Dork, May 2019

m k.co do r read 19 May 20

Everybody loves

Lewis

Chart-topping singles. Sold out tours. A social sensation.

How Lewis Capaldi became the most unlikely ruler of Planet Pop.

*BZZZZZT* IF YOU LIKE... RADIOHEAD...

YOU’LL LOVE... THE HUNNA? *BZZZZZT*

Discover new music, as recommended by Dork writers.

No boundaries. No algorithms.

Down with boring.

Dork radio.

readdork.com

This Month “It feels like this is happening to someone else and I’m just watching it.”

- Lewis Capaldi p40

40

LEWIS CAPALDI

He’s dominated the UK charts, now he’s on the cover of Dork.

There’s something about Lewis.

50

TEN TONNES

With a debut album finally here, Ethan’s anything but snookered.

54

F ONTAINES D.C. They’re gonna be big.

58

LIT TLE SIMZ

Simz isn’t letting anything hold her back now.

16

INDEX

** SUBSCRIBE TO DORK AND SAVE MORE THAN 30% A YEAR ** Subscribe at readdork.com now

May 2019 | readdork.com | Down With Boring

Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes Real talk and the End of Suffering.

2Ø

Ø8 Update 4Ø Features 32 Festivals 6Ø Incoming 34 Hype Ø8

Ed’s letter.

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard

They’re back, and they’ve broughty the boogie.

26

Soak

Returning more confident than ever before, Birdie’s flying high.

34

Jade Bird

Twenty-one years old, and about to make a big splash.

If you’re a regular reader of Dork, you’ll know we refer to absolutely every musician as a pop star - even the ones making a din so unholy it’d scare small children. But this month’s cover star probably qualifies even without our enthusiastic billing.

Lewis Capaldi is a genuine sensation. At the time of writing, he’s camped at the top of the UK Singles Chart, selling out huge shows in seconds and generally being an absolute ledge on ‘social media’. Seems only fitting we’d complete the set and stick him on a magazine cover, right?

As festival season starts to kick into gear, there’s loads of exciting stuff to get your teeth into. To celebrate, you can grab a print copy of the 2019 Dork Festival Guide from all our usual stockists or online at readdork. com. It’s packed with all the essential info on the events you need to be at over the next few months.

You might also notice we’ve had a bit of a shuffle round ‘design wise’ this month, too.

We’ve found a way to cram in even more brilliant bands, amazing artists and dubious jokes. And a psychic potato.

Only in Dork.

Billie Eilish

As Billie hits London, we get down the front with the biggest new noise on planet pop.

12

SPINN

New kids on the indie block, SPINN aren’t trying to be cool.

24

Foals

The Oxford bunch get intimate at Hackney’s EartH

3Ø

Twenty One Pilots

Tyler and Josh light up Wembley Arena.

66

Vampire Weekend

The official verdict on ‘Father of the Bride’.

7Ø

Waterparks

Awsten tells us the greatest ‘most embarrassing moment’ story of all time.

Editor / @stephenackroyd

On the Dork stereo this month...

MAY 2019

DORK

37

Lewis Capaldi

ALASKALASKA

65

Animal House

36

Band of Skulls

61

Billie Eilish

8

Billie Marten

65

Blur

26

Body Type

38

Bombay Bicycle Club

18

Cage the Elephant

62

Carly Rae Jepsen

19

Cate Le Bon

S tephen

BILLIE EILISH WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? We weren’t able to review this last issue, because of ‘embargo’ related stuff, and by the time this one out it’s already dropped, but in case you were wondering, Dear Reader,

** BAND INDEX ** BAND INDEX ** A. Swayze & the Ghosts

we are firmly obsessed with Billie Eilish’s debut album and ‘bad guy’ is an absolute banger.

VAMPIRE WEEKEND SYMPATHY You’ll find this Latinflavoured banger on Vampy Weekend’s new album ‘Father of the Bride’. It’ll have you

Catfish & The Bottlemen

11, 64

Cautious Clay

37

CLT DRP

36

Dan D’Lion

39

Dave

10

Drahla

11, 67

Dumb

36

Dylan Cartlidge

35

Easy Life

37

EUT

33

Ezra Collective

64

Famous

36

Fat White Family

62

Flikka

36

Flume

8

Foals

24

THE AMAZONS FUTURE DUST If you’ve spied our Festival Guide, which is ‘out’ now, you’ll know that we’ve been delving into the musky world of The Amazons. It’s great.

Liily

36

Little Simz

59

Local Natives

65

Lucy Dacus

17

Mac DeMarco

14

Marina

64

Middle Kids

17

Mike Shinoda

19

Mitski

14

Nasty Cherry

39

On Video

36

Panic! At The Disco

18

Petrol Girls

10

Phoebe Green

36

Sacred Paws

10

Shura

28

Sky Ferreira

10, 31

slowthai

23

SOAK

26, 64

SPINN

12, 67

Sports Team

37

Superfood

23

Tacocat

67

Tame Impala Ten Tonnes

11, 31 50, 67

The Chemical Brothers

61

The Japanese House

18

Fontaines D.C. 54, 60

The Killers

23

Frank Carter & the Rattlesnakes 16,67

The Magic Gang

18

The National

19

The Ninth Wave

37

The Regrettes

19

17

Those Dancing Days

14

Grimes

14

Tierra Whack

14

Gus Dapperton

62

Tusks

10

Honeyblood

31

Isaac Dunbar

31

Twenty One Pilots

30

Two Door Cinema Club

31

Frank Iero

8

Friendly Fires

23

Girls in Synthesis

36

Gossip

flamenco dancing down the street before tea time. Promise.

8

40

Italia 90 Jade Bird Johnny Lloyd

36 34, 62 66

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard 20, 65, 70

Vampire Weekend 66 Waterparks

70

Wooze

38

Yungblud

19

In Memoriam As this issue of Dork went to press, we learned of the tragic deaths of a band we’ve written about and celebrated extensively over recent years, Her’s.

Stephen Fitzpatrick and Audun Laading, as well as their tour manager Trevor Engelbrektson, were involved in a fatal road accident while on their way to a gig in Santa Ana, California on Wednesday, 27th March.

A duo who brought fun and enjoyment with them wherever they played, our thoughts go to their families and friends.

UPDATE If it’s not in here, it’s not happening. Or we forgot. One or the other.

‘FYI’ Frank Iero and the Future Violents have shared their first single, ‘Young and Doomed’.

It’s a track from Frank’s third solo album ‘Barriers’, due out on 31st May via UNFD. The band will be hitting the road this summer for a headline tour that kicks off on 29th May in Philadelphia, arriving in the UK for 2000trees on Saturday 13th July.

Cate Le Bon has announced her new album, ‘Reward’.

The record features a collab with Stella Mozgawa of Warpaint, amongst others, and it’s due on 24th May via Mexican Summer. It’s also preceded by lead single ‘Daylight Matter’, which you can check out on readdork.com now.

Flume has dropped a brand new mixtape, ‘Hi This Is Flume’.

The first music since most recent album ‘Skin’, the 38 minute long effort is accompanied by a visualiser directed by Jonathan Zawada.

Coming in at 17 tracks, it also features contributions from the likes of SOPHIE and slowthai, amongst others.

MAY 2019

DORK

Keep up with the latest music news 24/7 at R E A DD O RK .C OM

UPDATE

9

Billie Eilish proves she’s a force to believe in at Shepherd’s Bush Empire.

Words: Ali Shutler. Photos: Frances Beach.

F

soaked wood, the fire burns bright and eternal. or the past couple of years, Billie Eilish has been building a following.

The swaying roll of ‘Idontwannabeyouanymore’ continues the charge with Billie dictating the pace, Tentative, careful but fearless, she’s spoken through her music and never relishing the control and enjoying the ride before shouted for attention. Tonight is first the poignant slow burn of ‘Lovely’ sees her hands entwined with the audience, a of three incredibly sold-out shows at Shepherd’s Bush Empire, and before she’s ramshackle conductor with the whole room even taken to the stage, there’s an electric burst following her every move. of anticipation and the Setlist ‘bitches knowing excitement that Billie has already grown far broken My Boy beyond rooms this small. hearts’ hangs Idontwannabeyouanymore And yet, Billie attacks in the air, Lovely mesmerising tonight like it’s the only show WHEN I WAS OLDER and soaked in that’s ever mattered. Never Bored demanding, never craving beauty while Party Favor the spotlight, she takes to the ‘Party Favour’ Wish You Were Gay stage (via a giant spider with dances under Bitches Broken Hearts a purple haze mirror ball eyes and roaring Six Feet Under screams that never quite fade and ‘I Wish You Watch / &burn Were Gay’ carries a gleeful weight, away) with the confidence of You Should See Me in a every word already scratched someone who’s been doing Crown this half her life, and the across hearts despite the fact it Hostage excitement of someone who’s was only released a few hours ago.

Bury a Friend wanted it for even longer.

It’s all surprisingly tender. Except Bellyache when it’s not.

Despite the churning hype, When the Party’s Over ‘WHEN I WAS OLDER’ twists and ‘My Boy’ instantly unites the Ocean Eyes room. A lit match on gasoline warps, a haunted party anthem Copycat

with a lust for glorious release that the room feasts upon while the drop of ‘Bored’ sees kids scale seats for a better view. The room moves as one during the rampant, unforgiving ‘Bury A Friend’ and Billie plays air guitar while ‘bellyache’ causes chaos and turbulent joy.

Her music might be inspired by isolation, let down and loneliness but tonight, she’s never alone. In giving a voice to her own fears, insecurities and anxieties, she’s also given a voice to countless others. Billie spends the set constantly, almost being drowned out by the choir of the room who live her words but she never does battle. They’re all in this together.

There’s a moment of ‘Watch /&burn’ where she leans so far forward, she almost topples into the crowd and during ‘You Should See Me In A Crown’ she’s coronetted by the audience, a plastic crown declaring her our highness of hope.

Every moment of tonight is backed by full-bodied belief and soulful want. It’s an amazing thing to watch. It’s even better to be a part of it. P

In giving a voice to her own fears, insecurities and anxieties, she’s also given a voice to countless others.

READDORK.COM

UPDATE

‘FYI’

SKY FER-RADAR!

HAS SKY FERREIRA DROPPED A NEW SINGLE YET?

10

The Really Very Good Petrol Girls have confirmed the released details for their upcoming new album.

‘Cut & Stitch’ is set for release 24th May via Hassle Records, preceded by rollicking lead single ‘The Sound’, which you can check out on readdork.com now.

Sacred Paws have announced their new album. The Glasgow duo will drop ‘Run Around The Sun’ - the follow-up to debut, ‘Strike A Match’ - on 31st May via Rock Action, preceded by lead single ‘The Conversation’.

“I think we’d get bored if it was too slow,” Eilidh says. “We’d never want to play something live that people couldn’t dance to. It would feel really strange to us. It’s kind of the whole point.” Check out ‘The Conversation’ on readdork.com now.

Tusks is back with a new single, the first from her upcoming second album - check out ‘Peachy Keen’ on readdork.com now.

“Peachy Keen started as a sarcastic response to the MP Christopher Chope when he blocked the recent up-skirting bill in parliament,” she says, “but it quickly evolved into a song documenting the inherent sexism and patriarchy, which I and so many other people experience on a daily basis.” The follow-up to debut ‘Dissolve’, ‘Avalanche’ arrives on 14th June. She’ll also play London’s Village Underground on 26th November.

MAY 2019

DORK

YES! (We know, right?)

Read all about it in Bangers on p.29

OPINION

IT SUCKS FOR FOALS THAT THEY MISSED OUT ON THEIR NUMBER ONE ALBUM, BUT THE FACT DAVE TOPPED THE CHARTS IS SOMETHING TO CELEBRATE After a four-way chart battle with Sigrid and Dido, Dave’s ‘Psychodrama’ beat out Foals ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Part 1’ to claim the top spot. While it might have been nice to see the Oxfordians finally get their first Number One, Jenessa Williams explains why this is something positive.

D

ear Reader, allow us to introduce you to our good friend Dave. We’d like to think you’ve already met, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. He’s 20, he’s mates with the A-list and he’s already absolutely huge.

If you didn’t know, now you do.

Having pipped Foals to the post for the Number One album spot (soz, Yannis), the Streathamborn rapper

found himself at a centre of a serious discussion about the underdog. Sure, we love seeing our favourite math-rock horses run free to their full guitar-toting potential, but there’s something a little more exciting about watching a truly talented underground act cross over into the mainstream.

Having spent years honing his craft through selfreleased EPs, he piqued attention with Drake’s remix of his track ‘Wanna Know’ in 2016, going on to collaborate with J Hus, AJ Tracey and Fredo.

You’ll hear his songs on the radio, but it’s

If a song about the truths of being an ethnic minority in this country upsets you, you may well be reading the wrong magazine.

more than that – Dave is a force for genuine change in the industry, and he’s upsetting all the right people.

By now you may have heard ‘Black’, his debut album’s lead single.

Championed by Radio 1 and 1xtra, it’s a straight-faced examination of black culture, its demonisation in the media and the pride that comes from owning who you are even in the face of oppression. It’s a listen that is as inspiring as it is challenging, and it’s caused many a complaint from tonedeaf potatoes who claim reverse-racism.

To cry this is to completely miss Dave New the point, and quite frankly, if World a song about the truths of A playlist being an ethnic of UK rap & minority in this grime bangers country upsets occupying our you, you may stereo well be reading the wrong Dave – Black magazine.

Little Simz – Boasting the 101FM biggest firstweek streams for a British rap album (yes, even more than Stormzy), ‘Psychodrama’ is nothing short of a triumph. It’s smart, it’s fun, and it’s asking all the important questions, and that makes it thoroughly Dork-worthy in our book. Pop it on your playlist, and don’t look back. P

Dave – Streatham

Lady Leshurr Horrid AJ Tracey – Horror Flick Double S Certy Skepta – Wish You Were Here Octavian Stressed Krept & Konan – Last Letter To Cadet Lady Sanity Focus

UPDATE QUESTIONS + ANSWERS

HEY EVERYONE, DRAHLA’S FIRST ALBUM IS OUT THIS MONTH

Drahla have pulled together pockets of confusion and beauty for a rich and captivating debut unlike any other.

Watch this Viewers! Make sure you check out these visual treats.

Billie Eilish vs Spicy Wings readdork.com/billiewings

It marks Kevin Parker’s first new material since 2015 album ‘Currents’.

You may have already noticed this, Dear Reader, but Tame Impala have dropped a new track, ‘Patience’.

Billed as “a lyrical meditation on life’s cycles and phases that ascends to an overwhelmingly blissed out zenith,” it marks Kevin Parker’s first new material since 2015 album ‘Currents’. You can check out what we reckon (it’s Really Very Good - Ed) on p.23.

Parker - and the rest of Tame Impala as ‘a live endeavour’ - will play Glastonbury this June. We’re expecting news on a new album ‘imminently’.

Sigrid - Don’t Feel Like Crying readdork.com/sigridcry

Sorry - Jealous Guy readdork.com/sorryguy

Panic! At The Disco Dancing’s Not A Crime readdork.com/ panicdance

THE SCIENCE B I T

DO CATS LIKE THE MUSIC OF CATFISH AND THE BOTTLEMEN?

Method: We played their new album to Poppy, the Dork office cat.

Results: She didn’t seem that bothered, tbh.

Conclusion: Cats are too aloof to display a musical preference, but do claim to enjoy Mew-se.

interpretation, the title encompasses a few different ideas and felt like an appropriate overhead for the album. It also summarises a lot that was going on in our lives at the time of writing.

Lyrically, a lot of it is observational and drawn from poetry and writings I had generally been working on.

I had a strong idea that I wanted the lyrics to be very poetic, visual and abstract. The writing style is probably the congruent theme, to be honest; there’s a lot of content in there thematically.

Hey guys, are you all based in South East London now? How are you finding it?

Mike: I’m not, I live in Wakefield. I do like London, though. It always felt What, in your opinion, makes for a pretty stressful, but I feel less and great album? less like that the more I visit.

Mike: Tough question. My Riggs: Me and Lu moved back favourite records are albums that down the you become backend of attached to, that last year, so you go back to we could go to time and time America. It’s again but still good, can’t feel fresh and seem to find any have that same decent fish and impact when chips though. you drop the Luciel: We’re needle. For 30 LUCIEL BROWN back and forth mins/an hour to Leeds/ you’re back Wakefield a lot too. in ‘that’ world. If you get one with a killer cover too then, that’s the Has your debut album been a jackpot. long time in the works?

Luciel: It’s not something I’ve really Mike: It’s felt like we’ve been thought before, maybe one for sitting on it for a while. Although contemplation for the next album? the process of recording the thing Riggs: Avoid replication. was only over ten days, last summer feels like another lifetime ago. Eager What else have you guys got for it to be out in the world so we can coming up this year, lots of focus on the next one. festivals and stuff?

Luciel: The artwork and videos have Mike: Gigs! Check out Drahla.com been the most time-consuming for listings. factor.

Luciel: We’re hoping to do an exhibition this summer of all the What themes does the record artwork and videos created for the cover lyrically? The title ‘Useless releases so far.

Coordinates’ sounds like a great Riggs: Writing the next one. P descriptor for how it feels trying to navigate life these days.

Drahla’s debut album ‘Useless Luciel: Yeah that’s a good Coordinates’ is out 3rd May.

“I wanted the lyrics to be very poetic, visual and abstract”

b Read more from Drahla at READDORK.COM now

READDORK.COM

11

‘PATIENCE’ IS A VIRTUE, DEAR READER - TAME IMPALA ARE OFFICIALLY ‘BACK’

CHAI - Curly Adventure readdork.com/chaicurly

L

eeds-London trio Drahla have been winding their way towards a debut for a few years now, plotting a course through the messiness of growing up and attempting to make sense of an ever-shifting world via complex, chaotic art-rock. Bassist Rob Riggs, singer/guitarist Luciel Brown and drummer Mike Ainsley fill us in.

UPDATE

UPDATE

INTERVIEW

SPINN WHEN YOU’RE WINNING New indie kids on the block, SPINN aren’t trying to be cool; “We’re just writing decent pop songs,” frontman Johnny explains. Words: Ciaran Steward.

“I

“Why don’t you buy the album? It’ll help me pay my rent”

This is their year!

Did you know The Beatles were from Liverpool?!

It’s true! No one ever mentions it, do they? But the city isn’t entirely obsessed with ‘The Past’ there’s some hot new musical talent coming out of Merseyside right now. Why not check out...

TRUDY AND THE ROMANCE

Self-styled “mutant50s-pop” trio Trudy and the Romance are playing a Dork Live! gig soon in Leeds, catch them at the next Indie Banquet at Wharf Chambers on 24th May.

ZUZU

Our Zuzu specialises in super fun indie-pop with references to comics, films, aliens and all sorts - plus she’s just finished a UK tour with SWMRS.

PARIS YOUTH FOUNDATION

Indie fivesome Paris Youth Foundation are gearing up for a new EP, a support tour with The Xcerts, and a buttload of festivals.

charts, I’m going to go and buy a pint for everyone in the pub.”

‘SPINN’ is filled with tracks about Johnny’s life, things he’s dealt with and those around him - he makes it very clear that it’s an intensely personal release lyrically and it means a whole bunch to him. ‘Keep Dancing’ is the track which means the most to the frontman.

“The lyrics are the most personal ones. It’s about me being the guy who keeps dancing when sometimes even happy-go-lucky Johnny gets a bit down.

Sometimes I feel a bit like I have to portray that and that’s what that song’s about, and it’s important to have an outlet for such emotions.

“It’s about drawing the line between my public persona and the private one.

Until we sell some albums, then I’ll actually moan ‘there’s so much pressure on me, man’. I’m just a doting artist, aren’t I?” He’s not feeling the pressure at the moment but admits that the last six months have been crazy and that he lost control of himself to some degree. “I had a look at myself and say, you need to get it together sonny. I was going around town acting like I’m Billy Big Bollocks, and I’m not. I’ve learnt to take a bit of time and not let everything get on top of myself.

“Although I go a bit self-destructive, I’m not bad.”

To keep themselves busy through the quiet periods, the band have been taking to social media and starting beefs for a laugh. “We should probably learn to shut our mouths and not like destroy our own reputation before it has been built, but it would be very SPINN to self-implode before the album even came out.”

So instead they’ll be sticking mostly to doing what they can to tease each other because “There’s nothing better than winding your best mates up, is there?”

This extends to their manager who they enjoy teasing because “when he gets agitated he sounds like a kettle boiling.”

Demos are already recorded for the second LP, but Johnny’s focus at this stage is still more on getting the puns right and having a good laugh. “It’s like SPINN mark two, I guess. SPINN Evolution.

“The SPINNdustrial Revolution.

That’s a pun sent from God himself.” P SPINN’s self-titled debut album is out 3rd May. READDORK.COM

13

t’s like a big inside with now-bassist Sean McLachlan. The joke that’s got out existing outfit was completed in 2017 by of hand,” quips drumming Brummie Louis O’Reilly after SPINN frontman the band’s original drummer left to join Johnny Quinn on the police. how his band came They seem to be constantly on the to be. Most things he says sound road and even ventured over to Ireland drenched in mischief and usually for the first time recently and were come accompanied by a child-like welcomed with open arms. “Ireland’s grin or giggle but there’s an incredibly good, it’s got its shit together. We left the switched on musical mind behind it venue in Ireland, and there was a group all. of girls stood outside, and one of them The Liverpool-based quartet are on literally screamed, and they had a bunch the verge of releasing their eponymous of flowers to us.” debut album following a rapid rise This has become something of through the ranks of indie venues a regular occurrence for the band, across the UK - their ascent through following their video for ‘Shallow’ in which their hometown they’re bombarded venues (with a gig by fans giving them on the main stage flowers. “[Once] this at Liverpool’s O2 girl got me roses,” Academy scheduled Johnny recalls, for December) is a “which was good solid indicator of the at first, but I tried to success of their indie pick them up when pop jams. she threw them and JOHNNY QUINN So are they letting spiked my hand. this get to their heads?

Then I threw them Well, when asked back, and they hit about the release Johnny explains: “It’s Louis. We’re very delicate boys.” the best album. It’s the best album of Despite now being in their early all. Not even of all time, just the best twenties, there’s no doubting they still album.” Underneath the wit, it’s clear he enjoy identifying as cheeky boys rather genuinely loves their latest creation. than proper grown-ups. It’s almost “It’s got plenty of great stuff. It’s an impossible to keep Johnny’s attention album full of content; there’s a song on serious topics - he waxes lyrical in there for everyone,” he adds. While when it comes to the healing powers of SPINN definitely do have a signature Lucozade (“IV me with Lucozade please, sound, fuelled predominantly by guitarist thank you”), his beloved Everton and Andy Power’s dreamy riffs, this release even what’s going on in his head while features a mix of pop songs that fit the bill he sleeps. for a whole range of emotions. Their track “I had a dream about Matty Healy and ‘It’s Not Getting Better’ gives Johnny the Alex Turner the other night, taking me in a opportunity for another quick laugh. space shuttle it was interesting. I think we “Contrary to my suggestion, with started talking about charity and what we SPINN it is actually is getting better. The could do to help stop world hunger. It was stuff we wrote is just really good pop the maddest dream ever.

