also provided an

MATES RATES

Never shy of bringing a guest vocalist into their fold, here’s a quick guide to BBC’s moonlighting extra members over the years.

LUCY ROSE

Who? Folky singer-songwriter who started work with Bombay as a result of saying hello to Jack after a show. Proof that you definitely don’t get if you don’t ask, Rose became a long-term touring vocalist for BBC between 2010-2014. What Bombay songs are they on? Loads of it - key tracks across ‘Flaws’ (2010), A ‘Different Kind of Fix’ (2011) and ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ (2014). What else are they up to? Lucy released her fourth studio album in 2019 (a Dork 4 Starrer dontchaknow), and has collaborated with Logic, The Staves and Paul Weller.

RAE MORRIS

Who? Fantastically haired-Blackpool popstar who took up the touring mantle from Lucy Rose in 2014. Bonus fact: Lucy and Rae are now sisters-in-law by marriage - a proper Bombay dazzler! What Bombay songs are they on? Three tracks on 2014’s ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ - Luna, Overdone and the album’s title track. What are they up to now? Having unleashed a more glossy, electronic sound with 2018 ‘Someone Out There’, Morris is currently working on new solo material, as well as writing for Spice Girls legend Mel C.

LIZ LAWRENCE

BILLIE MARTEN

Who? Yorkshire-born Sound of 2016 nominee with a knack for soft, affecting ballads. Introduced to BBC by way of enlisting Suren as her touring drummer, then meeting Jack at a charity concert “Obviously her voice is the first thing that catches your ear, but we just met and instantly hit it off”. What Bombay Songs Are They On? New album closer ‘Racing Stripes’. What are they up to now? Taking a well-earned break after a stint on tour supporting Elbow, and releasing her second record, ‘Feeding Seahorses By Hand’. And…

SHARON VAN ETTEN?

Who? Supercool American singer and Dork fave. Ed spills the beans: “I dunno if we should be naming names… our producer has been working with her and suggested we collaborate, but unfortunately it didn’t work out this time. I’d love to see it happen.” What Bombay Songs Are They On? None as of yet, but here’s hoping… What are they up to now? Basking in the glory of 2019 record ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’ and it’s banger of a lead single, ‘Seventeen’.

of escapism argument, because in some ways it makes it seem like you’re ignorant of the world today, and I’m not crazy about that idea,” ponders Jamie. “But there are four people in the band, and unless it’s a single issue – I think we definitely all agree on things like Climate Change, or Brexit, but when it gets down to party politics, I definitely feel a lot more conflicted about it. I made a documentary about protest music for the BBC, and I left that project thinking that maybe we invest too much in cultural figures to try and explain complicated

feel like people are making more out of what I see as politically tangential music, and expanding it to be something more than it is, and then not being able to meet people’s expectations. What I definitely believe is all artists should be able to express their political views and not be punished by it.” Ed is liable to agree, but has a slightly more positive outlook on where the work of Bombay Bicycle Club might sit in people’s lives, as an extension of the good it’s done within themselves. “The bigger picture is definitely not looking good, at least from where we stand. But within that, even though the album is dealing with anxiety, it’s about finding positivity. I think the record really feels like four people who are more comfortable with themselves, and more settled,” he says. “Obviously with the lyrics, there’s a lot of worry in there, but musically, having watched what we did before, changing so much between records, it feels quite erratic, and this one feels much more organic and relaxed in the way it was recorded, the way it was played…it feels more relaxed to me. While there is a lot of stuff going round, doing the band and making music and having those things to focus on makes me feel very positive at a time where you look around and realise things aren’t going fantastic - there’s a lot that can be built upon if you look in the right places.” His bandmates wander back into the room, and murmur their agreement - never forceful, never fighting over one another to be heard, but knowing exactly when to chip in with support. Everything else may have gone wrong, but this four-piece coalition has never been stronger. Now that’s a club you can put your faith in. P Bombay

"EVEN THOUGH THE ALBUM IS DEALING WITH ANXIETY, IT’S ABOUT FINDING POSITIVITY" political ideas. I’ve read a lot of academia on contemporary politics and international relations, and there are no answers there, let alone asking Ed Sheeran how to solve the Northern Irish border debate. I also think there’s a lot of people jumping on the bandwagon at the moment – if you look at something like the Mercury Prize, there’s solid proof that there are commercial and critical rewards for being party political.. That’s obviously a good thing if you genuinely have something to say, but I sometimes

Bicycle Club’s album ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ is out now.

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Who? Up-and-coming Londoner who’s become a key collaborative part of the new BBC era, touring and co-writing ‘People, People’ with Ed. “It was initially her song, but it just ended up feeling like part of our record. She’s incredibly talented, and a really good friend to all of us.” What Bombay Songs Are They On? ‘People, People’, and various covers from across the last few years of promo with BBC - a particularly banging version of Disclosure’s ‘F For You’ is up on YouTube. What are they up to now? Getting ready to tour the UK and North America with Bombay, plus promoting her own second record, ‘Pity Party’.

introductory opportunity for Ed to flex his newly-honed writing skills. Both ‘Good Day’ and ‘People, People’ on the record are attributed to his pen, slotting seamlessly into the songs that Jack had already been working on. “It wasn’t like I was always harbouring this secret ambition to write in Bombay, but a by-product of doing Toothless was definitely that I came back to the band more confident,” he explains. Ed was also the band’s champion for ‘I Can Hardly Speak’ a demo that had been knocking around since the last album sessions. “Every time the conversation came around to what we would record I’d put that one forward, and everyone would be like nah, but then because Jon works so fast we had time to try it out, and now it’s amongst people’s favourites. Am I smug? Maybe a little bit...” Refreshed, renewed and with the right hint of smug, what awaits is the process of sitting back and finding out what the general public make of their return. The musical landscape has changed a lot in the last few years, and all four men recognise that many of their guitar-led peers have fallen by the wayside, in favour of less traditional rock acts or those who have chosen to put politics at the forefront of their offering. While an album titled ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’ comes heavy with sociopolitical connotation, the band, and particularly Jamie, graduate of International Relations and War Studies, (not to mention nephew of left-leaning singer Kirsty McColl) are keen to stress that it is not their intent to dine out on performative political messaging. If they aren’t wanting to be political, do they instead view themselves as an escape, a place of musical relief? “I don’t… I don’t love the sense

COLOR THEORY Let’s not get all transatlantic about the spelling on

Soccer Mommy’s new album - as she steps up a gear, the follow up to 2018’s ‘Clean’ has its own unique palette. Words: Jenessa Williams. Photos. Sarah Louise Bennett.

