** PLUS **
GOSSIP
FLETCHER
KID KAPICHI
WAXAHATCHEE
O.
BLU DETIGER
DELLAXOZ
DOWN WITH BORING.
EMPRESS OF
+ LOADS MORE
ISSUE 86 · APRIL 2024 · READDORK.COM
Bleachers MASTER AT WORK
Conan Gray
ELECTRIC DREAMS
girl in red DOES IT AGAIN
Caity Baser
STILL LEARNING
Lizzy McAlpine NEW
DIRECTIONS
INDEX.
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Issue 86 | April 2024 | readdork.com | Down With Boring
Hiya, Dear Reader.
If you ignore our big Hype List set of covers at the turn of the year, this month’s is the first edition since November of 2022 where we’ve featured five fantastic acts on the front of the magazine. And, if we’re honest, we’re not sure if we’ve ever welcomed a gang as bright, bubbly and brilliant as this month’s crew. There’s barely a corner of modern pop not touched by Jack Antonoff. As he reunites with Bleachers for a fourth, self-titled album, we head over to flashy Paris to eat fruit and shoot the breeze with a true master at work. girl in red is what we like to refer to as prime Dorkcore. A two-time former cover star back for her hat trick, her second album sees her donning “worlddominating confidence” to brilliant effect. “Everyone should just be making jokes all the time,” she says. Too fucking right. Also back for another bash at a Dork cover is Conan Gray, packing what’s set to be one of 2024’s great pop albums. Working with the legendary Max Martin, it’s the most fun we’ve had in ages. As is Caity Baser - a true force of nature, she’s probably one of the most exciting, attitude-packing potential pop superstars around. As she drops her mixtape ‘Still Learning’, she’s “not a Taylor Swift just yet,” but “one day, I will be”. That’s the kind of vim and vigour we want from a superstar. Lizzie McAlpine is another from the very top of the tree, too. Back with a third album that sees her pushing into new territories, her goal is “just to not give a fuck”. You and us both, Liz.
readdork.com Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jake Hawkes, Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Scribblers Abigail Firth, Alexander Bradley, Ciaran Picker, Dan Harrison, Emma Quin, Jack Press, Finlay Holden, Kelsey McClure, Linsey Teggert, Minty Slater-Mearns, Neive McCarthy, Rebecca Kesteven, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Bella Peterson, Cody Critcheloe, Corinne Cumming, Derek Bremner, Frances Beach, Holly Whitaker, Jamie MacMillan, Jennifer McCord, Kaio Cesar, Molly Matalon, Patrick Gunning, Sarah Louise Bennett
Top Ten.
Hype.
Incoming.
4.
FRANCIS OF DELIRIUM AARON WEST & THE ROARING TWENTIES COLE BLEU
22. 24. 25. 26. 27.
DELLAXOZ O. C TURTLE SIIGHTS DEAD PONY
74. 75. 76. 77.
BLEACHERS GOSSIP CAITY BASER FLETCHER
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WAHAHATCHEE FIGHTSTAR CHASTITY BELT MOBOS 2024 LAURA JANE GRACE TEENAGE KICKS: PHOEBE GREEN A DAY IN THE LIFE OF... BIG SPECIAL
28. 36. 40. 46. 48. 54. 58. 64. 66. 72.
BLEACHERS FLETCHER CONAN GRAY EMPRESS OF GIRL IN RED GOSSIP CAITY BASER BLU DETIGER LIZZY MCALPINE KID KAPICHI
79. 79. 80. 80. 80. 81.
THE LAST DINNER PARTY NIEVE ELLA DYLAN ZARA LARSSON KIM PETRAS LIZZIE ESAU PINKPANTHERESS
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NOAHFINNCE
6. 7.
Intro. Stephen Ackroyd ‘Editor’ @stephenackroyd
8. 12. 14. 16. 18. 20 20
Features.
Get Out.
Backpage.
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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 The Bunker Publishing Ltd. 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 The Bunker Publishing Ltd holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Dork or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.
With FRANCIS OF DELIRIUM‘s debut album ‘Lighthouse’ a little over a month away, Jana Bahrich is opening up and hoping it takes her to Hobbiton.
4. DORK
LIGHTS
Words: Stephen Ackroyd.
THE BEST HAPPENING
STUFF N O W.
