DIY, December 2018 / January 2019

Free • Issue 81 • Dec 2018 / Jan 2019 DIYMAG.COM • Set Music Free

Class of 2019 Meet the New Squad With Sports Team, Amyl and the Sniffers, Whenyoung & loads more 1

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DEC

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QUESTION!

EDITOR’S LETTER

With a giant look forward to some of 2019's most anticipated releases in this issue, which records are Team DIY most excited about in the next twelve months?

Hello dear readers, it’s that time again. The Christmas deckies are out of the cupboard and it’s finally okay to live solely on Quality Streets and booze. What’s more exciting, however, is that it’s finally the perfect time to start thinking ahead to next year.

SARAH JAMIESON • Managing Editor Very much looking forward to (and very intrigued by) whatever Gerard Way is going to come out with next. More goth-flute breakdowns, anyone?

EMMA SWANN • Founding Editor If I wasn't already excited for the Yak LP (I was), I would be now after finding out its story (I still am). Also the return of The Raconteurs.

LISA WRIGHT • Features Editor FOALS! FOALS! FOALS! With every new album those tiny horses have stampeded into new and brilliant ground and I cannot wait to see what treats they come up with next.

LOUISE MASON • Art Director Girl Band, Fontaines DC, anything else gumpy and Irish please.

WILL RICHARDS • Digital Editor Vampire Weekend LP4 (as long as it’s still called ‘Mitsubishi Macchiato’).

RACHEL FINN • Staff Writer I'm ready to submit to our algorithm overlords, while waiting patiently for Grimes' seemingly AI-inspired fifth album.

That’s exactly what we’re doing across this whole issue - from introducing some of the most exciting players (quite literally) in new music right now, to blitzing through a selection of the most anticipated albums that are on their way in the new year, there’s bucket loads of brilliant stuff to get stuck into here. So go forth, dive in and discover your new fave!

Sarah Jamieson, Managing Editor

LISTENING POST

As we introduce our Class Of 2019, we’ve spent the month spinning some classic albums from our Class Of alumni.

WOLF ALICE - MY LOVE IS COOL Surprise surprise, it sounds just as vital and fantastic now as it did three and a half (!) years ago.

GEORGE EZRA - STAYING AT TAMARA'S Escape into the sunset with the gorgeous second effort from Our Geoff.

GIRL BAND - HOLDING HANDS WITH JAMIE The one (and only, so far) album from the Dubliners still holds up as an intoxicating, dirgy thrash.

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Shout out to: All at the House of Vans, Joe at The Blue Arrow, The Sunflower Lounge, Hope & Ruin, Headrow House and everyone who took part in the Neu Tour. Martina Navratilova. Classic Football Shirts, Dreamland Margate, Espero Studio, Glen Rhodes MBE and his timekeeping.

Damon Hill, Greenwich Peninsula Golf Range, Hurricane Room King’s Cross, Mudchute Equestrian Centre, Oxygen Freejumping, Sheffield Boxing Centre, and the whole Class of 2019 for being good sports. Emile Heskey. The wonderful world of sport.

NEWS 6 YAK 8 SLØTFACE 10 SELF ESTEEM 12 FRIENDLY FIRES 13 CIRCA WAVES 20 FESTIVALS

“Did you know we sold out the Scala?”

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CLASS OF 2019 24 SPORTS TEAM 28 SLOWTHAI 30 STELLA DONNELLY 34 AMYL AND THE SNIFFERS 38 FONTAINES DC 42 KING PRINCESS 44 WHENYOUNG 48 BAKAR 52 EASY LIFE 54 YOWL 56 LADY BIRD 58 ANTEROS 62 WESTERMAN REVIEWS 64 ALBUMS 74 LIVE

Founding Editor Emma Swann Managing Editor Sarah Jamieson Features Editor Lisa Wright Digital Editor Will Richards Staff Writer Rachel Finn Art Direction & Design Louise Mason Contributors Ben Tipple, Cady Siregar, Jake Kennedy, James Bentley, Jenessa Williams, Joe Goggins, Lisa Henderson, Nick Roseblade, Samantha Daly, Sarah Bradbury, Sophie Thompson, Sophie Walker.

Photographers Adam Barnsley, Aidan Wyldbore, Andrea Zvadova, Carolina Faruolo, Cian Moore, Fraser Stephen, Gaëlle Beri, James Kelly, Jenn Five, Joe Falconer, Luke Hannaford, Marthe Thu, Neelam Khan Vela, Phil Smithies, Pooneh Ghana.

Cover photo and this page: Phil Smithies Big thanks to Classic Football Shirts in Shoreditch for the loan of the World Cup and shirts.

For DIY editorial: info@diymag.com For DIY sales: rupert@sonicmediagroup.co.uk lawrence@sonicmediagroup.co.uk For DIY stockist enquiries: stockists@diymag.com

m DIY HQ, 23 Tileyard Studios, London N7 9AH 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. 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.

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Get Excited About... ...the big albums arriving in 2019

YAK From living in the back of his van to signing with Virgin EMI, safe to say the route to album two has been as ridiculous as ever for Oli Burslem. Words: Lisa Wright.

E

Ever since Yak crash-landed into our vision back in 2015 in a squall of feedback and the kind of chaotic, insane live shows that immediately earmarked the London trio as ones to shield from your grandma, the band - helmed by Jagger-alike ringleader Oli Burslem - have always seemed to attract madness from every angle. Unsurprisingly then, the road to forthcoming second album 'Pursuit of Momentary Happiness' reads something like a cross between Spinal Tap and one of Jack Kerouac's more cautionary tales.

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“We never do anything by halves, so at the end of the first record (2016's 'Alas Salvation') it kind of made sense that I would live in Japan for a month and write a load of songs and then meet [then-bassist] Andy in Australia,” begins Oli, ominously. “Then Jay from Pond said, 'Why don't you come and record in Perth?' But the reality is we got to Perth and Jay likes a pint, I like a pint... So then everyone left Perth and it was just me on a beach going: Fuck.”

With almost nothing written and even less concrete material recorded, Oli found himself essentially stranded on the other side of the world with all of his album

advance gone out the window (or, more specifically, out the aeroplane window and down the pub drain). “I had no money, but luckily I had a friend who works for an airline and he got me a first class ticket back to London. I was on this plane, drinking shitloads of champagne, knowing that when I landed I'd have no house and have to explain to management why we didn't have a record. It was a bit of a disaster really,” he concludes, with somewhat of an understatement.

And so, he moved into his van for a full year and a half while he continued making the record. Down to a handful of possessions, he notes, “if I'd have disappeared off the planet, there wouldn't have been much trace of me”.

But, throughout it all, drummer Elliot Rawson kept on persevering.

By this point, with Andy living in Australia, the pair had recruited new bassist Vinny Davies into the fold after a predictably “in another universe” chat at 3am at Glastonbury. Somewhere along the way, Spiritualized lynchpin Jason Pierce popped in to the sessions to lend a guiding hand, too. And, eventually, music started actually happening. “I suppose [living like that] just puts you in battle mode, but I always thought if you wanted to make uncompromising music then you'd have to make compromises in all other areas,” says Oli. “I suppose it is quite extreme though, isn't it...”

Thankfully, however, all the extremity has resulted in a second album that's visceral, manic and never predictable, much like its maker. “Sonically I wanted to make it go everywhere,” the singer explains. “If you listen to the record all the way through, it's supposed to always be a surprise.” Eventually recorded in London's RAK Studios, and then “slowly dismantled” and put back together again by the frontman at various points across his travels, it's a labour of love that's seen Oli put literally every ounce of his entire being into its creation.

“If I'd have disappeared off the planet, there wouldn't have been much trace of me.”

- Oli Burslem

Perhaps unsurprisingly, both 'Pursuit of Momentary Happiness'' title and overarching subject matter also reflects the minute-to-minute nature of Oli's lifestyle throughout its gestation. “In that situation, everything becomes momentary; even brushing your teeth in the morning becomes a mission. It's about not really seeing any future, so you're pursuing something more immediate,” he begins, before laughing. “Other people find it quite tragic, but I find the record quite funny.”

The punchline? Now, Yak have been snapped up by Virgin EMI. “There's a little interlude [I wanted to call] 'Optimum Broadband'. I put that in there because they might be able to recoup on it, but in general: what a waste of money,” he chuckles. “I think maybe we're just a tax write off...”

And as for Oli himself, well now he's living with a pal in a fancy pad in Notting Hill. Obviously. “I've gone from one extreme to the other. It's like Hugh Grant, but better than Hugh because Hugh was bumbling – which I'm not. And he was middle class, but I'm still in better digs than him,” theorises the singer. “Also, my story would be a bit more X-rated than Hugh's. I've been quite good this week, but the filth that's happened has been unbelievable really...”

And so it continues.

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT

TITLE: ‘Pursuit of Momentary Happiness’ WHERE: RAK Studios, London.

SONGS: ‘Bellyache’, ‘Fried’, ‘This House Has No Living Room’ DUE: February 2019

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Get Excited About... ...the big albums arriving in 2019

Sløtface and Odd Martin Skålnes at Propeller Studios in Oslo.

Sløtface The Norwegian quartet are hard at work on the follow-up to their insatiably fun debut, inspired

by Robyn and roadtested in, uh, prisons? Words: Will Richards. Photos: Marthe Thu.

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løtface are excitedly discussing details of their second album, packed into their tour van, driving home through picture-perfect Norwegian landscapes from one of their periodical days in prison. No, really.

Between stints in label Propeller's Oslo studio, the quartet - who released full-of-life debut ‘Try Not To Freak Out’ at the end of summer 2017 - have been taking part in a government programme that sees bands go into the high schools of Norwegian prisons and talk about their lives as musicians, as well as play a 40-minute set for the inmates. “We’re rock teachers!” guitarist Tor-Arne Vikingstad giggles from the front seat. “I feel like Jack Black in School of Rock!” “We played the new songs because we knew they wouldn’t leak anywhere afterwards,” vocalist Haley Shea adds, smirking.

Working with Odd Martin Skålnes, who’s previously worked alongside Sigrid and Aurora, the nine songs the band currently have in the bank are, bassist Lasse Lokøy tells us, “a bit clearer, and more simple and raw”. "We tried to not let anything restrain the writing,” Haley expands, not letting the eventual conversation of how to tour the album affect its creation. “We’re trying to experiment a little more, and we’ve almost gone the other way, caring too little about the live set."

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“The people in prison seem to think it's good!” - Haley Shea The prison tour and recording sessions have also seen the band settle into life with new drummer Nils Jørgen Nilsen, of Norwegian punks Honningbarna. “[His band] are known as the fastest rock band around, so we’ve had to dumb him down a little bit,” Tor laughs, though it doesn’t look like the infectious energy and youthful vigour of ‘Try Not To Freak Out’ will go missing on the second effort. "We have one song specifically inspired by Robyn,” Lasse reveals.

“There's some sick drums and a sick vocal hook. Very excited about that." "We've been testing it out, and the people in prison seem to think it's good!" Haley exclaims.

While it’s not the most traditional run-up to an album ever seen, album two looks to reaffirm everything that made Sløtface so exciting first time 'round - wide-eyed, passionate and champing at the bit. They’re also inspiring a few new unlikely fans along the way. "There were two inmates, and we started talking a bit about drums,” Nils remembers. “They said to each other that they should steal a drum kit when they get out." Getting five-star reviews from its new audience, and being polished off with more studio sessions in the new year, Sløtface’s return is imminent.

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Get Excited About...

“I have massive ambitions – too big.”

...the big albums arriving in 2019

“So, you voted Leave, huh?”

Self Esteem Former Slow Club singer Rebecca Taylor is back with a smart, sassy new project that might just make her pop's most subversive new talent. Words: Lisa Wright. Photo: Charlotte Patmore.

“I

t's a weirdly difficult thing to spend your whole life as a creative person, just doing a version of yourself because you have to make sure the other person is happy with your output,” explains Rebecca Taylor - formerly one half of Sheffield folk pop duo Slow Club. “I loved it, but it wasn't fully me, and I underestimated how much that affected me over the years.

I was way more ambitious than where we were getting to and you can't push someone else to be like that,” she pauses for a beat, “apparently”.

Eventually calling time on the band that had been her life for the past decade, what started as an Instagram account (@selfesteemselfesteem) full of all-too-real observations has since grown into a full solo project with an album due for release via Fiction early next year. The funny, fucked-off, screen-shotted iPhone notes bearing thoughts such as 'no art show is

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worth bumping into you for' that characterised those early posts still set the tone for Rebecca's brand of defiant pop, but now they're surrounded by sparse, beat-driven backing and powerhouse vocals, too.

“All that gets me off is harmony and beat and I just was constantly saying that it needed to sound like 'My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy' because I still think that's one of the most unbelievable records ever,” she explains of the album - recorded at Margate's Electric Beach studios sporadically over the past two years.

“It feels meaty. It doesn't feel girly, and I never wanted it to be sweet. I did too many years of that and I never felt comfortable with it.”

Thematically, Self Esteem's output also falls into this realm. Fuelled by a myriad of factors all contributing towards the strong, confident voice that defines her work now – from the relief of finally “being as myself

as I possibly can be” to the broader impact of the #metoo movement and “realising my rights as a woman for the first time, because I grew up with this idea that you've got to be ladylike and I was always too loud” - hers is a slightly more experienced pop outlook that feels genuinely refreshing.

“I have massive ambitions - too big - and I know I'll die unhappy, but I now at least know that I've given it a go in a way that ticks all [my] boxes and I couldn't honestly have said that before, so it's great,” she says. “And now, it's so brilliant and so much fun to do and I've made a job that I like loads and that feels like success.”

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT

TITLE: TBC WHERE: Electric Beach Studios SONGS: ‘Rollout’, ‘Wrestling’ DUE: March 2019

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Get Excited About... ...the big albums arriving in 2019

Friendly Fires Nearly eight long years since hip-shaking second album 'Pala', 2019 is all about the fullblown return of Friendly Fires with LP3. Words: Sarah Bradbury. Photo: Andrea Zvadova.

"F

or songwriting, I kind of like grey, miserable weather,” says Friendly Fires’ frontman Ed Macfarlane, surprisingly. “I feel like with our music, we need to have a miserable view to feel like we want to transport ourselves somewhere else.”

He, Edd Gibson and Jack Savidge have just returned from Mexico, and while they’re jet lagged and November rain is pelting down, he’s actually glad - it’s pushing him to get the album finished: “It’s good to be back and getting on with making music already, just making sure we wrap up this record.”

Ah yes, that long-awaited third record. “To be honest with you, after our second record, there was kind of conscious decision that we would either take a long hiatus or stop the band,” he begins, referencing their disappearing act after 2011’s ‘Pala’. Not only had five years of performing taken its toll, their appetite had started to wane: “I just didn’t want to write pop music. You have to be in the right headspace to want to do that or it can feel like a really arduous, laborious task.”

The break did the trick. “After about five years, I started missing what we do with Friendly Fires.” And so they decided to to give it a go again, with a date at Brixton Academy, a show that left Ed with mixed emotions. “Great

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as it was, I felt an element of guilt. I felt like we had to really make it up to our fans. I just needed to do that gig and realise we were back and then get on with it.”

The fresh start also applies to their music; while he personally loved ‘Pala’, Ed admits it was “a very dense listen. This time round we wanted to do something that was a bit more sparse, a bit more exposed.

“We had been listening to a lot of late '80s, early '90s rave music,” he goes on, referencing the influences on singles ‘Love Like Waves’ and ‘Heaven Let Me In’, “and wanted to take that kind of aesthetic and the sound of the pianos and then give it our unique spin.”

Ed also hints at two possible collaborations. “Things that excite me now are emerging artists who have been around for a long time but haven’t really had the recognition that I think they deserve. Hopefully two of those will appear on this record.”

Proven by the reaction to their recent live sets, Ed knows “there is still a place for our band. I feel like people still want to listen to music that’s upbeat and danceable and positive. And we do really translate live. We all want to put this record out because it means we can get on with the next chapter. We’ve been away for so long, it would just be amazing to say to people that we’re officially back.”

Get Excited About... ...the big albums arriving in 2019

Kieran is a guitarist.

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Circa Waves

On third album ‘What’s It Like Over There?’, Circa Waves are embracing a pop sound and aiming for their most ambitious record yet. Words: Rachel Finn. Photo: Joe Falconer.

n the close-to-two-years that have passed since the release of Circa Waves’ second album ‘Different Creatures’, it’s safe to say the Liverpool four-piece have been busy. As part of their relentless schedule, they ticked off their childhood dream of playing high-up sets at Reading & Leeds and Glastonbury, and toured the UK and the US several times over.

But despite their momentum, when frontman Kieran Shudall started to work on what would eventually become third album ‘What’s It Like Over There?’ following the band’s late 2017 US tour, things didn’t immediately go as planned.

“I started writing and I wasn’t having that much luck to be honest,” he explains. “Then I went to get a guitar from our lock-up and found this book from the American tour and it had all these short stories and lyrics and things about America that I didn’t really remember writing. It was a treasure chest of songs written by somebody else.”

Re-inspired, the band reconvened with ‘Different Creatures’ producer Alan Moulder, transporting themselves to a London studio in early 2018, while the UK was in the middle of some of the worst weather it had seen for a decade.

“It was quite a juxtaposition,” Kieran laughs. “All these sun-kissed LA ideas but all being formed in this really freezing cold, snowy studio.”

The influence of the band’s time Stateside is all over ‘What’s It Like Over There?’ - a record that boasts widescreen ambition and sunny pop hooks. Early fans will no doubt recognise the signature Circa Waves jangly guitar line in ‘Movies’, but there’s plenty of evidence that the band are keen to broaden their scope on album three, from the R&B tinge of ‘Me, Myself & Hollywood’ to the massive, stadium-baiting chorus of opener ‘Sorry I’m Yours’.