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WHEN YOU GET DRESSED IN THE

morning, or choose a background for your Instagram story, chances are the colour you gravitate to says something about your mood. Brights on a good day, black on a crap one – colour can make a big statement to the world about where your head is at. For Sophie Allison, aka Soccer Mommy, embracing light and shade isn’t just about knowing which hoodie to pull on. For her second record, the 22-year-old Nashvillian went all out and doused her brain in a muted rainbow of blue, yellow and grey. What results is ‘Color Theory’ - a ten-track, threesection exploration of all the emotions sent to break us. “The blue section is about sadness and depression, it’s about heartbreak, and it also talks a lot about water, so the imagery matches that mood,” she tells us. “’Yellow’ is way more high strung, talking about physical sickness, but also anxiety and a warning feeling. And then grey is obviously just this void... lacking joy, it’s about death and evil in the world. I think it’s also about all the things that take a piece of your soul - death and grief obviously but also dealing with feelings of wanting your own life to end. It’s really just a personification of all the evil in the world, morally – stuff that trips or seduces you, the more subtle evil that battles with your moral conscious as you try and make it through the world without getting degraded.” If the topics feel heavy, it’s because they are, but this open and confessional approach to songwriting is one that has been a long-time coming for Allison. Having pricked the ears of critics and fans alike with ‘Clean’, her 2018 studio debut hinted at her experiences of mental health but often hid it within traditional love and heartbreak, masking some of the more entrenched issues underneath. This time around,

both her lyrical and musical palettes are much more expansive, benefitting from a longer gestational period in the studio and the support of her bandmates, who were involved in recording from the very off. “I couldn’t have made this record as the first one just because I was in a completely different headspace. When I went to record ‘Clean’ I had never really recorded in a big studio before, so I didn’t know anything besides these ideas I had and give these feelings that I wanted to

darkest of days, Sophie laughs often, never allowing herself to lapse too far into self-pity. Nowhere on the record is the humour of Soccer Mommy better represented than on Royal Screw Up. Channelling the early 00s angst of her hero Avril Lavigne, it’s a veritable listicle of all the things she perceives to be wrong about her, gleefully finger-plucked over a melody that is both menacing and stirring in its brutal selfdeprecation. Backloaded against ‘Bloodstream’ (“There’s someone talking in my forehead/That says I’ll never be enough”) and ‘Circle The Drain’, (“watching TV alone till my body starts aching”), both instant career highlights, surely she recognises that all this dark humour at her own expense feels a little harsh considering the undeniable ‘bop’ status of her work? “I have to start with that before I can start being honest,” she explains. “It’s the way we all are with ourselves - we sit around and make jokes, but there are these fucked up sides of us that are really hard to live with. That song makes jokes, but it’s also revealing all this overly honest stuff about how I am as a person. Not only am I a screw-up, but here are all the reasons; I’m just going to take a minute, to be honest about them and basically warn everyone. It still has that slightly humorous element, but it’s definitely still emotional.” A sense of personal exorcism also comes at the hands of the records seven-minute opus, ‘Yellow Is The Colour Of Her Eyes’. Sitting at the heart of the record, it details the hardships of reconciling with the nature of her mother’s terminal illness and the guilt of missing her when out on the road. “I’ve never had that moment that artists always talk about

"THERE ARE FUCKED UP SIDES OF US THAT ARE REALLY HARD TO LIVE WITH"

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convey – nostalgia, and like, warm summer breeze,” she laughs. “Now I’ve had that experience, I’ve learned a lot about what I want to do with a vocal to make it sound the way I want. All of these [mental health] problems still existed, or at least a lot of them did, but a lot of it wasn’t as pressing for me back then as relationships or loneliness were. On this record, I’m in a happy relationship, so [the lyrics] are more about things I’ve had the space to realise are still fucked up about me. It’s kind of like, oh, yeah, let’s deal with the shit that’s just been piling up around when I wasn’t looking…” Even while talking about the

Theory’ is out 28th February.

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where I write through a song and the thing I’m dealing with is solved,” she admits. “I think ‘Yellow’ is probably the only time where I have had a moment like that, where it helped me work out the distress I was feeling inside. I feel like I don’t usually have that, but the melody and the lyrics came really easy, I just had so many guitar parts and figure out how the arrangement was going to go. Things have definitely been better since I got that out.” In the spirit of striving for better, Sophie is still trying to find ways to cope with the pressures of an increasing audience. Being famous was definitely never part of the plan. Still, talent makes it something of an inevitability, a trade-off for the joy that comes from forging connections with her band and her fans, and for the lessons she has learnt from honing her craft supporting everyone from Vampire Weekend and Paramore to Kacey Musgraves and Wilco. 2020 sees her take on an epic headline tour across the US and Europe, armed only with her band, a copy of farming simulation game Stardew Valley (“nothing bad ever happens out there”) and her preferred the coping mechanisms of holding fistfuls of ice when things all get a bit too much (“as opposed to doing things that are like, unhealthy or harmful to myself or others”). It’s going to be a challenge, but it’s one she knows deep down that she is ready for. “I’m so much happier this time around with both my playing and writing. I feel that this record says so much more about me as a person and speaks more to my skills as a musician,” she says. “My coping mechanism since I was like 12 was to just ignore stuff, or maybe joke about it at most. It’s not always easy, but it’s good to feel like I’ve finally been able to get a bunch of stuff off my chest.” P Soccer Mommy’s album ‘Color

MOON

It’s been a long time coming, but PC Music’s shiniest gem has a debut album on the books. Watch out, Planet Pop! Words: Jenessa Williams. Photos. Sarah Louise Bennett.

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NLIGHT 37

After a barnstorming debut album - and a Mercury nomination to boot - The Big Moon are back for a second round. Theyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re better than ever before. Words: Ali Shutler. Photos. Sarah Louise Bennett.