“And then we went round like a power music, and that’s all we’re trying to do. trio of frontmen. Obviously, they were We’re not trying to do something cool or quite more impressive than I am, but we’d anything; we’re just writing decent pop go around solving world hunger. Just songs. That’s us.” the little, menial stuff. We don’t want to The band audibly take cues from The overstretch ourselves.”

Smiths and The Cure, but their influences He’s very open about SPINN’s are vast - with Johnny claiming the others ambitions for their debut album - charting have some fairly varied musical interests. would mean an awful lot to a man who “Andy listens to these mad shoegaze claims that his recent choice to dye his bands I’ve never heard of while Sean and hair makes him look like Elton John.

Louis are into disco and U2.”

“I’m properly into it and I think - Dork’s Johnny and Andy met in a geography audience, reading this - why don’t you class when they were 12, with Andy later buy it? It’ll help me pay my rent. If it moving schools and becoming pals

UPDATE

THEY’RE THE MOTHERFLIPPIN’ #POSTERWATCH2019 HEY DORK! AT THE ‘TIME OF PRESS’ HAVE THE 1975 STARTED PUTTING UP LOADS OF POSTERS TO TEASE THEIR NEXT ALBUM ‘NOTES ON A CONDITIONAL FORM’?

NO. NOT YET. BUT IT’S ONLY A MATTER OF TIME, RIGHT?

GRIMES HAS A NEW ALBUM ‘ON THE WAY’

14

After quite the 2017/2018 season (let’s not go into that here - Ed), c is back with a brand new album ‘Miss_ Anthropocene’. So that’s good.

Details are still pretty scarce, but Grimes has (kind of?) announced her new album, ‘Miss_ Anthrop0cene’.

Posting on Twitter, she says the record is “a concept album about the anthropomorphic Goddess of climate change: A psychedelic, space-dwelling demon/beauty-queen who relishes the end of the world.”

She goes on to describe the music as being “mostly ethereal nu metal”, saying she might drop an EP or a few more singles it arrives because “I know a lot of people miss the synths.” Watch this space.

Do you remember...?

The acts that history didn’t forget but probably put in the attic to take to Antiques Roadshow once everyone else has forgotten. This month...

Those Dancing Days Formed out of school, Swedish indie-popsters Those Dancing Days still feel like a fresh, exciting band despite the fact it’s been years since we last heard a peep from them. Signed to Wichita Recordings, they dropped a string of fizzy bangers, as well as two albums. We miss them lots.

Golden era: 2007-2011 Best banger: Like all the best bands - their self titled theme song, ‘Those Dancing Days’

Disclaimer! Dork is against fetishising the past. Previous artists are to apply for a new pop licence before attempting a ‘comeback’.

Thank you for your compliance.

MAY 2019

DORK

You know how ‘the talent’ is. They don’t really trust anyone else to get it right - so they take to Instagram to explain the thoughts behind their new records first hand. Here’s c’s thinking behind ‘Miss_ Anthropeocene’.

@grimes: “It’s called Miss_ Anthropocene. It’s a concept album about the anthropomorphic Goddess of climate Change: A psychedelic, space-dwelling demon/ beauty-Queen who relishes the end of the world. She’s composed of Ivory and Oil (I’ve done some illustrations of her if you scroll down my instagram).

I love Godly personifications of abstract/ horrific concepts (For example, Mars as the Roman God of War) — so I wanted to update the list to include our modern issues.

Each song will be a different embodiment of human extinction as depicted through a Pop star Demonology. The first song ‘we appreciate power’, introduced the pro-AI-propaganda girl group who embody our potential enslavement/ destruction at the hands of Artificial General intelligence.

It’s possible I will drop an EP or a few more singles of synth-based stuff b4 the album because its mostly ethereal nu metal (ish), and I know a lot of ppl miss the synths and whatnot.

Climate change is something I’m only ever confronted with in a sad/ guilty way….

Reading news and what not… so my goal is to make climate change fun (lol..??)…. uhhh… (I mean, everybody loves a good villain... re: the joker, Queen Beryl).. so maybe it’ll be a bit easier to look at if it can exist as a character and not just abstract doom.”

Everyone wants to be a cowboy ‘at the moment’ - which is fine. The hats are nice and everyone loves a horse. But now Mac DeMarco has announced his new cowboy-centric record by dropping a lead single that’s got the same title (‘Nobody’) as the really very good song from Mitski’s cowboy-centric album of last year. So who, Dear Reader, is the greatest cowboy of all? There’s only one way to find out! HIGHLY SCIENTIFIC COMPARISON CHAAAAAAAAART!

MAC DEMARCO

MITSKI

COULD WRANGLE A WAYWARD BULL IF NEED BE

We’ve never seen Mac tie a lasso before, but he seems too chilled out to properly try to wrangle a wayward bull. It’d probably take him a while to even realise it was gone, to be honest. 0

Mitski could 100% wrangle a bull if needs be. Why would a bull even want to run away from Mitski in the first place? She’s ace. 1

STETSON SHAPE AND APPEARANCE

Mac has really nailed the Stetson. Classic white colouring, good curve to it and a beautifully wide brim.

Impeccable stuff. 1

It’s a no-show for the cowboy staple from Mitski, which means it’s a disappointing zero for her on this one. 0

COULD RIDE A POSSE OUT OF TOWN

Mac has the face of a terrifying lizard in the cowboy themed vid for ‘Nobody’, there’s no way a posse would stick around in whatever haunted town he’s in charge of. 1

Miski self-released her first two albums whilst still at uni, you think something as small as an angry gang of outlaws is going to make her give up her hard won job as a fictional sheriff? 1

COULD SHOOT A BOTTLE OFF THE TOP OF A FENCE IF NEEDS BE

We’ve been witness to the amount Mac drinks on stage, and there is no way he’s hitting the side of a barn at 200 paces after that, let alone a bottle. 0

We’ve never seen Mitski handle a gun, but we’re 100% convinced she could do this with one eye closed.

It’s so easy to imagine that you’re sure it must’ve happened at some point. 1

OVERALL “YEE-HAW” LEVEL

Mac is basically the physical embodiment of the phrase “Yee-Haw”, and probably refers to most of his shows as “rodeos”. 1

Mitski called her album ‘Be the Cowboy’ to deal with feelings of imposter syndrome, pushing herself to make the type of music she wants to make. The YeeHaw level is off the charts. 1

Sheriff Muir-ster says...

“COWBOYS ARE ROOTIN’ TOOTIN’ FUN!”

Overall score: Mac: 3, Mitski: 4

Mac may have better Stetson game and the face of a reptile crossed with The Mask, but he loses out to Mitski for one simple reason.

Whilst he was busy dressing as a cowboy she was occupied with Being The Cowboy, and in the wild, wild west, it’s who you are on the inside that counts.

Who the f**k is...

TIERRA WHACK Oh do keep up - she’s only the latest Most Exciting Thing Ever!!(!)

To be totally honest, Dear Reader, if you’re not already tripping out to the absolute bangers our Whack-ster has been dropping over the last couple of months, we do not know what to do with you. As a teenager, she performed as Dizzle Dizz and reverted back to her birth name in 2017. Her single ‘Mumbo Jumbo’ got a Grammy nod for Best Music Video and last year she dropped an album, ‘Whack World’. Of late, she’s been dropping weekly singles - the first of which, ‘Only Child’, is one of biggest bops of 2019 so far. Go check it out.Now. Get a move on!

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UPDATE

“ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IN LIFE IS KEEP GOING” INTERVIEW

Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes are unafraid of talking about difficult subjects: from fear to inequality, they’re proactive in laying it all out to do their bit.

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Words: Josh Williams.

Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

F

rank Carter and his danger noodles (or The Rattlesnakes, as they’re more commonly known) are back with new album ‘End of Suffering’, and the band wanted to give themselves “some space” from their heavier output.

“It’s still got a lot of heavy songs on there,” Frank reveals. “’Crowbar’, ‘Kitty Sucker’, and ‘Heartbreak’ are a bit punkier than some of the tracks on [debut album] ‘Blossom’, but we were already moving away from the hardcore element on [second album] ‘Modern Ruin’.

“Realistically we always wanna challenge ourselves so, y’know we did a hardcore album, we did a more punk rock, hardcore album on ‘Modern Ruin’, so with this, we wanted to push ourselves and make the rock record that we’ve always dreamed of making.”

There wasn’t room for everything that Frank & Co. put together though, including single ‘Spray Paint Love’.

“It was written between ‘Modern Ruin’ and ‘End of Suffering’, and when we got down to cutting the album together, I couldn’t find anywhere that it fit without it sounding quite jarring. I’m hoping we can find a place for it on the deluxe version or a special edition later down the line, but it was important that this record lived and died in its own space without anything being dragged into it.”

Rage Against The Machine legend Tom Morello features on ‘Tyrant Lizard King’, which some might think came about after their live collaboration last year which saw Frank perform ‘Killing In The Name’ with Prophets of Rage, but not quite…

MAY 2019

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UPDATE

“We wanted to push ourselves and make the rock record that we’ve always dreamed of making”

‘FYI’ Gossip have booked a new UK tour. The summer run will celebrate ten years since their breakthrough album, ‘Music For Men’, and marks their first time touring since going on hiatus in 2012. The stint kicks off in France on 4th July, and will see them play stops in Glasgow (19th), Manchester (20th) and London (21st) before wrapping up in Dublin on 18th August. “We are beyond excited to reunite with our Gossip family and fans,” say the band.

fear. They’re not worried about being touched inappropriately, because it doesn’t happen to men a lot of the time.

“In doing it and talking about it and being proactive, it changes the mindset of men in the audience, because we’ve raised awareness. A lot of the time men are ignorant to that because it isn’t a problem they have to face.

“Honestly, every band in the world should be proactive in this, and the quicker we all are, the quicker we all start to eliminate this anonymous, Neanderthal behaviour of assault, verbal assault, groping – it changes the way people think about it in the crowd, and that’s what we’re trying to do.

“It’s what everyone should be doing, y’know? I’m not okay with anyone being assaulted, whether it’s verbal or physical or sexual at our gigs. I’m not okay with that happening anywhere in the world. We’ve got the power to change the landscape of gigs, and I think that’s what we’re doing right now.”

Frank wants the Rattlesnakes to “be the biggest band in the world,” he says. “I want this album to connect with people on a deeper level, I hope that they listen to it and love the songs, but I hope more than anything it gives them strength. I know that the songs I’ve written, they’re about problems everyone’s faced, y’know?

“I hope that me going through it, and living through it and showing that there is another side, there is a better place you can get to. I hope that I lead as an example for people when they’re feeling low or struggling, so they know that you just have to keep going. All you have to do in life is keep going. We’re not here to give up.” P Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes’ album ‘End of Suffering’ is out 3rd May.

Lucy Dacus has announced a few headline shows for over the summer. The dates will slot in around festival appearances at Primavera, Roskilde, Best Kept Secret and more, and include a night at EartH in London on 5th June. She’ll also play Leeds (6th), Nottingham (10th), Edinburgh (11th) and Manchester (12th).

Middle Kids have unveiled plans for a brand new six-track mini-album. Titled ‘New Songs For Old Problems’, the collection is set to arrive on 24th May via Lucky Number. The news comes alongside a new single and video for one of the fresh cuts, ‘Real Thing’, which you can check out on readdork.com now.

“Real Thing” ruminates on our “lifelong quest for meaning,” says the band’s Hannah Joy. “It’s the quiet, persistent voice in the stillness that constantly checks to see if you truly think you’ve found the thing you’re looking for.”

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“We’ve been friends for a long time, and he called me to ask if I would consider being on his second ‘Atlas Underground’ solo album which he’s gonna start working on soon, and I just yes of course! You’re my fucking hero; I’ll do whatever you want whenever you want it.

“I also said, we’ve just been in the studio, we’re about to finish this track, and I think you’d like it; let me send it to you and if you wanna play on it we’d be honoured. He gave it a listen and came straight back to us saying that he loved the track and he was just gonna do his thing. He asked if there were any limits, and I said absolutely no limits do whatever you like! So what we got was a pretty fucking crazy Tom Morello solo.”

Frank reveals that the album writing period was one of the darkest of his life.

“The album is essentially is just about the last two years; there were plenty of times that were quite dark, so it’s not been an easy situation; it’s just the way it had to be.”

One of the best songs on the record, ‘Angel Wings’, was born out of the turmoil and sees Frank provide one of his greatest vocal performances.

“That song’s about the lowest part of my life to date,” he reveals. “It was about a time when I was feeling incredibly low, and incredibly fragile, and I didn’t really know how to be. I was scared of myself, and I was scared of the world. I just tried to do what I always do, write an incredibly honest explanation of what I was feeling at the time, which was battling a lot of really point. Social media is all about instant fucking serious demons.” gratification, and it’s just a bit too Explaining the differences between intense.”

‘Modern Ruin’ and ‘End of Suffering’, It hasn’t stopped him communicating Frank says: “We spent a lot longer with his fans; at his shows, Frank’s vocal on the songs. Once they were on the about trying to promote safe spaces. board, it didn’t mean they were finished.

“You’ve got three options,” he We were breaking them considers. even when we were in “You can do the studio. Lyrically, I nothing about think it’s my best work; it, just focus it’s the most personal on yourself record I’ve ever made. I and ignore try not to hide too much the problems of it in metaphor; I try to in the world get to the core of what I and if you’re was feeling and explain doing that, I that to people. don’t wanna “It’s a lot more fucking know intense,” he continues. you. You’ve “There’s a lot more got a platform, space in it. We had and you’re FRANK CARTER a different producer completely work on it, he brought a shirking your totally different energy responsibility. to the record. It’s different in every way “The second option is when you see from ‘Modern Ruin’, but in the same things happening in the crowd, you see way that ‘Modern Ruin’ was different someone getting assaulted, you can from ‘Blossom’. As a band, you have stop the show, and you can call that a platform, and therefore you have a person out. That’s reactionary, and responsibility to your fans to constantly that’s already a failure. It’s not enough, evolve and challenge yourself. If you’re because for that to happen, someone not doing that, then what are you doing? in the crowd has had to have been “I don’t think it’s enough to just hit a assaulted. good stride and write the same record “The last option is, you can do what four or five times, you should always be we do. We’re an incredibly proactive trying to push yourself as a musician, as band, talking about issues that are an artist and as a performer, and that’s important to us. When you have a what we do well.” platform, you have a responsibility to Frank has withdrawn a bit from social use it for good. We dedicate a song media during the writing and touring of early on in our set to female-only crowd ‘End of Suffering’. “I felt like I needed surfers or crowd surfers who don’t a different approach. I still have an define themselves as any gender. It’s Instagram account, Rattlesnakes are specifically for them. still on social media, but I did delete “The reason for that is because a everything that was on there at one lot of men, they can crowd surf with no

UPDATE

Stuff you need to know

18

The Japanese House was Really Very Good at London’s Electric Balroom Since dropping her debut album ‘Good At Falling’ earlier this year, Amber Bain has been on a steep rising curve. It’s quite remarkable how far she’s progressed as a live act ‘over the years’.

As she hit London on her headline tour, that development was bleedin’ obvious.

Make sure you catch her when you can.

▼ MAGIC, THE GANG-ERING

Dork faves The Magic Gang recently played Phil Taggart’s Slacker tour, which we were delighted to play a part of. This snap was taken at the Reading leg, ‘FYI’. They were obviously great.

▲ BOMBAY BICYCLE CLUB ARE ‘IN THE STUDIO’ WORKING ON LP5

“First day recording our new album,” the recently reformed indie titans announced via their Insta story. That’s good, right?

MAY 2019

DORK

▲ PANIC! AT THE O2

Brendon Urie’s ascent to Very Big Deal Indeed is complete. Not only did he headline Reading & Leeds last summer. Not only did he top the bill at the O2, playing a so-fun-it-hurts set. Not only all that. But ‘High Hopes’ was also performed by a contestant on The Voice. We know. Massive.

UPDATE

YUNGBLUD IS MAKING WAVES

If you’d asked us twelve months ago if we thought Yungblud was a superstar in the making, we’d probably have laughed in your face.

We need to learn some manners.

Anyway, we were clearly Very Very Wrong. Sorry about that. 2019 could well be his.

Carly Rae Jepsen is dropping her much, much, much anticipated new album on 17th May. It’s called ‘Dedicated’, and she’s set to play a London show at XOYO shortly after release. Excited much?

‘I Am Easy To Find’ will be released on 17th May via 4AD, preceded by lead single ‘You Had Your Soul With You’, which you can check out now on readdork.com.

It’s rather ‘peppy’, actually.

“Yes, there are a lot of women singing on this, but it wasn’t because, ‘Oh, let’s have more women’s voices. It was more, ‘Let’s have more of a fabric of people’s identities.’ It would have been better to have had other male singers, but my ego wouldn’t let that happen.”

▼ ... AND IN NO WAY ARE WE SUGGESTING THE PRESS PHOTO THAT CAME ALONG WITH THE NEWS IS A LOT LIKE THE ONE RADIOHEAD DID FOR ‘THE KING OF LIMBS’ Definitely not.

19

POP IS SAVED!

▲ THE NATIONAL HAVE ANNOUNCED A NEW ALBUM...

MATT BERNINGER, THE NATIONAL

► MIIIIIIIKE SHINODA

It’s quite hard to type the riff from ‘My Shinoda’, so we’ll restrict ourselves to telling you the Linkin Park man ‘did’ London as part of his solo ‘thing’ and was ‘very good’ too.

Do-do-do-dodo-dum.

▲ THE REGRETTES SUPPORTED TWENTY ONE PILOTS IN THE UK They were really good, too. Keep ‘em on your watch list for Big Things.

READDORK.COM

UPDATE

BOOGIE WONDER LAND INTERVIEW

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard are back after a year off to recover from 2017’s epic album streak, with a new record in tow and their biggest ever UK headliner…

20

Words: Jessica Goodman.

UPDATE

A

new and getting it down.” Music is something brightening blue sky. Calm King Gizzard live and breathe – it has to ocean waves. A wooden be, considering the band have released a water raft drifting with the seemingly countless number of records over breeze. This is the setting for ‘Fishing For the past seven years (by Wikipedia’s count, the Fishes’, the title track from King Gizzard tally is at 13, but ask Stu, and he responds with and The Lizard Wizard’s new album. As a hesitant “I… I don’t know”). light, breezy, and whimsical as the music “To be honest, it was a little bit scary, video that accompanies it, the song is a or daunting,” Stu reflects on their release breath of fresh air from a band who, just schedule two years ago. “The whole play was over two years ago, set themselves the always to make four albums. astounding challenge Somehow, somewhere of releasing five along the line, it became albums in the space of five. I don’t actually know just twelve months. how that happened.” But “It was a pretty crazy happen it did, and over year,” frontman Stu the course of 2017, King Mackenzie recalls. “I Gizzard offered the world don’t know if we’d ever five different worlds to delve do it again,” he laughs. into and explore. “For me, From an album written it was a selfish endeavour,” using custom-modified the frontman states. “This STU MACKENZIE microtonal instruments, is what I like to do. If you like through a narrativeit, cool.” He shrugs, then driven concept album pauses, thinking over his words. “Is that a good about the end of the universe, a collaboration answer?” with Mild High Club, and beyond, each release Which brings us to today: talking on an early was distinctly Gizzard, and distinctly different. morning in Melbourne before heading to their “I love touring, and I love playing shows, studio to record with fellow Flightless band and I love performing and all that stuff, but Stonefield, the energy is high. After a year for me, I love making records the most,” Stu spent recharging their creative batteries and enthuses. “I love experimenting with sounds, touring around the world – including a headline thinking about music and making stuff and the performance at Green Man (“My mum and dad architecture of songs, or just trying something were there, which was cool,” Stu grins, “what a

“We were trying to make this blues record, but it just kept sliding off”

21

22

UPDATE beautiful festival”), the group couldn’t heart, they do have this kind of bluesy be more enthused with the record thing in there,” Stu offers, before they’re about to share. pausing. “Maybe.”

“We were really busy, but we The album’s most far-afield weren’t really thinking about making moment arrives in ‘Cyboogie’, a song a record at all last year,” Stu states. that doesn’t seem far off what an So, naturally, it wasn’t far into 2018 80s band might sound like if they that their newest album started to crashlanded in a dystopian future. take shape. “We worked on it over the “That song kind of started out as this course of last year,” Stu describes. It groovy, bluesy guitar jam, with jazz wasn’t the creative break they were chords in it,” Stu illustrates. “It was intending (is it even possible for this kind of really funky. We were having a band to switch off?), but away from lot of fun with it.” Never ones to hold the pressured schedule of the year back, it didn’t take long for the song to before, the band were able to take scale to a new extreme. their time to bring their creativity to “Someone made the call that we life. should put a vocoder in there,” Stu “We’d had such a hectic 2017,” states. “I was like, ‘ha, that’s really Stu recalls, “so we just wanted to funny,’” he mocks. It might’ve started do this blues thing…” Said “blues as a joke (or at least been taken thing” arrives in the form of ‘Fishing as such), but it sparked a series of For Fishes’, an album that – despite changes that led to one of the outfit’s the group’s original intentions – may most addictive songs yet. “Basically well stand as the least blues-y blues every single electric guitar and record you’ll ever hear. “We recorded keyboard was just replaced by synths. a lot of songs as if they were jams, It just became this synth thing,” Stu which is not how we usually make a portrays. “It was funny it went to the record, but it just kind of felt right for place that it went,” he adds. “One day this,” Stu describes. “It was, for some I should release the demo because reason, what we were listening to, and it’s so different.” it was what we were being inspired That’s just one song. The rest by.” He pauses, thinking from their of the record underwent a similar original inspirations to the finished process, challenged and changed product. “It changed a lot,” he laughs. until it found the shape we can hear it From the blissed-out acoustics of in today. “The songs weren’t like that opening track ‘Fishing For Fishes’ and at the start,” Stu emphasises. “They the sun-scorched elation of ‘The Bird were bluesy, guitar, drums, piano, Song’ to the retro-crashlanding-inand that was it. It was old fashioned the-future energy of ‘Cyboogie’, this sounding.” From the past to the is King Gizzard at their most varied future, from blues to boundless, this and their most vibrant. “It was kind of is the (admittedly, trashed) template strangely one of the hardest records that brought ‘Fishing For Fishes’ into to make - that we’ve ever made,” Stu being. portrays. “The “We’ve never songs would made a record just keep on like this before,” changing, over Stu expresses. and over and “We thought we over and over knew what we again. They were trying to were stitched make. We really together, thought we knew mashed what we were together, doing, and then...”

