DIY March 2025

&
DIVORCE,
Perfume Genius,
Julien Baker &
TORRES, MATT
MALTESE and
more
ISSUE 148 • MARCH 2025
DIYMAG.COM
JAPANESE
BREAKFAST
talks grief, growth and
MELANCHOLY T ale
EVERYTHING in
Abetween.

CONTENTS
March2025
NEWS
6 Julien Baker & TORRES
10 Matt Maltese
14 Festivals
NEU
16 Sam Akpro
18 Welly
20 Recommended
23 Esme Emerson
FEATURES
24 Japanese Breakfast
32 Divorce
36 Sasami
40 HotWax
42 Perfume Genius
REVIEWS
46 Albums
58 EPs, etc
60 Live
EDITOR’S
LETTER
Let’s be honest, there’s no
way you can call an album
‘For Melancholy Brunettes
(& sad women) and not go all
in, so, naturally, that’s exactly
what Japanese Breakfast has
done with her profound new
album. As we welcome her to
the DIY cover for the first time,
Michelle Zauner tells us how
she picked up the pieces after
the huge success of both her
2021 album ‘Jubilee’, and her
New York Times best-selling
Crying In H Mart, while giving
us an insight into the sense
of contended sadness that
helped to shape her new
record.
Elsewhere, we go on a road
trip to Goldenhammer with
Divorce in celebration of their
debut, get a little existential
with Perfume Genius as he
approaches his seventh
album ‘Glory’, and dust off
our cowboy boots to mark
the arrival of our fave new
country duo, Julien Baker and
TORRES. Just turn the page
and dig in now!
Sarah Jamieson,
Managing Editor
DIY
FOUNDING EDITOR
Emma Swann
MANAGING EDITOR
Sarah Jamieson
DIGITAL EDITOR
Daisy Carter
DESIGN
Emma Swann
CONTRIBUTORS
Bella Martin, Ben Tipple, Brad Sked,
Caitlin Chatterton, Christopher Connor,
Ciaran Picker, Ed Lawson, El Hunt,
Elvis Thirlwell, Emily Savage, Gemma
Cockrell, Joe Goggins, Kayla Sandiford,
Kyle Roczniak, Millie Temperton, Nick
Levine, Otis Robinson, Rhys Buchanan,
Rishi Shah, Sophie Flint Vázquez,
Sophie McVinnie, Tilly Foulkes, Tom
Morgan, Tyler Damara Kelly
LISTEN
ALONG!
Scan the code to listen along
to the March playlist.
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved. This
publication may not be reproduced or transmitted
in any form, in whole or in part, without the express
written permission of DIY. Disclaimer: While every
effort is made to ensure the information in this
magazine is correct, changes can occur which
affect the accuracy of copy, for which DIY holds no
responsibility. The opinions of the contributors do
not necessarily bear a relation to those of DIY or its
staff and we disclaim liability for those impressions.
Distributed nationally.
Photo: Pak Bae

NEWS
A collaboration that’s been five years in the making, on their new album
‘Send A Prayer My Way’ Julien Baker and TORRES’ Mackenzie Scott find
themselves unexpectedly reconnecting with country music - and a pivotal
part of their past lives.
Words: Ben Tipple
Consider the scene: in the 1976
documentary Heartworn Highways,
country music tearaway David Allen
Coe stands in front of a group of prison
inmates, all sat cross-legged on the
floor and hanging off his every word.
Coe, dressed head to toe in a black
flamboyant suit spotted with sparkling
rhinestones, tells them of his own time inside. The story he
recalls is dark and traumatic, speaking of his intense fear
during a particularly compromising situation when face-toface
with a fellow inmate. The haunting words sit at odds with
his own showy self, his look completed by dangling reflective
earrings on both sides of his face. Coe abruptly ends the story
and jumps jarringly into his distinctive outlaw country style.
The scene has stuck with Julien Baker. “He’s like a jester that
gets to hang out in prison,” she notes from her Los Angeles
home. “It’s dazzle camouflage.”
The moment embodies much of how Julien sees her new,
collaborative project with Mackenzie Scott’s TORRES, a
beautifully crafted trifecta of classic country storytelling,
upbeat escapism, and a heartfelt nod to a genre that has,
even against the odds, underpinned both of their adolescent
lives. While Mackenzie grew up in the Deep South of the
United States, Julien was raised in Tennessee, and although
the latter found a country music collaboration at first
unexpected, it’s this notion
of place that’s brought the
two of them together, even
if their shared experiences
had set them on different
paths.
The pair originally met at a
show at Chicago’s Lincoln
Hall back in 2016, long after
the debut TORRES album
had reached Julien’s ears
as a junior in high school.
“I was just like, this lady is
on some shit,” she beams, playfully lamenting Mackenzie –
joining the conversation from the East Coast – for leaving out
the fact that she was already a fan by the time they first played
together. Enthusing over her collaborator’s early work, Julien
nods to Mackenzie’s noise pedals, all-white suits, and the
cacophonous sounds that came to life over in Franklin, TN,
just a few degrees separated from where she was studying
in Nashville, itself the spiritual home of country music.
Mackenzie, meanwhile, became aware of Julien through her
sleeper-hit debut ‘Sprained Ankle’: “I thought it was beautiful,”
she recalls.
It would, however, be another four years before the
collaborative project really started to take shape, spurred on
by the pandemic and both of their desires to stay creative.
Mackenzie made the first move, having just had her tour
supporting TORRES’ 2020 release ‘Silver Tongue’ cut short
in dramatic fashion, only narrowly avoiding getting trapped in
mainland Europe. Julien, it turns out, was the first person she
thought of for a collaborative project, having tiptoed around
the idea of making a country record for some time. In what
she describes as a moment of boldness, she texted Julien
who immediately responded with a yes. “I was like, hell yeah,”
notes Mackenzie.
“I always wonder, why me?” Julien interjects, noting her
affinity to the hardcore music scene at the time; more The
Devil Wears Prada than David Allen Coe. “I figured you would
have a stable full of Nashville players who are more stylistically
inclined. I wasn’t like, here’s me, four-wheeling.” But for
Mackenzie, she remains the obvious choice: “I have a love of
country music,” she explains. “It’s woven into my lexicon and
my world lens. In terms of collaborating with somebody, I was
like, who can understand where I am coming from?”
S
urprised but enthusiastically on board, what would
become their collaborative record – next month’s ‘Send
A Prayer My Way’ – has ignited a somewhat hidden
connection to country music for Julien, and brings something
that has been always embedded into Torres’ music very firmly
to the forefront. Having rebelled against the genre in her past,
Julien speaks of a full-circle moment of sorts, reconnecting
with something so intrinsic to her upbringing and a time and
place lost in her self-proclaimed punk rejection of the genre.
“
There are certain things that
just shine through a little clearer
within this format.”
- Mackenzie Scott
“The thing that’s so interesting about it, from a really young
age I was embedded in a culture where country music was
just around,” recalls Julien. “It was in the air you breathe, and
on the radio, in every gas station. I even worked in a countrywestern
steakhouse,” she smirks, reminiscing about sweeping
up peanut shells and serving bread rolls while donning a
Mohawk and gauges. In East Tennessee, she joined family
members listening to bluegrass legends Ralph Stanley and
Jimmy Rogers, and outlaw country from Merle Haggard and
Steve Earle. “Even when I was at my most incendiary, I was
like ‘Mama Tried’ [by Merle Haggard] was a good song. There
are a lot of tracks in country music that are undeniable.”
Reconnecting with her past has had a profound impact
on her musical approach and to storytelling, discovering a
dimension that she hadn’t previously reckoned with. In her
mind, the banjo she has played on previous projects is no
longer exclusively in the realm of sad indie rock, but now
6 D

“
From a really young
age I was embedded in a
culture where country
music was just around.”
- Julien Baker

NEWS
nods to her uncle’s front-porch style. “There’s more of a
milieu tying me to this instrument that’s cultural rather than
just taste,” she says. This cultural impact on ‘Send A Prayer
My Way’ is immediately evident. For a pair of songwriters
celebrated for overt self-reflection, these twelve tracks paint
a different picture, playing out through the no-frills directness
so intrinsic to the country genre.
“There’s something I love about this format,” agrees
Mackenzie. “There are these chords you expect to hear, and
this melodic style that exists within this set of parameters
that aren’t boundary busting. It allows for a type of sincerity
and warmth that becomes lost in the production of an indie
rock record. There are certain things that just shine through
a little clearer within this format that I like very much, and that
I’ve never really allowed myself full access to.”
It’s a subtle shift that mirrors Julien’s fascination with
Heartworn Highways; an opportunity to tell personal stories
through a universal lens, to pull apart and reassemble wider
themes of addiction and relapse, or religion and sexuality
– a multitude of experiences shared by both. “I feel like
these songs are not just written to speak to people who
have this shared lens or lexicon,” Mackenzie expands, “but
actually speaking through that lens as well. My inner world
is definitely reflected in it to some degree, but it’s a little bit
of a costume, these country tropes. That’s partially why it’s
fun, to write a personal experience and push through that
particular meatgrinder. It allows for a bit of play.”
O
n ‘Send A Prayer My Way’, the pair turn their personal
tales into folktales, from the damning opener ‘Dirt’’s
reflections on falling off the wagon and climbing
back on, to ‘Tuesday’’s exploration of queerness in the Deep
South. These stories walk a delicate tightrope between
fiction and reality, twisting real-life shared trauma into
playfully executed lore deep-rooted in country traditions.
It’s a format that’s increasingly attracting a host of players
from the mainstream, not least Beyoncé finally taking home
the Best Album GRAMMY for stepping into the genre. For
Mackenzie and Julien, the benefits are clear. It provides an
opportunity to speak more broadly, and arguably more freely
of their experiences; not just cosmic, complicated values,
but the tangible ones too. “It’s available to people who are
sitting around on back porches playing music, or to kids in
basements,” Julien notes. “There’s something where the
same subject matter gets to shine in a different regional
dialect.”
“I feel like in my own music people know it’s about me,”
Julien continues. “This is about growing up where I grew up,
and seeing people in addiction and poverty. Because it’s
couched in this tradition of country music, it seems more
broadly applicable to a character speaking about alcoholism,
or a character talking about poverty.”
“As some folks know, I was in school plays and I really
thought I was going to be somebody who went off and did
stage acting professionally,” Mackenzie concludes, harking
back to this notion of showmanship, “before I realised I didn’t
have what it takes. But I love that, I love playing a role and
dressing up. This is just another opportunity for that.”
“It was fun,” Julien returns. “It is fun,” Mackenzie corrects.
“And we’re not even on the road yet.”
‘Send a Prayer My Way’ is out 18th April via Matador. D
“
This is about growing up where I grew
up, and seeing people in addiction and
poverty.”
- Julien Baker
NEWS
IN
BRIEF
The BRAT Awards
In news that will
surprise no one,
Charli xcx was the
big winner at this
year’s BRITs,
where she
picked up no
less than five
prizes for
her 2024
stunner
‘BRAT’.
Other notable
winners
included former
cover stars Fontaines
DC and The Last Dinner Party, as
well as Chappell Roan, JADE and
Ezra Collective.
The Lotus Position
Little Simz is well and truly back,
having confirmed that her sixth
studio album ‘Lotus’ will arrive on
9th May via AWAL. And what’s
more, she’s marked the occasion
by teaming up with longtime
collaborator Obongjayar and
Moonchild Sanelly for her brand
new single ‘Flood’ - get our verdict
on that over the page.
Brixton, We Love You…
LCD Soundsystem have
confirmed plans to return to
London’s Brixton Academy
this summer for an eight-night
residency. The New York legends
will perform a run of shows over
two weekends in June (from 12th
to 15th, and 19th to 22nd).
Do Your Homework
Not content with playing a
slew of festivals this
summer, Mercury
Prize winners
English
Teacher
are set
to head
out on their
biggest UK tour to date.
The ‘This Could Be Texas’
quartet will play six shows
this November, culminating in
a huge London show
at the Roundhouse.
Find full deets on
diymag.com.
Photos: Ebru Yildiz, JM Enternational, Emma Swann
8 D

in deep
His ‘N’
Hers
DIY In Deep is our monthly, online-centric chance to dig
into a longer profile on some of the most exciting artists
in the world right now.
Ten years into the game, Matt Maltese is a stalwart
of indie’s top table, his name a byword for stunningly
intimate songwriting and yearning romance. Now
returning with sixth album ‘Hers’, he’s truly come of
age - and it makes for his most mature and emotionally
affecting outing yet.
Words: Daisy Carter
Photos: Ed Miles

needed another Matt Maltese
album,” shrugs the man himself,
giving a modest smile. “After making
five, I just knew it was essential to
make a record where I actually put
something on the line, you know?
Where I actually sacrifice myself a
“Nobody
bit and give something more in the
process.” Though his devoted fans would no doubt disagree
- arguing that they will very much always need another Matt
Maltese album - now, the singer-songwriter is past the point
of writing just to write.
“I do deeply believe that it needs to be a pretty intense,
painful, and at times all-consuming experience,” he affirms,
before chuckling: “I probably always sound like such a
miserable bastard, but I think that making
records is 90% miserable. We’re creatures that
are gregarious - we like to be around people
and exchange stories - but then you’re sort of
just exchanging stories with a mic, or a laptop.
It’s like when people talk about writing a novel;
it’s commitment. And I think I realised that I
needed to commit to the bit even more.” We’re
settled on the sofas of South London gem
The Peckham Pelican, post-shoot, shaking off
the drizzle of a dreary mid-February morning
with copious amounts of tea (served in mugs
lifted straight off the cafe’s iconic mug wall, of
course).
It’s the week before Matt officially announces his sixth
album, ‘Hers’, and yet Operation Commit To The Bit is
already well underway. Releasing an emotionally devastating
lead single? Check. Wiping his social media of all but a few
cryptic teasers? Check. (Much to the distress of his followers
- one of the most-liked comments reads simply ‘MATT
WHERE ARE ALL YOUR POSTS’). Learning to fence? Errr,
sure?
Laughing, he explains that he’s long treated music videos
as an opportunity to do things he might otherwise not, be
it taking a spin at the fairground (‘You Deserve An Oscar’)
or, indeed, duelling a potential suitor in full whites and a
mesh mask (see the just-dropped visualiser for new single
‘Always Some MF’). “I also want to do skydiving someday,”
he deadpans, “but I feel like it would actually be quite a
nightmare to sing whilst I’m in the sky. I might put some lives
at risk as well. Maybe for the next record…”
Having debuted a decade ago as a fresh-faced 18 year
old, Matt Maltese has since made his
name as one of the most consistent,
quietly prolific artists around: as well
as releasing those aforementioned five
studio albums, he’s also recorded a full
covers LP (2024’s ‘Song’s That Aren’t
Mine’); composed an original score for the
recent RSC production of Twelfth Night;
founded an independent record label,
Last Recordings On Earth; and frequently
writes for other people, including Celeste,
Joy Crookes, and Tom Misch.
In short, Matt’s a busy man - busy enough
that, in the time since 2023’s ‘Driving
Just To Drive’, he realised that there
wasn’t necessarily any external impetus
for another solo record. “I do really like
serving other people’s visions,” he says,
explaining how he settled into these
interim projects with ease. “When writing
for somebody else, it’s like an ego death.
To put it really plainly, you’re not the boss
of that room; it’s inherently just not about
you. And I think I deeply enjoy that.”
But, to paraphrase the idiom, comfort
breeds contempt, and he eventually
found himself itching once more to “just be an artist again -
to follow this impossible-to-find North Star.” And so, as he
navigated the end of his first serious relationship since his
early twenties, he decided it was time to focus his gaze - and
his lyric pen - inward once more.
Though relationships are by no means foreign thematic
fare for Matt, ‘Hers’ represents a subtle but significant
tonal shift. Where his earlier work sketched matters of
the heart in youthful, sometimes saccharine, broadly
euphemistic strokes, his latest balances this signature
softness with a newfound forthrightness. “I picture you
naked at the worst time / Eating with my family, playing live,”
he contemplates in the opening lines of first LP preview
‘Anytime, Anyplace, Anyhow’. “Too ashamed to say it, but I
miss / Everything that’s physical about it.”
There is, somehow, something slightly jarring
about hearing such lines delivered in Matt’s
distinctive, soft croon; indeed, in the track’s
press release, he offers an endearingly British
apology for its more 12A lyricism. “I think there
are those people for all of us that occupy a
certain incomprehensible place in our brain,”
he says of ‘Anytime…’, “and this song speaks to
that, and to the physical (sorry) side of it too.”
Perhaps, we suggest, perceptions of Matt
Maltese the artist - both other people’s, and
his own - are somewhat time-stamped to the
age at which he entered the industry; while
musically, he sits in the same intimate indie-folk wheelhouse
as the likes of Father John Misty, there’s an inherent
undercurrent of sexuality to the latter that Matt’s work just
didn’t possess in the same way - until now.
“Even when I talked about having sex in my earlier music,
it’d sound like a kind of movie version of it,” he says, shaking
his head ruefully and laughing: “I said ‘make love’ and
stuff, which is somewhat strange for an 18 year old. And
actually, over the last few years, I’ve also had a bit of an
influx of younger fans…” He pauses carefully, considering his
party lines on the record as we go. “Maybe there was even
something going on where I didn’t want to be sexual because
I knew people would be listening? But then I’ve just come
back around to thinking ‘well, the whole purpose is to not
think too much about the other side of it all’.”
‘Hers’ is out 16th May via The Orchard.
Read the full feature at diymag.com/matt-maltese. D
“I probably always sound
like such a miserable
bastard, but I think that
making records is 90%
miserable.”
D 11

