THIS MONTH... EDITOR’S LETTER HIYA! “MY LIFE GETS TO START NOW” P26 PHOEBE BRIDGERS
“WE’RE LIKE A HAGGARD, NEWBORN BABY!” P28 INHEAVEN
“MORE BANDS SHOULD HAVE A THEME SONG” P18 SUPERORGANISM
“WHAT DO PEOPLE WANT AT THIS POINT?” P14 ISAAC GRACIE
“WE WANT TO PLAY STADIUMS ONE DAY” P16 LO MOON
“WHAT DO WE WANT THIS ALBUM TO BE?”
“WE WANT TO MAKE A LASTING IMPRESSION”
P9 PUBLIC ACCESS T.V.
P17 IDER
CONTENTS
“I ALMOST FEEL LIKE A LATE BLOOMER” P10 ALBERT HAMMOND JR.
“WE’RE GOING TO HAVE LOTS OF NEW MUSIC” P4 BASTILLE
DORK
Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Events Liam James Ward Additional Design: Martin Crandon
P24 GENGAHR
“SO MUCH SHIT HAS GONE DOWN NOTHING PHASES US”
DO YOU GET BANDS MORE EXCITING THAN SUPERORGANISM? Not at the moment, you don’t. You may not have heard their debut album in full yet, Dear Reader, but there’s enough out there to call it - they’re almost certainly one of the most exciting acts on the planet right now. From the buzz-fuelled ‘Something For My M.I.N.D.’ to the glorious ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’, they’ve got an energy that most of their peers could only dream of. The fact they’re anything but conventional only adds to that allure. That’s why we’ve brought them to the cover of Dork for the first time. If new blood runs through our veins, this lot have the heart of a lion. Elsewhere, we’re as packed as ever with your faves, both established and soon-to-be. We give our old mucker Dan from Bastille a buzz to find out what they’ve got coming up in 2018, check in with Gengahr as they head for the wild side with their new album, and grab a belated word with Phoebe Bridgers, who gave us one of 2017’s best albums and is on her way to the UK for live dates. We’re on the road with INHEAVEN as they embark on their Dork Live! tour, chat with actual real life Stroke Albert Hammond Jr. about his new album with a startling subject matter, and get crafty with Diet Cig. All this and more, in your hands, right now. You lucky blighters. STEPHEN ACKROYD Editor / @stephenackroyd
P4 UPDATE P12 DORK LIVE! P13 BANGERS P14 HYPE P18 FEATURES P30 REVIEWS P38 ANY OTHER QUESTIONS
Contributors Ben Jolley, Brad Thorne, Cal Cashin, Eleanor Langford, Erin Bashford, Jenessa Williams, Josh Williams, Liam Konemann, Rob Mesure, Steven Loftin Photographers Sarah Louise Bennett, Sam Nahirny Illustrators Russell Taysom P U B L I S H E D F RO M
THE BUNKER
W E LCO M E TOT H E B U N K E R.CO M
P O B OX 390, H A S T I N G S, T N34 9J P
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, in whole or in part, without the express written permission of The Bunker Publishing Ltd. Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure the information in this magazine is correct, changes can occur which affect the accuracy of copy, for which The Bunker Publishing Ltd holds no responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do not necessarily bear a relation to those of Dork or its staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions. Distributed nationally.
DOWN WITH BORING
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UPDATE IF IT’S NOT IN HERE, IT’S NOT HAPPENING. OR WE FORGOT ABOUT IT. ONE OR THE OTHER.
WHAT’S NEXT FOR BASTILLE? YO U ’ D T H I N K BAST I L L E WO U L D B E LO O K I N G TO G O AWAY TO WO RK O N T H E I R T H I RD A L BU M , RI G H T ? BU T N O - T H E REC O RD’S A L RE A DY W E L L U N D E RWAY, T H EY ’ V E G OT A N E W M I XTA P E , A N D T H EY ’ RE A BO U T TO H I T T H E ROA D FO R A TO U R T H AT RE I M AG I N ES EV E RY T H I N G T H AT ’S C O M E B E FO RE .
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WO RDS : A L I S H U T L E R .
