Dork, August 2022

the new album - out 15th july

pre-order now

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INDEX.

← We’ve illustrated a few things in this issue using ‘Artifical Intelligence’. That means we’ve typed some parameters into a ‘bot’, and it’s ‘done some art’. Here’s a forest-y, illustrated Matty Healy. Kind of the vibe new track ‘Part of the Band’ puts in our head. The robots will replace us all. Scary stuff.

Issue 68 | August 2022 | readdork.com | Down With Boring

WHAT'S ON THE STEREO? THE 1975

Part of the Band A rare moment of industry dickhead from your mates at Dork - keeping quiet about The 1975’s comeback track has been reasonably difficult, just because it’s yet another of those moments of shock and awe. Not in the same way ‘People’ was - and yes, there are thematic links back to ‘Notes...’, but those opening moments sound like nothing they’ve done before. This issue goes to print before the track drops - but the reaction should be very interesting. You can read more about what we think on p16.

PHOEBE GREEN

Lucky Me Regular readers will know we’re long term fans of Phoebe Green. On the bandwagon from her earliest manoeuvres, she’s played Dork’s Night Out shows, appeared early doors on our annual Hype List, and been a fixture in these pages. So, when we say her debut albun ‘Lucky Me’ has us floored, it should mean something.

Even those sky high expectations have been smashed. Nice one.

DJO

EDITOR'S LETTER

SOME ALBUMS FLOOR you on the first listen. Far fewer still have that sense of awe after weeks of continuous spins. This month’s cover star, Maggie Rogers, has always been an artist capable of wowing - her debut ‘Heard It In A Past Life’ is one of the best of recent years. Its followup ‘Surrender’, though, is something else entirely.

Confident, primal and powerful, it’s a record that feels like a genuine force of nature. The kind of album that takes a real sense of self to make, we’re delighted to bring Maggie back to the cover of Dork to delve deeper inside one of the pop masterpieces of the year.

As you read this issue, one of those bands that sit at the centre of the Dork universe will have just have announced their own new record. There’ll be a lot written about the return of The 1975. Their relative radio silence since last album ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ posed more questions than answers - an album that proved divisive to some, but remained stylistically inventive and without borders. Their comeback track, ‘Part of the Band’, suggests they’re not backing down and listening to those who want them to return to a more formulaic style. Good. This is exactly why they’re so special.

Talking about stylistic fluctuations, you may notice quite a few changes in this issue of Dork. As ever, the magazine is a constantly shifting, evolving lightning rod of pop nonsense. With more colour and a higher concentration of ridiculousness, we hope you like it as much as we do. Who knows what it’ll look like next month.

Changes King Steve Joe’s first taster of second album ‘Decide’ is good enough to not need to ride on the back of ‘the obvious’. A squelchy, shimmery synth-pop delight, it’s addictively good. Like prime era MGMT on less of a trip, it comes highly recommended.

‘Editor’ @stephenackroyd

BAND INDEX 100 Gecs Alex G Alfie Templeman Arctic Monkeys Baby Queen Bartees Strange beabadoobee Beach Bunny Beyonce Billie Eilish Black Midi Blossoms Bombay Bicycle Club Chilli Jesson Chloe Moriondo Claire Rosinkranz CMAT Coach Party Confidence Man Connie Constance Courting Deaton Chris Anthony Djo Dry Cleaning Dylan Easy Life EFÉ Eli Smart Elio Elton John Enumclaw Fall Out Boy Fletcher Flowerovlove Foals girl in red Griff Haim Halsey Harry Styles Holly Humberstone Inhaler Jamie T Jockstrap Kacey Musgraves Katy J Pearson Kendrick Lamar KennyHoopla King Princess L’objectif Lauran Hibberd Lauv Lava La Rue Let’s Eat Grandma

19 8 24 19 17 57 25, 27, 54 54 8 27, 58 57 27 21, 23, 25 14 19 17 10 14 20 24 20, 26 31, 57 12 8, 17 24 21, 24 28 25 66 8, 22 31 15 17 25 57 23 24, 27 23 19 61 20, 27 23, 27 56 31 23 48, 54 26 23 54 14 20 50, 55 55 22

Liam Payne Lorde Loyle Carner Maggie Rogers Maisie Peters Mäneskin Mitski Mollie Coddled Molly Payton MUNA Mush mxmtoon Noso Nova Twins Olivia Rodrigo Oscar Lang Phoebe Bridgers Rae Morris Regressive Left Remi Wolf Renforshort Rina Sawayama Royal Blood Sam Fender Sam Ryder Sampa The Great Santigold Sea Girls Self Esteem Soccer Mommy Sports Team St. Vincent STONE Tate McRae The 1975 The Mysterines The Vaccines Thomas Headon Tom A Smith Twenty One Pilots Two Door Cinema Club Viagra Boys Wallice Wet Leg Whitney Will Joseph Cook Willow Wolf Alice Wonder Horse Working Men’s Club Yard Act Yeah Yeah Yeahs Yungblud Zuzu

15 27, 60 17 34, 57 25 23 27 14 20 12, 57 55 15 55 57 26 17 23 57 32 64 55 17, 22 23 26 25 8 8 21 27 57 20 15, 64 20, 30 62 6, 16 21 21, 25 22 30 23, 44 8 57 17 12, 27 8 24 19 27 31 42, 56 8 64 13, 17, 23 21

readdork.com Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Scribblers Andrew Wescott, Connor Fenton, Dan Harrison, Dillon Eastoe, Finlay Holden, Jake Hawkes, Jamie MacMillan, Jessica Goodman, Neive McCarthy, Phoebe De Angelis, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Abbie Jennings, Bryan Carr, Derek Bremner, Em Marcovecchio, Frances Beach, Hattie Neate, Hunter Baker, Indy Brewer, Jamie MacMillan, Patrick Gunning, Phoebe Fox, Samir Hussein, Sarah Louise Bennett

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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.

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THIS MONTH. #68. AUGUST 2022.

INTRO.

30 TOM A SMITH

06 THE 1975

31

The cryptic clues, mysterious posters and trademark long tease is over. The 1975 are back!

Back!! Back!!! With a new single, and news of a new album, here’s everything we know.

When most of us get to 18, we’re only just getting ready to start on life ‘proper’. Not Tom A Smith.

32 REGRESSIVE LEFT

Luton trio Regressive Left sound more like they were made for the cool kids of Brooklyn. After paying their dues in indie bands that never quite sparked, this time round they’re ready to grab opportunity with both hands.

10 CMAT

There are pop stars. There are pop legends. There are pop icons. And then, there’s CMAT.

13

14 15

YUNGBLUD

London’s Southbank, a flatbed truck and a whole load of water pistols - YUNGBLUD only knows chaos as he gets shut down filming a video for ‘Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today’.

34 MAGGIE ROGERS

In her new album ‘Surrender’, Maggie Rogers has quite possibly provided ONE OF 2022’s defining pop masterpieces.

We’re throwing a big all-day party this summer, and you’re all invited.

You know what’s easier than following around your fave pop stars, day in, day out, to see what they’re up to right that minute? Asking them. Ahead of their Dork’s Day Out set, here’s what Jess Eastwood from Coach Party’s day looks like.

16

FEATURES.

DORK’S DAY OUT

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF... COACH PARTY

42 WORKING MEN’S CLUB

Experts at generating a permeating sense of dread, Working Men’s Club have certainly had an excess of tension and darkness to draw from in the last few years.

Covid has been the least of frontman Syd MinskySargeant’s worries, though.

44 TWENTY ONE PILOTS

As Twenty One Pilots takeover London for a week of live shows and a feeling they could go anywhere next, we check in with a band who can inspire the sort of devotion few others can match.

BANGERS

The best of the latest new tracks, featuring The 1975, Claire Rosinkranz, Rina Sawayama, Fletcher and more.

48 KATY J PEARSON

Katy J Pearson’s debut album may have put her on the musical map, but with its follow-up, she’s pushing out her horizons and doing it in her own way.

FESTIVALS. 18

READING + LEEDS

50 LAUV

Many musicians tackle their second album by striving for a new maturity, often becoming insular and dull in the process. Not Lauv. With ‘All 4 Nothing’, he’s reconnecting with his roots.

The big hitter of August’s late festival season, Reading + Leeds is back again with six huge headliners, two dualling main stages and a whole bunch of exciting names across a stacked line-up.

20 LIVE AT LEEDS IN THE PARK

West Yorkshire’s annual extravaganza of new music has spawned an outdoor sibling. With some of the best indie talent on the planet, we’re heading down the park with Live at Leeds.

INCOMING. 54 REVIEWS

The new releases you need to hear - and some you definitely don’t.

22 BST HYDE PARK

Everyone loves new music, but nobody more than Elton John. Given he likes to tip new acts, we went down to his huge BST Hyde Park show to see who he’s anointing for big things.

23 ROCK WERCHTER

By reputation, Belgium might not be the most interesting place on earth - and yet, after a weekend at Rock Werchter, it’s hard to believe anywhere could be more exciting.

24 BARN ON THE FARM

With a reputation for picking out superstar names before they head to the arenas, we’re back in our finest Wellington boots for the post-pandemic return of Barn on the Farm.

26 GLASTONBURY

As Glastonbury finally managed to put on its 50th edition (thanks you-know-what), here are the big moments from 2022 that should go down in festival legend.

HYPE. 28 EFÉ

Keep your boring new popsters, we’re only interested in the ones with true star power - and nobody has more of that than EFÉ.

30 STONE

Fast rising indie newcomers STONE started making a name for themselves in a world where you couldn’t really play live. Now, as everything starts to get back to some sense of normality, the Liverpool quartet are starting to realise that they might be on to something special.

4. DORK

DEATON CHRIS ANTHONY

Producing songs for Clairo and Charli XCX, Deaton Chris Anthony is pushing out on his own.

55 ARTIST’S GUIDE: LAVA LA RUE

Lava runs us through her latest brilliant EP, 'Hi-Fidelity'.

GET OUT. 58 BILLIE EILISH

Billie Eilish is at the top of her game. If tonight is any indication, that’s exactly where she’s going to stay.

60 LORDE

The reaction to Lorde’s most recent album ‘Solar Power’ may have been mixed, but taken to the live arena, perhaps it’s time for some to reassess their judgement.

61

HARRY STYLES

As he hits London’s Wembley Stadium with a tour actually intended to accompany his previous record, we pop round Harry’s gaff of quite probably the current hottest star on Planet Pop. Milk, no sugar, please Hazza.

62 DECENT EXPOSURE

The best live photography, featuring Tate McRae, Remi Wolf, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and St Vincent.

BACKPAGE. 66 ANY OTHER QUESTIONS...

ELIO

Yes, Dear Reader. We enjoy those ‘in depth’ interviews as much as anyone else. But - BUT - we also enjoy the lighter side of music, too. We simply cannot go on any longer without knowing that ELIO really wants to go zip-lining, and always has a good selection of hot sauce in the fridge.

INTRO. THE BEATING HEART OF POP NONSENSE.

↓↓↓ THE BIG STORY ↓↓↓

The cryptic clues, mysterious posters and trademark long tease is over. THE 1975 are back! Back!!

Back!!! With a new single, and news of a new album, here’s everything we know.

6. DORK

INTRO

FACT FILE

KE UP! “WAKE UP! WA GE!” WAKE UP, GEOR

→ TITLE: Being Funny in a Foreign Language → LABEL: Dirty Hit → RELEASED: 14th October 20222 → TRACKLIST: 1. The 1975 2. Happiness 3. Looking For Somebody (To Love) 4. Part Of The Band 5. Oh Caroline 6. I’m In Love With You 7. All I Need To Hear 8. Wintering 9. Human Too 10. About You 11. When We Are Together

→ THE 1975 ARE BACK, Dear Reader, with a wild new track, a fifth album coming later this year, and the usual volume of associated nonsense.

The return began right as our last issue went to print. Much as they have with their previous two albums, posters started to appear around London. Featuring an elongated photo of frontman Matty Healy, they also contained a date - 7th July.

A week later, they were followed up by a second poster. Featuring a new image, they now included a title - ‘Part of the Band’.

That’s the name of the new track; the one dropping a day before this issue hits the streets. As ever for The 1975, it’s both definitively them and yet wildly unexpected. Drawing parallels from ‘The Birthday Party’, one of the stand out tracks from previous album ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’, it heads off into places The 1975 haven’t set foot before. While many fans were expecting them to return to their earlier roots - especially considering all the talk of recording something under their pre-The 1975 guise Drive Like I Do - the new single couldn’t be further away. And yet, at the same time, it doesn’t feel to set any defined path for their next record. Anything is possible.

That album is titled ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’, a title evolved from a song name on a previously leaked tracklisting for ‘Notes...’. Set to land on 14th October, it’s notably far shorter than all their previous records, coming in at a relatively succinct 11 tracks. Just to stick to their usual enigmatic tactics, they announced it by sending postcards out to fans.

Typical The 1975.

The band are set to make their live comeback at Japan’s Summer Sonic festival in Tokyo and Osaka on 20th and 21st August. At the time of press, no UK live dates have been announced. ■ The 1975’s new album ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’ is out 14th October. New track ‘Part of the Band’ is streaming now.

You can read our full thoughts in Bangers on p16.

readdork.com 7.

INTRO

BEY IS BACK! AAA-list pop fans assemble - Beyoncé is back! Back!! Andindeed-BACK!!!! She’s got her new album ‘RENAISSANCE’ on the way for 29th July - teased with a mysterious ‘act i’ tag line. A new track, ‘BREAK MY SOUL’ has already dropped too, the latest song to interpolate Robin S’ ‘Show Me Love’.

↑ There’s always one person in any group of musicians wearing silly trousers.

YARD ACT TEAM UP ‘FYI’ WITH... ELTON JOHN?! ↓↓↓ THEY’VE GOT FLASHY MATES NOW, DON’TCHA KNOW? ↓↓↓

ALEX G

Alex G has announced a new album, ‘God Save The Animals’.

Set for release on 23rd September, the news comes alongside a brand new single, ‘Runner’, which is streaming online now. He’ll hit the UK for Green Man Festival in August.

Always good to give a platform to new talent. → YARD ACT HAVE teamed up with

Elton John for a new version of ‘100% Endurance’.

The new rendition arrives ahead of a long list of live shows for the band, including a night at O2 Kentish Town Forum, London on 1st December. The original track is taken from the band’s debut album ‘The Overload’.

Frontperson James Smith says of the collab: “Within our camp we have a saying: ‘Mad shit happens when you do art’ – it means what it means.

You make stuff because you want to make it, and you throw stuff you’ve made into the world because you’d rather share it than not and then you leave it alone and let it do its thing.

That thing you did can take you to places you didn’t intend to go with it, but it’s out of your control really.

You have no control over the mad shit. It just happens. Elton John saw our stuff and he started telling the press he thought we were good and then we chatted on the phone and after a few calls I said ‘Elton, do you want to come to the studio and play piano on a tune?’ because, fuck it, it doesn’t matter if he says no. Anyway, he said ‘yes’, so it doesn’t matter that he didn’t say no. I don’t know what else to say. He’s brilliant. Switched on, hilarious and an amazing musician.”

Elton adds: “From the first moment I heard Yard Act, I fell in love with James’ lyrics, and the way he’s delivered the song. Their sound

8. DORK

is such a breath of fresh air. When James called and asked if I would come into the studio I instantly loved the idea. I started out as a session musician in the late ’60s and I absolutely loved it then. It was such a thrill to be thrown in with musicians I’d never met before, it pushed me out of my comfort zone and I became a better musician. During lock down I had the time on my hands to really start doing that in a concerted way again, and I fell in love with the challenge and the process all over again. They’re a very special band, with a massive future ahead of them and I’m honoured they’ve let me be a part of their journey.”

James continues: “After he’d laid down the piano and laid down the vocals, taking direction from us and trying everything we asked, Elton reiterated his love of sessioning on other people’s tracks and said something very poignant to me and Ali – “I love playing on other people’s songs, especially these guys, because I started off as a session musician. The fascinating thing is you hear things so differently from other people, and when you hear what they hear, then it all makes sense.”

That insight, that curiosity and that approach to music is the reason he’s still standing (after all this time).

Elton is a diamond. It was an honour to collaborate with him. My mum is showing off to all her mates and mad shit happens when you do art.”

DRY CLEANING

Dry Cleaning have announced their second album, ‘Stumpwork’.

Arriving just fourteen months since their debut ‘New Long Leg’, the new full-length is set to arrive on 21st October and is previewed by a new single, ‘Don’t Press Me’, which you can stream online now.

WHITNEY

↓↓↓ POP SCIENCE ↓↓↓

TAKE THE BISCUIT Biscuits come in all shapes and sizes, which means the biscuit someone chooses to be offers a deep and revelatory look into their psyche. Either that or we just really, really like biscuits. Because it’s important to Know Your Pop Stars, we asked James and Ryan YARD ACT what biscuit they would be.

RYAN: I’d be a Jaffa Cake because nobody knows if they’re a biscuit or a cake. I like to be mysterious. In my opinion, it’s a biscuit that just calls itself a cake, but the jury’s out.

JAMES: There’s this thing with biscuits and cookies where a biscuit is hard, and a cookie is soft, but an out-of-date biscuit is soft, and an out-of-date cookie is hard. It’s an interesting concept.

I’d be an out-of-date biscuit I think, because I used to be hard as fuck, and now I’m completely soft.

Whitney have returned with a brand new track, and news of a third album. Titled ‘REAL LOVE’, the fresh cut is the first taster of ‘SPARK’, which is set to arrive on 16th September via Secretly Canadian. You can stream ‘REAL LOVE’ online now.

SAMPA THE GREAT

Sampa The Great has announced her new album ‘As Above, So Below’, due on 9th September. The follow-up to debut ‘The Return’, the news arrives alongside new single ‘Never Forget’ and details of a European tour for later this year.

TWO DOOR CINEMA CLUB

Two Door Cinema Club have announced the details of their fifth studio album, ‘Keep On Smiling’. Set for release on 2nd September, the news comes alongside a new single, ‘Wonderful Life’, which you can check out online now.

SANTIGOLD

Santigold has announced a new album, ‘Spirituals’. Her fourth full-length is set to arrive on 9th September. To preview the release, there’s a new single, ‘Ain’t Ready’, which follows up on recent cut ‘High Priestess’. You can stream it online now.

UK & IRELAND TOUR PLUS SPECIAL GUEST

ARCHITECTS

NOVEMBER 2022 SAT SUN TUE WED FRI SAT MON TUE

05 06 08 09 11 12 14 15

LEEDS GLASGOW DUBLIN BELFAST BIRMINGHAM LONDON CARDIFF BOURNEMOUTH

SOLD OUT FIRST DIRECT ARENA OVO HYDRO 3ARENA SSE ARENA RESORTS WORLD ARENA THE O2 MOTORPOINT ARENA INTERNATIONAL CENTRE

L I V E N AT I O N . C O. U K • T I C K E T M A S T E R . C O. U K B I F F YC LY R O.C O M • G I G S A N DTO U R S.C O M A L I V E N AT I O N , S J M C O N C E R T S , D F C O N C E R T S & M C D P R E S E N TAT I O N B Y A R R A N G E M E N T W I T H I T B

INTRO

CMAT DELUXE

Words: Martyn Young.

↓↓↓ BIG REISSUE ↓↓↓

There are pop stars. There are pop legends. There are pop icons. And then, there’s CMAT.

→ YES DEAR READER, in the pages of Dork, there is no pop star more legendary than CMAT. Now that her ace debut album ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’ has been out for a few months, we give her a bell to catch up on what she’s been up to, a special new deluxe version of the album - due this Friday (1st July) - AND find out why her next album might appeal specifically to ice cream lovers.

Hey CMAT, what’s going on? How are things in the CMAT world?

Things in the CMAT world have been busy because it is now festival season, and I am doing a lot of festivals. I saw a statistic the other day that said I was the third most booked new act for European festivals. The second is Wet Leg, and the first is Yard Act. It’s important to have two syllables, it seems.

So, what’s been the best festival you’ve played so far?

Primavera, hands down. We were told there would be like twenty people there because we were the first act on stage, and we were the first people playing the entire site on the Saturday.

Everybody told me that it was a good stage but a shit time. 1500 people turned up, and I met loads of them afterwards, and they were like, “We had to set our alarms!’”

It looked like a real moment from all your Insta videos?

It really was! I wasn’t expecting it. It was really lovely. Everyone came out in cowboy hats and Ireland flags and stuff. It was really sweet.

Now that the album has been out for six months, how do you feel about it with a little bit of perspective on it?

The time since it came out has been touring, touring, touring. I’ve only just got a room in a house in Brighton that is actual rented accommodation and not just me living out of a suitcase.

It’s been non-stop. I made the album really quickly, and I made it without thinking about it too much, which was at times a good thing, but also, there are certain songs on the album where I’m like, oh, if only I could do this and that differently. If I had made it more slowly where I could think about what I was doing, then there are other songs I might have laboured over too much, and they would have ended up shit, like ‘Cowboy’. I don’t really have regrets. Thinking about it now, I would do things differently, but it’s out, and I still love all the songs.

If releasing the album is like giving

10. DORK

birth to a child, it’s now crawling and beginning to walk or say a few words - how’s the album been living in the world?

Sometimes I have to hear the album in different contexts than I’ve heard it before. I went to a restaurant with my friend Ian the other day, and we were sitting down for 20 minutes, and all of a sudden, my album came on the PA because someone working there knew who I was and just put it on. I was like, thanks! Ian was like, do you want me to tell them to turn it off? And I was like, no, it’s grand - let’s just leave it on as background music. I was listening and thinking, oh wow, ‘Virgos’ really slaps.

You’re doing something a little bit special and doing a deluxe version of ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’. Tell us all about that, then?

The unusual thing about recording this album was that I literally just recorded the songs that were going on to the album. I didn’t record any b-sides. I kind of hate deluxe editions on Spotify that have all these songs that I don’t fucking know. I didn’t want to just put random songs on or write new songs that had nothing to do with the writing and recording of the album and just plonk them on for the sake of it. I did really want to redo some songs, though, out of the context of Covid. I wanted to think about stuff and not be super rushed and boxed in. I picked a few songs where I wanted people to hear a slightly different version.

So, you’ve re-recorded four songs in different musical styles. Why did you pick those songs specifically, and what different qualities came out in them?

‘Communion’ was the main one I wanted to redo because I thought I did the shittest job of that on the album.

I really love it, but it was probably the least successful song-to-production translation. It might be because I wrote it quite slow and did a fast production of it. I thought, y’know, fuck it let’s redo it and see if it comes out better; I love the version we did.