Importantly, this time the band didn’t let themselves be defined by their

set roles, swapping instruments throughout the record, bassist Sam Rourke learning the piano in order to add new sounds to their repertoire.

Switching from a major to an independent label for the release also allowed them “more control”, Kieran explains.

“It’s a very ambitious record I think in that we’ve not shied away from the pop element of it,” he adds. “It really gave us the freedom to make this album whatever we wanted, which is strange that by going onto an independent label we've made our most pop sounding record yet.”

GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT TITLE: ‘What’s It Like Over There?’

WHO WITH: Production whizz Alan Moulder (Nine Inch Nails, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Killers) SONGS: ‘Movies’, ‘Be Somebody Good’, ‘Me, Myself & Hollywood’ DUE: 5th April 2019

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DIY ’Til We Die Last month, we took DIY’s Do It Yourself Neu tour around the country, bringing together industry pros and DIY faves together to reveal their wisdom alongside performances from some top notch new bands. Here’s how it went down…

Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Emma Swann and Bridie Florence.

H

ere at DIY HQ, we kind of like music quite a lot. You could say it’s ‘our thing’. We like finding the best new music, and we like working with all the colourful characters within it and we like all the (often ridiculous) anecdotes that build up along the way. They’re just some of the reasons why we published Do It Yourself earlier this year - a handy guide, written by us and a whole load of industry experts, on how to get a foot in the door of the biz. And last month we took the idea on the road, heading to Birmingham, Brighton and Leeds with a host of our pals to dish up some sage pearls of wisdom, before handing over to some of each area’s best new bands to really show what this whole shebang’s really all about.

PORRIDGE RADIO

In Birmingham, Dirty Hit A&R Chris Fraser explained how the label work with artists like The 1975 and Wolf Alice to create their distinctive visuals: "With The 1975, Matty is just a creative force in himself and it’s all about harnessing and empowering him and facilitating his ideas,” he explained. "That’s how Dirty Hit try to operate with everyone, because some artists know what they want and some don’t, but after a few conversations they’ll start to develop their own vision for something.” Peace guitarist Doug Castle, meanwhile, let us in on a little secret: "As an artist, you have no control over what’s written about yourself so [singer] Harry just used to lie through his teeth, mainly about me. He made up something about Johnny Greenwood swapping a pair of my trousers for an EP of our old band once…”

With speakers from Demob Happy, Swim Deep, LIFE, Johnny Foreigner and more joining them across the week, alongside hotshot industry pros from BMG, Live at Leeds, BIMM and more, we took things into the evening with some new music for every taste. Want some pummelling, no-holds-barred garage-punk?

Try Birmingham’s Youth Man and Table Scraps.

Fancy some more lilting, Real Estate-tinged indie? Brighton’s Penelope Isles have got you.

Going down the more cerebral route? Leeds bands Caro and Peakes are worth your ears.

If you love music as much as us (and if you’re reading this, chances are that you do), then we’re here to help you join in the fun. Because hey, we’re just nice like that. DIY

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THE JAPANESE HOUSE

FOLLOW MY GIRL ...................................................................................................................................................................................

‘L

ilo’, the first preview of the debut album from The Japanese House, was a song of emotional revelations, but with follow-up ‘Follow My Girl’, things aren’t quite as straightforward for Amber Bain. “Different people have their different ways of living / I chose mine and it was unforgiving,” the song opens, a sense of malcontent immediately penetrating the track. This sense of unease permeates the heart of ‘Follow My Girl’, but stands in direct contradiction with the music - the most impressive, commanding sounds The Japanese House has created to

date. “I can’t fix it, it’s not right / Nothing feels good, it’s not right,” she sings over warped backing vocals before a sugary, wonderfully danceable chorus enters - she sings of needing to find a sense of direction while simultaneously never having seemed more sure of herself. A double-pronged song that can help as both an empathetic hand on the shoulder in difficult times or a sprightly, catchy bop to escape into, ‘Follow My Girl’ sees The Japanese House expanding her palette, stretching her abilities and coming on in leaps and bounds. (Will Richards)

SUNDARA KARMA

SORRY

One Last Night On This Earth ..........................................

More upbeat than the waltzy slow-jam of ‘Illusions’, this takes things in a more rock opera direction and tells a story about aliens.

"Can you teach me how the heart works? / And the essence of your human quirks?” Oscar asks, before the tracks whooshes into a winding guitar line complete with a stomping bass and a theatrical piano scale.

Another preview of the weird and wonderful direction Sundara Karma are taking, pushing forward with their own vision. (Rachel Finn)

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NILÜFER YANYA

Heavyweight Champion Of The Year ..........................................

A staple of Nilüfer's live set for quite a while now, it centres around a jagged guitar line that’s slowly plucked one sec, then hammered out with venom a split-second later.

Over it, her vocals are also double-edged: “This is the bar I’m waiting, this is the bar I’m staying, this is the bar where I can’t think for myself,” she almost whispers, to the point where it’s difficult to decipher.

‘Heavyweight Champion Of The Year’ is as unpredictable, left-of-centre and thrilling as we’ve come to expect from the singer. (Will Richards)

Starstruck ......................................

Mixing traditional elements with slinky electronics and lo-fi production, Sorry's sound has become no more straight-forward.

Though buried under thick, near-impenetrable production, they always showed glimpses of becoming a true rock band.

On new single ‘Starstruck’, that side of the quartet bursts out. Asha Lorenz' and Louis O’Bryen’s vocals circle around each other like vultures in the track’s verse, which builds menacingly before releasing gorgeously into a moshpitworthy chorus. (Will Richards)

JULIA JACKLIN

Head Alone ......................................

A song about autonomy and space, ‘Head Alone’ is a short-but-sweet piece of rambling indie rock with Julia proclaiming “I don’t wanna be touched all the time / I raised my body up to be mine” on the song’s chorus. “This song is me raising my arms and running into an open field,” she’s said of the track, and that’s pretty much what it sounds like - a contemplative yet uplifting song that sounds like spreading your arms wide open and embracing the space in front of you. (Rachel Finn)

..........

IN THE ROUND 22 – 31 JANUARY 2019

ANA MOURA • FATIMA • GRUFF RHYS PATTI SMITH • THE HOT SARDINES RONNIE SPECTOR & THE RONETTES SAM PALLADIO • JIM JAMES THIS IS THE KIT + ODETTA HARTMAN SHIRLEY COLLINS INTIMATE SEATED SHOWS THAT PUT YOU CLOSER TO THE MUSIC

Our Resident Artist Programme offers emerging artists the chance to support acts at this year’s In the Round 17

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The Lexington, London. Photo: Emma Swann.

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f the saying goes that slow and steady wins the race, then tonight - Yowl’s first hometown headline in six months - is proof that playing the long game can sometimes not just win it, but set fire to the race and send hordes of flailing limbs dancing all over its flaming corpse.

It takes approximately 45 seconds for the first crowdsurfer to come barrelling over the top of the sold out room when the quintet take to the stage. But first, Hull’s Lumer arrive to set the bar. Full of taught, post-punk judders and sleazy synths, theirs is a sound that ploughs all corners of the underground.

Londoners Sistertalk have been locked away whittling their wares and prepping their first proper release, meaning their live show has been given a jolt of new material, the jagged guitar slices of old finding new friends.

By the time Yowl arrive, The Lexington is rammed. They launch into the slow creep of old track ‘The Imminent Return’ and by the end of it, singer Gabriel Byrde’s already

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in the crowd. From there comes a steady stream of punters launching themselves across the room, one slugging from a full red wine bottle while in mid air, another attempting a two-layer surfing pile-up.

New track ‘John The Collector’ finds an entire room dancing to a song about slicing the faces off your friends, while the lolloping bridge of ‘Saturday Drag’ is the biggest sing-along about Valium you’re likely to hear for a while. However, there are still plenty of sly hooks to be found. A new track has an almost late Beatles-y slant to its melody, while recent single ‘Warm (in the Soft White Fire of Modern Living)’ finds guitarists Ivor Manley and Mike Rudge’s wonky lines dancing around each other in a manner that Graham Coxon probably wouldn’t hate.

It all adds up to something that feels like a genuine moment. Rather than just another band from a buzzy scene, Yowl have trodden their own path, taken their time and grown into something far more exciting. Now, with a real fanbase awaiting their next steps, they’re starting to reap the justified rewards. (Lisa Wright)

DIY’S PICK OF

LNSOURCE

In desperate need of a live music fix but can’t decide where or who? If you feel too spoilt for choice, here’s just a few of LNSource’s upcoming shows worth getting off the sofa for.

Heavy Lungs 28th January, Sebright Arms, London If getting to see the real-life Danny Nedelko wasn’t enough, his equally illustrious pals in Bristol heavy-hitters Heavy Lungs will provide enough energy to power a small city at this London headline show.

Chlöe Howl 23rd January, Moth Club, London Once the cream of the buzzy crop, the Class of 2014 star returned in November with EP ‘Work’, featuring single ’23’, and now heads to the glittering East London venue in January.

Honey Lung 10th December, The Lexington, London

The Londoners come to the North London boozer hot on the heels of a Bloody Knees support slot, and recent single ‘Export The Family’, released back in October.

For more information and to buy tickets, head to livenation.co.uk or twitter.com/LNSource

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FESTIVALS Photo: Neelam Khan Vela 20

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Preview

EUROSONIC NOORDERSLAG 16TH - 19TH JANUARY 21st - 24th November

Every January, the small Dutch city of Groningen hosts a whole heap of buzzy new bands from across Europe, and while we’ll be there desperately clinging along to our neighbours while sobbing into our EU flags, the likes of Whenyoung, Fontaines DC, Sports Team and Black Midi will be showing off in the festival’s various venues. Find out more on diymag.com.

Q&A: FEET The Coventry lads fill us in on their cancellation policy and, er, webbed feet, ahead of their trip to Groningen in January.

What’s new in the world of Feet?

Aside from writing and recording our first album, the ever-changing and uncertain line-up of FEET has endured yet another shuffle, with Ben Firth (formerly of the Dead Pretties) coming in on the drums.

Have you played the Netherlands before?

With regards to our Dutch shows we’ve maintained a most respectable 50% attendance rate. The first of which occurred with Harry contracting mild tonsillitis. The latter was somewhat more consequential

for the band, with a certain member’s degree of illness forcing us to cancel the gig. I guess we’d therefore consider Eurosonic our first proper introduction to the great land of the Netherlands.

How are your collective sea legs?

Unfortunately, Harry hasn’t seen the sea as he’s a land-loving Brummie. The rest of us are currently saving up for a good dinghy so we can bun off to the pub by boat. Callum even has webbed feet and charges the occasional punter a fiver to watch him do a couple of lengths.

Clothes? Nope.

Breakfast? …nope.

Preview Cz-Cz-Czech (and Slovak) it out!

Each year the festival chooses a country or group of countries to highlight, with recent years opting for acts from Denmark, Iceland, and Austria. This year it’s the turn of both the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Here’s a couple of acts heading to Groningen this January.

Plus, we’re teaming up with next year’s focus countries for a special edition dedicated to their music scenes - it’ll be available in person at ESNS, you can read it online at czskfocus.com and diymag.com.

THE ILLS

LENNY Not only has the 24-year-old singersongwriter scored herself 6 Andel awards (the Czech equivalent of the GRAMMYs, no less), she’s fresh from supporting television staple Emeli Sandé on her world tour.

Post-rock with a punk attitude, live is where this band from Bratislava shine - and they’re set to follow their Eurosonic set with new album, ‘Mt. Average / Disco Volante’ early in 2019.

Too big for your wellies Stormzy is 2019’s first Glastonbury headliner.

Glastonbury don’t do things the normal way. Last time ‘round Radiohead’s appearance was announced via the band’s bear logo imprinted into Pilton Farm’s grass; the first 2019 headliner’s name came via charity shops.

Posters were placed in a pair of Oxfam stores - the Eavis’ local and one in Streatham, close to where the rapper grew up - with the headline “Stormzy Friday!”, in the style of the Glastonbury Free Press.

Glastonbury will take place between 26th and 30th June 2019.

From '75 to '19 Reading & Leeds announce first names, with Foo Fighters, The 1975, Bastille, Sundara Karma and more.

The first names for Reading & Leeds have been announced, with Foo Fighters, The 1975, Post Malone and Twenty One Pilots confirmed to headline.

Bastille, Sundara Karma, The Distillers and Pale Waves will also appear across the festival, which takes place on the August Bank Holiday (23rd - 25th August). For more info, head to diymag.com.

FESTIVAL

NEWS IN BRIEF Lana Del Rey and The 1975 are among the first names confirmed for BENICÀSSIM (18th - 21st July). They’re joined by Blossoms, La MODA, Cupido and Cariño.

Bon Iver, Mac DeMarco, Primal Scream and The Chemical Brothers are all headed to ALL POINTS EAST (24th May - 2nd June), alongside First Aid Kit, Snail Mail, Danny Brown and more.

Vampire Weekend, The 1975, The National, and The Cure are among the first names confirmed for MAD COOL (11th - 13th July), with Milk Teeth, Mogwai and ALMA also Madrid-bound.

Pale Waves, George Ezra and The Vaccines will all be playing NEIGHBOURHOOD WEEKENDER (25th - 26th May), as well as Our Girl, Anteros, Slaves and Yonaka.

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Class if 2r19

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2018 is over, the world is very much in motion and now it’s time to welcome a new batch of contenders to the stage. On your marks, get set...

Here are the thirteen frontrunners that make up our Class of 2019.

Sports Team

P24

Team Members: 6 Natural Sporting Ability: 8 Big Hitters: ‘Stanton’, ‘Kutcher’ Special skill: A “gentleman’s sell-out”.

Amyl and the Sniffers

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P28

Team Members: 1 Natural Sporting Ability: 9 Big Hitters: 'Doorman', 'T N Biscuits' Special skill: Withstanding shirtlessness in any and all situations.

P34

Team Members: 4 Natural Sporting Ability: 8 Big Hitters: ‘I'm Not A Loser', 'Cup of Destiny' Special skill: Actually pulling off mullets.

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Fontaines DC

P38

Team Members: 5 Natural Sporting Ability: 5 Big Hitters: ‘Too Real', 'Chequeless Reckless' Special skill: Knowing their way ‘round a stanza.

P30

Stella Donnelly

Team Members: 1 Natural Sporting Ability: 6 Big Hitters: ‘Boys Will Be Boys', ' Mechanical Bull' Special skill: Pissing off keyboard warriors.

King Princess Team Members: 1 Natural Sporting Ability: 6 Big Hitters: ‘1950', 'Pussy Is God' Special skill: Galvanising a queer revolution.

P42

g s Whenyoung

P44

Team Members: 3 Natural Sporting Ability: 5 Big Hitters: ‘Pretty Pure', 'Given Up' Special skill: Sucker punching Bono, to be specific.

Bakar

P48

Team Members: 1 Natural Sporting Ability: 7 Big Hitters: ‘Big Dreams', 'Dracula' Special skill: Jaywalking.

Lady Bird

Easy Life

P52

Team Members: 3 Natural Sporting Ability: 8 Big Hitters: ‘Social Potions', 'Rectifier' Special skill: The best hugs. Ever.

Anteros

P54

Team Members: 5 Natural Sporting Ability: 7 Big Hitters: ‘Saturday Drag', 'John the Collector' Special skill: Starting a moshpit with two broken arms.

Team Members: 5 Natural Sporting Ability: 4 Big Hitters: ‘Nightmares’, ‘Pockets’ Special skill: Herding cows.

P56

Yowl

P58

Team Members: 4 Natural Sporting Ability: 5 Big Hitters: ‘Bonnie', 'Call Your Mother' Special skill: Navigating the Moroccan desert while looking fabulous.

Westerman

P62

Team Members: 1 Natural Sporting Ability: 7 Big Hitters: ‘Confirmation', 'Albatross' Special skill: Being born with a voice as soft as a hug from a poodle.

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Sports Team Class of

r 2019

Injecting guitar music in 2018 with a bravado often left in the ‘90s and possessing an arsenal of indie hits threatening to become classics, this six-piece want to inspire devotion and community. Words: Will Richards.

Photos: Phil Smithies.

stands atop a speaker stack, hands on hips, a flamboyant overseer of the chaos below. Songs like ‘Kutcher’ and ‘Winter Nets’ are received like anthems-in-waiting, bellowed back at the band from the depths of a sweaty, fevered moshpit. Balloons rain down for a triumphant closing of ‘Stanton’. They walk on stage to Robbie's ‘Let Me Entertain You’, for heaven’s sake. It’s absurd, commendable and very exciting.

S

omewhere down the line, for one reason or another, guitar music lost its bravado. The well-thumbed story of the six-string being dead may be a load of old tosh, yet if you had to name the genre’s biggest characters, spewing headline-worthy quotes in their sleep and becoming memes without even trying, they’d probably still look distinctly Gallagher-shaped (with Alex Turner the millennial addition).

Still, it’s been a while since such a character barked their way to the front of the fresh pack with the swagger of Alex Rice, and it’s been almost as long since there’s been a band with quite as much bolshiness and theatricality as Sports Team.

Take the group’s recent show at London’s Scala. A lofty booking and a risk (by their own admission), the months in the run-up to the show saw tweet after tweet from the band mocking their own confidence, talking of venue capacity and “gentlemen’s sell-outs” on a daily basis.