STU MACKENZIE stretched, There might not warped... Just seem to be much bizarre things.” rhyme or reason behind it, but is Twisted, turned, and transformed, that really important when the music ‘Fishing For Fishes’ might have sounds this good? “It’s funny after started as a blues record, but the making five records with conviction,” finished album is a wide-open venture Stu chuckles. “For me, I think about to wherever you want to go. “We were making albums a lot more than I think trying to make this blues record, but it about making songs,” he details. “An just kept sliding off,” Stu laughs. With individual song, for me, has to make a tracklisting devised “in order of how sense on an album. It has to work in bizarre they got,” the latest record sequence with the record. It has to from King Gizzard is a venture into, fit.” as thee frontman describes, the “fullMatching only in their escalation turbo crazy-bizarre.” “I think at their towards the “full-turbo crazy-bizarre,”

“We really thought we knew what we were doing, and then...”

...acts with an animal based name.

MAY 2019

DORK

record that’s as vibrant as it is varied, brought into being over a year in which they never intended to make an album at all.

“I’m pretty certain it was the longest that we’ve ever spent making a record,” Stu contemplates. “By the time we finished it, it was like...

‘Fucking hell, get this thing out of my hands!’” he laughs. “When you’re recording you can always think ‘I could’ve done that bit better’ or ‘I should’ve done this chord instead’.

You change things, and you edit things that you do. For me, saying to myself ‘I’m happy now’ is just the best feeling.”

“There were a lot of variables on this album,” he adds. “With every song, there was a lot of things going on and

Arctic Monkeys

Top 5...

Think we’ve missed one? Drop us a line on Twitter (@readdork) and we’ll tell you why we’re right and you’re wrong, unless you’re right then we’ll pretend it isn’t happening.

every song on ‘Fishes For Fishes’ is an adventure of its own. “Every song was its own little unique world,” Stu distils.

“It was kind of just like letting each song go on its own journey, which is something that we often don’t do when we’re making a record.” Trashing the template of not only their own direction but of their tried and tested practices to boot, this is King Gizzard as you’ve never heard them before.

“In my head, it is really cohesive,” Stu starts, “but that’s because I know how all the songs started,” he explains. “We ended up with a record that we didn’t expect to make, which is nice. That was kind of a liberating experience.” Freeing themselves from any restraints, letting the songs evolve into whatever they wanted to be, it’s a

Gorillaz

UPDATE

‘FYI’ The Killers are going to play a show at Cardiff Castle this spring. The band will perform at the venue on 28th June - their first show in the city since 2012 - ahead of their headline set at this year’s Glastonbury the following day.

IT’S DESTINATION DANCEFLOOR FOR FRIENDLY FIRES WITH THEIR LATEST OFFERING, ‘LACK OF LOVE’ It’s a cover of Charles B & Adonis’ 1988 track - which you obviously already knew, right, Dear Reader?

a lot of changes made and a lot of bizarre decisions, maybe. There was a very large sigh of release on this record when we finished.” As driving as it is danceable, as blissed out as it is blistering, ‘Fishing For Fishes’ is the sound of a band refreshed and reinvigorated.

And it doesn’t stop there. The outfit will be playing their biggest UK show to date at London’s Alexandra Palace this October. “It’s incredible and daunting and exciting and scary and intimidating, but, you know, lovely?”

Stu offers, questioningly. “I’m excited.

I’m always excited to play somewhere new,” he enthuses. “It’s flattering and overwhelming to play these places. I still feel very, very, very much unworthy, so anyone who comes to our

show I’m very thankful for.”

With an album about to be released, and a world tour ahead of them, and hard at work recording music with other acts, anyone would think the band have their plate full. “We’re gearing back up to be insanely busy again, which I’m looking forward to,” Stu enthuses. “We’ve been thinking about what we’re going to do when we get back into touring again,” he expands, before teasing “and we’ve been doing some recording work on some new music…” The details might be on the down low for now, but rest assured, King Gizzard are at full force. Did anyone really think otherwise? P King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s album ‘Fishing For Fishes’ is out 26th April.

slowthai has unveiled his debut album, ‘Nothing Great About Britain’.

Recorded for the most part with producer Kwes Darko in East London Mura Masa and Slaves produced the tracks ‘Doorman’ and ‘Missing’ respectively - the fulllength is due out on 17th May. “Music to me is the biggest connector of people,” he says. “It bonds people across divides.”

Friendly Fires have shared a new track. ‘Lack Of Love’ isn’t a Brand New Banger from the dancetastic trio, but rather a cover version of a song which holds a special place for the band. “’Lack Of Love’ by Charles B & Adonis has been hovering in & around the top of the charts in FF land for over 12 yrs,” they explain. “It was an important tune for us when we started the band, and its an important tune for us now. “ “It squelches and fizzes and yearns and emotes – it’s a piece of secular gospel music that bangs the dance floor, and will do eternally.”

“We wanted to cover one of our all time favourites as a little palate-cleansing exercise; try and make it faithful to the original but also carry off into somewhere new. Thanks to Adonis & Charles B for making the original all those years ago, it continues to inspire us.”

Their take on the track sees the band in fine form, continuing a comeback that has their forthcoming album - which we’re expecting later this year - near the top of our must hear lists.

Stream ‘Lack Of Love’ on readdork.com now.

WHITE LIES ARE PLAYING TWO 10TH ANNIVERSARY SHOWS FOR THEIR DEBUT ALBUM ‘TO LOSE MY LIFE’ AT O2 ACADEMY BRIXTON ON 6TH AND 7TH DECEMBER, ‘FYI’ THAT IS ALL.

Wolf Alice

Foals

Parrotmore

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Superfood have announced a new ‘farewell’ show. “We are playing what could potentially be our last show for a long time at [London’s] Scala on the 22nd April,” they write.

“Right now the cogs of superfood have slowed down and it’s time to go away and get a clear our heads before we can give you something we’re truly happy with again.”

UPDATE

FOALS GOLD REPORT

The Oxford bunch get intimate at Hackney’s EartH.

24

Words: Jamie Muir. Photos: Jamie MacMillan.

Y

that find their way into the set tonight prove that. ou know the sort of shows that should need planning permission ‘On The Luna’ opens things up with a shake and for the spectacle they’re about to hustle that has EartH captured from the first note, put on? That’s what Foals thrive while the prowling ‘Exits’ has a potent punch that on. In that raw and fizzing setting, clearly stands at their confident best. where anything goes, and all Yet what makes tonight so special is the that’s there is a band in their prime laying it all reminder of how unstoppable a live band Foals are. out - the ultimate distillation of the primal spirit That history of warehouse shows and tearing down bands can entail. There are few who can do it as venues massive and minuscule has taken them to whole new levels, and they’re tighter than ever. well as Foals can, and it’s that which makes a ‘Mountain At My Gates’ and ‘My Number’ are early tiny show tucked in a basement in Hackney so show-stoppers, the flex of a muscle that has Foals undeniable and special. acknowledging that yeah, they have the hits to The last time Foals took the stage in London, deliver a stunning show - but they’re about serving it was headlining a field to over 40,000 people. up more than that. The latter, segued into with a The victory lap from an album that capped palpable ‘Olympic Airways’ and morphing into their undeniable rise to the top, one that saw ‘Black Gold’, perfectly captures a fact. That Foals them headlining Reading & Leeds and proving are the club-laced kings that have grown to where to the world that they’re a band of indisputable they are because above all else, they throw a party importance. The early years of grafting away in that nobody else can top. bars and clubs had paid dividends, and they stood With their frontman leading atop the pile as a band like no other. the charge, both effortlessly It’s fitting with their new chapter that it starts mesmeric and again here, capping off a bulldozing quickfire run of club-sized Setlist in equal rooms at the underground measure, the confines of EartH. As Yannis On the Luna night is theirs. points out during the set, Mountain at My Gates Whether it’s there’s a worldwide run on Exits stripping raw the horizon, and when they’re Olympic Airways with ‘Spanish looking out at packed fields My Number Sahara’, still and venues in distant lands, Black Gold as powerful now as it was when it they want to remember back Spanish Sahara first came out, or the ‘pocalyptic to this very night. They won’t Syrups rhythms of ‘Red Socks Pugie’ be the only ones, in fact, it’ll Red Socks Pugie - once they’re rolling Foals are be pretty impossible for the Sunday a force that engulfs everything lucky ones gathered to ever In Degrees around them. Weaving those new forget it.

Late Night cuts into established classics, ‘Everything Not Saved Providence it’s a riotous run that threatens to Will Be Lost’ is a beckoning Inhaler bring the roof down with its sheer new chapter, one of change force. of evolution that finds Foals Encore: In ‘Sunday’, Foals have the embracing a new world by White Onions perfect mix as Born Slippy clublooking back and forward at What Went Down vibes meet stadium anthem for the same time. The bright cuts Two Steps, Twice

a track that triggers different reactions every 30 seconds. Fresher slates such as the bubbling ‘Syrups’ and the ripping ‘In Degrees’ (the latter the sort of nu-rave classic that on first listen has EartH bouncing and moving with glow-stick fever) are born for the live stage - practically vibrating with immediacy and that tenacity that practically pulls you into every move.

Perfectly fitting with everything Foals are about, they surge to take this night higher and higher with a run through a hypnotic cry of ‘Late Night’ before Yannis climbs into the crowd and atop speakers for a one-two knockout of ‘Providence’ and ‘Inhaler’ that not only has the room sweating but awestruck.

Returning to the stage, Foals have EartH at their every whim - the points and struts Yannis throws out now commanding an army to move and fight with every grit and flick. ‘What Went Down’ is like throwing dynamite into a confetti cannon spectacular and visceral, as if the time away has only fed that hunger and passion, even more, to kick against their surroundings.

As customary closer ‘Two Steps, Twice’ finds Yannis returning to the floor, climbing on bars and downing shots, there’s that feeling in the air that we all should have remembered. Foals aren’t like any other band, because no other band can come close to what Foals are all about. It’s a pack with one goal in mind, to take over and stand on top as the best band in the world.

With Part 1 of ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’ out just over an hour and a half after the last note tonight rings out, tonight is proof that Foals continue to get bolder and beefier with their punches. EartH is a clear-cut knockout if we ever did see one.

“Yeah, have some of that,” roars Yannis after ‘What Went Down’. Get ready, world. P

Foals continue to get bolder and beefier with their punches.

MAY 2019

DORK

You should subscribe to Dork.

Not only will you get every issue delivered direct to your door anywhere on the planet.

Not only will you save a whole load of money compared to ordering each issue direct from us ‘on a monthly basis’.

Not only will you get a fuzzy sense of self-satisfaction in ‘supporting’ our continuing efforts to playfully insist your favourite band plays that song they never ever will (Sorry, Matthew).

But also....

Nah. Mostly those, actually.

Subscribe to Dork worldwide now at readdork.com. Please and thank you.

UPDATE

Great-ish hits.

Your fave artists, the songs nobody really bangs on about cos they weren’t big singles.

This month, as their classic album ‘Parklife’ turns 25 (yes, TWENTY FIVE! - Ed), it’s...

Blur

BADHEAD

‘Parklife’ was full of many huge singles, but ‘Badhead’ is a gem that still shines as bright as any around it. Tugging on the heartstrings without being mawkish, it remains one of Blur’s greatest moments.

26

YOUNG AND LOVELY

Blur’s b-side output ranged from the sublime to the ridiculous (listen to ‘Rednecks’ if you don’t believe us), but ‘Young And Lovely’ is absolutely fantastic.

TRACY JACKS

‘Parklife’’s opening track was even thought of by Damon Albarn as a likely single at one part. Inspired by both The Kinks and the opening sequence to 70s sitcom ‘The Rise and Fall of Reginald Perrin’ (ask your gran - Ed), it’s quintessential Britpop-era Blur.

YOU’RE SO GREAT

Featuring Graham Coxon on lead vocals, ‘You’re So Great’ predates the guitarist’s solo career, but shows all the signs of what would follow.

BUGMAN

Considered as a potential single from ‘13’ - to the point it even had artwork made up - each member of the band remixed the track, which appeared as b-sides to ‘Coffee and TV’. Alex’s Trade Stylee take is probably the pick of the bunch.

STAR SHAPED

The song that also lent its name to the excellent docummentary of the band, ‘Star Shaped’ sits at the heart of Blur’s excellent second album ‘Modern Life Is Rubbish’. Crystalising so many of the touchpoints Britpop would go on to build around, there’s an innocence to it that still shines through to this day.

MAY 2019

DORK

INTERVIEW

TRAI NEE. With her debut album, she cooked up an award nominated storm. Now, Soak - AKA Bridie MondsWatson - is finally back, and better than ever.

Words: Martyn Young.

I

n 2005 Soak made quite the impression with her stunning Mercury-nominated debut album, ‘Before We Forgot How To Dream’. It was a collection that established the Derry-born songwriter as one of our most vital new voices, making music of deep emotion and piercing relatability. Now, after four years away she has returned with a second album that is bigger, bolder and brighter. ‘Grim Town’ is a step up for an artist who returns more confident than ever before.

It would have been easy for Soak to stay on the treadmill and capitalise on the success of her debut, but instead, the singer decided to take a more considered approach. “If I hadn’t have taken that time out I don’t think I’d have made this album or an album as good,” she begins. “At that point of time in my life, I had

UPDATE TICKETS £9 FROM: CRASH, JUMBO TICKET ARENA, SEETICKETS & dice

You must be a member or guest of a member to attenD. Joining costs £1.See Wharfchambers.org

+ FOOD ON SITE to really think about my health and just take some quiet time to grow up a little bit outside music.”

Only 19 when her debut was released, the intervening years have seen a crucial period of reflection and discovery which she has poured into ‘Grim Town’. “My first record was about the years 13-17 and being a teenager. It was more hiding behind a guitar and mumbling lyrics because I was still quite shy,” she explains.

“I’ve grown up so much since then, and I wanted to make confident music. The breakthrough for this record was that I wanted to be as honest as possible and I SOAK didn’t want to be shy about what I had to say. I felt strongly about everything. Musically, I wanted to have loads of fun and to juxtapose how some of the lyrics were dark with music that’s upbeat.”

You can hear all her desire to break down any boundaries and push herself in ‘Grim Town’s’ expansive, dramatic pop rushes and tender emotional confessions.

Part of its striking nature is down to its relatability. Everyone knows a grim town; everyone can picture the seemingly meaningless futility of life with no options and no future.

Soak, though, can see a way out and she paints that picture vividly as the

record progresses on its journey.

“Grim Town is a location I’ve created,” says Soak. “If my brain were a place it would be Grim Town. I was trying to create my brain as a sonic dystopian place. I came off tour after three years, and I got used to that lifestyle, with not much of a routine and a lot of hecticness. I came back to Derry where my life was slow and quiet, and you couldn’t even get a bus anywhere. It was depressing and just a huge low in my life. The themes on the record are frustration with myself and where I lived.”

As well as smalltown ennui the record deals with mental illness and anxiety and the conflicting rush of emotions of youth.

“It looks at social anxiety and depression but also I wanted the album to start like you were in a well and by the end, you had crawled your way out of the well,” says Soak positively.

The significance of how a deeply honest record like this might affect someone dealing with similar issues is one that resonates with Soak.

“When I was going through that breakdown trying to work out what was going on, I was obsessed with finding things to relate to and ways to feel understood,” she reveals. “I wanted to be as honest and frank as possible. It’s so scary to talk about

“I didn’t want to be shy about what I had to say.”

mental illness and be honest with yourself.

It’s hard for people around you to hear you say these things, but ultimately it’s for the better. I just wanted to help lessen the stigma and hopefully help anyone else in that situation.”

The voyage of discovery leading to ‘Grim Town’ is perhaps best represented on one of its key songs, ‘Life Trainee’. “I define that as the era in my life when you move out of home, leave your friends behind and life gets serious. I’ve become more comfortable with myself in the last couple of years compared to when I was younger. I feel a lot more confident in what I have to say and doubt myself a bit less than I did before.

“Most importantly, I know what I want. With the first record, I didn’t know what I wanted and was just writing it and thinking everyone else’s opinion was better than mine

because they were professionals.

I was so new to the scene. With this record, I was able to say exactly what I wanted from the songs and what the overall vibe should be.”

At one point she sings of being a “work in progress”. “ I don’t think it’s ever really impossible to come out of that stage of being a life trainee; I don’t know if you ever graduate and become perfect at life. It’s ok to go through the whole spectrum of emotions.”

‘Grim Town’ is a collection that meshes the dark with the light in a way that mirrors everyday life. It’s about finding moments to cherish and savour and holding on to hope.

“There’s a line in the penultimate song about pushing yourself off the bottom of the swimming pool and saving yourself from drowning, To me, that’s a good thing to finish the record with.” P Soak’s album ‘Grim Town’ is out 26th April.

READDORK.COM

UPDATE

DEAR ...THE ‘RETURN’ ‘THE OF THE BIG BANDS’ MOON!”

“HI! I’M BARRY, THE STOCK PHOTO GUY! THIS MONTH, I’M MOSTLY EXCITED ABOUT...”

(OMG Barry! Us too! - Ed)

WAY DAYS 28

THERE ARE 31 DAYS IN MAY. HERE ARE 31 PHOTOS OF GERARD WAY TO CELEBRATE. BECAUSE IT RHYMES. NEXT MONTH, MARTIN CLUNES.

Do you have something to ‘announce’? Do you want some ‘press’?

Why not send something through the Dork Postal Announcement Service.

And so it starts. With The 1975, obviously.

Everything does. During the ‘campaign’ for their most recent album ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’, they’d regularly stick announcements in the post for every new track. They’d arrive at the Dork bunker at ‘around lunchtime’ when postie showed up, and we’d post them online. Everyone would get excited. It was great.

Anyway, to cut a long story about snail mail short, this month Two Door Cinema Club tried the same tactic, sending us a postcard to announce their new single would premiere ‘on the radio’ soon.

Only postie was late that day and by the time it arrived they’d got fed up of waiting and announced it themselves anyway.

But still.

(No, this isn’t Photoshopped - Ed)

Because we think physical is The Best, we’re officially opening the Dork Postal Announcement Service. If you’re one of ‘the bands’, you can stick us something in the post and we’ll pass the message on - providing we like you and it’s not a poo in a box because you disagreed with our review of your last record. That’s not on.

THE PSYCHIC POTATO! It told us the line-up for Truck earlier this year. What else does the mystic spud think might happen ‘soon’?

WHERE ARE ‘THE STARS’ ENGAGING IN A BIT OF RETAIL THERAPY? THIS MONTH...

SAM SMITH GOES TO IKEA!

MAY 2019

DORK

“HAVE YOU NOTICED ‘MIKE’ (LEATHER JACKET) AND ‘BEN’ (HAT), AKA ROYAL BLOOD, BEING ADDED TO THE LINE-UPS FOR SOME BIG SUMMER FESTIVALS? I HAVE. I’VE NO INSIDE LINE HERE, BUT I’D KEEP YOUR EYES PEELED FOR SOMETHING S-MASH-ING BEFORE THE SUMMER.”

So, if you want in, just send (or get your ‘people’ to send, because let’s be honest you don’t print out those things yourself, do you Matthew?) your top secret news for us to ‘seed’ to: Dork Postal Announcement Service, Unit 10, 23 Grange Road, Hastings, TN34 2RL. (We know none of you will actually do this, but it’s A Nice Idea anyway.)

IT’S SHURA GOOD TO BE BACK! BACK!!

BACK!!!

She’s been away. Now she has returned.

That’s good news, isn’t it?

Occasionally over the last few months, down in the Dork bunker (which is neither ‘down’ nor a bunker - Ed), we’ve found ourselves musing over when the hell Shura would be ‘back’. After dropping a Really Very Good debut album back in 2016, it’s been rather quiet. But rejoice! She’s back in action with a brand new single, which is streaming online now. It’s called ‘BKLYNLDN’, which is like sticking a shortened version of Brooklyn next to a shortened version of London, see? To ‘celebrate’, Shu will be playing shows in both locations later this year, with a second album to follow. Hurrah!

JUST A THOUGHT

DO YOU EVER WONDER WHAT ALEX TURNER’S BEARD IS DOING NOW? THIS, ACCORDING TO ‘THE BAND’, IS WHAT SWIM DEEP’S FORTHCOMING THIRD ALBUM CURRENTLY LOOKS LIKE...

... AND THIS, ACCORDING TO ‘THE BAND’, IS WHAT SWIM DEEP’S FORTHCOMING THIRD ALBUM SOUNDS LIKE.

SO THERE WE GO

THE GREAT ESCAPE MAY 9-11, 2019

BEA1991 Trip-hop beats, vaporous melodies and low rumble vocals.

FATA BOOM A grungy mix of trippy electro hiphop.

PIP BLOM

LEWSBERG

The hottest indie-rock sensation from the Netherlands right now.

straight forward postpunk, showing a tendency towards existentialism and black humour.

(LIVE)

THE MAUSKOVIC DANCE BAND

RINA MUSHONGA

JARREAU VANDAL

THE VISUAL

A unique hypnotic groove combining Cumbia, Afro-Caribbean rhythms, & Space Disco.

A glittering constellation of warped synths, Afropop rhythms and soul-lifting vocal harmonies.

Soulful house, with influences of pop, hiphop and r&b.

Integer, beautiful, and powerful emotionally-laden indie.

EUT Captivating melodies and catchy pop hooks, bringing a fresh dose of energy to 1990s nostalgia.

A DIVERSE BLEND OF TOP DUTCH ACTS ACROSS A WIDE RANGE OF MUSICAL GENRES IS PLAYING THE GREAT ESCAPE FESTIVAL IN BRIGHTON. DISCOVER THE MOST EXCITING ACTS THE DUTCH UNDERGROUND MUSIC SCENE HAS TO OFFER!

READDORK.COM

UPDATE

TWENTY ONE PILOTS LIGHT UP WEMBLEY ARENA REPORT

Words: Ali Shutler.

Photos: Sarah Louise Bennett.

30

T

wenty One Pilots have always been an arena band. Even when they were carrying a piano down basement stairs, performing in masks to demand a drop more attention and selling out the likes of The Barfly, they did it with a grand spotlight confidence.

Tonight they’re at Wembley Arena for the first of three shows. It’s been a lifetime in the planning but that never gets in the way of the bubbling excitement that they finally made it this far.

From the moment Josh holds a lit torch up to the dark expanse of Wembley, TøP are welcomed home.

A burning car rises from the ground, and the band snap into the snarling, strobe attack of ‘Junpsuit’ and ‘Levitate’ without taking a breath.

‘Fairly Local’ sees Tyler fall from the stage before appearing instantly at the other end of the room. There’s a moment of disbelief that is quickly answered as he tears off his ski mask to thunderous applause. Tonight it seems anything is possible.

