DIY July / August 2025

KAE TEMPEST
SHAME
BLACK HONEY
INDIGO DE SOUZA
AND MORE
ISSUE 152 • JULY / AUGUST 2025
DIYMAG.COM
AN
KEVIN ABSTRACT on ‘Blush’, home comforts,
ABSTRACT
and moving beyond BROCKHAMPTON.
LIFE

allpointseastfestival.com
Victoria Park
London E3

CLEO SOL > CHRONIXX > SAULT
+ more to be announced
CHASE AND STATUS
Overmono > Sammy Virji > Nia Archives
Dimension > Jyoty B2B Ahadadream > Joy Orbison w/ SP:MC > Shy Fx
[IVY] > 4am Kru > Arthi > Bambii > Benny L w/ MC GQ > Brockie & MC Det > Cheetah B2B Samurai Breaks
Coco Bryce B2B Dwarde B2B Sully B2B Tim Reaper > Diffrent B2B Silva Bumpa > DJ Flight B2B Mantra
Hamdi > Irah > Kara > Messie > Mozey w/ 2Shy > Oppidan > Serum w/Inja > SHERELLE B2B CLIPZ > Sola Guinto
BARRY CAN’T SWIM
Confidence Man > Marlon Hoffstadt (Presents Daddycation) > Orbital > Shygirl
Avalon Emerson > The Blessed Madonna > Chloé Caillet
DJ HEARTSTRING > Interplanetary Criminal > Prospa > salute (Presents True Vision)
ATRIP > Leon Vynehall > Myd (Live) > Pretty Girl (Live) > Saint Ludo > Sam Alfred > WizTheMC
+ more to be announced
RAYE
Tyla > Doechii > Jade
Jyoty > NAO > Montell Fish > Cat Burns > Eliza Rose
Sienna Spiro > Chloe Qisha > Nia Smith
Mackenzy Mackay > Asha Banks > Alemeda > Zinadelphia > Sofia And The Antoinettes
Aqyila > Pedro Santos > Harleighblu
THE MACCABEES
Bombay Bicycle Club
CMAT > Black Country, New Road > Dry Cleaning
The Cribs > Everything Everything
Nilüfer Yanya > The Murder Capital > Sorry > Katy J Pearson > Divorce > Hamish Hawk
Warmduscher > The Futureheads > Willie J. Healey > Man/Woman/Chainsaw > GB
Prima Queen > Youth Lagoon > TTSSFU > Brigitte Calls Me Baby > Folk Bitch Trio
Westside Cowboy > Sex Week > Bold Love > Slow Fiction > Max Baby > The Juice

FIRST TIME IN PARIS, TRUE FAVORITES OF THE TEAM, RAW TALENTS OF TOMORROW
FESTIVAL
28, 29, 30 OCTOBER 2025
SUPERSONIC CLUB, SUPERSONIC RECORDS & LA SEINE CAFÉ
FUZZ LIGHTYEAR - GLAASCATS -
HAAL - HOUSE OF WOMEN - MARY
SHELLEY - NATIVE SUN -
SEMIWESTERN - SLAG
AND MANY MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED...
TICKETS ON DICE

CONTENTS
JULY /
2025
NEWS
6 Glastonbury 2025
12 Kae Tempest
14 Festivals
NEU
18 The New Eves
20 Recommended
22 Folk Bitch Trio
25 Humour
D
FOUNDING EDITOR
Emma Swann
MANAGING EDITOR
Sarah Jamieson
DIGITAL EDITOR
Daisy Carter
DESIGN
Emma Swann
COVER PHOTO AND THIS PAGE
Jack Balaban
CONTRIBUTORS
Bella Martin, Ben Jolley, Ben
Tipple, Brad Sked, Caitlin
Chatterton, Cameron Sinclair
Harris, Christopher Connor, Ciaran
Picker, Ed Lawson, El Hunt, Elvis
Thirlwell, Emily Savage, Emma Way,
Gemma Cockrell, Hannah Mylrea,
Hazel Blacher, Isabella Ambrosio,
Joe Goggins, Kayla Sandiford,
Louis Griffin, Megan Graye, Millie
Temperton, Otis Robinson, Peter
Martin, Phil Taylor, Rishi Shah,
Sarah Taylor, Sean Kerwick, Sophie
McVinnie, Tom Morgan, Zoya Raza-
Sheikh.
FEATURES
26 Kevin Abstract
34 Indigo De Souza
38 Panic Shack
40 Black Honey
44 Jessica Winter
46 Shame
REVIEWS
50 Albums
58 EPs, etc
60 Live
EDITOR’S
LETTER
Let’s be honest, 2025 has whizzed by
and frankly, we can’t quite believe
that we’re already this deep into
summer. However, we can confirm
that it’s been a stellar one so far!
Fresh from a very memorable
Glastonbury (and our last for two
years, sob), festival season is
already in full swing - and, with a
packed release schedule for the
next two months, we decided to go
big and bring you a hefty double issue
packed with some DIY faves to get you
through ‘til Autumn.
To mark the occasion, we’re thrilled to welcome
the one and only Kevin Abstract to the cover, as
he ushers in his latest solo endeavour ‘Blush’ - a
record which saw the former BROCKHAMPTON
member return to his home of Texas to reignite his
creative flame. Elsewhere, we’ve got chats with
the likes of Shame, Black Honey, Kae Tempest
and more. Plus, we’re buzzing to have heard the
incredible new record from Wolf Alice - you can
read more about our thoughts on their fifth LP
over on p50! So, go on - put your feet up, get the
fan on, and enjoy!
Sarah Jamieson,
Managing Editor
All material copyright (c). All rights reserved.
This publication may not be reproduced or
transmitted in any form, in whole or in part,
without the express written permission of DIY.
Disclaimer: While every effort is made to ensure
the information in this magazine is correct,
changes can occur which affect the accuracy of
copy, for which DIY holds no responsibility. The
opinions of the contributors do not necessarily
bear a relation to those of DIY or its staff and
we disclaim liability for those impressions.
Distributed nationally.
LISTEN ALONG!
Scan the code to listen along to the July / August playlist.
D 5

NEWS
LORDE
Down
on
the
Farm
It’s already been a long, hot
summer and with a fallow year on
the horizon, all systems were go
for Glastonbury 2025! Promising
to be one of the biggest editions of
the festival yet, with an all-star cast
including Olivia Rodrigo, Charli
xcx, The 1975, Wolf Alice, The
Maccabees and CMAT (plus loads
more), this year was one for the
record books. Discover a little bit of
the magic that unfolded on Worthy
Farm now - and get saving those
pennies for 2027...
Photos: Emma Swann
Friday
12.30PM: LORDE CELEBRATES NEW
ALBUM RELEASE WITH SURPRISE
OPENING SET
Kicking off the festival proper is possibly the
weekend’s least secret secret set, as hoardes of
people make their way over to Woodsies’ tented
canopy for a basically-breakfast-time, album release
day set from Lorde. Catching the crowd at what’s
likely, endurance-wise, their highest ebb of the
weekend ahead, she makes no bones about the fact
that today is a celebration: “Thank you so much for
being here with us on the day that ‘Virgin’ is born.”
Playing the whole record front to back - a feat the
Kiwi alt-pop star hints might be “one of one” - her
performance feels joyously unself-conscious, the
very epitome of ‘What Was That”s now-infamous ode
to hedonistic release. Seemingly taking cues from
her so-called doppelganger and ‘Girl, so confusing’
co-conspirator Charli xcx (musically as much as
anything, with these new tracks centring glitchy beats
and vocoded vocals), this is the sound of a thoroughly
2025 pop star - one who’s undergone crises both
professional and personal, and emerged more
assured than ever.
2.45PM: CMAT OFFERS UP A
MASTERCLASS IN PERFORMANCE
FOR BRILLIANT SET ON THE PYRAMID
STAGE
For anyone not on site at Worthy Farm this year, be
assured, CMAT is the name that’s on everyone’s lips
today as Glastonbury’s first full day of programming
gets under way. So by the time she emerges onto the
Pyramid Stage this afternoon - clad in a royal blue
‘60s-style dress and sparkly shrug top, bedazzled
with dangly euro signs in a nod to her forthcoming
new album - it’s not all too surprising to see the
crowd stretch well up onto the hill and out of eyeline.
What follows is a masterclass of a performance in
every sense, with CMAT an iconic ringleader. From
her first steps on stage - which see her dramatically
faux faceplant before beginning ‘Have Fun!’ without
skipping a beat - through to her jumping the barrier to
join the crowd for a triumphant final chorus of closer

CMAT
‘Stay For Something’, she is a giddy whirlwind of
entertainment.
What’s most magical, though, is not just how much
theatrical effort she’s put in (take when she whips
open her dress during the introduction to ‘Take A
Sexy Picture Of Me’ to reveal her leotard underneath,
or rips off the badge on her front to reveal a photo of
Jamie Oliver, the subject of her latest single), but also
how much this clearly means to her and her Very Sexy
CMAT band. Eschewing cool aloofness in favour of
an altogether more authentic, ridiculous, and (most
importantly) fun display, her set feels so unashamedly
HER that it’s impossible not to feel a little emotional
at the entire feat. It may be early doors at Glasto
2025, but this is a sure-fire contender for set of the
weekend.
5.30PM: ENGLISH TEACHER GRADUATE
TOP OF THE CLASS WITH JOYOUS SET
ON THE PARK
For anyone who’s watched the rise and rise of Leedsformed
quartet English Teacher - from first playing
Worthy Farm’s BBC Introducing stage in 2022 to a
televised slot on The Park Stage (via a Mercury Prize
win, naturally) - this afternoon feels like something
of a Glastonbury graduation - a set that affirms their
future as festival mainstays and alt-rock standardsetters.
Equal parts enigmatic and endearingly down
to earth, their cool composure broken every now and
then by a flash of a smile or well-timed wise crack,
the band perform as if in some sun-kissed liminal
space: secure in the sheer quality of their ‘This Could
Be Texas’ offerings, yet keeping one eye fixed on the
future, they take the opportunity to give unreleased
track ‘Toothpick’ (a number that’s ostensibly about a
shark biting off your leg) its first ever live airing. “I’m
shitting myself,” says frontwoman Lily Fontaine of the
new cut, before clocking the tv camera: “sorry, BBC”.
Oscillating between the heart-wrenchingly tender
(a collective sigh goes up with the opening notes of
‘Blister My Paint’) and the appropriately rowdy (the
spontaneous chant of “Yorkshire!” that goes up after
‘Nearly Daffodils’ is joyously teenage), today is an
expertly executed freeze frame of a band on the cusp
of so much more.
6.15PM: FRANZ FERDINAND BRING THE
BANGERS FOR INDIE DISCO-WORTHY
SET ON THE OTHER STAGE
Nostalgia is high on the menu at Glastonbury today,
and not just because Alanis Morissette is taking to
the Pyramid Stage in an hour. Arguably one of the
most slick indie rock outfits to take on festival season,
Franz Ferdinand are the most seasoned of pros,
so as they take to the Other Stage to the stomping
sounds of ‘Michael’, the crowd are already on each
other’s shoulders, flares aloft. If their selection of indie
disco bangers isn’t enough to whip up a frenzy, Alex
Kapranos bringing on the second surprise Capaldi of
the day (former Dr Who and The Thick Of It star Peter
Capaldi) for a storming rendition of ‘Take Me Out’ is
sure to do it. It’s a truly joyous scene.
FRANZ FERDINAND
8.30PM: ANTONY SZMIEREK PLAYS
REVITALISING, HOPEFUL SET AT LEFT
FIELD
It’s hard to think of a stage here better suited to
Antony Szmierek, who’s packed out the politicallyoriented
Left Field tent for what’s a perfectly-pitched
introduction to Glastonbury 2025’s first proper night
of music. Given his debut album ‘Service Station At
The End Of The Universe’ (released earlier this year)
exists at the crossroads between poetry and lyric,
sci-fi manifesto and song, this corner of the farm is
the ideal conduit for its live rendition - communityoriented,
revitalising, and hopeful.
Between choice cuts from said record (‘Angie’s
Wedding’ and ‘Yoga Teacher’ being particular
highlights) and an uproariously-received cover of
fellow Mancs New Order’s ‘True Faith’, he has this
age-spanning crowd utterly enraptured. But it’s
the closing one-two of
‘Rafters’ and perennial
set closer ‘The Words To Auld Lang Syne’ - the latter
of which is preceded by a moving call for the left to
unite in the face of encroaching right wing bile - that
hits the hardest. Both odes to seizing the moment,
appreciating the small things, and hugging your loved
ones that little bit tighter, they’re the crowd-surfing,
mates-on-shoulders stuff of festival perfection.
Nothing short of life-affirming; this is what this
weekend is all about.
11.45PM: THE 1975 CLOSE THE PYRAMID
WITH A SHOW THAT’S EQUAL PARTS
INTRIGUING AND HEAD-SCRATCHING
When Matty Healy says - half an hour into their stint
headlining the Pyramid Stage tonight - that he finds
it hard to be sincere, it’s easy to believe; but then
again, it’s not. A frontman who seems to delight in
toying with the line between artifice and authenticity,
that resolve is out in full force this evening: for anyone
who thought The 1975 might put on a straight-forward
rock show for their turn topping the Glastonbury bill,
you’d be wrong. Instead - for their first live show in
over a year - what follows is a meandering journey
through their back catalogue’s loftiest highs and
most reflective, self-aware moments, all backed by a
dazzling display of hefty screens, lights and runways.
In a clever twist, Matty’s lyrics are put front and centre
in various ways: the dark lilt of ‘Paris’ sees its words
float across the video screens like an old school
screensaver, before an entirely tongue-in-cheek
speech, in which the frontman calls himself “the
greatest songwriter of my generation, a generational
poet,” introduces debut album hit ‘Chocolate’ (“I want
you to remember that when we play this next song”)
and the screens hilariously scroll through lines of
gibberish similar to his infamously-garbled lines.
It’s moments like this - and his genuinely startled
reaction when the lights come up to see the crowd
- that feel truly endearing to their cause; a breaking
of the fourth wall in a bizarre but brilliant way. But
then, things often take a baffling turn. Take when
he randomly appears in the back seat of a car for
‘Somebody Else’, or his unprompted speech about
a lack of politics in their set (a “conscious’ decision
in aid of the band’s legacy being one of “love and
friendship”) that’s almost immediately followed by
their volatile - and entirely politically-charged - ‘Love
It If We Made It’; it’s almost like he needn’t have
mentioned it at all. But then, that wouldn’t be very
Matty Healy of him. While their 2023 ‘At Their Very
Best’ tour felt like a true distillation of their ability
to delight, surprise and confuse all at once, it’ll
likely be hard for them to ever top that run. Tonight,
though, they give as good as they can, knowing just
how far to push the self-deprecating nods before
throwing out an arms-aloft banger to reel the crowd
back in. What’s more, as a band, they are fiercely
THE 1975