Come the evening itself it’s an actual sell-out - a proper, pinned-againstthe-wall-at-the-back one at that. Alex

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The band have now announced a significantly larger show in the capital - the Electric Ballroom in March. As testament to their swelling popularity, it doesn’t even feel like too much of a risk this time. Of course, that doesn’t sit well with Alex, so a few

“It feels like an identity thing, coming to see Sports Team, which I don’t think a lot of bands have.” Alex Rice months back he legitimately looked into booking Wembley Arena for 2021. Sadly, they don’t take bookings three years in advance, he tells us, completely straight-faced. Whether you choose to believe him or not, there’s a world-conquering attitude

to Sports Team. Draped in sarcasm it might be, but just look at where bands with the limitless enthusiasm and ambition of this six have gone before.

F

ormed while studying at Cambridge University, the six-piece - completed by guitarist and songwriter Rob Knaggs, guitarist Henry Young, drummer Al Greenwood, bassist Oli Dewdney and keyboardist/professional staring contestant/the band’s very own Bez, Ben Mac - started Sports Team, in Rob’s words, “'cause we wanted to be in a band and we all love it. We could go and play at Veg Bar in Brixton back in the day, to like five people, and come out feeling like we’d done Knebworth.”

“The best way you can hang out with your mates is to form a band, believe me,” Alex confirms. “It’s the best way to be a group, being a gang. What do you get to do? Go around Europe together in a van and shout at people every night? Brilliant.” Though obviously they now find themselves metaphorical miles away from the Veg Bar days, there’s an unwavering passion and commitment evident with Sports Team, something not tied to venue capacities or traditional ideas of success. Six best friends who also live together, they’ve become a gang in the truest sense.

“We’d known each other a long time before the band,” Rob says, “Every time we meet a producer, they’ll say ‘You guys are reeeally horrible to each other. It’s funny, but like, it’s genuinely cruel’. We’ve got to the point where we can say literally anything to each other, which is good, because you see bands who’ve got

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together quickly, basically off the back of meeting as musicians, and it gets difficult when it gets up close and personal. But for us…” “it’s always been personal,” Al finishes off.

“And I think we’ve always felt ambitious,” Alex continues. “Genuinely, as soon as we started the band, we felt it could go a long way. We’ve always had that ambition to write amazing songs and put on enormous gigs.”

“I feel like some bands, they form and suddenly have like 10 labels looking at them, and stuff gets taken for granted,” Rob says of their journey up to now, “whereas every bit of hype we’ve had, it feels like we’ve grafted for.” “Pleeease don’t pitch us as grafters,” Alex quips back quickly, gesturing in our direction. "If you could call it meteoric that’d be great.”

“I feel like we have different takes, Rice and I,” Rob - the band’s principal songwriter - laughs. “I’m down in the engine room, trying to write songs, whereas this guy… You push him on stage and it’s like, ‘HELLO! IT’S ME!’” “‘Ooooh I like to dance!’” Al mimics with fervent hand gestures, to the frontman’s despair. “It’s actually VERY hard.”

“That’s what guitar music’s lost recently - it should be really polarising.” Alex Rice

I

n Alex, Sports Team have a true frontman. He commands the band’s live show with a genuinely intoxicating stage presence, adding buckets of personality to a band already overflowing with it. He’s also got the chat to back it up, side-swiping every buzz band in sight in harmless and often hilarious faux-beef, while at the same time truly believing that Sports Team are the best of the lot. He’s a one-man quote machine

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providing a sense of grandeur that’s sorely missing in guitar music at the moment.

“People like it because it’s better than the other stuff out there,” he lays out simply. “It is, it really is. It’s better. They should like it.” ‘It’ in this sentence, to clarify, is his band.

“You look at the [success of the] Gallaghers this year, people do seem to miss arrogance,” Rob is quick to agree. “The guy who was promoting our show at Scala used to be in Viva Brother. He was a lovely bloke, but said 'You know, it was a joke for us as well, but after about six months we became pricks, and no one got the joke anymore, and it suddenly overtook us.’”

“It’s not a bit by the way - I genuinely think we’re better than…” the frontman bites back in, refusing to let the point go. “No, Rice does think that,” Rob near-sighs.

“Who do you think’s better?!” Alex questions, before continuing. “It’s great when people actually really slate people and have an opinion.

That’s what guitar music’s lost recently. It should be really polarising. It should be like gang stuff. You should hate bands as much as you love them.”

Sports Team’s swipes at their contemporaries may all be pretty humorous, but they come from a genuine place of wanting the British guitar music scene to be better, more vibrant and more varied, and for bands to put on truly memorable live shows too. Never in danger of talking the talk but not walking the walk, their Scala show saw them follow through with their promise from DIY’s June 2018 interview and construct their very own shark mascot, which sat atop a speaker stack at the side of the stage.

They’re also putting their money where their mouth is, setting up new label Holm Front, with a first release from Cambridge weirdo rockers UGLY. “We’re quite opinionated about the bands we like, and the bands we don’t like,” Alex smirks. “[The label is] us saying ‘Look, this is what we think guitar music should be, and this is how it’s gonna get cool, and these are the bands we like’.”

“We’re very conscious of the live stuff,” the frontman continues. “The achievements of, say, radio plays, or streams, or press are obviously

fantastic but nothing actually changes for you in your life until you’re in front of a thousand people. The live moments are the ones where you feel like you’ve achieved something, and when you feel like you’re doing well as a band.

“I think a lot of indie bands at the moment, they forget the bit where you have to actually do fun nights.

It has to be fun, and interesting.

We always feel slightly apart from a bunch of those bands. For us, it’s a case of ‘Can you actually make a show? Can you make your music feel uplifting?’ If you’re going to make art, and put on shows, and [want people to] actually buy a ticket, and travel, and take the day off work… You want them to come out joyful.”

“There’s enough shit going on currently in the socio-political climate to shout about,” Al notes. “[We’re] not necessarily saying ‘Everything is fine’ but there are still things to celebrate.”

“You go to shows in London, and the band will seem bored, and the events will be crap,” continues Alex, on a rant now. “It’s that sense of ‘You’ve got this huge stage, and huge forum, and you’re just gonna stand there and do nothing?!’ Going to those gigs isn’t fun, and you come out and say ‘Well yeah, that was pretty good...’ and actually you’ve spent £50 on that day, on travel, drinks, tickets, and at the end you’re not happier.

“Whereas a handful of obsessives is always better than a hundred thousand casual streamers,” Alex hammers home, the community already being forged around the band’s live show there for proof. “You go to our gigs, and people are pretty obsessed. It feels like an identity thing, coming to see Sports Team, which I don’t think a lot of bands have.”

With the confidence, the chat, the gang mentality and - most importantly - the songs to take them a long way, they make devotion easy, and there are few bands around who’ll give you more bang for your buck. “[Guitar music] is only a sense of self-confidence away from being [held up as great and important] again,” Alex theorises. “I really think that. As soon as someone says ‘This is the best thing right now, and you need to go and see it’, it becomes true.”

Wanna prove him wrong? r r r

“The best way you can hang out with your mates is to form a band.” Alex Rice

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slowthai Class of

r 2019

This Northampton rapper is bringing small-town life to the big stage, one semi-naked show at a time. Words: Samantha Daly. Photos: Phil Smithies.

filled with playfulness and darkness, from the way he shoots manic, semi-terrifying grins throughout our photoshoot to the disturbing, bloody video for recent track ‘Polaroid’. “I don’t mean to blow my own trumpet,” he nods, “but I don’t actually fit in with anybody else. They’re all doing their thing, being fully fledged grime or UK hip hop, but I feel like I’m on my own thing.

T

yron Frampton - aka slowthai - is on a mission to prove that London is not the be-all-andend-all for boundary-pushing grime and hip hop in the UK. Growing up on the outskirts of Northampton, his upbringing is at the core not just of his music, but his whole identity.

“Home is where the heart is, that’s where my personality and who I am is; I’m from Northampton, it keeps me going,” he enthuses today, speaking on the phone ahead of his massive Alexandra Palace show supporting Slaves (which, FYI, he’ll go on to smash in chaotic, vomiting style).

Though his home town hasn’t exactly historically been a hotbed for buzzy new artists (“there’s always been the bands that go and play the pub circuits, there’s been blips in the scene, but then It just dies out,” he says), coming into 2019 it feels like slowthai could be the one to break the cycle. From spitting bars with his pals to selling out his recent 'Circus' tour and tearing each venue a new one, his trajectory’s already shooting skywards. “Everywhere has the potential, people have just got to stick it out a bit longer and stop giving up so easily,” he says.

The crux of the rapper’s success so far has been in carving out his own unique persona - one equally 28 diymag.com

“Everything we’ve ever built is from the ground up, the foundations are strong,” he continues. “Everyone that’s with us is actually with us, they’re not in it for the quick ride. I feel like we’re really drawing in the people that feel it and cancelling out the ones that don’t give a fuck.”

One thing that’s really drawing people in to slowthai is the genuine clout and weight behind his lyrics.

On ‘T N Biscuits’ he encapsulates small town angst with a dark sneer, while ’Drug Dealer’ sees him take aim at the low expectations and lack of options around him: “Nothing great about Britain / Same situation a boy was given”. “I’m not some American rapper with a bit of Auto-Tune that isn’t really saying anything. Everyone talks about being a rock star, but the fact of the matter is they don’t do anything,” he explains. “It’s all good making people dance, but are you actually benefiting them and using your voice for the greater good? No.” Instead, slowthai wants to create music that people can get a sense of identity from. “I just want to help people achieve what they really want, make them realise that they can achieve it and no one can tell them that they can’t,” he explains.

And while his high-energy live shows - stripping down to his boxers and bounding around the stage - could

be seen as the confident work of a born extrovert, really they’re about finding that same sense of self. “If they can see me for who I am then they can see that there’s nothing to be scared of by being yourself,” he says. “You can be any size, shape, colour and you can still be comfortable with who you are.”

From his raw, open lyrics to his edgeof-your-seat show, he's creating something “all about like-minded people coming together, [being] part of something bigger”. Sometimes that bigger thing can get a bit messy, like a recent Dublin show where “someone cut me, someone got glassed, but we all had a good time and didn’t try to kill each other so… it was fun,” he laughs. Fundamentally slowthai is about community, in all its forms.

Ask him what he’d most like to achieve through his music and he’ll give you a plethora of answers, all summing up his creative yet conflicted mind. From world peace to anarchy. A happily ever after, to simply doing something nice for his family. Before finally, tailing off to explain how he’d like to turn into a phoenix, or perhaps a dolphin - no, the only black dolphin in the ocean.

For now, meanwhile, he’s happy looking towards a more achievable goal. “I’m chasing down happiness, and there’s an album coming in 2019,” he says, “then I’m gonna get high, go on holiday and make more music.”

His aquatic fantasy ending might still be a way away, but the water world’s loss is our gain. slowthai is out here to do good, to make a difference and to do it in the most creative way possible. He’s making a splash on dry land just fine. r r r

“I feel like we’re really drawing in the people that feel it and cancelling out the ones that don’t give a fuck.”

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Stella Donnelly Class of

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t’s late 2017 and a then-25-yearold Stella Donnelly is sitting in her house in Perth, scrolling through death threats on her phone. She’s not a rogue politician or an errant sexual predator or any of the things that tend to rile people up in the real world. In fact, her crime is merely that she’s written a song saying that rape is, y’know, not actually OK, no matter how you spin it.

“The moment I realised I’d broken the bubble was when Pitchfork posted ‘Boys Will Be Boys’ online. I got trolled so hard and then I realised it was reaching audiences bigger than people who are like-minded,” she recalls now, a year on from the track that first put her in the public eye. “I got death threats and graphic images, unsolicited dick pics, threats to where I live... It really pissed people off, which is fascinating. I think it’s white male supremacy and it’s coming from a place of fear; the idea of a woman doing anything in the public light and having that voice is a challenge to what they’ve been brought up to believe. And a woman who’s speaking out against the norm of that attitude is the straw that breaks the camel’s back. But it just fuels my fire.”

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Since the release of bold breakthrough single ‘Boys Will Be Boys’, the Perth singer has proven herself to be a voice of rage, humour and compassion. No amount of trolls can stop her now. Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Jenn Five.

Since then, the song and following EP ‘Thrush Metal’ - a collection of acoustic tracks full of witty, stark, sometimes forlorn, more often just frustrated musings on the complexities of life - have taken the singer around the world, becoming one of SXSW’s most exciting new finds and sending her on the European jaunt that she’s taking the afternoon off from to chat to us in a London cafe today. While there might be some butthurt chauvinists lurking in the murkier ends of Stella’s internet inbox, there are far more people that have taken her bold, bright voice into their hearts. And if the singer seems fairly resilient to the trolls, then maybe it’s because resilience is the thing that’s been her backbone so far.

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erhaps surprisingly for someone whose uncompromising outlook is one of their defining traits, Stella started out reiterating other peoples’. “I was in a covers band, the only girl in a band full of boys, and I had to wear high heels and a dress and sing The B-52s ‘Love Shack’ and ‘Walking on Sunshine’ and fucking P!nk... I mean, full respect for The B-52s but there’s only so many times you can sing ‘Love Shack’ in a year and that was my job four times a week. Weddings, corporate functions, pharmaceutical company awards nights... “ she grimaces, with a shudder. The experience took its toll and, she explains, her “connection to music wasn’t in a healthy place anymore”. “I was having anxiety and I’d had a couple of things where men had got up on stage and groped me.

I felt like I was becoming a piece of meat, and I was getting attention but not in the way that I wanted it and

not in the way I needed it.” So she quit and started working on her own music properly. “It really shaped me and made me mad and gave me that insight to what I don’t wanna do,” she explains.

Then, when it came to recording ‘Thrush Metal’, Stella had to stand her ground and stay firm in her self-belief again. Though the EP itself now stands as a solid testament to where the singer was at at the time, there’s a whole other version that remains on the cutting room floor. “I had tried to record it in a studio before, but it was so shiny and so not me; it felt like the whole thing had been taken away from me so I canned it,” she says. “The real clincher was when I was recording ‘Grey’ and the guy was like, you should just get this other guy to play it because your guitar playing isn’t working. I had to go through those experiences though; I haven’t always been this [bold]!”

But the cumulative effect of all these tests is that, now, she stands as one of the most uncompromising, exciting new voices out there. Whether she’s dryly calling herself a “fucking arsehole” on ‘Mechanical Bull’ or lamenting the colour-faded death of a relationship in the aforementioned ‘Grey’, she’s a raconteur in the truest sense - informed by a love of Billy Bragg and songwriters “where the words are the most important part”.

She’s funny, too. Which is another thing that tends to piss off the old men. “One of the worst reviews I’ve ever had was someone telling me I had ‘boyish humour’, because why can’t women be funny? Why can’t women be crass? Why is that attributed as a masculine trait? Why can’t femininity be funny, and angry?”

“I’m pissing people off, but I’m pleasing people more.”

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she questions, exasperated. “It really pissed me off because we need to change the way that we look at what femininity and masculinity is. And I think I definitely challenge a lot of stereotypes, but that’s nice!” she laughs. “It’s fun!

And it’s a cheap trick to swear and I’m trying to find ways of swearing without swearing in my lyrics, but sometimes you just need a ‘fuck’ in there! It’s the only way to get your point across!”

Now, she's gearing up to get an even bigger point across in the form of her debut album - set for release in spring. Recorded in Freemantle, near her home town, and finished literally the morning we speak she says, toasting the news with a customary broad grin and an orange juice, it’s set to see the singer broadening her sonic palette - but, this time, entirely on her own terms.

“It’s everything I’ve ever wanted to do,” she says.

“When I did the EP, I didn’t have the luxury of having the resources to have a band or use special equipment. But now it’s such a dream to be like, if the song needs a band it can and if it doesn’t it won’t and there’s no pressure either way. Half the record is solo and half is with a band. There’s a couple of songs with synths and drum machines. It’s confused, but that’s me! It’s a perfect representation of who I am.”

Warm and engaging, but with a visible cage-rattling streak, you can indeed see Stella’s personality doused all over her music. It’s a point she’s fought to get to, but now she’s there you wouldn’t bet against the whip-smart, no-fucks-given singer to take it all the way. “I’m pissing people off, but I’m pleasing people more and I couldn’t ask for anything better,” she notes with a mischievous smile. And that works for us just fine. r r r

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“I think I definitely challenge a lot of stereotypes.”

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Amyl and the Sniffers Class of

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t’s 10:03am at a boxing club somewhere on the outskirts of Sheffield and Amyl and the Sniffers are in trouble. This time, it’s not the quartet’s fault – we’re shooting today at the venue of a sportsman who really, really values time-keeping – but it seems fitting that wildcard singer Amy Taylor and her band of Melbourne misfits are the ones who’d inadvertently wind up pissing off the most punctual man in the north. Since day one, it seems, the band have existed in a kind of reckless bubble that started off as a glorified piss-about and has now landed them as one of the most hedonistic, fresh new punk outfits out there. “I just love chaos, I guess...” she decides later in the day. And chaos seems to love Amyl and the Sniffers.

The origin story of the band couldn’t be more spontaneous if it tried.

One day in 2016, at “around 4pm”, Amy remembers, the four pals – completed by guitarist Dec Martens, drummer Bryce Wilson and bassist Gus Romer – got back to their shared flat, set up some gear that they had knocking around from other projects and wrote and recorded a few songs in a night. One of their friends

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Causing hedonistic chaos wherever they land, these are the mullet-sporting Melbourne punks who just wanna have fun. Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Jenn Five.

mixed them, Amy whipped up some artwork, decided on a name and the next day, Amyl and the Sniffers were born. “We really didn’t think about anything at all. We literally just picked up shit and just went for it,” she shrugs of the band’s less-thancorporate beginnings. “I’d not done any music before, but I used to go to lots of shows, like five shows a week, and when I was heaps younger I used to go to hardcore shows. I guess I just thought I could do it better.”

