Dork, September 2019

Down with boring

Rejoice!

MUNA are here to save the world.

Issue 36 September 2019 readdork.co.uk

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INDEX

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September 2019 | readdork.com | Down With Boring

32

Ø4 Intro 28 Hype 14

ED’S LETTER MUNA

Back with their second album ‘Saves The World’, chances are they actually just might.

40

THE MURDER CAPITAL

Arriving to great expectations, Ireland’s latest exports are meeting them with ease.

54

EZRA FURMAN

Yeah, everythng is rubbish, but Ezra Furman is using it to fuel the fire.

32 Features 64 Incoming

Oh God! Sound the Major Pop Emergency klaxon, Dear Reader. This month, we’ve reached a critical mass of awesome.

Obviously, that includes our cover stars, the mighty, magnificent, make-up-yourown-alliterative-adjective MUNA. Their debut album soundtracked the creation of some of Dork’s earliest issues, culminating in a windy rooftop London photoshoot back in 2017. Now they’re back, it seems only natural they should take our most glittering prize.

After all, they are here to save the world.

But this isn’t just a one-act event. Far from it. From the panic-inducing return of The 1975 - countdowns and all to fizzing new albums from Shura, The Murder Capital, Ezra Furman and ‘more’, that lazy summer break is well and truly over.

Or nearly, anyway. At the time of press, Reading & Leeds 2019 is quickly appearing over the horizon. We’ve tried to pull together some of the must see moments to make sure everyone is properly prepared, but check on readdork.com over the August Bank Holiday weekend for loads, loads more.

READING + LEEDS 2019

Your essential preview.

38

THE S.L.P.

Serge is playing by his own rules now.

44

ETC. 2019

What went down as our annual free music festival hits a sticky London town.

50

SHURA

Relationships, eh? Great, but also good material for a new album.

Adam Green 18, 69, 70

Mabel

Angel Olsen

27

Maggie Rogers

19

Barns Courtney

69

MØ

10

Bastille

13

Mosa Wild

Bat For Lashes

69

MUNA

Beach Baby

68

Mystery Jets

25

Biig Piig

30

Oh Sees

65

Billie Eilish

15

Pale Waves

Blanck Mass

65

Perfume Genius

26

Brockhampton

27

Phoebe Bridgers

26

Charli XCX

22

Pumarosa

22

Chvrches

8

PVRIS

16

CRX

66

Dave

15

Egyptian Blue

30

Everything Everything

10

Ezra Furman Florence + the Machine

58

FRIENDLY FIRES

Over eight years since their last album, the indie dance floor titans have returned.

MABEL

Meet UK pop’s latest superstar.

EDITOR @STEPHENACKROYD

54, 68 12

Foals

21, 22

Friendly Fires

58, 65

George Ezra Grace Lightman

62

S tephen

** BAND INDEX ** BAND INDEX **

Haim

9, 19 48 22

Hanna Vu

30

Husky Loops

69

Jay Som

6, 66

Joe Keery

27

62

49 32, 69

9

Ride

65

Shura

50, 65

Sleater-Kinney

64

Spector

44

Sports Team

15

Talk Show

31

Tegan and Sara

22

The 1975

4, 14

The Amazons

16

The Big Moon

9, 24

The Futureheads The Murder Capital

68

40, 65

The Night Café

17, 66

The S.L.P.

38, 68

The Wha

30

King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard 65

The Wombats

70

L Devine

28

Tropical Fuck Storm 66

Lana Del Rey

10

Whitney

Lauran Hibberd

26

Will Joseph Cook

25

Lauv

26

Wolf Alice

20

11, 68

ON THE DORK STEREO THIS MONTH...

THE 1975

planet, people.

The 1975 Skip over the page if you want to read more about the first music we’ve heard from ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’, but it’s a) Important and b) actually really rather moving. Save the

FOALS Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost part 2 We’re probably not allowed to say much about the second installment of Foals’ 2019 odyssey, but it a) fits the advertised remit

of ‘bangers’ and b) contains Actual Plinky Ploink.

OSCAR LANG Bops Etc. Call your EP ‘Bops Etc.’ and it should contain what it says on the tin. It does, too. One to watch very closely indeed.

NEW MUSIC. NO ALGORITHMS.

DORK radio TUNE IN 24/7/365 readdork.com/radio

READDORK.COM

INTRO 4

IF IT’S NOT IN HERE, IT’S NOT HAPPENING. OR WE FORGOT. ONE OR THE OTHER.

“IT IS TIME TO REBEL”

The 1975 and climate change activist Greta Thunberg have joined forces to deliver an important message as the band kick off their ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ era on a mission to save the planet.

When the 1975 deactivated their socials earlier last month, everyone knew they'd be back. Generally, it's 24 hours or so of silence, and then something new.

But few were expecting what actually went down as the clock ticked over into Thursday 25th July, and the band came sparking back into life with new music, a new countdown,

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a date for their next album 'Notes On A Conditional Form', and a message more vital than all of that put together.

We know - it's hard to keep up with the 1975 hype at the best of times, so we've tried to put the important crib notes from the mayhem that followed into one place. Dive in!

The 1975’s fourth album, ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’, will be released on 21st February 2020.

Yep. That’s next year. Further away than we maybe expected, but also a firm date to aim for. You can do a lot in 210 days, Dear Reader.

To start with, there’s a new version of ‘The 1975’, the band’s traditional album opener, and you can stream it now.

As anyone with half a finger on the zeitgeisty

CH-CH-CHECK OUT

WHITNEY

JAY SOM

With her second album, Melina Duterte’s dream pop universe is only expanding. p6

With their much anticipated second album, Chicago’s Whitney are exploring the bond that keeps them together. p11

WE ARE RIGHT NOW IN THE BEGINNING OF A CLIMATE AND ECOLOGICAL CRISIS. AND WE NEED TO CALL IT WHAT IT IS. AN EMERGENCY. WE MUST ACKNOWLEDGE THAT WE DO NOT HAVE THE SITUATION UNDER CONTROL AND THAT WE DON’T HAVE ALL THE SOLUTIONS YET. UNLESS THOSE SOLUTIONS MEAN THAT WE SIMPLY STOP DOING CERTAIN THINGS. WE ADMIT THAT WE ARE LOSING THIS BATTLE. WE HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THE OLDER GENERATIONS HAVE FAILED. ALL POLITICAL MOVEMENTS IN THEIR PRESENT FORM HAVE FAILED. BUT HOMO SAPIENS HAVE NOT YET FAILED. YES, WE ARE FAILING, BUT THERE IS STILL TIME TO TURN EVERYTHING AROUND. WE CAN STILL FIX THIS. WE STILL HAVE EVERYTHING IN OUR OWN HANDS. BUT UNLESS WE RECOGNISE THE OVERALL FAILURES OF OUR CURRENT SYSTEMS, WE MOST PROBABLY DON’T STAND A CHANCE. WE ARE FACING A DISASTER OF UNSPOKEN SUFFERINGS FOR ENORMOUS AMOUNTS OF PEOPLE. AND NOW IS NOT THE TIME FOR SPEAKING POLITELY OR FOCUSING ON WHAT WE CAN OR CANNOT SAY. NOW IS THE TIME TO SPEAK CLEARLY. SOLVING THE CLIMATE CRISIS IS THE GREATEST AND MOST COMPLEX CHALLENGE THAT HOMO SAPIENS HAVE EVER FACED. THE MAIN SOLUTION, HOWEVER, IS SO SIMPLE THAT EVEN A SMALL CHILD CAN UNDERSTAND IT. WE HAVE TO STOP OUR EMISSIONS OF GREENHOUSE GASES. AND EITHER WE DO THAT, OR WE DON’T.

platform - far from it - but by placing EITHER WE AVOID SETTING OFF THAT IRREVERSIBLE CHAIN REACTION BEYOND HUMAN her front and CONTROL, OR WE DON’T. EITHER WE CHOOSE TO GO ON AS A CIVILISATION OR WE DON’T. centre on the THAT IS AS BLACK OR WHITE AS IT GETS. opening salvo BECAUSE THERE ARE NO GREY AREAS WHEN IT COMES TO SURVIVAL. of the biggest NOW WE ALL HAVE A CHOICE. moment to date WE CAN CREATE TRANSFORMATIONAL ACTION THAT WILL SAFEGUARD THE LIVING CONDITIONS FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS. for the most OR WE CAN CONTINUE WITH OUR BUSINESS AS USUAL AND FAIL. buzz-tastic THAT IS UP TO YOU AND ME. band in the AND YES, WE NEED A SYSTEM CHANGE RATHER THAN INDIVIDUAL CHANGE. BUT YOU CANNOT HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER. UK, it’s gonna IF YOU LOOK THROUGH HISTORY, ALL THE BIG CHANGES IN SOCIETY HAVE BEEN STARTED reach a whole

BY PEOPLE AT THE GRASSROOTS LEVEL. PEOPLE LIKE YOU AND ME. SO, I ASK YOU TO PLEASE WAKE UP AND MAKE THE CHANGES REQUIRED POSSIBLE. TO DO load of people YOUR BEST IS NO LONGER GOOD ENOUGH. WE MUST ALL DO THE SEEMINGLY IMPOSSIBLE. it otherwise TODAY, WE USE ABOUT 100 MILLION BARRELS OF OIL EVERY SINGLE DAY. THERE ARE NO wouldn’t.

POLITICS TO CHANGE THAT. THERE ARE NO RULES TO KEEP THAT OIL IN THE GROUND. SO, WE CAN NO LONGER SAVE THE WORLD BY PLAYING BY THE RULES. BECAUSE THE RULES People who HAVE TO BE CHANGED. engage and are EVERYTHING NEEDS TO CHANGE. AND IT HAS TO START TODAY. engage-able.

SO, EVERYONE OUT THERE, IT IS NOW TIME FOR CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE. People who will take up that call. As she says herself in the track: “there Remarkable Greta Thunberg, are no grey areas when it comes to who delivers a powerful message survival” on climate change and our need You can read the full lyrics from the to rebel. track to the right, and listen online Seriously - it would be so easy to now. throw side eye at a touring band All proceeds from the track, recorded for pushing this message. To claim in Stockholm in late June, will go to it’s cynical, or opportunistic. pulse knows, every album from the Extinction Rebellion at Thunberg’s But bollocks to that. That isn’t the 1975 starts with a song titled ‘The request. point, nor, 1975’. The previous three albums truthfully, shared that opening track, but reObviously, what imagined it to set the tone for the because it’s honestly album which would follow. This is a the 1975, seems to be departure from that tradition. The there’s then a the 1975’s latest take - which will be track 1 on countdown. intention ‘Notes On A Conditional Form’ - is Running on the here. It’s not the first taster we’re getting of the band’s website that Greta new record, and it’s a very special and leading up Thunberg one. That’s because... to 7:30pm on lacks Thursday, 22nd her own YOU SAY THAT NOTHING IN LIFE IS BLACK OR WHITE. BUT THAT IS A LIE. A VERY DANGEROUS LIE.

READING + LEEDS 2019

Everything you need to see at this year’s Bank Holiday blowout. p14

August, it’s labelled as ‘The 1975 - People’.

As any pop watcher will be able to tell you, 7:30pm on a Thursday is THE prime pre-New Music Friday Hottest Record slot on BBC Radio 1. The band will be ‘about’ for their headline set at Reading and Leeds the following weekend. Expect to see them pop up with Annie Mac to debut the first single proper from ‘Notes...’.

EITHER WE PREVENT A 1.5 DEGREE OF WARMING, OR WE DON’T.

It features the Really Quite

Matty Healy shared an image earlier this year including what are almost certainly lyrics from the track. See (above)?

From the looks of iTunes, ‘People’ is track two on ‘Notes...’

You can pre-add the album on various streaming services now. That confirms the release date, but also suggests ‘People’ will take the same slot on the record that ‘Give Yourself A Try’ did on ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’. Expect a banger.

It also perhaps suggests that ‘Notes...’ may be as long as 22 tracks!

Take this one under advisement, but the iTunes listing for the album goes right up to Track 22. Other track names we’ve seen hinted at for this record include ‘Jesus christ 2005 god bless america’, ‘The Birthday Party’ and ‘Gokotta’.

We’re pretty sure the band haven’t finished work on ‘Notes...’ yet, so it’s unlikely a final track listing may even have been set - this could be a placeholder for a maximum length.

Or, alternatively, we could be over thinking it. Or both. Probably both.

But still - don’t expect it to be 9 tracks and done in under half an hour.

That’s not the 1975. P The 1975’s album ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ is out 21st February 2020.

READDORK.COM

5

IT IS TIME TO REBEL.

We’ve already had a hint at what ‘People’ is.

INTRO

Written mostly in a burst during a self-imposed week-long solo retreat, Melina Duterte’s second full-length as Jay Som is a dream pop delight.

WORDS: MARTYN YOUNG.

6

MUSICIANS ARE OFTEN CREATURES OF HABIT,

used to their own distinct ways of working.

It takes a special character to recognise the possibilities of shaking things up. For Melina Duterte and her Jay Som project, a change of environment and working practices has brought about a step-change on her musical voyage of discovery with her compelling second full-length album, ‘Anak Ko’.

Speaking from her new home in Los Angeles, it’s obvious that Melina is excited about this record, and with good reason - this is Jay Som firmly making a significant stride forward.

“When I finish something, especially a body of work like an album, I want to release it right now. I want everybody to hear it!” she enthuses.

The journey to the musical awakening of ‘Anak Ko’ is one of self-discovery and reflection after the initial thrill of finding success with her early super-hyped recordings. Indeed, the album’s title meaning ‘my child’ in Filipino is representative of a body of work that has been clearly nurtured and cared for. The start of the process saw a period of self-care as Melina sought to decompress after the whirlwind accompanying her acclaimed debut album in 2017.

“I was coming off the crazy wave post ‘Everybody Works’,” she explains. “When I did that record, I was freshly signed, and I was wideeyed to the industry. I was excited about the new opportunities. I feel like it got burned out too fast at the end of that, though. When you’re a new artist, you have to tour a lot. We ended up touring for eight months out of the year.”

“I came off tour, and I was like, oh my god, I really want to make music now, but I was also so tired and just wanted a break from music. It was a mix of being emotional and being motivated to make a new record. It took a while for all the pieces to come together. It didn’t become fully realised until I moved to LA,” she adds.

It was moving to LA from her native Bay Area

SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

that prompted a spark of creativity. There were That opened up so many different perspectives a wealth of positives that make LA a welcoming for me, and I’ve met so many people and been place for working musicians, some more simply given great advice. I’ve had so many mentors. My elemental than others. music is a culmination of all these experiences “I knew I had to live somewhere in California packed into one. It’s all in this record.” because it’s very easy to be inspired by your In contrast to her other records as Jay Som, home. Having somewhere sunny is also really this is her first album where Melina doesn’t play important,” she laughs. “This is a hub of every single note herself. While still producing entertainment, a lot of people in the music the record and being the driving force it was industry are here, a lot of people have the same liberating for her not to have to do everything job, and they’re grinding the same way. So I was as she enlisted a group of long-time friends like, oh, I want to be just like these people and and musical collaborators including Laetitia work really hard at my craft but at the same time, Tamkofrom Vagabon, Taylor Vick from Boy it’s super distracting as there’s so much to do.”

Scouts and cult LA singer Justus Proffit.

In an effort to avoid “It felt really good to let go the distractions of one of of the perfectionist control the music industry’s most person,” explains Melina. “I powerful cities, Melina took was really overworking myself herself off to the spiritual on the previous records. I wilderness paradise of just wanted to learn how California’s Joshua Tree to play every instrument National Park. It was here myself, and I just wanted to that the album’s effervescent prove something to myself. lushness and rich musical It’s good to loosen the reigns tapestry really took shape. It a little bit though. I have so Melina Duterte was a place that was in tune many talented friends, so why with Melina’s way of working wouldn’t I record them? They and the tranquillity was inspiring. brought so many different styles to the table.

“A lot of my songs are about being in touch The best thing you can ask for is a very seamless with your emotions and sitting with them and not collaboration from your friends.” trying to be chaotic,” she says. “When I’m writing The importance of community and finding a music, it’s always about practising patience.” place where you can feel loved and enriched both The period of making the album saw huge personally and professionally is at the heart of changes in both Melina’s professional and ‘Anak Ko’, and it’s driven Melina to make an album personal life. She left home, fell in love and that is supremely moving with an affecting tender even quit drinking for good. Her career was heart, perhaps it’s best exemplified by album blossoming, and she felt ready to make the songs track ‘Nighttime Drive’. that matched her new exalted clarity.

“It’s about my life for the past few years,” she “I feel like I had to grow up a lot the past three says about the record’s standout moment. It’s an or four years,” she says reflectively. “I got signed ode to my touring mates, and it’s about us, them to a label really young and started experiencing and me and everything we’ve gone through.” P Jay Som’s album ‘Anak Ko’ is out 23rd August. things and was thrust into the touring world.

"I have so many talented friends, so why wouldn’t I record them?"

INTRO

INTRO

What went down at...

LATITUDE

Suffolk’s premier music extravaganza draws some A list names. Here’s the best of what we saw.

Words: Steven Loftin, Jamie MacMillan.

Photos: Jamie Macmillan, Patrick Gunning.

8

FRIDAY

There’s something oddly satisfying about Queen Zee using their platform on the Lake Stage on a sunny Friday afternoon, in front of crowds of families, and teens looking for a politically charged spokesperson. “This one’s for Boris!” singer Zee smirks as they crack into a particularly riled number.

Bejewelled, bedazzled and befitting of a Vegas show, Jenny Lewis is entering her phase as the new Dolly Parton with extreme poise and grace. Backlit by country-tinged jams that have an indie DNA, every moment is artful.

Tucked away in the depths of the forest, so devastating is the one-two of Crows and The Murder Capital that it comes as a surprise that the trees still stand afterwards.

Emerging to an initially timid crowd, Crows waste no time. Partway through the set, it’s like a switch has been flicked as the front becomes a mass of writhing bodies.

With hardly time to draw breath in between, it’s then the turn of Dublin’s The Murder Capital to devastate the ears. With still only three singles to their name, it’s a testament to their power that the majority of the crowd hang on their every breath like an established act. The intensity of ‘On Twisted Ground’ brings the whole tent to a simmer before ‘Feeling Fades’ finally lets it all boil over. The big time beckons for sure.

Under the gracing shade of the Sunrise Arena, Foxing are taking a final bow before a bit of a break to focus on the future of the band, and what a way to do it. Building intimate emo jams into briefly chaotic cacophony, it’s as unifying as it is aweSEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

inspiring.

Popping back for his third time in Suffolk, Loyle Carner’s arrival on stage also brings with it a brief downpour.

“Sorry about the rain!” he says as if we’d ever believe he’d do such a thing to us. As thousands of arms take their place, rhythmically up and down in the air, Loyle carries about his football shirt-adorning bedroom setup backdrop.

The thick clouds that have been threatening to take action all day are hung behind his stage, but the real lightning storm is front and centre.

2019

SATURDAY

Just about making her set after rain and thunder stop play, Zuzu’s brings a mix dreamy, playful and lively tunes that make up for almost lost time.

It’s easy to forget how much of a bonafide pop star Marina Diamandis actually is. From On a day where the Main Stage line-up her days with The shows that any festival that doesn’t achieve Diamonds to her gender parity just isn’t trying (6 out of 7 acts new, singular are female-led), Chvrches are perhaps the Marina era, there best of the lot. Their rise to the top of festival have been no line-ups (no matter the genre) has been shortcuts, and glorious to watch, and so is their set today. her set proves it.

“I’m the height of shite, and that was a big Bringing jump,” Lauren laughs after jumping off the together the riser at one point, but it’s no big jump to see indie-pop the Glaswegians headlining these sort of Marina of old stages very soon. With a setlist strewn with and her new popseismic moments, this is very much another sheen, she pom defining set. poms around and explores

Chvrches

INTRO every inch of the stage. Breakout hit ‘Hollywood’ features choreographed dancing, while ‘FROOT’ brings a nice bow to all she’s achieved.

Over the years Lake Stage has seen its fair share of bands trundling through on their way to higher billings, and it’s hard to not think the same is in store for Easy Life. A swarm of bodies fill the arena in front of them as the multi-instrumental fivepiece take to the stage to regal lo-fi beat-driven, indie, horn-littered, environmental-conscious jams that embody the essence of the next great generation.

Q+A

Pale Waves It’s no secret Pale Waves are Dork faves.

We’ve loved the goth-poppers since day one, and since they’re a bloody hardworking band - playing not one but two sets at this year’s Latitude. Since it’s nearly been a year since the release of debut ‘My Mind Makes Noises’ we grabbed a bit of time backstage with guitarist and singer Heather Baron-Gracie and drummer Ciara Doran to see how things are going.

Hiya Pale Waves, how are you doing?

Heather: Good, yeah. We’ve just arrived at the festival, so it’s exciting.

Ciara: We’ve never been here before.

SUNDAY

The Big Moon

Oh god, it’s good to have them back. As much of a ‘remember us?’ set as it is an introduction to their new material, it’s just a pleasure to have The Big Moon playing again. With grins as wide as the moon itself, it’s obviously just as much of a buzz for the famous four.

Sure, they play ‘Formidable’ and ‘Cupid’ and the rest, but it’s the new songs that prick the ears up. ‘Don’t Think’ is the highlight on first listen, a slinky and dark update to the classic Blondie template that sounds like it’s going to be the next earworm in their already packed collection.

Headliner

So you’re playing a Main Stage set AND a secret set, how did that come about?

Heather: I don’t actually know. We just get told, ‘you’re doing two sets today’.

It’s going to be fun because we’re going from Main Stage to BBC Introducing, so completely different.

George Ezra

There are many ways to define a perfect festival moment. Sometimes it’s the birth of a superstar in the making or a coronation of the year’s most-hyped. But then sometimes it’s just the sheer undiluted pleasure of standing with 30,000 others in a field watching the pop juggernaut that is George Ezra roll out a selection of his finest bangers. The excited screams barely subside from first glimpse to the final blast of ‘Shotgun’, the welloiled machine making another stop on his way to global dominance. With as many kids on shoulders as there are drunk dads dancing, it’s very much a show for all ages, as well as for the ages. Before he slips away for another song-writing voyage, it’s one last chance to bask in the warm glow of that grin and those tunes.

How has the rest of the year been for you?

Heather: Amazing so far, we’ve done so many great things, like support ‘75, then Muse, and loads of festivals - just really busy, but also productive because we’ve been writing loads.

What’s the rest of the year looking like?

Ciara: We’re going to try and record an album.

Straight into an album, as opposed to doing another EP? Heather: I think so, that’s kind of what it’s looking at right now anyway, diving deep into the second album.

Ciara: The second album needs to be really good, so if we don’t take the pressure off with an EP we can really focus on the writing and the album.

Have all the experiences you’ve gone through influenced it?

Ciara: We’ve been writing since we finished the last album.