NEWS
Have You Heard?
Some of the biggest and best tracks from the last month.
FONTAINES DC
It’s Amazing To Be Young
Not content with giving us one of 2024’s
stand-out albums, Fontaines DC are back
already, this time with a gorgeous offering
inspired by Carlos O’Connell’s newborn
child. Much like ‘Romance’ cut ‘Favourite’,
‘It’s Amazing To Be Young’ is a moving,
nostalgia-invoking anthem that you can
already imagine echoing around a festival
field, distilling the essence of ’80s indie
icons like The Cure and The Smiths into a number that feels
immediately familiar, and yet undeniably Fontaines.
SELF ESTEEM
69
There’s something rather spectacular
about the fact that Self Esteem chose to
follow her gorgeous empowerment
anthem ‘Focus Is Power’ with a song
about sex positions, but bridging the gap
between high and low culture has never
been a challenge for Rebecca Lucy Taylor.
Taken from her forthcoming third album ‘A
Complicated Woman’, ‘69’ - which landed,
naturally, back on Valentine’s Day - is a deliciously riotous track
that would feel just at home on RuPaul Drag’s Race as in the club,
all while putting discussions of female pleasure centre-stage. Hats
off to you, RLT.
EZRA COLLECTIVE
Body Language
The most euphoric band
around, Ezra Collective
have returned with
‘Body Language’, a
track which sees
the London outfit
infuse their
signature jazz
stylings with a
more Latin American flavour, courtesy
of longtime collaborator and
British-Colombian singer Sasha
Keable. The group’s first release
since the arrival of their acclaimed
album ‘Dance, No One’s Watching’
last year, this latest cut is, in their
own words, “a tribute to the Latin
American communities of London
that deeply inspire us”.
BLONDSHELL
Two Times
The second
track to be
lifted from her
forthcoming
sophomore LP ‘If
You Asked For A
Picture’, ‘Two
Times’ feels like a
distinctly different
flavour to its previous preview. A more stripped
back, contemplative offering in comparison to lead
single ‘T&A’, the track sees Sabrina Teitelbaum
pondering the value we put on loving relationships, and
whether pop culture representations are actually valid.
“How bad does it have to hurt to count? Does it have
to hurt at all?” she posits, over warm acoustic guitar
strums, in what’s a refreshing, candid take on the
traditional love song.
LITTLE SIMZ FT
OBONGJAYAR AND
MOONCHILD SANELLY
Flood
The first preview of Little
Simz’ forthcoming sixth album ‘Lotus’,
‘Flood’ arrives as a propulsive offering,
carried along by hypnotic drum beats and
a dark bassline. A powerful track that sees
Simz in a fierce new guise - her nearwhispered
verses feel almost menacing,
as she warns “This place is infested with
snakes / Don’t get caught in your own
trap” - it’s given an even more foreboding edge thanks to the
addition of Obongjayar and Moonchild Sanelly’s mesmeric vocals.
Keep your devices
up to date: find
our ESSENTIAL NEW
TRACKS Playlist on
Spotify
Photo: Thibaut Grevet
12 D

MAR
Nadia Reid
EartH Theatre
Monday 10 March
An evening with
Lola Kirke
Next Door Records Two
Wednesday 12 March Sold out
Machine Girl
Heaven
Wednesday 12 March
Thursday 13 March Sold out
The Weather Station
Islington Assembly Hall
Thursday 13 March
Ellie O’Neill
SJQ
Thursday 20 March
Arthur Jeffes
(Penguin Cafe)
Kings Place
Saturday 22 March
Fly The Nest
with AMORE + Molina
below Stone Nest
Tuesday 25 March
Helena Deland Solo
St Matthias Church
Wednesday 26 March
Rachael Lavelle
St Pancras Old Church
Wednesday 26 March
Lambert
Kings Place
Thursday 27 March
APR
mark william lewis
ICA
Tuesday 1 April Sold out
Kassie Krut
Loki
Tuesday 1 April
Geordie Greep
Komedia, Bath
Friday 4 April
Yoshika Colwell
MOTH Club
Tuesday 8 April
Man/Woman/Chainsaw
Scala
Thursday 10 April
Geordie Greep
KOKO, London
Tuesday 15 April Sold out
Wednesday 16 April Sold out
Jessica Winter
The Divine
Tuesday 15 April
Porches
Heaven
Wednesday 16 April
Jeremy Bradley
Earl (Woods Solo)
The Lexington
Tuesday 22 April
Sam Akpro
MOTH Club
Thursday 24 April
Squid
Roundhouse
Saturday 26 April
Fly The Nest
Special Guests TBA
below Stone Nest
Tuesday 29 April
MAY
Federico Albanese
Kings Place
Wednesday 7 May
Rose City Band
The Garage
Sunday 11 May
Bria Salmena
The Lexington
Tuesday 13 May
Preoccupations
The Garage
Tuesday 13 May
Circuit des Yeux
ICA
Wednesday 14 May
The Golden Dregs
100 Club
Tuesday 20 May
Jenny Hval
Islington Assembly Hall
Wednesday 21 May
Vendredi sur Mer
XOYO
Thursday 22 May
Throwing Muses
Electric Ballroom
Tuesday 27 May
deary
MOTH Club
Tuesday 27 May
Lael Neale
Omeara
Wednesday 28 May
MJ Lenderman &
The Wind
Marble Factory, Bristol
Thursday 29 May
JUN
MJ Lenderman &
The Wind
Electric Ballroom, London
Wednesday 4 June Sold out
Spellling
Village Underground
Wednesday 11 June
Destroyer
The Fleece, Bristol
Wednesday 11 June
Islington Assembly Hall, London
Thursday 12 June
Basia Bulat
Omeara
Tuesday 17 June
Horsegirl
Scala, London
Friday 20 June
Band On The Wall, Manchester
Saturday 21 June
Thekla, Bristol
Thursday 26 June
JUL
Japanese Breakfast
O2 Academy Brixton
Thursday 3 July
AUG
RALLY Festival
Southwark Park
Saturday 23 August
SEP
Black Country,
New Road
Beacon Hall, Bristol
Monday 22 September
OCT
The Magnetic Fields
Perform 69 Love Songs
Union Chapel
Thursday 2 October Sold out
Friday 3 October Sold out
Tuesday 14 October
Wednesday 15 October
Black Country,
New Road
O2 Academy Brixton
Friday 31 October
NOV
Albertine Sarges
The Lexington
Tuesday 4 November
London & Beyond
birdonthewire.net

Summer here we come! Here’s the latest on what’s worth getting excited for.
Brightening Up
Post-punk icons Dry Cleaning have been confirmed
as one of the headliners for this year’s Brighten
The Corners, while the likes of Lime Garden,
DEADLETTER and Gruff Rhys are also set to appear
across the weekend.
Taking place across venues in Ipswich on 13th and
14th June, the event will also play host to a series
of buzzy new artists including The NONE, The
Orchestra (For Now) and W H Lung. The fest will
take place across five stages in the city, including The
Smokehouse, The Baths, St Stephen’s Church, Corn
Exchange and Cornhill, and tickets are on sale now
via brightenthecorners.co.uk.
“We are so pleased to announce the initial wave of
artists for our 2025 event including Dry Cleaning, our
first headliners, who we have been trying to entice
to Ipswich since their first single back in 2019,” the
festival’s programmer Marcus Neal has said. “The
programme as a whole continues our tradition of
showcasing a broad spectrum of emerging artists
across a wide range of genres from indie to folk,
electronic jazz to noise-rock and beyond. We look
forward to unveiling further names, including our
second headline act, in the coming weeks.”
Sounding Massive
New London event LIDO has unveiled that this year’s
fifth and final headliner will be none other than Bristol
icons Massive Attack, who join Jamie xx, Charli
xcx, London Grammar, and Turnstile (as part of
Outbreak Festival) as the artists topping the bill for
LIDO’s inaugural series of day fests.
Set to take place on Friday 6th June, Massive
Attack’s headline turn in Victoria Park will
be their first London
festival show in nine
years, and will
continue the triphop
pioneers’
valuable
campaign to
make live music
events more
sustainable, in that
it’ll be 100% battery
powered.
Back in summer last
year, Massive Attack
teamed up with
decarbonisation
initiative ACT
1.5 to host an
all-day outdoor
event in Bristol,
providing
a workable
example for
how large-scale
music events
can be made
environmentally
friendly. They then
hosted a second
event indoors at
Liverpool’s M&S
Bank Arena, joined
by IDLES and Nile
Rodgers & Chic.
Joining Massive Attack on the day will be acclaimed
French duo Air, South East London
local Tirzah, and the new collaborative
project of hip hop legends Yasiin Bey
(fka Mos Def) and The Alchemist - which
they’ve aptly dubbed Yasiin Bey and The
Alchemist are FORENSICS. LIDO will take
place in Lido Field, Victoria Park, across two
weekends in June (7th-8th and 13th-15th).
For more info, head to diymag.com now.
Our Little Swamp
Princess
Open’er’s 2025 lineup just keeps getting
bigger: rap phenomenon Doechii and
viral pop sensation Lola Young are
the latest pair of acts booked to play
the Polish weekender this July.
Both artists are among the past
twelve months’ biggest breakout
stars - Doechii recently scooped a
GRAMMY Award for 2024 mixtape
‘Alligator Bites Never Heal’ (named Best
Rap Album by the Recording Academy),
while Lola Young shot to the top of the
UK charts with huge single ‘Messy’.
They’ll join previously announced artists like
Massive Attack, cult singer-songwriter Gracie
Abrams, rap titan JPEGMAFIA, iconic rockers
Linkin Park, and soul-pop powerhouse RAYE at the
Polish event this summer, while further down the bil,
punters will be treated to performances from
Canadian indie-rock outfit Mother Mother,
Berlin duo Brutalismus 3000, American
cult favourites Magdalena Bay, electronic
mainstay Caribou, and many more.
Open’er 2025 once again takes place
at Gdynia-Kosakowo Airport in Gdynia,
and will run from 2nd to 5th July.
The Great Escape (14th - 17th May) has
unveiled that Peter Doherty will be joining
the Brighton festival in May for a special
Spotlight Show, performing alongside
Warmduscher and Trampolene. The fest
have also added English Teacher, Lynks,
Man /Woman /Chainsaw, Westside
Cowboy and many more to the bill.
South London day event Wide Awake (23rd
May) has announced the third wave of artists
set to perform this year, including dark-pop
sensation Luvcat, iconic boundary-pusher
Peaches, and electronic multi-hyphenate
Sega Bodega. They’ll join the likes of
Kneecap, CMAT and English Teacher.
Live at Leeds In The Park (24th May) has
dropped their full 2025 line-up, adding
the likes of Welsh legends Manic Street
Preachers, longtime DIY faves Sports
Team, and folk-pop favourite Katy J
Pearson to the bill. Other new additions
include Hard Life, Los Bitchos, and Do
Nothing, who will all appear at Leeds’
Temple Newsam this May.
Madrid’s Mad Cool (10th - 12 July) has
announced their next wave of acts, as well
as confirming this year’s daily schedule. New
additions include enigmatic experimentalist
and ex-black midi man Geordie Greep, and
Irish alt-folk outfit Kingfishr; they’ll join Olivia
Rodrigo, Nine Inch Nails, Gracie Abrams,
Weezer and loads more in the Spanish
capital this July.
2000trees (9th - 12th July) has added
another ace list of artists to the bill of this
year’s event, including Black Country duo Big
Special, Irish noiseniks Sprints and Welsh
party-starters Panic Shack. They’ll appear
alongside PVRIS, Kneecap, Alexisonfire,
Taking Back Sunday and Coheed and
Cambria, who are all set to headline this
year.
Deer Shed (25th - 28th July) has confirmed
that indie favourites The Big Moon and
acclaimed poet Kae Tempest will be heading
up this year’s 15th birthday celebrations,
joining previously-announced rock rising
stars Wunderhorse to complete 2025’s trio
of headliners.
The first artists for The Long Road (22nd
- 24th August) have been revealed, with
Midland and Drake Milligan both set to top
the event. Other acts confirmed to celebrate
all things country, Americana, folk and roots
include Seasick Steve, Chuck Ragan,
Alana Springsteen, and Janet Devlin.
Photos: Emma Swann, John Jay
14 D

NEU
New artists, new music.
“Every single time
I’ve made a song –
whether it’s unconscious
or conscious – there
has always been a
creative intention
behind it. ”

Sam Akpro
On his anticipated, liminal debut album, South London’s Sam Akpro is emphasising
the importance of feeling and intent over genre.
Words: Tyler Damara Kelly
Photo: Emma Swann
“I
don’t think anything is ‘not cool’,”
Sam Akpro says whilst reflecting on
building the world around his debut
album, ‘Evenfall’. “I’ve come to realise
that the perspective is just different.
In their world it’s cool, but in your world it’s not, and then in
their world, you’re not cool. It’s like [the meme of] Spiderman
pointing at himself.”
As we catch up with the Peckham native over a pint at
Strongrooms in Shoreditch, Akpro is giving DIY an insight
into the space that facilitates his creativity, revealing that this
extends past the sonic realm – he’s currently in the middle of
creating an ‘Evenfall’ universe with a self-made scrapbookslash-zine,
and a prose counterpart, courtesy of poet and
musician James Massiah. “That stuff is cool because all my
favourite artists have done it. Even if I only ever read it once,
it’s just cool to have it,” he says, referring to the nerdiness of
fanzines.
some of those songs, I don’t know what they mean. It’s crazy
– it’s some spiritual shit!”
I
n order to create a world for others to lose themselves
in, you must trust your instincts. With ‘Evenfall’, Akpro
had six years to learn to become a better producer
and songwriter. Working alongside co-producers Shrink and
Finn Billingham, he excavated his hard drives and curated
a batch of songs that feel like you’re wandering around his
psyche. Would you like to take the blue pill that invites the
listener into a dreamscape which subconsciously unfurls
around you, or take a red pill to venture down a carefully
mapped-out route, with no side quests along the way? For
Sam, it was the former. “I think the judgment was more
based on the feelings of each song. That’s what makes it
cohesive – it’s the feeling, not necessarily the sounds of
everything. It’s not like we’ve got the same guitar on every
song. It’s more that they’ve got the same frequency,” he
explains.
While some artists are intentional, mapping out every part of
the process, Sam’s approach appears to be subtler – almost
spiritual – as if music is the conduit through which he’s able
to communicate his observations on the world. Trying to
describe him is almost futile. Everything you need to know is
in the music; it’s a feeling. A self-confessed introvert (“I don’t
speak a lot; I’m pretty quiet, and I guess that feeds into the
music”), it becomes apparent as our conversation transpires
that he’s simply just tapped into the right frequency.
Surprisingly, with a Gambian mother and a father hailing
from the Ivory Coast, it was a BBC Concert Orchestra
performance by Elbow that first struck a chord in him. “My
family would be playing Gambian music and gospel Highlife,”
Akpro explains, “but when I heard Elbow, I was quite
fascinated. Every day after school, I would go on BBC iPlayer
and watch it. That was my first ever musical thing that I was
like, ‘What the fuck is this? Who are these people?’”
Fast forward to 2018, while studying Biomedical Science at
Kingston University, he had another musical epiphany, after
stumbling across Gorillaz at Hampshire festival Boomtown.
Captivated, he left with the intention of buying the gear to
make his own music. “I liked science, and was good at it,
but I think I chose it just to keep my parents happy,” he says
of his decision to drop out of university. “It was good to try
it and know that I don’t want to do it. I took a risk leaving
university to do music, but I guess it’s working a little bit,” he
continues, a slow smile appearing across his face.
Outside of his experience at Boomtown, he never had a
tangible example of a music community until he started
going to shows with his friend and Ammi Boyz member
Marley. “The first thing I did was get a laptop. I was listening
to K-Trap, hip hop, and drill, and copying that shit,” he reveals
of his early musical attempts. “I decided that I wanted to play
guitar because I was listening to Tame Impala, and then [I
heard] Travis Scott’s ‘ASTROWORLD’ album. That basically
influenced me into putting different sounds together.”
Just a year later, when Sam arrived on the scene with his
2019 EP, ‘Night’s Away’, the blueprint of his genreless sound
was already there. On its heels came ‘Drift’ (2021) and
‘Arrival’ (2023) – the latter written in Strongrooms Studios,
just a few feet from where we’re sat today – which cemented
him as a fully formed artist. “I haven’t made that many songs
in my life, so every single time I’ve made a song – whether it’s
unconscious or conscious – there has always been a creative
intention behind it, without trying to sound all fancy,” he
muses, pondering where experimentation ends and intuition
begins. “Even though I feel like I’m still experimenting, I don’t
know how, but those EPs just magically happened. Even
‘Evenfall’ opens with a wonky, warped guitar and saxophone
shrill, which sounds like sirens racing across a metropolis
teeming with life. Akpro’s intuitive writing style is cinematic
and evocative – almost immersive – as the tracks sweep you
off your feet and hold you in the palm of their hand, moving
from frenetic post-punk, to washed out shoegaze, distorted
jazz, and programmed synths tapped into the frequency of
the sacred sound Om. This amorphous sound offers reprieve
as he explores the malaise of living in a city that is often
impossible to keep up with. The album’s singles showcase
the advent of Sam Akpro, who introduced himself boldly on
his first EPs, but its title track - which he confesses was his
least favourite when it was written - showcases his knack for
being a vessel that’s tapped into the spiritual nature of art.
It’s music for being sucked in and out of a mushroom trip,
where you’re tethered to earth only by your body whilst your
mind is taken elsewhere. ‘Baka’, one of the oldest songs on
the album, serves as a moment of meditation; the glitchy
instrumental is like something out of The Matrix. At first
intense, as your mind is spliced into a million tiny pieces, it
dissipates into something softer, something holy, as a sense
of calm washes over you in a sound-bath of ethereality.
‘Cornering Lights’, meanwhile, feels like watching the sun rise
through a gap in the curtains at an afters: Akpro’s languid
vocals glides over the instrumental which pushes and pulls
between sparse rhythmic elements, while a dawn chorus of
synths mimic the desire to fight the comedown and escape
reality for just a little while longer.
Back in 2018, Akpro had no idea that any of this was
possible. “I didn’t even know what a gig was. There’s no
context of that in my brain because I don’t really come from
that kind of culture,” he confesses. “All of this was new to me
at an older age, where I was kind of just discovering myself.
I dropped my first bit of music in 2019, put out my first EP in
the middle of 2019, and then I had a band by August. We did
a headline show in September of the same year, and there
were like 100 people there. It’s mad!” he laughs.
As the release of his debut album and celebratory headline
show at London’s MOTH Club approaches, Akpro is looking
to the future. He admits “it’s kinda scary” not really knowing
what the year is going to look like, but for now, he has
decided to relinquish control to the universe. It’s worked this
far, so why not? D
D 17