The band’s only worry about their accelerated leap from academies to arenas was the increased distance from their fans. Time and time again tonight, Tyler and Josh get close with their 12,500 strong clique. Of course, there’s the twisting collection of heart-coaxing anthems, every declaration and admission that comforted through headphones and in bedrooms now proudly shared with the world inside this room, but it’s more than call and response. There’s a levitating bridge that descends from the heavens that Tyler crosses to get to a b-stage in the middle of the room (Josh has to walk through the crowd while a grinning Tyler waits) before the pair dive into a slow burning powerhouse of ‘Neon Gravestones’ and ‘Bandito’, before ‘Pet Cheetah’ sees them take the bridge back and threaten to tear the roof down. The end of ‘Car Radio’ is delivered from a scaffold tower at the back of the room, ‘Trees’ has the pair on drum kits on the audience and there’s a platform from stage to barrier that means the crowd is never out of reach.

“If you come to a show, what it is that our fans are doing is by far the most impressive thing that you’ll see,” Tyler promised us recently.

MAY 2019

DORK

Twenty One Pilots feel bigger, bolder and more confident than ever before.

Twenty One Pilots are never ones to overhype, and tonight the clique are true to their word. Yellow paper hearts, lovingly printed, cut out and shared, are held in front of camera lights all round the venue for ‘Neon Gravestone’, showing empathy, understanding and resolve. The beating, fragile words of ‘Cut My Lip are deafening, unspoken things given a voice, while at the back of the room, there are conga lines, sit down circle pits and dance like nobody’s watching eruptions. There’s space for everyone to enjoy tonight in their own way, and they’re never alone in doing so.

‘Trench’ is an album about being lost, but also found. Tonight, as Twenty One Pilots feel bigger, bolder and more confident than ever before, they make sure that everyone still feels important in this world.

Impressive is only the beginning. P

Setlist Jumpsuit Levitate Fairly Local Today’s Your Day Stressed Out Heathens We Don’t Believe What’s on TV The Judge Cut My Lip Lane Boy Nico and the Niners Neon Gravestones Bandito Pet Cheetah Holding on to You Ride My Blood Morph Car Radio Encore: Chlorine Leave the City Trees

UPDATE

Ultimate Bangers.

One theme. Five tracks. 100% bangers. This month...

The best new tracks.

debut singles

ARCTIC MONKEYS I BET YOU LOOK GOOD ON THE DANCEFLOOR

The ultimate introduction.

That riff - those lyrics - from the moment ‘Dancefloor...’ hit, Arctic Monkeys future as legit indie icons was assured.

THE KILLERS MR BRIGHTSIDE

Seriously, though. How many bands manage to drop their best song, first.

‘Mr Brightside’ might not just be The Killers’ biggest banger, but could also give you a decent argument to top any list of the last twenty years.

31

Two Door Cinema Club Talk

2019 is the year of all your favourite indie bands of the last decade thinking ‘fuck it’ and heading down to the dancefloor.

Foals have had a shuffle, Friendly Fires are back to shake what their mama gave them, and now Two Door Cinema Club are embracing what we’ve always known - they’re more Discos than a packet of mid-priced crisps. ‘Talk’ is all sorts of fun, which is exactly what we want from the trio, ‘to be quite honest with you’ Dear Reader. We approve.

Sky Ferreira Downhill Lullaby

As you might expect from a single taken from an upcoming album called Masochism, Sky Ferreira’s new track isn’t exactly a happygo-lucky frolic through sundappled fields. ‘Downhill Lullaby’ takes the murkier, darker aspects of her music and turns the dials up to 11, all haunting strings and orchestral emptiness overlaid with lyrics like “You leave me open when you hit me, No one can hear me, then you hurt me”. It’s not a very upbeat song, is what we’re getting at.

It is a very good song though,

slowly building across its five and a half minute runtime until the tension is almost overwhelming.

A repeated refrain of the song’s title serves as the closest thing to a chorus, dragged out and twisted

by Ferreira until it doesn’t even sound like a phrase any more.

‘Downhill Lullaby’ is masterfully put together and a compelling listen, just don’t listen to it with the lights off and nobody else around, you might summon the devil by mistake.

Honeyblood Glimmer

Honeyblood - which is now just the supremely talented Stina Tweeddale - is/are/who-knowsif-we-should-refer-to-this-asa-band-or-a-solo-project-now dropping a new album ‘very soon’.

As teasers go, ‘Glimmer’ is an especially shimmery treat. Direct, assertive and packing more hooks than a velcro pirate, it’s exactly as brilliant as we’d expect.

Tame Impala Patience

Hey everyone, remember Tame Impala? They released an album about a squillion years ago which everyone loved and have been playing it at festivals ever since. They’ve finally got their

S Get the latest bangers at readdork.com or follow our Brand New Bangers playlist on Spotify.

Check out all these tracks and more on Dork Radio now at readdork.com/ radio

act together and released new track ‘Patience’, meaning there’s definitely potential for a joke about fans needing ‘Patience’ while waiting for the new album, but we’ll leave you to work that one out, we can’t be expected to do everything.

The song itself opens with a piano line that that could’ve been nicked from an Elton John track before the trademark woozy sounds begin to leak in and everything starts to sound like the festival season is nearly here. If there’s one thing Tame Impala have always been good at, it’s conjuring up the audio equivalent of a hazy August afternoon, and ‘Patience’ is no different. So grab a drink, stretch out on the sun lounger and soak it up. Hopefully we won’t have to wait another four years before the next single.

Isaac Dunbar Pharmacy

We’ve been getting a bit excited about our Isaac for a while now.

First appearing on our radar by dropping some tasty pop nuggets in 2018, his 2019 ‘output’ is equally impressive. ‘Pharmacy’ is the sort of slow-banger that doesn’t so much get pulses raising as set hairs on end, but in a way that’s never less than weirdly fascinating. A future star.

THE STROKES HARD TO EXPLAIN

Not only did the arrival of The Strokes change everything for Modern Alternative Music, but ‘Hard To Explain’ was backed with the equally iconic ‘New York City Cops’. An embarrassment of riches.

YEAH YEAH YEAHS BANG

Has any band ever dropped a cooler debut?

LCD Soundsystem’s ‘Losing My Edge’ might have a convincing case to put forward, but James - sorry mate - but you’re just not Karen O.

MGMT TIME TO PRETEND

It’s hard to explain just how fresh and exciting ‘Time To Pretend’ felt over a decade ago. Zinging like a vat of sharp lemons, MGMT may have rebelled against their pop-friendly bangers eventually, but this one was big enough to make up for anything.

READDORK.COM

FESTIVALS What to see and where

THE GREAT ESCAPE Preview

32

Thursday 9th - Saturday 11th May 2019

A festival packed with hot new talent by the sea. What’s not to love, eh?

M

ay is all about new music discovery. A month of festivals that, while still including a good share of established talent, also serve as a landing point for a whole year’s worth of hot new talent to make their festival debuts.

Rather than taking place in fields full of beer and bad decisions, the first batch of events tend to be held in key cities around the UK, making use of a variety of both established and pop up venues. From the major touring circuit haunts to backrooms of pubs, they’re like a treasure hunt of new music. If one was to rule them all, it’d probably be The Great Escape.

Brighton’s music festival and ‘industry conference’ is three days of solid ‘stuff’. Between Thursday and Saturday, it’s impossible to turn a corner in the city without running slap bang into the next big thing.

Or, in this year’s case, the current one, as genuine enormodome headliners Foals announced to play a special showcase show to celebrate Transgressive Records’ 15th birthday. Big, eh?

Elsewhere there’s Number One Sensation and cover star of this very magazine, Lewis Capaldi, plus buzzy types Sports Team, Whenyoung, The Murder Capital, Easy Life and more. We’ll have our own stage (more at readdork.com), so pop down and say hello to your new favourite band. P

MAY 2019

DORK

+ Location Brighton, UK + Line-Up Foals, Lewis Capaldi, 404, A. Swayze & The Ghosts, AJ Tracey, Alex Lahey, Alfie Templeman, Anna Calvi, Another Sky, Big Joanie, Black Midi, Black Peaks, Blaenavon, Body Type, Boniface, Brutus, Chai, Charly Bliss, Confidence Man, Dan D’Lion, Doe, Du Blondie, Easy Life, Ed. The Dog, EUT, Fat White Family, Flohio, Frank Carter & The Rattlesnakes, Fur, Gaffa Tape Sandy, Gently Tender, Georgia, Girl In Red, Haelos, Indoor Pets, Italia 90, Lady Bird, Life, Liily, Little Simz, Lucia, Maisie Peters, Mini Mansions, Oh Land, Our Girl, Pip Blom, Pixx, Pizzagirl, Pom Poko, Priests, Psychedelic Porn Crumpets, Rachel Chinouriri, Self Esteem, Sports Team, Squid, The Amazons, The Murder Capital, The Ninth Wave, The Rhythm Method, The Snuts, Tropical Fuck Storm, Viagra Boys, Walt Disco, Westerman, Whenyoung, Wooze, Zuzu + Get tickets from greatescapefestival.com

It’s Great when you Escape (l-r, from top): Confidence Man, Little Simz, Self Esteem, Sports Team, Indoor Pets, Foals, Rachel Chinouriri, AJ Tracey, Lewis Capaldi, Girl In Red.

Festival

Swim Deep are just one of the Really Very Good bands you’ll be able to check out on the Dork stage at Live at Leeds.

ORANJE IS THE NEW BLACK

2000trees has unveiled its fourth band announcement: As It Is, YONAKA, Cancer Bats, A, Pulled Apart By Horses, Culture Abuse, Vukovi, Show Me The Body, Free Throw and Le Butcherettes are just some of the new names for this summer’s festival, which takes place from 11th-13th July at Upcote Farm near Cheltenham in Gloucestershire.

Billed as “youthful, 90s-flavoured postpop”, up-and-comers EUT have a sound it’s easy to get behind. Ahead of their appearance at The Great Escape, the entire band (“we’re having a meeting!”) fill us in.

Hello you lot. How did you guys get together?

We all went to the same conservatory in Amsterdam where we studied music. Emiel and Megan were good friends already, and one day Megan wanted to start noodling around with her demos, and we arranged a rehearsal. That was about three years ago.

What’s been the highlight of your time in EUT so far?

Our album release in Amsterdam was our sickest show so far! Lots of friends and relatives were there, and it was so great to finally share the album with everyone! Also the support show we did for our hero Beck last summer was a dream come true for us.

How long have you guys been working on your debut album?

Some of the songs (‘Tygo Dex’, ‘Ping Pong Ball’) we wrote when we just started out. Of course, we modified them along the way, but these two have been around for a couple of years already. The recording process was a bit spread out because we were touring a lot, so all in all the debut album took a long time, but we’re so glad we took the time to make everything sound exactly the way we wanted.

How would you describe the record’s vibe?

Playful, foolish, sweet, energetic and SEXY! You’re in the UK soon, will this be your first time over?

We did one small show in London In addition to Dork already during regulars Pip Blom, and new faves EUT, ILMC, so apart there are loads of from that, these Dutch acts heading are our first shows to The Great Escape in the UK, yes! We this year for the Dutch are really looking Impact Party - including BEA1991, FATA BOOM, forward to driving Lewsberg, Mauskovic on the left side of Dance Band, Jarreau the road, that will Vandal and Rina be a challenge, Mushonga. Find them haha. P on Friday 10th May at the Komedia.

LIVE AT LEEDS Preview

Loads more names have joined All Points East.

Playing on The Strokes’ day (25th May), are Fat White Family, Amyl and the Sniffers, Temples, Angie McMahon, Dream Wife and Demob Happy.

Yala! Records will also host a stage featuring BC Camplight, Yak, Our Girl and Willie J Healey.

Saturday 4th May 2019

We’re all off to Leeds for a lovely day with some of our fave bands.

L

et’s be honest, Dear Reader. The Southerners won’t be reading this.

They’ll go off to their ‘Great Escape’ and think they’ve got it sorted, but they’d be wrong, because we all know the truth. Live At Leeds is fucking brilliant.

While the south coast extravaganza may take place over three days rather than one, there’s something magical about Leeds’ other AAA list festival. While some of these bands will also appear at August’s Bank Holiday blow out over in Bramham Park, the vibe of Live At Leeds is very different. Hundreds of bands across a few hours in one of the most concentrated music cities on the planet - it’s riotous fun.

And, let’s be clear, there’s way too much to possibly see. We might be biased, but we reckon the return of Swim Deep, who are topping the bill over at Dork’s very own stage at The Wardrobe, are the must-see ticket.

They’ve been gone for too long, and we’re very excited to see what they’re bringing back. But they’re not the only show in town. We’ve got Sports Team, Spinn, Bloxx , Vant and more, plus elsewhere around the city you’ll find Sundara Karma, Metronomy, Sam Fender, Black Honey, Dream Wife, Goat Girl, Easy Life, Squid, Another Sky, Whenyoung, Thyla and loads more. Honestly, you’ll need that May Day off to recover. P

+ Location Leeds, UK + Line-Up Metronomy, Sundara Karma, Tom Grennan, Drenge, Sam Fender, Kate Tempest, Black Honey, Dream Wife, Goat Girl, Swim Deep, 404, Another Sky, Beabadoobee, Bloxx, Body Type, Confidence Man, Dan D’Lion, Easy Life, Ed The Dog, Far Caspian, Fatherson, Fur, Gengahr, Gently Tender, Halfnoise, Heavy Lungs, Hotel Lux, Indoor Pets, Lady Bird, Lice, Marsicans, Menace Beach, Mini Mansions, Pizzagirl, Rachel Chinouriri, Saltwater Sun, Spielbergs, Spinn, Sports Team, Squid, Swimming Girls, Swimming Tapes, Talkboy, The Murder Capital, Thyla, Vant, Walt Disco, Whenyoung, Wooze, Zuzu + Get tickets from liveatleeds.com

Citadel has signed up Bastille. Dan and co. will play on the Main Stage prior to headliners Catfish and the Bottlemen on 14th July at Gunnersbury Park in London. They’re also joined by Friendly Fires, DMA’s, Dream Wife, Bear’s Den, Matt Corby, Honeyblood, Matthew and the Atlas, and Banfi.

Truck Festival has announced two new names: Johnny Marr and Public Service Broadcasting. They join headliners Wolf Alice, Foals and Two Door Cinema Club, plus loads more. Truck will take place from 25th-28th July.

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Are you creative in non-musical ways too?

What do you do for fun?

Megan likes to paint on her computer with Pages, and she makes really cool stuff with it. Sergio likes to play FIFA on his PlayStation, and Jim likes fishing! Emiel likes to fix and modify guitars in his spare time so still kind of musical in a way, haha. Tessa does some bouldering in her spare time.

‘FYI’

HYPE

Find more fresh sounds online now at R E A DD O R K .C O M/ H YPE

Essential New Music

JADE BIRD Singer-songwriter Jade Bird is taking over the airwaves with a new take on folk-tinged indie-pop.

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rowing up is a tough time, fraught with that push and pull of learning and growing. It’s something that burgeoning twenty-one-year-old songwriter Jade Bird is distinctly aware of.

“It’s a lot of conflict and contradiction,” she begins, taking a little break from her tour in the US supporting Hozier (today she’s in Virginia). “As a young person you’re constantly going back and forth; one minute you think you know everything, and the next you know nothing. You know, you’re in love, then you’re not.

It’s very chaotic.”

It’s this ode to the chaos that’s given Jade status as an authoritative voice for a new generation. She covers everything from being bored of the same old romance (‘Love Has All Been Done Before’), to seeing an ex being played by their new partner (‘Uh Huh’), with songs full of wry smiles and deft earworms.

“That’s what music and songwriting do,” she explains. “[They] allow you to capture that feeling in one song.

Nothing’s ever quite simple, and that’s why I try and explore the concepts a little bit deeper.

“At twenty-one, you’re trying to work everything out about who you are and, it’s like on ‘Ruins’ where one of the lyrics is ‘I don’t know who I think I am’, and I’m not sure who I am and blah blah blah. All of this is a rhetoric of trying to figure it out.”

Wherever she takes to the stage, crowds are singing along word for word with the same enthusiasm that Jade herself musters with that cracking voice of hers. Most notable however is the ease of which she brings together a little bit of this and a little bit of that to create the sonic joyride that is her self-titled debut album.

“I’ve found genres quite constricting up until now,” she says.

“They hinder more than help. If you come to a live show you see me play

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Words: Steven Loftin. Photo: Nicole Nodland.

the piano, you see me sing a ballad, and you see me rock out - to slap a label on anything is quite limiting. With this album, what it’s going to allow me to do, and not allow other people to do, is smack a label on it. I consider myself a songwriter, not an ‘alternative singer’ or a ‘blues player’.”

Just as all her musical peers are Frankenstein-ing their way into the hearts of the switched-on masses, Jade’s exposure to her influences has been made significantly more comfortable by the technological world we now inhabit. “I’m a child of my generation in that respect because you have so much access to so much,” she reasons.

Her ability to traverse whatever the hell she feels like listening to (“I can flip from Sonic Youth to Andy Shauf, to Florence and the Machine”) has given Jade a sound fit for 2019, breathing fresh life into Americana and folk with a JADE BIRD hook everyone can get behind - hopefully, it’s just the start of something big.

“I’m twenty-one, and I hope this debut isn’t the best record I make,” she muses. “I know with this record it’s all I could’ve done up until now. I want to get better in terms of [being a] writer and guitar player. There are all those things that I want to get better at and that comes with confidence; you get conviction, and I want that journey. I’m really excited for that journey.”

As for the sudden influx of attention: “It’s a concern. I don’t have any real interest in being a celebrity.

I don’t particularly thrive off anybody knowing the details of my life, so that’s a scary prospect for me. At the end of the day, it’s the price you pay for wanting everybody in the world to hear your songs, which I think is a normal

ambition for any songwriter.”

“You want that universal connection just by being yourself and not changing for the world,” she continues. “I’m quite a private person. However, these songs are very personal. It’s a risk, but I’m happy that one person will listen and be like, ‘That’s exactly what I feel, that’s exactly what I’m going through’. I’m fine with that as long as you can help, more than anything.

“In some respects, you have to sit and ask yourself the question - ‘Do you want to be famous?’ I asked myself that question a few years ago - what is my intention, what am I in it for? I generally concluded that it wasn’t for fame or money; it was for the experience of life and writing to be heard. I guess pure intentions can get you to a good place.”

With a bunch of support runs and a headline tour booked in for the tail end of this year, and more importantly, that debut album, Jade’s heading to bigger and brighter pastures thanks to THE FACTS her relatable, no-nonsense + From charm.

London, UK “I think honesty is the + For fans of most that I crave in any Lissie, Nina Nesbitt, art form [but] I don’t know Lucy Rose what the word for it is… + Check out that’s what I’m craving to ‘Uh Huh’ see, and that’s what I’m producing. It’s honesty; it’s + Social in my head, I put it down on @JadeBirdMusic paper and then sing it to + See them live: people… there are no airs She’ll play All Points or graces.”P Jade Bird’s East this summer, self-titled debut album is and a UK tour from out 19th April.

12th November

“One minute you think you know everything, and the next you know nothing”

T HE B IG ONE

HYPE

So you wanna be a pop star?

Dylan Cartlidge Being a pop star is a serious job. You can’t just walk through the door and get started. You need to have a proper interview first. This month’s applicant - Dylan Cartlidge. The board will see you now.

What can you tell us about yourself?

I like triple chocolate cookies and ramen!

Why do you want to be a pop star?

So I can parade myself to the girls who used to say I was trashy.

How would your bandmates describe you?

You’d have to ask them…

What is your biggest failure?

Sleeping too much…

What accomplishment are you most proud of?

Getting engaged, or recording at Electric Lady Studios.

Where do you see yourself in five years?

In a retirement home.

What is your salary expectation?

A Sky Sports subscription. P Dylan Cartlidge’s EP ‘Monsters Under The Bed’ is out now.

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What are your best and worst qualities?

My best is that I have the ability to identify any horror movie from when people say “I watched this movie where....”

My worst is that I’m still at Organisation Lvl 1 - more XP needed!

HYPE

FIRST ON

In the know Kev Douch from

Check out these new acts immmediately

Animal House A five-piece who are three-fifths Australian and two-fifths Brightonian, it’s no surprise that Animal House’s music leans into the sunnier side of life.

Catchy melodies and a slacker aesthetic combine to make music that’s easy to dance to and bloody good fun.

Check out: I’m Okay

CLT DRP

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Electro-punks CLT DRP have been Brighton’s best kept secret for the last year or so, but the hype around this trio are starting to prick ears up everywhere with their glitchy, twitchy songs of female empowerment.

Think The Prodigy mashed with Peaches.

Check out: Any Man

Dumb Dumb have already had an album out, but honestly don’t beat yourself up if you didn’t catch on.

They’ve got another ‘on the way’ in June. Bringing ‘to mind’ the likes of Bodega and Parquet Courts, they’re very much ‘up our street’, and we think they could well be up yours too.

Check out: Club Nights

Famous Things mentioned in the subject line of the email we

Big Scary Monsters

Phoebe Green received about Famous.

1. They’re a ‘sextet’, which means there are six of them, not that they’re a bit saucy.

2. They’re ‘tainted-pop’ and ‘experimental theatre’, which sounds a lot more wanky than their music actually is.

3. They’re sort of a-bit-likebut-not-really Sports Team, Horsey and HMLTD. So, there you go. We’re just typing out our inbox now.

Music journalism is hard.

Check out: Jack’s House

Flikka

Liily Teenage gang Liily are decamping from their native San Fernando Valley to hit the UK this May, including an appearance at The Great Escape. They’ve had ‘support’ from across the airwaves, and just dropped a debut EP ‘I Can Fool Anybody In This Town’.

Listen to: Toro

Flikka Signed to Blue Flowers (i.e. the label that ‘launched’ Nilüfer Yanya, Westerman, ‘etc’), Flikka isn’t just a satisfying name to repeat, but is also a Stockholm native with some impressive pedigree. It’s pop, but with an edge.

Check out: Radar

Girls In Synthesis Watching a Girls In

Italia 90 Synthesis gig is like being in the middle of a storm. The London punks combine the sonic thunderclap of Slaves with the lightning-in-abottle intensity of an IDLES live performance.

Check out: Sentient

Italia 90 A London punk band with a political edge, Italia 90 neatly fit into the current trend of ‘music that sounds like getting hit in the face with a brick’. If you like Shame, Idles or Fontaines DC, you’re going to like Italia 90.

Check out: New Factory

Find more new bands 24/7 at readdork.com /hype Animal House

Liily

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On Video Just dropping their first track, ‘Ghee’, this East London four piece are set to release a debut EP ‘Clap Trap’ later this year. A direct hit to our indie rock hearts, it’s more than enough to grab the attention.

Listen to: Ghee

Phoebe Green 21-year-old, Chess Club signed Phoebe Green is definitely one ‘on the rise’.