‘Geography Teacher’, I did the opposite of what one usually does, which is usually you take a fast song and make it slooowww and emotional, like Calum Scott and ‘Dancing On My Own’. Urghh, no offence to Callum Scott, but I hate that. I hate that culture. It’s fine when I do it to my own songs. I guess Lewis Capaldi has that trance version of ‘Somebody You Love’ that plays on the radio in America. That’s alright. That’s like the opposite. That’s what I’ve done with ‘Geography Teacher’.

What about the gorgeous country version of ‘No More Virgos’?

I just wanted to do a Gillian Welch version of it because I thought it would be really funny. Just for my own entertainment. There have been some people on the internet who have criticised me for including ‘No More Virgos’ on the album because it’s such an outlier. Somebody said it was my attempt at people-pleasing. I was like, no, it was just my attempt at having fun! I wanted to do a country version so I could go, here’s your fucking sad sack Calum Scott version of ‘Virgos’, you shower of shites. Here’s your emotional man in a denim jacket playing guitar singing soulfully. Here’s

your meat and two veg version. Here’s your John Lewis Christmas ad version of ‘No More Virgos’.

And finally, we have maybe your signature song in ‘I Wanna Be A Cowboy, Baby!’.

Yeah, it’s my favourite song. I did an acoustic version of it before it was released for Ireland Music in 2020, and they put it on YouTube. All the comments underneath it were like, I want an acoustic version of this on Spotify. So there you go. I’ve given it to you.

What other things have you been up to then, and what might you have planned? Because if there’s one thing we know and love about CMAT, it’s that you’re always cooking up something new.

There’s nothing that I can reveal, but obviously, I’m up to no good. You know me well enough to know I’m up to no good. The one thing I can say is that if anyone is intending on going to the festival Electric Picnic, I’d recommend seeing myself over anyone else because I don’t think anyone is going to try as hard as I am. There’s a lot going on with live shows.

How much fun are you having playing about with your live show then?

Oh, I love it. I spent the last two days watching Glastonbury footage, and I’ve just been so inspired. It feels less like doing music than doing theatre. I know I’ll eventually get criticised for how gimmicky my shows are going to end up becoming, but I literally don’t care. I’ve decided that I actually just love gimmicks.

Surely CMAT will be at Glastonbury next year?

I fucking hope so! I’m not trying to be funny, but every single person I know that lives in England was at Glastonbury this year except for me.

All of my band played Glastonbury with Declan McKenna! It was so funny.

I was extra, extra FOMO. I want a good stage, and I have plans. I’d like to be on the telly. I love the telly.

Finally, we’re not sure if you’ve started thinking about your second album yet, but we were wondering if you could conceptualise it as a form of confectionery, what would it be?

It would be a tub of Ben & Jerry’s as it is the food item I most associate with a breakup.

What flavour?

What’s the most sad flavour of Ben & Jerry’s? Maybe the maple pecan blondie one.

What do you prefer between gnomes and scarecrows?

I’m one of those people who roots for the underdog. I think that the underdog is the scarecrow. Having watched The Wizard of Oz many times, if I know anything, it’s that scarecrows are legends. Gnomes are just ceramic gremlins. The minute they come alive Night At The Museum-style, they will tear your eyeballs out.

CMAT’s deluxe edition of ‘If My Wife New I’d Be Dead’ is out now.

INTRO

↓↓↓ INCOMING? ↓↓↓

↓↓↓ GET A HOBBY ↓↓↓

GARDENER’S

WORLD WITH...

MUNA Here at Dork, we’re always interested in pop star hobbies.

Yes, whatever the weird minutiae of what these pop stars get up to, we want to know.

So you can imagine how thrilled we were when we discovered MUNA’s iconic Katie Gavin has a passion for gardening.

Gardening is a serious business, and Katie has some strong opinions. “I like gardening in general. I tend to have high horse opinions about leaf blowing and weed whacking because it’s not good for the environment in LA. I’m more of a proponent for doing things with your hands.”

Katie doesn’t quite get to have the time she wants to truly devote to her garden, though. “My garden has gone to shit this year,” she sighs. “I started getting into plants when we were finishing our second album.

We were still home a lot then. Now that we’re so busy and out of town so often, my backyard is a bit of a nightmare.”

There may be hope, though, in the form of a handy pop star tip.

“I planted a lot of native plants.

One of the amazing things about that is if you plant natives, after a year, you don’t really need to water them. They’ll stay alive. Natives are good for touring musicians.”

Hurrah! There you go, people in bands who also like gardening (we’re looking at you, Yannis from Foals, we know how you love your pruning) - there may be hope for you all yet. Thanks, Katie!

12. DORK

HAVE WET LEG FINISHED THEIR SECOND ALBUM? That’s what Rhian and Hester told Absolute Radio at the Isle of Wight Festival last month. When asked about following up their brilliant debut, Hester claimed “it’s in the bag”, before Rhian claimed they’ve “completed it, all done”.

Do we believe them? Well, Rhian then claimed it’s death metal, and that we’ll be waiting a while. So, y’know. Pop stars, eh?

↓↓↓ INCOMING ↓↓↓

IT’S ONLY BLOODY STEVE JOE ‘DJO’ → THERE’S AN UNWRITTEN rule about musicians who are also actors. We don’t define them by their other jobs, even if they’re wildly popular. In no way would we ever refer to them as ’Stranger Things’ King Steve Harrington’, or start writing paragraph after paragraph about how he’s absolutely the best thing about the show / Netflix / existence. That just wouldn’t be respectful to their art, y’see.

So, after definitely not mentioning any of that, even in passing, Joe Keery has announced a new album under his alter ego, Ste... sorry... Djo. It’s called ‘Decide’, and follows up on 2019’s Really Very Good debut full-length ‘Twenty Twenty’. Set to arrive on 16th September, here’s a new single, ‘Change’, streaming online now. Joe also seems to have taken to sporting a wig, hiding those iconic locks. Pop stars, eh? What are we to do with them?

That 2022 Ting Tings reboot just hit different.

INTRO

YUNGBLUD GETS WET ‘N’ WILD ↓↓↓ ON LOCATION ↓↓↓

London’s Southbank, a flatbed truck and a whole load of water pistols YUNGBLUD only knows chaos as he gets shut down filming a video for ‘Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today’. → YUNGBLUD BROUGHT THE CHAOS to London’s Southbank last month, as he invited fans down to shoot a video for new track ‘Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today’.

Telling fans to meet him at 3.30pm on a June Monday afternoon by Festival Pier, a crowd quickly formed before being told to head over to a location near the London Eye. Once there, a flatbed truck garbed out in slogans and loaded with instruments arrived for an impromptu video shoot for new song ‘Don’t Feel Like Feeling Sad Today’.

In typical YUNGBLUD style, the wet and wild shoot only lasted for three play-throughs before being shut down by police for overcrowding, but we were there to capture the action.

It’s all part of the build up to YUNGBLUD’s new self-titled album, which is set to drop on 2nd September.

You can check out more photos and video on readdork.com now. ■

Photos: Patrick Gunning.

readdork.com 13.

↓↓↓ SUMMER SPECTACULAR ↓↓↓

DORK’S DAY OUT We’re throwing a big all-day party this summer, and you’re all invited. → OVER THE PAST year or so, we’ve been putting on a steady stream of live shows under the banner of Dork’s Night Out. With the summer here, though, we figured it’s about time we did something a little bit special.

Since live music returned after ‘the pandemic’, we’ve brought Phoebe Green to Camden Assembly, had a Christmas party with L Devine, hosted Spector’s Moth Ball, coaxed Swim Deep back to the capital for a headline show for the first time in quite literally years, and brought the seaside to the big smoke with The Great Escape’s preview shows at London’s legendary 100 Club.

But now, we’re going super-sized.

Introducing Dork’s Day Out. Our biggest party to date, we’ll be

taking over North London’s Signature Brew brewery on Saturday, 6th August for a full day and night of Dork faves.

There’ll be no pitching tents, wellyboots or roll-on deodorant ‘showers’ at 7am here. Hopefully. Just unmissable sets from some of the bands who bless our hallowed pages, DJ sets, refreshing beverages and some surprises too.

Yes. We are attempting to prove we can organise a piss up in a brewery.

Coach Party, Chilli Jesson, L’objectif and Mollie Coddled are the first wave of acts joining the line-up.

With headliners and more names across the bill to be announced, limited tier 1 tickets are on sale now via our friends at Dice for a very reasonable £14.50 + fees.

We’ll see you there! ■

↑ Chilli Jesson (and band) ↓ L’objectif

14. DORK

↑ Mollie Coddled

A DAY IN THE LIFE OF

SATURDAY 6TH AUGUST 2022

INTRO

COACH PARTY THE Photo: Hattie Neate.

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

Asking them. Ahead of their DORK’S DAY OUT set, here’s what JESS EASTWOOD from COACH PARTY’s day looks like.

No comment - Ed

SUGAR WE’RE GOIN’ DOWN

St. Vincent was on an airplane trip from Manchester to Dublin - one of those small ones with the twin propellers. Not usually a nervous flyer, she recounted at a recent show, it was enough to make her a bit nervy. She was sharing the flight, though. Fall Out Boy were also on there. “I couldn’t help wondering, if the worst happened, which of us would get top billing?” she mused.

We love you Annie, but only one act here can claim their most famous song is perfectly titled for a disastrous airplane crash.

6:45AM → Saturday morning, I wake up and my ears are ringing.

I got home from the Isle Of Wight Festival a few hours prior (my mum and dad dropped me home, lol). I don’t sleep well when I’ve had a few beers. In fact, it was so bad I had hangover shakes. I had a cup of tea and went on social media for a bit.

10:00AM → I had a shower to try and make myself feel more human, the thought of going back to the festival and doing it all again was making my stomach churn, but I am dedicated to the cause. I then just laid in my towel until I felt ambitious enough to get dressed. I started to play some guitar, as I felt kind of inspired from watching a few bands I liked the night before.

I got excited about what I was writing and contacted Joe (our guitarist) about pencilling in some

writing time.

1:00PM → I finally decided what to wear for the second day of the festival and went down to my local pub to pre-drink with my friends. Hair of the dog is a VERY real thing. Also, we never drink on tour, so I haven’t had beer for a while, and I definitely won’t be drinking again for a long time.

Tea and orange squash ONLY, please! It started to rain whilst in the pub, and it made me question my whole life. I felt really cold just wearing shorts and a vest; I also felt like ass and knew it was going to be a long day. Life was bleak at this point.

3:00PM → I’m back, baby, in full spirits; life’s good! I got changed, and nothing can stop me!!! I met all my family inside the festival, and they spent the evenings buying rounds, because obviously,

as a musician, I am always financially in crisis. Good times.

9:400M → I peaked around 7/8pm, I’m cold, and I’ve pretty much sobered up. I wasn’t built for this, but I knew I had to conquer on. I’m a warrior.

2:35AM → Me and my family had some pizza, and then I got dropped home again. I was very happy. I was also so tired, but I always make time for the nighttime skin routine and a cheeky teeth clean. The night then got better as I got into bed and had a quick scroll through TikTok. Please don’t judge; it’s very addictive.

Coach Party play Dork’s Day Out on Saturday 6th August at London’s Signature Brew. For tickets and more information, visit readdork.com/dayout.

DID YOU KNOW? mxmtoon has “always been a minion hater”. She even ran a group on Vine with her friends titled ‘minion boycott’.

No, we didn’t make this up!

It’s on TikTok! Honest, it is.

ALTERNATIVE

HISTORY

OF

LIAM PAYNE Last Month, LIAM PAYNE went on a podcast to set the record straight on how he’s the best and most successful ex-member of One Direction. Given how helpful he was in reminding us of his brilliance, we asked him to go through the books and put right some of the great misunderstandings of recorded history *.

“Scientists claim The Big Bang didn’t have a single central point, but they’re wrong. If you remember, Simon Cowell picked me out to be the centre of the known universe, and then put the others in around me. The whole plan was for me to have my own galaxy in one to two years.”

“Look, I’ve searched, and the Lord’s Prayer doesn’t have a billion on any streaming platform. Not like ‘Strip That Down’. It’s a good song, we both have our own styles.

God’s just isn’t for me. But the numbers don’t lie. I was first to a billion. Who should people really be worshipping here?”

“As I’ve said, if there’s ever a chance for me to jump in the ring and feel gladiatorial in the 21st century, I’m in. Yeah, I’ve read Roman classical mythology. That Hercules would have to come down a few weight slots, but yeah, I’d fight him. I will fight whoever you want.” * Yes, obviously we made all this up.

readdork.com 15.

BANGERS. THE BEST NEW TRACKS YOU NEED TO HEAR THIS MONTH.

↓↓↓ THE BIG TRACK ↓↓↓

THE 1975 PART OF THE BAND

→ If there’s only one golden rule to The 1975’s creative process, it’s that there aren’t any. Over their last two albums, we’ve learned that for every right turn, there’ll always be an equal, if not greater number of hard swerves to the left. It only makes sense that, after a period of hinting at a return to their earliest roots, they’d instead introduce their fifth album with a thrust towards new horizons.

While ‘Part of the Band’, stylistically, may sit somewhere close to the more lo-fi moments on their divisive yet typically brilliant previous record ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’, it’s also stop-in-yourtracks different. Opening with string stabs that feel both warm and darkly anxious at the same time, this is The 1975 at their most organic.

A song without a chorus that, even in its loosest moments, never feels to lose immediacy, it could only ever be served up by one band. At the same time, it’s almost impishly different too.

Lyrically, it’s a winding, fast-running train of thoughts, memories and ideas - at times self-referential (a line about coffee recalls a long-standing Matty Healy meme), at others deliberately out to challenge. There are hints of previous collaborator Phoebe Bridgers, a world of 00s US college radio indie, and perhaps even the more accessible end of Black Country, New Road’s wild, organic jazz soundscapes. As a comeback track, it’s either brave or stupid - perhaps both, certainly never neither.

With no crowd-pleasing neon haze, leather jackets and 80s riffs, it’s bait to anyone who hoped for a base-level regression - but nothing about ‘Part of the Band’ feels like it cements a mould for October’s forthcoming album ‘Being Funny in a Foreign Language’.

If anything, it only further quashes preconceptions. A band able to headline the biggest arenas while being this creatively dissonant remains almost unprecedented. With genre confined to the scrap heap and poptimism fully absorbed into the creative consciousness, the lack of defined expectation is what makes The 1975 one of the most exciting bands on the planet. To force them back into any tightly defined box would be artistic and cultural vandalism of the highest order.

Embrace the process; there are no rules.

STEPHEN ACKROYD → HRRRNK! POP EMERGENCY! Flick to page 6 to find out more about what’s happening with The 1975.

16. DORK

INTRO

CLAIRE ROSINKRANZ ↓↓↓ BIG BOP Q+A ↓↓↓

“I’VE FINALLY PICKED WHICH SONGS ARE GOING ON THE ALBUM”

Photo: Hunter Baker.

CLAIRE ROSINKRANZ

FLETCHER

HER BODY IS BIBLE

→ For a good while now, Fletcher has been not so quietly building up an arsenal of shockingly brilliant pop. With her debut album finally on the books - it’s called ‘Girl of my Dreams and will be with us this September - ‘Her Body is Bible’ sits right at the top of the rankings. Driving hard in the verses, soaring high in the chorus, it’s a song that perfectly sets up Fletcher’s whole identity.

From the ‘amen’ of the chorus, to the rejoicing refrain throughout - it’s the confident marker to something much-anticipated still to come. STEPHEN ACKROYD

BABY QUEEN

NOBODY REALLY CARES

→ Embracing the sort of youthful brattiness she’s previously championed with early singles like ‘Buzzkill’ and ‘Want Me’, ‘Nobody Really Cares’ sees Baby Queen try her hand at an anthem for the anxious. It’s about “realising it’s okay to be yourself and do exactly what makes you happy,” she asserts. MADELINE CABOT

DRY CLEANING DON’T PRESS ME

→ Dry Cleaning don’t really do bad songs, so it’s no surprise that ‘Don’t Press Me’ - from their new album ‘Stumpwork’, due later this year - is another auditory treat. A song about taking pleasure and shunning unnecessary guilt, it’s a much gentler experience than they typically offer up, veering more towards indie-pop than their oft-used post-punk tag.

MADALINE CABOT

LOYLE CARNER HATE

→ Loyle Carner makes his comeback with the very onthe-nose ‘Hate’, a song that sees him let fly with a streamof-consciousness litany of complaints. “One of the few songs made from a hateful place,” he says. “I was angry at the world, frightened and

I’M TOO PRETTY FOR THIS

→ When Claire Rosinkranz first broke through with ‘Backyard Boy’, her wildire viral success was as undeniable as it was massive. As great as that was, though, there was always that nagging worry that it was all built on one easily shareable hook something so many others have failed to expand upon.

‘I’m Too Pretty For This’ is the latest nail in the coffin of that concern. With far more grit and punk attitude than was initially suggested, it’s both a solid gold pop bop and a scuzzy, scrappy anthem in waiting.

overwhelmed.” An exciting, vital taste of what’s to come.

MADALINE CABOT

YUNGBLUD

DON’T FEEL LIKE FEELING SAD TODAY

→ An early teaser from his upcoming album, YUNGBLUD’s latest single embraces one of pop-punk’s most valuable, life-affirming themes: no, not wanking (honestly, you guys) - picking yourself up when everything’s getting you down.

“I wrote this song on a morning when I didn’t even want to get out of bed,” he explains. “I sat and looked at the ceiling, head full of so much shit, reading what the internet was saying about me that day, and I just didn’t feel like feeling sad. I wrote these words to help me stand up.” It’s a muchneeded sub-two-minutes shot of enthusiasm. SAM TAYLOR

OSCAR LANG + WALLICE

I’VE NEVER BEEN TO L.A.

→ For his first track back since the release of debut album ‘Chew The Scenery’, Oscar Lang has teamed up with his Dirty Hit labelmate Wallice, and it works ridiculously well. ‘I’ve Never Been To L.A.’ is a bright, addictively fun pop tune that’s a total joy to have on. Pop it on all your summer playlists. SAM TAYLOR

RINA SAWAYAMA

CATCH ME IN THE AIR

→ Proof that Queen Rina can do no wrong, ‘Catch Me In The Air’ arrives with a totally different vibe to previous single ‘This Hell’, but is no less brilliant. Driving with the top down like prime pop rock, it takes its name quite literally, soaring off on the breeze with the sort of confidence you’d expect from The Future of Modern Pop Music. With ‘Hold The Girl’ approaching fast, Rina Sawayama’s second album could well be one of the most anticipated of the year..

STEPHEN ACKROYD

DAN HARRISON

Jackson, Jay Z.

First reaching a wider audience with her breakout debut ‘Backyard Boy’, 18-year-old Southern California multihyphenate CLAIRE ROSINKRANZ has a track record of bubbly bops. With her latest ‘I’m Too Pretty For This’ just dropped, we caught up with her for a quick chin-wag.

Hi Claire! What are you up to?

I’m on a lil vacation with my sister and best friends!

You’ve got a new single out! Tell us about ‘i’m too pretty for this’ what inspired it, where did it come from?

I wrote ‘i’m too pretty for this’ on my bed, in my room after I broke up with my first boyfriend, but it wasn’t until after I

played it live on a small tour that I realised I needed to record the song. It seemed that so many people related to the lyrics and the overall feeling you get from it. I don’t think the moral of the song is pinpointed towards one thing but rather to give anyone the opportunity to say ‘i’m too pretty for this’ and move on from whatever they’re dealing with.

What is it that draws you to writing about heartbreak?

It’s an easy thing to write about when you’re going through a little bit of it, and everyone experiences it at some point.

The 90s are having a bit of a moment right now what are your favourite 90s pop culture reference points?

Spice Girls, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Michael

What else are you enjoying at the moment?

Always at the beach, but besides that, I just read The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo (would recommend). I’ve been writing a ton, and recently finding some time for road trips with friends!

You’re working on your debut album, right?

How’s that going?

So, so, so good. I’m pumped. I’ve finally picked which songs are going on the album, and now we just have to finalise production, but it should hopefully be coming soon.

Is there anything you can tell us about it?

Hmm… not much to tell yet, but I think I’ll be dropping around 12 songs.

When will we know more?

Hopefully ASAP, but you can keep up with me and my releases on my socials!! readdork.com 17.

This image was created using ‘Artificial Intelligence’.

Which means it’s exactly like most of the rest of the magazine! *guffaw guffaw snort* - Ed

FESTIVALS.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED FOR THE SUMMER SEASON.

18. DORK

FESTIVALS

The big hitter of August’s late festival season, READING + LEEDS is back again with six huge headliners, two dualling main stages and a whole bunch of exciting names across a stacked line-up.

26TH-28TH AUGUST 2022

ROLL I

around the release of Arctic Monkeys’ forthcoming album.

To decide what route they’ll take, roll a dice. We’re 95% confident it’ll see us right.

FOR ALBUM: ARCTIC

MONKEYS SAT (READING) / SUN (LEEDS)

At the time of press, we don’t know much at all about Arctic Monkeys’ new album. As they prepare to headline this year’s READING & LEEDS, we’re going to roll some dice and find out.

THE RULES: We’ve written down a series of words, sentences, descriptions and outcomes for some of the key creative decisions to be taken

DO NOT MISS

t’s been a long wait for the return of Arctic Monkeys.

2018’s ‘Tranquillity Base Hotel & Casino’ is now more than four years old, and the anticipation for what comes next is at fever pitch. The perfect time for a Reading & Leeds headline slot, then.

So, what do we know? Well. Not a lot. If we were going to guess, we’d expect to hear something towards the end of July, possibly a few days later, with the band’s first live dates on the planner for Turkey on the 9th and 10th of August.

The album could well be titled INSERT ALBUM TITLE HERE, and could be with us INSERT DATE HERE. Inspired by INSERT NON MUSICAL INSPIRATION HERE, it consists of INSERT TRACK LISTING HERE, and features lead single INSERT SINGLE TITLE HERE. According to Alex Turner, it’s heavily influenced by INSERT MUSICAL INFLUENCE HERE, and is delivered in a INSERT STYLE HERE style.

We can’t wait.