tight and impressive, a fact that often gets missed
in amongst the sprawling method-like themes.
Was this the set that we’d expected from The 1975
tonight? Not necessarily, but their head-scratching,
thought-provoking skewering of entertainment will
always get people talking, and this is no different.
Saturday
2.00PM: NILÜFER YANYA WAKES UP
WEST HOLTS WITH HER DISPLAY OF
GENRE-HOPPING DELIGHTS
Blowing away any lingering Friday night cobwebs,
Nilüfer Yanya’s turn on West Holts comes just days
ahead of the release of her ‘Dancing Shoes’ EP - and,
although they might still be slightly jaded, that’s
precisely the energy the crowd require this sunny
afternoon. Zipping through her collection of expansive
alt-rock offerings, she keeps stage chat to a minimum
JADE
in favour of letting her latest album - 2024’s ‘My
Method Actor’ - do the talking. At points grungeflecked
and gnarly, at others all ethereal vocal effects,
meandering sax lines, and skittering beats, it’s an
eclectic set that feels entirely in line with the genrespanning
programming Glasto so prides itself on.
3:30PM: BOB VYLAN DELIVER POTENT
PUNK AT WEST HOLTS
While much has been said of Kneecap’s appearance
today, there’s something apt about placing Bob Vylan
on the bill immediately before them. Undeniably one
of the most potent forces in UK punk right now, the
duo utilise their slot on the West Holts stage - which
is already considerably full ahead of Kneecap’s slot
later on - to their full, politically potent advantage,
all while keeping one eye on the fact they’re being
live-streamed on telly. Now, with the gift of
hindsight, the story of
this set is
a
very different one, dominated by headlines regarding
their ‘Death to the IDF’ chant, which took place after
DIY had left the arena. But, in an era where it’s so
easy to focus on 90 second soundbites and contextlacking
clips, it’s equally important to highlight the
rest of their performance, and the other powerful
messages at play.
Opener ‘I Heard You Want Your Country Back’ is a
full throttle explosion of a track, while their backdrop
changes continuously to display different messages
of solidarity (‘Women’s rights are human rights’) and
outrage (‘It’s been 8 years and still no justice for
Grenfell’). It’s not all in-your-face energy, crowdsurfing
and outspoken chants though; in a perfect
illustration of their multi-faceted nature as an outfit,
vocalist Bob welcomes his daughter onstage for a
performance of ‘Dream Big’, before hugging her and
assuring her that she can do anything she puts her
mind to. Regardless of the headlines that have come
since, it’s important to remember: this is a band that
care deeply about the entwined tangle of the personal
and political, and that’s why today - for better or for
worse - is likely the biggest moment of their career
so far.
[This review was edited on Tuesday 1st July.]
4.00PM: JADE BRINGS PURE POP
MAGIC TO PACKED WOODSIES STAGE
Now, Jade Thirlwall is no stranger to big crowds, nor
big shows. As part of Little Mix, she played stadiums
up and down the UK; just earlier this year, she
delivered a jaw-dropping, night-stealing performance
at the 2025 BRITs. But, despite their astronomical
success and record-breaking accolades, Glastonbury
was one career milestone the group never ticked
off. And it’s a CV omission that makes JADE’s
performance today all the more special: though she
earnestly acknowledges how much she owes her
former bandmates, her admission into the extended
family of Worthy Farm feels like an acknowledgment
that, now, her ever-intriguing solo career is operating
on a whole new level.
Take the fact that Ncuti Gatwa is here at Woodsies
to introduce the set (because, well, why not?), or her
admirable dedication to donning a comically large fur
hat; look at the inspired appearance of Aussie partystarting
duo Confidence Man (who perfectly match
her freak on yet-to-be-released collab track ‘Gossip’),
or her no-holds-barred cover mashup of Madonna’s
‘Frozen’ and N-Trance’s ‘Set You Free’: every move
here is considered, yes, but still refreshingly free from
the constraints she worked under for so long. And
what’s even more uplifting is just how open to this
evolution her fans seem to be - obviously, a mid-set
Little Mix medley is met with ear-piercing screams
and avid enthusiasm, but it’s for epic closer ‘Angel
Of My Dreams’ that the loudest cheers (and more
than a few tears, Jade’s included) are reserved. The
embodiment of everything that modern pop
should be - experimental,
authentic, and
emotive - it’s
only
a matter of time before she conquers the Pyramid,
too.
7.15PM: PULP RETURN TO THE PYRAMID
STAGE FOR CELEBRATORY SECRET
SET, 30 YEARS AFTER THEIR ICONIC
HEADLINER
When it comes to Glastonbury, Pulp have a history
with surprises. Today is, Jarvis Cocker tells us, 30
years and four days since the Sheffield icons first
headlined the festival, filling in last minute for The
Stone Roses after John Squire broke his shoulder
blade and collarbone in a mountain biking accident.
Today, though, the Britpop-era band’s appearance
on the Pyramid Stage is - supposedly, anyway -
even more of a revelation, as they fill the slot that’s
been advertised under the moniker ‘Patchwork’.
Walking onstage shielded by a rain poncho-clad,
line of people, any remaining doubts as to who this
pseudonym could belong to (names as disparate
as Chappell Roan and Mumford & Sons have been
swirling, after all) are immediately dispelled: what else
could these archetypal campers precede but opener
and Pulp’s astute festival anthem, ‘Sorted For E’s &
Whizz’? What follows is - as evidenced by the fieldfull
of people in attendance - another headline-worthy
performance, full of references to an intertwined past,
as well as nods to a thriving present, courtesy of
choice cuts from this month’s ‘More’, an album barely
three weeks old.
Between the archive footage and photos projected on
the stage’s backdrop, the noticeably intergenerational
crowd (people who were likely here then, and are here
with their children now) and Jarvis’ perfectly circular
decision to rip up the shopping list/manifesto he
originally read out on that now-iconic night in
1995, Pulp’s ‘surprise’ set comes loaded with
one overarching messaged: “History is now.”
Apparently, this is the best they can do - and
CHARLI XCX
‘PATCHWORK’
it’s more than enough.
9.00PM: RAYE DAZZLES IN MORE
WAYS THAN ONE DURING THE
PYRAMID’S SUNSET SLOT
It doesn’t matter where or when RAYE
seems to perform, she always manages
to be utterly spellbinding. Returning to the
Pyramid Stage this year for the Saturday
sunset slot, her performance tonight is a
true masterclass in being an artist, made
even more powerful when you recall her
backstory. To think that she was ever put
on the back burner by her former record
label feels truly baffling, especially during a
moment as grand and gorgeous as this.
This evening - backed by a fully suitedand-booted
band and appearing
Corinne Cumming, Henry Redcliffe

against a red, glitzy
backdrop that feels
more suited to a
residency in Vegas,
or ‘60s TV show
than Worthy Farm -
she’s equally parts
impressive and
irreverent, moving
swiftly from belting
out the high notes
to giggling at people
in the crowd and
running around the
stage bare-foot
in her sequinned RAYE
black dress. Her
energy is infectious
throughout and there’s not
an ounce of inauthenticity
to be found here. She’s a
super star in so many ways.
11.45PM: CHARLI
XCX BURNS DOWN
HER ‘BRAT’ ERA
WITH MASSIVE
OTHER STAGE
SHOW
It’s tricky to point
to another year in
Glasto history where
two Saturday night
headliners have been
as disparate - sonically
and culturally - as
Neil Young and Charli
xcx. One, a classic,
legacy songwriter
who’s famously
tech-averse; the
other, a thoroughly
modern electropop
artist who’s
mastered the art of
a viral moment and
made social media
her playground.
While there’s a
good argument
to be made for
her topping the
Pyramid tonight,
in a way, her
billing on The
Other Stage feels
strangely apt:
a star that has
always
TURNSTILE
been slightly outside the mainstream, it’s only right
that her crowning moment is, too.
Since last year’s ‘BRAT’-mania, the world (or the
internet, at least) has been watching her every move,
the lore around her zeitgeist-creating latest album
growing with each remix, guest appearance, and
TikTok dance. It’s with a knowing wink, then, that she
opens this evening’s hugely-anticipated headline set
by blaring Britpop classic ‘Bittersweet Symphony’
through the stage’s speakers - an acknowledgement
that this neon-green splashed moment in time
is both her pinnacle, and a potentially inimitable
era. Having spent the past few months wrangling
with how best to move beyond ‘BRAT’, teasing
its demise via an increasingly-tattered curtain
backdrop, tonight Charli opts to - quite literally -
take a match to the whole thing, rejecting fireworks
or traditional pyro in favour of her very own
flag-burning ceremony. And that’s not the only
thing she destroys, either: all weekend, rumours
and speculation about who’ll be joining Charli on
stage abound - will Lorde follow her own secret
set by duetting on ‘Girl, so confusing’? Will the
HAIM sisters be our trio of ‘Apple’ girls? Will fiancé
(and The 1975 member) George Daniels make an
appearance? The answer to all of the above, as
it turns out, is an emphatic ‘no’: aside from Gracie
Abrams’ 30 seconds of ‘Apple’ dance screen time,
she commands the overflowing field entirely alone.
It’s a move that is perhaps, for some, disappointing
- given how heaving her little black book must be,
expectations for all sorts of A-list appearances were
sky-high. But in refusing to share her spotlight, Charli
actually makes even more of a statement: yes, starstudded
collabs and this sudden surge of popularity
are great. But she’s been doing this for a decade
already, and it’s not her problem if the rest of the
world are only just catching up. To paraphrase the
woman herself: “this is really fucking cool. But not as
cool as me, bitch.”
Sunday
1.00PM: EMERGING TALENT
COMPETITION WINNERS
WESTSIDE COWBOY OPEN
WOODSIES IN STYLE
These days, it often feels like a
different artist is touted as ‘The
Next Big Thing’ on an almost weekly
basis. Few, though, have as credible a
claim to the title as Westside Cowboy,
whose opening turn at Woodsies
today exemplifies precisely why
the judges of Glastonbury’s
Emerging Talent Competition
crowned the band winners
this year. It’s by no means
their first performance of the
festival (over the past few
days, WSCB have delivered at
least three other sets), but it’s
by far their biggest; looking
out over the crowd - which
continues to swell as curious
passers-by are drawn in -
guitarist/vocalist Reuben
Haycocks marvels, only
half joking, that more
people are present
now than at all of their previous
shows combined. The Manchester
quartet, however, remain utterly
unphased: effortlessly shifting
gears between goosebumpinducing
four-way harmonies and
traditional folk motifs, and jawdroppingly
tight slacker-rock, theirs
is a seriously impressive showing
of fully-formed soundscapes and
dizzying potential.
3.00PM: IRISH PUNKS
SPRINTS TEAM UP WITH
KATE NASH TO BRING THE
HEAT ON FINAL DAY OF
MUSIC
Despite any efforts to assure pearl-clutchers of the
contrary, Glastonbury is an inherently political place;
and, perhaps more than most, activism is in the very
bones of Dublin quartet Sprints. It should come as no
surprise, then, that the band’s early afternoon slot at
Woodsies is imbued with vital, vociferous messaging:
here, between riotous cuts from their blistering debut
‘Letter To Self’ (as well as lead LP2 single ‘Descartes’),
calls to free Palestine and protect trans rights are
proudly placed front and centre - rallying calls from
SPRINTS
an outfit who, as front woman Karla Chubb notes,
“have a platform [and] intend to use it”. But make
no mistake - as protest-charged as this set is, it’s
also bags of fun. Balancing well-justified anger with
a sense of joyous release, Sprints tap into the other
end of the emotional spectrum with equal prowess,
bringing out none other than Kate Nash for a storming
‘Foundations’/‘That’s Not My Name’ mash-up cover
that perfectly paves the way for Karla’s triumphant
concluding crowd-surf. It’s community as resistance
in action; the very epitome of the Glasto ethos.
5.30PM: TURNSTILE PUT HARDCORE
ON THE MENU WITH CATHARTIC OTHER
STAGE APPEARANCE
While Glastonbury has always been a haven for
guitar bands, it’s safe to say that hardcore is not a
genre that’s often been explored on Pilton’s hallowed
grounds. That’s all change today though, as punk
rock pioneers Turnstile take to the Other Stage for
an utterly incredible turn. Currently in the midst of a
hefty festival run following the release of their third
album ‘NEVER ENOUGH’, the Baltimore quintet
are already well-honed as they take to the stage
today, and despite the crowd feeling a little sparse
before they begin, it soon packs out with enthralled
onlookers. Today arguably doubles as the best
illustration to date of their incredible crossover appeal;
despite their roots lying in the more underground,
territorial genre, this crowd are hooked in by their
ability to so slickly switch up from groovy rhythms
to punishing riffs. Granted, the band themselves
don’t say a whole lot - instead letting their boundarypushing
offerings and slick stage-show do the heavy
lifting - but when frontman Brendan Yates climbs
down to crowd-surf across the front few rows after
the action is all over, you get the sense they know how
special this has all been. Could this be the start of a
heavier contingent appearing at Glastonbury? Watch
this space for 2027…