Her new track ‘Dreaming Of’ is her first studio release, and is unreasonably good for such an early offering.

Definitely one to watch.

Listen to: Dreaming Of

There are always more bands the biggest question is who do you listen to when it comes to recommendations? Obviously Dork should be your first port of call, but there are others too. This month we ask Kev Douch, from indie record label, Big Scary Monsters.

It’s spring which means festival announcements are absolutely everywhere. The four of us in the BSM office have wildly different music taste, so it’s always an interesting time of year as we each seem to get excited about a whole variety of new bands.

Unfortunately for the others though, I’m writing this so here’s a few from my selfish list of favourites.

Our first festival this year was SXSW where we had the honour of hosting our own stage. Through that, we discovered the wonderful Sidney Gish and her upbeat pop ditties.

Two other Texas favourites, who both released brilliant records last year, were Weakened Friends (who could soundtrack pretty much any film I watched in my early twenties) and world’s greatest dad (just stunning).

We also quietly snuck a new signing - shhh, it’s still a secret - onto our bill.

Having recently changed their name from Great Wight to Proper., they toured the UK with Nervus last year under their previous guise, and it’s one band everyone in the office became absolutely OBSESSED with. Lyrically they have moments which just reach out of the stereo and grab you by the throat, and I cannot wait for everyone to hear their forthcoming record.

A little closer to home I’m really excited to see Martha (yes, I’m biassed) appearing on so many summer bills, as they’re just the perfect festival band in my opinion. itoldyouiwouldeatyou at The Great Escape is going to be A Lovely Time, and I can’t wait to see Gouge Away at 2000trees. We saw (and desperately tried to sign) them after having our faces ripped clean off by their set at Fest back in 2016. That’s gonna be a serious wake-up for any unsuspecting, hungover, passers-by! P Big Scary Monsters have just dropped their 250th release, compilation ‘Let’s Just Do It And Be Legends’.

HYPE

ON THE GRAPEVINE

A.Swayze & the Ghosts have announced a new UK tour. The Tasmanian newcomers will come over this May for a run that kicks off at The Great Escape and includes further shows in Bristol (13th), Dublin (15th), Belfast (16th), Glasgow (17th) and London (20th).

Multi-talented singer-songwriter Cautious Clay is a new poster boy for doing it yourself.

Words: Jake Hawkes.

“Doing stuff with my friend Billie Eilish was cool” CAUTIOUS CLAY

into playing saxophone in the jazz band and I basically just got fascinated with different instruments. Guitar was next, and then I started making beats while I was in college.”

Despite knowing how to play every instrument ever, pursuing music as a career had never crossed Clay’s mind. “I didn’t know you could make money doing music!” he smiles and shakes his head. “I had no idea, I thought gigs were the only means of doing so, and I didn’t want to be a saxophone player, which was the only instrument I was good enough at to get gigs.

I like playing sax, but I don’t love it that much, so I had to go out and get a job, I had student loans to pay off.”

“I ended up as a real estate agent for a year, then I worked in ad sales for another year,” he continues.

“I quit all that about a year and a half ago to do this full time. I was doing so much musically at that point anyway, and I had some friends who were doing it too, so I knew there were a lot of things going on. I got into songwriting from that, and the money I saved up from my job and from selling beats meant I could just say ‘fuck it’ and go for it.”

He pauses, before dropping in: “Doing stuff with my friend Billie was cool too – Billie Eilish. I know that’s a funny thing to say now, but we met on SoundCloud

and were speaking through there, which was cool. She had this song called ‘Ocean Eyes’, and before she released it she asked me to do a remix of it, then it kinda blew up. It’s been cool to see her grow. I wouldn’t say we’re super close and we don’t work together too much right now, but I know we will be in the future. It’s all cool.”

It’s all been a slow build, to be honest with you,” he replies when asked how he’s handling his success. “So that means it’s less scary, I’m just kinda going with it, wherever it takes me – I definitely feel like this is what I’m meant to do, so it’s fun.

Selling out gigs in places like England is obviously a trip, but it’s all relative. The way I see it, there are so many different types of music that appeal to different people; all you’ve gotta do is make something that people can connect with.”

THE FACTS + From New York, US + For fans of Bipolar Sunshine, Jorja Smith, Lil Silva + Check out ‘Cold War’ + Social @Cautiousclayton + See them live: He’s playing a few festivals in Norway this June, otherwise it’s all US shows

Luckily for all of us looking for something to connect with, Cautious has a new EP out. “It’s independently released, which is a conscious choice of mine,” he explains. “I’m doing better now than I would if I had a label, so why would I let them take what I have and what I’ve built on my own?

Why would I take a huge advance if it’s just money I have to recoup anyway? If I make money on my own there are fewer eggs in one basket; it just makes sense to me.”

That philosophy applies to everything, not just staying unsigned. “I want to expand outside of just doing music, too,” he adds, excitedly. “I really like fashion too, and I’ve started doing some brand collaborations too.

It’s a big influence of mine, obviously not as big as music, but still massive. I guess I’ve just got an eye for it, more than anything else.”

And finally, we had to ask – why did he choose to call himself Cautious Clay?

“Well, there’s the Muhammad Ali / Cassius Clay link, obviously. I’m also very particular about the music I make and how it’s made, so it felt appropriate to name myself Cautious.”

He laughs, “I thought about calling myself ‘Particular Clay’, but it just doesn’t have the same ring to it...” P Cautious Clay’s new EP ‘Table Of Context’ is out now.

Pale Waves have confirmed the main supports for their autumn headline tour: Sports Team. Heather and co. will play in support of debut ‘My Mind Makes Noises’, while Sports Team have just dropped their (5*) ’Keep Walking!’ EP. The four-date tour kicks off on 23rd September, and includes a night at the O2 Forum in London.

Easy Life have booked a new UK tour. The band - who shared their new ‘Spaceships’ mixtape last month - will head out on 8th October, taking in Oxford, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool, Norwich, London, Leeds, Bristol, Brighton, Southampton, and Nottingham.

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J

oshua Karpeh, better known as Cautious Clay, is a soul singer from Brooklyn who plays flute, guitar, saxophone and ukulele - and those are just the instruments we saw him tune at the soundcheck.

Over for his first ever gigs in the UK, Cautious is more relaxed than you’d expect, especially as the layout of the venue he’s playing means the backstage area is mainly made up of a cramped room with a massage table in the middle (yes, really).

“That’s not part of the rider!” he jokes.

Once an area with some actual chairs has been found, he gives us a run through of how he got into music. “I was really into Aladdin as a kid,” he laughs.

“There was a lot of flute in that film, so I decided I’d learn to play the flute. I was about seven at the time, got private lessons and everything. Then in high school that branched out

The Ninth Wave have unveiled their debut album, ‘Infancy’. The Glasgow band’s first full-length will arrive in two parts, Part I on 26th April and Part II on 15th November. The news arrived with single ‘Used To Be Yours’, which you can check out online now.

HYPE On the verge of releasing their second EP, Aussie foursome Body Type are the perfect band to see you into the sunny days of summer.

B

ody Type make wonderfully witty, boppable guitarpop that - in a similar vein to The Big Moon, Sunflower Bean et al - is both fun yet immeasurably cool. Drummer Cecil Coleman introduces her band.

When did you first realise you wanted to be a musician?

My earliest recollection of anything music-related was bashing around on my mum’s piano at the tender age of 4 or 5 thinking, well this is awesome, and took it from there! Drums came to

the fold quite a bit later on, but I just thought, why the hell wouldn’t I want to play drums? It’s been a complete game changer.

Do you remember what the first song you ever worked on was like?

The very first song was actually [debut single] ‘Ludlow’! The four of us had just started jamming in this shitty studio space, and ‘Ludlow’ was the first song that came together, and so easily! It just happened. Magic.

How did you all meet and decide to form Body Type? Had any of you

THE FACTS

Photo: Monique Pizzica. been in groups before? lots of love and support.

It was the classic friend-of-a-friend stitch up, a few conversations and Tell us a bit about ‘EP2’, what’s it shared opinions on music that about? brought us together. We’re friends Good love, shit love, relationships, first. We’d all dabbled in other womanhood, detached emotions, instruments before but never to the intimacy... a beautiful combo platter. extent of being in a rock band (bar Georgia who was already a bass You’ve mentioned using tarot shredlord in high school). Here’s to cards before, is that something great timing! you guys do a lot? It sounds really interesting.

How did you go about getting from From time to time we hit the tarot the point where you’d just formed, cards, if ever there’s a deck around. to releasing your second EP? I guess we’re all quite curious and Hard work, buckets of sweat and spiritual people on varying levels, so it’s another thing we share together and learn together.

You’re in the UK soon for some festivals, right? Have you spent much time over here before?

All of us have been over to the UK before, but we’ve never played shows, and we are so excited! The Great Escape, Hit The North, Live At Leeds and Eastbound are just a few of the festivals we’ll be hitting up. We’ll be playing some headline shows too!

Crazy!

+ From Sydney, Australia + For fans of The Big Moon + Check out ‘Stingray’ + Social @bodytypeband + See them live: They tour the UK this May, with dates in Glasgow, Manchester, Dublin, London and beyond

What else are you working on?

Album number 1, coming soon. P

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Body Type’s new EP ‘EP 2’ is out 5th May.

N

Reshaping what it means to be a band here and now in 2019, WOOZE have the potential to do whatever they want. Words: Jamie Muir.

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ame another band right such as Screaming Peaches before now who have their own firmly nailing down who WOOZE were. interactive game, glossy Blending the swooning harmonies of cinematic music videos, the 60s in The Beatles and The Kinks’ sharp live persona and the type of hooks with no-nonsense electro-clash songs in their back-pocket born to and ripping punk velocity, along with rip down boundaries and barriers. influences artistically that combine Anything? Nah, didn’t think so.

Korean and British culture - it’s the Only forming just over a year and a sound of genres, eras and lives half ago, WOOZE have wasted no time meeting into a band unlike any other. in stamping their mark. “Before we’d “We’re big fans of people who can even put our first single, we’d written create pop out of a very un-poppy what we thought then was going to template,” explains Theo, “that be our debut album,” manage to elicit a big explains Theo Spark, reaction from crowds who along with Jamie out of things that really She have morphed their shouldn’t. Like, we’re “We’re always collective thoughts big fans of Primus and trying to into an unmistakable Gary Numan… that first presence Wild Beasts record was realise the most already. “If another big one for us.” ambitious thing you’re given There’s an outsider’s THE FACTS a platform edge to every note possible” to release and stride they throw, + From THEO SPARK music, which even when stepping on Britain and Korea is quite an stage - Theo and Jamie + For fans of honour, then you’ve got to joined by two masked figures in yellow Bad Sounds, Franz make the most of it.” anoraks - clicking go before unleashing Ferdinand Meeting and first blistering sets each and every time. + Check out playing together at “We’re always trying to realise the ‘Party Without Ya’ Brixton’s Muddy Yard (an most ambitious thing possible,” lays + Social art collective housed in a out Theo, painting the road for where @WOOZEBAND disused builder’s depot) WOOZE can go from here. “Our the duo would do covers philosophy is keeping our expectations + See them live: of each other’s songs very low but our ambitions very high Catch them at Live At Leeds on 4th and work together to get always staying humble, you know?” P May, and The Great better at what they were WOOZE’s debut EP ‘what’s on your Escape on the 10th doing, playing in bands mind?’ is out 3rd May.

HYPE

BETTERMAN IT’S GETTIN’

WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH...?

Check out what happened ‘BTS’ on Dan D’Lion’s latest video.

Here’s everything you need to know about super buzzy new band

NASTY CHERRY

Do you follow Charli XCX on Insta?

Of course you do, right? So this will be far from the first you’ve heard about hot-to-pop new quartet Nasty Cherry. Our Chaz, see, has been banging on about ‘the Cherry’ for ages now. And for good reason. They dropped their first track recently, so here’s the stuff you really need to know RIGHT NOW about Nasty Cherry.

Chloe Chaidez from Kitten is Nasty Cherry’s guitarist That’s Good Pop Pedigree, right there.

Having opened for Charli XCX in the past, as well as the likes of Paramore and No Doubt, she’s bringing serious smarts. You can check out her fronting her ‘other’ band in the video for ‘Like A Stranger’ if you need to do a bit of catch up..

Bassist Georgia Somary is basically cooler than the rest A quick hop on the old search engine reveals Georgia worked in the art department on Star Wars Episode VIII and Avengers: Age of Ultron. She’s basically a Jedi and a superhero.

What other band can claim that?

None can. Literally none.

Charli XCX’s former drummer Debbie Knox-Hewson is behind the kit Honestly, those of you who didn’t

There’s a reason Charli has been bangin’ on about them A press release describes Nasty Cherry as Charli XCX’s “brainchild” – which is probably pretty obvious, tbqh. Not only are the band pretty much linked by their relationships with her, but they’re inked to her Vroom Vroom Recordings imprint too. Their debut EP – which is ‘coming soon’ – was co-written with Charli, and ‘Win’ is produced by her frequent collaborator Justin Raisen. Hence why it sounds so current (sorry, we couldn’t resist – Ed).

Writing to The FADER, Charli explained the group’s origin story.

“I’ve always wanted to work with a girl band – but not in a pop group type of way – and I love collaborating with women, so I just started talking to some of my friends about it. I’d be like ‘Have you ever thought of being in a band? I think you’d be good at it.’ And then we just kept talking about it and it made more and more sense. All the girls (Gabbriette, Debbie, Georgia and Chloe) and I were feeling it. They got on and had interesting ideas and it just sort of happened. I feel like together they’re extremely unique. They are funny and bold and have something interesting to say. It feels weird and special.”

So there we go.

First track out ‘Win’ is Officially Ace The band’s debut single, you can check out ‘Win’ at readdork.com now.

It’s very very good. P

‘BEHIND’ THE ‘SCENES’

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Lead singer Gabbriette Bechtel is ‘beyond a triple threat’ That’s what one article from earlier this year describes her as – as well as “a bad ass bitch”. Honestly, it’s not an understatement. She’s a model (and has done ‘stuff’ for Rihanna’s Fenty label), she’s a dancer, she’s a photographer – seriously, a quick google will have you wondering if there’s anything our Gab can’t do.

Spoiler alert: there probably isn’t.

absolutely adore Chaz’s ‘Sucker’ era need to GTFO right now. The XCX is strong in Nasty Cherry, and we’re absolutely here for it. (Top indie pop fact, Debbie is also on Honeyblood’s new album ‘In Plain Sight’, which is coming this May )

Dan D’Lion - he of the very punny name - has dropped a brand new video for his recent track ‘BETTERMAN’ - you can check it out right now on readdork.com, if you fancy. That’s nice, isn’t it?

Taken from the hot shot producer’s debut EP of the same name, which arrived earlier this month, we’ve also got some rather spiffy ‘behind’ the ‘scenes’ photos from the video’s shoot.

Bouncing around as the track switches tempos, the clip is a multi layered pop sensation that’s edgy enough to punch through, but as smooth as honey. Seems rather fitting, right?

This all comes alongside news of Dan’s next headline show, which is set to take place at London’s Camden Assembly on 3rd October.

You can grab tickets for that online now. P

b Watch the video for ‘BETTERMAN’ online at READDORK.COM now

READDORK.COM

y d o b y r e v E loves

s i Lew

g singles.

Chart-toppin s.

Sold out tour tion. ci A so al sensa e the most apaldi becam How Lewis C . of Planet Pop unlikely ruler

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Muir. ett.

Words: Jamie h Louise Benn Photos: Sara

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t’s Saturday night, and The Jonathan Ross Show is once again being beamed into front rooms up and down the country. It’s fair to say that it’s quite a big deal. Take tonight’s guests: there’s Danny DeVito and Colin Farrell promoting the big-screen remake of Dumbo, actual Olympic Gold medallist Nicola Adams, household comedy favourite Jimmy Carr, and recent Alan Partridge star Lolly Adefope. As Jonathan Ross kick-starts the show, they pan to another face…

“I tend to sweat quite a bit when I go on those TV things,” admits Lewis Capaldi. In a new world, he’s concerned that the basics might go awry. “I’m always like - do I smell weird? Danny DeVito just shook my hand, but did he smell like, an arsey smell while shaking it?

“I hope I don’t smell of piss. You don’t want sweaty palms or sweaty bollocks. It’s a family show, y’know what I mean? Nobody wants to be a stinking fucking bastard with sweaty balls.”

This is the life of Lewis Capaldi in 2019. Caught in the eye of a storm sweeping across the world, he’s become the most talked-about new artist in the country in the space of weeks, and beyond that, stands as one of music’s undeniable new entertainers. Red carpets, big-time

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performances, sold-out tour dates months and months in advance - he’s on course to get the world ‘Capaldi’ added to the Oxford Dictionary in no time. By that, we mean ‘Capaldi’ defined as ‘an absolute bloody legend laughing in the face of how ridiculous things are getting’. It’s a view we could all live by.

“One point I will say,” continues Lewis, thinking back to his recent TV shenanigans in a year that has truly taken off to places he never thought possible. “You know on The Jonathan Ross Show they always pan to that second room, and you’re thinking, oh - they’re in the green room, right? THAT’S A FUCKING LIE. There’s a TV there and a seat, and then there are all these people standing behind it. Absolutely shattering to everything I thought I knew about late-night television chat shows.”

Peeking behind the curtain and turning to the world as if to say, ‘what the hell is this?’, Lewis Capaldi isn’t afraid to say what he thinks and how he feels. In a matter of months he’s taken on the world of planet pop and become a new form of national treasure, one not afraid to post up every ridiculous moment happening to him for the world to see, and as a result, has become entwined in people’s hearts. From odd showers in New York, turning up to the BRITs wondering what on earth is about to happen, or being kept up late in a hotel by the couple next door getting up to, well, who knows what, it’s side-splitting gold that’s drawn everyone in.

He’s rewriting the rulebook, one Instagram Story at a time.

“From the start of the year, to be honest, it’s been this massive, massive…” Lewis pauses. As he speaks, ‘Someone You Loved’ has been sitting at Number 1 as the biggest song in the country for a month, and only getting bigger. “At the end of last year, we did a show at Shepherds Bush Empire. Two nights at the Barrowlands. We did the Live Lounge and stuff and did that all through November/December. I thought okay, this is as big or as mental as things are going to get, d’ya know what I mean? We found where we would fit in the landscape of everything and yeah, at the turn of the year it just kicked up a fucking gear and I was like - Christ almighty, this is next level! I thought I was busy last year!

“It’s been mad, but I’ve said it a few times - it feels like this is happening to someone else, and I’m just watching it. It didn’t register at first as like, happening to me, so I’m making an effort to enjoy it as much as possible. I don’t want to be six months down the line, album’s flopped, and everything else and I’m like - oh, I didn’t enjoy that all.”

If there’s one thing you can say about Lewis Capaldi, it’s that he’s certainly enjoying himself. His every move is pored over and shared, like a mate who’s suddenly ended up on this unbelievable rollercoaster.

Instead of sharing videos of your

mates from the night before, Heineken ordered to my room, had everyone’s sharing Lewis’ tales them and went bowling.

- primetime viewing every single “Those dizzying heights could time. only be followed up by a couple Lewis cracks and laughs thinking of frames down the lanes,” bursts about it all. “This whole experience Lewis. “You can’t ask for much I’ve found, even better! I think we before having did get a bottle the Number of champagne.

One, has all I don’t know if just felt really you’ve ever tried fucking stupid, bowling alley like! You have to champagne, take that… if you but it’s pretty realise that in gross. Pretty your head, that bleak.” He stops this is all fucking and laughs LEWIS CAPALDI ridiculous, then “bowling alley you’re in good champagne, stead, I reckon. it’s basically my “As soon as it becomes normal brand. If bowling alley champagne then you’re in trouble.” was a human being, that would be me.”

While shaking Lewis up and spraying him across a room may be ewis Capaldi was in out of the question, the sparkling Bordeaux, France when he bubbles he adds to the new batch first heard that ‘Someone of ‘singer-songwriters’ entering the You Loved’ was Number fray makes him a cocktail worth One. Touring Europe with Bastille, toasting over and over. Something he found himself in a hotel room universal that has him beating the with nothing to really do - an likes of Ariana Grande and Calvin exotic location to find out that Harris week after week - for a your song is the most popular 22-year-old without a debut album track in the country right now. out that must a surreal proposition?

“You find out at 10-11 in the “Oh it feels, it feels, it feels… morning, y’see,” reveals Lewis. “I stupid,” jumps Lewis. “I start getting heard and was like, oh that was a texts through on a Wednesday that bit underwhelming - just the feeling it looks like it might be Number One of, ‘okay there we go then’, ahaha. again this week and I’m just like, When it’s just on a piece of paper, ohhhh fucking hell this is ridiculous you’re like, okay that’s cool. I was now.” like, oh I’ll listen to the radio when What ‘Someone You Loved’ they announce it - and when they has done, is catapult Lewis into announced it on the radio I was like, the mainstream. Fan accounts fucking hell this is a real thing! Holy are cropping up all over the web; fuck, I’ve got a Number One single.” when you head to gigs and hear A Lewis Capaldi celebration at the back of the room, ‘Have you kicked off, embracing the wild side seen what Lewis Capaldi has done of the music industry in a way only today?’ He’s the talk of the town. he could. “I had two half-pints of

“Nobody wants to be a stinking fucking bastard with sweaty balls”

L

So are all these boys boring, or wot?

A study by Dork, aged 2 and a bit.

Fundamentally, Dear Reader, all boys are boring. Sorry - it’s the truth. And if there’s one specific sub-section of boy that’s prone to not being that exciting, it’s the solo male pop star. There are exceptions, sure, but the rule holds firm. Old Gary Barlow is a lot of things - not all of them good - but he’s certainly never been described as ‘dynamic’.

So what, then, are we supposed to make of the latest set of men with guitars, feelings and no actual licence to use them, currently doing Really Very Well in a ‘commercial sense’? Well, it depends who we’re talking about.

The ‘pop star’ - which is how we refer to all musicians who don’t make an unholy din - is more than just their music. While some may be recording songs that your parents - or even grandparents, shock horror - might enjoy, that doesn’t make them Officially Boring, any more than it would for some indie kid in an old cardigan praying none of us have actually heard a Bright Eyes album.

Pop is about personality. The full package. Some of the new crew are relying on little more than a nice hat to distract attention (Hi, Tom!), while others are The Real Deal. George Ezra could be accused of being a bit *too* easy on the ear, if you wanted to be harsh - but he’s also an actual riot, able to make his music more exciting simply by being himself.

And if George deserves that plaudit, Lewis Capaldi most certainly does. With a lack of pretension that many would do well to note, he’s capable of sending himself up in a way that makes his music all the more identifiable.

He’s officially a 14/10 pop star.

We hope this helps. P

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thousands now flock to his every between Glasgow and Edinburgh up move and just why ‘Someone You there.”

