DIY, February 2016

milk teeth
“I’ve got s**t on my arm”
DIIV
A sea of trouble
+
daughter
“Oh, I’m actually very
sad about this”
set music free
free / issue 48 / february 2016
diymag.com
LCD Soundsystem
Comeback kings
mystery jets
Turning on an axis
Savages
are the Answer
1

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ROUNDHOUSE CHOIR • NOURIA
+ MANY MORE ACTS TBA
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SUPPORTED BY THE SACKLER TRUST
2 diymag.com

EDITOR’S LETTER
The bonkers music world never grinds to a halt, with one
exception. Everything stopped on the morning of 11th
January as news of David Bowie’s death spread. Pick any of
your favourite bands and they’ll be inspired by Bowie. The
universal outpouring of grief and tribute that took place after
his death was like nothing we’ve seen before. Chances are
we’ll never see it again. Head to p64 for our verdict on his
closing statement, the brilliant ‘Blackstar’.
Our first issue of 2016 is fronted by Savages, a group making
iconic moves of their own. New album ‘Adore Life’ is a hardhitting,
vital and - whisper it - fun record from an amazing
band. Also inside, you’ll find chats with Daughter, DIIV, Animal
Collective, Milk Teeth and bonkers newcomer GIRLI, plus all
the excitement around LCD Soundsystem’s return. 2016’s
already had its fair share of tragedy and triumph. Bring on the
next eleven months.
Jamie Milton, Editor
GOOD 6 Music’s Bowie tribute was incredible radio - the best
I’ve heard in years.
EVIL If someone wants to send us all to Coachella, that’d be
great - thanks in advance.
GOOD VS EVIL
WHAT’S ON THE DIY TEAM’S RADAR?
STEPHEN ACKROYD
Founding Editor
GOOD Weezer. White
album. Three good songs
out of three. I’ve got a good
feeling about this.
EVIL There’s really only
one answer to this one, isn’t
there?
.............................
Emma Swann
Founding Editor
GOOD Did you know the
Dutch equivalent of Aero
bubbles are called ‘Bros’?
EVIL The Grim Reaper’s had
a field day since the last issue.
..............................
Sarah Jamieson
Deputy Editor
GOOD Getting to witness so
many people celebrate the
life of such an iconic artist,
right in the middle of Brixton.
Such an incredible sight.
EVIL Obviously the event
that prompted all of that was
heartbreaking to begin with.
..............................
Victoria Sinden
Contributing Editor
GOOD SWMRS’ new album
is heaps of fun.
EVIL Picked up a slug with
my bare fingers.
..............................
Louise Mason
Art Director
GOOD Keeping all my
valuables gaffer taped
together so I never lose
anything ever again.
EVIL Losing everything at
the same time instead.
..............................
El hunt
Associate Editor
GOOD GIRLI yelling “yass
team!” at Hello 2016, before
pelting her audience with
tampons and Hello Kitty
chocolates.
EVIL I’ve just finished M
Train. I will never be as cool as
Patti Smith.
..............................
tom connick
Online Editor
GOOD Unearthing a ping
pong talent (and a mid-rally
power-stance) I didn’t know I
possessed.
EVIL Got over-excited
and made too many New
Years’ Resolutions. Can’t be
bothered to keep them all.
LISTENING POST
David Bowie barely left the DIY
stereo this month. We picked out
two of our favourites records.
The Rise and Fall of Ziggy
Stardust and the Spiders
from Mars (1972)
When David Bowie’s best known androgynous alter-ego
Ziggy Stardust first swanned onto 70s editions of Top of
the Pops in his glitter-paint and tight trews, he caused
stuffy traditionalists across Britain to spit out their cups
of tea in shock. He also, no doubt, inspired a fair few of
them to buy their own leggings.
Let’s Dance (1983)
Co-produced by Chic’s Nile Rodgers, and
funkier than James Brown at a slap-bass
convention, the decidedly pop-minded ‘Let’s Dance’
surprised even David Bowie with its runaway levels of
success.
F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 6
3

36
C
O
N
T
E
N
T
S
48
NEWS
6 M Ø
10 L C D
SOUNDSYSTEM
14 CHAIRLIFT
16 STAND FOR
SOMETHING TOUR
17 PANIC! AT THE DISCO
18 JACK GARRATT
19 POPSTAR POSTBAG
21 DIY HALL OF FAME
24 ARCTIC MONKEYS
26 FESTIVALS
NEU
28 GIRLI
30 HELLO 2016
32 PORCHES
34 CROSS RECORD
FEATURES
36 SAVAGES
44 DAUGHTER
48 MILK TEETH
52 ANIMAL
COLLECTIVE
56 MYSTERY JETS
60 DIIV
REVIEWS
64 ALBUMS
76 LIVE
60
Founding Editors Stephen
Ackroyd, Emma Swann
Editor Jamie Milton
Deputy Editor Sarah
Jamieson
Contributing Editor Victoria
Sinden
Associate Editor El Hunt
Online Editor Tom Connick
Art Direction & Design
Louise Mason
Marketing & Events
Jack Clothier, Rhi Lee
Contributors Ali Shutler,
Amelia Maher, Anastasia
Connor, Andy Backhouse,
Charlie Mock, Danny
Wright, David Zammitt, Ed
Cooper, Henry Boon, Jessica
Goodman, Joanie Eaton, Liam
McNeilly, Lucas Fothergill,
Maya Rose Radcliffe, Mollie
Mansfield, Niall Cunningham,
Nick Pollard, Ross Jones,
Tim Lee, Tom Hancock, Tom
Walters, Will Richards
Photographers Abi Dainton,
Andrew Benge, Carolina
Faruolo, Hannah Bowns, Mike
Massaro, Phil Smithies, Nathan
McLaren-Stewart, Sam Wood,
Sarah Louise Bennett
For DIY editorial
info@diymag.com
For DIY sales
rupert@sonicdigital.co.uk
lawrence@sonicdigital.co.uk
tel: +44 (0)20 3632 3456
For DIY stockist enquiries
stockists@diymag.com
DIY is published by Sonic
Media Group. 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. 25p where sold.
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
Sonic Media Group 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.
Cover photo: Mike Massaro
4 diymag.com

5

NEWS
6 diymag.com
This is her møment.

From creating electro-pop in her bedroom back in Copenhagen to collaborating
with Diplo and performing at the Nobel Peace Prize Concert, MØ’s
ascent to stardom is well under way. Now, she’s got her sights set on album
number two. Words: Will Richards.
“It’s got to
be fucking
brilliant if it’s
gonna last”
There’s no denying that MØ’s trajectory towards superstardom took
its biggest step last year when she featured on Major Lazer track
‘Lean On’, which has since, you know, been revealed to be the
most streamed track of all time. That’s quite the achievement for
Copenhagen’s Karen Marie Ørsted, still only one album deep.
Speaking from Las Vegas the morning after performing the song at the MGM
Grand with frequent collaborator Diplo’s group, Ørsted seems remarkably calm
about that second album everyone is waiting for.
Work on MØ’s second LP has fluctuated in intensity due to her touring schedule,
but new songs have been coming ever since the release of her debut, ‘No
Mythologies to Follow’ in 2014, and the Dane wasn’t afraid to discard ideas she
wasn’t completely happy with. “At the beginning of the year, I wrote a lot of songs
that I thought were great, but weren’t so much ‘me’, but now I’ve managed to
collect a bunch of songs that show a development, and obviously things have
changed, but it’s still me, and you can only change so much in two years.”
A certain level of progression has to be expected from an artist who has seen such
a shift in her own life over the past two years, but when Ørsted saw the evidence
creeping into her songwriting negatively, she decided to go back to basics.
“To begin with I wanted to try out some very new things, and work in ways I never
had before, but I realised that above anything else I had to be myself through it
all. I had to be naked and honest and say what I wanted to say instead of trying to
sound like something I thought was awesome but couldn’t relate to.”
The realisation that her ideas and ambitions could change over the course of
writing an album led MØ to drop between five and ten songs she’d written over
the past year from consideration; it was something she’d never done before. “The
7

NEWS
first album was only made with
one producer, and every song
I wrote in that time ended up
on the album,” she remembers.
“This time, I think I’ve made
thirty or forty songs, and have
the options now to narrow these
down. It’s a different process,
but I think you need to try
different ways - that’s how you
get inspired. It’s only my second
album.”
“I had to
be naked
and
honest
and say
what I
wanted
to say.”
The idea that her upcoming
album is only her second almost
makes it remarkable as to both
how far MØ has come since the
release of ‘No Mythologies...’
and how level-headed she’s
remaining while so quickly
becoming one of the world’s
most in-demand vocalists.
‘Kamikaze’, the as-yet-untitled
new album’s barnstorming first
single, sets out the intentions
of a world-beater, taking the
sometimes gloom-tinged pop of
‘No Mythologies To Follow’ and
showing it a good time. Album
two isn’t going to be all “take
me to a party” though, warns
Ørsted.
“’Kamikaze’ is a very happy
song,” she explains, “but I feel
like things get a little sadder
than where that came from,
although more happy songs are
in there somewhere. The first
album had a lot of nostalgic
melancholy in its songs, and
there are definitely sadder songs
I’m writing now, but they’re
uplifting. ‘Oh, the world is shit,
but we’re gonna have a good
time’, you know?”
It’s this mindset that makes
MØ so refreshing; refusing to
be ground down by anything
or anyone, she’s transmitted
her resilience in the form of
a pristine pop song. Ørsted
remains tight-lipped on how the
rest of the album is shaping up,
but emphasises her confidence
in herself to take her time and
not rush to meet peoples’ calls
for her next step.
“There’s always pressure. Of
course it’s going to be different,
and of course someone
somewhere will say ‘oh this
isn’t what I expected, this isn’t
like [old song]’, but I feel like
I’m really being myself and I’m
not trying to disguise anything,
and therefore I feel confident
in terms of being honest in my
work. I think it would be worse if
I was trying to put up something
to try and change my image, and
I feel like I’m being truthful in the
songs, so that’s a good start.”
Despite still being so early in
her career, MØ’s already using
her experiences in writing and
releasing ‘No Mythologies To
Follow’ to work out any internal
issues with her songwriting
process, which she’s now taking
EMØJI!
What better way to track MØ’s brilliant year
than with, er, emoji?
MARCH: MØ sings on Major Lazer and DJ
Snake’s ‘Lean On’, since revealed to be the
most streamed song of all time on Spotify.
AUGUST: MØ enters the studio to work on
her second album.
SEPTEMBER:
MØ watched the total lunar eclipse
(probably - tbh we just wanted an excuse to
use the best emoji of all).
OCTOBER: We’re all taken to
the party with the release of
new single ‘Kamikaze’.
DECEMBER: She performs ‘New Year’s Eve’
and ‘Lean On’ at the Nobel Peace Prize
concert in Oslo.
on board. “One of my problems as a songwriter
sometimes is that I over-complicate things. I’m going
for simplicity. It’s the hardest thing to make something
simple though; it’s got to be fucking brilliant if it’s
gonna last.”
The overwhelming success of ‘Lean On’ has led to a
mountain of pressure falling on MØ’s next step, but
her insistence in remaining loyal to herself and not
playing characters indicates her new album will be
nothing if not true.
“[Writing is] my therapy. It’s something I do because
I need to. It’s my way of knowing myself. The songs
come because they have to.” With this outlook, when
the songs do come later this year, “fucking brilliant”
shouldn’t be a problem.
MØ’s as-yet-untitled new album is out later this
year. DIY
Photo: Abi Dainton
8 diymag.com

porches
pool
Out 5th February
porchesmusic.com
dominorecordco.com
YOUR FRIEND
GUMPTION
OUT NOw
yourfriendtaryn.com
dominorecordco.com
9

NEWS
One Touch Is
NEVER ENOUGH
After months of rumours, LCD Soundsystem are officially coming back for another run.
Thousands are celebrating, others aren’t too happy. But great bands are rarely smooth-sailing
packages - least of all LCD Soundsystem. That’s the magic of music. Words: Tom Connick.
Confirmed for Coachella 2016 and with more dates
on the way, James Murphy’s band of merriment
has returned for a stint far longer than the surprise
Christmas single they put out late last year. Along
with the announcement, though, comes a degree of cynicism
from the shadiest of corners. Why are they really back? What’s
their end-game, here?
When LCD Soundsystem announced their disbanding back
in 2011, it was with one hell of a fanfare. Shut Up And Play
The Hits, the stunningly shot documentary that followed the
48-hours surrounding their ‘last’ show at Madison Square
Garden, was seen by many as the perfect closing statement –
an elegant full stop on a career that never put a foot wrong.
Passion and instinct dictate a musician’s decision-making,
for better or for worse. Breaking up in the first place is
undoubtedly a decision that rests on instinct and
blind faith – how can anyone ever know if it’s
really ‘the right time’ to close the book? ‘Kid
A’’s production famously nearly drove
Radiohead to the brink, the stresses of
their newfound evolution into more
electronic-led work putting the group at loggerheads. Had
they pulled the trigger, we’d never have been privy to some of
their finest work. Or, possibly, that incredible video of Thom
Yorke getting spooked by a bell.
Messy stories are part of every band’s make-up – those
dangerously-close-to-boiling-point near breakups are only
part of it. From line-up changes to cancelled tours, petty
arguments of sequencing (looking at you again, ‘Kid A’) to
full-blown label disputes, there are dents in every band’s
timeline that negate any notion of a perfectly rounded-off
story. It’s the roll-with-the-punches, instinctive nature of our
favourite bands that makes them such exciting prospects in
the first place.
Of course, you don’t have to witness LCD Soundsystem’s
rebirth this summer – there’s an awful lot of bands on any
given festival line-up, and you don’t have to see them
all. But to miss ‘All My Friends’ amongst a teary-eyed
crowd of your nearest and dearest because you’re
unsure of the group on-stage’s motives? That
would be one hell of a stupid decision. DIY
THEN
In DIY’s September 2012 cover
feature, James Murphy refused to
rule out a comeback. See! He never
said it wasn’t going to happen! “If
we feel like doing something, we’re
going to do it,” he stated. “We’re
grown people and there’s no legal
obligation to do anything.” It all
came with a caveat, mind: “It’s not
like we’re going to reform. There
will be no reforming.” Ah, maybe he
did rule it out.
NOW
In a bloody huge note on the
band’s website, Murphy confirmed
LCD’s return by saying: “There
are people who don’t hate us at
all, in fact who feel very attached
to the band, and have put a lot
of themselves into their care
of us, who feel betrayed by us
coming back and playing. Who
had traveled for or tried to go to
the MSG show, and who found
it to be an important moment
for them, which now to them
feels cheapened. I just hadn’t
considered that.”
10 diymag.com

UK TOUR 2016
08 JAN - Edinburgh Usher Hall
09 JAN - Manchester O 2 Apollo
11 JAN - Sheffield O 2 Academy
12 JAN - Liverpool Empire
29 JAN - London O 2 Academy Brixton
S O L D O U T
30 JAN - London O 2 Academy Brixton
31 JAN - London O 2 Academy Brixton
02 FEB - Birmingham O 2 Academy
04 FEB - Portsmouth Guildhall
05 FEB - Cardiff St Davids Hall
06 FEB - Manchester O 2 Apollo
/HOZIER
/HOZIERMUSIC
/HOZIER
WWW.HOZIER.COM
ALBUM AVAILABLE NOW
11

NEWS
Kagoule set to join
DIY & Jägermeister’s
Curtain Call
The Nottingham band will be the second act invited to record,
rehearse, play and take their next step on London’s Curtain Road.
Fuzz fiends Kagoule are the next band for DIY x
Jägermeister’s Curtain Call. The Nottingham bunch will
record, play live and do all sorts else, all within the confines
of one stretch of tarmac - Shoreditch’s Curtain Road.
Curtain Call takes the ‘road to success’ literally by basing itself in
the iconic East London area. Home to the some of our favourite
labels - Wichita, Bella Union, Secretly Canadian and many more -
it’s the perfect location for a new band to take their next step.
Brighton trio Birdskulls were the first band to get involved in.
Now, Kagoule are joining in the fun. They’ll be given a hand
to record a brand new track, before playing an intimate show
alongside a special guest at the Old Blue Last - we’ll be joining
them along the way. Plus, it’s only the second of three shows:
Curtain Call will also be taking over another venue and studio on
the street in March.
Behind the Curtain with
Birdskulls: recording a new
track at Strongroom Studios
The second Curtain Call gig will take place at the Old Blue Last on
23rd February. Tickets are on sale exclusively at
ticketweb.co.uk/curtaincall now.
Stay tuned for more info, discover the next show’s special guests
and catch-up with Birdskulls’ experience over at diymag.com.
12 diymag.com

GETTING ON
THE MAP
This March, DIY will be joining forces with Generator and
taking to the road Brighton noiseniks Tigercub. The
Royal Blood-approved trio will be heading up the DIY
Presents... Mapped Out Tour, and will be kicking things
off at the Bikeshed Theatre in Exeter. There’ll be stops in
Bristol, Birmingham and Sheffield along the way during their
ten-date tour, which comes to a close in Newcastle on 26th
March.
Tickets are available at generator.org.uk/mappedout.
MARCH
15 Bikeshed Theatre, Exeter
16 The Louisiana, Bristol
18 John Peel Centre, Stowmarket
19 Arts Centre, Norwich
20 The Sunflower Lounge, Birmingham
22 The Cavern, Liverpool
23 The Harley, Sheffield
24 Café Indiependent, Scunthorpe
25 The Georgian Theatre, Stockton
26 The Cluny 2, Newcastle
SPOTTED
WHO did DIY find in an East London
cafe having a chat about artichokes?
It was about ‘Two Weeks’ ago now...
WHAT’S GOING
ON WITH...
JOHNNY
FOREIGNER?
The Birmingham quartet have locked themselves away
in the studio to work on a new record. Frontman Alexei
Berrow spills the beans. Interview: Ali Shutler.
We hear you’re working on a new album. How’s it going?
I’ve spent so long in the studio that I realised I had a beard the
other day, but everything is coming together.
And how are the new songs sounding?
Massive. We did three songs the middle of last year and we
kept waiting until we had enough to make a record. We have
three songs that are pretty much complete, then three or four
that have everything but singing on and then some more
that are missing bits and pieces. We tried making a board but
it looks like a mental game of noughts and crosses but it’s
sounding pretty rad and we’re happy.
Whereabouts are you recording?
We’re just doing everything at our house. It’s just behind
The Custard Factory, we’ve got a warehouse in Digbeth. It’s
freezing cold and half the roof fell down on another unit a
couple of days ago and we’re a little worried. We keep looking
up, thinking we see a drip coming from the ceiling out the
corner of our eye. It’s a place we can rehearse and means we
can have 24 hour access so we can stay and slog it out until it
gets boring so we don’t have to worry about paying for studio
time or have any of that pressure.
That must give you a freedom to push the songs as far as
they need to go?
Yeah, definitely. Essentially our songs have a pretty basic
formula so it’s nice to have the time to try and extend it and
to make it more interesting. We probably wouldn’t have that
if we went to a real studio. The trade-off is the drum sound
isn’t quite as good but they’re not really the things anyone
picks up on. If we’re making amazing songs, I think that’s more
important than having the perfect, realistic hi-hat sound.
WHICH bassist was debuting his
new ‘shaven head’ look during one
of our Hello 2016 shows at the Old
Blue Last? It was looking positively
(giant) peach-y!
WHICH red-headed, infamously
quiffed pop star was dancing
the night away in Brixton, at last
month’s street party in honour of
the late, great David Bowie?
WHICH member of our favourite
Birmingham quintet did we spy
lurking outside a posh supermarket
at Stratford’s Westfield shopping
centre?
13

