Dork, November 2023 (Declan McKenna cover)

DOWN WITH BORING.

ISSUE 82 · NOVEMBER 2023 · READDORK.COM

Declan McKenna

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Issue 82 | November 2023 | readdork.com | Down With Boring

Hiya, Dear Reader.

Here we go. The issue you hold in your hands is the start of something all together new. Like I wrote last month, Dork is delighted to welcome its sister mag Upset to the fold as we combine forces to make The World’s Greatest Music Magazine.

Kicking off this month, we’re introducing more louder sounds to the mix, smashing even greater volumes of nonsense into our pages for your entertainment.

As part of the evolution, we’re delighted to bring one of Upset’s most beloved cover stars to the front of Dork for the first time this month. Poppy is a genuine musical polymath, mixing genre and aesthetic to create a vision that fizzes with excitement.

She heads up a charge including the likes of Wargasm, Code Orange, Creeper, The Menzingers, Knuckle Puck and loads, loads more.

Not that we’re forgetting all our previous Dork faves either. In fact, this month we’re going double bubble. The official Prince of Dork Declan McKenna is back on the cover, as he preps for a new album that yet again shows why he’s UK indie’s most cherished son. He’s joined by the most magnificent pop star on the planet - CMAT - as she drops a second album for which five stars doesn’t really feel enough. A living legend.

Elsewhere, there’s everything from The Vaccines to Lime Garden, Folly Group to Bombay Bicycle Club, Priya Ragu to Girl In Red and tonnes of others. There’s never been an issue of Dork more rammed than this one. It’s a brave new world, Dear Reader. Jump in.

‘Editor’ @stephenackroyd

P.S. EasyGroup? You suck.

readdork.com Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jake Hawkes, Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Scribblers Abigail Firth, Alexander Bradley, Ciaran Picker, Dan Harrison, Emma Quin, Finlay Holden, Jack Press, Kelsey McClure, Minty Slater Mearns, Neive McCarthy, Rebecca Kesteven, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin

Top Ten.

23 23

04 06 07

GIRL IN RED HEMLOCKE SPRINGS SCOWL

Hype.

08 10 10 12 14 15 16 18 18 19 20 22 22

CREEPER L’OBJECTIF MATT MALTESE LIME GARDEN FOLLY GROUP THE VACCINES CHART ATTACK YEULE JOEY MAXWELL WALT DISCO KAMILLE CITIZEN TEENAGE KICKS

Intro.

24 25 26 27

EASY LIFE A DAY IN THE LIFE OF... DIVORCE

DEYAZ PETER XAN KOYO SIPHO.

Features.

28 36 44 50 52 54 56 58

DECLAN MCKENNA CMAT POPPY SUNDARA KARMA BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB CODE ORANGE PRIYA RAGU ††† (CROSSES)

60

WARGASM

62 63 65 68

REVIEWS WILL JOSEPH COOK THE MENZINGERS KNUCKLE PUCK

70 72 74 76 76 77 77

HOME & AWAY DOMINIC FIKE PRIMA QUEEN AESPA 5 SECONDS OF SUMMER MUSE GRACIE ABRAMS

78

STONE

Incoming.

Get Out.

Backpage.

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TOP TEN. THE BEST HAPPENING

STUFF N O W.

As GIRL IN RED hit London at the end of summer, we took the opportunity to pin her down on something we’re very excited about - “the best album ever made,” apparently...

Words: Ali Shutler. Photo: Frances Beach.

→ “This is just the beginning,” said

Girl In Red onstage at London’s All Points East during a goofy, giddy 60-minute set before Haim took to the stage. “I’m finishing the best album ever made,” she added with a confident smirk.

Speaking to Dork backstage a few hours earlier, Marie Ulven is less sure of herself. “Do you know how hard it is to write music,” she asks. “I’m very much in the world of creating my second album right now. It’s getting very close, but it’s also very stressful because I’m worried it’s not good enough.” She’s even writing songs in her dreams, but they’re all terrible. “I’m very excited about the future, though, because I feel like now is when things are really starting for me.”

Girl In Red released her first single, the lo-fi longing of ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’, in 2018, while the ‘Chapter 1’ and ‘Chapter 2’ EPs established her

4. DORK

"IT’S NOT COOL BEING TOO COOL TO HAVE FUN" M A R I E U LV E N

as a breakout bedroom pop superstar.

She switched things up with her wonderfully chaotic debut album ‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’, which explored sexuality, mental health and revenge via boisterous rock’n’roll. She supported Billie Eilish on her mammoth arena tour for second album ‘Happier Than Ever’, and earlier this year, she was part of Taylor Swift’s gigantic Eras tour alongside the likes of Phoebe Bridgers, Paramore and MUNA. “I’d never even been to a stadium

before, so just stepping into those spaces that are so big and so American pop culture, it was just insane. It definitely made me want to reach for those places,” explains Marie, but she’s not writing songs with stadiums specifically in mind. “Maybe the visuals around the new album will be influenced by playing those shows, though, because I just want to do something more. I want to elevate things.”

“Whatever Taylor does, and whatever she’s been through, she carries herself with such grace,” continues Marie, who’s also picked up a new mantra: What Would Taylor Do? “I played All Points East the other day with The Strokes, and I was really sick. Rather than cancel, I knew Taylor would play the show and shut the fuck up, so that’s what I did. It’s the same when I’m feeling insecure.”

Following that run of stadium shows,

.

Girl In Red has also been tearing up a string of European festivals, now genuinely comfortable onstage, with footage of the friendly moshpits going viral on TikTok. “Part of my spiel is, ‘You guys seem like you don’t know each other, so let’s get to know each other’,” says Marie, grinning at the thought of it. “I know it seems cool to have no emotions and be unaffected by everything, but it’s not cool being too cool to have fun.”

Girl In Red has been working on album two since last October, in-between live shows, but after today’s gig in London, there’s just one more in her diary for 2023, freeing her up to tie a bow around the new record. “I have all the songs; I just need to finish some of the lyrics and make it sound good. The vibe is developed Girl In Red,” Marie starts.

Chasing music that feels inspiring, Girl In Red constantly wants to make something new. “The best part of making music is when you get an amazing idea that you get excited by.”

“It’s still a very eclectic record,” she adds. “The first one was all over the place, and some people said that was my weakness, but absolutely not. All those songs had strong identities, and I’m doing the same thing on this record.

Maybe in the future, I’ll calm down and put out a record like ‘Folklore’, but I’m not there yet.”

Lyrically, Girl In Red’s second album is also different to what’s come before.

“The first one was written when I was in a bad place. After I released it, I was completely empty, and I didn’t have anything left to give,” she explains, but eventually, Marie started a new relationship, made a bunch of new friends, and really lived her life for a bit. She found herself asking, “How do I write from this good place?” and saw herself reflected in the journey Billie Eilish went on between ‘When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?’ and ‘Happier Than Ever’.

“So many people are going through a fucking shit time that making music can seem pointless sometimes,” she adds. At a recent show in Paris, Girl In Red started crying onstage when she was reminded about the power a good pop song wields. “People have told me that my music has literally saved their life, but I also think I have no talent a lot of time. I’m still figuring this all out,” she adds, with her songs a reflection of those growing pains. “Music is so important, though. It’s so human.”

“I definitely feel like this new album is a lot more optimistic, but I obviously have some sad love bangers because love is always going to be a part of it; I’ve been on a journey of feeling really shitty and having really low self-esteem, but I’m in my positive era now,” she continues, wanting this record to make others feel better about themselves.

“It’s also about how fragile self-esteem can be,” she adds, still refusing to sugarcoat things. “There are also songs about feeling yourself, feeling good, and just wanting to have a good fucking time, which we should all do more of.” ■

RE: THIS IS WHY? →Paramore’s ‘Re: This Is Why’ is no ordinary remix album. Dropped on 6th October, with only a little warning before hand, it’s an audacious reimagining of their original ‘This is Why’ album, sprinkled with the magic of Dork faves like Wet Leg, Remi Wolf, Bartees Strange, Julien Baker and Romy. This ‘almost’ remix album isn’t just a nostalgic jaunt; it’s a bold stride into fresh musical territories, blending the quintessential Paramore sound with a cornucopia of new sonic flavours​. Each track is a delightful divergence, a blend of the familiar with a dash of the unexpected, showcasing Paramore’s knack for evolution and experimentation​. ‘Re: This Is Why’ isn’t just an album; it’s Paramore’s open invitation to a grand, musical exploration, proving their unyielding creative spark in the contemporary music scene.

CREEPY CRAWLIES

→ Crawlers have announced their much anticipated debut album, ‘The Mess We Seem To Make’.The record is set for release on 16th February via Polydor Records, preceded by new single ‘Would You Come To My Funeral’.

Singer Holly Minto says: “This album debut comes from us honing our craft, being vulnerable with each other, finding our sound and saying exactly what we wanted to. I think that’s a lot of what the Crawlers sound is, being honest with each other about how to get the correct emotions out – trying, failing, and pushing each other to keep playing and writing to the limits.”

COOL THING

→ London-based singer-slashsongwriter Yasmin Hass has announced a debut EP, ‘Worst Of Me’, and dropped a Really Very Good debut single, ‘Cleo’.

It’s the first song released via the soon-to-be-properly-revealed label Cool Online, produced by a new production duo of The 1975‘s bassist Ross MacDonald and Ed Thomas (Jorja Smith, Stormy, Maisie Peters).

The ‘Worst of Me’ EP is the first of three releases they’ll be creating for the label, and is set for release on 28th November.

“This song is about being utterly in love, whilst also wondering, how much freedom do I have left” Yasmin explains.

“It touches on the thrill of the unknown and the sudden urge to break away from what feels comfortable and safe.”

READDORK.COM 5.

IN BLOOM

BIG SIGH Marika Hackman has announced a new album, ‘Big Sigh’. Set for release on 12th January via Chrysalis Records, the news arrives alongside teaser single ‘Hanging’ and details of a headline tour.

“Hanging is reflecting on a difficult past relationship and how you can trap yourself in a situation where you’re unable to grow into the next stage of your life,” she explains. “The line ‘yeah you were a part of me, i’m so relieved it hurts’ is describing how painful it still is to break up even if it’s not right.”

6. DORK

SPRINGS BREAKS Transitioning from a PhD candidate to a rising musical sensation, HEMLOCKE SPRINGS’ fearless exploration of uncharted territories proves that procrastination can lead to greatness. → “I just hope people like it,” says

hemlocke springs about her debut EP, ‘going…going…GONE!’. She’s speaking to Dork less than a week from its release, and the stress is getting to her. “I know it’s too late to change anything on it, and I know I don’t really want to, but… I just keep telling myself it’s all going to be fine,” she laughs. Thankfully, hemlocke springs, aka Isimeme ‘Naomi’ Udu, starts rehearsals for her upcoming headline tour later today, and she’s hoping that will be enough of a distraction to stop her from getting too in her own head. “I am excited to be releasing it, though,” she says. “I should have started by saying that, shouldn’t I?” ‘going…going…GONE!’ is a record driven by excitement, with space for spiralling emotions. The seven tracks bring together urgent, vibrant pop with lashings of chaos as Naomi wears her heart on her sleeve. For this “early version” of the project, she took inspiration from synth-pop stars like Grimes and Marina, while the jagged lyrics see her talking about things she hasn’t experienced yet, like love and heartbreak. “It’s about heading down pathways where I’m not sure what I will encounter or where they’ll lead,” she says, giddily swinging between terror and anticipation. “And that’s where the record stops. There’s no sense of ‘everything will be ok’, but there’s a little bit of hope,” she adds.

Before she was making relatable wonky pop, hemlocke springs studied engineering and had started a Ph.D. in bioinformatics at Ivy League College, Dartmouth. “Music was an escape,” she says. “I could do my homework, but why not make a little ditty instead?” As her workload increased, so did her desire to create. For years, she kept it all to herself though. Naomi’s parents, a middle school teacher and a mechanic, moved to North America from Nigeria before she was born and presented her with a limited range of career choices that included doctor, engineer or lawyer. “I’m sure that’s something anybody with immigrant parents can relate to,” she grins. “I really didn’t see musician as an option, so I never considered sharing the music that I made.”

During COVID, though, Naomi realised she had built up quite the back catalogue of songs, and if she didn’t do something with them, they’d just sit on her computer forever, which felt like a waste. “I just developed this ‘why not’ attitude,” she continues, uploading debut single ‘gimme all ur luv’ one midnight

"I COULD DO MY HOMEWORK, BUT WHY NOT MAKE A LITTLE DITTY INSTEAD?" H E M LO C K E S P R I N G S

in May last year on a whim. “When you’re in a silly, goofy, stressed out, depressed mood, you do a lot of things that you don’t know why you do them,” she says of her ambitions back then. “I didn’t think anything was going to change.”

18 months later, though, and almost everything has changed. The lush, dreamy first single racked up millions of views, while the glitching ‘Girlfriend’ was even bigger.

The result is a bold, colourful collection of songs that capture hemlocke springs’ endearing personality alongside a giddy lust for life. “There’s definitely a childlike euphoria to [the EP],” she grins, providing a posi-pop soundtrack to those feeling uncertain about their own future. “Just don’t listen too closely, ‘cos then you’ll hear what I’m talking about,” she continues, refusing to sugarcoat things.

“I definitely felt horrible when I was making this record,” Naomi admits, asking herself, “How long can I keep this up before people figure out I’m a fraud?” Today, she’s more sure of herself. “I think I did know what I was doing back then, and I know even more now. I’m excited for this record to come out, and I’m really excited about what happens next.”

As well as providing a formal introduction to hemlocke springs, ‘going…going…GONE!’ acts as a foundation for the future. That hard-fought vision for the EP has quickly snowballed into plans for her debut album, with the latter half of the record hinting at what’s to come next with ‘pos’, a jangly anthem of self-acceptance riddled with anxiety, the biggest signpost.

“I feel like I should have come out of making this EP with a deeper understanding of myself, but after everything, I’m still me,” she grins. ■

Words: Ali Shutler. Photo: Angella Choe.

→ Blossoms have dropped a brand new single, Findlay collab ‘To Do List (After The Breakup)’. It’s the first song to be released on the band’s new record label ODD SK – and their first new music since their album ‘Ribbon Around The Bomb’, released in April 2022 – ‘To Do List (After The Breakup)’ was inspired by Rupi Kaur’s poem of the same name.

Singer and lyricist Tom Ogden explains: “We initially kicked the song around as a band in a way that we did when we first started – all in the round together at our rehearsal room. It’s something we’ve not really been able to do for a long time but it felt so natural and euphoric for the five of us! Some of the song’s DNA lies within the local Manchester bands we grew up listening to from our parents’ record collections, bands like New Order and James.

“Lyrically our songs have sometimes been inspired by books and short stories. Last January we came across the poem ‘To Do List (After The Breakup)’ by Rupi Kaur and thought it captured the feeling of heartbreak so accurately and it struck a chord with us (literally!). We thought it was a great concept for a song and reached out to Rupi about using some of her words and she kindly gave us permission to use them. We had always imagined the track as a duet, so we got in touch with singer Findlay who’s work we’ve been fans of for years. She loved the song and was up for getting involved and that really was the final piece of the puzzle for us.”

A ROPE

SCOWL are challenging industry norms and championing a new era of vulnerability in the hardcore scene.

Words: Ali Shutler. Photo: Frances Beach.

record also brings pop, dance and The Killers; it doesn’t get much crazier than psychedelia to Scowl’s crunching sound. that,” grins Mikey Bifolco. It’s a few hours “We wanted people to dance,” bassist after Scowl’s thundering hardcore made Bailey Lupo explains. “The goal is always itself right at home at Reading Festival, to get people moving,” with ‘Psychic with the Californian five-piece adding Dance Routine’ more for people to live out another beautifully chaotic breakout their rock star dreams with a hairbrush in front of their bedroom mirror than slam moment to the growing list.

“When you see someone who’s like, dancing in the pit.

“We all collectively were inspired to ‘I don’t know who the fuck you are, but I like it,’ it means you’re doing something write a record that pushed the boundaries right,” explains guitarist Malachi Greene, as of us as a band, but we also didn’t want drummer Cole Gilbert returns from getting to abandon what had come before, that food. There’s a brief moment where the real meat and potatoes punk rock,” Kat rest of the group threaten to kick him out adds. Sonic Youth, Sheer Terror, Negative for missing a photoshoot for Dork, but they Approach, Elastica and The Breeders all provided inspiration for ‘Psychic Dance let him off with a warning.

Routine’. “I think it’s “We’re obviously really interesting not rock stars, to bring pop into and we’re not the something that’s not biggest band in the typically pop, like world, but my main hardcore punk.” goal going onstage Lyrically, ‘Psychic anywhere is to Dance Routine’ sees create as many new Kat “talking shit on fans as possible,” the way our lives are adds vocalist Kat designed for us right Moss. “Today was now. It sounds a bit probably a lot of cliche to complain people’s first time about society, but seeing us, and that’s what else would a really special you expect from a experience. It’s not hardcore band?” they one to waste.” continue. The EP also Following on K AT M O S S explores their own from two frantic experiences of being EPs in 2019, Scowl on the road a lot. “I’ve dropped their debut album ‘How Flowers Grow’ in 2021 worked in a grocery store, I’ve fronted and quickly found themselves at the a band. There’s this daily performance forefront of an evocative new hardcore that we all participate in, and there are scene alongside Turnstile, Knocked Loose pressures that comes from both.”

Going into their debut, Scowl were free and Code Orange. An arena tour with Limp Bizkit followed in 2022; they played at to do what they wanted because they Coachella earlier this year and were part were still a relatively unknown group. By of Taco Bell’s Feed the Beat Unofficial comparison, ‘Psychic Dance Routine’ had Halftime Show during the Women’s a lot to live up. “There was more intention World Cup, alongside MUNA and Claire behind every choice. We didn’t want to Rosinkranz. Hayley Williams and Deftones get in our own way by overthinking it, but are all fans. As we’ve seen in recent months we were also wondering how it would be with The Last Dinner Party and Picture received. The pressure was on,” admits Parlour, excitement can quickly turn into Kat. There were worries that this evolution would alienate some fans, but Scowl have boorish accusations of industry plants.

“Is it so hard to believe that a woman- only gotten bigger and more adored since led band can be a hardworking and the EP was released in April. “It’s been organic success?” asked Kat during a great to have people accept who we are lengthy statement she shared on Twitter as artists,” she adds.

And the pop, hardcore hybrid of alongside a pointed apology. “I’m so sorry if I’m alienating some of you, your whole ‘Psychic Dance Routine’ is very much a hint of what comes next for Scowl. “We’re fucking culture alienates me!”

Scowl have no interest in following already cooking,” grins Kat. “I want to write the same well-worn paths of what’s come a record that just smokes everything we’ve before. They were already one of the most done before. We’ve grown as musicians, exciting rock bands around, and then they our tastes have changed, and we’ve put a lot of time under our belts touring and shared their ‘Psychic Dance Routine’ EP. Still blisteringly heavy, the five-track discovering ourselves.” ■ → “My punk band is playing a festival with

→ Sleater-Kinney have announced their eleventh studio album, ‘Little Rope’.

Set for release on 19th January via Loma Vista Recordings, the album was recorded at Flora Recording and Playback in Portland, Oregon with producer John Congleton. ‘Little Rope’ deals with grief following the death of Carrie Brownstein‘s mother and stepfather part-way into the album’s creation.

A press release explains: “In the autumn of 2022, Carrie Brownstein received a call from Corin Tucker, who herself had just received a call from the American embassy in Italy. Years earlier, Brownstein listed Tucker as her emergency contact on a passport form, and while she had since changed her phone number, Tucker had not. The embassy staff were desperately trying to reach Brownstein. When they finally did, they told her what happened: While vacationing in Italy, Brownstein’s mother and stepfather had been in a car accident. Both were killed.”

ON

KEEP ON MOVIN’

"I REALLY WANT TO WRITE A RECORD THAT JUST SMOKES EVERYTHING WE’VE DONE B E F O R E "

FEELING GLOOMY

→ iDKHOW has announced a new album, ‘Gloom Division’.

The follow-up to debut ‘Razzmatazz’, Dallon Weekes’ new record will be released on 23rd February via Concord Records.

“Writing has always been an outlet to exorcize your demons or difficult emotions,” Dallon explains, “but with GLOOM DIVISION I made a conscious effort to stop censoring myself when it comes to the subject material, or what I wanted to say.”

READDORK.COM 7.

INTRO. THE BEATING HEART OF POP NONSENSE.

CREEPER‘s latest album ‘Sanguivore’ is a fantastical vampire epic that combines elements of punk, musical theatre, and prog-rock, from a band that matter more than most.

LET THERE BE Words: Ali Shutler. Photo: Andy Ford.

8. DORK

INTRO

→ Creeper’s new record

"THE WORLD NEEDS LESS PEOPLE WHO TAKE THEMSELVES SO SERIOUSLY"

‘Sanguivore’ is a fantastical vampire epic. More The Lost Boys than Twilight, album opener ‘Further Than Forever’ is a sprawling nine-minute track that weaves together urgent WILL GOULD punk, musical theatre and progrock, while lead single ‘Cry To Heaven’ takes Creeper’s scrappy turn creates the real-world magic life into it,” with characters acting rock’n’roll swagger straight to that can be found at a Creeper as “absolute versions of particular stadiums. ‘Teenage Sacrifice’ is show. “There’s a real sense of emotions.” driven by blood and lust, ‘The community that I don’t think you’d ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Ballad Of Spook And Mercy’ is a get from us wearing jeans, plaid Void’’s Roe reflected androgyny sneering murder ballad and ‘More shirts and singing about how and apocalyptic romanticism, Than Death’ brings the thundering, some girl broke my heart. It’s like while the stern, violent Mercy that violent narrative to a hopeful end.

Comic-Con or The Rocky Horror sits at the centre of ‘Sanguivore’ is It’s all very Creeper.

Picture Show; people want to about ruthlessness, empathy and “We’ve flirted with a lot of this dress up and be a part of what lost humanity. Still, the narrative on previous albums, but we’ve we’re creating, knowing they’re came second to writing songs that really thrown ourselves into it this surrounded by people who have felt amazing. time around,” says vocalist Will similar interests and politics. It “I always tell people that Gould. “I guess it’s the ultimate wouldn’t work any other way.

Creeper is a pantomime, but Creeper record.”

Under the makeup, there’s there’s a sincerity just below the 2020’s ‘Sex, Death & The always a lot of heart to Creeper’s surface,” says Will. “I’ve seen Infinite Void’ explored extrafantastical tales. ‘Eternity, In Your other bands preach how sincere terrestrial romance, while 2017’s Arms’ provided a soundtrack they are, but that often feels like ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’ was a to community strength, and a simulation of an emotion rather paranormal, punk-rock opera.

‘Sex, Death & The Infinite than something real.”

So that’s aliens, ghosts and now Void’ explored isolation, loss Next year is the ten-year vampires – isn’t there any part of and belonging. ‘Sanguivore’ is anniversary of Creeper’s selfCreeper that’s tempted to try their about friendships, romantic titled debut EP, too. “I’m sure hand at being what others would relationships and reincarnation. we’ll do something,” says Will, consider a serious rock band?

“It’s about having the chance of a but conversations have only No, is Will’s immediate answer. new life,” says Will. “It’s breathing just started taking place about “We’re just not very serious people,” fresh life into something that’s possible birthday celebrations. he continues, surrounded by year- been troubled for a while.”

“A bigger occasion will be the round Halloween decorations and They’d always planned for the anniversary of ‘Eternity, In Your fresh from changing his name to third album to be vampire-themed, Arms’ because that always felt William Von Ghould for this album but that story of life after death like the culmination of that first campaign. “I think the world needs happened to reflect Creeper’s chapter,” he adds. “All I know is less people who take themselves own. At the start of making their that we never threw any of our so seriously anyway,” he adds. last record, guitarist Ian Miles stage props away.”

When Creeper started in 2014, was committed to a psychiatric Despite all this talk of feeling their mission statement was to hospital after he suffered a comfortable and reborn, Creeper “put the thrills and feathers” back psychotic episode, with song aren’t getting complacent about into their corner of the DIY punk ideas traded from his hospital bed. the future. “Since the beginning, world. Over the years, the band Meanwhile, the rest of the band Creeper has felt very temporary,” have comfortably broken out of were struggling with how to bring says Will, who’s hinted at the end that underground scene, but their a new level of ambition to Creeper of the band multiple times. “It’s ethos remains the same. “What after the runaway success of lasted a lot longer than I thought it we bring to the table is something ‘Eternity’. At times, it looked like would,” he continues. “We planned larger than life, something that the staged, David Bowie-inspired the records out, but there have isn’t normal,” he says, which in break-up onstage at London’s been moments where it felt like KOKO might stick. everything was imploding, and it By comparison, ‘Sanguivore’ could still collapse under its own wasn’t born out of complete weight,” he adds, aware there’s not agony. Songs came quickly, the really a blueprint for Creeper to band were laser-focused, and all follow. The joys of being oddities. the ambitious leaps forward felt “That keeps it exciting, though. comfortable. Creeper worked on Creeper feels special because 12 tracks in total, and ten have there’s the potential that it could made the finished album. The still end at any point. It’s made only reason the Leonard Cohensignificant by its vulnerability.” inspired ‘Phantom Fantasia’ and Will still hasn’t worked out best of the rock, punk and heavier Hello, Dear Reader. Whether you’re not the end for Upset. Far from it.

Joy Division-esque ‘Love And exactly why Creeper resonated From here on in, Upset is a part music we cover. Under that banner, a regular with Dork, Upset or both, Pain’ didn’t make the cut was vinyl with people in the way that it we’ll be publishing regular digital of Dork. it’s a time of big changes. Exciting space. “We didn’t want to price has, chalking it up to a mix of Further broadening the editorial cover features and a dedicated ones, too. people out,” says Will, who still timing, luck and perseverance. “I associated playlist. Alongside this For seven years now, the shared offering of Dork, Upset will be a wants both tracks to be released think people needed fantasy,” he flagship content, there’ll be more editorial team behind both Dork and visible and vibrant voice under in the near future. “It’s funny how continues. “We had this vision interviews, reviews and news its new umbrella. We believe that Upset have been putting together the last album was so bright in its stories focusing on key Upset acts, of making music that was a modern music isn’t confined by two magazines every month. genre boundaries, and so a modern both in print and online. We’re also aesthetic but came out of such a Founded in 2015, Upset has bit sillier. It really captured music magazine shouldn’t be either. gradually transferring Upset’s back spent eight years delivering the dark time for us, while this violent, people’s imaginations, which has catalogue of features, interviews Dork has evolved into a title that best in heavy music via it’s small gloomy record came from such a been such a rewarding thing.” and more into the Dork archive, celebrates exciting artists from but perfectly formed print edition. happy place.”

‘Sanguivore’ is designed to build letting new readers skip back and across a wide, diverse spectrum Over that time it has welcomed “There’s a real warmth to this on what Creeper have always learn where it all began. of styles and sounds. By fully the likes of Bring Me The Horizon, album,” he continues before been trying to construct.

By making this move, we can integrating the best of Upset into Slipknot, blink-182, Deftones, describing songwriting as a “It’s a very romantic, sexy the Dork brand, we aim to enhance spend more time doing what we Smashing Pumpkins, Biffy Clyro, “compulsion” rather than a method record,” he continues. “It’s got do best – shout about the music that coverage, and bring more Yungblud, Linkin Park, Fall Out of shared catharsis. “I was doing a big heart, and I want it to help great music to the biggest audience that we love, and introduce you Boy, PVRIS, Waterparks, Panic! At this long before it was my job, create a safe place where people to a wider range of artists, in an The Disco and loads, loads more to possible. and if people stopped coming can be who they are. There’s environment where music discovery That’s why you’ll now find a its cover. tomorrow, I wouldn’t stop doing it,” something in this tragic vampire is more vibrant and limitless than dedicated Upset section within For now, that monthly print he explains. “I prefer writing about love story that feels jubilant and ever before.

Dork’s website, highlighting the edition is going on hiatus – but it’s other things and then putting my victorious.” ■

GET UPSET

READDORK.COM 9.

INTRO

ITSA

SIN

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Ethan Porter.

Leeds newcomers L’OBJECTIF have dropped their first new single in a year, ‘ITSA’ and it’s well worth the wait.

to ourselves all the time.”

"WE’RE TRYING authentic So, where does ‘ITSA’ fit into L’Objectif’s philosophical dive into moral dilemmas yet-to-be-announced plans? Kane TO EXPAND future, wrapped in a catchy, feel-good melody. assures us that it’s a neat addition to It’s a significant leap for a band that spent upcoming body of work. “It’s another AND BECOME their their A-Level summers releasing their attempt to showcase the ideas and second EP, ‘We Aren’t Getting Out But we have, but in a more thorough MORE AUTHENTIC concepts Tonight We Might’, an acclaimed body of and concise way,” he says. And what about work that earned them both respect and surprises? Kane teases, “The last track on TO OURSELVES" the a slew of new fans. The band’s frontman, project. It’s my favourite thing we’ve Saul Kane, delves into the inspiration we’re trying to expand and become more

→ L’objectif are back on the music scene with their new single ‘ITSA’, a

behind ‘ITSA’ and offers a sneak peek into what’s coming next for this ambitious quartet.

Casual as he might seem - he’s just been walking the dog - Kane exudes a cool confidence earned from a year of unprecedented experiences. “It’s been decent,” he says of 2023 so far. “I’d say the biggest moment was playing All Points East and Reading & Leeds in one weekend, which was pretty great. We also had a little trip to play in Switzerland, which I think was one of the coolest things we have done as a band.”

While their latest release might seem like a sudden drop, the evolution of ‘ITSA’ has been a thoughtful process. “It’s about moral dilemmas and free will,” Kane explains, adding that the song emerged during a practice session. “I just had the chords, and the chorus came about out of nowhere, so lyrically, I just followed the idea of ‘sin’.”

This understated simplicity is part of its

EARTH

SA U L K A N E

allure. “We wanted this song to feel like a very direct statement as musically it isn’t too complex,” he explains. “It’s all about its delivery and character. Lyrically, it’s about our moral conscience, but also, I think I realised you can just say, ‘Yeah, come on, come on’ for an entire chorus if it works, rather than overcomplicating everything.

We shot the video around Leeds as well as in our local pub, which felt fitting as most of the lyrics were written on drunken walks home from there…”

After a year’s hiatus from releasing new music, the anticipation surrounding ‘ITSA’ is palpable, both within the band and among their fans. “We were desperate for it to come out, so it feels great to have it out in the world and to see what happens to it,” Kane shares. But that’s not all. “We never stop trying to make something new and exciting; there are lots of files knocking around of ideas and demos, and

MATT MALTESE reckons with anxiety on his new single, ‘The Earth Is A Very Small Dot’. His advice? Go for a long, long walk.

done to date.”

When asked about the band’s first full-length album, Kane’s ambition comes through. “I always thought when we do make an album, it has to be far beyond anything we’ve done before, so that is a challenge we’ll have to take on,” he asserts.

Having just performed a sold-out homecoming show at Leeds’ Oporto, the band’s journey seems to be coming full circle. Yet, for Kane and his mates, it’s just the beginning. “I think we were pretty excited about all the music we have been making for a while,” he concludes, “but we just weren’t sure when it would all come out. Hope it’s worth the wait.”

From tackling the moral maze to mastering the art of audience engagement, L’Objectif seem poised for greater heights.

A band that started with schoolboy dreams and hometown gigs is now charting a path to the upper reaches of indie’s top table.

If ‘ITSA’ is any indication, they’re well on their way. ■

SONG Words: Sam Taylor.

→ Matt Maltese is a man with his fingers in many musical pies. This year has not only seen him release an album of his own (‘Driving Just To Drive’) but launch a new record label, Last Recordings On Earth, in association with Communion Records.

Plus, he’s just dropped a new standalone single, ‘The Earth Is A Very Small Dot’. A song about dealing with anxiety and trying to get perspective (“the world is a small speck and we’re even smaller specks on it”), it’s no wonder he’s got some thoughts on the subject when he’s so many projects on the go.

Hi Matt! You’ve been busy since your last album - you launched a record label, right? How did that come about?

I was approached by Communion Records, and it sounded like the perfect time for it with a label that already have established sublabels with artists. It all came to life, and it still is a little bit crazy to be running a record label, but still the utmost privilege and, in a way, so much of what I never dreamed could happen. It means a lot to me.

You’ve also just dropped your own single, ‘The Earth Is A Very Small Dot’, about

10. DORK

worrying and getting perspective - what sort of things do you worry about?

I guess what everyone else does. Money, family, relationships, friendships, the world.

I think that we’re in a bit of a perma-crisis state as a planet, and that is just a lot to wrap your head around continuously.

Do you have any tips or tricks for overcoming anxiety?

Yeah, there are very boring things which I do to temper worry and anxiety in my life.

It’s so boring, but exercising, going for a run or even just a long, long walk. Getting time in the morning is quite a big thing for me.

Waking up earlier than you’re meant to and just getting some time that’s yours, and you can choose what you do with it.

Thinking about yourself less is a really good way of being less anxious because we haven’t got here by thinking just about ourselves. I think the really good parts of this planet have been made by people thinking about others - that’s a path to a lot more fulfilment in your life.

Is there anything else we should know?