HALSEY

SUN (READING) / FRI (LEEDS)

ANSWERS: ROLL A SIX SIDED DICE TO FILL IN THE GAPS. ALBUM TITLE 1: Monkey Business 2: Monkey Nuts 3: Monkey See, Monkey Do 4: Monkey Bars 5: Monkey Business 6: It’s Arctic, Not Artic

TRACK LISTING 1: ...a measly eight tracks 2: ...just nine tracks 3: ...ten tracks 4: ...eleven tracks 5: ...twelve tracks 6: ...one really long musical ‘movement’

DATE 1: ...on announcement!

Surprise drop!

2: ...on Friday 26th August - yep, the day before their Reading headline slot!

3: ...in September 2022 4: ...in October 2022 5: ...in Q1 2023 6: ...when it’s finished, you cheeky sods.

SINGLE TITLE 1: Y’reet Lad? 2: No, We’re Not Going To Make One That Sounds Like The Old Stuff. Fuck Off. 3: Three out of Five 4: You Used To Look Much Better On The Dancefloor 5: Arrabbiata 6: I Definitely Don’t Wanna Know

NON-MUSICAL INSPIRATION 1: ...a new-found interest in astrology 2: ...the tax man 3: ...a sense of intense boredom 4: ...a contractual obligation on a record contract 5: ...the hope of stopping people asking 6: ...the musical choices on Homes Under The Hammer

MUSICAL INFLUENCE 1: Rammstein 2: Mozart 3: Def Leppard 4: S Club 7 5: Dr Karl Kennedy 6: The Bootleg Beatles STYLE 1: Absurdist Jazz 2: Nu-Metal 3: Skiffle 4: Hyperpop 5: Drum ‘n’ Bass 6: Throwback 00s Indie

100 GECS

SUN (READING) / FRI (LEEDS)

The idea of Halsey headlining Reading Chances to see 100 gecs in the UK + Leeds would have, at one point, have been few and far between. seemed mad. Now, it’s brilliant.

Expect madness.

READING + LEEDS 26th-28th August 2022

Line-up: Dave, Megan Thee Stallion, Arctic Monkeys, Bring Me The Horizon, Rage Against The Machine, Halsey, Polo G, Little Simz, Glass Animals, Wolf Alice, Fontaines D.C., Jack Harlow, Run The Jewels, Maneskin, Bastille, DMA’s, Circa Waves, Griff, Black Honey, Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes, Joy Crookes, Wallows, BBNO$, The Lathums, Dayglow, The Sherlocks, D-Block Europe, Enter Shikari, JXDN, Poppy, DE’WAYNE, Pale Waves, Denzel Curry, Willow, Mallrat, Bad Boy Chiller Crew, Bru-C, The K’s , PinkPantheress, Bakar, Piri & Tommy, Fever 333, As It Is, Phem, Kid Kapichi, Witch Fever, Pa Salieu, Priestgate, Bilk, Dan D’Lion, Courting, Honeyglaze, Flowerovlove, DEADLETTER, Wilkinson, Gus Dapperton, AMA, Police Car Collective, Cassyette, Static Dress, Unknown T, JPEGMAFIA, Joesef, Ashnikko, 100 Gecs, Gayle, Dylan, Beabadoobee, Role Model, Stone, Chloe Moriondo, Crawlers, Daisy Brain, Abby Roberts, Miso Extra, Lice, Anorak Patch, Panic Shack

CHLOE MORIONDO SUN (READING) / FRI (LEEDS)

WILLOW

SUN (READING) / FRI (LEEDS)

Dork fave Chloe always brings a good Willow is fast finding a place at the time. Reading + Leeds feels like the cutting edge of forward thinking rock perfect home. music.

readdork.com 19.

↓↓↓ FESTIVAL REPORT ↓↓↓

FESTIVALS

LIVE AT LEEDS IN THE PARK West Yorkshire’s annual extravaganza of new music has spawned an outdoor sibling. With some of the best indie talent on the planet, we’re heading down the park with LIVE AT LEEDS. Photos: Abbie Jennings.

↑ Lauran Hibberd

↑ Holly Humberstone

↑ Zuzu

↑ Molly Payton

20. DORK

→ LIVE AT LEEDS – the jewel of innercity festivals, taking advantage of the city’s plethora of venues, swathes of talent, and ‘famous’ Yorkshire weather to propel festival season into full swing.

Except, this time, after a COVID-delayed 2021 event, Live at Leeds has a brandnew summer home – the picturesque grounds of Temple Newsam, for the inaugural Live at Leeds: In The Park. On Saturday, instead of flooding Briggate and Hyde Park with wavy garms and quickly-crushed cans, fans take to the fields for an indie party that delivers both its usual charm and a step up in magnitude.

Despite the draw of the “platty joobs” (those two words are mentioned around the fest by artists and fans alike way more times than we care to mention) or the disruption of a Northern Rail strike (another Live at Leeds weekend staple), from the opening of the gates onwards, Temple Newsam is busy and glittering.

Lauran Hibberd couldn’t be a more fitting opener for Live at Leeds’ firstever outdoor main stage, decked out in an orange feathered suit to match her technicolour tunes. She easily charms her sizeable crowd, not hesitating to treat us like her best friends. In the preamble to her latest single, ‘I’m Insecure’, Lauran laughs as she tells us, “it’s about my irritable bowel syndrome… girls poo too!

Sorry boys!” The cheeky smile and wink in her voice is tangible, and characterises her whole set, culminating in the ultrabuoyant ‘5K (Still Running)’.

From there, it’s over to our very own stage: Dork Presents!

Sprawling across the back of the tent are not one, but two stages, hosting acts back to back, so there’s always good stuff going on. Right now, it’s Molly Payton, who is enchanting audiences with her soulful songwriting. Her richness still feels vulnerable, striking a balance that crackles with ↑ Courting

intensity and star power.

And elsewhere, Liverpool’s STONE convey much the same intensity, albeit in a very different style with their driving indiepunk. Under the overcast skies at the ↑ Sports Team Hill Top stage, frontman Finlay Power captivates as he careens about, delivering their charged lyrics impressively cheerfully.

Holly Humberstone spent last year’s festival season marking herself out as an alt-pop hero in the making, and she spends today claiming her crown. Nestled behind her piano for much of the set, she makes the open air of the towering main stage feel friendly and intimate, helped along by the long chats between songs in which she gives us the stories that inspired her. Her monologues manage to feel like conversations, but as soon as she starts singing, she’s in another world. Though there’s an understated element to her music on record, that slips away here as Holly’s swirling, gorgeous textures go stratospheric, humming through the breeze. The magic picks up even more as she gets to fan-favourites, but they finish all too soon. After

highlight ‘London Is Lonely’’s ethereal tones come to an end, it’s a hypnotic sweep of non-stop sparkle till Holly leaves the stage to the final reverberations of ‘The Walls Are Way Too Thin’.

For those not done swaying and singing, Confidence Man are here to draw the crowds over to the Big Top like groovy, Aussie Pied Pipers of dance bops.

Fresh off the back of their Mighty Hoopla set the day before, there’s not a still body in the tent, the infectious sunshine of their hooks tempting the lot of us into a collective boogie to ‘Boyfriend (Repeat)’.

The calling card of a festival with a properly stacked lineup is a really painful clash. At Live at Leeds, they provide us with one of the stickiest conundrums of all time – Courting and Sports Team hit the stage at the same time. For those at the former, the Liverpool rascals make it worth it. “We don’t have a setlist for this one… what do you wanna hear?” asks Sean MurphyO’Neill wryly before launching into a tight rendition of ‘Tennis’. The sports theme is a solid win, with opener ‘Grand National’ and clear favourite ‘Football’ also going down a storm. For every sardonic “thanks for not watching Sports Team” comments the band can throw out, they deliver another electric tune, belting to the

THIS MONTH

IN

FESTIVALS AUGUST 2022 BOARDMASTERS

Trebelsue Farm, Cornwall 10th-14th August 2022 Line-up: George Ezra, Disclosure, Kings of Leon, Idles, Bastille, Bombay Bicycle Club, Declan McKenna, The Wombats, Self Esteem, Greentea Peng, Thomas Headon, Rachel Chinouriri boardmasters.com

110 ABOVE

Gopsall Hall Farm, Leicestershire 11th-14th August 2022 Line-up: The Amazons, Everything Everything, Sea Girls, Hinds, Palace, Baby Queen, Alfie Templeman, Will Joseph Cook, Thomas Headon, Spector, The Mysterines, Rachel Chinouriri, NOISY, Beaux, Courting, Pixey, Swim School 110above.com ↑ Sea Girls

crowd from the barrier – though, sadly, their cowbell doesn’t do the rounds during ‘Crass’ today. Next time – because for everyone present, there’ll definitely be a next time.

Sea Girls are in their element on the main stage – they’ve always been a band that shines at festivals, and they prove today that they’ve still got it, two and a half albums in. Tunes ↑ The Vaccines old and new are received with the same mates-onshoulders glee, but the classics definitely get the noisiest reaction – ‘Damage Done’, ‘All I Wanna Hear You Say’, and ‘Call Me Out’ ring out to a hero’s reception. Henry Camamile’s knack for a sunny anthem hasn’t declined a bit, though, and the explosive call-andresponse of ‘Hometown’’s “WE DIDN’T TALK COS IT WASN’T COOL TO TALK ABOUT!”

↑ The Mysterines

highlights it as a future favourite.

We’ve well and truly entered the euphoric singalong section of the day, and there’s no one better to prepare us for the ultimate nostalgic-meets-the-future experience that will be The Vaccines than Zuzu, who mesmerises the Dork Presents stage. With the range of a superstar and a huge voice to match, she packs the tearjerkers (‘Skin and Bone’), the grooves (‘The Van Is Evil’) and some of the biggest choruses Live at Leeds sees all day (‘Lie To Myself’, ‘What You Want’). Even though her songs speak for themselves, Zuzu herself is gloriously humble, laughing as she shouts out two girls mid-song who she’s spotted running in from the field singing every word.

Humble is also a word that can be applied to The Vaccines – incredible, this far through their career, that they’ve still maintained the bright-eyed, coy

bluster that defined their debut. Armed with a setlist that blends every stage their sound has gone down through over their decade-odd as a band, Justin Young and co use tonight as an opportunity to show how much fun they’re having. From the sparkly pure pop of ‘Headphones Baby’ to the iconic emotion of ‘All In White’ and the punchy rock-n-roll of ‘I Can’t Quit’, The Vaccines deliver quality tunes and captivating presence across the board.

It feels like everyone who plays after about 8pm today could easily be headlining – Easy Life close off the Big Top, but can’t resist doing so in their trademark chilled-out style.

No strangers to turning their woozy jams into movement-inciting bangers, Murray Matravers teases and coaxes us into action: “Leeds… we’re having some technical difficulties…

The mosh pit is non-existent…” When people finally get into it, he’s still jabbing at us: “last night I was having some incredible lucid dreams… it appeared the mosh pit was 5% bigger than what I see before me!” Everyone is bopping along and having a chuckle too.

The Mysterines also prove themselves worthy headliners over at the Dork Presents stage. Lia Metcalfe is more assured than ever, effortlessly balancing sonic darkness and delightful energy – a winning combination and a Mysterines trademark. Then, finally, it’s time to head over to the main stage. Bombay Bicycle Club have a monopoly over the last hour of the festival and pitch their setlist accordingly. Old favourites sit cosily next to new ones, the audience swaying along appreciatively as they take in another slice of nostalgia. Live at Leeds’s first trip to the park has been a resounding success. And it’s only six months till its inner-city sister! Win-win.

IMS TAYLOR

FLOW FESTIVAL

Helskinki, Finland 12th-14th August 2022 Line-up: Gorillaz, Florence + The Machine, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds, MØ, Sigrid, Jamie xx, Princess Nokia, Fontaines D.C., Holly Humberstone, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, Little Simz, Fred Again.. flowfestival.com

GREEN MAN

Brecon Beacons, Wales 18th-21st August 2022 Line-up: Kraftwerk, Michael Kiwanuka, Beach House, Metronomy, Bicep, Parquet Courts, Kae Tempest, Cate Le Bon, Ty Segall & Freedom Band, Black Country New Road, Dry Cleaning, Ezra Furman greenman.net

ALL POINTS EAST

Victoria Park, London 19th-28th August 2022 Line-up: Gorillaz, The Chemical Brothers, Kraftwerk, Tame Impala, The National, Disclosure, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Idles, Caroline Polachek, Fleet Foxes, King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard, James Blake, Michael Kiwanuka, Self Esteem, Remi Wolf, Dry Cleaning, Perfume Genius, Kurt Vile, Lucy Dacus, Fred Again.., ENNY, Japanese Breakfast allpointseastfestival.com

VICTORIOUS

Southsea Seaground, Portsmouth 26th-28th August 2022 Line-up: Sam Fender, Paolo Nutini, Stereophonics, Bombay Bicycle Club, Bastille, The Wombats, Declan McKenna, Primal Scream, Suede, Self Esteem, SOAK, Inhaler, Sports Team, Remi Wolf, Baby Queen, Editors, Swim Deep, Alfie Templeman victoriousfestival.co.uk

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↓↓↓ FESTIVAL REPORT ↓↓↓

FESTIVALS

IS ELTON JOHN MUSIC’S BIGGEST TASTEMAKER?

Everyone loves new music, but nobody more than ELTON JOHN. Given he likes to tip new acts, we went down to his huge BST HYDE PARK show to see who he’s anointing for big things.

Photos: Frances Beach.

↑ Rina Sawayama’s half-inched Elton’s specs

↖ Let’s Eat Grandma

22. DORK

↑ Thomas Headon

→ YOU’D BE HARD-PUSHED to find anyone arguing against the fact that Elton John is a living legend. But for good measure, his Friday night headline set at BST Hyde Park underlined his status several times over. From the hammering open of ‘Bennie And The Jets’ through the soaring emotional heights of ‘Tiny Dancer’ and ‘Candle In The Wind’ to the rowdy ‘Saturday’s Night’s Alright (For Fighting)’, his two-hour set was a rousing rock & roll riot.

The show may have been part of his final tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, but the festival was so much more than a trip down memory lane, thanks to the stellar line-up of supports.

Rather than a celebration of the past, the day felt like a passing of the proverbial pop torch.

Taking to the Rainbow Stage, Let’s Eat Grandma continue their evolution into absolute superstars, without losing their fiery sense of individuality. Opener ‘Happy New Year’ is a giddy triumph of camaraderie while ‘Levitation’ and ‘Hall Of Mirrors’ pull LEG’s playful spirit into a fierce focus. Their instrument-swapping, hand-clapping, dancing performance has a joyful anarchy to it while ‘Hot Pink’ and set closer ‘Donnie Darko’ craft euphoria from fury.

Over on the Birdcage stage, Thomas Headon’s having just as much fun with his shiny indie-pop. Immensely likeable and quick to say whatever comes into his head, Headon’s a comfortable performer that owns the stage and works the crowd with a snarling confidence.

That swagger bleeds into the woozy ‘Strawberry Kisses’, the energetic ‘How Do I Know?” and the wonky ‘UrbanAngel1999’ which are all undeniable festival bangers.

And it would be impossible to talk about the future of pop without mentioning Rina Sawayama. Her debut album may have been released in 2020 but the alt-rock thunder of ‘Dynasty’ and the polished pop might of ‘Comme des garçons (Like the Boys)’ still sit at the cutting edge, challenging, provocative and brilliant. Elsewhere during her set, the soaring self-reflection of ‘Bad Friend’ provides a moment of touching relatability before her determined ambition comes back into play for the snarling ‘XS’, the sleek ‘Love Me 4 Me’ and her party-starting take on Lady Gaga’s ‘Free Woman’.

Then there’s ‘This Hell’, our first taste of Sawayama’s second album ‘Hold The Girl’.

Taking expected pop sensibilities and bending them to her will, the comeback track is a fizzing banger that celebrates defiance and live, it somehow goes harder. Full of rebellion, fury, a gorgeous guitar solo and a determination to succeed, Sawayama might pay her respects to Elton throughout her set but tonight saw her live up to every genre-redefining promise, with plenty of thrills along the way. The era of Sawayama has only just begun.

Elton John may be heading down the Yellow Brick Road to retirement but tonight proved the future of disobedient pop wonder is in very safe hands.

FESTIVALS

↓↓↓ FESTIVAL REPORT ↓↓↓

BORING BELGIUM? → IT’S JUST A few days after Glastonbury, but time has no meaning during festival season anyway, and Dork has shrugged off the hangovers and comedowns, and arrived in a huge field 25 miles outside of Brussels.

Forget all the Belgium cliches. Yes, they have lots of bicycles. Yes, the queue for the waffle stand is longer than at the bar. Yes, the beer is quite strong. But for four days, Rock Werchter makes Belgium the coolest and least boring place on earth.

It is a beast of a festival, with the kind of line-up that makes you squint at the poster and say, ‘Really, all that, for me?’ It is so stacked with talent and big names that even The Killers and Twenty One Pilots don’t make headline status, and bands that would easily sell out Brixton Academy are tucked away on opening slots or on the smallest stages.

It’s lower down the bill where things get really exciting. Where Metallica feel polished and practised to the nth degree, Måneskin exist on the absolute edge of total chaos and are all the more vital for it. Strutting and swaggering with the confidence of a band knowing it is their time, Damiano David already makes a rock star for the ages, while Victoria De Angelis and Thomas Raggi continually hype the already-amped up crowd up to new heights. There is no more exciting sight in music right now, and when Damiano sings of ‘my generation’ it is a less a hoary old Who cover and more a statement of fact.

Immediately followed on the main stage by YUNGBLUD, it is the kind of devastating 1-2 punch to the chin of Traditional Rock Music that we have

By reputation, Belgium might not be the most interesting place on earth - and yet, after a weekend at ROCK WERCHTER, it’s hard to believe anywhere could be more exciting.

↑ INHALER

Photos: Jamie MacMillan.

↑ girl in red

↑ Måneskin

been crying out for at UK festivals for so long.

Dom Harrison is at his usual levels of 125% chaos, leaving one punter in a heavy metal t-shirt musing afterwards, “We don’t usually have stuff like that here. But I… think I like it?” Later that same night, Twenty One Pilots are the next to cast off safety and consistency for something altogether more exciting.

An entire festival field is permanently scarred with second-hand fear by Tyler Joseph climbing up untethered to PRETTY MUCH THE ACTUAL TOP OF THE FESTIVAL STAGE at the

↑ Phoebe Bridgers

↑ Kacey Musgraves

↑ KennyHoopla

climax to ‘Car Radio’. Standing on top of the lighting rig about 30 metres up staring down at the rest of the world, you couldn’t find a more accurate reflection on where Tyler and Josh find themselves these days.

Elsewhere, highlights are as stacked as you’d imagine with a bill like this. Lewis Capaldi wanders around Metallica’s stage circle during his set, apologising to the bemused metalheads for not having any new music to play them because he was too busy masturbating over lockdown.

KennyHoopla masterfully and singlehandedly catches a waffle thrown at him mid-song across one of the most frenzied moshpits of the weekend.

Turnstile have A Big Moment with their sudden promotion to Main Stage, proving their hardcore punk sound translates to the (literally) biggest stages with ease. Phoebe Bridgers makes everyone within a one-mile radius cry. Haim and girl in red supply enough electricity and energy with their performances to supply most of the continent for a good month or so.

As a festival that manages to find a subtle balance between monster-sized big ticket acts, and the next generation waiting in the wings to replace them, Rock Werchter takes some beating. We told you Belgium wasn’t boring. JAMIE MACMILLAN

↑ Royal Blood

↑ Haim

↑ Yungblud

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BARN FARM ON THE

↓↓↓ FESTIVAL REPORT ↓↓↓

FESTIVALS

With a reputation for picking out superstar names before they head to the arenas, we’re back in our finest Wellington boots for the post-pandemic return of BARN ON THE FARM. Photos: Phoebe Fox, Isy Townsend.

→ A FESTIVAL WITH a fantastic track record for showcasing stars of the future, Barn on the Farm has its finger on the pulse and is often ahead of the curve; Lewis Capaldi was a returning favourite here for years before exploding into the mainstream. As you mooch around the cosy site, you’re equally likely to come across a future Reading & Leeds headliner, Radio 1 A-lister or a twee indie song set to bother your eardrums on the newest FIFA game. 2022 is no different, with an eye-catching line-up including Griff, Holly Humberstone and Beabadoobee descending on a cosy Gloucestershire farm.

Finally back for the first instalment since 2019, organiser Josh Sanger has mixed things up by redesigning the festival site, with the Outdoor

Stage now sitting in a more spacious field and given an artistic makeover (adorned like a post-apocalyptic petrol station), allowing more freedom to put on a big pop show. The good vibes at Over Farm are unchanged however, the line-up blending familiar faces, up-and-coming acts that will hope for a Barn-to-arena ascent like Sam Fender and Capaldi have enjoyed, and a few established acts to sprinkle on some stardust.

Headliners at Barn roughly fall into two categories: returning favourites who’ve worked their way up the bill and won over repeat attendees (see Dermot Kennedy from the 2019 edition), and moonshot bookings from the daydreams of the plucky organisers (Maggie Rogers’ dazzling set last time around). Sunday

night headliners Easy Life fall into the former category, at ease working a crowd they know like the back of their hand. Having just played the Pyramid Stage the previous week, it’s another example of Barn’s booking team getting ahead of the buzz and locking in acts before they blow up.

Saturday night’s main event definitely falls into the latter category; Bombay Bicycle Club clearly love their first visit to Over Farm, and the musical lineage makes perfect sense looking at line-ups over the years. The indie favourites receive a raucous reception as they close the Main Stage (located inside a tin barn, facing out into the setting sun), and are having a lot of fun as they show off tracks from their brilliant 2020 record ‘Everything Else Has Gone Wrong’.

↑ Connie Constance

↑ Bombay Bicycle Club

↑ Will Joseph Cook

↑ Alfie Templeman

↑ Griff

24. DORK

↑ Dylan

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FESTIVALS

‘Eat, Sleep, Wake’ is an addictive opener, wobbly guitar lines and repeating vocals insisting that you get on board, and ‘Is It Real’ keeps the energy up. Classic track ‘Shuffle’ reminds us just why Bombay are so revered in indie circles, and a cover of Selena Gomez’s ‘Lose You to Love Me’ allows the band to loosen up.

We get a first listen of a new song, ‘I Want to be Your Only Pet’, before the four-piece bring the house down with an obligatory encore of ‘Always Like This’ complete with brass section tooting. With a lot of the weekend’s acts in the process of carving out their sound, here is a reminder of the kind of performance to aspire to; tight after years performing together, confident and dexterous enough to work the crowd without missing a beat.