NEWS
As Caroline Polachek discusses the most personal
song on Chairlift’s new album ‘Moth’, her voice
begins to give way. “‘No Such Thing As Illusion’
is the most vulnerable I’ve ever felt. It’s a love
song and it was written quite intuitively and just
kind of spilled out of me and it’s a song about…”
her voice quivers, she pauses, gathers herself…
“about sort of accepting the sacrifices of a
committed relationship.” She pauses. “Sorry, I’m going to start crying.”
She manages to continue: “There’s actually a line in there, and it doesn’t
even feel like I wrote it when I hear it, about little simple things like ‘Love
can be as simple as your hand wrapped around my waist’ and ‘This
ain’t no new car leather, there’s no return it if it breaks. Just don’t go if I
get the shakes’.” Her voice starts to break up, “I’m sorry,” she says again
and takes a moment. “That song was written around the time that my
now husband proposed to me.” She stops, the overwhelming emotion
getting too much.
It’s a sense of openness and sensitivity that reflects how emotionally
uninhibited a record ‘Moth’ is. One of power and intimacy, of getting
“IT JUST KIND OF
SPILLED
OUT OF
ME.”
CAROLINE POLACHEK
Crying in Public
As Caroline Polachek and Patrick
Wimberly gear up to release Chairlift’s
third album, they prove to be powerful,
vulnerable and, most of all, real. Words:
Danny Wright. Photo: Emma Swann.
14 diymag.com

lost in the moment and giving into your
feelings while remaining in control: that
mood informs the whole record – from
the title onwards.
“’Moth’ is about a spirit; optimism
and vulnerability. It’s about being a
delicate thing in a hard place,” Caroline
explains. “And also about instinct and
following your instinct even if you know
it’s not good for you. Intuition and
thoughtlessness… about losing control
but persisting.”
It’s been three years since Chairlift’s
last album but it’s not like they’ve not
been keeping themselves busy since
2012’s ‘Something’. In that time they’ve
collaborated with Beyoncé on ‘No Angel’
(written and produced by Caroline, coproduced
by bandmate Patrick Wimberly).
Caroline also put out ‘Arcadia’ under her
Ramona Lisa alias, while Patrick produced
and collaborated with artists like Solange,
Wet, Kelela, and Tei Shi. They’ve even
found time to build their own studio.
“We worked on the album intermittently
for about a year and a half,” Caroline
continues. “It was a slow process for a
couple of reasons, all of which are good.
One thing is we built our own studio
and we took our time with the acoustics
of the room and collecting all the gear
we wanted to make the album. And at
the same time we were both working
on our own projects in that studio and
elsewhere.”
“We wanted to give ourselves time on
this one,” agrees Patrick. “We’ve learnt a
lot about how we work together and how
we make records and we know it’s nice
to push ourselves to do some writing in
little chunks and then get yourself back
out into the real world and away from the
thing and come back to it.”
“We gave ourselves time,” Patrick
explains. “So if we said, ‘Well, we want
bongos on this song’ then we have a
whole wealth of knowledge that we’d
built up just by testing things. It was all
about experimenting with the different
equipment and seeing what works.”
“It was also the sense of knowing that
anything we recorded could be final,” says
Caroline. “It wasn’t that we had to demo
things and take it to a producer and take
it to a mixer and take it to a manager.
You never sensed that there was a bunch
of experts standing between you and
your music. We’ve been doing it long
enough that we trust ourselves that if we
are excited about the way things sound
then that sound will be on the record. It’s
the first time we’ve approached a record
knowing that, and I know that sounds very
simple, but for us it was a big deal.”
It was that empowering and experimental
approach which helped them to produce
what became first single ‘Ch-Ching’ with
its off-kilter beats and brassy flourishes.
“’Ch-Ching’ was a big moment,” says
Patrick. “The saxophone parts were the
first things we recorded in the studio.
That actually began as an experiment;
just getting to know some of the pieces of
gear, and then that actually just became
the song. And it’s like what Caroline said
- then we knew that everything we tried
could be the final thing.”
Other tracks like the woozy ‘Ottawa
to Osaka’ came together from an
experiment, where the duo would work
together for 24 hours with no preconceived
ideas of what would happen.
“We had one week of writing where
Caroline and I just came in every morning
and saw what would happen if we were
to just come in every day, not bringing
any ideas with us and just come up with
the idea from scratch. Every morning we
started a new track and at the end of the
day we’d put it away and we wouldn’t let
ourselves work on it the next day - we’d
just start another one. Four out of the five
songs started then made the album.”
And with the attention that has been
growing since ‘Bruises’ featured on an
iPod advert, which has only sky rocketed
since they worked with Beyoncé, do
they feel more pressure coming back
now? Patrick shakes his head. “No, all the
pressure comes from within. We always
push ourselves to make our new, best
work.”
“In a way I felt like I could relax after
[Beyoncé] happened,” says Caroline.
“For one thing it gave me a different
view of the music industry - a really
open-minded and optimistic one without
genre boundaries which is so exciting and
liberating.
“As an artist you always have this little part
of your brain that means you’re always
afraid that people are going to find out
you’re a fake. Regardless of whether
you are or not, a part of your brain tells
you you are and people are going to
figure it out. Having that happen gave
me the feeling ‘Hey, now they know I’m
not a fake.’” Listening to ‘Moth’ it seems
undeniable: Chairlift are most definitely
for real.
Chairlift’s new album ‘Moth’ is out now
via Columbia Records. DIY
Our
Lucky
Mascot
Everybody needs a little
company on the road.
This month, guitarist
John Victor from Gengahr
introduces us to the band’s
special little on-tour
friend.
“My long suffering
girlfriend got me Gengar
when she went on holiday
to Tokyo. Two days later
we played Glastonbury
and he’s been at every
gig since (minus one,
but that was terrible so
best he missed it). He’s
been with me in America
and Australia as well as
numerous times around
Europe, the well-travelled
bastard. If I’m playing
particularly badly he will
face plant on my amp to let
me know.”
1515

NEWS
BURY TOMORROW DRAW DIY AND
DM’S ANNUAL TOUR TO A CLOSE.
STAND FOR SOMETHING
TOUR 2015
“Hey look, I can see my
house from here!”
After another whirlwind year, the Dr. Martens Stand For Something
Tour in association with DIY comes back to roost in Camden, closing
proceedings with one last blow-out in Our Black Heart and two of the
UK’s finest heavy bands.
Photo: Emma Swann
it takes one song for Heck to barge their way off stage,
tearing up and down the venue like lions on the prowl.
By the second, Matt Reynolds has thrown his guitar strap
over the neck of an unsuspecting punter and leapt atop
the bar, while his partner in crime Jonny Hall looks on
with a crazed grin. Later on, they recruit another member of
the crowd to act as a makeshift mic stand - “this is a chorus,
we don’t do it very often,” they laugh. Lord knows how they
manage to find a chorus amongst the thrashing, extreme
hardcore they fire out. “Come here,” Matt demands of a man
stood at the bar, “You came to see a show.” It’s a heck (sorry) of
an understatement. Heck don’t just put on a show - it’s a full
on carnival of destruction. The eighth wonder of the world is
that Camden’s still standing at the end of it.
Bury Tomorrow frontman Dan Winter-Bates can be seen
grinning throughout said wonder from the merch desk - as his
band take to the stage, they harness that chaos and compact
it. Squeezing every ounce of fury onto Our Black Heart’s tiny
stage, it’s a masterclass in crushing heaviness. For a band who
relish in a guttural stomp, every crunch is pristine, and every
song all the more dagger-sharp
for it.
Crowd surfers erupt within seconds of opener ‘Man On
Fire’. “If you are in this room, you are fucking moving,” Dan
announces, like they need any encouragement. ‘Oh Glory’ is
every bit as life-affirming as its title suggests, a crowd of the
band’s nearest and dearest fans belting back every word,
arms aloft.
“Everything about this show is fucking crazy; it officially sold
out in thirty seconds,” Dan smiles. That fevered reaction
threads through everything tonight, as the ground the band
stand on is practically worshipped. His demands for a wall of
death twisted around ninety degrees are met immediately
and without hesitation, and by the time they reach the end
of their fire-starting hour long slot - treating the throng with
a new track, ‘Earthbound’ to close - it becomes clear that no
matter how big the venues Bury Tomorrow play become,
there’s something special about their biggest fans being able
to see the whites of their eyes. DIY
16 diymag.com

Cutting Loose
Brendon Urie’s
releasing his fifth
album as Panic! At The
Disco and this time, it
really is all about him.
Words: Sarah Jamieson.
Photo: Sarah Louise
Bennett.
been sitting on this thing for like six months!”
laughs Brendon Urie, as he waits backstage at
London’s Brixton Academy. Tonight, he’ll be
“I’ve
airing some of his new album for the first time,
right ahead of its release. It’s not just excitement he’s feeling
though. “I’m always anxious,” he confirms. “I’m curious to see
what kind of reaction it gets, because I never think about that
when I’m writing. I’m anxious in a good way; I’m very excited!”
‘Death of a Bachelor’ marks a new era
for Panic! At The Disco; not only is it
Brendon’s fifth album, but it’s also the
first record he’s worked on completely
on his own. “This time around was
a lot more fun because I was totally
alone,” he assures. “I still had a couple
of members wanting to contribute on
the last album [‘Too Weird To Die, Too
Rare To Live!’], but this time it really was just me. Me writing,
me recording and me on the instruments - and I prefer it,
honestly.
“Coming from compromising with three other people and
their opinions… not being able to fully do what you want is
fun, and it’s different but I much prefer this, where I get to call
the shots and delegate my ideas to whoever wants to help.
I get to make the final call. I have more of a vision of what I
want; I know what I’m trying to accomplish and it becomes
easier when I get to just do it on my own. I work better on my
own sometimes.”
“I WORK
BETTER ON
MY OWN
SOMETIMES.”
Granted the freedom to achieve his own vision, Brendon’s
latest effort is a pastiche of his own life and experiences. Not
only does the record see him stitching together lyrics inspired
by everyday conversations (“‘I’m not as think as you drunk I
am’ was something my buddy said at the bar one night, and I
thought it was hilarious!”), but the album sees him exploring
all manner of musical inspirations, too.
“I like to extend myself a little bit and
see what I haven’t done. If it feels new
and fresh, it feels like I’m doing a good
thing. This time around, I listened to a
lot of Queen, Frank Sinatra was a huge
influence, a lot of hip hop too.”
“I want to get better at that,” he
explains, on channelling his own influences. “That was one
thing I wasn’t well-versed at when this band first started.
I didn’t know how to sonically, not imitate, but implicate
maybe, that inspiration and influence in sound. Now, I think
if you hear the title track, you go, ‘Oh, I clearly hear Sinatra.’
I love that. I love being able to, in a way, pay tribute to these
influences that I’ve had for a very long time.”
Panic! At The Disco’s new album ‘Death Of A Bachelor’ is
out now via Fueled By Ramen. DIY
17

NEWS
Jack
Of All Trades
The one-man-band phenomenon is 2016’s choice, but bearded wizard Jack Garratt has been
ready for his world domination quest for years. Words: Andy Backhouse.
It’s an odd novelty, seeing Jack Garratt relaxing and
being given his own space. Come twelve months,
everything he does will be a shot down a camera lens,
as paparazzi squabble to snap photos of the world’s
favourite new artist. He’ll be mobbed by fans who
could eat him out of sheer enthusiasm. But here he is,
spending the day in the O2 Arena, a bit like Tom Hanks in ‘The
Terminal’. In a few hours he’ll step out on stage in support of
Mumford and Sons.
In case you didn’t hear - Jack Garratt is the winner of both
BRITs Critics’ Choice and BBC Sound Of 2016, and your mum
will like him too. And that’s no accident. It’s almost like he’s
calculated a perfect formula. “I do think there’s a certain way
you can make a hit. I wouldn’t say that’s the same thing as
writing a song. We live in a world where there’s two different
types of music that exist. There’s tunes, and songs.” Sounds a
bit simplistic, but he continues: “There’s a reason why, when
someone’s out at a house party, and a song comes on, loads
of people go ‘oh my dayz, thasa chooon!’. They don’t sit there
and go, ‘oh my goodness, what a fantastically written song.’”
But there’s no question about it - the songwriting of Jack
Garratt falls into Exhibit B. It’s almost like he’s broken into
the mainstream in a trojan horse. You can picture him, in
the middle of that house party, stroking his beard at a pop
banger. This man is the professor of the club night. But unlike
many of his predecessors of the Critics’ Choice award, Jack
didn’t have the luxury of etching out his talent at Brit School.
He had to discover that for himself. Trial-and-erroring through
different bands, from ska through to rock, by eighteen he
started producing music for himself. “I’ve always known what
I want my songs to sound like. When I was really young
and writing music, I always knew what I wanted to
put on them.” ‘Phase’ is an apt title for his
debut album.
With ‘Phase’
seeing
Jack spots a song in the
distance. Or is that a tune?
its release imminently, this is the time to feel nerves, but
Jack exorcised all those uncertainties ages ago, way back in
the studio. “It was a long album to make, and it was difficult
- but difficult for the right reasons. I was tired and creatively
exhausted at the end of the day. But I’d rather I was tired and
exhausted for a job I love, rather than a job I didn’t love.
But there’s already the lingering fear that, now he’s happy,
he’ll find writing album two even harder. “I was joking with
the Mumford boys about this actually. I said ‘If the first
album’s this hard, I’ve no idea what the next album’s gonna be
like,’ and - I think it was Marcus - he said, ‘Mate, every album’s
hard’. And he’s got a good point, because if you’re doing it
for the right reasons, and giving it everything that you have,
it shouldn’t be different. Even if album one does terribly,
album two still has to happen. I’m still going to continue to
be a musician. If one person continues to like my music, and
I have enough connection with one person, then I’m making
music for the right reasons.” Whether you’re playing back his
album, or he’s playing the O2, you feel like you’re invited to
an intimate performance in his bedroom. Just with 23,000 of
his closest friends. If everything went very badly wrong, you
know that this is a man who would still be making music, but
something tells us Jack Garratt is more than just a phase.
Jack Garratt’s debut album ‘Phase’ is out 19th
February via Island Records. DIY
“There
are two
different
types of
music:
tunes, and
songs.”
18 diymag.com

Popstar
Postbag
chVrches
We know what you’re like, dear readers. We know you’re just as nosy as we are when it comes to our favourite
pop stars: that’s why we’re putting the power back into your hands. Every month, we’re going to ask you to pull
out your best questions and aim them at those unsuspecting artists. You don’t even need to pay for postage! This
month, Chvrches’ Lauren Mayberry and Iain Cook are poised with the Qs.
When you’re on the road what’s the
one thing you have to take with you
or can’t live without? Tom Coutts,
via email
Lauren: Hand sanitiser. Earplugs.
Headphones.
What was the band’s opinion on Star
Wars: The Force Awakens and did you
go see it together? John Donnelly,
via email
Iain: We saw it together and loved it.
I have seen it four times now and it
just gets better with each viewing.
Can’t wait to see where they take it
from here.
Which body part will be in your next
album title? @chvrchead
Lauren: Teeth.
What is your favourite book of all
time? Nathan, via email
Lauren: The Beauty of The Husband
by Anne Carson or The Trick Is To
Keep Breathing by Janice Galloway.
Do you ever consider re-examining
old demos from pre-Bones, or do
you prefer to move forward? @
ang_trowbridge
Iain: It’s nice to have some songs left
in the bank after making an album.
We generally prefer to move forward
but once in a while there’s a song or
two that feels like it didn’t get proper
attention and we dig it out and steal
bits and pieces from it.
What music are you listening to right
now that you enjoy? Emma Liddle,
via email
Lauren: I have been getting back into
Fiona Apple as I started watching
The Affair and she made the title
theme music. I’ve also been really
enjoying the latest Hop Along record.
Do you keep your tomato sauce
in the fridge or the cupboard? @
HDTreatmentBlog
Iain: Fridge.
What were your favourite venues
from your last tour? @mbreton67
Iain: Playing the Shrine auditorium
in Los Angeles was an incredible
experience. Beautiful looking room
and the acoustics are fantastic. Also,
the Masonic Temple in Detroit was
fantastic. Super spooky.
Where’s the strangest place you’ve
spotted Irn Bru? James, via email
Iain: In my hand.
NEXT MONTH: La Roux
Want to send a question to DIY’s Popstar
Postbag? Tweet us at @diymagazine with
the hashtag #postbag, or drop us an email at
popstarpostbag@diymag.com. Easy!
photo: mike massaro
19

NEWS
The best new tracks from the last montH
Kanye West – No More Parties in L.A.
Kanye and Kendrick - it’s a pairing previously resigned to a hip hop subreddit’s worst fanfic. Add in a sample of Drake’s
uncle (no, really) Larry Graham and it’s enough to send the blogosphere loopy. “Please baby, no more parties in L.A.,” cries
Ye, yearning to leave behind the glitz and glamour of fame. Joke’s on him though - if ‘Swish’ is half as good as these teasers
suggest, he’s only going to get closer to being the God he always claimed to be. (Tom Connick)
Creeper – Black Mass
‘Black Mass’ owes as much to Meatloaf
as it does The Misfits. Thundering
from the off, it’s when Creeper pull
everything back that they reveal their
winning hand, a subdued, waltzing
breather bringing frontman Will
Gould’s love of theatrical fantasy to
the foreground. “I’m not a dream that
you wish you’d had,” he cries, but he
couldn’t be further from the truth -
diving into Creeper’s dreamworld has
never been so satisfying. (Tom Connick)
Courtney Barnett – Three Packs A
Day
When it comes to suitable candidates
for a Valentine’s Day bae, there are
few choices that can compete with
a humble pack of instant noodles.
That’s certainly the view that Courtney
Barnett takes in her new ditty, an allout
love song dedicated to the glorious
foodstuff. Amid sweetly-strummed
guitars, squealing mouth organ solos,
and what could accurately be referred
to as an, erm, noodling bass-line,
Barnett sings about trading in swanky
dinner plans with friends for quietly
bubbling saucepans - a feeling almost
everybody can surely relate to. (El Hunt)
Yeasayer – I Am Chemistry
‘I Am Chemistry’, a tangled journey
through the sticky landscape of growth,
sees experimental bunch Yeasayer
break silence with their first track in
almost three years. It may not depart
hugely from their usual psychedelic
pop roots, but its washy synths and
doom-laced vocals seep a distinctly
downtrodden sentiment, greedily
consuming familiarity before it even
gets a chance to peek its head through
the door. (Charlie Mock)
Låpsley - Love Is Blind
Over the last twelve months, Låpsley’s
navigated her way around the hypewagon,
delivering a more straightup,
hard hitting form of the striking
songwriting she arrived sporting. ‘Love
is Blind’ is up there with last year’s ‘Hurt
Me’ in getting to the point. From verse
to chorus with no showy gimmicks to
distract, Låpsley’s quickly discovered
that she has everything it takes to make
giant pop songs for fun. (Jamie Milton)
The Last Shadow Puppets – Bad
Habits
‘Bad Habits’ is full of Miles Kane’s
signature elements - short, sharp,
rip-roaring vocals and arrogance that
you couldn’t take home to your mother.
Although Alex Turner takes the backing
vocals and guitar, it’s not weakened
by the lack of his frontman presence.
Instead, he fills the track with saucy riffs
and Northern charm from afar, letting
Kane boast about everything he’s
taught him. (Mollie Mansfield)
Rat Boy – Move
‘Move’ is brilliantly boyish. Bizarrely, and
to its benefit, the opening is irrefutably
Beastie Boys-esque and showcases Rat
Boy’s elder-brother bravado: a struttinginto-town,
no-fucks-given approach
that we’re now all too familiar with. A
raucous and delightful celebration of all
things immature; ‘Move’ is an ode to our
younger (and significantly more Rat Boy)
years. (Ed Cooper)
20 diymag.com

Who doesn’t remember the mid-00s dancepunk
revolution with fondness? Spiky guitars,
disco beat drums and Erol Alkan remixes as
B-sides, it gave us everything from Klaxons to
Bloc Party this side of the pond, and LCD Soundsystem, The
Rapture and even Death From Above 1979 from the other.
Like that Canadian duo, Test Icicles were heavier than most;
‘For Screening Purposes Only’ was patched up in programmed
drums; drenched in cheap distortion with a pink and blue
sugary aggression. Most importantly, it was fun to the core.
Each track on the record was written individually, the finished
song only shown to the other band members (that’s Dev
Hynes, Sam Mehran and super-producer Rory Attwell) on
completion. The result is a forty-minute mesh of ideas; varying
B-movie horrors and tinny headaches. ‘Circle Square Triangle’
and ‘What’s Your Damage?’ are bratty chunks of punk rock.
The band’s brief two-year lifespan concluded with a reserved
and coy break-up note about never really liking the music they
made. Test Icicles was never meant to be taken too seriously -
and this was a feeling the members themselves shared.
Test Icicles is now but a mere footnote in Dev’s career. He
went on to record two albums as Lightspeed Champion, form
the increasingly collaborative project Blood Orange, and has
found more mainstream success as a songwriter, working
with Kylie Minogue, Carly Rae Jepsen and Solange Knowles to
name just three. Rory released a few records as RAT:ATT:AGG
before settling in to his Warm Brains moniker, and Sam issued
a collection of his Outer Limits recordings in 2013, and is now
believed to be working in a New York record shop.
Though they were a short-lived affair, Test Icicles were a
remedy to a lack of eclecticism at the time, hitting on a new
dynamite energy. DIY
DIY HALL OF FAME
A monthly place to celebrate the very best albums released
during DIY’s lifetime; the next inductee into our Hall of Fame is
Test Icicles’ one and only LP. Words: Niall Cunningham
Test Icicles
photo: Carolina Faruolo
For Screening Purposes Only
Test Icicles’ reaction when being told what they’d go on to do in the future.
the Facts
Released: 31st
October 2005
Standout tracks:
‘Circle Square
Triangle’ and ‘What’s
Your Damage?’
Something to tell
your mates: The
band once claimed
that nu-metallers
KoЯn inspired every
single guitar effect
on their album.
21