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“LIFE FELT EASY FOR A LONG

time, and now it feels harder and more complicated,” starts Jules. It’s that uneasy shift that The Big Moon soundtrack with their brilliant second record ‘Walking Like We Do’. A different beast to the dazzling wide-eyed excitement of ‘Love In The 4th Dimension’, album two sees the band step outside the confines of being an indie-guitar gang while they try to make sense of the world. That first Big Moon record “feels far away” for Jules, Soph, Fern and Cee. Recorded in 2016 after a couple of years honing the songs on the road, they refused to do sad songs, “too easy”, instead singing dreamy anthems about falling in love that were grounded in everyday romance. Over the course of that record, they become the gang you wanted to be a part of. Funny, relatable and welcoming, The Big Moon were a party everyone was invited to. Everything they did felt like a celebration. It was all joy, from getting a Mercury Prize nomination to selling out London’s KOKO. So when their comeback track and album opener starts with Jules singing, “I’m so bored of being capable. I need somewhere to be vulnerable,” the light flickered. ‘It’s Easy Then’ is lush, direct but delicate. It’s a full step away from the brash assured swagger that drove ‘Sucker’ or ‘Silent Movie Susie’, but that’s to be expected. With their hearts always on their sleeves, The Big Moon are in tune with the world around them and the past few years haven’t been pleasant for a gang that value kindness, compassion and empathy. As ‘Your Light’ cradles, “So maybe it’s an end ‘cause this don’t feel like a start. But every generation probably thought they were the last.” Yes, a lot has changed since The Big Moon bundled into our lives but fear not, this isn’t us easing you into the idea that they’ve gone

Koko, London. 2017

Second Album Serious. The band have always been the antidote to boring, and some things will never change. “We do get a lot of ‘Oh, The Big Moon? They’re so cute and funny’, which we are,” starts Cee. “We are so adorable. And hilarious. But it’s not from a place where we’re saying, ‘don’t worry about anything, everything is fine’. We know what’s going on. We’re not idiots. We’re very present in this world.” “But we can still enjoy our time together,” grins Soph. And that’s where the magic of ‘Walking Like We Do’ sparks from. The joy isn’t always easy to find, but the hope is undeniable. “Someone said that the first album was more inward-looking and this one is more outwardlooking, which makes perfect sense to me,” offers Jules. “The lyrics definitely make more sense on this album, and that just comes from experience and having a bit more confidence in myself. A lot of the songs on the first album were the first songs I’d ever written. I was just like, ‘this rhymes, that’s fun!’” This time around, though, Jules put a lot more thought and time into them. “Now it’s like, this rhymes and that’s fun, but what does it mean?” “Sometimes when we’re playing, I do wonder why I’m singing about my love life to a thousand people I don’t know,” continues Jules. “I guess they have their own connection with that emotion, but it’s just nice to write songs about other things, you know?” That said, the band are still head over heels with the idea of love on ‘Walking Like We Do’. “Love songs aren’t trivial or any less important than talking about politics or the state of the world,” adds Cee. “Love is really important and falling in love is a nice story to tell and for people to hear and to connect with. It’s just that Jules knows the specific relationship, whereas other people

"SOMETIMES I DO WONDER WHY I’M SINGING ABOUT MY LOVE LIFE TO A THOUSAND PEOPLE I DON’T KNOW" something that had more depth to it,” Jules continues. “Even just sonically, we wanted something that had more to it than just A Rock album. It took a bit of trial and error, but I think we knew how we wanted it to sound.” And the result is eclectic but considerate of space. It’s the sort of album that makes sense of a band. Every moment is important and has been polished to a razorsharp point. “As we went along, we worked out that less really is more and that songs, especially emotional ones, can hit so much harder when they’re not layered and layered. We were just really trying to do new things and trying to find new ways to lift a chorus, rather than just being louder. Even if it feels good in the studio to use all the pedals, all the drums and use everything at once, I don’t want to listen to that on a record. I want to hear everything. We still like, go for it live though,” promises Jules. Anyone who saw them in 2019 will agree, the band still surround themselves in excitable joy. Recorded in Atlanta instead of a bike ride from their homes in London, The Big Moon were “constantly scared we didn’t have enough time to finish it.” “The last album we did so quickly because the songs knew themselves, all we had to do was record them,” explains Cee. “This time around, we had more days in the studio, but we didn’t know the songs as well.” Away from the immediate reaction of a crowd clapping, cheering or singing along, it fell to the band to work

are like ‘awh! That must be nice’ or ‘awh it felt like that for me that time’!” The Big Moon have achieved a lot for a band who weren’t really expecting much more than a good time. “It gets really stressful when it feels like music becomes everything,” explains Cee. “It’s important to take a step back from it and realise, firstly we’re just making music, we’re not curing cancer, and secondly, we’ve actually done quite a lot of cool things already. The fact that we signed a record deal is incredible, let alone the places we’ve gone and the people we’ve met. And now we get to go and do it all again, and I can’t wait, but even if everything stopped tomorrow, I’ve already done it all.” “We’re happy with the place we’ve got to,” grins Soph. But while The Big Moon are humble and thankful, ‘Walking Like We Do’ doesn’t sound like a band treading water or being comfortable with where they are. It’s ambitious and drenched in bold new colours. “You always want to make a better record and do bigger things,” declares Jules. But it didn’t come easy. “There was definitely pressure at first, just trying to write songs again after not writing for a long time and wondering what the fuck they were going to be.” Coming off years of touring, the first songs they wrote sounded similar to those glorious indiebangers that made up the first record, but that wasn’t good enough. “We just wanted to make

out what felt good. “You’re in this studio going, oh god, is that the right decision, should we put the piano in the first chorus and if we don’t, is anyone ever going to care about this song?! How do we give this whole body of work the best chance to be enjoyed and heard.” Jules continues: “There are so many of those minute decisions. It’s intense and a jumble of emotions because you’re working on all the songs at once. Some are nearly finished, and you feel good about them, and some of them don’t even have lyrics, and you’re freaking out.” But the band just had to trust themselves. “You can’t try and write a song but also worry about what everyone else is going to think. It squashes the creative process. You just have to write the songs that you like, or feel right for you.” Even with other people in the room offering opinions, the band stood their ground and refused to follow what had come before. “It’s another level of growing up, which is what a lot of this record has been about,” says Cee. Their producer Ben Ben H. Allen III was amazing and really collaborative, offering suggestions about what songs could grow into or become, “and then suddenly you’re like, what do I like? You have to analyse why you did something in the first place, and it’s a whole thing,” sighs Jules. While other bands would buckle under the pressure or lose themselves in the questioning, ‘Walking Like We Do’ sees The Big Moon amplify their voice. There’s not a single track that doesn’t feel like the gang you fell head over heels for. “When music becomes your job, and it’s part of an industry, it feels like there are ways to do things,” offers Cee. “You can show us algorithms and charts about what’s worked with other bands, but ultimately, music is subjective. It’s an opinion.” And The Big Moon have never felt like other bands. “These aren’t products, these are Jules’ emotions. It’s just about excavating your feelings, trying to crystalise them, and communicating them in a way that feels honest. You have to push all that other stuff away.” “There was definitely a lot of moments where we were recording, where we were like, no, we’re doing it like this because we want to. No, I don’t know why,” continues Jules. And the end result is, “Exactly what we wanted to do. I feel really good about it,” she grins. ‘Walking Like We Do’ is a record “about growing up,” explains Jules, and that’s a confusing time to make sense of. “It’s also about trying to process a change that feels like it’s happened around all of us. Things have just been getting weirder,” she starts, before pausing. “When you’re writing songs, you’re just trying to explain something or trying to understand the way you feel