NEU
Welly
Rapidly gaining momentum ahead of his debut album release, Welly is the
whipsmart upstart determined to make music fun again.
Words: Caitlin Chatterton
do I need to go to a gig
and see if I like this band
when I can listen to ABBA?”
quips Welly. It’s a sentiment
“Why
his fans hopefully don’t
share: tonight the band at East London venue Colours
is his own. Sequestered in a nearby pub ahead
of the set, the songwriter and frontman is ruefully
interrogating the state of live music. “People see five
people doing that,” he says, miming a half-hearted
guitar strum, “and don’t give a shit. It’s like kids in the
‘60s seeing an orchestra – it’s the equivalent of them
watching Rachmaninoff play the piano.”
Growing up a post-punk disciple, the Southampton
native was “appalled” to attend shows and realise
he’d lost his paper round pennies to underwhelming
offerings. “I just thought, ‘I can’t believe I’ve spent
so much money for you to look really miserable’,” he
remembers. “If someone’s spending eight quid [on
the ticket], and eight quid on a pint, and five quid on a
bus, I’d like to put on a show for them.”
It’s a mission statement his own outfit more than lives
up to. When they take to the stage later, the “sha la
la”s of Tony Christie’s ‘Amarillo’ which soundtracks
their entrance have barely faded before someone’s
pint flies through the air and a pit cracks open. As
the quintet storm through ‘Deere John’ and ‘The
Roundabout Racehorse’, Welly (clad in a PE kit, and
achieving a vibe somewhere between Jarvis Cocker
and James Acaster) gleefully reminds the audience
that a triangle solo by keys player Hannah – much
like the impassioned horse impression we get from
guitarist Joe – comes included in their ticket price.
The band’s ease on stage is testament to the hours
they’ve already clocked up; they booked over 100
shows before any management took interest, and now
continue to traipse across the country in Joe’s Honda
Jazz to sell their wares. (They’ve consequently logged
a similar amount of time in fast food joints – Welly
favours a Greggs jam doughnut, for those interested:
a rare sight of colour and “more fruit than a sausage
roll”).
Having grown up sharing a postcode with Joe and
bassist Jacob, Welly picked up guitarist Matt at
university in Brighton, and recruited Hannah – despite
never having seen her play – from behind the bar of a
local club night. With six years of gigging now under
their belts, the band are finally preparing to release a
debut album. Made in Welly’s dad’s house and named
after raucous opener ‘Big In The Suburbs’, the record
marks a turning point; from the outside it might look
like they’re only just getting started but, for the band,
the release is a chance to put a pin in the last few
years and continue charging forwards.
“If you look at any act that moved [music] on, they
took what was most relevant in nostalgia for that
period, and then what was most cutting edge in,
usually, dance music,” Welly says of his vision for the
band’s future. ‘Big In The Suburbs’ certainly ticks
the nostalgia box, pulling from ‘80s names like The
Romantics and Pet Shop Boys, as well as from pillars
of Britpop and noughties dancefloor fillers. “I think the
only way people resonate with music now is if it’s got
something they can grapple onto from history,” Welly
muses. “It needs to be very familiar, with just a bit of
something that’s the zeitgeist.”
Though writing those decade-spanning tunes is
his favourite part of the project, hearing his words
shouted back at shows ain’t half bad, either. “That’s
the feeling you beg for when you’re sixteen,” he
grins, “when you watch Arctic Monkeys playing
Glastonbury, and [Alex Turner] plays one chord
and the crowd just does it.” Although it’s not quite
the Pyramid Stage, tonight’s audience do just that,
throwing themselves into debut single ‘Shopping’ and
Pulp-flavoured favourite ‘Soak Up The Culture’ with
wild abandon. They, at least, are more than willing
to brave a drizzly Wednesday evening to see a new
band. You can always listen to ABBA on the way
home, after all. D
“I think the
only way people
resonate with music
now is if it’s got
something they can
grapple onto from
history. ”
Photo: Rosie Carne
18 D

A monthly focus on these crucial cogs in the wonderful new music wheel.
NEU
NEU Recommended
Your pocket guide to the new names who’ve been catching our eyes (and ears) of late.
Uwade
The well-read newcomer
penning her own chronicles.
A florilegium is an anthology,
a collection of poems, short
stories and vignettes gathered
in a single bouquet. It’s also a
fitting title for Uwade’s debut
album; having studied classics
on both sides of the Atlantic
(at Columbia and Oxford, no
less) before currently pursuing
a PhD, she has an extensive
literary canon to thumb
through for influences.
Added to this scholastic
arsenal are the musical touches
of her heroes and collaborators
- including Fleet Foxes
and Julian Casablancas - and the result is a growing
catalogue of considered, captivating storytelling
that draws from folk, pop, and afrobeats with a
deft hand.
LISTEN: A single from ‘Florilegium’, the
tender ‘(I Wonder) What We’re Made Of’ is an
intoxicating hymn to friendship.
SIMILAR TO: Romanticised commutes home
during golden hour.
Hotgirl
The dynamic quartet blazing
through Dublin’s DIY scene.
Emerging from humble beginnings as singer-songwriter
Ashley Abbedeen’s lo-fi bedroom project, Hotgirl has evolved to take on
a captivating identity as a full-blown band. Harbouring a no-nonsense
confidence through dreamy yet gritty soundscapes, there’s a sense of
restless wonder and catharsis across forthcoming EP ‘Blast Off’, as
they constantly stumble upon realisations both musical and personal.
LISTEN: ‘Sisyphus’ is a country-tinged climb that, despite its name,
Hotgirl make light work of.
SIMILAR TO: A toughened exterior that lets up for the occasional line
dance.
Caitlin Chatterton, Emily Savage, Kayla Sandiford, Kyle Roczniak
Mia Wray
The latest flagbearer of our
current queer pop renaissance.
Having initially established herself
in 2020 via a triple j debut with ‘Work
For Me’, Mia Wray is now embracing the
next chapter of her journey. The Melbournebased
songwriter’s first full-length record - the
very aptly titled ‘Hi, It’s Nice To Meet Me’ - takes her self-aware indie-pop cuts to
new territory, as she navigates the emotional turmoil of coming to terms with her
sexuality with candour and courage.
LISTEN: Recent single ‘Not Enough’ is a heartbreaking yet euphoric account of
personal discovery.
SIMILAR TO: If HAIM and Maggie Rogers had an Aussie baby.
YHWH Nailgun
NYC experimentalists whose
output takes no prisoners.
Between a pair of 2022 EPs and countless underground gigs,
New York-based quartet YHWH Nailgun (pronounced ‘yahweh’)
have been bubbling just beneath the city’s ever-fertile scene for a
few years now, honing their distinctive, disconcerting brand of noiserock.
Borrowing from ‘70s no-wave and modern hip hop alike, their debut proper
‘45 Pounds’ lands this month, and is a tour de force in dynamic intensity.
LISTEN: ‘Sickle Walk’ is utterly dissonant yet disarmingly hypnotic.
SIMILAR TO: An exorcism. In a good way.
The Pill
The freshest faces on the Isle of Wight’s burgeoning indie scene.
With their razor-sharp guitar hooks and fierce drum beats, it’s perhaps
hard to believe that The Pill began as a joke. But, having now amassed
a devoted fan base - courtesy of witty lyricism, tongue-in-cheek
playfulness and fiery punk offerings - the duo are charging
forwards with gusto. They may only have four singles to their
name, but their catalogue to date already speaks volumes -
namely, about the inadequacies and injustices of everything
from gender stereotypes to bad haircuts.
LISTEN: Latest single ‘Money Mullet’ lands like dating advice
delivered by the world’s most unqualified agony aunts.
SIMILAR TO: The raucous energy of England’s homegrown guitar
rockers like Wet Leg or SOFT PLAY.
DIY148
NEU
LABEL SPOTLIGHT
#4
SUBMARINE CAT
45 RPM
How would you describe, in less than 10 words,
the ethos behind Submarine Cat?
Carlos de los Santos: Community, passion,
independence, songs, and ambition sums it up! Fun
is a very important one too – sometimes easy to
forget, but most things we do would make no sense
if they weren’t fun.
Was running a label always the dream job? Tell
us a bit more about your route into/through the
industry.
It wasn’t until it was! I came into the industry by
playing in bands, like most of us did. Through
collaborating and sharing the challenges of being in
a band with other local artists, I quickly discovered
a passion for helping nurture talent. At that same
time I was becoming obsessed with the history of
independent labels in the UK, and how instrumental
they’d been in creating counter-culture. The
combination of those two things made me want
to be a part of it, and I found the perfect home at
Submarine Cat! I was extremely lucky to be trusted
with a job at such an exciting new label so early on
in my career.
What does a typical day in the life at Submarine
Cat look like?
Maybe FEET or Swim Deep are in our studio writing
new songs and I go to say hello, or maybe we
receive the new Home Counties test pressings I
need to listen to. Maybe Prima Queen have just
written a hit that wasn’t going to be on the album,
but it turns out it will have to be; or She’s In Parties
are filming a SubCat Session; or Larry from
Alabama 3 is coming in to play us new demos. I love
the adventure of not really knowing what’s going
to happen every day. It keeps us on our toes. My
favourite thing about the job always takes place in
the evenings or at festivals though; I love going to
see our bands play important shows and smash it
out of the park. The last time I got quite emotional
was seeing She Drew The Gun play ‘Washed In
Blue’ at Rough Trade East. What a song...
What are some of the biggest challenges of
running an indie label in the digital age? And the
most rewarding parts?
The biggest challenge is cutting through the noise.
There’s so much incredible music out there, so the
competition in the industry is unprecedented. We
all demand so much from artists: it’s not just about
writing great songs and putting on a good show –
bands are now expected to be content creators too,
and we try our best to help them find their space
and their own language for that. But ironically, I do
think that good songs and good shows remain at
the core of it all.
If you could re-release any classic album on
Submarine Cat, what would it be and why?
For me it’s a no brainer: ‘Is This It’ by The Strokes.
I love the movement that album represents;
it’s not just about The Strokes, it’s about LCD
Soundsystem, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol, TV
On The Radio. It’s not just one of the albums
that defined the music I liked as a teenager, but
it defined a movement. And I think that’s pretty
awesome.
As a label, if Submarine Cat had a new year’s
resolution, what would it be?
Definitely to do more live events! We’ll have stages
at Sound City and The Great Escape again, but
we’re also starting a run of label parties in London
and other European cities. The first one coming up
is on Saturday 22nd March at Supersonic in Paris,
with Home Counties and She’s In Parties – we really
can’t wait!
Photos: Niamh Barry, Nick McKK, Shervin Lainez, Steve Gullick
20 D

Bird On The Wire & Friends present
UK TOUR
29 JUNE Manchester Academy MANCHESTER
30 JUNE Barrowland Ballroom GLASGOW
01 JULY O2 Academy Bristol BRISTOL
03 JULY O2 Academy Brixton LONDON
tickets at japanesebreakfast.rocks
with Minhwi Lee

NEU
The Buzz Feed
All the buzziest new music happenings in one place.
Young Hearts
Run Free
Scotland’s Katie Gregson-MacLeod has
returned with a new single, and it’s just as
introspectively beautiful as we’ve come to
expect from the singer-songwriter. Having
released her last solo material - the EP
‘Big Red’ - back in 2023, Katie’s latest
number was born out of a period of
change, as she parted ways with her
former major label and signed instead
to Matt Maltese’s burgeoning indie, Last
Recordings On Earth. Speaking of their
friendship and now working relationship,
Matt has said of Katie: “I’ve always been
a huge admirer of her ability to combine
sadness, humour, anger and poise all at once
in her work. She’s undeniably a songwriter’s
songwriter and I can’t wait to be a part of all the
brilliant music to come.”
Sharing a little more about the inspirations behind
her newest song, Katie has explained that “‘Teenage Love’
honours the small but mighty part of me where anger resides. I wrote
the majority of the song over two years ago, making sense of some new resentment I was feeling on behalf
of a younger me.
“As a teenage girl, there is a feeling that ‘angry’ is the ugliest thing you can be. Only in hindsight did I realise
the power anger would have given me back then; a power that I thought I would land on in the pursuit of
appearing ‘mature’ or ‘patient’. The song doesn’t regret, but it questions a lot. It sieves through some residue
from past relationships; unanswered questions, resentments. It also laughs at it all the way we must to make
sense of it.” Listen to ‘Teenage Love’ over on diymag.com now.
Fluorescent
Adolescence
Fresh from releasing their latest single ‘Ripple’ last month, Good Neighbours
have announced plans for a slightly more unusual UK headline tour. Set
to kick off in April, the duo - who were also recently shortlisted for this
year’s BRITs Rising Star award - have decided to eschew the bigger, more
frequently visited cities of traditional touring runs in favour of playing in an
array of towns that tend to be missed. Titled the ‘Adolescence’ tour, the band
will make stops in university towns such as Exeter, Leicester, Hull and Stockton, to
name but a few.
“There’ve been a lot of big, mad moments in the last year, but as two boys from small towns, we realise we
missed a couple stops,” the band has said, in a press release. “The Adolescence tour is us making room for
some places we haven’t yet been and letting us have some fun on the road.”
Tickets for their upcoming shows are on sale now, with them making the follow stops: Cavern, Exeter (2nd
April), The Globe, Cardiff (3rd), O2 Academy 2, Leicester (6th), Social, Hull (7th), Tolbooth, Stirling (8th), KU
Bar, Stockton (10th), Kasbah, Coventry (12th), KOLA, Portsmouth (13th).
Gone Mouldy
Just a few months on from the release of their standalone
single ‘CHUNKS’, Bristol trio MOULD have returned with
news of their second EP; ‘Almost Feels Like A Purpose’ is
set for release on 24th April via 5dB Records.
Recorded at Humm Studios in Bristol last summer,
the band’s next release will follow on from their 2024
self-titled debut, and comes previewed by their
riotous new single, ‘SNAILS’, a track which we said
“nails the fun and multi-dimensionality which MOULD
encapsulate with ease”.
“‘SNAILS’ was written whilst working a mind numbing
temp receptionist job,” the band’s Joe Sherrin explains.
“I worked there for a week. My job was to press a button
to let people in the door if they forgot their pass. They all
had passes. Kane [Eagle] came up with the melody whilst we
were messing around with a chord sequence at practice, I then
wrote the words to fit it.” Check it out over on diymag.com now.
What’s more, MOULD have a handful of live shows scheduled over the next few
months, including an appearance at New York’s New Colossus festival on 6th March, and The Great Escape
in Brighton this May.
THE NEU
PLAYLIST
Fancy discovering your new favourite artist?
Dive into the cream of the new music crop
below.
Luvcat - Love & Money
With a theatrical image akin to
Florence Welch or The Last
Dinner Party, and a deep-rooted
passion for relating grandiose
emotions via quotidian
references, Luvcat continues to
expand her catalogue of gothic romance tracks
with her lust-fuelled latest tale, ‘Love & Money’. It
maintains her already-signature thematic
preoccupation with possessive love (“You could
be my mannequin / Dress you up in anything”),
while introducing a more prominent synth-pop
feel. Her delicate vocals effortlessly sit atop a
jangly guitar soundscape, lyrically crafting a story
that sits somewhere between undying attraction
and unforgivable regret. Kyle Roczniak
House Of Protection -
Afterlife
‘Afterlife’ is a whip-cracking
electric shock, kick-starting a
new era for House Of Protection
following their 2024 EP
‘GALORE’. Like two omnipotent
gods of their own electronicslash-nu-metal
sound, former Fever 333 members
Aric Improta and Stephen Harrison ramp up the
chaos, chanting “This is how I absolutely want to
die / Go ahead and meet me in the afterlife” before
devolving into uncaged yells. With earth-shaking
drones which turn into thrashing, thumping snare
drum choruses, this anthem has enough energy to
spark a power socket. Sophie McVinnie
Night Tapes -
television
A hypnotic blend of nostalgia and
modernity that marks their first
release since 2024’s ‘To Be Free’,
‘television’ shimmers with
‘80s-tinged synths and ethereal
vocals, and a buoyant, dreamlike
energy that somehow feels both weightless and
urgent; layers of lush instrumentation create a
hazy atmosphere while the upbeat rhythm drives it
forward, making ‘television’ feel like a track caught
between the past and the future. Following last
summer’s ‘assisted memories’ EP, this latest
release continues to refine their signature sound,
balancing introspective lyricism with expansive,
cinematic production. Gemma Cockrell
Nxdia - boy clothes
Across previous singles ‘She
Likes a Boy’ and ‘Feel Anything’,
Nxdia showed a knack for writing
TikTok-ready hooks, setting them
within slick bouts of pop punk,
documenting unrequited
attraction and drinking to oblivion respectively.
Their latest cut ‘Boy Clothes’ follows the same
prescription, revelling in the euphoria of baggy
jeans, hair gel and aftershave, at the same time as
delivering one of their catchiest tunes yet. Caitlin
Chatterton
UPDATE YOUR EARS!
Find the Neu Playlist on Spotify:
Photos: Meg Henderson, Isaac Lamb, Sal Redpath
22 D

NEU
“We don’t need to
talk about anything.
We’re both on the same
wavelength with where
we’re going with a
song.”
- Esme Lee-Scott ”
Esme Emerson
Having gone from slightly aloof siblings to close creative collaborators,
Esme Emerson are the rising folk-pop duo ready to welcome oddballs and
outcasts into the family with open arms.
Words: Sophie Flint Vázquez
“If you’re gay, then listen to us!”
exclaims Esme Lee-Scott, one
half of folk-pop sibling duo
Esme Emerson. Sitting next to
her brother, Emerson (currently
sporting a Twilight t-shirt), the pair excitedly bounce
off each other, finishing each other’s sentences in
the way that only two people bonded by a lifetime of
shared company can. “Yeah, if you’re gay and a little
bit weird, and you like weird things, listen to us. That’s
how I want to promote ourselves.”
Growing up, their four year age gap meant the siblings
had never entirely connected. But that all changed
during the pandemic when, over online lessons and
dining room table homework, they realised they had
more in common than they thought. “I think that felt
like the right time for us to start writing together,”
Emerson reflects with a smile, while Esme notes:
“I feel like I was very nervous to approach lots of
songwriting at first. I was too scared to be really
vulnerable about it.”
Since then, a lot has changed: they went from
approaching music separately to “filling in each
other’s gaps”, and last year reached the selfdescribed
“huge milestone” of opening for The
Japanese House on tour. Now, Esme Emerson have
three EPs to their name, including latest release
‘Applesauce’. “I feel like we really throw ourselves into
it now,” says Esme. “The more vulnerable, the more
sincere it is, the more rewarding it is to write songs.”
Being siblings, Emerson explains, also gives them the
advantage of “sharing a brain”. “There’s this unspoken
trust and acknowledgement that whatever either of
us does is going to be the right thing for both of us,”
he smiles. Esme agrees, noting: “We don’t need to
talk about anything. We’re both kind of on the same
wavelength with where we’re going with a song.”
Growing up in Suffolk with Chinese and British
heritage, Esme Emerson never felt like they fitted
in. Now, they’ve found connection in each other
and in their music, creating a safe space not just for
themselves but for their fans too. “I like to think that
we’ve found a bigger sense of belonging as we’ve
grown up,” says Esme. “Allowing ourselves to be
really honest in the music and the songs was sort of
where we could be unapologetically ourselves.”
All that being said, the pair remain eager to keep
pushing their boundaries, and ‘Applesauce’ is
testament to this desire “not to be boxed in”. From
the glitchy pop-rock of ‘Too Far Gone’, to the playful
folk of ‘Yard’ and the blissed-out electronica of ‘Stay’,
the EP’s four influence-spanning tracks represent
a real maturation, and are perhaps only the first
step towards broader horizons to come. “I think
we’d like to dive more into folky and country-esque
genres, or a bit more Midwest emo and math rocky
stuff,” Emerson explains excitedly, while Esme nods
effusively. “I love the new Oklou record and obviously
[Charli xcx’s] ‘BRAT’ and these more electronic
records; [we love] hyperpop and the PC Music scene,
too.”
Having already amassed over 100,000 monthly
listeners on Spotify, the duo show no signs of slowing
down any time soon. “I really want to make an album.
As long as I’ve made an album that I’m really proud
of, I think I could die happy,” Emerson laughs, before
sheepishly adding: “I also want to play Glastonbury.”
For Esme Emerson, writing music isn’t just about the
songs – it’s about carving out a space where they, and
others who feel like they don’t quite fit in, truly belong.
With their ever-evolving sound and their unwavering
sense of self, maybe Glastonbury isn’t so far off after
all. D
Photo: Jacob Cable Alexander
D 23