Photos: Emma Swann
NEWS
DIY
live
A round-up of the
gigs DIY’s
put on this month.
RAT BOY
T
Miranda, Ace Hotel, London, Class of 2016 Party
he Class of 2016 is here. The brightest, boldest,
barmiest bunch in an age are racing into next year, and
top of the tree is Rat Boy. Jordan Cardy’s gone from
bedroom-based mixtape churner to a bonafide star in the
space of twelve months. And on the basis of tonight’s Class
Of party at London’s Ace Hotel (sort of like a regular school
graduation party, but even more boozy), he’s not wasting time
in taking the next step.
On stage, Cardy is always looking for trouble. He’ll career
into his bandmates like a pinball, trading chants for skizzing
samples like it’s a fool’s game. Blink-and-you-missed-it banger
‘Wasteman’ is schooled in Fatboy Slim-style madness, while
go-to anthem ‘Fake ID’ is fast becoming his messed-up calling
card. Given the speed he approaches everything, it’s hard to
keep track of this Essex troubadour. He’ll encompass countless
genres, influences and bizarre ideas into one song. He hits a
completely new level live, though.
Dodgy lo-fi productions, attention-grabbing art and Twitter
antics have given Rat Boy his platform - and it’s completely his
own making. Tonight’s gig, arriving after big-deal arena dates
with The 1975, is a further showcase of just how far he can
go. With 2016 firmly in sight, make no mistake: There’s a fever
around this guy and it can’t be stopped. (Jamie Milton)
YOUTH
MAN
F
The Old Blue Last, London
rom the moment they clamber onto the stage, Youth
Man carry themselves with an impressive assurance.
Their set at this year’s Reading Festival felt special, and
tonight, that star potential shines through vicious snarls and
visceral cries. Tearing through a set that scares, enchants and
delights in equal measure, Youth Man are a force of nature.
‘Wide Awake’ allows everyone to take one step back from the
unrelenting thrash and shows off another dimension to the
band. One of big ideas and bigger emotion, this is a trio with
a lot left to offer. As the end of their set bares down, the room
collapses in chaos. Despite both guitarist Kaila Whyte and
bassist Miles Cocker going over in the pit (more than once),
not a moment of their set felt lacking. Christmas? We wish we
could watch Youth Man every day. (Ali Shutler)
coming up
FEBRUARY
18 Money, The Hare and Hounds, Birmingham
23 Kagoule, Curtain Call, The Old Blue Last, London
22 diymag.com

23

NEWS
SO YOU
THINK YOU
KNOW...
Arctic Monkeys’ debut
• The guy on the front
cover is Jon McClure’s
(Reverend and the
Makers) brother. His
name is Chris McClure
FYI.
• Arctic Monkeys got in
a bit of trouble with the
NHS for putting Chris
McClure on the cover,
what with the cigarette
and the less-than-sober
state he’s in. Doctors
said it was setting a bad
example.
• ‘Whatever People Say I
Am, That’s What I’m Not’
sold 360,000 copies in
its first week in the UK.
It remains as the fastestselling
debut album to
be released by a band
ever in this country.
Arctic Monkeys’
‘WHATEVER PEOPLE SAY I AM, THAT’S WHAT I’M NOT’
turns ten
It seems like moments ago that Alex Turner and co.’s first work emerged in a
blaze of teenage romance and dodgy deodorant, but Arctic Monkeys’ debut
album turns ten this month. It remains as vital as ever. Words: Amelia Maher.
Every generation possesses a defining album that fires up a blazing passion
somewhere in the subconscious. A record that encapsulates what it is to be
young at a particular moment in time. As those who were born in the early ‘90s
entered the first throes of adolescence, there was a sense that a moment had
been missed. We were growing up in a time where The Libertines and The Strokes had
already become household names, and the only other thing that people were banging
Arctic Monkeys have come a long
way, but can they ever buy a kebab
in peace again?
24 diymag.com

on about was how Britpop was dead and that there would
never be a band as big as Oasis. Then, something incredible
happened.
In Sheffield, somewhere around the High Green area, a
group of teenage boys asked for guitars for Christmas,
and despite barely being able to play anything between
them, they formed a band. They called themselves Arctic
Monkeys, and on 23rd January 2006, they released one of
the most exciting debut albums of the decade.
When ‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’
– a title nicked from the 1960s cult film Saturday Night/
Sunday Morning – was first released, it raised a massive
middle finger to the world. A band born of the MySpace
generation, Arctic Monkeys quickly became part of the
fabric of indie folklore. As they gave out free CDs at their
early gigs, fans immediately took to internet forums to
share the songs. They were an online phenomenon, despite
never even uploading a track online themselves.
This meant that months before the album came out, Arctic
Monkeys’ gigs were sold out, and fans already knowing
all the words to every song. By the time their first single
came out, they were the hottest prospect in years. The
band themselves reacted, frontman Alex Turner famously
with indifference, smirking “don’t believe the hype”
at the beginning of the video for ‘I Bet You Look Good
On Dancefloor’. It’s a track which seamlessly entwines
crashing indie rock at its most powerful with a reference to
Shakespeare’s greatest tragic love story.
There was a lot of hype, but a young Alex Turner was taking
it all in from afar. His observations of other bands on the gig
circuit cumulated in ‘Fake Tales Of San Francisco’, a track
with a simple, but highly effective driving riff that
provides the perfect basis for Turner’s dry wit and
uncanny ability to perfectly express the characters
that surround him.
SAVAGES
18 FEBRUARY
BEXHILL DE LA WARR PAVILION
19 FEBRUARY
CAMBRIDGE JUNCTION
21 FEBRUARY
GLASGOW ART SCHOOL
SEETICKETS.COM TICKETMASTER.CO.UK & VENUE BOX OFFICE
A METROPOLIS MUSIC PRESENTATION BY ARRANGEMENT WITH CODA
NEW ALBUM ‘ADORE LIFE’ OUT NOW
SAVAGESBAND.COM
22 FEBRUARY
MANCHESTER ALBERT HALL
23 FEBRUARY
LEEDS IRISH CENTRE
17 MARCH
LONDON ROUNDHOUSE
This poetic social commentary turned the
mundane to the beautiful, inspiring many. Whether
painting a disappointing night on the town in
‘From the Ritz to the Rubble’ or the girlfriend
in a piss on ‘Mardy Bum’, Turner wrote about
immediately recognisable events. When it was
backed by the power of Matt Helders’ drumming,
the cool groove of original bassist Andy Nicholson’s
riffs and the stand-offish presence of Jamie Cook,
the concoction was potent.
‘Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not’
summed up what it meant to be young, lost and
British in the early 21st century in an honest but
often hilarious way. At the end of it all, it is Turner’s
concluding remark that sticks longest. In ‘A Certain
Romance’ he sighs as he looks on at his friends
and says “they might overstep the line, but you
just cannot get angry in the same way”. As the
song launches into its final blast of surging energy,
Turner concludes that we might all be awkward
teenagers who can’t talk to girls in night clubs and
our mates might get into rows at cash machines
when we’re trying to get in a cab - but, we’re in this
together. Someday we’ll look back and realise it’s
not all that bad, and we’ll smile. DIY
25

NEWS
FESTIVALS
It’s still nippy outside, but Spring is just around the corner and that can mean only one thing: let festival season commence!
READING & LEEDS
The first eleven acts have been confirmed for next year’s Reading & Leeds, with
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Rat Boy and Hinds leading the charge.
Anthony Kiedis and co. will be returning to headline as a festival exclusive, while
DIY’s Class of 2016 star Rat Boy and previous cover stars Hinds will both be sure
to whip up a frenzy at the weekender.
Joining them are The 1975 - who will be appearing in support of their second
album ‘I Like It When You Sleep For You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware Of It’
- along with turbo-charged duo Slaves, Twenty One Pilots, Eagles of Death
Metal, Boy Better Know, The Courteeners, Crossfaith and DJ EZ.
Reading & Leeds takes place from 26th - 28th August, at Richfield Avenue and
Bramham Park respectively.
LIVE AT LEEDS
The first few acts have been confirmed for
next year’s Live at Leeds, with the likes of Rat
Boy (told you he’d be everywhere this year - Ed)
and Circa Waves.
The all-dayer will return to take over venues
across Leeds city centre on 30th April, and
organisers have now revealed the first artists
on the line-up.
Joining the Essex newcomer and
the Liverpudlian quartet will be Los
Campesinos!, Mystery Jets, Milk Teeth and
Class of 2016 acts INHEAVEN and Formation.
This will also be the first year that a new digital
programme will run in the days leading up to
Live At Leeds, from 25th - 29th April.
ROUNDHOUSE
RISING
Black Honey and Hannah Lou
Clark are two of the first acts
to be announced for this year’s
Roundhouse Rising, running from
17th - 20th March.
Taking place (unsurprisingly) at
The Roundhouse in Camden, the
four-day festival will also include
appearances from Kuenta i Tambu,
Auclair with the Roundhouse
Choir, Gillbanks, Phoebe Gold,
and Velcrolove.
This year’s event will also host a
DIY stage, alongside masterclasses,
panels and workshops.
SXSW
15th - 20th March
SXSW has added a number of new
acts including Bloc Party, Dilly Dally,
Protomartyr, Stormzy and loads
more. Other additions to the Texan
event include Ra Ra Riot, Holy Fuck,
Rich the Kid, The Big Pink, Polica,
Little Simz, Waxahatchee, Frankie
Cosmos, Thao & the Get Down Stay
Down and Hodgy Beats.
COACHELLA
15th - 17th / 22nd - 24th April
LCD Soundsystem and Guns N’ Roses
are officially reuniting for California’s
Coachella 2016. They’ll be joined
by Savages, Wolf Alice, The Last
Shadow Puppets, M83, Beach House,
The 1975, Halsey, CHVRCHES, Major
Lazer, Alessia Cara, Years & Years,
Run the Jewels, Courtney Barnett,
Grimes and The Kills. Blimey!
THE GREAT ESCAPE
19th - 21st May
The Great Escape have added another
slew of artists to their line-up this year,
including The Big Moon, Mabel, Elf
Kid and Willie J Healey. They join the
likes of Mystery Jets, Dilly Dally, Oh
Wonder and VANT, who are already set
to play the Brighton weekender.
PRIMAVERA SOUND
2nd - 4th June
It’s official! Radiohead are making
a return, and they’re going to be
appearing at this year’s Primavera
Sound. The Barcelona weekender will
also play host to the likes of the newlyreunited
LCD Soundsystem, Tame
Impala, Savages, PJ Harvey, The
Last Shadow Puppets and Animal
Collective.
BILBAO BBK LIVE
7th - 9th July
Wolf Alice lead the way with new
additions to Bilbao BBK Live. They’re
joined by Years & Years and Hola
A Todo El Mundo, who join already
signed up names Pixies, M83, Hot
Chip, New Order, Father John Misty,
Jose Gonzalez, Courtney Barnett
and We Are Standard.
26 diymag.com

MARCH 2016 TOUR
04 BELFAST MANDELA HALL
05 DUBLIN OLYMPIA
07 STOKE-ON-TRENT KEELE UNI STUDENTS UNION
10 MANCHESTER ACADEMY
11 NORWICH UEA
13 OXFORD O2 ACADEMY
14 PORTSMOUTH PYRAMIDS
16 GLASGOW BARROWLANDS
17 YORK BARBICAN
19 LEEDS O2 ACADEMY
21 FOLKESTONE LEAS CLIFF HALLS
22 BRIGHTON THE DOME
23 NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
24 CARDIFF GREAT HALL
26 LONDON O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN
27 LONDON O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN
28 LONDON O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
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27

“
SOMEONE
WALKED TO THE
FRONT OF THE
STAGE WITH A
NOTE AT A SHOW
IN SHEFFIELD.
IT READ,
‘YOU’RE
SHIT.’
“
No fucks given, GIRLI
isn’t messing around.
28 diymag.com

NEU
This North London
future-pop
sensation wants
to be anything but
‘alright’.
Words: Jamie Milton.
Photos: Phil Smithies.
GIRLI
DON’T BE
A DICK
GIRLI’s number one pet hate is guys who think
they can get away with being an arsehole at gigs.
“I’ve been touched up at gigs before and if it ever
happens, I fucking punch them,” she says. “It happened
at some DJ night in Brixton. I went and some guy just
kept touching my arse. I turned round and was like,
‘What raised you to think that was alright?’ There’s Girls
Against too. It’s so needed. Even at gigs where you
think the crowd’s gonna be pretty mellow… The fact
that teenage girls can’t go to a gig without fearing
they’ll be touched up. It’s so fucked. Who are
these guys that think it’d be alright? It’s
so strange. I wanna make my gigs
a friendly environment for
everyone.”
Self-professed “pink coated punky foul mouthed london gurl”
GIRLI is already drawing extreme reactions, and that’s exactly
what she wants. The 18-year-old can either provoke glee or
disgust, depending on who you ask. Fearlessness defines her
every step, a belief that if strangers wind up offended by what
she does, that’s completely fine.
“I want people to feel uncomfortable!” she beams, a few months on from
striking gold with the siren-backed call to arms ‘ASBOys’, an obnoxious track
designed for dispute. “The worst thing ever would be for someone to walk
away from a show and not have an extreme reaction… Someone walked to
the front of the stage with a note at a show in Sheffield and it read, ‘You’re
shit.’ Someone chucked something at me. And then I had a group of girls
who had come to see me and had glitter on their faces. That’s exactly what
I want.”
From the get-go, GIRLI has been determined to showcase what she stands
for. She’s set up her own radio station - the bonkers ‘GIRLI.FM’ - and on her
debut track, she spat out the line: “You thought I was gonna do a ballad?
Fuck off!”
Her ultimate mission is to “normalise things that some people see as taboo,”
for example: “In the studio recently, I wanted to sing “suck my clit”, but the
guy I was working with told me I should probably take that out. But if
I said “suck my dick,” you wouldn’t say that. On stage, women think
about what they wear really carefully. And guys don’t have that
problem. Look at punk music, someone like Iggy Pop - dudes
always take their shirt off and crowd surf. But if I took my shirt
off, everyone would be like ‘Woah, she’s extreme, she’s such a
slut’. It’s not fair. I suppose if I do that, I wanna shock people.
But only in a way where it no longer shocks people.”
With nothing but an iPod backing track and a fake ID her mum
bought her, the North Londoner started out by playing open
mic nights. “It was very different music. Still crazy, but I was a
lot more tame. I’d rock up and there’d be twenty blokes with
guitars, going ‘What the fuck?’” She grew up as the smart kid
in a comprehensive school (“whenever they see someone with
good grades, they want to make you a statistic”), but she only really
discovered herself when she started going out. “I’m writing about what
I see - my friends, London, funny shit that actually happened. It’s hard to
write about anything else,” she says, and so far she’s showcasing an in-yourface
chasm of local chicken shops and the dickheads she comes across. “I
had a bit of a crisis, in the middle of GCSEs, where I thought ‘Is this literally
it?’ Having a shit time at school, going to uni and having a couple of years
of jokes, and then going into a 9-5 job, and then another job, and then you
retire? I literally can’t do that. I had to realise that life is about having fun,”
she remembers, and it’s hard to find any other newcomer who sounds like
they’re having as much fun as GIRLI. DIY
29

For the past few
years, DIY’s ‘Hello’
nights have been rowdy,
sweaty, exciting glimpses into
the year ahead. We’ve had Wolf
Alice, Girl Band, Spring King
and Honeyblood playing early
shows at London’s The Old
Blue Last for this yearly
series.
diet cig
SLUTFACE
HELLO 2016!
Night 1 - 5th January
Slutface, Abattoir Blues,
Wesley Gonzalez, Shame
016’s rolled round, and the year already belongs to
Norwegian giants-in-waiting Slutface.
2The in-your-face pop punk force haven’t always been instant
heroes. They played an impressive debut London show
for DIY Presents in this very venue two months back, but
it was nothing akin to the headrush stage invasions taking
place tonight. Haley Shea must’ve been reading up on
commanding a stage for several years, because she fronts
the lumbering four-piece like it’s an instinct. Preceding
Slutface is the strongest cast these ‘Hello’ nights have
witnessed in yonks. Abattoir Blues have been bit-by-bit
rising to the top, pegged alongside The Magic Gang and
other Brighton gems. But there’s a new step in their stride.
Frontman Harry Waugh arrives in London after a few sleepless
nights, and madness creeps into the process of the group’s
brash post-punk dystopia. Meanwhile, former Let’s Wrestle
man Wesley Gonzalez is in a world of his own. Debut solo
gambit ‘Come Through and See Me’ is a playful tour through
bleak backstreets and amusement arcades. Openers Shame
attempt to create the same furore as Slutface. The South
London force are exactly that - a fully-charged electric shock of
adolescent energy. It’s a tops off affair for the Fat White Family
associates. They complete an exciting crop of new bands
playing tonight’s show, brushing off the post-Xmas cobwebs
and giving indication that 2016’s going to be a winner.
Night 2 - 12th January
Diet Cig, Bruising, Willie J
Healey, Trudy
A
good month in advance of Valentine’s Day, there’s
romance in the air. Sort of. Trudy are a Liverpoolbased
bunch who’d swap their instruments for
a bunch of roses if they had the option. Songs are full of
longing, but not in the traditional soppy ballad sense. On
record, Willie J Healey - an Oxford musician lapping up
early comparisons to King Krule - doesn’t fit with the fired-up
theatrics of Trudy. But something’s shifted in the last few
months. Over the course of the past year, Healey’s put together
a tight-knit live band who - given a few bottles of whiskey -
could give Mac DeMarco’s touring troupe a run for their money.
Stripping away the sharper edges of Willie’s sound, Bruising
swathe theirs in a sweaty fuzz. In ‘Honey’, they have a ready
made anthem in waiting, and they fire it out with gusto tonight,
likewise ‘Emo Friends’, which receives a far more rapturous
reception than its namesake would normally be able to muster.
After a brief mid-set-up singalong to Justin Bieber, Diet Cig
leap aboard the teeny Old Blue Last stage all grins and Ash
Ketchum-aping red caps, and that youthful abandon defines
every all-too-short second of tonight.
30 diymag.com

Goldenvoice Presents
THE LIBERTINES
29.01.16
BOURNEMOUTH BIC
30.01.16
LONDON THE O2
ANNE-MARIE
01.02.16
LONDON
VILLAGE UNDERGROUND
SOLD OUT
LUCY ROSE
03.02.16
LONDON HEATH STREET
BAPTIST CHURCH
SOLD OUT
PUBLIC SERVICE
BROADCASTING
07.02.16
LEEDS UNIVERSITY
REFECTORY
08.02.16
EDINBURGH QUEEN’S HALL
10.02.16
O2 ACADEMY LIVERPOOL
11.02.16
NOTTINGHAM ROCK CITY
12.02.16
NORWICH OPEN
VILLAGERS
+ AIDAN KNIGHT
+ HOLLY MACVE
11.02.16
LONDON ST JOHN AT
HACKNEY CHURCH
MARIBOU STATE
+ KHRUANGBIN
17.02.16
LONDON KOKO
SOLD OUT
BARNS COURTNEY
18.02.16
LONDON
HOXTON SQUARE BAR AND KITCHEN
HALSEY
+ BØRNS
+ FLOR
20.02.16
BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY
22.02.16
MANCHESTER ACADEMY
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
KIKO BUN
21.02.16
BRISTOL LOUISIANA
22.02.16
BRIGHTON KOMEDIA
25.02.16
BIRMINGHAM RAINBOW
HINDS
+ PUBLIC ACCESS TV
24.02.16
BRISTOL FLEECE
26.02.16
BRIGHTON PATTERNS
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
FAT WHITE FAMILY
28.02.16
O2 ACADEMY2 OXFORD)
EAGULLS
02.03.16
LONDON OLSO HACKNEY
SOLD OUT
FUFANU
02.03.16
LONDON SEBRIGHT ARMS
HONNE
03.03.16
BRIXTON ELECTIRC
RUDIMENTAL
05.03.16
PLYMOUTH PAVILLIONS
07.03.16
BIRMINGHAM O2 ACADEMY
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
ELLIE GOULDING
+ JOHN NEWMAN
+ LANY
08.03.16
CARDIFF MOTORPOINT ARENA
25.03.16
LONDON THE O2
25.03.16
LONDON THE O2
SOLD OUT
LAPSLEY
09.03.16
O2 INSTITUTE3, BIRMINGHAM
WOLF ALICE
13.03.16
O2 ACADEMY OXFORD
21.03.16
FOLKESTONE LEAS CLIFF HALL
22.03.16
BRIGHTON DOME
24.03.16
CARDIFF UNIVERSITY
GREAT HALL
26.03.16
O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN
27.03.16
O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN
28.03.16
O2 FORUM KENTISH TOWN
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
BRYSON TILLER
28.03.16
LONDON KOKO
29.03.16
LONDON KOKO
30.03.16
LONDON KOKO
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
BIG UPS
30.03.16
LONDON LEXINGTON
MATT & KIM
08.04.16
LONDON SCALA
YEARS & YEARS
+ MØ
01.04.16
BIRMINGHAM
BARCLAYCARD ARENA
04.04.16
BOURNEMOUTH BIC
05.04.16
PLYMOUTH PAVILLIONS
08.04.16
THE SSE ARENA WEMBLEY
SOLD OUT
EKKAH
07.04.16
LONDON OSLO HACKNEY
ISLAND
20.04.16
LONDON OSLO HACKNEY
TOURIST
11.05.16
XOYO LONDON
12.05.16
THE HAUNT BRIGHTON
FATHER JOHN MISTY
18.05.16
LONDON THE ROUNDHOUSE
19.05.16
LONDON THE ROUNDHOUSE
20.05.16
LONDON THE ROUNDHOUSE
SOLD OUT
SOLD OUT
SHURA
26.05.16
O2 SHEPHERD’S
BUSH EMPIRE
LION BABE
01.06.16
LONDON KOKO
JAN–JUN
www.goldenvoice.co.uk
31