retty soon there’s going to be-” starts Dan Smith before the smallest of pauses. “I always say too much,” he grins. “We’ve got all this stuff we’ve been working on, and I just want it out there. This year we’re releasing our third album. We’re going to have a new mixtape. We’re going to have lots of new music out,” he promises. The thing about Bastille is that there’s always a lot going on. Since the release of second album ‘Wild World’, all wide-screen possibility and dynamic reflection, the band have swelled and secured their position as one of the most interesting groups around. Smart pop music with a manic grin, the tour took in everything from London’s The O2 to Reading & Leeds’ Main Stage via arenas across Europe. Bastille finished 2017 as a band who could head in any direction. Any direction, as long as it was up. The band tried to pause before working on the flurry of next chapters. Honestly, they really did. “I tried to stop, and I lasted about a week,” says Dan, but the allure of the new was too much. “It took three and a bit years for us to put out our second record and I want to move a bit quicker these days. I’m not someone who is going to stop and not be making music in some way. We’ve been lucky to tour constantly for about five years, so even just being in London, even if I’m doing music all the time, it still feels like a break. And also, I’m so fucking lucky. It’s so fucking fun. It’s hard work sometimes, like anything you care about would be, but yeah. Why the fuck would I take a break when I love it?” As if working on two releases at the same time wasn’t work enough, Bastille are also going back on the road. Their Reorchestrated Tour will see them strip back, reimagine and reinvent their back catalogue. They’ve done it once before, a one-off show at Union Chapel for homeless charity Streets Of London, but never ones to simply repeat themselves they’re currently
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“figuring out how to expand on what we did last year,” Dan reveals. “It was just nice to strip all our songs back and reimagine them in a different light,” he continues. “I love writing songs. I know it’s geeky, but it’s one of my favourite things to do. I also get totally lost in the production, and that’s a massive part of what we do as well. That show was a nice opportunity to look at both the albums, the mixtapes that we’ve done and strip everything back to the songwriting. “I’m also a massive film soundtrack fan, I love certain elements of classical music, and I love how it fits into pop and alternative music. Getting to focus on the gospel choir, the strings and the brass was a fucking dream. All that stuff is there in
our songs anyway but because we made our albums in a little cupboard, we always just had to layer it up ourselves. We’d have to make some huge string section out of two people. It was the same with the vocals; it’d be me in my bedroom layering up this big ol’ choir of backing vocals. It’s fun for us to be able to do those songs with actual people doing it and hearing them how we’d always imagined them.” While the tour is based on that Union Chapel gig, one of Dan’s favourite shows, there’s still plenty of room for surprises. “We had two days to pull that show together and we worked with our mate Johnny who tours with us playing trumpet and singing but is also an amazing arranger. He pulled all that together while we were off on tour in a matter of days and
with no sleep whatsoever. It was a fucking amazing achievement. “It’s nice to go back to it, looking at what we loved about it and what we think we can do better and adding different people in different parts and new songs. It’s going to be a supped up version of that show. Getting to do that on a bigger scale at Royal Albert Hall and various other places around the UK and Europe is fucking insane, I’m so excited,” Dan beams. “I’m slightly distracted by trying to finish an album, but apart from that...” Bastille have this manic energy. It’s there in the music, the live show, in their excitement for more and their ability to create. Usually stripping a song back to its core takes away that fizzing spirit. We’ve all heard
I OH YOU, IVY LEAGUE & SUB POP PRESENT
Rolling Blackouts C.F. Mainland Tour
Fri, May 18
Rescue Rooms, Nottingham
Sun, May 20 pop bangers fall asleep with an acoustic guitar, but Bastille are looking to shift, not subdue. “You have to hope they stand up to that. Because of the energy, often people don’t listen to the lyrics as much, or parts of the arrangement or production go under the radar a little bit; we always try and do so much in everything we do, perhaps sometimes that means things get overlooked. “It’s nice to be able to reframe the songs. Something like ‘Good Grief’ which is actually really sad but framed in a slightly uplifting way, to be able to sing that and show it in a different light, or its true light, is fun to do. This tour also allows us to know we’re playing to people who are deep fans of stuff we’ve done. It’s nice to bring out tunes we’ve never played before, tracks
from mixtapes and less aired tracks, which is fun for us. Having done arena touring in the UK and the different countries around the world, we wanted to do some kind of touring this year but going in the opposite direction for a minute.” “We’re quite short term-ist,” Dan admitted to Dork last summer. “At one point we probably didn’t think we’d make a second record, but then we got to make a second album, and now I’ve realised I really want to make a third one. And maybe a fourth one, too. It’s easier to think into the future a bit more now.” That forward thinking has spread beyond the recorded chapters, and now the band are plotting for the future. “I want this tour to be a success and allow us to do this as one arm of our touring.
Centre for Contemporary Arts, Glasgow
Mon, May 21
Gorilla, Manchester
Tue, May 22
Electric Ballroom, London . tickets at rollingblackoutsband.com .
HYPE ESSENTIAL NEW BANDS
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ISAAC GRACIE SING ER-SONGWRITER
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I SA AC G R AC I E
IS FIGURING OUT THE WORLD THROUG H
S O A R I N G T U N E S T H AT C O M E S T R A I G H T F R O M T H E H E A R T .
hat do people want at this point?” Isaac Gracie ponders during a break from the mastering of his as-yet-unannounced debut album. It’s a question that’s hard to answer, especially for young, burgeoning solo acts who can quite easily get lost among countless other singer-songwriters, and it’s this thoughtfulness that is Isaac’s greatest weapon. His appropriately titled debut EP ‘Songs From My Bedroom’ was quite literally that - a bunch of tracks recorded at home using a guitar and GarageBand. What’s come since though has ebbed into frenzied rock, acoustic-folk and whatever’s in between. Which begs the question, where does he fit in? In all honesty, Isaac doesn’t really know. He’s just Isaac Gracie, a twenty-something from Ealing. “I don’t suppose that I’m breaking too much from convention,” he cooly muses. “But just the mere fact that I don’t know how to clarify where I fall in with these things, or even how I write a song, means there is a little bit of difference there.” While his standard singer-songwriter influences sear through - your Bob Dylans, Jeff Buckleys et al. - Isaac also takes inspiration from modern muso-type bands such as The National and Parquet Courts, all the way through to everyone’s favouriteto-hate contemporaries Coldplay and Snow Patrol, which he certs as “just massive - melodic.” “When I first started I was doing demos in my bedroom, and that was the first taste people got,” he starts. “And while it was a good indication of me and my songs, and how, in a minimalist sense, I’d like them to be, it’s not necessarily an indication of how, given the opportunity, I’d like to present it.
