DIY
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DIY readers poll 2014 the results with
royal blood st. vincent george ezra
set music free free / issue 36 / dec 2014 / jan 2015 diymag.com
g e t r e a d y. i t ’ s t i m e f o r . . .
the
cl as s
of
2 01 5
ye ars & years
+ r a u r y . r a e m o r r i s . k wa b s . s o a k . s l av e s . va u lt s . g e n g a h r . l Ă… P S L E Y . g i r l b a n d + l o a d s m o r e 1
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D E C 2 0 1 4 / J A N 2 0 1 5
GO OD VS EVIL WHAT’S ON THE DIY TEAM’S R ADAR?
Victoria Sinden Deputy Editor GOOD I think we may have gone a little overboard with our excitement for 2015. EVIL SO MANY BANDS, SO LITTLE TIME. .............................. Emma Swann Associate Editor GOOD I think we can all agree, 2014 has been a brilliant year for music. EVIL High streets at Christmas. And new year returns. .............................. Louise Mason Art Director GOOD How great everyone was that we shot for Class Of 2015. Good people good photos.
EVIL Still seeing X’s and V’s everywhere I go. .............................. Jamie Milton Online Editor GOOD We’re putting on four free gigs in January: Hello 2015, featuring Girl Band, The Magic Gang, Demob Happy. EVIL Basically I’d like Christmas to be over so we can get on with Hello 2015. .............................. sarah jamieson News Editor GOOD ’Tis the season to drink amaretto and eat anything I can get my hands on, aka the best season of the year! EVIL So, where are these Fall Out Boy UK tour dates at, hmm?
EDITOR’S LET TER Where does the time go? It was only twelve months ago we were inducting Royal Blood, George Ezra and Wolf Alice into DIY’s Class of 2014. Now they’re picking up prizes in the annual readers’ poll, while we usher in another batch of new blood. 2015’s crew looks stronger than ever, from the brilliant Years & Years to the rambunctious Slaves, the infectious Raury and more, there’ll be no shortage of ace new bands over the next twelve months. That, and a debut album from our aforementioned vulipne chums. 2015 - the year of the Joff awaits. Stephen Ackroyd GOOD Congratulations, DIY readers. You picked the right album of the year. Top marks. EVIL Another year goes by where George Ezra refuses DIY’s advances to confirm him as an official Indie Dreamboat. Spoil sport.
LISTENING POST What’s on the DIY stereo this month? peace
happy people
It’s about time, guys. Peace finally get round to releasing their second full length. No shiny, hand holding REM covers to be seen.
Dutch Uncles O Shudder
It’s great when bands go away, then come back even better than they’ve ever sounded before. Spoiler alert: Dutch Uncles agree.
WTF OF THE MONTH Warning: do not watch Bastille’s video for ‘Torn Apart’ if you don’t want to see more of... whatever this is.
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C O N T E N T S
NEWS 6DIY PRESENTS TOUR 1 1 A LV VAY S 1 2 A N G E L S & A I R WAV E S
Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Emma Swann News Editor Sarah Jamieson
1 4 # S TA N D F O R S O M E T H I N G 16SMASHING PUMPKINS
6 34
CLASS OF 2015 18YEARS & YEARS 22DEERS 24GENGAHR
Art Direction & Design Louise Mason Head Of Marketing & Events Jack Clothier
38 44 70
30LAPSLEY 32CLARENCE CLARITY 34RAURY 38SOAK 4 0 S L AV E S 44RAE MORRIS
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48MARIKA HACKMAN 50GOD DAMN 52SHURA
54GIRL BAND 5 8 K WA B S
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Contributors Ali Shutler, Charlie Mock, Danny Wright, Dominique Sisley, Joe Dickinson, Joe Goggins, Martyn Young, Tom Connick, Tom Walters Photographers Carolina Faruolo, Mike Massaro, Sarah Louise Bennett For DIY editorial info@diymag.com For DIY sales rupert@sonicdigital.co.uk tel: +44 (0)20 76130555 For DIY online sales lawrence@sonicdigital.co.uk tel: +44 (0)20 76130555 DIY is published by Sonic Media Group. All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of DIY. 25p where sold.
2 6 VA U LT S 28PRIDES
Online Editor Jamie Milton Assistant Online Editor El Hunt
READERS POLL
6 3 R O YA L B L O O D 66ST. VINCENT
70GEORGE EZRA
REVIEWS 76 ALBUMS 78LIVE
Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which Sonic Media Group holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of DIY or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally. Cover photo by Mike Massaro
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news
DIY Presents Tour 2014 in association with PledgeMusic culminates with London all-dayer
NEWS The DIY crew took over The Laundry in East London for the final date of the DIY Presents Tour 2014 in association with PledgeMusic: an all-dayer featuring a bunch of our favourite new bands, from Brummies Jaws and Spanish newcomers Deers, to our tour headliners Flyte and scuzzy collective Menace Beach.
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JAWS and Deers backstage
Carlotta from Deers and Joel from Wolf Alice
Swim Deep providing the DJ soundtrack
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“We have fun with everything. We’ve all been in bands .before, and when we started .this it was very much like, .‘Let’s only do things if they’re .fun, let’s only do gigs if they .look like they’re going to .be a good time and let’s not .do anything shit.’ It’s quality .rather than quantity. Pick .[the shows] that sound fun .and that will work best for .the music you’re making.” .Menace Beach
here’s a grace to openers Wyldest and their woozy routine. Lights dimmed and crowds trickling in, The Laundry is a sea of intrigued onlookers and DIY totes for this opening act. Relative unknowns, the group were picked out amongst hundreds of bands who all applied via Bandwagon to open the all-dayer. Once into their groove, they stand out as newcomers capable of climbing up a bill in no time at all. Think Beach House without the American twang, Woman’s Hour in their early stages. It’s entrancing. It’s the middle of the day, but The Laundry’s underground setting says otherwise. There’s a big crowd huddling around in near-darkness for Palace, a group of four Londoners specialising in stately, slowly enveloping indie. Bass creaks around the ceiling and the concrete floors, with Leo Wyndham leading his group through impressive cuts on their ‘Lost In the Night’ EP. The whole thing borders into a frenzy when they showcase a new track, but it’s left to the beyond gorgeous ‘Bitter’ to ease out today’s second set. Cambridge’s most raucous new punk export, Bloody Knees are tumbledrying the hell out of The Laundry. Frontman Bradley Griffiths leads the relentless charge, snarling and gravelling his way through a breakneck set. It’s all skating along very nicely indeed; that is, until the bass amp blows up and brings things to a premature end. Bloody Knees were succeeding in bringing the house down - it’s a shame that the sound went down with it. Welcome to Menace Beach’s ‘Ratworld’, a seething, snarling pit of energy that’s always on the brink of boiling over into amp-melting overdrive. As Ryan Needham and Liza Violet run through the best part of their debut album - due out early next year - the Leeds outfit
“This is the last time we’re going to play every single song we’re about to play. This will be the last gig we play all those songs. It feels really good to play it for the last time tonight really because we’ve been playing those songs for two years.” Blessa
“We’ll hopefully go in the studio in January and fucking smash next year. Probably a little single in January, and we’re aiming album some time next year.” Bloody Knees
“I’d like to see Spring King, I really like the way those songs sound on record so I’m intrigued as to how it is live. I’d like to see Deers, and Blessa who we’ve seen a couple of times at festivals. Telegram at Field Day were cool. We haven’t seen Jaws.” Shy Nature
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couldn’t sound any sharper. They’ve been playing with various outside musicians (members of Hookworms, Pulled Apart By Horses, Slayer - you name it) but it’s the fizzing interchange between the project’s two heads that’s most exciting. Blessa have always been a captivating listen; mainly because their music feels like a teetering emotional see-saw which could veer wildly either way at a moment’s notice. That balancing act is all the more pronounced live. Their melodies might breeze and drift their way across The Laundry, but there’s a disquieting intensity to lead singer Olivia Neller that invites in an underlying layer of melancholy. In deft control of their craft, the Sheffield band completely bewitch their audience today. Fresh from the free nationwide leg of the DIY Presents Tour - a run of six shows with Flyte that included backstage whiskey drinking and wrestling, apparently - Shy Nature seem in remarkably good form. Showcasing tracks from their forthcoming ‘Birthday Club’ EP, for a band just over a year old they seem 100% aware of where they’re heading. Their songs are designed for a higher calling, with ‘She Comes She Goes’ mixing NYC circa-2001 guitar jams with a sharp, almost jealousy-inducing catchiness. Ladies and gentlemen - saxophone Dad. The real star of the DIY all-dayer. The crown jewel in a night that’s stuffed full of gems. Steve Darlington - remember the name. Pete from Spring King’s Dad is the band’s secret weapon. He arrives for a rousing, soulful, horn-tastic rendition that perfectly sums up the madness of this set. Tarek Musa and co. never tend to hold back. They’ve built their reputation on shows like these. It’s a workout for everyone involved; a jumping, bouncing, rowdy force of nature.
“It’s been really nice, the tour. We’ve done two UK tours before, one with MS MR, and one with Bombay Bicycle Club, and both times we were playing to full rooms of their fans. We were trying to convince people who weren’t there to be convinced. We did well of it, and I think the fans that came to this tour were from those. It was definitely a different atmosphere, before we were trying to win them - now they’re here to see us. It’s a really gratifying thing.” Flyte
“You can’t imagine how excited we are for 2015, it’s going to be a crazy year. We like big stages and the confetti thing - we have big plans.” Deers
But the workout doesn’t stop there; with London locals Flyte taking to the stage, the Laundry’s now bustling crowd is not allowed to rest on their laurels. The four piece take an enthusiastic and enthralled audience for a spin around a seamless set. Although relatively new to the world, their music feels eerily familiar – the band’s most recent release, ‘Light Me Up’, receiving an impressive reaction from their evidently increasing fan base. A true testament to top musicianship, it all appears to come very naturally to them: a definite “were you there when...” kind of show. It’s just their third visit to the UK and already Deers are progressing at a ridiculous rate. Place it on the arenas they played with The Libertines recently, put it down to the barrage of hype that’s come their way - there’s zero doubt that tonight’s most in-demand band know how to handle the hype. Every momentous punch of percussion meets headfirst with a sudden killer guitar lick. ‘Bamboo’ into ‘Between Cans’
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is unstoppable. And few things 2014 arrive as catchy as the ‘Trippy Gum’ chant of “woo-oohooh” times five. Telegram don’t waste time. Their message - loud and clear - is expressed with immediacy and complete unhinged freedom. Glammed up, with make-up strewn across their faces, Matt Saunders and co. operate like the kind of band that have learnt from their wealth of touring in 2014. Playing alongside The Horrors, Temples and any other psych-leaning heavyweight, their next step is establishing a game of their own. It lands in the form of ‘Follow’, a 2013 single that seems tighter and more formidable when backed with new material, seeking its own path with malicious intent. Closing the all-dayer is JAWS, a band who’ve remained a staple on these shores since day one. In that space of time - since their heady days of early 2012, B-town comparisons ahoy - they’ve evolved into a headliner. And this is only the beginning. When they arrive, a flurry of lights and vicious guitars, they instantly morph into the grungy prospect that’s always been hinted at. Debut album ‘Be Slowly’ showcases moments of this kind, but it’s clear this stands out as a vital first step. Connor Schofield and co. are brought up on hardcore, punk - you name it, anything with guts and a raw vitality. Bit by bit they’re applying this upbringing to their previously glossy synth pop. Out with the old, in with the new. At times they sound like a completely different band to the one arriving with promising early singles ‘Gold’ and ‘Milkshake’, hype-gaining songs that spread the word in a flash. Mostly, they mimic a UK version of DIIV, a driven, total, fire-breathing force that come off like the complete opposite of the baby-faced beginners that first caught DIY’s attention. JAWS aren’t just a bit-part in B-town or a gurney replica - they’re a force of their own, with ‘Be Slowly’ acting as a vital first step. Closing the all-dayer, they sum up today’s proceedings as a whole; a bunch of fantastic new bands with insane potential. DIY Visit diymag.com for videos, interviews and behind-the-scenes photos.
A saxy older man.
“One of the great things about these line-ups or festivals in general is that, even when you have no forewarning, you’ll walk out and you’ll see a great band. It’s like ‘Wow, I’ve never heard this before.’ It’s a real treat. It’s such a cliche of live music but it’s a bunch of people doing what they actually want to do. That’s what we’re doing.” Telegram
“There’s a lot of bands playing that people keep telling me to go and see – Telegram’s one of them. Apparently they’re top class. Bloody Knees, too. I went to a house party to see them once. Oh, and there’s that Spanish band, Deers.” Jaws
Words: El Hunt, Jamie Milton, Dominique Sisley, Joe Dickinson. Photos: Emma Swann, Carolina Faruolo.
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Well, Hello There
DIY has revealed the initial acts set to be involved in this year’s annual ‘Hello’ showcases.
E hop of the pops
Mark Hoppus, Rivers Cuomo and Alex Gaskarth all lend a hand on McBusted’s new album. No, really...
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cBusted may firmly dwell within the confines pop, but take a listen to their debut self-titled album or a glance at its tracklisting and all is not quite as it seems. They may be a “pop band”, but they’ve managed to haul in a few fairly sizeable names to join their ranks. “What I think was really exciting,” offers guitarist Danny Jones, “is that we went back to looking at who had really influenced us in the early days; the Blink 182s, the Sum 41s. There wasn’t any being caught up in whether this was gonna be played here or there, we just made an album that six dudes having a laugh wanted to make.” “We got amazing people involved as well,” adds James Bourne. “Mark singing on the song on the album, that’s a dream come true.” That’s right: Blink 182’s Mark Hoppus is on the McBusted album. Betcha didn’t see that one coming. “The Mark thing was just a coincidence,” explains drummer Harry Judd. “Dougie had met him earlier in the year and become friends with him.” “He’s totally the nicest dude in the world,” continues Dougie Poynter, “and he writes the same way as we do, just with acoustic guitars. He has fun lyrical ideas so it was just an awesome time. Hearing him sing, as well, on the song is incredible.” Hoppus isn’t the only guest either; All Time Low’s Alex Gaskarth and Weezer’s Rivers Cuomo are also among the ranks. “Steve Robson, the guy who produced the album,” says Judd, “is friends with Alex from All Time Low and he was over so we decided to write with him. “The Weezer connection was actually a couple of years ago; some of the McFly guys wrote with Rivers which was a buzz at the time, so when we were making this, we realised that that song would fit perfectly onto this album. Those are three of our favourite songs on the album.” McBusted’s self-titled debut album is out now via Island Records. DIY
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very January, The Old Blue Last in London opens its doors to chilly post-Christmas punters, spent on seasonal feasts but hungry for more new music. DIY’s ‘Hello’ showcases have previously witnessed Superfood’s debut London show, one of Wolf Alice’s first ever gigs, and early sights of JAWS and Honeyblood. We’re excited to announce the initial bill for Hello 2015, headed up by Irish terrors Girl Band. The four shows will take place next January, with four bands billed per gig. Each show is free entry with 18+ admission. Alongside Girl Band, Brighton bands Demob Happy and The Magic Gang are set to see in the new year. There’s also Middlesbrough bedroom kid Corey Bowen, the forward-thinking pop of both Chloe Black and Oscar, plus the relentless charge of Bloody Knees and Prom, with further acts are set to be announced in forthcoming weeks. DIY JANUARY 2015 06 The Magic Gang, Corey Bowen 13 Bloody Knees, Prom 20 Oscar, Chloe Black 27 Girl Band, Demob Happy
Alvvays and forever
Every UK gig they’ve played has been packed to the rafters, and in July they released one of the albums of the year: Toronto five-piece Alvvays reflect on a mad 2014. Words: Joe Goggins. Photo: Carolina Faruolo.
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iven the kind of year they’ve had, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Alvvays now have a slick operation in place when they’re on the road; unanimous critical praise for their self-titled debut and rapturously received shows across the world, you’d have thought, would’ve seen to that. Instead, though, they’ve just played across Europe without a tour manager, meaning things were just a little bit chaotic. Today they’re playing the second of two nights in Berlin, opening for Foxygen; tomorrow they’ll fly back to New York. “I think it’s about time,” singer Molly Rankin laughs. “We’re all starting to lose our minds a little bit.” It’s pronounced ‘always’ - the spelling is apparently down to somebody else having beaten them to the correct form, although a cynic might think it’s a little bit of search engine optimisation - but the Toronto five-piece haven’t been around very long at all; they formed out of the ashes of various other bands two years ago. That said, it took what felt like an age - to the band at least - for them to actually put out a record; the gorgeously fuzzy ‘Alvvays’ dropped in
July. “Normally I don’t think we would have had any real expectations for the record,” Rankin explains. “We’ve all been in enough bands and projects in the past that haven’t really panned out to know that it’s probably best not to place your hopes too high. It took so long to get the album out there though, that it was difficult not to want to see people’s reactions to it - which, thankfully, have been great. I thought that maybe just a few Canadian websites and magazines would cover it, so it’s crazy to see it go over so well.”
“It’s crazy to see the album go over so well.” Molly Rankin
One of the perks of that attention has been the opportunities for travel that it’s afforded the band; in October, they toured the UK properly for the first time, opening up a superb double bill along with Real Estate, and commanding crowds almost as big as the headliners,
too. “It was nice to get the chance to explore, finally,” says Rankin. “We’d only ever played London and Brighton, for some reason. There were at least a few people at every show who knew all the words, which felt like a huge bonus. Seeing those crowds was inspiring; the amount of people buying vinyl, too.” They’ve already lined up another set of UK dates for January, and the realities of spending so much time on the road are beginning to take their toll; the group have given up their day jobs now, albeit reluctantly. “It’s not that we don’t want day jobs, or need them,” says Rankin, who was waiting tables at a Toronto pizzeria this time last year. “But we’re just starting to reach the position of not being able to have them. We’re becoming neglectful employees! It’s kind of a scary position to be in, to not have anything to fall back on; this is still a super close-knit operation, but we’re all totally committed to the band now, and you have to deal with that uncertainty.” Read the full interview on diymag. com. Alvvays’ self-titled debut album is out now via Transgressive. DIY
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Tom and Ilan didn’t take well to losing the latest Apprentice challenge
Are We Dreaming?
Angels and Airwaves have grand ambitions for their new album, frontman Tom DeLonge tells Sarah Jamieson.
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liens, conspiracy theories and dick jokes; Tom DeLonge’s career has been littered with all sorts of projects and all kinds of fixations. More than anything, though, the Angels and Airwaves frontman – who shares his time with that other small-time band of his, Blink 182 – has never been short of ambition. Now is no different except, with the band’s new project, things are going to be that little bit bigger. “Angels and Airwaves is part of a company called To The Stars,” begins Tom, “and To The Stars is creating intellectual property that will hopefully last for generations. These properties exist to become mediums: feature films, novels, graphic novels, albums, soundtracks. “So, our goals were to set the company up, get all of our resources together, get a collection of artists together, elevate the sound, change the direction of how we’ve been writing songs and what has really evolved the music, and to catch people off guard with the complexity of
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the art in all the different forms. “Hopefully, when all of these things come out together - the feature film, the book, the music - the sum of its parts will create a much bigger whole. I think we’re accomplishing that. I think when people hear this record, they’re gonna say, ‘Oh my god, what a dramatic evolution for the band. What is it that these guys are attempting and how did they pull off so many different things on so many different mediums?’’”
– think everything from delving into dreams and being faced by night terrors – there’s also going to be an animated film, a novel, a comic book and a feature film.
“The sum of its parts
“With the way a band works, a band all work together to write a song, it’s the same with the writers: all these writers work together to create a novel. We’re operating as a team and we’re working on something that’s transformative for the music, film and publishing industries.”
will create a much bigger whole.” Tom DeLonge Angels and Airwaves are gearing up to release a brand new album, going by the name of ‘The Dream Walker’. Following their previous doublealbum project ‘Love’ and based upon DeLonge’s fictional character Poet Anderson and his sleeping patterns
“It’s satisfying in the sense that we’re doing something that’s very complex and things are falling into place,” says Tom, of how it feels to be able to work on such an expansive project. “I get to work with really, really great artists and it’s not just myself doing everything.