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"WHEN I LISTEN TO MUSIC, I JUST WANT IT TO TELL ME THAT I’M NOT WEIRD"

about something. You’re trying to boil down a feeling into some words and music, and that’s a language that can be a lot of emotions all at once. “I think it says a lot more than actual language. I mean, I’m finding it hard trying to explain it now because words aren’t as easy. It doesn’t have the same depth, whereas music is all the emotions. It’s happy, and it’s sad at the same time. Music can say so much more than you can just trying to describe things in sentences.” “You can make sense of things and try to make a positive difference. You can take all the shit and squish it down into a diamond and give back, in times like these,” reasons Cee. Overall though, it’s a record about community and finding strength in other people. “When you feel powerless, you can find your power in the people around you and the things you can affect,” agrees Jules. That idea is dialled up to the extreme with ‘Holy Roller’. “I always thought it’d be cool to write a song about starting your own religion. I just felt like everything was so unstable and everyone’s like, ‘What the fuck am I going to do when I get older?’ ‘What’s going on with the world?’ I just feel like if you were religious, you would have this thing that you believed in. Everything would have a reason, so I just thought it’d be cool to write a song about starting religion for people who felt left behind where you could drink red wine mixed with coke ‘cos it’s way better, you know? “I know it’s completely ridiculous. I don’t genuinely want to start a religion. I just found it a good way of describing the state of everything.” Things are so lost, “I’m gonna start a religion ‘cos then we’ll have something to believe in. It’s just a playful way of describing all the shit,” without being too down about it. “I don’t wanna be bleak about everything, I still wanna have fun.” And while Jules definitely doesn’t want to be Jesus - “imagine the pressure?” grins Cee - the song taps into the idea that The Big Moon can offer something to the world right now. “I wasn’t thinking we’re the band that’s going to be the one that everyone believes in,” starts Jules, as Cee offers: “But we can help. It’s not like we’re The Band, but we can one of them.” In their scene, there are no Blur vs Oasis rivalries. There’s no putting other bands down to get ahead. There’s space for everyone’s voice. “If there’s any truth in the idea of music being a space for people to come together and feel solace in, then it is very easy for everyone to find their own little pockets of comfort. We’re not even saying that we have the answers,” she adds with a smirk. But that isn’t going to keep

them quiet. “When I listen to music, I just want it to tell me that I’m not weird,” starts Jules.”I want it to explain how I’m feeling, whether I needed to know I was feeling like that or not. I want it to be the right thing at the right time. I really want these songs to feel truthful, honest and to make some sense of what I’m thinking. I feel like other people will feel the same. There’s a freedom in finding a song that can articulate your feelings in three and a half minutes and maybe you can dance or cry in a corner or whatever that makes you feel like doing.” That uplifting freedom is echoed in the album title, which comes

from the line in ‘A Hundred Ways To Land’: “We don’t know where we’re going, but we’re walking like we do.” “It just feels like it sums up a lot of what we’re talking about on the album about growing up, moving on and just walking forward into this future that doesn’t make any sense at the moment,” offers Jules, before Soph adds: “And being hopeful. It’s about trying to be brave, positive and confident.” “We’re doing it together,” reasons Cee. “We’re not walking into the wind on our own. 2020 looks good. It’s the year of The Big Moon.” And you’re all invited. P The Big Moon’s album ‘Walking Like We Do’ is out now.

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It would be easy to see Blossoms as just another indie band, but that would be selling them short. Never pausing for breath, new album â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Foolish Loving Spacesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; is a revelation. Words: Jamie Muir.

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themselves out from the pack with TOM OGDEN PAUSES. THAT IN their undeniable ode to the best in itself is a rarity, not because of pop music, a handbook of classic any motormouth tendencies or sounds delivered with a swagger an alarmingly fidgety demeanour and charm that pulls in all around - but more because pausing has them. never really been in the DNA of Blossoms. Whether it was the early Best mates that grew up days of kipping in vans outside together in the same town, born venues or near-constant touring in the same hospital, went to the without any label or industry same school - there’s a constant support or blossoming (yep, bond that keeps them moving we know) into a word of mouth towards the next landmark. And sensation, Blossoms have kicked to throw themselves into every on with that next step without idea. “With this album, it was like thinking twice. going back to how we did it in the Yet, in this moment, as Tom thinks about the big stages not only ahead but those they’ve witnessed over the past year, there’s a chance to pause. “I think with this record, we’ll feel, not that we weren’t confident before, but we’re more ready than ever to be in those scenarios,” he states. It’s a line you’d expect to hear from any band as they approach a new album, but Community Festival, London. 2019 none may have the standing to back it up quite like Blossoms. ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ lands as their third album in four years, building on the swinging pop heights that first dazzled on their self-titled debut before cracking into the early days in a lot of ways,” notes stars covered in synths on ‘Cool Tom. “We could spend more time Like You’. Stockport’s favourite putting random ideas on it.” sons aren’t waiting about for Heavily inspired by a newanybody to catch up. found love of Talking Heads, “When we talked about it all, Tom formed the basis of ‘Foolish we weren’t too sure what we Loving Spaces’ in a tried and wanted to do,” elaborates Tom. tested routine (“wake up in “Maybe three smaller albums, the morning, have a cup of tea, we’d written that many songs! It sit down at a guitar or a piano, sounds cliche, but things came and it just starts happening”). together really naturally in “There’s a definite difference terms of the songwriting. From travelling, happening to be in with this record compared to the places and hearing things and first two, but that approach to seeing bands, it just gets you songwriting has stayed the same,” thinking in a different way.” he continues. “It was all-natural. Pulling from times spread None of it was like, ‘oh fuck, I need across a year and a half (even to write a third album, or I need to before the release of ‘Cool Like do this’, it was just taking in what You’), it finds Blossoms embracing was around me. new influences, styles and sounds. “In the back of my mind, I That sentence in itself shouldn’t always know that you have to really be a shock. Since the very challenge yourself as a songwriter. beginning, they’ve separated The moment you become