WORDS: STEVEN LOFTIN
“ W H E N I F I RST G OT I N TO T H E M U S I C I N D U ST RY , I WAS F RE A K E D O U T BY A L L O F IT ” “A large part of my relation to the songwriting thing - and why I’m glad to be here now and to have this band around me to make that sound - is because it will ideally grow from a small place of honesty and vulnerability to this large unfurling blooming picture. I think in a lot of my songs, that’s the structure behind it. In a way that’s the only structure that I know how to do.” Having a band around him allows Isaac to focus on “sculpting a sonic identity”, and his world of ideas is growing. He describes his formative tours as a “tiresome experience”, recalling them with a haunted fondness. “I was literally on my own. It does get a bit tricky trying to find meaning, and to find yourself, in all of that.” “Also, you don’t value your own shit enough,” he continues. “You can’t tell yourself, ‘Yeah, I’m worth this’. You can’t so easily build yourself above all that takes you down because there’s no framework around you to keep it up.” Taking that initial step into solo-dom was a brave feat. “It’s scary!” Isaac exclaims. “When I first got into the music industry, like two years ago, I was freaked out by all of it, and I still am.” The somewhat fractured music ‘scene’ didn’t help, either. “I can purport to desire to be a part of a scene, or for there
to be scenes or for there to be that kind of organic communal reaction to a certain sound or a certain vibe that grows,” he says, “but it doesn’t look like it’s happening here.” “It does look like it’s happening in America a little bit,” he ponders, referencing acts like Phoebe Bridgers and Julien Baker. “I’m jealous because that’s a cool look, man. They’re all making music that I think is kind of the best out there now. At the same time, I’m very introverted and have been for like the last two or three years. To idolise a scene is what I may do, but to expect that it would ever really be a part of my life, I doubt very much.” While the future is certainly in Isaac’s hands, scene or not, the journey from the bottom is one that’s close to his heart. Recently featured on BBC Radio 1 as a talking head around the discussion of small live music venue closures, Isaac is conscious of the hurdles that keep these organic collectives from flourishing. “The more we close down places where culture or creativity is an important part of the puzzle, then we just become a boring species, you know? We don’t have anything to bring light or difference into things; we just have Pret and McDonald’s.” P Isaac Gracie tours the UK from 11th April. His debut album is out very soon indeed.
RECOMMENDED NEW NAMES
BAD WAVE
Dork premiered the ridiculously cool video for Bad Wave’s new track ‘Money’ earlier this year; it’s an obscenely infectious banger that’ll have you ‘do do do’-ing for days after you first hear it. The LA duo is comprised of two former surf-rockers, Tucker Tota and Patrick Hart, who first connected over a fondness for Weezer. That’s the start of most good things, right?
BREATHE PANEL
This four-piece - Nick Green (vocals, guitar), Josh Tyler (guitar), Benjamin Reeves (drums) and Alex ‘no not that one’ Turner (bass) - are from the current home of all things buzz, Brighton. Breathe Panel have shared stages with the likes of The Big Moon and Honeyblood, dabble in shoegaze, garagerock and psychedelia, and enjoy “taking long walks on the South Downs.” How romantic.
BAD NEWS CLUB
Arriving with a flash of chilling honesty, Bad News Club - the third of this month’s three Bs - has brought all the feels with debut cut ‘The Painter’ (listen on readdork. com now). The Haslemere-based wordsmith weaves devastating pain and unfiltered reality throughout the stripped raw number, a glimpse into a voice that’s destined to captivate over the coming years ahead.
NERVUS NERVUS “Nobody loses all the time,” sing Nervus towards the front of new record ‘Everything Dies’. Down but not out. Glass one-third full, the band’s second album is a fierce burst of trying to make good in a world that would rather you didn’t. “Hope life begins at 29,” offers ‘Sick Sad World’, breaking into a smile. “I might be on my back, but at least I’m looking up,” continues ‘It Follows’. It’s not the silver lining the band are after; they’ll settle for a break in the weather. The title “is not bleak,” promises the band’s Em Foster. “It depends how you look at it, but it’s just a fact,” she grins. “It’s a realistic title. You’ve got to see stuff in terms of how temporary and transient everything is. You’re not going to be stuck in the same exact situation forever. If you’re in a great situation, it’s a reminder to not take that for granted. If you’re in a crap situation, it’s an offer of hope. It’s a reminder to people to stop being knobheads.” Still scratching at the bones of her troubles, ‘Everything Dies’ sees Em take control of the situation. “I’m a lot more confident now. Before, I was talking about things from a perspective where I didn’t feel confident in myself,” she starts. Using the first record to come out as trans, while also dealing with alcohol addiction and mental health troubles, debut album ‘Permanent Rainbow’ was, at times, almost uncomfortable in its intimacy. ‘Everything Dies’ is full of pride. Unwavering in its stance, it’s a record that knows where it belongs. The reaction to their debut “made me feel more anxious about writing lyrics and being open,” says Em. “[For this album] I also had to make sure I’m being responsible in what I’m writing and how I’m talking about things. It made me readdress my responsibility to not talk out of turn.” “I don’t speak for anyone but myself,” she continues. “Things can get better, but that doesn’t mean they will. Or that it’s easy. There’s some incredibly positive stuff happening for recognition of trans people and representation of trans people, but I think the backlash from that affects other people much more than it affects me. I’m middle class and white. I have the support of my friends and family. I’m just trying to be a positive role model with what I’m saying, and not talking for people. “I think a lot of people would think a lot less about it than I do, but that’s just the way my brain works. I’d hate to be the person who went onstage and said, ‘Oh yeah, coming out is awful. Don’t do it’, because it wouldn’t be true. Offering people no hope, I couldn’t do it. It would be a lie. I wouldn’t say it’s tough speaking publicly about these things because that’s something I’ve chosen to do, and I can opt out of it at any moment. There are tougher things, y’know?” P Nervus’s album ‘Everything Dies’ is out 9th March.