→ In a world where stale authenticity
and overwrought emotion are so often held up as the currency of the realm, Francis of Delirium crackles with a spark of genuine artistry. With the release of latest single ‘Give It Back To Me’ and the anticipation building around debut album ‘Lighthouse’, there’s a palpable sense of excitement about what’s coming next. Jana Bahrich, the creative force behind Francis of Delirium, has already made waves with three critically acclaimed EPs: ‘All Change’, ‘Wading’, and ‘The Funhouse’. These records, brimming with raw alt-rock excitement, angst, and grunge darkness, have set the stage for the project’s evolution. With ‘Lighthouse’, the sound is shifting to embrace a more vulnerable and open sonic palette, weaving in elements that resonate universally. The album, with tracks like ‘Real Love’ and ‘First Touch’ produced by Catherine Marks (Boygenius, Wolf Alice) and the rest self-produced with frequent collaborator Chris Hewett, already feels like a potential future favourite. On a seemingly ordinary day, filled with simple pleasures, Jana is doing pretty well. “I had a pretty chill day,” she shares as we set the stage. “It’s quite warm out, like 13 degrees, so I was able to bike around without a jacket, which I like because jackets make me sweat too much, even if it is cold. I work at a radio station every Thursday, so I hosted my show and then went for a swim at the pool nearby. I used to run quite a lot, but I’m trying to choose swimming over running now; I feel like running makes me sick. Every time I run, the day after I wake up, I have a cold. I don’t know if it’s related or just a coincidence, but I’m trying to abstain from running these days.” It’s an obvious line, but there’s no need to run when you’re rising as quickly as Jana currently is. The latest teaser of the forthcoming album, ‘Give It Back To Me’ stands out not just as a song but as a statement of solidarity and support within a community. “It’s about showing up for your loved ones when you can and being able to lean on them when you need to,” Jana explains. The track, born from a session where Jana stood, guitar in hand, in a makeshift vocal booth, marks a departure from her usual songwriting process. “Normally, I sit down while writing songs, but the
TOP TEN
“I FELL IN LOVE, AND IT JUST SEEMED LIKE MY WHOLE WORLD WAS OPENING UP” JANA
BRAT POP
BAHRICH
day we were writing ‘Give It Back To Me’, I was standing in this little vocal booth set up at Chris’ house. I wrote a constrained to the usual big shows, lot of the album on acoustic guitar, but chart success and world domination. that day, I was using my little red Fender Really, she’s just looking to hang out Telecaster. I tuned it down to drop C, with some little dudes for a good and the song just kind of exploded into second breakfast. “I hope the album the room. I really love a song with a slow will take us to Hobbiton,” she admits. build, so it’s been a form I’ve been trying “It would be pretty awesome if we got to get right for a while.” to play some shows or a festival in New ‘Lighthouse’’s closing track, Jana Zealand. I watch the Lord of the Rings reflects, “It feels like a really anthemic every year, and I would love to see some and hopeful way to end the album. of the places they filmed in. By putting it at the end, I wanted to “Really, if people just connect with show how after you experience love the album and we can tour more and or heartbreak and you come out of it, more, that would be the dream,” she there’s so much growing you do, and adds, taking things back to the day all that love that you’re left holding, job. “Playing shows is really one of my you can give to the people around you. favourite parts of all of this.” I like that being the message we end In a time when the world often feels on, that you continue to show up for fragmented, Francis of Delirium offers your community and the people you a message of hope and unity. From love, and they will also show up for you.” the personal revelations that shaped The journey to ‘Lighthouse’ has been ‘Lighthouse’ to Jana’s aspirations for → Charli XCX is back with ‘Brat’, set to be her boldest and most provocative album yet, one of personal and artistic growth. “I the band’s future, reflect a deep-seated arriving later this summer. With a roster of heavyweight producers including Easyfun, A.G. think we had tried writing a little bit belief in the power of music to bring Cook, Hudson Mohawke, and Gesaffelstein, Charli has crafted what she describes as her before going on tour in the US in 2022, people together. As she embarks on “most aggressive and confrontational record,” while also delving into her most vulnerable but we were pretty unsuccessful. Most her next chapter, Francis of Delirium moments. of the writing happened after