comfortable, then it’s not right. It can become stale for people.” In a year that has seen Blossoms enter a whole ‘nother league, ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ is their surround-sound statement of intent. Buzzing off the songs Tom was pulling together; the confidence Blossoms now possess fills an album with lush anthems that could sit in any decade from the 70s to now. A modern cocktail of something classic. Take ‘The Keeper’, a gospelsoaked scorcher that practically calls for crowds to get on shoulders with arms in the air. “I remember writing the song at home, and as soon as I had the piano line I knew it was a good song,” recalls Tom. “Once we started building it in the rehearsal room, I knew we needed some gospel backing voices.” To layout their intentions, the band recorded the gospel backing voices and included it on the demo. The piano you hear on the track? Also from the demo. The grand piano in their Parr Street recording studio where Chris Martin wrote The Scientist sounded “too good” to use. The overall result is ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ in a nutshell. Allowing themselves to try every avenue with stunning results at every turn. “Even though it was the last song written for the album and the last song demoed, it became the theme for the album. A nice accident, really.” Lyrically, ‘The Keeper’ is a prime indicator for the entire record too. It’s simple to say that ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ is a positive record, but it’s one done through a Blossoms filter something born out of where Tom now finds himself. “In the past, I’ve always written about relationships,” delves Tom.

"THE MOMENT YOU BECOME COMFORTABLE, IT’S NOT RIGHT"

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“When they’ve not gone the way you wanted them to and been quite melancholy. When you’re in love with someone and things are going great, I’ve always found it harder to translate that into a song without it sounding cringey. Like, ‘There’s A Reason Why (I Never Returned Your Calls’ you can just say because it sounds good and it’s honest, but if you want to say ‘I think you’re great’, that’s a bit of a shit song, right?!?! I’ve thought about it, and it’s hard to explain, but I think I’ve refined the lyrics a bit more to create these love songs.” Whether it’s ‘Oh No’, ‘Romance, Eh’ or ‘Falling For Someone’ - that meld of positive joy with dark lyrics gives a whole new dimension to Blossoms next chapter. And that’s what it is: a fresh new chapter in the story of a band who’ve single-handily become one of the past decade’s true success stories. Creating the sort of music most bands wouldn’t even attempt at pushing for, they’re the craftsmen needed right about now that follow their own path. “It’s not like we’ve gone fucking experimental or anything, we’ve just opened up a new corridor,” cracks Tom. “It still sounds like us, but it doesn’t sound like anything we’ve done before. Like putting a slide guitar on ‘Your Girlfriend’, someone had given us one, so we just started knocking about with it. Those strange sounds you hear on a Talking Heads track, it was like that, so we thought let’s try it.” Tom laughs. “You can’t really do that on your first album! It’s too far, isn’t it? Especially as a band who started the old fashioned way, just us five in a room and then more people get involved - it’s a bit far to be trying stuff like that. But you naturally grow, and I think that’s what we’ve done, we really buzzed off those moments where we could try those sort of things an add in all these sounds. I’m dead happy with the way the record sounds.” Recording once again with The Coral’s James Skelly, ambition rings throughout. The audaciously disco-tised strut and jangles of ‘If You Think This Is Real Life’ setting a standard that never lets up. If ABBA walked into a David Byrne musical on Broadway with a cocktail in hand, you’d get ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’. The idea of welcoming in this new era is something Tom welcomes with relish. “When we go out live, there’s going to be more of us on stage, but I feel like it’s giving us a whole new lease of life. Playing

Manchester Arena for example but with these big songs with big choruses and that gospel element too - I think they’ll marry very nicely. “Even albums like ‘The Joshua Tree’ [U2’s breakthrough classic in the mid-80s] were very influential in the making of this album and the writing on that. That was very ambitious on their behalf back then, and them songs were made for so many people. That’s going to sit really well when we play those arenas.” The step to huge fields and moments is something witnessed first-hand earlier in the year. The small matter of a homecoming stadium show at Stockport County’s Edgeley Park understandably a pivotal moment for a group of mates who still live in

and around the town. Rather than resting on that moment, Tom sees it as a turning point for the level they now find themselves. “The sheer scope of it,” he ponders. “It was like, right. We’re entering this world now, and we don’t want to go back. It was a defining moment in our lives and as a band. It was surreal. “Your ambitions naturally become bigger after something like that. If we never got to that show, and we’d just stayed at The Ritz forever, then we may never have imagined ourselves in those scenarios. It’s hard to explain because we never sat down and went right, this is a huge moment for us, and this is what we’re going to do after this. It all just goes into you as a person and as a band. It drives us on to do bigger nights,

make them even more memorable.” Blossoms are starting a new decade as they mean to go on. There’s already recording and work afoot on their fourth album, promising to sound completely different to the way ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ sounds (“We already know what we’re going to do with it,” opens up Tom). It’s all a sign of a band driven by the crowds and reaction they’ve seen and enthralled by the opportunity to push and bend that into whatever they want. Constantly evolving, growing and learning, they have the tools to become that band whose next step is always eagerly waited on. Aiming squarely at more, but with their feet firmly on the ground too. “We’re very comfortable in our own skin, we’re still very grounded,

and I can only see it staying that way,” lays out Tom. “We still live in Stockport, a lot of us have longterm girlfriends and are very close to our families so we know what this is and we know what we want from it. We take it very seriously, but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. We’ve never been sucked into any sort of bullshit. We’ve never wanted to move down to London or anything, so I think if we were going to get carried away with things it would have already happened to be honest.” Blossoms have their world marked, and an entirely new decade to soundtrack and own. Time to pause? Don’t expect that anytime soon. P Blossoms’ album

‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ is out 31st January.

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INCOMING THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE LATEST NEW RELEASES

Bombay Bicycle Club

Sløtface

Deleter

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surprising record that could just be their best yet. From the warmth of ‘Is It Real’, to the darker guitar riffs and rapid-fire monotone vocals of the title track, there is an urgency and insistence to the album that all-too-few band revivals manage. The results are intoxicating. The perfect summation of Bombay’s own musical journey, the record manages the neat trick of settling happily with one foot in the ‘Flaws’ era without ever losing sight of their bigger guitar moments. And throughout, gorgeous moments reside everywhere. Whether on the poignant ‘Good Day’, or the more

triumphant ‘I Can Hardly Speak’, it is not strictly true to say that it sounds like they have never been away. Instead, it is more that absence has made their sound grow stronger. ‘Eat, Sleep, Wake’ shimmers beautifully, while ‘People People’ basks in the glow of some meaty riffs. With a more contemplative thread running through, there is a sense of a band growing up alongside their own music rather than trying to stay forever young. Wherever you find yourself, this is a record that indeed proves that after all, not quite everything has gone wrong. Jamie