There might be something unexpected next year… (That’s very ominous, but it’s not ominous. It’s nice.) ■

'FYI' THE

NEWS

FLYING

HIGH

→ Griff has announced a new release, ‘vert1go vol.1’. The project will drop on 20th October, featuring latest single ‘Vertigo’ as well as two more brand new songs. She’ll also play three sold-out shows later this month, in London, Berlin and Paris. “‘Vertigo’ refers to an emotional state – always feeling upside down,” she says of her recent drop.

“Experiencing love and growing up, it always feels like the world and my emotions are spinning faster than I can keep up with. ‘Vertigo’ is the beginning of a new creative chapter for me, and I’m excited for us all to go on this journey together.”

GOD

READS

→ AURORA has announced a new book, The Gods We Can Touch.

Set for release on 16th November, a press release explains: “Named after her most recent album, this book opens the door into AURORA’s mind and the artistic process that shaped the UK Top 10 Album charting record.” AURORA says: “This is a little book I wrote, trying to figure out the soul of my album.” Alongside the book, AURORA is also releasing a special edition vinyl version of her record ‘The Gods We Can Touch’.

plus special guests

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ONE MORE THING...

INTRO

Words: Rebecca Kesteven. Photo: Jono White.

LIME GARDEN invite us to see through “the eyes of Lime” as they talk us through the process of creating the soundtrack to their formative years. → “It’s crazy because it feels like we’ve all been talking about this for so long - ever

since we’ve been a band,” says Leila Deeley, lead guitarist of Lime Garden. The band have just announced their debut album ‘One More Thing’, out early next year, as well as releasing a wonderful new tune called ‘Love Song’. A mixture of nervousness and excitement can be felt as Leila, drummer Annabell Whittle, and bassist Tippi Morgan explain how they navigated the intimidating task of writing their first full-length record and how their debut will offer a thrilling insight into life through, as Leila calls it, “the eyes of Lime.”

The four-piece, hailing from Brighton, have had a whirlwind of successes since their pre-lockdown beginnings.

Their fun, witty edge, combined with their thoughtful and introspective songwriting, makes them stand out from the

12. DORK

"IT ALWAYS FELT LIKE AN IMPOSSIBLE TASK, BUT NOW WE’VE DONE IT!" ANNABELL WHITTLE

rest. Having released single ‘Nepotism (baby)’ back in July, as well as enjoying a summer of numerous festival appearances including Glastonbury and, most recently, End Of The Road, the announcement of their debut album feels like a long-awaited and exciting piece of news. “It’s overwhelming because you’ve got the pressure of thinking, ‘This is our debut album - don’t fuck it up!’” explains Annabel.

But under pressure is how the band works best - coming up with ideas for some of the songs as little as two weeks before heading into the studio.

“It always felt like an

impossible task, but now we’ve done it!” says Annabel excitedly.

It’s perhaps unsurprising that the idea of creating an album was a daunting one for the band, especially since they haven’t even released an EP before - just stand-alone singles. “There are so many people who are involved with everything to do with it, so there’s pressure from all areas not to let it crumble,” Tippi explains. “I definitely didn’t think it would be this much work,” laughs Annabel. “I thought the hardest part would be the writing of the songs, but there’s so much stuff you have to think about.”

Indeed, from the artwork to

limited edition versions to the order of the songs - even the tiniest of details have to be thought through and worked out. “And you have to listen to the whole thing front to back, and then think, ‘Oh shit, maybe we should switch these two around!’ or, ‘What should this side [of the vinyl] end on?’” laughs Tippi. But despite the stresses, the band look back on the chaos of it all with a real fondness - it was a chance for them to live in their own creative bubble, away from the outside world. Leila remembers, “We just entered this little capsule thing, and now we have an album! It felt like we were in our own world - just going to the studio and back, on repeat every day. Afterwards, normal life was really odd.”

Since their inception, the band’s range of influences as well as their tendency to steer clear of any sort of generic boundaries has meant that releases up to this point have been excitingly unpredictable - from the energetic, synth-led dancefloor filler ‘Marbles’ to the darker, more guitar-heavy ‘Clockwork’. The common vein that runs through all their releases so far has been their indie, ‘wonky’ sound, which has come into being by pulling inspiration from genres ranging from indie to disco to 80s ballads to country music and beyond.

You can certainly hear this mixture in the new single ‘Love Song’ - which incorporates lots of different elements, including synths, distorted guitars, and dance-worthy drum beats.

Destined to become a Lime Garden classic, the rest of the tracks on ‘One More Thing’ will be just as sonically diverse. Tippi explains, “You can definitely hear that there are lots of really different influences,” and Annabel agrees - adding that the album is “a mishmash, and unpredictable. I mean, there’s one song on it that was written like four years ago that we’ve completely changed!”

Aside from their sound, perhaps one of the most defining features of Lime Garden as a band is their observational and sometimes existential songwriting - which makes for songs that are relatable and, in a way, often quite nostalgic. “We often say our sound is sort of bittersweet,” Leila says. “You can hear all the excited growing pains, and the conflict between that, on the album - which is quite fun.”

Annabel sums up what’s to come with ‘One More Thing’ nicely. “It’s not a concept album; it’s just life.” ■ Lime Garden’s debut album ‘One More Thing’ is out 16th February.

COO!

COO!

IT’S PETE,

THE GOSSIP PIGEON!

Alright, me old muckers? I’m Pete, the Gossip Pigeon, your new go-to for all the juicy tales ‘n’ rumours in the music world. Nobody notices your humble feathered friend hanging around those industry haunts, overhearing all the secrets of the great and the good. Once a month, right here in Dork, I’ll give you the lowdown you’re itchin’ for.

No fluff, just the good stuff. Now, where are me seeds?

Ah, listen to this, you eager beavers!

Got a guy, right, from a band you all know, plannin’ to do something new.

Can’t spill too much, or it’d be like tellin’ you the night is black. But mark me words, it’s all true, man! Oh, and get this - a couple of his mates are also up to somethin’ new. Two scoops for the price of one, eh? Could be a right game-changer, that.

Ha, you won’t believe this one! That lad Declan McKenna, right? Guess what he’s into now - paddle boardin’.

Yeah, you heard me, Paddle boardin’.

Of course he bloody is, ‘cause why not, eh?

Ah, get a load of this! That Thomas Headon fella’s gone and changed his barnet—bleached it, no less! But let me tell ya, it’s that sad excuse for a ‘stache he’s sportin’ that’s got me chucklin’. Bless ‘im, tryin’ to show the world he’s all grown up. Sweet, innit?

Oi, listen up, festival-goers! Got a juicy tidbit for ya. One of them big festivals is plannin’ to shake things up next year—goin’ back to its roots, it is. About time, if you ask me. Been missin’ that grand ol’ tent they used to have. Sometimes, the classics are classics for a reason, ain’t they? Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got some seeds to find. A pigeon’s gotta eat. ■

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T I C K E T S

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TWO FOR THE PRICE OF ONE → Manic Street Preachers and Suede have announced a co-headline tour for summer 2024.The dates kick off at Llangollen in Wales on 28th June, and culminates at London’s Alexandra Palace Park on 18th July.

Suede’s Brett Anderson says: “I can’t think of a band I’d rather share a stage with than the Manic Street Preachers. They have long been an inspiration to us, and I know there are thousands of Suede fans who feel the same. It’s nearly 30 years since we last played together and I think these shows are going to be something really special.”

PEACE

Words: Ciaran Picker. Photo: Matt Ritson.

INTRO

GET

OUT

→ Peace have announced a new vinyl release. The band – now a duo of Harrison and Sam Koisser – did a low-key fan-only release of their fourth album ‘Utopia’ earlier this year, and now have a wider vinyl release planned for 3rd November.

FOLLY GROUP have found their sound with their just-announced debut album ‘Down There!’

→ After 2022’s ‘Human and Kind’ EP, Folly Group went quiet.

THE OF

SOUND SILVER

→ King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard have announced a new album.

‘The Silver Cord’ will be released on 27th October via KGLW in two versions; one condensed, and one extended.

“The first version’s really condensed, trimming all the fat,” explains Stu Mackenzie.

“And on the second version, that first song, ‘Theia’, is 20 minutes long. It’s the ‘everything’ version – those seven songs you’ve already heard on the first version, but with a whole lot of other shit we record while making it. It’s for the Gizz-heads.”

14. DORK

DOWN!

Almost too quiet. “We basically did about a month’s worth of intense work, but only on Wednesday nights and weekends for about fifteen months,” co-vocalist/ drummer Sean admits with a tired grin. The product of this gruelling schedule, with each of the Folly Group boys having full-time jobs alongside the band, ultimately became their debut album, ‘Down There!’.

Intention is key to what Folly Group create. Their first EP, ‘Awake and Hungry’, spoke to the DIY roots of this “classic lockdown band”, being forced to “get good at being isolated” by cobbling songs together during the Covid-19 pandemic. For co-vocalist/guitarist Louis, “there was definitely the aim to get the album to sound a bit closer to [‘Awake and Hungry’]”, seeking to amalgamate the alchemy that went into their debut release

"WE’VE MANAGED TO MAKE ONE OF THE MOST PARANOID THINGS IN THE WORLD" SEAN HARPER

with the more polished studio production of ‘Human and Kind’.

“The way we recorded definitely fits a lot of the themes we’re approaching. We were tired, it was dark, and we’ve managed to make one of the most paranoid things in the world,” Sean giggles.

Louis agrees: “Basically, we feel like we’re under pressure all the time, living in a city in the dying days of this Tory government that’s probably going to be taken over by the worst Labour government ever. There really is no hope, and we channelled that by sneaking around at 11pm to hit a chair with a stick.”

Sean describes ‘Down There!’

as a “fundamentally very honest album”, with lead single ‘Strange Neighbour’ exploring the painful prospect of navigating London’s rental market as a twentysomething, while new release ‘Big Ground’ pokes fun at the anxiety-induced desire to sink underground and stop existing.

Sean’s penchant for metaphor complements Louis’ emotional transparency to create an album perfectly balanced between mystery and humanity.

All members being involved in the writing process ensures that nothing is overworked. “Once you accept that nothing is sacred, it makes it so much easier. You

avoid block, so writing slows, but it never stops.” Folly Group used their two EPs as a way to hone their skills but sometimes misfired when it came to finding and sticking with a sound throughout a project. In recording their debut album, it was crucial for them to create a landscape where all the songs could exist as siblings.

“We’re definitely more refined,” Sean levels, “[‘Down There!’] flirts with various genres, sometimes within the same song, but I feel like it unifies all the different areas with one blanket mood and atmosphere.” Bassist Tom nods, “They sound like they come from the same home.”

The collective ownership that defines their writing process bleeds over into their live shows, too. The boys reveal that one song on the album, ‘Bright Night’, was re-recorded multiple times after playing it live. “You can feel when a bit isn’t right, so it’s like, ‘Ok, why is this verse a bit dead?

How can we fix it?’” This is where having four talented musicians in a band comes into its own. Tom sums it up perfectly: “It’s like buying four lottery tickets for the price of one.”

Their recent support slot for Geese has given them the chance to play new tracks at iconic British venues, such as Glasgow’s King Tuts and London’s Lafayette, perfect practice for their biggest show to date at Scala on 21st March. The venue holds a lot of sentiment for the band as Louis, in an accidental but sparkling bit of self-belief, shares that “Scala was always where the exciting bands did their second album tours, or where the good ones do their first one…”

By making a record within which the band hold so much pride, they have already achieved all they set out to. “We’re way too anxious to tempt fate,” Sean laughs, “we never assigned anything we’ve made ‘work of art’ status; all we know is that we’ve made something we believe in. That’s the best we can ever hope for.”

Tom’s final remarks echo that sentiment, “if it connects with people in any way, then I’m happy… and we want to knock Taylor Swift off her perch!” In many ways, this is both band and album summed up in one phrase. The album is a story of real life told by people actually living it, encompassing all that isolation and alienation in today’s Britain, but still being able to come together and find light in the darkness. ■ Folly Group’s debut album ‘Down There!’ is out 12th January.

TICKLED GET

A

INTRO

THE VACCINES are back! Back!! BACK!!! After a whirlwind journey through pop experimentation, their sixth LP, ‘Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations’, delves into themes of disillusionment and heartbreak, reminding us to keep dreaming.

HOBBY THIS MONTH...

BETHANY COSENTINO What does Bethany do with her spare time?

I’m a big pop culture person, and I love reality television. I often joke that I could have a Ph.D. and go to a conference where someone would say Bethany speak to us about the thing you’re most knowledgeable on and unfortunately the answer to that question is reality television. I’m a big Bravo fan so I watch all The Real Housewives and Vanderpump Rules is a big one. We just had a big Super Bowl in the Vanderpump Rules world. I stick to Bravo. I’ve tried watching Love Island, but it’s too much. There are way too many episodes. Everyone that I know is like, you’ll love it, and I sit and look at how many episodes there are, and I’m one of those people who’s not just going to watch one season.

If you tell me to watch something and get engaged, whether it’s a show or an artist or album, I’m not just going to test out one thing.

BIG ENERGY

ROOM

→ Torres – aka New York artist Mackenzie Scott — has announced her new album. ‘What an enormous room’ will be released on 26th January via Merge, and it’s teased by lead single ‘Collect’.

“This song is about justice being served,” she says. “The rage song I’ve been trying to write for years!”

OLIVIA HAS A

DEAN NEW EP

→ Olivia Dean has shared a new EP. The ‘Ladies Room’ EP is based around her track of the same name from her recently-released debut album ‘Messy’, which will also see her tour the UK early next year. Olivia shares” “I can’t wait to fill these rooms with love and warmth and dancing feet. It’s gonna be very special and I can’t wait to sing with you all.”

→ It’s been a rollercoaster few years for indie-rock veterans

The Vaccines. Although they’ve now been releasing music for over a decade, their postpandemic re-emergence was truly the start of a new chapter.

With the release of ‘Headphones Baby’, a revitalising, genrehopping approach was adopted and with it the ability to summon some seriously catchy choruses.

Following their fifth LP, ‘Back In Love City’, the group quickly came back with another sizzling pop record, the ‘Planet Of The Youth’ EP, which was fuelled by spur-of-the-moment excitement and rapid decision-making.

Although it seemed like a new trajectory was taking flight, detailed conversations were taking place behind the scenes with the band members reassessing their musical DNA once again – this is certainly not the first time The Vaccines have had to carefully consider

"WE’VE GOT OUT OF THE ROCKET SHIP AND BACK ON THE ROAD" J U S T I N H AY WA R D -YO U N G

their options, as frontman Justin Hayward-Young explains. “I think every time you make something, there’s always an inevitable creative post-mortem where you look back in order to move forward. Sort of like constantly evaluating and re-evaluating what you’ve done before, trying to refine what you’re doing. Every time you do something, you learn something, but of course, every time you do something, you also want to do something new.”

That fresh feeling had come and gone with the bubbly pop sheen of their recent efforts, and The Vaccines were on the lookout for another way to come

PINK

Words: Finlay Holden. Photo: Wrenne Evans.

at things. “It felt like ‘Planet Of The Youth’ was a really good way of wrapping up that sound and that era,” he shares, but the next steps were not as clearcut. “I was really lost; I didn’t really know where we were going.

We’ve got out of the rocket ship and back on the road, but we just didn’t know which route we wanted to take.”

Then a serious challenge arose when lead guitarist Freddie Cowan left the band three weeks before they were supposed to regroup in LA. “I don’t think any of us knew what that would look like and feel like creatively,” Justin admits, “but actually… he

didn’t want to be there, and we all did.” It’s not the first time The Vaccines have had a line-up reshuffle, but while at once sad and challenging, the three remaining core members were able to maintain their excitement, with touring member Timothy Lanham now stepping into the foreground.

“Ultimately, being in a band is the best job in the world,” he continues. “If you stop feeling that that’s the case, you shouldn’t be there. We were all as thrilled to be in LA recording songs as we were about just hanging out, getting out, and getting to make music every day.”

Far from the Mexican desert that birthed their last album, working in the Hollywood Hills was, “even 12 years into our career, still an inherently exciting thing to be doing. If you’re waking up every morning and happy and excited to be there, and you’re feeling creative, relaxed, empowered and brave enough to try things… I think it leads to a more free-sounding record. This album is largely about loss, but it also feels quite optimistic. That’s where The Vaccines are at their best: euphoria mixed with melancholy.”

The euphoria we’ve already covered, then, but melancholy?

Well, it turns out living in the city of your dreams isn’t always as you’d expect, and this sense of disillusionment spawned the overarching themes of this LP, as a title referencing Don McLean’s ‘American Pie’ can aptly surmise.

“It was a lot less specific than that overall, though,” Justin counters. “’Pick-up Full of Pink Carnations’ is a line that came to me and immediately felt super familiar, but I didn’t know where it came from. It took me a few months to realise that I’d just misremembered a lyric, which was funny to me because that song has always been about the death of innocence substituted by the American dream, but it felt a bit like a dream itself.”

“Living, writing and recording in LA, a place we’d all grown up intoxicated by, forced me to confront the fact that however much we may dream or run away, we can’t escape our reality. From the very start, we’re told that we can have it all, but actually there are many things you can’t have, and some things we can have only to then lose. In accepting all of that, I think the record actually becomes quite positive.

It’s a reminder that we may have things, we may lose things, but you gotta keep dreaming.” ■ The Vaccines’ album ‘Pick-Up Full of Pink Carnations’ is out 12th January.

READDORK.COM 15.

INTRO

THIS MONTH...

ICONA POP

I LOVE IT (FEAT. CHARLI XCX) THE

LYRICS

→ “I got this feeling on a summer day when you were gone”

The girls are so done with a relationship and they’re ready to throw everything away and just go out and have fun. “I Love It’ is bratty, brilliant and unashamedly nihilistic. → “I crashed my car into a bridge, I watched, I let it burn”

What makes a number 1? That’s what we’re exploring on our podcast Chart Attack, where we jump in our big pop time machine and revisit number ones from the turn of the millennium onwards.

THE

INFO

→ ‘I Love It’ was first released as a digital download in Sweden in May 2012. The song is written by Charli XCX, Patrick Berger and Style Of Eye. It is taken from Icona Pop’s self-titled debut album and finally reached number one in the UK singles chart on 6th July 2013 replacing ‘Blurred Lines’ by Robin Thicke featuring T.I and Pharrell.

According to Official Charts Company data it is certified 2x platinum in the UK with sales of over 1.2 million.

FASHION CORNER with flowerovlove

In fact they are so done with this relationship they are going to engage in active destruction. Please don’t crash your car into a bridge though, dear readers. Pop nonsense is important but so is road safety. → “You’re from the ‘70s but I’m a ‘90s bitch”

We all know Charli is a ‘90s queen and this is perhaps the first incidence of her expressing her love on record, a theme that she would come back to regularly especially 7 years later on her hit banger ‘1999’ with Troye Sivan. → “I don’t care! I Love It!”

‘Nuff said. An iconic anthem for the ages

DID

1

Icona Pop are Swedish duo Caroline Hjelt and Aino Jawo. Charl XCX is Charli fucking XCX. The song was originally written by Charli as she was writing tracks for what would become her debut album ‘True Romance’ in 2011.

2

Charli herself didn’t really think it was much cop. She told genius.com years later that she ‘actually really thought it was the worst song ever’. It was written in 20 minutes in a hotel room but Patrik Berger heard something he liked in it and passed it to Icona Pop and the rest was history.

3

The girls felt they related to the lyrics about binning off an older man. They thought Charli’s original was a bit too cute so they enlisted Style of Eye (who later went on to be one half of dance duo Galantis) to turbocharge it and give it that punky attitude.

A ‘fuck it’ feeling as the girls would say.

16. DORK

KNOW? react has gone on to become one of the great pop memes of modern times. ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Indeed.

5

Icona Pop are back!

Back! BACK! this actual year with a new album called ‘Club Roman tech’ and it’s well worth a listen. Charli has of course gone on to become one of our greatest pop stars and visionaries and is currently getting ready to follow up last year’s number one album ‘Crash’. She says her next project is going to be an electronic/ experimental record and ‘closest album to pop 2 in its ethos’.

She’s already teasing another new banger of a single called ‘In The City’. The Charli train never stops.

SUBSCRIBE TO CHART ATTACK AND LISTEN TO THIS EPISODE. JUST SEARCH ‘CHART ATTACK’ ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY OR WHEREVER YOU GET YOUR PODCASTS, OR SCAN THE QR CODE BELOW.

4

The song is fucking big in Germany. Or at least Charli thought so. You all know the clip. Charli performing ‘I Love It’ to a sleepy crowd at a German festival and imploring them to

THE POP TIME “I like clothes, which I think is really obvious. At the moment I love skirts and little cardigans. I love platform shoes too.

Specifically heels but like an open or squared toe. I like Bella Hadid’s style too.

I would never go higher than 4 inches.”

YOU

BIG CULTURE MACHINE

→ Elsewhere in 2013 there was good stuff all over the place. 2013 is right up there with the best years in modern music. Debuts from The 1975! Chvrches! Bastille! ‘Royals’ by Lorde!!! ‘Night Time, My Time’ by Sky Ferreira (please come back soon Sky). Mega albums by Beyoncé and Arctic Monkeys with ‘AM’ and loads more besides. Talking about Arctic Monkeys they had just headlined Glastonbury for the second time a few weeks before Icona Pop hit number 1.

Also, in the world of sport Andy Murray finally won Wimbledon and took his place as the King of Scotland. He can share that with Calvin Harris.

HAND HABITS MON 16 OCT OMEARA DESIRE MAREA TUE 17 OCT HOXTON HALL BONNY DOON TUE 24 OCTSOLD OUT THE LEXINGTON MANSUR BROWN SAT 28 OCT UT OLD O LAFAYETTES COUCOU CHLOE MON 30 OCT VILLAGE UNDERGROUND BLONDSHELL WED 1 NOV UT OLD O LAFAYETTES

EGYPTIAN BLUE THU 9 NOV 100 CLUB THE DARE TUE 14 NOV CORSICA WED 15 NOV THE SOCIAL DEVENDRA BANHART WED 15 NOV TROXY FRANCIS OF DELIRIUM WED 15 NOV THE LEXINGTON LIP CRITIC THU 16 NOV THE WAITING ROOM

ART SCHOOL GIRLFRIEND THU 2 NOV OUT SOLD ICA

LOUIS CARNELL THU 16 NOV THE OLD CHURCH STOKE NEWINGTON

GIRL AND GIRL FRI 3 NOV SEBRIGHT ARMS

SODA BLONDE WED 22 NOVSOLD OUT THE LEXINGTON

LUCRECIA DALT TU 7 NOV STUDIO 9294

BC CAMPLIGHT THU 23 NOV O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE

DELILAH HOLLIDAY THU 9 NOV HACKNEY SOCIAL DOG RACE THU 9 NOV THE WAITING ROOM

MOIN WED 29 NOVSOLD OUT STUDIO 9294 YVES TUMOR WED 29 NOV O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN

GEORGIA THU 30 NOV THE COLOUR FACTORY GILLA BAND MON 4 DEC FABRIC YEULE MON 11 DEC OUTERNET LAURA MISCH TU 12 DEC HACKNEY EARTH RAHILL TUE 12 DEC THE LOWER THIRD LANKUM WED 13 DECSOLD OUT ROUNDHOUSE JOCKSTRAP WED 13 DEC OUT SOLD THU 14 DEC BARBICAN THE BIG MOON MON 18 DECSOLD OUT UNION CHAPEL AN EXCLUSIVE EVENING WITH

JOSE GONZALEZ THU 25 JAN EARTH A. SAVAGE WED 14 FEB THE GARAGE

GLASSER FRI 16 FEB ST PANCRAS OLD CHURCH

PARALLELLINESPROMOTIONS.COM

TO THE LIVE THAT FANTASY MAX

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Ryan Deag.

Words: Ali Shutler. Photo: Neil Krug.

South London’s JOEY MAXWELL is not just striking chords but starting conversations, delving into the human psyche through authentic, relatable narratives that hit home.

Dive into the mesmerising world of YEULE‘s ‘Softscars,’ where raw emotion meets modern angst in a captivating blend of cyber-twee and dreamy grunge.

→ Alt-popster Joey Maxwell is following up his debut mixtape with a new EP, ‘dont know how to feel about this’. It’s a record that sees him branching out on his own and digging deep to offer up his own distinct take on vulnerabilities like self-doubt and anxiety.

Hi Joey! Your new songs all have a bit of a different vibe to your earlier material - what prompted the evolution?

I think I’m honouring my influences a lot more now. I grew up listening to Midwest emo, 90s grunge, postpunk and generally heavier music than what I was making before.

Returning to a DIY setup with no label or anything, making the music I truly want to make has probably prompted it all. It definitely feels more comfortable.

Tell us about your new EP; how long have you been working on it?

What does it mean to you?

The new EP is called ‘dont know how to feel about this’. I went with that title because I actually don’t know how to feel about any of this! I have no idea what is going to happen, who, if anyone, is going to care, but I’m okay with it. I made these songs for me. I wasn’t thinking about being an artist or had a pre-conception of how it might perform. I really just want to be as deliberate as possible now. Writing and releasing music in a journalistic way is cathartic for me, pulling together this EP helped me to enjoy being creative again.

What’s the most unexpected place or situation where inspiration for a song on your EP struck?

Nothing too mental, but I am that person voice noting melodies on trains. I hum constantly, and when I’m next to a busy road, I sing the lyrics really loudly. There’s a dual carriageway next to my house; it’s a great place to see how the lyrics sound when you scream them.

If your EP was the soundtrack to a movie, what genre would the movie be, and who would star in it?

Anything with aliens in it would be cool, or serial killers. Or serial killer aliens. ■

18. DORK

→ Yeule has spent the last few years blurring the line

between fizzing alt-pop and digital character play. For 2022’s ‘Glitch Princess’, they became a “cyborg entity” to wrestle with technology and identity over lush synths, while 2019’s debut ‘Serotonin II’ was ethereal but cut with a haunting menace, the perfect soundtrack to doomsday at the hands of AI overlords or billionaire tech bros.

Their music has been called avant-garde post-human cyberpop, they studied cybernetic theory at uni, and their love of fashion and make-believe has earned Yeule a reputation for being mysterious. It’s one they shrug off. “I’ve always just been myself,” Nat Cmeil explains, with Yeule a canvas rather than a shield.

It’s hard to be mysterious when they give so much of themselves away in song anyway. Third album ‘softscars’

"I’M NOT DIP MY SOMETHING

AFRAID TO TOES INTO DIFFERENT"

YEULE

sees Yeule continue to twist raw emotion around modern angst but with a focus on live instruments, it feels even more honest, more human than anything that’s come before.

After working on ‘Nuclear War Post X Diary’, their 2021 covers record that included takes on Grimes, Big Thief, The Breeders and The Velvet Underground, Yeule found themselves playing guitar more than piano. It quickly reignited their love of groups like My Chemical Romance, Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy. “Before that, I think I was denying that I was emo,” they grin. That pop-punk scene resonated deeply with

Yeule as a child, but it hit just as hard when they revisited it.

“You know that meme, ‘utilising my memory loss privileges to rewatch my favourite films’, that was me with early-00s alt-rock.”

It also allowed them to overcome a case of ego death.

“I had no identity, so coming back to my roots was really important,” they explain. “This album was a lot of coping with the passage of time. Everything’s so different, but I feel a sense of comfort coming back to things that sound familiar. There is also something very gentle about my early work that never hit a certain spot I always wanted

to hit. ‘softscars’ allowed me to really nail that feeling.” That said, you won’t have heard punk rock quite like this. “My love for electronic music will never go away entirely,” they explain.

Lyrically, instead of escaping to alternative realities or jumping to the future, Yeule turned inwards for ‘Softscars’. “Most of the time, we try to avoid doing that by looking at memes or doom scrolling, but writing this record, I was very much inside my own head. It hurt, but it was important.”

That painful, confrontational introspection was inspired by a series of journal entries they’d labelled ‘scars’ that included “traumatic events or life-changing moments. I wrote them down as a scar entry because they created a wound in me,” they continue.

“I’m okay with being vulnerable because that’s how some of the best music is made,” they add, praising Mitski and Big Thief’s Adrianne Lenker. “She just says it as it is, and that’s how it hurts.”

Inspired by that attitude, Yeule adds: “I don’t censor anything. I don’t change the words. It’s all coming up off those pages.”

Opener ‘X W X’ is a purge of fury and frustration, with Yeule “ranting about gender dysphoria” before dreamy grunge track ‘Sulky Baby’ finds them trying to forgive themselves for not giving their younger self the love they needed. ‘Software Update’ is a visceral “low-key diss track” written about recent traumatic events. “Previously, I would have just pushed it to the back of my head and suffered in silence, but now it comes out as anger, which is better than taking it out on myself,” they explain. The title-track brings together this new direction with what’s come before.

“I don’t even want to begin to start with where the next album’s gonna go,” they grin, admitting that it’s already being written.

“I’m not afraid to dip my toes into something different as long as it maintains the integrity of what the project is about.”

Yeule believes the music is already resonating with people because “there’s not a lot of music out there that speaks about very specific issues like eating disorders, gender dysphoria or obsession. It’s all very personal to me. It can sometimes feel like I’m the only one struggling with these things, but then I see people react to the songs so strongly. I guess I’m not alone.” ■ yeule’s album ‘Softscars’ is out now.

→ beabadoobee has released a new album, ‘Live In London’.

It’s a special live recording of her sold-out hometown show at London’s iconic Brixton Academy, recorded in full on 19th October 2022. Last year, Bea released her second studio album, ‘Beatopia’.

Since then, she’s dropped stand-alone single ‘Glue’, in April released a special version of the same track with Clairo on guest vocals, and more recently shared ‘the way things go’.

SURE

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Yaël Temminck.

LIVE IN LONDON

UNDEAD DISCO Dork’s Night Out is getting spooky again this Halloween with Night of the Living Dork 2, headlined by WALT DISCO.

THING

→ Two Door Cinema Club are back with a new single, ‘Sure Enough’. The song arrives ahead of the band’s October UK shows, and alongside news of a US tour that starts in February 2024. Of the track, the band comment: “Comfort, safety and security are all easy to come by. All you must do is accept the lie.” → As the darkness draws in,

STILL A

IN RUSH

→ Måneskin have announced a new edition of their latest album, ‘RUSH!’ The news follows on from the release of their recent single ‘Honey (are u coming?)’, which is included on the new record, with ‘RUSH! (ARE U COMING?)’ set for release on Friday 10th November. The album features five brand new songs in total, including ‘Valentine’, ‘Off My Face’, ‘The Driver’ and ‘Trastevere’.

The news accompanies their current world tour, which kicked off earlier this month in Hanover, Germany, and will see the band travelling across the world to visit Europe, North America, South America, Japan, the UK and Ireland, as well as their firstever shows in Australia.

and the ghosts and ghoulies take over the night, Dork’s Night Out is delighted to invite you to our Halloween party like no other, Night of the Living Dork 2.

Following up on last year’s inaugural edition – which featured Izzy from Black Honey performing with her own dismembered head – we’re returning to Colours Hoxton on Thursday 26th October with very special headliners Walt Disco for another spooky spectacular.

After releasing one of our favourite albums of recent years, and building towards their next phase, they’ll be topping off a bill with special guests still to be announced. If you want to turn up in fancy dress, that would be cool – but we’re not going to force you. You do you, Dear Reader. Tickets for the show are on sale now for £11 + booking fee via Dice.

To get us ready, we dropped a line to Walt Disco’s Jocelyn and Jack for a quick spooky catch up.

Hello! How’s it going? Are you up to anything fun today?

We’re doing well! We’re currently on tour with Nation of Language,

and we’re currently in the van to play Stylus in Leeds.

exciting progression for us. We’re excited to show everyone.

What have you lot been up to since the release of your debut album? Have you been busy?

Since ‘Unlearning’ dropped last year, we’ve been quite busy indeed! We appeared at Glastonbury for the first time, playing four shows while we were there. We did our first mini-tour of America, visiting New York, Austin and LA. We’ve supported some bands that are very important to us, like Duran Duran, Primal Scream and Simple Minds.

As well as some other exciting things we’ll be ready to tell you about very soon. Looks a bit braggadocious when you lay it all out like that but, you asked.

You’re playing Dork’s Halloween show - are Walt Disco into Halloween? Do you embrace the spooky season?

Well, we love horror films. But we do a fair amount of dressing up the rest of the year. So, not much changes, really!

What can you tell us about the new music you’re working on?

We can say that we’re exploring new sides of our musical sensibilities and bringing ingredients into the mix that haven’t been heard on any of our previous releases. The scale is grander than ever, but we’ve tried to sharpen our focus on arrangement, songcraft and lyrics. It feels like a natural and

What are your Top 5 favourite horror films?

1. Candyman (Original) 2. The Lighthouse 3. Under The Skin (sci-fi horror counts we’d argue) 4. Get Out 5. The Woman In Black (childhood trauma for us) What’s the spookiest thing that’s ever happened to you?

One time, I looked in the mirror and saw a face.

What’s been your best-ever fancy dress outfit?

I (Jack) spent basically my whole childhood dressed as the Hulk, if

that counts?

If you were a ghost, who would you haunt and why?

Rishi Sunak because he’s a c**t.

If you could assemble a team of celebrity ghost hunters, who would you choose, and where’s the first place you’d look?

Gemma Collins, for sure. Louis Theroux to lead the seance, he’d know which questions to ask. Julia Fox, I feel like we need her and Gemma to interact.

Finally, Cheryl Cole as she’s got plenty of experience already.

We’d just take them on the road and let people phone in with their ghostbusting requests.

Is there anything else we should know?