that invites us to find solace in their sound, ‘Brat’ is said to be a club record at heart, signalling a return to Charli’s dance music roots, tour, and after the tour, we did with a reminder that, in the end, we’re all an area where she has always excelled and felt most at home. It’s commitment is evident Soccer Mommy. Writing our last EP, navigating this chaotic, beautiful life from the lead single, ‘Von Dutch’, which matches high energy and relentless innovation, plus ‘The Funhouse’, had felt really dark together. ■ a Really Very Good video featuring violence in an airport. and heavy, and that was reflective of my headspace at the time; going from that to going on tour in the US and making friends and finding our way across this huge country felt like flying. Then I came home and fell in love, and it just seemed like my whole world was opening up, which led to our sound opening up and being brighter and fuller.” Jana’s creative vision extends → St. Vincent has returned with news of her beyond the music itself, with the visuals seventh full-length studio album, ‘All Born for ‘Lighthouse’ playing a crucial role in Screaming’. Set for release on 26th April via conveying the album’s narrative. She Virgin Music/Fiction Records, it’ll be Annie Clark’s took on the ambitious task of creating first self-produced record. “There are some all the single covers, each telling a story places, emotionally, that you can only get to by that parallels but also diverges from the taking the long walk into the woods alone—to songs. “I carved into Linobloc to tell find out what your heart is really saying,” Clark this story of a couple that meets when says. “It sounds real because it is real.” they’re young and stays together into Created with what a press release describes as “a highly curated dream lineup of friends” – older age,” she explains. “Getting the Rachel Eckroth, Josh Freese, Dave Grohl, Mark idea to tell a story which paralleled the Guiliana, Cate Le Bon, Justin Meldal-Johnsen, story in the songs but veered off in its Stella Mogzawa and David Ralicke – the record own direction with the album art was is previewed by a first taster, ‘Broken Man’, really exciting. I’m proud that I followed → Twenty One Pilots are set to streaming online now. through with that and executed that release their new album ‘Clancy’ on 17th May. Arriving exactly nine idea.” years to the day since the release Hope is a prevailing theme on the of ‘Blurryface’, the record is coalbum. “There’s a purity to the love produced by Tyler Joseph and Paul songs on the album; they feel youthful Meany, who previously worked in their presentation, like there is no on ‘Trench’, and features the lead trick or sense of being jaded. It felt single ‘Overcompensate’. The important to commit to the feeling and album promises to tie together the to have hope in what love can give you, storylines that have been woven even if it doesn’t work out.” through their previous works, As for the future, Jana’s hopes aren’t marking the culmination of a decade-
SCREAM QUEEN
TØP STUFF long narrative journey.
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INTRO. THE BEATING HEART OF POP NONSENSE.
Examining her 30s with the help of a few new pals, WAXAHATCHEE has come roaring back with an assured new album that’s brimming with confidence. by MARTYN YOUNG. photography by MOLLY MATALON.
8. DORK
INTRO
I
f releasing her album in the week the world shutdown in March 2020 wasn’t discombobulating enough, the fact that the record would go on to be her most successful and critically acclaimed was even more mindblowing for Katie Crutchfield. ‘Saint Cloud’ was a landmark release in Waxahatchee’s 15-year recording career. A bittersweet moment for Katie as she had the best work of her life but couldn’t fully enjoy it, while for many, it will go down as THE pandemic album alongside Dua Lipa’s ‘Future Nostalgia’. Fortunately, the world is in a very different place now, and Katie is looking to expand and capitalise on that record’s riches with her follow-up album ‘Tigers Blood’. “I’m banking on the hope that there’s not another pandemic in the middle of this cycle. Of all the things that could go wrong, I’m hoping that that doesn’t go wrong,” she laughs. ‘Tigers Blood’ is yet another staggering work by one of the premier songwriting voices of modern times, but it’s a record that feels like an
“I DON’T KNOW WHAT I’LL DO FOR MY NEXT RECORD, BUT I REALLY ENJOY BRINGING IN ARTISTS THAT I REALLY LIKE” KATIE CRUTCHFIELD READDORK.COM 9.
MASTER COVER STORY
28. DORK
W
AT “I WORK These days, JACK ANTONOFF might be better known for being the go-to producer for a galaxy of iconic superstars, but as he returns to BLEACHERS for their self-titled fourth album, he’s embracing the “really big band that still feels like a secret” .