9.00PM: WOLF ALICE TRIUMPH
WITH OTHERWORLDLY SUNSET
SLOT ON THE OTHER STAGE
For a long time now, it feels as though Wolf
Alice have been the name on everyone’s
lips as the next British guitar band ready to
take the step up to the big time, and based
on tonight’s performance, that prophecy
is about to come true. Despite having last
played at Glastonbury three years ago
- after an infamously stressful trip to the
Pyramid thanks to a cancelled flight from
the other side of the Atlantic - the band feel
resolutely at home on Worthy Farm, and their
graduation to the Other Stage’s sunset slot
tonight offers up the kind of spine-tingly,
full-circle moment that Glastonbury is so
renowned for. It’s something, you sense,
even the band themselves can tangibly feel,
as frontwoman Ellie Rowsell wipes away
tears during a tender, transformational
rendition of ‘How Can I Make It OK?’.
What’s even more notable this evening
is their stage presence. Gone is any of
Rowsell’s former tentativeness; instead,
she frequently moves out from behind her
guitar and into the main spotlight, shifting
from serene vocals to unhinged screams in
the space of a few minutes. As she grabs
a megaphone and holds it above her head
before barrelling into a frenzied rendition of ‘Yuk
Foo’ (the first track in an impeccable, adrenalinefuelled
mid-section), she’s clearly every ounce a
rock star. The quartet also lean deliciously into their
close dynamic, gathering together for a gorgeous
acoustic rendition of ‘Safe From Heartbreak’ before a
thoroughly cathartic ‘Bros’ becomes a proper up-onshoulders,
flares-aloft moment. Throughout, there’s a
playful but
WOLF ALICE
confident ease to the band’s movements, further
exemplified during their bombastic comeback single
‘Bloom Baby Bloom’, which acts as a lynchpin to their
set: a perfect marrying of the more reflective and
explosive sides of their musical coin. Elsewhere, a
perfectly-pitched cover of Fleetwood Mac’s ‘Dreams’
and the noodling riffs of The White Stripes and Black
Sabbath (added to a storming ‘Giant Peach’) only help
to rubber-stamp their status as a proper, all-in rock
band. Today’s set may only mark the very beginning
of their next chapter - as we draw close to the release
of fourth album ‘The Clearing’ - but, even in its
infancy, it’s a triumphant, otherworldly turn from the
London quartet, and we can’t wait for more.
10.30PM: THE MACCABEES MAKE
EMOTIONAL RETURN TO INDIE’S TOP
TABLE AT THE PARK HEADLINE SLOT
Staring at the fairy-light bedecked Park Stage this
evening, it’s impossible not to feel as if there’s magic
in the air. It’s the festival’s final night for two
years; the weekend’s clouds have cleared
to make way for a glorious sunset; and The
Maccabees are back on Worthy Farm. While
it’s not quite on par with the site’s pagan Stone
Circle, there genuinely is a sanctity to their
headline turn tonight, as they appear before
a crowd bound together by their love for a
band that, until eight months ago, they thought
would never play live again. And, right from
the off, it’s evident that on-stage emotions
are running just as high. Launching into fanfavourite
‘Latchmere’, the five-piece can barely
wipe the grins off their faces; later, Orlando
Weeks and Felix White become each other’s
perfect foils, the former a figure of sincere,
misty-eyed gratitude, the latter an audienceriling
emcee of joyous energy. Pulling evenly
from across their four album discography,
the setlist plays out like a compilation tape
of their most-adored cuts, none having
been dulled from eight years of hibernation;
indeed, as a field-full of people valiantly try to
whistle along to the hopelessly romantic ditty
that is ‘Toothpaste Kisses’, it’s almost as if The
Maccabees have never been away.poignant
testament to reunion and resolution, make
no mistake - this is the stuff of Glastonbury
lore.
11.30PM: OLIVIA
RODRIGO CLOSES OUT
GLASTONBURY 2025 WITH
EMPOWERING, ATTITUDE-PACKED
STINT ON THE PYRAMID STAGE
It’s no secret that Glastonbury is a festival that caters
to a great musical many, but rarely has there been
a year in which the event’s headliners have been so
hotly debated, with conversations swirling around the
old and new guard, and their various billings, across
the weekend. But as Olivia Rodrigo returns to the
Pyramid Stage for the event’s closing performance
(after last appearing here three years ago, on the
fateful day that Roe V Wade was overturned in the
States), there is no doubting that she’s truly the
headliner that Glasto deserves.
Much like previous bill-topper Billie Eilish before
her, Olivia’s status as a Gen-Z icon has already long
been confirmed but tonight shows just how integral
an artist she has become within pop music at large.
Appearing on a line-up boasting Charli xcx, RAYE,
JADE, CMAT and more, this weekend has proven that
the shifting face of mainstream pop music is no longer
dictated by old men in their industry white towers, but
instead by the young women who have, for so long,
raised pop aloft above all else. The giddiness of the
gathered masses (the biggest crowd for a Pyramid
headliner this weekend) is so palpable - with their
voices a distinctly different pitch - that it’s impossible
not to swept up in the frenzy of their adoration,
making for a set that is wholeheartedly memorable
for all of the right reasons. An early inclusion of
her breakout hit ‘Driver’s License’ and the ensuing
singalong is so huge that it’d bring a tear to even
the steeliest of naysayers. What’s more, Olivia and
her band are a force to be reckoned with, sounding
heavier and more powerful than on record, giving
the whole affair an invigorating edge. Take encore
opener ‘Brutal’, which packs in more flames and pyro
than most metal shows, as example; say what you
will about pop girlies, but this lot are fierce. If you’re
still not convinced of her credentials, then tonight’s
special guest will likely do the trick. Having previously
invited along big names such as David Byrne and Ed
Sheeran, tonight she welcomes none other than -
former headliner - The Cure’s Robert Smith onstage
for a devastating one-two of ‘Friday I’m In Love’ and
‘Just Like Heaven’, in what feels like the perfect batonpass
of musical greats. By the time she concludes her
set with the utterly massive, attitude-packed ‘good
4 u’ and ‘get him back!’ - wearing a pair of sparkly
Union Jack hotpants, for good measure - the sense of
unabashed joy in the air is quite breathtaking, much
like being transported back to the ‘90s when the
Spice Girls reigned supreme. Tonight is a lesson in
pure euphoria, and the perfect way to keep us going
until 2027. Daisy Carter, Sarah Jamieson
OLIVIA RODRIGO

in deep
DIY In Deep is our monthly,
online-centric chance to dig into
a longer profile on some of the
most exciting artists in the world
right now.
Fresh from his powerful
appearance at Glastonbury, and
having just dropped his affirming
new album ‘Self-Titled’, Kae Tempest is feeling
reflective, excited, and lucky all at once. Most
importantly, though, he’s feeling himself.
Words: El Hunt
Photo: Emma Swann
Midway through a packed tour
schedule, Kae Tempest is
running around a Paris hotel
lobby and attempting to find a
quiet corner to chat – profusely
apologising as he goes. The
poet, playwright, rapper, and
recording artist has misplaced
his glasses amid the mayhem of “life in transit”, so is
(begrudgingly) wearing his shades. “I’m so sorry,” he
says, shaking his head. “They’re prescription! I’m not
trying to be, like, a cool rapper…”
Today, Kae’s speaking to DIY just a couple of days
on from his electrifying appearance on Glastonbury’s
Park Stage, which culminated with a powerful
acapella performance of ‘Self-Titled’ opener ‘I Stand
on the Line’.
A defiant celebration of hope, joy and resilience in
the face of ignorance and bigotry, it reflects on the
peace Kae has found, and the strength he takes from
queer community and legacy. “Please, we have to
keep living. Please, keep living. Please, keep living
through it,” he urged, visibly fizzing with anxious,
potent energy.
“I knew something was going to happen,” Kae
reflects. “I knew I was going to be lifted.” Attempting
to explain exactly what he felt from the crowd that
day, he moves his hand around to trace the shape
of an infinity symbol: “The energy that I felt coming
back from the crowds… it was just this constant thing,
everything felt so charged and alive. I kind of made
that decision in the moment to finish acapella, and as
terrifying as it was, I also knew that it was important.”
Kae explains that he also felt keenly aware that the
set was being filmed and televised, which further
emboldened him to take his top off during the
performance. “It could actually have saved someone’s
life,” he says, “seeing me on stage saying, ‘please
keep living through it’ with my scars out, looking
healthy, and well, and smiling. If I’d seen that, it would
have done something to me. As many fears as I have
about upsetting people, or getting a big backlash
from people who think that my body is a mutilation
or whatever, I also know that it’s very important.
It felt right. I felt comfortable, clear, connected, in
community. There were loads of beautiful trans
people in the audience,” he says, “and then it was just
like, fucking tops off!” he laughs. “Let’s go!”
recording in the studio is a different beast. “When it
comes to being in the studio making work, it doesn’t
really come into my head – the idea of having a
responsibility to a community. That is important to me
in my day to day life, but when I’m in with the ideas,
I’m not thinking at all, ever, about the end point. I’m
down in the fucking engine room. I’m making the
work.
“All I’m thinking about is: what does it want from
me? What does it want to be? How do I give it what
it needs me to give? How do I receive it? How do I
facilitate it? And then there is a moment, once the idea
is finished, that you realise what it is you’ve made.
Then, you do get this sense of thinking, ‘maybe this
will be important for somebody, because I’ve told my
truth’. Maybe it will allow somebody to connect more
poignantly with their own. I hope it doesn’t feel like it
excludes anybody. I desperately want people to feel
kinship with it, who have been through similar things.
But I also would hope that people who’ve never been
through what I’ve been through resonate with it in
some way, too.
“As James Joyce says: ‘In the particular is contained
the universal,’” Kae adds. “The moment the song’s
finished, the experience that it came out of is kind of
irrelevant. Now it’s a song, and then you’ve got no
control.”
DIY last spoke to Kae Tempest at length
once before, a long time ago, ahead of the
release of his second album ‘Let Them Eat
Chaos’. Kae was thoughtful and reflective
company that day, gladly discussing what he called
“the mythology of the everyday” over a pint, but he
also seemed slightly uneasy whenever talk turned to
his own life, or his personal achievements as a highlyacclaimed
artist working across the varied mediums
of music, spoken-word, written poetry, prose, and
theatre.
A decade on, you can’t help but notice a distinct shift
in Kae now, which also carries right through into his
music. Rather than narrating and exploring the lives of
other people, Kae himself is often the central narrator,
voice, and figure in both ‘Self-Titled’ and his previous
album ‘The Line is a Curve’; although he is still holding
up a mirror to the world in tracks such as the jazzinfused
‘Til Morning’ and the juggernaut rap track
‘Statue in the Square’, Kae’s outline more frequently
appears in its reflections.
Kae wonders. “Maybe because… just where I’m at in
my life, or what I’ve been through – like, transition is
a huge thing – and this is just what’s come out of the
last few years? That’s what albums are: it’s the way I
process chunks of life, it comes out in what you make.
This is just a part of this moment, and everything
about this feels right, it feels good, you know?”
Still, he remains wittily self-deprecating about certain
aspects of his career. “I really don’t like spoken word,”
he laughs at one point, reflecting on getting his start
as a slam poet. “I fucking never liked it! I just ended up
doing it anyway.” We double take and almost choke
on our coffee at this particular revelation.
“I was rhyming and making music, and it’s really,
really hard to get anywhere with it,” he explains. “This
was back in the days when you had to pay to play:
you’d get a gig, but you’d have to pay to be on the
bill. Every time somebody came through the door,
the promoter would ask people who they’d come to
see, and if it was you, you got a pound,” he laughs.
“Anyway! My friend said, why not go to this open mic
thing in Ladbroke Grove, it’s like a slam, and you can
just do your lyrics, and if you win, you get £100. I won
it – probably more money than I’d made in six months
of music – and started getting booked.
“It was weird. It was never a scene that I was attracted
to,” he admits. “None of the scenes that I’ve been
involved in have ever felt nourishing or expansive
enough,” he adds. “I’ve always felt limited, because
people are infinite, and creativity is even more infinite
than personality. What my creative imagination wants
to do… it doesn’t make any sense to put it into a form
that’s got nothing to do with how it feels.”
‘Self-Titled’ is out now via Island. Read the full
feature at diymag.com/artist/kae-tempest.
Though he felt a sense of responsibility ahead of that
particular performance, Kae adds that writing and
“I don’t feel like this album is more or less revealing
than any other, but maybe it just feels more direct?”
12 D

“This is just a part of this
moment, and everything
about this feels right, it feels
good.”