Melancholy
and
the
With her last album ‘Jubilee’, JAPANESE BREAKFAST’s Michelle Zauner found
name, but no amount of critical acclaim will shift the reality of loss. Now, ten years
she’s channelling it into the dark new world of

INFINITE Sadness
herself a GRAMMY-nominated artist with a New York bestseller to her
on from the passing of her mother, her grief is still unfolding, and
‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’.
WORDS: El Hunt

“I don’t think my GRIEF
will ever be over, but in
some ways, it feels like
it’s come FULL CIRCLE.”

nyone who has ever taken out an involuntary subscription
to the Grief Club will already know this: when you’ve lost
someone you love, sadness tends to show up in the weirdest
ways.
Grief is feeling guilty for laughing at a corny joke, being irrationally
furious with people who are sad for milder, less tragic reasons than
you, or fuming that someone is no longer here to experience incredibly
trivial developments such as alcohol-free Guinness, or Sex and the City’s
brilliantly terrible reboot. Grief tends to underpin almost everything, and even
as time marches on, life seems to be divided into before and after. “I still very
much think of my life as being folded around that event,” says Michelle Zauner, aka
Japanese Breakfast, “and I think I probably always will.”
For Japanese Breakfast, much of her work exists in the ‘after’ – with her three albums
to date, and 2021’s breakthrough memoir Crying in H Mart, all grappling with the passing
of her mother. “It’s been 10 years since my mother passed away, and I’ve changed a lot,”
she says today, as we catch up over Zoom. “This is a thought I’ve been having a lot that’s not
fully formed, to be honest: but when I look back at my catalogue, I think of [2016’s debut album]
‘Psychopomp’ as this extremely raw interpretation of grief. I think of ‘Soft Sounds [From Another
Planet]’ as this real kind of dissociative state that came after it. And I think of ‘Jubilee’ as a sort of
permission to feel happiness.”
New album ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’, on the other hand, is concerned with creating
room for other shades of sadness again; a gloominess that is gentler, and more reflective. It is also a
conscious departure from ‘Jubilee’’s warmer, brighter sound, and sunny aesthetics: “I never wanted to see
the colour yellow, ever again,” she jokes.
”In a way, melancholy is my innate form,” she says. “I don’t think my grief will ever be over, but in some ways,
it feels like it’s come full circle. I’ve allowed myself to feel happiness, and I’ve allowed myself now to just be
sad about other stuff. Especially being someone in her mid-30s, sadness is not what it used to be. It’s not the
sort of intense heartbreak, or jealousy, or longing; it is this kind of pensive melancholy about time passing.”
After recording ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’, Michelle spent a year living in Seoul, taking a
kind of sabbatical following the dizzying success of her two-time Grammy nominated third album, and
her best-selling memoir Crying in H Mart in 2021. Both projects catapulted her firmly into the cultural
mainstream, and were met with critical acclaim beyond most artists’ wildest dreams; but it all left her
feeling like Icarus flying too close to the sun, complete with waxy wings beginning to melt.
“I kind of felt like I was at a high stakes poker table, and I had just won a lot. All I could think is, ‘I have to
leave before I start losing’.” After a decade-plus touring the US in a moderately successful indie band,
Michelle began to struggle with stage fright and anxiety as the bigger, shinier bookings came knocking.
Her mental and physical health both suffered as a result.
”I never thought we would play Saturday Night Live, I never thought we would play late night TV.
I never thought that we would play Radio City Music Hall, or that I would go on to do all these
things. I just was happy being in a van, you know, playing small shows,” she nods. “I used to
get drunk a lot, and play shows sort of sloppily… when all of a sudden, you’re playing for
1800 people and tickets are $40, or $80, you realise that it doesn’t fly anymore. So I
was having to kind of learn how to basically throw a big party six nights a week,
dead sober for the first time.” The pressure heightened to such a degree
that Michelle wondered if she could continue making music.
“I felt so lucky, but so scared,” she says. “I think the
most surreal thing is just being able to feel
financially safe, doing what
D 27

you like to do. That is the most life-changing surreal thing.”
Unfortunately, this kind of setup is also not the reality for most
musicians. “Totally,” she agrees. “That was not lost on me,
and part of what made me feel so freaked out. I have so many
incredibly talented friends who deserve that, and I felt like it
had gone to the wrong person.”
In Seoul, Michelle spent most of her time at language school
learning Korean, reconnecting with family, and making
new friends – she kept a diary during this period, which will
eventually become the basis for a second book. Though she
felt recharged and ready to re-embrace Japanese Breakfast
again by the end of the year, leaving Seoul also felt bittersweet.
some sort of balance in their lives. They’re either suffering the
consequences, coping with regret, or trying to figure out how
to move forward. As I began writing more songs, I realised that
was the narrative arc, and connective tissue.”
Michelle also drew on a writing technique she’s enjoyed since
her old band Little Big League: “writing from perspectives
that I find hard to understand, or find scary.” As such,
several songs on ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’
are voiced by men grappling with feelings of isolation or
being misunderstood. An undercurrent of violence fizzles
underneath ‘Mega Circuit’; “Plotting blood with your incel
eunuchs,” she sings, “I could be the home you need.”
“It was so beautiful, but it was quite sad when it ended,
because I realised there is a version of me that lives
here forever and just studies Korean and stars in this
new life, but then there’s this other life that I built that
closes, if I choose that path. I could just go today
and live in Spain and study wine and become a
sommelier…. but I’m probably not going to do
that, because I would then have to close this
chapter,” she says. “I’m probably never gonna
learn how to do a backflip,” she quips,
laughing. “There’s a kind of melancholy in
watching your life pass.”
Though it was written long
before Michelle arrived in
Seoul, similar ideas are
also woven through ‘For
Melancholy Brunettes (& sad
women)’. “This is clearly not a
record where I was like, ‘this
is going to beat ‘Jubilee’’,”
she says knowingly. “I
knew I wanted to make
a record sort of in stark
contrast to [‘Jubilee’],
so I knew it was
gonna have a darker
palette, both visually
and sonically. I
also knew I really
wanted to make a
guitar album. The
arrangements
for ‘Jubilee’
were so large
that, a lot of
times, there
wasn’t really
room for me
to just play
guitar, and I
was fronting as
a singer. That
made me really
uncomfortable, I
think, for the last
three years.”
“Initially, I really
wanted to make a
creepy record,” she
adds. “I thought that was
a really interesting prompt.”
The writing process began
with tracks like ‘Honey Water’ and
‘Mega Circuit’, and “a lot of these weird,
suspended, dissonant chords”. Gradually,
though, she was drawn back towards melancholy
instead, and became fascinated with mythology and its fallible
heroes, riddled with tragic flaws.
“I’ve always been really interested in mythology, especially
Greek mythology, because I think it’s really fascinating to
have these gods that are not holy, you know, they’re not good
people. They’re actually all quite corrupt and powerful. They
abuse that power, make mistakes, and are unfaithful and
cruel. A lot of these songs… I don’t think they’re moral tales,
but they are dealing with people who are grappling with right
and wrong.”
“I think that I discovered that the kind of through-line for all
of these songs is strangely about people who succumb to
some sort of temptation, or are on the precipice of disrupting
“ I
k n e w
I wanted to
make a record in
STARK
“What I really enjoy about writing music is that it’s quite
easy and natural to float between fiction and non-fiction,”
she notes. “I don’t know where they really came from…
I think maybe what I was reading, or ideas I was
preoccupied with in my personal life, or politically,
you know, for ‘Mega Circuit’.”
CONTRAST
to [‘Jubilee’], so I knew it
was gonna have a DARKER
palette, both visually and
sonically.”
“When I think about that type of temptation, I
think about a young generation of men who
are dealing with a shift in power, and feeling
isolated politically, and are being tempted
by a political party that embraces them
the way that they feel they are, instead
of punishing them for having different
ideas or being confused,” she says,
nodding to an all-too-present
issue unfolding right now. “It’s
a conflicted feeling of wanting
to embrace a generation that
is lost, and that being a
serious political problem for
everybody.”
“I think I was preoccupied
by that for ‘Orlando
in Love’, too. I was
reading The Magic
Mountain by Thomas
Mann. I really loved
that protagonist,
and I found the
way he’s written
so charming. I
had that kind
of character
in mind: this
whimsical,
fancy, but
foolish man
that’s kind
of dumb and
gets kind of
manipulated
into staying in
the sanatorium.
When I read
about Orlando
[in Matteo Maria
Boiardo’s epic poem
Orlando Innamorato]
I had this vision of this
man by the sea getting
seduced by fire. ‘Little Girl’ is
a song about a father who has
made a lot of mistakes in his life,
which has led to this kind of a strange
relationship with his daughter, and he’s kind
of lamenting those choices.”
“I have a hard time understanding that perspective, and I think
there’s this desire to have compassion for that type of person,
to get a better understanding of it,” she says, referencing her
aforementioned writing technique. “I think we’re closer to
resolving the problems with that, if we are approaching it with
thoughtfulness and compassion,” she adds, “instead of just
rejecting it completely. I think that is more productive, and so I
think that’s what makes me want to reach for that.”
It also feels like something of a departure from the intensely
autobiographical nature of Crying in H Mart – the memoir
which transformed Zauner from indie musician to wildly
acclaimed writer. In it, she reflects on her relationship
with her late mother, with the memoir exploring how Michelle
28 D

“In a way, MELANCHOLY
is my innate form.”

Ready, Set… BAKE?!
We
h e a r
y o u ’ r e
a big fan
of The Great
British Bakeoff?
I love [2021 contestant]
Lizzie Acker. One thing that
my band and I quote a lot
is when she says ‘I’m behind’,
whenever she’s like, falling behind
the other bakers. That is quoted a lot
in my life, and in the band, either when
we’re running behind with something, or
falling behind physically while we’re walking
somewhere.
Every single thing that [fellow 2021 contestant]
Jurgen Krauss has done is my favourite moment. He’s
so charming, especially when he starts talking about
playing the trombone. He actually played trombone with
us at our last show in London. When we toured for ‘Jubilee’,
we were coming right out of COVID, and it was a very intense,
stressful time, with all of us in a very strict bubble. One really
sweet thing that we did, though, was watch Bake Off together;
instead of going out to the bar after the gig, we would go into the
bus and all watch Bake Off like little nerds. We all fell so hard in love
with Jurgen. I mean, he is such a fun character, and such a singular
man. As a pipe dream, we DM’d him to see if he would be interested
in playing with us at our show in London, and he was down! I’m really
happy to have a relationship with him.
How would you fancy your chances on the celebrity
version?
Very low. I’m not a baker. I don’t know how to bake at
all. I would not fare well. I think I made one nice
zucchini bread once, and that’s the extent of
my baking.

“I wanted people to know
what I went through,
because I felt like, otherwise,
people wouldn’t be able to
understand me as a person.”
turned to recreating the Korean dishes she
always used to cook as a form of remembrance.
She writes about this journey with the kind of
honesty that is very difficult to look away from,
examining multiple shifts in state following that loss,
and articulating the messier, more complicated parts
of grief with an eviscerating accuracy. “Conscious that
the success we experienced revolved around her death,
that the songs I sang memorialised her, I wished more than
anything and through all contradiction that she could be
there,” she writes in Crying in H Mart.
Unsurprisingly, the memoir has struck a chord with readers,
who often share their own experiences. Sometimes, she
admits, she “feels let down by my own response” to other
people’s grief: “I wish I had something, beyond ‘I’m so sorry’ or
‘I’m here with you’.” Describing herself as an open person who
doesn’t particularly care for being withholding, or small talk, she
is instead more comfortable with the intense conversations her
writing occasionally welcomes, and feels grateful for the chance to
memorialise her mother’s character, and the imprint she has left on
the world.
“I wanted people to know what I went through, because I felt like,
otherwise, people wouldn’t be able to understand me as a person – and
that’s something I’ve always been afraid of,” she says. “If I were to meet
you at a party and it came up while we were talking about other things,”
she notes, “I would feel really comfortable speaking about it.”
On ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’’s closer, ‘Magic Mountain’,
Michelle speaks from the perspective of Hans Castorp; the main character
in Mann’s German novel of the same name. In the novel, Castorp leaves
behind his usual life to stay in a sanatorium high in the Swiss Alps, where
time seems to move differently. After escaping a deadly blizzard he has a
realisation that he soon forgets: “Because of charity and love, man should
never allow death to rule one’s thoughts”.
Given her journey over the last few years, retreating out of the spotlight to
avoid the shadow of expectation, this closer can also be interpreted as
an allegory for artistic legacy. “Bury me beside you,” she sings, “in the
shadow of my mountain.” Does she spend much time dwelling on her own
legacy? “I don’t know if I think much about it,” she admits. “I think I am
more fixated on saying the things I want, or exploring the things I want.”
“I was talking to a friend of mine, and we were discussing a different
artist, and he was like, ‘I feel like when they made this record, it was
like they were having a conversation with you like this’,” she says,
shifting her gaze to speak to an invisible figure out of view. “And then
the next record was like this,” she says, looking the other direction.
“It’s like that feeling of when you’ve been abandoned by an artist
because they’re looking to find someone else at a party, and that
connection is lost.”
“I want to have a legacy where I never have that moment
with people who enjoy my music. I just never want to do
anything phony. That, ultimately, is the most important
thing for me.”
‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’ is
out 21st March via Dead Oceans. D
Photos: Pak Bae
D 31

Take Me
Home,
Country
Roads
ON DEBUT ALBUM ‘DRIVE TO GOLDENHAMMER’, NOTTINGHAM INDIE-FOLK
RISERS DIVORCE SHARE A VARIETY OF INTIMATE STORIES THAT REMAIN
CLOSE TO HOME, ALL WHILE OPENING A WINDOW INTO THE MAGIC OF THEIR
IMAGINATION.
WORDS: RISHI SHAH
PHOTOS: EMMA SWANN
If you ever find yourself Googling
directions to Goldenhammer, you might
find yourself in a bit of a pickle. Although
Percy Jackson succeeded in his quest
for the fabled Golden Fleece and Harry
Potter’s quidditch career took off when
he captured the Golden Snitch, the protagonists of
this fantasy tale – Nottingham four-piece Divorce – are
still searching for the fictional destination at play here.
And that’s kind of the point.
“We couldn’t exactly figure out what we were driving
towards,” begins the band’s Tiger Cohen-Towell,
summing up the never-ending journey the band find
themselves on in a nutshell. “It’s quite funny, because
that’s literally what the album’s about,” they confirm.
“Everyone is probably trying to [get there] in their
own way,” ponders co-vocalist and guitarist Felix
Mackenzie-Barrow too.
To the naked eye, Divorce seem to have spent the last
few years permanently cooped up inside a tour bus
or whipping up new music in the studio – perhaps
down to the very nature of the beast of existing as
a band in 2025. Nevertheless, these four busy bees
– completed by Adam Peter Smith (guitar, synth)
and Kasper Sandstrøm (drums) – still somehow
found time to craft their most mature body of work
to date: their sprawling debut album, titled ‘Drive To
Goldenhammer’.
When the “happy coincidence” of the titular
Goldenhammer presented itself – initially via a lyric
on ‘Mercy’ (“My breaking voice / Gave up the golden
hammer”) – the group realised a wider significance
of an imaginary word that had all but fallen out of the
subconscious. “It’s like a home that never existed,”
says Felix. “An enigmatic location for this place that
doesn’t really exist, which we’re always trying to get
to.
“As anyone goes through life, there’s this sense of
belonging that you’re striving for,” he continues. “That
lack of a sense of belonging is probably experienced
by a wider amount of people, as the world becomes a
smaller place, in many ways... you grow up, you travel
around. You start to lose track of place, and find that
belonging in the people that you’re with. We found
[Goldenhammer] in each other, a lot of the time.”
Raised respectively in Nottingham and Derby, Tiger
and Felix’s relationships with their home cities form a
core part of the underlying inspiration behind ‘Drive To
Goldenhammer’. This “weird nostalgia for something
that never really existed” plays into their circular
relationship with the East Midlands, says Felix.
“The East Midlands is a place that has a deep history,
but sometimes, growing up there, it didn’t feel like it
had a big present [day significance],” he continues. “It
didn’t feel like the most relevant place to be, but then
holds all this significance for us as the area we grew
up in, now I have some objectivity on it. Growing up, I
just hated it – I came up against a lot of backwardness
in my early life, which took a pretty heavy toll.”
Tiger, who – like Felix – embarked on a brief stint
in London, has always had their base “dictated by
[their career in] music,” but was also drawn back,
eventually. “I’ve got a pretty healthy relationship with
the place,” they say. “You can lose a sense of where
you’re going and what you want, if you just stay in
your hometown. For me, I really needed to step away
from it in order to appreciate it.”
D
ivorce’s megamix of country, indie, folk and
even punk has always retained a playful
element of personability. On the album,
however, the band’s sound is more expansive,
augmented by producer Catherine Marks. The
heartfelt ‘Parachuter’ has a tender twinkle about it,
while the heaven-sent chorus of ‘All My Freaks’ is of
the type to make Wolf Alice proud. The folk-tinged
‘Antarctica’ sets up the running theme of the record
(“I’ve got a long drive”) with an infectious chorus,
on which Felix and Tiger’s vocal chemistry aligns
perfectly while recounting a tale of a newborn calf
they saved on the road after a near-miss.
“With the album, there’s this experimental, playful,
curious and naive – in some ways – approach to
creating songs,” says Tiger. “But there’s also a real
focus on making them human and grounded. We
wanted to have that duality. Sometimes, you feel
so detached and alienated from a normal life as a
musician… what you’re making is what makes you
human, and the right to that creative expression is a

