Interview: deep tan

When an image of a person becomes so engrossingly imprinted that it’s near impossible to distinguish identifiable ideals from idealistic illusions, that’s, when you know you’re in the deep end of social ambiguity and so it almost goes without saying that 96% of Deep Fakes are porn.

Tackling desirable subversions in a world of “post-truth”, Hackney’s deep tan find creative ambience between the fictitious fine lines of superimposed surrealism, and ‘real-world’ consent; so much so that the trio have spent the majority of prep for their latest single ‘Deepfake’, trying to prevent YouTube from removing their blatantly catechistic content offline due to “community guidelines” restrictions.

Having spent the last six months, like the rest of us, living within the unascertained fear of current circumstances, deep tan’s innately graphic and ambitiously driven disorient of ethereal escapism and worldly existentialism is as deceptively metaphorical, as it’s substantially inspired and wholly, unmatchable.

We may well be heading back towards a second no man’s land but stick with deep tan and you’re guaranteed an escapism.

Celeste: I’m surprised none of us have fallen down the lockdown pet route...

Lucy: I have two guinea pigs now! Ronnie and Renee, they’re not technically mine but they live under the stairs…

C: My housemate went to an exotic petting zoo for her birthday and she said you can have Guinea Pigs that look like Sphynx Cats... they’re furless and called ‘Skinny Pigs’. L: We had dwarf hamsters which had babies, and one of the babies had babies with the dad and so the mum went and started eating them all… I was made to deal with it and growing up Catholic as well, I ended up in the garden with this huge cross full of dead hamsters names.

C: Did the mum kill them because she knew the dad was having an affair? Lions do the same- if a female lion gets with a lion from an outsider pack the alpha male knows instantly.

David Attenborough saved my lockdown...

L: I work at an audio book recording studio and David Attenborough came in, I saw the back of his head and it was the best moment of my life… he was there a week and only ate cheese sandwiches. Also, he’s in his nineties, would record for eight hours and never pee…

Has Covid helped create a space for you to commit more to each other and your relationship as a three piece, than you have a band?

C: We had listening sessions where we’d drink together with Zoom open but I have absolutely no desire to write music over Zoom. When the internet lags, it lags.

Will self-discovery be faster in the future now we’re all so attuned to having time to reflect?

Wafah: These times are funny because there is self discovery, but it’s traumatic and that’s not talked about enough. Everyone’s pretending it’s not as scary or as stressful as it is and they’re pushing through, but there’s no process.

L: It’s literal dystopia and you hear people talk about having epiphanies or whatever- that puts pressure on you to feel the same.

Words by Al Mills

Read the full interview in Issue Twenty-Eight