We’re going on tour with OMD next year, what the actual f**k.

And we’ll be good girls and ask you to sign up to our mailing list pls xx. ■

INDEPENDENT SPIRIT

INTRO

Words: Martyn Young.

produced it, did it all on my own. I feel so empowered. This year has been incredible.”

It feels like people have been waiting patiently for Kamille to blossom as an artist in her own right, but there was no sense of easy inevitability. Instead, she’s had to battle and resolve to do things her own way and just make it happen.

“When I first got into the industry, I always wanted to be an artist, but it just wasn’t the right time back then,” she says.

“Now, it feels so natural. This time last year, I was making this album, and I decided next year I was putting this album out. It ended up that I decided to go independent. No one was going to stop me.”

The theme of making it happen carries on through the album’s centrepiece ‘Manifesting - Part 1’ and her latest single ‘Manifesting - Part 2’, this time featuring Kojey Radical.

“Manifesting is the backbone of this album because it’s lyrically the theme of my whole vibe at the moment,” she smiles. “I manifested this whole year.

Whether you’re someone that’s into faith or not, just speaking positivity into your life is so important.”

The closing track on the album finds Kamille expressing KAMILLE is a certified pop legend her voice in a different way as she raps on the track for the first who’s been crafting hits for a decade. time. “That practice of being a With her debut album ‘K1’, she’s on an chameleon with my vocal lends exhilarating journey of self-discovery, itself to my music where I wanted a rapper on a few songs, and I infusing her music with vibrant energy remember thinking that I don’t and positivity. know how long it’s going to take to get a rapper on this song, but I want to put my album out so I thought, I’m just going to rap → In the wonderful world of then,” she laughs. pop, many people come together On the new single, though, to make some magic. Of course, she did find a rapper and Kojey there are the artists, front and Radical shines on ‘Manifesting centre, putting the work in and KAMILLE Part 2’. “I love the way he riding the wave, but there are connects with people through also the people behind them. his lyrics,” she enthuses. “He was she’s ready to firmly step out on Kamille’s desire to embark on The people who are supremely totally up for it; he came down her own. her own vision. ‘K2’ is a vibrant, dedicated and talented and and wrote the rap in 5 seconds 2023 has been a huge year fun and supremely confident who have devoted their lives to inside the booth. I’ve got a video for Kamille. Not only has she collection of pop that takes in working some pop magic of their of him rapping it just off the released her debut album ‘K1’ all Kamille’s influences, from own behind the scenes, whether cuff, and I was like, naah this is the disco strut of Nile Rodgers and dived into her own artistry, it’s in songwriting, production featuring ‘Muscle Memory’ to the incredible.” but she’s also had a baby. A lifeor performance. People just like Now that she’s learning who sashaying grooves of top bop changing event that provided Kamille. she is as an artist in her own right, ‘Options’ to the closing rapping some of the inspiration to take Kamille is a certified pop Kamille is firmly in the groove, climax of ‘Manifesting - Part this bold leap into a new phase legend with a decade of and she’s very much in a hurry.

1’. It’s an album that highlights of her career. “From start to hit-making for all sorts of pop “Oh my gosh, there’s going to be the range and dynamism of her legends from Stormzy, AJ Tracey, finish, this year has been an so many more of these albums music and the singular approach absolute whirlwind,” she begins.

Raye and Flo to Dua Lipa and coming,” she says excitedly. “I’m with which she created it.

“I went into it pregnant, so I knew also right now with two songs “I’m so much more determined already starting to think about written with actual Kylie Minogue obviously I was having a baby about my music,” she explains. “I ‘K2’. It’s important for people to this year, but I didn’t realise how for her triumphant new album understand who I am and learn was stuck at home with morning it would shake my whole life ‘Tension’ as well as her super that through the music, that’s the sickness. I couldn’t leave the strong connection in shaping the up for the better. It’s just been only way you’re going to get to house, but I had to be creative in Little Mix sound throughout their the best experience. It puts some way. I started making these know me. I’m going to do K1-K2 whole career. In short, Kamille is everything into perspective.” all the way to K100.” ■ songs that became ‘K1’. I selfa songwriting master, but now This determined spirit fuelled

TAKE A BREAK → After rumours of this being their last tour for ‘a while’, The 1975 have confirmed they’ll be going on indefinite hiatus from live shows after their current Still… At Their Very Best tour. Opening the run at Sacramento’s Golden 1 Center, Matty Healy told the crowd it’ll be the last time they’ll be playing there for the immediate future. “It’s wonderful you’re all here,” he explained. “After this tour, we will be going on an indefinite hiatus with shows, so it’s wonderful to have you guys with us tonight. Thank you so much.”

RATTLE ’N’ ROLL → Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes have announced a new album, ‘Dark Rainbow’, due 26th January.

Singer Frank Carter says: “We talk about how rock and roll will never die, but we never really talk about how maybe the idea of the rock star should die. The whole concept and what it means has always been this glamorised moment, but ultimately when I put that suit on, it didn’t go very well for me.”

"I FEEL SO EMPOWERED. THIS YEAR HAS BEEN INCREDIBLE"

20. DORK

MODERN

WAY

→ Bleachers are back with a new single, ‘Modern Girl’, the first glimpse of their upcoming album. Recently, the band dropped ‘Live At Radio City Music Hall’, a live album capturing their sold-out headline show in New York on 26th July 2022. Fronted by Jack Antonoff, Bleachers have gained a dedicated following over their three studio albums, including their latest, ‘Take the Sadness Out of Saturday Night’. The album’s single ‘Stop Making This Hurt’ earned a ‘Best Alternative Video’ nomination at the 2021 MTV VMAs.

Sanguivore 13.10.23

THE CALL OF THE WILD INTRO

Words: Steven Loftin.

With their fifth album, ‘Calling The Dogs,’ CITIZEN defy genre boundaries and embrace their youthful wonder

Photo: Jennifer McCord.

→ Shapeshifting with every album, Citizen’s search for their final form continues. Existing in the space between emo and pop-punk while dazzling with indie ambitions and heartfelt sentiments, theirs is a place of their own; Citizen have built themselves into something a bit special.

For their fifth outing, they’re taking things up a notch. Following on from 2021’s ‘Life In Your Glass World’, ‘Calling The Dogs’ is a decidedly more uptempo effort without sacrificing their unique blend in the name of forward motion. But that doesn’t mean things can’t progress.

“At this point in life, I think Citizen has previously been a pretty mid-tempo band,” vocalist Mat Kerekes starts. “And while that’s still cool – and I still like that – it’s just at this point in life, I’m looking for something a little faster and louder, you know?”

Unleashed like a greyhound, ‘Calling The Dogs’ holds everything close to its heart

they’ve previously built up. It stays loose on its feet, even in the more introspective moments, keeping a heart loyal to its creators. “It didn’t feel like we were necessarily building upon what Citizen is, you know, as people perceive Citizen to be.

It was just getting back in the garage and writing the songs that, to us, were gonna be fun to play,” guitarist Nick Hamm adds.

“And so this is the first time to me that I feel like we’ve expanded upon a sound instead of taking a total turn.”

It’s the band stripping things back to basics. It plays out with the naive nature of a group in their parents’ house while still holding loftily the ambitions they’ve accrued over six albums of decidedly experimental, chess-moving sounds.

Ambitions that playfully marry the fact that Mat and Nick, along with Eric Hamm (bass), have been doing this since 2009. “We actually made a handshake promise we’d never not be in a band together when we

THIS MONTH...

EGYPTIAN BLUE

EVERYONE HAS THOSE FORMATIVE BANDS AND TRACKS THAT FIRST GOT THEM INTO MUSIC AND HELPED SHAPE THEIR VERY BEING. THIS MONTH, ANDY BUSS OF EGYPTIAN BLUE TAKE US THROUGH SOME OF THE SONGS THAT MEANT THE MOST TO THEM DURING THEIR TEENAGE YEARS.

R.E.M.

Carnival of Sorts (Boxcars) REM were my first favourite band at the tender age of 7, and this is probably my earliest nostalgic feeling for any song ever. A song that has stayed with me to this day.

Blur

Beetlebum I remember a family member making a mixtape of current late 90s bangers for the car, probably at a similar age to when I listened to REM - and this one struck me differently. This song exists effortlessly in my mind to this day.

Radiohead

Pyramid Song For me, it’s almost impossible to pin this down to one tune, as every Radiohead record was a regular in my household growing up. They’ve had the most consistent influence on the way I make music.

22. DORK

Arctic Monkeys

The View From The Afternoon I recall my mum buying their debut at HMV, picking me up from school and saying, “Listen to this”. This changed everything for me and was probably a primary reason why I picked up a guitar in the first place. This song was the first AM song I heard and, to this day, is still my favourite.

Coldplay

Shiver Listen, I’m not a Coldplay fan by any stretch of the imagination, but this song and this whole record is unbelievable, a staple from my young childhood.

Jethro Tull

Aqualung Being into Jethro Tull at a young age could definitely be put in the ‘questionable category’. I still love this song and loved it from my childhood. I remember going to see them at maybe 12 years

old; I was probably the youngest by about 40 years.

Joy Division

Ice Age I discovered this tune whilst diving through my mum’s record collection. The look of the record just struck me, and I had to listen to it, although I somehow feel my mind was already made up. ‘Ice Age’ was the second song on this LP; I used to dance around the living room to it.

Foals

Spanish Sahara This is, albeit later in my youth, an absolute staple track for me.

It kind of changed everything about the way I listened to music; it hooked me onto Foals even more than I was at the time. They quickly became one of my favourite bands and have had a huge influence on the way I write music. ■ Egyptian Blue’s album ‘A Living Commodity’ is out 27th October.

were very young kids,” Mat deadpans. “So we had to keep true to that, even though we hate each other,” he breaks laughing.

Now, too, joined by Ben Russin (drums) and Mason Mercer (guitar), Citizen are more fortified than ever, and the results speak for themselves. “These were fun to send to each other and expand upon and give opinions on – it really did feel like that young, lost, but eager feeling,” Nick explains.

It is this youthful wonder that Citizen are aiming to mine. As Mat mentions, “Music is cool when you don’t know anything about what’s happening.” Rooted in this wonder, it’s here that ‘Calling The Dogs’ finds its joy.

“I remember when I used to be young, and I would listen to a song, and I had no idea what was being played or how it was being played,” he continues. “Everything was just cool to me, and with each Citizen record, it’s kind of like, ‘Okay, how can we make this cool again?’” ■

EASY DOES IT Why exactly are EasyJet threatening to sue EASY LIFE? Corporate bullshit, obviously.

A

DAY

IN THE LIFE OF...

Photo: Meadow Florence.

DIVORCE

You know what’s easier than following around your fave pop stars, day in, day out, to see what they’re up to right that minute? Asking them.

This month, DIVORCE let us in on what they’re up to.

8:00AM → Tiger and Felix share a flat with a

→ It’d be funny if it wasn’t so stupid.

EasyGroup, the corporate giant that sits atop of budget airline EasyJet, has decided to pick a fight with former Dork cover stars Easy Life. The issue at hand?

Their shared love for the prefix “Easy”.

Obviously.

“Never imagined having to do this but we’ve no choice but to address the situation we find ourselves in,” the band wrote on social media. “As some of you have already discovered, we are being sued. Easy Jet are suing us for being called Easy Life.

“They’re forcing us to change our name or take up a costly legal battle which we could never afford... Although we find this whole situation hilarious, we are virtually powerless against such a massive corporation... For those of you who bought gig tickets and ended up on a budget flight to Tenerife, I apologise. For the rest of you, thank you so much for your support”.

The result - the day this issue drops - 13th October 2023 - will be the last day Easy Life are called Easy Life. That’s it.

Done.

It’s a ludicrous scenario, yet here we are, witnessing it unfold in the solemn halls of legality. In a statement given to NME, EasyGroup explained: “[Sir] Stelios [HajiIoannou] and easyGroup founded and own the right to the easy brand name.

“Other companies (including easyLife) pay annual royalties for its use as part of

their business strategy. We cannot allow unauthorised third parties to simply use it free, gratis and for nothing. That would be very unfair.”

Except, it’s not really the same, is it?

The threat of a lawsuit comes off as a glaring display of corporate arrogance, trying to strong-arm a band that’s only out here to make music. Yet again, big corporations are showing they’ve no respect for the creative industries, all in the name of brand protection which, honestly, isn’t really even a thing.

The tale of EasyJet versus Easy Life isn’t just a petty legal spat; it’s an illustration of the tension between commerce and creativity. A reflection of what happens when corporate arrogance overshadows the nurturing environment essential for artistic growth. It’s not just a lawsuit; it’s a narrative that paints EasyJet as a corporate bully, searching the skies for any semblance of a threat, no matter how imaginary. Not the best PR, eh?

In a world where creativity is the heartbeat of culture, do we really want to live under the shadow of corporate giants who may, on a whim, attempt to stifle the harmonies that echo the human experience? This episode may soon fade into the annals of legal history, but its resonance will continue to echo through the corridors of public opinion, a stark reminder of the delicate balance between the realms of commerce and creativity. ■

couple of other friends in southeast London.

Having driven down late from a rehearsal in Nottingham the day before, they’re both a little groggy this morning. Tiger’s getting their outfit sorted for today’s photoshoot, whilst Felix is still in his room snoozing multiple earblasting alarms. This continues for another half hour or so before the pair of us meet in the kitchen to gather around the coffee machine. Felix has bought the wrong sort of coffee, and it keeps coming out as bitter beige water. Tiger offers some of their coffee to Felix, and at last, a successful cup is made.

9:00AM → Back in the Fiat Doblo for another exhilarating trip around the motorways of the UK. Yay. The pair haven’t seen each other in a week, so they don’t even listen to music and sit chatting, shouting and laughing hysterically about hysterical things.

10:00AM → The terrible twosome arrive at the beautiful RSPB Rainham Marshes and join Kasper, Adam and the photography crew for a photoshoot. The crew are all lovely and way too good for this silly rascal band. There are birds everywhere. It’s incredibly windy, though, and the band are all a little apprehensive about how their respective heads of hair are going to be received. More coffees ordered in the cafe.

Adam’s already become great pals with Linda, who works there.

11:00AM → Photos begin. Won’t say much

more because I don’t want to give the game away. This band take their roles as models incredibly seriously, and anyone trying to plagiarise their photoshoots will feel the wrath of Divorce.

1:00PM → Lunch! First up, we’ve got Adam

with a brie, bacon and red onion chutney toastie, Tiger with a brie and red onion chutney toastie, Felix with a jacket potato, cheese and beans and Kasper with a succulent

smoky chipotle burrito. But pudding is where the drama really starts. Adam peacefully selects some sort of nutty traybake slice, with Tiger opting for a mint chocolate tiffin traybake slice and Kasper wisely choosing a scone (pronounced “skon”) with butter and jam (no clotted cream, unfortunately, please sort it out, RSPB Rainham Marshes). Felix had already purchased a salted caramel Tony’s Chocolonely chocolate bar (epic legend selection), but before opening it, his beady eyes land upon Tiger’s mint chocolate tiffin traybake, and in a rash decision, he gets one for himself, its luminous green mint topping glistening in the light of an overcast afternoon sky. Before the slice arrives, however, Kasper’s scone turns up. Unable to withhold his jealousy, Felix asks to swap half his mint chocolate tiffin traybake slice for half of Kasper’s scone. Kasper frankly scoffs at this suggestion and points out Felix’s idiocy. With that settled, the four of them hungrily tuck into their respective puddings in sweet silence, and lunch is completed. For the interested reader, Felix did at last tuck into his Tony’s Chocolonely bar whilst driving home that evening.

2:00PM → More photos, again, the band will not go into detail as this process is extremely sensitive, and you wouldn’t understand it anyway, would you?

6:00PM → Bits of admin at Flower Up HQ. 7:00PM → Drive home (chocolate bar eaten).

8:00PM → Tiger cooks a hearty pie and mash

for themself and Felix. No drama here.

9:00PM → BEDTIME. Another successful day of being the biggest rock legends at RSPB Rainham Marshes. ■

Divorce’s EP ‘Heady Metal’ is out 17th November.

READDORK.COM 23.

YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BEST NEW NAMES.

→ Deyaz’s debut mixtape ‘WHY

NOT’ was the kind of seismic success that instantly catapults an artist to another level. After 10 years of grafting in everything from hardcore punk bands to academic classical instrumentation, the East Londoner with a masterful music approach was being feted everywhere with high-profile shows, a massive tour with Jesse Reyez and a stunning debut telly appearance on Later With Jools Holland. The whole thing garnered a mind-bending 10 million plus streams, and it was clear to everyone that Deyaz was a serious musical talent. So, how do you follow up on this huge success? Well, it’s by building on the foundations and values that got Deyaz there as he explores and reflects on his inner self and seeks to enrich and soothe the lives of all the people who have fallen so deeply for his expansive and deeply emotional music.

He starts by explaining how the importance of family underpins everything he does. “I’m a pretty simple person,” he says. “Outside of music, a thing that I like is animals. I’m obsessed with my French bulldogs. I have three. Mum, dad and daughter. They’re a big grounding point for me. Family is a massive one for me. Music and family, that’s my world. Rocky is the dad, Moon is the mum, and Sachi is their daughter. Sachi is a Japanese name for miracle, as Moon had to have a c-section to get the pup out.

She wasn’t breathing, but they did this acupuncture on her nose, and she came back to life.”

In a similarly restorative way, Deyaz’s music has the quality of bringing something back to life. Sometimes, he can sound wounded and vulnerable, like on

Deyaz Embracing music and fashion as forms of self-expression, ambitious London-based newcomer DEYAZ is stepping up and breaking out.

24. DORK

to retrace his steps back to the indie he genuinely cherished.

His music began to embody a blend of the British alternative music he grew up on and the rich Nigerian heritage he was deeply connected to. As Peter embarked on this new phase of his musical expedition, a distinctive sound began to emerge, bridging worlds that seemed far apart yet were intrinsically part of his identity.

This profound evolution culminated in his debut EP, ‘God Save The King’, a piece of work that stands as a testament to his growth and newfound artistic clarity. Released via FADER Label, it sees him joining forces with notable names like Grian Chatten from Fontaines DC and Dan Carey on production, creating big hits characterised by big sounds and unbridled enthusiasm. “This is a coming of age,” Peter states. “This is my manifesto.”

deeply embedded in a rich cultural tapestry of British and Nigerian heritage. His musical journey has been a vibrant one, but it wasn’t until the challenging times of 2020 that his narrative took a decisive turn. Having made music

for several years, the global pause during the pandemic provided him with the space to introspect and re-evaluate his artistic direction.

“Lockdown made me reflect on who I am and what I want to be spending my time doing,” he recalls.

The standstill prompted him

this summer’s striking single ‘Numb’, but more often than not, his music is filtered through a vivid prism of hope and catharsis. In the wake of ‘WHY NOT’, he has received numerous enriching messages from people explaining how his music has touched them and shaped their lives.

“I shared with my management a band that reached out on a fake account and were basically explaining how they also struggled with addiction and homelessness in the past, and the music was able to navigate them into a better space,” he reveals.

In some ways, it takes a level of emotional toll as Deyaz puts so much of his inner feelings into his music and really puts himself out there sometimes in the starkest and most bare musical form, but ultimately, it makes everything even more rewarding.

“There are days when I feel really exposed and vulnerable right now, especially because I’m such an introverted person,” he admits. “I do believe, though, that when I see messages like that, there’s a higher purpose to this, and I shouldn’t be so selfish. If I’m able to be in a position to influence even one or two people’s mental health, then I feel an obligation with what I’ve been through to try and help them. “

As he moves onto a new project due later this year, the goal for Deyaz is to continue and expand on his artistry and explore different ways to use his voice. This time around, he’s really challenging himself.

“I started my second EP this year. It’s been a crazy process.

It’s something I didn’t expect,” he says excitedly. “Because music is in my life constantly 24/7, I can predict what sort of route I can go down sonically with an EP, but with this one, I’m just really surprised how it went down routes that I don’t expect.

I’m really excited to see the fan reaction to it.”

Deyaz’s whole musical life has been about exploring and trying out new sounds and styles. “I started off with rock music, but I found a massive love for jazz and classical music once I started with keyboards,” he explains. “I started with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton, and then you get on piano, and you pretend to be Mozart. Once I started branching out into more left-field genres, it opened my eyes that there were no limitations. That’s why it’s so hard to explain. Music to me feels very much like trial and error with educated guesses.”

The next EP is a significant step forward for Deyaz in its scope and breadth of sound.

“It feels like an evolution. It’s making more sense to me,” he

→ Peter Xan is an indie-rock icon in the making, with roots

Words: Martyn Young.

z

Peter Xan

Hello Peter! What music did you listen to growing up, and what drew you to it?

My grandma showed me James Brown growing up. I used to listen to rap, rock, and soul. I loved Gorillaz; I found them through ‘Feel Good Inc’. The combination between rap and indie-rock made me feel accepted. It was the first time I saw that blend.

Did you have a musical upbringing?

I played guitar at Walthamstow apostolic church. It was cool because I got to mess about with the instruments after the service.

My mum got me a guitar. I taught myself some bits on YouTube.

Found even more indie-rock acts like Bon Iver and James Vincent.

Tell us about your new EP – what’s it about, where did it come from?

‘God Save The King’ is an ode to the Sex Pistols. I felt I’ve brought back rock’n’roll in the era of the new king. I think it was only right I created my own national anthem.

You’ve been working with Grian from Fontaines DC, how did that come about? Are you pals? How does your partnership work?

When we crossed paths in Los Angeles. We engaged in deep conversations about our respective backgrounds; his as an Irish individual and mine as Nigerian and British. Surprisingly, we discovered numerous shared experiences despite our contrasting origins. One aspect that stood out was his unconventional approach to work, which opened my eyes to the idea of capturing moments like a live

"MUSIC AND FAMILY, THAT’S MY WORLD" DEYAZ

proclaims. “’WHY NOT’ was just making music, and when you feel you have a nice set of songs, just put them out into the world and hope for the best.

As my confidence grew, there was a bit more intent with it. My confidence grew in the studio, and I had a bit more of a game plan with pushing boundaries.

On the first EP, it was mainly just down to confidence and anxiety.”

With his next project, there are no boundaries and no limits. “I intentionally try to incorporate as much as I can; with ‘Numb’, it’s the first time I’ve fused garage and acoustic folk elements together,” he says. “Still, to this day, there’s so many exciting combinations that I haven’t attempted. It’s like this never-ending chase.

Chasing the dragon. You have this goal, and you’re like, once you get there, that’s it, and then you get there, and it’s on to the next thing.”

It’s not just music that Deyaz is focused on. He also wants to expand his vision into fashion. “I’d love to incorporate

PETER XAN is creating something new with his just-released debut EP ‘God Save The King’.

more fashion elements into things,” he says. “I’m really into fashion. I love the whole fashion world. Maybe a clothing line would be really cool?” Is there anything this man cannot do?

“From a young age, anything that involved self-expression I was really keen on, especially growing up in an area that wasn’t very allowing for being expressive,” he says. “I always pushed towards it, and fashion was always an outlet for me alongside music, and it’s always gone hand in hand.”

While he dreams of his fashion empire, the music is swiftly ramping up. “Next year is going to be the first album. I want to go somewhere really inspiring and try to create something sonically challenging,” he says resolutely.

“On the album, I’ve been in talks with Mr Hudson, who’s a massive inspiration for me; we just want to lock in and create it from scratch.” Always looking forward and expanding his worldview and sonic palate at a dazzling rate, Deyaz’s star continues to ascend. ■

performance instead of rigidly reciting lines. He’s a really chilled guy, a real poet!

What do you do for fun?

I’m a rock star! I obviously love to party. But when I’m trying to have a wholesome time, I like to be a family man. I’m very close to my family; I have a niece that I love to spend time with. When I’m not spending time with my family, I like to chill with my band and come up with new ideas for songs; in all honesty, that’s where I’m having the most fun. ■ Peter Xan’s debut EP ’God Save The King’ is out now.

THIS

MONTH

IN

NEW MUSIC MASTER

PLAN

→ Master Peace has announced his debut album. ‘How To Make A Master Peace’ is set for release on 1st March via PMR, and it’s teased by new single ‘I Might Be Fake (feat.

Georgia)’. “My debut album, How To Make A Master Peace, is definitely the most alternative body of work I’ve created to date,” he explains. “I wanted to create a record people wouldn’t expect from me. From a musical standpoint, I drew influences from Indie Sleaze & Indie Dance acts such as Friendly Fires, Justice, LCD Soundsystem and early Calvin Harris.”

JUNKYARD BEAUTY → Mary In The Junkyard have released their debut single, ‘Tuesday’.

The buzzy Brixton Windmill regulars have also announced a new headline show at Corsica Studios, London on 24th March. “I wrote ‘Tuesday’ when I was first experiencing life in a city and was feeling very small,” guitarist and vocalist Clari Freeman-Taylor explains.

“It’s so easy to be swept along with the bustle and noise and feel like a worker ant amidst thousands of others.

I wanted to write about my yearning for chaos and realness – we all have wildness within us that we might be suppressing and we shouldn’t feel like aliens because of it.”

READDORK.COM 25.

Koyo Words: Rob Mair.

Not just a band on the rise, with a debut album that’s wall-towall mosh anthems, KOYO are a force to be reckoned with.

THIS

MONTH

IN

NEW MUSIC

→ “When you’re in the middle of it, even if

you try not to, there’s always these moments where you compare yourself to your peers and think, ‘Damn, no one cares about our shitty little band’,” says Koyo’s amiable and entertaining vocalist Joey Chiaramonte. “But I often forget just how much this band has grown in such a short time.”

Joey’s not wrong, either. Koyo are on the cusp of going supernova, and there’s no question they haven’t earned it through some serious graft these last two and a half years.

Formed in 2020 as a lockdown project, the headline stats speak for themselves: more than 100,000 monthly Spotify listeners, a slew of EPs and singles that need frequent repressing, and two trips to these shores already. The melodic hardcore champs have done more than most bands could ever dream of in two years.

And they’ve done all this before dropping their debut album proper, ‘Would You Miss It?’.

One reason for this is that the hardcore landscape has fundamentally changed since Turnstile blew the roof off the scene. There’s more attention on the genre than ever before; whether that’s the Revolution Summer sound of One Step Closer, the hazy indie-kissed vibes of Militarie Gun or the Black Flag bite of Scowl, there’s a new wave of bands all breaking through and searching for their place in the sun.

The strength of this movement can be seen in its diversity, too, with Koyo finding themselves at the more palatable, melodic end of hardcore. Indeed, the quintet – completed by guitarists TJ Rotolico and Harold Griffin, bassist Stephan Spanos and drummer Sal Argento – are just as indebted telling guest spots by The Movielife’s Vinnie to emo, indie and punk rock as traditional Caruana (‘What’s Left To Say’) and Glassjaw’s hardcore. All these influences get ample Daryl Palumbo (‘Message Like A Bomb’) tie space to shine on ‘Will You Miss It?’ to make a things back to the scene’s noughties breakout genre-blurring mishmash of sonic terrorism. beautifully.

But, what’s most striking about ‘Would You Again, Joey talks about wanting to ensure Miss It?’ is how it successfully treads a fine these things weren’t too on the nose, but line between forward-thinking, progressive there’s no doubt getting a couple of big hitters hardcore and nostalgic post-hardcore. to add their vocal Being from Long talents adds credence Island – pretty much and credibility to the the epicentre of project. the noughties emo “Having them co-sign boom – it’s perhaps and their willingness to little doubt that be a part of what we’re Koyo’s sound would doing, it creates this be indebted to this full-circle, refreshing storied piece of component to it,” says history, but it’s how Joey. “It’s not like Joey and Co navigate we wrote Vinny a this relationship that Movielife song or Daryl makes ‘Will You Miss a Glassjaw song. They It?’ special. lend themselves to JOEY CHIARAMONTE “There’s definitely our songs, and that’s been a time or two a beautiful and very when we’d be like, ‘Oh, appreciated thing.” this riff is a little too on the nose’, so we have What these two guest spots point to – to talk ourselves down,” laughs Joey. “But alongside that of Vein.fm’s Anthony DiDio what I think has allowed us to pay homage to – is the different wells from which Koyo are that scene without being a worship band is drawing their influences from. This is even that we write a lot on gut instinct. We’re not more clear when considering the bands interested in repackaging the same thing over they’ve played with. Their debut UK tour and over again. A lot of it is down to intuition.” saw them lining up alongside Silverstein, Not that Koyo haven’t managed to pull Comeback Kid and Senses Fail – and not off a little hero worship on ‘Will You Miss It?’. looking out of place with their crunchy Musically, at the very least, ‘You’re On The melodic hardcore. In the States – and in a List (Minus One)’ sounds like prime Drivemore extreme example – they toured with Thru/Vagrant era emo-punk, while some Knocked Loose, Movements and Kublai

"WE ALL GREW UP WITH A LOVE OF EMO, BUT WE ALSO HAVE A TASTE FOR HARDCORE"

26. DORK

SCHOOL’S

IN

→ University have released a new single, ‘Egypt Tune’. The band – newly signed to Transgressive – are following up on buzzy sets at The Great Escape, Green Man, End Of The Road and Manchester Psych Festival, as well as debut single ‘Notre Dame Made Out Of Flesh’. Speaking about the single, the band explain: “The year is 3099 bce, while searching for “the answer”, University stumbled across something that closely resembled it. This song is not it.” It’s a cut from their upcoming EP ‘Title Track’, set for release on 3rd November via Transgressive. Check it out below, and catch the group live at Left of the Dial (20th-21st October) and Pitchfork Paris (11th November).

Khan. In short, Koyo have the knack and the nous for slotting in seamlessly on diverse hardcore bills.

“Those scenarios are our speciality,” laughs Joey. “I think shows like that encapsulate every bit of our DNA. We all grew up with a love of emo, but we also have a taste for hardcore, so I think we have something that speaks to every sub-set of those audiences.”

In truth, Joey’s assertion makes perfect sense. At their heart, Koyo have all the fundamentals of a hardcore band – and you only have to witness their high-energy live show to understand this – but they play melodic, emo-indebted music through blown-out speakers and maxed-out amps.

Unsurprisingly, his gateway into alternative music came through Taking Back Sunday – something of local heroes done good for the Long Island native. As a formative experience for a teen, their meteoric rise off the back of the landmark, now platinum-selling ‘Tell All Your Friends’ is the sort of good news ‘local boys do good story’ that cannot fail to inspire future generations. Koyo are testament to this and have hit upon a similar formula to strike gold.

“For me, personally, the bands that lived under that collaborative house – the hardcore kids making emo music, or that band with the one hardcore guy in it – just where you get that little contrast – it’s the ultimate pairing. That’s why The Movielife and Taking Back Sunday spoke to me so much at such a young age.

“When you get that little extra grit and all the drama, that’s the chef’s kiss.” ■

HILL

TOP

→ Rachel Chinouriri has shared a brand new single and video, ‘The Hills’. The track marks the first taster from her debut album, due in 2024, and arrives with news of her biggest London headline show to date at London’s KOKO on 6th March. Rachel says of the track: “I wrote The Hills about the feeling of not belonging and being out of place. I was in LA having a pretty terrible time. I didn’t feel like I connected with many people musically or in general, and I was stressed out about lots of things in my personal life. I also love being at home, and felt very out of place.

DAYS

GONE

→ Abbie Ozard has released a new single, ‘days like these’. It arrives ahead of her debut album, set for release in early 2024. She says of the track: “‘days like these’ is a pretty on the nose commentary record about growing up with the internet and social media being at the forefront of our minds. The boom of tiktok as we all know, has transformed the way we think and feel about ourselves.”

SIPHO.

Dirty Hit signee and Birmingham native SIPHO. has battled a somewhat chaotic creation period to deliver his debut album, ‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’.

→ SIPHO. is currently on the home straight for

his debut album ‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’, out on 27th October via Dirty Hit. A record that both looks back to his childhood while reckoning with trying to become a proper grown-up, it can’t promise to help you with your adulting, but it can make you feel a bit better about the journey.

Hi SIPHO.! How’s it going? What are you up to today, anything fun?

Hey Dork! Just busy adulting, hehe. Right now, I’m sat in my mate’s flat with the cats. About to make dinner for everyone. Chicken stew and dumplings.

Nothing like winter food in the middle of a British summer.

chaos, life changes and days sick in the booth. So yeah, pretty long year, haha.

How did you approach curating the tracklisting?

It’s one of the most important parts of the process for me. The first third is where I get to go off and be experimental (show people how weird I am basically), the next third is just a bit of dark epiphany, and the final third is me in my classic British bag, some tracks with Paul Epworth (‘Rolling In The Deep’) and Eg White (‘Chasing Pavements’, ‘Leave Right Now’). That last part is a vibe. That all coincides with the progression of my thought processes and discoveries as a Gen Z kid growing up in the wildest times we’ve ever seen.

dug deep in terms "I STARTED LAST ofreally topics you’ve tackled is there anything you’re YEAR. LOST ALL particularly pleased to addressed on the THE DEMOS TO have record? this album has less A SPILL ON MY Ioffeela biglikestatement than my last two EPs. I can spend all MACBOOK, THEN day screaming about the bullshit I see us all doing, And what have been your STARTED AGAIN" which has helped me learn highlights? Have you ticked

Tell us about your time as a musician so far - how did you start out?

I kinda started out making stuff after school with my boy Nick (absolute GOAT) and dropping it on SoundCloud.