“WE’RE REALLY TRYING TO MAKE SURE THAT AS FRIENDS, WE’RE PRESENT AND THERE FOR EACH
OTHER, SO THAT CREATIVITY CAN THRIVE.”
- TIGER COHEN-TOWELL

willing to play and explore stuff. I don’t think any of us left a day of
recording without trying all of our ideas that day.”
“It was nice to have a female producer,” continues Tiger. “That
influence was good for all of us, I think. There was a freeness
to it, and a lack of judgement or pretense, which was
priceless.”
Integral, too, was residential getaway North Yorkshire
studio The Calm Farm where the band decamped
to record the album’s demos. Here, the band
had to get the most out of some intense fourday
periods, which juggled much-needed
recalibration with some of their most formative
moments.
“Four days is not a lot of time to flesh out
songs from scratch,” notes Felix. “But in
that moment, it was the most time we’d ever
had. We wanted to really seize it. We really
honed our collective rhythm and pushed
each other.”
You needn’t look any further than the video
for single ‘Hangman’ to see how the farm
became ingrained in the very fabric of ‘Drive
To Goldenhammer’ – an unbreakable bond
that is unique to its time and place, as Tiger
agrees. “We probably won’t be able to go
back there [for the next record]. As much as it
is so special, and it is ‘Drive To Goldenhammer’
in many ways, you have to keep things fresh as
an artist – as a principle.”
‘Drive To Goldenhammer’ is out 7th March via
Gravity / Capitol. D
type of home for you to
be in.
“We’re very into the subconscious, and
using that creatively,” they continue, a sentiment exemplified by the
title’s origin story. Without any grounded technical know-how, gut
instinct is Tiger’s guiding light, even if impostor syndrome and lack
of confidence did occasionally seep into the process.
“WE FOUND GOLDENHAMMER IN EACH
OTHER, A LOT OF THE TIME.”
- FELIX MACKENZIE-BARROW
“All of us try to pull that [feeling and instinct] out of each other, but
a lot of that comes from our personal relationships being really
healthy. So often, it is the end of bands when they’re all closed
off to each other emotionally, and they can’t communicate.
You’ve seen it again and again. We’re really trying to make
sure that as friends, we’re present and there for each
other, so that creativity can thrive.”
W
hile there are clear nods on the record
to influences like Belle & Sebastian
and Fiona Apple - to name just two -
the push-and-pull between Divorce’s hearty folk
anthems and more theatrical moments make
for a blend that’s still their own. Felix agrees:
“I’ve had a sense throughout [the process] – it
doesn’t remind me of any other records, and
I’m really proud of that.”
Slightly more on-the-nose is the Wilco
reference on ‘Mercy’, nodding to the
US indie veterans’ 2002 single ‘Heavy
Metal Drummer’, and the production on
‘Parachuter’ being “heavily inspired” by the
way the Chicago outfit record. “It felt like
it all sounded pretty Wilco in a satisfying
[sense] – there was a tightness and quietness
to it that felt like some of the tracks from
[2003’s] ‘Yankee Hotel Foxtrot’,” says Tiger.
“In terms of an attitude to production, I think
[1985’s] ‘Hounds Of Love’ by Kate Bush… it’s
such a bait choice, but she encapsulates this
sensual but also homely, childlike way of [writing].
She writes about absolutely batshit things. It’s all
over the place, but it’s so warm and from her heart.
She’s so human about it.”
Arguably the secret weapon behind ‘Drive To
Goldenhammer’ was super-producer Catherine Marks.
“Catherine is such a powerhouse,” beams Felix. “She was so

CHLOE
QISHA
THU 6 MAR
OMEARA
SHARON VAN ETTEN
& THE ATTACHMENT THEORY
MON 10 MAR
ROYAL ALBERT HALL
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WED 12 MAR
THE GRACE
KELLY LEE OWENS
THU 13 MAR
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THU 20 MAR
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IDER
FRI 21 MAR
ISLINGTON ASSEMBLY HALL
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MURDER ON
DANCEFLOO
Having
built her name via an appetite
for the experimental, on her third album
‘Blood On The Silver Screen’, SASAMI
is shapeshifting
once more; this time, it’s pop music
that’s firmly in her sight.
Words: Rhys Buchanan
36 D

THE
R
“I
in recent years, but heading into her
fully unleashed my inner Asian music
nerd this time,” chuckles SASAMI, as she
chats from her parents’ house in sunny
LA. We might have seen an abundance
of artists ripping up the rule pop book
ambitious third album ‘Blood On the Silver Screen’, the 34 year old
says she instead relished the opportunity to study the pop scripture
obsessively.
“I’m always trying to learn something and I was really excited for the
challenge of trying to understand pop songwriting,” she explains.
Having grown up on a diet of American counter-culture, grunge
and post-punk – as illustrated through her her 2019 self-titled debut
and its 2022 follow-up ‘Squeeze’ – she says that diving into the pop
space is perhaps the most daring move for her at this point in her
career. “I didn’t grow up relating to mainstream pop stuff that you’d
hear on the radio, I was always into noisier stuff so now, it feels
really punk for me to choose pop music, it feels really edgy and
scary.”
For the singer, those feelings were further compounded by her
classical musical upbringing. “Music has been my life since I was
five years old but it wasn’t from this diva front person perspective,”
“I wanted to be less precious and
more playful this time around.” ”
she notes. “I didn’t grow up like one of those kids with a
hairbrush microphone in the mirror wanting to be a star.
From an early age, I studied piano, choir and French
horn. When you’re in an orchestra you’re just a cog
in this sonic machine to create this larger story.”
On this third record, however, SASAMI is
allowing herself to be the main character
she’d never dreamt of becoming, inspired
by pop heavyweights from Britney
Spears to Lady Gaga, Katy Perry to Kelly
Clarkson. “For me, even in this pop diva
era, it’s very much a performance and a
method acting thing. So I did my best to
research what this character looks like and
sounds like. What’s the vessel for this type of
storytelling? I really enjoy thinking about things
like that.”
“I didn’t feel so mystified by entering this new
world,” she admits, explaining that her earlier
classical education provided her with an overarching
musical knowledge heading into the writing process. “It was
empowering to look under the hood and see the engine. Like if I put
this piston with this carburetor then it’s going to look something
like that. I definitely have a lot of gratitude for my music education
because it does empower me to explore these spaces that maybe I
wouldn’t if I didn’t have that technical fluency.”
You only need to see the video for her single ‘Slugger’ to know
how much fun she’s been having. As she swings, shimmies and
dances under the floodlights on an Los Angeles baseball diamond,
there’s shameless abandon in the track as she yearns over a jittery
electronica: “I was just looking for a late night lover / Now you’ve
got me choked up, calling me slugger.” A move away from her more
expansive and grungier past work, it’s thrilling in its simplicity.
“That’s the thing about the whole experiment,” she muses. “Things
that are mainstream and normal are subversive when you’re an
Asian woman doing them at the end of the day. It’s kind of fun to
just be playful and that was definitely part of this album cycle. I
wanted to be less precious and more playful this time around. Every
D 37

“There’s something really empowering
when you put pop music on.” ”
song was written on an acoustic guitar, I wanted a song to
be at the centre of every track which was new for me.”
E
ver since her breakthrough years as part of scuzzy-pop
powerhouse Cherry Glazerr, SASAMI has held a pride
in her unpredictability. “I definitely get really inspired by
different genres, sounds and songwriting styles,” she says. “I took
such a left turn on my last record ‘Squeeze’, so luckily, I set myself
up to make whatever the fuck I want this time.” She says that a sense
of clarity comes from following her artistic whims: “People don’t
expect anything from me anymore which is really lucky. I don’t know
if it’s good capitalism but I’m not an investment banker.”
Having taken a more impulsive approach to writing and recording
this time around after her relentless research, what does pop music
mean to SASAMI in 2025? “I think the music makes the listener feel
like the main character of their life,” she says. “There’s something
really empowering when you put pop music on, it makes people who
don’t dance, dance alone in their apartment. It makes people feel
embodied. So much of understanding this genre is understanding
confidence. Everyone has some of that within them, humans
sometimes need something to help bring that out.”
Alongside more brazen and direct moments, there’s also scope for
sentimentality. A key example comes via Clairo collaboration ‘In Love
With A Memory’, which blends a nostalgic warmth with a futuristic
edge. Example: the emotive guitar line that wouldn’t have been out
of place on Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’. “That song was
inspired by me hearing my mum sing old Japanese and Korean folk
music at karaoke,” she explains, “It was intentionally supposed to
feel very nostalgic.”
It also came naturally, working with a good friend. “I think that
song is the most collaborative song I’ve ever made. I didn’t picture
the song being a duet but I knew there were these two disparate
characters in it. It was really amazing to have Claire because our
voices are similar in some ways but also have their own distinct
character.” There’s a huge trust between the two of them. “I think
Claire looks up to me as the elder of the music world even though
she’s hugely successful and extremely talented in her own right.
Even though she’s this huge artist, she’s adamant about keeping
her music community super earnest. She’s so uplifting of musicians,
she’s just a fucking real one and a lot of people aren’t.”
H
aving that sort of nurturing community has been crucial to
SASAMI herself throughout her journey so far. “I feel like
I’m only where I am now because I had a community that
supported me, especially at the beginning. Mitski and Michelle
[Zauner] from Japanese Breakfast have always been really protective
and influential, they’ve made sure that I’ve made decisions
throughout my career that are beneficial. Those people who uplifted
me when I was just starting are deeply imbued in how I think about
myself and the industry today.
“White men and the status quo have been lifting each other and
using that power to maintain these structural positions of power for
a long time,” she says, on why this outlook of giving back and mutual
support is so crucial. “It’s 2025 and we’re sick of talking about
cancel culture and identity politics. There’s a political exhaustion with
that
kind of
language
but it’s
extremely real
and it is important
for minority identities
to continue to uplift each
other.”
She continues: “Everything I have
is because people uplifted me. HAIM
took me on tour and I was opening up giant
venues, they didn’t need me to do that but they gave
me that opportunity because they wanted to support my vision and
my art. I’ve always had people who chose to uplift me not for any
capitalistic gain. It’s because they believe in me and they let me into
their community. I’m deeply indebted to that and connected to that
community for sure.”
In the face of growing concerns around new industry norms,
technological developments, and the allure of AI, SASAMI also
believes the listener also has a crucial role to play in that community.
“It’s as simple as if you really love an artist then you can probably
assume that their opening act is someone they really cherish. So
go early and watch the opening band and buy their merch. That’s a
really human way for us all to feel connected to each other.”
“You can bypass the normal systems of marketing and corporate
music industry stuff. There is a wholesomeness to artists uplifting
other artists and fans are a central part of that, it’s a way that we can
break off from these systemic norms like that only artists Spotify
choose to uplift in their playlists are the ones who get successful.
There’s other channels,” she notes. “Our generation feels really
powerless because of technology and social media. I think there are
still ways to have a person to person community in the music world.”
Listening to SASAMI speak so passionately, it becomes increasingly
clear that she’s an artist who knows exactly what she wants heading
into a huge year. “I think of myself as this blue collar musician at the
end of the day. I’m not this rich kid nepo-baby who is doing this for
fun. This is my job but I want to do it on my own terms and make
what I want to make,” she says. “I’m super excited and grateful, I put
a lot of music into my energy and shows. I can’t wait to get out and
see people dance and sing along, I just hope people can be as silly
and earnest as I was in making it.”
‘Blood On The Silver Screen’ is out now via Domino. D
Photos: Andrew Thomas Huang
38 D

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DEADLETTER
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THE NONE
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(For Now)
oreglo
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TTSSFU
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Y
Yuuf + many more
Tickets & more information @ www.brightenthecorners.co.uk

After just two EPs, Hastings-via-Brighton trio HotWax had
established themselves as one of the country’s most
vibrant new rock acts; now, they’re finally ready
to take their next step.
Words: Tilly Foulkes
For the better part of five years now, HotWax
have proven that often the best rock
music comes from people with something
to say. Fast, energetic, sardonic and
smart, they’re exactly what the genre
embraces most, so it’s not all too
surprising the outfit have fast become known
as one of the most vibrant acts around. What
was a little more unexpected, however, is
how their next chapter came to be.
“We’d done both of our EPs, and then we
kind of knew we’d have to write an album
now,” begins vocalist Tallulah Sim-Savage,
explaining how the seed of their debut
began to grow. While the trio – completed
by Lola Sam on bass and Alfie Sayers on
drums – had shared previous frenzied,
energetic EPs, ‘Invite me, kindly’ and ‘A
Thousand Times’ back in 2023, it was
only when producer Catherine Marks
became enraptured with the band at a gig
they played at Third Man’s Blue Basement
in London last summer that the wheels were set in
motion.
“It was a really hot, sweaty gig in July and Catherine
couldn’t even see us – she was at the back, but when
everyone went outside to cool off we just ended up
talking to her,” says Tallulah of the band’s first contact
with the producer, who immediately saw a vision for
their album, focusing in on that energy they provide to
a live audience. “It was the first time I’d ever spoken
to a producer and been really really excited by what
she was saying. She said she wanted the record to
sound exactly like that gig – to feel really sweaty, raw,
and exciting.”
Inviting Steph Marziano (Hayley Williams, Let’s Eat
Grandma) and Warpaint’s Stella Mozgawa along to
record (the latter of whom invited the band to her
Joshua Tree studio for some of the process), resulting
debut LP ‘Hot Shock’ is a blazing ten-track burst of
energy that brings a candid lyrical turn akin to that
of Courtney Love and pairs it with sonic hints of Wolf
Alice, Sonic Youth and Fontaines DC. It’s breathlessly
rough and ready, and the band believe it “really does
capture” their strengths as a live act.
“Catherine had this idea and she was like, ‘I don’t
know if you’re into it, but halfway through the record
40 D

we could invite all your friends down and recreate
that gig, with an open bar and everything’...,” Tallulah
explains, referencing one particular set that took
place last summer in the legendary RAK Studios.
“It was just so exciting. It was good to shake up the
recording process as an experience and experiment
like that.”
heir formidable live reputation really does
epitomise the band. Having appeared on a slew
T of heavy-hitting festival bills over the past few
years, they’ve also taken on their fair share of support
slots, taking in dates alongside Royal Blood and
Frank Carter and the Rattlesnakes to name just two
– and they’re still barely scraping their twenties. Lola
will even be spending her 21st birthday on tour this
month – something she’s unsurprisingly buzzing for,
while also noting the surreality of how their lives have
changed in the last couple of years. “The best advice
we were ever given was ‘ask for a scented candle on
your rider – the dressing rooms might smell!’” she
laughs. “Going from playing little gigs where you’re
walking through the audience to the stage to gigs
where you have catering… I’ve never seen
anything like it!”
They are aware, however, of
the challenges facing live
music; namely, the fact
that a combination
of steep
ticket
price
rises
and
the
wider cost of living crisis are pricing many out. “It’s
becoming more unaffordable,” Lola nods. “For young
people, if you buy a ticket for £15, that means you
probably can’t afford much else.
“It’s also difficult because bands can’t put gigs on
for cheaper, either,” she adds. “We always wanted
to put cheaper gigs on, but you just can’t – then you
can’t afford to pay everyone. So it’s kind of an endless
circle; people can’t afford to play and people can’t
afford to come. I’m not sure what the answer is. We
can only really go to local gigs in Brighton.”
B
righton, as it happens, has become somewhat of
a creative haven for the trio, introducing them to
a myriad of artists and creatives who have now
helped bring their musical world to life.
“Each song really has its own visual look,” explains
Tallulah. “‘One More Reason’ was really inspired
by this artist we saw around town called Greta
[Kahlhamer], who makes these amazing outfits, and
then she did a catwalk for one of our gigs instead
of us having a support slot. Then we worked with
[photographer] Stewart Baxter on the ‘She’s Got a
Problem’ video, and he just got us creatively… We
definitely found some people this year that we really
feel like we’ve clicked with and it’s so nice when you
start building your creative world.”
Similarly, their time working with with Marks,
Marziano, and Mozgawa recording allowed their
confidence to grow; as Tallulah says, they “really got
us emotionally. It wasn’t our intention to just work
with women, but I’m so glad we did. It was all a dream
really. There’s no ego or anything, nothing like that –
they get us, and they’re all just the best for the job.”
This also allowed the vocalist to explore vulnerability
in her lyrics: she wanted the album “to be like a diary”,
which can be heard in more intimate tracks like ‘In Her
Bedroom’. “I wanted to be 100% truthful and as deep
as I could,” she says. “I really pushed myself. With the
first EP, we were only 16 or something, so I think a lot
of my writing now is just [down to] getting older and
having more life experience. I want to be more honest
with myself, and I see lyric writing as a therapeutic
thing where I can express myself and be true. It feels
freeing to get all of that out of you.”
Surrounded by support, HotWax have landed on
a colourful, collage-like approach to their music,
expanding their album into an eclectic project built on
trust, determination, and fun.
And nothing sums up that – and the ethos of the
band overall – better than their album roll-out: each
of ‘Hot Shock’’s various vinyl colourways reference a
different band member’s aesthetic. “Our hair colour
is important to us…” Tallulah jokes, her knowing wink
almost audible. “We’re very overly-conscious about
our hair, so Lola’s is orange, Alfie’s is gold… and
mine is just the regular vinyl, but it has a cool blonde
streak,” she laughs, “and that’s important!”
‘Hot Shock’ is out now via Marathon Artists. D
“With this album I
wanted to be 100%
truthful and as deep
as I could.”
- Tallulah Sim-Savage
Photo: Louise Mason
D 41