New York-based obsessive Aaron Maine is coming to
a doorstep near you. Words: Tom Walters.
Things are getting weird for Aaron
Maine. He’s spent the day listening
back to a test pressing of ‘Pool’, the
second full length under his Porches
NEU
moniker, after spending the week
taking in London while playing shows. It’s a far
cry from where he was two years ago with debut
record ‘Slow Dance in the Cosmos’, a highly
melancholic collection of heavy-hitting indie
that couldn’t be anything less like what he’s produced on ‘Pool’. More
of a major step sideways than forwards, it’s a testament to growing up,
moving around and realising that your tastes don’t stay the same forever.
“I think I just felt a lot different when I moved to the city,” he explains.
Maine had spent the majority of his life living in a suburb with his mum
on the outskirts of New York, moving to Manhattan when was was twenty-three,
where he quickly felt a disassociation with rock music. He didn’t
want to mope around anymore. He wanted to dance, and he wanted
people to dance with him.
Those looking for a taste of the dingy darkness that permeated ‘Slow
Dance…’ shouldn’t worry, though. The songs on ‘Pool’ are still dark,
they’re just executed through luscious ‘80s pop, affected synthesisers
and even splashes of autotune. It’s a real u-turn. “I like that,” Maine says
on the more subtle approach he’s taken to bleakness. “I like injecting
dance music with some more melancholic vibes. Arthur Russell has been
a big, big influence. One of my best friends showed me this Blood Orange
record [‘Cupid Deluxe’] when I first got to the city, and in turn that sent
me down this Terrible Records rabbit-hole. I just wanted to start making
music that I wanted to listen to more.”
Post-Manhattan move, Maine quickly found himself with a laptop for
the first time in years, and made the most instinctive and intuitive move
a musician with a computer can make - he got a copy of Logic. “I just
started recording these songs and got super interested in doing things in
a proper way,” he says of the recording process. It shows too - the songs
on ‘Pool’ sound crystal clear and refined - they’re polished pop gems of
the highest order.
“You know, I realised that it was kind of an interesting growing process
writing these songs,” he says, the recognition seemingly happening
there and then in his voice. “Experimenting with different moods, and
even lyrics and stuff... I don’t know, I guess I just wanted to grow is all.
Throughout all of this, I’ve kind of realised and have accepted that I am
drawn to the more melancholic moments in life; the specific beauty and
emotion that comes from that feeling. So I’m just trying to hone that and
own it and make sure that rather than focusing on the negative side of
that situation, I’m focusing more on the strange happiness that is also
involved in that melancholiness, if that’s what you call it!”
Porches’ new album ‘Pool’ is out 5th February via Domino. DIY
“I LIKE
INJECTING
DANCE MUSIC
WITH SOME MORE
MELANCHOLIC
VIBES.” -
AARON MAINE
32 diymag.com

neu
Estrons
Cardiff charmers exploding into life.
Few bands sound like they’re not just
racing out the blocks, but speeding
straight out the stadium. Cardiff’s
ESTRONS are swept up in their own
fever. ‘Make a Man’ is an all-commanding
triumph that’ll be tough to top. Chances
are they’ve already penned a dozen
giants to match this marker.
Listen: ‘Make a Man’ will make you a fan.
Similar to: A bonkers Slutface x Paramore
hybrid.
Recommended
ardyn
wall
Twins onto a winner.
Stroud twins Ardyn are going way beyond sibling instinct. On
their haunting debut track ‘Universe’, the pair spun darkness
around simple, affecting songwriting. Their skill clearly
exists in shunning optimism by default, and their Rodaidh
McDonald-produced debut EP is an almighty first step.
Listen: ‘The Garden’ is a highlight from EP ‘The Universe’.
Similar to: Angel Olsen turning her attention to piano-led
balladry.
Devilish New York post-punks blending
intellect with giant ambition.
Believe in the way of Sam York. Fronting New York
newcomers WALL, she brings the authority of preceding
punk movements, matching these references with a smart,
cutting delivery. Chants about “big black suits dressed as
little white lies” put the subject matter upfront, whether
she’s laying law to big-wig poshos or city screwballs.
Listen: Their debut self-titled EP is out now.
Similar to: Parquet Courts with a vengeance.
elf kid
Lewisham’s new poster-boy, with one eye on the universe.
Surely it’s a fool’s move to sample Amerie’s cherished ‘1
Thing’ for an opening gambit. But South London grime
newcomer Elf Kid takes the ‘see what sticks’ approaches, and
99% of the time it pays off. ‘Golden Boy’ has fast become the
current craze. On repeat in every postcode going, Elf Kid is
more accessible than any grime artist to emerge in months. If
Stormzy can tackle the top ten, this guy can go one further.
Listen: ‘Golden Boy’, obviously.
Similar to: The sound of London taking over the world.
Creeper - The
Stranger
The first release
with their new
line-up, DIY Class
Of favourites
Creeper are
stepping up a
gear with an allembracing,
vital new
EP. It’s out 19th February.
this month in
eps
LANY - Make Out
If you’re new to LANY, get in the know.
This LA-based trio make heart-thumping,
impassioned pop. They’ve big ambitions,
and they’re supporting Ellie Goulding on
her March UK tour. ‘Make Out’ is out now.
Pouty - Take Me to Honey Island
Rachel Gagliardi’s first work as Pouty sees the
Slutever member bringing technicolour fireworks
out of everyday frustrations. Tracks on the EP
carry simple-as-it-gets titles like ‘Sad’, ‘Moody’
and ‘Awake’, but buried within is a bright, evershifting
supply of ideas. Out on 16th Feb.
33

The unsteady opening
of ‘The Curtains’, the first
track on Cross Record’s
‘Wabi Sabi’, is the sort of
NEU
music you’d expect to
find soundtracking a baby
deer’s first steps. Nervous,
gangly and stumbling
more than once, it isn’t
long before the track finds its feet and is prancing
across the Austin wilderness.
That determined adventure drives the nine tracks
of ‘Wabi Sabi’ into unfamiliar territory. But it’s also
the story behind Cross Record’s migration from
their home of Chicago to the expanse of a Texan
ranch called Moon Phase.
Between putting away groceries at the house
where she works as a nanny, Emily Cross - who,
alongside her husband Dan Duszynski, makes
up Cross Record - admits that the record would
have been “very different” if they’d stayed in
Chicago. “We just have so much freedom and space
to experiment, to have fun and make a lot of noise,”
she starts. “That affected the album a lot but I don’t
actually know how yet. I haven’t really evaluated it.”
The freedom found throughout ‘Wabi Sabi’ is
reflective of where Emily finds herself. “I just turned
twenty-seven and I feel like I don’t have a great
deal of distraction in my life. I’m married and I have
a good rhythm with my home life. I have a lot of
Cross
Record
freedom to not worry about the things I used to
worry about and focus on my creative outlets.”
Recorded at home, and taking on a majority of the
production themselves, ‘Wabi Sabi’ was crafted in
the environment that inspired it. “I couldn’t do it
any other way,” says Emily before admitting, “there
were definitely weeks where we didn’t touch the
album at all,” because they needed space from it.
“We actually started over several songs over three
or four times because they just weren’t right in my
head. I could never do it in a professional studio
because it would be so expensive.”
Emily is on the move again though. She’s flying out
to visit her father in Thailand for a few months to
“start working on another record.” Another bold
move to continue expanding their horizons.
With Cross Record, there’s a sense of exploration.
They’re constantly discovering things and
capturing that on record. Beyond the joy of
creating, there’s not much else they want. “You
know that people are going to hear it but that’s
not at the forefront of our minds. It’s not why we
do certain things. I just liked making it and I want
people to hear it. I guess what I want to achieve is
that I want people to hear it, to enjoy it. I want them
to feel a certain way,” she offers, but doesn’t go into
specifics. That’s left up to you.
Cross Record’s new album ‘Wabi-Sabi’ is out
now via Ba Da Bing Records. DIY
Crossing the
borders
Emily Cross’
journey has
taken her all
around the
world. Beyond
Austin, here are
the locations
that matter:
JAPAN
‘Wabi-Sabi’
takes its name
from a Japanese
aesthetic,
which is all
about “beauty
found in
impermanence
and
imperfection”.
Easier said than
done, mate.
FLORIDA
Cross grew
up here, after
being born in
the Midwest.
CHICAGO
It was here
where Cross
graduated with
a BFA from the
School of the
Art Institute of
Chicago. Hence
why she’s not
just about the
music.
Chances are you might have
crossed paths with Emily Cross. This
experimental musician has been
everywhere. Words: Ali Shutler.
34 diymag.com

35

36 diymag.com

Savages
are the
Surrendering to love on ‘Adore Life’, Savages have grown into one of the most vital bands around.
Answer
Words: El Hunt.
Photos: Mike Massaro.
Live Photos: Andrew Benge.
Make up: Martina Luisetti.
37

Savages don’t mess about. The first,
carefully chosen glimpse of the
band’s new record arrived as ‘The
Answer’ - the very definition of a
confident statement by title alone.
Agitated razor blade guitars collide
headlong with drums that pound
the living shit out of everything in sight, with no relent. Sheer
mechanical brawn smacks into the heart headlong, on the
teetering edge of obliterating everything. In their second
album ‘Adore Life’ Savages also unearth something less
towering, that is subject to poor decisions, and vulnerability
amid the onslaught of white noise. Savages write music that
is completely human. They seem to provide an answer or
remedy to the chaotic, tangled-up web of life. There’s nobody
else around quite like this.
The band rock up in their customary all-black uniforms,
cutting the formidable sort of picture you’d expect. When
Jehnny Beth and Gemma Thompson order a cuppa, they make
it seem swiftly efficient. Wrong-footings aren’t shot down in
flames, but receive a far more cutting reply; the air of being
mildly unimpressed. Frighteningly ambitious, and willing
to give every ounce of their being to this magical beast that
they’ve created together, Savages have more than earned
their right to be imposing, and they are imposing. Truly scary,
though? Nah.
Today, drummer Fay Milton is busy sparring with her granola
bar wrapper. “Morning!” she exclaims chirpily, neglecting to
notice that the clock has already
chimed midday. “I don’t know
what I’m saying,” she laughs, “a
bunch of words. Let’s talk about
food?” she eventually suggests.
“It’s not even that early,” concedes
her band mate, bassist Ayşe
Hassan.
Fay’s granola-based crisis surely
marks out one of very few
instances where Savages have
been unsure of exactly what to
say. Upon forming, the band set
out with intense focus; eyes keenly
trained on a single objective.
‘Silence Yourself’ was a debut
concerned with insular hyperconcentration.
Its end goal - amid
everyone else outside their bubble
trying to pull the new band in different directions - was total
artistic freedom.
“If you are focused, you are harder to reach. If you are
distracted, you are available,” declared the part-poem-partmanifesto
printed on the debut’s cover. With the barriers up,
and all outside interferers violently opposed, ‘Silence Yourself’
- by name, and nature - was a bolshy, confrontational first
record. Intentionally so. “You have to fight a bit for your own
space,” states Jehnny Beth. “I think every band that starts has
to do it. It’s your first totem.”
The band certainly fought for space and control over the
dialogue, and then some. They were unwilling to be shaped
against their wills. As the first rave reviews began to come
out, Jehnny Beth calmly took a biro to every press clipping
that referred to Savages as an “all-female band” - quietly
taking down the empty categorisation, and marking it out as
irrelevant. When their debut was nominated for the Mercury
Prize, Savages didn’t just zip up and sip the complimentary
champers. Though they were grateful for the wider acclaim,
they also openly debated what the nomination symbolises,
and how it lines up with what they want to achieve as a band.
That’s Savages, all over.
“I don’t want to carry any flags, I’m just doing my thing,”
Jehnny Beth once told DIY over the phone, speaking from a
bustling Italian restaurant shortly after that Mercury nod in
2013. “I will just carry my own armour,” she stated, gleefully,
“and do my own shit!”
“I think we were very guarded on the first record,” admits
Fay in a similar vein, today. “You have to establish yourself
in the way you want.” Ayşe’s on the same page, too, though
she insists that much of their debut’s confrontation was
less to do with anger, and more concerned with survival.
“‘Silence Yourself’ was about us having focus,” she explains.
“We needed to protect ourselves as a band from everything;
to learn how to be a band together. To keep what we had
together, as a band.”
Savages quickly garnered a fearsome reputation; for their
volatile live show, their seriousness, their artistic intensity, and
their complete intolerance for dealing with other people’s
nonsense. It also landed them with a name for being, to put it
bluntly, scary.
“I think scary’s ok,” says a decidedly
not-scary Jehnny Beth today,
leaning across the table with an
arched eyebrow and comedy shrug.
“I like scary. Why not?”
“I think, as a woman as well, if you’re
being serious, you’re scary,” adds
Fay. “Ooo!” she exclaims, providing
a pantomime villain noise for extra
effect. “When you know what you
want, you cut to the chase,” grins
Ayşe. “You say it.”
“It’s an intensity,” expands guitarist
Gemma Thompson. “Sometimes
you have to just play. You can’t
think of anything at all, past that
point. That puts you in an intense
place. That’s what you’re after,” she
concludes. “That’s what you’re trying to find. It’s the reason
that we do this.”
Standing tall and balanced precariously on the metal
barriers of live shows, like a ship’s steely-eyed figurehead
at the helm of the good ship Savage, it’s no real surprise
38 diymag.com

“We’re not going to skip
some parts of love, that
are
maybe more dark, or
more
shameful, more
personal.”
Jehnny Beth
39 39

that Jehnny Beth in particular
revels in a confrontational strain of
theatricality.
“The stage is a place of freedom,”
she grins. “You can be anything.”
With every sweat-drenched club
show, and every chaos-fuelled
festival appearance that followed
the band’s debut, that drama only
grew more pronounced; more unlike
anything else on earth. Gradually
the instant magnetism between
Savages and their surging crowd
led them in a new direction. Their
destination? The zest-for-life-filled,
connection-seeking ‘Adore Life’.
“Our shows were getting warmer
and warmer, and something was
happening,” nods Jehnny. “There’s
a really good French word I can’t
translate,” she says, ”bienveillant.”
Meaning roughly the same thing as
benevolent, it’s an accurate word
for what Savages have become.
For every move their debut made
to build up walls, and assemble
bunkers, ‘Adore Life’ tears them back
down with vengeance.
“I think that comes from us playing
together for three years,” Ayşe
assesses. “Naturally we’ve grown
together as a band, experienced
things from the audience. I see
a gig as a shared experience of
emotion and intensity between the
audience and us. It’s that transfer
of energy that we’ve become more
comfortable with, maybe, in a
strange way. We embrace it more
rather than being insular.”
In that muddied, indefinable way
that electronic sparks and lightbulb
moments tend to take on a concrete
shape, ‘Adore Life’ steadily began to
find its own form. Live connection
was already firmly on the band’s
mind. They watched Michael Gira
- one of their heroes, and the man
who infamously called Savages
“terrifying” before later apologising
- perform several years ago at Best
Kept Secret festival, with his band
Swans. Another handful of jigsaw
pieces slotted into the hazy
puzzle. After that Swans
show Jehnny Beth went
away and wrote down
a phrase on one of her
many online blog posts.
“Love was the answer.”
That sentence
began to set down
meaningful root,
without Savages
Nice hat, Mike.
even realising at the time.
“That was a key moment in finding
a way to talk about love,” agrees
Jehnny, looking back on that pivotal
Swans show in 2013. “How [Gira]
does it, obviously, is very universal,
and grandiose, goth-like. That
was interesting for us.” Her initial
jotting-down - “love was the answer”
- would, over time, become the hellraising
second album opener, ‘The
Answer’. The wheels were careering
into unstoppable motion.
“Gemma came up with that riff,
and we decided to make that the
song,” Jehnny Beth explains. “That
impact, and that sound - like being
in the middle of the eye of the
storm - made it possible to use this
line. It allowed us to say something
vulnerable, and naive, in a way.”
Once that idea of carefully tensioned
contrast hit like a weighty tonne of
feathers, there was no looking back.
Savages found themselves writing
sprawlingly ambitious music, as loud
as it was looming.
“We
did
humour!”
Fay Milton
“I remember the guitar sound and
the bass invading all the corridors.
Even to the toilets you could
hear them,” observes Jehnny,
remembering the band’s three-week
stint in RAK studios in London. “Out
the front, if the door was open, you
could hear squalls of guitar,” says
Gemma, looking back. “Down the
street!” smirks a delighted Jehnny.
“The posh street, the posh people.
That was good.”
“The stage is
a place of
freedom.
You can be
anything.” -
Jehnny Beth
With these pillars in place,
Savages set out with another
of their infamous manifestos in
mind for album number two.
“We try to work with intention,”
says Jehnny, who has strong feelings about the
subject. “Writing manifestos can be perceived
as too ‘serious’,” wrote the frontwoman three
years ago. “It became rather playful for me,” she
said. “This is not school, you don’t have to please
anyone but yourself, you don’t have to be a good
student. However, you are your own teacher.”
It’s a sentiment she reiterates today. “A manifesto
is a positive statement,” she points out. “It’s
something that should feel inspiring once you’ve
read it.”
40 diymag.com

The manifesto for ‘Adore Life’ was focused on several distinct
ideas. Firstly, they agree unanimously, the process was about
trust. “We could leave each other to it,” says Gemma, “and
they would understand everything we needed to achieve.”
Throughout the process members of Savages were constantly
“popping in and out,” of the picture, with full confidence that
they were all picturing the same end result. “Freedom was rule
number one,” states Jehnny, “create space for each other in
what we’re doing.”
“We wanted to do a record about love,” she continues, moving
on to objective number two. “It was instinctive, at first,” she
says, referring back to those initial flint-sparks, “and then it
became a decision. If we’re going to do this, we’re going to do
it all the way. We’re not going to skip some parts of love, that
are maybe more dark, or more shameful, more personal.”
No aspect of love escapes unstudied on ‘Adore Life’. Stealing
away from anonymous bedrooms, fucking in corridors,
balancing an entire friendship on the risky knife-edge of lust,
and surrendering to all-consuming desire, much airtime is
given to those gnarled corners of love that spell out danger
in hastily scrawled warning letters. As much as Richard
Curtis would have you believe otherwise, love doesn’t
always end with a brawl for honour in a Greek restaurant, a
choreographed snog in a scenic location, or a merrily rolling
reel of credits. Love is usually far more messy than that.
“We were trying to make a record that was quite psychotic and
nuanced,” Jehnny Beth says. “Love, with all different facets,
and the contradictory feelings you can have, when in love.”
‘When In Love’, indeed. Just one prominent example of
Savages’ newly-unearthed touch of warmth, that song hits
an especially specific, everyday nerve. “I hate your taste in
music,” spits Jehnny Beth at one point, her voice bursting with
sheer, undiluted venom.
41

Savages stuck with a familiar
face from their inner circle when
they made ‘Adore Life’. Manning
the production desk for a second
time, their close associate Johnny
Hostile was key when it came to
making the album take on a pulse
of its own.
Embracing
the Hostile
Fay: It’s funny, the production of
[‘Silence Yourself’]. When we did it,
we were so happy with it. Two years
on, you’re like, ‘oh god, so many
things I would do differently!’ I think
Johnny [Hostile] had all of the same
things he wanted to do differently.
We’re growing together in that way.
It just made absolute sense to keep
the team together.
Gemma: We knew with Johnny that
he would make everything feasible
that we needed to do, and that he
would understand it in abstract terms;
our descriptions of sound, and how
one thing related to the other. I guess,
most importantly, he understands the
characters behind each instrument,
and how that related to the sound. It’s
not just a case of
sound and voice
with this band, it’s
about more. It’s
important to find
someone who
understands that.
42 diymag.com