DOWN WITH BORING
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DOWN WITH BORING
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here’s a new hive mind in town. In early 2017, Superorganism’s first single ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’ appeared online. It’s difficult to say what that was like because what Superorganism do isn’t like anything else. It’s like trying to compare apples and oranges - only the oranges are neon and hexagonal, and don’t actually seem like they come from this planet at all. ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’ was sharp and shiny, hyper-modern and so fizzingly delicious that you wanted to live inside it. Then it disappeared. Some problem to do with an uncleared sample. After that came two more singles, ‘It’s All Good’ and ‘Nobody Cares’, before ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’ resurfaced and was finally joined by a fourth single towards the end of last year. That final track in 2017, ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’, was the band entering warp speed. It’s fantastical and bubbling, and was launched with a video by Superorganism’s visual artist Robert Strange that features 17-year-old singer Orono traipsing through a digital universe of the band’s own making. Like their earlier clip for ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’, the video paints Superorganism’s world as a computerised, animated realm filled with cartoon animals and video game style quests. It also includes a mocked-up faux YouTube called ‘Dank Videos’ where faceless commentators spin the conspiracy theory that Orono is actually a hyper-realistic hologram. In an interview on Channel 4 news not long after the video’s release, Robert Strange joked that the band are ‘quite a cartoonish group of people’. He wasn’t wrong. Robert himself looks like he’s wandered out of the 70s, all long hair and double denim. Then there’s guitarist Harry’s wild mop, a drummer called Toucan, plus synth player Emily, today dressed in a purple t-shirt featuring a pair of leaping dolphins and earrings in the shape of McDonald’s fries. Not to mention the minuscule Orono, and joyful, cackling backing singers Ruby and B with their shockingly purple lipstick. A motley crew, and that’s before we even get to the fact that third backing vocalist Soul is out of the country and has sent a portrait of himself as a stand-in for today’s shoot. The members of Superorganism just keep coming, like clowns piling out of a battered old Volkswagen Beetle. The usual gang is whittled down to just two for today’s chat. Emily is excitable and expansive, the ideas rushing in from all directions as he speaks. Orono, on the other hand, is droll and sharp-witted despite the crushing weight of her Japan-London jetlag. She is also definitely a tiny Japanese teenager, and not the result of some clever digital trickery. We think. The hologram thing wouldn’t be such a huge stretch, though, considering the fact that for a long time Superorganism’s work was all conducted in the virtual world. “It was all over Facebook at one point,” Orono explains. “When we started initially. Emily sent me a message the day after my 17th birthday just like, ‘Hey, we have a demo of this song, do you wanna write some lyrics and sing on it?’. I did that; it was like a Sunday morning or whatever. My roommate was sleeping so I sang very quietly, it was a bit of a lullaby vibe I think. We did that for several months.” That lullaby became ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’. By the time Orono chimed in on the demo, most of the rest of the band had moved to London and were piled into a terrace house together, but the internet was
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still crucial to their work. Emily and Orono had met in person a few years earlier, after Orono went to see a previous incarnation of the band play in Tokyo. And even then, the meeting only happened because Orono had been digging around on the internet. “I found their music through YouTube recommendations,” she says. “The algorithm worked.” “The algorithm put us together, man,” Emily says with a grin. “Then I found out that they were doing a little tour in Japan. I went to their gig in Tokyo, and we became buddies after the show. Then we went to the zoo the following day.” She pauses. “And the Hard Rock Café.” It’s not what you’d call the classic Tokyo tour, the zoo and then the Hard Rock Café, but Superorganism delight in the weird.
dorm room. It was one of those moments where it just clicks super well, and it was like, ‘Oh cool, let’s do another one, let’s do some more. Let’s just keep doing this; this is fun’.” By the time Orono graduated high school and moved to London in Autumn 2017, the band had gotten so many tracks down already that their debut album was finished up in a matter of weeks. The influence that their online origins have had is impossible to separate from the finished record. There are markers of it everywhere - in the lyrics and sounds they choose to sample, in their artwork, their videos. It’s clearest on their track ‘Reflections On The Screen’, which nods to online relationships and takes a look at the way that so many of our interactions now play out in spaces that don’t physically exist. This is no futuristic Black Mirror-style dystopia, though. True to their nature, Superorganism are much less bleak about the whole thing.