mad cool
10th - 13th July, Iberdrola Music
Taking place in the heart of Spain, Madrid’s
Mad Cool is once again set to be a scorching
affair, not least because of the summer’s soaring
temperatures. But get on site this year and you’ll
be met with a bevvy of equally hot acts, including
headliner-of-the-moment Olivia Rodrigo, Nine
Inch Nails, Gracie Abrams, Iggy Pop and many,
many more.
It’s not just the big name artists that’ll be touching
down on Spanish soil this July, though; the festival
will also play host to a slew of buzzy newer names
including DEADLETTER, Luvcat and Alessi Rose.
Fresh from supporting Dua Lipa on her massive
recent tour, we caught up the rising star ahead of
the fest to find out how 2025’s been treating her so
far…
alessi rose
from headlining 120-capacity venues a year ago to playing wembley stadium,
alessi rose has firmly secured her status as pop’s hottest new it-girl.
words: emily savage
photos: emma swann
there are few artists who have risen
to stardom like Alessi Rose. In less
than 18 months, the Derby-born
artist has sold out two headline tours,
released her debut and sophomore
EPs to millions of streams, and
recently inked a deal with Polydor/
Capitol Records for her third project,
‘Voyeur’. Currently wrapping up her
final shows supporting Dua Lipa on
her Radical Optimism UK/EU tour, Alessi joins DIY’s
call from a hotel room in Dublin, having recently got
off a delayed flight over from Liverpool. “This year
actually couldn’t get crazier,” she acknowledges.
Make no mistake, it’s been a whirlwind few months
for the pop star-in-the-making, and Alessi’s still taking
it all in. “I try not to think about it too much because
it makes me feel dizzy,” she admits. In fact, it was
a Facebook memory of her dad’s that prompted a
recent revelation: “A picture came up from when I
was about 14, and my primary school put on a festival
and invited me back to sing,” she recalls. “I picked
‘Scared to Be Lonely’ by Dua Lipa - that was eight
years ago to the day, and now I’m opening for her at
Wembley…”
The shift from small hometown
shows to playing to tens of
thousands of people each night
has understandably come with its
own share of realisations, too. “I’m
a big venue girl; I feel so at home
in an arena,” Alessi
beams. It’s a feat
that her younger
self wouldn’t have
seen coming - as a child, she dealt
with stage fright and found comfort in
writing poetry in her bedroom. But, as she
tells us today, it was those poems that built
the foundation for her first demos: “I’d come
home from school and just play around
with the words on the piano that my
parents rented.” With early influences
including her self-confessed obsession
with Lorde, her mum’s love for the dark
romanticism of Lana Del Rey, and her
dad’s country influences, lyrics always
remained at the forefront of Alessi’s
songwriting.
But with no ties to the
industry, the reality
of making music
into a career
still
seemed out of reach until her late teens. “I genuinely
thought there was no way in,” she nods. Eventually,
a combination of messaging producers, uploading
unmixed tracks to the BBC Introducing platform, and
sharing her songs on social media secured her a
crucial in-road. “I started an Instagram for my music
and blocked my entire school year,” she laughs.
The secret wasn’t kept for long, though; her 2023
self-produced debut track ‘say ur mine’ racked up
thousands of streams in its first week, and her first EP
‘rumination as ritual’ followed shortly afterwards.
ow, a mere six months on from unveiling
her second project, the pop powerhouse
is embracing a new chapter with her
latest EP. “‘Voyeur’ is me dealing with
[my] transition into being an artist and
someone that people look to,” the 22-year-old
explains. A body of work that sees her navigate the
trials and tribulations of young adulthood while
adjusting to being in the public eye, the eight-track
project has already sparked discourse online. “I’ve
always had a relatively young audience and I think
that makes people think that I have to be palatable,”
she notes, referencing the degree of controversy
surrounding its title. “But I’d rather teach young girls
“i’m a big venue
girl; i feel so at
home in an arena.”
that they don’t have to be palatable and suit
everything that people want them to be.”
Deconstructing her relationships and experiences
with unguarded candour, the EP lays out Alessi’s
uncompromisingly bold vision. “The voyeurism is
two-fold; the people who listen to my music become
a voyeur in that they know all of these deeply personal
things about me, but also I’m a voyeur of myself and
my own decisions,” she explains. Between ‘Dumb
Girl’’s visceral declaration of “Your tongue fits in my
mouth / Like it’s by design”, to the aching frustration
of unrequited love on angsty guitar anthem ‘Same
Mouth’, or the emotional fallout of a friendship
breakup on the ‘90s indie rock-infused ‘Stella’,
‘Voyeur’ finds the singer revelling in her artistic
freedom.
Written over the past six months between her
hometown and sessions in London and LA, the
EP further marks a shift in Alessi’s
creative process. “I’ve become a
lot more comfortable with the
label of pop,” she explains.
After initially grappling with
whether her lyric-focused
writing style could fit within
the genre, it was ultimately the
time-defying classics of Britney
and ‘80s Madonna that reaffirmed
her mission. “I don’t think you have to sacrifice
anything by calling yourself a pop artist; there’s so
14 D

The hills (and parks and beaches) are alive with the sound of music, and that
can mean only one thing: festival season is officially upon us! Read on for
our rundown of some of this summer’s hottest weekenders.
much scope”. It’s a statement that comes to light on
EP standout ‘Take It or Leave It’, which pairs wittily
poetic storytelling with an infectious, hook-driven
chorus, issuing a defiant bite-back at a non-committal
lover.
Paving the way for a new generation of pop stars,
Alessi’s confessional anthems continue to resonate on
a global scale. With a run of festival dates this summer
(including a set at Madrid’s Mad Cool this month) and
her third headline tour scheduled for this autumn -
alongside a series of dates supporting Tate McRae in
North America - hers is a name that’s set to remain
on the tip of everyone’s tongue. But, as the crowds
proceed to get bigger, it’s the support of her fans (the
self-titled ‘delulu girls’) that remain at the centre of it
all. “Playing any size venue to people [who are] there
for you and [are] passionate about you is the best
feeling ever - they’re the reason I do this,” she grins.
Whether it’s making her Glastonbury debut opening
the Other Stage or announcing her next single by
projecting it onto Wembley Stadium, Alessi Rose
has undeniably found her forte in transforming her
innermost thoughts into huge pop moments. And, if
the last 18 months are anything to go by, it looks like
she’s well on her way to headlining arenas herself.
Find out more about Mad Cool at madcoolfestival.
es. D
“i’d rather teach young girls
that they don’t have to be
palatable and suit everything
that people want them to be.”

open’er
2nd - 5th July, Gdynia-Kosakowa Airport
It’s no secret that Open’er is one of Europe’s biggest music events, and that’s no different in
2025.
Fresh from playing last month’s Glastonbury, a slew of huge names - including RAYE,
Doechii, Gracie Abrams, and St Vincent - have hot-footed it straight over to Poland for the
occasion, with a whole host of other incredible names also on the bill. From rock legends
Linkin Park, Muse and Nine Inch Nails, through to experimental icons like FKA twigs,
Massive Attack and Future, there’s no shortage of incredible artists to get stuck into in
Gdynia at Open’er 2025.
Also fresh from one of his biggest sets to date at Worthy Farm - more on that on pages 4-7
- we caught up with Mancunian legend Antony Szmierek ahead of his visit to the festival to
reflect on how it’s been bringing his debut ‘Service Station At The End Of The Universe’ to the
stage, and how it feels to have his very own book out in the wild...
antony szmierek
Hello Antony! It’s been mere days since
you played at Glastonbury - how did your
set go from your perspective? How was the
weekend as a whole? And can you confirm
or deny that you faked your own death as
an entrance?!
Honestly, who do I think I am? I had a
stretcher-like camp bed and a bouquet of fake
flowers and thought, ‘you know what would be
class? Billy Bragg watching over me’. Probably
the loudest audience reaction we’ve ever
had and the most people I’ve ever seen on
shoulders. We were made up. I’m not well now
though, not by a long way.
Things have obviously been all go since the
release of the album earlier this year - first
off, you headed out on a hefty headline
tour across the UK and Europe. How were
those shows? Were there any particular
moments that really stand out, a couple of
months on?
It was just incredible really. Huge, huge rooms
full of dancing people smiling their heads off
in places I’d never ever
been to. It’ll take
some processing
all of that, but
it was certainly
The Tour to
remember. Me and the band really set out to
enjoy this one (our first with a tour manager,
Ian) and enjoy it we absolutely did. Lots of
tears, lots of laughs, lots of climbing on the
shoulders of strangers.
How have you found it playing some of
the new album tracks live? Has it been
as emotional an experience as you were
expecting?
‘Restless Leg Syndrome’ was really hard
to rehearse because it took a lot out of me
emotionally - it’s really confessional and a
lovely slow moment in a pretty hectic set.
It was easier to do on tour, but [there were]
tears at shows I wouldn’t expect; a big cry in
Copenhagen, for some reason.
Not content with dropping an album and
touring loads off the back of it, you also
released your book Roadmap back in
May. Can you tell us a little about how it all
came together, and why you felt drawn to
exploring ‘Service Station…’’s wider world
in that medium?
I just felt like there were bits in that world that
I could only expand upon in print. There’s an
essay about Rick, a caretaker who kindly took
me up the tower at Forton Services that graces
the cover of the album. Stuff like that; Notes
app ideas and poems that only really work
written down. A book was my original dream
so having one now is… mad actually. Now I
think about it.
And how has it been taking this show to
festivals? How do you think the shows
compare with your own headline shows?
Festivals are a different beast, and I’m
just struck with how varied they are in
terms of crowds and reading what they
want. I think it’s even more varied with our
bookings: not many people have done Glasto,
Hay Festival and Parklife in the space of two
weeks this summer. I’ve got whiplash.
You’re heading to Poland for Open’er
(probably as we speak!). How’re you
looking forward to getting out there, and
sharing your wares with the good people
of Gdynia?
Well, we’re Polish! Me and my brother Martin
who plays guitar. We never knew our Dad or
that side of the family but we played there once
last winter and it was a bit of an emotional
homecoming in some ways. We absolutely love
Poland, because it’s in our blood.
Find out more about Open’er Festival at
opener.pl.
nos alive
10th - 12th July, Passeio Marítimo de Algés
Is Lisbon the coolest city on earth? It’s certainly a contender!
Whether you want to sample some of the world’s most delicious
food, hang out in the most interesting bars, or just catch some
sun for the majority of the year, the Portuguese capital has you
covered. That’s not even mentioning NOS Alive festival: the
massive event which draws some of music’s biggest names -
where else can you watch Olivia Rodrigo, Nine Inch Nails and
Justice all in the space of three days - and allows you to get a
good dose of vitamin D at the same time.
As ever, the 2025 edition of the event is jam-packed, with Amyl
and the Sniffers, Barry Can’t Swim and girl in red also taking to
the stage across the weekend. Plus, London dance-focussed duo
Franc Moody will be on hand come Saturday night to soundtrack
the final hours of the fest. Ahead of their set, we caught up with
the band’s Jon Moody and Ned Franc to chat about their recentlyreleased
album ‘Chewing The Fat’, and see what they think of
festival season…
franc moody
It’s been a big year for you
so far what with your album
‘Chewing The Fat’ being
released back in March. How
did it feel to get the record
out there, and - with a little
bit of hindsight - how do you
think it’s all gone so far?
Ned: It feels like a really
significant year in the (almost
ten) years since we tentatively
began this whole project. I think
it’s safe to say we both felt really
excited to get this album out
into the public consciousness
as it felt like we’d managed to
realise to an extent a lot of the
sonics and writing we were
striving to reach. It might be a
bit of a cliche but we genuinely
feel really proud of this record
as a whole and the process of
recording it.
So far, the reception has been
great. Longtime fans seem to
appreciate the more mature
shift in sound, and at the same
time it’s brought a lot of new
people to our shows which is
awesome to see.
Tell us a little about the
record; when it came to
making it, what sort of
headspace did you find
yourself in? How did you want
to continue your journey on
from ‘Into The Ether’? Did you
have a specific outline for this
album, or was it a bit more
open-ended and exploratory?
Jon: A bit of both really, but
we knew we needed to face a
change. We found ourselves
getting a little frustrated being
stuck in old habits both in the
studio and on stage, partly
because of the safety of using
the box of tricks that had
previously ‘worked’ for us, and
also partly because of wanting
to service the disco groove
sound that had become set in
stone somewhat. We realised
we needed to break out of this
if we wanted to give the project
and the sound more life, so we
had to dig a little deeper and
refine the sound into something
more direct, raw and honest.
The show was also starting to
feel tired to us and it needed
a facelift, and ultimately this
album would be the vehicle
for changing that. All the while
trying to juggle the fine line of
never veering too far off what
we hope our fans will enjoy…
It was a big challenge but
once we started exploring we
uncovered some interesting
new recipes.
It sounds like this record
really marked a necessary
evolution for yourself as
a band; how challenging
was it to navigate that, and
reinvigorate yourselves after
spending a number of years
on your journey so far? What
do you think helped the
most during that time of reevaluation?
Ned: The process of getting to
a headspace where we could
confidently write the songs that
then became ‘Chewing The
Fat’ was a long and protracted
one. It was a bit of an exorcism
of sorts, we really needed to
persevere, and believe that
we’d eventually end up
creatively where we
needed to be.
It definitely took
a lot of blood,
sweat and
tears. I think
we must’ve
written 20
albums
worth of
bad songs
en route.
Ultimately
keeping
that fire