She roars with laughter today at the suggestion that
conflicting music taste is a Tinder dater’s worst nightmare.
“It’s interesting to say very detailed, trivial things like that, that
really get under your skin for some reason,” she reasons, “and
to contrast that with a more universal idea.”
Fay has her own favourite lyric on that same track. “I’m gonna
leave you forever, but next time I’m in the neighbourhood
I’ll be knocking at your door,” she beams. “You know, when
you’re like ‘I’m leaving you!’ but you’re too mad to let it
happen? ‘Please take me back!’ I love that. Melodrama, a bit
rock opera.”
“I used to love playing that song, when we were first testing
it out,” says Ayşe, “I used to look at Fay, and she’d be...” her
bandmate fist-pumps exuberantly across the table. “Brackets:
punching the air,” Fay quips for the benefit of the dictaphone.
“It’s got some vibes in there.”
Despite their frequent - and tongue in cheek - insistence
that they’re a “humourless” band, that same playfulness has
always been present in Savages’ repertoire. A sharp-tongued
lyricist, Jehnny Beth’s dry, dark bend on wit peeked through
the deceiving surface rage of debut tracks like ‘Strife’ - a song
which asked ”how come I’ve been doing things with you I
would never tell my mum?” Those foundations are magnified
“Perhaps having deconstructed everything we should be
thinking about putting everything back together,” concluded
the band in ‘Silence Yourself’’s opening statement of intent. In
the beginning, Savages set out like careful dissectors, peeling
off every spare bit of musical gristle, and leaving behind
a bare, minimal skeleton. Now, there’s a hopeful, utopian
edge. An answer to the bleak and deconstructed, ‘Adore Life’
does seem like an album concerned with putting everything
back together again, too. Space and time are no longer held
hostage; eerie, suspended moments of silence ring through
‘Adore’, and improvised pockets building like tumbling
boulders of noise. Jehnny Beth ponders this, frowning. “It
could be seen like that, actually,” she decides. “Yeah. It could.”
“They inform each other,” she continues. “I wouldn’t say the
second record is the answer, because that would mean that
this is it...” she says, followed by an uproarious outburst.
“That’s it! Done! That’s the answer!” laughs Gemma. “I
understand where you’re coming from,” Jehnny picks up. “It’s
a really instinctive process. A rise,” finishes Gemma.
“Rise is a good word, actually,” concludes Jehnny. “An
instinctive rise.” “It sounds like intellectual porn,” exclaims
Gemma suddenly.
As they attempt to regain composure, One
Direction’s ‘Drag Me Down’ blares without warning
out of the crackly cafe speakers. The pair wince
slightly. “I don’t remember your question,” deadpans
Jehnny Beth.
Savages’ gathering together today comes shortly
after they played their final show of a packed year,
in the school hall-type surroundings of Tufnell Park
Dome. The band showcased a huge chunk of ‘Adore
Life,’ menacing a transfixed room with the thudding
bass of ‘Sad Person’ and the waltzing, meandering
strut, ‘Slowing Down the World’. The reaction in
that room was of the instantly palpable kind. The air
hung thick with a rare variety of tingly, goosebumpy
energy that can almost be grabbed a-hold of,
because it seems so physical, so real.
“I felt it,” says Jehnny Beth, quietly, before grinning
widely. “I can’t even imagine how it’s going to
be when people know the record! It’s gonna be
awesome.”
on ‘Adore Life’. “We did humour!” announces Fay, wryly. “But
you know,” reasons Ayşe, being - ironically - entirely serious at
this point. ”People did think we were serious.”
While the stomping ‘T.I.W.Y.G’ - which is, according to Fay
“intentionally quite mad.” - concludes with boisterous canned
laughter, sort-of title track ‘Adore’ veers from goosebumpy
sparseness to arm-swinging rock opera territory in a joy-filled
skip. That’s not to say that Savages have donned comedy
water-pistols. ‘Adore Life’ is also an aggressive, vulnerable,
thoughtful, poetic beast of an album, and it’s very much part
of the same journey.
“We couldn’t have done it without that first record being
there, and that process of touring.” Gemma says. “It gives us
the freedom and openness to say more within the context of
Savages. We’re strong enough to do that.”
Lately, the band have been starting their sets with
the sparse, isolated warm-up vocals of ‘I Need
Something New’ - a song they originally wrote on the stage
as “a way to speak to each other.” A search for newness, and
a ferocious pursuit of the unexpected, remains Savages’
biggest manifesto point of all. “It’s funny,” starts Jehnny Beth.
“I feel sometimes it calms my nerves if I know that something
unexpected is going to happen. In a way it’s accepting the
chaos. It’s less scary than thinking, ‘I’ve got to do this same
thing, exactly the same as yesterday’. That feels scary,” she
laughs.
“Make it yours,” offers Gemma, as a tailored alternative to
simply making it new. “Make it new for yourself,” agrees
Jehnny. “That’s enough.”
Savages’ album ‘Adore Life’ is out now via Matador. DIY
43

Thera
London trio Daughter return with a second album bigger, more direct and drenched in sorrow. It’s a full-on experience
A Weird Kind of
44 diymag.com

feeling anything after
hearing our songs is the most
“Someone
beautiful thing,” beams Elena Tonra,
responding to her bandmate Igor
Haefeli recalling times Daughter
have been approached by fans
affected by their music.
“People would come and see us after shows and say ‘your
song has expressed a feeling I’ve had that I haven’t really been
able to put my finger on’, and that’s an amazing thing,” he
remembers. “Whether that’s what the song was intended for,
or carries the same meaning for us as it does for the fan, is a
completely different question - but anything that helps them
understand, or realise that they’re even feeling something at
all, is great.”
It’s not difficult to see why fans are getting caught up in
Tonra’s tales. 2013 debut album ‘If You Leave’ took the
bubbling sorrow of the band’s twin EPs and sent the message
head-first into full-on agony. It was, and is, a cripplingly sad
album, but one that struck through the pain with Haefeli’s
sky-reaching, reverb-drowned guitars, offering hope and an
escape.
When the bulk of the ‘If You Leave’ tour was completed at
the start of 2014, Tonra, Haefeli and drummer Remi Aguilella
started to collate the many “scattered bits of paper” that had
been hurriedly noted down in soundchecks and dressing
rooms far from home into fully formed ideas back in London.
Work began after a much-needed break around Christmas
2013. “We consciously decided not to tour for a while and to
start working,” explains Tonra. “I remember when we were
on the tour we already had some guitar ideas floating about,
and we’d jam them in soundcheck, but it never felt like we
fully dived into it until we were like ‘right, brains are clear of
touring, let’s get into it!’”
The short time away, the band’s first in over a year, might not
have allowed them freedom from becoming embedded in
ideas for LP2 - “even if we have holidays we’re still emotionally
‘in the band’” - but it allowed the ‘Not To Disappear’ process to
have a defined starting point. ‘If You Leave’ brought together
tracks from since the very beginning of Daughter, borrowing
‘Youth’ from ‘The Wild Youth’ EP, and Haefeli sees a greater
togetherness between the ten songs because of this.
“We were being a bit more direct. It was interesting, as it was
the first time for us that, lyrically and musically, the album
grew hand in hand. It wasn’t about adapting to one another, it
was about seeing it progress together.”
pyWords: Will Richards.
for everyone involved.
Photos: Emma Swann.
A greater anger and aggression is something that bursts out
of certain corners of ‘Not To Disappear’, and Elena recalls
recording vocals for album standout ‘No Care’ by following
45

the existing guitar line and improvising
her anger into verse. “We had this guitar
loop which was very distorted and
sludgy, and that song was a case of me
pressing record and just spilling. That
wasn’t even written down, just ranted
out. I think it feels a bit like that too, just
spitting out words.”
After more time laying down ideas and
demos in Tottenham, the band decamped
to New York at the beginning
of summer 2014. The main reason for
heading to the city was to live and work
with producer Nicolas Vernhes, who has
previously worked with Deerhunter,
Animal Collective and The War On
Drugs, at his Rare Book Room studios
in Brooklyn.
Tonra cites producer Vernhes’ studio
itself as being a big influencer in how
‘Not To Disappear’ turned out. “All of
the stuff he has is brilliant. Just being in
his space with all of his tools is already
quite a magical thing. Going into
someone else’s space - and it literally
is his house as well - and having all this
gear at your disposal was wonderful. It
was like a treasure trove. I’d think ‘woah!
what’s this?’ time and time again. I think
you can hear him and his essence in the
record, which I love.”
The band speak of ‘If You Leave’’s
“bedroom-y quality”, and cite their
ascent to bigger venues and festival
stages on its tour as a reason for the
mightier tones on ‘Not To Disappear’.
“Because you’re playing in front of
a bigger audience, you tend to play
a little heavier, and the songs get
more intense,” explains Aguilella. “[At
festivals,] you’re never entirely sure
how people are going to react or if the
crowd are going to be quiet enough to
hear what’s happening. It would have
been very interesting to see what ‘If You
Leave’ would have sounded like if we
had recorded it at the end of the cycle.”
Tonra’s words have largely become
the focal point of Daughter as a band,
and a greater honesty was something
she tried to convey with the lyrics on
‘Not To Disappear’. “Looking back at ‘If
You Leave’, it feels like the songs were
hiding behind a curtain of imagery
and metaphors, and not quite saying
‘okay this is how I feel’. I think ‘Not To
Disappear’ is a lot more bare in that
way.”
Beginning an album with a song titled
‘New Ways’ could easily have been
the main statement of intent from
Daughter and their new album. Instead
it was the record’s first single, ‘Doing
The Right Thing’, that became the
‘moment’ of Daughter’s second age.
The song honestly and brutally dissects
feelings of worry and loss associated
with dementia and Alzheimer’s. It’s one
of the biggest, toughest subjects to
tackle, not to mention to then release as
the first single.
“I never sit down and think ‘I’m going to
write a song about this’, so when ‘Doing
The Right Thing’ happened, that was
a really odd one. It started feeling like
it was about one thing, and then really
quite instantly drifted into being about
my Grandmother and trying to see the
world from her perspective. That in
particular was something I didn’t realise
I was so affected by until I saw it coming
out in these songs. I’d stop halfway
through writing the song and realise
‘oh, I’m actually very sad about this’.”
Family is a theme tied to multiple
Daughter songs, and the entirety of
‘Not To Disappear’. It can also, of course,
be traced back to the band’s name. It’s
a testament to Tonra’s sincerity that she
largely didn’t even notice such a lyrical
pattern was forming on the album,
just writing what she felt. “I reference
them a lot. Even in the first album they
would crop up in unexpected scenarios.
I’d be writing a song that wasn’t even
about them and then think ‘oh hey Dad,
what’s going on?’ That happened a lot
this time, especially with my mother
and my grandmother. They crop up
frequently, and I’m going through a
time where they’re on my mind a lot,
especially my grandmother. I connect a
lot of my thoughts to the idea of family
and family members. It’s the women in
my family on this record. Which is cool.
They’re pretty badass.”
Tonra also explains the way “that
feeling where you don’t really have
anyone when you’re on the road” also
formed a lot of the subject matter on
‘Not To Disappear’. “There’s certain
people who you stop and think, ‘I am so
far away from you’, and you can Skype
someone or whatever, but it’s not the
same.” It’s something Igor can also
attest to.
“With the feeling of loneliness on
the album, the way I related to it was
through memories of touring, and
feeling alone in huge, unfamiliar cities,
even while surrounded by people. You
feel quite alienated: you stand in front
of a really warm, appreciative crowd
for an hour who make you feel great,
but most of the time you’re trying to
find your place within these massive
venues. Even sonically, we used the idea
of pushing electronic sounds, and using
metallic, harsher reverb which contrasts
with the more warm, organic sounds
and live drums. It’s creating a sense of
thinking, feeling, being while having all
this man-made stuff around you.”
“I’D STOP HALFWAY THROUGH WRITING
A SONG AND REALISE, ‘OH, I’M
ACTUALLY VERY SAD
ABOUT THIS’.” ELENA TONRA
Along with the droves of fans who tell
Tonra how much they relate to her
words, she speaks of using them herself
for retrospective self-analysis. “The
[songs] I’m most drawn to are the ones
that are the most emotional for me,
but I don’t realise a universal theme is
unfolding until you look over the whole
album and go ‘oh, cool, most of these
are about how lonely I feel in different
situations’. What’s quite cool about that
- in a weird way - is that I can look back
on old songs and see how I was feeling
at a certain time, which is a good study
of your own brain and development
as a person. It’s a weird therapy, where
you can look back and see what you did
right and wrong, and what you were
really thinking.”
It might take Elena Tonra years to
personally dissect ‘Not To Disappear’,
but the sentiment is so strong, and the
messages are so important, that it will
surely affect many more before her.
Daughter’s new album ‘Not to
Disappear’ is out now via 4AD. DIY
46 diymag.com

47

MILK TREATS
It’s not all bloody noses and big riffs in
camp Milk Teeth – they’ve got a fluffy
side too. While recording ‘Vile Child’,
the band “saved a kitten”, as Oli recalls,
before Chris tells the tale: “We went
on a walk around these lanes, and
heard this screaming, meow thing.
There’s nothing around for miles, and
there were no other cats or anything
around, so it must have been dumped.
We brought it back, and it had loads of
fleas and a gammy eye, and producer
Neil [Kennedy] was actually looking
for a cat - he’d been on websites the
whole time we were
there – so he ended up
keeping it and naming
it after one of our songs!
It’s called Bagel! Which is
a good name for a cat.”
48 diymag.com

With ‘Vile Child’,
Milk Teeth have
channelled their road miles
into one of the year’s most
fast and furious debuts. Now
they’re set to reap the rewards,
as long as they don’t lose too
much blood. Words: Tom
Connick. Photos: Emma
Swann.
bird did get
me,” sighs Milk
Teeth guitarist
“That
Chris Webb just
hours before a show supporting
his childhood heroes Refused.
“I’ve got shit on my arm.”
It’s indicative of the calamity
that surrounds everything
Milk Teeth do. A bunch of
self-proclaimed “kids” from the
small market town of Stroud let
loose on the big wide world,
they’re never far from the
next daft incident. From
vocalist and bassist
Becky Blomfield getting
“zinged” by a dodgily
wired-up microphone
to Chris falling down a
flight of stairs mid-set,
right into the waiting arms
of tour buddy Frank Iero, it’s a
wonder any of them have made
it this far.
Of the whole bunch, it’s
drummer Oli Holbrook who’s
undoubtedly the most patchedtogether.
He gleefully points
to various places on his head
where he’s inflicted self-injury:
“I smashed my face in Brighton
on the Frank Carter tour,
that was funny.” On another
occasion, he managed to bust
his own nose open while trying
to carry a hi-hat stand off stage.
Pointing between his eyes to
the exact point the cymbals
left a lasting scar, he quickly
remembers accident number
three. “We found out the other
day that I hit myself too hard
in Austria and I had a tiny little
fracture on the top of my jaw,
there,” he says, poking the side
of his face with a grin. Only a
slight one, mind – as a result of
his over-excited punching of his
own head during shows (don’t
ask), he can’t fully close his
mouth anymore. “We’re going
to make him wear a helmet!”
Chris laughs.
CUTTING
TEETH
Amidst all this blood-soaked
chaos, they’ve racked up some
49

serious road miles. Barely off the tarmac
for nearing a year, Milk Teeth have
relished the challenge of the selection
box of bands they’ve shared stages
with. From the aforementioned Franks
Iero and Carter, through Jaws, Title
Fight, and their swiftly approaching
“massive” dates with shiny pop-rockers
Tonight Alive, no two billings have been
the same. “We kind of like that,” Chris
admits. “I think if you just play to the
same people, you’re never gonna grow,
y’know? If only one person likes it at a
show, then you’re still winning.”
“We’re like Marmite on those tours,”
says Oli. “Some people get really into
it and some people just despise us.”
Not that he pays any notice to the
detractors: “Its funny watching people
cringe when you play really loudly – I
take a lot of pleasure in that.”
“It’s cool,” Becky agrees. “‘Cause we’re
not really niche, as such. I’d say we’ve
got a lot of influences that are brought
together in our music, but it crosses
over into a lot of different fanbases. I like
playing to different people.” With that
Refused show just hours away, they’re
approaching their biggest crowd yet.
“No pressure!” she laughs.
or ex-vocalist Josh Bannister
though, the pressure point had
F been reached - just a couple of
days after the show, he revealed to the
band that he’d be leaving. “We weren’t
surprised when he told us,” Chris
admits a few weeks later. “The whole
atmosphere felt a bit weird and you
could tell that he wasn’t into it as much.
It is like a fresh start, and it’s weird but
good timing. It’s a new year, the album
comes out, we’re doing a lot more tours.
In a weird way, this is a good place to
start fresh again.”
One listen to Milk Teeth’s debut album
‘Vile Child’ should be evidence enough
of their staying power. An intoxicating,
swirling mix of the 90s grunge the band
grew up on and a soul-baring lyrical
honesty, it’s a first full-length that’s
already taking them to pastures new. “It
was really exciting when we first went
over to Europe, so to finally go even
further afield, to America, is insane,”
Becky marvels. “That’s a long flight,”
Chris suddenly realises, “…gonna watch
The Avengers like four times!” Oli’s not
quite so keen, mind: “I haven’t flown
without my mum and I’m pretty
scared.” Chris cracks up – “Your
mum’s not the pilot!”
“I’m not very good at
travelling,” Oli admits. “Which sounds
really stupid, being in a band. I get
travel-sick really easily so I have to lie
down a lot of the time.”
Despite that, they’re all keen to get back
on the road – if only to stop themselves
checking the YouTube comments that
their ‘Brickwork’ video’s amassing.
As it turns out, the mostly pop-punk
fans that their label Hopeless attracts
weren’t quite ready for the scuzzier side
of life. “One was like, ‘I want to drown
you in acid’ or something…” shrugs
Oli. “One guy said to drink bleach and
then jump in a wood-chipper,” recalls
Chris, cracking up once more. “If you
comment on a YouTube video, you’re
probably a weirdo.”
“You need to get out of your mum’s
basement and do some stuff,” Oli says
with a smile, before Chris sums up the
whole debacle – and, indeed, Milk
Teeth’s every batshit move to date -
with an ethos the three of them could
carve in stone: “Standing out’s not
necessarily a bad thing.”
Milk Teeth’s debut album ‘Vile Child’
is out now via Hopeless Records. DIY
“You need to get
out of your mum’s
basement and
do some
stuff.”
- Oli Holbrook
Oli realises that some sod’s
removed the trampoline from below.
50 diymag.com

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51

Painting
For the first time, Animal Collective kept a layer of mystery around the new
record, and made a deliberate decision; they wouldn’t be road-testing a single
song from ‘Painting With’ on stage. Noah and Dave explain why.
Avey Tare: To make it new, let’s not play it live. Let’s do something completely new.
Panda Bear: For us, playing the songs live, a lot of people at the shows record it, and
trade the recordings on the internet. That’s really awesome, but it also means that
the first impression that a lot of people get is the live, performed version. I think it
was exciting for us to go the opposite way, to make this their first impression. I feel
like the first impression of a song becomes the de facto version.
Avey: Emotionally?
Panda Bear: Yeah, it’s easier with the first. Wanting to switch the direction with this
one is interesting to us. We’ll see how it goes.
52 diymag.com

with...
“I
like
Dinosaurs, Dada,
and prehistoric
punk - it’s just
another normal
day in the office
for Animal
Collective. Words:
El Hunt. Photos:
Mike Massaro.
the Ankylosaurus,” announces Animal
Collective’s Geologist, matter of factly.
“It’s got armour and a club tail, with a very
square head, and spikes. I know so many
dinosaurs,” Brian Weitz goes on, proudly.
“I have to read this book called Dinopedia
every night to my son.”
From the glitching radio static of
previous album ‘Centipede Hz.’ to humid,
undergrowth-shaking Jurassic pop; it’s just
another casual step in the wildly varied,
never-slowing universe of Animal Collective. Recorded in
a Hollywood studio, under the glare of muted dinosaur
documentaries playing on loop, ‘Painting With’ takes its name
from sloshing paintbrushes and modge-podged collages.
Sonically, Animal Collective were thinking about Cubism,
constantly targeting the heart of a song before even trying
to splice and abstract things. Panda Bear, Geologist and Avey
Tare wanted to write a record with all of the immediacy of
The Ramones, but diced up, rearranged, and viewed through
a physic-defying prism. The Ramones connection, though
important, was just a starting point. “It’s not like we wrote
songs about sniffing glue,” jokes Geologist.
“There was this idea of wanting to do something with short
songs, with a homogenous energy to the record,” says Noah
Lennox, otherwise known as Panda Bear. “Something where
the first song revs up the engine, and it kind of just cruises
after that. We didn’t want to throw in some ethereal moment.
We wanted to do something that blasted away the whole
time.”
Chasing a “70s punchiness” and a crisp sound, ‘Painting With’
is sparser than previous Animal Collective records. With the
layers of meticulous fuzz-covered samples stripped right
back, every element operates in full view, like a transparent
Swatch-watch. West Coast whistles cruise smoothly down
the sprawling boulevards of ‘Bagels in Kiev’, while lead single
‘FloriDada’ bounces happily along, trailing gargled lyrics in its
pogoing wake.
Animal Collective want to become
the next Picasso. Almost there, lads.
Animal Collective, more surprisingly, buy into the idea of
traditional song structures more than ever before. “It’s about
the nature of skewed perspective, and looking at things from
lots of different directions at the same time,” says Avey, aka
Dave Portner. “With the traditional pop song you might have
two verses, a chorus, another verse,” adds Panda Bear. “Those
elements are here quite a bit, but distorted in weird, perhaps
unconventional ways.”
“In the same way, there’s an aspect of
53