Heather: Yeah, I feel like it needs to be some sort of progression. So we’re being mentally aware of that and seeing what we could’ve done better on the first album, and getting more creative. P

READDORK.COM

9

Given it’s a homecoming of sorts for Norfolkians Let’s Eat Grandma, everything feels supremely understated as they crack on with the final day of Latitude. Playing on the BBC Sounds stage in front of a giant ‘Slaves’ banner, everything just feels a bit off and, even as the thunderous ‘Hot Pink’ finds its ground, nothing quite sticks.

With the sun beating down and Sigrid’s positivity sweeping across the crowd, anything seems possible. First of the big hitters, ‘Don’t Kill My Vibe’ is the first big hitter to poke its head up and what a reaction it gets. Dedicated to the younger participants in the crowds, it’s an all-out party. The knockout one-two of ‘Strangers’ and ‘Don’t Feel Like Crying’ is momentous, proving that Sigrid could well have the power to one day leap her way to top billing.

It’s not ideal for Pale Waves at Latitude. Baking hot temperatures

INTRO that would melt anyone wearing black in mere seconds make for a very sleepy Main Stage field. Despite the best efforts of their hardcore fans at the front, their sound drifts across half-comatose punters.

Later, in a secret set deep in the woods, everything is different.

Up close and very personal, they feel like a whole new band and relight that deliciously dark fire once more. P

Q+A

10

Lana Del Rey

Down on the east coast, they got a sayin’, and that be when Lana Del Rey comes to town, it’s going to be ‘A Moment’.

A far cry from her California stomping grounds, Suffolk is treated to a Lana extravaganza to close out this year’s edition. Bringing the Americana dream to the east coast, usually, they’re worlds apart, but for one night only, they’re one and the same.

Finally appearing twenty minutes after her stage time, just as the crowd is beginning to get a bit restless,

all is forgiven the moment ‘Born To Die’ surfaces in all its dripping melodramatic glory. Backdropped by stylistic fauna, American flags - but in a cool, chic Hollywood way, not a MAGA Trump way - all of a sudden Henham Park is under her spell, and we’re here for every minute of it.

Effortless and flawless in every way, each movement is meant to evoke an emotional reaction.

Coupling the stage imagery and lyrical prowess, the world Lana has built around herself is a behemoth that just keeps on growing, and it’s moments like these that remind you why.

Meeting fans, signing photos - phones in shaking

hands clambering for selfies, while ethereal noises are played by the band - Lana knows this is the crowd’s moment as much it is hers. Returning to the stage with cards and gifts, sunflowers and books (The Great Gatsby and Sylvia Plath, ‘FYI’).

‘Video Games’,’ Off To The Races’ are the closing numbers that see near catatonic levels of swaying, screaming vitality. It’s easy to forget just how good Lana Del Rey is but as the enchantment deepens and you’re thrust away from a dusty Norfolk field to beaches of afar, you begin to wonder, maybe she genuinely does have magical powers.

Everything Everything It’s nearly been a couple of years since art-poppers Everything Everything last released an album, and they’ve taken a bit of time off. With only one show pencilled in this year - and at Latitude no less - we thought we should catch up with singer Jonathan Higgs and drummer Michael Spearman in the back of a buggy after a boat photoshoot to see how things are going.

Hi Everything Everything! What have you guys been up to this year?

Jonathan: Been practising so we can do this show, but really we’re writing at the moment.

Michael: We had to get all of our writing stuff out of the rehearsal studio and bring in all the touring stuff, and remember the songs. It’s been fun, it’s been nice to do it, but yeah, we’re in writing mode.

And how’s that going?

Jonathan: Very well, we’re about halfway through I’d say, with less than half the time to go. But pretty much everything we’re writing now is of a certain goodness.

MØ

MØ’s set begins before most have even realised she has appeared in the tent. Sitting on the front barrier amongst a throng of startled photographers, the warm beats of ‘Purple Like The Summer Rain’ announces her arrival. Disappearing deep into the crowd, the set is three songs in before she even sets foot on the stage, if only for a brief visit before diving back in. Breaking down even the merest hint of a barrier between artist and audience, tracks are laid down wherever she sees fit. Popping up in front of the sound desk for ten minutes, everybody is front and centre at some point in the show.

Leaning heavily on the stunning ‘Forever Neverland’ material, the big singles are thrown into the mix with an almost casual air in what is easily the set of this, or any other, festival weekend.

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Is there a time frame for it?

Jonathan: We’ve got a year that we want to put it out in, but we can’t say when because we don’t know.

Michael: It’ll be out next year at some point.

Is it easier to write together now you’re on album five?

Jonathan: It’s easy, it’s kind of the opposite problem to when we started, which is when you’re stressed out about everything. Now, it’s kind of trying to get stressed about everything. It’s very easy to write songs and not push yourself, whereas when you first start you’re like ‘oh my god is this good enough?!’ Now it’s like’ Yeeees, everything’s great’. And we’ve had to try and get some of that old mindset back and be like, ‘no it’s not good enough, actually’.

Michael: Our process of writing songs is quite streamlined now. We know what we’re doing, but it’s the what are we trying to do, how do we make it? When you’re on your fifth album, it’s like how do we make it something that people will be interested in, and keep us interested in, and keep it fresh. P

that keeps them together.

finished ‘Forever Turned Around’ we had the same feeling where we were so elated.”

One of the best things about Whitney is their recognisable sound, immediately characterised by the keening falsetto of singing drummer Julian. Those beautiful vocals are once again front and centre on ‘Forever Turned Around’, but this time they are set to songs that have a stronger sense of ambition.

“Still being a relatively new band, we didn’t want to change the tools that we were working with, we just wanted to make Julian Ehrlich the songs more interesting to us,” says Max. “This album was about maximising the tools that we had,” adds Julian.

There is definitely a maximal feel to the band’s beefed-up arrangements and songs which they are given the full Whitney treatment and are supplemented by the duo’s original rhythm guitarist Ziyad Asrar back in Chicago, giving tracks like the smooth R&B jam of ‘Song For Ty’ and the wide-eyed dreaming of ‘Valleys (My Love)’ added heft and

power.

Friendship and loyalty are at the heart of the record. In these increasingly godawful times, it’s important to take solace and cherish the things and people that make us happy and it’s something that Whitney recognise both in their songs and in their own relationship as bandmates and friends. While much of the lyrical content is bleak and deals with the darker side of the human condition, it’s tempered by a gentle hopeful optimism that makes Whitney so comforting and compelling.

“We always want to make every melody we write sound positive,” says Julian. “We usually know the lyrical content is going to be pretty dark. We’re just generally sad. We need to see a bit of hope in the tune that we’re playing.”

For the band, the difference between their two albums can be boiled down to the time of day and how it can create a distinctly different atmosphere. “It’s more of a nighttime vibe compared to a daytime record,” confirms Max.

"We’re just generally sad.

We need to see a bit of hope in the tune that we’re playing"

“We see ‘Light Upon The Lake’ as more of a morning record.” Befitting its communal feeling of strength in relationships and the power of strong friendships, ‘Forever Turned Around’ feels like the kind of record that is perfect for sharing around a campfire at night in a countryside wilderness.

Whitney are a band who are very conscious that success is fleeting and it was only a couple of years ago that they were wondering if anyone would be interested in their music at all. “When we were making the first album we were always resigned to the idea that is could just be him and I listening to this for the rest of our lives,” laughs Max. “It makes the moments when we do feel proud of what we made even better than before. When we feel good about things we’ve done, we now think, oh, people might listen to this.”

Despite their newfound level as a band touring the world and all the attendant expectations that go with it ultimately Max and Julian base their decisions and their future on their musical connection and the one thing they know is certain. “We still really make music for ourselves,” emphasises Max. “We put all the pressure on ourselves. If we impress ourselves, that’s still how we know it could be good.” P Whitney’s album

‘Forever Turned Around’ is out 30th August.

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A LOT HAS CHANGED FOR

Whitney since they captured hearts on their acclaimed 2016 debut ‘Light Upon The Lake’. One thing that has remained constant throughout the praise, sold-out tours and increased expectations, is the bond between the band’s core songwriting duo of Julian Ehrlich and Max Kakacek. It’s a bond of friendship and trust that runs through everything Whitney do and provides the emotional spirit of their tender and touching second album, ‘Forever Turned Around’.

The two best friends have had a long-lasting musical relationship that has endured across different bands. Julian has played in Unknown Mortal Orchestra and then joined Max in their previous band, indie darlings Smith Westerns. It’s with Whitney though that the duo really turned the pairing into something special. As they searched to recreate the magic of the first album, they found new depths in their songwriting partnership.

“We did feel a tiny bit of pressure but we remembered the lasting high we got from making ‘Light Upon The Lake’,” begins Max as the guitarist talks about the album’s gestation, firstly writing in Lisbon, Portugal and then back at home in the same Chicago basement studio in which they fleshed out the debut. “We knew what we were striving for. It took a long time to get there but when we

NIGHT

WORDS: MARTYN YOUNG.

With their much anticipated second album, Chicago’s Whitney are exploring the bond

INTRO

MACHINE

HEADS IT’S EARLY ON IN FLORENCE + THE MACHINE’S

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crowning headline set in Hyde Park, and Florence is taking a moment. Storming out to a slew of big-time hits that sees the packed field in front of her collectively lose their minds, the vast screens that cover the stage zoom in. For everything Florence + The Machine has been about in the ten years since debut album ‘Lungs’ heralded the arrival of an undeniable force in British music, the core of who Florence Welch is has beamed brightest. “It’s a hometown show,” she states. “It means a lot.”

Ever since *that* Glastonbury moment, Florence has been in a league of her own. It’s why Hyde Park is filled to capacity, streaming back as far as the eye can see. Unquestionably, everyone gathered is here to pay witness - a responsibility Florence takes with both hands to the stars.

Opener ‘June’ sees Florence take to the stage, and for a brief moment, the crowd fall silent - sending chills around Hyde Park - before erupting through an opening flurry that sees ‘Hunger’, ‘Ship To Wreck’, ‘Only If For A Night’ and ‘Queen Of Peace’ blast away any memory from the rest of the day. “Will you dance with us?” she asks, and what follows is nothing short of mesmerising.

Touching upon tracks from across her career, it’s a majestic run that reminds you of her place at the top of the food chain - going from an early run-through of ‘Dog Days Are Over’ where Florence implores Hyde Park to put their phones away (“if we want to say in the proper English way, as her majesty the Queen would do - PUT THE FUCKING PHONE AWAY!” she cracks) and scream away any fears - to the jubilance of ‘Delilah’ and ‘You Got The Love’.

While the setlist is glorious, it’s those moments in between that make it

to The National by singing part ‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’, speaks about her happiness at playing a festival where 70% of the bill is made up of women, and has a delve down memory lane.

Taking the opportunity to play ‘Kiss With A Fist’ for the first time in nearly four years, Florence dives into the crowd and surfs into the hub of it all. She comes down and is greeted by a fan with eyes-wide and in awe that Florence now stands in front of her. Together they pour the last words of the song out together, before being engulfed in darkness.

There are few artists who can capture hearts and devotion quite like Florence + The Machine, and tonight at Hyde Park, it means a lot: not only to Florence, but to many many more.

P

Flo reigns at the top of a bill packed with faves, including The National, Let’s Eat Grandma, and Blood Orange.

WORDS: JAMIE MUIR. PHOTOS: PATRICK GUNNING.

of

+ all of this!

a special night. She pays homage

Over on All Points East’s second stage, Let’s Eat Grandma deliver the sort of stunning set that signals just how visceral their evolution has become.

Wrapped in fizzing electronics and greeted by a dense following, they show just how glorious second album ‘I’m All Ears’ flows live - moving from hypnotic hooks to spiralling breakdowns of layered joy (and a recorder solo for good

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measure). Fun’s written across their every move.

Equally as unmissable today, Blood Orange setting up shop on the Main Stage might just sit as the most perfectly timed festival slot of the summer. As the sun basks Hyde Park, the sumptuous and smooth tones that emanate from front to back feel like someone has whacked out their latest summer playlist and gone ‘yeah, here’s the

soundtrack needed’.

Utilising the stage to take his set to new heights, there’s a masterful charm to every move - from the captivating visuals and audio snippets that spread across and in between each track, or the gliding ease that his band bring to proceedings.

On most festival days, Lykke Li’s set served up on the Main Stage would steal the show, delivering an

undeniable performance that converts the thousands gathered with ease. Striding on-stage in a hue of dark beats before standing silent, her voice rips through Hyde Park and sets the tone for the next 50 minutes. Stadium-sized pop that reaches out and pulls everyone closer, it pays testament to a career of top-draw hooks that are now finding a new found level of appreciation.

Lykke Li manages to bring a welcome

INTRO

‘FYI’ Death Cab For Cutie have announced a new EP. The band will release ‘The Blue EP’ on 6th September, with the news arriving alongside new track ‘Kids in ‘99’, a tribute to three children who lost their lives in the 1999 Bellingham Olympic Pipeline explosion in Seattle, Washington.

Ben Gibbard explains: “The Olympic Pipeline explosion in 1999 was a tragedy that really affected me while we were living in Bellingham.

After all these years I felt it was worthy of its own folk song.” The release will also feature ‘Blue Bloods’, ‘To The Ground’, ‘Before The Bombs’ and ‘Man in Blue’.

STORM THE

BASTILLE London one-dayer Citadel pits indie darlings against fuzzy pigs.

WORDS + PHOTOS: JAMIE MACMILLAN.

There aren’t many festivals where the appearance of Peppa Pig threatens to be the big winner in a three-way clash between two bands as exciting as Dream Wife and The Murder Capital, and one furry little oinker. But then Citadel is a bit different, after all.

Billed as ‘family friendly’, this year sees two Dork faves dumping lorry-loads of

bangers all over the Main Stage, while Ireland stages its own mini-invasion with a procession of hype bands arriving from over the sea.

Like an East London hipster in a Hawaiian shirt, Friendly Fires are pretty much everything summer is about. Returning this summer after

cocktail of underground club vibes and soaring pop power to a scorching park in Central London.

Standing atop the bill alongside Florence, The National find themselves in new terrain. Last year’s headline set to over 40,000 fans at All Points East felt like a ‘moment’ - one they followed up on in rapid form with ‘I Am Easy To Find’, an album that ushered in what feels like a new era for

the band. The album’s influence is impossible to miss live, not just with a setlist that focuses heavily on it, but the newfound sense of collaboration.

In that early evening slot, this is a band looser and rawer than ever before, throwing themselves into every element and embracing that knack for unpredictability live.

‘Bloodbuzz Ohio’ and ‘The District Sleeps Alone In Total Darkness’ rip with ragged edges like

never before, ‘Don’t Swallow The Cap’ sees a captivated crowd point to the skies and ‘Fake Empire’ cues heartstrings pulled over the place while the likes of new cuts such as ‘Oblivions’ and ‘Rylan’ feel intrinsically bound to the here and now. The addition of singers to complement that new direction (including Lisa Hannigan and David Bowie bassist Gail Gail Ann Dorsey) feels essential for a bound

looking for the next step.

As Matt Berninger reaches down to the front row, snogging fans and standing on barriers to ‘Day I Die’ and ‘Mr November’, their path is set. The National are entering a new chapter, one that will still see devotion follow their every move, but it’s what comes after this that really sits as the most exciting takeaway from their Hyde Park tourde-force. P

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Former Maccabees frontman Orlando Weeks has announced a run of intimate shows for autumn.

The live run will kick off on 21st September with a night at Glasgow’s Blue Arrow, heading on to Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, and two nights in London.

“The album I’ve been working on for the last eighteen months is very nearly done,” he explains.

“For me, holding my nerve has been a large part of finishing a record, and there’s a certain confidence that comes from discovering a song can survive in a room full of strangers. The flip side of that is that you unearth problems you wish had stayed buried. There’s every chance it won’t work, but that’s the gamble.”

an eight-year gap with ‘Inflorescent’, St Albans’ greatest indie popsters take no time to ‘warm’ things up. ‘Lovesick’ and ‘Jump In The Pool’ are bops of the highest order, but it’s the new material that is the most interesting.

‘Silhouettes’ struts in wearing shiny new disco boots, that ba-ba-ba-ba-ba refrain wriggling into ears all across the park. Ed is all lunges and leaps, getting in early in the race to ‘out-do’ Bastille Dan in the athletic stakes. With the new material fitting in nicely with the old, Friendly Fires re-establish themselves as the band you want, slash need, to get a sleepy festival partying into the evening.

Giving another chance to glimpse the evolution of ‘Doom Days’ (on proper actual Bastille Day, French history fans!), if Bastille’s tour earlier this year sketched out the initial plans for what was in birthday boy Dan Smith’s mind, now it is starting to be upgraded and appears today in full vivid colour.

Whether he’s perched up a stepladder, leaping deep into the crowd or spinning on a turntable, today is a full-on energy burst.

Shortened somewhat, naturally due to the format, Bastille’s three-act performance still contains all the same peaks as their regular show, only here they are heightened and turbo-charged.

Peppered throughout are the bangers, to bring the casuals into the same party as the die-hards. And what bangers they are. Feeling very much like a dry run for one of the ‘big’ festival headline slots, Bastille are storming again. P

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INTRO

READING + LEEDS 2019 The big deal at the top of the bill.

THE 1975 It’s...

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Main Stage, Friday (Reading) / Saturday (Leeds) 2019’s batch of Reading & Leeds headliners includes two of the biggest cult bands on the planet. That’s not to say that either The 1975 or Twenty One Pilots aren’t also massive - they are. Huge. But they also both inspire a devotion which few others can manage. They matter. That’s especially true for the former, for whom a bill topping set at Reading feels like a ceremonial moment. Having already proved they’ve got the best big live show on the planet earlier this year in a blockbuster arena run, they may not have finished the second album of their ‘Music For Cars’ duology ‘Notes on a Conditional Form’ quite to the expected schedule, but it’s still sure to be a genuine moment not to be missed.

INTRO

SPORTS TEAM Get your head in the game. It’s...

Festival Republic Stage, Saturday (Reading) / Sunday (Leeds) Hello Alex! How are you doing?

Very well, thanks. We’re trying to slip in some album recording between festivals at the moment. The heads upstairs promised we’d be doing it on Santorini. We’re in Wood Green which has left me with a real sense of betrayal, but it’s alright. I like the Spouts Corner.

Have you enjoyed 2019 so far?

The first headline tour was special, you’ve always got that apprehension about whether anyone will turn up, but it all sold out. Those London shows too just take on a life of their own. We’ve done our first US tour, that was great.

Really all of it though, literally everything about being in a band is good. Just go round the world with your mates, and people adore you for it. Well worth forming.

You guys have played a lot of festivals this summer already - any particular faves?

Yeah, everything in the Benelux, Best Kept Secret, Rock Werchter. We’re like gods to them there. ‘Steen goden’ is what they say. Holland is starting to feel a bit like home though, we see a ridiculous amount of Pip Blom now, and we’ve put out a special band we met in Amsterdam, Personal Trainer, on our label Holm Front. Oli is looking to rent a houseboat in Leiden I think.

How would you rate your camping skills?

Pretty highly actually, we’ve camped at most of the ones we’ve played. Al brings down these big barrel drums of overnight oats, and Henry lets you use his tent to store kindling and stuff. Quite civil.

The most beautiful site was probably Best Kept Secret by the lake. Some of the stronger swimmers could cross the lake, crawl through reeds and emerge in a gated water park.

Hours of fun and at a fair price.

Who are you most looking forward to seeing at Reading & Leeds this year?

Anderson Paak. He’s clashing with us, and is, by all accounts a staggering talent.

Which of the headliners is your fave?

1975 are brilliant. I love the ambition of that band.

Who would you like to see top the bill in 2020?

Black Midi should’ve been doing it this year tbh. Maybe a challenging three-hour marathon in 2020 is the one though. I also can’t believe AC/ DC don’t get a look in at a few of these.

Do you have anything special planned for your set?

We never want to get complacent about just standing on stage and playing guitars.

We’ll always think about the staging, outfits, what else we can do for the crowd when it’s a big show. Guitar music needs gigs to be big, lie to loved ones to be there, style events, if it’s going to be really relevant again. I think ours are.

What else have you got coming up this year?

We’ve just announced our second annual trip to Margate.

We’ve got a double-decker return bus rented from London and are going to build guitar heaven on the beach there.

Two secret headliners and DJs from Wolf Alice, Whenyoung, Ladybird and Ugly. Dork came along last year; it really will be quite troubling the whole thing.

We’re recording the album, touring again, definitely abroad, have two big shows to announce, we’re supporting Pale Waves soon, wow. Ben has a gold tooth before the year is out, I reckon. P

Ready to start a riot? It’s...

BILLIE EILISH Main Stage, Saturday (Reading) / Sunday (Leeds)

Up until a few weeks ago, Reading & Leeds 2019 was set to feature Billie Eilish playing inside the confines of the BBC Radio 1 tent. That was never going to work.

After a year featuring a stonking debut album and genuine pop culture dominance, Billie is an artist that already demands the biggest stages.

That’s why she’s been moved to the more spacious boundaries of the Main Stage. And it’ll still kick off. Promise.

Sorry, The 1975 stans, but the biggest clash of R+L 2019 is gonna cause stress. It’s...

DAVE BBC Radio 1 Stage, Friday (Reading) / Saturday (Leeds) While Matty and co. are delivering their undoubted masterclass on Main, don’t be surprised to see the attention of Reading & Leeds 2019 split somewhat. Dave is a genuine sensation. He’s topped the chart with a debut album that’s way more than just a collection of good songs, and now he’s headlining a stage at what’s traditionally the banner event of the UK’s rock and indie scene. It’s not just a sign of how far the festival has evolved, but also just how essential Dave has become.

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INTRO IN THE K N

...

W O

They’re baaack!!

It’s...

PVRIS

BBC Radio 1 Stage, Saturday (Reading) / Sunday (Leeds) WHEN PVRIS PLAYED READING &

THE AMAZONS’ Matt Thomson picks his fave bands from the R+L line-up.

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“SWMRS are playing the Festival Republic Stage, I believe. They’re good friends of ours and a really interesting band.

The production on their new album ‘Berkeley’s on Fire’ feels fresh. We’ve had it on repeat the last couple months. There are some whispers of The Cure and Eels on there.

The Chats were introduced to us by our Australian guitar tech a few months ago. They’re a super raw, Australian punk band who have mullets, wear flip flops and make ridiculously fun two-minute songs. We’ve been spontaneously chanting the choruses of their songs ‘Pub Feed’ and ‘Smoko’ to the point of infuriation of the people around us.

We played with The Mysterines at a couple of shows back in February, and they really impressed us. The lead singer has a presence on stage and the most ferocious voice. They’re like a tougher, meaner Hole. They’re touring Royal Blood soon, so things seem to be happening with them. P

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Leeds in 2017, it should have been a celebration. Their first show there in 2015 saw them burning bright after a summer on Warped and the release of their debut album. The Pit was at capacity for half an hour before they took to the stage, and every second Lynn, Brian and Alex were in the spotlight felt like a coming of age moment. Their return two years later to the Main Stage should have seen the band making good on every promise they’d ever made. But it was actually the start of a turbulent and troubled twelve months.