Just practising curating projects and EPs. Deffo come a long way from there.

It sounds like you’ve

so much about myself. But SIPHO much off your bucket list? now it’s time to worry about Yeah, ticked off a lot myself, where I’m going surprisingly quick, honestly. and what the future can hold if I don’t figure myself Jools Holland, Colors, and just being able to share out now. Basically trying to be the man I wanna my experience with people who love me. Touching be. What’s weird is I had no idea what I was writing a lot of hearts along the way. All real blessings about the whole time I was making it, and then my and extra perks of just being able to make music life came together in the months after to make for real. sense of what I was saying, so it was meant to be, I guess.

You’re about to release your debut album, ‘Prayers & Paranoia’ - when did you start work on it? Does it feel to have been a long time in the Does the finished album match your idea of what you thought your debut album would be, making? back when you started making music? What Yoooo! It’s actually quite mental that we’re here were your hopes for it in those early days? already. I started last year. Lost all the demos to a Joe and I had a massive whiteboard where I wrote spill on my MacBook, then started again. Lots of all my references and influences. From Brittany Howard and Alabama Shakes to Joy Crookes and Radiohead, 4hero, Goldie and more. I learnt a long time ago to not expect it to sound exactly like what’s in your head. So many souls and experiences are going to touch and influence the trajectory of the songs. I tried to think more about how I wanted it to feel. And it feels good, like exactly what I needed to get me to the next point in my journey.

Have you played the record for many friends and family? What has their reaction been?

I’ve played it for some friends, and they’re excited.

They got to hear me play with all the sounds and vibes I chew their ear off about all the time (what a nerd, right?).

What else are you working on at the moment?

More music. Doing research, and studying sounds and palettes and textures that I desire. Teaching myself about film and video production (as you may have seen in my recent self-directed content), but also learning balance and adulting and practicing loving my loved ones. I wanna be a father and a husband etc., and that takes skill and practice too, so I can’t drown myself in the creative process all the time, or I’ll just be a bizarre dude that can make some slapping tunes. ■ SIPHO.’s album ‘Prayers & Paranoia’ is out 27th October.

READDORK.COM 27.

Beach boy.

COVER STORY

28. DORK

DECLAN MCKENNA

DECLAN MCKENNA is undoubtedly Dork’s prince of indie. Now he’s back, with a new album on the way, and a brand new vibe.

By Martyn Young.

Photography by Derek Bremner.

live by the sea, so I spend most of my time by the sea.” Declan McKenna is sitting in his bedroom at home in Brighton, eating a pain au chocolat, and is very much at peace with the world. “We’ve been paddle boarding recently,” he continues.

“When the weather is good, I’ve been paddle boarding.

“The first person to take me paddle boarding, funnily enough, was Eli Smart when I went to meet him for the first time in Hawaii as I’d been working on music in LA. We went paddle boarding on this lake, and he said he hadn’t even seen it there before, but it was probably midnight or very late as it was dark, and there was all this bioluminescent algae.

“This was my first exposure to paddle boarding. You could stick your oar in the water and move it around, and all the bubbles would go bioluminescent and bright white colour. A fish would go past under the water, and it would be literally glowing.”

Now, you might wonder what all this fish talk has to do with Declan and his new album? Well, nothing, but maybe equally everything? “I just like being in the water at the minute. I find it the most calming thing, whether it’s on a boat or swimming.

It makes sense for the album that I’ve been making.”

The album he’s talking about is ‘What Happened To The Beach?’ and the bioluminescent trippy fish he’s talking about provide an apt illustration of the bonkers, vivid, odd pop brilliance of his best album yet. A collection that is idiosyncratic, playful, ambitious and resolutely Declan in a way that defines one of our most creative talents.

We’ve followed Declan right from the start at Dork. All the way back to when we spoke to him for the first time in Issue 1, in 2016, pre-debut album, when he was first finding his musical feet and proclaiming that “I’m always changing things about how I’m making music.” We were there with his first Dork cover feature in 2017 as he burst out with his dynamic debut album ‘What Do You Think About The Car?’ and we chronicled the birth of his dizzyingly ambitious opus ‘Zeros’ with a second cover feature as he tried to navigate the uncertainty of peak pandemic.

This time, though, things feel more relaxed in the world of Declan McKenna.

The ambition and drive are still there but filtered through the prism of all the knowledge and experience he has gained from almost a decade of creation and evolution. Making up for touring lost time during the wilderness years of Covid that coincided with ‘Zeros’’ roll-out, the last year has been jam-packed for Declan.

“It’s been a long year!” he exhales. “It feels like I haven’t really had much of a chance to stop. I started the year finishing off the album, and then I continued finishing off the album for about six months after that. Then I was on tour, and I was still finishing off the album somehow, and I’ve got the album announced, and it

READDORK.COM 29.

COVER STORY

still feels like we’re finishing off the album.

There’s just been so many layers to it. I’ve made an album I’m really proud of.”

The album he has made definitely occupies its own space in his discography.

It’s ambitious in a very different way from his previous album, centred on a more reflective vibe. “It’s a little bit more specific sounding than the other stuff I’ve worked on.

It’s a much more sensitive record. It’s quite exposing and sonically quite vulnerable,” he explains.

“I had more places to hide working the way I did on the first and second albums because the sounds were so full. That hasn’t been what I wanted on this album. I wanted the sounds to be vulnerable and smaller.

Some of them sound very raw and very loose, with rough edges. When it came to mixing it and being on tour, it’s been quite a stressful experience because there have been many things to think about with how I execute the final version. Almost giving up control and

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"THE END OF MAKING THIS ALBUM IS ALMOST LIKE THE END OF AN ERA FOR ME AND THE START OF A NEW ONE" DECLAN MCKENNA

going right, that’s the final song now.”

The period of relentless touring coupled with making the album has been a different experience for Delcan. “The amount of shows has been hard work,” he admits. “I have really enjoyed the shows, but the only thing that’s tough with touring is just the balance between focusing on the shows and how tired you get and how much time you need to recover and everything else with an album on the way. The balance between the two can be quite disorienting. It’s been a great year with amazing things coming out of it, but it’s

definitely been full-on. It’s also off the back of last year, which was a lot of touring and making the album. The end of making this album is almost like the end of an era for me and the start of a new one. It’s a really exciting place to be at.”

Declan is determined to experience this new era differently. “I just want to enjoy it,” he exclaims. “The main thing with ‘Zeros’ was creating it had a lot of fun moments, and I found recording it was very fun, but the majority of the time working on it was quite insular and quite intense. It was off the back of my first-ever album tour, which lasted a really long time because it was from before ‘What Do You Think About The Car?’ to a couple of years after. It was a complete whirlwind. Going into making more music after that was really intense. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to do something to challenge myself. I still have that element, and I still like to challenge myself, but my approach this time around has been something quite different and a little more social. It was almost revolving the process around doing it in a really fun way.”

In part, the desire for enjoyment comes from the rather unpleasant experience he had when it came to actually releasing ‘Zeros’, with the album originally scheduled to come out in spring 2020 before Covid struck, causing delay after delay and fundamentally changing the whole experience of the record.

“With ‘Zeros’, the release as well as the process wound up being quite intense,” he explains. “It was meant to be a live album.

9/10 of the songs were based around a live take of me and the band playing the songs.

That was all taken away, and the original plan for the release couldn’t happen. We made the most of it, but it’s a time I really struggled to enjoy. I didn’t really know what there was to enjoy. I don’t really care for promoting my own music. I felt like this was all I had to do. I was doing all the promo and stuff all at once, and there was very little I enjoyed of any of that. It was really not that fun a time.

The release week was just bizarre as well.

It’s normally when you see people, and you perform in person, but it was very difficult.”

Now, with a new album in tow and a different, more open way of working, ‘What Happened To The Beach?’ feels like a liberation. “This feels very different, and the way I’m trying to embrace it now is by just knowing actually what are the elements that I do like about what I do, which is not necessarily self-promotion or being on computers,” he explains. “It’s more making music in the way that I enjoy and performing.

Those are things that give me a lot of life and energy.

“I’ve realised that after having a bit of success still, the most important things to me are the same things that I’ve always cared

DECLAN MCKENNA

about. Everything else is just noise, really. If you’re not focused on the music being great and the shows being great, then you’re not focused on the right things. There’s been a lot of lessons learned, but I don’t look back on that period of time positively at all.”

‘What Happened To The Beach?’ is a mad album in the best way. Sometimes uncategorisable and sprawling with its sound collages, weird sounds, funny vocal effects and hooks that float in and out, it also contains some of Dec’s finest songwriting and most heartfelt moments. There’s a looseness and comfort that makes it a complete joy.

Throughout, there’s a kind of playful and silly maturity at work which highlights an artist with complete creative freedom revelling in shaking things up in the tradition of a great British lineage of eccentric alt-pop genius’ from Elvis Costello and Kate Bush to Damon Albarn and Alex Turner.

“Part of what I wanted to do was stop trying,” laughs Declan. “I felt like I had less to prove. I didn’t need to do something intense.

I just wanted to let my own inspirations flow and let my own creativity come out and enjoy that. It’s a really good way to make music, to create the vibe that you want the music to feel like when you’re making it. That was what the producer Luca [Buccellati]’s attitude was.

I’ve been able to make music that sounds like music I listen to every day.”

The music he’s talking about is from creative visionaries like St. Vincent or Unknown Mortal Orchestra, who take spacey kaleidoscope sounds and filter them through a free-wheeling woozy pop prism. A priority of mood and feeling over grandstanding or sloganeering.

“I’ve been listening to records that embrace that attitude, and it just makes me feel good,” he continues. “I’m talking about it a lot in this way that it’s a shift from music that has so many words, the first two albums share the fact that they have a lot of words, the hooks and the verses on these songs and everything about them, for the most part, have a lot fewer words, not for lack of meaning but in some cases it’s very stream of consciousness and very simple.”

Simplicity is at the heart of the album’s lead single and song of the summer contender ‘Sympathy’, with its wonky hooks and bright pop sensibility and its key refrain of “You don’t need to be clever”, a philosophy that Declan carried out across the whole creation of the album.

“It was the first tune me and Luca started working on in LA,” he explains. “We wrote that together really quickly. The whole sentiment of it was realising itself, and Luca, in his own way, was seeping in the ideas of simplicity and fun that he embraces. All of that was coming together and making something. All it needed to be was reassuring.

The album is a release.”

At 24 years old, Declan is certainly not an old man, but he’s learned a lot and now has the perspective to both look back to who he was then as a 15-year-old writing a song like ‘Brazil’ and tie those values into who he is now.

“A lot of the messages embrace things that I really cared about and emphasised when I was a bit younger and have come back around to in a slightly different way,” he says.

“It’s just about being yourself. I would have been such a champion for that when I was younger, but maybe I wouldn’t have thought about it or thought it was a cringe sentiment for a few years, but I’ve come back to that in a slightly different way now I’m a bit older and have been doing this for longer. I really like that, taking those simple messages in a more mature way and not feeling the compulsion to do it in an intense or complicated way. I’m alright with being simple.”

When he first emerged as a provocative and socially engaged writer on his first record and early singles, there was a lot of chatter about Declan being a ‘voice of a generation’.

While he still fervently believes in the socially conscious values he has always displayed, he’s now far more content to look inward and take a more nuanced and less incendiary perspective.

“It’s not about rejecting the ideas that I have and the way I express it, but obviously that will change over time naturally,” he reflects. “Some of those first album tunes I wrote when I was 15 or 16; my life was very different then, and I was very different. I’m still true to my values, but you want those things to be your own. It’s difficult when it starts getting rationalised by other people, be it through a media lens or discussions with your label who might want you to keep up the brand a little bit.”

All of this reflection on the fevered way he used to write and his impetus to do things differently now or simply have no rules at all is all wrapped up in ‘Nothing Works’, a rollicking banger that is one of the album’s key tracks.

“That was the last song I finished writing for the album,” he says. “I was with my friend READDORK.COM 31.

COVER STORY

Jake Passmore, who co-wrote the song.

I’d been working on this album in quite an abstract, simple way with these feel-good messages. Not all of them are feel-good, but the overall message is positive and selfassured. Jake was saying you’re so great when you’re direct and do things this way. All these sweet nothings that really meant nothing to me when I was like, ‘I’m making this album because it’s the album I want to make’. I just can’t do things another way.

“I’ve been writing songs since I was a child.

I know what works for me and what doesn’t and what doesn’t work is if they want me to write a song. I wrote ‘Brazil’ and had an episode when I was 16, and I was like, God, am I ever going to top this? So I was trying to write ‘Brazil’ again and trying to repeat myself.

“It’s taken me years to realise this, but trying to write in ways that you used to is not creativity at all. That is almost like using a different part of your brain, painting by numbers or building a Lego structure where you know what you’re going for when you start. What I really embraced on this album was the opposite of that. Not really knowing where you’re going when you start an idea.

That is what creativity’s about. That’s where the magic happens. You’re really not thinking about it; you’re just impulsively going for things.

“When you think about other people’s expectations or your own expectations, I think it’s very hard to do anything worth listening to. Creativity happens in a different way. I started this verse where I was like, what’s the point? Why do things this way?

The song sounds a bit downtrodden, but it’s completely tongue-in-cheek. Nothing works other than doing things your own way.

It’s mocking the idea that I would approach things from your idea of how I used to write songs. That rounded it off because it was me justifying the whole thing. The whole premise behind the album.”

One of the qualities that makes Declan so brilliant and such an engaging personality in the modern pop world is his capacity for being unafraid to be silly and ridiculous and a bit over the top. This playfulness and humour is at the heart of everything on ‘What Happened To The Beach?’

“I’m really trying to be an advocate for goofiness,” he laughs. “It’s part of my own personal brand that I can really get behind because people are always so scared of it.

When goofiness comes around, people don’t know what to make of it. You really find your people through goofiness.

“It’s again one of those things from when I was younger that I’ve embraced more and more now. I think it’s really important with music to not just challenge people but push yourself to your limits and do things in the way that only you can. If that’s something goofy or something very earnest and simple and straightforward, then that’s something that can only be expressed with art or, for me, with music. It’s important to me. It’s more important than ever that the music is wonky and presented in a way that’s playful and silly.”

Despite the freedom and creativity, there is still an element of risk involved with an album so stylistically different. Amplifying 32. DORK

DECLAN MCKENNA

the oddness, though, and providing a stunning counterpoint are heartfelt and tender moments like the heartstopping ballad of ‘It’s An Act’, maybe the best song Declan’s ever released and certainly a career highlight.

“I knew that this album was somewhat surreal, at least in the context of my own catalogue,” he admits. “I knew there had to be some moments that brought it down to earth a little bit. I think ‘It’s An Act’ does that. It’s a real lockdown moment. It genuinely came out of quite a sad time. It’s another side to the album that is actually quite emotionally vulnerable. It kind of stays in the character of the album but breaks down the fourth wall a bit. I thought it was important to have one or two moments on the album that weren’t a show.”

The journey we’ve chronicled over in Dork with Declan has seen him become one of our most cherished favourites. For Declan, it’s been a rise that has allowed him to fully realise his singular vision. “It’s taught me to never stop learning,” he says of the last eight years. “It felt like one huge learning curve.

Confidence is important, but never be so confident that you don’t feel like you have something to learn. You’ll change your mind in six months to a year’s time about who you are and what you want to do or what it is that makes you feel good about yourself, and that’s fine; that’s part of life. The journey has been amazing. For me, having those experiences under my belt now at 24, I just feel so capable now.”

People always say about ascending artists that they’ve finally ‘found their voice’, but maybe the best artists never really find their voice? They’re constantly shape-shifting.

“I’ve always found it hard to stay in one place,” smiles Declan. “Maybe if I formed a band and said we’re going to be a shoegaze band, then maybe finding your voice would have happened. I think what’s important about my voice is that you know that it’s me regardless of aesthetics. Especially in the modern time when you’re not restricted to

"I’M TRYING TO BE AN ADVOCATE FOR GOOFINESS; IT’S PART OF MY OWN PERSONAL BRAND" DECLAN MCKENNA

what instruments you have in your room because you have your computer, you can have any sound ever. Genre is so transient now. You can have a hip-hop hit with a banjo. It doesn’t matter.

“The important thing is having something that ties it all together, and that’s your own personality. Even that is going to change.

St. Vincent, who is one of my favourite artists, tweeted a while ago that ‘I’d rather be offended than bored’, and I think that is so true of the way that you move as an artist.

You’re damned if you do or damned if you don’t, so you may as well change and evolve and see where you end up and who you can drag along with you.”

A lot has changed for Declan in the near decade he has been making music both in his own career, but also in the wider musical landscape. How much of the precocious 15-year-old who first wrote ‘Brazil’ does he recognise in himself now?

“A lot! I’m still motivated in the same way to create and perform. I’m still, in a less intense way, hell-bent on uniqueness and being yourself and doing things your own way. I just think I’m a more relaxed version of myself, really. I’m still figuring it out, but now I value rest a lot more, and I value being bored a lot more. Giving my brain a chance to breathe.

“Back then, the music that I would

consume and try to make would never let up.

I think the main difference is that now I value the space that gives your brain a chance to reset and think and evaluate. Back then, I was always moving. That probably is to do with being in the music industry for the first time and my age. The world was so exciting to me; it still is, but I want to be able to actually take it in now and not be so on edge all the time.

The message is still the same; the desires are still the same. I’m still hoping that Spurs are going to do something. I’m still trying to play guitar like St. Vincent.”

Another key aspect of ‘What Happened To The Beach?’ is the conceptual world which Declan and his collaborators have created. A kind of surreal dreamscape as featured on the album artwork and music videos, inhabited by giant cows, vivid bright skies, playful pigeons and his trusty new metal detector.

It’s a creative thread that runs through all the imagery for the album.

“We found that on eBay,” he tells us about his magic metal detector. Okay, so maybe it’s not actually magic. “It was an old metal detector, and we got it kind of working. It’s been bashed around; it’s gone out to America with us in a flight case.

“With the visuals, I’ve worked with two friends on everything. I’ve been going to them as confidants. One is Jake Passmore, who previously directed the ‘My House’ video and is just a multi-talented and stylish human being. King of vibes music, I would say. He’ll just throw on some Henry Mancini or world music album that is very calming.

“The other person is Henry Pearce.

There is nothing that man can’t do. He’s my keyboard player, flute player, he plays the violin, he’s been my sax player. He’s just started a band himself, which is doing really well. They are called Soft Launch, and they are incredibly good. They have so many good songs in the bag. You’re going to be all over it, I promise,” Okay, Dec, Dork’s Hype List is next issue, thank you very much. Anyway, carry on.

“Henry has been the photographer for

READDORK.COM 33.

COVER STORY

The Prince of DORK

→ If we’re going to make a pantheon of certified Dork legends, then Declan McKenna might be at the very top. From the first issue way back in 2016 to right now and his third cover feature, we’ve chronicled Declan’s journey from precocious boy wonder to the mercurial musical maestro that he is today. It’s been a tale encompassing political activism, questionable moustaches, squirrel hijinks, fantastical space flights, Nashville adventures, chart battles and fancy coloured fish. Across three fantastic and dynamic alt-pop records, Declan has become one of our finest songwriters and exuberant pop stars, so let’s look back at some of the highlights of the last 7 years of Dec in Dork.

July 2016 It’s issue number 1. Where it all begins. You remember, of course, you do. It’s the one with the fondly remembered and much missed Spring King on the cover, along with a number of fresh-faced, exciting pop hopefuls under the headline “popscene”.

Among all these exciting talents was 16-year-old Declan McKenna, who was enjoying a whirlwind start to his career with a string of compelling singles and a slot on big-time US telly. He immediately set his stall out as an artist who strongly expressed the values important to him as he talked about his early single ‘Bethlehem’. “It’s a criticism of the negatives that religion has created in the world,” he explained before confidently proclaiming, “I’ve never been one to censor what I think.”

December 2017 We caught up with Declan again to find out how he was revelling in the rock star life with his newly formed band on his debut Later with Jools Holland performance, showcasing the stage presence and exuberance that would define his career. He also gave some tantalising hints to what lay ahead with his debut album, “The album is about being frustrated as a young person, being open and talking about politics.”

August 2017 It’s the big one. Declan’s debut album ‘What Do You Think About The Car?’ and his first Dork cover feature. It’s also arguably something almost as big and legendary. Yes, it’s Declan McKenna and the pizza-eating squirrel. Before we get to our furry friend, let’s just celebrate Dec’s glorious opening statement. An assured and dynamic alt-pop rush with a socially conscious core and a wide-eyed optimism. This was a period when Declan had a lot to say and was prepared to shout it out loud.

“I’ve talked about loads of things in songs,” he said.

“When you’re in a world surrounded by mad shit happening, it’s hard to ignore if you’re an artist. A lot of art is inherently political. It’s hard to avoid when

34. DORK

you’re looking at the world around you and you see injustice. It’s easy to let it out into art. It’s even more important now that I’ve got a platform to talk about certain subjects and get people engaged in making their own art and doing things themselves. It’s always been a part of what I’ve wanted to do as an artist.”

So, a big year for Dec and a big year for squirrels.

Defending his pizza from an intimidating flock of pigeons, the plucky squirrel wasn’t going to give up his tasty treat without a fight, and Dec was on hand to document the standoff, and his squirrel escapades ended up in the Daily Mirror newspaper. “I just thought it would be fun to take a picture of a squirrel!” he laughed. There was a wider, more important message to the drama, though. “After I took the picture of the squirrel eating the pizza, I found the pizza box, and I swear to god, all the pineapple had been picked off. The squirrel has confirmed that pineapple does not go on a pizza. It’s a metaphor for life. When life gives you pineapples, pick them off a pizza.”

August 2019 After a while out touring, we caught up again with Dec as he was out recording in Nashville, cooking up his rabble-rousing stand-alone single ‘British Bombs’.

“I wanted to take a modern approach to quite an old-school British thing,” he said. “I wanted to make something quintessentially British. The protest song is part of the British tradition, and when we’ve done it, we’ve usually been pretty good at it. I wanted to have a modern pop take on it. It was really fresh for me and was a good fit with what I was making.” While he was out in America, Declan was also piecing together what would become his second album, ‘Zeros’.

“I’m out in Nashville recording. It’s amazing; we’re having the best time. I’ve got the whole band here with me as well. That’s the big difference from the first record now that I have the full live band. It’s all about energy. It’s a different record, and I’ve definitely tried to progress. It feels like a natural progression. It’s a little bit away from what I’d define as indie. It’s a little bit insane.”

In a different kind of progression, Declan now had his famous moustache, which may or may not have been inspired by classic Ian Beale from Eastenders. “I do have a moustache at the minute! I don’t know what it is about being in southern America, but I love it, and something about it makes me not want to shave. It’s part of who I am.”

August 2020 Big. Dec. Energy. In one of the most iconic Dork covers of all time, we went deep on Declan’s dizzying

opus ‘Zeros’.

Released during peak pandemic, this was a difficult time for everyone, but no lockdown or isolation could dim the ambition or kaleidoscopic glee of Dec’s second album. “The ideas that I thought would be the concept of the album never stopped changing,” he said. “I was thinking about space” – a recurring theme on the record – “and how that metaphor tied into so many things that I care about: the environment, denied aspirations of a lot of young people in the world. All of that was very important to me.”

Narrowly missing out on a Number 1 album in one of the great injustices of our time due to an old Rolling Stones reissue, ‘Zeros’ is a record suitably emblematic of the strangest year in modern history.

“It’s about reality and what reality is,” he wondered.

“It’s the big question looming over everything. What makes people lost in reality?” ■

DECLAN MCKENNA

"NOTHING WORKS OTHER THAN DOING THINGS YOUR OWN WAY" DECLAN MCKENNA

everything. These two guys I’ve gone through everything with. We were discussing the themes for the album because it felt very abstract, and I didn’t want any of it to be weighed down by heavy subjects. I wanted it to have the visual and aesthetic focus but not make it feel really cynical like the last album.

That was very dark and stuff. I didn’t want that, but I wanted some sort of consistency. I think it was Jake who came up with this, but he had the idea of the metal detector as the album being a search for sound. It’s the thing I was talking about of not quite knowing what you’re looking for. You’ll have to see what comes of it, but as yet, no one has a clue what I’m looking for. That connects to the album and the way that it’s been made.”

It’s an aesthetic that’s influenced by the wide open spaces and expansiveness of the American landscape. “Henry’s very interested in the history of America and the aesthetics that come out of California. Route 66 and shit like that. That, combined with some of the influences he’s picked up, led to the idea

of these big, sprawling, placeless landscapes.

Landscapes that you couldn’t pin down what they are. We shot in the Penguin Pool at London Zoo and Devils Dyke near Brighton for the artwork. The idea of the pictures is that we warp it in a way that’s kind of subtle and puts it somewhere that doesn’t really exist. That’s the line between everything.

The metal detector and the search going on.

I jump in between these strange, placeless vistas.”

Of course, here at Dork, we love a good animal in a pop video or pop image, and Dec brings this to life with his fantastical cows and the pigeons in the ‘Sympathy’ video; who knows what creatures might pop up? “Well, the album is called ‘What Happened To The Beach?’. It’s not exactly an environmental album, but I’m very conscious of the fact that we’ve only got so much time left to save all these guys. I’m a big animal lover.

A big vegan,” he exclaims.

Perhaps the final bridge for Dec to cross with this album is to get that elusive Number 1 record after ‘Zeros’ narrowly missed out to an old Rolling Stones album in a chart battle in 2020. This time, The Stones are back again, but fortunately, releasing this year well before Dec’s album comes out in February 2024. “They’re staying well clear,” he laughs. Dec is determined not to get caught up in any chart nonsense.

“Whatever will be will be,” he sighs. “The thing is, it’s not going to be such a hyper fixation this time around because I’ll have other stuff to do. In this day and age, obviously, Number 1 means something, but I don’t think it means what it used to, and I don’t think it’s the be-all and end-all of the campaign. I don’t look back on that time as a fun time. I didn’t enjoy the process of trying to get a Number 1. It’s not a passion for me. The thing that has felt important and has lasted with me is that people are still listening to it. There are people turning up to those shows wanting

to hear those songs. I still listen to it myself, and even though there are things I would do differently, I really went for something, and I’m proud of that. That’s the important thing.

“I really do believe that an album is never made in that first week, and it’s after a long period of time when people are still listening to it and saying that’s a good one. That’s when you know that you’ve done something because there’s been some shit number ones in the last few years.”

2024 is going to be a huge year for Declan McKenna. With a new album, a new UK tour and a new sonic world for fans to dive into, it looks set to be a defining period of his career.

“We’re going everywhere,” he promises.

“There’s a lot to look forward to. It’s been a hot second since I’ve toured the UK. The other main thing is more music and some really cool ideas for the videos around that.

Each new single is going to have different stuff around it. They are varied in concept.”

Bursting with ideas and commitment to have fun and do things his way, Declan McKenna’s new phase of liberation is upon us. Declan concludes by whetting our appetite for what’s to come with three words to describe ‘What Happened To The Beach?’

“Intimate, messy and wobbly.” Welcome to Declan McKenna’s wobbly era. ■ Declan McKenna’s album ‘What Happened To The Beach?’ is out 9th February.

READDORK.COM 35.

COVER STORY

THE

CMAT is the world’s greatest pop star.

With her new album ‘CrazyMad, For Me’, she’s created her masterpiece.

By Jake Hawkes.

Photography by Sarah Louise Bennett.

36. DORK

CMAT

GREATEST

READDORK.COM 37.

COVER STORY

iara Mary-Alice Thompson, or

CMAT as she’s known when in pop star mode, has had a very long day. A Dork cover shoot, an Instagram live where she discussed getting scurvy on an early tour, and the release of new song ‘Stay For Something’ all precede our chat. By the time we meet her on an unseasonably hot September evening, she’s lying down on a sofa in her label offices. “This feels like the first time I’ve laid down in two days,” she says, pushing herself back up to a seated position with a mock groan.

If it feels like a gruelling schedule, that’s because it is. CMAT’s debut album ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’ was released to critical acclaim early

38. DORK

"WHEN I WAS GOING TO MAKE THIS RECORD, MY IDEA WAS TO MAKE ‘BAT OUT OF HELL’

BY MEATLOAF, BUT FOR THE GIRLS" C M AT

last year, hitting Number 1 in her native Ireland and winning the Choice Music Prize for Irish Album of the Year.

Ramping up for album two, she’s released a song with long-time hero John Grant and received a shout-out from none other than Robbie Williams. It all feels like a turning point for someone who currently describes herself as an ‘H List’ celebrity (“Not a household name, but I’m definitely culturally relevant.”)

We retreat to a roof terrace where, despite the exhaustion, Ciara is on top form, bouncing between topics so fast it’s hard to keep up. We skip from Joan Didion - “A brilliant writer, her style is so beautiful” - to Dostoevsky - “He just writes bangers! People love to be all intellectual and literary about Dostoevsky, but he’s just like James Patterson” - to Patterson and Dolly Parton’s co-authored book - “Dolly’s probably lying on a chaise longue, dictating things that she thinks are a good idea, and he’s ignoring 70% of them and just writing a book” - within the first five minutes.

It’s a series of digressions that any longterm follower of CMAT on social media will know is par for the course, but this scattergun approach to topics doesn’t carry over to new project ‘CrazyMad, For Me’. The album is a tight twelve tracks based around a disastrous relationship and period of poor mental health that started when Ciara was 17 and ended when she was 23.

“I think time is a very important element in all this,” Ciara says, when asked about how she manages to write about such dark subject matter without things going off the deep end. “I’m only telling this story now, when it happened in what, 2017? If I’m being perfectly honest with you, I still have terrible thoughts and do terrible things, and nobody ever fucking hears about them because I can be very secretive when I want to be. These things take time to gestate, and I start to feel a certain amount of guilt around not communicating or expressing them. That’s when it comes out in a song whether I want it to or not.

“Obviously, there is conscious input into all of it as well. When I was going to make this record, my idea was to make ‘Bat Out of Hell’ by Meatloaf, but for the girls. My producer said he’d rather make a Big Star record, so that’s the moodboard - if ‘Bat

CMAT

READDORK.COM 39.

COVER STORY

Out of Hell’ married Big Star.

“There’s also a singer from the 70s called Dottie West. She has an album called ‘Special Delivery’, and I think every single song on the record was a reference for almost every single song on my record, being perfectly fucking honest. I’m only saying this because she’s dead, so she’s not going to care… I hope!”

This sense of songwriting as something that happens automatically or unconsciously is one that Ciara comes back to. Not in the sense of being effortless or something she does in her sleep, but more in the way that her songs are about the subjects they need to be about, rather than a curated collection of topics she thinks will resonate most. Themes of mental health are streaked through her output because it’s something she’s grappled with for years, not because it’s relatable or worthy to talk about the subject.

“I think the worst, WORST thing you can do is to put mental health issues on a pedestal and romanticise them,” she says forcefully. “Look, if I was to be a bitch about it, which I am, I do not appreciate the way a lot of musicians talk about mental health these days.

“There’s so much crap on the airwaves and in the public domain from people who are writing about mental health in a way that’s just capitalising on the zeitgeistiness of it all. As someone who has been a wibbly wobbly wonder my entire life, the only thing that has helped is when someone communicates a specific situation in a laser-focused way that makes it clear that the world has been a difficult place for them to live in. And that doesn’t have to be miserable - it’s probably more effective to be relatively jovial about it because it demystifies it, it makes it feel less romantic, less big. People writing mass-market songs about mental health aren’t interested in the craft of making music; they’re interested in good marketing, good advertising, and getting a leg up for their career as a

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"MY FAVOURITE MUSICIANS HAVE ALWAYS SWUNG BIG. WHEN YOU SWING BIG, SOMETIMES YOU FUCKING MISS" C M AT

mommy or daddy influencer in a few years.

I think it’s very manipulative, to be honest.”

Ciara pauses for breath and takes a sip of Diet Coke. “I have lots of strong feelings about that,” she says with a grin.

“You know what else I hate? People saying music has to be relatable - it doesn’t! I worship the ground that anyone who is good at songwriting walks on. What do me and Lana Del Rey have in common?

Nothing. She’s glamorous as fuck, different upbringing to me, always lived in America.

But I love her, and if I was in a room with her, I would be a wreck because I am so not cool and would not be able to say anything coherent.

“Some of my favourite musicians of all time have been extremely privileged people that have just not hid it from me; they’ve just written about problems that they’ve had that are completely different to the problems that I’ve had but the way that they write about it is so touching that I find a vein or a thread of similarity.

That’s what good songwriting is; it’s not about relatability, it’s about tapping into

something that’s beautiful and sad and profound.”

If there’s one thing Ciara takes seriously, it’s writing music. The story of how she started making music again because of a feedback session where she told Charli XCX exactly how she could improve new songs is CMAT legend now, but it’s still a great encapsulation of who she is as a person. Behind the hilarious on-stage personality and disarmingly honest interactions with her fanbase, good songwriting is the lodestar which guides the good ship CMAT. Does that mean she never worries about the possibility of making a bad album? “Oh my god, I’ve definitely been worried about making something shit!” she says, half laughing, half groaning. “It would be SO BAD if I made a shit album. The worst part would be that I don’t think I’d have any idea that it was shit. I’ve studied songwriting so much, and I know everything about it, but I

CELEB SPOTTING WITH CMAT

→ “I was doing a writing session, and the person I was with said Brian Eno was in the same building, so I sat outside and waited for half an hour for him. I knew it was him because he had Tippexed ‘B E’ on his suitcase, so I locked eyes with him and said “ARE YOU BRIAN ENO?!” because I am catastrophically uncool.