Dadaism where you take something familiar and turn it into
art. Maybe it’s something else, out of context,” says Avey,
referencing the art movement which inspired ‘FloriDada’’s
title, and, it turns out, much of the record. A movement built
on putting urinals on display in snotty-nosed art galleries,
and writing nonsense poems out of randomly jumbled words,
Animal Collective directly borrowed Dada’s love of surprise.
And, combining samples from dinosaur documentaries with
burglars, and recordings of childrens’ paddling pools, very
little is off limits in this particular collage.
“We were using collage, which is something that a lot of
Dadaists did, like Duchamp,” Avey Tare goes on, referencing
the unofficial lead artist of Dada. “We’d take a sample from a
popular television show or song, or a court case, and we’d use
it as an instrument.” Though the band agree they’ve always
been interested in the idea, it has never been as pronounced
as on ‘Painting With’. “I don’t know that it has ever had such
a purpose before,” concludes Noah. “On ‘Centipede Hz.’ all
the collages that I made were usually in between the songs
as a segue to space out to,” Brian adds. “On this, it’s more like
cutting something and pasting it straight into the middle of
a song.”
The idea of doing your own thing is a recurrent theme on
this new record. Pushed right up in the mix, their voices at
times morphing into one larger force, ‘Painting With’ sounds
distinctly removed from Animal Collective’s usual love of
interplay, and call and response. Avey Tare and Panda Bear’s
voices morph together by melodic osmosis, and even they
admit they have trouble distinguishing. “There’s a very specific
design to the way the vocals work together,” explains Noah.
We had this idea of wanting to write music for two singers
where it felt like one - where they’ve both doing their own
thing but working together.”
Animal Collective address an especially personal form of
connection on ‘Bagels in Kiev’. It’s less about a love of the
humble breaded foodstuff itself, and more an exploration of
Avey Tare’s family history, and exactly how he’s supposed to
relate to his past, years removed from it. “My grandfather’s
from Kiev, and he came over to Ellis Island when he was a
kid with his family,” Dave says. “They’re a family of bakers.
To me, the song is about connecting to a past you never
experienced.” His vague, but not entirely concrete sense of
personal connection to the current political unrest in Ukraine
is also a factor, he says. “I talk a lot about the violence and
that sort of thing, and having a connection to Kiev through
my family being bakers, but also not having a connection to
the more political side of things. Can that skew my vision of a
place, and where I’m from?” he asks.
After launching the pirate-radio inspired ‘Centipede Hz.’ on
their own late-night show, Animal Collective set out with
an equally deliberate plan for this new record, playing it for
the first time in Baltimore airport as hundreds of thousands
of Americans travelled home to see their families over the
Thanksgiving weekend. It’s a fitting first airing for an album
that craves connection, and looks to build links at every
turn. Though it might approach things through a skewing,
disorientating lens, ‘Painting With’ is always looking to jumble
problems into solutions again; work things out.
For the first time, Animal Collective say they have started to
think more about exactly what the band means. Avey Tare
mentioned it in passing to DIY as they re-issued ‘Prospect
Hummer’ - their 2007 Vashti Bunyan collaboration - for last
year’s Record Store Day. It’s a sentiment both Panda Bear and
Geologist agree with.
“We’ve been around longer than most of my favourite bands,”
observes Geologist. “In a depressing way, I think, we’ve been
around a fucking long time, how come you’re not sick of us?
They might be? I don’t feel like we’re a band people grow old
with,” he claims. “It feels like we’re reloading a new generation.
Every time a young kid finds us, and they only know our last
two records.”
It’s testament to Animal Collective’s constant hunger for
experimentation and new territory. Leaving the door wide
open for new fans with every single record, the vital energy
that connects the band is their secret ingredient. “Injecting
this very primitive, energetic feeling into the music goes back
to the feeling we had when we were younger,” smiles Noah
Lennox. “It’s always about new energy.”
Animal Collective’s new album ‘Painting With’ is out on
19th February via Domino. DIY
There’s so much buzz around Animal Collective, they.
need to protect themselves from the bees..
54 diymag.com

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55

Mystery Jets aren’t just
returning with a new
album; they’re back as a
whole new band.
Words: Jessica Goodman.
Photos: Mike Massaro.
When
Mystery
Jets first
withdrew
from the
spotlight to focus their efforts
on album number five, they
found themselves without a
manager, lacking a publisher,
and missing one band member.
Two and a half years on and
the picture couldn’t be more
different. Laughing and joking
in a practice studio as they
ready themselves for upcoming
tour dates, the group are more
alive than they’ve ever been.
“I think there was less pressure,”
frontman Blaine Harrison
ponders of working with the
band over the past couple of
years. “We didn’t have to adhere
to anything.” Discovering
complete creative freedom, and
with the addition of new bassist
Jack Flanagan, the quartet set
up their own studio in an old,
disused button factory, and
there they began the writing
process anew.
t u r n i n g
“It’s very much a different
band,” guitarist Will Rees states.
“It’s like being a gang again,
which is something we haven’t
felt in a while.” “Before this
became our day job,” Blaine
continues, “when we did it as
a way to have fun with each
other’s time, that’s what it was.
That’s what being in a band is –
that gang mentality.”
‘Curve Of The Earth’ embodies
the newfound vitality that runs
through Mystery Jets’ veins.
From the molecular origins
of album opener ‘Telomere’
56 diymag.com

through to the allencompassing
refrains
of closing track ‘The End
Up’, it’s a bold venture
through everything the
band once were and
have now become.
“We wanted to do
something that was
great,” Will explains.
“Well, initially we
wanted to make a
space rock concept
record. And we did that,
actually,” he laughs.
“We kind of made two
albums in the first two
and a half year period.
There was ‘Curve Of The
Earth: The Beta Version’
before what we have
now.”
O
An
x
i
s
“It was ‘Curve Of The
Earth: Heavy’,” Jack
groans. “We did eight
months of these tunes,
and we played it back
to our manager and
some friends, and just
sat there the whole way,
like…” Dropping his
head into his hands, he
continues. “That was
really exhausting.” “It
was ‘Curve Of The Earth:
Slow And Long’,” Will
adds. “Every track was
about nine minutes.”
“What was missing
was an entrance to the
record,” the frontman
explains. “I don’t think
we felt like we had
a beginning for the
album. And that’s why
we went away, and we
wrote what is now the
first side of the record.
It wasn’t necessarily like
‘we need some singles!’,
but more like, how can
we invite people into
this new world that
we’ve made?”
“It’s contrast,
really, I think,” Jack
contemplates. “With the
last batch of songs we
did we really wanted
to create a contrast
throughout the record.
So I think when you get
to those moments, they
57

are like a breath of fresh air, and you’re like ‘wow, I could get
lost in this.’”
“Anyone can make a record,” Blaine exclaims. “You don’t
have to be a producer in the traditional sense. Maybe five or
six years ago, I thought being able to produce a record was
knowing the best way to mic up a guitar amp, or how to use
a mixing desk. Making a record, what that means to me is
getting the best out of the people around you.” Taking the
helm and producing their own record for the first time may
have been a steep learning curve, but there’s no doubt that
their efforts paid off.
“I think we’re very fortunate,” Blaine expands. “On the one
hand, we’re all complaining about how we’re sort of living
our lives online, and it gets us down a lot of the time, but
we’re also incredibly fortunate that the technology required
to make a record is really affordable. We didn’t have the hot
pastries being brought in every morning, or the constant
stream of soya lattes of yesteryear, but…” “Soya lattes weren’t
invented yesteryear,” Will interrupts with a grin. “But that’s
a really good point,” he continues. “To make an album, you
need less than you think you need.”
Keeping that wish alive for two and a half years, Mystery Jets
have returned victorious. “You’ve got to be persistent, and
don’t lose the faith,” Jack urges. “Keep clocking your hours
in.” “We started out working 9-5,” Blaine recalls, “and by
the end it was 5-9.” Out of the topsy turvy studio they built
for themselves, inspired by Stewart Brand’s counterculture
magazine, Whole Earth Catalogue and its enduring motif of
‘stay hungry, stay foolish’, with ‘Curve Of The Earth’ the band
have created a world for anyone’s taking.
“That’s very much what we want to do,” Blaine enthuses, “to
keep that innocence, to keep a wonder about the world.” “I’d
like people to be able to put themselves in it,” Will expresses.
“That’s how I feel about music I really like. I relate to certain
lyrics or lines, and I make memories with certain things I hear
in a time or place. If people can do that…”
“I think that’s right,” Blaine embellishes. “I hope people let it
into their lives. I think a lot of the records that we love are the
records that you go back to again and again. A ‘grower’ is a
funny way to describe your own record, but I really feel that if
people give it a chance, they’ll allow it to get under their skin.”
“I love it when you come back to a record – maybe you’ve left
it a few years and you’re a bit older, or something’s changed in
your life,” Jack describes, “and you suddenly pick out certain
points in the lyrics. I think with this record most of the themes
are about people being at a certain point in their lives. I think
that maybe somebody who – like at my age, is a few years
younger than the people who wrote the songs – they can
listen now and enjoy it, but maybe in five or six years time
they’ll really get it.”
“I think we did that a lot on this album,” Will agrees. “We
used the past to write a lot of the songs, because the songs
are about personal things that’ve happened and made an
impression. But I think the future’s a much more exciting place
than the past, and the present is a much more exciting place
than the past.”
“That said, I think you do need that glance over your
shoulder, through the rose-tinted spectacles, perhaps, just
to appreciate where you have come,” Blaine adds. “It’s a very
important part of who you are.”
Mystery Jets’ new album ‘Curve Of The Earth’ is out now
via Caroline. DIY
“INITIALLY WE
WANTED TO MAKE A
SPACE ROCK
CONCEPT
RECORD .” - WILL
REES
58 diymag.com

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59

The past three years have been torrid for Zachary Cole Smith. Addiction, controversial bandmates and
his relationship have set the agenda. New album ‘Is The Is Are’ is “my chance at redemption,” he says.
Words: Liam McNeilly. Photos: Phil Smithies.
A Sea
f
“This
record was
like a light
at the
end of the
tunnel.” -
Zachary Cole
Smith
60 diymag.com

Trouble
When
DIIV shared ‘Dopamine’ in the autumn, it
felt like a watershed moment. After a critically
acclaimed debut – one that’s difficult to believe came out as far back
as 2012 given its continual presence – the tumultuous three years that
followed have threatened to derail the entire project. In that period,
we’ve seen the focus move away from ‘Oshin’, with DIIV becoming a
divisive point of debate. With ‘Dopamine’, there was finally a route
out. We were faced with a comeback single that not only announced
a band’s long awaited return, but one that once again gave reason for
music to be central to the band’s discussion.
“A lot of musicians will say, ‘If you think you can read my lyrics and
know me, you’re an idiot’,” says Zachary Cole Smith, pointing out that
quite the opposite is true of his work on DIIV’s return, ‘Is The Is Are’. For
Cole - the focal point and creative drive behind DIIV - the events that
thrust him into public view are well documented; addiction, arrest,
rehabilitation and his relationship with Sky Ferreira. It’s the context
out of which this record emerges from. He confronts and documents
all of this with an honesty that’s often brutal on his second LP. Pushing
DIIV’s sound to extremes that were untouched on ‘Oshin’, its follow up
channels a formula that felt so well honed on that debut, and threads it
through new territory. It’s often darker, weirder, and more hellish than
what came before, avenues into Cole’s recent history that he invites
you to explore with an air of caution.
Sat in a London cafe - not far from where he spent unhappy months
living when he began to write his own music - he ponders over lyrics
from the album’s title track. It’s not a comfortable subject by any
stretch. On ‘Is The Is Are’, he sings: “The last time I walked down this
street I wanted to die, now I feel like I’m fighting for my life.” In trying
to capture the emotions wrapped up in that line, he recounts an
horrific childhood story. “When I was in high school a kid in my class
committed suicide. He had a twin sister and she told this story about
how he committed suicide by drinking gasoline and setting himself
on fire. He did all of this, and then the ambulance came to save him
and they gave him an oxygen mask and he was holding it on his own
mouth. Even though he was trying to kill himself he was trying to save
his life too. It’s this weird dichotomy, you can get so down on yourself
but then as soon as you find
yourself in a dangerous position
there’s some kind of instinct that
makes you feel like you have to
fight.”
‘Is The Is Are’ is the most
resounding and comprehensive
symbol of that fight, an album
that Cole sees quite matter-offactly
as his chance to atone
what’s happened in the past
three years. “Obviously the
stakes were so high for me,” he
says. “I took making this record
so seriously. I saw it almost as
life or death or like my chance
at redemption; my light at the
end of the tunnel after all this
shit happened to me.” One listen
to the new record, and it’s clear
just how high that bar has been
set. DIIV have returned with an
album that drips with ambition,
and central to that is the desire to
say so much more than anything
Cole’s put his name to previously.
“The main concept of this
record is making something
very transparent and human,
something that really shows
my humanity,” he says. After
months left without a voice
throughout legal proceedings,
and witnessing what he saw to be
his own persona being reduced
to a commodity, it’s something
that he values more than ever.
“It’s not like the first record
where we had this image that we
were able to hide behind - this
picture and this sound – where
we could be mysterious and be
out of the spotlight. That luxury
was taken away from me when
all of a sudden I became like a
public figure with everything
61

that happened. My only option
was to just run with it and make
something extremely honest and
human.”
For anyone acquainted with
DIIV, Cole’s own obsession with
Kurt Cobain is evident – Cobain
is referenced numerously in
interviews when
he talks about
the band. When
the recent biopic
‘Montage of Heck’
was released, he
went to view it
with his mother, an experience
that she found to be wholly
uncomfortable as she recognised
the similarity between the film’s
protagonist and her own son. But
the way Cole speaks about Cobain
in relation to his own intention
for this record isn’t something
that should bring about concern,
nor does it drip with the kind
of Kurt-complex of which he’s
sometimes been accused. Instead,
there’s a message of caution and
understanding.
“Everyone has this fixation on
these doomed rock stars. I’m no
different,” he says. “When Kurt
Cobain jumped over the fence and
left rehab, I relate to that feeling.
Instead of seeing him as a rock
martyr that’s super glamourised, I
see him as a person with a problem
and flaws. After a lot of the stuff
I went through, I started seeing
these people I’d looked up to my
whole life as humans, and flawed
humans, and for me it was eye
opening because it no longer
glamourised the less savoury parts
of their life.”
Cole is forthcoming in mapping
out this deeply personal backdrop
against which this record will sit,
keen for it translate as vividly as
possible. There’s also an element
of wanting to take back control
over a project that’s been talked
about at length by so many, and a
desire to strip away any mythology
that might’ve been created. It’s
seen Cole, quite explicitly, making
himself very visible as DIIV’s central
cog, bringing himself into focus
and presenting DIIV as his own,
singular, creative vision.
Events involving the band’s
bassist, Devin Ruben Perez, aren’t
insignificant in this reclamation
of DIIV’s identity. Many called for Perez to be dropped from the
band after he used racist, homophobic and sexist slurs in a string
of posts on anonymous message board 4chan. The fallout has
left lingering question marks above DIIV ever since. “I didn’t even
know what 4chan was. I came at him the same way everybody
else did,” says Cole. “It’s sick, he’s not a part of it anymore. But I
never wanted to kick him out of the band, because that would
give weight to everybody’s accusations and I felt like that’s not
the person that Devin is… I know that Devin isn’t racist.”
Cole contests that in the fucked
up ‘bowels of the internet’, as
he once described 4chan, such
slurs are commonplace, but it’s
context that’s unlikely to appease
the swathes of people who were
rightfully disgusted. It’s context
nonetheless, that Cole uses to
reiterate the language isn’t a true
representation of Devin’s, nor
DIIV’s stance. The potential for
resulting jeopardy wasn’t lost on
Cole, and he continues to distance
himself from the comments. “I
can only take responsibility for
myself and control myself. I started
realising that the band is me, so
why should I be dishonest about
what we are… DIIV isn’t some guy
that I’m friends with, who plays
bass on stage, typing shit into
4chan. That’s not what DIIV is.“
“I didn’t
want to lie
anymore.”
- Zachary Cole
Smith
It might not be the most watertight statement to close the door
on those events, but with ‘Is The Is Are’, Cole is desperate to
move on and create a music-focused conversation. When boiled
down, this refocusing of DIIV is Cole laying claim to a project
that has been all him from the outset – the events with Devin a
catalyst rather than a defining factor. At least, that’s his intention.
After writing, producing and playing every part on ‘Oshin’, the
presentation of DIIV as a group has always been somewhat of
a front, and despite writing more with the live band in mind
this time round, his own control over ‘Is The Is Are’ became yet
greater as he took the step of mastering this record too.
‘Is The Is Are’’s heart is there to be prodded at, and it’ll be
analysed throughout the year. Having broken down in the studio
at times during its recording - such was the sensitivity of the
subject matter - these are songs that Cole will play and relive
night after night when taking it on the road. “I think about that a
lot”, he says. “Some of the stuff is not easy to do every night, for
sure. Sobriety is such a fragile thing and all you can really do is
take it one minute at a time.
“Sometimes I feel like yeah, something will kind of trigger me,
but also this record was like a light at the end of the tunnel – this
was my way out of everything that happened. It was one of the
worst, most terrible, and greatest periods of my life, just up and
down. I really saw it as the thing that was going to pull me out of
this, so playing the songs, I do feel a sense of accomplishment,
a sense that it is starting to pull me up into a new chapter of my
life. That’s the best thing for me to think about.”
DIIV’s new album ‘Is The Is Are’ is out 5th February via
Captured Tracks. DIY
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63

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DAVID BOWIE
blackstar (rca)
Throughout his life, David Bowie was always a
synonym for ‘reinvention’, the master of messing with
people’s expectations, waiting for the rest of us to
catch up. ‘Blackstar’ shows that we never really did. As Tony Visconti said on
the day of his death: “He always did what he wanted to do. And he wanted to
do it his way and he wanted to do it the best way. His death was no different
from his life - a work of art.”
He was always an artist who teased, surprised and produced the astounding.
Although despite returning gambit ‘The Next Day’ being surprising and
unexpected, it also seemed to be a sign that the master was ready to celebrate
the spoils of his incomparable legacy.
Listened to before the tragic news, ‘Blackstar’ demonstrated, unequivocally,
that Bowie would never settle, that he was always light-years ahead of
everyone else. Listening afterwards, however, the album becomes deeper,
broader and more remarkable. Here was an artist beyond equal, even when
staring his own mortality in the face. The songs tackle illness, death and
heaven face on – “I’m not a pop star, I’m a blackstar” seems to show a master
assured of his legacy.
‘Blackstar’, like all his best work, is an album which takes inspiration from
unexpected and unfamiliar areas. Tony Visconti said that they’d admired how
Kendrick Lamar’s album ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’ stood both within and outside
hip hop. It’s this type of thinking that makes the album so startling, taking in
not just hip hop and abstract jazz but also warped showtunes, folk-pop and
even theatre.
It’s that wideness of scope that’s the most exhilarating aspect. From
challenging, in your face exploration to beautifully light-as-air soulful ballads,
there’s a constant idea that there’s no clue as to where the next track will
swerve.
In many ways ‘Blackstar’ sees tradition thrown out of the window. It’s
something that’s clear from the title track’s everything-but-the-kitchen-sink
approach, which somehow goes from ambient-prog-electro through to dark
soulful elegance - not to mention multiple narrators – while still retaining
its shape and identity. The lyrics, like so many on the record, now appear so
prophetic: “Something happened on the day he died / Spirit rose a metre and
stepped aside”. And then there’s ‘Lazarus’ which seems to be another explicit
farewell song, “Look up here,” he begins, “I’m in heaven.”
‘Blackstar’ is a compelling masterpiece. The strength alone it would have taken
just to make the record is a feat in itself – to make something so exceptional
shows what a singularly unique artist he was. David Bowie may have gone, but
‘Blackstar’ is a spellbinding final chapter in a book that dazzled and astonished
with every page. This album allowed him to take ownership of his legacy. Only
David Bowie could orchestrate the exact nature of his final act. We’ve lost the
very best. But in time we can take warmth from realising how lucky we were to
have the Starman around. (Danny Wright) Listen: ‘Lazarus’
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Farewell,
Starman
A musical genius,
remembered by the
greats.
Win Butler (Arcade Fire): “Goodbye
friend. So many tears, and so
lucky to have passed in the same
solar system.”
Carrie Brownstein (Sleater-Kinney):
“It feels like we lost something
elemental, as if an entire colour is
gone.”
Iggy Pop:
“David’s friendship was the light of
my life. I never met such a brilliant
person. He was the best there is.”
Savages: “Thank you for
being a true artist to the end.
We will miss you dearly.”
65