Their second album ‘All We Know Of Heaven, All We Need Of Hell’ had been released hours before they bundled onto the Main Stage at Reading, but Lynn Gunn was too busy struggling with vocal issues to lose herself in the occasion. An enduring perfectionist, things are either flawless, or they’re wrong.

And there’s no easy fix for feeling like someone is grabbing your throat when you’re trying to sing. So, while on a world tour, Lynn had to relearn how to use her voice.

“Towards the beginning of the record cycle when my vocals were really bad, it was hard to get anything working.

We got really close to calling off the UK shows, including Brixton as well as a couple of European shows. I have very high standards, and I’m really hard on myself so to know that these were some of the biggest shows we’d ever played and that I wouldn’t be able to fully deliver things how I wanted to, it was a very difficult thing. I just felt like I wanted to do better. In the end, we ended up pushing through,” but things weighed heavy.

PVRIS played their last show of the ‘All We Know Of Heaven…’ cycle a little over a year after it was released. By the time their appearances at Reading & Leeds 2019 roll around, they’ll only have a handful of live shows under their belt for this new chapter. It’s been a long road back to the stage, but the band have used this time away from the spotlight to rebuild and refocus.

‘White Noise’ was a tearaway success. Their debut album came with zero expectations but high hopes, and it exploded PVRIS, setting them on a trajectory that constantly edged towards runaway. The follow-up, ‘All We Know Of Heaven…’ saw them take that fuzzy cinematic world and make it bigger, with flashes of colour and bubbling anger.

Now the band are back with the first taste of what comes next. ‘Death of Me’ is a pulsating whirlwind, dancing about on the edge of a blade with a knowing wink and a lust for the unknown while ‘Hallucinations’ sees PVRIS leaning whole-heartedly into those twinkling pop sensibilities that have always driven the band towards exciting and glorious. Don’t call it a comeback but these songs are proof that PVRIS’ fire is still raging.

It’s the furthest they’ve stepped from that core “PVRIS sound”, but rather than feeling jarring, both singles sound like confident next steps forward.

“It’s always really hard for the boys and me to step back and hear how different things are. We hear everything as it’s progressing. We started working on ‘Death Of Me’ two years ago while we were still touring ‘All We Know Of Heaven...’ and it felt very much still in that universe, at least to start with.

The main difference with the new stuff is that it’s going to have a much more refined production. It’s a bit more fun and a bit more energetic, sonically. It’s just emphasising different aspects of the music now, but we’re hoping it would still make sense and feel true to what we’ve done before because it’s still gritty, it still has power.”

And there’s more to come. PVRIS might not have been touring for the past few months, but they’ve been continually working towards the new. There have been writing sessions on both sides of America, a new label and the knowledge that it all has to be fun, otherwise, what’s the point? Right now the band are sat on three more songs that are ready to be released, and plans for the album are coming together. As always, the group want to see how far they can push things, but for the first time, they’re determined to take their time.

As for their return to Reading, “I’m feeling excited but definitely a bit nervous. The last time we played, it was at the very beginning of a lot of my vocal issues, and that was a really, really, really rough performance. It was really embarrassing and just wasn’t the best time for me. I just didn’t say anything about it before or after we got off stage.

I’m excited to hopefully have a better time with this show. I think it’s going to be a really cool energy. I can’t guarantee redemption, but I hope for a little bit, at least for myself. I’m not even really trying to make anybody happy at this point. For me, I would just like to be proud of it and feel good about it. Hopefully, that will translate outwards, and people can enjoy that.” P

Finally, indie upstarts The Night Café are ready to drop their debut album. With R+L 2019 in sight, it’s all set to go off big time.

READING + LEEDS 2019 It’s album time for...

THE NIGHT CAFÉ BBC Radio 1 Stage, Friday (Reading) / Saturday (Leeds)

WORDS: LAURA FREYALDENHOVEN.

IT’S BEEN AN EXCITING FEW

years for The Night Café. With two EP releases and several tours, it’s safe to say they kept themselves busy. Now, after two years in the studio, Sean, Josh, Carl and Arran are finally dropping their debut album, and they’re excited to share it with their fans.

Having met in secondary school where they bonded over their shared love of music, this album has been a long time coming. The band recorded their first singles in 2015, and they’re taking it up a notch with ‘0151’, a record that, across 18 songs, gives a glimpse into the past, present and future of The Night Café.

Recording has been a smooth ride. “We just kinda did one song at a time,” guitarist Josh explains.

“You can just tell when something is going to turn out good. Making sure that everything was perfect probably took the longest.”

This perfectionist nature can be found in every single track on ‘0151’. Next to songs that long-time fans will already be familiar with such as ‘Addicted’ - a track that goes all the way back to 2015 and didn’t lose any of its infectious charm in the time in-between - the album

also showcases some fresher, more experimental sounds: interludes that came about quite organically.

“The way we work is mostly just all of us in a room playing together.

Sometimes, that results in interlude type things or a jam session. It won’t really be a song in its own right, but it’s part of how our songs get written, so we thought it makes sense to have it as part of the album and join everything together.”

Writing original songs is something that The Night Café made a priority from the very beginning. While other up and coming artists often incorporate covers into their live performances, these four made it a point to play their own material. A plus if you want to track your progress how you have changed over the years.

The themes have most definitely matured from when they first started; ranging from heartbreak to heavier topics such as social isolation and depression, their songs tell stories straight from their lives.

The name of the album, ‘0151’, quite fittingly is a nod to their hometown. Josh remembers: “We were just joking around, and Sean mentioned 0151 [the area code the

boys grew up in]. As soon as he said it, we thought that it would actually be a good album title and it gave the record a new meaning from there.

We decided the name quite early on and then based the whole artwork concept around it.”

Having grown up in Liverpool, you might think that The Night Café’s sound might bear heavy northern influences or take inspiration from hometown heroes, but that’s not the case at all. “It’s not like we grew up worshipping the Beatles. It’s part of who we are as people, but I don’t think we’ve been majorly inspired by anything that is specific to the town. We grew up with the internet, so we’ve been lucky to not just have been exposed to what’s happening locally.

Our sound is more of a mixture of everything.”

Their sound combines their individual tastes, ranging from Techno to Fleetwood Mac. What it translates to are crisp indie tunes, infectious guitar infused melodies with heavy beats that make it almost impossible to stand still.

It’s no wonder, then, that their live shows form a huge part of their appeal. Roaring audiences

singing along to every word are basically part of the package, and for good reason, as the band has not only built up a loyal fanbase but also had a chance to perfect their live sound over the years. A big chunk of this year was spent on the road supporting The Wombats and Circa Waves. In September, they’re embarking on their own UK headline tour, but it’s not their first time at the rodeo.

“We’ve done a first set of shows in 2016 and a few more since then.

We started off in quite small places; this one is going to be the biggest yet.” And fans can expect bangers across the board. “We want to have a good time with every song we play.

Luckily, we’re in a position where we can pick and choose which parts we want to play, whether that’s older tracks or songs from the album.”

Looking at their journey so far, there’s not much room for doubt that the only way is up for The Night Café, but talking about their future goals, it’s clear to see that, even with their rising success, the band have their feet firmly on the ground.

“We’re just trying to focus on one thing at a time and take things as they come. We didn’t really set to achieve anything in the first place.

We started making music together because that’s what we wanted to do, have fun as mates. Anything that we’ve achieved so far, we didn’t think we’d ever achieve, so anywhere we go from here, is a good place to be.” P The Night Café’s

album ‘0151’ is out 23rd August.

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‘FYI’ Pop queen Tove Lo has announced a brand new album. Titled ‘Sunshine Kitty’, it’s set to be released on 20th September, and features none other than the mighty Kylie Minogue.

There’s also appearances from the likes of Jax Jones, Doja Cat, MC Zaac and ALMA, who features on single ‘Bad At The Boys’, streaming online now. “’Bad as the Boys’ is about my first summer girl crush when I was in my teens,” Tove explains. “It’s about that sting you feel in your heart when you know summer is coming to an end and so is the romance.

“Since I’m singing about a girl I wanted another female artist on it who also likes girls; so I hit up Alma. She really felt the song and was down to sing it with me. She has such an amazing voice and she absolutely killed it! And she’s badass.”

Lana Del Rey has announced the date of arrival for her much, much, much, why-the-hell-isn’t-ithere-yet-Lana? anticipated new album ‘Norman Fucking Rockwell’.

After claiming in July it would be with us ‘next month’, it turns out her time keeping was accurate - it’ll land on 30th August.

Alongside that news comes some quite outstanding artwork - which you can check out below - and a track listing.

Produced by Jack Antonoff, Rick Nowels, and Zach Dawes, we’ve heard a few of the songs from the album already. ‘Venice Bitch’, ‘Mariners Apartment Complex’, and ‘Hope Is A Dangerous Thing For A Woman Like Me To Have — But I Have It’ are all already streaming, as well as Lana’s, erm, sublime cover of Sublime’s ‘Doin’ Time’.

The artwork was shot

by Lana’s sister Chuck Grant, and features Jack Nicholson’s grandson Duke Nicholson.

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It ain’t easy being Green Adam Green’s wading into an ambitious new world.

WORDS: LIAM KONEMANN.

LOOK, WE ALL KNOW ADAM

Green is left-field. We do. He’s the self-professed ‘AFNY guy’, defining himself in opposition to trends from day one. But he has also traded cover versions with The Libertines, directed a music video for Father John Misty, and made films with Macaulay Culkin and Natasha Lyonne. He was there when The Strokes recorded ‘Is This It’, and his voice recently cropped up on the new album by one Johnny Borrell and whichever iteration of Razorlight he’s up to now.

Trace back through the last two decades of indie music in New York and London, and at just about every turn you find Adam Green. His new album ‘Engines of Paradise’ (his tenth as a solo artist, for those keeping score at home) Adam Green features Florence actual Welch. The thing is, Adam Green has been building an alternate indie reality alongside this one for about two decades now.

“My work is trying to make people feel like they’re going into another dimension,” Adam says.

“I find myself putting together words until I get some kind of spark, or some reaction that feels like at that moment, I got a glimpse into what it might be like to enter another dimension. And that usually means that I’m trying to fudge things, so they’re sort of unfamiliar, to try to make things half there and half not there.”

On ‘Engine of Paradise’, this blur between reality and unreality comes through in the relationship between humans, culture and technology. Since

his earliest work with The Moldy Peaches, Adam has had a tendency to name-drop 1980s and 90s pop culture figures, from his first solo album ‘Garfield’ to the bright yellow splash of Big Bird’s face dotted throughout his second feature film ‘Aladdin’.

Lately, though, he’s also brought blockchain, JPEGs, and AI into the mix.

“We all have to express ourselves through forms and language that we learned as a kid,” he says. “In my case, playing Mario Brothers was a big part of that, so the pixelated tapestry that was Mario Brothers becomes symbolic of some singularity tech-future. In my hierarchy, I have Mario as the Jesus of Nintendo,” he laughs.

“I created a mythological world where there’s so much information and disinformation and rumour that goes on in the internet, that it’s like 1000 years in the future and people don’t remember, was Mario a real person? You know, was it really a plumber from Brooklyn?”

This other realm, in which Mario is a Christ-like figure and which Adam calls ‘Regular World’, has been expanded through not only music, but visual art, film, and soon a graphic novel. In ‘Regular World’ as in our world, the ongoing creep of technology has played an increasingly large role.

“My artwork has one foot in the flesh world and one in the pixel world, you know? The funny thing is, because I grew up in the age of indie rock romanticism I’m trying to maintain a romantic current

"My work is trying to make people feel like they’re going into another dimension"

INTRO

Barn on the Farm pull out all the stops for their tenth birthday Including special guests George Ezra and The Vaccines.

WORDS: DILLON EASTOE. PHOTOS: ZACH MAHROUCHE, DANIEL ALEXANDER HARRIS.

HOWEVER YOU CELEBRATED YOUR TENTH

birthday, be it a 5-a-side party where your mates let you score the winner, a bouncy castle in the garden or a trip to Disneyland, we’re willing to wager you didn’t have some of the country’s biggest artists in the country come and play in your back garden.

Barn on the Farm founder Josh Sanger has pulled out all the stops to ring in the festival’s first decade, with secret sets from The Vaccines and George Ezra (or as he was cryptically billed, ‘Reggae Zero’) the icing on the cake.

The Vaccines rock up on Friday night to shower their rabble-rousing indie anthems over the Outdoor Stage, looking oh so comfortable in their own skin after a meandering few years. New songs on show are delivered with glee and hint at another banging album next year. It’s a great booking and speaks for Barn’s growing status.

The Japanese House proves her mettle with a bewitching set in the tiny Wooden Barn on Saturday night, eclipsing headliner Dermot Kennedy (a late replacement for poorly Sam Fender). Amber Bain is becoming more of a star with every performance and has the songs to back it up.

When George Ezra hits the stage on Sunday evening, no one is very surprised to see him, having joined the dots long ago (and his name is written on the drum skin, duh). In forty-five minutes he delivers

all the hits to an adoring crowd, ‘Paradise’ given a lengthy outro and ‘Budapest’ taking the roof off the Main Stage.

The whole weekend builds up to Lewis Capaldi’s set. A returning hero, he was surely booked in long before ‘Someone You Loved’ sent him stratospheric.

His wit is well documented and complements his sad, sad songs brilliantly. With his album now in the wild for over a month, every song gets a big reception, and Lewis namechecks those on the bill who helped write some of his defining tracks.

Saving the best for last, Maggie Rogers crosses the pond for the last show of her debut album campaign and her first festival headliner.

It’s both a personal high point for the singer and the culmination of a celebration for the festival and makes for a lifeaffirming hour of pop hooks and devil-may-care dancing. The delicate craft of ‘Overnight’ shines, Rogers twirls her deep blue cape through the stomp of ‘Give a Little’ and provides a confetti moment with a euphoric ‘Light On’.

As revellers begin to peel away and get ready to return to real life, Rogers send us on our way with acapella country hymn ‘Now That the Light Is Fading’, a soothing end to a weekend of overachievement for a small festival that continues to break the rules. P

Paradise’ is out 6th September.

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inside of that. An ironic romanticism.”

Lead single ‘Freeze My Love’ mines that seam between irony and romance, digging into the ways that the internet has changed our relationships. It’s about love and loss, but not as we once knew it.

“When the ‘Engine of Paradise’ album was conceived, it was gonna be a movie. And [the album] was gonna be all of the songs,” says Adam.

“So ‘Freeze My Love’ is sort of about entering into that world where the afterlife is online. For the afterlife, you’re assimilating into some kind of a hard drive of the universe. In the book, there’s a blockchain tunnel that connects here and there.”

The book in question is ‘Engine of Paradise’’s accompanying graphic novel ‘War and Paradise’.

‘War and Paradise’ follows the narrative that was originally going to become the film, and which had to take a new form when Adam ran up against practical concerns. He had begun work on the album after some time off from music, still thinking that the album would take the form of a soundtrack.

“I didn’t know what was going on. I still had in my head that I was making a movie, but I had no funding. I don’t really know anyone in film production, so I didn’t have a budget to make a movie, and it was going to be expensive to make a war film out of paper mache.

In my head I was like, okay I’ll get this warehouse, we’re gonna build these giant wooden hills, and we’ll stage the battles on them. It was just gonna bankrupt me,” he explains somewhat sadly.

“So I started working with Toby Goodshank, who was in the Moldy Peaches with me, and Tom Bayne who worked special effects on Aladdin.

The storyline was the script that I had written with my wife, Yasmin.”

If Adam sounds like something of an obsessive, he doesn’t seem to see it that way. The music, art and films are all constructed on an absolute micro level until they are as perfect as he can get them, but in general, he tends to see himself as a pretty, well, reasonable guy. ‘Reasonable Man’ claims “I’m known to act average as a last resort”, in a call back to Adam’s earlier song ‘Interested in Music’ and the line “I’m known to act average, but on weekends I act out”.

“I could look at it two ways,” he says. “On the one hand, life pushes you towards the centre. The other thing is that I feel like I’m a really great example of a very average person.

I’m a really great example of what the average person could do if they found themselves in my situation.”

We could all do a lot worse than find ourselves in the very specific situation of being Adam Green. After all, he’s got a whole strange universe on a string.

P Adam Green’s album ‘Engine Of

INTRO

KEEP ON TRUCKIN’ Wolf Alice, Foals and more make Oxfordshire’s premier summer bash one for the ages.

The Strokes’ booking agent has dropped a heavy hint that new music is on the way from the band.

In an interview with Music Business Worldwide, Artist Group International President Marsha Vlasic suggested more was on the way from the New Yorkers, who had to cancel a recent headline slot at New York’s Governors Ball due to heavy thunderstorms.

“The Strokes are coming with new music,” she rather unambiguously stated.

“We had a heartbreak in New York when they were headlining Governors Ball, the weather destroyed our show and we never played, but having them back on the live music scene is exciting.”

That fits in with the new track the band debuted in Los Angeles back in May. Any new release from The Strokes would be the first since 2016’s ‘Future Present Past’ EP. Their last full album, ‘Comedown Machine’, was released back in 2013.

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WORDS: DILLON EASTOE + STEVEN LOFTIN. PHOTOS: SARAH LOUISE BENNETT.

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‘FYI’

INTRO THERE’S AN INHERENT OPTIMISM TO

Pop-punkers Hot Milk go about their business on an early slot, blowing away any cobwebs and proving why they’re such an exciting up-and-coming name in the game. Later, Milk Teeth, sans drummer and equipment, manage to turn a potential disaster into an all-out success that is definitely off-piste but shows these punks are ready for anything.

King Nun bring their rollicking jams, in the This Feeling tent, which is packed to the rafters. The Dirty Hit four-piece are on top-form, which makes sense after Theo states - in his brief respite from being airborne - they’re ready to move onto the next stage. This might be the last time we hear some of these songs.

Foals’ year has certainly been ambitious. They’ve announced the release of two albums - with one having dropped already - been out on tour, and they’re now in the thick of the festival circuit. With their headline set at Truck essentially a homecoming show, tonight is a celebration, and one Foals want us all to take part in.

“Are we gonna make this a spicy one or not?” frontman Yannis Phillipakis asks the capacity crowd. It’s a humid evening, perfectly matching the warningtoned exotic stage backdrop that’s encompassing their current chapter of global warming spotlight. Not for the first time does he introduces a song from ‘Everything Not Saved… Pt. 1’ with “this is a song about how we’re all fucked”, and a cheeky smirk. But while it’s all rooted in a serious place, everyone present is here to dance and forget about the catastrophic world, and Foals are more than happy to oblige.

It’s a non-stop moving affair from the moment ‘On The Luna’ sparks up.

‘Mountain at My Gates’, ‘In Degrees’ and ‘Exits’ in all their dancing glory ripple to the surface like a beacon in the night.

The absolute best thing about Foals is the evolution they’ve undertaken, beautifully shown with the likes of ‘Olympic Airways’ and ‘Red Socks Pugie’.

The rabid moments of ‘Inhaler’ and ‘What Went Down’ cause untold chaos - the former of which sees the first of two confetti onslaughts, the last saved for closer ‘Two Steps Twice’.

The homecoming moment is beyond victorious. If everything not saved will indeed be lost, then at least this return was vivaciously celebrated in the moment. P

Festival report

Rock Werchter It’s Glastonbury weekend, but we’re not at Worthy Farm. Instead, we’ve head over to Belgium for Rock Werchter. Similar in size (Rock W sees 150,000 people through its gates over the four days, while Glastonbury is home to 200,000 punters, artists and workers) and sharing a lot of the acts, it’s an impressive beast. With just four stages on offer, clashes are at a minimum, and it might be the only place this summer you can see a run of Years & Years, The Cure, Kylie Minogue, Robyn and then Tool. It’s a festival that chases excitement but still gives space for legacy.

You’ve probably heard how brilliant Lizzo has been of late and we’re here to report the exact same thing. Of course the closing squeeze of ‘Juice’ is an absolute riot, complete with flute solo and bags of shine but this set is much more than a one-hit-wonder. Years & Years dial up the sex with a proud, pulsating show that couldn’t be more in love with itself before Actual Kylie puts on a five-act play that looks like a West End musical and tells the story of how much of an absolute legend she is, and Brockhampton turn the stage into a playgroud.

Living up to every capital lettered promise, their set is out of control and feels like the future.

Live, Bastille have always been a party. Bucket loads of enthusiasm, a genuine star at the helm and more bangers than you can shake a tower of plastic cups at, they come into focus onstage. Every festival they do feels like a triumphant moment of release and celebration. It always goes off.

While studio Weezer might be keen on exploring the unknown, live the band are happy to give the people what they want. If only Muse were the same. Ridiculous, over the top but distant, their ‘Simulation Theory’ might sound great and the show, complete with inflatable alien and laser-adorned trumpeters, is a sight to behold, but the crowd feels restless as the hits don’t come fast enough.

Thank god for Florence and The Machine.

Commanding the stage and its runway, she bursts into life and encourages the crowd to do the same. From the opening one-two of ‘June’ and ‘Hunger’, through the end half of her set that sees her arm in arm with the crowd to the closing roar of ‘Shake It Out’, her enthusiasm and lust for the day is beautiful, inspiring and infectious.

Away from the safety of arena headline shows full of The ’75 faithful, and with their production stripped back to a lone light up box, you might assume that The 1975 we see today are somehow lesser than the force of nature we’ve come to believe in. But you’d be wrong. With a knowing grin, they kick into the rattling ‘Give Yourself A Try’, and it’s glorious business as usual. A couple of missing video screens aren’t going to change the power they wield. By the time the closing charge of bangers comes tearing out the gate (‘Love It If We Made It’, ‘Chocolate’, ‘Sex’, ‘The Sound’), it’s pretty damn obvious. The 1975 are in a league of their own. P

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Inhaler as they warm up The Nest stage.

With a familiar eighties sound that recalls a certain Irish rock band’s early days, they’ve already garnered an avid set of fans. Only a handful of tracks are out at the moment, and the yet-to-surface ones aired today sound just as powerful as the current offerings.

The weird, endearing world of Feet is growing by the day. Dressed like they fell in and out of several wardrobes, they’re perfectly befitting of their own musical stylings which fall somewhere between retrospective and future-facing. The waves they’ve already begun to make are felt the moment ‘English Weather’ pops up introduced by a meek, “this is a song we wrote about the weather”. As if a secret code, The Nest soon becomes a pile of rubble from the overflowing attendees piling on each other to bounce around.

Strutting out onto the stage with his track-suited and booted backing band, the adoration from the crowd holds affirmation that this is now Lewis Capaldi’s world. There’s not much banter - to begin with, he seems almost reserved - but it’s not long before that trademark wit of his surfaces.

“People who don’t know who I am, do you like rock ‘n’ roll?” he questions before offering his quip answer: “Then you’re not gonna enjoy this.”

As ‘Someone You Love’ kicks into gear, it’s nigh on impossible to actually hear Lewis over the crowd singing it back.