“He said he was and then offered to make me a very expensive cup of tea with special herbs that were good for his voice.

Apparently, a fan in Japan sends them to him, and they cost £20 a teabag. He made me tea and said, ‘If this was the 1970s, I could buy these myself, but my records don’t sell like they used to’. I said something along the lines of ‘HAHAHAHA YOU’RE SO FUNNY’ because, again, catastrophically uncool.

“I kept the teabag on my radiator for a year, and then it got mouldy, and I had to throw it away. And that’s the story of when I met Brian Eno.”

CMAT

READDORK.COM 41.

COVER STORY

also know that the best songwriters on the planet don’t have a clue what they’re doing at any point. The only thing you can do is tap into what’s going on in your life and try to write about something that’s actually relevant to you and your interests at that moment in time.

“My favourite musicians have always swung big. When you swing big, sometimes you fucking miss. Bob Dylan, love him, adore him - he’s also made some of the worst shit I’ve ever heard. You can’t try to be too smart about it because that feeling of impulsiveness is so crucial to a good song.”

That impulsiveness is more prevalent than ever on ‘Stay For Something’, a track which was released about an hour before our interview and one which Ciara says she “pooped out”. The video sees her running around Macclesfield dressed like Marie Antoinette, but the song itself is a countryflecked blast of emotion which covers the process of trying to find meaning in a bad relationship. So far, so CMAT, but Ciara is insistent that it’s “not a smart song; it’s a very impulsive song”.

She pauses as she tries to think of a comparison. “’I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’ is probably the best song I’ve ever written. I’ll maintain that for the rest of my life. That song is great, and I wrote it very quickly, and it feels quite impulsive, but it’s also very smart. I was flexing my smart muscles and trying to use country and western references, but mixed with the modern chain restaurant-isation of the world - so it’s a smart song on that front. ‘Stay For Something’ is not a smart song; it’s 100% impulsive, and people like impulsive.

“People don’t necessarily need

COVER STARS AND BALD FOOTBALLERS → Here at Dork, we pick our cover stars

very carefully, selecting only the best and most relevant to curate the perfect experience for you, our wonderful readers.

It’s because of that, and definitely not just a big coincidence, that Declan McKenna, one of our other cover stars, contributed to CMAT’s upcoming album. (Ok, it was actually a coincidence, sorry - Ed).

“I haven’t told anyone this, but Dec is on my new album! He co-wrote some of it, especially the song ‘Vincent Kompany’, which he actually came up with the name for and did backing vocals for at the end.

“The song is about a specific mental breakdown where I shaved my head, sellotaped all my hair together and then stuck it onto my wall - which, in hindsight, is a very funny thing to do. I needed a bald celebrity for the chorus, and for ages, it was going to be Stanley Tucci. Then Dec suggested Vincent Kompany, which is a) very fun to say, and b) an extremely bald man, so it fit perfectly.

“I had to do some digging to check he wasn’t a wrong’un, but I’m happy to announce that Vincent is a lovely family man who does a lot of charity work. He’s also a massive Manchester hero, and the song was written about when I moved to Manchester, so it’s all very cosmic, dare I say. Thank you, Dec, and thank you, Vincent Kompany, even if you are very bald.”

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something to be fun to listen to, but they do need to feel that impulse, that sense of something innate which comes to you naturally. I try to make sure all of my songs have that, but ‘Stay For Something’ really leans into it in a way that a lot of them don’t. That’s because I was emotional and angry and felt like I wanted to kill someone before I wrote it, and that’s always led to good songwriting for me.

“Having said that,” she raises one finger in a Columbo-esque ‘just one more thing’ gesture. “I do have the ‘too much’ gene flowing through my veins; sometimes I do too much with the think-y songs. All the songs on the second album are a-ok, but I’ve started writing for the third album, and I’ve been coming away sometimes like, ‘Ok

Sylvia Plath, let’s reel it in here!’ I’ll write the most think-y, lyric-y thing possible, then step back and realise I’ve done way too much.”

Speaking to Ciara, you get a real sense that this back-and-forth is at the heart of what she does. It’s a tightrope walk that she makes look effortless. This is especially true considering that alongside the music, she’s also one of the most engaged artists around when it comes to her fanbase.

In-store signings are one thing, but few musicians simultaneously go live on YouTube and Instagram every time a song comes out, or write a regular newsletter and speak to fans so often on social media that people can instantly tell when it isn’t her writing the captions.

JOCKSTRAP

A DOLLY PARTON POP QUIZ

→ CMAT recently told the world of social media about her desire to be the ‘official Dolly Parton correspondent of the UK and Ireland’, but does she have the knowledge necessary to take up this hallowed position? We gave her an impromptu pop quiz to find out:

What year was Dolly Parton born?

A: She was born in 1946.

CORRECT Which state is Dolly Parton from?

A: Tennessee CORRECT What was Dolly Parton’s first solo single for RCA? A: ‘Dumb Blonde’?

INCORRECT, it’s ‘Just Because I’m A Woman’ What was Dolly Parton’s first Number 1 hit on the Billboard 100?

A: ‘Jolene’ INCORRECT, it’s ‘Nine To Five’ Which famous cloned animal was named after Dolly Parton?

A: The sheep CORRECT What was Dolly Parton’s most recent single (at the time of this interview) a cover of?

A: Oh, it’s with Ringo and McCartney, but I don’t know which song it is... I don’t know, can I have a half mark?

IT’S ‘LET IT BE’, BUT WE’LL GIVE YOU HALF A POINT FINAL TOTAL: 3.5 OUT OF 6

“I was the victim of a character assassination!” she proclaims dramatically, leaning in to spill the gory details. “I was really busy one day; I think I had loads of admin to do or I was in a cave for two days contemplating the nature of existence, one of the two. Either way, we needed to put a video up of me announcing in-stores.

"THAT’S THE REAL DREAM, ISN’T IT? LIVE IN A BIG HOUSE AND OCCASIONALLY GO LOOKING FOR ALIENS IN THE DESERT WITH TOM DELONGE" C M AT

In the video, I was holding a little dog because I thought it would be funny, which it obviously was. But the person who wrote the caption wrote something like ‘this pupper wants you to come’. Which was obviously a hate crime against me personally. I don’t do ‘pupper’, I don’t do ‘doggo’, I do not use the millennial language. But what was funny was my fans were just instantly in the replies saying, ‘CMAT did not write this’, so thank God the brand remains strong.”

On the flip side of this, social media and its implications for mental health are something Ciara has been vocal about in the past. There’s an implicit demand for musicians to be across several social media platforms 24 hours a day, which can be unhealthy for even the most detached person. Multiple studies have found a strong link between heavy social media and an increased risk for depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-harm, and even suicidal thoughts. And that’s without it being directly tied to your job and future career.

“I just can’t go on it every day,” Ciara says. “I have to ban myself from it because it’s so bad for my brain, and it makes me mentally ill. It triggers something explicit in my mental makeup, and it’d be one thing if it was addictive and made you feel good - at least hard drugs have some kind of upside! But you go on your phone, and you’re addicted to it, and you just sit there scrolling, going, ‘Oh, I’m a big fat ugly cunt who can’t write songs and isn’t successful and also I’m a barren woman, and nobody will ever love me unless I get botox’. So yeah, it’s no fun.

“That’s sort of why I started my Sinceremat newsletter, actually. I wanted to talk in a long-form way because if I can provide one piece of long-form reading comprehension for the teenagers out there who are being subjected to three-and-ahalf-second long videos of people cutting soap and fragments from sped-up episodes of Desperate Housewives, then maybe I’m doing some good in the world.

“The internet gets worse the more famous you are, I think. I’m not famous yet, but I can see why Dua Lipa packed it

in; that makes total sense to me. If one of my videos hits the main page of TikTok, it gets put in front of a lot of people, and a lot of people are like, ‘Oh, this is interesting. I quite like the song I just clicked’. For every ten of them, you’ve got twenty people that are like: ‘She looks like Chucky’ or ‘I thought this was an arancini ball’, and it’s quite hellish.

“You just want to shout ‘I’m a human being!’ at everyone - or move to LA and never look at the internet again like Robbie Williams. That’s the real dream, isn’t it?

Live in a big house and occasionally go looking for aliens in the desert with Tom DeLonge, but unfortunately, I’m not quite there yet.”

With only a few weeks to go before ‘CrazyMad, For Me’ comes out, it feels like CMAT is closer than ever to achieving her LA dreams. But there’s one key thing she’s keen that people take away from our interview. She leans in, takes another swig of Diet Coke and says with a flourish: “I’m the best songwriter in the world, and everyone else can suck it.” ■ CMAT’s album ‘CrazyMad, For Me’ is out now.

READDORK.COM 43.

PrO it ve COVER STORY

Exploring uncharted sonic territories, infusing dance beats with a fearless exploration of identity and empowerment, new album ‘Zig!’ is POPPY at her very best.

By Ali Shutler.

Photography by Angelo Kritikos.

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e

i

POPPY

t’s a few weeks before Poppy’s fifth album ‘Zig’ is released, and the singer is in

Los Angeles, already working on the follow-up.

“I’m just excited to be working on new things,” she explains. For the past six weeks, she’s been touring North America alongside PVRIS on their Godless/ Goddess tour, and the whole time she was out there, she was looking forward to being able to record. Now she’s back in the studio, she’s excited to return to the road. That’s just the way it goes sometimes. “Playing live is one of my favourite things in the world. The audience is the show for me; I love watching them, and their response is always inspiring,” she continues, constantly wanting to create something high energy to feed that excitement.

Enter ‘Zig’. “People have been asking me if it’s a pop album,” says Poppy. And it is, kinda. “I like catchy songs, I like choruses, and I like pop music, but I’ve had that

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COVER STORY

across all my records,” she says. However, ‘Zig’ sees her breaking new ground rather than returning to the bubblegum sheen of her 2018 breakout album ‘Am I A Girl?’.

As to be expected, a small portion of fans are already asking for something more like the heavier, gnarled attack of 2020’s ‘I Disagree’, the grunge swagger of 2021’s ‘Flux’ and the vicious, punk revenge of 2022’s ‘Stagger’ EP. “They don’t need to worry,” grins Poppy, and leaves it at that.

Fans have also been asking questions about the series of alternating Instagram photos where Poppy has either blonde or dark hair (“I think duality is always present in my work”), if her cover of Kittie’s ‘Spit’ was ever meant for an album (nope) and there’s also speculation ‘Zig’ will be followed up by a record called ‘Zag’. “That sounds like something I would do,” Poppy says. But doesn’t that make it less likely?

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"THERE ARE DEFINITELY TOPICS THAT I HADN’T DISCUSSED UNTIL I MADE THIS ALBUM" POPPY

“Well, we’ll have to find out.”

Politely drawing a line under the speculation, Poppy smirks and says, “I know what I’m doing; you’ll know when it’s done,” which is fast becoming something of a necessary catchphrase for an artist

who’s released four very different albums in as many years. It brings us neatly to fifth album ‘Zig’.

“It’s an attractive word. It looks really pleasing written down,” she says of the album’s title. “It’s a rapid, quick movement as well. I feel like that’s fitting for the record and for my discography.”

Described by Poppy as another venture into uncharted territory, she went into ‘Zig’ wanting to make a record that could utilise her love of dance. As a child, Poppy spent 11 years training to be a dancer, learning tap, jazz, ballet and lyrical acro with the determined focus of a professional athlete.

“I took it very seriously,” Poppy says. She only gave it up when she wanted to pursue singing, but couldn’t afford lessons in both. Music videos have already seen her incorporate dance, she’s been undertaking movement classes whenever she can (alongside lessons in science), and in December, she starts training for the ‘Zig’ headline tour.

A “high-fidelity” album, ‘Zig’ is different to what’s come before. “It sounds very clean, and the recordings are very shiny in comparison to the last album,” says Poppy. Written over the course of a year with producer Ali Payami, the pair bonded over their love of electronic artists like Burial, Venetian Snares and Massive Attack. Rather than chasing the euphoria of the club, though, Poppy was drawn to music that had an undertone of sadness, with shoegaze artists like Slowdive and My Bloody Valentine also soundtracking studio sessions. “’Zig’ does not sound anything like any of those artists, though,” says Poppy, who’s not one for simple reinterpretations.

While her previous albums can fit neatly under titles like “the metal one” or “the grunge one”, it’s never been the whole story.

Likewise, ‘Zig’ is far more complex and ambitious than a singular genre.

Before teaming up with Poppy, Ali helped write The Weeknd’s global megahit ‘Can’t Feel My Face’ and Taylor Swift’s ‘Style’. He’s also worked with Ellie Goulding, Katy Perry, Ariana Grande and Demi Lovato. “His tastes are much more diverse than the records he’s known for,” says Poppy. “He has such an interesting palette and take on things. He’s also a really wonderful person.”

She goes on to describe making music with Ali as an intimate experience, and that can be heard throughout the lyrics of ‘Zig’. “I didn’t set out with a specific list of

POPPY

things to talk about, but in retrospect, it is an empowering album,” she says. “It’s also about love, relationships and attempting to understand what that means to me and the world.”

The album also leans on selfassuredness, with Poppy “really content with my own presence at this point in life. I was always hoping to get there, but you must be okay with stillness and not running from yourself.”

It means parts of ‘Zig’ feel very revealing.

“There are definitely topics that I hadn’t discussed until I made this album, and it features certain moments where I really pushed myself to be the most honest that I could be at that time. It’s nothing that I feel shy about, though,” she adds. “Looking back on it, it doesn’t feel that vulnerable to me. It just feels like I took a page out of my journal, and I’m not really afraid of that,” with an entire back catalogue written around her own experiences.

Pulsating album opener ‘Church Outfit’ was written about funeral looks and what you’d wear in the afterlife, while the twisted ‘What It Becomes’ sees Poppy “sensually angry. In my everyday life, I don’t identify as an angry person, but I have very strong emotions,” she continues. Elsewhere, the twitching ‘Flicker’ rounds out the trilogy of related songs, with pointed lyrics like “I flicker between fear and a vision of forever” and “never put your grimy hands on my steering wheel” creating an anthem of defiance and hard-fought freedom.

The theatrical, ambitious ‘The Attic’ is a song of “acceptance and release”, touching on panic, fear and unease over urgent garage rock, while ‘Motorbike’ is by far the shiniest song on the album. “It doesn’t have any friends on the album; it’s more of its own freestanding thing, but it’s an empowering track.”

“I went back and forth about including it, but I am glad that it made the cut because it makes me happy when I listen to it. It’s definitely femme and colourful,” she adds. With lyrics like “Girl on a motorbike, no one can confine her / Epitome of freedom, I’m followin’ behind her,” it’s the most direct Poppy’s been in a long while about gender, but as she explains, “I’ve always embraced my femininity. I’ve never tried to be like the boys. It’s important to have a song that’s a bit of a wink,” she says of its smirking attitude.

Aside from music, Poppy is also currently working on a couple of film projects. Writing, directing or acting? “A mixture of all three,” and it’ll be tied into the music as well. “It’s just another element of Poppy’s universe,” she explains, referring to herself in the third person for the first and last time during this 45-minute interview. “I would love to be a screamer in a horror film. That’s a dream of mine,” she continues, with her own amusement park also on the wishlist. “I also want to get better at my craft and learn from the greats.

I just feel fortunate to be able to wake up every day and do something that I actually want to be doing.”

As a child, Poppy was involved with the haunted house her parents ran, and in recent years, her music and accompanying

"I WOULD LOVE TO BE A SCREAMER IN A HORROR FILM. THAT’S A DREAM OF MINE" POPPY

videos have pulled heavily from the world of horror. “I really like the vulnerability of being scared and what drives somebody to have fear. It’s fascinating,” she explains.

“I’ve always liked horror. It gives you something to focus on and allows you to forget about your reality for a little while,

as you’re invested in these storylines that are more intense,” Poppy continues, before admitting she often goes on solo cinema trips. Her music is similarly intense, allowing for much-needed escapism.

“I think entertainment is really important for humans to be able to forget READDORK.COM 47.

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POPPY

their problems, even for a short amount of time, because sometimes reality is too much to handle,” Poppy starts. “It’s easy to fall into that endless scroll of social media and getting notifications about everything that’s happening in the world even though there’s so much you can’t change. In any moment of silence, it’s such a habit to just pick up your phone,” she continues. “The problem is, everyone is just looking at the same exact thing, and it doesn’t allow for free thinking or exploring. It’s a hamster wheel of fear, and I think we can tell by the general level of anxiety in the world right now it’s not healthy,” she adds.

“I don’t have the answers,” Poppy continues, still uneasy with the idea of being a role model. “Everybody is imperfect, but I just try to go deeper within myself and lead by interest. I run towards anything that piques my fancy and away from crowds, because they can be overwhelming.”

“I think the trick might be to find the things that are really important to you and fight to keep them pure,” she offers. “That, and try not to get too wrapped up in the opinions of others.”

Poppy wanted to make music after going to her first concert. “As soon as I understood that you could travel the world with your friends and never have to be home again, I knew that was the job for me,” she explains, with the self-expression and freedom that music offered also appealing to the teenager. She still just follows her gut when it comes to making music. “There are so many different things that I want to explore. I want to remain curious forever,” she explains.

Despite the various musical pivots Poppy has undertaken over her career, her fanbase has always stuck with her. “I think it’s the whole experience,” she says of why her music resonates with people.

She was recently shown a comment that said just seeing where Poppy would go next was inspiring them to create their own art.

“That’s very flattering to hear.”

Still, Poppy isn’t one for nostalgia. “I try not to look back because that’s not where I’m going,” she explains. Throughout her career, Poppy has constantly been ahead of the curve. Her early foray into YouTube and debut album ‘Poppy.Computer’ asked questions about social media, metaverses and AI, with a focus on virality. Nowadays, she’s far more interested in full-length records and meaningful expression. “I think going viral is a very short-lived goal. It’s like aiming for the ground. You’ll always hit it,” she says. “People should dream bigger.”

Elsewhere, ‘I Disagree’ came just before a renaissance in heavy music that’s still blossoming today. Is she never tempted to slow down and wait for the world to catch up to what Poppy is doing?

“I think that’s boring. I just spend time thinking about what I want to see myself do next. I don’t think about what the people around me are doing or could be doing because it’s not about them. I’m living on my own plane.”

It’s a confident yet expected stance

"ENTERTAINMENT IS REALLY IMPORTANT FOR HUMANS TO BE ABLE TO FORGET THEIR PROBLEMS; SOMETIMES REALITY IS TOO MUCH TO HANDLE" POPPY

from an artist who’s constantly had to face questions of authenticity throughout her career, from genre choices to how much control she had over her art. “I never came up in a scene of bands or amongst other artists.

I always felt like I was on my own island,” she explains. “But I’m okay with that now.

I’ve found my group of people, and we have our own thing.”

“There were also a lot of misconceptions in the past about my contributions in certain formats to things based on certain males that were around me at the time, but I very much feel like that’s not a play anymore,” Poppy continues. “It’s a very misogynistic hot take that I rewrote.”

As for her confidence, Poppy believes that came to her a lot later than most. “Growing up, I was somebody who was too scared to speak in front of people.” It was so bad that many of her classmates thought she was mute, leading to bullying and eventual home-schooling, where Poppy turned to the Internet. “That’s why I loved to dance so much; I didn’t have to talk. Then I started writing songs that I had to sing because nobody else could, and I slowly inched out,” she continues.

Those early, surreal YouTube videos were perfect for Poppy “because I didn’t have to interface with people. I could make something, put it out there, and just step away from it, because I was uncomfortable interacting directly with people.” Over the years, that’s slowly changed, and now, “I don’t know how to stop talking,” Poppy laughs, spurred on by her fanbase, her musical peers and her friends. “It’s great.

I can have conversations, and I’m okay with it, but it does require me to take a nap afterwards.”

‘Zig’ may start with a song about death and the afterlife, but it ends with ‘Prove It’, a giddy anthem that celebrates flaws, authenticity and being present.

It started life on the piano, “and it was really beautiful, but it was too pretty,” says Poppy, so the pair put it through a hectic, urgent electro-clash filter. The music may have been another buoyant experiment, but lyrically, Poppy knew exactly what she wanted to say with the line “I’ve got nobody to prove myself to but me”, taken straight from her journal. “That feels very much where I’m at right now,” she grins. ■ Poppy’s album ‘Zig’ is out 27th October.

READDORK.COM 49.

Better Luck Next Tim FEATURES

Indie’s most resilient and daring band, SUNDARA KARMA are back as they return to their roots with ‘Better Luck Next Time’.

By Finlay Holden.

"IT FELT LIKE THE MOST EXCITING THING WOULD BE TO DO WHAT ORIGINALLY BROUGHT US THE FOUR OF US TOGETHER - GOOD INDIE MUSIC"

one track even claiming that exact title, it that can mean one of many things. Maybe is an album that tries only to communicate you found the indie outfit through their Oscar’s brainwaves but will quickly resonate early singles starting in 2014 or latched with others.

The name itself is a first indication of that on to the Reading quartet’s ever-popular debut album, ‘Youth is Only Ever Fun in and could even be interpreted as a message Retrospect’. Perhaps the bouncing alt-rock from the band to themselves. “I just like the of 2019’s ‘Ufilas’ Alphabet’ captured your idea of failure and the loss of hope,” the attention, else the hyperactive, poppy energy singer says. “I definitely felt that over the past of subsequent EPs ‘Kill Me’ and ‘Oblivion!’. “I couple of years, so that’s been present in my guess, ultimately, it just means that you’re mind a lot. It’s like a tongue-in-cheek take an open-minded person,” frontman Oscar on all of that, and there is some resilience in it, too.”

Pollock summarises.

Rich Turvey (“great guitarist, an all-around Described by some as indie’s most loyal or resilient fan base, the band’s regular listeners amazing musician and brilliant producer”) is have been on one hell of a rise over the last already known for his work alongside the decade. The genre-hopping four-piece have biggest names in indie – Blossoms and The never stood still for long, constantly mutating Wombats, to name just two – but when paired their sound into something new and exciting, with Sundara Karma, his perspective helped and fans have been pulled along for the the group return to a familiar sound without colourful journey. With a first LP that stole retreading old paths too closely. They have returned to familiar territory where much of the hearts of many, it was a brave decision the landscape looks the same, but they are to move away from a scene-defining project almost unrecognisable. and diversify their discography beyond what “If you want to find new things and have anyone could have predicted. new energy in your life, then you’ve got to Sundara Karma’s release schedule refused consciously choose to actually do new O S CA R P O L LO C K to relent, the outfit consistently diving things and be in new places,” Oscar muses. headfirst into whatever fresh waters sparked “Surround yourself with new people and their interest next, but it has been almost four experience different things for the first time all the songs are kind of effortless in how they simply fell out of Oscar’s mind, we’re not years since their last full-length effort. “With or in a different way than you have previously. come about only because you have to get to too far from the truth, but the refinement EPs, there is a little bit more room to breathe It depends on what the ambition is. For me, a place where you’re not getting in the way of that process is something that is still when trying different things out for the first I’d like to enjoy the full spectrum of what’s of the song coming through.” being worked on. “I am learning the skill of time,” Oscar states, “and that’s what it felt on offer in life.”

Even the tougher, more self-critical communicating to an audience because like: different. There were a lot of different For a man of such obvious complexity, tracks didn’t bother Oscar’s conscience, with that’s something I’ve never actually thought choices in tying what might feel like new it was a surprising move to start the indie ‘Wishing Well’ examining regrets about the about up until recently,” he confesses. “How genres and influences into those songs.” comeback with ‘Friends of Mine’. A simple, past and fantasising about the future that creative decisions are perceived, how Now, though, the time has finally come light-hearted and relatable banger, it seems was cancelled with a single choice. Heavy different people respond to those things, for a longer-form release in the shape of the like an obvious winner – but was Oscar stuff. “That was actually a really cathartic how can you explain yourself so that people short and very sweet nine-tracker, ‘Better confident this full-circle return would be a song,” he laughs, “it felt like it really captured understand what you’re trying to say, if Luck Next Time’. Once again, the group are winner? “I’m still hesitant, to be honest,” he an emotion that I had been feeling a lot it does or doesn’t matter - I don’t know! I doing the last thing anyone would expect; admits. “I could happily write a song, record it about a past relationship. A lot of it was me think at the core of it all, you want people to this time, that means returning to their roots. and never put it out. It could exist somewhere wrestling with the idea that, oh, if I did that understand you, and that’s really important.

“When it came down to doing the third record, on a hard drive forever. Putting out music is a differently, if things played out in the way in You can be really well-intentioned with what it felt like the most exciting thing would be process that I don’t tend to get too involved a different way to how they really did, then you’re trying to convey but be so confusing to do what originally brought us the four in. Is it a winner or not? I have no idea. I just life would be amazing. It’s like that sliding that the message is lost.” of us together - good indie music,” Oscar think it’s a pretty good song.” doors idea of missing out on a reality that Sundara Karma’s third record is perhaps explains. “No frills, no over-saturation, careful their most direct to date and returns to their Pretty damn good songs lie across you hoped you would be in.” consideration of what stays in the final the tracklist, seeming to arrive almost Instead of pulling himself out of these first love with fresh ideas in mind. With the product and trying to reduce everything to effortlessly with caution on their release existential mindsets, indulging in them is list of the group’s passions expanding by the its bare essentials. That’s when indie music is but none surrounding their formation. This seen primarily as an opportunity for growth. minute, there is no way to tell what will come at its best, I think - when it’s distilled down to is a feeling materialised by a free-flowing “I allow myself to feel what’s there, I definitely next, but Oscar asserts that this clear-cut, its main elements without much else getting creative process: “If it’s starting to feel like don’t push it away,” he confirms, “but I think cohesive attitude is the one thing most likely in the way.” it’s too much effort, for me, that’s when I stop I’m quite a sensitive person, so sometimes to endure. “Maybe not all of my interests have That’s exactly what is delivered here – working on a song and move on to something that stuff can really affect my mood and on to go into one thing. Different projects can to-the-point, emotionally aware, pure indie else for a little bit. Sometimes, that means a day-to-day basis. I try to be good at seeing look at different facets of things that I would that’s not always quite as high of a sugar that I will have an idea for a track for two the positives as well, in life, in general. The like to explore; that’s something that I’m now rush as its cake-themes artwork might years and not make any progress on it until good things give you a bit of perspective.” learning.” ■ Sundara Karma’s album ‘Better suggest. Exploring pain and pleasure, with one day, it happens, and it all clicks. In a sense, If it sounds like ‘Better Luck Next Time’ Luck Next Time’ is out 27th October. → If you’re a Sundara Karma fan in 2023,

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SUNDARA KARMA

me

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FEATURES

"I DON’T THINK WE SET OUT TO MAKE A JOYOUS RECORD, BUT EVERYONE’S HAVING A GOOD TIME" E D N AS H

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BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB

Though they called upon producer Paul care so long as we like and stand by the vision rollercoaster few years, it’s Bombay Bicycle Epworth for ‘Heaven’, the ethereal, inherently we have made. Hopefully, people like it and Club. A hiatus broken by the emotional highs nostalgic Damon Albarn featuring moment, get behind it, and if they don’t, what can we of celebrating anniversaries of their beloved those responsibilities otherwise fell to Jack. do? You might as well be bold.”

That boldness brings the tracks initial albums, pouring their hearts and souls Without the pressure of a clock ticking in into album number five, ‘Everything Else Has each moment, the band had the luxury of themselves to life. The titular track captures Gone Wrong’, only for the pandemic to put stretching outwards, dipping their toes into that energy; commanding your attention from a pause to their post-hiatus plans. Putting new waters they usually would have avoided. the off, it is vibrant in its deft combination of it plainly, there have been more than a few Out of that freedom came an album full of raucous guitars and electronic beats. Another risks and left turns that mesh into a delirious, statement of intent, it becomes increasingly spanners in the works for the four-piece.

Three years from their last release, crazy collection of songs that all emanate clearer that this is Bombay Bicycle Club’s big day, their shining hour, and they intend to however, Jack Steadman, Jamie MacColl, pure glee.

“We were very sure that we wanted bask in it.

Suren de Saram and Ed Nash have returned That embrace of the more offbeat with a sense of renewal. ‘My Big Day’, their to push the boat out and do something sixth album, is nothing short of a celebration. that would potentially divide people, or moments goes hand in hand with that, and Of all they have missed the last few years of not everyone would like, but it would be a they lean into it more than ever on ‘Rural experimentation and of life – it’s a musical creative statement,” Ed affirms. “In terms of Radio Predicts The Rapture’. Following bash, a room filled with your closest friends, the sounds and genres, there are some very the guitar-heavy, Nilüfer Yanya-featuring all with matching grins and a need to dance heavy rock songs, there’s UK garage, there’s ‘Meditate’, ‘Rural Radio’ hums into spectral life until the sun has long since set. It’s pure joy. a sound with an orchestra. It’s pretty bonkers. before bounding head-first into two minutes “If you’re in a bad place, you end up writing music that is inherently sad and negative, and it’s quite cathartic to get that out,” says Ed Nash, the band’s bassist, from his home studio. “But I think everyone is in a good time in their lives. I don’t think we set out to make a joyous record, but everyone’s having a good time. We went through that part of your life where you’re trying to work yourself out, and I feel like everyone has emerged from that feeling pretty sure of themselves, loves being back in the band and is excited for the future.

It does feel like a joyous record.”

From the opening beats of ‘Just A Little More Time’, the sheer delight found in making this album is made abundantly clear.

Forming a one-two punch of classic Bombay BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB are back with Bicycle Club groove-heavy riffs alongside ‘I Want To Be Your Only Pet’, it’s a real mission an album that’s supremely confident, and statement of what is to come. A formidable return, it proved one of the easiest moments they’re having the time of their lives. in the album’s creation.

“Without discussion, we all knew it was

By Neive McCarthy. the first song on the record. That was Photography by Tom Oxley. that,” Ed recalls. “Normally, you have a big conversation, and it’s the most important track in some ways, but it turned up, and it was so easy to decide. It was signed, sealed and delivered from the beginning. It happened very quickly. Songs like ‘Sleepless’, or ‘Diving’, we were working on for two years in some capacity, but ‘Just A Little More Time’ came out in an afternoon.”

The sole mantra amongst the spiralling, hypnotic melody of “just a little, little, little more time” is a declaration of sorts for the album. Predominantly self-produced, ‘My Big Day’ was a product of having the time to experiment and watch what unfolded before them. With just a little more time, Bombay Bicycle Club were able to craft some of their most ambitious and thrilling stuff yet.

“With the last album, we worked with a producer, John Congleton, because we wanted someone at the helm to make those big decisions and to have someone else that On another album, someone would be like, of sharp, exhilarating UK garage that almost was steering the ship,” Ed explains. “It felt ‘Shall we get an orchestra?’ and we’d be like, ends too quickly. It’s unexpected, but the like what we needed at the time. With this ‘No, that’s crazy’. With this one, we were just band arguably shine in those disbelief-heavy one, we knew we wanted to do something out like, ‘Okay, let’s do it’. We thought it was cool.” moments more than ever.

From the somewhat garish fried egg The boundaries of ‘My Big Day’ were there and weird. If you do it with a producer, you’re in the studio for a month. There’s a featuring artwork for the album, it’s expanded ever further by its rotating cast finite amount of time because you’re paying immediately evident that the band have of collaborators – more than the band have them, and you’re on the clock. That can be pursued that sense of fun and disregarded ever called upon before. From Damon Albarn, good because it hurries things along, and anyone’s opinions beyond their own. Nestled to Jay Som, to Holly Humberstone, there’s a it can become more concise. But with this amongst the artistic, muted tones of previous whole host of new voices who push against album, we recorded it over two years – I have artworks, it’s striking and outlandish – exactly the walls of the album and transform it into a studio, Jack has a studio, we went to other the kind of thing they needed to display their something larger than ever anticipated.

“It was definitely more collaborative with studios. You collect bits as you go. Doing most creative release yet.

“That album artwork has upset a lot of people outside of the band,” Ed reflects. that means you get songs like ‘Rural Radio Predicts The Rapture’ and ‘Meditate’ where people because it doesn’t look nice,” laughs “Most of the people singing on the record you can’t really plan for them, and they’re Ed. “It’s pretty in your face, colourful bold. It’s were also writing the song with us. Some so weird that they have to be put together not aesthetically pleasing, but it represents people do a feature just for the sake of incrementally to get something so complex. the music. We knew that people weren’t going getting a name or another artist on there, so Doing it ourselves does allow ultimate to like it, but some people were. Previously, more people will find it, whereas with this one, creative control.” that was always a worry. Now, we don’t really for example, Damon Albarn wrote the part he

→ If there is any band who have had a

BIG

UP

sings. Jay Som wrote the part she sings. Then there are people like Holly Humberstone and Nilüfer Yanya. Jack worked with Holly Humberstone on her record, and we played a festival with Nilufer. It wasn’t cynical, trying to get the coolest people we could. It happened that these are artists we love and are all amazing, but they’re all people that we came across in day-to-day life. We were more open to writing with other people and having other people sing on it – it adds to this feeling of it being quite chaotic and something new.”

It helps, too, of course, that there’s such a wide variety amongst those features – ‘Sleepless’, featuring Jay Som, is a rush of lightly intertwining vocals and breezy percussion. Holly Humberstone brings a tenderness to one of the album’s brightest moments on ‘Diving’ – earnest and hopeful and euphoric. Each external voice adds a new layer to ‘My Big Day’ that allows that excitement to continue to reach through.