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ULRIKA SPACEK
The Album Paranoia (tough love)
One night in Berlin: that’s all it took for
Rhys Edwards and Rhys Williams to form
and conceptualise Ulrika Spacek and decide on the title
‘The Album Paranoia’. Reinforced by three further members
during recording back in London, their debut LP is an
immense experience, full of otherworldly ambience. ‘The
Album Paranoia’ takes the listener on a mind-altering journey
through a supernatural soundscape, a maze of guitars that
drone menacingly and chime harmoniously. It could so easily
serve as the soundtrack to a trip through space-time. (Tom
Hancock) Listen: ‘Airportism’
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JACK GARRATT
Phase (island)
Falsetto-fused electronic and drum n’ bass
wizardry explodes from the very beginning of
‘Phase’ in ‘Coalesce (Synesthesia Pt. II)’ and rests comfortably
on tracks like ‘Chemical’, while a standout duo of smooth
movers ‘Worry’ and ‘The Love You’re Given’ calm matters
down. Jack Garratt really takes the songwriting transition
of slow builds and euphoric bridges into gigantic choruses
to another level. The impressive one-man band excursion
Garratt fulfils live however is something that ‘Phase’ attempts
but, at times, struggles to replicate. (Joanie Eaton) Listen:
‘Weathered’
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SO PITTED
neo (Sub Pop)
Based in Seattle and signed to Sub
Pop, So Pitted don’t so much relive
grunge’s heady days as rip up the formula entirely.
Whenever debut LP ‘neo’ swerves close to normality,
these formula-shunners tear things to shreds. It’s
maddeningly loud, loosely formed, disgusting like a
romantic weekend trip down the local sewers. This is an
offensive blitz into the unknown with occasional hints
that So Pitted might be on to something. Just the way
they like it. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘the sickness’
‘Vile Child’
charges straight
to the head of
the pack.
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MILK
TEETH
Vile Child (Hopeless)
Stretching, yawning and yelping like a teenager with
growing pains, Milk Teeth’s earliest days were defined by
their youth. Storming with their ‘Smiling Politely’ EP and following it with one
of 2015’s finest, ‘Sad Sack’, they proved themselves masters of grungy, moody
melancholy. Twirling into view like an overexcited child after one-too-many
Panda Pops, ‘Vile Child’ picks up the baton laid down and charges
straight to the head of the pack. ‘Brain Food’ steals the show with
a stop-start thrash, but they can slow things down too.
With departed co-vocalist Josh Bannister already seeking out
pastures new, and a new era for Milk Teeth beginning, there’s sure
to be leaps and bounds ahead. In the meantime, you’ll be hard
pressed to find a better document of troubled teenagehood than
’Vile Child’. (Tom Connick) Listen: ‘Brain Food’
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YOUR FRIEND
Gumption (Domino)
Your Friend’s unusual combination
of the ultra-real with the unnatural
world of electronic manipulation makes for an
unsettling final product. Everything feels at once
intimate and distant, as Taryn Miller’s vocals drift
woozily in and out of focus, going from a whisper in
your ear to a far-off echo in an instant. The tranquil
beauty of opener ‘Heathering’ sets the bar high and
for the most part, the remainder follows suit, in what
is almost entirely a deeply interesting and cleverly
crafted debut. (Henry Boon) Listen: ‘To Live With’
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TUFF LOVE
Resort (Caroline
International)
Tuff Love’s three EPs - 2014’s
‘Junk’, and last year’s ‘Dross’
and ‘Dregs’ - showed them as
one of the most promising fuzz
pop bands in the UK, all sugarsweet
melodies and crunching
choruses. This, a compilation
of the trio of releases and
discography of sorts, flows as an LP surprisingly well considering.
Not only does ‘Resort’ give a greater exposure to the excellent but
largely under-the-radar ‘Junk’ tracks, but it ramps up the excitement
for LP1 proper. If a debut album follows soon, the momentum could
take them to big things. (Will Richards) Listen: ‘Slammer’
As patchwork a s
they come.
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BLOC PARTY HYMNS (Infectious Music)
Plagued with conspicuously missing founding members and a first single that
elicited the kind of response usually reserved for a Nickelback return, Bloc Party’s
fifth LP has been an uphill climb. In its full form, there’s more to love than ‘Hymns’’
teasers might’ve suggested. ‘The Love Within’ is still a gratingly unnecessary delve
into entry-level synth-worship, but when its successor is the haunting ‘Only He
Can Heal Me’, it’s almost forgivable. It’s that
unbalanced see-saw that defines ‘Hymns’.
Granted, too much of the album’s midsection
is plagued by Kele’s whimper, and
the experimentation with guitar sounds
sometimes prioritises method over melody,
but there are diamonds in the rough that
shine as bright as the best of Bloc Party. Like
the band themselves these days, though,
‘Hymns’ is as patchwork as they come. (Tom
Connick) Listen: ‘Only He Can Heal Me’
67

MAD
SOUNDS
Sunflower Bean reveal the inspirations
behind ‘Human Ceremony’
Fleetwood Mac –
Rumours
I had never listened
to this album until
the summer that we
were working on our
own, and I feel like it
really rubbed off on me.
The songwriting and
pop sensibility inspired
me to look closely at
what makes a song
great. - Nick Kilven
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SUNFLOWER BEAN
Human Ceremony (Fat Possum)
Formed at school, Sunflower Bean have been going for years, so they’re not exactly a
flash-in-the-pan attempt to weave madness out of whatever they can get their hands on.
But their first work has this impression. ‘Human Ceremony’ gives in to intuition. Whether
they’re ramming home psychedelic sludge in ‘Wall Watcher’ or forging dreamy melody
out of lighter parts, like in ‘Easier Said’, they’re shunning perfectionism for a gut feeling.
It might have taken years to form the blueprint, but ‘Human Ceremony’ works best
when it’s a headrush. After a disjointed, unnerving title-track, the record discovers a
zest through the DIIV-like ‘2013’ and ‘This Kinda Feeling’, all mammoth bass parts and
spiralling guitar lines. It isn’t anywhere near fault-free, but its charm arrives when the trio
get ahead of themselves. They’re the kind of band who’ll make you want to form your
own. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘Easier Said’
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QUILT Eliot St.
(Mexican Summer)
The four members that make up Boston’s Quilt have always been
a collaborative bunch. Across their first two albums, the quartet
moulded themselves into an undefinable group, thoroughly
influenced by the improvisational scene that grew from within their city in the last
decade. Now with their third record, ‘Plaza’, Quilt have filtered their idiosyncratic
tendencies into a melting pot of alternative-pop, with considerably prosperous
effect. ‘Plaza’ is a culmination of the group’s various penchants, with Quilt cementing
themselves in the process. In boldly delving into their pop sensibilities, the group have
created an album that encompasses their intriguing convictions for different genres and
refined it into a record of high quality. (Ross Jones) Listen: ‘O Connor’s Barn’
ee
RA RA RIOT Need Your Light (Barsuk)
With ‘The Rhumb Line’ long being seen as their peak, Ra Ra Riot
seem to be one of those bands who just can’t escape their own
successful debut. Is fourth album ‘Need Your Light’ the moment they
can finally move on? Unfortunately, no. Opening track ‘Water’, their
collaboration with Vampire Weekend’s Rostam Batmanglij, is a decent start, setting
the scene for an album that wants to sound bigger. It’s good to see that Ra Ra Riot are
making clear efforts to move away from their roots, but, elsewhere, there’s not too much
to see. It’s an album that wants to charm, but instead somehow manages to rubs up the
wrong way. (Lucas Fothergill) Listen: ‘I Need Your Light’
The Beach Boys –
Smiley Smile
I have always
been a huge Beach
Boys fan... I had a
huge phase when I
was about 14 years
old where I listened
to them exclusively
along with the choral
music I was studying
in school. I think all of
that really affected me.
I wanted to bring some
of those harmonies
and musicality into
our album as much as
I could. - Julia Cumming
The Grateful Dead –
Blues For Allah
I’ve dabbled with
their music at
different points
throughout my life
but this past summer
I really got into this
record. It’s really weird
and scary. Definitely
not hippy bullshit like
a lot of people paint
them as. - Jacob Faber
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MONEY
suicide Songs
(Bella Union)
MONEY’s second
album ‘Suicide
Songs’ isn’t shy of stating its intentions
early, from the album title, to the
graphic cover art, to song titles that
range from the ridiculous ‘You Look
Like A Sad Painting On Both Sides Of
The Sky’ to the bluntly bleak ‘Hopeless
World’. First impressions shouldn’t
count for everything though, and
‘Suicide Songs’ is often more hopeful
than these might suggest. When it
works, it feels like a world beater, and
thus moments of inconsistency are
frustrating. The visceral imagery and
headlines that ushered in ‘Suicide
Songs’ end up serving to hold it back a
little; an album that’s excellent at times,
but which arrived with preconceptions
so strong they could never be matched.
(Will Richards) Listen: ‘I’ll Be The
Night’
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NIGHT
BEATS
Who Sold My
Generation
(Heavenly Recordings)
Sounding like an immediate
continuation of 2013’s ‘Sonic Bloom’,
Night Beats’ ‘Who Sold My Generation’
is proof that their unsung debut wasn’t
a pot-luck album, and it only gets better.
The band’s recent move to Heavenly
Recordings seems to have urged them
to make their psychedelic rock leanings
even more prominent. On paper, ‘Who
Sold My...’ offers the listener a cliched
spiritual journey, using jangly clangs and
stop-start rhythms as its trademarks.
‘Right/Wrong’ infuses the record with
subtle funk, while ‘Burn To Breathe’
restores a signature heavier rock
element. It’s all happening. Anything
goes for Night Beats, and their second LP
sees them opening new doors. (Mollie
Mansfield) Listen: ‘Burn To Breathe’
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CROSS
RECORD
Wabi-Sabi
(Ba Da Bing Records)
On paper, Emily Cross enjoys a perfectly
peaceful, zen existence. Living in
near-isolation with husband and
studio engineer Dan Duszynski in a
place called Dripping Springs, thirty
minutes outside of Austin, Texas, she
doesn’t have any neighbours to annoy.
‘Wabi-Sabi’ works best when the
drums are pounded, and the distortion
threatening to overwhelm. Instead of
being a divine glimpse into living miles
away from the nearest main road or
local bus, it showcases the other side of
being alone, the joy in doing whatever
you want, when you want. It’s difficult
to imagine the results being this good
if Cross had limited studio time, or if
she tried to record vocal takes with
strangers listening in. (Jamie Milton)
Listen: ‘Steady Waves’, ‘Wasp in a
Jar’
Best left a
contradiction.
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THE 1975
I like it when you sleep, for you are so
beautiful yet so unaware of it (Dirty Hit)
Potential chart-toppers don’t come as bonkers, batshit and
borderline insane as The 1975’s latest. Where else can you find
funk-fledged madness, sorrowful ballads and strange shoegaze numbers in one place?
Faced with the prospect of being one of the biggest bands in the country, these four have
decided to test out their extremes. The results are a perfect mix of the spectacular and
calamitous.
Frontman Matty Healy leads the conversation, in that he won’t
let you get a word in. “It’s not about reciprocation it’s just
all about me,” he sings on ‘The Sound’, declaring himself
a “sycophantic prophetic socratic junkie wannabe”. A
walking, talking, often topless contradiction, Healy
is also capable of provoking tears and anger in
the space of a few minutes. When ‘I Like It…’
strikes, it delivers defining moments. But
that’s not to excuse the bloated,
instrumental rush of ‘Please Be
Naked’ and ‘Lostmyhead’,
tracks that meander
instead of offering
breathing space from
a glammed-up norm.
Trim the fat and you’d
wind up with a special
record, but with those
bizarre moments gone,
The 1975 would also lose
some of their bombastic
charm. They’re best left as a
contradiction. (Jamie Milton)
Listen: ‘Paris’, ‘UGH!’
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SANTIGOLD 99¢
(Atlantic)
When Santigold made her return
last year at Latitude - wearing an
outfit loosely modelled on a fried
breakfast, no less - there were inklings everywhere that
she meant business. As it turns out, Santigold goes
several steps further on ‘99¢’ . With the help of shrinkwrapping,
discount price stickers, and an album that
wittily dissects consumer culture, she turns herself into
a satirical business venture, too. Santi doesn’t especially
lay into selfie-takers and Instagram narcissism with
all-out lyrical daggers, but she’s constantly aware of it
all the same, watchful of how it affects her place in the
world as an artist.
A quickly rotating roster of producers - including the
likes of Rostam Batmanglij, Dave Sitek, and Patrik Berger
- lends itself to an album that jumps from the strangely
paced, chiming harmonies of ‘Chasing Shadows’ to the
lethargic and wonderfully DJ Screwy iLoveMakonnen
feature spot, ‘Who Be Lovin Me’, without second
thought. Unexplored avenues, Nutriblended genre
combinations, and left-field pop gold have always been
Santigold’s bag, and though the price tag here may be
‘99¢,’ she’s never sounded freer. (El Hunt) LISTEN: ‘Can’t
Get Enough Of Myself,’ ‘Big Boss Big Time Business’
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WET Don’t You (Columbia)
Kelly Zutrau knows a thing or two about heartbreak. Fronting Wet on debut album
‘Don’t You’, she has a habit of piercing silence with cutting truths. She’ll dismiss hopeless
chancers trying to string on to the dying embers of a relationship on ‘It’s All in Vain’, and
‘Don’t Wanna Be Your Girl’ is more a future-paving declaration than a simple refusal.
These emotions are complex, but they’re delivered by Zutrau in a simple, straight-forthe-gut
fashion.
At first, Wet live up to their name. They’re earnest, soft-hearted souls who wouldn’t hurt
a fly, on initial glance. But burrowed deep within ‘Don’t You’ is a don’t-fuck-with-me
mantra. Closer ‘These Days’ ends on a simple, cutting conclusion: “Today I am away from you, today time
passed strangely.” Unflinchingly honest, Wet don’t specialise in happy endings, but they’re always telling a
good story. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘It’s All in Vain’, ‘You’re the Best’
Q&A
The Massachusetts trio have made a bloody
good album with ‘Don’t You’. They tell DIY about
how it all came together.
You worked with Patrick Wimberly of Chairlift
for some sessions on the record. What were
those like?
Magical. We’ve worked with him a lot and they
have been some of the most productive and special
sessions we’ve ever had. Patrick has been making
albums for a lot longer than us and he’s been a real
comforting presence as we’ve navigated making our
first album and being on a major label and a bunch
of other stuff.
Despite the odd collaboration, was there still
a sense you wanted to keep this record to
yourselves?
We worked with other people
too and they were all positive,
productive experiences. But
it became clearer and clearer
throughout the process that it was
important for us to figure out what
we sounded like on our own. We
are open to collaborating more intensely on future
projects but for this first big release it was necessary
to establish ourselves exactly as ourselves. There are
certainly other people who helped shape the album
but it was important that we had ultimate control
over everything and if you co-produce something
even if it’s for your project you usually can’t have
that kind of control.
Getting the @wet Twitter handle must have
taken some doing. Who did you have to kill?
We met someone who worked there pretty
randomly and asked for the handle jokingly and he
said he would try and then a week later it was ours!
People have tried to kill us for it though. We get
offers and threats all the time!
70 diymag.com
PHOTO: EMMA SWANN

an immediate and
physical new
direction.
Photo: Emma Swann
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ANIMAL COLLECTIVE
Painting With (Domino)
Dada, dinosaurs and Ukranian baked foodstuffs;
the acrylic-covered palette of Animal
Collective’s ‘Painting With’ is a multi-hued splurge of technicolour paints
morphing and mixing together without containment. “I wanna discover the
key and open the everywhere place,” sing a spliced together Panda Bear
and Avey Tare amid the cut-and-stick lyrical garbles of ‘FloriDada,’. With
every sound shoved forward in the mix, oodles of white space floats inbetween
the splats. Every moment is for the taking. ‘Painting With’ marks an
immediate, and physical new direction, and anything seems possible.
It’s a pretty fitting pursuit for a band clearly obsessed with Dadaism.
Though Animal Collective aren’t exactly doing a Duchamp and plonking
an autographed urinal in a lofty gallery, they forever embrace mess over
logic. An album about doing away with boundaries, escaping definition, and
running riot across a whole world of possibilities, Animal Collective have
discovered that all-access portal key they’re searching for in ‘Painting With’.
(El Hunt) LISTEN: ‘Bagels in Kiev’, ‘Golden Gal’
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YUCK Stranger Things (Mamé)
With their fittingly-titled single ‘Rebirth’ three years ago,
Yuck’s guitar riffs grew larger and fuzzier, like they’d taken a
swig of Alice in Wonderland’s ‘Drink Me’ moonshine. Their
music grew ever more hungry and urgent, like an impatient
reveller anticipating a Five Guys double patty cheeseburger.
‘Hold Me Closer’ kicks things off in a cacophonous, head-pounding haze,
frontman Max Bloom sounding like Jeff Mangum taking up a brief guest spot
in Sonic Youth. Quiet pockets are answered by bold, no-messing choruses.
Though the London band don’t exactly attack in a fist-raised blaze of mega-riffs,
they hit hard all the same with quick, sharp, and consistently executed blows of
effortless songwriting. (El Hunt) Listen: ‘Hold Me Closer’
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SIA
This Is Acting
(Monkey Puzzle - RCA)
The central concept of
‘This Is Acting’ - an album of rejected pop
songs written to other artists’ templates -
is an intriguing prospect. In the sky-high
brilliance of ‘Alive’, the brassily chaotic,
Amerie drum-lick channelling ‘Sweet
Design’, the chart-ready ‘Unstoppable’
and the fearsome emotional welly of
‘Bird Set Free’, Sia asserts her place as
one of pop’s leading songwriters, and
gives a glimpse of the mysterious cogs
powering the likes of Beyoncé and Adele
from behind the shimmery curtain.
It’s also an idea that, beyond this album’s
standout moments, wears a little thin.
‘Cheap Thrills’ - all muffled euro-synths,
and generic talk of having fun on a Friday
night - isn’t a particularly good song,
to put it simply. Rihanna was probably
wise to pass on it. It’s a similar story with
‘Footprints’, a strangely void song about
two feet tramping through the sand.
Acting this may be, but Sia is a more
interesting prospect when she goes offscript.
(El Hunt) LISTEN: ‘Alive’, ‘Reaper’
71