Earlier in the day, Bombay’s singer Jack Steadman and drummer Suren de Saram guest with Flyte, getting a flavour of the easy-going camaraderie that defines the festival. The duo work through reimagined versions of their repertoire with help from rotating guests, with the Paul Simon homage ‘Mistress America’ getting toes tapping.

Returning hero and Barn alumnus Holly Humberstone is also present, helping out Flyte before delivering a triumphant Sunday Main Stage performance. With most of Holly’s family and friends present, it was a heartwarming moment to hear her songs bellowed back at her. After spending the year supporting Olivia Rodrigo across America, this was a special homecoming.

Playing what she says is her first-ever festival early on Saturday afternoon, there are no nerves on show as Dylan (aka Natasha Woods) blasts through a half-hour of addictive power-pop. Taking time to warm the crowd up with a verse of Guns’ n’ Roses’ ‘Paradise City’, her own tunes more than hold their own, ‘Nineteen’ an earworm that rattles around long after she leaves stage. With a current pop-punk resurgence to ride, Dylan can hope to go far on today’s showing, which is fuzzier and more impactful live than her recorded work.

Occupying the second slot on the Main Stage is Beabadoobee, whose 90s-inspired alt-rock receives a curiously lukewarm reception compared to her fever-pitch headline shows; although we don’t see the pandemonium we’re accustomed to when Bea is onstage, the poppier ‘Last Day on Earth’ wins the crowd over and gets people “doobee doo” ing.

A few hours earlier, Sam Ryder gives a clue as to what this audience really wants, flamboyantly tossing his luxurious blonde locks and doing his best Freddie Mercury “hey ohh” impression. And, of course, we all get to belt out the Eurovision song. It’s all cheesy

↑ Sam Ryder

↑ The Vaccines

↑ Easy Life

↑ beabadoobee

as fuck, but everyone’s having a good time, and isn’t that the point of all this?

Griff delivers a pop masterclass on the Outdoor Stage on Saturday, her confidence belying her youth as she smashes out hits’ Head on Fire’, ‘One Night’ and ‘Black Hole’. It’s a credit to the astute bookings here that so many of these acts have taken time out from larger stages to treat Gloucester to artists that bother the upper echelons of the charts.

On a sleepy Sunday morning, guitarist Eli Smart gets things going with an energetic blast of rock and roll that draws on his Hawaiian roots, combining staccato guitar strumming with lap steel flourishes provided by his dad, who looks chuffed with the whole thing. A fine musician with a unique spin on indie, it’s a refreshing start to the day.

Maisie Peters battles through technical issues as she co-headlines Sunday night, bringing out Gretta Ray and JP Saxe to duet, and embracing the importance of putting on a spectacle. Barn might be a step down in size from supporting Ed Sheeran in stadiums, but Peters gives it her all. The synth-pop ‘Pyscho’ gets a boost from a strutting keytar player, ‘Cate’s Brother’ is Busted rewired for 2022, and a supreme rendition of ‘John Hughes Movie’ closes things out in style.

One weekend highlight might be a simple pleasure, but The Vaccines are undeniable on a festival stage. After being surprise guests in 2019, they had so much fun they agreed to return for a ‘special guest’ slot on Sunday afternoon, packing out the Main Stage area. In under an hour, Justin Young stalks the stage, conducts the crowd and rattles through more indie classics than you can shake a stick at. For a band who will, to an extent, live off their massive debut album, it’s amazing how well they blend newer songs into their set, orchestrating singalongs just as loud for recent single ‘Your Love is My Favourite Song’ as they later elicit for a joyous run at indie anthem ‘If You Wanna’.

Roaring back to life after two years of gathering dust, Barn on the Farm reminds us just why artists fall in love with this little festival, and why they keep coming back. Big enough to attract indie bighitters but small enough to make space for the next generation to earn their stripes, it’s great to be back in the Barn. DILLON EASTOE

↑ Daisy Brain

FESTIVAL Q+A

FLOWEROVLOVE When did you first realise you wanted to make music?

I always wanted to but never knew how until my brother started producing music a few years ago.

Can you remember the first-ever song you wrote?

Yes, it consisted of me just screaming. I can write a song in 20 mins now, so the process is a lot quicker.

What do you most enjoy writing songs about?

I usually just write about what’s going on in my life. I’m a subconscious writer, so I sing whatever comes to mind, and it just works.

What are you working on at the moment?

Can’t say; just keep an eye out...

What’s your favourite thing about being a musician?

Listening to my own music and feeling complete. It’s a massive ego booster; I just listen like, ‘wow, I’m so cool’.

Have you played many festivals yet?

I’ve never been to a festival; Barn on the Farm is my first!

Recommend us some new bands?

They’re not really new, but The Driver Era are great.

Is there anything else we should know?

Stream ‘Hannah Montana’ by Flowerovlove.

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FESTIVALS

↓↓↓ FESTIVAL REPORT ↓↓↓

As GLASTONBURY finally managed to put on its 50th edition (thanks you-know-what), here are the big moments from 2022 that should go down in festival legend.

SPORTS TEAM FOOL PLANET POP

Glastonbury is famed for its secret sets and surprise appearances.

After bringing out Damon Albarn and Hayley Williams at her recent Coachella headline sets, everyone was expecting something similar from Billie Eilish on the Pyramid.

Enter wind up merchants Sports Team, who successfully conned an entire fanbase into thinking Harry Styles would show up with one Instagram post. Nice work.

SAM FENDER WILL BE HEADLINING SOON, THEN

Anyone who saw the size of crowd Sam Fender pulled will have made the same conclusion - a headline set can’t be that far away. If he can stop going for pints with dodgy blokes, anyway.

OLIVIA RODRIGO

SAYS FUCK YOU TO THE SUPREME COURT

The rulings of the US Supreme Court became a lighting rod of protest and unrest over the weekend - especially amongst some of the Stateside acts performing at the festival. Phoebe Bridgers gave an especially profound “fuck the Supreme Court” during her set, but Olivia Rodrigo took it further. Enlisting Lily Allen to make an appearance at the climax of her Other Stage set, the AAA-list punk-pop star dedicated a cover of ‘Fuck You’ to the Supreme Court judges who voted to overturn Roe vs Wade by name. Iconic.

26. DORK

KENDRICK LAMAR MAKES ART ON THE PYRAMID

The reaction to King Kenny’s billtopping, festival closing Pyramid Stage set was telling. Not just in how far the festival has come from its tired old, dinosaur dominated past, but also in what acts like Kendrick bring that the more traditional headliners don’t. With a staging that verged on performance art, it was both striking and remarkable.

Four lads bashing out the hits on their guitars and drums could never do this.

With a genre-fluid stance on booking. festivals like Glastonbury only better represent where music is in 2022.

BILLIE EILISH KILLS THE GLASTONBURY DINOSAURS

There was once a time when having a top drawer popster like Billie Eilish headlining Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage would be seen as heresy.

Thankfully, we’re long past those dark days now. Doing it on her own terms, and holding a packed crowd in her hand as she did it, there was no need for any special guests or gimmicks, A brilliant sign of just how far we’ve come.

WOLF ALICE MADE IT ON TIME

Cancelled flights meant, the night before Glastonbury, Wolf Alice were still stuck in LA. A flurry of social media posts, connecting flights and a last minute dash across the Atlantic saw them arrive on site only just before they were due on stage. The fact that they then utterly smashed their mid afternoon set only further highlights why they’re the best band in Britain.

LORDE RECLAIMS THE NARRATIVE

It’s fair to say that not everyone took to Lorde’s latest album ‘Solar Power’ in quite the way she’d have hoped. With an evening, golden hour Pyramid Stage slot on the last day of the festival, though, everything clicked into perfect focus. Lorde remains one of the smartest, most in-tune pop stars on the planet. Maybe now her critics will catch up.

MEGAN > MACCA

It’s no slight on Mr Macca to suggest that he wasn’t the only show in town on Glastonbury’s Saturday night.

Headlining the other stage, Megan Thee Stallion is remarkable.

WET LEG PACK THE PLACE OUT

One of the first must see sets of Glastonbury 2022, Wet Leg’s appearance at The Park seemed to draw almost literally everyone on site, so massive were the crowds.

One of the most talked about new acts of the year so far, they more than lived up to their billing too.

BLOSSOMS GET SPICY

Who has Blossoms and a Spice Girl on their Glastonbury bingo card?

Anyone? Bringing out Sporty Mel C for a bash through ‘Spice Up Your Life’, Blossoms may have delivered the unexpected, but in the realm of pop nonsense it’s exactly what festivals are about.

MITSKI IS BRILLIANT

There may be all kinds of singular ‘Glastonbury Moments’ that sit longer in the memory for their individual brilliance, but few will deliver a set as note perfect as Mitski at The Park on Saturday night. Stunningly delivered and artistically staggering, she’s on another level.

SELF-ESTEEM BRINGS MEADOWHALL TO GLASTONBURY

Don’t know about you, Dear Reader, but we’ve always wondered why more pop stars don’t wear outfits dedicated to their favourite shopping centres.

That’s exactly what Rebecca Lucy Taylor did, with this get up inspired

by Sheffield’s Meadowhall. Its iconic domes because a Madonna-esque bra, accompanied by a cape with a design to complete to look. Last time round, Rebecca wore a dress made entirely from Boots Advantage Cards.

Hopefully she’s back in 2023 with something equally exciting. Maximum pop points.

THE NEW CLASS FINALLY GET A GLASTO It’s remarkable how many acts haven’t been afforded a debut Glastonbury because of the pandemic. From Griff to Inhaler, Holly Humberstone and beabadoobee, those first timers really brought their A game to the most important festival around.

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YOUR ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO THE BEST NEW NAMES.

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EFÉ Words: Martyn Young. Photos: Patrick Gunning.

Keep your boring new popsters, we’re only interested in the ones with true star power - and nobody has more of that than EFÉ.

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ost promising new artists can do good songs. That’s a given. The really special ones, though, can transcend the hype and turn good songs into a whole exciting world you can immerse yourself in, recognising that personality and character are what makes a star. Right now, few other artists better represent this than Irish alt-popster EFÉ. Welcome to her fantastical world.

EFÉ is one of those brilliant pop magpies who take sounds, influences and inspirations from all manner of different places, collating them in exciting collages of sound, visuals and creativity. Born Anita Ikharo, EFÉ is 22 and based in Dublin. She’s already released one EP, the dreamy bedroom pop stylings of 2020’s ‘What Should We Do This Summer?’, but this year she’s firmly taking things to the next level and ramping up her boundless creativity with her second EP ‘VITAMIN - C’. Going right back to her childhood and formative musical memories, it was clear that EFÉ was destined to be more than just a singer singing her songs. “I love the idea of music videos,” she says excitedly. “That’s what drove me to want to make music, so I can have my own music video. I was watching 90s and 00s music videos last week, and I was like, woah, the standard back then was insane. I was watching a Black Eyed Peas video, and I was like, oh my gosh. It was ‘Let’s Get It Started’. How is that even possible?”

That’s the level she’s aiming for with her creativity, but naturally, it’s a winding journey to fully realise that for an emerging artist. If you watch the evolution of her music videos on this EP - from the sweet story of falling in love with Coco the bear on the gorgeous single ‘Kiwi’, to the melodrama of the reality-aping talent show caper of ‘Lime’ - it’s clear that we’re dealing with a singular talent with a flair for the unexpected.

“I just want to be seen as a super creative person,” she

FRUITY TALK ↓↓↓

It probably hasn’t escaped your notice that there’s a bit of a fruity theme going on with EFÉ’s new ‘VITAMIN - C’ EP and its singles ‘Kiwi’ and ‘Lime’. So, here are her Top 5 fruits - in typically subversive fashion, though, neither of her song titles make it in. Typical pop star, always shaking things up.

1. PINEAPPLE It’s the dream fruit. Every time I eat it, it feels like it’s not real.

2. GRAPEFRUIT That’s so good.

3. A GOOD GREEN GRAPE

4. A SOUR ORANGE

5. A JUICY APPLE That’s a classic. A classic one from Aldi or something.

“I HAD HUGE CONFIDENCE WHEN I WAS YOUNGER THAT IF I MADE MUSIC, I’D BE FAMOUS, AND THE ILLUMINATI WOULD COME AND FIND ME” EFÉ

explains. “Not only having the music to just back me up. The whole vision is what’s important to me. Music and artistry is bigger than just the music for me personally. Fortunately, music allows me to do so many other things and express myself in so many different ways.”

One of her biggest influences is an artist who perhaps best represents blasting out of your own supposed lane and realising your own vision. In typically off-beat EFÉ style, though, it came with a twist. “I feel like my biggest influence was Beyoncé,” she begins before laughing.

“I remember there was a time when I was like, Oh my gosh, the Illuminati is real, so I’m not going to listen to Beyoncé. I stopped listening to Beyoncé, and I stopped listening to music. I had huge confidence when I was younger that if I made music, I’d be famous, and the Illuminati would come and find me. It was insane. I was so scared.” Fortunately, she’s still

here, and the Illuminati are still out there. Wherever they are. Another big influence for her is Tyler, the Creator. He’s someone who has a shared aesthetic for invention. “I love the cultural influence that he’s had in music,” she says. “He’s built an empire that’s so inspiring.”

Despite her brief career so far, it’s clear that EFÉ’s also inspiring a new generation of young artists within the alt-pop sphere. “A lot of it has been that I don’t see people that look like me in this type of music genre, so it resonates with people that they’re getting a different presentation,” she explains. “That is so important to me in showing people who look like me that you can do this and do that.

When I listen to messages like that, that’s really, really cool.”

‘VITAMIN - C’ is a step up and a subtle evolution of the world that she is creating. Everything is linked and woven together, from the music to the super bright and colourful imagery and artwork to the iconic music videos. “Through knowing myself more and having

more experiences, I’ve definitely been able to develop my writing,” she says. “’What Should We Do This Summer?’ overall had a theme of nostalgia, but it was kind of spread out in the writing, whereas this EP is more close-knit. What’s also really cool is the producer who.killed.romeo, as well as Adam Kelleher, who directed my videos; we work all together, so we’ve all developed together as we go on to this new project. I’m growing and developing in sound, but so are they, and we elevate each other together.”

The gradual evolution of the EFÉ universe is one that happened organically, yet even EFÉ herself didn’t originally truly appreciate what she was creating. “With the first EP, I didn’t really realise I was building this world around me until people kept mentioning it,” she says. “Building a world and creating a concept. It’s really cool to see. I think it brings the listener along on the journey where they can be like, ‘Oh, I understand where this is coming from’. Everything is connected. We all want to be able to understand what’s going on and see a story or pattern in something.

I think that’s very important for us.

It’s important for me to show my personality and my humour.”

Humour is an underrated concept in pop, and EFÉ has it in buckets. She’s a perfect representation of Down With Boring. Naturally, though, in today’s hyper-social culture, the importance of always being ‘on’ poses its own issues. “It’s been weird to navigate it,” she admits.

“It’s been strange promoting yourself recently, especially with TikTok and everything. How do I do this where I feel I’m not completely selling myself, and I can do it in a way that will still resonate with me? That’s something I’m trying to figure out.”

The one thing that truly defines EFÉ at this point in her career is burning ambition. There are no barriers to her creativity. Anything is possible. “I want to make more really good music and just go even further creatively,” she exclaims confidently. “I want to push more and influence the creative space.

I want to have a strong vision that resonates with people. I want to be even better live and have more people come away from my shows saying that’s amazing.” ■ EFÉ’s EP ‘VITAMIN - C’ is out 27th July.

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STONE Words: Sam Taylor.

“IT’S THAT FEELING WE GET ON STAGE THAT MAKES IT WORTH IT” E L L I OT G I L L

days and looking out for more local talent as well. Liverpool is in our DNA, and we are proud to be representing it.

Is being in a band living up to the hype so far?

Yes – we’re all loving it… But after some of the rigmarole of touring – living off of service station butties and sitting in vans and carrying amps and soundchecking and all that, I feel like it’s that feeling that we get on stage for 30, 50 mins that just makes it so worth it. When I feel that energy off the crowd, it’s just a constant reminder of why I’m trying to be a professional attention seeker. But the process of crafting tunes and seeing them come to life in the studio as well.

Like magic. That’s kind of the two main things I love about it. That and telling Uber drivers to get on us on Spotify and search ‘stoneliverpool’ on the socials when asked.

Wonder how many actually have…

Fast rising indie newcomers STONE started making a name for themselves in a world where you couldn’t really play live. Now, as everything starts to get back to some sense of normality, the Liverpool quartet are starting to realise that they might be on to something special. We caught up with guitarist Elliot to find out more.

horrible or sweet noises I can make with my guitar. I think just over the years, our chemistry has just been building, and we have found our little eclectic blend of Scouse noise, but we’re still pushing ourselves and finding the gold. I read a YouTube comment describing us as ‘postapocalyptic Scally rock’, and that line just sits in my head rent-free.

What are you guys working on at the moment?

We’ve just finished a load of shows, so we have a few fezzie dates, and a few European dates, too, which we’re buzzing for. We’re spending all our time outside of that just writing and writing. We’ll have some more new STONE for ya very soon.

Music aside, what do you do for fun?

I’d spin a yarn about the endless rock’n’roll debauchery, but it’s 2022, and I want a simple life. Boring answer, but I’m trying to get right back into some good habits to boost my creativity like reading, drawing, exercising, taking myself for walks and Who was your first ever favourite band that. Everything else is just music, though. or pop star?

Always up for discovering albums and Hi Elliot! Who are you all, and what are When I was a kid, the first band that really watching more shows. I do love DJing, your roles within the band? got me was Nirvana. Massive influence though. You might see a STONE DJ set We have Fin, our lead poet and frontman, on me growing up, and have just always one day if you trust me enough with the Sarah on bass and Alex, who hits things found Kurt Cobain so fascinating. I think aux. with sticks. Then me, who provides loud the brilliance and tragedy of it all really guitars and general chaos. gripped me when I was young. The sound You guys have played loads of live is just so angry and visceral and channels shows already, what’ve been your How did you approach finding your that frustration which speaks to me, but favourites? sound? Are you all into similar things? there’s proper craft behind his writing It’s like picking a favourite child… I’ve been Fin and I had been playing in a previous too. Currently reading a memoir from his loving our headline shows this year; it’s band together for a couple of years manager Danny Goldberg and it’s really been great to see where we stand in cities before forming STONE, but we both have interesting. outside of Liverpool. The support we’ve spent a lot of time trying things out and been shown since we just got back onto channelling our influences – hip-hop, rock, What’s it like being an up-and-coming the stage after Reading & Leeds last year punk. Songs have come and gone, but act in Liverpool? has just been mad. But the YUNGBLUD after writing our single ‘Stupid’ a few years Coming up in Liverpool is great – we have tour was crazy last October – stepping ago (which just properly came out), I think lost some important venues over the into a new world and just going up there to that really set the foundations for what years, but I feel like the scene is coming prove a point. But it worked. would become our sound. After writing back strong. Definitely felt that when ‘Leave It Out’, Fin found his rhythm in his we played Sound City start of May. Plus, Tell us a secret about yourself? brand of Scouse poetry. He loves hip-hop you’ve got bands like The Mysterines and Had my ears pinned back when I was like, and good lyrics, narratives and such, like Courting who are getting radio love like us, 5. Not really a secret, just a weird little fact The Streets. I like a lot of post-punk, psych so it’s great to be a part of that. I’m putting about me. Looking forward to more plastic and shoegaze and just finding out what my ear to the ground a lot more these surgery in the coming years. ■

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GETTING TO KNOW...

TOM A SMITH

→ When most of us get to 18, we’re only just getting ready to start on life ‘proper’. Not Tom A Smith – he’s been playing gigs since he was knee-high to a bassist, and it shows.

With a bunch of festivals on his schedule and widespread acclaim for his recent ‘EP1’ release, we caught up to get to know more.

Hi Tom! How’s it going, what are you up to today?

Hi I’m doing amazing! I’m currently on my way to Switzerland to start my mini European festival tour, where I will be playing on line-ups alongside Mika and also Green Day in Czech Republic.

When did you first realise you wanted to make music, was there a moment you can pinpoint?

I started getting music lessons from the age of four and started with guitar. Getting lessons from great guitarists like Bondy, now known for playing in Catfish And The Bottlemen. So, it’s all I’ve ever known, really. I had my first gig at 8 at the iconic Newcastle venue The Cluny. I remember being ridiculously nervous and hating the set, but the second I finished, I wanted to go back on and do it again, so it was probably then when I realised this is what I want to do.

How did you approach finding your sound, did you go through a lot of experimentation?

When lockdown started, I was very bored and spent all day playing FIFA. One day my dad said I should try writing a load of songs.

I decided to treat each day like a school day and was writing and recording demos pretty much every day from 9-5. I think I wrote near 200 songs in that period, and that really helped me gauge my sound and the sort of music that I enjoyed to create.

How did you start getting your music ‘out there’?

From a bit of complete luck, John Kennedy from Radio X asked if he could play one of my songs on his show. I was over the moon, so kept writing tunes and sending them to him, and he kept on playing them!

What do you most enjoy writing songs about, generally?

Being only 18, it’s safe to say I haven’t really got a lot of life experience and things to write about. I do have quite a few political tunes, but I also like just writing a nice love song.

What’s your favourite thing about being a musician?

My favourite thing about being a musician is performing live. I love seeing how people react and engage with the songs you have written when you’re onstage.

Is there anything else we should know?

I have a new single called ‘Never Good Enough’ coming out on 8th July, which has Alex from Fat White Family playing saxophone on it, and also James from Eliza And The Bear doing some backing vocals.

I’m really looking forward to people hearing this one! ■

D

DEATON CHRIS ANTHONY Producing songs for Clairo and Charli XCX, DEATON CHRIS ANTHONY is pushing out on his own.

Words: Sam Taylor. Photo: Bryan Carr.

“MY PLAN IS TO MAKE BOWLING NOT JUST ABOUT A HIGH SCORE, BUT STYLE”

NEW MUSIC NEWS. ↓↓↓

DE ATO N CHRI S ANTHO NY

M

usic isn’t just made by the people in front of the camera.

There’s often a whole load of writers, producers and other ‘behind the scenes’ types contributing to the latest new material of your faves. Most of them, we never really hear about. Others may get a bit of appreciation in especially nerdy parts of ‘the internet’. Occasionally, though, one will find a way to punch through on their own.

Deaton Chris Anthony has a list of previous collabs to turn most sensible dials to ‘interested’.