“They all push it in the extreme directions.

You listen to a song like ‘Diving’, and it’s a pretty poppy song – you could put it on a pop playlist, and it wouldn’t stand out. Then the Damon Albarn one, by having his voice, almost becomes a classic old-school track.

Without those people’s voices, they’d be very much centred in the Bombay Bicycle Club world, but having those people on there pushes them massively far out.”

After seventeen years as a band, that world had become incredibly comfortable.

The need for reinvention whilst remaining true to their core was important beyond just the music they were releasing. Recently embarking on a karaoke tour, where they acted as a backing band to some performance-ready fans, the priority has quickly become fun – re-imagining their back catalogue in different ways, developing new music, reconnecting with the fans who have followed their journey since 2009’s ‘I Had The Blues, But I Shook Them Loose’.

Those listeners remain a constant reminder of why they do this. It’s something that was particularly clear to the band after their set at Mad Cool Festival this summer was met by a complete loss of power, a first for the band.

“That set was fucked up,” recalls Ed. “The tech side of the festival was insane – we lost power, stuff kept breaking. I think if the crowd wasn’t absolutely amazing, it would’ve been so disheartening. It shows you that this goodwill and camaraderie does mean a lot to us, and it can override stuff like the power getting cut – that’s never happened to us before, but it didn’t matter because it was such a fun, comfortable place to be in. Vice versa, it’s amazing to see a crowd where our music means so much to them that they will put up with a gig that’s falling apart. That show summed up the whole thing for me. It was so fucked up, but it didn’t matter because of the excitement the crowd brought.”

Armed with a new legion of tracks primed and ready for a live audience and having just announced a UK tour, those magical moments are set to continue coming for the band. On ‘My Big Day’, Bombay Bicycle Club prove that after years of recording and touring, that spark and connection still remains. With their sixth album, they learn to capture the triumph and ecstasy found in the studio between the four of them and focus on that. Nobody else matters. “You realise you have to do your best and stick up for what you think – that’s the only person you can listen to,” decides Ed. “It’s easier to enjoy the good bits if you don’t pay so much attention to the difficult side of it. There are people enjoying it; let’s have a good time.” ■ Bombay Bicycle Club’s album ‘My Big Day’ is out 20th October.

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FEATURES

Step into the fearless world of CODE ORANGE as they defy musical boundaries once again.

By Steven Loftin. hardcore, electronic music, industrial, a little your stance on their sonic shifts over the bit of hip-hop stuff, pop, fucking singeryears, it’s plain to see that the Pennsylvania songwriter stuff. It’s all the dark arts! It’s outfit have defiantly stuck by their guns. all in the world of things that we do. But I Releasing their first album as Code don’t see that as a bad thing; I would love to Orange in 2014 (they released their debut represent as the next great rock band, not album ‘Love Is Love/Return To Dust’ in just as a rock band.”

Their next step in this endeavour is 2012 as Code Orange Kids), the band who terrifyingly careened around hardcore’s befitting. For Jami, ‘The Above’ plays out darkest edges on ‘I Am King’ are markedly as a “hero’s journey”, as he puts it. “Or someone’s journey towards some sort different to the band in 2023.

‘The Above’ finds Code Orange exploring of light – whether that’s the light of selfmore spacious fields. While 2020’s ‘Underneath’ was a glitching matrix made to feel as if the factory walls were caving inwards – rust and debris falling with jagged edges – ‘The Above’ is the aftermath. The dust has settled, and the sky is here, but there’s still something in the air.

Frontman Jami Morgan puts it plainly: “The stakes have definitely gotten to their highest point.” Code Orange never do things by halves. They’re in control of everything, from the songs to the visuals to the artwork that wraps around the physical product, of which Jami proudly gives Dork a thorough Zoom walkthrough. “We seem to make each one a little bit more expansive and challenge ourselves, and hopefully challenge the audience, in different ways.”

This iteration of Code Orange is decidedly clearer. The six-piece - completed by Reba Meyers (guitar/vocals), Eric “Shade” Baldose (keyboards/programming), Joe Goldman (bass), Dominic Landolina (guitar), and Max Portnoy (drums) - are pulling into a lane that’s equal parts aggression and rumination. Preparing for the task involved asking themselves, “How do we make something that we would want to hear that has more repeat value and is hookier?

Because that’s what we were interested in doing,” Jami explains. “But doesn’t lose any artistic credibility or any of the push forward that we desire and need to keep going.”

It’s a noticeable change that’s underpinned by a nostalgic, grunge-leaning tone. Where once it sounded like they were tearing through the internet to rip your world apart, now they’ve more studious rock music in their sights. It’s probably fair to say that Code Orange – that experimental hardcore band – are now a rock band.

“I feel like the world needs rock bands,” discovery or the light of success and he asserts. Hardcore is still in their DNA, adoration.” This is best represented with but Jami professes, “I feel like the world the eye boring down at you on the artwork. doesn’t necessarily need more amazing Upon closer inspection, it becomes evident hardcore bands because there are great the eye is hidden behind a ghoulish mask, hardcore bands, but hardcore is not just a the eyebrows more threatening than a brow kind of music, it’s a culture, and it’s in our should ever be. But as with everything Code blood. You can even hear musically a lot Orange, there’s always that dark undertow. of elements of it on the record. But I would In this case of ‘The Above’’s track listing: love to represent in this world as a forward- “There’s this dark parasitic thing pulling at them throughout.” thinking rock band.”

A case in point comes in the album’s Progressive is certainly the word for Code Orange. “On this record, you’re going opener. ‘Not So Far’ crunches to life with to hear rock, you’re going to hear metal, Jami’s rampant vocals over brooding sonics; you’re going to hear extreme metal at Reba yanks the handbrake straight into a times,” Jami confirms. “You’re gonna hear chorus befitting a twisted musical. It’s the → Code Orange are fearless. No matter

54. DORK

perfect scene-setter for an album that plays out with the same organic experience as a human life. Which is by design, of course.

This is Code Orange’s most personal effort to date.

Mashing vitriol with reflection, the purposefulness of ‘The Above’ truly comes to light the further you delve. “The metaphor I touched on earlier, this idea of light and different sources of it, and the inner light of self and the outer light of acceptance started to click in with what we’ve been

feeling on our journey, [and] what I’ve been feeling personally,” he explains. “Battling against the many thoughts and voices and ideas that are constantly in my head and feelings of getting older, feelings of wanting to accomplish something, but also feelings of wanting to love yourself and respect the person in the mirror, that’s something I battle with – that’s something I’m sure other people do as well.”

It’s where the concept marries into the personal that offers Jami and co. more than just an album of explorative rock music.

They’ve turned these evergreen feelings into a tangible world. “Things were coming together and coalescing in an aesthetic that

I felt was fresh, that I didn’t see anybody else doing,” Jami says excitedly. “And something that would be representative of us in terms of the visuals and how we put the artwork together and the videos.”

Visuals are key to establishing the Code Orange vibe. It was initially launched with a curiously thrilling and terrifying cinematic trailer for the album while also teasing first single ‘Grooming My Replacement’. The first proper introduction to this next era of Code Orange came with ‘Take Form’. A bright, technicolour, wall-breaking video that calls to the early-90s heyday of MTV and the grunge movement, the track also features none other than Smashing Pumpkins’ Billy Corgan. Adding his melodic twist to the crushing song, it also feels befitting that on this somewhat conceptual project comes the 90s conceptual king.

“The only difference that I’ve noticed from talking to him is that we’re punk kids, so we’re a little more instant grat,” explains Jami. “So you’ll see our things are more compact and in shorter form. He’s into all kinds of rock and metal and expansive musical – I’m not acting like the guy’s my best friend, but I’ve been able to talk to him a little bit – and so you get these longer, bigger bodies of work. Our goal is to cram those things into something that’s a little briefer and a quicker roller coaster ride because, being hardcore kids, something that we value is the briefness of the journey. I would love to think that we’re kindred spirits.

That’s a great boost for my ego,” Jami laughs.

Piecing together a project such as ‘The Above’ requires confidence. Long ago, they left their hardcore roots in search of something larger. Code Orange no longer fit into any ascertainable box. Instead, they are their own looming beast, devouring whatever sounds and styles suit their needs. Running from a brutal, blast-beat treat such as ‘The Mask of Sanity Slips’ into recent acoustic-led single ‘Mirror’ and back out into the frenetic ‘A Drone Opting Out Of The Hive’ is truly something special. On if they would’ve been able to craft something like ‘The Above’ five or ten years ago, “No, I don’t think we could have made this record then because I just don’t think it would have even made sense,” he reckons.

Jami believes, “It has to be step by step.

I think we had to establish – I want to say dominance, but that sounds like a bad word – but we had to establish ourselves in these different corners and take them to the furthest extent they could go. On the last record, we took a certain sound to its limit, and the same thing on the record before. So you have to find new ways to go while still keeping your soul. And this record is full of soul. And it’s full of all the things that I love about all the different forms of alternative music.”

When it comes to Code Orange plotting out these ■ Code Orange’s album ‘The Above’ is out now.

CODE ORANGE

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PRIYA RAGU

HAPPINESS

PRIYA RAGU is bringing “raguwave” to the masses with her joyous debut album, ‘Santhosam’.

By Ali Shutler.

→ Priya Ragu’s debut album is full of

bangers. Opening with ‘Ammama’s Note’,

a voicemail from her grandmother asking why she’s not married yet, the record quickly slides into the joyful ‘School Me Like That’ which celebrates leaps of faith and her own “raguwave” genre before the disco-inspired ‘One Way Ticket’ and a hammering ‘Hit The Bucket’ keep the party going. “I’m fully convinced about this record,” Priya says. “I guess I could do a few more social media posts about it, but apart from that, I’ve done everything that I could. This is me. This is the sound that I always wanted to create.”

Created over an 18-month period between tour dates with producer/ collaborator/brother Japhna Gold, it’s a record that follows intuition and positive vibes. Priya had no grand vision for what her debut album would look like, but one by one, the pair created songs that felt good, and it eventually just made sense, says Priya. “Initially, I thought it was going to be a lot of love songs, but it ended up telling a story of me finding my own happiness through this journey.” It’s why it’s called ‘Santhosam’, which means happiness in the South Asian language of Tamil.

Priya Ragu seemingly appeared from nowhere in 2021 with the sleek swagger of ‘Good Love 2.0’ and the following mixtape ‘damnshetamil’ only underlined her pop star potential. “It’s familiar, but it also completely switches things up and offers something new,” explains Priya of why her early music connected.

Growing up, Priya was involved in communal jam sessions organised by her parents, who had relocated to the Swiss city of St Gallen following the Sri Lankan civil war, but they weren’t so keen on her newfound love of R&B. Forced to follow her passion in private, she went on to work for Swiss International Air Lines as a technical buyer to make them happy, and would occasionally do an open-mic night or sing backup for friends on the side. After a decade of compromise, she turned to her brother Japhna to start working on original music together.

To start with, Priya wasn’t sure about

"THIS IS ME. THIS IS THE SOUND THAT I ALWAYS WANTED TO CREATE"

down. Now, he’s so proud that I did what I wanted regardless and that I’m also incorporating our culture into it. It’s cool to prove them wrong, I guess.”

‘Vacation’ was the last song written for the album, created after someone from the label asked if Priya had one more song in her when all she wanted was a holiday. “Working with the label was interesting because you need to know what advice to take and when to say no. It was tough at times, but I definitely grew from it.” Having to back herself “brought me closer to who I am P R I YA R AG U and what I want,” she says.

Across the record, there’s a through line of overcoming the expectations of introducing South Asian influences to her “I just wanted to make good music. The sound, “but that just felt like the real me,” album is sonically in the same realm as the others and chasing your passions. “As she explains. “Who cares if radio stations mixtape, but everything sounds fresher,” humans, we do limit ourselves. We are she continues, saying you can hear the capable of doing way more than we think didn’t get it?”

Just before releasing ‘Good Love 2.0’, better quality mics they had access we can,” says Priya, hoping to encourage she told the universe, “’Look, this is the to. “It wasn’t about proving anything to her fans to never settle.

Away from self-empowerment, tracks song, and it’s in your hands to bring it to anybody, though. I just wanted to explore the right people’. And it really did,” she and see what else I was capable of. I’m like the thundering ‘Black Goose’ and ‘Let grins, but her ambitions didn’t really go very satisfied with what we got,” she says. Me Breathe (Reprise)’ were written in the beyond the act of releasing music. “I Inspired by the months of touring that aftermath of George Floyd’s murder by wasn’t thinking any bigger,” she explains. came alongside her mixtape, ‘Santhosam’ American police officers. Priya admits However, ‘Good Love 2.0’ inspired an is more upbeat and more deliberate than she felt nervous about writing songs instant reaction when it was released, her previous work. “It’s more fun to play about more serious topics, “but events and the rest of the mixtape was put out uptempo songs, and I knew it would be like that are still happening in the world,

by Warner Records UK, home of Griff, more joyful to write lyrics that had more and it felt like the right thing to do. It’s Thomas Headon and PinkPantheress. “It affirmation in them. It was important to about spreading awareness. It’s a topic felt like my music connected with people have positive songs,” she says, explaining that’s very complex and feels heavy, but straight away as well, which was really how the world needs those bursts of just posting about it on social media didn’t beautiful but very surreal,” she explains, optimism right now. “It can never be feel enough,” she explains.

“I didn’t set out to write about particular with her self-described Raguwave cutting enough.” sleek, stylish R&B with her own Sri The twitching ‘Power’ came about after things, I just channelled whatever I was Lankan heritage. “I never made music for a bout of feeling uninspired. Jephna sat feeling at the time,” she explains, once anyone else, though. I made those songs behind the drums, Priya picked up a again relying on intuition. “There was a lot for myself, I liked them, and I wanted bass, and it quickly started taking shape. of passion, rage and anger in the studio, to share them. It was validating to be “Sometimes the smallest spark can turn but there was also this sense that we can accepted for who I am.” into something great,” she explains, do this together,” says Priya, describing She knows she’s still one of the few describing the track as a superhero the process of making ‘Santhosam’ as Asian women in pop, “so I take that as anthem. “Do we have a sync with the next “healing”.

“It’s very clear what my purpose is now. a big responsibility”. Still, there was no Marvel movie? Not yet. Are we dreaming I’m glad I have this platform when I’m in pressure when it came to ‘Santhosam’. big? Yes.” “There shouldn’t be that pressure if you’re Elsewhere, ‘Lovely Day’ is a song of my 30s because when I was younger, I just being authentic, but it’s nice to see gratitude, while the closing ‘Mani Osai’ is wouldn’t have known what to do with young people inspired by the music I a full-circle moment. Growing up, Priya it,” she says. “I feel like I have direction, make or the things I do.” performed at weddings alongside her dad even if I don’t know exactly where I’m “I always felt like the mixtape was a and brother, with both of them featuring going,” she adds. “I think the key is just great beginning,” she continues. “It gave on ‘Santhosam’s closing number. “My being authentic and doing things at me a direction,” with ‘Santhosam’ seeing dad was the one who made me realise your own pace.” ■ Priya Ragu’s album her confidently continue down that path. that I have a voice, but then also shut it ‘Santhosam’ is out 20th October.

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FEATURES

one another.” musically, Crosses have managed to create a It’s been a career-long pursuit of the That was 2019. By Christmas Day in 2020, sound that exists outside of space and time. singer of people trying to slap him with labels. for a lot of music. Chino Moreno knows that. they returned with the single ‘The Beginning From the first acidic pulse of ‘Pleasure’ to He has tried to avoid the nu-metal label for He knows that maybe better than anyone. Of The End’. In the years following, they the last chimes of the title track, this album 30 years, but in this new Crosses record, he He spent his entire career making opposing covered George Michael and Q Lazzarus, doesn’t feel anchored to a genre or a time. seems to have managed to make something charges collide to make music. That’s how released a few singles before the six-track The pair of them don’t “strive” for much when that is virtually impossible to succinctly you make Deftones. You pit the singer’s EP ‘PERMANENT. RADIANT’ last December. it comes to making the sound of Crosses, but distinguish.

“We wanted to go back to the idea of something that is timeless is always the goal.

It all comes back to dichotomy. Sometimes, passion for 80s new wave against the rest of the band’s love for heavy metal, and out putting out little singles or little EPs or They lean into their influences but never in those opposites attract. Sometimes, they whatever.

Before we knew it, we had a lot of an obvious way.

For example, Chino loves become something bigger than the sum of comes the singular sound of Deftones.

Sometimes, though, the forces are pulling material,” Chino says. In the four years to this trap music, but “I definitely don’t want to have their parts. Chino grew up on a diet of “very sad, romantic, music”, in his words. But he in opposite directions, and something has point, they’ve had a “trove” or 30-something high-hats in our music,” he states.

For Shaun, surrounded by gadgetry and also liked KC and the Sunshine Band and got to give. That’s why we’ve waited almost ideas which they pick and choose from, all a decade for Crosses to follow up their debut listed on a whiteboard. The ones that made musical whatsits in his studio, his approach is “goofy shit” he adds. the EP were the next six ready to go. The next a trial and error melting pot of styles. Looking album.

“I like the dichotomy of being happy and In the beginning, it was Shaun Lopez batch to be completed presented themselves at this album’s lead single, ‘Invisible Hand’, dancing and listening to sad, romantic music that’s where his Dr. Frankenstein creation as well. And I feel like in whatever band I am (guitarist for post-hardcore band Far), as a full album.

“I love making records,” Chino smiles. “That hit the perfect note. “We have those verses doing, I’m always balancing those things,” he Chuck Doom (bass extraordinaire) and Chino.

Crosses was initially a project that could was the era I came up in. Pre-single-driven that are so bombastic,” he says. “There are reasons. exist outside of the music industry and its music and it was more about albums. It’s so these loud bass hits, but the drums are That’s why throwing Run the Jewels’ El-P conventions. It was “unsolicited”, as Chino much more encompassing - putting together actually really small sounding - it sounds like and The Cure’s Robert Smith on tracks is describes. Their name is a logo and, therefore, a full, realised piece of art. So, once we went somebody just hitting the lunchroom table. I justifiable for a Crosses album. El-P’s stellar a challenge for management, marketing and in with that mindset, it all happened pretty love to think of stuff like, ‘What hasn’t been addition to the confrontational ‘Big Youth’ done?’ The obvious thing would have been to is a real standout moment that defines two any form of print media, ahem. They dropped quick.”

So ‘Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete’ put really loud drums on it, but, to me, it would separate sides of the record. But, in the same songs and EPs for free here and there and existed in the underground margins of the is the 15-track second record from Crosses. take away from what it is.” way as reuniting with Shaun to rekindle this The album is full of those moments which band, enlisting El-P was part of a redemption internet. They played small shows across It marks a fruitful four-year period in which the US from 2012 through to 2014. A couple the band will have released almost 30 tracks. blow the doors wide open on what Crosses arc for Chino. of major festivals too but never made it to It takes ideas from across the four years. are capable of. At the same time, this album “I’ve always wanted to redeem myself,” he the UK. Then, they disappeared as quickly ‘Runner’, in fact, started life from that very really separates itself from their debut. admits and laughs to himself. “I did this song first trip to Oregon that brought the two According to Chino, they consciously with El-P once… It was dark times. It was as they arrived.

A short while later, Chino went on tour friends back together. Pieced together over decided to take out some of the “rock probably during the ‘Saturday Night Wrist’ while Shaun and Chuck went back into the era. I literally barely remember recording the studio, intent on moving Crosses forward. But, song. It wasn’t my finest hour. And I always in the studio, things began to go awry. Shaun thought, ‘If I ever get the chance, I’d like to diplomatically calls it “internal combustion”. work with him again. I’d like to redeem myself The truth is, it well and truly was “creative and do something where I’m actually there’.” differences”. Chuck wanted more of a “live” On the flip side, as if for balance, getting feel, more instrumentation, to their music.

Robert Smith was “definitely beyond bucket Shaun wanted a more electronic vibe. Chino list” for the singer. was in the middle. The conflict went against “I sent him an email, and I didn’t let Shaun everything Crosses had originally been about. know because it was kind of a long shot that “This has always been a project where he would even be interested in doing it,” he we create and have fun, and there is not reveals. After a few weeks of silence, the too much thought or stress behind it being vocals appeared out of the blue and are now something we have to do. It’s more or less a enshrined in Crosses history. labour of love,” Chino gushes. But when they “I know it sounds like a cliche, but if you couldn’t agree, that love soon started to fade. told a fifteen-year-old kid that I’d be working “So at that point,” he continues, “everything with him and he’d be singing on a song that kind of died down, and we started working we wrote, I wouldn’t have believed you, for on other stuff.” sure,” he beams.

Years passed.

And while that song, ‘Girls Float Boys CHINO MORENO Shaun and Chino go back. Not just as a Cry’ marks a career-high for the singer, it measure of time but as a measure of a journey was written “in one of the darkest days”, he together. “We were probably in our late teens when we met. We’ve always had a relationship just three or four months, the album is an element” of their sound and, instead, tried concedes. “I was sad and lonely, and I literally outside of music and within music. We have accumulation of the conveyor built of ideas to think outside of the box when it comes to say that in the song.”

The more you peel back the layers of making an impact. had our ups and downs while working on a the duo have had over that time.

“We both come from being in rock bands, ‘Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete’, the “It’s been very organic. We’ve done it at lot of records, mainly the crazy cycle of the ‘Saturday Night Wrist’ album, which Shaun our own pace and just enjoyed the process,” so it’s so typical for us that ‘this part’s heavy’, easier it is to get lost in this cosmic, romantic, so big drums, loud guitars, and that’s how we balance of opposing forces. Neatly put, Chino produced with us after going through four Chino adds.

The album’s title comes from automatically show this dynamic. We were experimenting explains, “The fact this record was done over or five producers. That was a crazy time,” Chino remembers. And for anyone who made saying “Goodnight, God Bless, I love you” to with different ways of having these such a long period of time means we were it through that tumultuous journey, with its his parents and siblings growing up. The dynamics without having a traditional rock able to capture some of the lowest of the lows many producers and Chino trying to balance phrase just locked deep into his lexicon. He instrumentation. On the last album, there was and the more invigorating, optimistic, sort of a divorce and drug addiction too, that is a then added “Delete” to bring it into the future. a lot more live band stuff.” The aim was to not vibe as well.”

Beyond just the four years of music, the “It’s just something you just typed out, and be just another hybrid electronic band that bond for life. scales that were tipped in ‘Saturday Night So it wasn’t out of the ordinary for Shaun then it’s just the end. Close your laptop or has been done a million times before.

Plus, “the goth vibe”, as Chino refers, Wrist’ have had a chance to rebalance. to travel up to Oregon to see Chino, to hang whatever,” he explains.

Written and recorded across four years has taken a backseat from its place at the Friendships rekindled. Wrongs have been out. But, very quickly, they fell back into the routine. They started making music again. makes this album unlike many others. It isn’t heart of their first album. “I was definitely righted. A staunch defiance to any journalist Crosses 2.0 was born. They pressed on a snapshot of a time in the studio; it is much upset when the first record came out, and who labels Crosses as “witch-house”. The without Chuck. “I felt kind of bad for him,” broader than that. It is more of a map of their it was thrown into a genre of witch-house or list goes on.

And this is still in the beginning for Chino adds, considering the lack of room for own journey. And, lyrically, for Chino, that whatever, which, obviously, I don’t think it was Chuck’s considerable talents in the second journey and change in his mindset is evident. witch-house whatsoever but lazy journalism Crosses. Their whiteboard of ideas is still “There are some reoccurring lyrics and or the fact we had a logo for our name, people bearing fruit. iteration of the project.

“There are still songs that we have that Before they really knuckled down, they things in the music that have been pointed just ran with that. I felt like there was a great set some ground rules with one another. out to me, and usually I’d be like ‘I’ve got instrumentation in the music, and it just got are halfway done, and I wouldn’t be against dropping a single next year sometime. Or a Almost as a way of self-preservation of to change that because I repeated it’. But lumped in with all this laptop trap stuff.”

“Going into this, we wanted it to be broader. couple of singles,” Shaun teases. “To me, the their friendship and to not allow the same actually, I repeated it because I’m answering deterioration to happen again. Chino explains, that question that has been asked on We wanted to make sure it wasn’t going to beauty is that everything is in-house. It feels “After we started making some music, we something that was a few years old. It’s get lumped with just one thing. We talk a lot liberating. We are not waiting on anyone. We started talking about the logistics of the actually really cool to have such a cohesive about how we like old synthesisers and are are just waiting on us.” ■ Crosses’ album band. Shaun and I sat down and had a really album that has such a broad timestamp on it.” inspired by 80s music, but, at the same time, ‘Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete.’ is deep conversation about how we deal with While lyrically able to chart a course, we don’t want to make a retro record either.” out 13th October. → You’ve got to crack a few eggs to make

an omelette. And the sentiment is the same

"IF YOU TOLD A FIFTEENYEAR-OLD KID THAT I’D BE WORKING WITH ROBERT SMITH AND HE’D BE SINGING ON A SONG THAT WE WROTE, I WOULDN’T HAVE BELIEVED YOU, FOR SURE"

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CROSSES

Chino Moreno and Shaun Lopez are celebrating years of friendship with an expansive new ††† (CROSSES) album.

By Alexander Bradley.

READDORK.COM 59.

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THIS IS

WARGASM

"ANYONE WHO’S ACCUSING BANDS OF BEING INDUSTRY PLANTS IS A MISERABLE FUCKING CUNT"

“I don’t want a riff that makes me want to do a shot; I want a riff that makes me want to fist shudders with angst at every gnarled turn pump and run into a circle pit.” and ferocious twist. “But that’s what a first Before returning to the UK, Wargasm album should be,” says Sam Matlock. “It will head to a rented house with a studio to should be a ‘fuck you’.” continue working on new ideas. In an ideal Since they dropped ‘Post Modern world, they’d get started with album two Rhapsody’ in 2019, Wargasm haven’t been immediately, but a brutal touring schedule shy about saying whatever’s on their mind. has put a stop to that. “We’re going to be Wanting to achieve the primal excitement playing the album in full on the headline run, that comes from playing alt-rock classics and I think that will help us understand where at a house party at 3am, the band released we go next,” says Sam, who’s always chasing a string of snotty, nu-metal-infused tracks a certain high with Wargasm. “I still just get before going on a virtual tour with Yungblud. drunk and excited about music. I still want to Their first ever headline show was a sociallymake The Prodigy’s version of the Smashing distanced seated affair at London’s New Pumpkins’ ‘Bullet With Butterfly Wings’. I Cross Inn, and by the time they were properly don’t know what that means exactly, but I unleashed onto the world at the Download SA M M AT LO C K see no reason to not try because it would Pilot 2021, they had an arsenal of tracks made bring us immense joy.” for huge stages.

“There’s an infinite amount of course “A lot of people called us industry plants, ‘Venom’, the pair’s long-awaited debut album. have changed; we’ve just found the bits of material to rip off and make your own, so which we’re obviously not going to entertain,” “It’s an opportunity to show people what we’re Wargasm that we liked and pushed them we’ll keep going,” adds Milkie with a smirk.

Sam says. “Wargasm is literally just me and made of,” says Milkie. “It’s more cohesive than further. If something felt good, we did more There are a handful of politically-charged Milkie hanging out, having some drinks and what’s come before. It’s more together and of it.” verses where the band spit blood and fire, but writing some songs. We got asked to play mature. It knows what it is,” she continues.

The pair have always had a guttural ‘Venom’ isn’t your typical political punk album. some gigs, which we enjoyed, and after that, Still, a week before ‘Venom’’s release, reaction to guitar music. Milkie was raised Less concerned with taking a stand, it’s more we knew we needed to write more songs Sam is wrestling with imposter’s syndrome. on Motown, soul and pop, with David Bowie, about capturing an energy. “It does feel like to play more gigs. I’ve never been part of “I can categorically say it’s the best thing Stevie Wonder, and The Temptations being we’re born into a generation teetering on the something that has evolved so naturally.”

Wargasm has ever done, and I think it’ll be early favourites, before she discovered edge of something not so good. It feels like “It’s also the least industry-friendly, least one of the most refreshing things anyone Smashing Pumpkins and Bikini Kill. “When something bad is going to happen,” explains easily palatable band imaginable,” adds in the alternative community has heard in a I heard women playing slightly out-of-tune Sam, which feeds into the record’s sense of Milkie Way, with the band’s more radio- few years. I’d be surprised if anyone delivers guitars and screaming into a microphone, it “fuck you, rebellion, feeling betrayed and us friendly hits mashing together metal, punk something as visceral, as honest anytime just did something for me,” she explains. For versus them.” and dance under titles like ‘D.R.I.L.D.O.’, soon,” he says, “but is it good enough?”

Sam, it was Nirvana that essentially changed Then there’s tracks like ‘Death Rattle’, ‘Fukstar’ and ‘Backyard Bastards’. “We’ve “I haven’t had that,” says Milkie, who’s been his life. Now, they want ‘Venom’ to do the which see the band toying with narrative and seen it with The Last Dinner Party and Scowl regularly playing it every week since it was same for others. storytelling rather than a gut reaction to the as well; I don’t know why people assume finished. “I don’t feel any pressure beyond “People always ask us, ‘What does absolute state of things. “Still, fuck buddies in bands with women can’t find success,” she my own expectations.” Elsewhere, Sam Wargasm stand for?’ For a while, we tried to the apocalypse does still feel relevant,” Sam continues. “Anyone who’s accusing bands of regularly finds himself getting annoyed at come up with something, but I think we’re continues. “Even the fictional scenarios are being industry plants is a miserable fucking the comments section, while Milkie avoids beginning to understand that Wargasm is based on a real-life terror that doesn’t feel cunt,” adds Sam. it altogether. “I don’t have the will nor want just a very human experience,” says Sam. too far away.”

In the years that followed, Wargasm to hear other people’s opinions about my art, “It’s not trying to stand for anything beyond “It’s not just pure anger, there’s contempt, toured with Limp Bizkit and Enter Shikari, as my face, my body or anything I do. You can’t letting people be people. If you want to say there’s self-deprecation, and there’s humour well as putting in main stage appearances please everyone, so I stopped listening.” something you feel is important, say it. If you as well,” says Milkie. “But people share the at Slam Dunk, Bloodstock, Download and “You have more strength than me. I have want to just have a laugh, go for it.” rage. It was cathartic writing these songs; Reading & Leeds. They’ve just finished up a need for validation and attention,” grins Playing live has helped shift Wargasm’s it’s just as cathartic listening back to them.” a tour supporting Slipknot’s Corey Taylor Sam. It’s that duality that gives Wargasm the ambitions. When they released their debut “A lot of it has to do with timing,” says Sam across North America, and before their own fizzing electricity that can be heard across single, their only goal was to release more of Wargasm’s success. “Every now and again, UK headline tour, the pair will be opening ‘Venom’. while not being able to conventionally tour society links up with the same feeling of lack. for Babymetal across Europe. “It doesn’t “Maybe at the start, we were swinging due to the pandemic reshaped the energy of If you can speak to that with your music, matter if we’re the poppiest band on the bill a baseball bat in a small room,” says Sam, those early tracks. “When you’re playing live, whether it be through escapism, romanticism, or the heaviest. At this point, you get what while their 2022 ‘Explicit’ mixtape had the you’re absorbing this wall of energy that’s speaking out against it or just being pissed you fucking get,” grins Sam. “We’re pretty energy of them wielding “a big, blunt sword”. coming towards you. At a house party, it’s all off, it’ll connect with people, as long as you’re comfortable being Wargasm right now.”

With ‘Venom’ though, “it’s a precision around you,” says Sam. “Maybe this album is being honest.” ■ Wargasm’s album ‘Venom’ A big part of that confidence comes from instrument,” he explains. “It’s not that things for house parties and arenas,” he continues. is out 27th October. → Wargasm’s debut album ‘Venom’

Discover the electrifying journey of WARGASM, as they break boundaries, challenge conventions, and unleash their visceral and honest debut album ‘Venom’.

By Ali Shutler.

READDORK.COM 61.

INCOMING. THE NEW RELEASES YOU NEED TO KNOW

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

RECOMMENDED

RELEASES The albums out now you need to catch up on.

Romy

Mid Air ★★★★

→ Dance music, in its purest form, is deeply physical. By its very nature, it’s music that compels you to move, but, perhaps more importantly, it also compels you to feel. On Romy’s debut solo album ‘Mid Air’, the voice of The xx provides a masterclass in emotional dance music with all the feelings ramped up to a transcendent level.

Bleach Lab

Lost in a Rush of Emptiness ★★★★★

→ Bleach Lab are one of those special bands whose sound just has some sort of ethereal magic - and their long-awaited debut album ‘Lost In A Rush Of Emptiness’, a line taken from Leonard Cohen’s collection ‘The Flame’, is just as beautifully melancholic as its name suggests. A quintessential mixture of 90s shoegaze, dream-pop, and indie-rock, it’s the product of Bleach Lab’s journey of experimentation.

Chappell Roan

the massive changes she’s faced Holly since being the BRIT Awards Star in 2022. From writing Humberstone Rising songs on her parents’ piano to

into a new gear and paid tribute to

Paint My Bedroom Black ★★★★

→ With the release of ‘Antichrist’ and ‘Room Service’ in July of this year, Holly Humberstone shifted her music

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selling out London’s Brixton Academy within just 3 years, she is the epitome of a meteoric rise.