Angels and Airwaves’ new album ‘The Dream Walker’ will be released on 9th December via To The Stars. DIY
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#STANDFORSOMETHING WE ARE THE OCEAN + ARCANE ROOTS the Shipping Forecast, liverpool
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iverpool is infamous when it comes to Saturday nights out, making it the perfect destination for the Dr. Martens #STANDFORSOMETHING Tour in association with DIY.
Getting off to a loud start, Bad Grammar step up to the plate with relish. There may only be two of them on stage, but their set is turned all the way up to eleven and then some, filling the bunker-esque venue with thrashing guitars and pummelling drums. They’re one heck of a rowdy pair. Next up to face the packed confines of The Shipping Forecast, Arcane Roots take to the stage looking as dapper as ever. Their sense of style isn’t all they’re bringing to tonight’s show: the trio are masters of their craft. Their brand of intricate and jagged rock’n’roll comes packed with an extra shot of adrenaline, and it takes only moments for the band to throw themselves into action, with frontman Andrew Groves switching from melodic singing to intense screams with all the ease of breathing. Quickly rallying the crowd with their anthemic offerings, the three-piece’s set is potent from the get go. Finally, We Are The Ocean cram themselves onto the tiny stage for the last set of the night. Bursting into old favourite ‘Nothing Good Has Happened Yet’, the name of the game is clear: there’s going to be lots of singing along tonight. Moving swiftly through different parts of their discography, each song sounds massive - especially new single ‘ARK’ - in the tiny room, and their audience knows every word. Songs like ‘What It Feels Like’ and ‘Bleed’ come packed with an aggressive growl, before ‘Young Heart’ shows off frontman Liam Cromby’s gorgeous vocals. Drawing proceedings to a close as sweat drips from the walls, Cromby picks up an acoustic guitar for ‘Chin Up, Son’ and the reaction is incredible. Arms aloft, voices raised, the last few lines are sung by everyone in the room. It’s enough to cause goose bumps.
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arcane roots
we are the ocean
TOUR 2014 JOHNNY FOREIGNER
los campesinos! JOHNNY FOREIGNER
LOS CAMPESINOS! + JOHNNY FOREIGNER THE FLAPPER, BIRMINGHAM
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t may take a while to navigate through the streets of Birmingham this weekend, but head past the heaving crowds at the German Christmas market and turn towards the canals and there’s a treat hidden away from the eager shopping public.
Tucked away at the infamous Flapper, that sits right by the waterside in a more quiet part of the city, the basement is packed with bodies awaiting the fourth show of the Dr. Martens #STANDFORSOMETHING Tour in association with DIY. First up, Bella Figura have arrived to warm up the gathered crowd with their bluesy tendencies. A little more rough rock’n’roll than tonight’s bill probably lends itself to, their set comes complete with meandering solos and appreciative head-nodding. An impressively talented bunch. When local heroes Johnny Foreigner hit the stage, the audience is already crammed tightly into the room, standing on their tiptoes and hoping to catch a better view of the four-piece. As the heat slowly begins to rise and frontman Alexei Berrow steps out into the crowd for their first offering ‘You Can Do Better’, the venue takes just
one song to burst into life, while the air sizzles with energy. Singalongs are already in full swing, and the quartet’s scrappy punk is glorious; and they’re not even the headliners: there’s still more chaos (and dancing) to come. By the time that Los Campesinos! take over, there’s sweat dripping from the ceiling. The audience underneath couldn’t care less. They’re more concerned with screaming along with each and every lyric to come from Gareth Campesinos’ mouth. The temperature of the room is as hot as the sun, but there’s little that’s going to slow the Cardiff band down tonight. Bounding through cuts from all five of their albums, there are plenty of goose-bump moments to choose from: the soaring pop sensibilities, the crowd mimicking the piano intro of ‘By Your Hand’, Gareth engulfed by his adoring crowd, or even just the last few lines of ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ being sung by everyone from the front to the back of the venue. Their set length, clocking in at around about 95 minutes, is incredible and, despite joking that they can barely remember how to play a handful of songs, there’s no messing about this evening. It’s intense, it’s sweaty, but most importantly it’s fun. There’s not much more to wish for on a Saturday night. DIY
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anti hero Billy Corgan is back with The Smashing
“I just wish someone would give me a little bit of prop for costing myself a gazillion dollars,” laughs Corgan, sat in the middle of a slightly dated hotel suite, which, according to him, resembles a “granny flat”. “It’s the mouldy death part that scares me,” he continues. “I know what I was thinking when I was 21 and I watched some fucking old crustacean get up there and plod around,” he laughs, exasperated. “Here’s my theoretical brutality on it all – if you can’t supersede what you did before, you don’t belong out there.” “It doesn’t sound dated,” says Billy of ‘Monuments To An Elegy,’ “like something from the past. I’ve been in that position too many times. Pop is the new pornography. It’s not Elvis shaking his hips that you need to be worried about, it’s Iggy and JLo rubbing their butts against each other. Rock seems very flat-footed to respond to the speed and sensorial necessity of the crowd to be titillated. I really don’t want be in a corner of the world’s cultural market that is making itself more and more irrelevant by the day, and celebrating its irrelevance. Do I wanna sit and look at my old pictures for two hours? No.”
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Pumpkins’ eighth studio album.
“In 1984 when I started going out to the alternative clubs, I had the ‘Robert Smith’,” he reflects. “That haircut. I would go to wait for the bus at midnight, and guys would pull up in cars and threaten me with my life - for the haircut. That’s alternative. Kurt [Cobain] and Company made alternative music big business,” continues Billy. “All I’m asking is don’t ask me to wave a flag for something that doesn’t mean anything anymore, and then don’t give me shit when I don’t want to wave the flag, as if I’m being cranky.” Intended as a conclusion to the expectation, tabloid gossip, and petty ridicule that has followed Corgan around more or less since ‘Mellon Collie...’ came out in 1995 and the original line-up disbanded, ‘Monuments To An Elegy’ marks the final backward look. True to name, it’s apparently something of an abandoned memorial to the band’s muddy and complicated history, too. “There’s a sense of futility, or something being a “The commonality of GREEK lost…” Billy human experience tells PHILOSOPHER begins, before us that most people are OR BILLY abruptly shifting asleep.” tact. “I’ll tell b “To be free means to be CORGAN? you this story,” truly free.” he announces c “The aim of art is to The Smashing Pumpkins’ suddenly. “I’m represent not the outward frontman is many things walking along appearance of things, but these days: a musician, and I see this their inward significance.” a wrestling promoter, World War I d “If it’s meant to die, it’s a tea curator, and monument. meant to die, but there is a increasingly - judging It’s all dirty transitional sorrow.” by his DIY interview, and there’s e “People are like dirt. anyway - an aspiring garbage, but at They can either nourish philosopher. The some point this you and help you grow as question is, can you spot really meant a person or they can stunt the difference between something to your growth and make you classical Greek wisdom, somebody. Right wilt and die.” and Billy Corgan’s own now it’s just musings? Answers on a something that scorecard please. people walk past when they’re Answers: a. Billy Corgan, b. Billy Corgan, c. Aristotle, d. Billy Corgan, e. Plato.
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ostalgia is worth big bucks. If anyone knows that full well, it’s Billy Corgan. The only original member of The Smashing Pumpkins left, he’s in part responsible for ‘Siamese Dream’ and ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’ – two monumentally iconic albums. From later Pumpkins albums ‘Zeitgeist’ and ‘Oceania’ to the short-lived Zwan - Billy Corgan’s band with Pumpkins drummer Jimmy Chamberlin, along with Matt Sweeney and Slint’s David Pajo - The Smashing Pumpkins have seemed under constant scrutiny. It’d be easy for Billy Corgan to silence everyone with a new, formulaic record cooked up from a sprinkle of melancholy, a glug of melodramatic production, and a fuzzy hint of debut album ‘Gish’. Billy Corgan doesn’t believe in easy.
NEWS IN BRIEF
KILL ‘EM ALL Metallica are one of the first acts announced to appear at next year’s Reading & Leeds Festival. Taking place across the August Bank Holiday Weekend in 2015, other artists to be confirmed in the first wave of additions include Refused, Run The Jewels, Jamie T, Pierce The Veil, Wilkinson and Manchester Orchestra.
AMERICAN BEAUTY What are you thinking, Billy? looking at their cell phones. There’s a feeling sometimes, that with my life, or my musical life, I did these great things. It’s no different than a plaque on a wall. Now it’s all down to what Courtney [Love] said about Billy.” Looking back over The Smashing Pumpkins’ long journey to ‘Monuments To An Elegy’, Billy Corgan flatly says that he’s not happy with how things went down. “Obviously I went on this weird journey for some reason,” he ponders. ”I would stick by the statement that the original [Smashing Pumpkins] not staying together or sorting out its issues was idiotic. I wish the band would’ve done what the band was meant to do. We didn’t, through our own darkness, blow something up that was quite magical – that’s the shame.” Read the full interview on diymag.com. The Smashing Pumpkins’ new album ‘Monuments To An Elegy’ will be released on 8th December via Martha’s Music / BMG. DIY
Fall Out Boy have announced details of their new full-length, ‘American Beauty/ American Psycho’. The band’s sixth studio album, it will be released on 19th January. The title track is a radical change in direction for the band, described by Pete Wentz as “turning left when everyone expected us to turn right.” Hear it on diymag.com now.
HAPPY PEOPLE Peace have revealed details of their second album, ‘Happy People’. Due on 9th February 2015, it features the singles ‘Money’ and ‘Lost On Me’, both of which were released this year. They’ll support the album with a UK tour, visit diymag.com for details. 17
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A new year means hundreds of new bands, pushed blinking into the light with the hope of becoming absolutely massive. Luckily for you, DIY has been tracking the hottest new talent to bring you this, a definitive list of the acts you need to know. Books out, pens ready - the Class of 2015 is in.
Battling convention, shunning acting, quitting jobs in plush restaurants Years & Years’ story is one of sacrifice and (imminent) success.
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How the three members of Years & Years ended up here is anyone’s guess, but together they stand on the brink of being 2015’s success story. Frontman Olly Alexander’s had his fair share of success in xv acting, shunning a similarly promising path to focus on this project when he had to choose between the two. Bassist Mikey Goldsworthy and gadget-wizard Emre Turkmen had to make big decisions too. The former worked in a Michelin star-rated restaurant, the latter studying architecture. And when you begin to consider previous bands they used to be in, the story makes even less sense. Goldsworthy was once in an experimental outfit with fellow Aussie hype-magnet Oscar Key Sung. “It was a weird Sigur Rós-inspired band. We used to play the drums with a bow,” he lists off, current bandmate Olly rolling his eyes and giving a very frank “I hate you” verdict. “I’ve been in quite a few,” he continues. “Some metal bands. Some jazz bands. Some Argentinian tango bands… That was with my dad.” None of these got very far, he admits, except for one. But things unfortunately and somewhat hilariously hit a wall because “I was in too many bands!”
Words: Jamie Milton. Photos: Mike Massaro
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Sometime in January 2014, this fragmented history took a backseat and gave way to a bright future. A video for ‘Real’ (starring Olly’s actor mate Ben Whishaw) began to take off, the song itself even more so. “We thought, ‘Oh, hopefully the video will get some hits!’ But the actual song - you could see it on SoundCloud. The numbers going up and up. That’s what started everything,” says Olly. Within weeks they were signed. Mikey remembers all three members being in his old restaurant digs when they first heard of interest. “I don’t think any of us thought it would happen,” he confesses. “It came out of nowhere.” From then on, things careered skywards, towards the big-deal support slots, the Jools shows and the undeniably massive follow-up singles. “As soon as we got signed, our manager was like, ‘The hard work starts now’. We were like, ‘Yay we got signed! We can quit!’” Olly jokes. “It’s been way, way more intense than I thought it would be.” Wait until they find out what happens next. Years & Years have shot up into public consciousness with singles that build on ‘Real’’s heady, emotionjuggling take on dance. ‘Take Shelter’ made playful pop come off like an ominous siren, follow-up ‘Desire’ balancing its certified, Ibiza-ready blast of energy with unhinged invention. That’s the thing with these three: they unite in their ability to pen monster hits, but each contributes a drastically different shade. Olly’s vocals are a head-turning pitch, a giddy glue to Emre’s production and Mikey’s similarly complex dynamics. There must be a temptation to dive straight into chart-topping singles for the hell of it (the ingredients are there), but Years & Years seem determined to forge their own route. Now it’s just a question of keeping their own heads. Fortunately, they’re all rubbish at partying - they’ve had one collective night out (“we had a terrible time,” says Olly, Emre quietly disagreeing), with Mikey sticking to his roots by saying “I’m more of a restaurant guy.” So there’s no danger of the trio veering off course into a drug-addled stupor. The extent of their inter-band madness stops short at the “Y” tattoos both Olly and Emre
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decided to adorn themselves with on a whim. Mikey didn’t get one. Again, all about the restaurants. Self-discipline comes into the equation for the frontman especially. “I get really paranoid about getting sick,” claims Olly. “You never want to do a show hungover. I feel terrible but it’s also not good for people to see some hungover, shambling idiot trying to sing. I’m such a hypochondriac. I’ve read stories about Jared Leto wearing gloves to touch someone because he was so scared of germs. I’m not that bad…” He mentions Leto without being prompted, which is interesting given the actor-musician complex he’s quickly been tagged with. There’s no traditional route for these things, but when offered the choice between a lucrative career in acting and a good old fashioned slog in the music business, most talented individuals would opt for the former. Olly was at a crossroads towards the end of 2013. “It was all happening at the same time,” he remembers. “I don’t know what the right word is, but I got a bit fed up of doing work that I didn’t really believe in. And I wanted to be with the guys making music. Towards the end of last year I decided to focus on music - I didn’t want to do any more acting. And then early this year, ‘Real’ happened. That’s when I knew I didn’t want to go back.”
His bandmates then list off every actor and musician combination they can think of, Justin Timberlake and Billy Bob Thornton being the highlights. Olly’s career in acting wasn’t as high profile as Years & Years are right now, although appearances in Skins, US series Penny Dreadful and Stuart Murdoch’s God Help the Girl pointed towards a bright future. It seems as if he’s made the right choice, though. And he’s not ruling out future roles. “It’d be cool to do something else in the future. Maybe make our own films.” 2015 is when things get serious. Talk’s centred around an album for some time, but now it’s truly happening. The trio claim they’ve been in “album mode” for months, but Olly admits they’ve had to be “single-minded”, no pun intended, with 2014 output. “It’s because of the music industry, and the type of act we are. But we all really love albums. We all grew up listening to albums. And vinyl is selling more than it has in the last twenty-five years. People want a body of work from an act they love.” Asked if there’s anything that unites a first record’s material, it’s the first time Olly squirms in his seat. The answer’s direct, though. “Unrequited love,” he says. “It’s really a bitch. That about sums it up. I really resent having to say they’re all heartbreak songs. But they’re all personal, lyrically referring to the last three years of my life. It’s a personal therapy.” But nothing’s set in stone. A fulllength will either consist of “ten power ballads” or, in more serious terms, a cohesive piece that showcases something different. “Our live set is always really uptempo. We want to have a bit of variety,” Olly says.
TOO REAL?
Playing Jools Holland was a “real milestone” for the trio, but frontman Olly experienced a roller coaster of emotions. Pre-show, he was “such a mess” and had “never felt so physically ill before” - “I couldn’t eat anything. But I got it together for the live show. Had a shot of whiskey, I was having fun,” he says. Following the performance, he picked up the best compliment possible from Tune-Yards’ Merrill Garbus. “She was like, ‘Boooy, you’ve got some dance moooves.’” Talk about a surreal first telly gig.
If things got ‘Real’ with this year’s breakthrough single, the opposite followed. A series of surreal experiences, one after the next, from meeting Robert Plant at Later... With Jools Holland to seeing singles hit the million-plus listener count. But there’s a sense that back in 2013, even if they “never” thought they’d get a record deal, this whirlwind experience is something all three collectively and subconsciously signed up for. 2014’s more than suggested that they’re ready - 2015 looks set to be the making of this brilliantly diverse bunch. DIY
YEARS & YEARS, NEED TO KNOW Most likely to: Score a Top Ten single. Least likely to: Lose their ‘Desire’ to hit the top. Little known fact: Olly and Mikey met Emre through findabandmate.com. Listen: The unplugged version of ‘Take Shelter’ shows a new side. See them live: Their first headline tour kicks off in Birmingham, 26th February.
“It’s been way, way more intense than I thought it would be.” O l ly Alex ander
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With more enthusiasm that you could vigorously shake a stick at, Deers are taking on 2015 with gusto. “We have big plans,” declares Deers’ Ana Garcia Perrotte, her brow raised mischievously. “You can’t imagine!” pipes up Carlotta Cosials, clapping her hands together xv so vigorously she almost falls backwards, “it’s going to be a crazy year!” The rest of the girls on the table nod in agreement, before erupting into an explosion of infectious cackles and excitable shouts. For those of you who are not privy to the ups and downs of the internet’s hype machine – Deers are very much on the ‘up’ side of things. Despite having barely a handful of demos available online, the Spanish garage-pop quartet have built up a fan base that’s as excitable as a Jack Russell with its face stuck in a Quavers packet – and for very good
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Words: Dominique Sisley. Photo: Emma Swann
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Originally a duo, Madrid’s Ana and Carlotta met through their ex-boyfriends and have remained fiercely close ever since. Opting for the name Deers because of the animal’s associations with the ‘horns’ of adultery, one can probably hazard a guess at what threw these two together. “We don’t want to give details, it would be rude,” Carlotta says with a cheeky smile. “One year later we met Ade [Martin] who was the girlfriend of one of my best friends, and then we met Amber [Grimbergen]
inspiration behind several of the tracks – “It depends. ’Trippy Gum’ is about fun and [being] drunk. And ‘Castigadas en el Granero’ is about sisters… We want to mix our life and a friend’s life or her feelings with other feelings.” Carlotta nods, “it’s personal, but it’s very much a shren, a shh, shrin…” – she stops, trying to figure out the right way to pronounce it – “a sharing thing.” So now it’s time for 2015 and the bright, shiny future ahead for Deers. As soon as the subject comes up, all four of them burst into a frantic hum of excitement and dream scenarios. With hopes to start recording
“We’re a band, we’re not a girl band.” Carlot ta Cosials
via Facebook. She had a profile picture playing drums, so we added her as a friend.” Ana laughs, raising her canned energy drink in salute – “we’re modern lovers!” However, despite their near-constant joviality, the group almost spit out their drinks when the term ‘girl band’ is mentioned as a potential description. “No, no, no! No please.” Carlotta exclaims, waving her hands wildly. “We’re a band, we’re not a girl band. It’s like a boy doing music; it’s exactly the same. We are doing music as boys do music.” And what music it is, by the way. With a lot of comparisons already being drawn to Phil Spector’s girl groups of the 60s, Deers’ harsh melodies and heartfelt lyrics slide woozily between the then and the now – without straying too far into heartbreak territory. “They are love songs, but not sad ones,” Ana stresses, before reeling off the
their first album in April, the main priority before then is to polish up their live shows – something they’re particularly enthusiastic about. Do they have any big ambitions? “I think our music will never be in a stadium,” Ana ponders, “I really think that this kind of music never gets a stadium full.” Instead, they talk about their decidedly less elegant live experiences with a hopelessly romantic sparkle in their eyes. “Oh, it’s so cool! We have no tour manager, no driver – it’s just us,” Carlotta explains. They laugh merrily, but it’s clear that they are genuinely a bit enamoured by it all. “We’ve had a lot of fun, and we’ve learnt a lot about – not only music – but life. You learn a lot from the people you meet. You learn a lot. We learn from the streets.” And there’s not much doubt that 2015 will see all those lessons become a lot more thrilling – and a lot more fun. DIY
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Geordie-bred, Brighton-based terrors racing ahead via Royal Blood’s coattails. One thrashing, Brighton-based force defined 2014, and another are fast approaching to take on the following xv year. Demob Happy are of a different ilk to Royal Blood, but they provoke the same response. On the bill alongside Girl Band for DIY’s beginning of the year ‘Hello 2015’ celebrations in London, Matthew Marcantonio and co. spent the best part of 2014 forging their own grit-laced path. Recent single ‘Succubus’ is QOTSA with extra spice, a venomous embrace that’ll take some stopping. What’s your background? Matthew Marcantonio: We’re all Geordies - grew up in Newcastle, came down to Brighton four years ago. I love Newcastle. There’s some really good bands there. But there’s not a collective as much as you can tell there is down here. It’s a shame really. There’s good musicians but there’s not really the exposure. We couldn’t afford to move to London, so we moved to Brighton. Do you feel like you’re doing your own thing in Brighton? MM: From the outside, people would think there’s a scene. They see the correlation, the guitar-based music coming out of the same space. But it’s kind of… For me, it’s a competitive thing that it provides. Some people might see a scene as bands helping each other out, but there’s so many bands it’d be impossible for everyone to hang out with everyone. MOST LIKELY TO: Be a must-see at Reading & Leeds. LEAST LIKELY TO: Serve coffee in their converted cafe-turned-studio basement. SEE THEM LIVE: DIY Presents: Hello 2015 - London’s Old Blue Last, 27th January.
