Oh, what’s the vibe?
Issue 39 December 2019 / January 2020 readdork.com
Get ready for 2020 with girl in red and the hottest new acts on the planet!
INDEX
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December 2019 / January 2020 | readdork.com | Down With Boring
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Ø4 Intro 18 Top Ten Ø8
ED’S LETTER BLAENAVON
It’s been a tough old time for Ben from Blaenavon, but with one of our albums of the year now ‘out’, we met up in the park to check in.
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A bona fide sensation in waiting, Girl In Red is about to explode. As part of our 2020 Hype List, we find out ‘more’.
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INHALER
Yes, we know, but there’s no need to mention the family business when it comes to Inhaler.
The start of every year brings about another batch of fresh talent tipped for the very top, Dear Reader - and this one is no different. That’s why we’ve been checking our spreadsheets, collating our choices and consulting our big crystal balls to come up with just some of the names we think will be making a noise in 2020. There’s a few - so many that you may notice we’ve put two covers on this month’s edition of the magazine. Take your pick, That’s not all we’ve got on hand, either. With it being an end of year double issue, we’re also rounding up the best of 2019, via the medium of lists - including the results of our annual Reader’s Poll - plus all our usual interviews, news, reviews and ‘stuff’. It’s been one hell of a twelve months, that’s for sure. A bittersweet mix of awesome and awful, there are still a few things to sort out before Santa comes (down with Tories, etc.), but 2020 looks full of all kinds of exciting things. We’ll see you back here in January for more!
S tephen
Hype List 2020 2019 in Lists
HANNAH DIAMOND
PC Music’s iconic first lady has just dropped a debut album. Man the pop barricades!
1Ø
14
ORLANDO WEEKS
6
Arlo Parks
53 La Roux
11
Bad Sounds
18 LANY
16
Beabadoobee
34 Låpsley
11
Best Coast
19 Lauran Hibberd
31
Billie Eilish Black Country, New Road
53
Blaenavon
4
13
JACK PENATE
Charli XCX
BEABADOOBEE
ALFIE TEMPLEMAN
2019 IN LISTS
42
16, 58 Lauv
Calpurnia
We could write all the words, but really, you want the stats. The tables. The objective opinions. They’re all here.
‘EDITOR’ @STEPHENACKROYD
42 King Nun
42
Alfie Templeman, 16, is only 16 years old. At the age of 16, he’s Very Good, for a 16 year old.
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40 Kawala
Another Sky
Bloxx
Already anointed by Sir Matthew of Healy, Bea is bringing the bangers.
4Ø
Alfie Templeman
The ex-Maccabees frontman has a solo effort on the way. Now it’s time to reclaim his throne.
Yes! Indie prince Jack Penate is indeed ‘back’ and now he knows what kind of artist he wants to be.
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** BAND INDEX ** BAND INDEX **
Celeste
53 12, 20
16
Lucy Dacus
21
Maisie Peters
52
Marika Hackman
16
Mura Masa
6
Mush
6
mxmtoon
55
Charly Bliss
My Chemical 16 Romance
19
DMA’s
11 Nasty Cherry
20
Do Nothing
45
Dry Cleaning
30
Dua Lipa
16
Egyptian Blue
39
Eli Moon
40
Eyesore & The Jinx 36 Fontaines D.C.
21
Gia Ford
39
girl in red
24
Glass Animals
16
Haim
16
Haloweens
13
Hannah Diamond
8
HMLTD
16
Inhaler
13, 46
Jack Penate
14
Just Mustard
29
Kasey Musgraves
Orlando Weeks
10
Oscar Lang
44
Pale Waves
6
Phoebe Green
13, 36
PINS
11
Pizzagirl
66
Rachel Chinouriri
38
Sinead O’Brien
39
Slotface
16
Squid
54, 66
Talk Show
28
Tame Impala
16
The 1975
21
The Big Moon
13
The Futureheads
20
The Wha
40
Working Men’s 19 Club
40
ON THE DORK STEREO THIS MONTH... BLOSSOMS
GEORGIA
CHARLI XCX
Foolish Loving Spaces
Seeking Thrills
Taxi
Out at the end of January 2020, we aren’t even remotely exaggerating when we describe the opening track of Blossoms’ third album as an indie ‘Mr Blue Sky’. Yes. It is that good. The ultimate compliment. Banger.
If you scooch towards the back of this month’s issue, you’ll notice Georgia has done ‘rather well’ in our 2019 end of year lists with her megabanger ‘About Work The Dancefloor’. The album it’s from is out next Jan, and is AMAZING.
2019 was not the year HRH Charli XCX released ‘Taxi’ - the Wyld Stallyns style moment of pop perfection all future generations will base their society upon. Not that we have, um, any way of actually listening to it. Obviously.
NEW MUSIC. NO ALGORITHMS.