The point, says Amy, was to have something to bring to the table at the “house parties and shed shows” that the friends all used to frequent – raucous, DIY gigs with bands called things like Drunk Mums and Dumb Cunts all getting sweaty in pleasingly shitty small rooms. From that first EP (entitled ‘Giddy Up’) of scratchy, short’n’sharp garage rock – its four songs clocking in at just seven minutes in total – the band got their first gig. “There weren’t many people there and we fucked up heaps, but it was so fun and the best thing ever,” the singer enthuses. “We covered four songs because we had no songs to play and then the bartender [took the piss] because we only played for 15 minutes. But it’s nice when you start something new and you haven’t figured it out yet; the exciting part is learning and working out what you’re doing.”

However, despite the singer’s complete novice status, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that the pint-sized punk was pretty good at this kind of thing. If you’ve caught one of Amyl and the Sniffers’ incendiary sets across the UK and beyond this

“I grew up on hardcore and punk shows where it was just a load of sweaty dudes punching each other.” - Amy Taylor year, you’ll likely have been party to the kind of mad, thrashing scenes that rarely surround bands on their first outings abroad. Amyl shows are not ones to go quietly into the night.

“Because I grew up on hardcore and punk shows where it was just a load of sweaty dudes punching each other, I really love the crazy energy where everyone’s pushing each other and going for it,” she says. “I love the fucking chaos of when it’s crazy. I’m onstage how I would be if I was at a gig that I really loved.” And so word started getting out about this vital new bunch of maniacs unleashing songs about being losers and getting their bikes stolen, and the gigs became more frequent and all of a sudden what started off as a bit of a laugh had taken them to the other side of the world with a record deal offer from Rough Trade. “It’s pretty fucked up!” Amy laughs. "But in the best possible way."

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F

ast forward to the present day, and the reason Amyl and the Sniffers are dodging punches in Sheffield is because they’re currently recording their debut album. In a proper studio for the first time, with producer Ross Orton (who sat at the helm of Arctic Monkeys' seminal fifth effort ‘AM’), it’s safe to say things are a bit different this time around than in the 12-hour living room session that formed their first release. However, a bit of extra cash thankfully doesn’t seem to have polished up the band that much. “This is the first time I’ve heard [the new songs] recorded because when we play them live it’s just noise, so I think they’re kind of more rocky?” answers an amusingly unsure Amy when asked about the new material. “Every other thing we’ve just recorded live – we’ll play it once and hope for the best. Whereas this is [slightly more professional], but we’re still trying to sound live because that’s what we are more than anything.”

Influenced by the garage rock scene they grew up around, as well as “bad Aussie rock’n’roll from the '70s and '80s: the classic Top 100 hits that your parents would listen to,” theirs are tracks that channel a different kind of punk to the influences touted around from their US and UK counterparts. Filled with a funny, unaffected bogan brattiness, Amyl might claim to sing about “everyday experiences”, but they do it in a way that seems more feckless and uninhibited than most. Take ‘I’m Not

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A Loser’’s claim of “My friends may think that I’m a cunt / But I pay the rent on time every month” by way of example. Led Zeppelin, it is not.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, their magnetic, madcap outlook is one that’s lead them down some strange paths during their travels already. “In Australia most of the people I meet are pretty similar to me, but overseas you meet these people where it’s like, how are you real?! But I fucking love nutjobs,” Amy enthuses, her speech picking up pace with each memory.

“There was this awesome guy in LA who owned this studio. We went up there and he had a taser, and he was showing us this taser and telling all these stories about how he’d had half his brain taken out. His house had all these weird dead animals in test tubes; it was insane. He was just pointing this taser at me being like, ‘I don’t fuck around!!!’ It was awesome.” Do you think, we suggest politely, that maybe you attract some of life’s more curious inhabitants?

“Oh yeah, I seek out the weirdos,” she laughs. “I think I put it out to the world that I wanna hang out with weirdos and I end up finding the craziest people ever. I’ll probably end up getting killed, but it’s kind of funny I guess. I’ll have to finish the record so I have a legacy...”

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f the idea of Amyl and the Sniffers and their taser-toting pals zapping into the wider consciousness seems a weird one, then the likelihood of this lot selling out for radio play and stadium tours is pretty much slim-to-none. Currently,

they’re enjoying the mad six months that’s seen them sign deals all over the world, but they’re nothing if not grounded about the whole whirlwind of being a Bona Fide Buzz Band.

“People think it’s glamorous being a musician but it’s like, man I’m still eating toast! It’s literally the same!”

Amy laughs. She’s got an analogy, too: “It’s interesting because people make up their mind about you before they know you now; it’s like a crazy social experiment. But I guess it’s the same as if you were working at a supermarket stacking shelves and then you got promoted to manager.

It’s not like your environment’s changing 'cause it’s just doing what you do, but it feels like growth.”

It’s an endearingly low-key comparison, but there’s nothing repetitive and mundane about this lot’s day-to-day, right now. From crash-landing at The Great Escape this spring, to selling out their first raucous tour on these shores later in the year, to now returning to lay down the inevitably-incendiary nugget that’ll form their debut long player, Amyl and the Sniffers have charged through the UK, leaving a path of sweaty, boggle-eyed destruction on every trip. They may not have particularly lofty ambitions themselves, but luckily the world is setting them for them. “Being on stage is like meditation; it’s the only time when I’m present,” nods Amy of her newfound career.

If this is what getting zen looks like in 2019, then lord help us all... r r r

“I seek out the weirdos.”

- Amy Taylor Class of

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Fontaines DC Class of

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F

ontaines DC were relative unknowns when they exploded onto screens and airwaves in session for Seattle’s lauded KEXP back in May, making their mark in under 25 minutes. “Dublin in the rain is mine,” vocalist Grian Chatten bellowed over a furious but melodic wash of guitars on opening song ‘Big’, sounding like a downpour onto the city’s River Liffey itself. Inside one line of one song - a track touted to be the opening song of the band’s debut album - Grian announced himself as a vocalist and lyricist able to conjure biting, vivid imagery. “My childhood was small,” he reflected over dissonant stabs of open guitar strings, “but I’m gonna be big.”

Whether referring to some kind of inner peace, or predicting a future for himself as a rock star, it wasn’t hard to believe him.

It’s six months later, and the band are striding into London’s cavernous O2 to discuss the whirlwind that’s been 2018, and the debut they have up their sleeves. As they walk in, Grian notices that their city’s most famous

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Dublin’s voice is rising this year, with a host of bands giving the Irish capital a new reputation for breathtaking, important guitar music. Meet the leaders of the pack.

Words: Will Richards. Photos: Phil Smithies.

musical sons are playing two nights at the arena, starting tomorrow. Later on in the night, drinking at a Soho hotel that Bono, The Edge and co happen to be staying in ahead of their run, the quintet’s thick Dublin accents incite misguided delirium from a host of superfans waiting outside the lobby, convinced their half-cut heroes have just wandered past them. While all purely humorous coincidences, there’s a lot else that’s happened in the half year since that first KEXP session to suggest that Grian’s statement in ‘Big’ might just come true.

Now the entire album is consistently [sung in] that accent.” One listen to new single ‘Too Real’ and it’s clear what he means; while the band’s early singles saw the singer expressing a certain twang, the new track is fronted by booming, unafraid vocals that leave no question as to where they came from, sounding all the more powerful for it. Almost acknowledging this in the track’s chorus, he repeats: “Is it too real for ya?”

Before meeting us to chat and get their swing on for our photoshoot, the band had spent the day at the world-famous Abbey Road Studios, mastering the album. Well, they got there eventually, after initially pitching up at Abbey Road DLR station in a desolate, industrial part of East London, the opposite side of the city from the hallowed walls of the Beatles’ playground. “That shows you how far along we are as a band,” guitarist Conor Curley remarks, half smirking, half grimacing.

Meeting and forming while all studying at the Irish capital’s Liberties College, the five-piece - completed by guitarist Carlos O’Connell, bassist Conor Deegan and drummer Tom Coll - all bonded over their love of poetry, something that still ties the music of Fontaines DC together.

A couple of years back, the band even released a poetry book called ‘Vroom’, a completely unedited stream of consciousness, backing human instinct and spontaneous feeling. It’s a philosophy that also flows through their music, and is - Grian tells us - “the spirit of the album”.

Signing the album - recorded with Dan Carey at his Streatham studio away just hours ago gives the band a chance to reflect on their first work, a full-length that looks set to cast their ambition in stone, a rock’n’roll album of brilliant scope, both literary and wonderfully to-the-point. “When we began this album, I think there were aspects of ourselves creatively that we were ignoring,” Grian reflects.

“I felt like I was, anyway. When we wrote the first tune, I was excited by the idea of singing in a Dublin accent, but I wasn’t quite realising that fully.

“The reason that we were all drawn to one another was because of our appreciation of poetry,” the frontman affirms. “It’s what I felt stood out about the rest of the lads.

I didn’t really know too much about poetry, I just liked the idea of being a whimsical, solitary figure who had loads of stuff on his mind but didn’t want to talk to anyone about it. I thought that was a cool, glamorous thing to be when I was a kid. When I met these lads and realised there was an actual depth and understanding of life to be got out of poetry, it made me

“It’s nice to see similar sentiments reflected across the seas.” Grian Chatten

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want to write music with them.”

intent than what I’ve seen in the last few years,” Grian states.

The music that’s come out of this mutual appreciation is exhilarating.

From ‘Too Real’ and ‘Big’ to the mission statement of ‘Chequeless Reckless’ - in which Grian directs scathing statements at sellouts, hypocrites and phonies in, as he calls it, “a series of statements in my pocket that made me feel a bit more secure about how I felt in the context of a group of people who were around me, drinking, smoking, taking drugs and talking rubbish” - to the blustery swing of ‘Liberty Belle’, it’s musically diverse but tied together by this unwavering sense of defiance and strength.

“I think there’s a need for creating art in Dublin right now,” bassist Conor hammers home. “We all grew up in a recession. I literally thought to myself in school: ‘I could either go for a safe job and have no job… because there are no jobs; I could try and get into a practical job like engineering and have no job… because there are no jobs; or I could go for the arts and have no job.' So here I am.”

It’s a socially progressive mission statement, one which is being reflected left, right and centre at the moment, and not just in Ireland.

Such words could also be used to describe the wave of bands breaking out of the Irish capital right now. In ‘Big’, Grian describes Dublin as “a pregnant city”, and it’s currently birthing all manner of new art, ideas and conversations.

Following the success of the thunderous debut album from Rough Trade-signed Girl Band, who share a Dublin practice space with Fontaines as they work on new material, a host of bands are emerging at once, giving the city a new vital voice. The band namecheck shoegazers Just Mustard, buzzy punks The Murder Capital, singer-songwriter Paddy Hanna and psych rockers MELTS as a few of their current favourites.

“They’re playing with what I perceive to be more vigour and

“There’s more desperation, and more courage [to music at the moment]. It’s nice to see similar sentiments reflected across the seas,” adds Grian, citing the success of Shame and IDLES in 2018 as landmark breakthroughs for a different kind of discourse.

“Maybe because of Brexit, people feel like their inherent rage is more validated because of the social climate in the UK, so therefore they go out and do that, and then people in Ireland feel validated by seeing that happening.” Whatever the reasons may be for the current surge in Dublin’s creative productivity, it’s provided us with a new wave of anger and defiance from a city with a lot to say, and much of that is being said by Fontaines DC. r r r

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King Princess Class of

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After the whirlwind success of viral first single ‘1950’, Mikaela Strauss is pushing forward and ready to become a pop star on her own terms.

Words: Rachel Finn.

2019

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hen King Princess’ ‘1950’ was released earlier this year, Mikaela Straus underwent a moment that most of us will never understand: the strange and disorientating experience of having thousands of people know who you are, almost overnight. The track, also the first release on Mark Ronson’s label Zelig Records, explores the idea of unrequited love through a queer lens. Just days after its release, it gained huge traction online after Harry Styles tweeted a lyric from the song to his 32 million followers.

Today, it stands at over 160 million streams on Spotify. Not bad for a first move.

“Wow, it’s been really intense,” Mikaela says breathlessly, taking stock of her year on the phone from her parents’ home in Brooklyn. “I’m super proud but it’s also been really challenging in various ways... But I feel like I’m ready.”

Not one to rest on her laurels, after ‘1950’ King Princess quickly came through with her self-produced debut EP, ‘Make My Bed’ - a fivetrack alt-pop release that alternates between punches of heartbreak and cool indifference. Then, she followed it up with recent single ‘Pussy Is God’, taking a more upbeat tact and celebrating queer love via religious imagery.

“Well, I don’t know if you can tell,” she begins with a laugh, “but I was the kind of kid that was like, ‘This

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is happening! I like girls!’ I think it’s super dangerous to think that because of being gay you have to think extra about the way you make your art, because it might fucking hurt someone’s feelings that you wanna sleep with girls. Like, no! Fuck you! It’s a personal choice [to use gendered pronouns] but I think if you feel like music sounds like somebody went in and sterilised it and was like, ‘Nope! Too gay!’, that sucks. It fucking sucks, and no one wants that.”

Like many people whose success comes seemingly out of nowhere though, King Princess had been grinding away, perfecting her craft for many years before anyone took proper notice. Now based in LA after attending uni there for a year and dropping out to concentrate on her blossoming music career, Mikaela grew up in her sound engineer dad’s home studio in Brooklyn, which has received visits from the likes of Arctic Monkeys, The National, Missy Elliot, Sia and more over the years. “For me that was the best thing that could have happened because it just gave me the room to play around with instruments and be in the studio,” she explains.

A childhood spent with musicians traipsing in and out of the house sparked an early interest for the singer and it wasn’t long before Mikaela was doing backing vocals on her dad’s projects and meeting with labels about launching her own music career. She even turned down her first record deal at the tender age of eleven, sensibly deciding to wait it out until she knew what she actually wanted to sound like and who she wanted to work with.

“I think if you’re a kid in a business setting or even just a setting with older people, you’re asked to form who you are before you even know

and it was definitely like a game of catch-up. I could communicate when I was young and I could talk a big game, but I think I grew into it with experience. I was like, ten years old in the studio, you know what I mean? But I’m still playing catch-up, honestly.”

H

aving been around the industry for so long, it’s easy to forget that Mikaela is still just 19. On one hand, she’s ecstatic and hopeful about her future career, filled with a confidence often reserved for those a few years older; on the other, her background means that she retains an air of cynicism when it comes to business.

“I think the biggest lesson to understand is that business is savage and [you need] to surround yourself with people that take your experience in the industry seriously,” she affirms. “So many bands would make amazing records in my dad’s studio that would never come out.

They wanted to put their fucking music out, but somebody said no. It’s just so stupid. Listen to yourself, listen to the people you love, don’t listen to people that think that you’re this XYZ [commodity] that’ll be profitable.”

A career as a musician may never be easy, but there’s never been a better time, Mikaela explains, to do what she’s doing as a queer woman.

“I think it’s happening in a really beautiful way. It’s the perfect time for us to galvanise and fucking make our art. We’ve got this motherfucker in office, everyone’s upset,” she enthuses, “so let’s fucking do this shit! This is the time! This is the renaissance! We need to fucking make our queer art, because we’ll piss the most people off right now and that’s good!”

All hail King Princess. r r r

“It’s the perfect time for queer artists to galvanise and fucking make our art.”

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Whenyoung Class of

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he idea of the ‘band as a gang’ might be a tale as old as time – or, at least, as old as The Beatles – but it’s one that still rings with a certain kind of romance. At their best, bands should be more than the sum of their parts, a hand held out offering a bridge to a more exciting universe, and no-one understands this idea better than Whenyoung. Only one EP (the just-released ‘Given Up’) in, they’ve already essentially staked claim to the colours red, yellow and blue as their own signature palette and started a book-swapping club with their fans, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

“Music isn’t our only love, we love books and fashion and being in a band is about tying all those elements together,” begins drummer Andrew Flood. “Especially nowadays, being in a band isn’t just about playing music.

You have to be more than that and we always wanted to be more than that.”

It began back in Ireland, in the small town of Limerick where indie aspirations weren’t exactly the done thing.

“You’d get chased down the street for wearing skinny jeans,” Andrew notes, before vocalist Aoife Power finishes: “So that’s how we first bonded, because we looked like we were into music.” Already realising the benefits of creating their own tribe, the pair, alongside guitarist Niall Burns (who’s

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From Limerick to London, this trio are building their own world of giddy escapism wherever they go. Dive in.

Words: Lisa Wright. Photos: Phil Smithies.

off getting a wisdom tooth extracted when we convene in London today), began discovering the component parts of their world together, poring over books and art and film and music, sharing all their findings and creating their own artistic language informed by the work of director Jean-Luc Godard and autobiographies of old punk legends, author James Joyce and Patti Smith, Blondie and more.

“Nowadays, being in a band isn’t just about playing music.” Andrew Flood Having upped sticks to London, the first incarnation of their results came in the form of the short-lived but buzzy Sisters. “With Sisters, we never decided what we wanted to be. Now we realise that a lot of bands actually think about what they’re doing before they do it...” jokes Andrew. And so, realising that what they wanted to do was something different and more pop-focused, the trio decided to draw a line in the sand and start afresh under a different name. Welcome, Whenyoung.