burning in our bellies was key, finding a
common ground that would excite and
invigorate the whole project anew.
You also played at Brixton Academy
back in April! How was it getting to
play that headline show? How did
the new songs go down in a live
environment?
Jon: It was an amazing moment for
us! We’ve hardly played in the UK
and Europe in recent years so to play
a big hometown show felt amazing.
We collaborated with the amazing
Deadbeat Films on the production who
really brought our vision to life. It felt
like our most mature and thoughtful
production we’ve done. New songs are
always a little tricky to slot in when a
lot of the crowd are there for the older
tunes they know and love, however the
stage and the show was built for the
new tunes and I think it translated as
well as it could have.
the long road
22nd - 24th August, Stanford Hall, Leicestershire
If you ever need proof that cowboy boots aren’t just a very chic fashion
accessory, then heading to this year’s edition of The Long Road should
do the trick. The ultimate celebration of all things country, Americana and
blues, the 2025 event will once again be returning to the gorgeous environs of
Leicestershire’s Stanford Hall, for three packed days of music, and probably a
hoedown or two.
Headed up by Drake Milligan, Midland and the UK’s own James Bay, this
year’s bill also boasts performances from the likes of Seasick Steve, Janet
Devlin and Alana Springsteen (not that Springsteen, sadly), as well as the
incredible Chuck Ragan, who’ll be returning to this side of the pond for the
second time in 2025. Ahead of his visit, we caught up with the Hot Water
Music frontman to discover a little more about his recent solo album ‘Love and
Lore’…
Reading & Leeds (21st - 24th
August) has added 80 new acts to
its 2025 line-up, including former
Little Mix star Leigh-Anne, Skye
Newman, Waterparks, Still
Woozy, and Bartees Strange, as
well as new buzzy acts Sunday
(1994), Nxdia, The Pill and
Cliffords.
More acts have been added to the
bill for Barry Can’t Swim’s headline
show at All Points East (22nd
August) this summer, with the likes
of Orbital, Avalon Emerson and
The Blessed Madonna joining
previously-confirmed names
Confidence Man and Shygirl.
You’ve also got a handful of festival
performances on the way - including
over in Lisbon at NOS Alive. How
do you prep for those sorts of
performances, and what do you
think you love most about festival
sets?
Ned: Festivals are an incredible way to
get your music to an audience that may
not have seen or heard of you before
so you kind of have to make sure you
deliver the best show you can. We just
played the main stage at Down The
Rabbit Hole in Holland. We were on
before Wet Leg and Iggy Pop, quite an
intimidating line up to be on but at the
same we felt very privileged to be on
such an illustrious bill. It’s a hackneyed
line but we just give it everything we’ve
got and hope that nothing blows up mid
performance…
What one piece of advice would you
give to someone hoping to catch
your set this summer?
Jon: Get to the front!
Find out more about NOS Alive
Festival at nosalive.com.
chuck ragan
Late last year, you released your
most recent solo album ‘Love and
Lore’. Can you tell us a little bit
about how you brought the album
together? What sort of headspace
did you find yourself in during the
making of the record?
Just like any project we begin, it
starts with whatever is most current
and exciting as well as relevant to
us. [Frequent collaborator] Todd
Beene was involved early on and
throughout, but in the end became
a very integral part of this record
that would not have been the same
without him. As far as the headspace
goes, there was much
reflection of some
trying times in
both personal and
business life. What
better way to get
through things like
that than by putting
energy into the
song?
It’s your first
solo release
in a decade
and has
been in
the works
for quite
a number
of years
now; what
was it like
to piece it
together over
a longer period
of time than
some previous
releases? How
do you think that
approach ended
up shaping the
album?
For the longest
time, it was very
frustrating that this
record took so long
to see the light of
day, but in the end,
we’re pleased that
it rolled out the way
that it did. I don’t
believe the record
would’ve been what
it was without all the hang ups and
roadblocks we had along the way up
until the release date.
Back in spring, you returned to the
UK and Europe for a run of solo
shows; how did those go, and how
was it getting to air some of the
new songs live?
Playing the new songs has been
a thrill and we look forward to
every chance we get to do so. The
shows were great; Todd and I had a
wonderful time with Nate Bergman
along the way.
You’re going to be heading back
over here this summer, too, to
play at The Long Road. How do
you find festival performances
in general, and do you approach
them any differently to your usual
live sets?
I enjoy festival settings just
as much as I do up close
and personal shows. I
enjoy the diversity of
both. We are extremely
excited for The Long
Road. I’ve heard great
things from friends
about the festival and
am very much looking
forward to being a part
of it.
The Long Road
has a real focus on
championing country,
blues and Americana
music - how does it
feel as an artist who
operates within many
different genres to
be welcomed into a
space such as that?
We take great pride
in what we do and
care very much, and
along the way we’re
extremely honoured
for any chance to share
something that we
believe in, no matter what
the genre.
Find out more about The
Long Road at thelongroad.
com.
Indie Christmas - aka The
Maccabees’ headline turn at All
Points East (24th August) - is
drawing closer, and now even more
names have been confirmed to
play. New additions include Willie J
Healey, Warmduscher, Westside
Cowboy and Man/Woman/
Chainsaw, as well as loads more.
Everything Everything have
been confirmed to play this year’s
edition of Reeperbahn (17th - 20th
September), while other acts that
have recently been added to the
bill for the Hamburg event include
Chloe Slater, Westside Cowboy,
Silver Gore and Balancing Act.
Fuzz Lightyear, Native Sun and
House of Women are just three
of the acts announced for 2025’s
They’re Gonna Be Big (28th - 30th
October). Returning to Paris for
its second year, the festival will
take place across three venues to
celebrate some of the most exciting
new names in DIY rock, punk, and
shoegaze.
Rock In Rio Lisboa (20th - 28th
June 2026) have confirmed plans to
return to the Portuguese capital next
summer, for two more weekends
jam-packed with incredible music.
What’s more, they’ve confirmed their
first headliner will be Linkin Park,
who’ll return to play their first show
in Portugal in 11 years.
Emma Swann, Fraser Thorne, Lindsey Byrnes
D 17

NEU
New artists, new music.

The New
Eves
Since dropping their debut single in 2023, Brighton quartet The New Eves have garnered
a cult reputation for their delightfully unconventional, discipline-spanning wares. And
with debut album ‘The New Eve Is Rising’, the band are broadening their horizons even
further.
Words: Hazel Blacher
something that we’re definitely
doing is retelling stories, and redefining
different archetypes or ideas,” reflects
Nina Winder-Lind, guitarist, cellist, and
“Ithink
co-vocalist of The New Eves. “We’re trying
to make some space and break things apart a bit.” Judging by
the art-folk quartet’s current cult following, it’s an approach that
has steered them well so far. Forged by word-of-mouth whispers
and mesmerised audiences, their beguiling live shows - which
feature everything from improvised dance to ritualistic chanting
- have catapulted them into alternative music’s most coveted
spaces, and, now, they’re preparing to unveil debut album ‘The
New Eve Is Rising’ to the world.
Residing in Brighton, the group originally met through mutual
friends in the city’s thriving music and arts community. “We had
different projects before The New Eves, and then we all stopped
playing in those projects at a similar time,” says Nina. “We didn’t
know what was going to happen, but it all fell into place in this
really crazy way.” Soon, the band - completed by Violet Farrer
(guitar, violin, vocals), Kate Mager (bass, vocals) and Ella Oona
Russell (drums, flute, vocals) - realised that the sum of their
seemingly anomalous individual energies sparked a unique
chemistry and magic, and The New Eves was born.
“Being in a band is a very intense type of relationship, and we’re
such a strange group of people to be doing that with, really,”
Kate reflects today, speaking to DIY alongside Nina. “But that’s
part of what makes everything so interesting; that’s what makes
The New Eves what it is.”
The result of their collaboration is a vibrant, multidisciplinary
collage of re-contextualised folklore, blending the free-spirited
rawness of ‘60s garage rock with a beguiling poetic mysticism
that instrumentally leans into freak-folk and beyond. For them,
however, boundless self-expression takes precedence over any
prescribed stylistic intention. “We really try to not put ourselves
in any box or genre,” Nina quietly asserts. “Then people have
preconceptions about you, and then you’re expected to do
something particular.”
This lack of pigeon-holing perhaps in part stems from their
eclectic and disparate musical influences, which they say shape
the music in unpredictable ways. “When I’m playing, I might be
thinking about, I don’t know, some funk song for my bass part,”
Kate comments. “But then Violet’s thinking about Nirvana, and
Nina’s thinking about Bulgarian choirs or something, and then it
all comes together.”
T
heir sound and aesthetics aren’t just shaped by musical
influences, either. “Knitting is a big part of The New Eves,
actually! I think it’s really cool that these traditionally
female crafts that aren’t seen as ‘art’ are much more appreciated
now,” Nina tells us. “You go to a
car boot sale and there’s tattered
lace in a cardboard box, and
you think ‘someone made that
- probably a woman’, which is
incredible.”
Accordingly, whether it be
photography, painting, or their
tailored, cottagecore-leaning
apparel, the group place equal
importance on an array of artistic
mediums. As these practices
already play a huge role in their individual selves, Kate explains,
“it would be hard to keep [them] out of what we’re doing.”
Given that many of the band’s visuals are set against strikingly
provincial, quintessentially British backdrops, it feels appropriate
that they chose the rural Wye Valley’s iconic Rockfield Studios
to record most of their debut album. “We weren’t in London, and
there was no outside noise. If you needed some space, you went
up in the hills,” Nina details. “We all had our own rooms with our
own bathtubs - it was incredible.”
Those who have caught The New Eves in concert will likely
attest that the finished recordings stay very true to their live
counterparts - something that Nina notes was “really important
for us”. Continuing, she explains: “Because that’s kind of where
the magic happens - when we play together in a room.”
hether delighting in the fraught, bristly propulsions
of ‘Highway Man’, or losing oneself in ‘Astrolabe’’s
W droning strings and primal incantations, the journey to
the enigmatic heart of the band truly begins with the album’s
powerful opener and pseudo-title track, ‘The New Eve’.
Challenging religious, societal and gender conventions with
captivating poetic conviction, the song is a goosebump-inducing
portal into their world. “There’s middle-aged men who have had
an incredible experience listening to that song,” Nina shares. “It
revealed itself in a mystical way: I made a painting called ‘The
New Eve Is Rising’, and then a bit later I wrote that poem, and
then we did the song.”
The chord-striking boldness of these lyrical expressions in the
context of the band’s all-female lineup has led many to brand
The New Eves as ‘feminist’. However, they make clear that their
relationship to the term is actually much more complex and
far-reaching than the label leaves space for. “It’s like when we
get called a ‘female band’,” Nina tells us. “I think it’s very, very
simplifying and sometimes a bit patronising when someone
[says] ‘oh, you’re a feminist band’. I think we need a different
language around these things. Right now, we have these terms
like ‘feminism’ and ‘female’, and they’re still very present in
our language, but I feel like it’s shifting. We’re on the edge of
something.”
The last year has well and truly been a whirlwind for the group,
from their signing to Transgressive Records, to bagging slots
supporting Black Country, New Road and YHWH Nailgun. “It’s
crazy - we haven’t actually had that much time to look back and
feel proud, because it’s been so busy,” Nina admits. It may be
mile-a-minute at the moment but, to their audiences, The New
Eves undoubtedly make a lasting impression - one which, they
hope, will inspire people to “feel something they haven’t felt
before, and do something they haven’t done before”. D
““I “I think it’s very, very
simplifying and sometimes a bit
patronising when someone [says]
‘oh, you’re a feminist band’. ”
- Nina Winder-Lind
Hugo Winder-Lind
D 19