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FIELD MUSIC
Commontime
(Memphis Industries)
Field Music’s new LP,
‘Commontime’, bears all the hallmarks
of the Brewis brothers’ wayward
talents: asymmetrical rhythms, wry humour,
interweaving vocal harmonies, classic
pop/rock sensibilities and genre-merging
surprises. Each track feels awkwardly
personal, like an internal dialogue or a snippet
of an accidentally overheard conversation.
In short, it’s prime Field Music output. Sadly,
despite some truly magnificent moments, it
also falls prey to the duo’s tendency to create
music that sounds more like a conceptual
play filled with clever reference points. When
it reaches its last four tracks ‘Commontime’
starts to feel like an overextended proggy
concept. In the end, this is an album with a
whimsical construct that fails to live up to its
musical promise. (Anastasia Connor) Listen:
‘It’s A Good Thing’
eeee
FOXES
All I Need (Epic)
Not many people can claim
to have won a Grammy
before even releasing their debut album, but
for Foxes, that was just the order of business.
Fast forward two years and Louisa Rose Allen
is about to hit another landmark; her second
album. Where first full-length ‘Glorious’ saw
her establish herself with an array of songs
written across her earlier years, it’s with ‘All I
Need’ that she really comes into her own. A
confidence that only comes with experience
flows through its tracks and it’s clear she’s
truly found her voice. (Sarah Jamieson)
Listen: ‘Better Love’, ‘Money’
Everything
is under the
spotlight
eeee
DIIV Is The Is Are (Domino)
DIIV can’t escape context. Not least when questions remain
unanswered, despite second album ‘Is The Is Are’’s finest
efforts to provide an antidote to controversy. In this magazine,
Zachary Cole Smith goes in depth about his bandmates, drugs,
relationships, his arrest. His life has transformed since the release
of debut ‘Oshin’. Everything is under the spotlight. This record
documents decline, hope and everything in between, fever and adrenaline defining its every
move. Tough reality remains, but ‘Is The Is Are’ is something of a miracle-worker in its ability
to divert attention from Cole’s struggles.
The album pendulum swings between two extremes. It plummets into darkness on ‘Mire
(Grant’s Song)’ and a galloping title-track, laced with Cole’s most upfront lyrics. But ‘Is The Is
Are’ has another, equally enrapturing side. Clashing heads with darkness is a sweet, lovedup
side, the likes of which has no bounds. ‘Under the Sun’ races ahead with heart emojis for
eyes, while ‘Valentine’ flips the idea of addiction of its head into a severe, spiralling romance.
Sky Ferreira guests on the repetitive thud of ‘Blue Boredom’. It’s not one of the album’s finest
moments, but it has its place. Everything is laid bare on ‘Is The Is Are’. Cole’s well and truly
made his point here. (Jamie Milton) Listen: ‘Healthy Moon’, ‘Dust’
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TY SEGALL
Emotional Mugger (drag city)
“Emotional mugging,” explains Ty Segall, “is a psychoanalytic
subject-to-subject exchange formed as a response to a hyperdigital
sexual landscape.” Another in a long line of non-sequiturs from the
Californian lo-fi hero, it sets the tone for the bizarre world you enter
when you spin a Segall LP. Strap yourselves in for this is his weirdest
yet.
Taking the baton from 2014’s ‘Manipulator’, ‘Emotional Mugger’ is
an altogether different beast. It ditches the straightforward garage
rock structures of its elder sibling in favour of loops and mantras
and is, notably, a much darker affair. Whereas the former let in the odd crack of light, this
time Segall pulls the cellar door and barricades himself in, creating a thoroughly paranoid,
claustrophobic realm.
At times, it works. Tracks like ‘Mandy Cream’, ‘Squealer’, and ‘Squealer Two’ - with their
sumptuous glam rock groove - succeed due to the sheer muscle of their hooks. Too often
though ‘Emotional Mugger’ is let down by simple self-indulgence. This is a decent effort
made frustrating by Segall’s prodigious talent. The production is crisp and clean, and his
tight, always-on-the-verge-of-shattering falsetto is in top form. An album bursting with
ideas, it too often disappears up its own - let’s say - ego. (David Zammitt) LISTEN: ‘The
Magazine’
eeee
TELEGRAM
Operator (Republic of Music)
Telegram look like a band who’ve travelled through a timetunnel
to get here. Attired like they’ve just walked into a vintage
shop and undressed the mannequins in the window display,
aesthetically they’re as retro as their name ought to suggest. On their debut LP, they
prove they have the sound to match, as they amalgamate elements of krautrock,
proto-punk, glam and psych – and triumph in doing so.
As undeniably suave and sophisticated an album as it is, there’s a controlled chaos
coursing through Telegram’s veins at certain points throughout ‘Operator’. They
didn’t rush this debut, and the compelling finished article is proof that patience pays
dividends in the album game. (Tom Hancock) LISTEN: ‘Taffy Come Home’
eeee
BASEMENT
Promise Everything (Run For Cover)
When it comes to bands splitting up but quickly reconvening just
a few years later, it’s easy to raise an eyebrow and take the cynical
stance. Back when Basement bowed out after the release of their
2012 album ‘Colourmeinkindness’, however, it felt like a genuine loss. A staple of UK
post-hardcore circles, their return’s since been welcomed with open arms and their
newest full-length ‘Promise Everything’ epitomises all of the reasons fans were so
eager for their hiatus to end.
From the gentle sway of ‘Oversized’ to the gorgeous, melody-filled ‘Aquasun’,
‘Promise Everything’ seems to be the band’s moment of clarity. The soaring opener
of ‘Brothers Keeper’ sees them tread into the melodic territory that their previous
album hinted at, while the brooding closer of ‘Halo’ offers an intense conclusion to
their newest lease of life. (Sarah Jamieson) LISTEN: ‘Hanging Around’
eee
PINKSHINYULTRABLAST
Grandfeathered (ClubAC30)
Upon the release of their first record, ‘Everything Else Matters’,
last year, Russian five-piece pinkshinyultrablast were defined by
the amount of unadulterated noise the group could create. Now
returning with their second, the similarly expansive ‘Grandfeathered’, the impressive
nature of layers the group create are somewhat familiar, and it’s when looking for
something emotionally satiable that it concerns. As impressively considered as
the group are when it comes to their compositions, they evoke a cold feeling of
invulnerability within their music that is hard to avoid. (Ross Jones) Listen: ‘Glow
Vastly’
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MOTHERS
When You Walk a
Long Distance
You Are Tired
(Wichita)
Mothers’ debut begins in charmingly
simple fashion. With the bare minimum
of twinkling guitar accompanied by
the occasional chugging line of strings,
‘Too Small For Eyes’ is a stripped back
showcase of the endearing vocals of
Kristine Leschper. Sudden shifts in
tempo and bursts of noise accompany
Leschper’s as she flits between cries
and whispers, lifting to euphoric
highs before dropping into sorrowful
reflection. In part due to the fact that
this album is a combination of songs
written both in solitude and as a
fully-fledged band, and in part due to
multi-faceted influence from the likes of
Neutral Milk Hotel and Tera Melos, this
dancing around and constant change of
direction is common. ‘When You Walk...’
is never settled, and never should be.
(Henry Boon) Listen: ‘It Hurts Until It
Doesn’t’
eee
PORCHES
Pool (Domino)
Porches is the project
of singer-songwriter
Aaron Maine, whose debut ‘Slow Dance
in the Cosmos’ was a breath of fresh air
when it emerged in 2013. Now signed
to Domino, ‘Pool’ is Porches’ second
album proper, and it’s a monumental
step in a different direction.
Right from opener ‘Underwater’, it’s
clear that Maine has refocused Porches
as an electronic project. From the
subtle hooks of ‘Mood’ and ‘Glow’ to
the moodiness of ‘Even the Shadow’,
‘Pool’ is a collection of idiosyncratic,
80s-indebted pop songs that are
seeping with Maine’s distinct drawl and
a newfound clarity.
Mostly recorded in his apartment
in New York City, ‘Pool’ still has that
bedroom feel that’s come hand-inhand
with everything Maine has done
previously. When it hits home, it comes
off like the promising beginnings of a
musician who’s finally starting to find
his feet. (Tom Walters) Listen: ‘Mood’
eeee
SCHOOL OF SEVEN
BELLS SVIIB (Full Time Hobby)
Over the past three years, the story of School of Seven Bells has been welldocumented,
but it’s only now that the band’s Alejandra Deheza will be able to offer
up their final chapter. ‘SVIIB’ comes accompanied with a bittersweet story: written in
the summer of 2012, the album bears some of the final work of Benjamin Curtis, who passed away
after battling T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma throughout 2013. The remarkable part, though, lies
in the fact that two years on, the pair’s work is able to shine. Regardless of context, their fourth
full-length is their boldest effort yet: from the glowing brilliance of ‘On My Heart’, to the delicate
intricacy of ‘Elias’, it’s an album that will stand as the perfect goodbye. (Sarah Jamieson) Listen:
‘Ablaze’
Q&A
Alejandra Deheza talks DIY through the one-of-a-kind story behind School of Seven Bells’ new album.
You guys almost had the album completed when Benjamin was diagnosed, is that correct?
Yeah I’d say that we had about 80% of it done. We decided we were going to work with Justin (Meldal-
Johnsen, producer) and we wanted to have all of the songs written ready for when we had time scheduled in
with him, but that time ran into everything that happened. We were going to get together with him to get his
touch on it but yeah, the songs were already written.
It’s interesting you say that because, both musically and lyrically, the album does feel like the closing
of a book or the ending of a chapter. Have you found that the lyrics have taken on new meanings when
you listen back to it now?
Oh my god. Oh my god yes. Not only that, it was like I had a sense of urgency to tell the story. When I listen
back to it now there was an obvious reason for that. I didn’t know why I felt super compelled to write about
this stuff. I can’t ever pick what I’m going to write about. I write about things because I feel like I have no
choice and that it’s the only thing that comes out at the time. But now I understand it. Before, I didn’t
understand and it was really hard, y’know. I was writing about this person and he’s standing right next to me
and I have to run these songs by him but I couldn’t talk to him about any of it at the time.
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Photo: Emma Swann
eeee
WILD NOTHING
Life of Pause (Captured Tracks)
Under the alias of Wild Nothing, Jack Tatum forges
worlds of his own making. His music is a shimmering
and ethereal escape for whenever the day-to-day can
seem too weary. Both bright and blissful, Wild Nothing
presents a disorientating venture to dizzy heights, a
daydream for the most monotonous of times.
‘Life Of Pause’ is a departure from expectation. The escapist notions that soared
through previous releases are grounded in lavish production; the melodies are more
tangible. With tracks so vivid they can practically be tasted, Wild Nothing have lost
none of the ability to put a daze upon the senses.
Taking an unmistakable euphoria and driving it home, with ‘Life Of Pause’ Wild
Nothing may have planted his feet firmly on the ground, but that hasn’t stopped
Jack from creating a soundscape straight from your wooziest daydream. (Jessica
Goodman) Listen: ‘Lady Blue’
eeee
SUEDE
Night Thoughts (Suede Ltd.)
If you were approaching this album with hopes for ‘Dog Man Star’
mark II, chances are you’ll be disappointed. But Suede have never
claimed to be the same band they were twenty-odd years ago. One of the boldest
and most controversial successes to emerge out of the ‘90s, the five-piece bring
with them a tumultuous history and a world of wisdom. Resonating with the deep
character that only the band’s experience can lead to create, ‘Night Thoughts’ is
Suede at their most distinguished. The album is a return to the boundary-pushing
form that has always served Suede so well. (Jessica Goodman) Listen: ‘The Fur & The
Feathers’
eee
MEILYR JONES
2013 (moshi moshi)
Why do some artists seem to outlast eternity? You can imagine,
in forty years’ time, finding Meilyr Jones in the Welsh valleys,
mediating under a tree, and still making wondrous music.
The more you listen, the more you start to learn this is not an album of ‘Eleanor
Rigby’s; it’s an album of ‘A Day in the Life’s. As he croons on ‘Passionate Friend’,
“Sometimes, I’m with the witches”, you don’t know where, or when, he’s going
to change next.
‘2013’ doesn’t just sound markedly different to what’s gone before – it
sounds different to the previous listen. Each time of listening, there’s a new
element you never saw in it before. It’s easy to recognise a work of art. (Andrew
Backhouse) Listen: ‘Featured Artist’
COMING
UP
LÅPSLEY
LONG WAY HOME
Southport-raised Holly Fletcher,
aka Låpsley, will be unveiling her
debut LP next month. Her eleventrack
record ‘Long
Way Home’ is “an
autobiography”
of the producer’s
last year and gets
released through
XL Recordings on
4th March.
POLIÇA
UNITED CRUSHERS
Following on from their 2013 effort
‘Shulamith’, Poliça will be returning
with their newest effort ‘United
Crushers’ in early March. Recorded
in El Paso, Texas, it’s an album that
– according to Channy
Leaneagh herself –
was born in “quite
a few different
transformative
headspaces.”
WHITE
DENIM
sTIFF
Austin quartet White Denim are
back and will be offering up their
sixth album next month, when
they unveil ‘Stiff’ on 25th March.
Produced by Ethan Johns, it’s set
to be nine songs of high-octane
rock and roll – plus,
their song titles
have lots of
brackets
in there,
for good
measure.
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a huge
s p ec tac l e
o f a
show.
Alt-J
Bournemouth International Centre Photo: Hannah Bowns
Now on the homecoming final leg of the ‘This Is All Yours’ tour, tonight
Alt-J make a point of the occasion. After all, it takes a huge spectacle
for a show to feel squeezed into the Bournemouth International
Centre.
The band don’t have any intention of letting the crowd see their faces, as they
disappear into the surrounding marvels. It all begins with ‘Intro’, as they take
to the stage in darkness, with pulsing white light casting them into silhouettes,
only their voices and teasing electronic buzz beneath. By the time ‘Left Hand
Free’ is done, twenty-five screens have lowered from the ceiling on wires to
engulf both the band and the audience in retina-frazzling light, portraying
a new location and concept with every song. Within three songs, this is
not just a performance. It’s an intense multimedia experience.
Maximo
Park
The Roundhouse, London. Photo:
Carolina Faruolo
You wouldn’t begrudge
Maximo Park a lap of honour,
but this is better than that.
Giving a full run to their
cherished debut ‘A Certain Trigger’, this
is a vibrant and massively entertaining
spectacle.
The show is split down the middle. The
second half handed over to that debut,
the first trawling through the rest of
their history, commencing with ‘Girls
Who Play Guitars’: as giddy an opening
as you could want.
While it never quite tops ‘Apply Some
Pressure’ and ‘Graffiti’, there’s still
plenty to remind you of how good ‘A
Certain Trigger’ was. Is. ‘The Coast Is
Always Changing’ has lost a bit of the air
of naive adventure, and gained a more
thoughtful, nostalgic tone.
See. There it is again. The n-word.
Cropping up where you least expect
it. However, you don’t walk away from
tonight with the view that Maximo
Park are now just an act yearning for an
earlier time. Future triumph is still well
within reach. (Tim Lee)
Tonight is a journey through locations and concepts, especially
during the ambience of interlinked tracks ‘Nara and Leaving
Nara’, the synth-heavy brood of ‘Hunger of the Pine’, and its
polar opposite, the stand-out massive-sounding distorted
roaring of ‘Fitzpleasure’, all for which the stage seems
custom created.
All eyes are fixed forwards, witnessing the signature
sound of Alt-J – the distinctive and fragile voice of
Joe Newman, versus the complex beats of drummer
Thom Green, and synths of Gus Unger-Hamilton.
It seems almost an injustice to call Newman the
“frontman”, as he functions as a smoke-cloaked
central cog to focus upon, challenging everyone to
decode and follow him into Alt-J’s world.
Between tracks, there is sudden darkness besides the
spotlights on each band member. It’s a powerful thump
back to earth, and an opportunity for Alt-J to survey the
spell they’ve cast on their ecstatic audience. They deserve
it. (Nick Pollard)
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chvRches
Alexandra Palace, London. Photo: Sarah Louise Bennett
Over the last three years Chvrches have
climbed to some dizzying heights.
From their touring success on both
sides of the pond to releasing two
incredible records, their achievements thus far
all seem to have led to this headline at London’s
Alexandra Palace.
For those who’ve previously visited the North
London venue, it’s no secret that its cavernous
space can be rather unforgiving. Tonight, on a
rainy Friday evening at the end of the trio’s UK
tour, however, everything is on their side. Their
glorious sound fills the space brilliantly and their
production goes further to match the magnitude
of the occasion.
It’s the band themselves, though, that really
make tonight so memorable. Lauren Mayberry
cuts a bewitching figure, dressed in a black
tutu leaping across the stage, no holds barred.
A confidence flows through her that is
breathtaking and, as she moves across
the vast stage effortlessly, it’s now that
she seems to have really come into her
own. To either side of her, Iain Cook
and Martin Doherty as are deft as
ever, and as a unit, their force feels
unstoppable.
Tracks like ‘Lies’ and ‘Recover’
seem to have taken on a new
lease of life in their set,
while newer numbers
‘Never Ending Circles’
and ‘Leave A Trace’ are
tailor-made for huge
rooms like tonight.
‘Clearest Blue’
comes packed
with the euphoric
punch that the album
teases, while ‘Afterglow’ is
even more haunting and grandiose
live. Ending with the still-brilliant ‘The
Mother We Share’, their headline set may have
been the biggest they’ve played so far in their
career but it’s still just a glimpse of what’s to
come. (Sarah Jamieson)
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yak
Moth Club, London. Photos: Emma Swann
Everything
about Yak
frontman Oli
Burslem makes
him ready-made for a
previous era. Those Jagger
looks don’t deceive. His band
are an exciting reinvention of
past motifs, from the trio’s earthshaking
powerplay to their swarm of
deadly psych. There are a thousand groups
from the past they could be compared to, but
these three feel vitally real in the present day.
Another decade might spit out Yak after a first
bite, but they belong in 2015.
Tonight’s venue - the gold-covered Moth
Club - is, suitably, a relic of the past that’s been
given a new sheen. Its low glittery ceilings are
a smart fit for Yak’s boundless energy and glam
charm. Burslem and co. are launching their
Third Man-released EP ‘No’ tonight, and it’s a
pity Jack White isn’t in attendance to witness
the fearless force of this band.
It’s one of those nights where everything falls
into place. A Yak show is all well and good
when Burslem peers over an organ droning
into eternity, or when he’ll use his guitar as
some climbing prop towards the ceiling.
Reciprocation is when they reach another gear.
There’s a permanent pulse in the front rows
tonight, but it’s not by default. Like the flick of
a switch, Yak’s frontman can go from all out
deranged chants (‘No’ being the calling card),
or he’ll deliver a more gripping form of noise.
The blink-and-you-missed-it ‘Alas Salvation’
gets two outings, and it’s straight from the
White Stripes school of gritty rock ‘n roll and
complete control.
With heads beginning to turn, this deranged
reception is the kind Yak will eagerly play to
night after night. But take a snapshot of this
Moth Club show - shirts off, sweaty bedlam by
the end - and it could easily be mistaken for an
archive example of how an act can begin their
quest for world domination. Yak have all the
makings of a special band - what’s striking is
just how close they look to the finished article.
(Jamie Milton)
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Demob
Happy
Hare & Hounds, Birmingham. Photo: Sam Wood
Illuminated
by a deep red light,
there’s something sinister
about Demob Happy.
With hooks that earworm
their way through the
system like nothing else,
there’s definitely a sense of
the darkly addictive in what
the Brighton quartet do.
Taking to the stage at the
Hare & Hounds, Demob
Happy are primed to let
their vivid sense of turmoil
take over. The songs from
debut ‘Dream Soda’ may be
rawer than their recorded
counterparts, but they’re
certainly no less dream-like.
Layered guitar refrains ebb
and flow as they advance,
waves of sound forging an
eerie and shadowy realm of
twisted words and squalling
licks. Barely speaking a word
between songs, the music
that floods the room carries
all the power.
For half the set, it holds the
room entranced. Swaying to
the melodies that wander
and roam through the
speakers, the crowd are
captivated.
As the meandering
bass line of ‘Wash It Down’
kicks in, Demob Happy’s
grasp on the gathered
begins to incite. An energy
ignites at stage front,
starting with those closest
and starting to spread.
With frenetic moves and a
fervent mosh now taking
up half the room, Demob
Happy reign over the chaos.
Distorted refrains channel
the disorder to tempered
drumbeats, lyrics echoing
through the air like beacons
amidst the bedlam. Ending
with the boisterous ‘Young
& Numb’, the gathered
throw themselves into the
rhythms for one last time.
Both calamitous and
captivating, Demob Happy’s
instinctive force proves to
be a spell that can work
its way under the skin
of anyone. With shouts
of enthusiasm echoing
out into the street, it’s an
enchantment the crowd
tonight is happy to be
under. (Jessica Goodman)
The
Magic Gang
The Lexington, London. Photos: Nathan McLaren-Stewart
“W
e’ve just realised this is an 18+ show,” notes The
Magic Gang bassist Gus Taylor, just before his
band deliver the penultimate song of a headturning
set at The Lexington. They might be on the slow side
when it comes to gig organisation, but everything else in their
canon is remarkably slick - way more so than this time twelve
months back. They’re a pristine guitar pop outfit, ready for the
2016 charge. Even their shirts are tucked in, these days.
The group’s loyal, under-18 brigade are indeed in absence
today, and it’s notable in the opening half of tonight’s show.
Sweet-hearted pop with a ‘50s nostalgia twist might be The
Magic Gang’s game, but they’re well used to playing to seas
of crowdsurfers and flailing arms. A barmy default mode is
swapped for something more considered. In between songs,
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C o o l ,
commanding
and teeming
with charisma.
MØ
XOYO, London. Photo: Abi Dainton
they even opt for jazzy, instrumental
interludes. But it’s all tongue in cheek,
guitarist / vocalist Kristian Smith huskily
whispering “jaaaaazz”, well aware of the
different circumstances.
Early numbers ‘She Won’t Ghost’ and
’Alright’ come closest to reaching
bedlam. Tracks from a forthcoming EP
are also given a round, but it’s in the
fresher material that truly strikes gold.
Taylor takes on vocal duties for the first
time on one number, and other tracks
come off like a hybrid of Mac DeMarco
and Weezer. They’re comparisons that
have followed The Magic Gang’s every
move up to now, but they’re likely to
stick.
The future is ridiculously bright for
this lot. They’re taking on new roles,
trying new things, all while gradually
establishing themselves as one of the
UK’s best new bands. (Jamie Milton)
Having a cult following is nothing to be snarked at, but it’s always not
always a notch on the bedpost of success. Still, XOYO is swimming, almost
drowning, with people tonight. There’s a pair to the right desperately
squabbling over who’s going to stand in front of who, equally, there’s a
group equidistant bopping behind a stone pillar and that’s fine by them. MØ doesn’t
only appeal to a certain circle of hardcore believers.
She arrives to a frantic crowd as piercing white lights introduce her into the
handclap heavy rhythms of ‘Pilgrim’. Taking this all in are an audience that have all
since thrown their composure to the wind.
Demonstrating her ability to contest impressive vocals with unbridled energy
the Danish artist, quickly ditching her slick silver bomber, refuses to stop
dancing. Curling, punching and gliding her hands through every beat as though
orchestrating the entire thing through her fingertips, there’s a distinctive sense that
she’s thoroughly enjoying this.
‘Kamikaze’ bursts down in sticky electro-pop bubbles while ‘Waste Of Time’,
arguably her most powerful work to date, emerges snarling and biting. Major Lazer
collaboration finale ‘Lean On’ incites full-blown frenzy: an atmosphere spoiled only
by a crowd seemingly obsessed with filming the whole bloody thing.
The singer only released debut LP ‘No Mythologies To Follow’ a year ago, but the
dab-hand confidence that leads her both into and over the heads of the masses
makes that all too easy to forget. Cool, commanding and teeming with charisma,
Ørsted is an absolute powerhouse tonight. It was always a question of whether
her live show could match her studio offerings and actually, it trumps them. This is
something to be seen as well as heard. (Maya Rose Radcliffe)
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Brendon Urie
PANIC! AT THE DISCO.
Full name: Brendon Boyd Urie
Nickname: Bden
Star Sign: Aries
Pets: A Jack Russell Terrier named
Bogart and a Boston Terrier named
Penny Lane.
Favourite Film: Pulp Fiction. Tarantino
is my favourite director I think.
Drink of choice: Bourbon on ice.
Signature scent: F&R Solid Cologne.
It sort of smells like soap? Like it just
smells clean and fresh.
Favourite hair product: Murray’s Hair
Dressing Pomade.
If you weren’t in a band, what would
you be doing: I’d probably still be
playing music, but to make money... I
was actually on my way to becoming a
cosmetologist when I joined this band.
Chat up line of choice: Umm... ‘Death
of a Bachelor’ is the thing I’m most
proud of right now, so I think that’s
bragging rights, yeah?
DIY
INDIE DREAMBOAT
Of the Month
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