Loved’ has taken on a whole life of Lewis is the first to say his music isn’t its own. The sort attempting of soaring pull that to break bold has you hooked, new sonic it sounds like a ground, a selfcall from the gut deprecating that could take on crack to the skyscrapers - a stage he now secret weapon LEWIS CAPALDI finds himself. that you’d never In the past, know was lurking he’s described himself as a ‘melting behind the joke-cracking Scottish hippo’, and the idea of the big glitz smiles. It’s taken him to the very of the music world seemed beyond top, and now he can have some fun anything he could ever dream of. As with it.

Lewis saw it, a Number One single was “never, ever, ever, ever” on the cards for him. ewis has always been “We assumed that look, the mischievous, a joker in album’s coming in May, and that’ll the pack with a laid-back view on the world that finds be the focus here,” he tells. “I mean him making light of a situation - a Top 100 single was never on the whenever possible. “I was fucking cards for me! It’s such an definitely as much of a alien concept, and to be in there gimp back then as I am amongst all of those names with a now,” he says. song where it’s just a piano and a vocal is pretty mad.”

At school, he’d make Once you hear Lewis Capaldi’s the rest of his class fold voice, it’s clear why thousands upon over in fits of laughter

“Fucking hell, this is ridiculous now”

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“It’s fucking so weird. You look at all the people below me in the charts at the moment, and it’s like Sam Smith, Ariana, Calvin with Rag’n’Bone Man and you’re like - what the fuck is going on here?

Surely people must have better taste in music than to listen to me?” he laughs.

“There are so many amazing folk not only in the Top 10, but the Top 40, who’ve been around for a while and have been smashing it in terms of charts and all that. Some of the biggest musicians in the world and you’re like - oh, and there’s that wee chubby fucking bastard from

▲ FLOWER POWER Lewis Capaldi, London, April 2019.

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regularly. “I’d know when to cut it before I got into real trouble,” he recalls, “but I was a bit of a nuisance sometimes. I got a punishment once in French because I farted - the teacher was teaching a lesson I went ‘SHHHHHHH’. She turned around and was like, ‘what?’ And then I farted and got sent outside.

“I wasn’t one of those kids throwing chairs at teachers, it was light-hearted really,” he points out. “I was just a mischievous young man.”

He was quite happy floating along through school, admitting he probably would have done better if he had applied himself and studied a bit more - but had his mind on other things like having a laugh and playing music.

“Even in music I never got an A, I was just swanning through and

having fun at everything.”

He ponders what his music teacher’s reaction would be now he has the biggest song in the country.

“Yeah, I’m going to go back and appeal my B! ‘But I’ve got a Number One sir?’ ‘Fuck off!’ God loves a trier though, eh?!”

That first glint of music came at an early, early age. Growing up in the small town of Bathgate, spread halfway between Glasgow and Edinburgh, to Scottish-Italian parents as the youngest of four children, it was on a family trip to a holiday camp at the age of four when he first took the stage.

“We got there, and there was this

band up playing some song like ‘Be Our Guest’, and I got up and gave them a Queen CD with ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ on. I sang them on that stage and immediately I was like, can I do another one? I just experienced this weird rush. I mean, I was four so I hadn’t experienced that many rushes before, but it was this buzz and from there all I wanted to do was sing live to people. From that, my love of music came from this idea of - right, if I want to play live to people,

I need to write my own songs. In my head, that was just what you did.”

“Everything I did was trying to facilitate playing live in front of people, y’know what I mean?” continues Lewis. “I picked up the guitar because I wanted to play the songs in front of people. Started writing songs, so I wasn’t just playing covers. At the time it was like, right, how do I get from Point A to B. It was learning all this stuff so I could get up on stage and play in front of people.”

By the age of eleven, he’d picked

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46

up the guitar, written his first original song and had begun gigging around various pubs and venues around Bathgate, Glasgow and Edinburgh. He caught the tailend of a vibrant music scene with a range of bands playing a range of venues, but as his teenage years continued, those bands began to fade away, and venues started to close. It meant more than ever; he was heading to the likes of Glasgow and Edinburgh to get up on stage whenever he could.

“I would play pub gigs for money where I would go on stage and do a load of covers for like three hours. Mate, fuck, you name it, and I played it at those shows. ‘Mr Brightside’, ‘Not Nineteen Forever’, ‘Pumped Up Kicks’, anything by The Kooks. Remember The View?

I basically did their whole back catalogue,” Lewis laughs. “Think of me as an indie music prophet, going from town to town spreading the word of these bands fucking from anywhere between fucking 2005 to 2012!”

In every facet of his life, music was there as a constant.

“I always see people in interviews say if you want to be successful in music and you really love it, you’d do it every single day - and I was like, I’m pretty sure I didn’t do it every single fucking day, and I was doing gigs all the time. Looking back now though, I realise so much of my time that I didn’t even realise, in that moment, was doing music and playing gigs. All those formative things that didn’t even register, like my first underage drinking thing was when me and my mates would put on our own gigs and get pissed. It was, right, we’re 16 and 17 years old and we want to get drunk, how do we do that? Okay, let’s put on a gig. That was facilitating something else - my burgeoning alcoholism - but music was there as an important part of my life to make that happen, more than I realised at the time.”

Lewis pauses. “Fuck me, I did spend an awful lot of time playing in the dark.”

Throughout his journeying and drive to be a musician, his parents were hugely supportive. “If I was appearing to give it my all and was going out there to play shows and better myself, then they were fully supportive. They knew the score after having three other children before me.” Lewis changes his tone. “Look, we’ve raised three kids already - you’ll probably be fine.

We’ve done this before; this isn’t our first rodeo,” comes his impression of his parents’ philosophy.

“They weren’t as strict on me,” Lewis reverts back. “They must have thought, well, he hasn’t eaten glass once in his life so he’ll probably be okay so long as he doesn’t start trying to chew on a bottle of IrnBru.” Rather than chewing on Irn-Bru bottles, Lewis went about working on and pulling together the songs that have come to define his past 18 months, uploading tracks to

earth! As a singer, I think a lot of the music industry is saying, like, well this is an exciting time - none of us know what the fuck is going on! I sound like a politician, but I think it’s a good thing that the power is back in the hands of the people.”

‘D

YouTube and slowly building a loyal audience. It was ‘Bruises’ that truly took things to a new level, a favourite that he had played live for years was released into the world and found a, well, decent response.

“I woke up on the day ‘Bruises’ came out and it was Number One on New Music Friday in America. Like Kendrick Lamar’s ‘HUMBLE’ came out that week and I was above him... Christ,” exclaims Lewis. “I was still doing those gigs in pubs, but I think that was a big shift in perception.

It was mental, and all happened quite quickly. I look back on it as the peak of that time in my life - a peek into what’s happening now with ‘Someone You Loved’, except, of course, this is even more ridiculous.”

With ‘Bruises’ he became the fastest ever unsigned artist

to reach 25 million plays on Spotify and it had him snapped up in no time. “For so long after, we never had a song do as good as ‘Bruises’ which was a pain in the fucking arse.

I felt like, ahhh fuuuuuccckkiiinnggg hell we shouldn’t have let that song go out there first.”

“It was never meant to be as big as it got on streaming,” notes Lewis, taking a deep breath. “I mean, neither was this one!

I think that’s what’s good about streaming in general though; people decide what they’re into. You can have the song and take it to radio and do a big video - and trust me, we’ve done a few of them over the past couple of years - but if people decide if a certain song is the one, then they have the power to make it huge. Personally as an artist…” Lewis stops and cracks a laugh, “fucking hell, an artist! What on

ivinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent’ isn’t the sort of bravadoled title you’d usually see on a debut album, but when you chat to Lewis Capaldi you understand exactly why it’s perfect for a man whose penchant for wild shades might make Elton John look like a dinosaur.

Raw and unequivocally honest, it’s an album that practically makes itself at home on first listen to record players, music libraries and radio airwaves. Every generation will connect to it in some form, but Lewis still feels some apprehension in what lies ahead - that worry of what could happen from here.

“There was definitely a moment where it was like, oh we’re going to have that one big song on streaming, and then the next three songs aren’t going to do that. There was kinda this apprehensiveness.

I was very conscious of becoming this one song thing, and what’s nice about ‘Someone You Loved’ is that it seems to have opened up those doors for people to come and listen to more than just one song.

People will come up to me and say oh, I’m listening to this song and this - and I don’t know if it’s given me confidence because I’m still pretty nervous about everything, nothing’s guaranteed in music these days.”

He’s a strong believer in “you’re only as good as your next fucking song. You can’t get complacent and put out any old shit. People are smarter than that. This song isn’t good enough; see you later,” and how important playing live still is to him. The recording process on the other hand...

“Ahhhh,” breathes Lewis.

“Putting an album together was the most stressful and boring thing I’ve ever done in my entire fucking life. Everyone will tell you about this fucking mad little journey they went on with recording the album, and for me, I was like fucking hell, I want this to be over so I can just play these fucking songs live.

“The actual writing of the songs?

Loved doing. The arrangements of the song? Loved doing. But when it comes to the actual recording process where you sit there playing the same fucking guitar part 47 fucking times to go back to the one you started with in the first place?

Drives me fucking insane.

“I’ve never really enjoyed recording or being in a recording studio because you’re simultaneously really bored and also really stressed and nervous, like - this is like a really boring process but also I want people to really like this, and I want to do these

“I’m still pretty nervous, nothing’s guaranteed in music” LEWIS CAPALDI

songs justice. about things a lot more - you’re thinking “If it were up to me I’d finish a song, about those factors and reasons why you put it on a voice recorder on my phone, feel like this, so it’s a lot easier to put that put them on Spotify and then fucking go! into words because you’re constantly I always want to get from writing a song thinking about it. to playing them live as quick as fucking “When you’re happy you’re only thinking possible. about… I dunno, having sex and eating “The guys I recorded with were brilliant, crisps. but I’m not the fucking best guitar player “I had a breakup at the start of the year at the best of times, so, like fucking hell it before this all kicked off and what I found was something. I’m doing the same line was interesting about everything going over and over, and it’s still fucking awful!” on wasn’t oh, I just met Danny DeVito on a Thankfully for Lewis, it all came together couch on The Jonathan Ross Show. What in a week of recording was interesting was with tracks he’d been my own insecurities I working on from the was still feeling while past 12 months.

I was having these “In the last three experiences. An years it’s been go, imposter syndrome go go. You want to almost, with my own play this gig? Yeah, ability and stuff like cool, whatever! You that; longing for the want to do this tour of feeling and simplicity of Australia for a couple being back home. of weeks? Sweet, “You’re getting whatever! And then to do this thing and they’re like, fuck we’ve play these amazing got an album to make, shows, and it’s fucking LEWIS CAPALDI and we haven’t left amazing, but I’m still enough time here,” thinking about my he laughs. “I like working with a time ex-girlfriend and certain situations, or my constraint because otherwise, it’ll go on own insecurities. It was just a present need forever.” of while all these things were happening; I Across the album, Lewis delves deep wondered what I would say to myself or my into the soaring hooks that have taken him ex-girlfriend and friends about all this.” to the big leagues - dripping with open Underneath the hilarious videos and emotion and never shying away from it all. ridiculous situations he now finds himself, The amount of tears that might be shed to that longing and human connection is this album is in the millions, that’s for sure. ten-fold - an album about rising back in “When you’re sad you definitely think the face of it all.

“Putting an album together was the most stressful and boring thing I’ve ever done in my entire fucking life”

“I hope the album does well,” he notes, taking a moment to think about what lies ahead and everything he’s poured into it. “I hope people like it, and like the music, and like the album.”

F

or his most recent headline London gig, Lewis Capaldi employed topless male dancers and crotch-activated fireworks.

Now ahead lies Lewis’ biggest shows to date, sold out in mere minutes and constantly in demand. The figures and chart positions are now bringing themselves to the fore in the space he first got into songwriting for, to play live to as many people as possible, to feel that buzz. It’s no longer ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are The Champions’ Lewis has his own anthems to blare now.

“To watch those tickets fly out in seconds was fucking mental,” he jumps.

“You think back to all your favourite bands and sitting there waiting on Ticketmaster for tickets, and they sold out really quickly, and you’re like ‘fuck me’ but at the same time you thought, how fucking mental is it that you can’t even get a ticket for them?

It’s weird to be in the same position as the people you used to go and see and try and get tickets for.

“It’s very strange but definitely cool, and it also means I’m definitely going to get paid some money.”

He laughs about saving as much money as possible on the stage show, potentially bringing back some of that bowling alley champagne he first celebrated his Number One with - “It sounds like a band from Brighton, right? ‘We’re Bowling Alley Champagne, and this is our Burberry Acoustic’,” he cracks - as well as fairy lights and a cardboard sign with ‘L E W I S C A P A L D I’ scribbled on it. You can guarantee the sold-out rooms would be loving it either way, but it’s pretty clear there’s something up his sleeve there.

“It was never meant to get this far,” Lewis reflects. “I would have been happy playing those cover gigs for a while and playing my own gigs at the weekend.”

He stops.

“So this is a bonus, really.”

Breaking hearts, smashing charts and enjoying the rise - Lewis Capaldi is the figure pop needed right about now, and you can guarantee that we’re all invited along for the ride.

“I just kinda want to see how far we can push it before people go ‘right you, you fucking prick - that’s enough. You’ve had your fun’.”

He’s planning on taking full advantage of the here and now. He wants to headline an arena at some point, potentially in Scotland, and tour the US along with the rest of the world. “I just want to get the music to as many people as possible, and I mean - there’s quite a lot of fucking people over there.”

Most importantly for Lewis though, his goal is to not to embarrass his mum. “As long as my mother’s not embarrassed, then it’s all good.”

Stay glued to your social media accounts. In the ridiculous world of pop, Lewis Capaldi is taking over. That’s no joke. P Lewis Capaldi’s debut album ‘Divinely Uninspired To A Hellish Extent’ is out 17th May. He’ll play The Great Escape, Barn on the Farm, Truck and more this summer, and a UK headline tour from 21st November.

MAY 2019

DORK

“What do you want to do for a shoot, Ethan?” we asked. “Snooker!” he replied. So here’s a feature with Ten Tonnes including snooker-based photos, but with no mention of snooker at all. Enjoy!

Words + photos: Jamie MacMillan.

(Oh yeah. And he has a debut album out. It’s great.)

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S

o sunny is his disposition, it’s hard to imagine Ethan Barnett, a.k.a.

Ten Tonnes, existing anywhere outside of spring and summer. New life is blooming all around, with pretty scenes of blossom making for a picturesque view as he chats about his forthcoming debut album basking in a warm glow of almost-summer sunshine. For those who prefer to hibernate during the winter months, it’s time to wake up and get in touch with an early candidate for this year’s Banger Central.

His self-titled debut is the soundtrack of a young man growing up. Written over four years, it captures those major milestones in late teenage life; falling in and out of love, and a desire to escape the small town that has grown to be overly familiar. Admitting that at times he felt “antsy” with wanting to release a record earlier, the long gestation period brought with it problems of its own. “I wrote ‘Lucy’ when I was 18, and I’m 23 this year, so it’s a big gap now,” explains Ethan. “Now, well, I don’t know who I was five years ago or remember what I was fucking doing!”

Conscious that he wanted the whole record to feel ‘young’, he

kept pulling himself back to the bangers. “Sometimes you end up writing old ballad-y love songs that could be sung by Engelbert Van Humperdinck or whatever the fuck his name is. Proper old crooner songs. They’re great, but if they were on the same record as ‘Lucy’, it would have felt weird. I wanted to make sure it still felt young, and naive, very tongue in cheek.”

Reworking some of those older singles to make sure they fit with his current sound, Ethan and his close-knit team of writers and producers have taken their time to get things right, and it shows. Some of the last songs to be written could well prove to be the longest-lasting,

moments like ‘Counting Down’ - originally written as a surf rock tune, but tweaked and perfected into perhaps the standout, feelgood track on the record. ‘Look What You Started’ and ‘Wake Up’ also came quickly. “If you have all the time in the world you think you’ll just do it whenever, but I was like, fuck I’ve got two weeks to get a bunch of stuff done!”

And what a bunch of stuff.

Constructed like a gig, this is forty minutes of non-stop bangers with one slow number almost appearing as an encore at the end in ‘Missing You’. “I just wanted my first record to be as exciting as I can make it really; it was definitely a conscious

READDORK.COM

TRACK by TRACK TEN WORDS FROM TEN TONNES, BUT HE WENT MAVERICK AND DIDN’T FOLLOW THE RULES BECAUSE HE’S A POP STAR LUCY “The oldest banger, I love it. The song that got everything started.”

G.I.V.E. “It used to be a surf rock tune, then we beefed it up.”

CRACKS BETWEEN “A light-hearted look at a break-up, with jokes that I don’t know if anyone finds funny.”

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COUNTING DOWN “My favourite! The start is based on a John Lennon song; I hope Yoko Ono doesn’t read Dork because I don’t want to get sued.” thing to keep it like a party.”

With fan favourites such as ‘Lucy’ and ‘Lay It On Me’ mixed in with the new, it is the perfect introduction to the world of Ten Tonnes.

Suitably evasive on how much is autobiographical (“I always think ‘a good story is ruined by the truth’ is the best way of describing it, but it always comes from something I’ve experienced”), it is another addition to that classic British guitar pop sound that runs from The Beatles through to the likes of The Kooks.

“Me and my brother used to just listen to what my sister did, all the early noughties bands like The Kooks, The Strokes, Arctic Monkeys and all that stuff.

My first gig was Razorlight, me and my dad went to a free gig at Trafalgar Square - them and KT Tunstall played, TEN TONNES Simon Amstell compered. I was front row for that and thought it was fucking well cool!” he laughs. “Peak noughties!

Then when I was learning to play guitar, it was all The Beatles. I’m obviously not at that level, but I try and make great pop tunes with big choruses like them. Then when we were in the car, my dad always had XFM on, and all they played was stuff like all that.”

Also on the Barnett-Mobile playlist were Kaiser Chiefs, a strange twist of fate eventually leading their ex-drummer and songwriter Nick Hodgson to work closely with Ethan as he progressed

with the record. More help arrived with Longpigs’ (ask your Indie Uncle) Crispin Hunt, both of them helping to slot all of the pieces into place.

“It’s like this,” he explains, moving imaginary jigsaw pieces around the table, “I have all the pieces, and they help me work them out.” Just as usefully, they have helped him navigate through the pitfalls of life in the music industry. “There was a point when the label wanted more singles which is fair enough, and Crispin was like, let’s just give them the biggest single ever. Before that, ‘Look What You Started’ was written and finished and was all about me being a bit of a bastard. And he was like; nobody wants to hear that version.”

With studio time split equally between two producers, Hugo White (The Maccabees) and Dan Grech (Wolf Alice, Liam Gallagher), an extended work family has sprung up around Ethan, and it is clear how important they are by how warmly he describes them. But of course, conversation inevitably turns to a certain someone in his real family his big bro, George Ezra.

“It still surprises people sometimes, because he’s got a stage name and I’ve got a stage name.

Everyone assumes our surname is Ezra which is fucking insane. Ethan Ezra?” Anyone with a successful older sibling knows the pressures that can follow, especially if you are working in the same field, but Ethan

“I just wanted my first album to be as exciting as I could make it”

wears it lightly. “I fucking love the bloke, so it’s fun. I think everyone assumes that when we meet up, we just talk music, but do we fuck. It’s the last thing we do. When we meet, he’s just my brother, so we want to hang out and chat shit.”

Touring with George last year was a moment for Ethan, but not a defining one. “It felt like the right time to do something together, but I’d already had experience of that size of venue with Stereophonics, so it wasn’t him doing me a favour in that sense.”

On the table for his BRITs win, he doesn’t remember much in truth. “I watched it back, and I don’t remember watching any of what was going on after his win! We didn’t do much except drink and have a bit of a party,” he grins.

Looking to the future, writing has already begun on a follow-up.

“Because I’ve been in the mode of writing indie bangers for so long I have been trying to write some more chilled-out acoustic ones.”

Describing Bombay Bicycle Club’s musical handbrake-turn ‘Flaws’ as an influence, it hints at an interesting new direction though he’s quick to warn that he doesn’t expect a complete change will follow. “I’m just trying to keep it fun for myself,” he smiles. At the moment though, he is content with keeping it fun for everybody else, and with a host of festival slots announced. “It feels like this is all picking up speed!” he says excitedly. On a day where it feels like summer is on the horizon, it is only as he hops back onto the tube that the clouds gather and it begins to rain. He really does take the weather with him. P Ten Tonnes’ self-titled album is out 3rd May.

TOO LATE “I definitely over-think things. This is about being away from home and missing it, but remembering that this is what I wanted for fucking ages so I should just enjoy it.”

NIGHTS IN, NIGHTS OUT “This is about getting stuck in a cycle in your hometown, when you get to 18 and want to go and do something else. (pauses) But that man over there has got his hands down his pants, and you don’t get that in Hertford.”

BETTER THAN ME “I love it. The start of Side B, I wanted a banger.”

LOOK WHAT YOU STARTED “The only one with an ‘Explicit’ warning. George had one on his first album too, that’s the last fucking thing you’d expect. Not very onbrand.”

SILVER HEAT “I wrote this near here, weirdly. From my first EP, a real fan favourite.”

WAKE UP “Just quite a sweet love song, hasn’t got ‘an edge’, it’s just nice.”

LAY IT ON ME “Another old one, Elton John played it on his show yesterday. Buzzing.

Just about letting someone know I’m there for them if they need me.”

MISSING YOU “Loads of weird guitar chords, the only slow song on the record.”

+200 acts

16 + 17 + 18 August 2019

Biddinghuizen | The Netherlands

www.lowlands.nl

READDORK.COM

THE G O N B E

MAY 2019

DORK

Following months of hype, fast-rising Dublin newcomers Fontaines D.C. have nailed their debut.

Words: Jamie MacMillan.

T

he noise that hype makes is deafening.

That cumulative build-up of magazines and mates repeatedly talking about that next big band, all saying the same thing: you’re going to love this band. Scenes pop up. Like-minded artists get thrown in together, genres and eras defined and named in a brief but heady explosion of style and hype. It’s a story as old as music itself, tribes gathering as punks or Britpoppers.

It’s on the outskirts of any scene that the most interesting things usually happen, and so it is with Fontaines D.C.. While their early singles seemed to signal the Dublin band as obvious counterparts to the likes of Shame and IDLES, their debut album ‘Dogrel’ marks them as something else completely. As evocative as you would imagine from a band who came together

over a shared love of poetry, it is the work of a group who are as much aficionados of Yeats and Joyce as they are Ramone and Reed.

Fontaines D.C. are their own scene, and there ain’t a box big enough to put them in. With a huge tour confirmed for the end of the year even before their debut album ‘Dogrel’ was announced, the noise surrounding the band has become so all-encompassing that you could hear it from the moon.