Words: Jamie Milton
reason. They’re raw, rickety and rambunctious, making music that’s overflowing with sangria-soaked alegría.
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“Morning people” Gengahr make music in sharp, determined bursts, with zero distractions. Next up? The O2.
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Anyone crossing Gengahr’s path live tends to get sapped in, shaken around and spat out in one satisfied ball of muck.
These four have a habit of causing a stir on stage, and their first big test of 2015 will be a Not That Intimate date with Alt-J at London’s O2. On record there’s a determinist streak to their music, a vicious edge that pierces the surface of a crackling psych mentality. Live, however, is an experience that
takes some beating. They’ve spent the past few months honing their trade (frontman Felix Bushe is still counting the number of shows they’ve played, nearing the hundreds) and that looks set to continue, despite there being the lowly matter of a debut album on the cards. The severity and venom of Gengahr’s music is a slow-burner. On the outside, early single ‘Bathed in Light’ / ’Powder’ comes off relatively soft, gentle in its easeful approach. But out steps a sudden jolt of energy, a minute-long crashing wave of guitars from John Victor. It has to stem from somewhere, and together they collectively agree that they joined the band in late 2013 with a serious desire to make things happen. “I think we’ve all been in failed projects,” admits Bushe, who played in a band called Zen Arcade alongside bassist Hugh Schulte. “The big one is whether you’re ready for it yourself.
GENGAHR, NEED TO KNOW Most likely to: Rule 2015’s festivals. Least likely to: Settle after album number one. Little known fact: Guitarist John Victor’s Dad is a local commentator for Leyton Orient - a very public fan of the band, too. “I told him to stop doing it,” he says of his old man’s social media antics. “As a headmaster, you don’t want to be retweeting our fourteen-year-old fans.”
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Words: Jamie Milton. Photo: Mike Massaro
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Personally, I don’t think I was ready to be mature enough, in a good enough creative mindset which was worthy of people’s credit.” “And you’ve got to have everyone as focused as each other,” backs up Hugh. “Often that never happens, but I think we’ve found the right dynamic.” This explains the pack mentality that follows the band’s every move, on stage and off. For their first recording session, they wound up with five songs in a matter of hours. Nowadays, claims Felix, they’ll do three hours “relentlessly” and then they’ll “take the rest of the day off.” They all “jump in”, with the exception of studio local Hugh, who lives round the corner. “It’s like the kid that lives across the road from school - always the last to turn up,” jokes drummer Danny Ward. Sessions for their debut record have been taking place in a distant farm in Devon, where phone signal’s a no-go and there’s barely a bar to check into
for a quick break. “We work best without distractions,” says Felix. “There’s very little to do other than just crack on. When we’re on a farm we do sixteen hour days as a minimum. You get up straight away, you’re in there, and you stop when your ears go dead.” Speeding by at their current rate, they reckon they’ll have the album done by Christmas. Early demos landed Gengahr a deal on Transgressive, a home that’d likely be happy to give the band their own time and space to press - but these four aren’t the type to sit still. “We clicked with them straight away,” says Hugh, who describes the deal as “a big relief, actually.” “That period of time is so difficult,” agrees Felix. “You don’t know what’s going to happen next. Someone could be like, ‘Yeah, we’re going to set you up with this producer over here’. These are the bands we want you to sound like. You can create all the worst case scenarios in your head and you can never be sure of the reality ahead. When we met Transgressive it seemed very obvious that they were going to let us do our own thing. And they were happy with what we’d already done. They weren’t going to tamper with it.” It’d take some guts - and foolish intentions - to meddle with Gengahr’s current route. It’s difficult to think of a band that’s gone from debut casual demos to the O2 in such a short space of time. But it’s this assured, confident pack mentality that’s fuelling momentum. “I think it’s just a level of maturity as well,” says Felix, again referring to previous projects. “At some point, you realise you can only fuck things up so many times, before it escapes you completely. Without being dramatic, it felt like this was the time to buck up a bit and not act like an idiot.” DIY
“At s o m e point you realise you can o n ly fuck things up so many times.” Felix Bushe
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Blythe, Barney and Ben are responsible for 2015’s rousing soundtrack - how they got here is anyone’s guess.
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Vaults’ journey from 2014 hopefuls to 2015 dead-certs has been anything but average. It’s a process that’s included stripping, discovering instruments that nobody’s ever played before, and avoiding local dogging hotspots. Who said being in a band was easy?
In order to stand out, the three ‘B’’s - Blythe, Ben and Barney - arrived sporting sophisticated synth pop tracks that live in a peaceful world between Portishead, Massive Attack and Radiohead at their most romantic. Support dates for London Grammar in 2014 made plenty of sense, too.
Its technical term is an aluphone, but Vaults prefer to nickname it “Space Tits”. Sometimes they’ll call it “Babs,” too, named after Barbara Windsor. “Apparently it was made by a Danish farmer. He was hitting a gate post and it made a really nice tone, a bell-type sound,” explains Barney, himself and Ben responsible for making these “Space Tits” work. “We were thinking of dressing it in bras on stage, but it might take away from the integrity we’re aiming for.” The trio’s music comes off as quite serious - and it is, emotionally-wrung tracks don’t tend to get made by shiny happy people - but the stories behind the project are anything but. For their debut ‘Lifespan’ video, they ended up visiting a local hotspot for ‘dodgy stuff’ just to make the whole thing happen. “We filmed it on the Epping Forest boating pond, run by these geezers,” remembers Ben. “And it’s a real hotspot for dogging. We scared them all off with our lights and stuff.” “The local ice cream van went home!” Blythe laughs, with Ben adding: “It’s
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so popular for dogging there’s an ice cream van that sells burgers all night. He turned up, saw all our lights and just turned round again.” Once the ‘Lifespan’ video was over and done with, similar experiences occurred in North London. “I got my baps out for the whole of Camden,” Blythe jokes, referring to the bareback photo that dons recent EP ‘Vultures’’ art. “Loads of people kept stopping and taking photographs - not of me, but there was some kind of artwork on the wall of the Hawley Arms. They just didn’t see me at all, I was too high up.” Ben turns to Blythe. “Well, we talked about the idea of you being the ‘Vulture’, surveying on top of a cliff. Without sticking feathers on you.”
Words: Jamie Milton. Photos: Mike Massaro
They first struck gold at a debut festival show in Henham Park for Latitude 2014. Locals to Suffolk, they drew a huge crowd in an early afternoon slot, the big draw being this weird, bobble-y instrument that stood centre of the stage.
Vaults practice their best vampire deterring moves
FROM THE VAULT TO THE CLUB
“It was more of an abstract thing,” says Blythe. “Just put a load of grease in my hair and run around the rooftops of Camden!” On stage, beside “Babs”, things tend to get more sophisticated. Recent headline shows and dates with Paolo Nutini saw the group surrounding themselves in tiny LED lights, Blythe donning a crown of litup wires. “I’m a theatre person,” she says, citing a degree in set design. “For me, the visual side of a performance is half of why I do it. You get so much out of immersing people in a world. “I said that I want some kind of mobile outfit. Originally I wanted something that would move. But we had to it down,” she admits. came up with the idea of using this luminous plastic. We “Iscale g ot my bap“My s stylist o ubasically t ended up attaching LED lights to the end of material, which shot light through the plastic. It illuminated fo r the wh o le o f itself, but it would also catch the light from the stage.”
Cam d en !” - B ly th e
This worldn of o Vaults’ might sound strange on the outside - maybe a little too nude-friendly for some - but Pepi it’s undeniably universal. These songs belong in high places, reaching out and speaking on a big level with no hesitation. Just don’t try dissing Barbara Windsor in front of them. DIY
Blythe lists off the best places for a night out in London. “Plastic People. Because I live South, sometimes I struggle to go all the way North and come back. Corsica Studios, as well. Or just the living room! A little home rave.”
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Having already clocked up quite the list of achievements this year, the future for Prides is guaranteed to be huge.
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Selling out their first headline tour, performing at xv Glasgow’s humongous Hampden Park as part of the Commonwealth Games Closing Ceremony and soundtracking an advert for neon-coloured booze; if the last six months are anything to judge Prides by, there’s nothing they can’t do. Having already gotten off an impressive start, it could be assumed that the trio – made up of Stewart Brock, Callum Wiseman and Lewis Gardiner – might be getting a little ahead of themselves, but 28 diymag.com
nah. So far, their year ahead boils down to two goals. “Sell some albums,” states Callum, with just a hint of that wonderful Glaswegian humour, before Lewis finishes their statement. “Play some gigs.” “In all seriousness, those are the two things!” laughs Stewart, frontman of the three-piece. “Getting the album out is obviously the biggest priority and then, just playing as much as we humanly can.” For a band who were only formed back
in 2013, they’ve already made rapid progress; since the release of their ‘The Seeds You Sow’ EP in February, they’ve supported some of their childhood heroes - Blink 182 at Brixton Academy - almost put their debut album to bed, and shaken off that ol’ Scottish band curse during their recent touring stint. “You know, as a Glasgow band,” offers Stewart, “you don’t really expect to turn up to Birmingham for a sold out room full of people going mad. So, for so many of the dates to sell out; we just really wouldn’t have expected it…”
Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photo: Mike Massaro
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That’s not been the only surprise for the band when it comes to the live sphere. Whilst they had claimed to be more of a studio act, with their offerings leaning towards synthpop and electronic elements, their performances have definitely had an effect on their writing.
Glasgow name to uphold!” More than anything – regardless of high profile performance slots and red carpet appearances at the MTV EMAs - Prides are a band who already know that they’ll have to work hard. After already spending most of their youth playing in bands, they’re prepared for it. “I don’t think you can be a band,” confirms the frontman, “especially not
“It has become a big focus for us, playing live,” Stewart explains, “I don’t know that we particularly thought it would when we started out, but it’s become such a good part of what we’re doing that I quite like that it does inform the recording. It feels like it’s the right way around. We like playing live and we like writing songs for other people to be able to interact with.” They’re under no illusions either: they’re the latest in a long line of Glaswegian bands and they have a reputation to uphold. “Being an electronic sort-of band,” he goes further, “you do have to work a bit harder to make something work live but it’s well worth it. Then there’s coming from Glasgow. If you can’t play live and you’re from Glasgow, just get in the bin! You’ve got the
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This London producer’s burst onto the scene with crazed early tracks, steeped in world influences. Here’s how she’s done it.
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a “successful” band, without going over all those hurdles that you do as young guys trying to play tunes. It seems very idyllic and it seems all lovely and perfect, but actually you really do have to work. I think most people get into music because it’s fun and because it’s easy, but, while it is fun, it’s not easy. You’re gonna be away all the time, especially begin a touring band, and you have to get used to that kind of lifestyle. We’ve all done our time.” “We still on pretty much a weekly basis go, ‘Oh, yeah, we should’ve known better than that’,” says Callum, of their past mistakes. “They’re just the small things but we’ve definitely learned from all that.” With ample experience and drive already on their side, let’s be honest, there’s probably no stopping this lot. Better yet – outside of their two goals outlined earlier - their intentions remain simple. “There are quite a lot of milestones that we hit this year,” Stewart concludes, “especially looking back at it, you go, ‘Oh god, yeah, we’ve been quite busy’. Now it’s all about next year for us, and about how we get out to as many more people as we can. It’s about how we make sure that we can put together the best album that we can and try to get it out. We’ll just see where we get to really. Keep our heads down and keep on trucking.” DIY
1. Imagine the track first: “Generally I’ll have a vision in my head that probably makes no sense to anyone else - but to me, I’m onto something.”
2. Travel far for inspiration: “It’s like a sonic soundscape that you’re absorbing, and then you take it back with you. All those memories. I’m going to go back the day after Boxing Day to Thailand. I need a holiday so I wanted to go again.” 3. Don’t rule out possibilities: “Every song’s different. With ‘The Duchess’, I had these weird vocal layers I was building, and I’d make a little loop around them. It eventually progressed into what it is today.” 4. Allow others into the process: “When it gets to that stage of going mental, I can have that opinion of other people to go ‘That’s enough. This is sick. Leave this alone’. Sometimes that perspective really helps.” 5. Ignore prejudice: “I don’t really know why there’s this image of being a guy. When I didn’t have an image or whatever, it’s not associated with being a girl. And I don’t know why. It’s probably because it’s a male dominated industry.” LISTEN: The ‘Alchemy’ EP, out on Aesop Label. MOST LIKELY TO: Go beyond the big SoundCloud plays. LEAST LIKELY TO: Do anything straightforward.
Words: Jamie Milton
“I don’t think any of us expected it to be rubbish,” continues Callum, “but we’ve been in bands before where we’ve maybe done quite well in Glasgow and then gone to other places and it’s been like, ‘Where are all the people?!’”
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L å p s l e y This Liverpudlian electronic muso played her first gig at Glastonbury and scored a deal with XL Recordings all while, you know, just finishing her A levels.
For most teenagers reaching the end of their A-levels, it’s a time of relief. Sometimes an excuse to get hammered for a couple of days straight. For Låpsley, that wasn’t quite the case... “Glastonbury was my first performance,” she laughs, “and I had three days to prepare because my mum wouldn’t let me do any music before my A-levels had finished. They finished three days before Glasto so I had three days, I grabbed two mates and put together this set, which obviously wasn’t a representation of me, or of Låpsley, but it was something that I’m proud of.” Queen of multitasking, Holly Fletcher may only be 18-years-old but she already has a
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Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photo: Emma Swann
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wealth of experience. Having taken up lessons in piano, guitar and oboe while younger, she began songwriting when she was just twelve years old. Since then, an obsession with dance music has led her to find her feet in the production world, where she’s keen to blur the lines where classical and electronic meet. “Electronic and classical were very separate things in my life,” Fletcher begins, thinking back a few years. “Around the age of 13 or 14, I’d go out into Liverpool and I was obsessed with techno and I’d go to rave to watch DJs. I wouldn’t even get messed up or anything, I’d just sit by the side and watch people DJ or watch people do live performances. It just intrigued me at how different it was to the classical stuff that I did back home. Then I really got into James Blake and Ghostpoet and I realised that the songs I was writing on piano and guitar, I actually wanted to translate in an electronic way.” While it was her knowledge of notation and melody that allowed for Fletcher to listen to electronic music differently to “ I h a d t h r e e d ay s those without her background, it was to prepare for through a lack of experience with certain g l a s to n b u ry.” music softwares that helped her to craft her Låpsley own more spacious style. “When I was listening to electronic music, I was listening to it in a way where I dissected it and took it straight back to the melodies that are used,” she explains. “I saw it in a musical way because that’s how I’ve always been taught to look at music. Being introduced to all this deep house stuff, I saw it in a different way to people who maybe don’t have a classical background. “I was just experimenting with the concept of repetitive melodies in dance music and taking it in a more chilled, electronic way. I’ve had a lot of years to develop my own writing, but with my production, it’s something I’ve only started this year. My limited knowledge of production has meant that I’ve kinda forced myself to work with the skills that I’ve got, which are quite small. It means I can’t really do much on the software, but what I can do, I try to make the best of it. I often work with the spaces rather than working with the layers. It takes me a long time and it’s quite hard to execute space, but hopefully it’s slowly working.” Never afraid to learn or ask questions (“It’s a bit scary but I’ve gotten over my fear of being like, ‘what the hell does this button do?!’”) Låpsley’s first mark on the musical world came in the form of ‘Station’, a slow-burning dual-vocal affair, but now she’s gearing up to release a new ‘Understudy’ EP which she claims will provide the world with a much more realised view of what the project is all about. “It took me about a week to write the EP which was quite quick. I do work long hours; I’m not one of those people that’s like, ‘Oh, I can only work between 9 and 3am with soy chai lattes!’” she laughs, putting on a silly voice for the impression. “I literally just worked my arse off for a solid week and I made it and got it mastered. They’re quite personal songs and I suppose my production level has increased; I’ve experimented with different sounds and different layers. There are quite a few ambient moments, but then on a few tracks, they’re quite a bit more dance-y. I’m just really excited, it’s a lot more up-tempo than ‘Station’ and ‘Painter’, it’s quite different to that, but I feel like people will have a more rounded view of what Låpsley is and my style after hearing this EP.” DIY
K ay tr anada
Nothing’s stopped this Montrealbased gadgethead’s ascent. Brixton awaits. If Kaytranada has some kind of musical bucket list, he’s probably xv running out of boxes to tick. Remix Janet Jackson? Check. Sign to XL Recordings? Check. Book a headline gig at Brixton Academy? Sure, that too. Born in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, he’s grown up in Montreal, starting production at the age of fifteen before fast fledging into the go-to name of today. Kaytranada’s rep boils down to one thing: Bass. Somewhere, he must have some kind of switch that makes every boiling-up beat sound just that tincy bit fresher and more throbbing than anything others put their name to. Expect Brixton’s walls to shake just that little bit more come 2015. LISTEN: Recent single ‘Leave Me Alone’ (feat. Shay Lia). WATCH: His Montreal Boiler Room DJ set from 2013. DID YOU KNOW: Between 2010 and 2012, he put out nine hype worthy releases under the Kaytradamus moniker.
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Since he first emerged in the summer of 2013, Clarence Clarity has been the subject of many frenzied whispers across the blogosphere.
Words: Dominique Sisley. Photo: Malvin Mosaics
Other than a couple of distorted press shots and a scant collection of xv surreal music videos, very little is actually known about Clarence Clarity. He’s an enigma – a conjuror of freakish and impenetrable waves of sound that are both wildly disconcerting and bizarrely poppy. So really, it makes a lot of sense that he would choose one of the most unsettling places imaginable for his first face-to-face interview. Parked up on the top floor of a deserted Peckham car park, he opens the passenger door of his super slick vintage Ford and beckons me in. “I didn’t want it to be a statement,” he says, almost a bit embarrassed. “I just don’t like crowded, public places for conversations like this.“
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In actual fact, he’s nothing like what you’d expect (whatever that is). Dressed in smart, dandy-esque attire, he’s relaxed, friendly and self-deprecating. It’s strange to think that this is the same person who kept things so quiet for so long. “I never set out for this to be an anonymous, mystery thing,” he says, rolling his eyes. “It wasn’t calculated. People interpret it like that, but it was more just to put the music first. I want people to judge it on its own merits before they worry about trying to find out who I am. It shouldn’t necessarily matter.” Despite that, he is still fiercely private. Although chatty and forthcoming for most of the interview, any questions about where he comes from are greeted with a slight wince. “Is it really relevant?” He shuffles a bit. “I don’t have a problem with talking about my life and what’s going on, but it just feels a bit unnatural to me.” With an album soon to be released on Bella Union and a stint supporting Jungle lined up, the hype is only building. So why is he hiding behind an alter ego? “[Clarence Clarity] is not an alter ego,” he states. “I just like the idea of having this perfect clarity to everything I do. When I started doing this I had this mantra that I had stuck on my wall – ‘clarity’. I wanted to
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be concise and focused. It’s just having this focal point.” His eyes drop a bit bashfully; clearly very aware of the words he is choosing. “The music is really dense at times, but it’s organised chaos. That’s what I’m going for – chaos theory. The idea that something can be complex but ordered at the same time.” Dense is certainly one way of putting it. Clarity’s songs are bubbling over – squelchy synths, Bhangra-style hooks and ghostly samples are all squeezed together and boiled to within an inch of their lives. “[I like] something that just feels a bit wrong, something that makes you want to move in an unconventional way,” he explains, mulling over each word. It’s a sound that is uncannily familiar, but any questions about his potential influences are met with another awkward shuffle. “Any name that I drop will just get duplicated. A couple of people have picked up on a sort of Backstreet Boys, Justin Timberlake kind of thing. I love it. I definitely embody some of that disgusting, packaged thing when I do vocal performances,” he laughs. “It’s all meant to be part of the surreal picture that I’m painting, really.” So from the looks of things, 2015 is set to be the year that things get much more surreal – both for Clarence himself and his listening audience. Despite the fact that there is a lot to be nervous about, he shrugs it all off with an air of admirable nonchalance. “The only way I can be creative is being in my moment, and if I think about what anyone else’s expectations are of me it all falls apart. When I’m in the zone with music it transcends all that.” He stops himself and gives another slightly embarrassed wince, but it’s clear he’s being sincere. “It sounds a bit cheesy, but if I want people to get anything out of my music I guess that would be the most flattering thing to hear – that it takes them out of themselves.” DIY
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Who We Are Guro (bass): We see ourselves as more xv psychedelic boogy than funk. Rich (drums): There’s an atmosphere to the tunes, an expansiveness. People might call it psychedelia, but it’s more a depth.