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anding with wistful, hyper-melodic debut single ‘Actor’ back in October 2017, all this prep – both conscious and less so – meant that the trio seemed to arrive pretty much fully-formed. Sonically and aesthet-

ically strong from the start, it saw them hit the ground running. “Superfood took us on tour when we were just about to release our first single, and that started everything,” recalls Andrew. “We hadn’t really played out of London before, then we did tours with Public Access TV, Husky Loops, Dream Wife, Declan McKenna... It felt like there was a ball rolling.” Then, with just two tracks to their name, they supported The Vaccines at the capital’s 10,000-capacity Alexandra Palace. “That was massive for us.

When we first moved to London we lived in Muswell Hill and we’d go up to Ally Pally and drink cans on the hill, so we couldn’t believe it when we played there,” grins Aoife.

More recently, meanwhile, Whenyoung headed off on their first proper headline tour – a milestone they topped off with the most unapologetically Irish knees-up that the London indie world’s seen in a good long while. “We’d been listening to ‘Riverdance’ in the van when we were driving and thought, this is such a great piece of music!” enthuses Aoife of their endearingly patriotic choice of walk-on tune. “We thought it would lighten it up for everyone before the show, and I think we kind of got away with it...”

But if the picture of a load of slightly sozzled gig-goers all attempting an Irish jig shows the more light-hearted side of the band, then there’s more to Whenyoung than just a bunch of twinkle-eyed tinkers, too. Whether discussing with legitimate anger the tragedy of the Grenfell fire on ‘The Others’ or musing on the destructive nature of “too many six in the mornings” on ‘Given Up’’s title track, the band might deal in sprightly, sing-along melody, but there’s a

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darkness lying just below the surface.

“There’s definitely a sadness to our songs, even though they might sound upbeat. I think it’s the Irish way,” says Aoife. “People often put the best face forward and cover up their emotions, but the whole thing of making music is about that cathartic process. It’s about the healing process and trying to reach out to people to connect.

That’s what we wanna do with our lyrics because that’s what we seek in other peoples’, that connection.” She pauses for a moment, and chuckles: “I was watching an interview with Björk and she said she only writes songs when she’s happy, whereas if I’m happy then I’ll probably just go to the pub...”

Now, the trio have forsaken the pub

for long enough to have a debut album well on its way to completion. All written, it’s currently in the process of being recorded with longtime collaborator Alan O’Connell and set for release in late spring.

Unsurprisingly for a band who’ve set about inviting people into their multi-faceted universe from the off, its aim is to help paint the picture of another side to it. “[It encompasses] all of our experiences of being in a big city, whether that’s nights out or being lonely and homesick, or feeling acceptance in a big place,” explains Aoife of the record’s heart. “In a way I feel more accepted here than I did at home; I felt like a bit of an outcast or a freak [there], but here you can get lost. I love the way Hemingway writes about a place; he captures time and

place so well and makes it feel so romantic. That’s what we’re trying to capture with London.”

Imbued with the infectious charm of a classic indie gang, but laced with the multi-faceted fruits of a lifetime spent soaking up all the culture they can get their hands on, Whenyoung are a band to invest in. “My sister said when she listened to ‘Given Up’ and [the line] “It’s your world and you create it”, that it gave her the extra fuel to quit her job,” enthuses Aoife. And you can understand why. Creating their own exciting, inviting world with every next step, this lot are proof that there’s nothing wrong with dreaming big. r r r

“There’s definitely a sadness to our songs, even though they might sound upbeat.” Aoife Power

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Bakar Class of

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Throwing genre out the window and documenting what it means to be a young Londoner in the modern world, Bakar is creating his own template, one move at a time. Words: Joe Goggins. Photos: Cian Moore.

mission statement that seemed to chronicle the process of Bakar carving out his own niche.

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ack in May, Bakar announced himself to the world with debut mixtape ‘Badkid’. It followed a steady drip-feed of singles that laid the groundwork for the Camden native, but if you’d missed them then his first collection would likely have proven a mind-bending listen.

Bakar evidently has no regard for the traditional trappings of genre, instead following the lead of so many of his millennial contemporaries - The 1975, King Krule, his friend Slowthai - in taking a magpie-like approach to his sound. If it’s shiny, he’ll swoop, and accordingly, ‘Badkid’ plays like a glorious mish-mash of all of his myriad of influences.

As a teenager, the singer loved Foals, James Blake and Bloc Party; indeed, his vocals frequently recall a young Kele Okereke. At the same time, he had a solid grounding in hip hop and noughties R&B, from the sleek production of Madlib and The Neptunes, to the pop crossover of Aaliyah and the like. His first forays into making his own music, which still date back to barely three years ago, saw him making loops out of Bombay Bicycle Club and King Krule tracks, chopping them up and uploading them anonymously to Soundcloud.

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Ever since, he’s been immersed in a world that he appears to have almost stumbled into by accident; when we speak to discuss his plans for 2019, he’s in New York working on his next project - even if he isn’t entirely sure what that is yet. “All I was trying to do with ‘Badkid’ was to create a sort of scrapbook of sound,” he explains.

“I could have carried on going down the singles route and put out a bunch more songs one by one, and I’m sure they would have carried on doing well, but I felt like I needed to let people know that I can create a solid body of work before I could move forward. I feel like I’ll always be an album artist, so I needed to come out with one."

In creating such a diverse set of songs, Bakar has already succeeded in filling a gap that seemed glaring to him growing up. Then, he explains, there were no real role models, at least in terms of solo artists, when it came to the sheer breadth of ideas he was interested in incorporating into his own music. “I wish I could say there were,” he reflects, “but when I think about it, the only people I could maybe look towards were Gorillaz. That was the one group I could identify with, even before making ‘Badkid’. I loved the way those guys had those massive singles that really connected, but they were all taken from these hugely complex concept albums. I would maybe mention Red Hot Chili Peppers as well, because they were a rock band who were rapping the whole time as far as I was concerned.

But apart from Gorillaz and Damon

Albarn, it felt like there was nothing like that directly in front of me.”

Even if Bakar was never directly motivated by wanting to provide an example to a new generation of young musicians where there weren’t many for him, he is driven by a desire to present a genuinely new take on picking and choosing your influences. “I always said I wanted to act as an alternative to a bunch of different things, so if I can spark a kid’s imagination into thinking that mindset is an option, then great,” he says. “These days, though, I think it’s very rare that the casual fan of music gives a fuck about things like genre anyway. Maybe critics still do, and maybe journalists still do, but I think kids coming up now will just make what they want to make. If I can help push things forward, then that’s amazing.”

His creative process sounds every bit as fluid as you’d imagine; with the exception of “sometimes getting drunk and wanting to make something really rowdy,” he seldom thinks through his ideas before he sits down to write, instead letting all of them spill out and seeing what sticks. It’s less about wanting to write a certain type of song and more to do with playing off of whatever mood he finds himself in that day: “These things just happen, and a lot of the time, it really is magic.”

The construction of his lyrical ideas works similarly. Although everything is coloured by his own experiences, he covers an awful lot of ground on ‘Badkid’, and where he recorded the tracks in a tiny London studio, the city hangs heavy over the record.

“I always knew which topics I was

"I've put my flag in the sand now.

People know who I am, and what I'm about."

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going to talk about,” the singer recalls. “[But] beyond that, I just try to get out of the way of the song, because they often write themselves.”

Bakar’s debut is unquestionably a political mixtape, running the gamut from the politics of the streets (see the chaotic ‘Badlands’) to referencing his mental health (‘Unhealthy’) to the struggle to afford rent in his hometown. There’s an instantly memorable line on opener ‘One Way’: “You know,” he begins to explain, “when I said on that song, ‘If the government calls, put my dick in their mouth / ‘Cause I’m back at my Mum's, I can't even move out,’ that’s just me telling the truth. I didn’t even think it was particularly political at the time - it’s only when I look back on it that I see that side of it.

he wants from 2019, both in terms of his own music and that of his contemporaries, the word ‘unconventional’ crops up continually. He’s already put out a single since ‘Badkid’ - the wild, noisy punk of ‘Dracula’, which he describes as “an act of vandalism against this weird streaming matrix I’ve found myself in.” But as for a full-length, he’s yet to make up his mind. “My plans are open-ended,

and so they should be in this era,” he nods. “I’m here in New York chipping away at a body of work, and I want to hopefully put an album out in 2019, depending on whether I can get shit done. Will there be music in between? One hundred million percent. I’m going to continue to do my own thing. It’s working so far.”

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“I’ve never been a politician, and I never will be,” he continues. “Without wanting to sound cliched, I really am just talking about what’s going on around me, and a lot of people my age do feel as if the government’s hung them out to dry. I definitely feel a responsibility to speak my mind everybody should.”

As Bakar looks ahead to what

“A lot of people my age do feel as if the government’s hung them out to dry.”

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Easy Life Class of

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t probably doesn’t come as too much of a surprise that a band calling themselves Easy Life don’t want to take themselves too seriously. Sitting in a central London pub, the Leicesterbased five-piece - who formed on something of a whim in late 2017 after spending the few years before scattered around various other bands in the city - are buzzing with an excitable energy, finishing each other’s sentences and veering off topic with anecdotes at every opportunity.

Fresh from releasing mixtape ‘Creature Habits’, and a spattering of standalone tracks, they’ve since spent time refining their live show via a series of festival dates and their first sold-out headline tour, proving they’ve had a pretty incredible first year. Top of the agenda today though: plants?

“We’re big plant lovers. In fact, Sam [Hewitt, bassist / saxophonist] is head of horticulture here at Easy Life,” drummer Olly Cassidy affirms.

“I overwatered a plant once and he told me off.” “When we play shows and stuff we try and bring some good plants,” adds frontman Murray Matravers. “Then it feels like we’re just playing in the living room, because it feels pretty sterile if you’re just locked in a room with no greenery for hours at a time.”

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Mixing a genre-spanning sound with a laid-back charm, this Leicester gang make music suggesting that the true way to happiness is to just go with the flow. Words: Rachel Finn. Photos: Jenn Five.

All of this, it turns out, is just a roundabout route to discussing the band’s recent appearance on Later… with Jools Holland, where - surrounded by some of their favourite leafy friends for company - the band performed single ‘Nightmares’.

“It was amazing,” says Murray. “It was one of the things that we had always wanted to achieve, since we first started playing music together so it’s massive.” And while their performance stands as one ticked off the ol’ bucket list, much like any band left to the mercy of YouTube commentators, it also introduced them to a handful of their critics. “[Someone was like] ‘tell Eminem he wants his look back!’” he continues, laughing.

“We got called ‘Arctic Monkeys with a cold’. Our guitarist got called a ‘wet wipe!’”

“We’ve started getting some messages from people now saying ‘oh, your music has gotten me through some shit’,” adds Sam. “Or we get comments saying it’s absolutely shit!” Olly finishes, before the band descend into fits of laughter. As the saying goes, haters gonna hate, but you’d be hard pressed to find a member of Easy Life - completed by guitarist Lewis Berry and keysman Jordan Birtles - who seems to care too much.

What they are a little more concerned about, however, is talk of their previous careers. Though the group had lots of “really awful part-time work” before Easy Life came to fruition, they, weren’t actually potato farmers before joining the world of music,

despite rumours to the contrary.

“That’s been misquoted so many times!” Murray says, laughing.

“There’s this Spanish write-up that was like, ‘oh he’s grafted his whole life on a potato and chicken farm’ as though I’d had an impoverished upbringing and never seen a city in my life and never went to school…

But no, my mum and dad are still farming to this day, which is nice. I do have to help out though.” How so, we ask?

“We got called ‘Arctic Monkeys with a cold’.” Murray Matravers “Well, we were literally making an intro track for the tour recently and then my was mum was ringing me up like ‘oh, we gotta get the cows in!’ So I stopped the traffic, herded about eighty cows into the shed for

the winter and there they are. They’re going to be there until spring.”

slacker rock attitude, their music sounds like what it feels like to just sit back and go with the flow.

Based out of a creative hub near Leicester’s Narborough Road - known for being the ‘most diverse’ street in England - the band estimate that they rehearse in a space that has “50% of the city’s music scene in one building”. “There’s a lot of roots and culture and sound system vibes, but there’s not much going on in pop world,” Olly explains.

“[We’re] a reflection on how life can be pretty shit but you need to find all the pleasure you can in it,” Sam explains of the band’s ethos. “When you can enjoy yourself, do it! And we’re here for you, through the good and the bad. We wanna make it easy.” “That sounds like a helpline!” Murray interjects, before they all roar with laughter again.

But being surrounded by a variety of musical styles has served the band well. Easy Life aren’t keen to single out any fixed influences (“although Beyoncé is a massive one,” Sam says, smirking), but this lack of adhering to any set of genre rules is what they do best. Coating bittersweet lyrics dissecting everyday life struggles with a hip-hop-meets-indie veneer, then mixing it in with a

Easy Life aren’t aiming to be political or philosophical. It doesn’t even really seem like they have a particular lofty ambition for the band, either. They’re just a group of mates, making music out of whatever excites them and looking for the good vibes wherever they go. Sounds like a nice life to us. r r r

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Yowl Spinning surreal, twisted tales with a sneakily melodic centre, Yowl are breaking out of their South London beginnings into a realm that’s entirely their own. Words: Lisa Wright. Photo: Jenn Five.

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lowly bubbling out of South London with an early EP (2016’s ‘Before The Sleep Sets In’) that set them up as slightly-too-complicated a proposition to truly be lumped in with their angry young male peers, Yowl have spent the last 18 months playing the long game. Theirs may be a sound imbued with a strain of antagonistic aggression, but it’s also one riddled with melody and hooks and shot through with singer Gabriel Byrde’s weird, warped, stream of consciousness tales. “I think we always tried to cautiously remove ourselves from being lumped in with [that scene],” the singer muses now, sat outside London venue The Lexington, where they’re about to play a sold-out show. “And we’re still angry, but maybe we just do it more subtly. We’ve sunk back into the armchair of bitterness instead.” “Like a dad who doesn’t enjoy Christmas anymore,” notes guitarist Mike Rudge.

Over the last year, there’s been a few changes in Yowl HQ. Mike moved down from Cardiff to fully commit to the band, while wildcard original bassist Jake Manley left to be replaced by former Vant man Billy Morris. These factors, combined with a self-confessed semi-neurotic level of attention to detail (“I guess it’s just extreme self-judgement...” Gabriel says) have meant that the band – completed by guitarist Ivor Manley and drummer Tom Flynn - have

only released sporadically across 2018. Said releases, however, have also been some of the most complex, intriguing tracks to come out of London guitar world for a while - ones full of secret Easter eggs at every turn.

Take recent single ‘John The Collector’: a wonky howler with a fizzing riff, shot through with lyrics about slicing up your mates. “[Your lyrics] are always these horror stories, but taken to the extreme example,” says Ivor to his bandmate. “So in ‘John...’, if you’re writing about men not being able to talk about their feelings, then it gets to the level where someone is slicing off another man’s face so he can talk to the inanimate object.” “Maybe that’s just a way for me to try and make it interesting for myself, by going into this Edgar Allen Poe shit,” considers Gabriel.

Now, the band are heading towards an EP, which they’re set to lay down in January. After a period of readjustment and finding their groove again, Yowl seem ready to harness all the preparation and take it to the next step. “People tell you not to eat your lunch at the desk, go for a walk, and [writing music] is like that, but extrapolated,” jokes Ivor.

“We went for a long walk, people were starting to worry, my mum was calling...” “But now they’re back from their lunch break,” laughs Gabriel. “Lunch break is over!” r r r

THREE of a KIND r Class of

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BLACK COFFEE

16 FEB / O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON / LONDON

9PM - 4AM / 18+ / METROPOLISMUSIC.COM ESNS: EU

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Lady Bird Class of

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Battling psychological trauma and personal demons, this Kent trio create a safe space by putting their emotions to the fore. Words: Will Richards. Photos: Jenn Five.

It introduced a band - completed by guitarist Alex Deadman - that are openly talking about their struggles in order to try and encourage a safe space where others can follow suit.

That angle of attack hits hardest on new song ‘Reprisal’.

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cross 2018, we’ve seen a host of bands practising a new kind of discourse. In our August cover feature, IDLES and Slaves spoke candidly about mental health struggles and personal trauma, and how it’s only through talking about these things - and creating an environment in which people can feel comfortable doing that - that progress will be made, especially for young men. Lady Bird, Kent punk trio and first signings to Slaves’ recent Girl Fight Records label, know the value of this more than most.

“When the band was put together, I wasn’t in a very good place,” drummer Joe Walker opens up. “And being with these boys got me into a good place. We’ve all got experience of what it’s like to be a young man at the moment, finding life very hard, and we have shared experience of how to make it through that. I had to start treating my life a bit more preciously, and I learnt to do that with the support of these boys. We spend so much time talking about this stuff that it quite naturally manifests in what we’re doing [as a band].”

Debut EP ‘Social Potions’ is a potent thrash of barely contained punk, led by vocalist Sam Cox’s half-sung-halfrapped vocal, which takes as much inspiration from The Streets as it does from more ‘traditional’ punks.

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18 months ago, Sam underwent an unsuccessful operation on his damaged vocal cords, which left him unable to talk. In the year between the first operation and a second, medically successful one, he communicated via typing or scribbling on a notepad. During that period, however, the injury on his vocal cords had become entwined with a deeper mental issue and, despite the ‘success’ of operation two, he remained unable to speak - psychologically if not physically. “There’s a relationship that you can develop with an injury like that,” he explains today. “So after the next operation, which fixed the issue at hand, I still wasn’t able to break out of that thought pattern.” It all came to a head on a family holiday.

“My wife basically came to me and said, ‘Fucking speak. You’re going to speak. Please, do it.’ And so I did.

I literally got down to one minute of speaking an hour. That’s what I could do before the pain really kicked in.”