It’s euphoric and sad at the same time, a powerful feeling in itself - that is until a six-year-old and a vuvuzela take it as an opportunity to test their chops. Then?

Well, it’s kind of perfect.

Some things don’t need to be ‘moments’, some things can just be ‘cool’ -but somehow Wolf Alice manage to make both happen. Impeccable from the get-go, they’re one of the UK’s most ambitious and always-on-target bands.

Nothing sounds quite as good as those ‘Moaning Lisa Smile’ chords kicking things off. Soft moments leave enough breathing room for emotion, while unchained, unhinged flashes create enough momentum to power the festival all weekend.

The darkened delights of The Mysterines have a snarl and bite perfect for these troubled times. With their viciously loud guitars and ‘give a fuck’ attitude, it seems to be a recurring theme of Saturday morning.

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INTRO

BANGERS THE BEST NEW TRACKS

‘FYI’

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Girl Ray have announced their second album, and shared their new single ‘Show Me More’.

The band’s second fulllength ‘Girl’ will be released on 8th November via Moshi Moshi, followed by a headline tour in 2020 that includes a London show at Electric Ballroom.

‘Show Me More’ is about “crushing really hard but having to play the long game and wait it out because your boo is playing savage games,” the trio explain. “It’s your classic pop banger. Steamy dance floor. Drinks on me.”

Haim

Summer Girl Haim have always been a sunny side up sort of band, but their new single ‘Summer Girl’ is positively vibe-tastic.

Packed to the brim with hot and steamy sax, it’s so laid back it’s positively vertical. “I started the song when I found out my partner had cancer.

I was on tour and felt like I was trying to send positive energy his way almost telepathically,” explains Danielle. What an absolute champ.

Tegan and Sara

I’ll Be Back Someday With their next album, ‘Hey, I’m Just Like You’, Tegan and Sara are revisiting a bunch of songs they wrote while attending high school. It shouldn’t shock anyone to discover those ears for a hook is a godgiven talent, though. ‘I’ll Be Back Someday’ sees the

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sisters matching their more guitar-driven roots with their more recent ultra-pop sheen to make a track that’s equal parts organic and spectacularly fun. They really are the best years of your life, eh?

Charli XCX

Gone (ft. Christine and the Queens) In an era where four out of five tracks are some form of ‘collab’, it takes something special to disturb the waters of the big pop pool. Mix Charli and Chris, though, and expect waves. ‘Gone’ sees two of our most important, iconic voices not just joining forces, but completely melding their trademark strengths to create a track that heads right to the top of those year-long lists. Everyone’s royalty here.

Pumarosa Fall Apart

Returning for a second fulllength, something significant

has definitely shifted with Pumarosa. Always one of those bands who had an edge of the cerebral to them, ‘Fall Apart’ is revelatory. Drawing from a well of electronic and leftfield influence, there’s a genuine edge to their first taster of new material. A real universe brain moment.

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

Foals

Black Bull With the release date for the second instalment of their double album project ‘Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost’ finally revealed (18th October, ‘FYI’), it’d probably be smart to start strapping loose objects down. Described by the band as where the bangers reside, first taster ‘Black Bull’ certainly does the job. A brutal cut previewed on recent tour dates, it’s a muscular, full-blooded charge for the red flag from a band who have always had a steely backbone. Big horsey energy.

The initial longlist of names for this year’s Hyundai Mercury Prize has been announced, and it’s packed with Dork favourites.

The list of twelve albums made by artists from Great Britain and Ireland includes the likes of Dave, The 1975, Slowthai, Little Simz and Idles. There’s also room for nods for Foals, Anna Calvi, Fontaines D.C. and ‘more’.

The overall winner of the 2019 Hyundai Mercury Prize will be announced on 19th September at the Awards Show, which is being held at the Eventim Apollo in Hammersmith.

Two Door Cinema Club have announced the support bands for their upcoming October tour.

Joining them around the UK this autumn in support of their latest album ‘False Alarm’, are Tom Grennan, Sports Team, Bloxx and Fuzzy Sun. Find the dates on readdork.com now.

THE DEBUT ALBUM

OUT 6TH SEPTEMBER H U S K Y L O O P S . C O M

WHITNEY FOREVER TURNED AROUND

“WHITNEY MAY HAVE JUST CRAFTED ANOTHER CLASSIC” - LONDON IN STEREO “RICHLY TUMBLING HYMNS EXCEL IN FRIENDSHIP AND FAMILIARITY” -LOUD AND QUIET

THE BRAND NEW ALBUM CD / LP / DIGITAL 30 AUGUST 2019

INTRO

TOP TEN

How have those new songs been going down?

Really well. People have been shouting good heckles during the show, like ‘second album’s gonna be great’, which is nice. People have been talking about it, asking us about it a lot and it feels like people are ready for it. And we are so ready to show our new music to people. We’ve been working on this for a couple of years, and now we’ve finished it. Now we’re just sitting on it. Like an egg.

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Did you approach writing this record differently to how you did ‘Love In The 4th Dimension’?

EASY DOES IT...

THE BIG MOON HAVE RETURNED WITH A COMEBACK TRACK, ‘IT’S EASY THEN’, OFFERING THE SUGGESTION OF SOMETHING NEW AND EXCITING.

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER

THE BIG MOON HAVE BEEN AWAY

working on album two, and we’ve missed them.

Their debut album was a howling, cackling burst of excitement.

Fuelled by friendship and the hunger for more, it captured what it was to be young, in love and have hope.

The eleven tracks made you want to join their gang, while the chaotic, colourful live shows made it feel like you were theirs for life.

And today we stop our pining.

No more staring out of windows or looking up at the sky on a clear night out and wondering if we’re both gazing at the same planetary body

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because The Big Moon are back.

‘It’s Easy Then’ is the first taste of album two and a promise that things have changed. Considered, aching and glorious, it sees the band trade bubbling hyperactivity for something more beautiful but no less infectious. After putting our socks back on, we called Jules up to get the lowdown.

Hello Jules. What have you been up to since touring for that first record wound down?

We took a little bit of time out after we came back from the last tour, but I just got straight back into writing.

Going from performing to writing, it takes a while to reset your brain.

They’re completely different actions.

And how have you found playing live again?

The first show was a couple months ago, and I was so scared. We were playing new songs, and we haven’t played a new song for years. I expected everybody to boo, hiss and leave the room, but of course, they didn’t. Once you’ve got that first show out of the way, all the others have just been really fun. And playing festivals again has been such a dream. I love festivals.

I definitely wanted to make something different. And I think we’ve really pushed ourselves to make something that sounds different. We really challenged ourselves. We wanted to work with a different producer and play different instruments. There are a lot of songs on the album that aren’t guitar-based. We play the piano a lot, and the trumpet and the flute. We just used all of our other skills and learnt some new things as well. It was important for us to make something new because we’ve done one album and we’re really happy with it, but we’ve done that. We wanted to find something new. Why would anyone want to repeat themselves?

Was doing something different easy to do?

No. It would have been very easy for us to make an album of the same kind of rock songs. And actually, when I first started writing, those are the kind of songs that I was writing.

We’d just come back from tour, and that’s just what I was used to and also what I thought I should do. After a few months of writing these songs.

I just had this revelation. ‘Hey, we could just we can do anything’. The first album, it’s all kind of a bit of a struggle, trying to get it all together and get the band together but with your second album, you finally have a platform, you have fans, and you have the space where you can finally create the thing you really wanted to make. Let’s try and make something different. Let’s go against our instincts.

Also, I realised it doesn’t really matter what instruments we’re playing. It doesn’t even matter what genre of music it is because it’s still us playing. It’s our voices, and our lyrics so it’s still our song. We found that we had a lot of faith in the strength of our own character and decided to just explode it. We wanted to be bold. It’s good to be bold.

INTRO "We wanted to be bold. It’s good to be bold."

Jules Jackson

So, ‘It’s Easy Then’. What’s it about?

It’s just about how complicated life feels at the moment. I feel like life felt easy for a long time. And now it feels harder and more complicated.

We work too much. We think too much, we know too much, and so we all worry too much. We read the news every day, and it just stokes our anxieties. It just feels a bit like this scary panic attack at the moment and that song was really just my way of trying to articulate that really. I wanted to make some music that felt really soothing and cleansing, like a tonic. The lyrics are quite freaked out and panicky, but the music is really fulfilling and relaxing.

What do you hope people take away from that song?

Why the first track back?

It really sums up the sound of the album. It just sums up where we want to go now, who we want to be, who we are, and what we’re trying to say. It just felt like a good, exciting starting point.

Any worries about people turning their noses up and demanding the old The Big Moon?

No, because a lot of years have passed really since we wrote our first album. This new sound doesn’t feel weird to us; it just feels right.

We’ve all grown up, got older, and our music tastes have developed and changed. It’s the natural progression really. Nobody wants to listen to the same music all the time for their whole life. You move on and evolve. We could have made an album that sounded the same, but why would you want to do that? It wouldn’t have felt right. P

There’s going to be a Peaky Blinders festival in autumn, featuring sets from Primal Scream and Anna Calvi.

HEY, BROTHER WILL JOSEPH COOK IS ‘BACK’ IN ‘ACTION’ WITH A BRAND NEW SINGLE AND A SECOND ALBUM ON THE WAY. WE DROPPED HIM A LINE TO CATCH UP?

Hey Will, what have you been up to since we last heard from you? Writing lots of new songs and stuff?

Of course, especially since September, that was when I properly started writing again. I went travelling in Vietnam and then spent time in LA recording. I also started the Bad Hotel podcast and, as of the ‘Hey Brother’ release, label imprint.

What’s ‘Hey Brother’ about?

For me, the song is about the early stages of a big creative process and all of the confusion and turbulence that comes with that. In a wider sense, though, the message is to find optimism, even when the future seems so uncertain.

It sounds like you’ve been feeling a bit glum?

Maybe, but then again who hasn’t? The new songs definitely process a lot of difficult feelings, but I wasn’t writing just about myself. I think anyone, especially young people, can relate to that search for purpose and motivation.

Is your new album done, then? When can we hear it?

Almost! It exists, and it’s awesome… but it’s not a closed book.

I recently wrote a new song that I’m finishing this week, so I’m sure other little things will keep coming to me. In terms of when, you’ll have to stay tuned.

In what ways is this new ‘un a progression from your first?

A lot more honest and upfront lyrically, more refined musically, and a deeper expression of me as a person in general. In many ways, it feels like my first proper album, as it’s a lot more conceptual than ‘Sweet Dreamer’, and created over a much smaller space of time. I also came back to my guitar in a big way. A lot of the songs were born out of just writing in my room again, instead of starting everything in a music programme.

Taking place in Digbeth, Central Birmingham from 14th-15th September, the event will host immersive theatre, live music and fashion inspired by the series, a cinema showing, a museum, food, drink, poetry and more.

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Slaves are also playing, plus Mike Skinner (DJ Set), Nadine Shah, The Correspondents, Swingrowers, Electric Swing Circus and more to be announced.

Mystery Jets’ new album ‘A Billion Heartbeats’ is coming...

Mystery Jets have announced their new album, ‘A Billion Heartbeats’.

Due on 27th September via Caroline International, news of their sixth fulllength arrives alongside teaser-track ‘Screwdriver’. You can check it out on readdork.com right now!

Did you come up against any challenges during its creation?

The biggest challenge was stopping writing. It felt very strange when I finished touring at the beginning of 2018, and my initial reaction was to just start writing again. I soon realised that I needed to go and live some life for a while, before anything of worth was going to be written.

Can you tell us any secrets about it?

One of the songs is about A.I. transportation.

What else do you have coming up?

I have a small run of UK shows in September. P

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I want people to find some kind of truth in it. We spend half our consciousness trying to articulate things. And I think the greatest thing about music is when a song can say something that just explains something you’ve been feeling in the truest way, that you couldn’t have ever said with your own language.

That’s like freedom. I hope people can hear it and feel those feelings.

Feelin’ Peaky THERE’S A PEAKY BLINDERS FESTIVAL, OBVIOUSLY. WE’RE IN.

INTRO

5 So Lonely

Lauv has teamed up with Anne-Marie for his new pop bop, ‘fuck, i’m lonely’.

The single - which appears in season 3 of Netflix’s 13 Reasons Why - is the latest track from Lauv’s upcoming debut album, ‘~how i’m feeling~’.

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“I’m excited to have ‘fuck, i’m lonely’ included on the 13 Reasons Why soundtrack,” he says. “I believe the show has done amazing work but as we release this song, I wanted to share my thoughts about the show with you: when you watch, watch thoughtfully - start with a close friend who you feel like you can be honest with.

“I met and saw Anne-Marie live for the first time when we played at Wembley together. She’s highly silly in a way that has swag, such a good performer and her outfits are crazy.”

Lauran Hibberd’s new track is very good, ‘FYI’ ‘FRANKIE’S GIRLFRIEND’ IS A BIRROVA BANGER, TBH. Isle Of Wight’s Lauran Hibberd has just dropped her new single, ‘Frankie’s Girlfriend’. Using her trademark irresistible alt-pop to tell a nightmarish tale about a weird dream and its repercussions, it’s an early cut from her upcoming debut EP, ‘Everything is Dogs’.

‘Everything is Dogs’. For me, it kind of sums up and highlights specific points in my life over the last year. It feels complete to me, and I’m really proud of it. There’s a track called ‘Shark Week’ on there, that’s my favourite; she’s a sad girl, but it gets me every time.

Hey Lauran! When did you first realise you wanted to make music?

And your new single ‘Frankie’s Girlfriend’, what’s that about?

It took me quite a long time to realise.

I spent a few transitional years trying out a bunch of hobbies. It’s fair to say I am pretty terrible at near enough every sport or group-based activity. I was always into ‘writing’, and had my head stuck in a book as a kid, so I think for me, the lyrical and vocal came to me first. I picked up a guitar at 14, and could not put one down since.

How have you found your time as a musician so far?

It’s been amazing; I feel like I’m riding the biggest learning curve, but it’s really damn worth it. There are so many highlights, touring with Hippo Campus earlier in the year sticks out for me. Playing Shepherd’s Bush Empire blew my little mind off.

But I think for me, playing Glastonbury will be pretty hard to beat. It was super surreal.

We hear you have a new EP on the way, what can you tell us about it?

I do! It’s called

Collab Alert?

It looks like Phoebe Bridgers is joining forces with Perfume Genius.

An Instagram post by Perfume Genius, featuring Phoebe Bridgers, comes alongside the caption “at our office cooking up that good sad for you.”

Seems pretty nailed on.

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‘Frankie’s Girlfriend’ is based on a dream I had, about a pal of mine called Frankie. He had a bit of a nutty girlfriend, and she did not react well to me telling him I had a weird dream involving him. It spiralled very unnecessarily, and here we are. It’s funny to me now, not sure it’s funny to them though. It feels punchier, and a bit bolder to me than my previous releases.

I think she’s got a bite.

What else have you got coming up?

I have my EP out in September, a headline tour in October. I have another UK and EU tour towards the back end of the year, which I can’t say too much about, but I’m excited! P Lauran Hibberd’s debut EP ‘Everything is Dogs’ is out 20th September.

INTRO

Ginger cheer!

BROCKHAMPTON ARE BACK! Yep, the internet’s first boy band are back at it.

There’s a brand new album, ‘Ginger’, arriving at around the time you’re probably reading this, following up on last year’s ‘Iridescence’ and arriving only a few short months after band leader Kevin Abstract’s recent solo effort ‘Arizona Baby’, which was released back in April. Consider us Officially Excited.

MIRROR, MIRROR

Scoopy ahoy!

STRANGER THINGS’ JOE KEERY IS BACK AT THE MUSIC THING AS DJO. The quiff better known as Stranger Things’ Steve ‘The Hair’ Harrington is no stranger to the musical world, previously appearing as part of the excellent Post Animal. Now, though, he’s going it alone with a brand new name - Djo - and a first single, ‘Roddy’.

Perfectly pitched summer psych-pop, the track features artwork that includes a lovely ‘tache. We’ll have rid of that before Stranger Things starts filming in October, young Joe. You don’t want to be giving Dustin ideas.

You can check out ‘Roddy’ on readdork.com now. P

ANGEL OLSEN’S NEW ALBUM ‘ALL MIRRORS’ IS DUE THIS AUTUMN.

Arriving on 4th October, it’ll be followed by a world tour that sees her perform UK/EU dates - including a date at London’s Eventim Apollo beginning in January.

“In every way - from the making of it, to the words, to how I feel moving forward, this record is about owning up to your darkest side,” she says, “finding the capacity for new love and trusting change even when you feel like a stranger.”

Want to hear more? The title-track is streaming on readdork.com now.

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10

HYPE ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC

FIND MORE FRESH SOUNDS ONLINE NOW AT READDORK.COM/HYPE

L Devine ALT-POP SAVANT L DEVINE IS THE COOLEST NEW GIRL IN TOWN.

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WORDS: LAURA FREYALDENHOVEN

for it, and I got into writing music.

IT’S A TALE AS OLD AS TIME: A I’m pretty impatient. I didn’t girl moving to the big city to follow want to spend all my days looking her dreams. Dreams that every at YouTube tutorials on how to parent eyes with suspicion because learn other people’s songs, so I just they are simply too big, because the made my own up.” Growing up in chance of them actually coming Whitley Bay, by Newcastle, Liv was true is one in a million. But here is surrounded by a culture that was a girl who followed through, who’s very big on alternative and indie making her dreams reality. A girl music, but her first songs were whose third live performance was all very singer-songwriter. “That a slot at BBC’s Big Weekend. L was all I had. Me and my guitar in Devine. Newcastle’s coolest pop my bedroom. Then I realised that star and Charli XCX’s vision of “the I listened to so much music and motherfucking future”.

I would get tired pretty quickly Ever since releasing her second sticking to just one genre.”

EP ‘Peer Pressure’, L Devine has And so her journey began. From been on a steady rise. “It’s still very her bedroom up North down to surreal. You’re always onto the London, where she moved in with a next thing, and everything goes friend hoping to get in with the big by so quick. I was so overwhelmed guys. Eventually, the labels came by the show the other night, and knocking, and with good reason. now I’m like ‘right, when’s the L Devine is the voice of a next one?’ I’m so happy with how generation. In her songs, she everything’s going, and I’m just speaks about the struggles of really excited.” growing up as with ‘Peer Pressure’, And she has every reason to be a song that sampling Heathers, excited: sold out headline shows wrapped in cool pop beats, gives in Newcastle and London and a an insight into the mind of any slot at this year’s Big Weekend in 20-year-old trying to fit in. But Middlesbrough mark the start of especially her song ‘Daughter’ her journey as a live performer. that tells the story of confronting A start that most artist can only the intolerant mother of a girl dream of. Talking about her she dated, saying “It goes against Middlesbrough adventure, she everything that you taught her, says: “It was a bucket list moment, but I’m sorry Miss, just to be on the I’m in love with your line-up next to daughter” has not only those huge names THE FACTS struck a chord with her like Miley Cyrus + From audience, it’s also very and Billie Eilish.”

Whitley Bay, UK dear to her heart.

But let’s start + For fans of “All my songs at the beginning.

Kim Petras, Tove Lo that have connected As she puts it, Liv + Check out with people are the got into music by ‘Naked Alone’ ones that I’ve been copying a friend. + Social so desperate to get “I always thought @LDevineMusic off my chest, that are he was really cool, + See them live: helping me through and he picked up She’ll tour the UK the situation. I wrote the guitar so I this November, it in 15 minutes. It thought I should kicking off in was so easy to write do it, too. Then I Manchester on the 3rd because it was just me just got the bug

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telling the story start to finish. It was completely overwhelming.

I was nervous to put that song out because it was the first time I had explicitly talked about my sexuality and it was so out in the open, and I didn’t want to feel like I was cashing in on it or anything. I was scared of what people thought of me, but everyone was telling me how much the song had helped them.

It was really special.”

But just writing songs isn’t enough for Liv, she prefers to get involved in all aspects of her craft. “I’m super into production L Devine now; I make my own beats.

I also like to take advantage of the talents that are around me, so I love getting in the studio with a producer and seeing what they can bring. I love writing with people.”

This is most apparent on her recent release ‘Naked Alone’ that she wrote with Swedish producers INDIIA. It’s a different sound from her two previous EPs. It’s fun and fresh and a little more tongue-in-cheek. Unapologetically talking about being horny, it’s a sex-positive anthem that Liv has been wanting to release for two years now. “I was super nervous releasing ‘Naked Alone’,” she says.

“Especially off the back of ‘Peer Pressure’, where I was talking about, not heavier stuff, but there were always messages, and I felt like I had to say something in my music. But then I thought ‘You know what, fuck it. I’m 21, I wrote a song about sex, and it’s cool as

fuck, and I think especially young girls need to hear that. They need to hear another young girl talking about the fact that she’s horny and owning it.”

The overwhelmingly positive feedback ‘Naked Alone’ has generated so far speaks for itself.

The world is ready for L Devine to take her home.

What sets L Devine apart from the rest of the pop world is her attention to visuals. Similar to Billie Eilish, her music comes alive on screen.

But where Billie hones in on the strange and twisted, Liv’s aesthetic takes a more indie film approach.

Talking to her about the two improvised short films that accompanied her EPs, it’s clear to see that Liv has an endless supply of creativity.

“Visuals are super important to me. It’s one of my favourite things if not THE favourite thing at the moment. I’m always making mood boards. I’m shit at Photoshop, but I’m always trying to make some kind of artwork.”

Liv is bursting with ideas. And though she has definitely caught the bug for “the live thing” and wants to focus on touring and meeting her fans for a while, we can still expect a few more singles plus stunning visuals in the near future.

But don’t be too sure what unique sound L Devine is going to pull out of her pocket. “I’m never settled on what route I wanna go down. That’s what keeps it exciting. That’s what I love about songwriting. You can do whatever the fuck you want.” P

"Young girls need to hear another young girl talking about the fact that she’s horny and owning it"

29 READDORK.COM

First on CHECK OUT THESE NEW ACTS IMMEDIATELY

BIIG PIIG 21 year old Biig Piig is a singerslash-rapper-slash-’storyteller’, on the verge of something rather big. Jess Smyth (for that is she, etc), has already dropped two EPs - ‘Big Fan Of The Sesh, Vol.1’ and ‘A World Without Snooze, Vol.2’ - as well as played sold out shows at the likes of London’s Village Underground. With a volume 3 expected to land later this year, and a date at the capital’s EartH booked in for October, it’s time to start paying more attention.

Check out: ‘Sunny’

Egyptian Blue EGYPTIAN BLUE’S DARK POST-PUNK MARKS THEM OUT AS A HIGHLIGHT FROM THE BRIGHTON UPRISING.