Clarence Clarity - not mysterious, honest
Carey, Awh G: [Producer Dan Carey, who has worked with the likes of Bat For Lashes, M.I.A and Kylie bloody Minogue] is such a legend. Louis (guitar): He’s amazing. We all came out of it as new people. Even spiritually. It was really special.
Words: El Hunt
How We Are G: We really like just going off, the three of us. All our gear, all our recording equipment, and loads of booze! We lock ourselves in and enter this All We Are world, and just write. We’ll come out of it and be like ‘Woah, there’s an actual world out there’. This is weird. We have to go back to civilisation. R: It’s been quite cool, doing an album and having that opportunity becoming a reality. We got to a point where we felt really ready to go into the studio. We had a fucking load of fun.
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“E v en i f yo u don’t think I k n o w w h at the fuck I ’ m ta l k i n g a b o u t, j u s t kn ow th at something’s g o i n g o n .” R aury
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This Atlanta teen says he wants to change the world - and he means it.
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Of all the ballsy statements on 18-year-old Atlantan Raury’s debut mixtape, ‘Indigo Child’, the standout is probably ‘God’s Whisper’’s repeated refrain: “I am the saviour! We are the saviours!” bellowed loud and proud, for everyone to hear.
That’s not all. The “project” - three years in the making - opens up with the chant: “We are the truth / we are forever / we are the youth / we are together.” In this scattered, short attention- spanned, gutsy debut, there’s one running thread: An unbelievable amount of self-belief. Raury says he’s hoping to inspire the youth, and he truly means it. This is an artist who’ll sign autographs in between songs at gigs. Every piece of praise is retweeted. When shows are over, he’ll take fans out for ice cream, because he wants to “get real” with them. In a short space of time spent with the newcomer during his visit to the UK, he runs around a park singing, scales a couple of climbing frames and bounds around with the energy of a thousand affectionate puppies. He’s one of a kind. It’s easy to think the guy might carry a serious ego. He says it’s the opposite. “I’m not this all-powerful, untouchable being,” he claims, first off, before calling himself “foolishly humble”. He doesn’t care about “money, what kind of girl you can get, how much you can pop in a club” - his focus is on the people around him. “I want to empower my generation,” he claims. Just watch him try.
While hosting an impromptu outdoor Q&A with fans (as you do), Raury’s hero, Kid Cudi, turned up a couple of hours past midnight. The latter’s ‘Man on the Moon’ debut is cited as the album that inspired Raury to make music. “I was happy, so happy,” he remembers. Naturally, instead of talking music, they decided to have a conversation on park swings to see who could go highest. “I don’t know who won - I think I won, ‘cause I did a backflip off. You’ll see the video one day. We got footage.”
In an age of the Internet and limitless knowledge, Raury’s big message is that people should seek out their own truth. This generation has everything on their fingertips, but they could easily go astray. “I’m no politician. I wouldn’t say that I’m a philanthropist or humanitarian,” he says, but he’s dead set in spreading word that those growing up have all the potential. This isn’t Russell Brand-stamped nonsense. There’s no ulterior motive. It’s the antipathy of apathy that Raury believes in. “Beyond just being an artist, if you wanna be the best gardener or whatever, the best chef - when you’re nine, you can start looking this shit up before you go to college. By the time you’re seventeen, you can be the equivalent of me in chef form. I just wanna put the idea out there, and you can formulate your own truth about whatever the hell I’m talking about.” At the age of eleven, he taught himself guitar by looking up videos on YouTube. Music was his full-time passion from fourteen onwards, and ‘Indigo Child’ took three years to put together. “I was listening to all different types of music that gave me all these influences because of the
Words: Jamie Milton. Photos: Mike Massaro
DO MEET YOUR HEROES
A lot of what Raury says sounds fantastical, potentially batshit. One statement sums him up particularly well. “Even if you don’t think I know what the fuck I’m talking about, just know that something’s going on.”
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“Of course I’ve been smoking, drinking, d o in g what I’m not supposed to do - but h e y, t h at ’ s life.” R au ry
GETTING HIGHER internet. I wasn’t trapped by the radio or my local area. Not just the big names from Atlanta. “What you listen to and what your mind digests - it becomes who you are,” he states. “Five or ten years from now, I don’t care about having a Grammy or anything like that. I want just a million, five million, ten million people to say ‘I have accomplished my dream. My life is a lot simpler and easier because I heard this album’.” One of the biggest draws of ‘Indigo Child’ is a collection of four, real conversations he had with his mother when at a crossroads between taking things easy and becoming a big deal. “You need to rest, don’t burn yourself out,” goes one. “If you made it big, your head would be so fucking big that there would be no room for nothing else,” is another. She might have a point. There’s a hint of Kanye in the grandiose statements Raury makes - but that runs hand in hand with the (whisper it) genius he might also possess. “I felt like I wanted my project to be a peephole into my real life,” he says, of these conversations, which he recorded on his phone presumably without permission. “I’m really glad that it just came out where neither one of us really looked bad. We didn’t
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2014 saw Raury collaborating on ‘Higher’, a track from SBTRKT’s latest LP ‘Wonder Where We Land’. “We had a really good long conversation, and I realised how much I like him and how humble he is about music,” he says, calling Aaron Jerome a musical “Spiderman” for wearing his ubiquitous mask. “He provided a lot of great direction. He has a lot of expertise. I think I grew a lot. How he does his albums: It’s kind of like the Justice League of production.”
As per parental instructions, Raury says he knows “not to feed my ego.” He makes big claims like wanting to “change a million lives, not sell a million records,” but these statements are his currency. Without them, he’d not exactly sink without a trace, but it’s difficult to imagine ‘Indigo Child’ taking off the way it has without these undaunted end-goals. At no point does he claim to be perfect. The ‘God’s Whisper’ video - his breakthrough moment - shows today’s youth smoking, snorting coke, going offcourse. “We peer pressure ourselves and feel like we have to act a certain way. I showed myself doing the same things because I’m no saint,” he says. “I don’t ever want to portray myself as the image of perfection. Of course I’ve been smoking, drinking, doing what I’m not supposed to do - but hey, that’s life.” He’ll be the first to admit that ‘Indigo Child’ isn’t a definitive mission statement. In the four years that he’s been making music, he’s gone from a “heavy rapping” style (getting comparisons to Kendrick Lamar on the way) to the acoustic-led, singing-first approach defining his first project. “After every show, I’m kicking my own ass about something that went wrong. Even with this project, I see a bunch of things that could have been better,” he claims. This scatterbrained, clearly faulty first release is more about riding a wave, one of Raury’s own making. There’s every chance that when things take off, haters will arrive in their droves. How that affects his confidence will be the big test of 2015. For now, he’s winning over more fans by the second, one trip to the ice cream store at a time. “I know I’m not the only one making music of this calibre,” he says. “This is a whole new era. There’s gonna be a lot of other people coming out in the next five years that can do a million things and do them at a very high, respectable calibre. Real music is coming back on top. And it’s thanks to your Kendricks, all the people that open doors for the world to be ready for artists like me and what we have to say.” DIY
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“I don’t know if I could make it / I think I’m gonna try in Hollywood,” rings the bridge of Los Angeles-based songwriter Tobias Jesso Jr.’s heartbreaking song for the hills. By all accounts, he looks set to be one of the year’s breakthrough solo names. It was never going to be easy, though. Here’s a timeline of the twenty-something’s journey to the top.
First love “I first came to LA when I was visiting a girl that I was interested in, when I was eighteen years old. That was the first time. It was an amazing experience!” Second time unlucky “I got the opportunity to move down to LA to play as a bassist in a back-up band for a pop singer that no-one’s ever heard of. I took the opportunity, moved down and lived here for three and a half years. My dream in my head was I would go to LA, somebody would find me and say, ‘Play me a good song and show me what the melody will be and then I’ll write the lyrics’.” Back home “I moved back to Vancouver to spend time with my Mom, who was sick. My sister had left her piano at home. I’d left all my guitars in LA. That’s really when I started. This is about two years ago now. ‘Just a Dream’ was the first time I wrote a song, sang a song I was proud of. I dove in and started playing all the time.”
Big break “I’d finished the ‘Just a Dream’ demo and a couple other songs. And I had Chet ‘JR’ White’s email in a bank from a blog that had put it up accidentally. It was just round the time Girls broke up. I was a big fan of Girls, a big reason being because of Christopher coming out as sort of an anti-singer. That really inspired me. So I emailed JR, said ‘Sorry to hear about the band. I’m a big fan of your production’. After that, just two hours after, he wrote back and said: ‘Please call this number’.” Hello Hollywood “I have a tentative plan to live here until I figure out where I should be in my life. The record’s coming out and I’ll do a tour. It’s sort of like planning after that. I do have a place here and a great little community with friends. It’s a strange thing to have two separate lives going on. One is in LA, with a team and friends who know about my music. And then Vancouver, with the people I grew up with and never really shined for them at all.”
Words: Jamie Milton
lose the argument, we just talked to each other about what was going on in that moment. People ask me like, ‘How are you and your mom now? Are you guys alright?’ The thing is, we probably went to Applebee’s like two hours later!”
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s o a k A star so tiny she likes to hide in bins - SOAK is a dinosaur-loving, skateboarding, heartfelt songwriter whose stock is set to soar.
SOAK, NEED TO KNOW MOST LIKELY TO: Win the ‘George Ezra Award For Best Musician Twitter’ In 2015. LEAST LIKELY TO: Sack it off and go on tour with The Hoosiers. LITTLE KNOWN FACT: All of her friends think they’re in a skate punk band. “I would compare them without the music - to Gnarwolves.”
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But SOAK’s story isn’t as black and white as that might suggest. Yes, it’s true she played a gig and took a biology exam in the space of twenty minutes, but “I wasn’t going to pass that, anyway,” she insists. There’s a lot more to Bridie than music.
Words: Jamie Milton. Photo: Mike Massaro
Dinosaurs, for instance. Her Twitter handle is currently “SOAKOSAURUS”, for no other reason than if you add “saurus” to the end of a word, it sounds “badass”. While claiming that “all your life lessons” can be taught through dino-cartoon ‘The Land Before Time’, she also has tattoos of her favourite prehistoric friends. “But they’re stupid. Don’t ever do it,” she protests. “It’s kind of ridiculous.” By default, Bridie’s besties usually find themselves the subject of SOAK songs, whether they like it or not. These days, they won’t even be informed of when their travelling musician mate is returning from tour. Nope - she’ll just surprise them. “I like to pretend I’m not coming back and then I just arrive out of nowhere,” she laughs. “I’m like, ‘Hey bitches!’” One time, for reasons unbeknownst to everyday sanity, she hid in a bin. It was parked next to a cafe that became a de-facto hangout spot for her group of friends. So one friend asked the other to take some litter outside, and there began a particularly unhygienic homecoming. “In the moment, it was like ‘What can I do?’” Parts of her miss home, but for the most part Bridie is enjoying the wave she’s riding. Her parents no longer take a front seat in management, and friends are still - for the most part - the same. “The only part I don’t
like is coming back and so much has changed,” she says. For the past couple of years, there must have been a slight, if subconscious, awareness of what was coming next. “When I was young, I wasn’t really like, ‘I’m gonna be a singer!’” she says, but by the time publishers were travelling to Derry to make a connection, she knew something was happening. Especially when CHVRCHES put her straight on the map by releasing her ‘BLUD’ single on their own imprint, Goodbye Records. That’s when heads began to turn in their thousands. She comes from a “very creative family”, but despite her father being a Jimi Hendrix-loving guitar wizard, he never forced music into the equation. “My big brother got a guitar for Christmas when we were… ten? And I was like, ‘Ooh, how can you do that?’ And I asked my Dad to teach me a few songs. I surprised myself in how addicted I got to it.” There’s music, and then there’s skateboarding, Bridie’s other passion. “I didn’t come out of the womb skating,” she has to stress, but she’s been on a board as long as she can remember. Videos for early singles see her scouring Derry’s more deserted areas, but she had to give up “properly” skating due to a nasty injury (“shit got bad”). “I can’t really do it right now while on tour because I’d break my wrists and… People would be angry at me,” she admits. Skating’s been dropped, friends require bin-based surprises and the family are watching her career go skywards from a distance, but Bridie’s not sacrificing too much. A debut album - set for 2015 - puts together present day numbers with songs she penned from the very beginning. “This being my debut and the fact I’ve been writing for so long, it shows such a span. You can tell the songs that are older than others, and you can tell there’s an actual experience within them. Whether they sound incredible or not, it’s important to have them on there,” she says. In what’s been a mad journey, defined by unprecedented but deserved attention, SOAK’s fairly happy with the idea of being a somebody. DIY
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c o a s t s Bristol band make no bones about their big ambitions. “You only really get one shot at making an impact,” they claim. There’s no point hiding it - Bristol five-piece Coasts want to be xv huge. Arenas await, fans in the thousands screaming in unison. “Huge” doesn’t have to be a process of losing sight of original aims - for these guys, it’s about the “impact”. “The first show we played together was amazing, all our friends came down and it was packed and everyone was chanting our name and having a great time,” they remember. “I think we all thought this being in a band thing is pretty easy. But, then, like every band you go on to play lots of gigs to rooms with just a handful of people in over the next few months. I think that’s all part of the growing process.” “Hopefully 2015 is going to be a big year for us,” they start, cautiously. “We wanted to create quite an instant album that people can connect with easily. We try to write music that will connect with people and evoke a reaction, whether that’s happy or sad.” A debut’s scheduled for the beginning of summer, just in time for these extreme, emotional reactions to take hold. DIY
Words: Jamie Milton
On her song ‘B a noBody’ - one of several direct, xv emotional tracks to be penned by SOAK since she turned thirteen - she writes about friends in limbo, scratching their heads about their future. They’re in a rut, stumped on where to go. Bridie Monds-Watson, however, now aged eighteen, gives the impression of someone who was practically born a songwriter. Keen industry-types had to be warded off from Bridie’s parents while she was taking her GCSEs, so the tale goes. Interest travelled to hometown Derry and it’s been by her side for several years.
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s l a v e s Well actually, if you’re a dad they’ll make you dance, if you’re a mum they’ll get a tattoo with your name and if you’re Bono, they’ll weird you out.
Words: Jamie Milton. Photo: Emma Swann
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There’s no hiding from Slaves. The duo from Kent - Isaac Holman and Laurie Vincent - will either be found chasing strangers down poorly-lit streets in their music videos, or when they’re on stage, provoking batshit reactions. Be it bewilderment or plain frenzy, no Slaves show is the same. Holman’s often found running on the spot, smashing a minimal drum set-up like it’s designed to take off. Vincent cuts a more restrained figure, but he’s the one kickstarting the chaos.
It’s been a slog of sorts to get here. Slaves have been gigging solidly for just under three years, starting off in local pubs before joining Jamie T in arenas. “I always relay this, but there’s a really good Cribs documentary, where Ryan Jarman says, ‘You’ve got to do your two years’ service,’” begins Vincent. “We pretty much did two years and then got signed. Without those two years, people don’t take you as seriously. We did the shit shows… If you can’t do those shit shows and maintain friendship, then you’re not gonna last the long run. We’ve already had our rocky relationship. Now we’re on the home strait. We’re the fully in love married couple with a couple of kids.” The “kids” in this scenario being a couple of albums, he clarifies. Material for their debut - set to land in early 2015 - has been drawn up from the past three months. There’s no vast back catalogue to draw from, but the duo are intent on keeping things fresh instead of riding the same wave. The timing of their ascent seems fitting. Already, though they sound nothing alike, comparisons to Royal Blood are buzzing around simply because both sport two guys capable of breaking out with a vicious sound, one that dwarfs their on-paper size. “I think all that stuff’s rubbish,” says Vincent. “At the end of the day, there are some really good four-pieces and five-pieces that are breaking through as
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s p r i n g k i n g In 2015, this bright-eyed Manchester pack are promising loads of records, loads of all-thrills shows and a supply of intense garage rock capable of filling any void. Here’s how they intend to do it. Have you started thinking about an album? Tarek Musa: I kind of wanna do a few xv albums. It depends - at the moment I’m still writing the songs. So I’ll show them to the band and see what everyone else is enjoying and go with those. I really don’t know what’s good or bad because you spend so much time listening to the songs. I’d like to get maybe two albums out next year - that would be cool. How many tracks do you end up discarding? T: There’s still loads, so many songs. It’s not that I’m not feeling it, it’s just that I’ve heard them so many times. Any songs I don’t put out now will end up on some massive b-side compilation, like 100 tracks long. These tracks, everyone’s played on them now. I remember recording ‘Demons’ with Andy in the dark, just in the toilet. His guitar solo brought the track alive.
well. You’ve got The Wytches, a three-piece. Peace blew up a while ago. Wolf Alice as well, and all these other bands people forget to mention.” The only real benefit of being a duo, he says, is that neither of them had to purchase a tour van. “It’s a bit frustrating that people try and put it in a genre. But when bands like Royal Blood are paving the way, it shows kids that actually, you don’t need to wait around for loads of members.”
You bring such an insane energy to shows. Where does that come from? T: Recording is enjoyable but live is where we wanna be, we just want to constantly be on the road. That shows - our eagerness and impatience comes across. You wait around all day to play 30 minutes and then smash it out. I think we’re all vented up with energy, ready to go. I’ve thrown up on stage in the past - we don’t know how to pace ourselves.
“We knew we were doing something quite different,” says Vincent, citing energised early sessions in a mate’s practice room. “I think when we first got on stage, we were trying something different. You don’t have members to hide behind. The more ridiculous we are, the harder it is to be embarrassed about it,” he says. And it’s this attitude that runs from the stage to the studio, right up to Isaac’s “official” tweets from the band account, full of made up fibs, like the time they met Sonia from Eastenders at a BP garage. “Nonsense,” he says, shaking his head. But from the off, Slaves have done their very best to stand out in a crowd. If this equates to being terrifying, best keep those doors locked for the time being. DIY
Words: El Hunt. Photo: Emma Swann
Talk centres around the shows, but on record Slaves are a different prospect. Recent single ‘The Hunter’ is a bare-bones monster, a slick, blues-nodding onslaught disguised as a gentle soul. Fire-starting rock’s rarely sounded so minimal, or coined from such simplicity. Their goal is to “make music that’s different, listenable and skilful,” they state, and from an early stage they knew they were on to something.