Now, incredibly, Sam is pretty much completely recovered, but it was with the writing and recording of ‘Reprisal’ that the frustration and anguish of the last year all spilled out. “There was this crowning moment,” Joe remembers. “[Sam] was able to speak and sing, but everything that had been caught in his head and in his life that he’d been unable to communicate for all those months came pouring out, and he was struggling to put it simply.

So we recorded the song, and once the track was laid down, Sam went back in to ad-lib and improvise a vocal line. In a vulnerable place, Sam just goes into the room and delivers

these lines which were everything he needed to hear. It felt like something from deeper within you was speaking to the ‘you’ that was struggling on the surface,” he theorises, nodding at his bandmate. One listen to the song confirms this: “Internal shift creates external shift,” Sam spits over dissonant guitars, before demanding better of himself on a roared, shiver-inducing line: “You need to move forwards”.

With his voice returned and a new single that casts the band’s ambition in stone, the frontman is back to his intoxicating former self, and - as with his bandmates - carries his troubles as a weapon with which to demand better. Together, Lady Bird work towards making music that can encourage others to break out of their own negative cycles of silence.

“It shows what an impact confidence and your belief system will have on your life,” Joe reflects, before turning to Sam. “It determines everything.

The [scientific] knowledge wasn’t enough to fix you. It was the decision you made - that you were going to talk again - that was able to overturn the situation that you’d found yourself in.”

“It’s trying to create an environment in which it’s okay for people to be able to talk about their emotions,” Alex summarises of the band’s overarching mission statement. “Sam’s words at the end of [‘Reprisal’] are that encouragement. I like to think our band give people that space. We talk about what we’re going through, and we’ve all got our own stuff that we find really difficult to deal with, and as I’ve got older I’ve realised that every single person I’ve ever met has something that haunts them or challenges them like that. It’s just finding the right space to be allowed to work through it, and I hope we can encourage that.” r r r

“I had to start treating my life a bit more preciously, and I learnt to do that with the support of these boys.� - Joe Walker

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Anteros Class of

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ake one look at Anteros' video for recent single 'Call Your Mother' and you’ll find some immediate parity with the band’s real-life journey so far. Why? Because over the last few years, this lot have proven themselves to possess a kind of tenacious determination that shows they’re nothing if not fighters.

The first track to be taken from forthcoming debut ‘When We Land’, the clip comes set against the backdrop of a surreal, post-apocalyptic desert, and sees frontwoman Laura Hayden wake up in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by smashed mirror pieces with no real clue of where she is or how she even got there. And though it's a Hollywood-esque video that presents the quartet in a slick and grandiose light - Laura running through the Moroccan landscape, attempting to find a way back to her bandmates by hiking across sand dunes and scaling rock faces - it also comes packed with a sense of uneasiness. Scrutinised in the scorching heat of a desert, the band are given no choice but to fight their way out of the unknown. It's a feeling they've had firsthand experience of more recently.

“I think it is a very interesting time to

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Gearing up to release their debut album early next year, this London leftfield pop quartet are using their determination and drive to push the boundaries. Words: Sarah Jamieson. Photos: Emma Swann.

be putting music out, with everything that's going on in the world,” begins Laura as the band huddle in the downstairs of a central London bar in late November, “[so] we've tried to be as fearless as possible with this album. I think that reflects the times we're living in. Everyone is so scared that they're not really looking at the news, so not only are we living in fear, but we're also burying our heads into the sand. I do feel like we're going to have to come out of that [mentality] soon, and that's what we've tried to do.”

And though the intense memory of their video shoot back in July is still lodged in their minds - “It was like, 40 degree heat!” - it's now that winter's drawing in that they're looking ahead to the full album's release in the new year, and this next, bold challenge.

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really well, but I feel like it was when I hit 20 that my whole world was completely flipped.” She claps her hands succinctly. “[I had] those two years that I had been roaming around thinking that I knew everything about everything, and then realised, 'Oh wait. There's no right or wrong anymore.'”

It's this spirit of delving into the unknown that the band explore within the album's first singles. A trilogy of sorts, 'Call Your Mother', 'Ordinary Girl' and 'Fool Moon' see the band approaching things with a different perspective: where previously, their tracks were full-throttle nuggets, these new songs feel more quietly assured, but have lost none of their potency. From the Debbie Harryesque swagger of the first single to the reflective shimmer of 'Ordinary Girl', they're breaking the mould.

fter first making their mark with the sugary indie-pop of 2016's 'Breakfast' and, later, the likes of 'Drunk' and 'Bonnie', Anteros’ first musical steps came packed with high octane hooks and a zealous energy. For debut 'When We Land', though, they're entering new territory. “I think we're not pretending to know everything,” Laura readily admits.

Tackling their own recent journey of rediscovery, they "just wanted to put down our experiences of our 20s and what we've lived so far, and how certain things have affected us.

Recording the album at their label’s in-house Somerset studio The Distillery earlier this year, Anteros recruited production whizz Charlie Andrew - who's previously worked with alt-J, Marika Hackman, and also gave them a hand with their 'Drunk' EP - to push them even further. “It was just really easy,” confirms guitarist Jackson Couzens, of working with Charlie. “You expect recording a whole album to be quite daunting, and while it was a lot of work, he helped smooth it all out and knew how to get past any problems.”

“I feel like when you turn 18, you think you're such an adult and that you know so much about everything,” she explains, touching upon the feeling of invincibility that so often comes at that age. “Then you have a couple of years where that works

“He's also really involved in everything,” adds bassist Joshua Rumble. “He sews everything together in such an incredible way, getting us to try this and that, bouncing stuff off us. He's got this way of figuring out music, and what we were wanting

Laura Hayden: pioneer of the Roller Disco-cum-Karaoke experience

“We've tried to be as fearless as possible with this album.”

- Laura Hayden

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to achieve.” Charlie also, the band explain, encouraged them to track most of the songs live, aiming to reflect the energy of their on-stage performances, while enhancing and distilling their sound even more. “It felt, in parts, like we were playing a gig,” Josh laughs. “[We were] coming out of tracking songs for the album and we were sweating! It was really fun.”

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ore than anything however, and much like the plot of their recent videos, the band have been determined to use their debut to explore new realms and solidify their point of view. While their first full-length may take on a range of socially conscious topics – from our excessive usage of single-use plastics, to the lack of development for contraceptives, via attempting to carve out your own identity as a young person - its aim is more to document the nature of their and our current lives and experiences. “We didn't want to get political with the album, but we want to bring awareness,” says Laura. “On a personal level, I don't have a political party that I'm inclined to. I want a change and in order for that to happen, we need people to wake up and stop being scared because that's not going to get us anywhere now. We want this album to empower people.

“We've tried to make an album that we're all proud of, and not what we're seeing everyone else doing.

We wanted to make something that sounds like us, for good or bad.” r r r

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The Go! Team

Menace Beach

“A psychedelic tonic… they’re coming back around hard.” eeee

“an intoxicating ride, with the band pushing the limits of their last LP to its extremes with stunning results”

Semicircle

The Observer

Black Rainbow Sound

DIY

Field Music

Nadine

‘No other existing British group gets near their level of creativity’ eeee

“An enchanting debut… reveals itself slowly with each listen.” eeee

Open Here

oh my

UNCUT

MOJO / Album of the Month

Haley

Pleasureland “moments of joy to keep you listening, and hopeful.”

Odetta Hartman

Old Rockhounds Never Die

The Line of Best Fit

“mixes folk, bluegrass, and Americana with experimental or warped psychedelia” Stereogum

SLUG

HiggledyPiggledy “puts the odd into prog odyssey with style” eeee MOJO

Coming in 2019, look out for albums from You Tell Me, Malihini, Stats and more. memphis-industries.com 61

Westerman Class of

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Weaving soft, warm electronics into folk songs about self-acceptance, Will Westerman is a songwriter whose music could help you more than you think. Words: Will Richards. Photos: Jenn Five.

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he rise of Will Westerman has been slow, steady and considered. Starting out writing folk songs inspired by the likes of Nick Drake and Neil Young from his West London bedroom, and releasing via prolific label Blue Flowers (also home to the silky, jazz-flecked likes of Nilüfer Yanya and Puma Blue), Westerman’s music has always carried an air of comfort about it.

The dawn of 2018 marked a change with the release of simple but stunning single ‘Confirmation’. Followed by the equally impressive ‘Edison’

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and ’Easy Money’, the tracks saw Westerman's folk origins melted together with fluid, warm electronic elements - largely due to his work with producer Bullion. With it, he marked himself out as a singer-songwriter that sits left-of-centre, and turned a well-travelled rulebook into something fresh and unique.

All this ambition is cast in stone on the singer’s ‘Ark’ EP. First single ‘Albatross’ is an oasis of calm. “Take me somewhere new, maybe a lake nearby some view / Wouldn’t that be nice?” he sings in a honeyed vocal, escaping to an easier, carefree place.

It’s something hammered home on ‘Outside Sublime’, an anthem of support for a struggling friend. “Be what you want, I’ll always be your champion,” he repeats, staunchly standing up in tough times.

“I think my favourite kind of music is music that deals with sad, difficult things in a joyful way,” says Will. “I hope that my better music can do that for people. [‘Outside Sublime’] in particular, what it's talking about is not a good thing, but I wanted to write it in an affirming way as opposed to a 'this is a bit shit' way. I just wanted to send out a positive message in my own way.”

It’s also a song that, though written for someone else, has been used by Westerman himself to reconsider and reevaluate his own circumstances. “It's kinda narcissistic to listen to your own music to gee yourself up, but it's the kind of sentiment that I'd like to be able to apply to myself,” he says. “I think it's just a human thing. I think a lot of it is trying to be more compassionate with yourself: if you do go wrong, and go against what you think is the right thing to do - which a lot of people do sometimes - the best way to deal with it is to not beat yourself up about doing that, because then it just becomes a spiral. My favourite songs are triumphant reactions to difficult things. Brian Wilson is the king of that, and Arthur Russell is really good at that. I guess it's contrasts, different shades, light and dark - this feeling of reassurance. Not a reassurance by ignoring that these things are going on, but just having someone say 'It's OK'.”

“You can make this time capsule of this feeling, and that's bulletproof in a way.”

“With music, you're trying to capture an emotional response,” he affirms. “When I released ‘Outside Sublime’, maybe I wasn't feeling [how I felt when I wrote it] anymore, but when I wrote the song, I did feel that way, and that's what's quite nice - you can make this time capsule of this feeling, and that's bulletproof in a way. Feelings come and go, but hopefully you can capture the essence of the positive one while it lasts.” r r r

YOUTH TEAM Alongside our 13 featured artists, there are plenty more young, fresh talents bubbling under the surface, set to make their mark in 2019. Here are some of them.

Squid

Brighton five-piece channelling the scrappiness of early Foals and the thudding, club-bound bluster of LCD Soundsystem.

The Murder Capital Furious, bellowing Dublin punks who’d definitely beat you in a staring contest.

Nancy

Psychedelic, indie-pop, UMOchannelling weirdness - nothing’s off the table for this Brighton newcomer.

Jockstrap

London duo taking a background in regal string arrangements creating truly weird, enticing pop music.

Black Midi

Buzzier-than-thou Londoners who thrive on intensity via non-stop thrashes of math and noise.

Just hangin’.

Octavian

The UK’s next big rap star, weaving genres together seamlessly on new ‘Spaceman’ mixtape.

No Rome

This Dirty Hit signed youngster from Manila has all the hallmarks of a world-beating popstar with an edge.

Fur

Nostalgia-heavy, sepia-tinged romps from a Beatles influenced Brighton quartet.

Flohio

Spitting lightning fast raps over bubbling, hyper-modern production, new EP ‘Wild Yout’ marks the Bermondsey rapper out as a real talent.

Another Sky

Class of

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Taking influence from Radiohead and Arcade Fire, this London quartet’s sky-reaching, politically angry rock could see them become critical darlings.

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THE 1975

A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships (Dirty Hit / Polydor)

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t was with The 1975’s second album, 2016’s ‘i like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it’, that Matty Healy and co pushed their band from a massively popular yet largely baselevel operation into genuinely important statement purveyors, painting on a manic, scattered, genrespanning canvas.

The five songs released in advance of the album hold it together beautifully. ‘Give Yourself A Try’ circles around a pop-punk guitar riff while ‘Love It If We Made It’ is the cacophonous centrepiece, Matty barking scattered political statements over sharp, harsh production that explodes into a funky strut for its chorus, which, repeating the track’s title, claws some hope from the mire.

The ‘Music For Cars’ era has since been revealed to include not one album, but two. The first of these is ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’. Far from an easily digestible first chunk, it isn’t simple, or straightforward, and its points aren’t particularly easy to hear. But that’s not how it feels to be a young person in 2018, and on ‘A Brief Inquiry…’, The 1975 transmit how it feels immaculately.

‘TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME’ is a welcome respite in the form of three-minutes of pop heaven, while ‘Sincerity Is Scary’ bemoans a culture that encourages people to mask their pain over fluttering jazz, and ‘It’s Not Living (If It’s Not With You)’ is a heart-thumping pop epic that confronts Matty’s heroin addiction head-on. They provide the anchor of an album that far from ignores the problems facing young people face-on, but plays out as a soundtrack and

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1 THE 1975 // 2 GIVE YOURSELF A TRY // 3 TOOTIMETOOTIMETOOTIME // 4 HOW TO DRAW / PETRICHOR // 5 LOVE IT IF WE MADE IT // 6 BE MY MISTAKE // 7 SINCERITY IS SCARY // 8 I LIKE AMERICA & AMERICA LIKES ME // 9 THE MAN WHO MARRIED A ROBOT / LOVE THEME // 10 INSIDE YOUR MIND // 11 IT’S NOT LIVING (IF IT’S NOT WITH YOU) // 12 SURROUNDED BY HEADS AND BODIES // 13 MINE // 14 I COULDN’T BE MORE IN LOVE //15 I ALWAYS WANNA DIE (SOMETIMES)

guide through the often disorientating, anxiety-inducing path.

Around these five tracks - singles, in some sense of the word - their musical experimentation continues in earnest. ‘How To Draw / Petrichor’ is a sparkling two-part epic, while ‘Be My Mistake’ concerns unfaithfulness while on tour, a poignant portrait of regret over soft acoustic guitar. ‘Inside Your Mind’, meanwhile, is a musically sparse, emotional ballad that recalls the icy, booming soundscapes of Majical Cloudz, while ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’ also uses autotune to a lyric-masking extreme.

This idea is hammered home on the Siri-narrated ‘The Man Who Married A Robot’, which tells the story of a man who falls in love with the internet. In a debate of two

sides - angry youngsters laughing at those who bemoan technology as the devil, and Banksy-like figures making faux-deep statements about the government controlling us through our Instagram accounts - The 1975 sit somewhere in the middle on ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’, trying to embrace the world we all find ourselves in, while not shying away from its pitfalls and anxieties.

As the album closes with the cacophonous, widescreen outcry of ‘I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)’, the band put their flag in the ground as the most intriguing musical voice we have, creating a bombastic, immaculately put together portrait of modern life. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘I Like America & America Likes Me’, ‘I Always Wanna Die (Sometimes)’

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eeeee FIDLAR

Almost Free (Mom + Pop)

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While FIDLAR’s second album - 2015’s ‘Too’ - saw the band more confident than ever, it felt like the formula that they’d perfected over their two studio albums would have to be tweaked on effort three to keep them moving forwards. One listen to ‘Almost Free’ and it’s clear that said tweaks actually turned into throwing their sound into a dusty old jukebox, melting it together with the great and good of the last five decades, and emerging with something genuinely special.

If written down, the influences and mass of sounds that make up ‘Almost Free’ would seem like a mess - thunderous opening track ‘Get Off My Rock’, for example, sounds like the Beastie Boys with added, um, slide guitar - but it’s the enthusiasm and boundless energy that FIDLAR present these genre-bending behemoths with that makes them work, and work wonderfully.

Highlight ‘By Myself’ sings of relapsing after getting sober, but is set over a joyous ska-tinged musical romp - and, indeed, musical and lyrical contradictions are all over ‘Almost Free’. But the record gains its power from dancing through the hard times with a massive grin on its face. The musical experimentation of the record continues throughout - ‘Scam Likely’ has the Clash’s signature skip all over it, while ‘Nuke’ is a biblical 40-second hardcore hammerblow and ‘Flake’ sits on the grubbier, riffworshipping end of the rock spectrum.

The album closes with crunchy, Weezer-esque anthem ‘Good Times Are Over’, and if its title proves to be true, FIDLAR have given us one hell of a final party. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘By Myself’, ‘Get Off My Rock’

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eee THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE QUEEN Merrie Land (Studio 13)

....................................................

When The Good, The Bad and The Queen released their self-titled debut back in 2007, it was full of a kind of dark, Dickensian charm, documenting London with one foot in the past and one in an altogether more sinister present. And rather than the start of a new band proper, it felt like a moment in time with no real requirement for a follow-up.

Now, more than a decade later, the quartet return with 'Merrie Land'. Extending their eye from London out to Brexit Britain as a whole, there's little question as to why they've chosen now to make their next move. The way they tackle it, however, often feels too foggy and nostalgic for a reality that's very dark and very present. Damon Albarn's stream-of-consciousness vocals slide over sad, haunted fairground backing – snippets of social commentary (“Are we green, are we pleasant? / We are not either of those, Father,” goes the title track) occasionally poking out of the amble. There are moments of beauty (the elegiac 'Lady Boston' in particular), but the overall effect is of the singer looking out of a rainy window and scrawling his findings into a diary: an interesting exercise but one lacking some of the punch the weighty topic demands. (Lisa Wright) LISTEN: 'Lady Boston'

PHOTO: POONEH GHANA

eeeee SUNFLOWER BEAN King of the Dudes (Lucky Number)

...........................................................................