There’s both HRH Queen of Pop Bops Charli XCX and indie icon Clairo on there, for a start. Now, alongside collaborators like beabadoobee and BENEE, he’s going it on his own with a new project, ‘SID THE KID’. Truth be told, though, our Deaton seems more into bowling. Who could blame him? We caught up to find out more.

Hi Deaton! How’s it going, what are you up to today?

Hello! Today it is Tuesday, and I am eating shrimp tacos. I just got a shirt from a rag house that says

“It’s a Bowling Thang” and it says THANG on the sleeve.

Give us the tl;dr of your time in the music industry so far.

I started making epic music in Kansas a few years ago, and one of my first songs was ‘Tony Hawk’.

I moved to Los Angeles and knew no one. One day I got a DM from Tony Hawk saying he liked my song, which blew my mind.

Pretty much from there, I just kept DMing anyone, and actually, I wrote a song about it called ‘Deatons Meditation’… basically sliding into DMs changed my life.

Everything good for me has come from meditating my way.

When did you begin work on your debut album, ‘Sid The Kid’?

I started working on ‘STK’ in early 2019.

How did the idea of focussing on a central character, Sid, develop? Was that always the plan?

Sid was my nickname growing up, and when I started to write music from a guitar, it just made me remember when I was 12. So I just wanted to tell everyone my roots and where I’m from, and why.

The album’s got a few collaborations on it - how did those come about, and what did each artist bring to their respective songs?

I DM’d Bea and Benee and said, ‘hey I am working on an album, want to be on it?’ And they said, ‘that’s awesome’, and so we did it!

Does your creative process differ when you’re working on different disciplines?

I just sample stuff. Take something from the past, remove what I don’t relate to and release it when the time is right. So like a song, I love old ideas and just bring them into the current year. Same with clothing, just take old clothes and cut off logos and stuff I don’t care about and make it new and relatable.

What do you most enjoy writing songs about, generally?

I love making music that I can play over and over and over again without it getting old. I make songs every day, and the ones I release are the ones I listened to on repeat and never got sick of.

You’re into bowling, right?

What’s that about? Do you get

many opportunities to play?

So, back in Kansas, I had the highest score as a 12-year-old. A 246. I was well on my way to becoming a great bowler, but during regionals, I had 9 strikes in a row, three more needed for a 300. The entire building stopped bowling, and all crowded around me to watch.

Sweating on the lane, I threw a 6,7,10 split and opened in the 10th. Didn’t qualify for state by 5 pins… it crushed me, actually; I was mad. Why me, you know? So I stepped away and just recently got back into it because I just love it. Then I realised, wow, there is no drip in bowling.

Actually, the most unsteezy bowlers, and so my mission now is to bring style back into bowling. My idol is Parker Bohn iii.

If you were given the task of making bowling more stylish, how would you do it?

My plan is to make bowling not just about a high score, but style. If your throw looks all robotic, I’m not down. It’s gotta be unique; it’s got to make me want to go bowling.

Bowling is dancing, and that’s all I’m going to say. Actually, the last thing I’ll say is no more two-hand bowlers; it’s just not right.

Have you ever gone bowling with a fellow pop star?

I would like to challenge Dennis Rodman to a 1 V 1. I’ll go first. ■ Deaton Chris Anthony’s project ‘SID THE KID’ is out 29th July.

WONDER -HORSE → Wunderhorse has announced his debut album. Titled ‘Cub’, it’s set to land on 16th September via Communion Records and will feature all of his releases to date, including current single ‘Butterflies’. He’s also set to headline London’s Lafayette on 20th October.

JOCKSTRAP → Jockstrap have announced the release details for their debut album, ‘I Love You Jennifer B’. Set to arrive on 9th September via Rough Trade Records, the London-based duo are also sharing a lead single from the record, ‘Glasgow’.

Jockstrap’s Georgia Ellery and Taylor Skye explain: “’I Love You Jennifer B’ is a collection of Jockstrap tracks that have been 3 years in the making.

Everything on it is pretty singular sounding so we hope there is a track on there for everyone and something that speaks to you and says ‘I’m a banger.’”

ENUMCLAW → Buzzy Stateside types Enumclaw have announced the details of their debut album, ‘Save The Baby’. Set for release on 14th October, it follows up on debut EP ‘Jimbo Demo’ and recent-ish single ‘2002’. The announcement comes alongside a new single, ‘Jimmy Neutron’, and a John C. Peterson-directed video, which you can check out online now.

Get more of the latest new music news from all your favourite emerging acts 24/7/365 at readdork.com readdork.com 31.

REGRESSIVE LEFT Words: Jamie Muir. Photos: Em Marcovecchio.

Luton trio REGRESSIVE LEFT sound more like they were made for the cool kids of Brooklyn. After paying their dues in indie bands that never quite sparked, this time round they’re ready to grab opportunity with both hands.

L

uton. Not quite New York City, is it? And yet if we’re going to start throwing comparisons around in the vicinity of Regressive Left, they’re going to get awfully Brooklyn, awfully quickly. One listen to EP standout ‘Bad Faith’ will have even the most restrained reaching for those DFA parallels.

Sharp, sardonic dance-punk, James Murphy would be proud. That’s more than enough to get our attention. In amongst the herdy and gerdy of this year’s Great Escape, we caught up with Simon, Georgia and Will to find out more.

How are things with you guys at the moment? Do you get that sense that stuff is happening?

Simon Tyrie (lead singer): Everything’s going as planned. There are no unexpected twists and turns. It’s like, yeah, the plot is continuing.

You’ve probably been playing live a lot more often over the past few months, doing festivals etc. What’s that been like?

Georgia Hardy (drummer): We started in the pandemic, so we released our first track, and we didn’t actually get to play a live show for about six or seven months after that. Which was nice in a different way. It was actually quite nice not having to do that kind of slog of shows. But I think now definitely, the songs have grown a lot more. Playing them live, we’re now to the point where it feels like a proper unit. Kind of developed.

Simon: It was stop-start for a long time by lockdown. How many shows did you say we’ve done now?

Will Crosby (guitars): As of today [for The Great Escape], we’ve done 28 gigs.

Simon: Actually, I would have thought we’d done more.

Georgia: A good moment for us was the tour with Bodega because they’re such an insane, dedicated live act. They played for like an hour 40 every night, and they did like 50 dates. They had one break the whole tour. Doing those shows with them, it felt like we were seeing a proper band. It was really inspiring.

When you started putting stuff out, did you have an idea of what you wanted to do as a band?

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Georgia: Not at all, really.

Will: We didn’t really intend to put anything out there. Our friend told us to put a song out there that we’d sent him, and begrudgingly we did.

Georgia: Us three had been playing together for a long time, just mainly for fun. We never released anything. And then, I think the pandemic was a moment where we were like, why are we sitting in on all this recorded music and never just releasing it?

We were always like, oh we can do better.

The pandemic made us realise that time isn’t finite, so we were like, fuck it let’s just put this song up. We didn’t expect it to do anything, and it gained momentum. Our first live show ended up being at Latitude, and it was a bit like, ok fuck - now we’ve got to actually play.

How did you guys first meet? Were you playing in other bands before?

Georgia: We’re all from Bedfordshire - me and Simon grew up in Luton, so we’ve known each other since we were teenagers.

Then we met Will playing in different local bands as teenagers. Since then, we’ve played in a few different projects together.

We had a bassist originally, and they left and then we were like, what are we going to do now? That’s when we brought in the electronics, to replace the bass. That’s really how this music came about.

Simon: Which is also why it’s based on loops; when we get compared to people like Devo - it’s that repetitive mood-based stuff. That was more of a necessity because we didn’t want a bassist.

What were you doing before?

Simon: A couple of years before the pandemic, we were all going to see a lot of the new jazz stuff. We were DJing the 80s night at MOTH Club. It was a combination of what we were seeing at the time, and what we were DJing.

Was there a moment when you clicked as a band?

Will: We had a song called ‘Prospects’. It was the first thing we ever wrote, and we were like, oh we can write a song as a three, and it sounds good, and it sounds like a new thing.

That was our patient zero song.

Georgia: We don’t play it in our set now, and we haven’t released it because that song

was actually really hard. It was the first time we were really trying to push ourselves in terms of technicality and what we can do.

It was a moment where it clicked, but also, we weren’t that good at it yet. It was the moment where we knew what we wanted to achieve.

grabbing, not that serious.

Will: The three tracks that we released previously were the sound of us in lockdown, of us meeting up between lockdowns to record stuff that we’d written, sending files back and forth. Whereas the EP is the way we sound having gigged the songs for six months, and written songs alongside gigging, and with the knowledge of what our sound is.

And now people are interested and listening to the tracks, how has that been? Is that a weird? Has the reaction been a surprise?

Was it hard to translate your lockdown Will: I’m always surprised when people songs to live, or has performing been an care about the things I do, just in general. easy thing for you to step into?

Surprised and very grateful when people Simon: It was easier than we thought it give a shit, or appear to give a shit. would be.

Simon: One thing that sets this project apart Will: We’ve all performed a lot before, and from our others is when I’ve done other we’re used to playing with each other for things in the past, I’ve not really listened the various projects we’ve been in. We back to it. With this stuff, we always feel like spent a lot of time learning songs and we’ve done a good job. We’ve never really understanding how we played them live. I been that bothered by felt quite relieved and the reactions because happy; I didn’t find we’re happy with it stressful - I’d been ourselves. It makes a cooped up for too long, big difference. In other and it was a really good projects, you get so release. You get to fixated on what people understand your songs think because you’re all over again. not really that happy with yourself.

Ambition is a big Will: I always thought word, but do you GE O RGI A HARDY it was pretty uncool to have things you want listen to your own stuff, to do? but I genuinely quite Georgia: We never enjoy the way our music sounds. released music in our other projects Georgia: Because we weren’t releasing any because I think we knew they weren’t good music or playing any gigs, we were purely enough; the songs weren’t good enough. I making the music for fun and for ourselves, think with this, we were done with making and I think that was a massive difference. music for the sake of it. If we were to do this Will: There wasn’t the pressure to just get project, this had to be it. This is the time a song that goes from A to B, that you can that we really go for it and try to make a play live. We actually sat down, crafted a real success of it. When we’ve written these bunch of songs and a sound. We couldn’t songs, for the first time, we do feel confident play shows, so we just had a room to sit in, in releasing them and that they will connect and we could actually listen to stuff back with people because I feel a connection and work on it. when I listen to them and when I’m playing them.

And your debut EP is coming out as well? Simon: The key thing is we’re happy with Georgia: We started writing an album before this, so it doesn’t really matter. If we end we wrote the EP. We had most of an album up being one of those bands that gets done, and then the songs on the EP we rediscovered in 20 years - like, what wrote after when we were starting to play happened to that band? - that’s fine. ■ live. Those newer songs we wrote felt like a moment. It felt fun, basically. We wanted Regressive Left’s debut EP ‘On The the introduction to be fun and attentionWrong Side Of History’ is out 15th July.

“THIS IS THE TIME THAT WE REALLY GO FOR IT”

E

readdork.com 33.

COVER STORY

TH E FERAL JOY OF

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MAGGIE ROGERS

IN HER NEW ALBUM ‘SURRE NDER’, MAGGIE ROGER S HAS QUITE POSSIB LY PROVID ED ONE OF 2022’S DEFININ G POP MASTE RPIECE S.

WO RD S: JES S ICA GO OD MA N.

PH OTO S: SAR A H LOU ISE BEN NETT.

MAG GIE RO GER S.

readdork.com 35.

COVER STORY

AGGIE ROGERS IS LIVING HER BEST LIFE. Five months

ago, she was styling her way around New York City with David Byrne, The Walkmen’s Hamilton Leithauser, and photographer Quil Lemons, filming the music video for one of her new singles. Three months ago, she was heading to the Colorado Desert to perform on the main stage at one of the world’s most popular music festivals. Now, with the release of her second album imminent, she’s taking the world by storm.

In the six years since she was first propelled into the spotlight via viral video, she’s become a force to be reckoned with. Search her name on YouTube now, and the results are in the thousands. There

are music videos and concert clips, TV performances and red carpet interviews, fan covers and song tutorials, and compilation videos with titles like ‘maggie rogers being the purest person on the internet for 15 minutes straight’ – an impressive accolade and - as this particular videos 8000+ views seem to agree it’s not wrong.

Talking over lunch in the restaurant garden of a central London hotel, Maggie is entirely in her element. She beams as she chats about how much she appreciates being able to travel to promote her new record, and practically glows as she enthuses about an album listening party she held for fans earlier in the week. Conversing about making music and about the connection it brings, there’s the very real sense that this is what Maggie Rogers has always been meant for – and she’s making the most of every moment.

“I got everything I’d ever dreamed of, and so much more, on that first album,” she reflects of ‘Heard It In A Past Life’. She recognises her sentiment as one that might seem cliché, but as she goes on to describe the experiences that record brought her – touring the world, playing in front of audiences everywhere from Saturday Night Live to Sydney Opera House – her sense of appreciation and wonder is so tangible it practically speaks for itself.

Having spent so long on the road even before she released that first album, touring to promote her 2017 EP ‘Now That The Light Is Fading’, if she ever felt the weight of any expectations around creating a follow-up, it wasn’t while making her new record, but while making her debut. As such, going into making album two she describes herself as having felt blessedly pressure-free.

“I felt like there was a real sense of freedom with this second record,” she expresses. “Now that I’ve achieved everything I could ever possibly dream of, I was like, ‘I’m going to make something I really fucking love.’” Retreating to her parents’ house in Maine – where she spent the majority of lockdown – Maggie found herself not only removed from the pressures of her work, but returning to making music the way she did when she first started writing songs.

Surrounded by jagged coastline and unforgiving ocean, it was there that she laid the foundations for the album we now know as ‘Surrender’.

“All the time in lockdown gave me the space to make a record as if no one was watching,” she conveys. It should come as no surprise, then, to hear that with her second album Maggie has created some of her

most intimate songs yet. “I was making music and writing songs just to explore my internal world and pass the time,” she describes. “I think, in that way, this record is super personal, really vulnerable, and really raw. I am really writing about my personal life, which I usually feel is really private.”

Opening up can be a daunting thing even without an audience, never mind an audience that spans across the globe. That said, when it comes to her songwriting, honesty is something Maggie can’t create without. “To write it all down and then be here, and you’ve heard a bunch about my personal life?” she asks, grinning as she describes the interview we’re currently in the middle of. “It’s super personal and really weird,” she laughs, “but I don’t know how to do it any other way.”

It’s this instinct for honesty – coupled with her ability to take characters and emotions and paint them into life through her melodies and words – that makes Maggie’s music so relatable. “There’s a real power in that connection,” she conveys. “I feel like, if I share my vulnerability, and it resonates with you, it means that I wasn’t alone in feeling what I felt.”

The need for affirmation is a deep-seated one. Love, loss, confusion, comfort, anger, amazement, whatever emotions you might be feeling, the sense that you’re not alone in feeling that way can be transformative. It can sustain you through highs, lows, and everything in between. It’s what draws us to art, to music, to songs, and when we connect with them, it provides a sense of catharsis, of fulfilment, that keeps us going through the chaos.

This need for connection, to make sense out of the turbulence we live through, is one Maggie was innately aware of while making ‘Surrender’.

“I feel like so much of the record I was trying to create or dream up the world I wanted to live in,” she details. “Making a world for myself, making a world to escape to, a place to go live outside of where I was...

I needed that. I needed to believe things were going to be okay.”

One place she found that feeling was in films. After watching 10 Things I Hate About You on a transatlantic flight, she was inspired to write a song that channelled all the hope and optimism she was searching for. “I had this thought that it would be nice to write a song that sounded like the end credits to a movie,” she describes. “End credits, they’re when everything’s worked out. I think I needed to believe that there was going to be a happy ending.”

MAGGIE ROGERS

Said song arrives in the form of lead album single ‘That’s Where I Am’, a gleefully freewheeling ode to love and the belief that (as she sings in the chorus) “it all works out in the end”. In true teen flick anthem fashion – like Lindsay Lohan’s ‘Drama Queen (That Girl)’ before it, and Myra’s ‘Miracles Happen (When You Believe)’ before that – the video features the singer styling her way through an array of iconic outfits with a boundless sense of empowered resilience. It’s an open invitation to revel in the triumph and satisfaction of a happy ending, a dose of hopeless romanticism as an act of resilience, even if it’s just an escape – real life, after all, is rarely that straightforward.

“The other day, someone asked me what I learned during the pandemic,” Maggie states. “I learned I was really angry. I didn’t know. It took the quiet for it to come out.” When she started writing for this record in her parents’ garage two years ago, this is the path she thought ‘Surrender’ would walk down. Fuelled by frustration at the state of the world, it wasn’t until she started playing the songs back that she found the hope she’d subconsciously been fighting to find already existed in what she was creating.

“I was shocked,” she laughs. “I used the record to process a lot of feelings, but it sounds really joyful.”

While, on paper, that might read like a cataclysm of emotion, on ‘Surrender’ it feels like two sides of the same coin. “Joy and anger, they’re both feelings that totally overtake your body,” Maggie explains. “I think that it makes the joy feel hard-won.

I believe it when I hear it because you can tell that I fought to get there.” Listening to the record, you can hear the fight. It’s in every heartfelt echo and screaming hook, pent up in delicate chords and unleashed in thunderous refrains. Even in the stripped-back, quiet moments, there’s an instinctive power to these songs, one that feels raw and untameable – and purposebuilt for the stage.

These are songs for muddy fields.

They’re songs for when you don’t quite know what time it is, or who most the people around you are, or even quite where you are. They’re songs for not being able to hit the high notes but singing them anyway, songs for screaming and dancing along to with strangers and just being in the moment – and none fit this description more than ‘Shatter’.

With its rapturous chorus refrains of “I don’t really care if it nearly kills me,” and “I’d do anything just to feel with you”, the song is an ode to fear and resolve and fighting and feeling alive, delivered with so much thunder it feels capable of bringing the roof down from any stage it’s performed on. “Oh my god, it was all I wanted,” Maggie exclaims of performing live. “I think I felt so numb in the pandemic that I really just wanted something that could be embodied in that way. I wanted that live feeling.”

It’s an energy that can be felt throughout ‘Surrender’. “Playing music...

It’s my favourite thing to do in the whole world,” she declares. “It had also been my life for so long, so it was what I knew.”

Inspired by British festivals in particular (“they’re my favourite music experiences I’ve ever had as a fan”), with her second record, the pop star has made an album full of songs made for getting lost in. But more than that, these are songs made to stay with you. These are songs made to last.

“Making this record, after making ‘Heard It In A Past Life’, I was keenly aware of the fact that I was going to play these songs millions of times,” she describes. Knowing how big a part performing live will play in the life of any song she writes, it seemed natural to her to write songs with that destination in mind.

“I’m going to live inside them – for a couple of years, but if they’re good, for the rest of my life,” she continues, then shrugs. “I might as well like them.”

The live stage is something Maggie’s spent a lot of time thinking about over the past couple of years – and not only in the context of writing and performing her own music. “Going to concerts, that’s always been the most spiritual experience I’ve ever had,” she conveys. “Coming out of the pandemic, I really wanted to think about community and about how we come together and how we create meaning, and I really wanted to think about power.”

To do this, she returned to formal education, enrolling to study for her masters at Harvard Divinity School.

“Trump’s probably going to run for re-election, and I’m going to be on stage with a microphone,” she states. “What do I do with that?” Through her studies, she set about educating herself on the best and most ethical way to use the platform she’s been given. “It felt like the best way to spend a year, just really thinking about how to dismantle systems of oppression, how to bring people together, and how to create a structure around being an artist that would keep the art really intact for a long time.”

She’s already putting what she’s learned into practice. For the public presentation component of her Master of Religion and Public Life degree (which she was awarded earlier this year), she submitted her performance at Coachella Festival.

As a by-product of her doing so, her fans earned their own accolade too. Fans on her discord server have realised that anyone who watched can add “participant in a demonstration for a graduate-level thesis on the spirituality of public gatherings and the ethics of power in pop culture” to their own achievements (and their LinkedIn).

Maggie’s academics and her music were always going to be intertwined. Both her new record and her graduate thesis share the title ‘Surrender’, a title she says she’s been holding on to since summer 2019. “’Surrender’, to me, is about letting go, being present, feeling all there is to feel,” she portrays. “There’s been so much death in the last couple of years that making a concerted effort to feel the most alive, to

“THIS RECORD IS SUPER PERSONAL, VULNERABLE, AND RAW. I AM REALLY WRITING ABOUT MY PERSONAL LIFE” - MAGGIE ROGERS readdork.com 37.

COVER STORY

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MAGGIE ROGERS

“TRUMP’S PROBABLY GOING TO RUN FOR REELECTION, AND I’M GOING TO BE ON STAGE WITH A MICROPHONE. WHAT DO I DO WITH THAT?” - MAGGIE ROGERS feel pleasure, to really define what does it mean to live a beautiful life...” These are the emotions, the wants and needs, that have shaped her writing for the past two years. “In my thesis, I was exploring that in the way of what it means to be an artist and to think about the art as a spiritual practice,” she explains. “On my record, I’m exploring it through personal feeling.”

Feeling is exactly what she has always strived to create. Whether you’re angry, joyful, somewhere in between, all of the above, or more besides, ‘Surrender’ is all about experiencing those feelings. Much like the artists she references throughout these songs – David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Britney Spears – are a part of her own story, with the release of her new record, she hopes maybe her music might offer a soundtrack to yours.

Like the characters in her songs, the artists she namechecks have all been a part of crucial moments in her life. “The first album I ever bought was a dual purchase between ‘Baby, One More Time’ and the orchestral score to the first Harry Potter movie,” she laughs, explaining the importance of Britney in her life, who she references on ‘Be Cool’. “That sort of tells you everything you need to know about my personality.”

The album’s most iconic reference appears on ‘I’ve Got A Friend’. If you’ve ever been still awake in the early hours after retreating from a night out, curled up next to a friend and telling them you love them, then you know how this song feels.

The track is stripped back, reverently heartfelt, and boasts the ready-to-sendsocial-media-into-a-tailspin lyric, “I’ve got a friend who’s been there through it all, masturbates to Rob Pattinson staring at the wall,” that can only come from knowing someone inside and out.

Asked if the actor is aware he’s mentioned on the record, Maggie pauses, then bursts out laughing. “I hadn’t thought about that actually,” she eventually admits. “I wrote it because I wanted to write a love song for my friend.”

The friend in question, she assures us, has already heard the track and knows it’s found a home on the album. “I wrote it for her, just as a friend. Then when I was thinking about putting it on the record, I got her permission.”