Facets of
Glory
Fifteen years on from the release of his debut, Perfume
Genius feels as vital and intriguing as ever, but with his
seventh album ‘Glory’, Mike Hadreas admits he’s still
figuring out his place in the world.
Words: Nick Levine
ike Hadreas has been
feeling more mortal
lately. “It’s partly just
getting older, but also
the world feels more
fragile,” says the artist
who records as Perfume Genius. He thinks Covid
probably has something to do with it, but knows it’s
not the root cause. “When you’re younger, you know
you’re gonna die [some day], but you don’t feel like
you’re gonna die,” says the shape-shifting singersongwriter,
who turned 43 last September. “But now,
it feels physical, it feels real in your body. It’s not just
an idea or concept because you have more proof of
it happening. It doesn’t feel distant – because it isn’t
distant.”
He describes his anxiety around death as “this
buzzing thing that I can’t unpack”, not least because
it keeps surprising him by coming out “sideways”.
In 15 years of touring the world as Perfume Genius,
the LA-based musician has never felt scared of
getting on a plane – until now. “I’ve no idea why that
started happening to me, but I guess it’s not normal
to try reckoning with death the way I have,” he says.
Thankfully, his newfound fear of flight isn’t – touch
wood – insurmountable because he has a busy
summer of headline shows and festival sets on both
sides of the Atlantic. Before then, he’ll launch new
album ‘Glory’ with an intimate gig at London’s ICA on
27th March.
When we meet today in a quiet corner of a
trendy hotel near London’s Kings Cross, it feels
somewhat sanctuary-like thanks to the rain lashing
at the window. Mike was supposed to fly in from
Amsterdam yesterday, but arrived this morning
instead because his partner Alan Wyffels, a multiinstrumentalist
who’s played on most of his records,
picked up a nasty bout of food poisoning. Some
dodgy oysters were probably to blame, though, Mike
adds drily, “everyone always wants to blame the
oysters, don’t they?”
In person, Mike is more playful and impish than the
macabre start to our conversation might suggest.
He’s enjoying the new season of The White Lotus,
Mike White’s super-buzzy series about rich people
unravelling at a luxury resort, but wonders if it’s as
deep as some critics want it to be. “I think that you
can write a thinkpiece about it, but I don’t know if it
requires it,” he says sceptically, neatly pin-pricking
the huge balloon of discourse that hovers over the
show. “There’s some [social] commentary in there,
but I don’t think that’s the driving force. I think it’s
just demented and fun; it’s not really about eating
the rich.”
He also has thoughts on Netflix’s now defunct teen
drama Riverdale (“I’m passionate about it because
it went completely off the rails!”), but it’s his own
new work, ‘Glory’, that takes centre stage today.
Creatively prolific since he broke through with his
stunningly stark debut, 2010’s ‘Learning’, he has
steadily released a new LP every two to three years.
The last, 2022’s expansive chamber pop collection
‘Ugly Season’, started as the soundtrack to a modern
dance piece that he created with choreographer
Kate Wallich. But Mike believes ‘Glory’ is his most
“collaborative” album yet because for the first time,
he left room for his band members to flesh out the
arrangements. Though he says he dislikes “any
input regarding my lyrics” – fair enough, he’s a
singer-songwriter who really digs deep – he implicitly
“trusts” his band and producer Blake Mills to help
him execute his musical vision.
42 D

“I feel like
these songs
are me trying
to sort through
everything.”

“I’m a homebody, but once
you get me out, I want
to stay out. I like being
feral, I like being like a
gremlin.”
44 D

B
lake has produced every Perfume Genius
album since 2017’s ‘No Shape’ – his
majestic fourth effort that’s home to the
lustrous queer love song ‘Slip Away’ – while his
‘Glory’ band includes Alan and other musicians who
regularly join him on tour. As such, Mike believes
the album’s “central conflict between internal
and external” played out in the way it was made.
“Because I’ve been feeling more mortal, the last
few years have been very internal [for me] and filled
with worry,” he says. “Like, I’m afraid all the time that
something good will be taken away from me. But
that fear also makes me feel guilty and irresponsible,
because it’s making me not really show up [in the
moment].” Giving his band more musical input was
his way of “engaging” with them. “Many of the songs
are about wanting to be more present and available
to the people I love, so I think I sort of did that
unconsciously,” he says.
The results are cathartic, darkly beautiful and
musically varied: ‘Glory’ glides from the marauding
alt-rock of ‘No Front Teeth’, which features luminous
vocals from folk singer Aldous Harding, to the sparse
piano balladry of the title track. Mike calls it his
“most directly confessional” album. When he sings
“What do I get out of being established? I still run
and hide when a man’s at the door,” on shimmering
lead single ‘It’s a Mirror’, it’s about his own impulse
to be “internal”, but also harnesses a queer home
truth; any gay man who was ever bullied for being
effeminate still feels a certain dread when an
unknown male looms into view. Elsewhere, the lovely
‘Me & Angel’ offers a moving insight into his 15-year
relationship with Wyffels. “Who am I to keep a smile
from your face?” he sings, acknowledging that part
of loving someone is giving them space to seek their
own pleasure. “I love singing songs about Alan, but it
felt different this time: way more emotional, but also
way more draining,” Mike says.
Why does he think that is? “Well, when me and
Alan go to couples therapy and the therapist asks
how we’re feeling, Alan is like ‘blah blah blah’ – he
really starts talking about it,” Mike replies. “But I
just can’t. I know I’m having a lot of [feelings], but I
can’t get them out. So I feel like these songs are me
trying to sort through everything.” Though he knows
what some are about – ‘Clean Heart’ represents
his “rebellious” side – he says “a lot of stuff on the
album still feels kind of murky and complicated”
even as he dissects it in interviews. On ‘Me & Angel’,
Hadreas seems to contemplate his own vanishing
youth when he sings: “He looks like me / Or how I
used to be.”
In the past, Mike has made light of getting older. In
2018, he posted on Twitter, as X was then known: “I
am no longer a twink so twinks are officially over.”
But on a more serious note, does he think that
ageing comes with particular difficulties for queer
men? After all, we’re quick to pigeonhole each other
into categories like “twink” (slim and nubile), “bear”
(bigger and hairier) and “dad” (older and probably
more financially solvent). “Well, you have to shift,
you know what I mean?” he replies. “But if that
[shift] isn’t organic, or you can’t figure out how to
signal it, it becomes confusing.” Mike says none of
the so-called ‘gay tribes’ ever seemed to include
him anyway. “My boyfriend is more traditionally
masculine, and it feels like he can just put on a
flannel shirt and he’s good,” he says. “I don’t feel the
same, but I’ve never really felt like I understood my
specific currency. I guess when I was young, I knew
that [my currency] was that I was young, but still, I’ve
always felt kind of on the outside.”
I
n 2014, Mike gave us an all-time great outsider
anthem in ‘Queen’, a spiky stiletto of a song
in which he throws society’s homophobia
back in its face. “No family is safe when I sashay,”
he sings, like a soldier going into battle. “I wanted
to weaponise all the shit that was bothering me and
all the stuff I’m constantly trying to move through
gracefully,” he says. “I was sick of trying to be the
bigger person. I was saying: ‘Fuck you, I’m gonna
kill you with the thing you hate about me.’” Mike says
he taps into this combative side on every album. “A
lot of each record is me trying to process or figure
something out, but then a couple of songs are like:
‘I’m gonna eat somebody!’” he adds with a laugh.
On ‘Glory’, he singles out gothic penultimate track
‘Hanging Out’ as such a moment, a fair assessment
given lyrics that could feasibly refer to a ferocious
sexual encounter or cannibalism: “I’m four on the
floor in the dirt / I’m chewing his face like a hog.”
Earlier in this career, Mike was often described
by journalists as “waifish” or “boyish”. Because
he spoke candidly about growing up with Crohn’s
disease, a chronic bowel condition that causes
abdominal pain and fatigue, it was easy to perceive
him as somewhat fragile, but in reality, we should
probably see him as steely and resilient. After all, he
didn’t build a 15-year career by succumbing to what
RuPaul would characterise as his ‘inner saboteur’.
“I’m most proud of my willingness to show up and
do everything,” he says. “I haven’t really said ‘no’ to
many things regardless of how intimidated I was or
how much I thought I wouldn’t be able to do them.”
Last year, he teamed with electronic duo The Knocks
to record an impeccably plaintive cover of Bronski
Beat’s seminal queer anthem ‘Smalltown Boy’. It’s
not a song someone plays around with if doubting
their own abilities.
“Regardless of how much pressure I feel and how
selfish I feel obsessing over things, I kind of always
just do whatever I want,” Mike continues. “[My
anxiety] doesn’t affect the stuff I put out.” It hasn’t
dented his sense of fun, either. “That will always be
the main driving force. I’m a homebody, but once you
get me out, I want to stay out. I like being feral, I like
being like a gremlin. Do you know what I mean?”
‘Glory’ is out on 28th March via Matador. D
Photos: Cody Critcheloe
D 45

REVIEWS
This issue: Greentea Peng, Japanese Breakfast, Perfume Genius, The Horrors and more.
5
GREENTEA
PENG
TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY
AWAL
If anyone can attest to the sentiment ‘healing is
not linear’, it’s Greentea Peng. The self-described
psychedelic R&B artist – real name Aria Wells
– has always candidly shared her journey of
self-reflection and spiritual connection through
music. 2021 debut ‘MAN MADE’ and subsequent
mixtape ‘GREENZONE 108’ translated the chaos of
the objective world into creation, detailing a return to
source characterised by self-discovery, love and growth
atop a vast backdrop of neo-soul, jazz, dub and hip hop
influences. Meticulously produced with consideration of
the most vibrational details (such as recording her debut’s
title track one frequency below industry standard to mirror
the natural frequency of the universe), Greentea has an
established gift for creating optimal collections to expand
your consciousness.
‘TELL DEM IT’S SUNNY’ delves further into this
awakening with a nuanced examination of the self – the
light and the dark – and an acceptance of surrender,
best summarised by ‘GREEN’: “Come over and in, and
let the healing begin / That’s how we solve business
when shedding one’s skin / Feel it all around and let it
enter within / There’s no resisting, you may as well give
in.” Positioned later in the record, it feels like the heart of
the work, with its resonant point of embracing lessons
and uncomfortable change serving to contextualise
the album’s broader themes. Opener ‘BALI SKIT PART
1’ invokes a trance-like state with rotational synths, a
low-flowing bassline, and otherworldly vocals; elsewhere,
Greentea feels around for a sense of belonging on the
synthpop-powered ‘NOWHERE MAN’, bears baggage on
the shadowy ‘MY NECK’ (featuring Wu-Lu), consolidates
oneness on the grit-edged ‘CREATE AND DESTROY’,
and seeks tranquility through the experience of being
malleably human on the patter-pulsed ‘THE END
(PEACE)’.
Much like the process of inner work, ‘TELL DEM IT’S
SUNNY’ is gently transformative; it channels patience
and expansion, ultimately speaking to the heart as a
continuation of the unending path that Greentea has
shown listeners thus far. Healing may not be linear, but
for Greentea Peng, the journey feels like it’s headed in the
right direction. Kayla Sandiford
LISTEN: ‘GREEN’
Gently transformative,
channeling patience and
expansion.

5
JAPANESE BREAKFAST
For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)
Dead Oceans
5
1,000 UK ARTISTS
Is This What We Want?
Virgin
Every Japanese Breakfast album has enabled
a space for Michelle Zauner to process life
events and emotions, translating into uniquely
comforting lyrics emphasised further by
her soft and yearning vocal timbre. From
the ghostly synths of ‘Psychopomp’ to the
hypnotic sci-fi sonnets of ‘Soft Sounds from Another
Planet’, the last four years have been spent hypothesising
what conceptual route J-Brekkie would travel down post-
’Jubilee’; a tenure that brought her bouts of overwhelming
joy, accompanied by a rise to the upper echelons of indie
stardom. Her newest, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad
women)’, then, meshes the worlds of music and literature,
taking inspiration from the story of Icarus - who, as we
know, flew too close to the sun. Themes of lust, temptation,
and sadness are key throughout the album, Michelle
masterfully guiding us through a swell of desire.
Opening in true Japanese Breakfast fashion, ‘Here Is
Someone’ is tender and warm, akin to the first light of
dawn that seeps through the windows; as an echoing
arpeggio guitar forms the melodic foundation and a
whistle-like synth mimics the movement of travelling
wind, you can’t help but feel a sense of hope. Lead single
‘Orlando in Love’ is an ode to the great poets of the past
who found themselves utterly smitten by their own myths
and standards, and as Michelle’s voice travels through the
track surrounded by rich strings, a magical atmosphere
is created with embellishments of grand harp. It’s a total
fairytale.
The dream-like instrumentation of ‘For Melancholy…’ does
not cease here, but takes a shift into a moodier realm.
‘Honey Water’, for example, recounts the story of a wife
who lives through her husband’s infidelity: “Why can’t you
be faithful?” Zauner murmurs, as lines of piano intersperse
the verses, and deep bass notes wash over the song,
creating a fuzzy wash of electric whirrs that epitomise the
wife’s distaste in her husband. As sadness consists of a
variety of complex expressions, this portion of the album
embraces ennui and longing that has no cure, bar time.
Throughout, ‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’
feels like both a leap in musical maturity and a callback
to vintage Japanese Breakfast; her numbingly sad song
‘Boyish’ (from 2017’s ‘Soft Sounds…’) could be somewhat
of a grandmother to this album, cementing her knack for
writing a brilliant, dejected song. And whilst this record
does celebrate the melancholy, there are still nevertheless
upbeat moments - take ’Picture Window’, which bears a
country-esque approach with chugging, freight train-like
momentum. Elsewhere, unexpected duet ‘Men In Bars’
actualises the heartbreaking scenes depicted in country
ballads, Michelle’s vocals teaming up with Jeff Bridges’
to expose an emotionally raw timbre, while closer ‘Magic
Mountain’ sees her address the narcissism that comes
attached to writing music for a living (“Bury me beside
you, in the shadow of my mountain”).
‘For Melancholy Brunettes (& sad women)’ walks
us through a beautiful literary ode to our complex
relationships with lovers, ourselves, and the toll they may
take on us, ultimately manifesting in deep melancholy. And
while perhaps more sombre and moody than previous
Japanese Breakfast albums, there are still glorious
moments of mellow optimism that manage to peek
through. Millie Temperton
LISTEN: ‘Men In Bars’
‘British’
‘Government’
‘Must’
‘The’
‘Not’
‘Legalise’
‘Music’
‘Theft’
‘To’
‘Benefit’
Both a leap in musical maturity as
well as a callback to vintage Japanese
Breakfast.
‘AI’
‘Companies’
LISTEN: isthiswhatwewant.com
Photos: William Spooner, Pak Bae
D 47

ALBUMS
¢
PERFUME GENIUS
Glory
Matador
In the fifteen years since Mike
Hadreas emerged with his
brutally sparse debut
‘Learning’, Perfume Genius
has grown into a sprawling,
semi-autobiographical art
piece, introducing a series of
eponymous characters,
spawning a contemporary
dance piece and evolving into the ominous orchestral
beauty of ‘Glory’. This time fully absorbing longtime
producer Blake Mills and both romantic and creative
partner Alan Wyffels into the fold, the seventh studio
album pairs Mike’s characteristic darkly poetic lyricism
with a rousing instrumental crescendo, pushing and
pulling from soft to loud and back again, in keeping
with the record’s take on introversion and extroversion
– a staple of his discomfort in the limelight.
Mike’s decision to collaborate more heavily births
perhaps his most musically expansive record to date,
in itself an exercise in allowing the external in. It’s
testament to the limitations of the self, but one that
doesn’t quite fully let go of Perfume Genius’ vulnerable
storytelling. ‘Glory’ plays out like a reserved invitation;
a unique opportunity and one to be treated with care.
“What do I get from being established?”, he asks on
the opening track, “I still run and hide when a man’s
at the door.” From here, he looks to challenge himself,
finding support in Alan and Blake, and ultimately
from within. It spurs on the thunderous drama of the
stunning ‘In A Row’, and the dreamy retrospective
trauma of ‘Full On’, building to a suitably gentle
conclusion; the perfectly ambiguous realisation that
glory can also exist in the quiet, and in the shade. Ben
Tipple
Listen: ‘In A Row’
Perhaps his most musically
expansive record to date.
¢
DIVORCE
Drive To Goldenhammer
Gravity / Capitol
Putting Nottingham on the nation’s
musical map in a way the city has
long deserved, ‘Drive To
Goldenhammer’ - the debut
full-length from local quartet Divorce
- is a journey in far more than just
name. Situated somewhere between
nostalgia and anticipation, reality and
fiction, its 12 tracks speak of a band
who won’t - or simply can’t - be tied down to either sound or
locale, preferring instead to make transatlantic pit-stops in
contemporary folk (the wistful fiddle of opener ‘Antarctica’
and ‘Old Broken String’); jagged alt-pop (the St Vincent
swagger of ‘Where Do You Go’); rousing heartland rock (see
‘Lord’’s crescendoing outro or ‘All My Freaks’’ freewheeling
euphoria); and even skittish electronics (courtesy of curveball
highlight ‘Pill’).
The lynchpin of such a smorgasbord approach, then, is the
undeniable warmth that imbues its each and every moment;
whether co-songwriters and co-vocalists Tiger Cohen-Towell
and Felix Mackenzie-Barrow turn their lyrical gaze to queer
identity or music industry egos, they do so with humour
and heart, casting their native East Midlands in shades of
sumptuous, sun-soaked harmony. Here, the more overtly
country flavour of the band’s two early EPs (2022’s ‘Get Mean’
and 2023’s ‘Heady Metal’) is a mere jumping off point for
the full scope of their ambitions, and the result is a dynamic,
difficult-to-predict listen that gently but deftly rebuts anyone
who thinks they already know what Divorce are all about.
Daisy Carter
Listen: ‘Pill’
A dynamic, difficult-topredict
listen.
48 D