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R h o d e s . It took him a while to feel comfortable picking up the mic, but now he has there’s no stopping Rhodes. Every so often a voice comes along and smashes through the hubbub like a barista bursting abruptly into an Earl Grey conference xv and halting proceedings. Last year George Ezra shook things up when he unexpectedly emitted the booming bluesy tone of a Louisiana fisherman, and, well, you only have to look at the continued popularity of reality singing competitions to know that we all love a surprise. Hertfordshire singer-songwriter Rhodes might seem quietly spoken, and he willingly admits that live shows still scare the bejesus out of him. Appearances can deceive, though, because when Rhodes opens his mouth, gigantic, moody ballads like ‘Breathe’ come roaring out. It’s all the more surprising to hear such an assured voice bursting out from Rhodes considering that he only started singing 18 months ago. Even belting out a bit of Whitney in the shower was off-limits, he says, and as for crooning away over the ironing, never in a million years. “I had this really intense fear of it,” he says. “With your voice, because it’s 42 diymag.com
coming from inside you, you feel exposed. I was in bands and stuff before, and I never even sung backing vocals. That [fear] was the reason.” One day, though, Rhodes did suddenly decide to start singing, out of the blue. “Nothing else was going well at the time, so I thought why the hell not,” he reasons. As it goes, the vocal that emerged was tinged with blue emotion, too, crisper and more vivid than the identikit t-shirts he was folding for his day job at American Apparel. “I started writing my own songs,” he continues, “and I showed my girlfriend. She said ‘Why don’t you just do this?’ My Dad convinced me too, and bought me a microphone.” Rhodes quickly discovered that when he was squirrelled away in his bedroom for hours, with complete control over every single take, he had found his comfort zone. After finishing work on Friday, the bedroom door would shut; by Sunday, Rhodes would have a new demo. Things quickly began to take off when Rhodes uploaded his music to BBC Introducing, and he’s grateful for their initial involvement. “I’m playing at their Christmas party,” he laughs, “I’m pally with them.” Starting out with local sessions and early sets at festivals, things quickly spiralled into national radio play. “I had just got into a taxi with my manager, and we were rushing somewhere,” recounts Rhodes. “My friend texted me, like, ‘Oh my god, you’re on Radio 1’. It was a good feeling,” he adds. “I’m my own worst critic, but it was fun to listen and be like ‘Shit, it’s on the radio, this is crazy!’” DIY
Words: El Hunt. Photo: Emma Swann
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“I was playing a valium-addicted wife of a gay xv man,” casually recounts Sinead Harnett. “[Tony Kushner’s] ‘Angels in America’ was my last performance at uni. Afterwards we were having celebratory drinks of wine, and I’d just got Twitter. I checked it and I saw all of these mentions… from Wiley. I spoke to him that night, and he was in Jamaica. He was like, ‘I’ve got this tune for you, come over!’ I thought, well, no, I’ve got to graduate! Send it to me and I’ll work on it.” It’s been three years since North Londoner Sinead Harnett’s notifications suddenly got taken over by the so-called Godfather of Grime. Her collaboration with Wiley made its way to BBC 1Xtra, and in doing so, opened the door. After that Sinead lent her vocals to Disclosure’s ‘Boiling’, just as they were making their own breakthrough. She featured on ‘Baby’, by Rudimental, too, and ended up on their tour as a vocalist. It’s been something of an intensive crash course to say the least. “Before this becomes your job,” she reflects, “you’re just that little girl singing into hair brush, in the mirror – you think it must just happen overnight.”
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S i n e a d H a r n e t t From collaborating with Wiley and Disclosure to touring with Rudimental, North London native Sinead Harnett is working her way up.
Sinead’s debut EP ‘Now’ quickly established her as an artist in her own right, though. Despite the euphoria, there’s also a soulful and personal undertone to everything Sinead does, like a Deep Meaningful Conversation on a crowded dancefloor. Released in August, ‘Now’ marked “the start of me doing my own thing. Everything that’s happened since then in terms of my confidence, it’s gone up,” she says. “I’m excited to see how the path that I’ve started unfolds. I always want to be the best version of myself as an artist, to inspire others to be the best versions of themselves. I don’t know if that’s cheesy?” The debut album, Sinead explains, is all done now bar “finishing sprinkles”, and will be out “hopefully middle of 2015.” While meticulously perfectionist when it comes to music, she can’t settle on a final album name. “I’m so about living in the moment,” she justifies. “I’m really bad with decisions because I’m a Libra.” What happens next is “up to the universe,” but she’s not too worried about the course her path will take. No musician, she reasons, ever really breathes a sigh of relief anyway. “I don’t think Beyoncé is very calm right now,” she shrugs. “It’s the end of the marathon bit for me, now.” DIY 43
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“I didn’ t want to b e th at person who signs and th en le av es every thing b eh i n d.” Rae Morris
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From Yamaha to Rechtshaid, Rae Morris isn’t in Blackpool anymore...
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Choosing the perfect career can be a bit of a challenge. Flashback to school workshops and visits from career advisors and it’s enough to induce even the most self-assured of students to a quivering wreck. For Rae Morris, on the other hand, there was no umm-ing and ahh-ing when it came to making that all-important decision: she already knew what was awaiting her.
“It’s interesting because I think I was gently forced into doing music by my parents.” She stops to laugh, before reiterating that there was nothing too pressured. “Not in a pushy parent way! It was just always something that my brother and I did. We had piano lessons - like Yamaha workshops - together, so it’s been a very family affair. I think that’s where I got my first musical tendencies and because of that, it just felt like it was in me. I always knew that I would do something, I just wasn’t sure what it would be.” What followed was Morris deciding what to explore within music. First she gave being a band a go - “I could never really sing, that was never what I was doing, I was always just a very bad keys player” - before deciding it wasn’t quite for her. “I think because I’m a bit of a control freak, I always felt a bit weird being in a band. I think - it sounds quite selfish, but - when it comes to music, it definitely felt better to do it on my own.”
Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photos: Mike Massaro
FAMILY FORTUNES
You might think that Rae is all about writing songs about love and heartache, but that’s not entirely the case. Her family aren’t also one of her most important musical inspirations, they’ve also become the subject matter of a few of ‘Unguarded’’s ditties. “My latest single ‘Closer’ has been the one that really had a very key theme. It was about my relationship with my brother as siblings, and I thought that was a really important part of everything. He’s a big part of my life, so that was the most specific point I wanted to make. Then, literally one of the last songs that I put onto the album a couple of weeks ago, is about my parents’ marriage - and my brother has just got married - so it’s about those worlds. There’s been this whole other family element that’s come towards the end which has been really important.”
In fact, it wasn’t for another few years that she would discover her underlying talent as a songwriter. “It started to all make sense when I decided to just do it as me,” she explains. “I wrote one song, the first song I had ever written.” That was the turning moment. “I had toyed with things before, like when do GCSE music and you have to write a song. I had done things like that and always felt really uncomfortable with it and unsure what I was doing. Then, I wrote this one song called ‘Wait A While’ and I realised that this was different and this was something I didn’t have to think about. It just happened.” Since then, it’s been a bit of a whirlwind for the young Blackpudlian. Signed by Atlantic Records after a chance spotting on MySpace, Morris soon went on to collaborate with the likes of Bombay Bicycle Club and chart-botherers Clean Bandit, but that wasn’t before testing the water of her hometown. “I think when I first started gigging, Blackpool was perfect,” she offers. “There were a few open mics and this upstairs bar - West Coast Rock Cafe - so there was a whole little scene.” Morris doesn’t underestimate the importance of where she comes from. Whether that be down to the family that surround her or the place she grew up, she wasn’t prepared to be sucked in by the industry. So she decided to stay in Blackpool that little longer to give herself the room to grow. “I was very wary after signing
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a deal; I didn’t want to be that person who signs, or has something big happen, and then leaves everything behind to move to the big city. I didn’t want to be that stereotype because it’s not always the answer. I’m really glad that I stayed in Blackpool for two years while I was still touring and understanding what it was that I wanted to do. It was definitely important to stick around while I was figuring that out.” That’s not to say the singer isn’t well-travelled. While she may have chosen to stay closer to home at first, she soon found herself headed straight to the USA, where she would go on to meet the man that would help piece together her debut album.
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“I was definitely more daunted about America than him,” she laughs, opening up about Ariel Rechtshaid – the man behind albums from Haim, Sky Ferreira and Charli XCX - who would go on to produce ‘Unguarded’, “just because I had been over there quite a few times to figure out which producer - if anyone - would work. So far, I’d had no luck and it felt like America was just a bit too far away from home.” As it turns out, the pair got along instantly, with Rechtshaid telling her “to chill out basically”. “It was a massive relief. I think I was at that point where I had made a lot of EPs and it was quite imperative that we made the album now; it was the right time. He could sense that I was quite panicked about getting it right, so he told me we were going to get it right. I definitely needed somebody to tell me it was gonna be okay, and then for us to just forget about it.
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As for ‘Unguarded’ itself, there’s a richness to the record that’s remarkable. The juxtaposition of Rae’s vocals, sometimes raw and sparse, against dark instrumentation and layered synths gives the fulllength an inviting warmth, which Morris claims she owes to an obsession developed during the recording. “We were in these amazing studios with very rich, organic sounds. They were these old studios that had, like, Frank Sinatra record in there, so we had the old and then the best new technology as well. I was fascinated with really colliding those worlds and just the way that we could play with the organic and the synthetic. We had so much time to experiment that I got obsessed with making it as weird as possible in its own way.”
Having now had the album complete for a while, Morris is more than eager to let the world get their hands on it. Looking ahead to 2015, she’s in good stead: having recently completed a tour alongside the UK’s golden boy George Ezra, she’s already made firm live foundations after testing the waters with her ‘Closer’ EP. More than anything, though, she’s excited to finally get her first full-length out in the open. “I can’t believe it’s coming around!” she laughs. “Because it’s taken so long and when I was out making it, I expected it to come out straight away but there was a lot of work tying the final pieces together. Now, I’m really glad that happened because I’ve got to add a few new songs that were imperative to the puzzle. I’m excited for people to hear it, but it is like releasing a baby into the world. You just hope that it has a good time!” She falls into laugher again, before composing herself for the conclusion. “I do feel like I’ve done as much as I can do now,” she smiles, assured she’s finally in the right place at the right time, “and I’m so relieved that I don’t have any regrets about anything because we’ve really gone back and made sure everything is perfect. It’ll be nice that it’ll last forever.” DIY
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Aquilo of Lancaster sounds a bit like a clan in Game of Thrones. As it goes, the xv duo did arise from a good old fashioned local rivalry; both members were in competing bands in Silverdale, and then one day they decided to form an alliance, fleeing their grunge and metal projects in search of quieter climes. Tom Higham and Ben Fletcher probably aren’t likely to get all Joffrey on anybody who doesn’t like their music, though. Shaping stunning compositions around experimental production that fits round the melody like a snug fleece, there’s little to dislike anyway, and their latest track ‘Human’ is their most ambitious yet. Aquilo’s first release ‘Calling Me’ admittedly hinged on its in-vogue production, but as of late teetering fragility is making way for a self-assured aesthetic, along with an increasingly notorious live show that’ll probably make you cry yer lil’ eyes out. LISTEN: ‘Human’, ‘I Gave It All’. EXPECT THEM TO: Give you pimples of the goosey variety. LEAST LIKELY TO: Become the next ‘Northern Disclosure’.
Words: El Hunt
“I’m so relieved that I don’ t have any regrets.” R ae Morris
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After years of build-up, the only thing capable of stopping this musician in her path is a soul-sapping, fantastical phantom creature. It’s becoming a bad habit. Marika Hackman often gets distracted by the stare of a stranger when she’s playing live. Sometimes it’s not an issue, like when she’s supporting Alt-J, performing to tens of thousands of people in arenas (“it’s so vast that it becomes a xv sea of bobbing heads”) but in intimate digs, attention diverts. Anyone could be watching on. “Scaling shows down to three-hundred people, it’s like ‘Ah, humans having opinions about me!’” she quips. “And then you hit a duff note and you can see everyone flinch.” It’s important to maintain focus. No more staring. “I could always catch the eye of a Dementor, so I avoid it,” she says. There’s no doubt it’d be a massive shame if now, after all this time, the Devon via London songwriter suddenly had her soul sapped out by a hooded, cold-blooded monster that fancied seeing Marika play live. A debut album’s round the corner, the gloomy, dark but beautifully open-ended ‘We Slept At Last’. It’s a first full-length that follows years of build-up and promising EPs. Hackman calls the record “less of an experiment or a lesson” than previous releases. “It’s not like I’m trying to find a new sound. It feels more grown up and more mature. It just sits better in itself.” Still just 22, Hackman’s early years as a musician took in countless shows, first steps being followed with serious intrigue. She’d send demos to her parents, and her progression’s mapped out in perfect detail through the promising, neat ‘Sugar Blind’ EP and ghostlier, more affirmed follow-on ‘Deaf Heat’. ‘We Slept At Last’ “feels like it was a long time coming because of the amount of growing I had to do,” she says. The record’s title is very literal, too. “After the journey through the album, everything that’s going on - the ups and downs - it’s the feeling of relief. The relief of getting a record done, actually.” There’s also the fact that Marika’s favourite thing in the world is sleeping, so the title works in several ways. If she’s prone to a cheeky nap while in her Brixton studio, fortunately Marika has a “genius” by her side in the form of Charlie Andrew. Her partnership with the producer struck up after she heard Alt-J’s ‘An Awesome Wave’. Since then, she’s become part a small pack of musicians (“The little Charlie Andrew gang,” she calls it, referring to Alt-J and Sivu, especially) working with him side-by-side.
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Marika remembers the fear and the door policyshunning drama of her debut gig. “I was sixteen. At the St Moritz Club in London. They thought I was eighteen. I was playing with a girl who played the cello and another girl who sang for me. We were waiting around backstage, and I think they offered us some beer and out came the fact we were sixteen. But they decided not to tell the manager so I wouldn’t get kicked out. It was just some shitty little band club night, but I can remember it so well. Mum and dad were at that one, actually. It was so much fun. Utterly bizarre - I was absolutely petrified.”
Post-recording the debut, Marika’s in a good place. She’s an outlier in some senses, given she’s been around and in the public consciousness for three solid, promising years. Nothing’s been rushed, in terms of getting a record out. She’s still holed up in her room most days, writing and recording, still sending demos off to parents or close friends. “It’s good to bounce songs off someone,” she says. “Even if it’s for them to say they don’t like it and you respond, ‘Well fuck you, I like it’. You end up more assured about what you like.” Nothing’s changed dramatically with ‘We Slept At Last’, but these twelve previously unheard songs look set to begin a brave new chapter. DIY
Leeds collective Menace Beach have admirable goals for the year ahead: primarily, to “not do anything shit.” Have you ever wondered what would happen if the great musical minds of Yorkshire joined forces? Maybe you’ve wasted entire afternoons just fantasising about the ultimate Leeds-based super group, only to cry silently xv when you realise that all those dreams may never actually come true? Don’t worry – we’ve all been there. Thankfully though, it looks like 2015 could mark the end of all that heartache. Enter Menace Beach – a raucous scuzz-rock five-piece that includes (or has included) band members from Komakino, Sky Larkin, You Animals, Pulled Apart By Horses and Hookworms. “We’re not really a super group,” drummer Nestor Matthews stresses. “We don’t want to make the best band in the world. It’s just because we’re all friends already, so that’s who you call on to play music with.” Named after an early 90s video game, Menace Beach are tied to the grunge era in more ways than one. With their enthusiasm for fuzz pedals, woozy melodies and lurching guitars, the comparisons in sound are inevitable – though not necessarily welcomed. “I don’t know. I grew up listening to music in 96, 97 – the back end of Britpop – that’s when I first got into music,” lead singer Ryan Needham says with a shrug. “But it’s just weird, innit? It’s just a guitar song.” Nestor nods in agreement – “it’s very innocent and organic… there’s so many of us that you can never point a finger at any particular [era].” The songs are written mostly by Ryan, and often during the very early hours of the morning. It’s a process that rapid and relentless; with Ryan taking full advantage of the creative daze that comes with the chronic exhaustion. “I’ll go to work, finish work, stay up all night until 6 or 7 in the morning and just write,” he says nonchalantly, before being cut off by bassist Matt Spalding. “Ryan is fucking magic at writing songs. There are just so many… I’ve never known anybody to write as ridiculously.”
Words: Dominique Sisley. Photo: Carolina Faruolo
“He is the nicest man in the world. No-one has ever said a bad thing about Charlie,” she beams. “We have very similar ideas. I trust him innately and I think he trusts me as well. I can’t even identify the process we have, because it’s so natural. It feels like what I’d be doing at home on my own, only I’ve got him in there working with me.”
With their excellent debut album ‘Ratworld’ due for release in January, the results of all that late night binge-writing have obviously paid off. However, their ultimate goal for the year ahead is a surprisingly straightforward one. “Not do anything shit,” says Matt, with an air of pure pragmatism. “It was good to pick and craft this album out of a load of madness. We’ll see how it goes – it’s going to be a very interesting year, I think.” DIY
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“My dad was a George Formby impersonator.” Things you knew about God Damn: two men, lots of hair, noisy rock’n’roll, from the xv Midlands. Things you didn’t: they’ve taken musical cues from Britain’s best-known banjowielder. Thom Edward (guitar, vocals) is also a dab hand at the instrument himself. “I can play ‘When I’m Cleaning Windows’,” he reveals with a giggle, “I can do the voice and everything, I got indoctrinated into it. “It’s not an influence on my music. Although...” he pauses. “Actually, there’s like a weird strumming pattern on the album which is very much George Formby.” After a year of gigging, gigging and then gigging some more (“ah fuckin’ love it,” sighs drummer Ash Weaver in his broad Black Country accent), the pair are gearing up to release
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their debut album next Spring. It was largely recorded at Metropolis Studios in London with Xavier Stephenson, “the hardest working man I’ve ever met in my entire life,” remarks Thom, “space scientists don’t work as hard as that guy does. Not that our album’s a polished turd or anything...” Choosing to record in a “pop factory”, as Thom describes it, rather than the lo-fi surroundings of Toe Rag (“initially we were going to do it there, but we realised the record we wanted to create couldn’t be done there”) did have some unexpected consequences. And not just meeting a Pussycat Doll - and her lapdog. “We kept getting sacked off for David Guetta,” laughs Thom. “And Olly Murs! They delayed our album for about three weeks. Also Jimmy Page’s daughter works there, and was in there when I was doing guitar takes, that was quite weird.
Intimidating. I was like, ‘Can you bring your Dad in and he can do this properly, that’d be good!’”
“We didn’t go in the studio and think, ‘Right, there’s two people who’ve written this album, so let’s make a two-piece album’, we wanted the best album we could make,” Thom explains. “So we took the album where it needed to go, you might see more people coming on stage to play it. We can play it as a two-piece, but we’d probably prefer to play it as a three-piece, maybe a four-piece, stuff like that. We might be a ten-piece one day, who knows?!” DIy
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The events aren’t directly linked, strictly speaking, but in the space of a few hours, Ryn Weaver posted her debut track ‘OctaHate’, everyone on the internet went nuts, Hayley Williams from Paramore tweeted her, and the LA via NYC musician was promptly sick. Some experiences are too overwhelming to handle. This was one of them.
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“It was a jolt of nerves, I mean… ” Ryn says, attempting to make sense of events. “When she tweeted back, there were so many people tweeting all of a sudden. The numbers started to jump, ten thousand every five minutes. I was really overwhelmed and I started getting these phone calls from everyone I know. And even people I don’t know, people who haven’t been a cool person to me, calling me and being like, ‘Hey, what’s up!’” And she freaked. For a good twelve months preceding this dramatic turn of events, Ryn had been sitting on her ‘Promises’ EP, tinkering with things behind the scenes alongside a team containing Benny Blanco and Cashmere Cat. “The way I process things is bizarre. Like working with all these people - it took me so long to realise all this great stuff that was happening,” she says. Acclaim and vomit swiftly put to one side, the next step in the newcomer’s stratospheric journey has been getting used to comments, criticisms and plain haters. When ‘OctaHate’ dropped, she took time to clarify to specific people that she wasn’t some manufactured bolt out of the blue. “I wanted to set the record straight. Nobody knows who I am, so this is it - the manifest,” she explains. “I’m too busy for that now. If people wanna hate, go ahead if you have the time.” BREAKING
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The perfect meeting of minds, Ryn recently worked in the studio with Charli XCX. “We actually write very well together. She’s the queen of melody. And I throw my melodies in here and there when they were needed,” she says.“ It’s a really quick process. We’re both very confident women.”
If anything defines her scatterbrained tracks so far - produced by Blanco, Passion Pit’s Michael Angelakos, amongst others - it’s a don’t give a fuck attitude. “I don’t care about looking moody and wearing all black and sitting in the corner and having cool lights,” she says. “I don’t really care about trends. I’m just happy being the person I am. The coolest thing that person can do, is not give a fuck.” DIY
Words: Jamie Milton
It’s a record which, the pair both say “could be played by two - or ten people.” God Damn didn’t start out a duo – a recent Facebook post officially confirmed the departure of founding member Dave Copson who hadn’t played live with them for some time. “It’s not something that we specifically did to be ‘in’,” says Ash, “that’s just what happened.” “It’s the worst time to be a two-piece band, ever!” laughs Thom. “In the history of music!”