people work with a team-writing style of mainstream pop where a few producers will work on a song and then send that file to someone else who’ll work on it and send it on. I’m so fascinated by that because I find it really reflects how modern society works where everyone’s just like putting out something and then people are adding to it. We will walk between rooms and talk to each other when we’re working on stuff [at home], but also chatting online and sending stuff is…” he shrugs. “It’s just convenient, and we’re very comfortable doing it.” Orono picks up. “So we tend to do that at all times, yeah,” says Emily. “I remember the first time, years and years ago, I sent my flatmate a Facebook message instead of walking to their room, and we laughed that it was a weird thing to do. It’s such a funny thing to think about now because there’s nothing weird about that at all – to me, at least. I think a lot of internet culture seems scary and even dark and bad at first, and then it just becomes absorbed into normal mainstream culture. Like internet dating, for example, no one would be ashamed to say they’d dated on the internet these days. Whereas in the past I’ve known people who were embarrassed and didn’t want to say ‘I met my partner on the internet’. It’s a different perspective, and it changed so quickly.” “I told some of my friends at school, ‘Oh I’m meeting up with this friend that I met on Twitter’ and they’d be like, ‘Why would you do that? That is so dangerous, Orono you’re so edgy’, and I was like, ‘What are you talking about?’” says Orono. The perspectives have changed so quickly that since the early 2000s there have been countless distinct internet phases for the band to draw on, inspiring both their music and their artwork to build their particular universe.
“It just felt right, y’know?” Emily laughs. After their Japanese tour and zoo excursion (“the Jack-Ass Penguins were the best ones,” Emily says), they stayed in touch thanks to the wonders of social media. Then, when Emily noticed Orono “had a couple of cool demos up on Soundcloud”, collaborating on ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’ seemed like the natural next step. “[Soundcloud demos are] just classic teenage bullshit nowadays,” Orono smirks. “Actually, my Dad was like, ‘You should take those down right now ‘cause they’re embarrassing’.” “Oh, what! I reckon they’re cool man, don’t do it.” Emily insists. “I was like, ‘I know. I’m already onto it, several months ago’,” says Orono. Emily’s always had faith in Orono, by the sounds of things. The first time the rest of the band heard her work on their first single, it blew them away. “So we sent this track to Orono while she was at school in the States, and when we got it back we put it on the stereo, and we were just like, ‘Whoa, dude, did you actually just write that?’” he says excitedly. “It was crazy because it only took her an hour or something to write it and record it in her
“It’s a major part of everyone’s lives, right? I think that’s one of the most relatable songs on the record, because everyone’s on their phones and laptops nowadays just looking at bullshit,” Orono shrugs. That casual, catch-all ‘bullshit’ seems like the right word for it. Practically all recorded human knowledge is at our fingertips, and what are we doing? Looking at dog memes. Playing that one GIF of a seal spinning around to jewellery box music on repeat. Orono’s not preaching, though. This is just modern life, and Superorganism don’t seem to think it’s rubbish. “You might see your loved one sitting next to you watching Netflix in the reflection more than you actually look at them,” says Emily. “Honestly, it’s a little bit like that. I just feel like everyone we know is obsessed with the internet. Not in a weird way that just seems to be modern life. There are all different ways of meeting through the internet these days. Whether it’s finding a job through the internet and meeting people at work or dating through Tinder, and putting music together as well.” Luckily, the 21st-century pop-factory approach suits them down to the ground. “Putting music together over the internet makes so much sense to us. We love all the mainstream pop stuff, and a lot of
“[Robert] does all the animation and live visuals as well as the video clip stuff. He’s the final piece of the puzzle, so when we’re coming to finishing up the demos for songs he gets involved and starts putting the visuals together as we’re getting the songs finished,” says Emily. “So there’s back and forth like that, and I think he does a great job of painting the words with these kinds of images. He uses lots of images from, like, earlier 2000s internet culture and I think in general he uses lots of memes from different internet eras,” he grins. “The internet eras are very small ‘cause the internet’s only been around for a while. But I think we do the same thing with our music, we’re into all these different eras of stuff, and we tend to get obsessed with these different eras and just take little bits and pieces I guess. That’s the end result.” Superorganism’s world is one of contemporary nostalgia. The videos for ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D’ and ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’ bring to mind early 2000s chat rooms, flip phones, and neon MySpace skins. There are rainbow colours and soaring cat heads, a whale swimming through the sky, 8-bit video game graphics. Superorganism are magpies, picking and choosing the shiny parts of life to weave into their
show. They’re rulers of their own retrofuturistic digital realm. “It’s important to us first of all that we’re in control of all the things that we’re interested in,” Emily says. “That’s why we do everything at home, from writing and recording it, and also mixing it to doing all the visual stuff and then rehearsing the show in our bedrooms. It’s important to us that it’s the expression of our little hivemind, rather than a collaboration between us and other people outside. We’ve created our hub, you know? “I think that when you do that, when you have eight people kind of looking inwards, in a way, you start to build this kind of world. It’s inevitable. It’s like when you have this group of friends that always hangs out, and they start to have in-jokes or things like that. It’s sort of like the group starts having a personality, and it’s like that for a band as well. For us, that personality is part of that world.” “I think that’s why we’re so into creating an immersive project,” Orono agrees, “because we’re so interested in various things all across the board.” Their varied interests mean that each member of the hive mind weighs in on all aspects of Superorganism. From the lyrics and the melody to song structure, imagery, lighting and effects in their live shows - all members have equal input.