BLEACHERS
spend all my time doing these different things, but I don’t spend any time asking why I do them,” says Jack Antonoff. In two weeks’ time, he’ll win Producer Of The Year for a recordbreaking third time at the 2024 Grammys, thanks to his work with Lana Del Rey and Taylor Swift. Right now, though, he’s sitting in a Parisian hotel during Fashion Week to talk about Bleachers’ rousing self-titled fourth album. “I always mean to figure it out, but I never do,” he says. “I just do what compels me, I guess.” The trilogy of Bleachers albums that came before it – 2014’s ‘Strange Desire’, 2017’s ‘Gone Now’ and 2021’s ‘Take The Sadness Out Of Saturday Night’ – saw Jack “mourning the past and yelling at the future” as he tried to work through the death of his younger sister Sarah, who passed when he was 18. “They were all about grief and loss through the lens of time and how that changes.” This new record is very much about the present, though. Again, he’s not entirely sure what sparked the shift in perspective. Perhaps it was getting married to actor Margaret Qualley last year or the growing bond between the other members of Bleachers, but he didn’t run away from those feelings of being right here. “I was just happy to be writing,” he admits. “I don’t write unless I’m frantically called to it because it seems like an unfair thing to do to yourself otherwise,” says Jack, who believes songs are only worth pursuing if they’re about things you don’t know. ‘Bleachers’ was written about “distant voices within yourself, weird feelings, and trying to figure it all out. I just feel a huge sense of relief that this album actually happened,” he continues. “Being compelled to write is such a rare and powerful feeling.” “It’s pretty hard for albums not to be cathartic,” he adds. “They’re all mountains. You get through them, or you get over them.”
by ALI SHUTLER.
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FLETCHER combines her trademark wit and unflinching honesty for a second album that’s both relatable and addictive. by ALI SHUTLER.
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FLETCHER
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COVER STORY
E L E CTRIC
40. DORK
E DR EAMS
CONAN GRAY is embracing vibrant new horizons as he meets his prime pop potential with ‘Found Heaven’. by NEIVE MCCARTHY.
CONAN GRAY
ven when you think you’ve seen and felt it all, something new is always around the corner. Life is full of surprises, good and bad, and there comes a point where you have to embrace that - which is what Conan Gray is learning to do. Delivering his unexpectedly poptastic third album ‘Found Heaven’, Conan returns victorious and growing with each track. A world away from its predecessors, ‘Found Heaven’ is a surprise, for sure. “I think it’s hilarious,” Conan smiles. “I made the album with the intention of wanting to surprise people and giving people something they weren’t expecting. Now that it’s here, I’m like, ‘What if it’s not what they’re expecting?’ I very much did what I was hoping.” For those expecting more of the melancholic worlds of ‘Kid Krow’ and ‘Superache’, ‘Found Heaven’ might be a bit of a shock to the system. It’s a vibrant, technicolour jaunt through synth-heavy havens and dancefloor tears. Still, some things never change – for Conan, the nerves around the album’s release remain even four years on from his first. As he has always done, Conan has crafted an album cut from his very core – the inner workings of his mind and feelings are lit by the disco ball at the album’s centre. It joins a parade of albums documenting his life and career, each new experience cast under that glow. “It’s really weird because I have time capsules of when I was 17, and also now at 25 – it’s a whole life recorded in music,” muses Conan. “Music is such a powerful descriptor that when I hear songs that I recorded when I was 17, it brings tears to my eyes because I can hear him; I can hear that version of me. This album is a little bit funny because it was the best time of my life and also the worst time of my life. Subconsciously, you can hear the songs I wrote at the worst time and the songs I wrote when I was really fucking happy.” Born from a time that arguably saw the most change in Conan’s life so far, ‘Found Heaven’ is built on a narrative of new emotions – falling in love, having your heart crushed, navigating life in your twenties. Each scenario brought something fresh, something unrecognisable, and the result of those experiences were transformative for Conan. When it came to actually making the album, the experience in itself felt new in different ways, too. Such an unfamiliar time in his life bled into the sound, transforming Conan’s artistry into something new and fresh, too. “I never really thought I would make three albums. I never thought I would make one album, to be completely frank,” reflects Conan. “When I was faced with making it, there’s just no blueprint. With your debut album, you kind of know what you’re supposed to do – you’re establishing yourself, saying hello. Your second album continues with that. With your third album, there’s no blueprint of what to do. I knew that, and since I had the opportunity to make something, I thought I’d just make something different. “The album ended up being this capsule and very much being a concept album. It’s very unanimous. I don’t know what my next music will sound like; I know it won’t sound like my old music. It’s this beautiful bubble of this time in my life. I really wanted to surprise myself and make myself laugh – laugh at everything that happened and smile at it and not feel like the music has to
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COVER STORY
48. DORK
by ALI SHUTLER. photography by DEREK BREMNER.