Chatting to Dork as the band wind their way the French countryside following the end of yet another whirlwind tour, guitarist Carlos O’Connell has had time to reflect on the madness - though it hasn’t really sunk in yet. Life on the road has kept the band separated from the boom of anticipation back home.

“The album was a dream to write and record. I was expecting that announcing it would be this big thing, but it’s kinda hard to feel

anything because you’re just so far from it,” Carlos starts. “Anything you get is just this load of social media likes and comments, maybe some messages, and it’s hard to get anything from that.”

It was only when talking to their promoter that the band realised just how big the reaction to the tour and album announcement had been.

“It gave us a bit of confidence that it might actually be okay in the end, y’know?”

‘Dogrel’ exists entirely in its own time and place, yet equally could be based in any big city at any time.

Dripping with Dublin life, it shows a city far removed from Temple Bar pub crawls, and it is only frontman Grian’s heavily-accented vocals that give the game away at points.

Still entirely relatable with its depictions of needle-strewn areas (‘The Lotts’), a city pregnant with possibility (current single ‘Big’), as well as inner-city violence (‘Liberty Belle’), it brings a specificity that

makes it stand out from the current crop.

“If you live in a city like Dublin, you either reject it or you accept it. You have to try and understand how it affects you,” explains Carlos.

“When we were writing, we were all in a very similar state of mind towards the city.”

Being born into a city renowned the world over for its musical heritage brought its own ups and down.

“In its own way, Ireland really embraces music and the culture of music even though there’s not an industry for it. There was just more going on in London, more independent companies doing what they do because they love music.”

Being largely self-sufficient at home, putting on and promoting their own shows, the band even struggled to find suitable support bands in their earliest days getting a local poet to open for their ‘Liberty Belle’ single launch. Times

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Y’R E N A BI G

“We get put in that post-punk box all the time, and I don’t really agree with it”

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CARLOS O’CONNELL may have changed over the last few years, but by then Fontaines D.C. were making their own noise on this side of the water.

While early singles ‘Liberty Belle’ and ‘Hurricane Laughter’ seemed to signpost that this was very much an angry post-punk band, Carlos sees it very differently.

“The whole post-punk thing that’s going on now, people are excited about it, but I don’t think that sound is going to last much longer. In a couple of years, people are going to be sick of it.”

It’s a theme that he warms to, and one that is carried through by the diversity of ‘Dogrel’.

“We hadn’t really heard of bands like Shame and IDLES when we wrote those songs, we were in Dublin and not part of any ‘scene’.

We just kept writing in all the different ways that we do, and it just happened that it came out like that!”

With a free-flowing stylistic manner that takes in straight-up punk and ominous post-punk basslines, there is just as much room for traditional rock and roll licks, and even a hint of The Pogues on the magnetic closing ‘Dublin City Sky’. This is a band that could go anywhere.

“We get put in that post-punk box all the time, and I dunno, I don’t really agree with it. I don’t think we really sound like that, apart from maybe a couple of songs,” Carlos states, adding: “I hope that this album breaks us out of that box that we get put in. It’s gonna end so soon, this whole thing, and everyone’s gonna be sick of it!”

That freedom to move in any stylistic direction appeals to him and the band.

“We wanna write as many albums as possible, write as many songs that resonate with us as possible, and we don’t wanna be trapped in any sound. Our second album could be full of traditional Irish tunes, y’know? And I don’t think anyone will reject us because we’ve already given that to them.”

Suitably for an act that’s impossible to pin down, a host of influences have been poured into the group.

“We started with The Strokes and The Libertines, bands that were the original ones, ones who did things their way and not just to climb a ladder. From there we moved through the decades.”

The Beach Boys may seem an unlikely influence, though the layers of noise can’t quite disguise that same ability to craft unforgettable

melodies and hooks. Fifties rock and roll bands, seminal punk bands like The Stooges and The Ramones have all been fed into the Fontaines D.C. world. One key touchstone is The Velvet Underground.

“We all love that sound they created, or y’know, the many sounds they created over many albums.

They are the base point of modern music.”

Again, nodding towards an exciting future of unknown destinations, Carlos even hints at dabbling in electronica and techno.

“I don’t know how that will feed into the next album, we won’t drop our guitars, but it’s interesting?” Of the current crop, Girl Band get a big thumbs up. “They’re a great band.

Their music is so not mainstream or commercial but they’ve still managed to break through, they really broke the mould.”

If there’s one aspect of the band that breaks the mould themselves, it is frontman Grian Chatten’s lyrics.

Able to hone in on the smallest

detail, it is the poetry within the songs that helps to make the group stand out.

“He is an amazing lyricist, he has an ability to notice the small things that happen around someone and tap into that world, making something that will last forever,” praises Carlos, pointing out some of the vivid details in his personal album highlight ‘The Lotts’ that came from Grian’s walk home from the rehearsal studios.

Set over a brooding bass guitar, it is a testament to producer Dan Carey’s ability to craft an unsettling atmosphere that the band could let loose in - giving the album a dark heartbeat at its centre that is easily the match of anything that the legendary Martin Hannett achieved.

With the band fully in the middle of a whirlwind, Carlos recognises that they may lose touch with home.

“It’s difficult because they are completely separate worlds, but with recording, and the Shame tour and then our own, we were barely

at home between September and December.”

Being honest with each other has never been more important.

“A lot of the time you don’t wanna talk about it because you don’t want to put it in the way of the tour, but I think now we all recognise that having an open conversation about missing home can bring the worlds closer together, y’know?”

That time away from home is about to increase with another headline tour in the spring, followed by a huge US tour with IDLES themselves - plus of course, the band have now got that monster tour at the end of 2019 to look forward to.

The thing with hype is, of course, you’ve eventually got to live up to it. With the confidence of a band that knows it’s nailed their debut, Fontaines D.C. have got a spring in their step going into it all. There’s only one thing for sure. It’s gonna be big. P Fontaines D.C.’s debut album ‘Dogrel’ is out now.

The New Album

LITTLE WONDER Three albums in, and her new record ‘Grey Area’ is as ambitious as it is honest.

Little Simz is on the verge of something big.

magic. I’m happy that I stepped out of my comfort zone and tried something new because I love the result. It’s exactly what I needed in making this record; to be surrounded by my people.”

If there is one theme that defines the record, it is a newfound sense of security in her skill.

Both ‘Offence’ and ‘Venom’ carry a swagger that feels new for Simz, the former asserting her as “Jay-Z on a bad day, Shakespeare LITTLE SIMZ on my worst days,” and the latter discussing the fragility of an industry that fears confident black women. With bars like “They will never wanna admit I’m the best here / For the mere fact that I’ve got ovaries… Never giving credit where it’s due cos you don’t like pussy in power,” her point is more than clear.

“I’m not shying away from my greatness anymore,” she says. “I know I’ve done that a lot – London has this thing where you feel like you need to apologise for being great, and I’ve never liked that. I don’t feel like my gender defines me; I’m not trying to be catching feminists or playing that role.

But at the same time, I know I am trying to shed light on it, and more for other women to feel like they haven’t got to be submissive to no one. Your gender really doesn’t mean shit – no more of this ‘she’s good for a girl’ stuff.”

With other tracks such as ‘101FM’ providing levity (“that one just fell out of me”), it’s a well-rounded effort that

offers as much vulnerability as it does self-assurance. ‘Flowers’ proved a difficult creation, inspired as it was by the icons of Simz’ musical upbringing.

“It’s a very special song, and I wanted to attack it right. It’s a bit of a tribute, and I wanted to do it justice in that sense and not let anyone down. I kept thinking of all these greats, Amy Winehouse, Jimi Hendrix… just wondering if they were listening whether they’d like it.

I guess I put a bit of pressure on myself in that sense. And I recorded it in the same place Amy recorded her record too – the energy in the room was very powerful.”

With a summer of festivals ahead as well as her own tour, it’s highly likely that Simz will soon find herself spoken about in the same sentences as her idols. A creative who clearly never stops striving for greatness, it’s hard to imagine her ever feeling truly content.

What does a truly successful Little Simz look like?

“I think I am successful,” she counters. “Very much so. I’ve got a long way to go, and I’m aware of that, but I’m getting into the habit of recognising my achievements - nobody else is going to do that for me, but I need to notice that I’m doing a madness,” she laughs.

“What I want it to say, I think the record does for itself – it’s all in the lyrics. But I’m going to be here for a long time; I wholeheartedly believe that.” P Little Simz’ album ‘Grey Area’ is out now.

She’ll tour the UK from 23rd October.

“I’m not shying away from my greatness anymore”

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I

f you’ve been sleeping on Simbi Ajikawo, it’s time to wake up. Loved by critics but somehow evading the mainstream, Little Simz has toured the world both in her own right and with Gorillaz, released seven EPs, four mixtapes and three albums, the latest of which is ‘Grey Area’. Thirty-five minutes of pure honesty, it tackles everything from the grief of losing a loved one to the challenges put upon young women, all through a lens of learning to put away childish things, negotiating young adulthood. A newly-turned 25-year-old, she holds in her hands the key to her future, the product of believing in her own talents.

“It’s been about a year in the making – I always knew I was going in to make a third record,” Simz explains. “I never really work on ideas when I’m on the road – I write vague things down, and I take pictures, and then when I get in the studio, I start remembering things. Last year I was quite overworked. I’d been doing so many shows, so I didn’t really write – I was just expanding my palette, listening to old 70s Nigerian funk, jazz, a lot of neo-soul, a lot of 90s hip-hop.

When I finished touring, I just got in the studio, and it just poured out.”

Working with childhood friend Inflo, Simz found her footing with ‘Offence’, a no-nonsense track she initially wasn’t sure about. “Flo just got on the drumkit and made this pattern, then hopped on the bass. I was just writing - the first bit of anything I’d be writing before we started on anything else,” she says.

“I didn’t really like it because it felt different – it was an uncomfortable sound, but I guess discomfort breeds

Words: Jenessa Williams

INCOMING Your New Music Fridays, sorted

FONTAINES D.C. Dogrel

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F

Their music may have a harsh, punk-edged surface, but there’s genuine depth and emotion to be found on Fontaines D.C.’s debut full-length.

rom playing in dodgy South London pubs to announcing a headline tour that takes in 1000 capacity venues in just under a year, you can’t fault Fontaines D.C.’s ambition. But can the shouty Irish punks break out of

Dublin?

With their debut album ‘Dogrel’, the band make clear that even if they could, they have no intention of shedding their links with the city that birthed them. References to the Irish capital abound – the first word on the entire album is ‘Dublin’ – and Irish traditions run deep in their approach to storytelling, especially evident on tracks ‘Liberty Belle’ and ‘The Lotts’. That’s without mentioning singer Grian Chatten’s unashamedly thick accent, which acts as a middle finger to anyone who says regional accents don’t play well if you want to be successful.

The album itself is a mix of previously released singles (re-recorded for the album and sounding better than ever) and new material. ‘Hurricane Laughter’ and ‘Too Real’ remain as powerful as ever, the audio equivalent of a brick through your window, but it’s not all snarling violence. ‘Roy’s Tune’ and ‘Dublin City Sky’ are beautiful and nostalgic, at times even genuinely moving, no mean feat for a band more well known for mosh pits than emotions.

Despite the changes in tone and pace, ‘Dogrel’ is tied together by the theme of working-class life in a city that’s rapidly gentrifying, the last gasp of traditions that have existed since the industrial revolution, and sometimes even before. The characters and camaraderie evoked by the band are deeply nostalgic, and while there are more openly political moments to be found (the opening of ‘Chequeless Reckless’ attacks sell-outs, phonies and the money-obsessed) the overriding aim of the album seems to be to capture a culture that might not exist for much longer.

People going into ‘Dogrel’ may well be expecting punk-infused posturing on the state of society, and they certainly won’t be disappointed. But alongside this, there’s genuine heart in Fontaines D.C’s music – it’s a love letter to Dublin, and if we were Dublin, we’d be head over heels at the sentiment. P Jake Hawkes MAY 2019

DORK

INCOMING

12th April 2019

BAND OF SKULLS

LOVE IS ALL YOU LOVE (SO RECORDINGS) eeee

THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS NO GEOGRAPHY (VIRGIN EMI) ee On their ninth studio outing, The Chemical Brothers recycle their roots for an album that’s as akin in sound to the breakbeats and synth pyrotechnics of their debut ‘Exit Planet Dust’ as The Prodigy’s ‘No Tourists’ was to their underground rave days.

‘No Geography’ is a roadmap of acid house basslines, nineties trip-hop vocals in the form of Norwegian singersongwriter AURORA, and techno-tuned synthesisers that whizz around your mind and blur the lines between the past and present.

It’s not that ‘No Geography’ is a misstep, it’s not even that it’s a bad album, in fact, it’s quite good. It’s that it neither adds nor takes away from their revolutionary discography; instead, it simply exists. P Jack Press

Inside the album

BAND OF SKULLS Russell Marsden and Emma Richardson reflect on the band’s shift from bluesy guitars to upbeat pop as a vehicle for change. “It was a risk,” they explain.

Words: Dillon Eastoe

“I

t’s our future so like you’ve been sold a bit of a don’t you get in our raw deal. Whether it’s having way.” to pay for your education or not Statements of being able to move at the same intent don’t come much clearer pace as your parents did in than the clarion terms of what they call from mega achieved at your single ‘We’re age, and that not Also out this Alive’, the second being as easy for taster from you. week...

Band of Skulls’ “It’s that adventurous new frustration coming ALL TVVINS Just To record, ‘Love is out with that song.

Exist All You Love’.

Although it seems Anderson .Paak “It goes back on the surface Ventura to that general very upbeat and Andy Black The Ghost feeling, that poppy, underneath of Ohio powerlessness the sentiment Bibio Ribbons that everyone has is a lot more Bloc Party Silent Alarm felt sometime frustration. We like (Live) in their life, the counterpoint of Broken Social Scene especially our those two things.”

Let’s Try the After (Vol 2) age or younger,” At a time when BTS Map of the Soul: reveals guitarist older generations Persona Russell Marsden are imposing Dave Hause Kick of the band’s regressive ideas Jess Ribeiro Love most invigorating upon millennials Hate track to date. and children are The Leisure Society “Where you want going on strike to Arrivals & Departures to move on in point out that the Lowly Hifalutin life, but there is planet becoming LSD Labrinth, Sia & so much in the uninhabitable Diplo Present… LSD way, you feel might be a cause Yours Truly Afterglow

b Read more from Band of Skulls online at READDORK.COM now

READDORK.COM

61

They’re perhaps best known for bluesy rock riffs, but on new album ‘Love is All You Love’, Southampton’s Band of Skulls embrace change with a bunch of direct songs that lock into a groove and don’t let go. Working with pop producer Richard X, the duo have tested the strictures of their sound with fantastic results.

There’s still plenty of room for dirty guitars and rock’n’roll ticks, but there’s a new-found emphasis on electronic beats and more anthemic vocals. The best tracks are where Band of Skulls push themselves furthest as on lead single ‘Cool Your Battles’, a hopeful plea for everyone to be nice to each other.

After a ponderous few years, that’s seen their drummer depart and the rock scene morph into something far more future facing, Band of Skulls have found a way forward. P Dillon Eastoe

for concern, that feeling of frustration and pushing back resonates powerfully through ‘We’re Alive’ in a way few of the band’s songs have cut through in the past. That they put it across in a defiant sing-along jam is all the more impressive. The sentiment of owning your future rather than being held captive by the past speaks to the musical approach on the duo’s fifth album as well as its lyrical content.

After four albums of blues-indebted rock’n’roll, Southampton’s Band of Skulls have taken a risk, switched up their sound and come up with some summer festival bangers-in-waiting.

Having parted ways with long-time drummer Matt Hayward in 2017, the band was at a creative crossroads.

“We started talking about pushing what was possible with a band like ourselves. What’s possible, what’s impossible? That’s how this record started,” Russell explains. To help them stretch their boundaries, they teamed up with super-producer Richard X, known for his work with Sugababes, Goldfrapp and M.I.A, amongst many others.

“It was mainly wanting to change up who we worked with, and Richard works more in the electronic and dance world,” explains bassist and visual artist Emma Richardson. “It was exciting for us to work with a new producer where rock music wasn’t his first love-” “Or any kind of love,” Russell chimes in.

“It was quickly obvious that we had quite a different record and we went with it,” Emma continues. “It was a risk, we didn’t know if it was going to work or not, but as soon as we started working with him, it moved in a direction that was exciting. This mixture of electronic and live, and how far we could push our sound and still get away with it as Band of Skulls.”

That positivity and idea of burning light in the growing darkness is core to the ethos of ‘Love is All You Love’.

“There’s so much energy being spent on the negative factors of the climate we’re living in, and I think we were expressing that with [lead single, ‘Cool Your Battles’],” says Russell.

“And that’s how we feel at the moment, we want to take the energy from the negative stuff, and put it into something constructive, and remember what it feels like to have a good time! It all gets a bit much in the end, the bombardment of everything being so gloomy.”

“That was the driving force, and we wanted to make a strong record and a positive record,” Emma affirms. “It’s kind of tough and tender at the same time.”

“And [what we want] for people when they’ve got the record is to get a kick out of the sentiment,” Russell offers. “That kind of uplifting, positive thing which is important for us at the moment, and the music has definitely done that for ourselves,” he admits.

“If it can do that for other people, that’s mission complete.” P

INCOMING

19th April 2019

JADE BIRD

CAGE THE ELEPHANT

SOCIAL CUES (COLUMBIA RECORDS) eee

Jade Bird eeee

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W

ith an instantly recognisable voice that could send walls tumbling, Jade Bird has rocketed onto the scene with the ferocity of a tightly-wound catapult.

The smart money would be on her not coming down any time soon, as her eponymous debut fires out more sure things than the trusty Smith and Wesson.

That raspy vocal sound channelling Stevie Nicks and Debbie Harry at the top of their games, set over sounds that Dolly Patron would be proud to be involved with, is utterly transfixing. At just 21, Bird has a worldly knowledge to her tones well beyond her years - the most seasoned traveller would tip their hat without a doubt.

It’s unusual to see a release built on a foundation of blues standards bringing in the punters this side of the Atlantic, yet this stand-out approach takes the LP into reaches others would fear to tread.

Previous singles ‘Lottery’ and ‘I Get No

Joy’ are filled with an array of moments of lyrical genius and both come equipped with a delivery so powerful it’d do some considerable damage to even the sturdiest letterbox.

On brief occasions, the album strays slightly, and certain sections feel a little too replaceable that wouldn’t be out of place in someone else’s hands, however, when that Americana edge presents itself there’s no doubting who’s running the show.

‘Does Anybody Know’ is a gorgeous stripped-back delight which sees that vocals and acoustic guitar combination really go under the spotlight, resulting in an enrapturing ballad that’s unlikely to leave a dry eye in a single house on the street.

There’s not a person out there capable of replicating their king of passion and Bird’s character comes bounding through as if she were ripped from a Mark Twain novel. Sleep on this at your peril, missing out on a talent this phenomenal would be a truly unforgivable sin. P Ciaran Steward

Also out this week...

Blood Command Return Of The Arsonist EP Drugdealer Raw Honey Field Medic Fade Into the Dawn Heather Woods Broderick Invitation Kelsey Lu Blood Lizzo Cuz I Love You Peggy Gou Moment EP Seaway Fresh Produce Stealing Sheep Big Wows The Tallest Man on Earth I Love You. It’s a Fever Dream.

TR/ST The Destroyer 1

Grammy winners, one-time Billboard chart record-setters, Cage the Elephant have been firing off hits for over ten years, flitting between blues, garage, grunge and indie rock with ease.

Last time out ‘Tell Me I’m Pretty’ adopted some of producer Dan Auerbach’s Black Keys blues crunch, on new effort ‘Social Cues’ there’s more than a tinge of Beck’s smart alt radio-rock. He guests on the offbeat groove ‘Night Running’ but his influence can be found across the record as the Shultz brothers try their hand at a more pop-savvy brand of guitar rock.

While not breaking remarkable new ground, Cage the Elephant are more adept than most at shapeshifting through the confines of a modern guitar band. P Dillon Eastoe

GUS DAPPERTON

WHERE POLLY PEOPLE GO TO READ (AWAL RECORDINGS) eeee If pop culture in 2019 had a face, it may well resemble that of Gus Dapperton, the pastel-hued, androgynous New York twenty-something whose woozy, experimental releases so far have been a talking point in music and fashion spheres alike. His debut full-length glistens with colour and a refreshing sense of innovation, living up to all the promise of the EPs that came before it.

Bedroom pop artists are ten a penny, and it takes real talent to successfully leap over to the ‘actual serious musician’ camp. Dapperton has earned the right to that leap with this, an album that uses novelty as a Trojan horse to sneak a glistening new pop identity into the world. P Alex Cabré

FAT WHITE FAMILY SERFS UP! (DOMINO) eee Three albums in, the shock factor has worn off somewhat, and loud music from topless South Londoners is all the rage.

So how do accidental godfathers of a whole scene, Fat White Family, deal with their new status as returning legends? By calming down, taking stock and buying some pan pipes. Yes, really. New album ‘Serfs Up!’ is a radical departure from the sound the band are known for, and while there’s still a bubbling undercurrent of discord and chaos, the edges feel very much smoothed over. At its best, ‘Serfs Up!’ shows just what Fat White Family can do with decent production and some room to breathe, but more often than not it just showcases a band who are fishing around for a new direction and so far, failing to find one. P Jake Hawkes

MAY 2019

DORK

INCOMING

Sun’s out. Dork Festival Guide 2019’s out.

The essential guide to your festival season, featuring all the line-ups, tips and recommendations you need so you don’t miss a thing.

Pick up a copy from record shops and venues nationwide, or order online at readdork.com.

INCOMING

26th April 2019 SOAK

GRIM TOWN (ROUGH TRADE) eeee An announcement plays over the distinctive crack, pop and fizz of a beer can opening. A solemn train announcer warns “This train is for the lonely, the disenfranchised… the lost” as the journey sets off for ‘Grim Town’. That title could refer to an imagined location or a state of mind, but either way Bridie Monds-Watson ensures that the journey for her second album is anything but grim with a procession of lush, gorgeously-crafted pop songs. Whether it’s the traumatic memory of overhearing her parents discussing their planned divorce while she pretended to sleep (‘Fall Asleep, Backseat’) or the worries of what an unstable friend could do (‘Déjà Vu’), these are stunningly well-written and evocative moments. P Jamie MacMillan

CATFISH AND THE BOTTLEMEN

THE BALANCE (ISLAND)

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ee What kind of nightmarish Groundhog Day scenario are Catfish and the Bottlemen trapped in?

Since breaking the mainstream as rock’n’roll revivalists, a self-proclaimed antithesis to TV talent show culture, the Welsh foursome have steadily found themselves recreating the same album with no signs of improving on what was, at best, a pretty average starting point.