A monthly focus on these crucial cogs in the wonderful new music wheel.
NEU
NEU Recommended
Your pocket guide to the new names who’ve been catching our eyes (and ears) of late.
Brògeal
The Falkirk five-piece re-imagining Celtic folk.
Anyone concerned about the homogenisation of modern music need not
worry - at least, not if Brògeal (pronounced Bro-gale) have anything to do
with it. A maelstrom of the traditional sounds of their native Scotland, the
vitality of indie’s heyday, and peppy pop nous, the band’s output to date
has seen them hailed as one of the UK’s most essential, atypical live acts.
Full-to-bursting with accordion, penny whistle, banjo, mandolin, bouzouki
(a sort of long-necked lute, to you and me) and more, their just-announced
debut album has all the makings of an evocative, disarmingly emotive, truly
irresistible knees-up.
LISTEN: LP title track ‘Tuesday Paper Club’ is both an astute observation of
generational disdain, and, as frontman Daniel Harkins puts it, “an absolute foot
stomper”.
SIMILAR TO: If The Pogues penned indie disco anthems.
nabeel ()
An invigorating alternative take on America’s grunge legacy.
Having moved from Iraq to Richmond, Virginia, as a child, Yasmir
Razek - the man behind independent project nabeel ‏(ليبن)‏ - has
duality written into his DNA. Taking a Nirvana-shaped blueprint
(courtesy of the ‘90s scenes he absorbed upon moving to the USA)
and overlaying it with Arabic lyrics, his music is a compelling mix
of familiar and fresh that plants one foot in either culture. There’s
inherent emotion embedded into the very essence of these songs,
which act as conduits between the two cornerstones of his identity:
that of a stalwart of Richmond’s DIY scene, and an immigrant
yearning for connection with his lost homeland.
LISTEN: New EP ghayoom ‏(مويغ)‏ - which translates to ‘clouds’ - arrives
on 24th July.
SIMILAR TO: Non-Western Wunderhorse.
Amie Blu
The South East London singer-songwriter channelling soulstirring
emotion into lush, lyrical storytelling.
Blending smoky vocals with unfiltered vulnerability, Amie Blu’s music unpacks heartache,
healing and self-sabotage with poetic precision. Her breakout mixtape ‘how we lose’ is a
powerful meditation on love, trauma and the battles we wage with ourselves, each track
unfolding like a quiet revelation. From the intimacy of early EPs to headline shows and a
European tour with Jacob Banks, Amie’s rise has been steeped in raw honesty and sonic
depth. Recent single ‘swimming in pity’ sees her sit with sadness, exploring the strange
comfort in melancholy with exquisite restraint, while ‘missing everything’ explores themes
of disassociation and emotional stagnation.
LISTEN: ‘missing everything’ delves into the complexities of dissociation over an infectious altpop
sound.
SIMILAR TO: Soul-baring contemporaries like Rachel Chinouriri and Joy Crookes, with whom she’s shared stages
and airwaves.
Adore
A storming slice of pop-flecked garage-punk.
When Gilla Band’s Daniel Fox is behind the production desk, you expect the results
to be potent - and the singles to date from Irish trio Adore are no different. From
the infectious thrash of last year’s ‘Supermum!’ (which uses a hooky, high-octane
chorus to offset its thematic weight) through to the nightmare-fuelled bite of
latest track ‘Show Me Your Teeth’, their raw, raucous offerings are undiluted
and irresistibly dynamic. Having already notched up support slots alongside
compatriots and fellow noiseniks Sprints and Chalk, Adore’s recent signing to cult
indie label Big Scary Monsters points to a very loud future indeed.
LISTEN: Watch this space for their forthcoming debut EP, ‘BITER’, which lands in
September.
SIMILAR TO: The modern incarnation of Elastica, Echobelly, The Breeders et al.
Blusher
The Melbourne-born trio blending euphoric synthpop
with late-night catharsis and Y2K cool.
Blusher are the soundtrack to your 2am feelings - part neon rave, part sleepover
confessional. With glittering hooks and unfiltered lyricism, the Aussie three-piece
channel the chaos of modern girlhood into bold, dancefloor-ready anthems. Their
new EP ‘RACER’ is centred around its pulsating title track, while singles ‘LAST MAN
STANDING’ and ‘WHATEVERWHATEVER’ are each a shot of synth-fuelled confidence and
emotional release. From supporting Kylie Minogue and Sugababes to sold-out shows across
the globe, Blusher are quickly becoming the life and soul of the alt-pop party.
LISTEN: ‘RACER’ is an electrifying ode to owning your main-character energy, set against turbo-charged beats
and cinematic synths.
SIMILAR TO: Robyn, Tove Lo, or if your favourite early-2000s icons formed a band and hit the club together.
Daisy Carter, Gemma Cockrell
DIY152
NEU
LABEL SPOTLIGHT
#8
SAD CLUB
45 RPM
How would you describe, in less than 10
words, the ethos behind Sad Club?
Tallulah Webb: Community, care,
creativity, inclusivity, lots of love, and fun.
Why did London need a label like Sad
Club? Tell us a bit more about why you
decided to set it up.
I guess it’s all been about building a
community, which I think is so important.
I set it up when I was super young - I was
18 or 19 and just out of school. There were
so many cool bands and I wanted to do
something creative and fun to help build a
community. It let me meet loads of people,
help musicians I loved, and bring a little
more love to the scene!
Sad Club started out as a cassette-only
label, but you’ve since expanded into
vinyl and CDs too. How did this change
come about? Do you have a favourite
format?
When I started I didn’t really know what I
was doing, but what I loved (and still love)
about cassettes is that they allow and
encourage creativity, uniqueness, and
limited runs, and remove all the pressures
of vinyl. But, as the artists were getting
bigger we had to make it happen with
vinyl and CDs (and it’s kinda fun to make
money, too). It’s really nice that cassettes
are played more and produced more now.
When I started out, it got a bit cackled at,
to be honest! I became the spokesperson
for cassette sales for the BBC and ITV for a
while though, which was pretty funny.
What would you say is your proudest or
most rewarding Sad Club moment?
I threw a Sad Club Christmas party at
Rough Trade East last year which was
awesome - it was so packed out and
everyone was having such a good time.
That might have been my proudest
moment, along with a few other label
events. Most of my label time is sitting on
spreadsheets and stuff, so I guess the real
life events just show you that what you’ve
created is real!
I also love the indie label market days,
when I have people coming up to me to
talk about Sad Club. I had a lady ask if I
was going to bring the compilations back
as she thought they were super cool - little
things like that make me SO proud. Also,
all the success and happiness of the artists
I work with is so rewarding. It’s all for them
<3
What advice would you give to any
artists working with an independent
label like Sad Club?
That’s a hard one! Be true to yourself?
Remember that we all want the best for
each other.
Sam McGill, Dianne Anguiano, Paula Trojner, Charlotte Reid
20 D

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SOFIA KOURTESIS
NILÜFER YANYA
CORTO.ALTO
Loner
Volver
Dancing Shoes
DON’T LISTEN
NINJA TUNE
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NINJA TUNE
YEULE
Evangelic Girl is a Gun
YUUF
Alma’s Cove
BLACK COUNTRY,
NEW ROAD
Forever Howlong
MARIBOU STATE
Hallucinating Love
NINJA TUNE
TECHNICOLOUR
NINJA TUNE
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WEVAL
BICEP
EBBB
FCUKERS
CHOROPHOBIA
TAKKUUK
Manners
Play Me
TECHNICOLOUR
NINJA TUNE
NINJA TUNE
NINJA TUNE
ninjatune.net

NEU
Folk Bitch Trio
Now on the cusp of releasing debut album ‘Now Would Be A Good Time’, best mates and Aussie exports Folk
Bitch Trio are primed and ready for their next adventure.
Words: Megan Graye
“We often joke about being in a
young marriage,” smiles Jeanie
Pilkington of Melbourne’s Folk
Bitch Trio. “We’re financially tied
to each other through contracts,
creativity and friendship - but in this relationship, music
is the sex!” Her bandmates Heide Peverelle and Gracie
Sinclair grin. “It underpins our entire lives. Music is the
climax!”
The Australian group are huddled together on the floor
of Heide’s bedroom - apparently also the birthplace
of the band - to join our video call. It’s Friday morning
here, but evening for the group, who are about to go
on a glamorous night out - to their accountants’ end of
financial year party. We’re assured that it’s a lot more fun
than it sounds: “He’s one of our best friend’s dads, so it
goes off - and it’s a free bar,” Gracie insists.
you’re gonna do next,” says Heide, looking at the others.
“We’re so in sync as people. We spend so much time
together and work so closely together, it kind of bleeds
into all elements.”
With such a strong bond at their core, the band’s favourite
moments are born from their experiences as friends - not
their career accomplishments. “It’s the adventures we’ve
had and the people we’ve met,” says Jeanie, of their evergrowing
highlights reel. “It’s really hard to put into words,
because so many things that have happened weren’t a
goal, but still felt like ticking something off your bucket
list.”
Adventures and side quests aside, though, making music
is still their beating heart. “It’s our whole lives,” Heide says
simply, “it’s forever there and always will be.” D
By now, the best friends are getting used to this kind of
rock’n’roll lifestyle; they’re soon embarking on a huge
US and European tour in support of debut album, ‘Now
Would Be A Good Time’. And, after a sold-out London
headline show and multiple slots at The Great Escape,
they’re already garnering a strong reputation in the UK.
It’s unsurprising really, given their harmony soaked,
ethereal songs about “friendship, sex, nostalgia,
heartbreak, being a touring musician, and mild self
indulgence”.
The result of such a heady combination is layered,
playful tracks reminiscent of ‘70s American group
The Roches. When it comes to Folk Bitch Trio
though, those similarly simple, now-vintage sounds
are wedded with a fresh, humorous and youthful
approach. Their influences span everything from
Laura Marling and Big Thief, to 21 Savage and
Radiohead, and the band are determined, despite
their name, not to be pigeonholed to folk alone.
“We love and admire folk music,
but we’re not very orthodox or
traditional.”
- Heide Peverelle
“We’re not binary in that way,” says Heide. “We love
and admire folk music, but we’re not very orthodox or
traditional.” Jeanie agrees: “There have been so many
times in history where there seemed like a lot of rules
in folk. I think there are definitely songwriters trying to
follow [them], but I don’t think we are that. I think we
just try to say what’s there.”
his straightforward knack for storytelling has
developed throughout the past five years,
T after they started the band aged 17. According
to Heide, the friends were just looking for an excuse
to “hang out together and avoid doing schoolwork”.
“Guitars kept popping up, and we kept doing more
and more singing,” remembers Gracie. “It was a very
beautiful space to be vulnerable and intimate and
trusting.”
That closeness radiates through their debut, on which
they seamlessly switch between singing lead parts
and playing guitar. It makes for a really relaxed and
balanced performance, all captured authentically via
tape recording. “You go into the studio in the morning,
turn on the tape machine and wait for it to warm up - it
smells so good,” reminisces Jeanie. Romanticism
aside, why choose a less accommodating means for
laying tracks down? “It’s about becoming less of a
perfectionist,” explains Heide. “It just makes you really
present and captures exactly what’s going on. There’s
no immediate gratification, which I think takes out a
lot of the temptation to over-indulge.”
That’s clear on the album’s laid-bare singles - the
deliciously mellow ‘The Actor’, ‘Cathode Ray’ and
‘Moth Song’ - on which the trio’s voices combine so
naturally it sounds as though they’re siblings. “We
know each other’s vocal tendencies, so I know what
22 D

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The Buzz Feed
All the buzziest new music happenings in one place.
Vicious
Creatures
DIY’s Class of 2025 alumni Luvcat has
announced details of her debut album
‘Vicious Delicious’ - which is rather aptly
set for release on Halloween, aka 31st
October - and she’s shared the title track
from the record to boot.
Having already won herself legions of
fans via a series of sultry but darklytinged
offerings like ‘Matador’, ‘Dinner
@ Brasserie Zédel’ and her most
recently-released single ‘Lipstick’, the
Liverpool singer’s album will see her
continue to channel the vaudevillian feel
that she’s so far cultivated. “Making this
album happened accidentally,” Luvcat has
said of the record. “Among the madness
of the last year I decided I didn’t wanna fuck
around with EPs or mixtapes. I really wanted to
make my first proper statement and when I found
out Halloween fell on a Friday, I knew we had to be fast
to get it together.
“Its lipstick’s a little smudged and its stockings are a little torn, but I am so proud of how we’ve captured this
strange, magical story and all the lovers and libertines I’ve met along the way. I think the record is old school
romance slightly off its hinges. A swinging pendulum between love and addiction, ecstasy and melancholy,
eroticism and innocence, the deliciously vicious and the viciously delicious.” Listen to the album’s title track
over on diymag.com now.
Blown Out Of
Proportion
Wigan-born artist TTSSFU - also known as Tasmin
Stephens - has returned with news of her brand new EP.
Having caused quite a stir with her 2024 release ‘Me,
Jed and Andy’, she’s now announced plans to release
its follow-up ‘Blown’ on 29th August via Partisan. What’s
more, she’ll be heading out on the road later this year in
support of its release.
Alongside the news of her new seven-track project, she’s
also shared the EP’s lead single, ‘Call U Back’, which
comes co-produced by Chris Ryan (Just Mustard, Cardinals,
New Dad). “‘Call U Back’ is a song about when you really
like someone and you chase them around to try and make it
work, but end up just making a fool of yourself by holding onto the
slightest chance of it working,” TTSSFU has said of the track. “When
you listen to it, imagine you’re drunk on a night out at the point that things slowly
start to just feel awful.”
To mark the release of ‘Blown’, she’ll play a handful of shows in Europe, starting in October, before following
them up with five headline gigs in the UK. She’ll stop at Leeds’ The Attic (9th November),
Bristol’s Strange Brew (10th), London’s The Lower Third (11th), Glasgow’s King
Tuts (15th) and Manchester’s White Hotel (27th). For more info on the tour,
and to hear ‘Call U Back’, head to diymag.com now.
Dead Cert
Trinidad-born, London-bred artist Toni Sancho has shared
details of her second EP, ‘Declare Me Dead!’. It’ll follow on from
her debut project, ‘Heaven Knows!’, which landed back in May
last year, and is set for release on 8th August.
“Since my last EP, I decided to just pull back a little bit,” Toni has
said, referring to a step away from the spotlight after her first EP’s
release. “When so many people are perceiving you, you almost don’t
see yourself correctly… I definitely pulled back from being as open
about my process.”
“This record is much more grounded,” she continues, of the five-track release,
which was recorded with SHRINK. “And I’m much more grounded now. These emotions aren’t just about me
and myself, but about how I operate in the world, and how I see the world as well.” Alongside news of her
forthcoming release, she’s also shared its title track, and scheduled a headline show in London at The Forge at
The Lower Third on 13th August. Head to diymag.com now to get more details.
THE NEU
PLAYLIST
Fancy discovering your new favourite artist?
Dive into the cream of the new music crop
below.
For Nina - Swallow
After a so-soft-it-requires-avolume-check
intro, the opening
words of ‘Swallow’ emerge like
dim lights from mist. Vocalist Holly
Owens shows incredible restraint
before opening up her chords as
the song subtly shifts gears. In
this follow-up to the in-your-face ‘Hounds’, For Nina
deploy their power with care and precision,
exploring the boundaries of their post-rock sound
and adding elements of soaring, rich shoegaze.
Holly really lets go towards the end of the track,
bringing to mind the sweeter side of Ellie Rowsell.
Phil Taylor
Ebbb - Manners
Returning with their first single
since 2024 EP ‘All At Once’,
‘Manners’ sees London’s Ebbb
replace the hazier, jutting
late-night introversions of their
preliminary offerings with a lighter,
more lucid palette that maintains
all of the former’s transportative allure. Signature
choppy vocal samples give way to crisp, angelic
melodies, the hooky refrain “the way I feel when you
are near” imprinting itself neatly into your
subconscious as a later earworm to flavour life’s
mundanities. Carving out a wholly unique sound
that combines the pulsing vitality of techno with a
spellbinding dream-pop ethereality, on ‘Manners’,
Ebbb explore the push and pull of romantic
entanglement with deft nuance. Hazel Blacher
Fuzz Lightyear -
Berlin, 1885
Integral cogs in Leeds’ fertile DIY
scene - sharing members with
Bug Teeth and Shaene - Fuzz
Lightyear are also locking in to a
serious rhythm all of their own.
Placing themselves on the
frontline of the UK’s current wave
of ear-shredding alternative bands while also
warping into the terrifying noise-void of stoner-rock,
‘Berlin, 1885’ is like strapping into a rollercoaster
where the safety regulations haven’t necessarily
been met, and where furious action takes
precedence over anything that’s actually sensible.
And when the dust settles on it all, it becomes clear
that (in a pitiful bid to avoid any Toy Story puns),
Fuzz Lightyear are turning it up to 11, and beyond.
Elvis Thirlwell
Whitelands - Heat of
the Summer
Perfectly coinciding with a
nationwide heatwave, this one
bathes in breezy sonic major
chords backdropping a
commentary on Luigi Mangioni
and Trump. Here, Whitelands find
expressing their concerns over
world events easiest when they have
euphoric guitar riffs
and fuzzy pedals to
counteract the
malaise, as the band
expand on their
luscious shoegaze
sound. Peter
Martin
UPDATE YOUR EARS!
Scan the code to listen to the Neu Playlist.
Alex Barnaby James, Fairley, Katie Henry Silvester Collier
24 D