MacMillan

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Holy Fuck

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RETURNING DURING SOME results are a lush, ever-

When We Stay Alive Policia’s third album ‘When We Stay Alive’ is a record imbued with all the intensity and emotional reflection a life changing event can provoke. In early 2018 singer and creative focal Channy Leaneagh suffered an almost fatal fall that left her immobile for months. The subsequent album that emerges after that dark period of uncertainty and pain is one of healing and hope. It’s a lucid and perfectly measured collection of pristine synth pop with just the right amount of discordant edge like on the pulsating opener ‘Driving’, while Leaneagh’s vocals sound strong throughout highlighting someone determined to make up for lost time. There’s a deep meditative quality to the music here like on the glorious yearning ballad ‘Forget Me Now’ and the final three song quiet storm that closes the record. Fully recovered and focused on her art, this is the sound of Policia reasserting themselves as masters of the synth pop craft. Martyn Young

Everything Else Has Gone Wrong

of this generation’s darkest times both socially and politically, Bombay Bicycle Club’s message couldn’t be clearer. The world might be going to shit (if it hasn’t got there already), but solace and hope can always be found somewhere. And with perfect timing this, the fifth album from indie pop’s favourite indie popsters, is just the comfort blanket that’s required. With various solo projects emerging to mixed success over the last few years, the fears were that 2014’s ‘So Long, See You Tomorrow’ marked the final moments for the band. But tomorrow has finally come, and the

Poliça

There’s always been something scrappy about Holy Fuck. Often opting not to rehearse and sometimes quite literally throwing things together, their past four albums have been a hodgepodge of dance music chaos. With their fifth album, ‘Deleter’, It feels like this affably scrappy approach has finely worn out its welcome a little. Things do get off to a great start. Opener ‘Luxe’ rumbles and groans like two plates of metal grinding against each other. Coupled with the almost folksy vocals of Hot Chip’s Alexis Taylor, it creates an interesting juxtaposition that makes ‘Luxe’ feel like some forgotten house classic that’s warped with the years. But after the opening salvo, Holy Fuck slips into a predictable pattern. That isn’t to say it’s a bad record, because what Holy Fuck do, they do with such an enviable precision and passion. But ‘Deleter’ doesn’t really bring anything we haven’t heard already. While no one else is doing it quite like Holy Fuck, it almost feels like this lack of competition has brought a lack of innovation. Chris Taylor

Sorry For The Late Reply

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’Sorry for the Late Reply’ documents Norway punks Sløtface’s past few years, much of it spent touring the world in support of their acclaimed debut ‘Try Not To Freak Out’. ‘Telepathetic’ is sugary sweet grunge-pop, with striking nods to Veruca Salt and other 90s bands whose sole purpose is to soundtrack a high-school rom-com. There are shocks of immigrant power punk too, such as the album’s opener ‘S.U.C.C.E.S.S’ and later on ‘Passport’, which are nothing short of triumphant. Haley Shea has an incredible ability to pen heartbreakingly honest and relatable poetry, the most notable being ‘Stuff ’, a quintessential heartbreak anthem with an irritatingly beautiful back and forth whining riff, capturing the mood of the aftermath of a breakup perfectly. From the personal to the political, Sløtface second full-length is a relevant, relatable and rebellious effort of amped up and fucked up punky guitar pop. Jasleen Dhindsa

Twin Atlantic Power

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Dune Rats

Hurry Up And Wait

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Georgia Seeking Thrills

eeeee While Georgia’s 2015 debut was an experimental exercise in pop, pulling inspirations from every corner and resulting in a glitchy, industrial, electro, talk-singy record (whew), ‘Seeking Thrills’ takes that and injects it with a major dose of fun. Undoubtedly, this album’s brightest spark is ‘About Work The Dancefloor’. With its looping synths, twinkly keyboards and absolute nonsense hook, it’s so infectious, and as joyous as a Carly Jeppo sadbanger. That MIA attitude and delivery from Georgia’s debut is still there on ‘Mellow’ and ‘Ray Guns’, but this time with a shiny PC Music spin. ‘Mellow’, also featuring a verse from Shygirl, is particularly groovy. A little tenderness creeps in on ‘Til I Own It’, a chugging ballad that should certify Georgia a proper pop star. If you weren’t already convinced of Georgia’s versatility, ‘Seeking Thrills’ probably won’t convince you of it either, but only because this record goes way more full ‘cool indie pop’ than eclectic and experimental. She’s still lightyears ahead, just having a lot more fun. On the other hand, if you’re looking for a solid groovy dance record that’s euphoric and melancholic, ‘Seeking Thrills’ is it. Abigail Firth

Vukovi

Fall Better

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Back ck with more hyper rock, and a sharp, sugar-laced tongue, Scottish pop-punkers Vukovi are fighting fit and ready for round two with ‘Fall Better’. Ambition hurtling in the form of instrumental/sample tracks that set a dystopian scene ready to be demolished, their evolution is clear. Digging deep to stand up for the disenfranchised, Vukovi’s neon-coloured bite is fiercer than ever, but there’s something smothering the explosive nature sonically; instead of a visceral feeling that consumes you, it seems compressed, holding their wild-eyed nature back. Thankfully, there’s heart which outweighs anything else. Steven Loftin

Dan Deacon Mystic Familiar

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From its very first moment, ‘Mystic Familiar’ envelops you in its world. It feels like a truly complete Dan Deacon album. His previous ones, even the more conceptual ‘America’, were more disparate. Here, with a thematic through-line of ageing and coping with seismic changes, this maximalist creation is brought into focus. Deacon has always been a playful musician, someone utterly bored with the ordinary. There’s always been this feeling that, if he’s not making someone dance, smile, laugh or find their own world in his music, then he’s failed. ‘Mystic Familiar’ succeeds in doing all of those things, and it feels like a wonderful new evolution for a restless artist. Chris Taylor

Squirrel Flower

I Was Born Swimming

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The first time you listen to ‘I Was Born Swimming’, you might wonder: Did Marika Hackman get a new stage name? This is the effect newcomer Squirrel Flower has on her listeners. Blanketed within the gentle melodies and solemn vocals, lyrics like ‘Slapback’’s “If you slap me/I’ll slap you right back,” and ‘Belly Of The City’’s “I know the darkness just as much as you do” audiably shudder. ‘Eight Hours’, sloshes with warm, bluesy currents, and tender,

fireplace instrumentals coo out of ‘Seasonal Affective Disorder’. With a name like ‘I Was Born Swimming’, it’s hard to ever leave want to the water when it ripples as gorgeously as this record does. Hailey Johnson