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WORDS: JAMIE MUIR

between Andy FESTIVAL SEASON CAN BE HAZY; and fellow cothere’s a lot going on. For new frontman Leith bands ready to make their mark, Ambrose leads it’s a proving ground of the highest the charge for order. Egyptian Blue thrive in those what Egyptian moments. Taking every show as Blue are all about. an opportunity to turn heads, they Back and forth boast the sort of intoxicating posthooks and rawpunk that places them at the top throated energy of the food chain when it comes to refuse to let up as Andy Buss breaking bands. if Foals’ soaring In that regard, debut EP adventure meets ‘Collateral Damage’ feels like the potent punk spirit of Girl Band. proof of what those who’ve This isn’t just another ‘spirited caught a glimpse of the band group’ but one trading modern live already know. Soaring walls influences with an in-your-face of sound meeting unstoppable speakerphone to boot. It’s a myriad individuality that pulls you into of styles present from the very early chaotic pits and hands-in-the-air days of Andy and Leith’s friendship. celebration, inspired by the sorts “We met at secondary school of conversations you overhear on and grew up together another wild night really,” recalls Andy. out.

“I remember showing THE FACTS “It’s a relief to have Leith early Foals when something out in the + From we were 13/14 and Brighton, UK world,” admits coimmediately bonding + For fans of frontman Andy Buss. over it all. We were The Murder Capital “We’ve worked hard listening to them a lot, + Check out to get to this point. and it’s weird - I think ‘Collateral Damage’ We’re adamant that it propelled us to where + Social nothing’s finished, we are now as a band.” @egyptianblueinc though, whether Moving to Brighton, + See them live: that’s recorded it’s over the past year They play Indie music, rehearsing where the four-piece Banquet in Leeds and playing live - completed by bassist on 17th August, and there’s always more Luke Phelps and a date in London on we can do”. drummer Isaac Ide 23rd October The dynamic - have truly hit their

stride. A run across the UK with The Murder Capital has been a welcome coming-together of that’s given a newfound momentum to everything the band do.

“It’s been nice playing these small sweaty venues when they’re sold out,” admits Andy. “People are coming down to see both bands and engaging with what we’re doing - it’s great to see.”

The confidence and path now set, there’s a connected ease that can be heard across ‘Collateral Damage’, the sort of EP that leaves you wanting more. “The songs came together pretty quickly,” admits Andy. “We knew they would all work together for the EP. They were recorded in different years but written at the same time, so they’re all part of the same entity.”

“We don’t think there’s any pressure on us,” continues Andy.

“We’ve got a whole bunch of songs we’re developing. I’m not sure where we go from here, but we want to keep making sounds and exploring.”

What could go in it next is anyone’s guess - and it’s that which makes Egyptian Blue so bloody exciting. P

"I’m not sure where we go from here, but we want to keep exploring”"

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HANA VU She’s just finished high school, but newcomer Hana Vu has been writing music for five years - including a collab with none other than Willow Smith.

Now, after releasing a debut EP, ‘How Many Times Have You Driven By’, last year, she’s set to drop two more as a doubleeffort. Titled ‘Anne Hathaway & Nicole Kidman’, they’re packed with songs that represent exaggerated forms of Hana herself, crafted after watching HANA VU Hollywood reporter actress roundtables with women dissecting their craft. With a tour alongside Nilufer Yanya coming up, she’s got a big future ahead of her.

Check out: ‘At The Party’

THE WHA All under 18, The Wha are four friends who live on Actual Farms in Kilkenny, Ireland.

They’ve only played a single show outside of their hometown at the time of writing - it was in Dublin, ‘FYI’ - but they’ve already inked a deal with the mighty Chess Club for a debut AA-side release, out at the end of August. With two vocalists and school done, it’ll be a full time assault from here on in.

Check out: ‘Innocents’

Talk Show

PECKHAM-BASED NEWCOMERS TALK SHOW OWE THEIR SUCCESS TO VISCERAL POST-PUNK, AND A TIP FROM A BARBER...

WORDS: JAMIE MUIR

PICTURE THE SCENE. YOU’RE A

"Everyone went berserk, we were like, what the fuck?!"

Harrison Swann

Show. Built around the friendship of Harrison and bassist George Sullivan, they trade off the sort of jolt-in-the-arm energy that would raise a sleeping giant. A bouncing, feverish live presence has sent bolts across every stage they’ve stepped on.

“It’s been nuts,” admits Harrison, reflecting back over months that have seen Talk Show become the sort-of must-see live act across London that usually comes before something massive kicks into gear. “We’re having the best time, doing what we’ve always wanted. It’s inspiring, even when we’re knackered.”

From the get-go, it was clear something was clicking.

“We said from day one, me and George, that we weren’t going to put anything on Soundcloud,” lays out Harrison, “nothing is going online, absolutely nothing. We’re going to

gig, and we’re going to perform, and want to know more. It’s something that’s how people are going to know Talk Show have in abundance, but it about us.” always helps when you get a helping It’s what led into those famed hand from an unlikely source. nights of self-run shows, bringing “It was pretty nuts how it all came together a pocket of thrilling new about,” laughs Harrison. “I have bands to play in one space to constant the same barber as Felix, and what packed out rooms. happened was that Felix “The second or third had taken a chance on us one, when people had and offered us a slot at THE FACTS seen us before, it was one of his YALA nights + From absolutely packed, in May last year. In that London, UK and everyone went same week he went + For fans of berserk - moshing to to get his hair cut and LIFE, Hotel Lux the songs - we were our barber Danny had + Check out like, what the fuck?! gone to him - oh, you ‘Fast & Loud’ “Those helped need to check out this + Social form who we are as band they’re quality, @talkshow band. What’s become and I’ve been cutting + See them live: essential to how we the frontman’s hair for They play Indie Banquet in Leeds approach anything years!’ and that’s the on 17th August, now, we learnt it at story now circulating!” alongside Egyptian those shows because Promising different Blue we had to run the sides of Talk Show nights too. Be the to be revealed in the people in charge of months to come, expect it all.” nothing short of something special.

It’s what sparked the attention Fast & Loud, Measured & Powerful, of Felix White’s own YALA Records Immediate & Now - Talk Show are to put out ‘Fast & Loud’ - that bringing some new screens for the unmistakable live power that world to look through. P immediately turns heads and makes you

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band starting out, with a decent bunch of songs together and an unquestionable desire to crack on and set the path for what comes next. The only issue - you can’t find a debut show to play, and you don’t want to put any old demo up online just to sway a promoter to add you as an opening name for whatever night could be offered.

“It was hard getting gigs,” recalls frontman Harrison Swann.

“Promoters would ask ‘well, have you got anything to listen to?’ and we were like ‘ermm, no… fancy taking a chance on us?’”

So what happens next? For Talk Show, the answer was simple. “We thought, there’s no fucking hope - we’ll just put on our own show!” details Harrison. As debut shows go, you could say it was a bit of a success.

“There was a moment when the door staff told us that they’d stopped letting people in because it was that busy. That was pretty fucking nuts.”

“You start thinking - oh shit, we’re about to play our first show and they’re not letting anyone else in the room, are we sure we want to do this?” cracks Harrison.

Whether they wanted to do this or not was never an issue for Talk

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The “greatest band in the world” are back, and they’re out to save it. As MUNA return with an album of top pop bangers, they’re holding nothing in reserve.

WORDS: ABIGAIL FIRTH. PHOTOS: ISAAC SCHNEIDER. .

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“SO I HEARD THE BAD NEWS,

nobody likes me and I’m gonna die alone,” rang the stomping return of MUNA. Earlier this year, the trio Katie Gavin, Naomi McPherson and Josette Maskin, tweeted out that “the greatest band in the world muna will be releasing music this year”, a tweet that summed up their growth as a band, as people, and the strength of their new album ‘Saves The World’.

They’ve been through a lot to get here though. Calling yourselves the greatest band in the world might sound arrogant, but as one RuPaul once said, if you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else? We’re kidding, MUNA’s self-confidence was actually brought out of a very dark place. Like a phoenix rising from the ashes, MUNA combatted a serious case of imposter syndrome and realised they are in fact, the greatest band in the world.

Since the release of ‘About U’ two years ago, the band’s timeline has been “touring, and then getting depressed, then making this album and working on being less depressed”, in their own words. So they toured their debut (with Harry Styles, no less), and cemented themselves as one of the most exciting forces in pop, becoming queer icons for fans.

We catch up with them on a day in which Dork HQ, UK, might actually be hotter than where MUNA are on the other end of the line, in California, to find out what’s been going on in those years off.

“I kinda feel like we’ve gone through a second adolescence,” says Josette. “A period of growth and questioning our identities as human beings and what we want that to actually really be. From when the first record came out to now, it was actually becoming a professional band and knowing what that means to each of us. I think that has made us all grow as people; it’s been an interesting and difficult experience.”

“Since the release of the first record, it’s become a fact of life that this is our profession and this is what we do for work,” adds Naomi, “which is such an amazing blessing, but also comes with a good deal of responsibility to make sure that we’re making authentic art and not succumbing to outside pressure.

We’re trying to stay true to why we started this band in the first place, which was we love music, and for us, it’s sometimes the only way to say something in a way that makes sense, or to reflect on one’s life.”

And reflect they did. It seems like they’ve been looking after

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"IF YOU’RE FEMALE OR FEMME ADJACENT, THE WORLD IS TELLING YOU FROM THE DAY THAT YOU’RE BORN THAT YOUR OPINION DOESN’T

each other in this period too. Even the fact that each of them check-in that the other has finished talking before they add something else, with no interrupting, it’s really lovely, and gives you the impression they’ve been going through it all together.

“I feel like the process, and flow for us has been at a very natural pace,” says Katie. “We were in acceptance of how hard it actually is to get better and to make changes as a human being, and how much of that process is out of our control.

It’s very much mirrored in our professional life. We measure our professional success as the art that we’re making, and that’s the main thing. I dunno how we measure our personal growth, but we’ve all committed to making changes that occur over a really long term process, and require a serious commitment and recommitment, but it’s real change. Everything is so fucking fast right now, that if you’re believing that, it makes you feel like shit because actually changing takes a long time.”

A large part of MUNA’s growth,

35

MATTER" as is evident on ‘Saves The World’, is a realisation of their own selfworth, individually and as a band.

Taking the time to give themselves a pat on the back wasn’t in the schedule, but they actively changed that. On ‘Saves The World’ ‘s opener, ‘Grow’, Katie croons, “I want to grow old, I want to lay down, I want to let go”. It’s hard to not believe her.

“The first record cycle, for me as an individual, I don’t really have a history of celebrating my victories or claiming ownership of things I’ve been able to achieve,” Katie says. “I think that may be endemic to the entertainment industry; if you have any success, you’re taught ‘don’t take time to feel comfortable in that because it will go away’.

The first cycle, we were just a bit obsessed with working. I don’t think we really had a lot of those moments. Maybe Jo and Naomi did, I think we tried a little bit maybe when we were in fucking Paris with Harry Styles. But this cycle, we’re trying to put these personal changes to the test, like okay now I’ve done something I’m

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"WE’RE TRYING TO GO GUNS BLAZING WITH THIS RECORD"

good part of their life unfold in front of them,” Naomi adds, “it seems pretty overwhelming and crazy, but I think the purpose of the song is to encourage both ourselves and the listener to keep choosing to fight another day, even when it seems really dark, because it’s gonna be okay.”

“That song feels really seminal to our career as a band and to this record. I don’t necessarily know a song like it, and I think it’s kind of a statement,” Josette says.

It’s also the only song of MUNA’s that includes gendered pronouns. While skipping them on the first album was an accident, it became something of note, and is one of the reasons the trio were hailed as queer icons. It’s interesting too that MUNA were the ones chosen as the main support on Harry Styles’ European tour in 2017, where his audience of largely teenage girls and young women were most likely to be affected by MUNA’s music (he knows what he’s doing).

“I think that he was using us in some way to make a statement and I thought it was really fucking cool,” Josette says. “He decided to take a queer, mainly femaleidentifying band on tour to support him, and I really thought it was a cool move on his part, and it was just really humbling to get to tour with him. It was more of an affirmation of who we are as a band and that that thing is meaningful and that people, y’ know, care about it.

“With his platform, it was a lesson for us in being okay with self promotion. That was something we still struggle with and are trying to get better at with this record cycle, but it was just really cool to be able to play for people all over the world and to be opening for a guy whose main thing is to treat people with kindness. It was a reflection of him, as well as a reflection of us.”

So we’re back to the present day. The TL;DR is that the world at large has gotten significantly worse since MUNA went away, so it’s a good job they’re back to save it, right? If there’s anything to be learned from ‘Saves The World’ – and trust us, there’s plenty – it’s that being your own hero is more important than being everyone’s hero, and that, in some ways, bettering yourself is ultimately a bigger challenge than saving the world.

“When we were writing this record, especially in the beginning we were kind of obsessed with Joseph Campbell and the Hero’s Journey,” notes Josette. “We kind of dropped that idea, but as we continued to write, we wanted it to have kind of an arc of death and rebirth, and I think it tells a story similar to that.

Naomi adds, “I think the intent of the story is to be like a circle in the sense that, it’s not to say we’ve got it all figured out, and that this is how to help yourself, but just recognising certain patterns that you have in your life and realising that they’re going to come up again. You’re not done with your battle after it’s fought.” P MUNA’s album ‘Saves The World’ is out 6th September.

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really proud of, can I be proud of it? Can I feel like I deserve this? And not just keep focusing on the anxiety of what the future is gonna hold? Can I own this?”

But in a world where Megan Rapinoe can’t even celebrate her World Cup victory without being called arrogant, how are women supposed to big themselves up?

“Katie and I were having this discussion the other day about the way that certain people discuss art and how it’s easier for people who are born male to say ‘I need to make art! I’ll die if I don’t make art!’,” Naomi says. “If you’re female or femme adjacent, the world is telling you from the day that you’re born that your opinion doesn’t matter as much as other people’s, so you’re like ‘well I wanna make art but also should I just shut the fuck up?

Are people gonna think I’m annoying?’

“There’s a subtext to the narrative of taking ownership of what you’re doing and being proud of yourself that is rebelling against what we are taught to feel and how we’re taught to behave.

If we are openly like ‘yeah our album is fucking amazing, and we worked our asses off, and if this album is successful, we fucking deserve that’, people are gonna be like, ‘well they’re just a bunch of selfaggrandising dickheads’. It’s interesting to deal with it. And despite every bone in your body telling you that you shouldn’t be proud of what you’ve done, that you have failed, I think you have to be like ‘I did a good job’. Period.”

So while the album is called ‘Saves The World’, it’s really about saving yourself.

It’s an introspective record that focuses on wanting to change your life and to change the patterns you’ve found yourself in. With the bombastic ‘Number One Fan’ aside, a lot of the tracks swell with a sadness as Katie picks herself apart and puts herself back together.

“The record has a lot to do with shame,” she says. “There are a lot of

people struggling in many different ways right now, and whether you wanna attribute that to personal trauma, or you wanna think about this being kind of an unprecedented time in human history, where we don’t really know how we’re gonna survive on this planet, and there’s so much political turmoil. For me, I’m trying to really be honest about myself and the ways that my specific struggle has looked, and putting that story out there for other people.

“That wasn’t something I was ready to do on the first record, and I didn’t even know that I wasn’t ready. I didn’t know that there was stuff that I was holding back as an artist, but I’m in a place now where I have a little bit less shame around just what it’s meant for me to be me. I think that trying to create that space for more people to let themselves be free in different ways, that’s starting to become clear to me. It’s more our coming of age record than the first.”

“It requires being brutally honest with yourself,” adds Naomi. “It’s not just doing yoga and meditating and drinking a juice, you have to work on facing that voice that tells you that you’re a piece of shit, and also owning up if you’ve made mistakes, so it’s kind of all that.”

The record swirls through various genres (or not, Josette says the modern band is genreless), spanning Robyn-esque retro-futuristic on ‘Never’, 90s teen movie soundtrack greatness on ‘Good News (Ya Ya Song)’, and chugging nightdrive ‘Memento’, but the tent poles come right at the start and end, with ‘Number One Fan’ (duh), and the six-minute autobiographic ‘It’s Gonna Be Okay’.

“If the record is about saving yourself, ‘Number One Fan’ is the song that anyone can hold onto to remind themselves that they are worthy of self-love, and sonically we were trying to be minimalist and maximalist,” Naomi says of why they released it first. “And I mean what is a better lyric choice than putting out ‘so I heard the bad news, nobody likes me and I’m gonna die alone’. We’re trying to go guns blazing with this record, and telling people who MUNA is and MUNA can be anything that we want it to, and I think this song kinda shows that.”

As for ‘It’s Gonna Be Okay’, Katie effectively tells us her life story up to the present moment, every low point out on the table, featuring the lyric “you’re gonna think about suicide, yeah you’re gonna call your mom” in the first minute.

Ooft.

“The song is just the story of someone growing up,” Katie says. “We’re all in our mid-20s now, and that’s what the making of this record has been. It’s more of a reflection of that, and it exemplifies what the record is about, but also what growing up is about to anyone who’s looking to see the patterns in your life and trying to make changes.”

“If you were to take the arc of the song and what it gets into and hear that as a 17-year-old who has yet to have a

LOCKDOWN

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As one of the vital cogs in Kasabian’s arena thumping juggernaut, Serge Pizzorno has conquered the planet. Now, as The S.L.P., he’s ready to play.

"IT WAS JUST PURE EXPERIMENTATION, FOLLOWING THE ART AND SEEING WHERE THAT WOULD TAKE ME"

features a - to put it mildly - absolutely cracking sharp-tongued verse from Little Simz. She and Slowthai were, Serge says, “the number one choices” for the album. The very top-tier.

“I was so lucky to get both number ones, you know?” he says. “It could only have been them as well, by hook or by crook I’d have made it happen.

Because I just think that they’re the hope for the future.”

For Serge, managing to swing his two dream feature artists on his first solo album opened up a world of possibility. Having originally planned for the record to have a more Jazz-directed sound, he found that bringing MCs onboard pushed ‘The S.L.P.’ as both an album and a project to another level.

“I think now this world exists I can [continue building collaborations].

That’s really exciting for me. I just needed to make it happen, I needed to start it somewhere,” he says.

Speaking of the future, if all of this was meant to be Serge’s downtime, a summer off from working with Kasabian before they kicked back into gear, then where does that leave him?

Thankfully, becoming The S.L.P. has cleared his head just as well as a month on the beach - if not more so.

“Having stepped away from the band I can now see it so clearly, I now can hear what the next chapter is,” Serge explains. “Whereas before, I had no idea and I needed to do something else to figure that out.

But I now know, I can place pieces of music where they belong. I think that’s amazing to have that.”

Even now that he’s got it all figured out, it doesn’t sound like he’s about to take that time off. After all, with the album done and dusted there’s the small matter of the live show to consider.

“It’s this need to create. And then at the end of it, you’ve got to answer for it,” he laughs. “When I’m with the band there’s a gang, you know, but now it’s just me going ‘yeah I’ve got an idea for the live show... I’ve got no idea if it’s gonna work, but I’ve definitely got an idea’.”

The heart of it, it seems, is trying to make people feel that sense of wonder that guides so much of the record.

“I think I just want people to come and see the show and kind of feel like ‘I wasn’t expecting this to happen’,” he says. “Like the record, there’ll be twists and turns, and there’ll be an edge to it. I want people to feel on edge but in a really exciting way, like ‘what is going to happen next?’”

It’s about community, he says.

“When we started all those years ago, we just wanted to connect with as many people [as possible]. Everyone is welcome, and everyone can hear each other’s stories and figure out how we’re going to move forward.” P The

S.L.P.’s self-titled debut album is out 30th August.

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WORDS: LIAM KONEMANN.

LET’S DO A QUICK POLL. ARE YOU

allowed to call a song ‘Gary’? Or is it too weird, like naming your dog ‘David’? It’s a big issue, but never fear: on his self-titled solo record under the moniker The S.L.P., our mate Serge Pizzorno has answered this age-old question. It turns out you can. After a friend told him about the viral satirical news story claiming there had been no babies named Gary born in Britain after 1992, Serge was inspired. The resulting track ‘Youngest Gary’ is a buzzing, darkly comic weirdo anthem, drawn from the same musical well that Serge pulled ‘Vlad the Impaler’.

“It was obviously a nonsense story, but if it’s not a love song, and I don’t write many of those, then comedy is the thread,” Serge says. “There’s always an element of dark comedy, or a twist that makes me laugh. To call a song ‘Vlad the Impaler’ to me is funny. When I read that people take it seriously, then that’s even funnier to me, but if you delve in you start to see these sort of Andy Kaufman-esque moves that we made.”

The pop-culture element is crucial.

When Serge filtered the plight of the Garys with his film fandom and some David Bowie glam, a narrative began to form.

“I love the film ‘Children of Men’ where the youngest person in the world is like 17, and there are no more babies being born,” he explains, “and I liked the idea that Gary is 27, there’s no more Garys, and he’s this Ziggy Stardust sort of character who’s just wandering about Camden. He’s the youngest Gary, and he’s trying to make it in a band.”

Camden Town of the Damned can be bad enough without being the very last of your kind, but ‘Youngest Gary’ doesn’t stray too far into bleak

territory. Serge is a benevolent god.

Before all of this band malarkey, did he ever think about going into comedy writing?

“Oh, god, no!” He laughs, horrified.

“No, fucking never.”

There is, at the very least, a filmic element to The S.L.P. though. The album is framed by three tracks named in the style of TV or comic book title cards - ‘Meanwhile… in Geneva’, ‘Meanwhile… at the Welcome Break’, and ‘Meanwhile… in the Silent Nowhere’. Serge had originally written them for a film that was in development but which never came to fruition, and dug them out again when Kasabian decided to take their first ever summer off.

“I thought, it’s sort of now or never really. I had this music that I just thought would stay on the hard drive for years if I didn’t do something with,” he says. “I had this kind of ‘Meanwhile...’ concept, this comic book thing of ‘Meanwhile, in the Bat Cave...’, ‘Meanwhile in the lab...’, and I thought that would be interesting. I felt like I could make that record.”

Those three provided the impetus for the album as a whole, a series of James Bond-style cinematic theme tunes that set Serge off on a natural path to fill in the blanks around them.

“It was just pure experimentation, following the art and seeing where that would take me. Down the rabbit hole. Like, what’s down here and what can I bring up back to the surface?”

He laughs.

The ‘Meanwhile…’ tracks tie the album together in a natural way, cycling in and out with a repeated orchestral refrain.

“I like the idea of this being an album, not an algorithm,” he says.

“The melody comes back, and as a listener, you close your eyes, and you’re directing your own movie in your head. That’s how I sort of see music, visually. So I wanted that melody to repeat, and give the sense that this is on a soundtrack from the early 70s and what film that would be.

But everyone’s got their own take on it, and I love that.”

The drifting, dreamlike ‘Meanwhile… at the Welcome Break’ also features Slowthai in one of the album’s two heavy-hitting collaborations. Serge says it was important to him to have artists who he believes are ‘at the forefront’ of the next wave of British music. ‘... the Welcome Break’ is, Serge says, “a kind of Scott Walker, Morricone, huge cinematic piece. But then having [Slowthai] is like psychedelic poetry, there’s a real twist.”