NEU
Humour
Make no mistake: the debut album from Glasgow outfit Humour is no
laughing matter. In fact, it’s a serious stab at taking the post-hardcore
crown.
Words: Ciaran Picker
Humour have made their home in the
madhouse. Splicing together personal
trauma and powerfully cut-throat energy,
Glasgow’s feistiest post-punk/hardcore
quintet are making their mark with their
tongue-in-cheek yet brazenly biting debut album,
‘Learning Greek’.
“The title was a happy accident,” vocalist Andreas
Christodoulidis reveals, speaking to DIY from the
country itself. “It came from a throwaway line in a
track that never made the album. We didn’t really think
about it too much - it just had a ring to it. After that, I
thought more about the [record’s] themes: exploring
the past, nostalgia, the passage of time, and worrying
about dying.”
Indeed, ‘Learning Greek’ manifests itself as an elevensong
crusade into Andreas’ private worries, taking
shape as stories of intense paranoia (‘Neighbours’),
class kinship (‘Die Rich’), and a heartfelt title-track
that illuminates its central theme of personal history.
As much as a debut album is always exposing,
though, Humour didn’t get weighed down by pressure
or expectation. Instead, they took risks, took their
time, and took no prisoners.
Across the LP, the addictive hardcore elements and
jagged, metallic edges that comprise the band’s
two EPs to date (2022’s ‘pure misery’ and 2023’s ‘A
Small Crowd Gathered To Watch Me’) are blended
with more melodic guitar lines and layered pop-punk
vocals - a move that wasn’t necessarily always on
the cards. “We basically had a whole album’s worth
of demos that never made it,” Andreas admits. “They
weren’t bad songs, but they weren’t powerful enough;
there weren’t enough gems.
“We reluctantly decided to record more songs, and
from that the singles came really quickly, so we knew
we’d made the right decision.” “I hope that some of
those songs can be reworked, though - I really love
some of those tracks,” drummer Ruairidh Smith levels.
“But then we might go in a totally different direction
on album two - who knows?”
H
aving started the band during the pandemic,
Humour’s first years have been an opportunity
to delve into the craziest parts of their
collective psyche without tapering their ambition - an
outlook, Andreas explains, has endured yet evolved.
“We’ve retained the desire to be experimental; we
still want to try weird things,” he notes. “I think what’s
different is that, on our first EP, we were trying to
freak people out - the whole thing was a punch. Now
we’re trying to incorporate weirdness into songs that
are [primarily] designed to be well-structured and
interesting, instead of just being mad.”
“We all have different tastes,” Ruairidh nods. “The
softer, melodic stuff comes from Andreas’ love of
folk music, while I come from poppier stuff, so that
gave the album more direction and focus. We kept a
conscious effort to bring in hardcore elements, too.”
He continues: “Because we wrote [‘pure misery’]
during Covid, there was no one there to tame our
weirdness. It’s been important in defining who we are,
but now we’re trying to write more direct songs that
push some elements a bit further. We push the noise,
or we get Andreas to push his voice to its limit; [the
album] embodies everything we’ve done so far, and
adds something new.” D
“We’re trying to incorporate
weirdness into songs that are designed
to be well-structured and interesting,
instead of just being mad. ”
- Andreas Christodoulidis
Rosie Sco
D 25

THREE YEARS AFTER
BROCKHAMPTON’S SPLIT, KEVIN
ABSTRACT IS TENDERLY EXPLORING
WHAT SELF-PRESERVATION THROUGH
GRIEF LOOKS LIKE. HIS NEW ALBUM,
‘BLUSH’, IS A CALLBACK TO HIS
TEXAN ROOTS; A MYSTICAL A24-
STYLE MEDITATION ON SURVIVING
HEARTBREAK AND THE ROSE-TINTED
GLOSS OF HOLLYWOOD.
: ZOYA RAZA-SHEIKH

I
LONELY,
LOW.”

evin Abstract is musing over what
‘Blush’ feels like. He uses the title
of his new 18-track album like
an adjective, slathering the soft
syllables into his gently spoken
responses. The hazy gleam of his
project showcases the earnest
moves of a heartened curator
— an artist standing behind the
curtain of his own hometown
exhibition. Sincerity is the nucleus
of Abstract’s cinematic heartbreak
saga. He pulls friends on board
(including the likes of Dominic
Fike, Quedeca, Love Spells and JPEGMAFIA), which colours the
release with lush, movie-like production, clean falsetto vocals and
BROCKHAMPTON-esque beats. It’s a soundtrack to a world he
hasn’t fully quite pieced together yet, but you can feel its beginnings
emerging.
“I felt very betrayed, just like a lot of friendship breakups during that
time. I felt very lonely, very low,” he explains, nodding to his decision
to return back to his home in Houston after a particular period of
upheaval. “My beard was longer than it is now – I looked like a
madman. But once I arrived in Texas, I was like ‘it’s not as bad as
you think’, even though I was still suffering,” he says over Zoom, the
digital window closely framing his face and his jet-black zip jacket,
which has bold white letters spelling out ‘Blush’ on it.
It’s early afternoon for the singer, whose real name is Clifford Ian
Simpson. His laptop pings repeatedly with text messages, which
he gently apologises for (“sorry about this going off, my bad”). His
MacBook camera sits fixed on his face, moving as he speaks, like
a director panning across the screen. It takes him a while to relax
into the call, admitting he’s on a bit of a press run. “I just did an
[interview] with Zane Lowe, also over Zoom. I’m not used to those,”
he says, pulling his arms into his side. “I prefer doing it in person,
but there’s something that feels intimate about this kind of setting; it
reminds me of some of my internet friends I had back in high school,
and the only way we could talk and create things was through
FaceTime or Facebook chat or something. I’m trying to get into the
rhythm of it.”
Internet culture is an intentional thread that feeds into the singer’s
work: he met ‘Blush’ collaborator (and Houston-born) Love Spells
after a bold DM over Instagram, while half of the BROCKHAMPTON
crew came together, in 2009, after he made a call-out on a
‘KanyeLive’ forum. The rapper thoughtfully weaves his projects
around what he’s looking for. On his last studio album, ‘Blanket’,
he gushes about being in love to the sickly sweet tune of pop,
while crunchy, raw rock ballads bring a sense of catharsis. This
time, Abstract’s work - unsurprisingly - seeks out camaraderie. On
‘Blush’, it feels like he’s yearning for a digital hug, falling back on
his collaborators to lift him up. “It’s like I’m trying to make my own
version of Hollywood in Texas,” he clarifies.
After a devastating break-up which uprooted most of his social life,
Abstract made a snap decision: to shove all his belongings into his
Jeep and start driving to Texas. His mind reeling, he admits that
when things get tough, he tends to return home. “I was trying to
reconnect with different sides of my past and my life,” he says. “I’ve
been living in California for the past nine years, and I had this heavy
heartbreak moment. Two summers before that, I was breaking up
with BROCKHAMPTON, and then I found a new squad and new love
life but, then, another breakup happened the following summer. I
was over Los Angeles, so I was like ‘let me go back home and find
myself again’; I packed up my Jeep and drove to Texas.” Spurred
on by emotion, the rapper pulled out his go-to playlist while heading
back. Comprising over 624 unique songs - totalling up over 38 hours
of playback - this mega-diary of music is aptly called ‘Pieces of Me’.
His latest additions to it include ‘Sick Dogs’ by Psycho Realm, ‘A
Dream Goes On Forever’ by John Glacier and Vegyn, and ‘April In
Paris’ by Ahmad Jamal. “I add songs to it every day, anytime I hear
a song that’s cool - at a coffee shop, at the mall, or when someone
at home sends me something. So, I put that on shuffle and drove,
drove, drove and drove.”
D 29

This same sense of journeying has shaped
Abstract’s music for nearly a decade. His solo
albums - ‘American Boyfriend: A Suburban Love
Story’, ‘Arizona Baby’ and ‘Blanket’ - wrestle with
his vulnerability. From recalling homophobia from
his high-school years to finding closure at a Tyler,
The Creator show and surrendering to feelings of
love, Abstract has always scooped out his innermost feelings
and, delicately, splattered them onto a record. This time, he didn’t
want to be the showman, but the invisible hand drawing the chess
pieces across the board, quietly curating his next move. “Post-
BROCKHAMPTON, that is one of my strengths: bringing voices
together. I’m figuring all this out in real time. It made me not take
my creativity, my job and my professional life for granted,” he
says, reflecting on the creation of ‘Blush’. “I was trying hard not to
process anything, which is probably why I wanted to go on a drive
and be distracted. Once it started coming together, I listened to a
lot of music in my Jeep. I just kept going back to [Dr.] Dre, ‘2001’.
There are certain songs where you don’t even hear his voice, but he
curated a sound that’s so specific towards him – I was like ‘damn, I
want to start carving out that type of sound for myself’”.
‘Blush’ doesn’t feel like Abstract is emulating the sonic ghost of
BROCKHAMPTON. Instead, he flips the camera even more intensely
on himself. He remedies over sticky beats and vocoder vocals
on ‘Maroon’, calling out his anonymous ex, spitting out lyrics at a
lightning-fast pace. Its syncopated rhythm feels like an overdue
exhale. He whips up his best work on peppy Dominic Fike-laden
‘Geezer’, a blisteringly cool lead single (and now, it seems, the
moniker for a new project from the pair, under which they’ve just
shared new track ‘Doggy’). The rapper’s fine-tuned production
lays the groundwork for witty mumbled one-liners and whimsical,
chattering vocals from a new generation talent like Fike.
So, what is ‘Blush’? It’s a rotating cast of musical collaborators;
it’s a salve to rejection, a call to homelife nostalgia – an album with
which to sink back into your favourite chair, don your favourite
hoodie, and shut off the world. At least, that’s what Abstract’s
introvert-pilled album artwork tells us. “[‘Blush’] led me to reaching
out to a lot of old friends, people I grew up with in Texas,” he recalls.
He equally notes where he previously lived - Corpus Christi, a beach
town, and The Woodlands in a suburb north of Houston – was the
same location Arcade Fire wrote ‘The Suburbs’ about - but this feels
different. “It wasn’t until we announced ‘Blush’ that I felt like this
could be an ongoing film or art piece. It could be an ever-changing
[project] underneath my name. It feels like I’m in the director’s chair
and sitting in the editing room, whether it’s for the visuals or mixing
and mastering. I’m very hands-on with it all,” he explains. “I was
trying to wrap my head around what ‘Blush’ is and what it can be,
but I can see it now.”
While Abstract’s new era has led to some clear-minded epiphanies,
he’s been ruminating on the transparency behind his open-ended
project, without the safety net of a permanent collective behind
him. “The ambition is always going to be pure; I don’t have to chase
after that. But, sometimes, it’s hard for me to chase being brutally
honest,” he shares. “As I’m writing this next [project], I’m asking:
‘how can I go lyrically deeper?’ I felt like I was being vulnerable
without BROCKHAMPTON behind me and that is challenging. It was
about being comfortable with getting on the microphone and saying
the closest thing to my truth, while still trying to make it something
that I want people to listen to at parties and something I want to be
proud of performing. Chasing the truth has always been my goal
with songwriting.”
The idea of limitless innovation and lore fascinates
Abstract. A self-confessed reader of Wiki pages
and album deep-dives, his “obsession” with Andy
Warhol’s The Factory inspired him to make his own
revolving door of creatives. He credits Chief Keef,
Justin Vernon and Kanye’s old music, specifically
‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’ and ‘Yeezus’.
“It’s [about] creating new worlds and making the experience feel
like a movie, making it feel cinematic, making it feel like when a new
IT’S I’M TO MAKE
VERSION OF HOLLYWOOD
TEXAS.”