La Roux

Supervision

Five years can be an eternity in the pop world, but not an insurmountable time away if you’re someone with as weighty a reputation as La Roux. After all, Elly Jackson has been here before with a similar time lapse

between her self-titled debut and the eventual follow-up, ‘Trouble In Paradise’. Sadly, lightning hasn’t struck for a third time. Leaning once more heavily into her love of MJ and Prince, Elly’s distinctive falsetto ushers in the opening track ‘21st Century’. The problem though, as with comeback single ‘International Woman Of Leisure’, is that it forgets to bring a memorable chorus with it. If ever a record could be damned with faint praise, it’s this one. Everything’s fine, nothing’s especially bad. It all just feels a bit ‘meh’. Disappointingly safe, it may be just enough to get her back in the game for now but not one to keep her in it for long Jamie MacMillan READDORK.COM

It’s been eight years since Dune Rats’ first burst out of whichever party they were presumably born at and showed their music to the wider world. A lot’s happened in that time, but third album ‘Hurry Up and Wait’ firmly proves that the band are just as irreverent and hard-partying as ever. Highlights include ‘Stupid Is As Stupid Does’, featuring K Flay, a track about a relationship gone wrong with an infectious singalong chorus about fucking everything up, and ‘No Plans’, an ode to the frustrations of being in a band. If there’s one addition to the music this time around, it’s a vein of cynicism and a slow realisation that maybe the party does have to stop at some point. Early track’ Rubber Arm’ is a reflection on wasting your life, while ‘Rock Bottom’ does exactly what it says on the tin, with lyrics about your boss being half your age and waiting for a bus when you’re already late. It’s still presented in the same scuzzy Aussie punk style, with surf guitars and catchy hooks, but strip it back to the lyrics, and it all gets a bit... bleak. ‘Hurry Up and Wait’ is still as much fun as throwing a house party on your birthday, but there’s a lingering sense that you’ve ruined your mum’s furniture and the hangover might not be worth the drunken high. The sunglasses are still on, but they’re only there to cover up how very, very tired everyone is. Jake Hawkes

‘POWER’ is a stark move away from Twinny’s earlier work. Drawing from their love of the likes of Depeche Mode, it’s a surprisingly interesting record. ‘Oh! Euphoria!’ is a statement of electronic intent with some seriously sexy synths, single ‘Novocaine’ is an absolute rager, and ‘I Feel It Too’ is slick and catchy, with its guitars working in perfect harmony with some arpeggio synths to great effect. However, while it is a solid album, some songs feel a bit meh such as the two interludes that don’t really serve much purpose other than for Sam and the boys to flex their synthy muscles. Overall, it’s enjoyable, but a little patchy in places. Josh Williams

Supergrass

The Strange Ones 19942008

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Everyone’s second favourite band. That was the legend that surrounded side-burned funsters Supergrass ‘back in the day’. A gang so infectious it was almost impossible to dislike, they didn’t suffer the overexposure of their perhaps more storied peers. Instead, their music held an almost carefree sense of fun and wonder. Now back! Back!! Back!!! for 2020, they’ve packaged that all together in one massive collection. ‘The Strange Ones’ - fittingly named after the refrain of the opening track of their debut full-length - is packed. An extensive and rather swish box set comprises of six albums, four further CDs of live material, a two-CD set of remixes, B-sides and rarities and one more of unreleased demos for good measure, there’s enough to offer something new to even the most slavish of completists. For those less bothered with the extras, there’s also a 26 track two-LP collection, and a 21 track CD offering too. Whatever flavour you pick, however, it’s Supergrass’ winning charm that comes through. More than just that initial breakthrough hit, they’re the defi nition of that band with more familiar friends than fi rst remembered. From the explosive mayhem of ‘Caught By The Fuzz’ to the rampant guitars of ‘Richard III’, via the shifting, reshaping brilliance of ‘Moving’, if a bit of modern history is your bag, you couldn’t do much better than this. Stephen Ackroyd

Blossoms Foolish Loving Spaces

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moment, isn’t it? We could probably do with a little lift, just to tide us over until Springtime. Luckily Blossoms have heard us and decided that maybe 10 glittering indie bangers will do the trick (they were right, in case that wasn’t clear from this intro). ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ takes the jangling, wide-eyed optimism of Blossoms’ best songs and turns the dial up to 11, resulting in one of the most straightforwardly enjoyable albums you’re likely to hear any time

soon. Opener ‘If You Think This Is Real Life’ features a ludicrous chorus straight out of an 80s game show, all harmonies and synth lines, while the verses serve as a reassuring wink to the audience who might be wondering about the bizarre swerve the indie boys are taking. From there, things settle down a bit, with lead single ‘Your Girlfriend’ setting the pace for the album on the whole. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but honestly, it doesn’t need to – Blossoms know what

they’re good at and they pull it off effortlessly here, every song feeling perfectly written for singing along to at the top of your lungs while precariously balanced on your best mate’s shoulders. A slew of gold-plated bangers follows, before fi nal track ‘Like Gravity’ stretches its legs a bit, running to nearly 6 minutes and taking the opportunity to add some sparse, Madchesteresque breakdowns. It’s an unexpected experiment, but it doesn’t stray too far from the rest of the

album and reigns itself in well before it runs to self-indulgence. It’s also just enough of a change in pace to show that this isn’t a band content to rest on their laurels or one in any danger of getting stuck in a rut. Basically what we’re getting at is the fact that ‘Foolish Loving Spaces’ is Bloody Good Fun, and we defy anyone to not dream of festival season when they listen to it. Bucket Hats at the ready, readers, Stockport has done it again. Jake

Hawkes

The Big Moon

Mura Masa R.Y.C.