The other big collaboration on ‘The S.L.P.’ comes on lead single ‘Favourites’, perhaps the most traditionally Kasabian-esque track on the album and which alternates between the perspectives of both parties in a failed relationship. It

40 SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

The Murder Capital are a band that arrived with expectation. Before their first track dropped, word of mouth had already begun to spread about five men from Dublin kicking up a fuss. Now, just a few months later, they’re getting ready to drop a debut album. If they can stay awake, that is.

WORDS: JAKE HAWKES. PHOTOS: PATRICK GUNNING.

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MORE IS LESS

probably had some influence on us A FEW MONTHS AGO, THE too.”

Murder Capital burst into the public “The progression of the band has consciousness with ‘Feeling Fades’, been very natural,” Gabriel adds. a raucous banger that turned “A few people have said that we’ve heads from Dublin to London. The held off from releasing anything, resulting explosion led to sold out but that isn’t how it felt on our end. tours across the UK and Ireland, as I suppose the fact that the album well as a swift turnaround on their is coming out quite quickly from excellent debut album ‘When I Have when we started playing together Fears’. might have been different if we When we catch up with them hadn’t got the attention we did, but in a swish pub in central London every release has happened in a very (the label’s paying, the band organic way.” haven’t quite earned their millions “We just refuse to let anything just yet) the toll of constant compromise the evolution of the touring, recording and staying up band,” James late is clear. cuts in, leaning Frontman James in and resting McGovern his elbows on hasn’t slept at the table. “How all in the last 24 can you possibly hours, unless take validation you count the from anyone 15 or so seconds except your he nods off inner circle for during the of people you interview (we trust? We don’t didn’t know James McGovern give a shit what we were that anyone outside boring, lads) and the band, our the rest of the close family and friends, and our band are all nursing hangovers of team think.” various intensity.

Evolution is the key word for Despite the circumstances, ‘When I Have Fears’, with the loud, they’re clearly enthused about the abrasive sound that The Murder upcoming debut and the reaction Capital are known for dialled back their music has been receiving so on some tracks and barely present at far. all on others. “Doing ten aggressive “How well the band has been punk songs just wouldn’t be true to received just gives us more us as people,” Gabriel explains. “I encouragement to write what we don’t think any choice we make as a want to write,” explains bassist band comes from how the industry Gabriel Paschal Blake. “A lot of or anyone else views us. The choices artists don’t get to have a clear plan we make are for us, not them.” or payoff, and I think sometimes “We just wanted to be honest you might not give it as much with ourselves,” guitarist Cathal energy, or you might not finish Roper agrees. “If we were going writing an album, because you don’t through something that we felt ten know what the end goal is. If we punk songs would express, that’s weren’t getting tours out of it, we what we would have written. But we wouldn’t be able to devote as much weren’t, and the album is an honest time to it.” reflection of what we were – and are Drummer Diarmuid Brennan – going through as people. nods in agreement, saying: “People “Digression should be allowed,” being keen to see the band and that, he continues. “Punk is one of our it’s a real boost. The word of mouth influences, but it isn’t an especially promotion kicked in, and we just big thing for us at all, and we’d concentrated on that – just getting rather be showing compassion than festivals and adding songs to each anger. I think the album is about set, one at a time. Then eventually trying to understand the human you get to the point where you have psyche and what people go through, this collection of songs and making more than anything else.” an album is a hell of a lot easier from “‘Green and Blue’ fits that ethos,” there.”

James says when asked about the Not that they’re willing to buy album’s second single. “It fitted the into the narrative too much though. narrative of the part of the band “Hold on,” James says. “What hype that we wanted to expose to the was there really? Billie Eilish had world, simple as that. We make our hype! I didn’t see any for us, and decisions by just sitting down and I don’t think any that was there thinking ‘what do we want to say influenced what we were writing next?’” and what we were doing. I guess When asked about the difficulty touring will have influenced the of exposing a more vulnerable side album, but only in the same was that to the band, he’s quick to answer. the sandwich I had for breakfast

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"We refuse to let anything compromise the evolution of the band"

SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

“I don’t think it’s any harder, to be honest. It’s a valid question, definitely. Do we feel more naked on stage when I’m not as angry? No, because it’s as much an integral part of me as anger or any other emotion.

It’s something I’m feeling, and I don’t think it matters why you feel.

You can dissect these things all you like, but you feel things and act on those feelings regardless.”

“It came together really quickly, too,” Cathal adds. “We wrote it in a day or two, and that’s when you know it’s good. You get excited when it’s going fast, and it’s just this great feeling when it’s all coming

together. There were other songs we wrote that we weren’t so sure of and they just didn’t make the cut – you’ve just gotta trust your instincts.”

“We also had songs that we liked that just weren’t songs for the album,” Gabriel cuts in. “We had the title sorted quite early on, maybe halfway through the writing process, and that meant that any songs we wrote had to fit into the emotions suggested by ‘When I Have Fears’.”

This process of elimination meant that it wasn’t exactly tough to work out what was going on

back now and seeing there’s more diversity there.”

While stepping out of their comfort zone might be risky, The Murder Capital credit the diversity of the Irish music scene with broadening their horizons. “What’s interesting about Ireland is that the bands are all authentic, that’s the connecting thread,” enthuses Cathal. “They aren’t all the same genre, Junior Brother, Fontaines, Kojaque, all completely different, but all united by the authenticity of their music.”

“It’s an interesting one too,” Gabriel says. “Traditionally, guitar

bands have to be recognised in the UK before Ireland takes them seriously. Sometimes Irish people will only start listening to you if you’ve played in the UK, like we need that validation. But now because there are so many more bands breaking out of Ireland and Dublin, it really feels like that might not be the case anymore.”

He pauses and takes a sip of his pint before continuing: “Touring the UK is still great though, people will come out to see you all week long. There are loads of great venues in Ireland, don’t get me wrong, but with the likes of places

album ‘When I Have Fears’ is out now.

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43

the album, and nothing got left on the cutting room floor. “Too many songs?” laughs James. “No, we didn’t have enough! We went in with nine and wrote the tenth while we were in the studio, so there really wasn’t much of a decision to be made over what we left in there.

It all had to fit, and it all does.”

“People can get a bit shocked when they see us live,” muses Gabriel when discussing the breadth of influences and genres on the album. “If they’ve seen us on that first tour, when the majority of the set was pretty in your face, they might be a bit surprised coming

like Limerick, people might only go out on the weekend. In Dublin, people will go out every night, in Belfast too, but other places around the country they’ll only go out on a Friday or a Saturday – you can’t do a tour that only takes place at the weekend!”

“We’re tied to the UK as well as Ireland though,” he says. “We recorded the album in London and had this really romantic notion of what that would be like, which largely panned out. I remember we went home after the six weeks there, and there was this feeling of ‘fuck, we’d love to be back over there’, but it just didn’t make sense not to be rehearsing in Dublin.

“In my mind, everything we’ve experienced in Dublin in the last three or four years has impacted on the album, as well as growing up in Ireland. My fear is that if we come to London to live, all our writing would reflect that move. London’s great and touring is absolutely class, but we’ll always miss Ireland when we’re not there.”

And has the experience of growing up in a city like Dublin influenced the social and political themes of their music? “We’re just politically active and socially conscious as much as we should be as people.” Sighs James, wearily rubbing his eyes. “And probably not enough, to be honest – are we a political band? I don’t know; we’ll just be whatever the fuck people start calling us next week, that suits us.” P The Murder Capital’s debut

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45

ETC. ETC. ETC. Last month, we took over London’s Old Blue Last for Etc. 2019 - our annual free festival of awesome bands. Here’s what happened...

READDORK.COM

“THERE’S DEFINITE RECORD AN ALBUM NEXT YEAR” So you just come from playing Dork’s summer party, Etc., how was that?

46

Yes. It was really good. Bit of a sweatbox; it was a kind of endurance test for people. Anyone who was still there by the time we came on at 10, I think deserved something great. What they got was something good. Hopefully, that was better than a kick in the teeth.

How was it playing a sort of

surprise secret headline show?

It was good! You spend all this time worrying about your tours that you do once a year and then it’s these little ones that end up feeling the most special. It’s a venue I’ve been going to forever; I’ve played there with every band I’ve been in, and always it’s always been good with Spector. It was good fun, the other two bands [On Video and Vistas] are good. And everyone was smiling; it was nice to see everyone smiling. It cheered me up. Cheered everyone up! We’ve only played one gig this year.

You’ve been doing EPs rather than albums recently, what was the thinking behind that?

There wasn’t a massive concept other than it takes us so long to finish an album, or it did in the past, that we thought just making a few tracks at a time means we can get music out more regularly and maintain the energy and fun. Also when you’ve got a good however many songs in your setlist, no one wants too many new ones. It’s gone from albums to EPs to just one track at a time. We can release something every few months for the next eight months or whatever and then do an album next year.

So there is a plan to record an album?

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DORK

There is. It’s not written. I’m much more used to single songs at the moment; I don’t think any of us know what a ten-track album would sound like because we wouldn’t want to just do ten bangers, it might be a bit much.

It’s about getting the ratio of banger-to-slightly less of a banger. Maybe 60/40. But there’s definitely a plan to record one, probably next year.

What can you tell us about that new track, ‘Half Life’?

When we did ‘I Won’t Wait’, it’s a scuzzy easy, fun, stupid song.

This one was one of the first we’d written in a while that felt a bit more, I don’t wanna say serious because that implies boring, but like we’re reaching a little beyond ourselves, a little higher. It feels like we’re saying something bit more honest. I think this is a song that slightly puts our emotions and feelings on the line. And so hopefully, that means that it can connect with people on an even deeper level. Or they’ll think it’s shit and we’ll go back to writing something more obvious.

On ‘I Won’t Wait’ you sing about ‘Hating forever, scrolling forever’?

It’s this alienated feeling that everyone has through addiction not even just to social media, but having a phone in your hand. Like, refreshing news pages because you think something might have blown up since the last time you pressed refresh, even though inevitably, whenever something does happen, you completely miss it. I feel like I’m hungover the whole time, like an information hangover. Even when I see my girlfriend or my family, it’s like they’re slightly further away; everyone’s got this barrier in between them.

It’s interesting, you talk about the song being about a short attention span or not being able to engage with people, and at the same time you’re putting out singles and EPs.

Exactly, it’s the attention span for everything. When you can check your phone and see lots of other people that you could potentially be sleeping with, it’s much harder to engage in a long term relationship. Same as when you can read all your friends’ opinions on your phone, you’re less inclined to go to the pub to see them because you feel like you know exactly what’s been going on in their lives. That’s why small gigs, like the Dork thing the other day, that’s a nice reality check. Saying you’ve actually got to turn up two hours before the band you want to see, you’ve got to stay in a sweaty room, see how much you want it. It

Secret headliners of Etc. 2019’s third date, Spector know how to start something in a steamy East London boozer. As they drop a brand new banger and get ready for a forthcoming album, we pinned frontman Fred Macpherson down to take their temperature. Hot, it turns out. forces a bit of reality.

When you go back to promoting an album, will that be more of a chore compared to quick-releasing EPs?

Our whole approach to how we engage with everything has changed, it’ll be an interesting challenge to go back to trying to write 40 minutes of music rather than three minutes at a time. I think it’ll help us understand ourselves. We’re getting to a point where a lot of bands break up because they don’t want to engage with certain inconvenient truths, to paraphrase Al Gore.

It’s a bit like when you realise you’re an alcoholic or something, you’ve got to eventually engage with some things about yourself and your understanding of reality in your relationships with each other. Especially grown men who’ve spent the best part

of ten years together. I want to dig a little deeper and see what that brings out. We might make something crap, I feel like now we’re comfortable in ourselves and not trying to prove anything.

We’ve been signed, we’ve been let go, we’ve been bigger, been small.

We’ve already had lots of different versions of it, so I feel like we’re a bit more relaxed. The stakes are now, how far do we want to go?

That’s the interesting challenge that I’m excited about.

You’ve got a massive tour at the end of the year, hitting some towns off the beaten track - what was the thinking behind that?

It’s representative of how we’re starting to feel excited and want to rise to the challenge. Let’s really go for it. Let’s not do a five-day tour, let’s go and do all these small places and medium

in-between places, and really try to engage the audience. We’re excited, and we want to spread a bit of that excitement. We just suddenly asked the question, why are we still here? And we realised it’s because we want to be.

There’ll be some shows where they’ve not had a band come to play their town in ages.

Exactly, it’s that energy we’re interested in, especially during this odd time economically and socially. Not that our music engages that particularly, but I feel like there is more of a responsibility not just as an artist, but as an entertainer to attempt to entertain. Those are the things that we’re seeking out, entertainment. You want to give some of that to people because that might be the only emotional outlet for everyone right now,

ourselves included. It’s an escape.

Many jobs will be automated in the future, what about bands?

Bands should be automated, I think it’ll be better! The way that music technology has increased since I started making music and how much quicker and easier it is to record and write songs now, I’d imagine that the next step will be the computer taking a bit more of a role in the writing process as well. And I’d be happy with that. I imagine that most of us have about four ideas that could be programmed quite easily and you just throw in those random variations. I mean, that’s what most of our songs are. I think if I sat for two days with someone, not even two days, I could give them all the elements they needed to write the songs. They just need the right temperament. P

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WORDS: DILLON EASTOE. PHOTOS: PATRICK GUNNING.

ELY A PLAN TO M, PROBABLY

ETC. Q+A

Grace Lightman

ETC. IN PHOTOS

We sent snapper extraordinaire Patrick Gunning to each date of Etc. 2019 to capture the action.

10th July 2019

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Hey Grace, how’s it going? Having a good summer?

Hi! Yea, it’s all going great thank you! My summer has been very busy preparing for the release of my first album, so I have a lot to be excited about.

Apre + Sad Boys Club, Grace Lightman

When did you first realise you wanted to make music? Did you grow up in a musical household?

My dad is a musician, and I very much grew up with his influence around me. It was great; I have always had access to his expertise and his record collection. The first band I sang with live was his when I was 15, I would guest on a couple of songs at the pub.

What’s been the highlight of your time as a musician so far?

Probably now! Because I have been able to make the album I wanted to make, and subsequently put it out. This has been such a goal for a while, and it’s pretty surreal that it’s finally happening.

Are you creative in non-musical ways too?

Yes, sometimes to a fault. My brain doesn’t like to work within parameters, and sometimes I forget that not just anything is possible and I can spend hours just exploring possibilities. I make all my music videos with my brother Alex, so we have an outlet there. I also have a lot of creative hobbies!

Tell us about your debut album, what’s it about?

‘Silver Eater’ is about an alien (called Silver Eater) who comes to earth and falls in love with humankind. She is on the run from NASA and exploring what it means to be human while trying to fit in by disguising herself as one. It’s an album about being an outsider, but from a light-hearted perspective that I think everyone can relate to from at least one point in their lives. P

SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

24th July 2019

Spector + Vistas, On Video

ETC. Q+A

Mosa Wild

3rd July 2019

Mosa Wild + Blossom Caldarone, Ed The Dog Tell us about your band, how did you guys meet?

Ed: Jim and Alex have been BFFs since meeting at school in Ashford. Once they started making music together, they ventured out of Kent and bumped into myself and Charlie when we were on the same bill at club nights in London. We locked eyes, gave each other a silent nod and have all been working together ever since.

What’s your favourite thing about being a musician?

Alex: Having no money, all of the time.

What would you most like to achieve during your music career?

Ed: Just having a career in music is a pretty big deal and we’re all very happy to be doing what we’re doing. Having music out in the world that means something to people is what we’re aiming for, and if we get to see some of the world and play some great shows along the way that will suit us pretty well.

31st July 2019

Queen Zee + Guru, The Novus

What are you guys working on at the mo?

Charlie: We are heading back into the studio to record some new material that we’re all excited about! That and putting on the best live show possible. Just getting back off some dates with Tame Impala has shown us how far the production of a live show can go.

What’s your new EP ‘Talking In Circles’ about?

Jim: At its core, ‘Talking In Circles’ is based on relationships and stuff that we’ve been through as a band and as individuals.

What else are you lot up to?

Ed: In November we start touring around the UK with Jade Bird which we’re all stoked about. We also have our own headline show on 18th September at Omeara, one of our favourite venues. P

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Do you remember the first song you wrote together?

Jim: The majority of ‘Tides’ was written at the very beginning, and it’s been a part of live shows from day one.

50

SIDE EFFECTS Relationships, eh? Not easy. But - it seems - fertile ground for a stonkingly brilliant second album for the mighty Shura.

As she returns with ‘forevher’, prepare to anoint the leader of a whole new alt-pop religion.

WORDS: ABIGAIL FIRTH.

SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

51 READDORK.COM

2019 SHOULD BE REMEMBERED

as the year we, collectively as a society, started officially giving religious titles to lesbian pop stars.

Hayley Kiyoko is Lesbian Jesus, Tegan and Sara are Lesbian Gods, Shura is Lesbian Pope.

“I can’t wait to give everyone a title,” Shura says over the phone from her twin brother’s flat in London. “It’s the best. Some people were like ‘oh you’re lesbian Jesus’, and I was like no! Oh nonono.

I’m correcting them. And then Hayley saw it and sent me a little kiss emoji, I was like don’t worry, I’m doing the lord’s work, so they don’t get confused.”

The title came around after Shura released Shura her genius music video for ‘religion (you can lay your hands on me)’, where she officiates a wedding between two nuns.

“I dunno why gays are obsessed with religion. Maybe because some people interpret religion to be like no, you’re not allowed! We’re like ‘well fuck this, I’ll show you! I’m gonna be the bloody pope’. I feel like it’s something that Madonna started. I remember being a kid and watching the video for ‘Like A Prayer’ and just thinking it was the most wonderful thing ever, the most kind of joyful and scary thing.

“I’m just really drawn to that imagery, since I was a kid, and have been really fascinated by religion.

I mean I’m a staunch atheist, but I very nearly went to study theology because I found it so fascinating.

Whether it’s because it has been weaponised, not only against gay people but against women in general. So being a queer woman, it’s double the shit that religion has thrown on you.”

It was the first song she wrote for her second album ‘forevher’, just after she finished touring her debut record in 2016, and supporting Tegan and Sara. Staying in a friend’s basement studio in Minneapolis, where the tour had dropped her off, she wrote her sexiest song yet.

“I wrote it when I had just started talking to my now current girlfriend,” she says. “So it’s funny that it’s like the sexiest song on the record. You know, the song about physical desire is the song that I wrote when I literally couldn’t be with her. It’s a song about sex but, obviously, I couldn’t have it

because she was on the other side of the planet to me, which makes me laugh. But just being in Minneapolis and the rich musical history that that has; I’m obviously massively inspired by Prince, and you can hear it in that song.”

If there’s anything to be gathered from ‘religion’, it’s that Shura is in a very different place (emotionally and ‘physically’) to where she was when she wrote ‘Nothing’s Real’.

Most of the record centres around themes of desire and longing, and is unapologetically about queer sex in the same way records

by Hayley Kiyoko, Marika Hackman and Years & Years have been recently.

“Culturally, we are very obsessed with sex and love, so in a certain sense, it’s like a religion for us. We use sex to sell things, we use sex as a motive. I wanna find the man or woman of my dreams and fall in love with them and have great sex and have babies; it’s hugely important to the experience of being human. I wanted to toy with the idea of how would I talk about that in a song, and especially how can I have fun with that because obviously being a queer woman it’s traditionally something that can be frowned upon for some people of faith. So I guess I just wanted to be cheeky and have fun with the idea of no preacher to teach us to love.”

It’s also about expanding that space for queer women to exist in pop.

“When I was growing up, we had sex ed, but it was like put a condom on a banana, it wasn’t like, ‘Oh by the way gay people exist, and they’re totally normal, and that’s fine’. There was no guidance. You just grew up and would Google ‘lesbian musician’, and it was like oh, Tegan and Sara, yeah I’m gonna listen to them, or like ‘how do lesbians have sex’ - uh here’s a bunch of porn, that’s terrifying, I don’t think I wanna do that? So you just kind of had to teach yourself. I guess I’m just having fun with that notion and seeing what I can get away with.”

But the record is more than about shagging, of course. The comeback track ‘BKLYNLDN’, named after she moved to New York to live with her girlfriend, was a dramatic and intimate reintroduction that

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"I’m a staunch atheist, but I nearly went to study theology because I found it so fascinating"

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friend, and he said ‘welcome to Dairy Queen’, and I was like okay who’s this guy, why’s he welcoming me? Anyway, I got this ice cream because my girlfriend told me it was the best thing ever - wasn’t really that fussed by the ice cream, it was fine, but it didn’t blow my mind - and he came over and just started talking to us, and luckily she started recording the conversation.

“I just thought the dream was his subconscious leading him and saying ‘it’s okay, you loved her forever, you were there for her for the entirety of her life, and it’s okay for you to move on’.

That’s something that I felt was such a lovely story and fitted so well with the themes of the record and my love story; it was just someone else’s love story, it kind of interrupts. So my girlfriend recorded it, and I was like, I need to write a song about this guy, he’s amazing.”

The Tommy in question was tricky to track down afterwards (he has an email address but he ‘doesn’t know where it is’:’)), so Shura ended up giving the song to Marfa’s local radio station to play specifically to him. “I got this email back saying he loves it and can you please send him the lyrics. It was one of those really magic moments where it was just chance, meeting this guy, and ever since I left the conversation, I thought even if I never release this I need to write a song about him, and it did happen and it made the record and it’s one of my favourites at the moment on it.”

While it’s been three years in the making, there are still some connections between ‘forevher’ and Shura’s debut, it’s just grown up a little. The iPhone recording of Tommy’s voice gets used in the same way her home videos did on ‘Nothing’s Real’.

“I listened to the first record a few months ago just for fun, and there’s a naivety to it that I love. It feels a very teenage record, where this feels like my first record as a young woman who’s entering adulthood. The first one feels like the soundtrack to a John Hughes movie, and in this one, I’ve graduated. In the past I’ve joked about albums being like Pokemon, they’re still part of the same family, I’ve always wanted it to feel like an evolution.” P Shura’s album ‘forevher’ is out now.

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detailed the shift from the sadbangers on ‘Nothing’s Real’.

“Literally the opening 15 seconds of that song felt like a really exciting way of introducing people to this next record and a different era. It felt dramatic and bold and brave, and it’s also a very slinky, almost very restrained track. I loved the idea of putting that out first, sometimes the temptation is to be as loud as possible and to be noisy and fast and exciting, I really liked the idea of seducing people into this new era, because that’s sort of what that song is about – desire.

“I talk about the song being in two parts, the first half is a song about sex, and the second half is about love; thematically and musically it encapsulates the different aspects of the record. It ends with that really lovely coda, where everything kind of explodes. It’s almost silly, it’s so joyful. I mean, I sing the words ‘I think you’re awesome’, which is just not a lyric is it? It’s just a thing you’d say to the person you fancy. It’s got that kind of silly, joyful, that thing you feel when you’re first in love, when you just wanna skip around. You’re in this bubble where it’s just you and this other person, and you literally do not care what people think of you because it’s almost as if no one else in the world exists.”