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Madonna comparisons rife, and video hits rising into the millions, Shura’s climbing the pop ranks faster than a monster attacking in Alien Isolation. Not that it’s much concern for the ‘Touch’ star; she’s more fussed about making her debut album and getting a cat.
It did start with a kiss after all; or more specifically, a whole steamed-up film packed full of the things. Shura made her first music video on a modest budget of £900. Thanks to her “‘Touch’ brigade” of willing friends, most of that just about covered studio rental and smoke bombs. Done with the shoot, and having roughly assessed that she’d got a pop banger on her hands, Shura put it online. Not even Luna Lovegood could have predicted the insane response. At time of print, ‘Touch’ has racked up over three million views, and
“It doesn’t change anything except it changes e very th i n g .” Shura
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is fast becoming a dancefloor staple in its own right.
can swan around in cool costumes with lasers and fight aliens,” admits Shura readily.
Two more releases, ‘Just Once’ and ‘Indecision’ followed, to similar amounts of hysteria, and soon afterwards Shura found herself signing a deal with Polydor over breakfast. “It’s real!” she laughs, “I saw it on iTunes! I bought my own songs, to make sure, and underneath it says Bsessi Ltd, which is my company. It means ‘my boobs’ in Arabic, which I think is just so fucking funny.” Shura gives a gleeful cackle. “My boobs, licensed to Polydor.”
The album, she explains, is “just going, I guess. I’ve got half an album that I’m happy with, but [the songs] aren’t finished.” With her debut due next year - all being well - Shura has some exciting studio sessions pencilled in. “If you had told me I’d be doing sessions with these people a year ago I would have said ‘shut the front door’,” she laughs, before quickly exclaiming that she can’t give anything else away.
“It doesn’t change anything except it changes everything,” she reasons. “Everyday, though, nothing changes.” With the added clout of major backing, she says, she wants to set herself up with a “self-sufficient studio”, and if possible, to fulfil her wildest sci-fi dreams. “Basically, I really want to be in a sci-fi film, but I’m not an actor, so I try and shoehorn it into all of my music so I
Expectation will only grow weightier around Shura from now on, and it is becoming increasingly surreal as she starts to think about bigger shows at venues like London’s Village Underground. “I’ve got this banner of my face,” she laughs. “It’s ridiculous. Unnecessarily large. Imagine being the person who has to steam that – it’s probably going to be me!” DIY
Words: El Hunt. Photo: Emma Swann
Ah, the infamous and oddly beloved ‘Mr Brightside’. Love it or xv loathe it, it’s a staple preserve of sweaty end of night dance floors worldwide, and one particular line gets roared with extra gusto. “It started out with a kiss, how did it end up like this?” It’s a question that perhaps weirdly applies to Shura.
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F l y t e Headliners of the DIY Presents Tour 2014, Flyte.
Words: El Hunt. Photo: Emma Swann
Flyte are gathered round a table looking on in mild disbelief as their guitarist and keyboard player Sam Berridge performs a xv quick rendition of Cher’s ‘Believe’. It’s one with a difference, too, because Sam’s picked up a technique from recent tour mates Shy Nature, and he’s hitting himself repeatedly in the throat to try and recreate autotune. It’s hard not to be a little perturbed. “That was actually quite good,” admits frontman Will Taylor, after a moment’s silence. First emerging with ‘Over and Out’ - a jangly, fully-cooked slice of fidgeting pop with more than a hint of Electronic Light Orchestra colouring the vocal harmonies – it’s often remarked that Flyte are a band who already sound complete.
things are going, it surely won’t be new to them for long. “We’ve toured with Bombay Bicycle Club before, and we were playing to full rooms of their fans, which is lovely, but you know,” says Will. “You’re trying to convince people who aren’t particularly willing to be convinced. Because this [latest tour was] our first time headlining, we didn’t really know what to expect. The first night was Brighton, and there was a holding of the breath moment, but the room was full. It’s like, are you guys all ok? Do you know it’s our gig, are you supposed to be here?”
“It’s hard to gauge the buzz when yo u ’ r e in the s t u d i o.” Brad Hill
“’Light Me Out’ particularly was a statement of intent,” agrees Will, “and now we’re going to go, take that, and that, and that and how about this. The album will come maybe half way through next year, we’re thinking about it is as an album of singles. No filler, like Lady Gaga. Does she have album tracks?” “The introverted b-sides of Lady Gaga?,” scoffs bassist Brad Hill. “Nah.” Out on the road, topping bills and filling out rooms is still a novel and exciting experience for Flyte, though the way
“I think it can’t be overstated; the chasm of disbelief and self-hatred,” Will goes on, being somewhat melodramatic. “There’s a loss of perspective when you’re in the studio for a long time, and it’s easy to slip into the realms of madness.” “It’s hard to gauge the buzz when you’re in the studio, too,” Brad adds. “It’s something that going on tour and actually being there has shown us. All that work has paid off.”
A new-wave sensibility and a touch of kitschy lyricism is clearly Flyte’s forte, and they’re clearly focused on where they want to go next, too. Songs like ‘We Are The Rain’ and ‘Light Me Up’ sound like fully fledged clout-wielders already, and it has set them in good stead for posing their takeover of 2015. Otherwise, their ambitions are set on a rather unlikely collaboration. “I’d like to jam with Bach, says Sam. “He’d be playing the organ, I’d be riffing.” DIY 53
“It’s all really, really worked out.” Alan Duggan
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Ireland’s Girl Band have played in sixteen countries and they don’t even have an album out. It’s just one of the many feats the relentless four piece have achieved over the last year, including becoming renowned for a live show that could quite possibly be the most exciting to conquer these shores.
Chaotic yet very much calculated, they’re thoroughly unpredictable: the dribble of new material released in 2014 have each been their own individual surprise, with everything from six-minute sprawlers to wildly interpreted Beat Happening covers. Speaking to guitarist Alan Duggan, the band never necessarily intended to tease us all so painfully slowly, but he admits that it’s ultimately been the best course for them. “We haven’t had to rush into anything, with every choice we’ve taken our time,” he says. “We’re just happy that [the band]’s getting attention now, as things are exactly as we want them to be portrayed.” Identity and portrayal are incredibly important to these guys, and while their live shows seem unhinged and cataclysmic, underneath all the noise isn’t a band who have improvised anything - it’s all meticulously worked out. “We don’t actually improvise at all!” Alan laughs when the idea’s suggested. “It’s all really, really worked out. We’ve seen bands who can [improvise] and we love them but we just can’t jam. We spend so long working on the sound that if we improvised it would all sound too mushy.”
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Words: Tom Walters. Photo: Carolina Faruolo
With just three singles, this heady Irish four-piece are already one of the most powerful tour de forces in Europe right now.
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“We’ve always loved putting out short, punk-y songs, and that one just seemed kind of funny!” Alan explains of ‘The Cha Cha Cha’’s creation. “It always gets a laugh. We played a show in Rotterdam with all these punks, and we headlined but I don’t think a lot of people knew our songs - they were just checking us out for the first time. Anyway, we ended with ‘The Cha Cha Cha’ and a big mosh pit broke out… it was hilarious.” Having toured extensively over the last year, surely the momentum has reached such a point where they’re ready to head into the studio for an album? Well, not exactly. “We haven’t had a lot of time to write because we’ve been touring so much,” says Alan. “We have a couple of ideas we want to work on, so we’re going to continue working on those until around May then just head in and record a bunch of tracks and pick whichever works best.” Like everything Girl Band do, it’s going to take a while to get to the end result but the payoff will inevitably be worth it. “We do want to keep it around the 40 minute mark, I know that much!” he chuckles.
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It makes sense. At shows while eccentric frontman Dara Kiely pummels audiences with his scratchy, Pavement-esque nonsense, the rest of the band are all wonderfully in sync; conjuring up a clatter that leaves everyone in awe. Although at times they come across as fearful and brooding, one of the best things about Girl Band is the dark humour that flows underneath. Lyrics cover everything from football teams, to looking crap with your top off, right up to Nutella, and it’s hard not to be left with a huge grin when the ferocious, 21-second ‘The Cha Cha Cha’ reaches its abrupt but painfully excellent end.
G a r r a t t Cutting his teeth on the web-waves, blogs gave Jack Garratt his first boost after several years of perfecting his writing unnoticed. These days, though, he is far more than just a blog darling. Building up a formidable reputation for himself this summer, out blazing the live trail, here’s a look back at Jack Garratt’s rapid ascension. THE GUITAR SOLO THAT STARTED IT ALL “Stevie Ray Vaughan’s guitar solo on ‘Pride and Joy’ is what got me into guitar playing. My dad had a VHS at that show and we burnt the tape. I could not understand how someone could play guitar like that. Later on when YouTube was a thing, I watched his videos and taught myself how to play guitar by watching those.” THE BLOGS THAT BACKED HIM “That’s the beauty of the internet. No matter what you’re doing, you can get it out to people. It’s a very important thing, just for people to have the opportunity to hear new music and make their own decision about it. That’s something that’s gotten lost slightly - giving younger generations the chance to decide what they like. Personally I’m fed up of the idea that kids can’t make a decision for themselves about music.” THE MANIA THAT FOLLOWED “The reaction has been - for me - really unexpected and all a bit crazy. The great thing about what we’ve done so far is I can watch it in real time. Put a track up and it’s gone from 75 to 1000 plays. That’s been the amazing thing. Getting over 100,000 is the cherry on top of the cake. To have it out and people responding to it is enough. And it keeps me up at night which is really good fun. So stressful.”
They’re also definitely set on returning to the same studio in Ireland where they’ve recorded everything to date. It’s important for Ireland to remain the home base of the band, and even though it can be a pain in the arse travelling. Alan reveals that they feel most comfortable there and wouldn’t want to make the record anywhere else. “For us, it’d mean making a progression’s easier as it’s somewhere we’ve been before. This is much more of a natural thing and we don’t have to make such a big deal out of it.” DIY 55
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All the hype around this US four piece has surrounded their live show - now they’re putting everything to the test with a new LP. Word’s been spreading about Pennsylvania-bred fourpiece The Districts ever since they sped towards these shores in the beginning of 2014. Brighton’s The Great xv Escape hosted memorable performances, Reading Festival being their shining moment. Rob Grote and co. also rose to prominence Stateside through a live session video. It’s all down to the shows. Talk on their recorded sound has been fairly muted - 2015 is the year they put that right. With new album ‘A Flourish And A Spoil’ around the corner, the four of them have arrived with their strongest work yet (following self-released debut ‘Telephone’) and a few trusty stories in their locker, too. Small town Cannon Falls played host to the recording, its main attraction being the Seedy Underbelly Studio itself. Formerly known as the Pachyderm Studio, the place came under new ownership because, in bassist Conor Jacobus’ words, it “got weird and kind of methy.”
Words: Jamie Milton. Photos: MIke Massaro
“The previous owner invited all these these crazy meth hippy dudes,” Rob, the band’s frontman, elaborates. “I think the studio definitely had a weird vibe just because of that stuff.” The house overlooking the place was built by a family with a successful cereal business, which only added to the off-the-wall oddities of the place. “Kind of creepy but kind of not,” is how Grote describes the experience. “It was definitely good for keeping mentally alert.”
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This might explain the drive of their new record, which spends half its time speeding off into vast empty space, destroying the scenery. Dodgy but well-intentioned working titles were scrapped too - ‘4th and Roebling’, named after a Brooklyn interchange, used to be called ‘Slayers and Dragons’. There’s always next time. Now firmly under their belts, ‘A Flourish And A Spoil’’s had its time to settle into the collective system. The title is about “how as a person you flourish, but then there’s the inevitable fall,” Rob says, “I guess how all beautiful things end up falling apart, but that’s beautiful all the same.” “It’s a distinctly human record, one that people can relate to. Hopefully they’ll hear a song and they’ll go, ‘I get that. I feel and I know.’” DIY
PROFILE LISTEN: ‘A Flourish And A Spoil’ is out 9th February 2015 via Fat Possum. MOST LIKELY TO: Headline festivals four albums to the good, Kings of Leon-style. LEAST LIKELY TO: Turn to meth.
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Whether it’s downloading new tools or working with old school methods, this London producer’s work is anything but ordinary. Ben Khan is part of a generation that could absorb and apply information in seconds. All the tools are at our disposal, and it’s xv something that links this Class of 2015 alumni to someone like Raury, or Ryn Weaver - young talents who rely less on old methods, more on modern instinct. Anyone can download a copy of Ableton and go nuts with beat patterns. Samples can be downloaded from pretty much any source. It’s what these producers and musicians do next that makes the difference. The Londoner finds himself embroiled in one of the biggest issues facing today’s youth. Are we “intelligent”, informationloaded beings, or are we “shells” moving from screen to screen? “You can be negative and positive about it. I have my ups and downs some days,” he says, having recently moved from a bedroom set-up into a proper studio. He cites an Einstein quote (“memorising things you’ll rarely use is time wasted”) when stating that “maybe the rest of the space in our heads is there to create new things from that information.” This is appropriate because it does feel like Khan is among a handful of producers absorbing all the countless genres and ideas exposed to the average twenty-something, before applying it to his own scatterbrained pop. It’s there in his ‘1992’ EP, a documentation of wild youth that pours every inspiration into a bubbling-up melting pot.
Words: Jamie Milton. Photo: Emma Swann
Cards are still being kept close to his chest on some issues, like an album (“I wouldn’t put any labels on it. I’m just working,” he quips), but as for everything else, Ben’s open about how he works. “The thought process always happens before I go into the studio, whatever it is that’s inspiring me,” he says, citing trips to his father’s birthplace of Kashmir as a source for new ideas. Time’s been taken on a follow-up to ‘1992’ because that’s Khan’s default mode, fretting and fixating over tiny details. He knew he wanted to be a musician for a living since the age of sixteen, and since then he’s “studied the game for a while,” worked out how to announce himself in the biggest way possible. “Artistically, people need to take time with what they do,” he states, clearly deadly serious about his output. “My favourite movies are from people who’ve really fucking thought about it. I watched the Shining the other day... People who go to those lengths - they’re the best. That’s what I aspire to. That’s what I want to be. I’m not there yet, at all.” DIY
NEED TO KNOW • Debut track ‘Drive (Part 1)’ premiered on DIY in 2013. • He’s still yet to play a live show, with a Maida Vale BBC Radio 1 session to his name. • The only instrument he can “really play” is the guitar. 57
Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photos: MIke Massaro
Everyone else is chasing Kwabs’ shadows
“I feel like me and my music are one and the same.” K wabs
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Having already been a bookies’ favourite for the Mercury Prize without an album to his name, Kwabs looks to be on the right road to success.
Listen to any song by Kwabs and it’s hard not to be drawn into its soulful melodies. Whether it be in the funky beat of ‘Walk’, the swelling fragility of ‘Pray For Love’ or the sultry comfort in ‘Wrong Or Right’, there’s one thread that ties his work together: each track feels like it comes from within.
“Music kinda found its way to me,” begins Kwabs - full name Kwabena Sarkodee. It’s clear that music has always been so much than just a hobby to the singer. “I don’t really feel like I was ever really looking at it from a distance. It always felt like a part of what I did. I had always sung so I think music as a career, one way or another, always felt like it was gonna be the next step, even when I thought I was going to do other things. So yeah, that law degree, or that medical school didn’t look so fancy or so appetising once I had found my voice and my musical journey.” Since he was a small child, he’s used music as a means of expressing his emotions. “I think I’d probably sooner have sung than had a temper tantrum or gotten upset or started crying,” he says, without a hint of embellishment. “As strange as it sounds, it was my way of letting out any emotion that I was feeling when I was younger. It continued to be completely bonded with my emotional and physical demeanour and character. I feel like me and my music are one and the same.” The few songs that we’ve been treated to so far in his career confirm as much. Having already worked with the likes of SOHN and The Invisible’s David Okumu, he isn’t, however, just another singer songwriter bearing all with just a guitar in hand. While his lyrics and voice are quite obviously important to him, he’s keen to try and realise the bigger picture; experimentation is high on his list of priorities. “As a new artist who was finding his feet and learning what he wanted to do musically with a first statement as an artist, I had to learn,” he comments of his collaborative partners. “I had to acquire. For me, I had to be around people who knew what they were doing and who I could learn from and glean a bit of inspiration and knowledge from. I think if you find people who get what you do, get what you’re about and really understand what you’re trying to say, then that is a really good thing. “I think it’s important to be incredibly fluid with your process and not think that any one way has to be the way that it’s going to work,” he continues. “Otherwise, you’ll find yourself stuck, or rather unstuck by being too rigid about it. So, my mantra towards songwriting is to be ready for your approach to change and be ready for tomorrow to be different. How you write today might not work tomorrow, and you’ve got to throw in a different set of ingredients and use different tools and see how those come out.” Having already quickly made quite the mark on public consciousness – after all, Kwabs was a bit of a bookies favourite for this year’s Mercury Prize, without even having released an album – he’s also more than prepared for the challenge of merging alternative and mainstream. With such an incredible voice and invigorating production to match it, he hopes that his music will be able to
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“I d o n ’ t h av e any agenda to be Number 1, but I’m not sad about t h at b e i n g a p o s s i b i l i t y.” K wabs
“I’m proud to do that because I think good music can reach a lot of people and it can still be deep, it can still come from a very heartfelt place, and it can have a bit of an edge to it. Sometimes, the things that break through after often the things that people aren’t expecting to. They’re kind of maybe a bit strange, or a bit odd or they come from a slightly different slant. Yeah, I feel good about that. I don’t have any agenda to be Number 1, but I’m not sad about that being a possibility. Lines are being pushed and distorted between what is expected to progress and travel where. I think it’s making people suspend their sense of expectation and their preconceptions about what is gonna do what.” Now, it seems as though Kwabs-fever is catching on (best not to get that confused with any other more serious ailments though...) with the singer having already played a whole summer’s worth of festivals earlier this year, before rounding the year out with a sold out show at the grandiose venue of London’s Koko. “It was very cool,” he relays. “Obviously it was the biggest headline show that we’ve done so far, and I think that we’ve done a really good job of making every London gig that we do really special. In terms of scaling up and getting more
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D.D Dumbo - a big name for the future
people on board, and we always save the best for that show; the newest material, the slickest show. It just felt good to come home and have that many people there on my side and to be in that venue... It’s one of my favourite venues, so I’m chuffed.” As for 2015, it’s set to be a big year for the Londoner. Having recently blown away punters during a intimate hush-hush performance in November, there’s little not to love about his soulful offerings. “I mean, I just really want a lot of people to hear this music,” he says, delving into what he hopes the next twelve months might hold. “There are one or two songs on the album which mean so much to me, so I would just love for them to get the exposure and the love that I think they deserve. Not just because I made them but because I feel like they could really touch a lot of people. I think only time will tell whether that works out or not, but I have high hopes for that music travelling far and wide. My mission is to touch loads of people. I wanna travel more. The honest truth is that I don’t actually know what’s ahead so I’m just gonna pick whatever opportunities are thrown at me and not be too precious about them. I think if I’m to really make this next year special, I’ve just got to throw myself into it and see what it throws at me. To enjoy it the entire way through. That’s the ideal.” DIY
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Whether it’s a baby step or a big leap forward, countless acts outside of this year’s xv Class Of have the potential to make a big impression. Few more exciting than Shamir, a Las Vegasresiding XL signing, springing into life with his rudely catchy ‘On the Regular’ single, the most immediate cut of bass-heavy pop since Azealia Banks spat truths on ‘212’. All things vibrant and bonkers belong to him, although on these shores, Meanwhile’s Prince-esque dazzles will take some topping. Raury’s genre-hopping pop will be a defining sound of 2015, but hot on the tail is London O’ Connor, a similarly-minded newcomer whose debut single arrived in the form of a video game. Plugged in and reaching high scores of their own is Kero Kero Bonito, a buzzy trio led by Sarah Bonito, whose distinctive vocal style leaps between English and Japanese. 2014 saw talk centred around hyperactive alt-label PC Music. If anyone affiliated with that www. pack looks likely to break through, it’s KKB. Or SOPHIE, who’s apparently working with Madonna and Nicki Minaj. Internet sensations tend to be fleeting, but equally, there’s something special about Spooky Black, a ghostly R&B talent that bears few comparisons. Snapping back to reality, there’s a pack of bands with every intention of setting stuffy venues alight. The Magic Gang, Black Honey and Bloody Knees represent a tight, bolshy bunch. Get Hot won’t keep quiet, either. Stranding off from that scene is Kid Wave, daydreaming fuzz-fiends of the finest kind. ‘90s-obsessed hedonists Real Lies claim to hate bands, so expect them to either self-
destruct or forge a brilliant path of their own. There’s also DIY favourites Palace. Currently unsigned, they’re sure to continue welcoming in the hype. Dublin’s Cloud Castle Lake are similarly intriguing. Their Sigur Rós-chanelling madness sends chills down the spine. Over in the States, there’s little doubt that Bully’s blink-and-you-missed-it punk will storm both SXSW and the UK’s showcase fests. The PJ Harvey-isms of brutal force MOURN could also leave a huge mark. Australia’s scene is always in bloom. Mostly, Down Under seems to be a turn-to-gold breeding ground for serene, experimental pop, like that of cousins Klo. Things can get a little weirder, though. The Harpoons bring a curious, arty alternative, while pedal-master D. D Dumbo works wonders with loops and soaring harmonies. Support slots on Jungle’s recent UK tour upped his profile hugely. Aussie blog favourites will be competing for space with U.S. gems like NYC’s Wet, and the increasingly exciting Tei Shi, who recently worked with Glass Animals’ Dave Bayley. There’s no sign of 2015 being a ‘quiet one’, and that’s mostly thanks to producers Lxury and Oceaán, two UK hopes twisting the wheel and emerging with strange hybrids of electronic pop. It’s very early days for both, but Lxury’s already collaborated with Disclosure and played Reading’s Dance Stage - there’s plenty more to come. Big gigs aren’t new to Sweden’s Seinabo Sey and Benjamin Clementine, either. Both got their big break via performances on Jools Holland, with sombre piano ballads doing the talking. Once - and it’s an if, not a when - London’s Shivum Sharma gets a similar opportunity, don’t be surprised to see his name spread everywhere. DIY 61
READERS POLL 2014
Last month, we asked you - dear readers - to let us know what you think of the last twelve months. The best bands, albums, videos, festivals and more. You did us proud, so without further ado, here are the results of the DIY Readers Poll 2014. Every one a winner.