DORK radio TUNE IN 24/7/365 readdork.com/radio
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GIRL IN RED
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INTRO
4
So, good things DO come to those who wait. When we spoke to Blaenavon’s Ben about their second album ‘Everything That Makes You Happy’ last year, it was showing all the signs of being an incredible record - and a timely one that dealt honestly with issues around mental health and anxiety. Now finally, after a painful delay due to a further hospital stay, it has been released and is even more exceptional than we dared dream about. Dork caught up with Ben for a noholds-barred chat about what happened… Hey Ben, congrats on such a beautiful record! When we spoke last year, you said how excited you were about it coming out. Loads has happened since then, what is it like now it’s out at last?
Ben: Here it is, it finally happened! It’s quite a weight off my shoulders because I’ve been so excited. I was super scared I was gonna spoil the release plan by just leaking info on Twitter because I was too excited. Everyone seems to love it, and everyone has a different favourite song which is always a good sign. It seems to be an emotional listen for a lot of the fans, but one that seems to be helping them out a bit which is kind of the intention I suppose. Was it cathartic to write? Or was it painful?
No, it’s always cathartic - that’s how I’ve always dealt with my business emotionally, put it into songs. But these ones are a bit more extreme than anything I’ve written before, a lot of stuff about being intimidated by the prospect of sanity, or losing that a little bit. But it doesn’t make me feel sad. What are your personal favourites?
‘Skin Scream’, ‘Quiet In Your Heart / Alone In Love’ and the title track. They’re awesome. Can you tell us about what triggered these songs? Was it a build-up of events?
I don’t know. I struggled a lot with depression and stuff when I was growing up, and there are parts of that on our first album, but I wasn’t very blunt about it. This DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
DORK
time, I kind of took away the unnecessary coded nature of things and was just quite expressive about how I was feeling. I wanted to be blunt and honest, but also fair on myself. And it was supposed to be a record about perseverance instead of about wallowing, so I hope that comes through. I think the tempo and the instrumentation of the songs brings that out. There’s a real 90s feel to some of the songs, bits of The Verve and Spiritualized in there at times. The songs sound a lot bigger with the orchestration.
Wow, amazing. I love that band. I just wanted to make massive Britpop anthems with full orchestrations and huge choruses. I’ve always been the biggest Blur fan, and then my manager encouraged me to really get into The Verve. So there’s quite a lot of that that comes through, especially on ‘The Song’s Never Gonna Be The Same’. I feel like that chorus is as big as it could possibly be. That song got passed around no end in our Dork group chat on release day…
That’s a really special song for me. I want to be in the Dork group chat.
be worse. Your situation could always be more difficult, and if you’re lucky enough, you have a good set of friends and family around you, and you can get through whatever trauma has overtaken you. You talk about a sense of guilt on the likes of ‘Fucking Up My Friends’, it’s a really honest and brave record.
I just wanted to be honest about it, because I know I’ve been a bit of a handful to a number of people over the years. To the extent that you kind of feel to blame for putting them through unnecessarily hard times. And I’ve been on the receiving end of that too. So yeah, that song is about growing up within an entire community of amazingly talented young people and watching all of us, one by one, slowly suffering through different things. And feeling guilty about it. It’s the same with ‘Quiet In Your Heart / Alone In Love’, which people seem to have tapped into.
"NO-ONE’S GOING TO JUDGE ME FOR BEING HONEST, AND IT’S GOING TO HELP OTHER PEOPLE"
No, you don’t. It’s mainly people asking what vegetable you would be if you could, and stuff like that.
I love random questions. What would you be? I would go for a cauliflower.
Really? They’re kind of gross, man. I’d maybe be a cucumber. A solid vegetable.
Yeah. Nice, crunchy. A liquid centre. Fine choice. Back to that orchestra…
A good friend of ours Ed Harcourt, arranged it. It really brought something else. Ideally, the whole record would’ve had a full orchestra, but budget cuts y’ know? You’d spoken about wanting the album to be an ‘optimistic response’, you really feel that on the title-track.
Bang on. Someone was paying attention (laughs). Yeah, it’s just about not taking things for granted because it could always
‘Catatonic Skinbag’ is another really honest moment, but one that you seem to deliver tongue in cheek?
If you read the lyrics, it is a really serious song. But I just did my very best to poke as much fun at myself as I could. I didn’t want it to be a sad-sack record with me complaining about stuff, I wanted it to be me overcoming stuff and making it fun. It’s about a phase I went through, and one I still go through at times, where I’m not in a great space. A lot of people have experienced it when you’re that depressed that you can’t really get out of bed and everyone calls you lazy. But it’s just, no, I physically can’t make myself move today. What are your fans saying to you about these songs?
There’s a lot of people who’ve been like, “oh, that really hurts”. Which I guess was sort of the intention. That it’s beautiful, perfect, a masterpiece, lots of great stuff like that (laughs). There’s the genre ‘sad banger’ that we’re pretty good at now. Sad bangers work. Were you apprehensive about the record coming out?
No. I’ve never doubted myself as a songwriter at all, I’m really good at that. I was just hoping that it would mean as much
Words & photos: Jamie MacMillan.