As she returns for her second album, GIRL IN RED’s Marie Ulven is embracing joy and self-discovery.
“E
GIRL IN RED
veryone should just be making jokes all the time,” says girl in red’s Marie Ulven. “Laughter is just so cool.” That smirking desire to have a good time fuels her maximalist new album, ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’. It’s a world away from the delicate but crushing heartache that drove girl in red’s breakout hits ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’ and ‘Summer Depression’, but this new era is all about having the best time possible. That excitement is reflected in the giant hand-painted banner that screams ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ and doubles up as the album’s cover, while the music builds on the giddy, stadium-baiting pop of debut album ‘If I Could Make It Go Quiet’. As huge as that record was, sounding perfectly at home in arenas and stadiums via tours with Billie Eilish and Taylor Swift, it also desperately clung to whatever tiny moments of optimism that Marie could find. By contrast, ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’ embraces pure, unadulterated glee at every turn. “With that first album, I was searching for joy. I was hoping that I’d be fine,” she explains. As ‘I’m Doing It Again Baby!’’s blossoming opening track ‘I’m Back’ says, ‘I believe there’s hope for me’. “The past two years have actually been really joyous,” Marie adds. “I’ve been figuring out how to deal with anxiety, I’ve been going to therapy, I’ve just been really happy. This album is all coming from a place of truth,” she promises. “Also, I’m easily bored and want to try new things that I think are fun. I want to do things that are interesting instead of trying to make something overly sad or seem smart,” she continues. “Fun is the new rock’n’roll.” It’s not as simple as that, though. One moment, Marie is telling us how “there are no skips on this album, every track is my favourite”, but the next, she’s admitting she never really knows how
READDORK.COM 49.
POW -ER FEATURES
One of the most powerfully fun bands to come out of the 00s, GOSSIP are back with their first album in over a decade.
by LIAM KONEMANN. photography by CODY CRITCHELOE.
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GOSSIP
I
t’s Valentine’s Day, and things are off to a chaotic start. There has, perhaps, been a misunderstanding between Dork and Gossip. A slight timeline tangle regarding the events of the twelve years between the band’s last album, ‘A Joyful Noise’, and their newest, ‘Real Power’. One of us has got our maths wrong. It’s not Beth Ditto. “What if I was so mad?” She asks. That’d be fine. We’d just claim connection problems and end the call. Beth laughs. “Just run into the street screaming.” It’s always good to have a backup plan. So what has actually she been up to in the intervening decade, between Gossip albums? “You know what’s so funny to me?”
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WHAT COVER STORY
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CAITY BASER
With her new mixtape ‘Still Learning’, CAITY BASER is embracing the crazy side of pop. From hyperactive chaos to introspective brilliance, her path to Main Pop Character looks set.
CAITY “I by MARTYN YOUNG. photography by SARAH LOUISE BENNETT.