“It’s very collaborative,” Orono says. “Not just lyrics but even the video stuff and the album artworks, the melodies, everything we all have a say in. Emily could come up with some ideas for the lyrics of a song, and he would send it over to me and be like, ‘Hey this part’s cool, or that part’s cool, maybe I could add this cool part that I wrote today’ or whatever. Nobody’s in charge of one single thing. “I think that’s kind of what sets us apart, ‘cause I don’t think a lot of groups are as collaborative. Usually, it’s one guy, and he’s like, dictating the creative direction of the band, and the other guys just follow. I don’t think we’re like that at all.” Their equal opportunities, all-for-one approach helps them swerve the pitfalls that might come with clashing egos. “I’ve seen lots of stories about bands I love where they’ve got multiple songwriters in the band, and they clash and end up breaking up because they want to play their own songs or whatever, and I feel like that’s missing the point,” Emily agrees. “It’s really important to put your ego in the success of the group as a whole, as a team, because in general bands that have crazy good songwriting careers tend to have multiple songwriters.” “Putting minds together produces amazing stuff,” Orono agrees. “It’s important to put that pride in the whole group. Which I think everyone in our group does, it’s just how we
think. If the band’s doing this thing that’s great, then it’s good for every single person. I think that’s how we end up feeling. So in that way, it doesn’t matter who did what and so we end up taking turns doing quite a lot of the different things.”
Collectivism is just the Superorganism way. Everything they do lives up to their name, staying true to their ‘we are one, but we are many’ hive mind approach. They’ve even gone so far as to weave their statement of intent into a theme song on the album; the conveniently titled ‘SPRORGNSM’.
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O O D
G L AL C E N. .. D R H I L E UK, DS IN TH NEW BAN T A P. S E L O CTO RY L HE CO PON A VI ONE OF T ARKED U B M E E R I V HA F THE N I N H E AV E ELEASE O EAR, NG THE R R LAST Y E FOLLOWI B M E T EP S S N I T U O F SP OT LED DEB P LOA DS S E L F -T I T . UR HIT U N O U T R D M E U G LB RK-BAD ON THE A THEIR DO A N C E TO H C A T E N’T G FUN. THEY DID OA DS O F T. I T WA S L E BENNET OFTIN. STEVEN L WORDS:
INHEAVEN, Reading Face Bar, 6th February 2018. 28
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PH OTOS:
OUIS SARAH L
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ot only is tonight in Cambridge the second date of INHEAVEN’s headline tour, but it’s also guitarist Jake Lucas’s birthday, and something of a homecoming as drummer Joe Lazarus actually lives here. With family and friends piling in to see them, the band are in good spirits. As they rattle around the empty venue before the show, the four-piece bring the gang mentality of The Clash and stylistic observation of The Strokes into a melding factory of their own creation. The room quickly sees stars and stripes draped over instrument cabs, roses adorning every spare surface, and a large blood-red velvet style backdrop. “We’re really into that,” singer and guitarist James Taylor admits. “My favourite thing is when you walk into a gig, and you feel a part of it. A band with a smoke machine, and like, one light bulb is not inspiring, is it?” “It could be cool though, just one light,” singer and bassist Chloe Little swiftly interjects. “I like the sound of that!” It’s clear they take this approach very seriously. During the show’s set up, James and Chloe can be seen scattering roses across the stage, with every position picked meticulously, as if each stem is holding its own individual role in their grander scheme. “We design all the backdrop and the drum skin and everything so that when you come in it’s like our world,” James says. It’s all of these
little flourishes that come together to create the environment that matches the sound they unleash: proof that INHEAVEN has cracked the balance of both style and substance. As if kicking off the new year with a tour wasn’t enough, they’re also jetting off to the US for the first time in March with fellow Dork faves, Pale Waves. It’s not hard to see why the band are excited about hitting the open road across the pond. “A lot of our favourite bands are from America,” James begins. “We’re looking forward to going to Seattle, Chicago, New York…” But it’s not all just going to be about the long drives and bright lights. “Have you seen all these crazy food Instagrams in America, [and] food bloggers?” Chloe asks excitedly. “[I’ve] been screengrabbing things that I want to eat in certain places, because I love a list. So I’m making a ridiculous list of all the places that I want to eat. Not oh, ‘I want to see Niagara Falls…’ “It’s easy to want to sit and do nothing when you’re touring,” she continues. “Because it’s weird hours, and you have to get up late and things like that. You have to make a conscious effort when you’re in new places to try and see something or to be reading or writing every day.” Cutting their teeth on tour over the last three years, the band’s time on stage has helped them develop who they want to be. “Each individual character comes out when you see us live,” says Joe. “Everyone has their own thing, and you get to really see that.” They’ve learnt a lot, too. “Every night of the gig you go home, and you’re like, ‘Why did I do that?’ And the next gig you won’t do those things,” James
confides. “It’s kind of like a slow build, character building, and developing how you want to be on stage. That’s something you only get from touring, and I think we’ve got that from being on the road. I’m looking forward to seeing where that goes next.” “Last year was a bit of a blur because there was a lot of shows,” recalls Chloe. “I think time goes very quickly,” James adds. “Like you’ll go on tour, and it’s freezing, and then you come off tour, and you’re in your t-shirt, and you’re like, ‘What happened?! Where am I, what year is it?” Losing time to the road is only one of a few things that touring can take from a band. “You kind of just live in exile from the mainstream society when you’re in a band,” Chloe explains. Negatives aside, INHEAVEN love the road. It’s why they’re doing this in the first place, and currently where they’re thriving. “Speak to us in five years time when we’re all, ‘It’s fucking shit!’” James laughs. “But yeah, we love it at the moment. Playing live is when the record comes to life, and you really see - I think other people, that’s who makes the record. You can make a great record, but it’s the audience reaction to it that makes a great record even greater.” “Everyone wants to be out on the road the whole time if they can,” James confesses. “That’s what we’re building up to, I guess. Right now we’re like newborn babies, every city we go to, it’s like seeing stuff for the first time.” “We’re like a haggard, newborn baby!” Chloe interrupts, laughing. “A roadworn newborn baby.” P INHEAVEN’s self-titled debut album is out now. DOWN WITH BORING
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REVIEWS THE OFFICIAL VERDICT ON BASICALLY EVERYTHING.