IF IT’S NOT IN HERE, IT’S NOT HAPPENING. OR WE FORGOT. ONE OR THE OTHER.
INTRO
Everything
that 5
makes
you
happy READDORK.COM
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Hype List 2020_ Hype List 2020_
ANY
REGULAR
READER
OF
OUR
BELOVED
MAGAZINE
W I L L B E W E L L AWA R E
24
girl in red
28
Talk Show
29
Just Mustard
3Ø
Dry Cleaning
31
Lauran Hibberd
WE’RE MORE THAN A
34
Beabadoobee
LITTLE
36
Eyesore & The Jinx
36
Phoebe Green
38
Rachel Chinouriri
39
Sinead O’Brien
39
Egyptian Blue
O U R L AT E S T O F F I C I A L
39
Gia Ford
P O P S TA R C A L E N D A R ,
4Ø
Alfie Templeman
4Ø
Eli Moon
4Ø
The Wha
4Ø
Working Men’s Club
42
Bloxx
OVER
42
Kawala
T H E N E X T F E W PA G E S ,
42
Another Sky
44
Oscar Lang
45
Do Nothing
46
Inhaler
52
Maisie Peters
ABOUT
53
Celeste
T O H AV E A V E R Y B I G
53
Arlo Parks
IN
INTERESTED
NEW
TA L E N T
.
B U T, A S W E R I P O P E N THE
PA C K A G I N G
IT’S
TIME
OUR
M E TA P H O R I C A L
MONEY
OUR
ARE.
WE’LL
INTRODUCE
YO U
TO
THE
ACTS
COULD
THE
PUT
WHERE
MOUTHS
2 0 2 0.
TO
ON
SOME WE
BE
OF
THINK
WELCOME HYPE
LIST
TO .
→
53 Black Country, New Road 54
Squid
55
mxmtoon READDORK.COM
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Hype List 2020_ Hype List 2020_ 25
Millions of streams, a dedicated live following, and a stack of bangers taller than George “6ft lots” Daniel stood on the dining room table Marie Ulven in a sensation ready to explode. Words: Liam Konemann. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
THERE’S A PARTICULAR
colour that heroines seem to wear. We’re talking Wonder Woman, Sabrina Spellman, Elastigirl. It’s Hermione Granger’s house colour and Black Widow’s hair. Consider a version of Little Red Riding Hood where the girl eats the wolf instead. Consider girl in red. The story goes that Norwegian 20-year-old Marie Ulven started the girl in red project in 2017, inspired by a heartbreak at the
hands of... well, a girl in red. In the approximately two years since, she’s built up a massive following from her bedroom studio in Oslo - at the time of writing, she is clocking up over 3.3 million streams on Spotify every single month. For context, that’s more than one-third of the way to The 1975 -levels of streaming. (Here at Dork we measure everything in units of 1975s. Let us tell you, it’s a nightmare when we’re trying to bake birthday cakes.) That’s an impressive feat from any angle, but it’s made all the more giddying by the fact that in the last few months things have gone truly stratospheric. By the end of 2019 girl in red will have completed four full tours in twelve months, taking in the US and Europe, all of which were underway while she was also writing, recording, producing and releasing her second EP ‘Chapter 2’. Did we mention Marie does all of this by herself? Because she does. Every instrument, every line, every minute in the mixing
booth, is a one woman operation. In short, she says, and in something of an understatement; “this has definitely been the craziest year so far. Definitely.” In a year where she has packed so much in, it’s hard to imagine when exactly Marie had any time to do the quieter, more internal parts of the project. Such as, you know, the actual writing itself. “It was over the place really, because it was sort of writing as I was going along this year,” she explains. “It wasn’t like I had this whole EP waiting around. I finished ‘watch you sleep’ in late December last year, and then I finished ‘i need to be alone’ in February, and I sort of just finished all the songs like a month before they were released. I just
READDORK.COM
Hype List 2020_ Hype List 2020_
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Signed to the hottest label on the planet, working with the biggest band on the scene, and turning out scuzzy indie rock bangers here and there, 2019 has been a big year for Beabadoobee. 2020 already looks like it’ll be a whole lot bigger, too... Words: Liam Konemann. Photos: Jordan Curtis Hughes.
READDORK.COM
46 DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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Packed shows, indie bangers and limitless ambition there’s more to Inhaler than simply the obvious. Words: Jamie Muir. Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.
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Cooler than an ice cream sundae, it’s...
READDORK.COM
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Year end means one thing. Ranking stuff. Everyone’s gonna be putting together their Top Tens, sharing their stats and revealing their ratings. We’re no different. So - in one infotastic burst, we proudly present...
A YEAR I DECEMBER 2019 / JANUARY 2020
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IN LISTS READDORK.COM
We’re a sucker for yule.
Get ready for 2020 with Inhaler and the hottest new acts on the planet!
Issue 39 December 2019 / January 2020 readdork.com