t’s been amazing, stressful, perfect, gorgeous, stunning and terrifying,” says Caity Baser breathlessly as she describes her ascent towards the summit of Mount Pop over the last four years of madness. “Every single emotion that you could feel is how it’s been. But mainly just amazing and exciting as it’s been my dream forever, and now I’m doing it.” Doing it would be an understatement; the 21-year-old sensation from Southampton is a living and breathing embodiment of all the joyous ridiculousness of pop music, doing things very much on her terms and bringing her huge personality to life in different ways. The bonkers journey of Caity Baser is firmly gaining momentum in 2024, though, with her second mixtape and biggest collection of work yet, ‘Still Learning’. All in a day’s work for a pop star who was born to do this. There are a few artists in our orbit who truly embody the ethos of Down With Boring, and perhaps none more than Caity Baser. For Caity, the pop star life never stops. As we meet her today, she’s preparing for a sold-out headline tour, getting ready for the Brits having just come back from the Grammys in LA. She’s probably made around 179 TikTok videos, and she has a truly outstanding bright red hat on her head in the style of a massive strawberry, accessorised with an oversized pair of shades. An iconic look. “I just decided to put it on my head today because I felt like it,” she smiles. Things are swiftly ramping up for Caity as we approach release, and she’s very much in the zone. “There’s no such thing as quiet time,” she says. “There’s no such thing as quiet time. I’m at rehearsals, and as soon as we finish, I’m going back to rehearse. I’m a busy girl. I’m doing actual pop star work. It could be worse.” When Caity released her landmark EP ‘Thanks
For Nothing, See You Never’ last year, Dork described it as “Pop chaos in the best tradition”, so a year later, just how chaotic is life for Caity Baser? “It’s even more chaotic than it was before,” she exclaims. “Whatever I thought was chaos back then is just easy now. I’m very comfortable in chaos. I’m very sweet being everywhere and having all these things going on because my brain works at a million miles an hour. I love it for sure. It keeps it exciting and keeps you young.” Perhaps the secret to Caity’s success is that hyperactive million-miles-an-hour brain. It’s a frenetic sensibility that drives her impulsive and instinctive pop smarts and her ability to create a lasting impression. When you first discover Caity Baser, you’re either going to fall instantly in love or be utterly bamboozled and retreat to something more sedate and gentle, but you’ll certainly never forget her. For four years now, since she first emerged in the pop consciousness to brighten up the dark days of peak pandemic, Caity has been making a scene. Caity’s magpie-like impulses to try out numerous musical forms have been heard throughout her work so far as it jumps from classic pop to rowdy indie punk to smooth, luxurious jazzy stylings to big balladry, all centred with the throughline of her attitude and energy. “I love everything,” she explains. “I grew up listening to every kind of music, from Motown and 50s music to boy bands and pop girlies. I really love proper British-sounding music. I’m influenced and inspired by everybody. I’ve taken characteristics from loads of different artists, put them into what I like and what I would do, put my own little spin on it, and made a little crazy genre called crazy pop.” At school, growing up in Southampton, Caity wasn’t quite the rebellious, nihilistic, no-filter queen that you might imagine encountering her today. “I was the bestest girl in the world,” she laughs. “I was well-behaved. I didn’t ever get into trouble. I worked hard, but I was always quite
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COVER STORY
66. DORK
LIZZY MCALPINE
I Shedding commercial concerns for a yearning to be her authentic self, LIZZY MCALPINE’s new album ‘Older’ is an evolution that marks out an artist in pursuit of genuine self-expression. by LIAM KONEMANN.
t’s morning in Hawaii, and Lizzy McAlpine is just easing into the day. We are two months out from the release of her third album, ‘Older’, and the music industry machine is whirring back to life. These are the early days of a new cycle of gigs, interviews and social media sprees with her at the
centre. Usually, she’d be bored of the songs by now. An album takes a long time to make, and inevitably by the time you’ve written and rewritten them, recorded and then re-recorded, you start to become detached. You get detached, you get bored. Or at least she has in the past. Not this time. “I think it’s a testament to how much the songs feel like me, because I didn’t really get bored of them,” Lizzy says. “I wasn’t like, ‘oh, suddenly these don’t feel like me anymore’, which is usually what happens, and especially what happened with ‘Five Seconds Flat’.” On ‘Older’, an exploration of upheaval and personal growth set against the backdrop of a dysfunctional relationship, Lizzy looks back at the turbulence of her early 20s and charts a new path for artistic fulfilment. Turning away from some of the influences and techniques of her earlier work, she shares something altogether more authentic. With each new album, Lizzy is moving closer to a sound that feels like her. In interviews ahead of the release of her second album ‘Five Seconds Flat’ at the age of 22, she reflected that her debut ‘Give Me A Minute’ - and, presumably, the 20-year-old who made it - now felt impossibly young. At 24, she’s leaving the artist she was on album number two in the rearview as well. While ‘Give Me A Minute’ resonated with fans and critics for its poetic lyrics and relatable themes, ‘Five Seconds Flat’ pushed Lizzy into the stratosphere. A sonic mish-mash of some of the biggest indie artists of the decade so far, the album made her an indie pop darling and social media superstar. At first, it seemed like a dream come true. She had made the kind of album that she thought people would like, and they did. And for a while there, Lizzy liked it too. Two years on, she feels very differently. “To me, it sounds like I was trying to make what other people thought was cool,” she says. “Now that I look back on it I’m like, who is that person? Who was making that? It doesn’t sound like
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