Recorded at Electric Lady, the track features a whole host of friends – both playing instruments and as background characters – including Clairo, Claud, and Jon Batiste. “It was just all the people I love who were around,” Maggie fondly recalls of her time at that studio. “We went to New York because we were feeling like the record needed a little bit of community.” So that’s exactly what she and co-producer Kid Harpoon found.

It was while they were in New York that Maggie had her most productive day of songwriting yet. ‘I’ve Got A Friend’ was recorded on the same day as two other album tracks: lead single ‘That’s Where I Am’ and her latest single ‘Horses’. An anthem of desperation and resounding strength, this is Maggie Rogers at her most emotionally raw.

“It’s one of my favourite things I’ve ever made,” she describes. “I felt like I was going to break the whole time I was making it. But everyone felt like that then.” Born out of anger and relentless will, ‘Horses’ channels the energy of a storm in all of its wild ferocity. Finding heartbroken acceptance in the admission that “it’s not worth it if I can’t touch the ground” and forging her own blistering empowerment with the lyric “I see horses and I know there’s a way”. This isn’t just

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COVER STORY

“IT’S ALL I WANT. I FEEL LIKE IT’S ALL ANYONE WANTS – TO FEEL CONNECTED” - MAGGIE ROGERS

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Maggie’s songwriting at her most exposed – it’s Maggie at her strongest.

It’s a track she admits as being hard for her to listen to, even now. You can hear the weight of the emotion in her voice, her exhaustion and her passion all the clearer in the track’s rawness. Like most of the vocal tracks on the album, the vocals for ‘Horses’ were recorded in just one take. It’s a conscious decision she made on this record, wanting the energy of these songs to feel live, the emotions of these songs to feel raw. “The feeling, the emotion of it, the experience of it, it’s not super pretty,” she describes, “but it’s the truth.”

This is a sentiment that can be applied to the whole album. “There was something in me I had to get out,” she expresses. Finding an unexpected amount of catharsis in bringing these songs to life on record, the process of making her second record she describes as having left her feeling lighter, cleaner. “It is so nice that it’s like, over there now. It’s not inside of me,” she laughs. “I feel so much better now that I have gotten it out.”

Now, with the album about to be released into the world bearing her heart on its sleeve, she’s gleefully excited to see these songs and their emotions take on a life of their own.

“When I think about sharing it, it feels really powerful,” she states. “There’s nothing about this record that I’m nervous about or worried about, because it just...” She trails off for a moment, considering her words. “It doesn’t really feel open to question for me, because it is the truth. It is what it is. And that’s weirdly really empowering.”

Once this record is out there, these songs are yours to make your own, to find your own meaning, catharsis, or even just enjoyment in. Wherever you are, whoever you are, as of right now, these songs are for you. Wherever and whenever you find them, these songs will still be for you. “I feel like I really don’t know the record I’ve made until I go tour it,” Maggie contemplates.

“There’s something in the repetition, where things come out of the songs that I didn’t even know.”

It’s one of the reasons she doesn’t use a lot of pronouns in her songs.

“That was a conscious choice a long time ago, because I wanted the songs to feel open to anybody who wanted to relate to them,” she states. As well as this, it allows the songs’ meanings to evolve and grow along with whoever is listening and wherever they’re relating to the music from. “One night, it’ll be about a city. The next night, it’ll be about a friend, or a parent, or a romantic interest, or sometimes

I’ll be talking to myself,” the pop star describes of performing songs on the road. “There’s space for me to come back to it with what I’m going through.”

You can experience this for yourself this autumn when Maggie hits the road across the UK and Europe for her stunningly named Feral Joy tour.

“I think that joy can be a form of rebellion,” she comments of the tour title, “of really saying ‘I’m here and I’m alive’.” Much like ‘Surrender’, feral joy is a celebration of joy that’s hard-won. “There’s something biting or dangerous about it,” she details.

“It’s that letting go that is completely unbridled. It feels like freedom.”

It’s something she can’t wait to revel in with her audience by her side. “I feel so fucking lucky,” she enthuses. “You can’t choose your fans.” Cackling at social media in-jokes, squealing over song-inspired nail art, and waxing lyrical about her experiences meeting fans at her listening party and at her shows, Maggie’s appreciation for her audience is just as profound and boundless as their appreciation for her.

“They’re the loveliest people,” she enthuses of her fans (who have recently settled on the fan group name ‘Magpies’) – and she’s not wrong. Her Discord server might actually be the most wholesome place on the internet.

“There’s such a shared synergy and care and respect,” she continues excitedly. “I always feel like, if I didn’t know them personally, that they might be a friend of a friend. It’s that sort of community. What’s also cool is that I feel like there’s real space for conversation there, both ways, which I really fucking value.”

The respect is mutual. For her part, Maggie uses her Discord server to share lyrics and details of upcoming singles, offering song previews via phone hotline and taking feedback on what they’d like to see from her on social media, as merch, and more. In return, her Magpies offer that feedback, share #maggie-memes and fan art, and provide a place where they all can sound out and find truly heartfelt life advice.

“It’s all I want. I feel like it’s all anyone wants – to feel connected,” Maggie stresses earnestly.

“That connection, that sense of understanding, knowing you’re not alone in feeling something...” It’s what drives her to create, what draws her audience to listen, and it’s never felt more vital than right now. “Things feel so weird and isolated and dark and crazy, so being able to connect to someone emotionally…” she enthuses.

“I think it’s the most valuable thing in the entire world.” ■ Maggie Rogers’

album ‘Surrender’ is out 29th July.

FEATURES

WORKING MEN’S CLUB

Experts at generating a permeating sense of dread, Working Men’s Club have certainly had an excess of tension and darkness to draw from in the last few years. Covid has been the least of frontman Syd Minsky-Sargeant’s worries, though.

WORDS: FINLAY HOLDEN. PHOTOS: PATRICK GUNNING.

TODMORDEN - A MARKET TOWN 17 miles northeast of Manchester and with a population of 15,000 - seems an unlikely place to spawn an electro-slash-punk cult, but this is where Working Men’s Club began and indeed remain. Green hills, small pubs and friendly faces provide distance from music-centric flocks in the bigger cities and have allowed Syd Minsky-Sargeant to focus on his craft without needing to keep one eye over his shoulder.

With a debut record done and dusted to universal acclaim, you might think that his gaze would be cast firmly upwards with wideeyed ambition – instead, they remain level, meandering through a familiar mental and physical space. “That first record was quite a junior album,” Syd states. “I was 16 or 17 when writing all of those tracks.

That’s not where my head’s at anymore. It definitely felt like taking a step forward with this album, otherwise there wouldn’t SY D M I N S KY-SARGEANT be much point in making another one. These first two albums for me are kind of youthful in two separate ways, but they’re different albums – completely different.”

They may be different albums, but a key similarity is a deeply individual imprint the songwriter chooses to stamp into his creative output. “Our music is always a

"ANYONE WHO’S BEEN CONSCIOUS THROUGH THE PAST FEW YEARS KNOWS THERE’S SOMETHING NOT RIGHT IN THE WORLD” -

personal documentation,” he offers. “The strongest songs come from me being genuine and not even trying to put myself in someone else’s brain. I don’t think I can perceive other perspectives as authentically and shape the thoughts into music in the same way.”

Working Men’s Club are making music that might seem decadent but is made to stand the test of time, far away from being absorbed into any scene (post-punk labels be gone). “I’m trying to make records that are as futureproof as possible,” Syd confirms. “A lot of people reference the past when they talk about my songs, but that association is incidental; in the studio, we’re only utilising the arsenal of gear that we have and bringing about the finest work we can with no real reference material. In terms of production, we’re trying to be ourselves as much as possible and delve into that in a way that makes an interesting song.”

Consistent originality is undoubtedly helpful in achieving this timeless state, and they’re reaching new heights sonically, too. If you like the raucous, moody, swirling energy that Working Men’s Club have summoned in past offerings, then ‘Fear Fear’ will not let you down. “It’s a less minimalistic record because there was more that needed to be said – my brain felt more convoluted, so I needed to be more expressive in both the lyrics and instrumentation. They go hand in hand on every song,” the frontman explains.

In more ways than one, that convolution stems from the seemingly dire fate of the UK. Although this record was initially described as “The Plague Diaries”, it is far more than our current literal plague that haunts Syd. “Anyone who’s been conscious through the past few years knows there’s something not right in the world, and we need change. There are some very specific aspects that stick out to me, like the fact that we’ve been under an ever further rightleaning rule for the past… well, as long as I

can remember,” he specifies.

“It’s getting ever harder to purvey your opinion without being trodden on because of the online world, which we all entertain.

People have become far more vicious instantaneously because they have the protection of the internet, but wouldn’t behave like that in real life. It’s important to retain debate and encourage a conversation rather than rushing straight into conflict,” he considers. “It’s important to hear all sides of an argument and try to listen to where people are coming from. If you disagree, explain why and maybe you can change opinions in a balanced light.”

It may seem like common sense, but these basic concepts fuel much of the perpetual anguish that defines our society and, therefore, much of the bulging body of ‘Fear Fear’. “People in the UK have many mental health problems that aren’t spoken about,” Syd begins. “There are a lot of political reasons for that, fundamental problems with society that are being brought to light. People have become bored of the struggle but still feel powerless and that there’s no hope left; maybe those are some of the feelings I was trying to convey within this record from a first-person perspective.”

The album isn’t all doom and gloom, as the band try to embody a spectrum of their own emotional responses. “Life isn’t happy all the time,” Syd admits, “but there’s a lot to be taken from just talking to normal people – having a conversation with one another.

Turning to bigger powers, falling out over something that is totally distant from yourself, fighting over someone that doesn’t give a fuck about either of you. It doesn’t make much sense to me anymore. Just the simplicity of saying hello to a familiar face passing by is a more grounding and sensible thing.”

A hesitant optimism for the simple things is buried within the harsh words on offer. Asked what causes these occasional

diversions into bullish and bright tunes, Syd laughs. “The weather? I don’t know. It’s a really hard thing to explain. Music is like jargon that doesn’t make sense a lot of the time, but it’s all about freedom of expression, and that comes about in lots of different ways. These songs are me expressing my emotions, even if a lot of those tend not to be too positive. It’s always good to get things off your chest in any way you can.”

He continues to describe music as a cathartic vice, but one that must be treated with respect, too. “I’m not pissing around in the studio. We enjoy ourselves, but we take the work very seriously,” he declares.

“The same sentiment applies to writing, recording, engineering – thinking about each specific process in a disciplined approach helps retain our clarity. Why keep doing something if you’re going to let your standards slip?”

With ‘Fear Fear’, Working Men’s Club prove that their standards are only getting higher. Despite complaints regarding streaming service payments for artists being met with complete agreement, Syd is optimistic about the future innovation. “I’ve been handed the ability to listen to music in a reinvented format, compiling a mix of artists and genres however I like with the click of a button,” he offers. “A palette of varied colour and inspiration is an incredible thing to have at your fingertips.”

Accessibility grows ever more prevalent, but Working Men’s Club hold onto intrigue and mystery as key components of engaging with their art, going as far as to refuse to divulge the stories behind key moments in ‘Fear Fear’. “It’s important to leave the search for meaning to the listener,” Syd concludes. “It’s good to question things and put your imagination to work. That’s what it’s all about. If you need one, that’s the meaning behind this record.” ■ Working Men’s Club’s album ‘Fear Fear’ is out 15th July. readdork.com 43.

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TWENTY ONE PILOTS

As Twenty One Pilots takeover London for a week of live shows and a feeling they could go anywhere next, we check in with a band who can inspire the sort of devotion few others can match.

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PHOTOS: FRANCES BEACH.

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FEATURES

T

HE LAST TIME Twenty One Pilots played the UK, it was headlining Reading & Leeds Festival in 2019. After years of being the world’s biggest cult band thanks to a trio of streaming juggernauts (‘Ride’, ‘Stressed Out’ and ‘Heathens’) those sets firmly established what the clique has known for years - that Twenty One Pilots are one of the most exciting, innovative and daring rock groups on the planet.

Before they could capitalise on that breakthrough moment of mainstream acceptance though, the pandemic came along and Tyler Joseph and Josh Dunn were forced off the road for the first time in their career. Never ones to let a bad situation best them, the group recorded the optimistic, community-focused ‘Level Of Concern’ before following it up with the electro-pop shine of ‘Scaled & Icy’ and a grand livestream that is yet to be matched in terms of ambition or artistry. Those moments proved the pair had plenty of ambition for the future.

Before that though, a trip down memory lane via their Takeover Tour. Starting in America last year, Twenty One Pilots finally returned to the UK this week for a rapid four-date run at meaningful venues in the capital, starting at the 220 capacity Camden Assembly (the site of their first ever UK headline show in 2013) and working their way through Shepherd’s Bush Empire, Brixton Academy and Wembley Arena.

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On paper, the Takeover Tour seemed like a chance for the band to reconnect with their roots after a forced separation but really, the sort of bond TOP have with their fanbase doesn’t simply disappear after a few years. Instead, this run of shows is a chance to introduce them to the future Sure, that first night may have been a sweaty, chaotic celebration of the past, thanks to a setlist that leant heavily on 2013’s Vessel, but the other three shows saw Twenty One Pilots more comfortable in their skin than ever before.

See, for years Twenty One Pilots have seen themselves as underdogs and outsiders, even after the global mega-success of third album ‘Blurryface’.

Talking to Dork shortly after the release of their fan-focused followup ‘Trench’, Tyler explained how the band are “fans of our fans” and was quick to explain that what the crowd does at a TOP show is “by far the most impressive thing you’ll see.” Yes, there is no show without the audience but it’s a humble stance from a reluctant rockstar.

As he and Josh saunter onto the stage of Brixton Academy, wearing matching steampunkmeets-disco outfits and casually surveying the scene before them from behind balaclavas and garish sunglasses, it’s painfully clear there’s a new kind of confidence to this group.

Last time they played here, the show started with Josh walking out alone onto the stage holding a torch, peering

out alone into the darkness.

Today, they stand united in the spotlight. Quickly launching into the bubbly piano-pop of ‘Good Day’, it’s clear that assurance is here to stay.

And a lot of that comes from new album ‘Scaled & Icy’. A stylistic leap in the same vein as My Chemical Romance’s ‘Danger Days’ or Fall Out Boy’s ‘Folie Á Deux’, the sleek, polished pop record features plenty of big hooks and sees the band singing about finding peace, understanding and joy – a departure from their usual deep dives into turbulent mental health and paralysing fears. To this day, some fans on Reddit are convinced the pair only did it because they were forced to by DEMA (long story short, an in-universe evil organisation) but with the pair finding stability at home and with their careers, of course things are going to change.

Tonight those songs shift the course of the whole set.

The one-two opening of ‘Good Day’ and ‘No Chances’ flits between hope and oppressive despair (welcome to 2022) while ‘The Outside’ sees them joined by a four-piece band who add another layer of depth and showmanship to their performance. The giddy joy of ‘Mulberry Street’ features a little cover of Elton John’s ‘Bennie And The Jets’ while ‘Saturday’ is an all-out alt-pop smash, made for the dancefloor. Likewise, the urgent snarl of ‘Shy Away’ is as anthemic and emo as anything the band have dabbled in before and fearlessly features a chunk

of My Chemical Romance’s ‘I’m Not Okay’. Each track is performed with a sense of joy (Tyler actually dances on three separate occasions) and the band do seem to be having a whole lot of fun, tumbling about the stage to these weird pop-rock bangers.

Now, the band have always toyed with euphoria. Just look at the likes of ‘Trees’ and ‘Car Radio’ which takes emo to a rave. Live though, the band have always worn masks while performing them, as if they’re not entirely comfortable with owning that side of the band.

Tonight though, the pair really relish their ability to offer escape, comfort and community and it just makes the more emotional moments hit harder than ever.

What this means for the future of the band is anyone’s guess. There are hints at what’s to come next - the blue and pink Scaled & Icy confetti now has flashes of yellow in it – a hint at a return to the world of ‘Trench’ and the ongoing narrative that runs through that album and ‘Blurryface’. That theory is given weight by the various flashes of DEMA and the Bishops on the huge video screen behind them but whatever world they choose to inhabit next, there’s a sense that Twenty One Pilots will be doing it with a sense of selfacceptance that they’ve never truly had before – and that’s a very exciting prospect indeed.

With nothing to prove, no one to challenge or win over, the band are finally free to live out their weirdest, wildest ambitions. ■

TWENTY ONE PILOTS

Twenty One Pilots on their London Takeover tour, as they hit O2 Academy Brixton and The SSE Arena Wembley. →

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FEATURES

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IN THE

KATY J PEARSON

Katy J Pearson’s debut album may have put her on the musical map, but with its follow-up, she’s pushing out her horizons and doing it in her own way.

MORNING OUNTRY, AMERICANA, FOLK – Katy J Pearson has heard it all. Her debut album ‘Return’ saw her release a video for single ‘Tonight’ bedecked in a rhinestone jacket and line dancing on a hilltop. The result? An unbelievable number of people hailing her as the next coming of country, the future it girl of cowboy hats and pickup trucks. At best, it was plain wrong – ‘Tonight’ only has the slightest tinge of country influence, if you squint. Worse, though, is the disservice it clearly did Katy. As she returns with her second album ‘Sound Of The Morning’, she proves that she’s far more multi-faceted.

“I realised that as long as it feels like a cohesive piece of work, you can do anything you flipping want!” declares Katy, animated and lively. “This record, I was like, I don’t fucking care. I can do whatever I want. Every song is so different, but it’s given me that freedom. It’s about beating your own drum.

In abandoning that need to do things a certain way, Katy has discovered a liberating means of creation. The outcome may range in style and sound, but a levity stems from that weight lifted from her shoulders which neatly ties them all together. The titular opening track feels like a deep breath in preparation to turn this new leaf and see where it takes her. There are lingering touches of her previous album, but there’s no escaping that this is something else entirely.

“The record is such a mixture of styles,” Katy muses. “It goes from proper acoustic folk to ‘Confession’, which is more of a heavier, aggressive production that otherwise maybe wouldn’t have been written.

It would be so KAT Y J PEAR S ON easy to bung on a really overproduced single for the first song from the record, but that would feel so not what I want to do. The first record felt like a good, strong journey of emotion. I wanted to follow that. I feel like every record is a real story.”

‘Sound Of The Morning’ has a powerful

"IT’S HARD TO FOLLOW THROUGH WITH YOUR VISION WHEN YOU’RE STILL INSECURE ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK YOU ARE" -

WORDS: NEIVE MCCARTHY. PHOTOS: INDY BREWER.

story to it, that’s for sure. It’s one of coming into your own, taking ownership of your creativity and captaining your own ship. “It was hard as hell, but I was also calm,” Katy explains. “I managed to put my foot down and be like, no, this is where I want it to go.

It’s hard to follow through with your vision when you’re still a bit insecure about what you think you are. But luckily, working with Ali [Chant, producer] again and my band, it didn’t actually take as long as I thought. I was really worried – the first record took two years to finish; it was such a long process, it was excruciating. So it’s nice that this one took three or four months, and then it was done. I was like, this is a miracle; I can’t believe we’ve done it!”

Though she reunited with previous collaborator Ali Chant in part, her latest album also saw Katy branching out down different avenues. A lot of the album has a celebratory, connected feel, undoubtedly a result of collaboration. “When I was like nineteen, I remember I’d been collaborating so much, and it was a very negative way of collaborating – it was a very pop way.

I was so against collaborating for a really long time. I think something just shifted for me. Also, being in lockdown, I wanted to have my peers around me. I wanted to learn from these people I admired. I got to sing a song on Orlando Weeks’ new record, then I got him in to sing on ‘Howl’. I also had Samantha Crain’s music, which I love.

We got chatting, and I got her on. It felt like everyone connecting, and I’ve got all these amazing people contributing to my work. It feels really flattering that they wanted to be a part of it.”

In broadening those horizons, the album transforms into something far braver. It isn’t afraid to experiment and lean into something that might be too indulgent – ‘Talk Over Town’ is a sprawling, near six-minute odyssey which hurtles along, but there are no attempts to hold that back. Elsewhere, ‘Storm To Pass’ is all lilting vocals and an atmosphere arresting enough to bring pause. It’s otherworldly.

In pushing the boat out and testing the limits of how much she can change shape and style, Katy sees the scale of her sound stretch outwards. “I wanted sonically for the sound to be bigger and be pushed more. I wanted the mixes to sound more atmospheric and more anthemic as well.

I think, luckily, that kind of works. I also wanted the production to feel a bit nastier in places, and not be so light. Some of the songs tread on difficult themes. I don’t think I could ever go fully, fully dark vibes

because it’s not in my nature. I’m always like bittersweet – it’s painful but also joyous.

That’s always been my balance. In ‘Alligator’, the verses are painful, but the chorus is a really happy release.”

The album blows those complex themes and dark emotions into full view. Katy doesn’t just scratch the surface; she dives deep into those situations and feelings without fear of intimacy. It’s a tricky line to walk, but it never feels as though those emotions are weighing it down – the expansiveness of her sound means we work through those emotions with her. There’s a catharsis to be found.

“I feel things very deeply,” says Katy. “It would be wrong to not write the lyrics in a personal and vulnerable way. It’s taken me a long time to get to that point. When I was younger, I wrote songs about nature, trees, and things. It was fine; it got me somewhere, but you can’t shy away from true emotion.

I’m getting older now, and things come out easier. It’s important to put those emotions onto a song, and it seems it’s really helped people. It’s my natural port of call now to be completely vulnerable with it.”

In being so open and unashamed of those feelings, there’s a lot of support to be found in Katy’s music. ‘Confession’ looks set to offer resonance and reassurance to a lot of listeners, especially her female audience.

Born from a conversation with her mum following the #MeToo movement, it’s a tense moment, but one that is so important.

In the wake of so many harrowing, hardto-watch news stories of women coming to harm, it sonically mimics that unsettled anxiety and yearning to be heard.

“Before, I was kind of scared, worried that I didn’t want to seem tokenistic, like I was jumping on the bandwagon,” Katy reflects.

“I think there are two sides to it – I’m so passionate, and being a female in music means I’ve encountered some shitty people and been in some uncomfortable situations.

But I was anxious that I didn’t want it to seem insincere if I was going to do it. If it was going to happen, I didn’t want it to be something that was forced.”