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Meet the duo who’ve topped the charts, dominated festivals and become both DIY readers’ Breakthrough Act and Band of 2014
here was always something special about Royal Blood. From their first carnal offering, all guttural riffs and pounding drums, they drew the attention of the masses. Their first headline tour gave us another clue; fights broke out, carnage reigned supreme and rooms were packed tightly, sweat dripping from the walls.
and more tremendous for the Brighton-based duo. From dominating the city festivals to commanding one of the biggest crowds of the weekend at Reading & Leeds, theirs is a juggernaut that’s been impossible to slow down. Whoever said that rock was dead? “We’ve just been going a million miles an hour,” agrees drummer Ben Thatcher, “and ‘I’m not sure how we’re managing to go at that speed.”
Over the last twelve months, things have grown bigger
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year, Royal Blood have scored a Number 1 album – which consequently went on to sell over 100,000 copies - played Finsbury Park (twice) and sold out a whole UK tour in about twenty seconds flat. Not to mention the fact that they’ve been heralded as the new British kings of rock’n’roll in the process. And how did Ben celebrate the news of their chart-topping debut? “I can’t actually remember…” he pauses. “I did something really normal, like I think I went to get petrol...” Despite his choice of celebration being a little less rock star than some might expect, their success isn’t lost on the duo: they just find the hyperbole a bit surreal. “We know that not many people get to be in our position,” he offers, “but we don’t take it too seriously either. You can have people say you’re the saviours of rock’n’roll and you can have people say you’re bringing back rock music, but all of that, to us, seems a bit funny really. We’re just two guys who enjoy playing rock music. We’re not saviours of rock’n’roll, or this, that and the other. We’re just two quite normal people who enjoy listening to and playing music. To have people say things like that, it’s very nice and we appreciate it, but for Mike [Kerr] and I, we’re just two regular dudes who are made for playing music.”
“WE’RE JUST TWO GUYS WHO E N J OY P L AY I N G ROCK MUSIC.” BEN THATCHER Regular guys they may well be, but that hasn’t stopped a slew of invitations and accolades being slung their way. While ‘Royal Blood’ was nominated for this year’s Mercury Prize (“It was pretty strange, as you obviously don’t join a band to get nominated for awards!”), the band themselves were invited to perform at this year’s MTV Video Music Awards, because, well, why the hell not? “That was a very surreal experience for us, because it was the MTV EMAs!” he laughs. “You’ve got your Nicki Minajs and your Ariana Grandes and then you had us; just two guys from Worthing, going and performing. It is a bit strange but we had a really good time there actually, and it was really funny to be there amongst such crazy people.” Despite the evening being that much more pop than they might be used to, they did get to bump into Ozzy Osbourne on that same evening. “It was great to meet such a dude! He’s the Prince of Darkness! It was just a complete mixed bag of artists which made it even more funny and surreal I guess. I was like, ‘What’re you doing in a room with Ozzy Osbourne and Nicki Minaj?!’ There’s no other situation where you could see that happening.” With 2014 drawing to a close, their star is still on the rise: the two-piece have just been confirmed to support Foo Fighters when they return to the UK next year for five mammoth stadium dates. “They’re very exciting,” says Ben of the dates. “To get to play with Foo Fighters is one of our biggest aspirations and we never thought that that would ever happen. To be even in the same room as a legend like Dave Grohl… We look up to those guys so just being a part of that will be amazing.” As for whether or not the band have any particularly favourite moments of the past twelve months, well... “No, it’s just all been ridiculous,” says Ben. “Everything that’s happened this year have been things that we never ever thought we’d do so I could not pick one moment that’s been a standout. There’s one every other day for me.” DIY
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This year the album to win the hearts of DIY readers came early: released back in March, it’s St Vincent’s new full-length, ‘St Vincent’.
Annie’s interest in closedoff gatherings and her total indifference towards spooky goings-on in the hotel makes sense, really. If there’s any one word that represents ‘St Vincent’ - from initial conception to live show and realisation - it is fearless. ‘St Vincent’ is an album about running away from Texan rattlesnakes in the nuddy-pants, and then snorting lines of coke with His Royal Majesty of debauchery and gender-bending,
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Prince Johnny. There’s a hat doff given to American writer Lorrie Moore on that same song, and then two songs later behaving in a fairly careless manner takes centre stage again; this time throwing a television out of a window. That’s without mentioning the notorious “take out the garbage, masturbate,” on ‘Birth In Reverse’delivered with a flippantly Bible-belt baiting nonchalance - or any of the other surreal images that her fourth, self-titled album draws on. Despite the varied and scattered directions ‘St Vincent’ takes, at the helm, Annie Clark manages to pull every reference point together into a strange and wonderfully weird universe of her own design. “You become more comfortable in your own skin and grow more yourself with time,” starts Annie Clark, before breaking into sudden laughter. “Honestly, it’s nice,” she says, composing herself slightly, “not to give a fuck - it’s a really great place to be. Kim Gordon said famously that people go to rock shows to see somebody believe in themselves for an hour,” she adds. “I think that’s right on.” Anybody who has ever witnessed a St Vincent live show will know that Annie Clark really isn’t exaggerating when she claimed she doesn’t give a fuck about
Words: El Hunt. Photos: Mike Massaro
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nnie Clark is on a crackling phone line, and her old seaside hotel, she calmly explains, is “probably haunted”. Speaking largely in drawn-out yawns – “I’m doing this interview before I eat food, which has to happen three hours before the show or else I’m sleepy on stage,” clarifies Annie – she doesn’t seem especially fearful of any creaking doorways or dark spirits that might be lingering in the corner ready to pounce. Instead she’s been spending her day “walking by the ocean,” reading a book about 80s computer game music composer Rob Hubbard, and poking around dusty junk shops. “I’m pretty obsessed with oddfellows and freemasons, cults and secret societies,” she says, “and England is a good place to be on the look out for that.”
convention any more. Peppered with choreographed dance routines, sudden bursts of improvised physicality, and odd little rehearsed speeches that identify and tap into people’s quirks in the same way as a Buzzfeed listicle might, the show self-consciously distances as much as each shredding riff throws itself across the room.
“I KN OW WHAT IT’S LIKE TO BE A MASSIVE FU CKING FAN
“It became a question of what is it that I’m trying to get across with this tour,” explains Annie, “and a lot of that is that dialogue and disconnect between the analogue and digital world. It felt very empowering to be able to use the most obvious tool at my disposal, which is my own body.” As evidenced by the smudges of blood down one cheek that she posted on her instagram, St Vincent doesn’t hold back on that front. “I broke my foot stage diving,” she tosses into conversation with trademark disregard, “yeah, that happened. I’ve got a sort of permanent indentation in my left thigh from banging up against the guard rail, too”
AND HAVE RECORDS CHANGE YOUR LIFE, AND SAVE YOUR LIFE.” - ANNIE CLARK
Whether tumbling down her pink staircase, or rolling around the mud in a nicked flat cap at Glastonbury, St Vincent’s live show is like nothing else. Annie Clark today, though, is faux-outraged at the suggestion that she steals people’s hats. “Oh, I give them back!” she exclaims, adding “my tour manager makes sure of that. I’ve stolen crutches, head bands, scarves. I stole this one girl’s glasses expecting to be impaired by the lens and see the show in a totally different light. It turned out they were fake,” she laughs. “I tried to give the security guard a hickey the other day,” she adds, “I think I just ended up licking his neck. I didn’t do any real damage.” One of Annie Clark’s personal highlights this year is fronting Nirvana for a performance of ‘Lithium’ back in April at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. “Nirvana has meant so much to so many people - I’m not excluded from that,” she says, without a hint of archness. “They were a band that came along at a really pivotal time in history, and also in my life. Suddenly I saw that the weirdos were the heroes, and right around the time that I figured out that all I wanted to do in the world was play music, they were that guiding light. It’s something I don’t know how to process because it feels too immense in the meaning of my life. I’m incredibly grateful,” she concludes, “grateful to the legacy, grateful to Kurt, Dave, Krist and Pat.” The suggestion that ‘St Vincent’ might become part of the legacy too, Annie Clark finds an equally humbling prospect. “It’s not something that I blithely and callously take credit for,” she says. “Music has meant so much to me; it’s been my whole life. I know what it’s like to be a massive fucking fan and have records change your life, and save your life. I just feel grateful to give back to this collective consciousness, one little fraction of what it has given me.” DIY Visit diymag.com for DIY’s Albums of 2014.
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B ES T COMEBACK
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ou have comebacks, then you have Death From Above 1979. Ten years they waited, with only one near perfect album under their belts. They’d reformed to play live, sure, but new material? ’The Physical World’, their second full length, was a gamble. It paid off, though. A barnstorming work of sheer aggression, their legacy remains untainted. What a band.
N E W AC T M O S T L I K E LY T O BE AMAZING IN 2015
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years & years 2 deers
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e’re in agreement, then. Years & Years head up DIY’s Class of 2015, and this month’s cover stars are also firmly at the front of expectations for readers. Olly Alexander and co. have spent 2014 raising the bar with one huge single after the other. In terms of bands capable of stealing the charts with invention-lined pop, there’s no finer choice. There’s also Deers - stars of the DIY all-dayer - and Irish group Girl Band, ready to take on 2015 with the first step being a headline set at our Hello 2015. Two of these bands are still unsigned, which makes next year seem even more exciting.
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B ES T T V APPEAR ANCE
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he raised arms, eyes-in-theback-of-the-head, hustling and thrusting joy of it all: no television performance in 2014 came close to Future Islands. Big hopes are placed on debut TV gigs, and some new bands often get thrown into the expectant, plasma-screened pit without a second’s notice. Future Islands had time on their side. Four albums in, they had a frontman in Samuel T. Herring who hadn’t exactly been shy of this kind of bravado beforehand. But in 2014 LP ‘Singles’, they crucially recruited a new member on keys, giving Herring licence to roam, prowl and in the words of Louis Walsh, “own the stage.” Their performance of ‘Seasons Change (Waiting On You)’ provoked what might rank as the most hysterical Letterman reaction to date, with the soon-to-retire host replicating every disbelieving reaction that struck the other side of the screen. Hours after their Letterman gig took place, up went the view count. Bands big and small tweeted “this is how it’s done!” in unison. It’s a magic that goes beyond the hype-gaining performance. Every gig for Future Islands then got bigger, their stock suddenly up there with the biggest names around.
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BEST VIDEO 1 e
George Ezr a - bl ame it on me 2 peace - Lost On Me 3 FKA Twigs - Video Girl
George’s commentary on DIY readers’ Best Video, his very own ‘Blame It On Me’. “I don’t know why it has a parental advisory warning. Maybe purely because kids think it’s cooler. I was really worried about this, I didn’t know how it was going to come out. The story is about Mr. Cocky Geoff. Look how knackered I look. We filmed it at the end of the day, and I felt awful.”
“I’m not wearing any .pants here. We had to .shoot this so many times .and I got so wet, that the .shot we used had me not .wearing any pants.“
.“They were all lovely. .I got whiplash from .the rugby shot. On the .penultimate one we .did. My knee went into .his bollock at the start. .And at the end, his knee .went into my bollock. .The main guy is a stunt .expert. That is a genuine .look. It’s a really scary .experience.“
“This kid is a prat .in real life. His .mum was dodgy. .He wouldn’t .fucking do it,.and .I was like, ‘Come .on mate’.“
“This dog was shit. I had this bar in my arm and he was meant to bite it but he’d jump up for a second and come off.“
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“And that policeman. He fancied me. He kept winking at me when I walked past. He was like, ‘Make sure you look in my eye’.”
Life In Hi-Rez: How George Ezra Won 2014
From tiny London pub gigs to celeb
fans: it’s been a helluva year for George Ezra.
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efore 2014 really got going, George Ezra was the guy with a few good songs and one brilliant Twitter handle. He took various pictures of himself in baths. #Petan - his hashtag of choice - was only just beginning to spread. Now, that made up word graces the front of a drumkit that finds itself on some of the country’s biggest stages. “This year, I did the Lexington in January,” he says, trying to place a marker on how things have gone. “And now a year on I’ll be in Brixton Academy. It’s mental.”
Words: Jamie Milton
Debut album ‘Wanted On Voyage’ has sustained popularity like very few other records this year. That could be down to the train journeys with fans, his ability playing live, or even his sheer persistence at creating half-decent hashtags - the guy’s had one hell of a year.
“ I wa s l i k e , ‘Well, it doesn’t
awkward moment for the third guest, Gemma Arterton. “She was really pretty. And I kissed her on the cheek politely. She went in for one and I went in for two. It’s on the footage. So my friends laughed at me.” Given the way he describes these situations, George gives the impression of someone who’s managed to balls up the last twelve months. It’s hard to imagine it going any better, though. Part of it’s down to the crowd that flocks his way (“adults, students, mums,” he sums up). Celeb endorsements help too, like Sir Ian McKellen’s appearance on the ‘Listen to the Man’ video. “He said to me, ‘Are you playing in London anytime soon?’ I told him about Shepherd’s Bush. And he said, ‘Can you play any nearer my house?’ I was like, ‘Well, it doesn’t really work like that Ian. Even if you are Gandalf.’
r e a l ly w o r k l i k e t hat Ian . E ve n i f yo u
“He was lovely,” George remembers. “I knew him from watching Lord of the Rings only four years ago. I had to act with him, but you can tell he’s an actor. Watching it back, you can tell that he’s nailing it.”
He cites a recent appearance on The are Graham Norton Show as a clincher Gandalf’.” Some of 2014’s sprung up as a surprise, but there’s for that coveted UK Number One enough perspective to see where things are heading spot, even though things didn’t go George Ezra in the future. “How I see it is, Christmas is coming,” quite to plan. “I fucked up Graham he excitedly observes. “Next Christmas, this will be Norton. I thought you just did the petering out. America at the moment feels to me - and I song and went to the couch. I finished the song, started could be completely wrong - like where Europe was a year or skipping over to the couch - they had to mic me up.” Sat next eighteen months ago. If that goes to plan at all, then I’ll be to Denzel Washington and Peter Capaldi, he saved another there.” DIY 71
george ezra’s gogglebox Voted DIY readers’ favourite video of 2014 with ‘Blame It On Me’, George Ezra has a gander at a few of the other contenders, Gogglebox-style.
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“I’m not very patriotic at all, but I’m happy to share with these guys. They’re all great guys. It’s national pride, Gogglebox burning up inside me.” These words were once uttered by George Ezra about his favourite show on the telly. So what better way to celebrate the year’s best videos than by getting George to sit down and watch them all, mostly for the first time?
and they’re all different pop singers, and they all start giving her beef. I don’t recognise any of them yet, though. Well she can’t dance either. Good. Isn’t she a country artist in America? Someone told me I’d been added to an alternative playlist in America - I looked at the playlist, and Avicii was on it!”
From ‘Anaconda’ to Jungle being better than Britain’s Got Talent, here he delivers a verdict on 2014’s most viral vids. Future Islands - Seasons ( Wa i t i n g O n Yo u ) o n L e t t e r m a n
I g g y A z a l e a f e a t. C h a r l i X C X - F a n c y
“Oh he’s the dude that dances. He wouldn’t look out of place in Talking Heads, would he? Aww. I think he’s great. He obviously means it. He’s into this. There’s no way you can mean it every time, though. I get a bit of hip movement going on, onstage. Not this though. Aww. But it is really nice, when you watch people do their thing. It’s great.”
“I like Charli XCX. Is this the video? I’ve never seen this. Clueless? Does it work better if you have seen Clueless? She’s from Hertfordshire as well, isn’t she? And Sam Smith. I’ve never met her. This girl is Australian though, isn’t she? She’s the one that can’t crowdsurf anymore! Who dat, who dat! I’ve got the gist. I feel like I’ve missed out because of the whole Clueless thing.”
Sia - Chandelier
Nicki Minaj - Anaconda
“Again, not something that I could do. She’s very talented though. Ahh! No, can’t do that. I don’t even know if I could do the hand movement. Do you know what my problem is? I’ve got such a short attention span. I know what’s happening. She’s gonna dance, in this building. I bet. That’s what’s gonna happen. Wait, is she looking for her keys? Is that the twist at the end? I just get impatient. After half of that, when she was still in the same place, I knew where this was gonna go.”
“Nope, haven’t seen this. She’s got a really big bum and a small waist, hasn’t she? Or is it the other way round? Huge beer belly. You think about the budgets in these things. I do like the way she delivers things though. I’ve only heard a bit of this. Ah, I’ve seen a picture of this Drake bit! His hands…”
Jungle - Busy Earnin’
Tay l o r S w i f t - S h a k e I t O f f
“She’s meant to be really nice, isn’t she? We could duet? I don’t like duets. This is the one where she does all famous videos,
“Is it a big made up sport game? I’ve heard about this. Oh maybe not. They all dance? Britain’s Got Talent vibes. So these guys - are they in another video? The dancing is very impressive, isn’t it? I couldn’t do that. Again, the hips. I haven’t got the physical rhythm. It’s better than Diversity on Britain’s Got Talent. It’s less about doing a robot to a Michael Jackson remix.”
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ith an almighty ‘Boom Clap’ 2014 was the year that Charli XCX really flung down her statement of intent onto pop’s crowded buffet table, crushing all manner of lesser foodstuffs in the process. Initially arriving nestled in the soundtrack of one of the year’s biggest blockbuster films, ‘The Fault In Our Stars’, ‘Boom Clap’ grew into a force that unleashed completely from its beginnings. A summer anthem worthy of being bawled on the streets and belted out into a hairbrush whether the neighbours like it or not (they probably do, secretly), Charli XCX really is living the dream like a London Queen now she’s taken the Best Song crown for herself. Besides, this song kickstarted the wildfire phenomenon of “boom clap, I’m in me mum’s car,” which deserves proper recognition in and of itself.