ALBUMS
4
UNKNOWN MORTAL ORCHESTRA
IC-02 Bogotá
Jagjaguwar
As its title suggests, ‘IC-02 Bogotá’ follows on from
2018’s ‘IC-01 Hanoi’ as the next in a series of
instrumentals, this one recorded in the Colombian
capital, and is again a musical departure from Ruben
Nielson’s trademark soulful psych-funk into balmier
territory. From the off, it’s one for the crate diggers:
opener ‘Earth 1’ is a ten-plus minute melter with
flute-laden, percussion-heavy acid-jazz meeting sultry
ambience. ‘Earth 2’ and ‘Earth 3’ lift off to an intergalactic party on a
tropical moon paradise reminiscent of Bogotá’s own Meridian Brothers, the
former with hints of cumbia and funk, the latter intertwining towards space
jazz and Super Nintendo-era game soundtrack. ‘Earth 5’ is a joyous fusion
of psychedelic cumbia and groove-laden disco that brings to mind modern
contemporaries Los Bitchos and Mauskovic Dance Band. ‘Heaven 7’ brings
things down a little - or up, even, a synth lullaby as lucid as an out-of-body
voyage through the cosmos. The ‘Underworld’ series, meanwhile, delves
back into the groove-laden, the odd cameo of Ruben’s signature riffs
peeking through. While a fair distance from UMO’s staple funk-filled ballads,
‘IC-02 Bogotá’ is a worthy sequel, with all the potential to bring a blissful,
mind-bending exotic escapade for one’s mind, body and soul. Brad Sked
LISTEN: ‘Earth 5’
A blissful, mind-bending exotic
escapade for one’s mind, body
and soul.
4
THE HORRORS
Night Life
Fiction
Some bands merely
adopt the dark; The
Horrors were born in it.
A sense of the
nocturnal has followed
them right from the
moment they arrived,
gothic in both sound
and look, with 2008’s
‘Strange House’. Ever since, twilight
atmospherics have been their chief calling card,
from the searing post-punk nihilism of ‘Primary
Colours’ through to their last full-length, ‘V’,
which was glittering but gauzy. All of which is to
say that, despite a fairly radical lineup reshuffle
for the first time in their history, the title of this
sixth LP suggests business as usual for the
band.
In truth, it is and it isn’t; the experiments
in shimmering synthpop that defined ‘V’
and, to a lesser extent, 2014’s ‘Luminous’
have been shelved for the time being,
with ‘Night Life’ emerging as The
Horrors’ murkiest and, in places, most
aggressive album since the first two.
When they delve into the gloom this
time around, though, they do so
with a thrilling new emphasis on
industrial sound and structure;
‘Downward Spiral’-era Nine
Inch Nails looms heavy over the
incendiary ‘Trial by Fire’, while
the LP’s electronic odyssey
centrepiece ‘Lotus Eater’ pulsates
with a dark energy that owes
a debt to Depeche Mode. Also
influential, though, are the group’s
contemporaries, particularly now
that The Ninth Wave’s Amelia Webb
has joined on keyboards; there’s a
touch of that band’s penchant for the
anthemic on ‘More Than Life’. Holding
everything together is Faris Badwan’s
cool vocal command - something
which belies the fact that lyrically,
‘Night Life’ is unafraid to reckon
with the violence and chaos of the
present moment. He’s done some
of the finest writing of his career
here, on a record where The
Horrors burn the midnight oil with
a new intensity. Joe Goggins
LISTEN: ‘Lotus Eater’
Burning the midnight oil with new
intensity.
Photos: Cody Critcheloe, Emma Swann, Juan Ortiz Arenas, Cal Moores
D 49

ALBUMS
4
WELLY
Big In The Suburbs
The Vertex Music
Generally speaking,
there are a few
essential ingredients to
the recipe for great
pop-rock: relatable,
accessible, pleasingly
low-brow lyricism;
referential,
recognisable sonic touchstones; and a
charismatic, idiosyncratic frontperson
orchestrating the whole parade. For
Southampton-via-Brighton upstart Welly,
that’s a three out of three hit rate. Having
spent the past twelve months peddling his
winking sonic wares across England’s
green and pleasant lands - backed by his
trusty band of fellow rabble rousing
scamps - the project’s eponymous vocalist
has taken up said musical mantle in
earnest, delivering a debut album that’s
ironic, immediate, and unashamedly
catchy.
Picking up the baton from the likes of Pulp,
Blur, and latterly Sports Team or Home
Counties, he documents the details of
modern suburbia with a keen eye and wry
humour, variously skewering consumer
culture (‘Shopping’), Brits abroad (‘Soak
Up The Culture’) and staling middle aged
relationships (‘Pampas Grass’). And
underneath this seemingly endless supply
of lyrical zingers is an alchemical blend of
new wave verve and Britpop strut; yes, the
musical fingerprints of Welly’s forebears
are evident, but this is pastiche at its finest
- self-aware, fun, whipsmart, and witty. At
14 tracks, ‘Big In The Suburbs’’ Southern
Rail-sponsored train does perhaps run out
of steam slightly by its end, but ultimately
there’s no denying that on this debut
record, Welly really gives it some. Daisy
Carter
LISTEN: ‘Shopping’
4
HOTWAX
Hot Shock
Marathon Artists
It’s somewhat unbelievable to think that while HotWax are still barely legal to drink in America, the trio
have been offering up singles for the better part of five years now. Honing their brand of rougharound-the-edges
rock via a slew of notable support slots and live shows in more recent years
(opening for the likes of Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Royal Blood and Frank Carter), the Hastings-via-Brighton
trio might still be relative babies compared to the stalwarts of the genre, but there’s a real sense of
accomplishment that flows through their debut. Clocking in at just ten tracks (and less than 30
minutes), ‘Hot Shock’ is a concise but hefty run through their take on punk-rock, with little veering
from their mission to replicate their live presence. ‘Strange To Be Here’ unfurls into a sense of
unhinged chaos, before ‘Dress Our Love’ swaggers into view; later, ‘Chip My Teeth For You’ is a darker, scuzzier affair that
soon transforms into an urgent rally cry. Admittedly, there’s not much in the way of dynamic surprises here - save for the
acoustic-led closer ‘Pharmacy’, perhaps - but for a debut album, it’s a distilled demonstration of their talents thus far.
Sarah Jamieson
LISTEN: ‘Strange To Be Here’
¢
CLIPPING.
Dead Channel Sky
Sub Pop
That there’s a heady combination of noises on a clipping. record, two decades into the
experimental hip hop outfit’s existence, isn’t anything particularly notable, but there’s a specific
quality to the selection of sounds the trio have collated on ‘Dead Channel Sky’ that evokes a very
specific Y2K retrofuturist thread: the sound of a dial-up modem introduces the record, while
‘Change The Channel’ combines with the type of industrial percussion and synth tones that hint at
‘90s video game soundtracks. This - with its ability to evoke the excitable, positive energy of the
early possibilities of the internet for a mass audience (worth mentioning here is the utterly pleasing
delivery of “mainframe” on ‘Go’) - has the devastating consequence of throwing a gut-punch
infinitely more effective than any of the laments on ‘doomscrolling’ or ‘screen time’ that are offered
in conveyor belt quantities elsewhere. And, as the record continues, references become increasingly less positive: see the
“microchip in your neck” of ‘Dodger’; the “Politicians in the pocket” of ‘Scams’; or the “Don’t let him die / Don’t let him die /
Don’t let him die / Oh he dead” of ‘Mood Organ’. Musically too, industrial beats are contrasted against softer instrumentals.
Take ‘Keep Pushing’, on which a pretty piano line and swooping strings present a certain romanticism, or the Aesop
Rock-featuring ‘Welcome Home Warrior’, with pop chord changes atop an Arctic Monkeys-esque bassline. If all this
sounds exhausting, be reassured: ‘Dead Channel Sky’ is as rewarding as it is intense and studious - a character perhaps
typified by its contrasting standout tracks. ‘Mirrorshades pt. 2’ is a high camp gem, its glitchy house beat and repetitive
lyrics (which mediate on the ubiquity of the titular reflective specs) making it equally believable as a holiday club hit or
Saturday Night Live sketch. Closer ‘Ask What Happened’, meanwhile, is as human – and brutal – as it gets, with a
drum’n’bass beat that becomes increasingly claustrophobic while a dreamy synth line creeps below to soundtrack a raw,
impassioned history lesson (“Trickle-down Monopoly money / It’s just a game, nope,” repeats its chorus; “History and
future belong to the one percent though”). Cinematic storytelling is nothing new for clipping. – and, with a vocalist who’s
halfway to an EGOT, that ‘Dead Channel Sky’ is akin to a rollercoaster big-screen thriller is wholly expected - but
nevertheless, it really is an epic masterpiece. Ed Lawson
LISTEN: ‘Mirrorshades Pt. 2’
An epic masterpiece.
Photo: Daniel Topete
50 D

ALBUMS
4
SAM AKPRO
Evenfall
ANTI-
With this full-length debut, Sam Akpro builds on the reputation of his earlier
releases, painting a vivid – if almost entirely grey-hued – picture of modern
metropolitan malaise. ‘Evenfall’ finds the Peckham native using layered sounds
– the sneaking in of a dial-up modem here (‘I Can’t See The Sun’), stabs of disco
strings there (‘City Sleeps’) what appears to be a whirring helicopter (‘Baka’) to
add further intensity to a set of songs which, through a combination of
ennui-infused lyrics and dynamic beats, are themselves already evocative of
place – the city – and time – after dark. A quiet euphoria of ‘Chicago Town’ is
found within Sam’s repeated refrain, “So we both / Stay afloat,” itself floating
above whirring, discordant guitar lines. ‘Cherry’ uses a drum’n’bass style rhythm alongside building
layers of softly-delivered vocals to hypnotic – if anxiety-reflecting – effect. Opener ‘I Can’t See The Sun’
reeks of shuffling along damp city pavements, its combination of post-punk bassline and sluggish
ska-like beat resulting in an antsy, contemporary mirror image of The Specials’ iconic ‘Ghost Town’,
while ‘Tunnel Vision’, perhaps the most immediate number here, its use of literal television tuning sounds
winking knowingly alongside distorted, repeated vocals that can’t help but nod to Gorillaz combining to
enchanting effect. Gloomy and often claustrophobic – much like the city that birthed it – ‘Evenfall’ is an
intricate snapshot. Ed Lawson
LISTEN: ‘Tunnel Vision’
A vivid picture of
modern metropolitan
malaise.
4
MELIN MELYN
Mill On The Hill
Kartel
Be it by coincidence or design, the timing
of Melin Melyn’s debut album is
stunningly apt: landing just as the UK
finally begins to thaw, ‘Mill On The Hill’ is
the sonic equivalent of the first day of
Spring, an audible encapsulation of
daffodils blooming and tentative hope.
Centred around the Welsh outfit’s
eponymous Yellow Mill (the English translation of Melin
Melyn), it’s also the product of world-building on an
ambitious, impressively-realised scale, using pastoral motifs
and melodic meanderings to transport us to a place in which
music is prized over all.
Between sun-drenched jangle-pop (‘Vitamin D’), playful progrock
breakdowns (‘Fantastic Food’), and peppy psychedelia
(‘Master Plan’), the record offers a much-needed injection
of whimsy into a landscape too often shrouded in selfaggrandisation.
And yet these moments of freewheeling fun
- in particular, the ‘Crocodile Rock’ swing of ‘The Pigeon &
The Golden Egg’ or the toe-tapping hoedown of ‘Running On
MT’’s latter half - are still offset by gentler moments of respite,
leaving room for the traditions and tongue of the band’s
beloved homeland to take centre stage (see the delicate
country vignette of ‘Derek’ or the woozy embrace of ‘18-30’).
The epitome of committing to the bit - and pulling it off with
conviction - ‘Mill On The Hill’ finds Melin Melyn unequivocally
(and unsurprisingly) in their own lane once again. Daisy
Carter
LISTEN: ‘The Pigeon & The Golden Egg’
3
CLEOPATRICK
Fake Moon
Nowhere Special / Thirty Tigers
Four years on from the Canadian duo’s
visceral debut ‘BUMMER’, second time
around sees Cleopatrick take a mellower
route to explore themes of insecurity,
authority and nonconformity. In place of
driving drumlines and thick, crunchy
guitars are lo-fi electronica, stitched
together structures, and soft falsetto.
And as a reinvention, it almost does the trick. Melodic tracks
supported by organic instrumentation – ‘BIG MACHINE,
‘CHEW’, ‘LOVE YOU – are the album’s high points, untangling
their newly-adopted soundscape among what is otherwise a
confusing, pixelated collection. A sense of vulnerability
comes to the fore, admittedly more through vibes than
anything else, with the vocal feeling slightly muddied by
over-production (‘BAD GUY’) and quite intense moments of
background static (‘HAMMER’, ‘SOFTDRIVE’). Essentially,
‘FAKE MOON’ presents a myriad of ‘nearly’ moments.
Generously, it could be described as a band bravely testing
their boundaries; harshly, an over-worked yet underdeveloped
selection of ideas. In reality, it’s somewhere in
between those two positions; to paraphrase Neil Armstrong, it
might be a giant leap for Cleopatrick, but they’re a few small
steps away from landing it. Ciaran Picker
LISTEN: ‘BIG MACHINE’
4
DEAFHEAVEN
Lonely People With Power
Roadrunner
Few bands understand and embrace
texture like Deafheaven. On this sixth
full-length, the San Franciscan
iconoclasts compress layers of loudness
into tracks that glimmer like precious,
sharp-edged gems. Gorgeous stretches
like the midpoint grooves of ‘Body
Behavior’ and the clean vocals which
introduce ‘Heathen’ offer balance against the outfit’s
trademark exhilarating heaviness, such as on the relentless
‘Magnolia’. Elsewhere, Amethyst’ is a gradually–developing
piece of structural metallic genius, closer ‘The Marvelous
Orange Tree’ walks the line perfectly between extreme and
shoegaze, and ‘The Garden Route’ proves itself the strongest
track, its intense emotional state providing devastating
catharsis. As singular and engrossing as heavy albums get,
its heavenly heights may well induce levitation. Tom Morgan
LISTEN: ‘The Garden Route’
Photo: Emma Swann
52 D

ALBUMS
4
MANDRAKE HANDSHAKE
Earth-Sized Worlds
Tip Top
Where to start with this London-via-
Oxford collective? They are a dizzying
prospect on every front. Their sprawling
line-up numbers anywhere between
seven and ten depending on what day it
is, and includes a dedicated tambourine
player à la Brian Jonestown Massacre
as well as a synth wizard who calls
himself Moogieman (get it?). They playfully describe their
sound as ‘flowerkraut’, and whilst it can be broadly described
as psychedelia, the sonic palette of Mandrake Handshake is
a swirling, genre-fluid maelstrom, one they’ve finally
attempted to get down on record with ‘Earth-Sized Worlds’.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, it’s a stylistically restless affair
that finds room for everything from off-kilter jazz-infused
epics (opener ‘Time Goes Up’, as well as ‘Lorenzo’s Desk’)
to breezy, groove-driven art pop (‘The Change and the
Changing’ and ‘King Cnut’), via driving jams that reference
Can and Neu! (‘Hypersonic Super-Asteroid’) and moody,
atmospheric post-punk (‘Find the Tree and Dig (Deep!)’ The
ten-minute title track, meanwhile, closes the record and finds
room for a little of all of the above.
As a result, it is a fabulously undisciplined affair, one
that nods to everybody from Stereolab to King Gizzard.
Accordingly, it sometimes lacks the urgency of the Mandrake
live show, and the conceptual side of the record seems pretty
opaque, but there are enough vibrant musical realms to get
lost in here. It’s a line from a spoken word interlude by singer
Trinity Oksana on ‘Barranmode’ that sums up the record as a
whole rather neatly, though: “Nobody try to make any sense
of this,” she deadpans. “That’s not the point.” Joe Goggins
LISTEN: ‘Time Goes Up’
#
BANKS
Off With Her Head
ADA
BANKS’ fifth album refines
what the Californian singer
has long proved to be good
at. Much of ‘Off With Her
Head’ sets her silken,
lightly-distorted vocals over
thumping electronic beats,
though with enough texture
from synths and choral harmonies to stop this
signature formula getting too predictable. An early
standout is the Doechii-starring and delightfully
scathing ‘I Hate Your Ex-Girlfriend’, a prime
example of BANKS’ knack for stubbornly
earwormy alt-pop. Things then slow down towards
the middle, providing the same opportunities for
pause that ‘Birds By the Sea’ and ‘I Still Love You’
brought to 2022’s ‘Serpentina’. The intimate,
understated ‘Stay’ opts for piano and soggy guitar
to soundtrack BANKS’ pleas to a lover not to leave
her, while on ‘Best Friends’ she similarly favours
fingerpicked guitar and haunting strings over the
drum machine, wallowing this time in the breakup
of a friendship. On ‘Meddle In The Mold’, piano
and strings combine with heightened, almost
orchestral drama to ramp things back up to match
the rest of the album’s energy, before the
shimmering synth and almost spoken-word
delivery of ‘River’ provide another highpoint.
These electronic and acoustic elements blend
cohesively together in a testament to BANKS’
practised skill, even if she hasn’t stepped too far
from her established sound. Caitlin Chatterton
LISTEN: ‘I Hate Your Ex-Girlfriend’
3
GIRLPUPPY
Sweetness
Captured Tracks
There’s a point during
‘Sweetness’, this second
album from Atlanta’s girlpuppy
– specifically, where the
alt-country shuffle of
‘Beaches’ steps in to shift the
mood – where it makes a
decent argument to be the
most archetypal of bedroom indie records. ‘I Just
Do!’ kicks it off proper, pairing classic songwriting
and Becca Harvey’s trademark feather-soft vocal
with dreamy synth sounds and a guitar that’s
tenderly distorted. It’s a combination that does
prove potent: the contrast between the record’s
one blistering riff and Becca’s deadpan delivery on
‘Since April’ is genuinely interesting, and ‘Champ’
bristles with the threat of frustration – never quite
finding the emotion’s apex – using ‘90s slacker
guitar sounds. ‘For You Two’ also packs a punch,
its calculated turn at using a change in pace to
elicit a lighters-in-the-air-moment somehow turns
the accompanying refrain (“If I don’t say it out loud
/ It’s like it never happened”) inwards in a
pleasantly surprising fashion. It’s unfortunate, then,
that occasionally these stylistic devices turn the
warmly familiar to forgettable, such as on ‘In My
Eyes’. Similarly, ‘I Was Her Too’ floats away in its
glum softness and the breezy whisper of ‘Window’
is wholly unremarkable. ‘Sweetness’ does a stellar
job in using indie rock and bedroom pop styles to
place itself within the existing canon - if it could
only stand out a little more. Bella Martin
LISTEN: ‘Since April’
4
SASAMI
Blood On The Silver Screen
Domino
For anyone familiar with SASAMI’s previous
record, 2022’s ‘Squeeze’, the singer’s
about-turn on its follow-up may catch you a
little off-guard. While the thrashing nu-metal
and sludgy industrial sonics that punctuated
her sophomore release appear to be a thing of
the past, on ‘Blood On The Silver Screen’ the
musical polymath finds herself entering a
more vibrant, buoyant pop chapter. An artist
that’s always seemed focussed on shapeshifting, unsurprisingly, she
wears this new vision well, channelling the gutsy, confidenceboosting
spirit of the genre across the album’s thirteen tracks. Take
the sass-laden opener ‘Slugger’ (“Whoever said it’s better to have
loved and to lost / Than to not have loved at all / Should just shut up
forever,” she almost deadpans), with its Dolly Parton nod and
infectiously danceable chorus; the shimmering melodrama of
‘80s-indebted ‘I’ll Be Gone’; or the dark, club-driven ‘Possessed’, a
track that wouldn’t be out of place on Caroline Polachek’s next
project. But equally, there are still moments where the SASAMI of
old rears her head, whether via the squalling guitars that open ‘Love
Makes You Do Crazy Things’, or the grungey inflections of closing
track ‘The Seed’, a slinking, hypnotic offering that soon gives way
to a gloriously thrashy chorus. Will SASAMI be challenging
those at pop’s top table for their spots any time soon? Perhaps
not, but this latest metamorphosis feels invigorating for both
the genre, and the singer herself. Sarah Jamieson
LISTEN: ‘Slugger’
Invigorating for both
the pop genre, and the
singer herself.
Photo: Miriam Marlene
54 D