Her debut album, ‘Paint My Bedroom Black’, represents an artist mid-transformation. The record’s title track embodies this new phase of Holly’s life, tying together her recognisably breathy vocal with a new sunnier sound.

Still, the organic, vulnerable moments that cemented her

place on the scene are sprinkled throughout the album. ‘Kissing In Swimming Pools’, ‘Elvis Impersonators’, and ‘Room Service’, bring both romantic nostalgia and brave lyricism that lets her say all the things most are too afraid to admit.

Although lyrically as personal, tracks such as ‘Flatlining’, ‘Baby Blues’, and ‘Into Your Room’ are sonically different from any of Holly’s previous releases, turning up the production a notch and experimenting with dark electronica and trance beats. The complexities of human emotion

are laid bare, with darker sounds and rhythms allowing you to travel with Holly through her intricately designed universe.

‘Paint My Bedroom Black’ is an album of change and growth.

It documents a moment in time just before Holly Humberstone hits the stratosphere. Across this record, there is the sense that she is tinkering at the edges of greatness, taking a breath before jumping feet first into the stardom that she whole-heartedly deserves.

Take the leap, Holly. You’re ready. CIARAN PICKER

The Rise And Fall Of A Midwest Princess ★★★★★

→ Bursting to life like a carnival parade thumping onto your street, Chappell Roan is greeting her adoring public.

Toting pop songs like confetti canons, throwing caution to the hurricane of youthful passion, she’s bringing to the forefront a new wave of glitzy empowerment and a lust for life. It’s a wild ride.

INCOMING

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT

WILL JOSEPH COOK NOVELLA ’S NEW EP

EYE 2 EYE

‘EYE 2 EYE’ features a secret guest vocalist. I really wanted the texture of female vocals on the choruses, so my girlfriend Laurie Case laid some down. She’d never recorded her voice like that before as she’s a choreographer, not a professional singer, so the process was really fun and explorative.

PUNCHIN’

The video for this one was shot in the Welsh mountains. It tells the story of an awkward camping trip with my girlfriend’s scary dad. I still can’t believe how well-cast the dad is. Shoutout @thegreyviking, we literally just found him on Instagram, and this was his first on-screen acting job.

Priya Ragu Santhosam

★★★★★

→ Fresh, fun and simply delicious, Priya Ragu’s dazzling debut album ‘Santhosam’ is sexy, sweet, and filled with spice.

Oozing confidence, wisdom and vitality, Ragu’s pitch-perfect vocals and bouncy beats propel listeners through the album. It’s unrelenting in its brilliance, produced to absolute perfection, yet exciting, fun and unserious, never artificial or flat. Dancefloors everywhere are simply not ready.

A sensational pop album, ‘Santhosam’ sees Ragu lyrically and thematically showcase immense skill and a lifetime

dedication to her craft. Drawing inspiration from childhood influences, Ragu skilfully blends South Asian Tamil beats with Western R&B and pop, creating a shimmering melting pot of sound.

It is total ear candy. Closing the album, the slow, pensive ‘Mani Osai’ is a beautiful melody performed in Tamil, quietly showcasing Ragu’s beaming vocal range.

Above all, ‘Santhosam’ feels like a celebration of life, independence and coming into your own.

Unrelenting joy persists through each track, seen in ‘One Way Ticket’, a Dua Lipa-esque pop explosion, with a hook guaranteed to get stuck in your head. Each track is beautiful and brilliant, consistently spectacular and entirely unique. There is so much to explore in ‘Santhosam’; get ready to sink your teeth in.

EMMA QUIN

BORN TO LOSE

I’ve had the main guitar riff on this track chilling on my laptop since 2020. Earlier this year, I was listening through unfinished projects, searching for riffs that I could flip. I’d been inspired by artists like Brakence, who have taken drill-style beats as the foundation and then built Midwest emo and R&B elements on top. I wanted to try that concept but with different ingredients, making a hybrid between drill rhythms and indie guitar riffs inspired by Bloc Party and The Drums.

MF BASSLINE

I’m really proud of the songwriter concept on this one. The bassline is the lowest frequency in a song, so anything beneath it sonically wouldn’t really be able to hold a note. If you looked at a frequency that low as a waveform, it would be this lethargic wriggling worm of a line. Given that, lyrically, it’s about struggling with my relationship with music and

Pinkshift

Suraksha EP ★★★★

→ A year on from their outstanding debut album, Pinkshift have returned with a reminder of their brilliance. Their differing cultures and heritage have always been what binds this trio, but on ‘suraksha’ (meaning “protection”), it is amplified further. Over 12 minutes, the three tracks are a seamless journey, bursting with moments of savagery and moments of serenity, all infused with a flavour of Ashrita’s South Asian heritage too. Pinkshift have a unique story, but with this short EP, they’ve found a way to bring that story into their music, too.

Alternative music continues to make strides concerning diversity, but Pinkshift are saying it’s not just about what you see but what you hear.. ALEXANDER BRADLEY

depression in general, it felt like a perfect metaphor.

FEARLESS IS THE FLAME

Will Joseph Cook

Novella EP ★★★★

Will Joseph Cook’s EP ‘NOVELLA’ is out now.

→ The thing about Will Joseph Cook, is he just keeps on getting better.

With a rare talent for understanding exactly where big, brilliant modern pop music should go, ‘Novella’ is an EP that proves as his peers drop off, WJC only becomes sharper. Opener ‘EYE 2 EYE’ bubbles and flows with an easy going excitement, while ‘BORN TO LOSE’ takes a Bloc Party-esque guitar line and drags it into a whole different universe. More than that,‘MF BASSLINE’ could well be the best thing Will Joseph Cook has produced - a smart, slick jam that shows just how far he’s come.

This is one ‘Novella’ that deserves a read. DAN HARRISON

Lonely The Brave

bar italia

This one started via Instagram DMs. My guitarist at the time, Benedict Quinn, posted the chorus guitar riff and groove to his story, and it immediately caught me. He sent me it that day, and within a couple of days, I had mapped out a full song around it.

The first bounce is saved as ‘my best prince impression.

NOBODY’S HOME

The French at the beginning of the song translates to “Thank you, thank you, goodbye. Meet up with me. I ride a yellow bicycle and dance in the park”, and is probably my best work to date.

Apologies to all French-speaking listeners in advance.

What We Do To Feel ★★★★

→ Following a transformative period for the band, Lonely the Brave have taken time to cultivate their connections and explore what it means to be human. ‘What We Do To Feel’ is a celebration of the everyday intricacies we take for granted, finding peace in those seemingly small moments and turning them into something grand. Melodic with energetic hooks, ‘The Victim’ is a particular stand-out track, the fierce and fragile emotion in Jack Bennett’s voice is palpable; you can practically feel the gritted teeth.

From layers of synth to whispers of shoegaze, tracks play with texture across the record. Vivid and authentic, it bleeds bright like a splash of watercolour on the canvas. KELSEY MCCLURE

The Twits ★★★★

→ Returning with their second full-length project of this year, bar italia’s ‘The Twits’ is a raucous and at times pretty sinister-sounding collection. It feels more adventurous than previous album ‘Tracey Denim’ each song traversing a diversity of sonic terrain from the slicksounding ‘que surprise’, to the cacophonous ‘my little tony’, to the ghostly and feedback-laden ‘bibs’ and it’s a project which feels true to a band whose signature sound lies within the realms of darkness and discomfort. It’s a dynamic, evocative, and overall pretty cool album. With unexpected twists and turns, there’s a dark grunginess which makes it feel like it could be the soundtrack to some sort of noir film. REBECCA KESTEVEN

READDORK.COM 63.

INCOMING

Poppy Zig!

★★★★★

Troye Sivan

Something to Give Each Other ★★★★★

→ Troye Sivan is taking you out for the night – be prepared. It will be messy, of course, but above all else, it will be exhilarating, and freeing. On ‘Something to Give Each Other’, Troye Sivan weaves a tale that plays out under the dim lights of a club; a tale of dancing until your muscles ache, of falling in love on the dancefloor, of sweat and tears and most importantly, finding yourself with every beat. It’s a celebration of returning to who you once were and rejoicing in who you could yet be – this is Troye Sivan at his most liberated and ecstatic yet.

It’s a comeback that has been long-awaited, and one marked by the changes of the last five years since

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‘Bloom’. ‘Rush’ is a simmering, sweaty reintroduction to Troye that sees him find something near sacred in the serotonin-heavy dance-pop – it’s the perfect primer for this album’s narrative. Infatuation bottled, it’s a simmering start that continues into ‘What’s The Time Where You Are’.

Disco beats and synths soundtrack the yearning that follows the sticky heat of ‘Rush’; the night is well and truly taking hold.

Through the Daft Punk reminiscent ‘One of Your Girls’, that desperation and delirious glee continues to come in droves. Yet, as with every memorable night out, there are dramatic lows to match the overwhelming joy. ‘Still Got It’ is the tears in a cubicle, emotions heightened and careening out uncontrollably. It’s a return to the emotional weight of ‘Blue Neighbourhood’, Troye’s debut – the starkness of the lyricism and the rawness of those feelings so palpable in Troye’s vocals recall that period, but with a newfound surety and maturity. ‘Can’t Go Back, Baby’ is a reminder that amidst that nostalgia

there is a need to push forwards and continue.

In the wake of those realisations, those tears are eventually dried – friends rally around and the thrill of your favourite song pounding through the speakers acts an antidote. Troye is all too aware of that natural progression; ‘Got Me Started’ is an act of resurrection.

Reawakened and reignited, Troye dances with a new energy to the ‘Shooting Stars’ sampling track.

As the album draws to a close, a giddy acceptance and freedom has emerged from every smoke-filled corner of this particular nightclub.

Spilling out into the early morning, Troye concludes his night with a fresh perspective, one defined by love and feeling and revelry. On ‘Something to Give Each Other’, Troye Sivan gives an opportunity to freely dance and explore, to embrace queerness and the highest heights of sensation and passion. He gives the opportunity to allow the slick, cart-wheeling euphoria of this album to completely swallow you whole.

NEIVE MCCARTHY

→ ‘Zig’ starts with Poppy singing the oh-socheery line “life is a commercial for death’ over pulsating synths, but over the course of eleven urgent tracks, she finds a powerful sense of comfort. “I got no one to prove myself to but me,” she sings on the pretty euphoria of ‘Prove It’ that closes the record and leaves the door open for whatever comes next. In between, there’s rage, empowerment, peace and giddy joy as Poppy once again shakes things up.

In recent years, Poppy has been at the front line of making rock feel interesting again via the nu-metal snarl of ‘I Disagree’, the dreamy grunge swagger of ‘Flux’ and the ferocity of her ‘Stagger’ EP. ‘Zig’ was written to utilise her love of dance, and while there’s a definite shine across the record, it’s as impactful as anything that’s come before.

Yes, the smirking ‘Motorbike’ and the frantic, bubblegum aggression of ‘Hard’ are confident pop songs, but there’s more to the record than sugary hooks. ‘What It Becomes’ and ‘The Attic’ are ambitious, brooding, story-driven songs that twist between joy and misery, while ‘Linger’ and ‘Flicker’ pull garage rock into the rave. It’s a beautifully complex album that defies expectations at every turn while never trying too hard.

Poppy has fast become the master of reinvention, but she’s never sounded so sure of herself as she does with ‘Zig’. ALI SHUTLER

Sampha

LAHAI ★★★★

→ We’ve had to wait a little while for Sampha’s follow up to his 2017 Mercury Prize winning debut ‘Process’, but all that anticipating has just served to illuminate a stunning collection from an artist exploring the depths of their sound. There’s a beautifully elemental quality to ‘Lahai’, named after his paternal grandfather as well as his middle name. It’s a deeply human and evocative record as Sampha reflects on the world and his place within it.

Spiritual and questing in nature it’s a record to lose yourself in and equally lift yourself up. Then there’s that voice. One of the most distinctive and beautiful vocalists in recent memory Sampha is on top vocal form; a true master at work. MARTYN YOUNG

Beartooth

The Surface ★★★

→ When Beartooth booted us in the face with the heavy, arenainvading ‘Below’ it was like the world was their oyster. Built on vocalist Caleb Shomo confronting his demons, it was an introspective exorcism we all needed. ‘The Surface’ are his postcards from recovery. ‘Riptide’ and ‘Doubt Me’ are undeniable bangers, but the country-core of ‘The Better Me’ and the radiorock of ‘Might Love Myself’ drop the ball. Later on, closer ‘I Was Alive’ sounds like State Champs stole Caleb Shomo’s car and took it for a ride. ‘The Surface’ could’ve been Beartooth’s crowning achievement, yet its reluctance to break formation keeps them from hitting their full potential for now.

JACK PRESS

INCOMING

THE MENZINGERS

Words: Rob Mair. Photos: Ashley Gellman.

Pip Blom

Bobbie ★★★★

→ It’s clear that with their third album ‘Bobbie’, Pip Blom intend us to have a good time. Filled backto-back with dance-worthy bangers, the collection welcomes us into a new era of the band: one that’s carefree, light-hearted, and unapologetically synth-heavy.

That isn’t to say that the classic indie rock sound that Pip Blom are best known for has been lost, though. Guitar and synth melodies meld smoothly together such as in opener ‘Not Tonight’, and there’s a lot of fun to be had on ‘Tiger’ and ‘I Can Be Your Man’, which have a bubbly, feel good energy. ‘Bobbie’ certainly appears to signify a sort of sonic revolution for Pip Blom, and it’s exciting to imagine what’s to come. REBECCA KESTEVEN

"THIS WAS A CHANCE TO TRY SOMETHING A LITTLE DIFFERENT" GREG BARNETT

Dream Nails

Doom Loop ★★★★

→ Reinvigorating riot grrrl punk since debut ‘DIY’ in 2016, Dream Nails are back with their venomous second album, ‘Doom Loop’. On first listen, it might seem like ‘Doom Loop’ is pretty depressing. Musically, it could fit into any of the previous five decades, carrying the swagger of 1970s punk and pairing it with lyrics deeply rooted in a queer, feminist struggle that is as needed now as it was then. It’s a timelessness that speaks to the band’s talent for social commentary. When you dig under the surface, though, hope and humour is the album’s lifeblood.

This is a mission statement, cementing Dream Nails’ position as one of Britain’s brightest punk bands. CIARAN PICKER

††† (Crosses)

Goodnight, God Bless, I Love U, Delete. ★★★★

→ It might be Crosses’ first full record in nearly a decade, but ‘Goodnight...’ marks the pinnacle of three years of fruitful labour from Chino Moreno and Shaun Lopez. Where their first album was shrouded in a gothic veil, this one is more dynamic. It opens with the deeply unsettling, cyber-punk throbbing of ‘Pleasure’ and doesn’t let up as ‘Invisible Hand’ arrives. From the frenetic opening, the album reveals itself with the first half being capped by El-P adding more fuel to the fire on ‘Big Youth’, but from there, it finds a more expansive, almost spiritual, journey through the second side.

It’s a stellar second showing from this inspired duo. ALEXANDER BRADLEY

With ‘Some Of It Was True’, THE MENZINGERS trade nostalgia for a brutally honest exploration of life in the present → “We’ve always been a band

obsessed with understanding the past,” says Greg Barnett, co-

songwriter and vocalist for The Menzingers. “That’s always come through the lyrics in our other albums, for sure. This one is much more about existing in the present.”

It’s a typically self-aware appraisal from one of punk rock’s leading lyricists, but he’s bang on the money when discussing the group’s most ambitious album to date, ‘Some Of It Was True’.

The Menzingers are synonymous with nostalgia. Whether it’s pining for your younger self on ‘Lookers’ or reminiscing about shift break shenanigans on ‘Casey’, the Pennsylvanian quartet (completed by co-vocalist and songwriter Tom May, bassist Eric Keen and drummer Joe Godino) have struck gold repeatedly, peering at history through rosecoloured glasses. Heck, even the album titles ‘On The Impossible Past’ and ‘After The Party’ find themselves examining the passage of time with melancholy regret.

But on ‘Some Of It Was True’ they’ve turned heel, and instead of asking ‘Why can’t the present be like the past?’ they want to know whether the you of today could ever match up to the dreams of your youth.

This feeling – of re-examining where you find yourself in the world – is something many people have found themselves asking, particularly post-pandemic. Life has fundamentally changed for millions of people, causing them to take stock and reevaluate what’s important to them.

“It starts to get a little bit crazy

when you try to make sense of it all,” says Greg. “We’ve worked so hard to be here, but then you feel guilty if you’re not having a good day or you’re not happy. You step out on stage and look out, and there’s a sea of people having the best time, and you’re like, ‘Is this where I wear a mask?’ I think it’s okay to be honest with yourself. I love touring – it’s the best gift ever – but it is difficult sometimes; when it’s your tenth time in London, it loses that sense of awe.

I’d break myself out of it – I’d tell myself, ‘Stop, you gotta enjoy this’.”

Today, somewhat ironically, Greg has his feet up, enjoying the first day at home after a long tour, concluding three years on the road to support the excellent ‘Hello Exile’ and the 10-year anniversary of their beloved breakout, ‘On The Impossible Past’.

Amid dealing with bills and life admin that’s been left for too long, he calls it a “get your life back together day”.

It’s therefore apt to be discussing what is likely to be The Menzingers’ most grown-up – and potentially divisive – record, where the punkrock edges are a little more shorn and the world-weariness a little more pronounced. Of course, it wouldn’t be The Menzingers if it wasn’t borne out of a little nostalgia, with the idea for the title track coming from doing the ‘On The Impossible Past’ anniversary tour.

“Nostalgia’s never quite as it seems,” Greg muses at one point on the song, “I’m so sick of playing pretend, thinking everything was better back then,” at another. The Menzingers aren’t quite burning down the house with such thoughts, but they’re certainly pouring gasoline

The Menzingers

Some Of It Was True ★★★★

→ At what point do you stop looking back through rose-tinted lenses and start wondering if your life panned out how you intended?

For The Menzingers, the answer is album number seven, where, instead of grasping for the last vestiges of youth, the Pennsylvanian quartet grapple with the universal mid-life crisis of confidence. It means questions like ‘Have I met my potential?’, ‘What am I doing here?’ and more all come in for scrutiny. In many ways, these are similar questions to those found on the group’s astonishing ‘After The Party’ – the de facto soundtrack to punk rockers hurtling towards 30 – only here, they’re being asked once youth is a distant memory and you begin to get preoccupied with the with the idea of whether you’ve left a mark on the world (or not).

Given their penchant for storytelling, The Menzingers are masters of this form of questioning. They love nothing better to wrap an existential crisis in the middle of a delightful pop-punk song, and ‘Some Of It Was True’ has 13such sour-sherbet-filled treats to entice. ROB MAIR

on the foundations.

Yet it’s great to see The Menzingers playing against type and tackling some longstanding perceptions of them head-on.

“We’d never done an anniversary tour, and it was great – I don’t want to rag on it,” says Greg. “But there was something about living those songs again that sort of reframes the whole thing. That song [‘Some Of It Was True’] is a reaction to that. I’ve always tried to understand the past rather than romanticise it – and I don’t know if I’ve always done a good job of that,” he laughs. “I’m definitely interested to see how people respond to it.”

The other way in which this process of looking back has informed the songwriting on ‘Some Of It Was True’ is in how the themes and ideas are much more general and universal, rather than possessing the specificities of people, places or incidents. They’re still personal – and there’s an authenticity to the lyrics that still shines through – but they’re no longer the musings of an early-twenty-something struggling to make sense of the world.

Instead, there’s a different challenge – how do you remain true to yourself when you’re seven albums and a decade and a half deep? Greg says that the band rejected everything they should be doing at this point of their career and instead approached it like their first album again. The difference being, on your debut, there isn’t the weight of expectation.

“I think that maybe people don’t realise that the longer you write, the harder it gets,” he says. Instead, the band found themselves “reverseengineering” the album from the idea that they wanted to create an album that was fast and loud and fun to play live, to the point where it had broken free from the boundaries they’d imposed on themselves. At this point, it’s an album that signifies their transition from pop-punk upstarts into something altogether more universal. The appeal of ‘Some Of It Was True’ is wider than anything they’ve produced previously, and with it, that broader vision will no doubt open up doors to new fans – all while satisfying those who’ve grown up with The Menzingers as part of their formative soundtrack.

“I’m ready for what’s next to happen,” sings Greg on album closer ‘Runnin”. It’s a reflective, philosophical point to end on, but it feels right to look back at how far The Menzingers have come; they’ve already achieved more than they ever expected. The Menzingers’ album ‘Some Of It Was True’ is out 13th October.

READDORK.COM 65.

INCOMING

Sundara Karma

Better Luck Next Time ★★★★

→ Endearing indie riffs and pangs of comingof-age emotions: expect all of this and more from Sundara Karma’s sparkling new album. A band loved for capturing the tumultuous essence of youth, ‘Better Luck Next Time’ extends this legacy, feeling vibrant and tender. Reliving memories of nights out, friendships and relationships, it feels like the day after the night before. In a wash of guitars, vocals and drums, the sound is big, ambitious and anthemic. Trying on a cheekier, more in-your-face voice, opening track ‘Baby Blue’ echoes “Come back with me tonight”, while synthy 80s decadence adds a touch of intrigue to tracks like ‘Pain + Pleasure’ for an energetic release. EMMA QUIN

COMING

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

Jockstrap

I<3UQTINVU

→ Former Dork cover stars Jockstrap have remixed their Mercury Prizeshortlisted album, ‘I Love You Jennifer B’, to create ‘I<3UQTINVU’ (aka, ‘I Love You Cutie, I Envy You’).

Released 3rd November 2023

Spector

Here Come The Early Nights

FIZZ

The Secret To Life ★★★★

→ Experiencing feelings of existential dread or generally just feeling a bit down?

Shiny new supergroup Fizz have been there, done that, got the t-shirt and they’re here to help on ‘The Secret To Life’.

The relaxing voice atop the elevator-music-esque melody of ‘A New Phase Awaits You’ might be enough to lull some into a false sense of security, with its generous suggestion that this album is an

66. DORK

escape away from the woes of everyday life when actually, it’s the total opposite.

Between the four of them, (Dodie Clarke, Martin Luke Brown, Orla Gartland and Greta Isaac) they dip into a variety of worries. There’s ruminations on growing older and that feeling of hopelessness about the future which resides within a lot of 20-somethings on ‘Hell of a Ride’, whilst the Clarke led ‘I Just Died’ drags listeners right into the toecurlingly embarrassing experience of going above and beyond for someone who doesn’t quite reciprocate the same feelings.

There’s even time for each of them to showcase just how amazing they are solo too. ‘As Good As It Gets’ is one of the most, if not the most powerful moment on the whole album as Isaac laments the female

experience - the years of never being allowed to just speak without being cut off, told to smile and disregarded by men. It’s catharsis at its finest and God knows it’s needed. Dodie returns to her roots via a tender, albeit heartbreaking acoustic route on ‘You, Me, Lonely’, Brown does his very best Elton John impression through the ecstatic piano track ‘Rocket League’ and Gartland is well, classic Gartland on ‘Close One’; it’s romantic but not so much that it’s a total cringe fest.

Theatrical closer ‘Grand Finale’ embraces melodrama with the four voices joining back together in amongst a huge explosion of instruments, it’s the kind of goodbye that would warrant pulling out all of the stops including a huge firework display. MINTY SLATER-MEARNS

→ Over a decade in, and Spector are about to drop their fourth album, ‘Here Come the Early Nights’. “It’s the fewest love songs we’ve ever had on an album,” the band reveal.

Released 24th November 2023

Master Peace How To Make A Master Peace

→ With his debut album, Master Peace draws inspiration from indie sleaze and indie dance like Friendly Fires and LCD Soundsystem.

Released 1st March 2024

The Gaslight Anthem

History Books ★★★★

→ When The Gaslight Anthem called it quits in 2015, their epitaph was 2014’s solid, if somewhat underwhelming, ‘Get Hurt’. ‘History Books’ rewrites this little bit of the past, adding an excellent new chapter to their story. There’s no question the time away has helped reinvigorate and inspire the return. Throughout, a sense of positivity radiates – the banging ‘Positive Charge’ is so electric it could rival Sellafield, while the excellent ‘Little Fires’ burns with the blue-collar passion that characterised much of the group’s early output. There’s a purpose and drive underpinning every moment, making it a more than fitting return. ROB MAIR

Bombay Bicycle Club

My Big Day ★★★★

→ Beloved indie darlings Bombay Bicycle Club are back with a beautiful bang.

‘My Big Day’ explores a more offbeat sound alongside the familiar, cosy indierock they are loved for. Endearing, dreamy, yet in places boisterous, a sense of lopsidedness runs throughout as the band experiment yet maintain their signature flair. The shining, captivating ‘Diving’ featuring Holly Humberstone is dazzlingly decadent, offering fuzzy first love flashbacks. Notably, the sensational ‘Heaven’ with Damon Albarn is a delicate surprise, as are his sun-drenched vocals. With winter approaching, it’s a welcome ray of sunshine. EMMA QUIN

Black Pumas

Chronicles of a Diamond ★★★★

→ Prepare to be enthralled and entranced once again by Black Pumas. After their earthshattering debut, the duo reach new heights with ‘Chronicles of a Diamond’. Blistering, shimmering vocals and quippy, buzzing guitar riffs, the record is laced with 70s seductiveness and psychedelia, transcending genres and creating a mosaic of sound unique to them. Featuring hip-shaking funk and playfully plucked strings, ‘More Than A Love Song’ is a roaring opening track. The buzzy, tasty ‘Gemini Sun’ feels a little darker, while closing on ‘Rock and Roll’ is a seismic end. This is not simply an album; it’s an experience. Brilliant, mesmerising and exceptionally composed.

EMMA QUIN

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INCOMING

KNUCKLE PUCK

Words: Steven Loftin.

The Drums

Jonny ★★★★

→ With searing, gentle vocals and beautifully chilled surfer riffs, The Drums’ new album ‘Jonny’ is a stunning, ruminating record that will sit in your heart. Lingering in the comfort of their signature, enigmatic sound, Jonny Pierce casts a dreamy haze, tackling heavy topics of childhood trauma.

The downbeat melancholy The Drums have perfected once again feels refreshed and dynamic. Their most vulnerable, intimate work to date, ‘Jonny’ feels laced with a quiet magic as Pierce purges his tender heart and soul. Captivating, moving and heart-wrenching, yet nestled on the group’s staple altpop rhythm, this album, or memoir, will radiate in the minds of listeners for years to come. EMMA QUIN

KNUCKLE PUCK unleash their fourth album, ‘Losing What We Love,’ a relentless sonic journey that’s as carefree as it is exhilarating

Spiritbox

The Fear Of Fear EP ★★★★

→ Since releasing debut album ‘Eternal Blue’ in 2021, Spiritbox have been on a rapid rise. There have been support slots with modern metal legends, while their debut appearance at Download 2022 inspired a nonstop wave of crowd surfers. The same month, their breakout hit ‘Holy Roller’ was performed by ten-year-old Harper Jerret on America’s Got Talent. Rather than lean into their more accessible moments to fuel their ascent, new EP ‘The Fear Of Fear’ is as brutal as they come. Across the six tracks, vocalist Courtney LaPlante spits pure, guttural venom, showcasing a band growing in confidence and getting increasingly comfortable with what they are. ALI SHUTLER

Egyptian Blue

A Living Commodity ★★★★

→ Brooding and tenacious, the debut album from Egyptian Blue is a biting, offbeat work guaranteed to turn heads.

Unflinching and persistent, each track moves forward with fabulous ferocity, travelling towards a destination unknown. Echoey riffs and gruff vocals blend together seamlessly, combining the drawl of Fontaines D.C. and the brash noise of Foals to forge a sound that is entirely theirs. The stunning ‘Skin’ is off-kilter, sinister and panicked, while the delicate, ethereal ‘A Living Commodity’ spawns a vast soundscape. Prepare to be immersed in the brutal yet brilliant sound of Egyptian Blue; there are worlds waiting to be discovered within their music. EMMA QUIN

68. DORK

→ Knuckle Puck are more

grounded than an airport during an air traffic malfunction. The

Chicago-based rockers resolutely understand that all that matters is that they relish in what they do. It’s why their fourth effort, ‘Losing What We Love’, sounds like a band going hell-for-leather without a care in the world.

Since 2010, the five-piece have been peddling rough-edged poppunk that soars with abandon. Their 2015 debut, ‘Copacetic’, firmly made them a staple of the scene, and ever since, they’ve been onwards and upwards to cementing their place in the canon of heart-on-sleeve bands.

Per vocalist Joe Taylor, the key to Knuckle Puck’s magic is relatively simple: “We think it’s sick to make cool stuff.”

It’s an argument it’s impossible to find fault with; this pure heart screams through every distorted chord and howled sentiment.

Knuckle Puck, completed by Kevin Maida (guitar), John Siorek (drums), Nick Casasanto (guitar), and Ryan Rumchaks (bass), are a band that thrives in their basest form. “You get in a room together, and you make something, and you’re all looking at each other, and you’re like, ‘This is a really cool thing that we just did in this last hour or whatever’, and it’s like forty seconds of a song,” Joe beams.

Over the years, they’ve tried their hand at finessing their techniques, trying to find ways to build that wholesome idea into a force to be reckoned with. This culminated in 2020’s 20/20, which Joe admits was Knuckle Puck “really trying to

"WE CAN DO ANYTHING WE WANT AS LONG AS WE’RE HAVING FUN. WHY CAN’T IT BE A KNUCKLE PUCK SONG?" J O E TAY LO R

make something that was us, but as accessible as we could make it.”

As true as this rings, the events of 2020-2021 hampered their plans, as they did for so many. “Covid and the lockdown and all that stuff, shows going away, threw a wrench in that record getting seen or heard,” explains Joe. “We couldn’t tour it or anything like that. So it made us reevaluate what we wanted to do with those goalposts shifting, we definitely had a different viewpoint on things and different things to aim for.”

Expanding on this further, Joe reckons, “If you look at our first records, as those first three records went on, it was us trying to make a more accessible package, with tighter songwriting and more hooks in the songs and everything - it was really fun to do that. It was a nice little masterclass in songwriting.”

Going through the motions, however, also meant that they found themselves trudging a well-worn path. “That time was definitely when it was all the noise; we were touring all the time, we’d get home, we’d make a record – try to make the best record we can – then we’d go right back out. It was definitely not

the original path that we could have taken, but we took a path, and then we were able to look back and be like, well, when everything crashed down in the world, we were like, let’s find what made us love this band in the first place.”

Knuckle Puck, according to Joe, should be seen as “a ball of energy that stops and starts at any second. “Aggressive, heartfelt, but also dynamic and explosive when it needs to be,” he promises.

Throughout their four albums, the group have learned that this Knuckle Puck essence, which “can be anything we want it to be,” Joe explains. “And that’s something that we learned during this record.

“I was having a conversation with John, I showed him an idea and I was like, I don’t know if this even sounds like us, and he goes, ‘If we jam that in the room, it will sound like us, because it is us’. We can do anything we want as long as we’re having fun. Why can’t it be a Knuckle Puck song? If we play it, we can make it be that.”

It’s this train of thought that often leads to bands growing away from their initial fan base. While every musical act going has their

detractors popping up like whacka-moles whenever new territory is breached, Knuckle Puck are beyond that these days. Even Joe’s outlook is as laid back as you’d imagine, “There are bands that I remember growing up and being like, ‘Oh, I didn’t really like that record, but I can’t wait for the next one’. What’s truly a misstep?

In any case, as long as the band loves the music they’re making.”

Knuckle Puck have found a way to roll with the tide; their fourth album offering more to them than they dreamed. “It’s really cool, especially in how we work together on this new record; I think this is the most collaborative record that we’ve done, as far as like the five of us all being involved,” Joe explains. “And us not being so precious about our individual ideas.”

This openness as a unit has been nourished by their time spent slogging it on tours and going through the wringer as a young band. It’s something that Joe quickly brings up a sports comparison to.

“It’s like playing on a basketball team,” he reckons. “And, you know you’ve got to pass the ball, and your guy’s right behind you, wide open; you don’t have to look, you just throw it over your shoulder, and he’s got it. That’s what it feels like at this point – being able to trust that and lean into it.”

Knuckle Puck’s story befits a feelgood film: friends finding a calling and just having fun with it. They’re the group whose conviction you can see and hear in their songs, as well as the heartfelt immediacy they have for their craft and each other.

Whatever it is that makes this Illinois band tick, for Joe, it doesn’t get any more complex than, “We just want to keep having fun.” Knuckle Puck’s album ‘Losing What We Love’ is out 20th October.

Knuckle Puck

Losing What We Love ★★★★

→ Knuckle Puck have rediscovered themselves on ‘Losing What We Love’. Bursting with the youthful urgency of their breakout days but with more polish, they’ve come back swinging with the pop-punk album of the year. The title-track strikes a Midwest emo note to counterbalance the out and out punk joyride of lead single ‘The Tower’. Sprinkle in the pumpkinspiced banger ‘October’, the angst of ‘Groundhog Day’, the swollen emotion in ‘Fool’ and you see that Knuckle Puck haven’t set out to reinvent themselves on this album but, instead, confirm they’re the very best at what they do. ALEXANDER BRADLEY

INCOMING

Wargasm

Prayers & Paranoia ★★★★

The Streets

Creeper

→ You don’t need us to tell you that everything feels pretty awful right now. Some artists tackle that general despair with joyous escapism, while others try to encourage meaningful action.