“I was saying to my friends: you could be drunk at a party, and someone says ‘Oh, this happened to me ages ago,’ and you’re like that’s awful, I can’t believe that’s happened, but they’re like ‘oh it was ages ago, it doesn’t matter now’. You look at these big rock stars, who were literally going out with twelve-year-olds in the 70s, but everyone’s always like, it was a different time! It was the 70s. It was so long ago! That ‘it was a very long time ago’ felt like a sum up of

everything to do with #MeToo.” She continues: “It also missed the music industry. Me and my female friends in music, we could be in a green room or backstage at a festival, and there are bands there that have countless allegations and accusations. It’s a really difficult situation, and you feel uncomfortable. You feel scared if there’s someone there that you know has done something awful to someone.

Like, you’re just in the dressing room next to me? It was important for me to express that with that song. A lot of us are fucking angry. It’s so frustrating. As women, we go to these festivals, do these gigs, and are so professional with it. It’d be so easy to go and have a go at them, but we get on with it and do our jobs. It just shows that we’re so used to it, it’s a survival mechanism – like, okay, there’s an abuser over there, but I need to do my job because I’ve got here, and women have to work a thousand times harder to get into the position they’re in.

I’m really glad that song will be coming out. It was important for me to express it because I think I was afraid to talk about it – everyone’s very vulnerable about it.”

It’s a conversation that is tip-toed around but needs to happen – so many bands and artists with allegations against them still seem to appear on festival line-ups, heralded as absolute kings. It’s a lack of care and protection for women in music; having to live with that fear and accept it as the norm should not be the case. With any luck, ‘Confession’ might spark a longoverdue conversation about why the music industry continues to let these situations occur, and why there has not been more movement to hold abusers accountable. It’s a gorgeous song and one which offers so much solidarity and hope.

It falls in line with that newfound need to create what Katy wants to create – she’s saying what she needs to say, to a sound she likes, without any care for who might not like it. ‘Sound Of The Morning’ is totally on Katy’s terms. It’s bold, but it’s a necessary boldness. Thought-provoking and affirming, Katy proves to both herself and her audience that she knows exactly what she’s doing and will continue to do so, reaping the benefits along the way. “The fear has gone down a few percent,” Katy rounds off with a laugh. “Now I’m onto the second one, it’s easier each time to share things. The fact that I’m brave enough to share a body of work with the world in the first place just made me like, fuck it. Let’s just carry on. It is what it is.” ■ Katy J Pearson’s album ‘Sound Of The Morning’ is out now.

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FEATURES

Jumper: The Elder Statesman Trousers: Palace

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LAUV

Many musicians tackle their second album by striving for a new maturity, often becoming insular and dull in the process. Not Lauv. With ‘All 4 Nothing’, he’s reconnecting with his roots.

WORDS: NEIVE MCCARTHY. PHOTOS: PATRICK GUNNING.

FEATURES

HILDHOOD MEMORIES ARE often of

gleeful laughter, undiluted joy and a lack of worry; no stress about the future or overthinking every detail of the past, just pure, in-the-moment happiness. When you’re a kid, falling off your bike equates to a quick cry but little hesitation in getting right back on it. As an adult, though, it becomes all too easy to get caught up in things, admit defeat and refuse to try again. Getting lost in the menial things that don’t matter is second nature and trying to control every inch of life becomes the norm.

Yet, in making his second album, ‘All 4 Nothing’, Lauv has found the key to reconnecting with that unhurried, freer version of himself. When the pandemic rolled around, the multi-talented artist found himself in a place of relentless anxiety and pressure. “I was feeling so, so anxious about my career despite it going well,” Lauv, aka Ari Leff, reflects.

“I realised I need to strip things back to myself.”

In a whirlwind of conflicting emotions and stress, who we are deep down often gets mislaid. Opening track ‘26’ deals with that turbulence of not knowing how you’ve ended up where you are and how to process your feelings around that. “I wanted to set the stage. These are things that I’ve been feeling. The whole album is about getting back in touch with your true self and ignoring all the garbage. ‘26’ was like, hey, I’ve been feeling this way in my life, and I need to figure it out.” It opens up with a dazzling, spinning instrumental that feels akin to a classic teen film. Rather than coming of age, though, Lauv is instead coming back to himself.

While the pandemic opened up a window, the making of the album itself is what facilitated the unleashing of those pent-up stresses. That quest back to Lauv’s roots came hand-in-hand with the album’s creation – it’s learning and unlearning, both musically and in day-to-day life. In terms of the music itself, he had to take a step back.

As a multi-instrumentalist, producer, singer and songwriter, it would be easy to fall into the trap of making the process insular, refusing the influence of others.

However, in making ‘All 4 Nothing’, Lauv called upon co-producers and peers to ease that burden – the first step in his progress.

It seems second nature for Lauv to revise his music to within an inch of its life.

This time around, though, he resisted the urge.

“Freestyling was the main thing. I wanted to see what

would happen if I didn’t think as much. Not that I’m usually...” he trails off. “Well, I’m a huge overthinker; that’s a lie,” he admits with a laugh. “I wanted to try to feel a vibe, hear some chords, turn the microphone on and go for five or ten minutes, find out what naturally gets channelled. It started almost as a joke, I wanted to learn how to freestyle rap, but I’m not good at that. But the joke turned into something real. It was a super cool experience because I got to just feel in touch with my instincts, which was awesome.”

The stream-of-consciousness style is transformative. There’s always been a journal-like quality to Lauv’s lyricism, but the flow he finds on this album is incredible.

Every beat, every whirling emotion, every spiralling situation is felt at his side. He’s always shown his hand, but now all the cards are laid out on the table. Old wounds are left open, regardless of how long ago they were inflicted. ‘Stay Top: MSGM Together’ airs Trousers: Diesel out the stresses of a previous relationship with the gift of hindsight, while the dark beats of ‘Time After Time’ recounts an intoxicating fall into love. It bridges the gap between time with absolute

LAUV

"I REALISED I NEED TO STRIP THINGS BACK TO MYSELF"

- L AUV

Jumper: The Elder Statesman All jewellery: Hatton Labs

effortlessness.

As laidback as it may seem, it doesn’t reflect the sheer scale of the work Lauv put in to reach that point. “I went through so much existential questioning in the process of making the album. I was also doing so much meditation,” Lauv explains. “I was introduced to inner child meditation and healing work.

After I went through some of that stuff, it really progressed my headspace into a different place of feeling like I could take care of myself emotionally and not just always be chasing things and running away from myself. That was definitely a bit of a growing-up thing. Being like: I have to be my own parent now, I have to be responsible for my emotions and figure out how to deal with them.”

Diving deep and pondering what a younger version of yourself might think of you now prompts a major perspective

shift and an inclination to perhaps make them proud. It also instigates that need to embody them: to feel everything without diminishing it and to enjoy things as they happen. It’s something that Lauv now brings into his day-to-day.

“I meditate multiple times a day. This is silly, but I’m trying to just jump into the cold pool every morning now. There are little things I can do – taking walks!

I used to be afraid to take walks; I don’t know why. It just made me anxious, the idea of stepping away from working and walking. But really, any of that kind of stuff is really helpful. Spending time with people I feel close to and just having a chat and letting it all out.”

In being more present, there’s a connection with the self to be found – not the self burdened by the weight of life’s stresses, but the true self found underneath. On ‘All 4 Nothing’, Lauv

reaches out to that self ’s dying embers and reignites the light. He accepts that perhaps things might not pan out as expected, but there will be moments to celebrate regardless. It’s important to revel in them, even if they differ from what you imagined.

“It was very much about surrendering control,” Lauv admits. “If you really think about it, love is like a power loss. I feel like when you’re falling in love, you lose that control, which is a scary thing.

It’s the same thing for life. At least for a person like me, it was a lot easier to be really in my head about how I wanted life to be and have all this control to make these things happen. You realise at a certain point that drives you crazy.

Maybe some of those things will happen, but probably a lot of them won’t. That learning to let go of control – that’s what makes me feel like a little kid again. It’s those moments where you’re just happy, and everything looks and feels vibrant.

It’s those meditative moments that are just so dope. It’s hard to do that all the time. I’m still driving myself a little crazy, but I have way more moments now that feel truly present, which is irreplaceable.”

In unlearning those ideas that we become accustomed to as adults, a whole new world of joy can be unlocked.

Fundamentally, ‘All 4 Nothing’ is a story of love. It seeps into each song – love for who you were, love for who you are, love for friends and partners and a love for music. It has an energy previously untapped – one that seems to stem from true contentment and understanding.

It’s in the lush Disclosure-produced beats of ‘Summer Nights’, an ode to mid-pandemic nights defined by a

craving to move. “It was the dead of lockdown, and I was like, I wish I could dance. Me and my friends would get together for a small thing when we could and just turn on speakers and dance for hours because we had so much pent-up energy. It was really fun to do something like that for the album.”

It’s just as present in the more pop-leaning ‘Kids Are Born Stars’ and its nostalgic tinge. Affection and adoration are beautifully inescapable on the album, and never more so than on its titular track ‘All 4 Nothing (I’m So In Love)’, written with his girlfriend.

“It was really important because that was the first time I’d written a happy song while being in the relationship.

Songs like ‘I Like Me Better’, I made that after the relationship ended. I’ve never been able to make love songs very often whilst I was actually in the relationship.

It was just so dope. Making that with my girlfriend means a lot to me.”

It also exhibits a vulnerability that’s not unfamiliar to Lauv. There’s an intimacy to his lyrics that he never shies from, and on ‘All 4 Nothing’, he embraces that even more as something to learn and grow from. “I love [being vulnerable] when I’m making the music for sure. Maybe the closer I get to putting it out, there’s part of me that gets a little scared sometimes. I think that’s natural.

The process of being vulnerable in my music is probably my favourite feeling. I feel like I learn so much about myself in the moments when I’m vulnerable with other people. There’s just something about it. It’s different from just journaling or being honest with yourself.

When you can be honest to the outside world, you learn.”

There’s deep-rooted wisdom to Lauv. He’s a calming presence to speak to, but there’s far more to him and his music than that. Lauv means ‘lion’ in Hebrew, and with ‘All 4 Nothing’, he embodies that strength. There’s a quiet power to reconnecting with yourself and coming to terms with your dreams perhaps not manifesting quite how you pictured. There’s a power in honesty and unravelling years of stress. There’s a power of being in the moment and being okay with it. Lauv has unlocked that power and, in doing so, rises to a higher self. ■ Lauv’s album ‘All 4 Nothing’ is

out 5th August.

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INCOMIN ALL THE NEW RELEASES YOU NEED TO KNOW

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

KATY J PEARSON

SOUND OF THE MORNING

★★★★

★★★★

→ Equipped with her inimitable vocal delivery, Katy J Pearson has broadened her scope into new musical reaches, while maintaining her golden ratio of nostalgic 70s-esque folk-rock tones and undeniably modern vibes.

Picture Stevie Nicks signing to Heavenly Recordings and then being injected with a double dose of rural British charm.

She’s on top form, weaving a rich tapestry of images and sentiments that range from dealing with newfound success (‘Talk Over Town’) to lamenting the departure of someone dear (‘The Hour’). To nobody’s surprise, this second release has cemented Katy J Pearson as a link between the pluckiness of modern alternative artists and the artistry of classic rock from decades gone by. ‘Sound of the Morning’ is a masterclass in fusing tones while implementing truly unique character CONNOR FENTON

→ Beach Bunny are back with the perfect summer album; there’s no beach-bumming allowed in this high-tempo, feel-good record. ‘Emotional Creature’ perfectly encapsulates the Chicago-based quartet’s charismatic, cool attitude, pairing it with their contagious energy to create a whirlpool of songs. Singer-songwriter Lili Trifilio invites us to dive to new depths, as she documents the human experience and guides us through the difficult waters of vulnerability and self-worth with tracks like ‘Oxygen’, ‘Weeds’ and ‘Gone’, tackling sensitive subject matter with delicacy. Somehow, nostalgia and futurism co-inhabit, as Y2K-esque pop sounds merge within a galaxy of sci-fi dreams, working together to retreat into Lili’s imagination. It’s an album that manages to escape the real world with the promise of a better one. PHOEBE DE ANGELIS

Out now.

BEABADOOBEE

BEATOPIA ★★★★★ Out: 15th July.

→ With her debut album, ‘Fake It Flowers’, it was pretty easy to work out what beabadoobee was going for. Grungy, scuzzy radio alt-rock, it was an album packed with the kind of songs that are easy to love and immediate to take hold.

But underneath all that was something more - a feeling that, actually, Bea’s musical songbook might eventually be a wilder, more diverse, expansive place.

Step forward ‘Beatopia’.

Named after an imaginary world she cooked up aged seven, her second full-length is the realisation of all that promise, tied up in one conceptual package. While working as a cohesive whole, there’s a rainbow of different influences and styles on show. Firmly anchored in the alternative landscape of the 90s and early 00s, there’s the dreamy, woozy indie-rock of ‘10:36’, self-descriptive delight on ‘Sunny Day’ and sweeping strings on ‘Ripples’. ‘Broken CD’ shimmers with a delicate touch, while first single ‘Talk’ perfects the blueprint of that first album.

Stand-out ‘Pictures of Us’ even manages to find space for a relaxed, atmospheric, ever so slightly math rock-style guitar line, weaving an intricate trail around a refrain that might well be the most subtle ear worm of the year so far.

Proof if proof was needed that even a well-received debut album doesn’t need to define an act, ‘Beatopia’ marks beabadoobee as an artist able to set her own terms. Inventive, playful and, at times, truly magical, it might be an imaginary world, but it’s one that everyone should pay a visit.

STEPHEN ACKROYD

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BEACH BUNNY

EMOTIONAL CREATURES

KING PRINCESS

HOLD ON BABY ★★★★ Out: 29th July.

→ With her second album, King Princess is truly discovering herself - or at least pushing forward without any self-imposed limits. That’s the vibe that

Out: 22nd July.

runs throughout ‘Hold On Baby’ - a record that’s confident in both its identity, and that of its creator.

Working alongside some key players, notably The National’s Aaron Dessner on stand-out track ‘Change The Locks’, the external influences only go to embolden the spirit of its main creative force.

More vital than so many of her peers, but equally organic and primal too, ‘Hold On Baby’ is an album of celebration to be celebrated.

STEPHEN ACKROYD

NG.

ARTIST’S GUIDE

LAVA LA RUE HI-FIDELITY EP

INCOMING

Lava runs us through their latest brilliant EP, ‘Hi-Fidelity’.

MUSH

DOWN TOOLS

★★★★

LAUV

Out now.

ALL 4 NOTHING ★★★★

→ Times are changing at pace, and it’s getting harder than ever to keep up. Mush aren’t experiencing any of that difficulty in their third album, ‘Down Tools’, which sees the band slow down their approach to be more measured and precise, while keeping their wit quick and their takes boiling hot. The Leeds-based fourpiece have expanded their sound from the fantastically scattered, frantic political satire of their previous records, now presenting a broader scope with plenty of room for composure and madcap antics alike. Despite having a release every calendar year since their full-length debut, Mush have shown clear progression and development with every step.

They’re not just a conveyor belt of wacky topical caricature; this isn’t Mock The Week. ‘Down Tools’ has made it crystal clear that this is a band capable of nuance and more profound expression. CONNOR FENTON

Out: 5th August.

→ Lauv has always had a talent for finding that special something. A pop bop songsmith of the highest order, his track record of smart but direct hooks and hits runs impossibly long already.

So much so that, when new album ‘All 4 Nothing’ raises the stakes, it seems somewhat unfair on the competition. Making upbeat, positive songs that don’t stick in the throat is beyond most - and yet title-track ‘All 4 Nothing (I’m So In Love)’ never once feels sickly sweet.

‘Kids Are Born Stars’ has a strutting determination, while ‘26’ might be more introspective, tackling growing older with an open, vulnerable honesty. If pop really is the greatest art form - and it is - Lauv is already one of its masters.

ANDREW WESCOTT

RENFORSHORT DEAR AMELIA

★★★★

NOSO

Out now.

→ Sometimes the only way to exorcise your angst is to roll the car windows down, turn the speakers up and scream-sing the lyrics to an equally angsty song.

Fortunately, renforshort has delivered the album set to save those feeling frustrated and bottled up. Uncork your feelings and get yelling to ‘moshpit’. On her debut album, ‘dear amelia’, renforshort navigates growing up in all its different hues. It’s a love letter to messiness and to the complex nature of our feelings; things are tangled and knotted and sometimes dark, but under renforshort’s lens, there’s a distinct beauty in that.

With features from Jake Bugg and Travis Barker, as well as an ode to Julian Casablancas in the form of the standout ‘Julian, king of Manhattan’, ‘dear amelia’ seems to testify to its gratitude to the life-changing influences.

It makes for a formidable debut: one brimming with cathartic release and a wealth of intelligent takeaways. NEIVE MCCARTHY

STAY PROUD OF ME

★★★★ Out now.

DON’T TRIP → This opening song is all about lyrical wordplay.

It was written as a bridge song between the “old” more rap-focused Lava heard in my last two projects, to the more psychedelic indie-focused sound I’ve been working on today. The song embodies both of those genres, with a 60s-inspired vintage propaganda-themed jingle in the middle 8.

CRY BABY → I was in my Pharrell/ Neptunes-inspired bag with this composition with an Aphex Twin/Alberto Balsam sonic reference in the breakdown. It’s like

two genres that shouldn’t exist together but do.

The lyrics are about being used to being in a toxic relationship, then finding yourself with someone who isn’t toxic at all and just taking a moment to appreciate how unproblematic the situation is.

DON’T COME BACK → A psychedelic desert rock-inspired break-up song. The previous track is super ‘lovey dovey’, so I wanted to follow it with the other side of the journey. This is about leaving someone toxic.

The bassline was written by incredible artist Saya

Gray (Daniel Caesar’s exbassist). She just dropped an incredible album.

HI_FIDELITY → The title-track of the project. It sonically captures the overall sound of 2022 LAVA. Co-written with my childhood bestie Biig Piig and Isom Innis (Foster The People), the song is all about shifting the sonics from lo-fi to hi-fi.

MOTEL → Channelling my biggest Prince energy. This song finalises the idea that each track on the EP has a crazy bridge switch-up. It’s all about the journey. ■

LAVA LA RUE HI-FIDELITY EP

★★★★★

Out: 29th July. → It’s no secret that Lava La Rue has fast become one of the most interesting, exciting names in modern, genre-fluid, future altpop. Where their last EP ‘Butter-fly’ soared, the followup ‘Hi-Fidelity’ goes stratospheric. A true creative multi-hyphenate, their latest offering has an assured, easy confidence. From the wordplay of opener ‘Don’t Trip’ to woozy, squelchy ‘Don’t Come Back’, every moment is a hit. STEPHEN ACKROYD

→ Light and airy, the debut from NoSo is ready to glide effortlessly into your heart. Chocker with personal meaning, ‘Stay Proud of Me’ lends itself to the bedroom origins of its pieces. The kind of gut spilling that only comes from feeling comfortable in your surroundings, the echoing melodies preaching inner peace while needing to confront external players.

Even when brainchild Abby Hwong strikes up a match and lets the sizzling embers engulf herself (‘Honey Understand’), or soaks in the glowing echoes of maturating (‘Feeling Like A Woman Lately’) the personal offerings never wane. Expertly sewing together such vulnerability with occasionally stark sounds, but more often than not ghostly pop twinges, the hype surrounding NoSo feels entirely justified. STEVEN LOFTIN

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INCOMING

JAMIE T

THE THEORY OF WHATEVER ★★★★ Out: 22nd July.

→ 15 years after he first bounded his way into our hearts with the poignantly poetic ‘Sheila’ and his debut ‘Panic Prevention’, Jamie T returns with his fifth album, and what an album it is. A no-holdsbarred glimpse inside the head of one of Britain’s most enduring sons, ‘The Theory of Whatever’ plays out just as its title suggests.

A dumping ground for Jamie’s life, with Polaroid snapshots of the everyday iced with the thick casing of being a bit of a pop star, it’s laced with characters he meets along the way. Countering the lyrics concerning the darker side of life with a soaring melody to offset the feeling of hopelessness is an aspect which consistently shines. Packed with tales of coke-fuelled evenings (ahem, not

interpretations.

Opener ‘19’ is a great example; a rugged, rumbling drone reinforces the permeating dread established on their first fulllength while throttling layers of percussion and whiting electronics establish a new, daunting soundscape. The band utilise a familiar sonic palette, it’s just evolved and improved with focused vigour.

A spasming instrumental makes for an explosive title-track, while FEAR FEAR singles like ‘Circumference’ offer ★★★★★ euphoric fragments delivered Out: 15th July. with devastating sentiment: → From West Yorkshire comes a “a blissful circumference of a formidable whirlwind of daunting broken life,” Syd wallows over a sombre but uplifting electronic despair. This is not exactly world. an unusual tone for Working While a lot of bleakness Men’s Club, but it is expressed manifests, Syd also takes great through a merciless new record pleasure in juxtaposing these with surprising and devastating harsh lyricisms with entirely potency - welcome to the upbeat melodies, offering onslaught of ‘Fear Fear’. refreshing glimmers of hope. A For those not yet acquainted, a warbling synth stands behind first listen through this album themes of death and despair on could be a fraught experience, ‘Widow’; rare, gritty guitar work but an absorbing and entirely shines on ‘Cut’; ‘Ploys’ throws out danceable journey awaits sharp and light riffs that dance once you succumb to the will over deep baselines and jagged of songwriter and frontman chords.

Sydney Minsky-Sargeant. The thematic substance isn’t always Winding down with an expansive, drawling closer, this follow-up to made clear on the ten tracks, Working Men’s Club’s sensational throughout which emotive self-titled debut only raises the sounds do most of the heavy stakes as a worthy successor. lifting, but cutting words FINLAY HOLDEN throughout offer a multitude of

WORKING MEN’S CLUB

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the fizzy pop), strange taxi rides (the perplexing ‘Thank You’), the murky music industry (‘Between The Rocks’) and just generally running riot in a city that returns the favour ten-fold by uprooting your life whenever it sees fit. As he stumbles over words before they can synapse in his mind, it’s a stream of consciousness in the most exciting way possible.

It’s celebratory, it’s down-in-thegutter, but most importantly, it’s all of the realms in between.