ALBUMS
¢
BENEFITS
Constant Noise
Invada
“I’m looking up in awe at a
mountain of shit,” begins the
opening refrain of ‘Constant
Noise’, in what’s perhaps the
perfect metaphor for how so
many of us feel right now. It’s
somewhat hard to comprehend
the idea that the world is a much
worse place than when Benefits released their 2023
debut ‘NAILS’, and yet, here we are just two years
later, collectively entering a new era of doom.
Needless to say, the Teeside outfit - now slimmed
down to the duo of Kingsley Hall and Robbie Major -
are responding appropriately, with their newest record
staring headfirst into the abyss and trying to reckon
with it all. Unsurprisingly (when considering its subject
matter especially), it’s an album that’s vast in scope
- both musically and lyrically - with the unhinged
moments of their debut pulled back in favour of more
dance-orientated elements. Granted, there are still
stabs of that same fury (‘Lies and Fear’ is a
pummelling assault on the senses, while ‘Terror
Forever’ is their agitated answer to beat poetry), but
the juxtaposing of electronic beats with Kingsley’s
poetic lyricism helps to create a hypnotic and, at
times, existential push-and-pull of dread and release.
An album that makes no bones about delving headfirst
into the terror, anger and fatigue of our present day, it
may not be the most lighthearted of listens, but it’s a
fiercely potent and important one. Sarah Jamieson
LISTEN: ‘Divide’
3
BAMBARA
Birthmarks
Partisan
While providing fans with the
potential of entertaining hours
diving down rabbit holes, it’s
important that a record with lore
- a narrative thread around which
the songs are constructed, a
smidgen less overwrought than a
full-on concept – is able to stand
alone, to please equally well without knowledge of, or
interest in, its overall story. That ‘Birthmarks’, this fifth
album from Bambara, has a detailed narrative, is
unsurprising: literal centre point ‘6’ is wholly cinematic,
a brooding, ominous take on film noir soundtracks.
Similarly, the sonic palette – extending from glittery
‘80s pop synths (‘Face Of Love’) to electronic industrial
clamour (‘Dive Shrine’) – offers a clearly grimy, back
alley aesthetic to proceedings, even without
knowledge of the record’s genesis (a decades-long
saga taking cues from Southern Gothic, we’re told).
On the flip side, without the literary cues being on
show, there’s somewhat of a jarring effect as the
record staggers between styles; the menacing
high-pitched note that pierces the rumbling bass of
‘Holy Bones’ hints at danger, but comes met with an
underwhelming chorus. The anger of ‘Letters From
Sing Sing’ finds neither resolution nor catharsis,
while conversely the melancholy croon on ‘Because
You Asked’ – think somewhere between The
National’s Matt Berninger and Nick Cave – is almost
blink-and-you’ll miss it. And opener ‘Hiss’ – wholly
unintentionally, but a notable coincidence nonetheless
– introduces itself curiously similarly to the cover of
Phil Collins’ ‘In The Air Tonight’ that soundtracks a
current David Beckham-featuring underwear advert.
Barely-clothed ex-footballers aside, knowing this is a
series of characters weaving in and out offers context;
without this, much of ‘Birthmarks’ instead appears
confusing, unable to find its groove. In essence, not
one for those who actively avoid spoilers, perhaps. Ed
Lawson
LISTEN: ‘Face Of Love’
4
KEG
Fun’s Over
Alcopop!
Right from the brassy solemnity and dubby grooves of epic opener ‘Photo Day’, it’s clear
that Yorkshire-via-Brighton pranksters KEG have undergone something of an upgrade for
their debut full-length. Taking the cavalier bluster of their preceding EPs and swanking it up
with a leftfield matrix of ballsy indie and proggish art-rock, true to its semi-ironic title, ‘Fun’s
Over’ is as sharp and eccentric as it is remarkably earnest. Rooted in a love of classic
British comedy, with a handful of Radio 4-style skits here, or references to Peep Show one
liners (“put it on the laterbase”), just as engaging as the band’s off-kilter songwriting is the
wry lyricism of vocalist Albert Haddenham. From the raunchy infidelities of ‘Giving Up
Fishing’, to the effortlessly gorgeous strains of ‘Skybather’, or, more sincerely, in the tremulous ‘Plain Words’,
(“Wait for the the joke to land …nothing”), each neatly-crafted vignette is shot with a kind of bittersweet tragedy
that many a great sitcom has built itself upon: the small guy thinking big while never quite able to satisfy his
conceits. While KEG are a band that from the very outset have carried themselves as entertainers championing
laughter and a good times aplenty, ‘Fun’s Over’ now betrays a band with a shedload of serious artistic ambition
too. The fun might be over, but the party’s just getting started. Elvis Thirlwell
LISTEN: ’Plain Words’
4
CHLOE MORIONDO
oyster
Public Consumption / Atlantic
Chloe Moriondo has never been one to stay in one place for too long. Across previous
releases she’s embraced everything from twee ukelele-driven pop (‘Rabbit Hearted’) to
angsty pop-punk (‘Blood Bunny’) to vengeful, maximalist pop (‘SUCKERPUNCH’). With
‘oyster’, she takes another daring leap – this time into the depths of an oceanic, glitchy club
world, resulting in a breakup album that is as ambitious as it is beautifully crafted.
‘oyster’ finds Chloe navigating heartbreak by submerging herself in aquatic metaphors,
exploring the shifting tides of grief and self-discovery. But even in its rawest moments, it
never feels heavy-handed, balancing the chilling vulnerability of its lyrics with pounding
beats. Tracks like ‘catch’, ‘raw’, and ‘abyss’ take glitchy cues from hyperpop, turning grief into something
danceable. On the slower tracks, Chloe channels Charli xcx at her most introspective. Take ‘shoreline’, for
example, where she confesses, “And I’m no quitter / So I’ll love you ‘til I die” in auto-tuned vocals over pulsating
synths.
For all its brutal honesty, there’s still plenty of space for playfulness. The spine-tingling ‘hate it’, for example,
embraces unhinged, theatrical fun as she fantasises about wearing a stranger’s face and robbing a bank.
After swimming through the depths of her psyche and heartbreak, there are moments of hope that begin to
shine through. The instrumentals in ‘weak’ sparkle and shimmer with newfound optimism, and ‘sinking’, finds
her singing “Moving forward isn’t as bad as it seems” over skittish club beats, signalling the first steps towards
the surface. It’s a fitting end to a record that captures the tumult and stillness of heartbreak in equal measure
and proves, once again, that Chloe Moriondo is an artist who thrives in transformation. Sophie Flint Vázquez
LISTEN: ‘abyss’
As ambitious
as it is
beautifully
crafted.
Photo: Madeline Kate Kann
56 D

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ALL TICKETS & INFO THELONGROAD.COM

EPS, ETC*
*anything they refuse to call an album.
#
ESME EMERSON
Applesauce
Communion
Suffolk siblings Esme and Emerson’s
bite-sized third project is no less
drenched in warm, hazy indie pop
than its predecessors. Bringing
together the mindful pop poetry of
2022 EP ‘S for Sugar, D for Dog’ and
the busk-y indie template of 2024’s
‘Big Leap, No Faith, Small Chancer’,
the duo remain refined and considered on the easy breeze
through ‘Applesauce’. But here, the energy is a little higher
- by no means high octane, mind, but far more informed
by pop sensibilities. ‘Yard’ is sunshine indie pop at its
most concentrated, while the percussion of ‘Too Far
Gone’ is quietly confrontational and punchy. The
four-track EP’s most interesting cut, ‘Stay’ is by far and
away the duo’s most experimental, with its chamber pop
affected vocals and electronically sprinkled, sprawling
backdrop. With backing from a new label, Esme Emerson
stretch their soft-pop much further - making applesauce
from apples, they say - culminating in a wholesome but far
more creative endeavour that captures the warmth of their
music in a moment before it all kicks off. Otis Robinson
LISTEN: ‘Stay’
#
WALLOWS
More
Atlantic
As with last year’s
‘Model’, companion
EP ‘More’ largely
showcases the blend
of pop, alt-rock and
post-punk that
makes up Wallows’
trademark sound.
The synth-driven ‘Not Alone’ nods to ‘80s
new wave; ‘Deep Dive’ balances
electronic and indie while taking in lyrical
wit; ‘Coffin Change’ throws back to The
Strokes’ earliest recordings; and a sax
intro and subdued vocal on ‘Your New
Favourite Song’ makes for an unexpected
- but not unwelcome - departure. With its
17-minute runtime not allowing for a single
dull moment, ‘More’, like its long-playing
predecessor, captures Wallows’ particular
qualities as well as offering hints as to
what the Los Angeles-based outfit may
dabble in next. Christopher Connor
LISTEN: ‘Your New Favourite Song’
4
PARIS TEXAS
They Left Me With A Sword / They Left Me With A Gun
self-released
A pair of EPs arriving without fanfare in consecutive weeks, one can
reasonably assume the intended primary audience for ‘They Left
Me With The Sword’ and ‘They Left Me With A Gun’ to be those
introduced to Paris Texas via the pair’s ongoing arena support slots
with Tyler, The Creator. Across the two releases - mixtape in style,
with sounds stretching between tracks, and what’s described as a
“secret” narrator peppering proceedings with commentary – they
touch upon just about every facet of the sounds they’ve offered to
date; the 180 vibe shift between the slacker rock ‘Red Eyes & Blue
Hearts’ and the high energy, fast rap of ‘Tantrum’ on ‘They Left Me With The Sword’ likely
the greatest direct contrast across both, while an alt-rock thread runs through that record’s
‘infinyte’ and ‘Twin Geeker’, ‘Stripper Song’ and in particular, ‘mudbone’, which marries
Tame Impala style synths with a Jamie T-esque chorus. There’s time, too, for a softer
moment, as ‘No Strings’ takes in a curiously clean guitar and vocal for subtle euphoria –
imagine a collaboration between Weezer and Steve Lacy and it’s about halfway there. More
immediately accessible than 2023’s ‘Mid Air’, together these releases showcase – as no
doubt intended – their myriad of sonic personalities using canny twists and turns in ways
that appeal to audiences both new and existing. Bella Martin
LISTEN: ‘No Strings’
Together these releases showcase
their myriad of sonic personalities.
COMING UP!
Your handy list of records worth getting excited for.
4th April
BLACK
COUNTRY, NEW ROAD - Forever
Howlong
DIRTY PROJECTORS - Song Of The Earth
DJO - The Crux
MOMMA - Welcome to My Blue Sky
PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS PIGS - Death Hilarious
SCOWL - Are We All Angels
SLEIGH BELLS - Bunky Becky Birthday Boy
THE WATERBOYS - Life, Death and Dennis Hopper
11th April
BON IVER - SABLE, fABLE
DOPE LEMON - Golden Wolf
GRANDMAS HOUSE - Anything For You
KILLS BIRDS - Crave
REAL LIES - We Will Annihilate Our Enemies
RÖYKSOPP - True Electric
THE DRIVER ERA - Obsession
18th April
BEIRUT - A Study Of Losses
JULIEN BAKER & TORRES - Send A Prayer My Way
TUNDE ADEBIMPE - Thee Black Boltz
25th April
D4VD - Withered
EMPLOYED TO SERVE - Fallen Star
JENSEN MCRAE - I Don’t Know How But They Found Me!
PATRICK WOLF - Crying The Neck
PRIMA QUEEN - The Prize
SAMIA - Bloodless
SELF ESTEEM - A Complicated Woman
SUNFLOWER BEAN - Mortal Primetime
VIAGRA BOYS - viagr aboys
2nd May
BLONDSHELL - If You Asked For A Picture
LÅPSLEY - I’M A HURRICANE I’M A WOMAN IN LOVE
MODEL/ACTRIZ - Pirouette
PUP - Who Will Look After The Dogs
9th May
ALIEN CHICKS - Forbidden Fruit
MCLUSKY - the world is still here and so are we
PREOCCUPATIONS - Ill At Ease
16th May
EZRA FURMAN - Goodbye Small Head
MISO EXTRA - Earcandy
MØ - Plæygirl
PETER DOHERTY - Felt Better Alive
RICO NASTY - LETHAL
SPILL TAB - Angie
30th May
DEMISE OF LOVE - Demise Of Love
SHURA - I Got Too Sad For My Friends
6th June
MCKINLEY DIXON - Magic, Alive!
Photos: Zhamak Fullad, David Perez
58 D

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TICKET NOW!
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D 59

LIVE

RACHEL CHINOURIRI
Omeara, London
Every year, BRITs Week offers the chance to catch
a series of intimate, one-off shows from some
of the UK’s most exciting artists, from which all
proceeds go towards War Child’s important work
supporting young people affected by conflict.
And, of 2025’s frankly stacked lineup, one
of the hottest tickets is undoubtedly Rachel Chinouriri,
whose dazzling turn at Omeara cements her status as a
guaranteed star in the making.
From the moment doors open, a lighthearted buzz
permeates the venue, and anticipation hangs in the air.
Dedicated fans – aptly dubbed ‘darlings’ – are stationed
front and centre awaiting Rachel’s entrance, and many
attendees are sporting glitzy barrettes or bows in their hair as
badges of honour paying homage to the indie-pop favourite.
There’s an outpouring of applause as she takes to the stage,
her sparkling blue dress glimmering under the stage lights in
true pop princess fashion; then, as she launches into opener
‘Garden Of Eden’, the crowd respond with immediate energy.
They hang on her every word as if she’s recruited a whole
ensemble of backing singers, more than happy to oblige
when she hypothetically asks: “who’s ready to scream some
songs together?”
As we bounce through ‘Dumb Bitch Juice’, two-step to the
playful groove of ‘It Is What It Is’, and cheer on volunteers
who are called up to the stage to hold down a verse on
‘Even’, the night begins to feel like one big party. And yet,
Rachel doesn’t shy away from tackling the difficult subject
matter of her debut album, ‘What A Devastating Turn Of
Events’ (self-described as “a big trauma dump”), either. After
breezing through some of the record’s more upbeat tracks,
she slows things down with ‘Robbed’ – a song about losing
people unexpectedly which she dedicates to War Child, after
touching on her parents’ experiences of being child soldiers.
“Anything you can do is always worth something. Fight
for the cause, always keep people in your hearts,” she
encourages ahead of ‘My Blood’, amid light sniffles from
the audience. “If you ever feel unloved at moments, I love
you. Know that you’re important to me, at least.” Moving and
authentic, it’s enough to make anyone well up.
Knowing exactly when and how to revive the energy, Rachel
propels the show to a triumphant finish with guitar-driven
belters ‘My Everything’ and ‘The Hills’, adding to the renewed
momentum with unreleased track ‘Can We Talk About
Isaac?’ before joining the party herself, running right into
the crowd for ecstatic closer ‘Never Need Me’. After a night
filled with dancing, laughter, and even tears, one thing is
abundantly clear: Rachel Chinouriri is absolutely gleaming
with superstar potential, delivering an unforgettable night
with infectious passion and genuine heart. Kayla Sandiford
Absolutely gleaming with
superstar potential.
Photos: Aaron Parsons

THE BACK PAGE PRESENTS
FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY!
A DREAM GIG CURATED BY...
DORA JAR
WHERE WILL IT TAKE PLACE?
Shoreline Amphitheatre in Northern California; people are smoking weed
and having boogies everywhere, there’s just such a great vibe. I saw my
first ever concert there too – I think I was four years
old, and that was where I realised that I
needed to play guitar. It was a weekend of
music raising money for The Bridge
School, which is a school my sister
went to, so it would be amazing if
my concert was a similar kind
of thing – like a weekendlong
lineup built around
raising money for special
education, because
that’s something that has
always been important
to me.
WHO’S
HEADLINING?
Me! I’m gonna headline it.
I think Tom Waits will be there
as well… he’s opening for me!
Let’s get Fleetwood Mac, ABBA,
and Mary J Blige in there. I’m so into a
range of things, I would never curate a
show of similar-sounding artists – this is the full
spectrum of everything I love.
WHO’S SUPPORTING?
The lineup is going to be Kara Jackson, it’s
gonna be Oklou, it’s gonna be Alex G, Nourished
By Time, MAY, Cameron Winter… Did I say Yo-Yo
Ma already? His stuff with the Silk Road
Orchestra would be awesome.
WHO ARE YOU
GOING
WITH?
Me, my crew,
and my band,
plus anyone else
who wants to
come. I’d like
Mary Poppins to
be there, she’s in
the front row with
her umbrella – she’s
getting down to Yo-Yo
Ma. Winnie The Pooh
is there; the Powerpuff Girls
are there.
WHAT ARE YOU
EATING?
Ribs, rice, and peas. And soup – lots of different soups! Warm, hearty
things; we’ll eat on big communal tables backstage.
PRE-GIG ACTIVITIES?
Nah – it starts at about 1pm, and you’re probably waking up at 12pm,
because you stayed up so late talking around a campfire the night before.
IS THERE AN AFTERPARTY?
It’s just going to go on all night – it’s all about the music, and it’s all about
dancing.
ANY ADDITIONAL EXTRAS?
Yes! There’s gonna be four square; there’s gonna be a make your
own cotton candy station; there’s gonna be a cookie decorating
station with every colour frosting and every colour sprinkle. And the
rule is that you can’t eat your own cookie – you have to give it to
someone. And it’s called Sugar Mountain!
Photos: Haley Appell, Randee St. Nicholas, Jean Baptiste-Mondino
62 D

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DECO • SONNY TENNET • CHARLIE FLOYD • HARRIET ROSE
WEDNESDAY 4TH JUNE 2025
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