SUPERORGANISM SUPERORGANISM eeeee
SO M ET I M ES , T H E H Y P E M AC H I N E D O ES N ’ T G O FA R E N O U G H .
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here are a lot of positive things for a new band to be. Exciting is a must; nobody wants to be boring. Intriguing is a good one, a touch of mystique can help. A good personality is important to drag oneself out of the grasping hands of the less engaging masses. Superorganism have something few others could
ever hope to posses though. They’re positively infectious. The sparks of energy that only exist when seemingly impossible things collide, it only takes a quick glance at the collective to realise they’re a little different to the norm. But crucially, this isn’t about visible oddity. It’s about sounding like the best, coolest - and most importantly fun - party in town. From the slack strive shuffle of ‘Everybody Wants To Be Famous’ to the fantastical ‘SPRORGNSM’ (all the best bands have a theme song - Ed), every beep, bloop and twang has a once in a generation
swagger. Like the first point Avalanches headshrunk new frontiers the better part of two decades before, it’s nothing short of fascinating. With a quiet confidence rarely afforded for debut records, Superorganism never sound showy or arrogant. Never forced or contrived. Nothing about their wonky pop is cynically replicated to shift units or hit suit and tie targets. In the soon to be iconic Orono, Superorganism have bottled lightning; an almost nonchalant focus point for the raging neon
extravaganza exploding around her. ‘Something For Your M.I.N.D.’ is as bogglingly brilliant as it sounded first time around, ‘The Prawn Song’ bubbles with undersea adventure, while closer ‘Night Time’ is alight with euphoric fireworks. In 2018’s pantheon of debuts, there will be few as exciting as this - and precisely zero that stand up to direct comparison. Expanding their live-in London HQ into a self-sustaining ecosystem full of life, Superorganism is catching with little sign of recovery. Sick leave is going to be great. Stephen Ackroyd
HEAR THE HOTTEST NEW RELEASES AS THEY DROP, 24 HOURS A DAY, 7 DAYS A WEEK, 365 DAYS A YEAR.
L I S T E N N O W AT R E A D D O R K . C O M O R V I A T U N E I N O N I O S A N D A N D R O I D .
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GEOWULF
GREAT BIG BLUE
eeeee Certain records can transport you to a moment in time. It’s in that vein that Geowulf’s debut album shines as a scorching summer soundtrack of glinting poolsides and wide-eyed classic American grooves. With the effortless melodies they craft, Geowulf have been promising something mesmeric for a while now and with ‘Great Big Blue’ they deliver on it. Knowing nods are there across the album’s eleven tracks, together a cohesive snapshot that blends charm and swagger into a mixture you can’t back away from. There’s always a touch of Lana Del Rey to the vocal swoons of lead singer Star, but it comes to the fore with the encompassing ‘Summer Fling’ - a Bond soundtrack for when it’s set on Californian coasts. With ‘Great Big Blue’, Geowulf lay their intentions and influences clearly - and in its moments of grandeur and daring, it signals something undeniably rich that’ll have you hooked in a stunning daydream. Jamie Muir
U.S. GIRLS
IN A POEM UNLIMITED
eeeee ‘In A Poem Unlimited’, the sixth studio album by Meg Remy, aka
US Girls, lavish, luscious textures are weaved together to make for a record that is groovy and gorgeous in equal measure. A skewed pop record that proposes multiple images of empowered women coming to terms with the force they possess, Remy’s sharp quips meet angular space disco grooves and glorious arrangements that marry beats, horns and strings in pop euphoria. Truly one of this decade’s most underrated songwriters, on this record, Remy is the visionary pop star we don’t deserve, but are lucky enough to get anyway. Cal Cashin
MOANING
MOANING
eeeee Moaning’s self-titled debut pulls at the very notions of being alive. Through its darkness, the trio create a light-shining record that’s defiantly honest - not proclaiming to have the answers, but instead rips itself open with brutal confusion and vital questions. Always asking and prodding at more, it’s an avalanche of angular cutting emotion, pulling to mind the outsider vibes of Interpol, Joy Division and The Cure. ‘Don’t Go’ is an immediate adrenaline rush of a single, while the rallying cry of desperation can be heard through ‘The Same’, the soaring realities build on ‘For Now’, and the uncontrollable scream of ‘Useless’ is startling in its power. Jumping between mountain-sized anger
into aching vulnerability, it wraps itself in a world that confronts everything head on and isn’t afraid to take the consequences. ‘Moaning’ captures an entire generation’s angst and fears into one devastating bottle, finding the best way out of the dark is to scream in its face. An undeniably essential record. Jamie Muir
BELLE & SEBASTIAN
HOW TO SOLVE OUR HUMAN PROBLEMS
eeeee Belle & Sebastian’s new album isn’t really an album. It’s actually three EPs put together titled ‘How To Solve Our Human Problems’ with the songs being recorded as they were written giving the songs an air of spontaneity. To a certain extent, it’s worked with songs such as ‘The Girl Doesn’t Get It’ and ‘Cornflakes’ standing out amongst what a collection of good songs. ‘Poor Boy’ has an Arcade Fire sheen, whereas ‘Best Friend’ is a delightful example of what has drawn so many to Belle & Sebastian over the years. Songs like ‘I’ll Be Your Pilot’ and ‘There Is an Everlasting Song’, whilst good, are almost instantly forgettable and there is a feeling at points that if some fat was to be trimmed, such as ‘Too Many Tears’ and ‘Same Star’, this would be a better record. At times, it shines with brilliance but then at others it feels as if it’s easily discarded. Josh Williams