With sounds ranging from acoustic guitar (‘Talk Is Cheap’) to raucous rocking pints-inthe-air anthems (‘The Old Style Raiders’), those elements that first thrust Jamie T forward under the spotlight are all present and correct, but it’s the inclusion of a little bit of everything that makes ‘The Theory of Whatever’ an excellent return - there’s even a chugging punk adrenaline rush (‘A Million & One Ways To Die’). As the album twists from peak-of-the-eve anthems to closing-time laments, the moments that can feel sloppy (tripping over a chord here and there, fumbled lines) are all a part of the brilliance . A journey that rewards its travellers with the epic ‘Old Republican’, the often long distances between Jamie T releases can feel neverending, but once he reappears, he shines. STEVEN LOFTIN

INCOMING

RECOMMENDED

RELEASES MAKE SURE YOU CHECK OUT THESE ALBUMS AND EPS.

MAGGIE ROGERS

SURRENDER ★★★★★ Out: 29th July.

→ There’s a phrase - two words - that Maggie Rogers has used repeatedly in the run up to her new album, ‘Surrender’. You’ll find them on the poster for her tour, and even on the cover of this very magazine. Feral joy.

That’s the spirit that runs through her second album like blood through its veins. A primal spirit, set free of its bindings and unapologetic in its exuberance. Intoxicating and addictive, it’s the magic ingredients that could well make ‘Surrender’ one of - if not the - best albums of 2022 so far.

From opening track ‘Overdrive’, the stakes are raised. Previous album ‘Heard it in a Past Life’ was no slouch, but there’s a determined ease to its follow-up that blesses it with glorious purpose. Lead single ‘That’s Where I Am’ follows, its glitchy, brilliant intro setting the floor for a comeback of epic proportions. From there, the hits keep coming - the raw desire of ‘Want Want’, the smart, shimmering, soaring pop of ‘Be Cool’, the unadulterated adrenaline rush of ‘Shatter’ - each instantly sounding like the latest best thing ever. It’s remarkable stuff.

An album that takes all those months of pent up tension and shakes them out like nobody’s watching, the only exception ‘Surrender’ is willing to make is to its own instinctive urges. Feeding both the head and the heart, Maggie Rogers has gone feral. Let the joy spring forth. STEPHEN ACKROYD

feels a bit like this (hopefully) fictional murder scene - 3 or 4 minutes of insanity which is cleaned up so quickly it’s hard to work out what exactly just happened. Tracks about children building nuclear devices (‘Baby CAVE WORLD Criminal’) sit side by side ★★★★ with detailed explanations of Out now. scientific theories about the → At the very end of Viagra evolution of the human brain Boys’ new album ‘Cave (‘The Cognitive Trade-off World’, singer and frontman Hypothesis’).

Seb Murphy describes the This off-the-wall subject clean-up process after a matter will come as no murder in Japan. Delivered surprise to long-time fans in a monotone, he explains of the band, and their how the furniture is moved, punk spirit is still here too the crime scene meticulously - particularly on ‘Ain’t no sanitised and the stained Thief’ and ‘Troglodyte’, the carpet replaced quickly and album’s first two singles, but efficiently. It’s an unorthodox also rearing its head on the way to end an album, but it’s Sleaford Mods-featuring ‘Big also an apt metaphor for what Boy’. It’s where the wall of precedes it. noise fades out that things Each track on ‘Cave World’ get interesting, though. Both

MUNA MUNA

★★★★★

→ For their third full-length, MUNA prove that even leaving a major label isn’t enough to stop them making their best album to date. Shockingly brilliant.

NOVA TWINS SUPERNOVA

★★★★★

→ Proof that rock has finally found its way out its of tired, formulaic rut, Nova Twins play with genre and dynamic to make an album that deserves maximum attention.

FOALS

LIFE IS YOURS

★★★★

→ Foals’ pandemic party album might have all the hallmarks of everything that made the Oxford band great, but as they reduce to a trio, it’s also the most fun they’ve sounded since they first broke through.

Glorious.

SOCCER MOMMY

SOMETIMES, FOREVER

★★★★

→ Her third album, there’s no sign of a drop off in quality from Sophie Allison.

Quite probably her most expansive work to date, it’s an album that proves every silver lining has a cloud. As Sophie puts it herself, “I’ll just have to take both”.

VIAGRA BOYS

‘The Cognitive Trade-off Hypothesis’ and ‘ADD’ are stripped-back, skeletal synth numbers which ditch the capacity for mosh pits and push the lyrics to the fore.

Despite these changes in tone, the quality of ‘Cave World’ is much more consistent than the band’s previous albums. Viagra

Boys’ charm has always been the combination of genuine musical prowess with absurd, hilarious lyrics and a sleazy, speed-dealer aesthetic. Here, they’ve perfectly balanced these three aspects and made their best work to date. The shareholders at Shrimptech Enterprises will be delighted. JAKE HAWKES

BARTEES STRANGE

FARM TO TABLE

★★★★

→ If there’s one thing you can rely upon from Bartees Strange, it’s a whole lot of heart. His second album is full of it - an album that choses to embrace the big issues rather than deflect.

Honest, authentic and brilliant.

RAE MORRIS

RACHEL@FAIRYLAND

★★★

Out now. → ‘Rachel@ Fairyland’ is the third fulllength from Rae Morris, and her most honest yet, seeing her find new creative freedoms and independent confidence to make the album she always wanted to make. Named for her MSN handle (remember those?) and finding its roots in her hometown of Blackpool, it’s both nostalgic and marking the next chapter of her life, as she moves to London, falls in love - with cowriter Fryars - embraces motherhood, and finds her feet. The record characterises a personal coming of age, drawing on influences like Björk and Joanna Newsom and offering up a one-way ticket to the dreamscape of Fairyland. PHOEBE DE ANGELIS

BLACK MIDI

HELLFIRE

★★★

Out: 15th July. → black midi are one of those bands.

Either invoking wild devotion or baffled, ear-fingering bewilderment, you’re either going to get them, or you won’t. At all. The ‘jazz orchestra down a flight of stairs at speed’ vibes of ‘Sugar/Tzu’ is like an itch inside the brain - rattling away in a way which could so easily be way, way too much.

‘Welcome To Hell’ spits flames in a way that risks being described as conventional, but the seven plus minutes of ‘The Race Is About To Begin’ puts pay to any of that. An album that - like everything black midi do - will live or die on your capacity for an oversaturation of ideas delivered all at once. ANDREW WESCOTT

DEATON CHRIS ANTHONY SID THE KID

★★★★

Out: 29th July. → Deaton Chris Anthony may have credits with some of alternative pop’s biggest names, but he’s not hiding behind them as he strides out under his own name with ‘Sid The Kid’. Smart, bubbly bops abound, from the bratty nursery rhyme of opening statement ‘I Don’t Wanna Go To School’ to the sweeping ‘Friends Don’t Hurt One Another’. beabadoobee team up ‘iScream’ drips with swagger and sass, while ‘Go!’ breaks and glitches with satisfying aplomb. Easily slipping into the echelon of slightly mad, never shy future pop, Deaton Chris Anthony might not yet have found that one song that will break through, but the promise is obvious. STEPHEN ACKROYD

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GET OUT. LIVE MUSIC, FROM THE FRONT.

BILLIE EILISH THE O2, LONDON Friday 10th June 2022

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Photo: Samir Hussein.

Don’t be an asshole. Don’t judge anybody. Have fun. Laying down the law with these three rules at London’s O2 Arena as she performs the first show of a six-night sold-out run, Billie Eilish is at the top of her game.

If tonight is any indication, that’s exactly where she’s going to stay. → FIVE YEARS TO the day since her first headline show in front of just 220 people, and exactly two weeks before she becomes the youngest solo artist to headline Glastonbury Festival, Billie Eilish is the moment.

From the instant she springboards under the stage lights, she holds the room in the palm of her hand. Tearing into a set that deftly balances the lucid nightmares of her debut album with the distorted glamour of ‘Happier Than Ever’, this is Billie Eilish’s world now – and for an hour and a half, she’s inviting everyone to live in it.

Against a backdrop of hellish nightmares (fire, fiends, and flickering figures, oh my!), Billie is an angel in pigtails and cycling shorts here to guide us through. Instructing the audience to “scoop all the bad stuff out of your brain,” to jump, to get low, to “just relax and breathe,” her shows are less about losing yourself in the music and more about simply being present and enjoying wherever the hell you are.

As she conducts a Mexican wave from a rotating crane at the back of the arena, demonstrates how to “flop your limbs”, then later asks “anyone want to give me a haircut right now?” from her position centre stage, every moment invites more enthusiasm than the last.

The sing-alongs get louder and the dance moves get wilder, but despite how the setlist might read, this isn’t a greatest hits show. The night is as much a celebration of the moment and the future as it is everything the singer has achieved so far.

“You are valid in everything that you feel and everything that you go through, and nothing that you feel isn’t valid,” Billie reminds the crowd as she takes a breather mid-set. Frequently pausing between songs to beam out at her audience, her own excitement is every bit as pronounced as the enthusiasm in the faces that look back at her.

When she takes a seat with brother Finneas for a stripped-back selection of songs, it’s the echoing refrains of new offering ‘TV’ which linger the longest. With lyrics referencing the ongoing battle to preserve abortion rights in the US and the absurdity of watching a celebrity defamation trial online, the song’s already made headlines (a feat that’s even more impressive given that this is only the third time she’s played it), but it’s the track’s closing line that perhaps feels the most powerful here. There’s something intensely moving about singing along with an arena full of people, still crooning after the acoustic guitar fades away, “maybe I’m the problem” – we can all do better, and there’s no better place to start than acknowledging that in the present.

“Know that you are safe, and you are very loved, and you are important,” Billie imparts towards the end of her set. Sat under a single spotlight, there’s the very real sense that this is just a girl, singing her songs in front of an audience, asking them to experience this with her.

Watching her perform, it feels like there’s nothing more powerful than that. JESSICA GOODMAN

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Photos: Frances Beach.

LORDE THE ROUNDHOUSE, LONDON Friday 3rd June 2022 The reaction to Lorde’s most recent album ‘Solar Power’ may have been mixed, but taken to the live arena as summer starts to kick in, perhaps it’s time for some to reassess their judgement. → LORDE HAS ALWAYS been something of a pop maverick. Breakout single ‘Royals’ and with it, debut album ‘Pure Heroine’, switched the mainstream conversation around radiofriendly hits from big and bombastic to sparse, emotional and delicate. The then16-year-old inspired a wave of artists (both breaking and established) and in a few more years, should rightly be credited for opening the door for the entire bedroom pop genre.

Rather than stay in that lane though, she followed it up with the euphoric, dance-driven Melodrama that established her as a true pop star before releasing the divisive ‘Solar Power’ in 2021. The escapist, psychedelic record spoke longingly about sun-drenched self-discovery and throwing your phone in the ocean, but was released when the COVID-19 pandemic was at its most unpredictable. After 18 months of restrictions, people by large had had quite enough of looking themselves in the mirror while online worlds were all they could really explore.

Tonight, as Lorde takes to London’s Roundhouse for the third and final time (she’ll be back this way later this month for another sold out show at Alexandra Palace after a jaw-dropping show at Glastonbury) she admits it perhaps wasn’t the right time for ‘Solar Power’, but makes no apologies for it. A slow burner, it’s become a vital part of Lorde’s near-perfect back catalogue and

perfectly soundtracks the first tentative steps of life, post-lockdown.

The whole night feels like a party, but only after the slightly awkward, overlyrehearsed introduction of ‘Leader Of A New Regime’ that sees a silhouette of Lorde performing from centre stage. She comes into the light and is joined by three backing singers for a pared-down ‘Homemade Dynamite ‘and by the time she walks up the giant staircase/sun dial that dominates the stage for ‘Buzzcut Season’, the show is starting to feel more like an evolving art exhibition than a pop gig.

Once she’s done circling the audience though, Lorde announces that after three shows in the venue “this is starting to feel like my house, so forgive me if I get overly comfortable,” before a brilliantly gutwrenching ‘Stoned At The Nail Salon’. The

now-immortal line “’Cos all the music you loved at sixteen you’ll grow out of” is met with deafening, defiant cheers and Lorde mouths “I Love You” to the audience.

From here on out, there’s nothing but celebratory, communal joy.

“Shall we dance for our 15-year-old selves” she asks before the club-ready trance of ‘Ribs’ while ‘Writer In The Dark’ is peppered with playful “sssshs”.

Over the course of the night, she name-checks Haim, Kendrick Lamar, Robyn and even covers Carly Rae Jepsen’s ‘Run Away With Me’. “There’s something about listening to music in a group of bodies – whether it’s five of your mates in one of your houses or three and a half thousand of us at the Roundhouse on a Friday night, that can connect you to a truth about yourself that you didn’t

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realise until that moment. You know how a great pop song can do that?” she asks. “I know I have a lot of these big, complicated, knotty feelings inside of myself that I am trying to set free. If you are like me and are kinda fucked up also, I invite you to exercise any big feelings like that in the breakdown of this song,” she continues before the art punk crunch of ‘Hard Feelings’. You can’t move for catharsis.

It’s those once-derided songs from ‘Solar Power’ that really steal the show though.

Both the swaggering ‘Secrets From A Girl (Who’s Seen It All)’ and the Spice Girlsinspired ‘Mood Ring’ provide undeniable highlights that go toe-to-toe with ‘Green Light’ and ‘Royals’ for sheer audience excitement. Tonight is proof that we should always put our trust in the Lorde. ALI SHUTLER

Photos: Anthony Pham.

HARRY STYLES WEMBLEY STADIUM, LONDON Saturday 18th June 2022

With his new album, ‘Harry’s House’, Harry Styles has achieved what seemed the impossible, and become even more beloved and obsessed about. As he hits London’s Wembley Stadium with a tour actually intended to accompany his previous record, we pop round the gaff of quite probably the current hottest star on Planet Pop. Milk, no sugar, please Hazza. → HALFWAY THROUGH A Saturday night with Harry Styles, he has a question: “As it’s Wembley, shall we try something?” As he leads nearly 80,000 through a call and response, he cements his place at pop’s top table.

Harry may have been here before, but not like this – not with his name alone lit up across the venue’s walls. The evening sees pink cowboy hats, queues for merchandise longer than most venues have ever seen, and feathers from endless boas floating around the streets leading up to Wembley’s famed arch. To say Harry Styles’ headline turn at Wembley Stadium is A Big Deal doesn’t capture the sense of occasion that falls across this evening.

Not afraid to wear his heart firmly on his sleeve, the opening bars of ‘Music For A Sushi Restaurant’ set the tone for a night full of release, emotion, larger-than-life celebration and a sense of joy that you can’t help but be pulled into.

It takes but two songs, as ‘Golden’ triggers pogoing masses, for Harry to take a moment to catch himself, blown away by what lies in front of him. The sort of stage any artist dreams of, coming to fruition and covered in every hook, message and feeling he’s come to represent to so many. “Be whoever you want to be here tonight,” he calls out. “I challenge you to have as much fun as we will.”

It’s a challenge that Wembley Stadium takes to heart. ‘Adore You’ is screamed back as Harry jumps from one corner of the stage

to the next.

Every turn feels bigger and bolder than even the loftiest expectations as latest album ‘Harry’s House’ is showcased throughout the evening. At its core is warmth; whether it’s the erupting sweetness of ‘Daylight’, the seductive prowl of ‘Cinema’ or the unabashed joy that comes from ‘Late Night Talking’, it captures a show full of heart and earnest love.

To go from the plucked raw spotlight of ‘Matilda’ and ‘Boyfriends’ (the former introduced as Harry talks about how London and Wembley serves as a home to him) to the cinematic screens of ‘Satellite’ and its overflowing crescendo and to do it all with such ease – is nothing short of jaw-dropping.

From start to finish, tonight is a smiling house party dialled to the max, watching a born entertainer lead a congregation through

a show that is the stuff of legend.

As widescreen shots, giant projections and blinding lights blast from the stage, a dancing-filled run of ‘Canyon Moon’, ‘Treat People With Kindness’ and a stop back to where Harry’s journey began with ‘What Makes You Beautiful’ refuses to let Wembley pause for breath. When Harry steps back onto the stage for his finale, with Wembley’s lights lit up in the night sky, he launches into ‘Sign Of The Times’ – the grandstand epic that welcomed his arrival in the solo superstar sphere and was probably one of the most anticipated debut singles of all time.

As those opening keys begin, the skies open, and rain begins to pour. Fireworks burst into the air as he heads to the end of the stage runway, and pours every fibre of energy into its giant ending calls. It takes tonight at Wembley Stadium from a jaw-droppingly brilliant show to a landmark night which will make core memories for so many.

There are certain times when the right time, place, artist and crowd meet all at once to create something truly special, and as a delirious run through ‘Watermelon Sugar’, ‘As It Was’ and ‘Kiwi’ rounds out the show, it’s clear that Harry Styles at Wembley Stadium is one of those nights. A superstar representing everything good and vital in modern pop, it’s impossible not to be blown away.

Everyone can find a home in Harry Styles – but leave no doubt in your mind. Wembley Stadium is Harry’s House now. JAMIE MUIR readdork.com 61.

DECENT EXPOSURE. THE BEST IN LIVE MUSIC PHOTOGRAPHY.

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↖ TATE MCRAE

O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN, LONDON 15th June 2022 Fresh off her debut album ‘I Used to Think I Could Fly’, Tate McRae hit the UK and Ireland for a run of live shows long in the waiting, and proved she’s got the Big Pop chops to match her recent ascent in the process.

(Photos: Jamie MacMillan)

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↖ REMI WOLF

KOKO, LONDON 14th June 2022 If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it probably seven, maybe eight times - all pop stars should be like Remi Wolf. That’s why, whenever she comes to town, we’re there with big, jangly bells on. What a talent, eh?

(Photos: Patrick Gunning)

↖ ST. VINCENT

EVENTIM APOLLO, LONDON 29th June 2022 St. Vincent live is always an event. Over in the UK for a short run of shows around her Glastonbury appearance, she hit London’s Eventim Apollo with her most recent album ‘Daddy’s Home’ to put on one hell of a show.

(Photos: Patrick Gunning)

↖ YEAH YEAH YEAHS

O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON, LONDON 9th June 2022 Most bands have a use-by point where all sensible people deem them ‘probably one for the oldies now’ - deemed only fit to be rolled out for The Borings, no longer that interested in ‘new’ music, to sing the songs of their youth. This will never, ever happen to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. (Photos: Patrick Gunning)

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ELIO Yes, Dear Reader. We enjoy those ‘in depth’ interviews as much as anyone else. But - BUT - we also enjoy the lighter side of music, too. We simply cannot go on any longer without knowing that ELIO really wants to go zip-lining, and always has a good selection of hot sauce in the fridge.

WHAT DID YOU LAST DREAM ABOUT? I don’t really dream very often tbh, and if I do, they’re always bad.

IF YOU COULD BRING SOMETHING EXTINCT BACK TO LIFE, WHAT WOULD YOU CHOOSE? Giant sloths.

WHAT’S THE RUDEST LYRIC IN ONE OF YOUR SONGS? “How do I politely say suck my fucking dick.”

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN TO A SHOWBIZ PARTY? Yes. WHAT’S YOUR BREAKFAST OF CHOICE? I’m not a huge breakfast person, but I do love an eggs benny.

plane scary.

IF YOU COULD BE BEST FRIENDS WITH A CELEBRITY YOU DO NOT KNOW, WHO WOULD YOU CHOOSE? Absolutely without a doubt I think me and Taylor Swift would be unstoppable best friends.

HAVE YOU EVER FALLEN FOR A SCAM? No. WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO COOK A POTATO? Hands down truffle fries; close second is roast potatoes.

HAVE YOU EVER BEEN MISTAKEN FOR SOMEONE ELSE? No, although people keep sending me Millie Bobby Brown interviews and saying we look alike, which I love cause I’ve never really been told I look like anyone before.

WHAT WAS THE LAST THING YOU BROKE? I broke a glass a couple days ago WHAT’S THE MOST chasing my dog away from chewing EMBARRASSING THING THAT’S EVER HAPPENED TO YOU? the couch.

I honestly don’t know. I don’t get embarrassed super easily, tbh.

IF YOU COULD HAVE A SUPERPOWER OF YOUR When I was a kid, my grandma had CHOOSING, WHAT WOULD IT to pull me out of a bathroom stall BE? cause I locked myself in?

Teleportation.

WHAT’S THE SCARIEST THING WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE YOU’VE EVER DONE? SANDWICH FILLING? I think to a lot of people performing This is so basic but honestly, in front of thousands of people cheese and cucumber. is pretty scary, but honestly, the scariest part for me is travelling IF WE GAVE YOU £10, WHAT haha.

WOULD YOU SPEND IT ON? Probably a £7 coffee and then like HOW PUNK ARE YOU OUT OF a bagel, idk.

TEN? It’s very unpunk to say you’re punk; WHAT IS THE MOST IRRATIONAL that’s what Avril said, anyway.

SUPERSTITION YOU HAVE? I don’t really believe in the regular IF A GENIE GRANTED YOU superstitions, but I do attach luck THREE WISHES, WHAT WOULD to a lot of objects and then assume YOU ASK FOR? that’s why things went well if I wear World peace, a house in Italy and a it, or didn’t go well if I don’t. puppy that loves touring.

IF YOU HAD TO LIVE AS AN ANIMAL FOR ONE YEAR, WHICH ANIMAL WOULD YOU PICK? My dog.

also it’s not terrible sooo.

HAVE YOU EVER HAD A CRUSH ON A FICTIONAL CHARACTER? Like, so many it’s concerning.

WHAT’S THE SILLIEST THING YOU OWN? Not sure, but the first thing I saw IF YOU COULD LEARN ONE SKILL right now is a Patrick star ornament. INSTANTLY, WITHOUT NEEDING TO PRACTICE, WHAT WOULD WHAT’S ONE THING YOU’VE YOU PICK? WHAT’S THE MOST TERRIBLE ALWAYS WANTED TO TRY? FILM YOU LEGITIMATELY ENJOY Parallel parking lol.

I really wanna go zip lining, cause WATCHING? it’s fun but also not jumping out of a Hannah Montana The Movie, but IF YOU HAD TO HAVE ONE

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WORD TATTOOED ON YOUR FACE, WHAT WORD WOULD YOU HAVE? Idk if it’s a word, but I’d have ILMB (i luv my brain) right on my hairline.

hot and sunny or thunderstorming all day.

WHAT DO YOU ALWAYS HAVE IN YOUR REFRIGERATOR? Every hot sauce in the world.

HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A GHOST? WHY ARE YOU LIKE THIS? Nope and I never want to.

Genetics, caffeine, anxiety, haha.

WHAT’S YOUR FAVOURITE TYPE OF WEATHER? ELIO’s mixtape ‘ELIO’S INFERNO’ is out 5th August.

Depends on my mood, but either

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The new album July 15th