Moving across the Atlantic meant that Shura ended up having some conflicting feelings about America too. If being obsessed with religion as an atheist seemed odd, she says she fell in love with America despite, well, everything going on in America right now. “It’s an album about falling in love, while being in America, which is also a strange place to fall in love in at the moment. Because you can’t help but fall in love with America at the same time but then there are so many things about America at the moment that I’m like uhhhhh.”

One of the ways that American influence inserts itself is on the track ‘tommy’, a song that opens with a chat between Shura and ‘Tommy’, a 90-year-old man from Marfa, Texas, in a Dairy Queen. She wrote the song about a dream he’d had where his wife, who’d passed away, visited and told him he needs a new girlfriend or he’ll die alone.

“I walked in, and he was just sitting there with his

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The world is on fire. No shock there then. But what do you do if you’re an artist quickly approaching the levels of ‘prolific’?

Keep quiet? Play it cool? Worry about being too ‘on the nose’? Naaah. Not Ezra Furman.

WORDS: JESSICA GOODMAN. PHOTOS: SARAH LOUISE BENNETT.

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WHAT CAN YOU DO BUT ROCK 'N' ROLL?

“THERE’S SOMETHING SO

world where all the emergencies are delivered to my personal cell great about when a punk band just phone every morning,” he states. knows what they are.” Painting “I wanted to spend some time in a his nails in the early afternoon place where I can say ‘it is as bad as sunshine, Ezra Furman is a it seems’.” musician of many moods. In the The result is a record that’s past 18 months alone he’s released as ticked off as it is switched on. a book, soundtracked a TV show, Disappointment battles defiance, starred in said TV show, and now conviction duels against cynicism, he’s about to release a brand new emotions are scraped raw and album. ‘Twelve Nudes’ is a kneeexposed. Through it all, a new jerk reaction to the shitstorm of a kind of hopefulness takes hold. world that surrounds us, delivered “You go through the negative with driving rhythms, distorted feelings. Then you go into them riffs, and no shortage of acutely felt further,” Ezra describes. “You dig emotion. “To be so openly angsty, down into the muck, then you get most of us would stop short of that all the way through to standing because it’s a little cliché to be so upside down on the other side of on the nose,” he comments of the the world where you can imagine punk ethos that influences this a way for things to be different.” new record. “There’s something Channelling the increasing sense about the bands that lean into of unease and fear that that’s at the state of the satisfying.” world around us, Whether Ezra Furman has it’s a battle crafted a record cry within the that truly feels chaos, a note powerful. of fervent “If you’re desperation, willing to admit or something “It’s charming, isn’t it?” Ezra that there’s an else besides, beams. “I was afraid it wasn’t emergency, that’s Ezra Furman’s going to be good,” he laughs. the necessary first music has We’re not talking about lessons in the birds and the step in addressing always carried bees, of course, but the hit it,” he affirms. with it a sense TV series that took Netflix by “If you’re always of optimism storm. trying to be like and hope. “I Following the lives of high ‘I’m not in the was trying so school student Otis and his mud, I’m still often to be friends as he follows in his sex above the surface, hopeful in a therapist mother’s footsteps emotionally,’ dark time, and and sets up an underground you may be in be a voice of sex therapy clinic at his danger.” Forging hopefulness,” school, the show features a affirmation he mulls, soundtrack from Ezra Furman not through (in case us mentioning it here “mostly just didn’t give that association expressing not trying to tell away). It’s crude. It’s funny. It’s hope, but disaster, myself it’s heartbreaking. It’s pure. But this is Ezra at not so bad, above all, it feels real. his most electric things will get “It’s truer to the feeling of and engaged. better, things teenage sex than most things “Tonight you’ve will work out that portray that are,” Ezra got fire in your for the best. describes, “which is awkward bloodstream,” I was trying and you’re doing your best,” he affirms on to console he chuckles. “It also shows a ‘Evening Prayer’. myself,” lot of possibility in that same “Deliver that fire he admits. way. It shows that it’s possible to be healthy about sex even in the real word, Affirmation is a when you’re young, which and tell them that powerful thing, is something I’ve always E Furman sent but following lamented that TV does not ya.” An anguished the release of include. I was just proud to be cry against ‘Transangelic a part of it.” “trying to stay in Exodus’ The question remains: will the world that is last year the we be hearing (and seeing) being destroyed,” musician more of Ezra as the show ‘Twelve Nudes’ is opted to take goes into production with a record with the a different a second series? He gives a determination approach to knowing grin. “We’ll see what the future holds?” he offers, and ferocity to, his writing. “At before laughing. “I’m helping in the words of some point I out,” he reveals. Having spent Orange Juice’s realised I was time in the studio for the show most celebrated neglecting to in July (if a recent Instagram hit, “rip it up and feel how bad post is firm confirmation), start again.” it felt, to live there’s plenty more magic to It’s a fire that in this broken come.

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Let’s talk about Sex [Education]

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refuses to be extinguished, and one with a deceptively simple inspiration. “Before touring ‘Transangelic Exodus’ was over, I had this intense aching in my teeth,” Ezra recalls. “[At first] it was just an ache in the background, but it was getting more and more intense,” he describes. “It was like the frog in a pot of boiling water.” For any not familiar with this fable, it tells us that a frog lured into boiling water will try everything to escape, while a frog placed into cool water and slowly brought to boil will not perceive the danger and will eventually boil to death. “It’s the importance of noticing when you’re in pain, and not just letting it be this thing you ignore,” Ezra expresses.

The notion of not noticing when you’re in pain or when you’re struggling and letting it fester played a huge part in the writing and recording of ‘Twelve Nudes’, whether it’s in the musician’s own reaction to his gender dysphoria, or even the ongoing public reaction to climate change. “We’re all sort of willing to not notice how much things have changed, and how bad they could get,” Ezra laments. “It’s like my shoes having holes in them or something. I’m like ‘it’s bad when it rains, but...’” he shrugs.

“We’re all like ‘Well, it’s not so bad - right now...’” The implications of inaction are clear. “That’s a road to death,” he states. “That’s one of the many roads to death.”

"I wanted to spend some time in a place where I can say ‘it is as bad as it seems’."

Ezra Furman

"As blooddrenched as it is, I have great affection for my country" Ezra Furman

Furman’s album ‘Twelve Nudes’ is out 30th August.

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The result of “trying to practice stating my pains and grievances out loud,” ‘Twelve Nudes’ is a masterclass in taking fear and confusion and forging something constructive. “I was, somehow, getting more angry and scared,” Ezra explains, “I guess about the future of civilisation in general, America in particular.”

The latter reaches a head in quasinational anthem ‘In America’, a tongue-in-cheek yet genuine ode to the USA in all of its wonderful, woeful glory. “As blood-drenched as it is, I have great affection for my country,” Ezra proclaims. “I believe that it could be what it was supposed to initially promise to be, which is a place where all people are created equal,” he expresses. “I don’t think it’s ever been that,” he adds, “but to me, I still believe it could be.”

Really, that’s what this album is all about: a dissatisfaction and a rising anger at the state we find ourselves in, and a hope and a determination for something better, for something more. “I think why I’m into music in the end, instead of something else, is that listening to a record you can hear a whole way of being,” Ezra enthuses. “Someone from far away, who has a totally different life from yours, brings in with them - when they do it right - a whole sense of a way of being.”

“It makes it seem possible to have a different kind of life than you have,” he continues, “especially when you’re young, and your life has been sort of one thing.” Affirmation. Acceptance.

Strength. Tolerance. Change.

Whatever it is you turn to music to find, one of the main hopes in writing songs is that someone, somewhere, might find a purpose and use in it when they hear it. “That’s one of the highest aims of somebody who makes records,” Ezra enthuses. “That’s what I want to do: make it seem like a different way of being is possible for people who could use a different way of being.” P Ezra

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CAN'T WAIT FOREVER It’s over eight years since Friendly Fires released their last album, but - after a prolonged period away - they’re finally back on the dancefloor with the shimmering ‘Inflorescent’. We pinned down frontman Ed Macfarlane to check if that flame is still burning. Spoiler: it is.

WORDS: ALI SHUTLER. PHOTOS: PATRICK GUNNING.

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59 READDORK.COM

THERE WAS A TIME WHERE

Friendly Fires weren’t a band.

After the touring wrapped up for the tropic escape of ‘Pala’, Ed Macfarlane, Edd Gibson and Jack Savidge put the group on hiatus.

Sure, there were DJ sets, remixes and other bands but nothing that captured the full-blown excitement of Friendly Fires.

That changed two years ago when the band broke cover and announced a headline show at London’s Brixton Academy to herald in a new era. Since then, there’s been a string of vibrant singles and colour-fuelled festival appearances. All leading to the release of third album ‘Inflorescent’. Now, we’re standing at its doorstep. Seems like a good time to ask Ed all about it.

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Hey Ed, how what kind of those first few shows back for you?

I felt weirdly that I needed to make an apology. A part of me felt a bit guilty that we’d taken such a long time off. And these people were so dedicated and so enthusiastic. After the first show, it felt normal again.

It felt like I got it out of my system, and we could just focus on doing what we do. The Brixton show, the first few tracks, we had to make friends again, but by the end of the set, it felt like this real celebratory moment. It felt like we were onto the next chapter. It felt like ‘ok, we can do this’.

Was there ever any temptation to come back and do a ten-year anniversary show for that first record, instead of coming back with new music?

There were discussions about this. I don’t want to slag off bands that do this, because who knows, we might end up replaying our first record in five years or whatever but that would have been a cop-out for us to have done that. It’s weird when you see bands of our era and our ilk, who play their popular first or second record and instantly sell out Brixton or Royal Albert Hall but when they put out their new record, no one gives a shit. It’s fascinating to see how there is this market for nostalgia, but we’re not in that phase yet. We’ve got more to say.

The new record is out real soon.

How you feeling about it?

I’m feeling relieved. I’m feeling really good about it. And I’m just glad that we’re gonna get back to doing what we do, which is doing live shows which we feel are needed right now.

It’s been a long time coming.

Does that add to the pressure? Is there any pressure?

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There’s always going to be a pretty vocal minority that will be cynical and negative about anything that we do after being away for such a long period of time. I’m just not focused on that. I’m just really excited and looking forward to playing the tracks live. If I’m perfectly honest, at the end of 2012, I wasn’t sure that this band was still going to exist. So I guess most people are just happy that we’re putting anything out. That does make me feel really good, knowing that our fans are behind us.

One of the reasons you went on hiatus was because you didn’t want to make pop music anymore.

What changed?

I went through some kind of weird identity crisis at the age of 27, probably like a lot of guys my age.

I wasn’t sure of who I am. And that that was people really what I wanted love and embrace to do with my that. It comes life. I stupidly across when we got this idea play live because into my head people dance at that, did I our shows. The want to be reason people remembered as dance at our this dude that shows is because Ed Macfarlane dances around they can see me on stage in a dancing, and stupid way. I it makes them started having a pretty negative loosen up. view of that part of my personality.

Was there a lightbulb moment I later realised I was completely where that came into focus or was wrong. I realised that’s the part it a gradual thing? of my personality that people like I had to get those things out of my the most, and I should embrace it. system, I did some musical projects It took me five years to want to get that I guess were less poppy and back to that place. Now I realise less upbeat, happy and dancey. that that is a really important part

"I went through some kind of weird identity crisis at the age of 27"

There’s probably some stupid egotistical part of my brain that wanted people to take me seriously and understand that I have other strings to my bow. After a while, I realised that was bullshit as well. I should just do something that people enjoy, and that is the Friendly Fires stuff.

Once you realised that, how quickly did this record come together?

What inspired this record lyrically?

It’s a bit more reflective. There’s less escapism. With the first and second records, it was more about being somewhere better than where you are. With this record, it was more about, for me, being comfortable with who I am. It’s pretty selfdescriptive of where I was in my life at that time. We wanted the lyrics to be more direct and not masked in loads of imagery.

I found myself relistening to loads of straight edge hardcore records from the late 80s and early 90s. I just really loved the direct, positive message with those records and I felt like I wanted to encapsulate a bit of that in this album.

"Don’t be afraid of what people say and fucking go for it"

Where did ‘Almost Midnight’ come from?

That was one of the last tracks we wrote for the record. We wrote it really, really quickly and obviously, we were listening to some classic French House stuff. We wanted something that was a bit bombastic, a bit raw, and fast. That track is quite different to a lot of the album and different to a lot of stuff we’ve written. I don’t know how we play that song live...

The lyric maybe this could change your future feels important.

I feel like the future for Friendly Fires is wide open. I don’t feel like we have to be this band band, or we have to be this super electronic thing. We can really go

in any direction we want, which is pretty amazing. Judging by how supportive our fans have been, it’s pretty liberating to know that.

What you want people to take away from this record?

I just wanted to write something that doesn’t have some overt, grandiose political message or anything like that. It’s just a lot more about making a personal change and not being afraid of the consequences and not being afraid of what people might say. It’s just about getting out there and doing it.

Don’t be afraid of what people say and fucking go for it.

Do you feel like you have things to prove?

I don’t feel like I have anything to prove to anyone, honestly. I feel like I’m way more comfortable in my own skin, doing what we do in this band now. I feel like I can get on stage and be really proud of what we do and know that we have our own unique thing that no one else does.

And stand behind it.

Will there be an album four?

I mean, we’re already writing new music. It’s just the nature of the way things are now. We want to put out something before November, a new EP or a new single. We have one track that we’re in the process of finishing, but I don’t want to give away too much. I feel like that’s the great thing about the way music is consumed now. People want so much music, there’s so much demand for it, it’s better if you do it and get it out there. There’s less pressure than ever for us to get on with it. I feel like we’re in our stride now. I feel like we know what we’re doing. P Friendly Fires’ album ‘Inflorescent’ is out now.

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It wasn’t like we just met up and then everything started working again. We had to rebuild friendships in the band, we had to hang out together as mates, and we had to learn how to be critical of each other. There was a phase where we weren’t really hanging out. Every three months we’d get in the studio and try and write something, but the vibe wouldn’t be there because we just hadn’t hung out enough to say ‘that’s actually not great’ or ‘that’s not good.’ It wasn’t until we started hanging out as friends, and meeting up in my garage every day and writing, that things started to fall into place.

Ed Macfarlane It still didn’t come incredibly easy, though. We’ve always been super critical of what we do. We wrote almost an albums worth of stuff in that interim period between the end of the second record and now but when we were

listening to the tracks, we realised we didn’t have that sense of euphoria, that sense of feeling up, of feeling positive that is integral to the music that we do. We realised we had had to write something that’s just going to be super positive, super uplifting and celebratory.

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HIGH EXPECTATIONS She’s ripping up the airwaves with banger after banger, and has just dropped a debut album of top bops.

Meet UK pop’s next big superstar.

WORDS: JAKE HAWKES.

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MABEL ALABAMA PEARL MCVEY,

start making the record properly.

“A lot of it was just figuring out the story and finding my voice, which really happened with ‘Finders Keepers’. From there it was just working out what moments to put on there and what songs I wanted to write.”

While these are things that most artists need to work through when writing their debut, Mabel did have one other issue: the anticipation from the millions of people that have already heard her massive pre-album efforts. Her response?

Just ignore the hype and work twice as hard.

“The only person that can pressure me is myself,” she says with conviction. “I just focus on making good music and making things that make me happy and make me and my friends dance and smile. Worrying about what other people are going to think or whether my previous success will be a barrier isn’t something that’s worth doing, because it can get in the way of making something that could be great. I think if you’re trying to please everybody, you’re just gonna fail. I can’t be everybody’s cup of tea.

“For me, the album was all about making sure all of the songs made people feel confident and good about themselves,” she continues.

“I lacked a lot of confidence growing up, and the message I wanted to put across is if you ever felt like you weren’t enough, then you are. By the end of the album I’d pieced myself back together, and I was feeling more confident, and it was important to me that people listening feel that about themselves as well.

“We’ve got those fun, upbeat sappy love songs and I want everyone to be feeling themselves during those, then towards the end, there’s the track ‘OK’ which has a really strong message – the whole album is just about making people feel good about themselves.”

‘OK (Anxiety Anthem)’ is one of the track’s Mabel feels strongest about, even if it was one of the hardest to write. “It was a hard one because anxiety is something that’s been present and with me for my whole life. It was difficult to figure out how to write a song about that without it being negative, and I didn’t feel like I could make it positive because of how negative I felt about it until last year.

“Writing that song made me realise that bad days are cool and I just need to let go of this idea of perfection and being happy at all times and just deal with the

bad days as they come. It’s helped me get to the point where I don’t feel embarrassed anymore, and I don’t think anyone else should, either. Sometimes it’d hard to just process those emotions, and I think figuring out how to say that took me years. I tried it many times because as an artist I’m open, and I’m honest about my relationships and things that I’m going through, so I knew I had to have the song on my debut album otherwise it wouldn’t be complete.” “’Finder’s Keepers’ was an important moment, too,” she says, thinking back on key points in the album’s development. “Apart from everything else, it made me part of such an important family musically, and the UK R&B and hip-hop scene has been vital for me. I’ve got so many people to thank, Kojo Funds, Not3s, and so many other people.

“The UK scene is massively important to me, and it’s not something I ever intend to leave behind. We’ve always made great music here, but there’s this honesty in the lyrics now, and it isn’t overly glossy, so I feel like it’s really connecting.

Even the production can be quite playful and not take itself too seriously, which is great.

On the flipside, there are some Mabel incredibly serious and hard-hitting tunes coming out of here, but they’re all linked by how real they all are. That’s what we’re good at, being real.”

What stands out when talking to Mabel is her obvious love for music across genres, something that shines in her music and sets her apart from a lot of her contemporaries. She’s quick to credit her family for her varied taste. “My siblings were a lot older than me, so I just used to listen to whatever they were listening to because I wanted to be part of the gang,” she laughs. “Whatever they loved, I wanted to love – so it’s a good thing they had great taste in music!”

“Growing up it was mostly R&B,” she continues, reeling off names of her childhood idols.

“TLC, Lauryn Hill, Destiny’s Child, Pharrell Williams, all of those artists had a big impact on me, but I could’ve ended up doing anything really.

“The decision to make music was very much mine; it wasn’t like anyone forced me or guided me on

that path,” she says, referencing her parents, Neneh Cherry and Massive Attack producer Cameron McVey. “There were instruments around, and studios around but my parents were always like ‘if you wanna use them, use them, but if you don’t, don’t’. They didn’t really care; they more cared about making sure I was happy and making sure I ended up doing something I loved.

“Obviously it’s inspiring seeing them do their work and watching them perform and write, but it wasn’t a thing where we ever worked together, or I was ever pushed that way. Now I’m getting more successful I’ve ended up doing so much other stuff more than I make music anyway,” she laughs again. “It’s mad because I spend so much time promoting tunes that I haven’t had much of a chance to get into the studio in a while. As someone that writes every day, it takes some getting used to. It’s tough as well because one of the reasons I started singing was because that was an easier way to say things for me, and now I’m having to figure out how to do interviews and say all of this stuff, but I think I’m alright at it.” She pauses, before jokingly asking: “What do you think?

Am I doing ok?”

After reassurances that it’s all going well, she immediately bounces onto the next topic, in full flow and keen to keep moving. “When the album’s out I’ve already decided that the next few months are gonna be an experimental phase for me, figuring out what I want the next album to be about and just figuring out where I’m going. That probably means less studio time, but I’m going to go straight into making another record, one way or another.”

Is maintaining that momentum and pushing onwards hard, especially in a male-dominated industry? “Definitely,” she answers without hesitation. “But I’m a positive person, and I think if we all talk about the fact that it is harder for us, then that’s a massive start.

I’m always trying to encourage other female artists to work together – things like that are the most important thing to me, being positive and king to each other. I just put my head down and work as hard as I can, it’s what’s got me this far.” P Mabel’s debut album

"I’m willing to do anything to get to where I need to be"

‘High Expectations’ is out now.

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better known simply as Mabel, is fast approaching the point where she needs no introduction. Two Brit nominations, two platinum singles and a sold-out date at Brixton point towards superstar status, especially when it’s all happened before she’s even released her debut album.

This meteoric rise has been accompanied by a massive to-do list as the 23-year-old singer keeps pushing to capitalise on her success. When we catch up with her over the phone, she’s en route to the airport for a flight to Asia and clearly about to jump into another meeting afterwards.

“I’m very ambitious,” she explains when asked about her tendency to juggle a hundred things at once. “I’m willing to do anything to get to where I need to be, and even though I get tired sometimes, I always put it into perspective. It’s never a question of whether I’m going to put in the work, it’s just a matter of figuring out the best way to do it. As soon as I score, the goalposts move, and that’s how I like it.”

She talks quickly and with enthusiasm, latching onto topics and going into detail without any hesitation. “I just try to make it as fun as possible,” she says, referencing the parts of her job that don’t involve music. “For me, that means having my family around and bringing my friends out as much as I can, but also just throwing myself into every aspect of it. It’s a fun job, so why not enjoy it?”

When conversation turns to ‘High Expectations’, her debut, her excitement is clear. “I’ve been looking forward to releasing it for so long!” she laughs. “I’ve been working on it for about two years, and it’s absolutely been my baby. I can’t wait for people to hear what I’ve been up to, it’s been such a special process.”

Although it’s only been a couple of years, the road to ‘High Expectations’ hasn’t been a simple one, with Mabel taking time to make sure she knew what she wanted before the recording started.

“After I wrote ‘Finders Keepers’, that’s when it all began falling into place,” she says, trying to pinpoint the moment she started working on the album. “Then I wrote the title-track, which is the intro and the outro, in the summer of 2017, and that was when it really clicked.

I just remember being there and thinking ‘that’s it, that’s the story’.

It says everything about me, and it was what made me feel ready to

INCOMING

16TH AUGUST 2019

THE ESSENTIAL GUIDE TO YOUR NEW MUSIC FRIDAYS

SleaterKinney eeee

The Center Won’t Hold

SLEATER-KINNEY’S NEW ALBUM ‘THE CENTER

Won’t Hold’ is bittersweet. After the shock departure of longtime drummer Janet Weiss following the release of singles ‘Hurry On Home’ and ‘The Future Is Here’, the album has become a marker of the end of an era. Luckily, it’s a worthy closer for the Brownstein/Tucker/Weiss epoch.

Let’s get this out of the way early: yes, St. Vincent’s influence is immediately apparent on this album. But consider this: St. Vincent is great.

‘The Center Won’t Hold’ is slick and sharp, and uncompromising in the way that Sleater-Kinney always have been. ‘The Future Is Here’ is one of

SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

the more Annie Clarke-esque songs on the record, as is the title track, which shows an entirely new side of Sleater-Kinney’s songwriting that is at once sparse and expansive. A new influence and a fresh set of ears is no bad thing.