Sunflower Bean’s second album ‘Twentytwo In Blue’ saw the New York trio take promising debut album ‘Human Ceremony’ and add buckets of riffs and a new-found glitz and glam. All of this is pushed to its limit on this surprise EP. “I know what I want and I know how to get it / I won’t let you stand in my way,” Julia Cumming growls seconds into the opening title track, following a flouncy, Thin Lizzy-esque guitar lick from Nick Kivlen, hammering home this intention. ‘Come For Me' is a huge, unashamedly in-your-face radiofriendly thrash, and by the time the taut, intoxicating Ramones-like helter-skelter of ‘The Big One’ closes the EP, Sunflower Bean have put their stamp down as a trio of future superstars.

Over four songs and just twelve minutes, 'King of the Dudes' packs enough punch to inspire air guitar, desk drumming, shower singing and wanting to start a band just so you can try and shred like these three. Truly fantastic. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘King of the Dudes’

“Welcome to our home. Tea? Coffee?”

Q&A: Sunflower Bean We caught up with vocalist and bassist Julia Cumming to talk all about ‘King of the Dudes’, the importance of trusting impulses, and staying true to yourself and your vision. Interview: Will Richards.

It feels like you’re constantly on tour, how did you manage to find the time to work on the EP? It’s a bit psycho, isn’t it? It’s like…’Shouldn’t y’all have taken a nap?!’ With ‘Twentytwo in Blue’, we spent a really long time on it and there were all these thoughts we had about what we really wanted to do artistically.

We spent a really long time on it, which is fine, as one should do with anything they really love and care about, but I felt like we wanted to bring rock into that space, where not everything has to be that giant lead-up to this big thing. Ariana Grande just dropped ‘thank u, next’ and it’s a smash! That’s about life, and real life that’s happening right now.

Was it a case of continuing the momentum that record gave you?

You can take ‘Fear City’, which I feel like is a song about New York, which has this huge place in my heart, and is also about my own very personal experience about loving an addict. That’s not territory that I’d ever directly addressed. I knew what it was going to be about, and we just turned the mic on and there it was. I think that is one of the really defining things of the EP - it’s like carving a sculpture with a knife. Every stroke you make is definite and you have to trust the place that it’s coming from.

Are you already finding yourselves working on what comes next?

There’s a fine line between making something that can really wrap up, and giving too much. We all wanted to keep the EP short. It’s 12 minutes long - like The Ramones or something! It’s a lot and it’s a taste. I think some of the things that are hallmarks for us are able to really shine through, which is the goal of making music that isn’t defined by a trend or a time, but is defined by its identity and authenticity. I know that whatever we make in the future, whether it’s deeply considered or it’s made in New York, or LA, or Tokyo, I feel confident that it will still feel that way.

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eee RAT BOY

eeee MAGGIE ROGERS

(Parlophone / Hellcat)

(Polydor)

Internationally Unknown ................................

In his continuing search for the sweet spot between hip hop and punk, Rat Boy has been taken under the wing of ska-punk veteran Tim Armstrong, and as a result, he’s never been so sonically ambitious. Ska sensibilities are ever-present, worn more brazenly on his sleeve than previously. ‘MY NAME IS RAT BOY’ carries the baton, shifting gears into bombastic reggae, weighted with menacing guitar work. It would come as no surprise that ‘INTERNATIONALLY UNKNOWN’ was recorded in LA; as much as Jordan Cardy’s sound is inherently British, the American style is tightly interwoven into every track.

‘I WANNA SKATE’ is a riotous punk chanter, while ‘SO WHAT’ sees him dust off his go-to state-of-the-nation weariness in its lyrics, but they seem like hollow efforts when stood next to his more experimental tracks. Rat Boy works best on this record not giving the fans what they think they want - but something new. (Sophie Walker) LISTEN: ‘CHIP ON MY SHOULDER’

Heard it in a Past Life

ALBUMS

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It's fitting that Maggie Rogers’ 2016 breakthrough ‘Alaska’ finds a home on her full-length debut. Two years since it broke her with that nowinfamous Pharrell praise, it now serves to show the massive strides she’s made in honing her sound, paling in comparison to newer material, not least the pop mastery of sun-kissed opener ‘Give A Little’. But it’s not all pop powerhouses here: ‘Past Life’ strips it all back for a disarmingly raw vocal performance. Under the rhythmic drum pattern and minimalist melody of ‘Retrograde’ lies a visceral honesty that only few can pull off, while ‘Give A Little’ carries an unparalleled fire. The record finds a way of making her atypical pop sit comfortably in the mainstream, offering something genuinely new.

Coming a long way since sitting adjacent to Pharrell in the studio at NYU, Maggie Rogers has certainly found her own voice. (Ben Tipple) LISTEN: ‘Give A Little’

eeee SHARON VAN ETTEN

Remind Me Tomorrow (Jagjaguwar)

................................

On ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’ what we don’t get is a return to the stately minimalism of 2014’s ‘Are We There’; instead, Sharon has taken her cues from some of her fellow performers at Twin Peaks’ Roadhouse - Nine Inch Nails and The Veils especially - by committing herself in wholesale fashion to a new, synth-driven sonic aesthetic that deeply imbues ‘Remind Me Tomorrow’ with a sense of thick foreboding.

There’s a confidence here that borders on swagger - even when the lyrics portray fragility.

This is not a tentative move into electronic territory by any stretch of the imagination - Sharon runs the stylistic gamut from the moody disco of ‘Comeback Kid’ to the glacial, minimally atmospheric ‘Memorial Day’ and ‘Jupiter 4’. The changes seem to have freed up her voice, too; ‘Seventeen’ has her crowning the self-assurance that the lyrics extol with a vocal that takes a turn for the thrillingly intense late on.

The sea change in Sharon’s personal life has given rise to a tidal wave of ambition in her music; that she has harnessed it so masterfully surely confirms her position as one of her generation’s most compelling voices.

(Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Comeback Kid’

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eee TORO Y MOI Outer Peace (Carpark)

........................................

Adapt or die, the saying goes. But there’s no real caveat to that, no timespan to the demand, and it’s blatantly something Chaz Bear keeps in mind.

His seventh album as Toro Y Moi finds him tweaking and fine tuning.

Those cutely thin vocals only occasionally get the vocoder-esque treatment, and his woozy, summertime production remains rampant.

But there’s a new, allpervading feeling beneath this familiarity, one of self doubt, of a fear of ageing and even a creeping boredom of the material world which lends Chaz’s occasionally matter-offact delivery a potency.

Songs fall into two camps - dancefloor oriented upbeat ones with choruses and vocal snippets that lodge in your memory (‘Fading’, ‘Freelance’ and the sexually cynical ‘Ordinary Pleasure’), and downright slow jams.

“I feel like I’ve seen it all/ Or maybe I’m just old,” he intones on ‘Ordinary Pleasure’. It could be a mission statement for ‘Outer Peace’, conjuring a platform of worldweariness from which he’s still willing to experiment and assimilate new ideas.

Nothing here outstays its welcome, despite a run of slower tracks grouped at the record’s core, and besides, Chaz is there to guide the listener through. A transitional work perhaps, but whichever fork in the road he follows next, you feel he’ll continue to adapt.

(Jake Kennedy) LISTEN: ‘Miss Me’

eeee TIM PRESLEY’S WHITE FENCE I Have to Feed Larry’s Hawk (Drag City)

........................................

You could argue that the two key sides of prolific Californian Tim Presley jostling for dominance can be found in his two main collaborators; on one end, you've got psychaddled garage weirdo Ty Segall, on the other, idiosyncratic Welsh singer Cate Le Bon. While '...

Larry's Hawk' has tinges of both in its '60s guitars and whimsical, pastoral folk, what dominates is his ability to pen strange, warm tracks like 'Lorelei' that are totally out of step yet tug on familiar melodic heartstrings. Like Syd Barrett or, more recently, Euros Childs before him, White Fence continues to make the peripheries seem oddly accessible. Plus, 'Neighbourhood Light' is the best song The Velvet Underground never wrote.

(Lisa Wright) LISTEN: 'Lorelei'

eeee DEERHUNTER Why Hasn’t Everything Already Disappeared?

(4AD)

eeee SAY ANYTHING Oliver Appropriate

....................................................

(Dine Alone)

The premise for Deerhunter’s eighth album is laid out seconds into ‘Death In Midsummer’.

“Come on down from from that cloud and cast your fears aside,” Bradford Cox sings over bouncy harpsichord, and it introduces an album that deals in escapism.

Lyrically, the record far from ignores the problems at hand - ‘What Happens To People?’ is an existential mulling over of life and death, much like the album’s title - but it’s set out over luscious instrumentation that feels more suitable for a road trip, free of inhibitions.

Deerhunter have often dealt in lofty, intense blows, but on album eight, they provide a breezy distraction from the chaos outside, and it’s most welcome. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘What Happens To People?’

For anyone thinking that for their ‘final’ record, Say Anything would lose any of their poetic potency, that’s certainly not a cause for concern. With their eighth full-length - and what frontman Max Bemis has called the last album of their ‘first era’ - the band yet again manage to navigate the realms of pointedly apt social commentary with a razor sharp wit. A prequel of sorts to their infamous '...

Is A Real Boy', the album itself is a more intimate journey - and not just because of the Max’s own self-reflection – flecked with tales of weakness and failure, beauty and humour. A profoundly human listen, which sees the band bow out proudly, for now at least. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: 'Pink Snot'

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69

eee AJ LAMBERT

ee KEUNING

eeee SWERVEDRIVER

....................................................

(Thirty Tigers)

(Rock Action)

Careful You

AJ Lambert is a direct heir to the House of Sinatra, joining its ranks with debut ‘Careful You’, a collection of covers of songs from the likes of Spoon, John Cale and Billie Holiday.

She taps into, and thrives on, that particular brand of nocturnal glitz her grandfather, Frank Sinatra himself, defined. However, at times her interpretations can fall into a pattern.

Her vocals are prone to over-excitement, trying to prove she can sing rather than showing us. The instrumentals are so wellshaped, it reaches a point of clinical unpleasantness.

Talent of her kind befits live performances: all the right ingredients are there, but the recorded format makes it fall short from becoming a cohesive album. (Sophie Walker) LISTEN: ‘Glad I’m Not A Kennedy’

Prismism

Future Ruins

........................................

....................................................

Having spent 17 years behind the guitar, ‘Prismatic’ sees The Killers' Dave Keuning take on vocals and a multitude of instruments, gestated during a much-needed break. Still indebted to the desert dust and glitter that fuelled the engine of his day job, it’s a mixed bag of a debut, offering flickers of Dave’s knack for powerful synth and power chord lines but revealing very little about its creator. Opener ‘Boat Accident’ shimmers into a fist pumping radiorocker, and hungover, carefree ‘I Ruined You’ certainly smiles like it means it. With all the composite parts in place, what ‘Prismatic’ lacks isn’t effort, but direction.

(Jenessa Williams) LISTEN: ‘I Ruined You’

“Don’t it a comeback, I’ve been here for years,” once went the wise words of LL Cool J. His infamous words apply just as much to ‘90s shoegazers Swervedriver, who split back in 1998, reformed a decade later, and released ‘I Wasn’t Born To Lose You’ in 2015.

Follow-up ‘Future Ruins’ is exquisite, tapping into what it means to be alive in 2018.

Musically, it’s business as usual, as the guitars swell and fuzz about Adam Franklin’s consoling vocals. ‘Spiked Flower’ showcases his relaxing and reassuring vocals as the main event. The most important aspect of ‘Future Ruins’ and Swervedriver is it shows that the band still have something to say and prove. They’re in it for the long haul. (Nick Roseblade) LISTEN: ‘Spiked Flower’

COMING UP

CHERRY GLAZERR Stuffed & Ready

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Clementine Creevy and pals get personal on this forthcoming fourth LP. Released 1st February.

DRENGE Strange Creatures

FINALLY! The long, long-awaited followup to 2015’s ‘Undertow’ will finally (finally) be released on 22nd February.

PANDA BEAR Buoys Noah Lennox will unleash his nautical take on Charli XCX’s oeuvre on 8th February.

eeee LOST UNDER HEAVEN Love Hates What You Become (Mute)

....................................................

Ellery Roberts has always fancied himself as a bit of an enigma; his old band WU LYF made mystery their calling card, and the moment that they began to shift shape into something more orthodox, he abruptly departed.

After a while in the wilderness, he returned two years ago, crafting Lost Under Heaven in a similar aesthetic.

On this sprawling second album, the pair have spread their wings further.

Opener ‘Come’ is a pummelling, glitchy piece of techno that suggests that they haven’t swung towards subtlety. There’s plenty of slow simmer, too - not least because Ebony Hoorn chips in far more on the vocal front than last time. The resulting back-and-forth between herself and Ellery is enthralling, and holds up regardless of musical backdrop. There’s low-key moments of genuine menace (‘Black Sun Rising’, the disquieting churn of ‘Serenity Says’) and some major key nods towards anthemic territory, too - ‘Post Millennial Tension’ a case in point.

“Our generation’s gone, but still we sing our love song,” goes the repeated line, and you realise that Lost Under Heaven don’t really make ‘future blues’.

This is music for the here and now. (Joe Goggins) LISTEN: ‘Post Millennial Tension’

eee YOU TELL ME

eeee EX:RE

(Memphis Industries)

(4AD)

You Tell Me

........................................

What do you get if you cross grandiose indie with contemporary folk? You Tell Me. No, this isn’t a trick question. You Tell Me is a side-project from Peter Brewis of Field Music fame, and Admiral Fallow’s Sarah Hayes.

And as you’d expect the results feature delicate vocals with an indie pop sensibility.

Opener ‘Enough to Notice’ gives off massive Wes Anderson vibes, ‘Water Cooler’ hinges on a wonky rhythm section and a soaring chorus, and ‘Jouska’ burns with yearning, eye-watering piano and flawless vocal delivery from Sarah.

Still, there isn’t much range across the record and the last few tracks merge into one. Which is disappointing, but overall there are plenty of highs and the downsides should be sorted by the next instalment. (Nick Roseblade) LISTEN: ‘Water Cooler’

ALBUMS

Ex:Re

....................................................

Ex:Re, the debut album from Daughter singer Elena Tonra’s new solo project of the same name, is a breakup record. “It was the end of a relationship, and there was no way to undo it. The moment I realised it wasn’t going to be resolved the way I thought it was was also the moment I realised I should write about it,” she says of the record in a statement. Lyrically, the album is a scattered series of ruminations on the end of an era, with anger, guilt and sadness all permeating its fabric.

Musically, though, it expands the singer’s palette, transmitting these feelings via new, punchier textures.

‘Crushing’ is a sharp, quick stab to the heart, while the percussion from 4AD producer Fabian Prynn fleshes out these diary entries to make an album that’s fully formed, rich and incredibly affecting. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Crushing’

eeee VINCE STAPLES

FM!

(Def Jam)

...............................................................................

It’s a shame for Vince Staples that Kendrick Lamar released ‘DAMN.’ last year, as his second album ‘Big Fish Theory’ would’ve stood alone as the most accomplished, exciting rap album of the year. Running to only 22 minutes, follow-up ‘FM!’ is a record that feels like a drawing board of Vince’s influences. In line with its title, the record features radio skits, and sketches of tracks as interludes.

Vince’s verses on the album are as impassioned and intoxicating as those on ‘Big Fish Theory’, but are channelled into pure joy.

It’s a different side to the rapper, but one that’s no less enjoyable.

The album’s radio station, Big Boy’s Neighbourhood, introduces a whole manner of voices - be it Earl Sweatshirt or a bumbling on-air contestant who can’t name more than one star whose name begins with V - and Vince appears as much as a narrator as he does main character; introducing Jay Rock on the aggressive ‘Don’t Get Chipped’ and Kehlani on smooth closer ‘Tweakin’’, he’s more than happy to take a back seat. While ‘Big Fish Theory’ saw centre stage, relentless and omnipresent, on ‘FM!’ he us tune in to a calmer one which he dips in and when he pleases, filling blanks and staying in the fast lane.

(Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Feels Like Summer’

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eeee THE TWILIGHT SAD

It Won/t Be Like This All the Time (Rock Action) ..................................................................................

eee STEVE GUNN

The Unseen In Between (Matador)

.........................................

With the majority of tracks clocking in at around five minutes, a major feature of Steve Gunn’s fourth album is its enduringly gentle pace. Using a midtempo rhythm section and heady production as cornerstones to his intricate guitar work, he opts to take it easy this time around, with a breadth of instruments gradually falling in line to build a subtle sonic palette for each track.

Lap steel guitars and whirring solos are present on ‘Vagabond’ and ‘Chance’, but unlike contemporaries Kurt Vile and The War On Drugs, Steve Gunn’s use of these elements feels more restrained.

Rather than offering a key lick or riff to latch onto, these elements are usually mixed in at a more modest volume to add to a delicate canvas of sound. Further complimenting this is the softness of Steve’s own voice, which lends each song a tender, dreamlike quality. It’s not a record that jumps out on the first listen, but ‘The Unseen In Between’ works as an effective relaxant.

(James Bentley) LISTEN: ‘Stonehurst Cowboy’

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The Twilight Sad’s greatest weapon is intensity. Ever since debut ‘Fourteen Autumns & Fifteen Winters’, the Scots have amassed a catalogue of bleak but defiant hammerblows, all punctuated by James Graham’s impassioned vocals. This continues in earnest on new album ‘It Won/t Be Like This All the Time’. Unlike the guitar-led crash of most of the band’s catalogue, it’s anchored by thudding, motorik beats that create a dancier base on which James exorcises his deepest demons. It’s an even more intense form of communication. Single ‘I/m Not Here (Missing Face)’ is as catchy as it is relentlessly intense, while ‘Let’s Get Lost’ is a sprightly skip - and the record shows that whatever musical direction the band choose to take, it won’t see them lose their unrelenting power. (Will Richards) LISTEN: ‘Let’s Get Lost’

BACK TO THE

DRAWING BOARD with THE TWILIGHT SAD

Q1: Where did you record the album?