HEY RICH FROM HAPPY ACCIDENTS, RECOMMEND US SOME STUFF
TV show you couldn’t live without: Phoebe and I don’t have a TV, so could probably survive if I had to, but I reckon Neil would say football. Best purchase of this year: The year has just begun, so I’ll have to say my new toothbrush protector. It keeps it from getting grubby on tour; it’s a total game changer! Anything else you’d recommend: Our top tip is making a bit too much dinner so you can have leftovers the next day. Saves you buying lunch or having to prepare something else. We collectively recommend a stir-fry. P
WHERE WILDNESS GROWS
T
eeeee
here’s no doubt, Gengahr’s debut full-length ‘A Dream Outside’ was a remarkable piece of work. Coming in the midst of a new wave of exciting, emerging talent, it sparkled with promise that went beyond critical acclaim. While it may not have catapulted them into the realms of massive arenas, it set foundations to build future rocket ships to the stars. In comparison, ‘Where Wildness Grows’ is Gengahr’s light speed engine. More organic and - for want of a better word - real than science-fiction metaphors suggest, it’s a record that doesn’t just build but evolves, reaching out like rapidly stretching vines. From the woozy ‘Mallory’ to the
PUBLIC ACCESS TV
STREET SAFARI
eeeee
Last good record you heard: The new Lemuria album is really great. Super creative, upbeat, important, quirky, punk, or something! Favourite ever book: Can I be generic and say Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut? I only tend to read books once so it feels odd to highlight a favourite of all time, but I remember this making more of an impression on me than others.
GENGAHR
HAPPY ACCIDENTS EVERYTHING BUT THE HERE AND NOW eeee
A
ll I seem to be thinking ‘bout is everything but the here and now,” sings Rich Mandell on the second full-length from Happy Accidents. The trio of twenty-somethings can hardly be blamed for wanting to avoid the present as we go hurtling into 2018, and the record continues to chart the ups and downs of life as a youngster in contemporary Britain. Lo-fi guitars combine with subtle synths and twinkling keys to create the ‘sunglasses and stripy Topman t-shirt’ aesthetic that runs through ‘Everything But The Here And Now’. It’s not a huge departure from previous efforts,
Public Access TV sound like they’re born from a different time. One where the stereo-warmth of ear worm guitar licks reigned supreme. Where creativity in guitar music was waiting to be discovered each and every month, and the nightclubs and discotheques were soundtracked by the latest and greatest it had to offer. They’ve returned bursting with confidence, and on ‘Street Safari’ they have a vision. Sharp-suited, cracking a glorious smile and with Saturday Night Fever playing over and over in their minds - Public Access TV are a dazzling reminder that letting your hair down at the disco is always something we should make time for. Born from a different time, but just as important now. Jamie Muir
GWENNO
LE KOV
eeeee but it’s a more refined version of their punk laden indie-rock. It isn’t all surface though, and the band showcase a penchant for crafting upbeat anthems out of their everyday adversities. This album will undoubtedly soundtrack the summer. Brad Thorne
Exploring the unstoppable progress of tech and the desire to keep minority languages and cultures alive, former Pipette Gwenno Saunders’ ‘Le Kov’ (‘The Place of Memory’) is sung entirely in Cornish. But rather than being distancing, ‘Le Kov’ invites us in, with a bewitching, otherworldly,
driving ‘Carrion’ and the sparkling, standout title track, Gengahr’s beautiful mind weaves patterns far beyond the basic. Breaking the templates, this isn’t the sound of a band too concerned with being smart to write songs. Matching higher callings with raw emotion, Gengahr continue to grow. Stephen Ackroyd
sound palette, only enhanced by the unfamiliar tongue. ‘Eus Keus?’ - based on an idiom about cheese - is playful as it might be, while ‘Daromres y’n Howl’ (‘Traffic In The Sun’) ropes SFA’s Gruff Rhys in for a bluesily loping, dissected driving song. ‘Le Kov’ is a treat, no matter where you’re from. Rob Mesure
TABLE SCRAPS
AUTONOMY
eeeee Birmingham three-piece Table Scraps are a savage proposition, a group whose raucous noise concoctions sound less like songs and more like chance incantations to summon the devil himself. On second LP ‘Autonomy’ the menace is raised, the bar is higher; this garage psych troupe are further down and significantly dirtier than before. Like The Cramps, The Misfits and Screaming Lord Sutch before them, a kinda spooky aura encompasses the band; they’re not frightening, or unlistenably scary, but the enjoyment of their sound is greatly enhanced by the Halloween spectres that haunt this record and give it its own unique strut. From the ghostridin’ country garage epic of ‘More Than You Need Me’ to the simple, yet malevolent cries of “I am Frankenstein! I am Frankenstein!” on the track of the same name, Table Scraps have a monopoly on sabretoothed garage rock joy. Cal Cashin
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