The album asks the question, ‘how does brokenness move through the world?’ Sometimes that’s societal brokenness, and sometimes it’s an interpersonal breakdown, as on the vibrating ‘Ruins’ and exceedingly catchy lead single ‘Hurry On Home’. But the real heart of ‘The Center Won’t Hold’ is the idea of bodies and the way they are both beaten and exalted. The old-school

Produced by St. Vincent and now a band member down, Sleater-Kinney know the trick to reinvention.

glam track ‘Reach Out’ presents inner turmoil as physical sensations and ruined outfits, while ‘The Dog/The Body’ brings up questions of agency and identity within relationships. The theme of identity is poignant on an album that takes such a drastically different direction to Sleater-Kinney’s previous work, not to mention in light of their changing line-up. But ‘The Center Won’t Hold’ doesn’t feel like a picture of a band in flux - it is a band emerging, fully realised, into a new form.

With this album, there is little doubt that SleaterKinney know the trick to reinvention. Liam Konemann

INCOMING Friendly Fires Inflorescent

eeee

Animated Violence Mild IN THE 8 YEARS SINCE THE LAST

Friendly Fires album, the musical landscape has changed immeasurably. While there isn’t a euphoric lift to match the likes of ‘Paris’ here, the eleven tracks provide depth to a live set which is their key strength.

‘Heaven Let Me In’ brings in Disclosure in a sign that they’ve planted their flag firmly in the world of dance music, while ‘Can’t Wait Forever’ pushes the brass to the front of the production. After so long in hibernation it’s great to have Friendly Fires back. Get on that Hawaiian shirt, get down to a show and throw some shapes. Dillon Eastoe

King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard Infest the Rat’s Nest

eee

‘INFEST THE RAT’S NEST’ IS THE

fifteenth studio album from King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard. You’d think the band would have run out of ideas by now. Evidently not. Though attempting to sound like quintessential trash metal, there are moments that feel authentically King Gizz. ‘Mars For The Rich’ blends elements of hard garage rock with spacey influences, and the sludge ridden ‘Superbug’ is filled with bluesy fuzz. Though filled with the experimental riff wizardry to satisfy the itch left by 2016’s ‘Nonagon Infinity’, ‘Infest The Rat’s Nest’ is one of King Gizzard’s curious creations that we could have done without. Jasleen Dhindsa

When I Have Fears

THE MURDER CAPITAL ARE A BAND

who seem to be inevitably moving from word-of-mouth buzz to a fully-fledged must-see act. On their debut album ‘When I Have Fears’, the Dublin quintet manage to sustain an atmosphere that is both intense yet contemplative, with the often aggressive, heavy instrumentation accompanied by poetic lyrics of isolation and grief. On the surface, there are obvious comparisons to the likes of IDLES, Shame, and Fontaines D.C. - however, The Murder Capital still offer a variation on the post-punk theme that even if not entirely new maintains a certain tenderness amid the noise. Dominic Allum

Ride

This Is Not A Safe Place

eeee

RIDE ARE STILL RIDING THE

post-reunion wave, with the release of their sixth LP, ‘This Is Not A Safe Place’. Lead single, ‘Future Love’, has a surf pop sheen to it. Full of optimism, it’s a refreshing alternative to the dreary exterior of most shoegaze, and openly discusses the euphoria of a relationship starting out. At times ‘Jump Jet’ mirrors New Order’s mix of new wave and electronic - so much so, the vocals resemble Bernard Sumner, - whilst ‘Eternal Recurrence’, is slower-paced, with a more hazy hue. From the lyrics to the melodies, shoegaze never sounded so happy. Charlotte Croft

eee

Benjamin John Power’s fourth album as Blanck Mass is an unforgiving aural assault on the senses. Beginning with the bludgeoning grandiose industrial techno throb of ‘Death Drop’, it’s immediately clear that this is a record both bracingly direct and entirely unconcerned with nuance, texture or beauty. These are dark, ugly times and this is a punishing and grim record to soundtrack it. This doesn’t make it any less thrilling though. Power has always been a fearless musician and yet again he pulls no punches with a bile imbued electronic tour de force that destroys everything in its path. Martyn Young

The Hold Steady Thrashing Thru The Passion

Shura

eee

By this point it’s hard to not know what you’re going to get from a Hold Steady album.

Rambunctious storytelling with heart and musical, Craig Finn and co certainly know what they’re doing. On their seventh album, all of the above still applies, but they’re still mining way down for that human connection like no other. Finn’s storytelling is still as immersive as ever; developing characters that “ask for their regular to see what they bring”, whilst leaving the door open for personal ambiguity too. A band who can do no wrong, this is another chapter in The Hold Steady’s career that just proves why they’re so revered. ‘Thrashing Thru The Passion’ is everything its title suggests, whilst never holding anything back. Steven Loftin

Oh Sees

Face Stabber

eee

Setting the scene perfectly for the ever-fastening apocalypse, Oh Sees are back in their psych-saddle and ready to set fire to the world one fuzzed-up solo at a time.

Delving into depths murkier than Beelzebub’s bathwater, their latest release is a journey through the acid-heavy districts of hell on a boneshaking bus fuelled by the nightmares of fully grown men who should know better.

Starting with what could be a squeaking dog toy and ending with a 21-minute freak out that even Springsteen might think is ‘a bit much’ are brave decisions, yet at this point fall firmly into the wheelhouse of an outfit who have surpassed the 20 album mark and yet keep things fresher than a dentist’s breath. Ciaran Steward

eeee

forevher

MODERN LIFE IS WEIRD, AT

least if viewed through a more traditionalist prism.

Time was, so legend had it, that relationships would be things which happened with a filter based as much on where you found yourself as who that person was. You’d meet someone local, you’d date, you’d break-up or settle down.

It was neat. Easy.

But that’s not 2019. In an era of Skype chats, WhatsApp left on read, dating apps and social media pressure, the world is quite literally our constantly demanding oyster.

Which sort of, in a way, makes Shura’s second album the perfect soundtrack to modern romance. Written, primarily, about her relationship and its long-distance conception, it’s a New-York-to-London love story that’s relatable to anyone who’s ever felt the pull of something less than geographically ideal.

Hung heavy with promise, sex and desire, it’s

deeply personal, but never excluding. From the ‘first date’ tension of ‘the stage’ - a watershed moment - to musings on queer desire on ‘religion (u can lay your hands on me)’, it’s a story as slick as silk sheets, but nowhere near as tacky. There’s even cross-Atlantic flight level overthinking about death and stuff.

It’s not just about that thickly layered emotion, though. ‘forevher’ is an album of both certified bops and genuine depth. ‘side effects’ is a luscious slow jam, while closing track ‘skyline, me now’ is a hazy promise drawn out to a satisfying close. For something that exists in a digital age, Shura’s second album still holds on to that one thing that all no amount of technology or volume of air miles can replace - genuine heart. Whatever the secret is, it’s a keeper. Stephen

Ackroyd

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Dry Cleaning Sweet Princess dying in designer Nobody’s Happy Frank Turner No Man’s Land Jadu Heart Melt Away Jason Lytle (of Grandaddy) NYLONANDJUNO Killswitch Engage Atonement

Off With Their Heads Be Good Oso Oso Basking in the Glow Press Club Wasted Energy Red Hearse Red Hearse Surfer Blood Hourly Haunts EP

READDORK.COM

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The Murder Capital eeee

Blanck Mass

INCOMING CRX Peek

23RD AUGUST 2019

eee

YOU BUILD UP A LOT OF

goodwill being in The Strokes.

How else do you account for Julian Casablancas getting away with the Voidz? Something has gone on there, is all we’re saying. As far as Strokes’ side-projects go though, Nick Valensi is doing okay with CRX. Their second album ‘Peek’ wears its 80s influences on its sleeve, and deals with themes of isolation and obsession in such a way that it’s at least smooth if not fresh. Maybe it isn’t going to set the world alight lyrically, but this is Nick Valensi we’re talking about - by which we mean the guitars are good and the music is sleek.

‘Peek’’s two main themes both come to bear on tracks like ‘Falling’, which sees the narrator stuck in a toxic cycle to avoid being alone, and on lead single ‘We’re All Alone’ which puts modern technology in the firing line above a surprising disco beat and bass. There are left-field moments, like the somewhat confused ‘Wet Paint’ and the oddly Southern vocal on ‘Golden Age’, but then there are high points like the hypnotic ‘Get Close’ with its psychedelic vocal. ‘Peek’ is a mixed bag, is what we’re saying. By general standards, CRX are strong. They aren’t the scary new talent, and they have yet to become the elder statesmen, but they can occupy a respectable territory and Valensi is still one of the best indie guitarists in the business.

We mean, good god - that man can write a riff. Liam

Konemann

66

Jay Som Anak Ko

eeee

The Night Café eeee AS AN INDIE-POP BAND, IT

can be hard to stand out, but in their short time on the scene, The Night Café have already created a recognisable sound with steady drum beats and melodies so infectious they should come with a doctor’s note. Following two EPs and numerous single releases, they are finally back with their longawaited debut album ‘0151’.

Mixing old favourites with new tunes, the record tells

Also ‘out’ this week...

Devin Townsend ERAS Part 4 Knocked Loose A Different Shade of Blue Sheer Mag A Distant Call Taylor Swift Lover

SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

0151 the band’s story so far and, as soon as the intro hits, you know you’re in for a wild ride.

The band start their debut as they mean to go on: Killer choruses, catchy rhythms, bass lines that will have you moving in no time. In fact, ‘0151’ is moving in the most literal sense of the word.

You’re either tapping your foot to the thunderous beats of Carl’s drums or swaying along to the more laidback sounds of ‘Mother’ and ‘I Know (I’m Sure)’.

The record is broken up by four interludes, all experimental in their own right, a smart move on an album that spans 18 tracks in total; the perfect way to refocus attention and allow

your mind to drift off for a few seconds before returning to the high energy sounds The Night Café are known for.

But ‘0151’ doesn’t only show what the band is capable of sonically; it gives credit to their songwriting. ‘A Message To Myself’, one of their more introspective moments, clearly shows that the band knows how to craft songs that touch even the darkest corners of your jet black heart.

It’s still early days for The Night Café, but with ‘0151’ they have made a debut that has the potential of securing them a spot at the top of the indie scene. It looks like it’s going to be a starry night for these lads from Liverpool.

Laura Freyaldenhoven

MELINA DUTERTE IS MORE THAN

a little special. Recording as Jay Som since 2015, her 2017 debut ‘Everybody Works’ left little to prove, propelling her skywards into the indie-rock stratosphere.

Its follow up, ‘Anak Ko’, does all of that again, and more. Never passive or left to drift unnecessarily, it’s nine tracks of simple, yet delicately brilliant dream pop excellence. Lead track ‘Superbike’ swoons in a hazy heat, while ‘Tenderness’ softly muses its way to a chilled groove. Textured and with depth, but at the same time refreshing and easy to love, ‘Anak Ko’ isn’t just the next album from an artist of promise - it’s confirmation of a standout talent. Stephen Ackroyd

Tropical Fuck Storm Braindrops

eee

THEY DO IT DIFFERENTLY DOWN

under. The love song, that is. At least Tropical Fuck Storm do, and if we’re measuring these things by accent and style, then Tropical Fuck Storm are about as Aussie as you can get. On their extremely prompt second album ‘Braindrops’ the band turn the love song on its head, and give it a kick up the arse for good measure. They have also taken this opportunity to pioneer ‘fake news’ as a musical genre, serving up conspiracy theories in neat art-rock packages. The future is now, people. With ‘Braindrops’, Tropical Fuck Storm are showing a different side to themselves. Softer, maybe, but just as strange as ever. Liam Konemann

THEFUTUREHEADS.COM

INCOMING Beach Baby

30TH AUGUST 2019

Songs From The Limbo Lounge

eee

AFTER TOURING THEIR

debut ‘No Mind, No Money’, Beach Baby found themselves distinctly lacking the latter. That temporary financial hurdle means that only now, nearly three years on, do they return with ‘Songs From The Limbo Lounge’.

Recorded in a converted shed, it is a vastly more expansive and ambitious record than their first, taking many strange diversions through a world of purgatory before ultimately getting lost in a maze of its own making. Jamie MacMillan

The Futureheads Powers

eee

AFTER NEARLY TWO

68

decades as a band, The Futureheads are showing no signs of slowing down. Back with their sixth studio album - and first fully-plugged-in effort in almost a decade - ‘Powers’, they’re also not afraid to take risks. Each track feels very different from the next; be it experimenting with more of an electro-pop vibe or returning to their post punk roots, The Futureheads don’t shy away from mixing genres to create something fresh and exciting.

Beth Casteel

IT IS A TRUTH UNIVERSALLY

acknowledged that an indie musician in possession of a guitar and a lyrical bent must, at some point, release their ‘punk album’ (hi, The Cribs). ‘Twelve Nudes’ is Ezra Furman’s. It is also, among other things, one of the best blatantly queer rock albums in years. That’s a mighty call, but we’re pretty sure we can stand by it.

First though, the other threads on ‘Twelve Nudes’ (the pun wasn’t intended, but we’re keeping it. Sorry.)

‘Rated R Crusaders’ looks at the complex web of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jewish identity and the pain of refugees, while ‘Trauma’ fires shots at the wealthy bullies and sexual predators lording it over a society filled with their victims. The latter as a title is telling, as ‘Twelve Nudes’ is about varying types of trauma. Throughout, Ezra explores the emotional toll of political issues and the impact of living politicised lives. But this is not an album about being crushed under the sole of a boot - it is about throwing the boot off your throat. ‘Evening Prayer aka

Justice’ is Ezra’s tender call to action, for those with “a taste for transcendence” to join the fight for good. Then there’s the Nirvana-esque ‘Blown’ with its opening shriek of “trans power”.

Which brings us back to the queerness. Though, of course, it has been here all along. As with much of Ezra’s output, ‘Twelve Nudes’ is coloured by the experience of being not-straight and not-cis. The whole album is shot through with it, but on ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’ Ezra addresses the experience more explicitly than before.

Think 1950s diner aesthetic, think milkshakes and rollerskates and watching your peers achieve regular adult milestones while you turn the idea of a name change over and over in your mind. ‘I Wanna Be Your Girlfriend’ is one of the great trans songs -

whatever transness or gender non-conformity means for the beholder. Then there is also ‘My Teeth Hurt’, possibly the first absolute banger about dental issues to enter the canon, and with references to body dysphoria and disassociation (gender-related or otherwise) embedded in a punk rock earworm.

So, yes ‘Twelve Nudes’ is a pushback against an increasingly devastating world, a call for all likeminded people to rise up together against oppressive forces. It hones in on survivors of sexual assault, on refugees, on people who share Ezra’s Jewish identity - but if you are queer or gender nonconforming, it also seems to say look, here is a song for you.

In a time when transphobia abounds, it’s difficult to overstate what a joy that is.

Liam Konemann

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Gender Roles Prang Kano Hoodies All Summer Lana Del Rey Norman Fucking Rockwell Tool Fear Inoculum

The S.L.P. The S.L.P.

eeee

SERGIO LORENZO PIZZORNO,

or The S.L.P. as he’s now going, has his own legacy to follow.

From the contemporary soul of the gloomy ‘Lockdown’, to the experimental ‘The Wu’, what he does well, he does really bloody brilliantly.

What’s lacking is anything lyrically groundbreaking. ‘Welcome Break’, featuring slowthai, would be expected to be special.

Actually, it feels like a dud. ‘Favourites’ on the other hand, featuring Little Simz, is by far the best the record has to offer, with its invigorating hustle, dripping in swagger. Jasleen Dhindsa

Whitney

Forever Turned Around

eeee

SOMETIMES AN ALBUM

comes along that can only exist in the summertime. That’s ‘Forever Turned Around’, the second effort from Chicago’s Whitney. Seeming to drift in on a gentle breeze, it boasts some of the warmest and richest production you’ll hear all year. It may not be a record that will quicken any pulses but what it lacks in bangers, it makes up for in beauty. Autumn may seem to be approaching in the world of Whitney, but in the meantime this will give some of the most blissful moments of this or any other summer. Jamie MacMillan SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

Ezra Furman eeeee

Twelve Nudes

INCOMING Adam Green

Engine of Paradise

6TH SEPTEMBER 2019

eeee

ADAM GREEN’S TENTH SOLO

album ‘Engine of Paradise’ explores the relationship between humans and machines with playful eccentricity. In this reality, the afterlife is a harddrive we will eventually be uploaded into, and the world around us is constructed of papier-mache. Building on this chicken-wire framework, lead single ‘Freeze My Love’ riffs on the state of online romance, while the title track envisions a utopia of dismantled mobile phones and whirring engines. If ‘Engine of Paradise’ is our future, then it might not be so bleak after all. Liam Konemann

Barns Courtney 404

ee

ONCE UPON A TIME, BARNS

Courtney was a fresh faced, blues troubadour with a snarl and bite.

Now, though, he’s fallen deep into the belly of the pop monster. ‘404’ is a confused effort that doesn’t quite know where it wants to go, but all presented with the best intentions. There are singalong moments (‘Hollow’), there are those that dig deep into the human connection (‘You and I’) and some straight up bangers (‘Fun Never Ends’) but there feels something to be missing. Titled after the error we’re used to seeing when the internet goes down, the connectivity also seems to be missing here. Steven Loftin

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Bat For Lashes Lost Girls

MUNA eeeee

IT FEELS LIKE FOR YEARS

we’ve been wondering who’d be the ones to save pop music.

Many have tried – Miss Eilish with her spooky ASMR pop, Miss Jepsen with her cult classic ‘EMOTION’, Mr Sheera- oh god no you’ve got to be kidding.

But none have been brave enough to say “Yes. It is us. Sit down we are going to save the world. Also we are the best.”

Until now. As some might say, wigs were snatched. As MUNA might say, “so iconic, like big, like stan”.

‘Saves The World’ is obviously back to back bangers, but it’s also a genuinely touching story of heartbreak and self love, rallied in by ‘Number One Fan’, the anthem that reintroduced the group in June after over two years off.

‘Good News (Ya Ya Song)’

eeee

Saves The World

could go over the end credits of any Lindsay Lohan film seamlessly (in a good way), drive fast through a tunnel at night with ‘Never’ playing for that “Alive” feeling, scream ‘Number One Fan’ into a hairbrush in front of the mirror (that’s definitely 100% what it was created for).

Never ones to shy away from taking a stance either, the chorus of ‘Hands Off’ feels like a massive ‘fuck you’ to Donald Trump and his minions who are currently dehumanising women day in, day out. “No, you can’t touch,

get your hands off of me”, same energy as “this pussy grabs back” TBH. But if you’re after Katie Gavin’s life story on a platter, look no further than the sixminute sprawling closer ‘It’s Gonna Be Ok’ and keep a box of tissues handy.

‘Saves The World’ is tears under the disco ball at it’s finest. It’s a more honest and grown up version of the MUNA we know. If we don’t let them dominate the world (as well as save it), we’re fools.

Abigail Firth

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THE CONCEPT ALBUM, IF

executed well, can be an immersive experience. It’s one Natasha Khan - aka Bat For Lashes - is no stranger to. ‘Lost Girls’, sees Khan putting on those storyteller shoes once again as we delve into a new world - one that features protagonist Nikki Pink, and a gang of female bikers in 1980s LA. The narrative is in full-swing with, ‘Hunger’, with its bass-filled builds and haunting harmonies. ‘Feel For You’ offers a more upbeat sound, with slick strings to accompany Khan’s nonchalant vocals. You’ll soon be asking, “so, when is the film, Lost Girls, coming out?” Charlotte Croft

Husky Loops

I Can’t Even Speak English

eee

Husky Loops sound has changed fairly considerably on the road to their debut album. Mixing modern production techniques with tried and tested lyrical motifs, ‘Let Go For Nothing’ and ‘Everyone Is Having Fun Fun Fun But Me’ are real peaks that show just what Husky Loops are capable of, but these moments are slightly too few and far between for this to be labelled an instant classic. Not everything comes off though and, without a natural flow linking bursts of creative brilliance, ‘I Can’t Even Speak English’ fails to quite live up to the sum of those occasionally impressive parts. Ciaran Steward READDORK.COM

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? ASKING THE USUAL STUFF IS SO BORING

Top 100 golf courses of the UK and Ireland.

Reading or Leeds?

I love both, but generally, Leeds is a little bit more fun because there is slightly less pressure.

How punk are you out of ten?

4/10 punk.

Have you ever been to a showbiz party?

Yes, and they’re always pretty terrible. I remember going to one once in Hollywood and getting so wasted I was an embarrassment.

What is your earliest memory?

THE WOMBATS

70

This month it’s Murph from...

What is your most treasured possession?

My shoe collection.

What’s your biggest accomplishment?

My daughter, Dylan.

What compliment would you most like to receive?

That I’m a good father and that I don’t look my age.

If you could bring something extinct back to life, what would you choose?

I would probably bring back a Woolly Mammoth and ride it around snowy

SEPTEMBER 2019

DORK

areas of the world chuckling to myself.

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

I once tried to pick up a woman when I was eleven at my Grandad’s 80th birthday in Liverpool, and I obviously had no idea what I was dong and started doing squats with my hands above my head to try to impress her.

Her and all her friends laughed at me, and I ran out of the party and sobbed in a football field somewhere in north Liverpool... thank you.

If you were on Mastermind, what would your specialist subject be?

It’s weird actually because since I’ve had a baby, I’m having these bizarre unconscious feelings/memories.

Like when my daughter’s head is flopping around (she has no neck muscles), there is something I kind of remember about that from being a baby myself.

Have you ever sold your own CD or merch on eBay?

No, absolutely not but I did know someone who used to work at a venue in Liverpool, and if a band left a setlist she would go online and eBay it, which I thought was quite dire.

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

I’d probably use half of it to further my daughter’s life/career etc. and use the other half to do lots of good.

Maybe try and invest in dog shelters and spreading the word of adopting and fostering dogs rather than paying for them and lots of other good stuff I could do to offset my absolutely

readdork.com Editor Stephen Ackroyd Deputy Editor Victoria Sinden Associate Editor Ali Shutler Contributing Editors Jamie Muir, Martyn Young Events Liam James Ward Scribblers Abigail Firth, Beth Casteel, Charlotte Croft, Dillon Eastoe, Dominic Allum, Jake Hawkes, Jamie MacMillan, Jasleen Dhindsa, Jessica Goodman, Laura Freyaldenhoven, Liam Konemann, Steven Loftin Snappers Daniel Alexander Harris, Frances Beach, Isaac Schneider, Jamie MacMillan, Patrick Gunning, Sarah Louise Bennett, Zach Mahrouche Doodlers Russell Taysom PUBLISHED FROM

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horrendous carbon footprint in this world.

What did you last dream about?

I had this really weird dream that my dog Drake got electrocuted and turned into a half-dog half-bird, and he looked back on me with this harrowing look on his face, and I was cradling him while screaming, and I woke up covered in sweat. That was the other night.

Why are you like this?

I am the sum of a lot of great and terrible choices that I have made in my life and that other people have made for me and that’s why I’m like this. P The Wombats play Reading & Leeds from 23rd-25th August.

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LONDON THE O2

2

2 WEDNESDAY 26 FEBRUARY

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3 FRIDAY 28 FEBRUARY

GLASGOW THE SSE HYDRO 4 SATURDAY 29 FEBRUARY

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