Q3: Where is the ‘missing face’ hiding?

Q2: What does ‘Shooting Dennis Hopper Shooting’ look like?

Q4: Draw a ‘Videogram’.

73

LI

PARQUET COURTS ....................................................

Roundhouse, London. Photos: Emma Swann.

P

arquet Courts’ sixth album ‘Wide Awake!’ is their best yet, the band’s sardonic punk punctuated with funk, hardcore, a heavy social conscience and, maybe most importantly, bundles and bundles of fun. And as they end their UK tour at London’s Roundhouse tonight, it’s clear that fun still sits at the top of their pile of priorities.

Thundering straight into ‘Total Football’, the chemistry between the New York quartet has never been more natural or free flowing - as they rattle into ‘Dust’, from 2016’s ‘Human Performance’, a rollercoaster begins that doesn’t so much as flinch for the next 90 minutes.

The band are illuminated by rainbow lights, casting their silhouettes onto a background.

It serves to accentuate the interplay between the quartet: Max Savage is an intricate but steady beat-keeper behind the kit, while Sean Yeaton’s basslines provide the groove that defines ‘Wide Awake!’ and are pushed to the front tonight. Then, in Andrew Savage and Austin Brown, you have a perfectly contrasting pair of frontmen. The former, responsible for the new album’s most furious moments, hurriedly worms his way around the fretboard and howls until his lungs give out, while his counterpart - complete tonight with a horrifying bowl cut - swaps between keyboard, guitar, whistle (!) and abandoning instruments altogether in favour of dadafter-half-a-bottle-of-whiskey-at-a-wedding dancing. The balance is perfect, and it’s impossible to take your eyes off them.

Tonight is also the band’s biggest ever show.

To mark the occasion, Andrew leads the crowd through a game of Parquet Courts trivia. No such banter is needed - the band more than carry their weight without a word - but it just amps up the feeling of the quartet being more comfortable in their skin than ever before, shown perfectly when they barrel through a lightning-fast one-two of ‘Master Of My Craft’ and ‘Borrowed Time’.

“This is the most expensive pub quiz you’ve ever been to,” Austin deadpans before an explosive, funky-as-hell one-two of ‘Tenderness’ into the title track from the new record. When they close on an impeccably tight, drawn-out jam version of ‘One Man No City’, rising and falling with precision until the tension releases for a final thrash through ‘Light Up Gold II’ and the band depart without ceremony, it’s clear we’re seeing a group at the peak of their powers, entering a whole new realm. (Will Richards)

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SETLIST

• TOTAL FOOTBALL • DUST • ALMOST HAD TO START A FIGHT / IN AND OUT OF PATIENCE • FREEBIRD II • BEFORE THE WATER GETS TOO HIGH • TODAY YOUR LOVE, TOMORROW THE WORLD • DEAR RAMONA • MASTER OF MY CRAFT • BORROWED TIME • DONUTS ONLY • BACK TO EARTH • TENDERNESS • WIDE AWAKE • BERLIN GOT BLURRY • OUTSIDE • PSYCHO STRUCTURES • BODIES MADE OF • NORMALIZATION • MARDI GRAS BEADS • ONE MAN NO CITY • LIGHT UP GOLD II

IVE 75

BLOOD ORANGE

...................................................................................................................................

Shepherd’s Bush Empire, London. Photo: Luke Hannaford.

D

ev Hynes, singer, songwriter, pioneering producer and creative mind behind Blood Orange, commands a notably understated presence on stage. Even the spotlight is pointing elsewhere, reserved instead for his backing vocal duo (the remarkable Ian Isiah and Eva Tolkin). Dev remains reserved, only fleetingly addressing the sold out crowd, hidden away in the smoke and lights, or under his ever-present Union Jack-adorned headgear.

There’s an undercurrent of political and social activism, from the opening monologue by transgender rights campaigner Janet Mock through the subtle flashes of red and blue, accompanied by hushed sirens. Yet much like the rest of Blood Orange’s aesthetic, its remains cleverly subdued.

In line with recent album ‘Negro Swan’, much of the first half of the evening unfolds like a jam session between friends, albeit an exceptionally well crafted one. His delivery is effortless.

Attracting the likes of Solange, FKA twigs and Carly Rae Jepsen, all of who have worked with Dev as producer, his grasp of music and his ability to forge a distinctive sound is exceptional. On stage, met by adoring cheers, Dev demonstrates his love for and deep appreciation of the sound and culture that has led him here while continuing the forge his own, delicately revolutionary path. (Ben Tipple)

THE JAPANESE HOUSE ...............................................................................................................................

Scala, London. Photo: Fraser Stephen.

A

mber Bain has seen through a gorgeous progression, taking her music from having qualities mainly associated with bedroom music to an explosion of choruses, snappy percussion and ambition far beyond her beginnings. With her debut album due out next year, this ambition and transition comes to the stage gorgeously at London’s Scala.

She’s now free of noodling around on keyboards like a scientist, free to take up a new role as rockstar-of-sorts. It only takes until the chorus of opener ‘Face Like Thunder’ for her to show the ambition on stage that her music’s hinted at for a few years now - chatty, beaming and jumping around the stage, it’s a newfound presence that fits perfectly. And, the host of old(er) songs showcased come tinged with a grungier edge. ‘Cool Blue’ has a new-found pop to it, with swirling, often ambient bedroom productions re-worked subtly but definitely for a new, punchier era. The show also provides a handful of windows into the singer’s forthcoming debut, ‘Good At Falling’.

‘Lilo’ and ‘Follow My Girl’ feel earthier than their more synthetic recorded forms. However, the new highlight is ‘Maybe You’re The Reason’, taking all of the progression through Amber’s four EPs and takes it to the next level, exploding with the best chorus she’s written to date.

Amber reveals the album’s closing track to be an acoustic re-working of 2017 EP title track ‘Saw You In A Dream’, and opens with that before folding out into the chunkier EP version, and by the time she closes with the pairing of ‘Leon’ and ‘Clean’, anticipation for the debut album, and the true arrival of an extremely special talent, couldn’t be higher.

(Will Richards)

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LI VE

CREEPER

.........................................................................................

KOKO, London. Photos: Emma Swann.

M

ajesty and mystery have always followed Creeper around, but at London’s KOKO tonight, the last show in support of debut album ‘Eternity, In Your Arms’, they take it to the red line.

Before the final song, frontman Will Gould echoes the words of David Bowie at his famous 1973 Hammersmith Apollo gig. “Of all the shows we’ve played in this last four years, this one will remain with us the longest,” he says, “because not only is it the last show of this album, but it’s the last show that we’ll ever do”.

Emotions run freely, visibly distraught fans torn between showing their appreciation for the band at their last gig and being totally baffled. The band convene in a collective huddle at the back of the stage, before emerging to the front one by one, laying down their Callous Heart jackets - the band’s uniform thus far - and bidding their final farewells. A video montage then plays on a big screen, showing the story of the band so far. A message reading “Even eternity ends” appears, before the lights go up and Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’ plays out of the speakers.

Across the 90 minute show, the band show just why they’ve inspired such devotion. Taking up the theatrical mantle left by My Chemical Romance, their story is one to be believed in, transmitted via fervent punk songs (Opener ‘Suzanne’ sees crowdsurfers galore within seconds, while album closer ‘I Choose To Live’ is sang back at them at biblical levels). If this is the last we’ll see of Creeper, it’s quite a way to go out, and will see the band leave one hell of a legacy. (Will Richards)

QUITE A WAY TO GO OUT. 77

GOAT GIRL

.............................................................................................................................

KOKO, London. Photo: Carolina Faruolo.

G

oat Girl don’t care. So much so that not one, but two songs entitled ‘I Don’t Care’ ricochet around the sold-out KOKO tonight. They also don’t really mind, or at least that’s what singer Clottie Cream howls on the static sleaze-surf ‘Little Liar’. Surrounded by Edie Lawrence’s goggleeyed toothy goat sculptures, the band commence with the haunting ‘Burn the Stake’ and ‘Creep’, both elevated with Jockstrap’s Georgie Ellery’s twisted violin.

There’s restraint in the ramshackle; the music may be raucous but their delivery is seamless. This is not a matter of the cursed-term of ‘South London scene’, either, we’re north of the river after all and pinning down Goat Girl to geography is as futile as pinning down their genre: celestial harmonising in western ‘Throw Me a Bone’, ‘Cracker Drool’’s warped rockabilly and raw tenderness in ‘Lay Down’ and Bugsy Malone cover ‘Tomorrow’. Early releases such as ‘Crow Cries’ the indomitable ‘Country Sleaze’ catalyses KOKO to writhe. A spontaneous encore reprisal of ‘Lay Down’ (they’ve already played all their songs), a flash of humbled smile and they’re gone. They may sing about not caring but you certainly should care about where they’re going next. (Sophie Thompson)

CHRISTINE AND THE QUEENS ....................................................

Hammersmith Apollo, London. Photo: Gaëlle Beri.

A

t Hammersmith Apollo tonight, Christine and the Queens delivers an hour and forty-five minutes of relentless energy, (partial) nudity, and pure stamina. Oh and gyrating, lots of gyrating. “I was born a few years ago out of the will to be a bit freer,” she tells the sold-out room. “I feel stronger now and run faster.” Though her physicality is apparent from the off, that’s not the only thing that’s changed.

Opener ‘Comme Si’ sees the singer and her colourful crew bop around the stage while she implores the crowd to “focus on my voice and let go”. It’s impossible not to follow her command, especially when followed by calling-card ‘Girlfriend’, which sees the dancers alternate between combative muscle flexing and slow motion grinding.

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She’s left exposed to sing a stunning ‘Paradis Perdus’, the first of a few nods to her influences. The raunchiness of ‘Damn (what must a woman do)’ warps into Janet Jackson’s sucker punch ‘Nasty’, while ‘Nuit 17 à 52’ pays tribute to another Jackson with an impassioned verse of ‘Man in the Mirror’. The end of ‘Five Dollars’ sees her contort around the stage as if reckoning with a transformation, before spreading her arms into wings, referencing Black Swan.

Woven into the fabric of the show is commentary of a woman’s exploration into identity, fluidity, and sexual agency.

How Chris manages to keep it fun, sexy, and light is her masterstroke. Looking pointedly at her half-naked body, she bids us goodbye with “I hope you had fun, I certainly did”.

(Lisa Henderson)

LI VE GEORGE EZRA ....................................................

Newcastle Academy. Photo: Adam Barnsley.

T ALT-J

....................................................

Royal Albert Hall, London. Photo: Emma Swann.

I

t’s quite a wonder that alt-J are here. Even weirder is that tonight’s show can be considered intimate for the oddball trio. With ‘RELAXER’, the band entered a level of success that meant no amount of conventionshunning would see their star fall, and they could continue to tread their wonderfully weird path. Songs from its remix counterpart ‘REDUXER’ are peppered through the set - probably the only time you’ll ever hear Danny Brown and Pusha T’s knife-edge verses whistling their way through these speakers. ‘Matilda’ brings an unprompted sea of phone lights to sway along, while ‘Hunger Of The Pine’ is as slinky and hyper-modern as when we first heard the Miley Cyrussampling hip-shaker.

he first of two sell-out shows in Newcastle in the space of a few months, George Ezra bounces out from behind the drum kit tonight at the Academy with a beaming grin on his face. The room is full of adoring eyes, the crowd hanging on his every word.

He gets the room singing along from the start, old favourite ‘Barcelona’ making an early appearance. The set is peppered with stories about different songs, including, of course, a nod to Tamara from Barcelona. The highlight for most people seems to be ‘Blame It On Me’ from George’s debut, the noise from the sing along being the loudest of the night.

The show is brought to an end with an encore of ‘CassyO’ and finally the anthemic ‘Shotgun’, leaving the Academy beaming from ear to ear as everyone leaves the hall back into the cold of the dark winter’s night. (Adam Barnsley)

Though their music hasn’t been tailored to the cavernous rooms they now inhabit, alt-J’s production certainly has. A swelling light show backs the trio for the set, grabbing their new-found place as an arena band with both hands. Tonight in particular also helps to highlight the intricacies of their textured sound - the acoustics letting every noodling guitar line from Joe Newman or thwack of a lesser-used drum from Thom Green have their space. Ambient flutters are pumped in from speakers around the sides of the venue, making the trio’s immersive sound even more all-encompassing. It’s a showcase of a band who never quite meant to get to this point, but are using the simply huge platform to enter newer, weirder and more experimental places. It’s anyone’s guess where that’ll go next.

(Will Richards)

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LI VE PIXIES

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Roundhouse, London. Photo: Louise Mason.

W

hen Pixies reformed in 2004, their four-day stint at Brixton Academy was the fastest selling in the venue’s history. 14 years later they revisit debut EP-and-album ‘Come On Pilgrim’ / ‘Surfer Rosa’ during five concurrent shows at the Roundhouse, and tickets are lapped up with similar fervour. Without a word to the audience, Black Francis picks up a guitar and strums into a momentous rendition of ‘Caribou’. He coos gently for a verse or two before hurtling the track’s signature screams of “Repent!” at the crowd.

It’s loud. And he sounds every bit as wicked as he did in 1988. And by the time the band reach ‘The Holiday Song’ the initially small group of energetic moshers in the centre of the crowd has grown to include a horde of grey-haired and balding men. ‘Gigantic’ sparks a mass-singalong, the audience pointing their fingers in the air as choppy, sepia visuals reminiscent of the ‘Surfer Rosa’ artwork play across the screens. ‘Where Is My Mind?’ is ultimately the most elated moment of the evening, arms waving from every corner of the venue. It’s been 30 years since the release of these two iconic records, but Pixies still know how to conquer. (James Bentley)

INTERPOL ....................................................

Albert Hall, Manchester. Photo: Aidan Wyldbore.

I

nterpol are no strangers to Manchester Apollo, but this is their first appearance at the storied old theatre in nearly eight years. They return with August’s ‘Marauder’ in tow, and a set that plays to what a broader audience would consider their strengths. Both ‘…Bright Lights’ and ‘Antics’, their two ‘designated classics’, are well-represented; it’s a travesty that they don’t open more often with the thickly atmospheric ‘Untitled’, given the potency of its claim to be the best opening track on an album this side of the millennium.

They do just that tonight, and from there on in, the stage is set for a playful celebration of their whole existence, one that finds room for both the fierce, pointed likes of ‘C’mere’ and ‘Public Pervert’ and ‘Hands Away’’s simmering, low-key drama as part of the same early salvo.

For all that their first two albums sounded staggeringly accomplished then and now, it’s hard not to notice how broadly the near-decade that followed is swept under the rug tonight; you realise that ‘Lights’, which swings from brooding to belligerent, and ‘All the Rage Back Home’, from 2014’s ‘El Pintor’, were among the few standout tracks from a spell that lasted seven years and three records. Even then, they don’t stand up to the evening’s standout, a take on ‘The New’ that you’d never know is one of their oldest cuts. Most important, though, is that the same feeling crops up on most of the fresh songs. Interpol sound as if they’ve genuinely turned a corner, and gone up a level in the process. They deserve to be back in the big rooms. (Joe Goggins)

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quiz of sor ts, we’ll A big inter-band pub es one by one. be grilling your fav

IT’S YOUR ROUND

ONT, JAMES BALM Swim Deep & Ruin, Brighton Location: Hope ess Cost: £2.30 inn Gu a lf Ha : Drink

SPECIALIST SUBJECT: THE SIMPSONS

GENERAL KNOWLEDGE

Q1: What ill-considered birthday present did Homer buy Marge one year?

A bowling ball.

Correct.

Yes!

what the middle name is. Robert something Terwilliger.

You can have half for that - his middle name is Underdunk.

Q1: In which sport can you win the Davis Cup? Golf?

It’s tennis.

Oh, I thought it was tennis or golf. Damn.

Q5: What is the name of Homer’s barber shop quartet?

The Be Sharps.

That was a bit of an easy one, wasn’t it?

Did you specifically go towards the musicthemed questions?!

Q2: Which artist created the ‘Lobster Telephone’ in 1936?

I know what it looks like.

Can you just write that I know what it looks like?!

Pass.

Salvador Dalí.

Q2: Which famous musician did Marge once paint a lot of?

Ringo Starr.

Yes. 3. What is the name of the country singer that Homer has a ‘thing’ with?

Lurleen Lumpkin?

Yes! Q4: What is Sideshow Bob’s full name?

Er… his surname is Terwilliger, I don’t know

SCORE 6.5/10 Countless reruns thanks to a couple of national broadcasters made sure he knew his stuff when it came to Springfield’s famous five, but James’ general knowledge let him down.

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Q3. How many stars are there on the EU Flag?

Erm, 12?

Correct.

Yes!

4.5/5

Q4. In which city is Frasier set?

New York? Chicago?

Seattle.

Oh, really? That’s my favourite city in America.

There’s a permanent fish market there, there’s the UFO building, it’s in rainy country…

Q5: How many coloured location sets are there on a Monopoly board?

Eight.

Yes. Wait, that’s really obvious: there’s two on each side!

Also I tried to play it in a pub the other day, but we didn’t have any Monopoly money. We had to play a game called ‘Pub Quiz’ instead.

So you should have been better at this section.

2/5

83

(MFC)

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