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Fusing together an almost endless array of influences and genres, ‘R.Y.C’ is the sound of an artist evolving from the beats and sounds of the past. The visceral punk immediacy of ‘Deal Wit It’ (with a show-stealing appearance from slowthai), the technicolour Parisian pop of ‘Live Like We’re Dancing’ (finding Georgia in full flight) and the scuzzy riptide of ‘I Don’t Think I Can Do This Again’ (with added Clairo). They form the basis of an album that shifts and jumps at every opportunity, built around a tight sound that feels like stepping out into the bright daylight after a long night in an underground club. By not playing it safe, Mura Masa has set the bar for the decade ahead. Jamie Muir

Frances Quinlan Likewise

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After seven years in Hop Along, Frances Quinlan is releasing her first solo project, and it combines all the best of human emotion. Each song on ‘Likewise’ is different; exploring a different mindset, telling a different story. Sonically, this manifests in an abundance of beautiful sounds ranging from dreamy folk over electro pop influences to more stripped back, acoustic tracks. What ties them all together are Frances’ instantly striking vocals. Her warm, clear voice softly floats along each track and emphasises her impeccable songwriting. Like a knife, she cuts straight through the bone and targets the heart. With ‘Likewise’, Frances Quinlan has struck gold. Laura Freyaldenhoven

Gengahr Sanctuary

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’Sanctuary’ sees Gengahr explore further afield from their usual mild-yet-sweet dream pop. Though still intricate and intact, the sonic shift to grittier territories is exhilarating - and makes sense when considering the record was inspired by frontman Felix’s mother’s death, and his long-distance relationship with his wife. Though tackling di�icult subject matters, the album feels buoyant and bright. While 2018’s ‘Where Wildness Grows’ was a natural progression from 2015’s ‘A Dream Outside’, ‘Sanctuary’ is a monumental shift in the right direction - it’s a record that’s boldly more expansive and electrifyingly curious. Jasleen Dhindsa

Walking Like We Do

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around here. ‘Walking Like We Do’, the longawaited second album from those lovable scamps The Big Moon, is really proper great. After the huge Mercury-nomming success of ’Love In The 4th Dimension’, what could easily have been an easy retread has instead become something far bolder, a sensational record that sees them confidently matching up to the very best of this, and every other, generation. Kicking off with ‘It’s Easy Then’ and ‘Your Light’, the album opens in

a breezy yet familiar style. But it’s when it moves into brand new territory that things get really interesting. ‘Don’t Think’ for example, deserves a festival headline slot of its own. A banger of celestial proportions, it takes The Big Moon to the dance floor (literally) like never before. Built on a Blondie-esque groove, when Soph’s galaxysmashing riff kicks in it is such a massive wavy arm moment as it transforms and transcends into the bands’ fi nest yet. Elsewhere, new tones and textures sweep across every moment.

Contemplative piano ballads like ’Dog Eat Dog’, a wry look at modern life that still fi nds it rubbish, flow smoothly into the bigger pop songs. ‘Holy Roller’ even seems to deploy a jazz flute (not something we expected in 2020 tbh) to devastating effect while the simple harmonies of ‘’Waves’ make for another album highlight. The band themselves have never sounded better, here or in their various side projects. Meanwhile pulsing through it all, Jools’ writing brings a matter-of-fact emotional power. Whether it is the

poignant ‘Barcelona’, an exploration of time moving on and friends moving away, or the selfexploratory ‘ADHD’, it all feels fresh and truthful. When the band admit late on that “We don’t know where we’re going, but we’re walking like we do”, it is a statement of absolute accuracy. The sound of a group that seem to be loving every second of exploring a wide open future, ‘Walking Like We Do’ is pure joy from start to fi nish. If there’s any justice in this world, they’ll be back on top of the world with this one. Jamie MacMillan

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? ASKING THE USUAL STUFF IS SO BORING

SEA GIRLS

This month it’s Henry Camamile from...

Who was your favourite musician or band when you were 14? It was Bloc Party, I think. Amy Winehouse, The Wombats, Bombay Bicycle Club and The Killers were all big contenders too! A couple of Sinatra songs have always been pretty close to my heart as well...

around. Felt like a legend.

What’s your biggest accomplishment? Everything Sea Girls has managed to achieve so far and the music we have put out.

What is the best present you’ve ever been given? I don’t want to give a boring answer like “my first guitar”. I’ll come back to you on that as it was probably something really heartfelt!

What was the last thing you broke? My jaw! If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose? Popworld on Channel 4. Someone sent me the Best 50 Moments from 2005 with Simon Amstell and Miquita Oliver on YouTube the other day - it’s hilarious.

Have you ever fallen over onstage? I remember falling over in a pub in London once. I pulled myself over with the mic lead I’d stepped on. I had a little roll

FEBRUARY 2020

DORK

What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you? I’ve had a few bad hair cuts... If you could have a superpower

Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jamie Muir, Martyn Young

Scribblers Abigail Firth, Blaise Radley, Charlotte Croft, Chris Taylor, Hailey Johnson, Laura Freyaldenhoven, Liam Konemann, Jake Hawkes, Jamie MacMillan, Jenessa Williams, Jasleen Dhindsa, Josh Williams, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin, Tyler Damara Kelly Snappers Ewan Ogden, Frances Beach, Jay Whitehead, Lani Parilla, Melanie Hyams, Patrick Gunning, Sarah Louise Bennett

Have you got any secret tattoos? I wish I did...

If you won the lottery, what would you spend the cash on? I’d probably get some braces What’s the scariest thing cos my teeth could be better. you’ve ever done? I watched that film from last year But on a more serious note, I’d ‘Hereditary’. I love horror, but for try and do something effective about homelessness. some reason, I couldn’t finish watching that film. I felt so sick. What’s the naughtiest thing you did at school? Do you believe in aliens? Getting drunk before sports Yes. But saying that, I do very lessons. little thinking about them.

Editor Stephen Ackroyd

Events Liam James Ward

What strength Nandos sauce do you order? Medium, because it’s safe. I swear it’s the most e�icient way to eat chicken. You always eat more of it than a roast. Maybe it’s the sauce or the way it’s cooked I just don’t know.

What was the �irst record you bought? It was ‘Hot Fuss’ by The Killers bought on CD. My first vinyl record was by The XX, I think.

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Doodlers Russell Taysom PUBLISHED FROM

WELCOMETOTHEBUNKER.COM

of your choosing, what would it be? Always being happy! Who would you most like to be stuck in a lift with? Bruce Willis and Olivia Coleman. If you were on Mastermind, what would your specialist subject be? Black Sails, that really tacky Pirate version of GoT series on Amazon Prime.

so what does that say? What is your most treasured possession? My health and a pair of shoes I bought last year that I like so much that I don’t actually wear them. Have you ever been to a showbiz party? I don’t think so. None that looked like showbiz parties anyway!

What would you do if you were Prime Minister for the day? Call an election!

Why are you like this? Because I’m not perfect. P

How punk are you out of ten? 5, and that just sounds like the most un-punk number out of 10,

Sea Girls’ new EP ‘Under Exit Lights’ is out 6th March. They tour the UK from 16th April.

UNIT 10, 23 GRANGE ROAD, HASTINGS, TN34 2RL

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Issue 40 February 2020 readdork.com

THE BIG MOON

Back! Back!! Back!!!

are going interstellar with album two.

BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB! BLOSSOMS! SOCCER MOMMY! MURA MASA! GEORGIA! MORE!