Then there’s Wargasm, who’ve poured all that anger and fury into a ferocious debut album that offers pure, screaming catharsis.

Opener ‘Venom’ sets the frantic, unapologetic tone for the record, with ‘Sonic Dog Tag’ and ‘Outrage’ channelling pure, trembling fury.

Elsewhere, ‘Minigun’ adds a cinematic spin on Wargasm’s gnarled purge, while the Fred Durst-featuring ‘Bang Ya Head’ is surprisingly joyous. Amping up the carnage, the energy and the emotion, Wargasm’s debut is a lesson in excess. ALI SHUTLER

Crazymad, For Me ★★★★★

→ It may have only been last year that CMAT’s storming debut ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’ blessed our ears, but already she’s returned with what may well be her magnum opus. ‘Crazymad, For Me’ is nothing short of an exorcism of pent-up emotions, of anger and heartache that have slowly simmered at last unleashed. A retrospective concept album that dives deep into a pain that remains suffocating even as time passes, ‘Crazymad, For Me’ is an explosive return.

It’s entirely cinematic, theatrical and continuously melodramatic, but gloriously so. From the burning anguish of opener ‘California’, CMAT begins to delicately

weave dark humour with country roots and indie-pop sensibilities that form the roots of a quickly unfolding story. Invited into this world of devastating pain and a path towards healing, the album’s twelve tracks are brought to life through sheer force of emotion.

The beauty of the album lies in its refusal to dilute any of those feelings. It’s a lesson in abandoning repression and letting it all hang out – the dazzling highs as well as the tear-tracked lows.

‘Such A Miranda’ is engulfing in its choking, numbing sadness, and the ache of pain emerging in CMAT’s voice on ‘Rent’ is searing.

On ‘Can’t Make Up My Mind’, she darkly croons and reflects – smooth vocals turning from quiet to mammoth as her anger struggles to be contained. It’s an act of convincing herself that worms itself into your world and refuses to leave.

From eye-rolling delivery to wickedly grinning through the pain, CMAT performs an ever-changing

role that is near consumed by the weight of these potent feelings.

‘Whatever’s Inconvenient’ laments a tendency to make questionable romantic decisions with a scoff, whilst ‘I…Hate Who I Am When I’m Horny’ sees a shift of aim from an ex-lover to herself. No one is out of the firing range here – that anger and hurt spikes in all directions.

From pulsating, danceable beats to glimmering guitar slides, the album balances a breeziness with floorshaking dramatics, the earnestness at its core ripping everything to pieces.

By the time the album draws to a close, a light begins to stream through. ‘Stay For Something’ revels in nostalgia but feels like a coming up for air, a means of dining a way out. Amidst the dark crevices of the album’s excavation, there is a kind of closure and clarity found only by feeling your feelings to the absolute maximum. In allowing herself to do that, CMAT emerges victorious, leaving us all crazy mad, for her. NEIVE MCCARTHY

→ Welcome to the tender, yet fierce world of SIPHO. Characterised by earth-shattering vocals and big, booming drums, ‘PRAYERS & PARANOIA’ is a deliciously devastating work of art, a testament to the emotive and technical range of its creator.

Fusing a variety of genres to create a truly unique sound, each track is defined by foreboding strings, echoing, iridescent vocals and larger-than-life percussion.

Diving into an exploration of the ego, vulnerability and self-worth, it holds a universal appeal, and despite being thematically dense, it’s incredibly uplifting. The energy poured into this album runs like a live wire, creating a level of intensity few can master. EMMA QUIN

The Darker the Shadow, the Brighter the Light ★★★

Sanguivore ★★★★★

Flyte

Taking Back Sunday

→ Mike Skinner’s career since The Streets’ opening two masterpieces in the early noughties has been long and often variable in quality, but he remains one of UK music’s most compelling figures. ‘The Darker the Shadow...’ is his first Streets album in 12 years; a record that has both a nostalgic warmth yet bristles with modern day tension as Mike explores the dancefloor with his customary eye for detail and a knowingly clever turn of phrase. The music doesn’t always match the scale of ambition, but it finds Mike Skinner firmly back in the storytelling groove, which is always a good place to be.

MARTYN YOUNG

CMAT

SIPHO

Venom ★★★★

Flyte ★★★★

→ With their selftitled fourth album, Flyte have delivered a love letter. An intimate world of adoration and the rush of falling, ‘Flyte’ is written with crystalline vocals and stunningly intricate guitars. Infatuation is laced in each word. Their last album, ‘This Is Really Going To Hurt’, was cut open – insurmountable heartache that was shatteringly clear in each track. Now, they remain raw and open, but for entirely different reasons. ‘Flyte’ comes after a healing process, and sees the band return lighter, fresher, dizzy on the rush of a love they perhaps didn’t imagine would come again. It’s the soundtrack to your laziest Sunday morning, hunkering down with everything that brings you comfort. NEIVE MCCARTHY

→ Paranormal punk-rock period dramas. Gothic glam-rock Greek tragedies.

Horror-punk murder ballads. Creeper don’t make albums, they make soundtracks, and third full-length ‘Sanguivore’ is no different.

Leaning into the late 80s and early 90s supernatural horror scene think The Lost Boys or Interview With A Vampire - it’s a vampiric rock opera that rattles and rolls with such swagger it should be seen in stadiums: a culmination of nearly a decade’s work. While 2020’s ‘Sex, Death & The Infinite Void’ peddled its wares on isolation, loss, and belonging, ‘Sanguivore’ joyously celebrates community, love, and second chances. Creeper have carved out their masterpiece. JACK PRESS

157 ★★★

→ It’s been a really long time since the last Taking Back Sunday album, so while ‘157’ is a reintroduction to the band, it also marks a sonic leap from what most would expect from those emo groundbreakers. Instead, this album is a shock to the system and is likely to be a grower for a lot of their “old school” fans. The familiar Taking Back Sunday are still under the surface; you just have to dig a little deeper. There are moments it all comes together, like in the fanfare of ‘The Stranger’.

It’s an extraordinary album, an unexpected turn and shows Taking Back Sunday have plenty of life in them yet. ALEXANDER BRADLEY

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HOTWAX COLOURS HOXTON, LONDON, 13 SEPTEMBER 2023 / THE DEAF INSTITUTE, MANCHESTER, 14 SEPTEMBER 2023

Two bands. Two cities. One hell of a show. → HotWax’s Tallulah Sim-Savage turns to face the

crowd, smirks and launches into the fuzzy defiance of unreleased track ‘High Tea’.

It’s a hammering number that wraps the band’s emotional, surreal storytelling around frantic rock & roll. If we wrote it, we’d be smiling too.

HotWax have always created music for the live show and this year, they’ve really had the chance to put those practice room ambitions to the test. There’s been celebrated performances at The Great Escape, Reading & Leeds and the trio opened for The Strokes at All Point’s

East. Next month, they’ll support Royal Blood on their UK tour before following them out to North America.

With a mutual love of big, thundering guitar licks, it’s a perfect match but there’s more to HotWax than chunky riffs and heavy breakdowns.

Tonight, as they headline the first night of Dork’s Home & Away Tour at London’s Colours, they look to a vibrant, agile future with a set that pulls heavily from new, unreleased and eclectic, rather than tried and tested turns.

Opening things up are The Rills, who also giddily bounce between

Heya Hotwax! How has the year been for you?

Tallulah: It’s been crazy! We’ve been a band now for five years and this year has been the year. We got signed, started touring properly…

Lola: We went across the seas Tallulah: To be able to have the time to write, record and gig a lot - it’s been a really cool time Alfie: We’ve had the time to properly focus on the band.

This is everything

Particular highlights?

Lola: Probably All Points East, that was pretty big!

Tallulah: Playing in France as well at La Route Du Rock. I loved it in France. They gave us a lovely meal Lola: It was so good. Makes you realise how bad it is in England - why do we live here?!

You also played Louis Tomlinson’s Away From Home Festival, how was that? A different experience?

Tallulah: It was though!

Lola: It was like its own world that we’ve never been involved in before but it was amazing.

His fans were so up for like watching us and it’s so good that he’s supporting new bands and indie bands and he’s genuinely just so supportive of everyone Alfie: But also, coming from a music scene in Brighton where it feels like a collective of people where everyone knows everyone. Playing that show in Italy, it felt like being with a load of mates bands which is really cool Lola: We didn’t expect that, it was so lovely Past tonight too, you’ve got a load more shows and on tour - anything you’re looking forward to particularly?

Alfie: I think particularly for me we’re playing the Paramount Theatre in Seattle Tallulah: We’ve never been to America and I can’t even imagine America! I think of it in my brain and it doesn’t feel real we’re going there so that’s insane.

Twelve months time - where would you guys like to be?

Tallulah: An amazing thing would be to do a little tour of our own as headliners!

Alfie: A little tour? Or Lidl tour?

Lola: Just to like gain our own music community of people and also, we really want especially young females to come to our gigs.

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THE RILLS Heya Chaps! How’s the year been so far?

Mitch: It’s been a really good year, I think it’s been a year of change and development for us. We’ve been working really really hard behind the scenes and I think we’ve finally found… I don’t want to say direction necessarily as I think we’ve always had that but I think we’re just getting everything right now. It was about getting that music right, and I think we’ve done that.

styles. Opener ‘Stardog’ is a conversational slab of melodic indie, delivered with a touch of flamboyance, ‘Spit Me Out’ is a gnarled punk track with plenty of colour while upcoming single ‘Bones’ echoes Gorillaz’ cackling ‘Feel Good Inc’. “It’s always scary when you play a new song,” admits guitarist/ vocalist Mitch Spencer but the band quickly dive into another newie. Throwing themselves into their 40-minute set, the noise trio only let up for a rosetinted, slow dance before whipping the crowd into a frenzy once more with the fiery ‘Pyro’.

It takes guts to walk onstage and force the DJ to fade out the sledgehammer riff of Rage Against The Machine’s ‘Killing In The Name Of ’ but HotWax know they’ve got plenty of their own. The furious ‘Barbie (Not Yours)’ is snotty and full of venom while the menacing ‘Drop’ is driven by an exhilarating

lust for life. There’s a touch of epic rock & roll showboating to in the unrulry breakdowns, the band never shy away from sugary pop while the lyrics cycle between defiance, empowerment and revenge.

‘A Thousand Times’ has hints of Wolf Alice’s surreal, grunge escapism that twists into colourful euphoria that carries through upcoming single ‘Phone Machine’, a twitching, frantic and glorious rock anthem.

HotWax’s 45-minute races by under these different flavours, but the band couldn’t be more assured on stage, diving into the chaos and savouring the beauty. They make music that’s familiar, but still feels fresh and after tonight, it’s easy to see why so many are calling them the most exciting new band in rock. By the time the churning ‘Rip It Out’, a cathartic, party-starting rager, closes out the night, it’s not just Tallulah who’s grinning. ALI SHUTLER

Has it been more focused on taking some time away from gigging and focusing on what comes next?

Mitch: Absolutely. When it all kinda kicked off for us online, we put so much time and effort into playing live and that - it happened so quickly. We got offered a record deal and we didn’t have any new songs haha!

This year, we needed that time to reflect and kinda get our cards in order With all this recording talk, has there been any surprises in the studio you can share?

Mason: I played synth on the last one!

Mitch: What we’re doing with our instruments now… the intention is completely different and we think about things in a completely different way. That’s the biggest surprise! We’ve done things that two years ago we would of said ‘That’s not The Rills’ but when we’ve done it, we’re realised that’s more The Rills than anything we’ve ever done.

Playing some new tracks tonight. Nervous?

Callum: Honestly with the new stuff, sometimes we just chill out a bit! It’s not because we’re concentrating but we’re more seeing how the crowd reactions.

With ‘Pyro’, we basically don’t even have to play it now it just goes off. We’ve had it before where we played a new song live a few times and one specific fan in the front row was looking at us and shaking their head. The good news is that with the new songs, everyone’s been doing this. <nods head in approval>

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EVENTIM APOLLO, LONDON, 24 SEPTEMBER 2023

This is not the same Dominic Fike that fans fell for all those years ago, but a better-rounded, three-dimensional artist. → In 2016, Florida native Dominic Fike kicked off a series of events that would go on to shape his life in many ways. While under house arrest for the battery of a police officer, he broke the terms of probation and served a year in jail as a result; when his producer dropped a demo tape and sent major labels into a bidding frenzy, he sat behind those bars focusing all energy into what he would do when he got out.

You probably know most of the rest already – the ‘Don’t You Forget About Me’ EP would soon achieve global success – but that initial stain on his record would continue to haunt him.

The now LA-based singer has been banned from the UK for a decade, but with immense fan support and “some good lawyers”, the time has finally come for his first visit to the British capital.

“It’s every bit as beautiful as it thought it would be,” he declares from the stage of Hammersmith Apollo, a venue bursting at the seams with fans desperate for their first glance at the established superstar. His UK fanbase may have missed out on the opportunity to spot a glimpse of the buzzy, informative era of Fike’s early days, but the artist standing before them tonight is a collected, accomplished and multifaceted creative at the top of his game and very much still on the rise. Recently appearing in the generation-defining drama Euphoria, featuring on the soundtrack of the two highestgrossing blockbusters of the summer (Spiderman: Across The Spiderverse, Barbie) and having just dropped his second full-length record, now is as

good a moment as any to see the man in the flesh.

There’s a lot to catch up on, for sure, but Dominic isn’t relying on nostalgia to prove his worth. Answering hysteric screams with the subdued intro of ‘How Much Is Weed?’, he gives off the air of a performer who, despite attempts to suggest otherwise, is very much in control of the room. At the same time, his free-wheeling attitude is what has always put him in his own lane, pulling on genres and influences at a whim to continuously open up new vibes.

Hazy vocal tones battle with the thrashing choruses as the set continues through July’s ‘Sunburn’ LP, with a four-piece live band stripping back the radio-pop production and replacing it with grungy elements that accentuate the frontman’s gritty image. In this purer form, the vulnerable thematic of the album is even more exposed, and his past is laid bare on the blazing concrete he grew up on.

After performing tracks from his three eras to date, it’s clear this is not the same Dominic Fike that fans fell for all those years ago, but a betterrounded, three-dimensional person and artist – and a sober one at that. “I was a drug addict, a psychopath; I was mad at the world,” he admits. “Not anymore.”

This is the power of music, felt in full force tonight. Assuming his visa is sorted, we can be sure to see him on our turf again soon. “You guys have a whole different universe out here, and I want to step into it for a little bit,” he beams. Expect many more continents to be dominated in the near future.

FINLAY HOLDEN

Photo: Burak Cingi.

Past tonight, can you reveal what’s to come… some new music coming out on the horizon?

Callum: Without spoiling it too much… we’re sort of looking at the old version of ourselves and plotting against them.

Mitch: Is it dialectics? Where as you grow you almost test it against who you were before?

That’s where we’re going..

Mason: Problem with that is that we do that EVERY MONTH. Can’t wait for those conversations to come up in a month’s time at a band meeting and say that was a bad idea!!

DOMINIC FIKE FINALLY HITS THE UK

WAITING FOR THE RAIN TOUR OCTOBER 2023 12 CARLISLE BRICKYARD 13 BELFAST VOODOO 14 DUBLIN ACADEMY 2 16 LIVERPOOL O2 ACADEMY2 17 OXFORD O2 ACADEMY2 18 LONDON SCALA 19 BRISTOL THEKLA 21 BIRMINGHAM O2 INSTITUTE2 22 PORTSMOUTH WEDGEWOOD ROOMS 24 BRIGHTON PATTERNS

25 MILTON KEYNES CRAUFURD ARMS 26 LEICESTER O2 ACADEMY2 28 NOTTINGHAM RESCUE ROOMS 29 LEEDS WARDROBE 31 SHEFFIELD O2 ACADEMY2 NOVEMBER 2023 01 GLASGOW ST. LUKES 02 MANCHESTER BAND ON THE WALL 04 NEWCASTLE O2 CITY HALL DECEMBER 2023 16 NEWCASTLE O2 CITY HALL

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PRIMA QUEEN SHOW THE EXCITEMENT IS JUSTIFIED AT SON ESTRELLA GALICIA AND PAPER DRESS VINTAGE’S LONDON CULTURAL EXCHANGE PAPER DRESS VINTAGE, LONDON, 14 SEPTEMBER 2023 Two exciting new bands, both absolute winners. → Becoming an anticipated staple of London’s gig-filled diary, SON Estrella Galicia + Paper Dress Vintage nights combine music, beer, gastronomy, and positive impact for a fine evening in East London. Turning the famed vintage store/venue into a bubbling home of culture, a real sense of community flows through every single edition. Whether it’s sampling beers at a nearby record shop, tucking into trays and trays of moreish food served up by a local Hackney restaurant or getting wrapped up in its mix of thrilling new music making waves in the UK and Spain, it’s an effortless blend that has cemented itself as an essential event. Tonight, with Prima

74. DORK

Queen and Shanghai Baby, confirms that and more.

With a storied trip across stages around the world already in the bag as a part of Hinds, Ade Martin’s Shanghai Baby take to Paper Dress Vintage with a hunger that points to a very exciting next chapter indeed. Jumping between shoegazy dream-pop and razor-sharp indie licks that call to mind the best of early-00s indie, it’s a focused statement of intent that doesn’t just play to the standard rules but celebrates in the feverish fun Ade is determined to create.

‘Is This The Right Time’ captures that eruptive potential front and centre, while unreleased tracks signal a future of catchy hooks and broad smiles that prove impossible to resist. In what is the very first Shanghai Baby show in London, Ade immediately makes herself at home. Get to a Shanghai Baby show as soon as possible.

When a band have it, you just know. That’s

the vibe when Prima Queen take to the stage, immediately wrapping Paper Dress Vintage into an all-encompassing ball of feel-good emotions. Swooning harmonies sit at the core of everything they do, effortlessly bouncing off each other and firmly in the driving seat from the very first note. Early cuts like ’Chew My Cheeks’ and ‘Back Row’ grab attention, and from there, Prima Queen revel in taking tonight to every destination in their stunning world. Walking that line between cinematic ambition and the feeling of being sat together in the rawest of intimate settings, the emotional punch they utilise at every step is a secret weapon that cuts above the rest.

What’s even more stunning is how assured every moment is. This isn’t a band working things out as they go along, but one who immediately set the tone in the room and drive forward. It’s that and every ounce of feverish fun they have on stage that signals a band who shouldn’t be compared, but simply embraced. The magnetic and overflowing ‘Dylan’ and the riotous closer ‘Eclipse’ are but two more examples of a set born in magic.

If tonight is the last day of summer, then Prima Queen are truly the refreshing pint to savour from here on out. Don’t mind if we do. JAMIE MUIR

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Photo: Patrick Gunning.

AESPA’S POTENTIAL IS UNDOUBTABLE

→ It’s been seven years since 5 Seconds Of Summer last played The O2. In 2016, they were a very different band and have undergone quite a transformation on the journey back to the top.

Tonight’s performance, dubbed The 5 Seconds Of Summer Show, honours every version of the group so far, flexing their outstanding versatility over the course of a two-hour spectacular. Amidst a disjointed touring schedule (last year’s album ‘5SOS5’ was toured before its release, in conjunction with a late tour of 2020’s ‘CALM’), The 5SOS Show arrives as a victory lap to cap off the last decade.

The boys have long been vocal about their want to be taken seriously as a band, but in 2023, the show speaks for itself. Worlds away from the touching album preview show at London’s Royal Albert Hall this time last year, the ability to morph tracks old and new from those sentimental orchestral moments to these wildly fun arena bangers is a testament to the band’s skill and creativity.

Opening with ‘Bad Omens’, it kicks off a run of their more mature tracks: the nostalgic ‘2011’, lovelorn ‘Caramel’ and huge sax-solo number ‘BLENDER’. Where previous tours have seen the boys settle into this flow, with setlists comprising mostly of recent material, this one throws that out of the window, instead enlisting endless fan favourites.

Older album cuts like ‘Babylon’ and ‘Why Won’t You Love Me’ from 2018’s big switch-up ‘Youngblood’ earn a place, but it’s ‘Sounds Good Feels Good’ – the album they were touring on their last stop at The

76. DORK

Photo: Patrick Gunning.

Being thrust onto huge stages like that of The O2 on your very first tour is no easy thing, and the girls nail every bit of it.

S.E.S’s ‘Dreams Come True’, before another quick changes brings forth a ballad section, giving the girls chance to show off their gorgeous harmonies in English single ‘Life’s Too Short’ and epic ‘Welcome To MY World’.

Scattered throughout the show are solo performances by each of the members; KARINA, GISELLE and NINGNING all go for braggadocious electro-pop numbers, while WINTER opts for a delicate ballad, giving a taste of their individual flavours. Two additional unreleased tracks – ‘Don’t Blink’ and ‘YOLO’ – featuring in the set suggests the group are poised to drop something new soon.

At 25 songs, it’s a whopping setlist for a group who are yet to even release their debut full-length, but with that including the unreleased tracks, the show still rings with the same excitement they debuted with.

That being said, it’s a shame that during closer-before-theencore number ‘Black Mamba’ is the first and only time we get to see the virtual members (or aes, if you’re a purist) ‘perform’ with the real aespa. The show’s concept ‘HYPER LINE’ – explained by GISELLE as being able to see ae members, aespa and MY [the fans] all in one – and arguably the biggest factor separating aespa from the plethora of K-pop groups debuting in the past few years gets a bit lost in the live show.

Nevertheless, aespa’s potential is undoubtable. Still a very young group in the grand scheme of things, being thrust onto huge stages like that of The O2 on your very first tour is no easy thing, and the girls nail every bit of it. As the second half of the show rolls on with big bangers like the recent Rayepenned ‘Better Things’, attitude-laden ‘Spicy’, and polarising mission statement ‘Next Level’, it’s easy to see why aespa are filling such big rooms so early on. ABIGAIL FIRTH

THE 02, LONDON, 5 OCTOBER 2023 A victory lap of the last decade.

THE 02, LONDON, 28 SEPTEMBER 2023

→ Until recently, aespa’s career had primarily existed online. Partly due to their come-up occurring before live music made its return, and partly because the concept of this K-pop group centres around its members existing in a virtual realm alongside the real world.

When the girls made their debut in late 2020 as SM Entertainment’s first girl group in seven years, their concept promised something completely new and unique, bringing together music and technology on an ambitious scale.

Immediate buzz and speculation about how this would play out commenced.

In the few years since, aespa have climbed the pop ranks in record time, meaning that less than three years after their debut single ‘Black Mamba’ dropped, they’re headlining London’s O2 Arena.

Landing with a bang, the four-piece kick off the night with a storming production of 2022 single ‘Girls’, managing to fit fierce rapping, impressive belting, a dance break and a guitar solo from WINTER all into the opening number.

This bad bitch energy remains for the first act, as they introduce themselves in ‘aenergy’ and rattle through ‘I’ll Make You Cry’ and standout ‘Savage’. Although the crowd here are noticeably less rabid than at other K-pop shows of late, aespa’s performance doesn’t suffer. After all, they’re thoroughly warmed up, as this show arrives at the end of a lengthy first tour that initially started in South Korea back in February and has since taken them across Asia and North America before wrapping up with a trio of European shows.

The setlist pinballs around aespa’s increasingly diverse discography, hitting slightly slower tempos after a costume change with the sultry ‘Lucid Dream’, performed at and on a table, and their cover of 90s girl group

5 SECONDS OF SUMMER GIVE A PHENOMENAL BOW OUT O2 – that really gets its dues, with ‘Vapor’ and ‘Waste The Night’ getting the biggest ‘if you know, you know’ reaction.

5SOS know exactly what the fans want to hear, doubling down by rolling out an inflatable dice with heavily requested tracks printed on it across the crowd to select one, eventually ending up on debut album cut ‘English Love Affair’. It’s just one of the moments in the show that sets 5SOS apart from their peers.

The set is divided by occasional video interludes, including one where the boys dress up as surgeons and diagnose the audience as 5SOS fans. Another segment sees drummer Ashton do a bonkers solo in a battle against the crowd for who can be louder, which ends in the other three boys returning to the stage to set off ketchup and mustard bottle-shaped confetti cannons.

The whole show is outrageous fun, whether it’s these moments that call back to the nonsense of their old live shows or purely just rattling through the bangers; 5 Seconds Of Summer prove their long-standing relevance. It’s not just a performance that sheds light on the boys’ own skills, but one that also demonstrates the ways in which 5SOS and the fandom have coexisted for over ten years.

As 5SOS prepare to take some time off, The 5 Seconds Of Summer Show is a phenomenal bow out until further notice. Much like their discography, it’s consistently surprising, equally ridiculous and emotional, their growth as a band more obviously laid out than ever before.

ABIGAIL FIRTH

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MUSE PACK ONE HELL OF A PUNCH

THE 02, LONDON, 2 OCTOBER 2023

→ Twenty years ago, Muse released ‘Absolution’, a theatrical rock record about belief, devotion, and fury at the end of the world. They headlined Glastonbury shortly afterwards and, ever since, have maintained a reputation for being one of the best live bands going, thanks to a rotating arsenal of lights, confetti and technical wizardry. Last year, Muse released ‘Will Of The People’, a spiritual successor to the apocalyptic warning cry of ‘Absolution’ that was delivered with a touch more urgency. ‘Time Is Running Out’ became ‘We Are Fucking Fucked’. Well, if you’d spent the two decades warning about political corruption, climate change and the need for action to end up here, you’d be pretty annoyed as well.

Still, they’ve never let political turmoil get in the way of a good time. Tonight’s show at London’s O2 Arena sees the band bring the curtain down on their sprawling ‘Will Of The People’ world tour with a celebration of both their current record and a birthday party for their 2003 breakthrough album.

And on the subject of phenomenal, consistent, jawdropping live bands, Nova Twins absolutely dominate their opening set. In the past twelve months, the duo have owned Download’s main stage, turned Glasto’s Other Stage on its head, and been shortlisted for the Mercury Prize with second album ‘Supernova’.

Tonight, it’s business as usual as the pair show just

how large their gnarled pop-metal can be.

Over the next two hours, though, Muse bounce between sugary pop, experimental metal and disco. A giant, inflatable masked figure looms over the band as Matt does his best Vegas showman for the synthdriven ‘Compliance’. Minutes later, he’s hunched over the piano for the nightmarish ‘Space Dementia’.

Elsewhere, the band lurch between the glam pomp of ‘Madness’, the cartoonish ‘You Make Me Feel Like It’s Halloween’ and the all-out assault of ‘We Are Fucking Fucked’ without taking a breath. Moments like the soaring ‘Undisclosed Desires’ veer into cheese while the loose concept involving masks, rebellion and a fire-breathing robo-devil is heaps of fun, but doesn’t always make the most sense. There’s not much time for picking apart plot holes, though, as Muse charge through a set that’s ambitious, flamboyant and packs one hell of a punch.

Skipping somewhere between Queen and Rage Against The Machine, Muse are both a ferocious, uncompromising rock group and a weird stadium pop band. Tonight’s gig lets them show off both sides, without fear or the desire for more. Almost thirty years after they first formed, the band aren’t settling down just yet, and despite their longstanding legacy, Muse still deliver a show that’s wholly unique. ALI SHUTLER

GRACIE ABRAMS FLEXES HER TRUE POP CHAOS O2 SHEPHERD’S BUSH EMPIRE, LONDON, 3 OCTOBER 2023

Photo: Patrick Gunning.

Debut album ‘Good Riddance’ blooms, as it takes on a whole new life. → ‘Good Riddance’, the quietly confessional debut album from Gracie Abrams, is not so quiet tonight.

When played live and amplified by thousands of fans at O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire, it takes on a whole new life.

Barely stopping between tracks, she runs through ‘This is what the drugs are for’, ’21’, ‘Block Me Out’ and ‘I should hate you’, some quieter than others but every time backed by a chorus of fan vocals, before stopping to introduce herself. “My favourite thing is being in the same room as you all,” says Gracie before playing older track ‘Friend’.

Since dropping her debut single ‘Mean It’ in 2019, Gracie’s increasingly introspective sad girl pop has gained her legions of fans, the deeply connected kind who feel every single lyric and for whom hearing them live is a huge emotional release. Gracie seems to feel that too, as she’s floored by their reaction and repays them by playing the much requested unreleased track ‘In Between’ live for

the first time.

A minimal production, she’s backed only by a few bulbs on stage and occasionally a spotlight, and crams a full band plus two keyboards for herself onto the small stage, all adding to the intimate feel this album deserves. Although as she moves across instruments through the show – the keyboard at the front for tender ballad ‘Amelie’, the one at the back for ‘Best’, the guitar for ‘Camden’ – it’s when she frees herself and wanders around the stage for boppier tracks like ‘Difficult’ and ‘Feels Like’ that she flexes her true pop chops and proves she wouldn’t be lost on a bigger stage.

While most would close a show with a big hitter, Gracie instead opts for album closer ‘Right Now’, the moment on the record where she comes back into her body and finds herself again after exorcising a whole host of emotions. With no encore, it’s the perfect ending, the release for both Gracie and her fans over for another night. ABIGAIL FIRTH READDORK.COM 77.

Photo: Frances Beach.

Muse are both a ferocious, uncompromising rock group and a weird stadium pop band.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS?

STONE If you could have a super power of your choosing, what would it be?

Alex: Time travel, back to the future, baby.

What do you always have in your refrigerator?

Sarah: A selection of really great cheese.

What is your earliest memory?

Alex: Playing with a hot cup of tea and spilling it on myself.

If you had to get a tattoo today, what would it be of?

Fin: A clock on my heart which a fan designed.

Have you ever been thrown out of somewhere?

Fin: Yes, lol.

Do you believe in aliens?

Alex: We’re out here in Vermont, and we saw flashing lights with no sound heat out the back of the house we’re staying in. We genuinely thought it was UFOs. Turns out it was something called heat lightning.

What’s the weirdest thing you’ve ever eaten?

Sarah: I swear Fin told me he ate some kind of brain in Marrakesh.

Fin: It was a sheep’s brain.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

Sarah: My flatmate told me that she knew the woman who lived in my house years ago before we did, and she told me that there was a friendly child ghost that used to want to play with them. I didn’t sleep well for a few weeks, and I had to sprint up two flights of stairs every night to get back to my safe room, haha.

What is the best present you’ve ever been given?

Sarah: I can’t remember the best gift I have received, but the

best gift I have given is that I made someone a personalised Monopoly Deal card game that had really funny pictures in, and every time we play it, we are howling.

Elliot: When I was 11, my mum got me a fuzz pedal for my birthday. She didn’t know what it was when she bought it but spent the next 10 years finding out.

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

Sarah: Probably Jack Black.

I’d just love to listen to him serenade me with Tenacious D tunes.

What was the first record you bought?

Sarah: I actually can’t remember

Yes, Dear Reader. We enjoy those ‘in depth’ interviews as much as anyone else. But - BUT we also enjoy the lighter side of music, too. We simply cannot go on any longer without knowing that Sarah from STONE always has a good selection of cheese in the fridge? the first one I bought, but I remember getting my first record player and the first record I put on was ‘Filthy Gorgeous’ by Scissor Sisters.

What’s the biggest thing you can jump over?

Fin: A barrier at Leeds Festival.

What’s the best reality show of all time?

Sarah: Come Dine With Me; I love it when there’s a butthead in the bunch that ruins it for everyone. Am here for the drama.

What did you have for breakfast today?

Sarah: Peanut butter on toast.

If you could learn one skill instantly without needing

to practice, what would you pick?

Elliot: Would love to be able to dance like body popping / breakdancing and all that. So if someone asked me to pass them the remote, I can style that shit out. And I would never live in fear of a dance battle.

Have you got any secret tattoos?

Sarah: A fan gave Fin a tattoo this year of a smiley face on his leg.

When’s the last time you washed your bed sheets?

Sarah: Last Wednesday.

What’s the best way to cook a potato?

Sarah: It depends on what context the potatoes are in, but personally, I fkn love chips.

What’s your biggest fear?

Fin: Drowning in the ocean.

If you could only have one thing on your rider, what would it be?

Elliot: Unlimited rider.

Have you ever heard a rumour about yourself that wasn’t true? If so, what was it?

Elliot: I was asked several times if I do ecstasy onstage, but I just gurn when I play guitar. That’s just my face.

What was the last thing you broke?

Alex: My sunglasses that I have only had for six months.

Who is the nicest person in music you’ve met?

Sarah: Elliot Gill.

Elliot: I concur.

What’s one thing you’ve always wanted to try?

Alex: Flu camp, essentially getting paid to sit in bed and have a cold.

What are you most excited about right now?

Sarah: The album that we are currently recording.

When was the last time you were late, and what was your excuse?

Fin: I had to look after my gran’s dog.

What did you last dream about?

Sarah: I had a dream two nights ago that Alex killed our friend’s dog by accident cos he thought it was a bird.

Do you have any hobbies?

Elliot: I’m a snide little bedroom DJ, so I hold the world’s loneliest raves in my bedroom. Until somebody books me...

Fin: Getting gout on my foot.

If you won the lottery, what would you spend the cash on?

Sarah: Depends on how much I won cos I won £30 on the lottery once, and I owed my sister £30 anyway, which was the most boring way to spend my winnings.

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

Alex: Best feet clap.

Elliot: Guitar battle.

78. DORK

STONE’s EP ‘Punkadonk 2’ is out 27th October.

Photo: Isaac Lamb.

Are you good in a crisis?

Sarah: I’m the kind of kid that would just get out my phone and film it.

DOOM LOOP

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