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BES T COVER VERS ION
MOS T W TF LYRIC
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1 A lt - J E v ery Oth er Fr ec kle
M Ø - S ay Y o u ’ l l B e T h e r e (Spice Girls)
nly the brazen and slightly reckless souls of this world dare to attempt taking on the Spice Girls. It’s a dangerous game to mess with a Posh, Ginger, Baby, Scary and Sporty classic, but undeterred by the high stakes Denmark’s finest pop export MØ took on ‘Say You’ll Be There’. Slowing down the upbeat original into a laggy, sharp-hooked re-imagining, it’s a duty that she takes entirely seriously. No questions of ‘who do you think you are?’ here. After this stellar effort, it’s clear MØ’s some kind of superstar.
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here could only be one victor for the readers poll ‘Most WTF Lyric’ category, really. Alt-J’s batshit crazy ‘Every Other Freckle’ stole the trophy by an absolute landslide. The weirdest love song written in quite some time, the most notable couplet of all has to be “I’m gonna bed into you like a cat beds into a beanbag/Turn you inside out and lick you like a crisp packet.” When we asked frontman Joe Newman about the inspiration behind this particular line, he said: “[Alt-J Drummer] Thom [Green] was talking about how a spider was bedding into his brain, and I was like… wow, bedding.” Well. That clears that up, then.
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ith each gig they play, Wolf Alice are summoned upon bigger, more bloodthirsty crowds, fans leaping from the dozens to the hundreds to the thousands. 2014’s been a series of next steps, and there’s zero doubt the next twelve months will provide many more. DIY readers most likely had their 2014 defined by huge headline nights at London haunts Scala and Heaven, while appearances at Glastonbury and Reading & Leeds rank amongst the band’s finest to date. Fellow champions of the festivals Drenge and Eagulls complete the top three, both specialising in pummelling, head-bursting levels of noise that consume every speck of attention.
BES T FES TIVAL (OR ‘FESTIVAL LIKE EVENT’)
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eading & Leeds is never short of surprises. Just when a band looks to be on top of the world, cruising to a main stage slot, wind behind their backs, it’ll throw up another almighty challenge which, in 2014’s instance, a group like Paramore could only conquer. This year, the weekender remained the definitive gauge of just how big a band can become. In the case of Royal Blood, one week ahead of their chart-topping album, they left little doubt that give or take a couple of years, they’ll be next in line to the headliner throne. Drenge already looked capable to going that extra gear, and with the help of some Cobainchannelling dresses they did just that. Joining the top three: Glastonbury and Latitude. The former swept storms across Worthy Farm and witnessed unforgettable sets from Arcade Fire and St. Vincent. The latter brought beautiful forests to life in greenerylined paradise, performances from Jungle, Parquet Courts, Slaves and a last-minute Lily Allen topping all expectations.
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eee AZEALIA BANKS Broke With Expensive Taste (Prospect Park)
Cussing, cocksure, crazed to the extreme - Azealia Banks’ debut album is everything 2012’s kickstarting ‘212’ single promised. With one exception: it’s actually here. The past two years have been a reckless runaround of false dates, letdowns and label disputes, bringing a huge amount of initial hype down to planet Earth. With its unexpected arrival, the Harlem rapper’s first work encompasses the bonkers journey she’s travelled since she first started upon the scene. Nothing makes sense. Songs don’t flow, they come from different worlds. Sax sections mingle with woozy verses from Ariel Pink. It’s the craziest debut to grace 2014, but it’s an album that can only belong to Azealia. ‘Broke With…’ follows zero rules. Its opening section sees ‘Gimme a Chance’ doing the tango, ‘Desperado’ blending flute sections with a tight garage pulse, ‘Wallace’ samba-ing its way into infinity. With the instant blast of ‘212’ thrown in for good measure, there’s nothing at all normal about this opening statement. And yet despite this debut’s maddening inability to settle into a groove, it’s hard to imagine ‘Broke With…’ getting by without its healthy supply of crazy. ‘Nude Beach a Go-Go’ - a song penned by Ariel Pink - isn’t just a bolt out the blue, it’s a golden hit from a completely different universe. The kind of song that wouldn’t sit pretty on any record, it’s moments like these that Azealia will eventually become cherished for. As much as the past two years have documented nothing but false promises, it’s unlikely that anything will change when it comes to an eventual second album (provisional release date: 2025). (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘Nude Beach a Go-Go’
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN I HAVE TO DELAY THE RELEASE DATE”
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SMASHING PUMPKINS
Monuments To An Elegy (Martha’s Music / BMG)
If there’s one thing in the Smashing Pumpkins leader and alt rock icon Billy Corgan’s 25 year career that has remained constant, it’s his absolute conviction and determination to follow his own path despite all manner of criticism. This strength of character has helped make him an enduring and divisive presence. After a tumultuous career peppered with incredible highs, excruciating lows, fallouts, tantrums and rebirths, it’s a testament to the man and the band that has defined him that ‘Monuments To An Elegy’, the Pumpkins’ tenth studio recording, is a triumph. There’s a sense throughout songs like the graceful yearning pop of ‘Run2Me’ and ‘Drum+Fife’ that Corgan has found a way to make music that is still packed with grandeur while dialling down the tendency to fall into overblown pomposity. Elsewhere, there are frequent moments that hark back to Pumpkins’ previous glories. ‘One And All’ has a wonderfully satisfying guitar crunch while closing track ‘Anti-Hero’ could be a relative of ‘Zero’. There is no sense though that the band are short of ideas and falling into pastiche. Instead, there’s simply an air of a great songwriter returning to the things that work and the things he does best. ‘Monuments To An Elegy’ is an accomplished rock record that’s a very welcome addition to the band’s enduring history. (Martyn Young) Listen: ‘Anti-Hero’ 76 diymag.com
ee ANGELS & AIRWAVES The Dream Walker (To The
Stars Records)
As a band Angels and Airwaves have always faced an uphill struggle. Forever destined to life in the shadow of Blink 182 - and, in the eyes of many, the catalyst for their childhood-ruining break-up – their ambitious space-rock has found itself the butt of the rock world’s joke for nearly a decade. It’s not always been a fair critique – DeLonge and co. have, in their time, penned more than a few tracks worthy of the arenas their sound so clearly strives for. However, as ‘The Dream Walker’ lumbers into view with
EPS eeee BASTILLE
VS. (Other People’s Heartache Pt. III) (EMI /
Virgin) To most, Bastille are the band with the massive debut album. Actually, the talent of Dan Smith and co. goes much deeper. Before said full-length came a couple of mixtapes: arguably amongst the band’s best work. ‘Vs.’ is another high water mark. This time it’s all original material, with even bigger names on board. Haim bring their west coast sheen to ‘Bite Down’, MNEK revolutionises ‘bad_news’, but it’s Lizzo’s cameo on ‘Torn Apart, Pt.II’ that steals the show. (Stephen Ackroyd) Listen: ‘Torn Apart, Pt.II’
eeee PARKAY QUARTS
Content Nausea (Rough Trade)
‘Content Nausea’ is Parquet Courts (here, Parkay Quarts) second release of 2014 after the excellent ‘Sunbathing Animal’. Pitched as somewhere between an LP and an EP, its ramshackle 35 minutes including a cover of ‘These Boots Were Made for Walking’ - features more than enough ideas and sublime moments to justify itself. It’s a collection of songs that reflects anxiety and paranoia, a distrust of the present but also belief in their own ability. Parkay Quarts have delivered some great #content. (Danny Wright) Listen: ‘Uncast Shadow’
eeee LITTLE BOOTS
Business Pleasure (On Repeat)
“You think I’m pretty, well I can be pretty tough. Push me a little. I can get a little rough.” This is the assertive and confrontational message that concludes ‘Business Pleasure’. Serving as a preview to her upcoming third album, Little Boots clearly has a few things to prove. From the track titles through the lyrical content nestled within, ‘Business Pleasure’ is a colourful and daring marriage of opposing ideas. Little Boots’ next chapter is going to be her most exciting and daring yet. (Ali Shutler) Listen: ’Pretty Tough’
eeeee LÅPSLEY
Understudy (XL Recordings)
DeLonge the only remaining original member of the once-supergroup, it’s becoming increasingly hard to see it as any more than a vanity project - a mid-life crisis put to tape in the wake of discovering U2’s back catalogue. You can’t fault DeLonge’s ambition; ‘The Dream Walker’ is the third record in a row to be accompanied by its own featurelength film, and this time round he’s also pairing the record with a novel and an animated short. It’s an ultimately vapid endeavour though, as when taken as a band rather than a brand, Angels and Airwaves have mutated into little more than an extended yawn of spacey synths. ‘The Dream Walker’ comes laced with the feeling that, of all the various multimedia forms that make up the project, it’s sadly the music that is the weakest link. (Tom Connick) Listen: ‘Kiss With A Spell’
‘Understudy’ is Låpsley’s cup of tea effect; steamy, warm notes sit comfortably with simplicity of structure, bitter-sweet sentiments blend their way evenly throughout. Like a good brew, its reassuring tones drown out the drabness of 21st century life, reality banished beneath Låpsley’s soothing lullabies. Whether it’s the fragrant ‘Falling Short’ or the candied ‘Brownlow,’ the vivacious ‘8896’ or forthright ‘Dancing’, ‘Understudy’s’ mélange of flavours provides an antidote to all affections. (Charlie Mock) Listen: ‘Falling Short’
eeee CREEPER
Creeper (Palm Reader Records)
There’s a lot more than aesthetics at play with Creeper’s vampiric styling. Formed out of the demise of UK punk pedigree Our Time Down Here and Hang The Bastard, their debut EP is a gravedodging exercise in reanimation - both of the members’ musical prospects and of a scene that constantly appears in danger of stagnation. While it may not be breaking any drastically new ground, that’s not always the point. This is perfectly executed punk rock, and an exorcism that hints at one hell of an afterlife. (Tom Connick) Listen: ‘Novena’
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live Charli XCX
Heaven, London. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett
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nybody walking unawares around the Charing Cross area at around 10pm last night would have been in for a bit of a fright ahead of Halloween. A fairly regular example of Thursday evening descended into barely-contained chaos in about a second flat. It began with a pop. Then another three. Then twenty, forty, seventy balloons all stamped on at the same time like firecrackers. Chased by the neverending frenzy of popping echoing devilishly after them, hordes of bellowing teenagers suddenly came spilling out of an underground railway arch, knocking past stunned commuters, clutching onto rescued balloons and bright pink tour posters. Luckily there’s a decent enough explanation for all this tomfoolery that doesn’t involve any dark magic. Charli XCX has unleashed the Angels from London’s Heaven. “Now we’re coming up the stairs, we’re acting shameless, so outrageous,” sings Charli prior to all this hoo-ha, on-stage and flanked by an all-girl band and a diamante tiara. ‘Famous’ might be a song from her postponed new album ‘Sucker’, but it hardly shows. The crowd has quickly mastered the art of bellowing out the vocal lines, and Charli XCX is delighted, patrolling the front of the stage in her cheerleader costume. Bratty, audacious and demanding every last gram of pure pop energy out of every melody line, Charli’s brought along a deliberately pastichey melting pot of yé-yé, Nineties girl-power pop, and straight up punk. Brand new ‘I Need Your Love’ – all faux-innocent music box chimes and coy, high-pitched choruses – hits on the balance that Charli XCX is increasingly perfecting. Pop, when done properly, haughtily toes the line between darkness and frivolity like a naughty injoke embedded in a Disney film. ‘Caught in the Middle’, another song from ‘Sucker’, is another such example.
B r at t y, au dac i o u s and s h a m e l es s .
Slight glimpses of a more subdued Charli might return during older songs like ‘Black Roses’, but parading towards her guitar players, throwing back her crimped hair and declaring “you’re turning me on, you’re turning me off,” there’s little hint of pastel-hued safe-playing left. ‘Break The Rules’ is the starting gun for an absolutely ludicrous amount of balloons, and they pour down from the ceiling like party invites fluttering down an American high school stairwell in a culty teen movie. The encore obviously starts with ‘Fancy’ – what else - but this is far from the preened, chart-ready, Iggy Azalea led version. Charli XCX’s own ‘Fancy’ tonight, in fact, would probably get censored from the radio anyway, because she’s taken the liberty of inserting a dance breakdown during which she repeatedly shouts the word “pussy”. With a ‘Boom Clap’, it’s all over. The balloon grabbing begins, and the Angels spill outside, many of them singing ‘Boom Clap’ well after the gig ends and the PA goes off. Forget industry-pressed air fix assembly artists with no real clout, Charli XCX has smashed out of the mould that held her back before. She’s shameless, outrageous, and she’s probably going to get a lot more famous once ‘Sucker’ eventually drops. (El Hunt)
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FUTURE ISLANDS Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London. Photo: carolina faruolo
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s dynamic as Future Islands sound on record, live they morph into an altogether different beast. Much of this comes down to their frontman’s absolutely crackers persona. If Samuel T. Herring were a sim, he wouldn’t need to practice his charisma skills. If he were starring in the next instalment of the Step Up film franchise, he wouldn’t need training up. A tirade of euphoric hand clasping, chest-thumping, guttural roars, slightly uncomfortable pelvic thrusting, and even mime routine, it’s safe to say he’s one of a kind.
Koko, London. Photo: Emma Swann
Tonight’s headline set marks another milestone in the band’s career. With their days of tiny arts venues well behind them, Future Islands’ next big moment will be a packed two night stint at London’s Roundhouse next March. Witnessing Future Islands tonight proves nothing except that this untouchable band have earned every last drop of acclaim. (El Hunt)
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ondon’s Koko is filled to the rafters. Raise an eye towards the ceiling and there are fans lined across the upper most level of the old theatre, all leaning further forward to catch a precarious glimpse of tonight’s headliner. Currently closing his first full tour of the UK – at least, as a solo star - it’s obvious that Gerard Way still possesses quite the draw.
GERARD WAY
“I was trying to decide whether to be reverent because this is such a beautiful place,” he tells the audience, “or whether to just be like, ‘What the fuck.’” At this point Future Islands haven’t played a single musical note. He might appear spontaneous and slightly unhinged, but his awareness of the room is fascinating. The melodrama only explodes outwards with the likes of ‘Balance’ and ‘Light House’. Future Islands’ ‘thing’ is monumentally ambitious new wave synth-pop that occupies a strange middle ground; a weird new universe hiding in the middle of Ultravox, Tears For Fears, Bruce Springsteen, and General Public.
For some fans this evening is a first chance to see the former My Chemical Romance frontman in the more intimate confines of a room like this. The arenas behind him, his band seemingly a lifetime away, his set tonight is much more restrained and stripped back than his previous visits to ours shores. He is however, just as potent. Dressed in his increasingly recognisable blue suit, salmon pink shirt and matching hair-and-tie combo, and stood in front of his backing band, The Hormones, there’s little embellishment when it comes to the stage set up. It’s his own flair and flourish that does the work; shifting from perfectly poised balladry to jagged tearing vocals, while keeping the audience squealing at his every move, he’s the epitome of showmanship. Despite having only one album to his name thus far, Way still manages to throw the odd curveball. Halfway through the set, after the frantic ‘Juarez’ and dreamy ‘Drugstore Perfume’, he slides Japanese b-side ‘Television All The Time’ into the mix and still gets a rabid response. There’s a full-on, watery-eyes piano rendition of ‘The Water Is Wide (O Waly, Waly)’, before he quickly shifts back up a gear with the wonderfully bouncy 90s tendencies of ‘Get The Gang Together’. While nowadays he may be channelling his inner Jarvis more than he was able to before, there’s still that look in his eyes, that fire in his belly. He’s still the adored hero of legions of fans. Gerard Way has come into his own as a solo star; it’s not hard to wonder if those arenas might be somewhere in the distance once again. (Sarah Jamieson)
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New w e av es s e a m l es s ly w i t h o l d.
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DEATH FROM ABOVE 1979
Electric Ballroom, London. Photo: Emma Swann
f there’s ever a band great at leaving people wanting more, it’s Death From Above 1979. Jesse F. Keeler and Sebastien Grainger went a whole decade before releasing the follow-up to that seminal ‘You’re A Woman, I’m A Machine’, so playing neither of their two biggest hits – ‘Blood On Our Hands’ and ‘Black History Month’ – tonight? Well, that’s just small change.
Of course it’s in stark contrast to the last time they were in London, apologising for running out of songs. Now there’s ‘The Physical World’, and it’s from this second full-length that most of tonight’s set comes. And, as new weaves seamlessly with old – Sebastien finding ways to squeeze in that holy scream in to the newbies; ‘Gemini’ encouraging as many crowdsurfers as ‘Little Girl’; ‘Government Trash’ proving itself every bit as thrashy as ‘Going Steady’ – it’s left to Jesse to remark, almost grinning, “I hear you singing along, and it makes me very happy.” Happy seems to be the theme – the pair sharing the odd smirk; Jesse looking like a wizard or mad scientist, skipping between playing towards his bandmate, the audience, his amps and keyboard, while Sebastien looks to relish being able to actually sing. Not even recurring sound issues, vocals disappearing now and then appear to bother them, and as they reappear for an encore, the crowd chanting “DFA! DFA!” as sweat drips from every orifice of the Camden venue, a smoking Jesse smirks, “I’m not sure how we’re gonna chant back at you”. Sebastien’s feeble “Eng-er-land” isn’t really needed, as they launch in to debut cuts ‘Cold War’ and, met by screams, ‘Romantic Rights’, before the impossibly epic ‘The Physical World’ sounds even bigger and more brilliantly ostentatious than on record. Those missing songs? Yeah, not really missed at all. (Emma Swann)
WOLF ALICE heaven, london. Photo: Emma Swann
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ho wants to have a party?” asks bassist Theo Ellis, oddly towards the end of Wolf Alice’s set at the jam-packed Heaven. The answer is clear – whether it’s fans riding on each others’ shoulders, mosh pits, or crowd-surfing attempts – the sold-out crowd tonight do. It’s not all mayhem; there’s every evidence Wolf Alice have been planning this as their watershed moment for some time. The new songs are quiet, brooding, introspective; counterpoints, say, to the energetic grunge of ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’, ‘Storms’ or ‘Bros’. There’s even room for some male lead vocals. They’re all decked out in near-matching sequinned dress. And there’s a little less of that playfulness that has been a mainstay of the band’s summer festival slots. Not that the crowd seem to care; ‘Jam’, the slightly-oldernewbie that had Zane Lowe audibly gasping on air is met with easily as much energy as ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’ or ‘Bros’. And by the time breakthrough number ‘Fluffy’ kicks in, it’s left to Theo to quip, “you’re all crazy”. (Emma Swann)
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INDIE DREAMBOAT Of the Month
GUS UNGERHAMILTON alt -j FULL NAME Augustus Figaro Niso Unger-Hamilton NICKNAME On tour I am known to some as ‘Ungy’. STARSIGN Leo PETS None, but I’d really like a whippet... FAVOURITE FILM A tough call between There Will Be Blood and Bridget Jones’s Diary. FAVOURITE FOOD I have a morbid addiction to Melton Mowbray pork pies. DRINK OF CHOICE I love negronis, and maintain that I liked them before they were trendy... FAVOURITE SCENT Terre d’Hermès if we’re talking bottled; walking in a wet wood if we’re talking natural. FAVOURITE HAIR PRODUCT I just discovered sea salt spray: game changer. SONG YOU’D PLAY TO WOO SOMEONE Probably something by Nick Drake. Sensitive. IF YOU WEREN’T A POP STAR, WHAT WOULD YOU BE DOING NOW? Well just before the band started to look like it might work out, I was applying for the Waitrose graduate scheme, so maybe that! CHAT- UP LINE OF CHOICE “Would you like to see my Ivor Novello?”
DIY
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ROUNDHOUSE RISING DISCOVER NEW MUSIC 19—22 FEBRUARY 2015 STAY TUNED FOR LINE-UP ANNOUNCEMENTS: WWW.ROUNDHOUSE.ORG.UK WWW.DIYMAG.COM #RISING2015
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"B I G, B I G RO CK S O N GS" RO CKS O U N D "A B S O LU T ELY FL AW L ES S" B R I N G T H E N O ISE
TH E H I G H LY A N TI CI PATED N E W A L BUM O U T N OW O N R AYG U N RECO R DS CD / L P / PI C T U RE D ISC / D OW N LOA D
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