‘Longshot’ makes for a brash and ballsy kick off, its riffs dripping with a certain confidence mediocre men do best. From here out Van McCann ticks off every cliché in the indie frontman handbook over some of the blandest instrumentals since the last Catfish album. In resisting change, the band have shot themselves in the foot. P Alex Cabré

EZRA COLLECTIVE

YOU CAN’T STEAL MY JOY (ENTER THE JUNGLE) eeee Potent, rebellious, and uplifting, Ezra Collective’s debut ‘You Can’t Steal My Joy’ feels like the first release from the new generation of British jazz that’s ready to stretch beyond it. With the help of Jorja Smith and Loyle Carner, this is jazz at its most accessible. Not because it’s simple or cookie cutter - it’s far from it - but because the album’s influences feel more familiar. This is a group inspired as much by Sweet Female Attitude as they are the Miles Davis Quintet. UK garage and R&B are in their DNA; jazz is in their blood. It’s a mixture that’s intoxicating, and their enthusiasm shines through. ‘You Can’t Steal My Joy’ is a document of a new time; of a genre being opened up to everyone. P Dillon Eastoe MAY 2019

DORK

MARINA Love + Fear

Also out this week...

Aldous Harding Designer Bear’s Den So that you might hear me Craig Finn I Need A New War The Damned Things High Crimes Guided By Voices Warp And Woof Josh Ritter Fever Breaks Kiefer Sutherland Reckless & Me Kornél Kovács Stockholm Marathon The Mountain Goats In League With Dragons The Ninth Wave Infancy (Part I) Peakes Absent in Person EP Peter Doherty & The Puta Madres Peter Doherty & The Puta Madres Teen Daze BIOLUMINESCENCE

eeee

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e - collectively, as a planet - don’t deserve Marina. Or if we do, we certainly do not appreciate her enough. Three albums of interesting, personalityfocused pop music that always had Big Ideas behind them should, in any right-thinking universe, have made her a household name. While she’s hardly a shrinking flower in the ‘profile’ stakes, it’s still far from enough.

But not this time. This time, she means business. Shedding her ‘and the Diamonds’ postfix, Marina is blossoming into the perfect presentday pop icon. Personas and protective shields cast aside, ‘Love + Fear’ is one of the best in the game at her most open and honest.

A two-part album - ‘Love’ and, quite obviously ‘Fear’ - there’s a crystal clarity to Marina two-or-three-or-possiblyfour-point-oh. While the obvious path would lead to a juxtaposition of light and shade, Marina is smarter than that. Yes,

the second half does deal with more weighty emotion, but musically it never descends into the murky darkness, every difficult moment of introspection refusing to dwell. ‘No More Suckers’ is more of a fightback bop than a defeated lament, while ‘Soft To Be Strong’ revels in Marina’s sharp as glass falsetto. Even in its slowest moments, there’s a swell of defiance.

‘Love’, on the other hand, is where the big moments dwell. Packing most of the pre-release offerings, as well as recent Clean Bandit team-up ‘Baby’, it’s an assertively sugar-sweet collection.

‘True’ shimmers with possibility, while ‘To Be Human’ might glance at some of the more difficult aspects of modern life, but finds unity in confusion.

If anything, ‘Love + Fear’ feels like a clean slate for Marina. She’s not cast aside the things that made her great, but rather refused to compromise her vision any longer. As one of the most intriguing creative pop forces of the past decade, it’s a smart move. There’s lots to love and little to fear here. P Stephen Ackroyd

INCOMING

3rd May 2019 BILLIE MARTEN

FEEDING SEAHORSES BY HAND (SONY/CHESS CLUB) eee Rising to fame on the back of some YouTube covers, in the four years since Billie Marten has grown in confidence. Her second album, ‘Feeding Seahorses by Hand’ builds on the delicate folk songs of her debut as she moves away from her Yorkshire countryside upbringing and starting working in a busy London bar. ‘Blue Sea, Red Sea’ is a lazy day, whimsical strums and airy ‘La La’ vocals. While a nice intro, there’s stronger stuff among the album tracks. Surrounded by a shifting sea of different people with different stories, her lyrical focus moves to deal with wider issues, from politics to body image. Reaching out wider than before, Billie Marten is standing on solid ground.

P Dillon Eastoe

LOCAL NATIVES

VIOLET STREET (LOMA VISTA RECORDINGS) eeee

KING GIZZARD & THE LIZARD WIZARD FISHING FOR FISHIES (FLIGHTLESS RECORDS) eeee Environmental worries lie at the heart of ‘Fishing For Fishies’, all filtered through King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard’s fevered imagination.

Whether it is the perils of over-fishing in the title-track, or the rage against plastic in, erm, ’Plastic Boogie’, the slippery slope that the world’s ecology rests on runs through everything here.

Elsewhere, no strange stone is left unturned. ’Acarine’ for example, a song about microscopic mites, is something that you didn’t know you needed in your life. With ceaseless imagination, serious grooves, blissful flights of fancy, ‘Fishing For Fishies’ is up there with their best. P Jamie MacMillan

ALASKALASKA ALASKALASKA put personal and societal challenges under a microscope of off-kilter pop for a charming debut. Lucinda Duarte-Holman and Fraser Rieley tell us more.

Congrats on finishing your debut album, has it been a long time in the works?

Lucinda: Thank you! It depends, the writing period has been spread over the last year or so workshopping and playing some of the tracks live, but the actual recording process was quite short.

Fraser did a couple of weeks pre-production at home before heading to the studio. After that, we spent two and a half weeks actually recording everything, so it was a pretty quick turn over actually. I’m amazed we managed to get it all done and still sounding the way we wanted it to.

ALASKALASKA

THE DOTS (MARATHON ARTISTS) eeee You’d be forgiven for thinking that a six-piece band that flip between minimal beats, intense sax solos, and warped guitar riffs might be doing “a bit too much”. In any other hands, this brand of pop oddness could feel try-hard and a little obnoxious. But, luckily, ALASKALASKA know just how far to push things; letting their idiosyncrasies shine without throwing things into chaos. On their debut, ‘The Dots’, this delicate balance brings some seriously funky experimental pop out to play. The melding together of sounds and styles may not always work, but ‘The Dots’ is never boring. When that unique blend does click together, it’s as exciting as anything you’ll hear this year; an unpredictable, flawed record, but all the more human because of it. P Chris Taylor

How did you know when the album was finally finished?

Fraser: We gave ourselves a pretty strict deadline, otherwise I’d find it hard to stop. For a lot of the tracks we had firm initial ideas on how they were going to sound, but things change, you get better ideas, some things don’t work out as planned, then hopefully you reach a happy place where you’ve created something that both satisfies what you always wanted to hear, and gives you something exciting and special.

Usually, there’s a voice in the back of my head telling me something is wrong, or something is missing, so when that goes away, I’m okay with it.

Lucinda: It kinda happens in stages. The point where everyone sits back to listen to what we’ve done and nobody feels like there’s something missing, but then getting the mixes and then the masters back are also big tick boxes when it comes to the finish line. Getting everything back properly mixed is really excitingit’s like it gets a new lease of life breathed into it. Then you can just about put your feet up.

Did you go through many iterations of what you wanted the record to be, or say about you?

Lucinda: There were a couple of conceptual ideas that were

discussed at the beginning- a means of writing more but, essentially the record is like a bunch of diary entries. Lyrically there is a theme of identity politics that runs throughout - a subject I find especially fascinating.

Musically, I think we were all under the impression that we wanted to record something that had a real live element to it. We love using synths and electronic drums, but it was really important to us that you could hear the real instruments too.

You’ve said before that you enjoy your music being a little rough around the edges, what it is about that kind of sound that appeals to you?

Lucinda: It makes it human. It’s genuine.

What’s the most complimentary thing someone could say about ‘The Dots’?

Fraser: That it’s the most important popular cultural phenomenon since the ice bucket challenge. Also, I just want people to feel good when they hear it, maybe want to keep on listening to it, and feel like they get something new from it every time they do.

Anything else we should know?

Fraser: Don’t feed bread to ducks, it’s bad for them and for pond ecosystems. P

b Read more from Alaskalaska online at READDORK.COM now

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Taking something of a more mild-mannered approach to their fourth album ‘Violet Street’, Local Natives are leaning in hard to the ethereal.

Feeling like a cooling summer-breeze, they gently brush along, never erring into ‘banger’ territory and instead, letting feelings sweep you off your feet.

Truthfully, they’ve never sounded so on form. Between the majestic interludes of vocal arrangements and ambient crossfades, it’s glorious. ‘Megaton Mile’ in particular brings with it all of the above, and then some.

From the familiarity of the afro-beat drums to the rise of synths and guitars, it’s all-encompassing and will give you lovely warm shivers down your back. P Steven Loftin

Inside the album

INCOMING

3rd May 2019

VAMPIRE WEEKEND Father of the Bride eeee

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A

bsence makes the heart grow fonder, so they say, which probably explains the fever pitch of excitement that surrounds the return of Vampire Weekend.

The Stateside kings of breezy, bright indie, it’s been an impossibly long time since their last album, ‘Modern Vampires Of The City’.

Six years, in fact. In the period in-between, they’ve lost a member (though the fantastically talented Rostam Batmanglij does still contribute), offered up countless updates (for a while, the album was titled ‘Mitsubishi Macchiato’) and built up an almost unbearable level of expectation. It’s a fire frontman Ezra Koenig hasn’t been afraid to stoke, either, from a percentagebased count of the record’s completeness to the acronym tease of its title over the final few weeks. Still, good things come to those who wait, right?

Truth is, ‘Father of the Bride’ is both exactly as expected, and also completely different to anything predicted. A record drenched in a previously teased ‘springtime’ vibe, it’s never less than crispy fresh, but while Vampire Weekend’s trademark peppiness is always present, it’s never afraid to head off in new, previously untested directions. ‘My Mistake’ skips around between ideas, occasionally losing conventional form all-together, while ‘Married In The Hold Rush’ is something straight out of an indie Star Is Born - a storming country-tinged duet with Danielle Haim that’s sure to be a favourite across both bands’ not inconsiderable congregations. In fact, it’s hard to find anything that feels slavish to an old template of mid-00s indie rock past.

Take ‘Sympathy’; a whip-smart stomp, it struts with a Latin rhythm - all finger clicks and bravado - but matches that up with choral stabs

MAY 2019

DORK

After a lengthy gap between records, Vampire Weekend have returned. Spoiler alert: it was worth the wait. as sharp as a lime on the side of a spicy dish. Or ‘Sunflower’ - the dobe-do-be-do song that arrived in one of the record’s preview drops.

Neither feels like it’s been lifted from a textbook - both feel like something altogether new.

That’s not to say ‘Father of the Bride’ is a short, sharp shock or a radical change of direction. This isn’t Radiohead’s ‘Kid A’ in boating shoes. It’s something new, but also something familiar. Never experimental for the sake of it, instead it’s a positive meeting place of new ideas - an evolution bordering on a revolution. If anything, it’s the sound of a band who have continued to progress in the time in-between albums, rather than standing still, letting the sands of father time bury them alive. Vampire Weekend still have our attention. Just don’t keep us waiting so long next time, eh? P Stephen Ackroyd

JOHNNY LLOYD

NEXT EPISODE STARTS IN 15 SECONDS (XTRA MILE) eee Until their disband six years ago, Johnny Lloyd was the leather-clad, floppy-haired leader of garage-rock rascals Tribes, but those crashing cymbals and scream-until-yourthroat’s-raw anthems are no longer in the picture. Billed as a new chapter in Lloyd’s career, ‘Next Episode…’ more closely resembles a goodbye to an already long-gone golden era. For the most part, the album is a much more sombre collection of songs that finds Johnny getting to grips with settling down into the humdrum of growing up, realised through a gentle, alt-folk sound.

It’s on ‘Modern Pornography’ that he says it best: “We used to have it all knocking at the door / when did it all get so sad?’. P Alex Cabré

INCOMING

SPINN

TEN TONNES

SPINN (MODERN SKY) eeee Four cheeky lads from Liverpool with jangly guitars, an effervescent lead vocalist and songs that get teenagers dancing. Sure, it might not be the newest concept, but SPINN unleash a new take on the indie pop game with their self-titled debut.

Frontman Johnny Quinn sings along classic motifs of love and loss, each word laced with comfort and assurance.

His on-stage dance moves - if that’s what you want to call them - can almost be heard on the record. There’s a welcome charm befitting of The Cure throughout; SPINN are one of the most exciting up-and-coming bands out there, and their first LP shows that behind those mischievous grins is a group of young men with incredible talent. P Ciaran Steward

TACOCAT

THIS MESS IS A PLACE (SUB POP) eeee Seattle’s Tacocat have always shined brightest when bringing a certain level of absurdity to weighty political and social themes. Written in the shadow of 2016’s US elections, ‘This Mess Is A Place’ consequently has a wealth of material to feed off – and it doesn’t disappoint. Such sentiments are perfectly expressed on the likes of ‘New World’, a biting three-minute pop gem that wishes for the creation of a new, fairer society. “I woke up today, and everything was better, put back together, rearranged,” sings Emily Noakes – it’s not hard to understand such desires.

Easy on the ear and endlessly engaging, the band excels at delivering short and snappy, socially-conscious, pop-punk.

P Rob Mair

FRANK CARTER AND THE RATTLESNAKES

END OF SUFFERING (INTERNATIONAL DEATH CULT) eeee Songs like ‘Heartbreaker’ and ‘Kitty Sucker’ sum up what Frank Carter has aimed to do with ‘End of Suffering’: a shot at the mainstream rock sphere with his vitriol intact. Fans of his heavier output will undoubtedly be disappointed, but there’s no need to be: this album contains some of Carter’s best work. On ‘Angel Wings’, his vocal performance is intense, fierce, and dark, while on ‘End of Suffering’, the vocals are wonderfully tender as he sings about his worries of being a father. ’End of Suffering’ ranges from being ridiculously catchy to visceral to heartfelt and has a real shot of being one of 2019’s great rock records. P Joshua Williams

Ten Tonnes

DRAHLA

USELESS COORDINATES (CAPTURED TRACKS) eee Drahla aren’t like most of those other bands. They’re a living, shifting force - swapping instruments during live shows, casting aside traditional song structures and relying entirely on their own instincts.

Though their foundations lie in angular post-punk, there’s much more to their debut album ‘Useless Coordinates’.

Everything thrives of juxtaposition and a refusal to worry about expectation.

As the sparks fly, it’s an energy that’s nothing short of infectious. P Dan Harrison

eeee

T

he long-awaited debut from the artist known to everyone but his mum as Ten Tonnes, is the perfect moment to blow those winter clouds away and start praying for summer sunshine. With an ex-Maccabee co-producing and an ex-Kaiser Chief amongst the co-writers, it is a record with a rich indie pop heritage that dances its way through the life and loves of one Ethan Barnett.

Sharing the same love of classic pop rock with bands like The Kooks, the album couldn’t fit any more huge, festival-ready singalong choruses and nagging melodies in if it tried. Debut single ‘Lucy’ is given a polish and an upgrade early on, meanwhile if you could bottle up ‘G.I.V.E.’ and ‘Counting

Down’ and spray it over the country, then everything would probably feel a whole lot better. ‘Look What You Started’ and ‘Silver Heat’ might ramp up the volume, even chucking in a cheeky f-bomb or two, but it never stops feeling like you’re in the middle of the friendliest party in town.

While most of the record is built on the adventures of someone who is very-nearly-but-not-quite lucky in love, it is also the tale of life in a town that you want to escape but miss like hell when you do - ’Nights In, Nights Out’ and ‘Wake Up’ adding some more weight as they yearn for something more. By the time ‘Lay It On Me’ rolls in like an encore though, it is back to the sort of banger territory that will find its natural home when we are all singing our hearts out in a field somewhere this summer. P Jamie MacMillan

Also out this week...

Barrie Happy To Be Here Benedict Benjamin Truant Big Thief U.F.O.F. Body Type EP2 Club Kuru Meet Your Maker Drahla Useless Coordinates Editors The Blanck Mass Sessions The Felice Brothers Undress Filthy Friends Emerald Valley Jesse Mac Cormack Now Little May Blame My Body Merrick’s Tusk Between The Earth And The Trees New Found Glory From the Screen to Your Stereo 3 Oh Land Family Tree Saint Agnes Welcome to Silvertown Wooze what’s on your mind? EP

READDORK.COM

A J T R A C E Y A S W AY Z E A N D T H E G H O S T S A N N A C A LV I A P R E BANG BANG ROMEO BLACK MIDI BLACK PEAKS C H A I C H I L D R E N O F Z E U S C O N A N G R AY C O N F I D E N C E M A N C O N N I E C O N S TA N C E CRACK CLOUD DU BLONDE E L D E R I S L A N D FAT W H I T E FA M I LY F L A M I N G O D S F R A N K C A R T E R & T H E R AT T L E S N A K E S FLOHIO G G A L L A N PA R T R I D G E G E O R G I A GIRL IN RED GIUNGLA G R A H A M VA N P E LT GREENTEA PENG HAELOS INDOOR PETS INJURY RESERVE JAMBINAI J AY K A E J O Y C R O O K E S K AW A L A K E YA H / B L U LAURA MISCH LEISURE LEWSBERG LIELA MOSS LITTLE SIMZ M HUNCHO MAISIE PETERS MIINK M I N I M A N S I O N S M U R K A G E D AV E O H L A N D OUR GIRL PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIP BLOM PIROSHKA POM POKO PONGO RADIANT CHILDREN SELF ESTEEM SPORTS TEAM SNAPPED ANKLES STEAM DOWN STILL WOOZY SURFBORT THE AMAZONS THE BETHS THE RHYTHM METHOD TOURIST VIAGRA BOYS YVES TUMOR ZUZU

Academy Events present ACADEMY EVENTS & FRIENDS PRESENTS

JULY 2019 29 BRIGHTON The Prince Albert 30 LONDON O 2 Academy Islington 31 BIRMINGHAM O 2 Academy3

ACADEMY EVENTS, SCRUFF OF THE NECK AND FRIENDS PRESENTS

PLUS GUESTS

REV MAGNETIC

AUGUST 2019 01 DUBLIN The Sound House 02 MANCHESTER Night People 03 EXETER Tunes In The Castle 04 CORNWALL The Watering Hole 05 BRISTOL Louisiana

LIME CORDIALE presents

26TH MAY 2019 O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON LONDON

12 13 14 16 17

M AY 2 019

BRISTOL The Fleece MANCHESTER The Deaf Institute GLASGOW King Tuts LONDON O2 Academy Islington BIRMINGHAM O2 Institute2

SWERVEDRIVER.COM Academy Events & CLUB.THE.MAMMOTH present

plus guests

KALLI MA

NEW ALBUM ‘FUTURE RUINS’ OUT NOW

An Academy Events presentation by arrangement with Future Agency

02.05.19 O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON LONDON

ACADEMY EVENTS by arrangement with UNITED TALENT AGENCY present

Weds 22nd May 2019 O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON LONDON plus special guests

MANDODIAO.COM

FRIDAY 10th MAY 2019 O2 ACADEMY ISLINGTON, LONDON FACEBOOK.COM/SHOWHAWKDUO

TICKETMASTER.CO.UK & ALL USUAL AGENTS

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? Asking the usual stuff is so boring

What was the first record you ever bought?

‘Dookie’ by Green Day. I thought I was so tight too; I brought it with me to dinner with my family when I first got it because that’s punk as fuck.

NO SHHH PLEASE DON’T” and she started showing everyone pictures of me on her phone from shows, and they were like “oo cool!”

And I legit wanted to die holy fuck my skin is crawling hahahahaha. That was the worst.

What did you last dream about?

Man, I keep a dream log, but honestly, they’ve all been bad on this tour, so I quit writing them down.

They’re either apocalyptic or super mundane.

Have you ever seen a ghost?

I definitely have. Before we were touring full time, I spent most of my free time ghost hunting and going to haunted places. I miss doing all that, but things are actually going well now so I kinda wanna keep potential bad energy away from me.

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What’s the most impressive thing you can cook?

Listen to me right goddamn now; I make the best salmon you or anyone will ever eat.

Have you ever had an imaginary friend?

Absolutely! I’m still not fully convinced Otto is actually a physical being; no real person should have those abs without working out.

How tall are you?

6’11”. I can’t shop at the mall.

If you won the lottery, what would you spend the cash on?

I’d buy my parents a new car first. My dad loves his but it’s way too small, I worry about some dumbdick hitting him on the way to work.

What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?

Okay, I don’t get embarrassed by much at all, and I’m usually fine in

MAY 2019

DORK

This month

AWSTEN KNIGHT, WATERPARKS awkward situations. BUT. BUT. There was this time I was out to dinner with my parents (I gotta ease up on mentioning my parents, jeez) and this drunk lady thought I was some guy from American Idol and was legitimately losing her mind and asked for a picture and then all her drunk friends started freaking out and the manager lady came out and wanted a picture because a famous person was in her restaurant and I kept trying to explain to them that I’m not that guy and they thought I was just trying to be modest and be lowkey.

So at this point, everyone in the restaurant was looking, and my goblin shit little sister was just fucking laaaaaughing, and I was trying to tell everyone I’m not that guy and FINALLY, some girl goes, “wait that’s not even HIM, I Google imaged him, that’s not even HIM.” And everyone seemed so disappointed and even a little mad like I deceived them and I was like “I WAS TELLING YOU THAT OMG”, and it could’ve been done there but then my mom was like “BUT HE IS A SINGER THOUGH” and I was like “MOM PLEASE

What was the naughtiest thing you did at school?

Only perverts and Mary Poppins call things naughty, who are you.

How punk are you out of ten?

Ten. I’m New Punk though.

I like to shower; I’m not broke anymore, I go to bed by 11pm, I keep my place super clean and organised.

We’re out here making good decisions and forming good habits now because we deserve it.

Why are you like this?

Incredible? Tall?

Handsome? Powerful?

Kind? Humble? Tall?

Genetics, maybe. Or perhaps something more sinister to outside parties.

Follow me on Twitter. P Waterparks play this year’s Slam Dunk, which takes place in Leeds (25th May) and Hatfield (26th).

DORK

Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Events Liam James Ward Scribblers Alex Cabré, Ciaran Steward, Dan Harrison, Dillon Eastoe, Jack Press, Jake Hawkes, Jamie MacMillan, Jenessa Williams, Jessica Goodman, Josh Williams, Rob Mair, Sam Taylor, Steven Loftin Snappers Frances Beach, Jamie MacMillan, Nicole Nodland, Sarah Louise Bennett Doodlers Russell Taysom

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Etc. These lines Make it look Like the line Up is in here but it isn’t. Bloxx are playing tho

July 2019.

LOCAL NATIVES

26.04.19

FEAT. CAFÉ AMARILLO & WHEN AM I GONNA LOSE YOU

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