character enters the song,” he says. “It feels like they’re entering the
frame, or they’re walking on the stage - that’s why I named the first
song ‘The Introduction’, because it’s going to feel big.”
‘Blush’’s structure is provocative; it’s not a smooth, seamless
tracklist. It can be abrasive and experimental, feeling like a
suckerpunch of moodiness and light-touch crescendos. There
are sentimental references to belonging, but it’s also a medley of
despair, grief, and also survival. “To me, it’s Texas pop because it
is all made here. A lot of my favourite Texas rap music, from Z-Ro
to UGK, I heard growing up. No matter how big and global those
artists were, it always felt underground,” he says. “The sound of
‘Blush’ is Texas pop; it’s like underground pop star music. I love the
idea of having Dominic Fike on the same album as JPEGMAFIA. It
feels like you can only get it from a record produced by me. That’s
what ‘Blush’ feels like to me – the possibilities are endless and the
creativity is always at an all-time high.”
The hue-toned world of ‘Blush’ is becoming a clearer picture
for many, including Abstract. His follow-up release - which he
cryptically calls “Blush 2” - is on the way. He doesn’t give much
away, though: none of the names from the new project’s clique are
shared, but the rapper hints at wanting to get more intimate with
his listeners. “I can be quite social, but also, I can freak out and
become small, so there’s a difference. I don’t know how to describe
the difference, though, other than the fact that there’s almost like
two different types of creativity, to me, and two different types
of performances. Both are extremely valuable,” he says. As for
creating a thrumming new release, he ponders why he’s continually
boomeranged back to Houston. “I was thinking about that the other
day. It’s like my soul is tied to that place. It’s not like I’m running
away. [There’s] something about Texas skies, the friends that I have
had here since I was younger, who have never turned their back on
me; it just feels like my family.”
Indeed, ‘Blush’ is also a release that sees Abstract return
to collaborate with school friend, former bandmate and
BROCKHAMPTON member Ameer Vann, who parted ways with the
group in 2018 after a series of abuse allegations. After previously
saying the ensuing fall-out around his departure was “a wild thing.
Something you think about every day,” in a 2020 interview with
GQ, Abstract recently called their creative reunion “difficult” in a
conversation with podcast host Zach Sang. When DIY followed up
our initial interview with an additional question regarding their work
together on ‘Blush’, we did not receive a response before going to
print.There are moments when Abstract comes off quixotic,
his demure expression lighting up with possibility.
He advocates for his art, but also notes how he
distinguishes the life of Kevin Abstract from Ian
Simpson. “It’s just easier to live life and treat my
work like it’s work. LA just feels different,” he thinks
aloud. “I love Los Angeles, I want to die there, but I
needed to find a place where I could make this album. Anytime I’m
going through a traumatic moment in my life, I end up coming back
here to Texas; this has happened throughout my entire career.”
The 29-year-old speaks fondly of Houston, but as if yearning for
American Dream escapism. “When I was a kid, I’d be watching
MTV and it was like ‘I want to end up on that screen. Whatever’s
happening on MTV, I gotta be in that city - I want to end up there’.
I think it’s a lot of nostalgia wrapped into the idea, and it is kind of
silly,” he recalls. “I would hear my friend’s parents tell their kid ‘your
grandparents are retiring in Florida. Palm trees and peace, you don’t
want to be in Texas no more’.”
The Wizard of Oz likeness to ‘Blush’ is endearing. For Abstract,
there’s no place quite like Texas, but it’s not the end of the yellow
brick road, either. He has his companion playlist and reliable friends
to get him through his emotional hardships. But, more than that, he
wants to leave his trace behind him, his style and director’s vision.
Often, the musician leans back on advice given to him by Grammywinning
producer Jack Antonoff: be specific with your single choice,
and be ready to play it for the rest of your life.
Abstract’s innovation doesn’t feel cyclical, but he is hashing out
unflinching lyrics. He’s no longer eulogising himself; he’s moving
forward, now with a greater sense of direction. So, what has he
learned as a nimble-minded, tender musician? “Damn, that’s hard,
because I reached out to a lot of different artists that I’ve been able
to meet throughout the years to try and get their opinion,” he laughs.
“I’m gonna say something so basic. The last thing I heard recently
was ‘have fun and don’t overthink this moment’. I needed to hear
that, because I’m always overthinking when it comes to putting
music out… but it works.”
‘Blush’ is out now via Juno. D
If Kevin had to pick one song from his
discography to use as a soundtrack to
his life, what would it be?
That’s an awesome question. It’d probably
be a newer song, something from ‘Blush’. It
would be ‘Doggy’ or ‘Post Break Up’. Or, to
really understand the kind of work I’m trying
to make, I would say ‘Text Me’ because the
sense, the production, the sound design,
the goofiness and the lyrics, but then also
this sincerity and the lyrics - that’s the kind
of stuff I want to make. I want to go full
Disney and make people smile for as long
as I can.
32 D

THE
THE
IS
AT
.”

Harnessing grace and
joy, Indigo De Souza’s
fearless fourth album
flips uncertainty into
opportunity
through
magical pop sensibilities.
Words: Rishi Shah

Existentialism has been a recurring theme in Indigo De Souza's
music. “I’ll always be grappling with that, probably,” she
admits, speaking to DIY on the eve of her 28th birthday. “That's
always been a theme in my life. Deep in a vat of existentialism
and a fear of dying, but also an excitement for dying and
whatever comes next.”
‘Not Afraid’, the first track written for the North Carolinian’s
incoming fourth album, ‘Precipice’, lays down the biggest piece
of this ongoing jigsaw puzzle: “I’m not afraid of dying anymore / I’m not afraid of
living either”. Over some medium-rare beefy guitars and heavenly synths, this
declaration gives an insight into the fearlessness that now forms an integral part
of Indigo De Souza.
“I remember feeling very fearless - I was spending time in a big city, which was
new for me,” Indigo recalls. Having grown up surrounded by creeks and valleys in
Spruce Pine, Indigo jumped ship to LA - where she now resides permanently - for
some blind studio sessions. Ultimately, she would “accidentally” write ‘Precipice’
in that city, striking up a sublime partnership with producer Elliott Kozel (whose
CV boasts collaborators including SZA, MØ and Finneas).
“Throwing myself into these new projects and trying to embrace a new space, I
was learning how to accept all of it and move through it gracefully,” she tells DIY.
“It made me feel like I could do anything.”
Gracefulness is a word that encapsulates Indigo over the course of the 30 minutes
DIY spends with her. Softly-spoken and contagiously bubbly, her personality
perfectly complements her otherworldly vocal range, which feels theatrically
elevated throughout ‘Precipice’. Just take the bittersweet ‘Pass It By’, which has a
hint of Rina Sawayama about it, or the larger-than-life War On Drugs vibe to lead
single ‘Heartthrob’.
Grace and fearlessness, Indigo explains, are two emotions that are more closely
linked than one might realise at face value. “In order to be graceful, you have
to be fearless,” she ponders. “You have to be open to the world, to having hard
conversations and meeting the obstacles that you face with love.”
You have to be open to
the world, to having hard
conversations and meeting
the obstacles that you face
with love."
While her previous record, 2023’s ‘All Of This Will
End’, showed flickers of this brighter outlook on life,
her earlier material, she admits, was generally “very
heavy and sad.” If ‘All Of This Will End’ unlocked
the door, ‘Precipice’ leaps through that window of bliss,
in complete contrast to any uncertainty that its title may
suggest.
Although Indigo knows life’s ginormous questions about
death, existence and mortality all too well, that inherently
present human feeling that we’re constantly living on
the edge - the precipice - of something also rings true.
Anyone would be justified in feeling terrified about the great
unknown, unaware of what’s around the corner in 2025.
On the record, Indigo turns the constancy of doubt into
opportunity.
“‘Precipice’ just popped out of me… I think it came from
being fearless, exploring life and what it has to offer,” she
explains. “Putting myself out there in situations that are
uncomfortable - or maybe just new to me - and being unafraid
to try those things. There's always been a parallel [between]
music and my life. I’m always feeling like I'm growing into a
new version of myself.”
Bravery runs rife through the album. The lyrical
emptiness of ‘Crying Over Nothing’ is flipped
into a flamboyant alt-pop bonanza,
while Indigo’s repeated
affirmations in ‘Be Like
The Water’ make for the
record’s most uplifting
moment, complete with
squeaky-clean synths
in an urgent reminder

of the power of acceptance. Courage and pop sensibilities, it would seem,
go hand in hand.
“I was definitely feeling a lot of bravery when I made this album, and also
a lot of joy and a deep connection with myself,” Indigo begins. “I listen to a
lot of pop music, and I've always wanted to make songs that made people
feel like putting the windows down and having their arms out in the wind.
Or dancing with their friends, getting ready to take on the world in some
way. I've always wanted to make music that really uplifts the spirit.”
Forget listening to ‘Precipice’ - which still makes Indigo “[dance] around
in the streets” - even a short conversation with Indigo will put a smile
on your face. It almost seems like she can conjure happiness out of thin
air, and it’s no wonder that such elation effortlessly finds its way into her
music. Has this mindset come later in her life, or is it something she’s had
since a young age?
“I guess it has been there a while,” she ponders, after a pause. “I think
I just have to [think that way]. I struggle with mental illness and issues
with depression and anxiety, and I've always had to practice looking for
happiness in small places. Uplifting other people and allowing them to
uplift me, and allowing myself to lean on people and to be there for others.
It's definitely become more and more important to me, the older I've
gotten, and I've definitely gotten better at it too.”
Soon after ‘Precipice’ was finished, Indigo’s Asheville hometown was
struck by Hurricane Helene in September 2024 - resulting in the
loss of all her belongings while her house was flooded. Even in the
wake of such an incomprehensible tragedy, Indigo’s first post on
social media remained hopeful: “I have faith in my community,” she
reaffirmed.
As she gears up for the responsibilities that come with the release of
‘Precipice’ and adjusts to her new life in LA (she moved three months
after the flood), so much has changed since the last tracks were laid
down on ‘Precipice’. In fact, reminiscing on this time capsule of this
period has helped her navigate the challenges of the present. “It
brings me back to this space that I was in before the flood, and
it reminds me of that time,” she explains.
“[The flood] definitely taught me a lot, and I think the biggest
lesson was letting go. I lost so many things that were
important to me: the place that I live; the things that I had;
that space that we had for community [Indigo’s home was a
converted church that acted as a safe space for artists and
friends]. But I've learned so much about coming together,
pulling your community together through thick and thin, no
matter what happens, and finding happiness in the smallest
corners.”
I’m always feeling
like I’m growing into a
new version of myself."
Whether it’s her tight-knit community of fans - for whom she hosted
listening parties with watercolour painting in NYC and LA - the solace of
Asheville, or the new surrounding characters that she is discovering in LA,
community is hugely important to Indigo. “A lot of the values that I grew
to understand about myself in North Carolina have carried on throughout
my time in LA,” she says, proudly. “I have an openness - emotionally,
existentially - with people, and I hold a lot of space for people around me
to be their true selves.”
Grace, fearlessness, optimism, bravery, community - the list goes
on. As Indigo's journey through this muddled world continues, her
values continue to evolve and take shape, just like her artistry. And
fundamentally, they are intertwined together.
“We ended up making a whole other album in LA that will be coming
out after ‘Precipice’,” Indigo reveals, out of the blue. “I actually have two
albums that are waiting in the wings to get attention to [be finished], so I
can put them out.” Life moves fast, but the singer moves faster, it would
seem.
Hannah Sommer, Lea Garn
We question her if this feels like a burden, how the pace of being an artist
who writes songs instinctively is at odds with the pace the industry allows
you to release music. “It can be, at times,” she admits. But by this point,
we know the positive kicker is coming from Indigo De Souza - it’s just
how she operates. “Most of the time, it’s fine,” she smiles. “I'll still keep
writing songs!”
‘Precipice’ is out 25th July via Loma Vista. D

AUG
RALLY Festival
Floating Points, Geordie Greep,
CASISDEAD & more
Southwark Park
Saturday 23 August
Hayden Pedigo
Kings Place
Tuesday 26 August
Cryoseger
Windmill Brixton
Thursday 28 August Sold out
SEP
Greg Freeman
The Lexington
Tuesday 2 September
DIIV
HERE at Outernet
Wednesday 3 September
Dutch Interior
The George Tavern
Thursday 4 September
Whatever The Weather
Milton Court
Saturday 6 September
Throwing Muses
Village Underground
Tuesday 9 September
Bremer/McCoy
St Pancras Old Church
Thursday 11 September Sold out
Friday 12 September Sold out
UNIVERSITY
The George Tavern
Wednesday 17 September
Omar Souleyman
Fabric
Thursday 18 September
Caroline Rose
St Pancras Old Church
Thursday 18 September
Sold out
Subterranean Festival
ft. Lisa O’Neill, Incredible String
Band, Peggy Seeger & more
Southbank Centre
Saturday 20 September
Sean Nicholas Savage
Club Cheek
Saturday 20 September
Black Country,
New Road
Beacon Hall, Bristol
Monday 22 September Sold out
Nadia Reid
The Ivy House
Wednesday 24 September Sold out
For Those I Love
Islington Assembly Hall
Thursday 25 September
The Beths
Roundhouse
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By Storm
Club Cheek
Saturday 27 September
OCT
The Magnetic Fields
Union Chapel
Thursday 2 October Sold out
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Wednesday 15 October
ionnalee |
iamamiwhoami
HERE at Outernet
Monday 13 October
Meagre Martin
Windmill Brixton
Thursday 15 October
Fine
St Matthias Church
Friday 17 October
YHWH Nailgun
Scala
Tuesday 21 October
Sold out
Holden & Zimpel
ICA
Thursday 23 October
Jessica Winter
The Lower Third
Tuesday 28 October
mark william lewis
Village Underground
Tuesday 28 October
Titanic
ICA
Wednesday 29 October
Black Country,
New Road
O2 Academy Brixton, London
Friday 31 October
Marissa Nadler
St Matthias Church
Friday 31 October
NOV
GHOSTWOMAN
The Garage
Saturday 1 November
Penguin Cafe
Soho Theatre Walthamstow
Saturday 1 November
Albertine Sagres
The Lexington
Tuesday 4 November
Joep Beving
St Martin in the Fields
Friday 7 November
Mac DeMarco
Eventim Apollo
Monday 10 November Sold out
Momma
The Garage
Tuesday 11 November
TOPS
Heaven
Tuesday 11 November
Pile
The Dome
Wednesday 12 November
Fievel Is Glauque
EartH Theatre
Thursday 13 November
Frankie Cosmos
Electric Brixton
Tuesday 18 November
múm
Islington Assembly Hall
Monday 24 November
ØXN
EartH Theatre
Monday 24 November
Lola Kirke
Oslo
Thursday 27 November
FEB
Wednesday
The Fleece, Bristol
Monday 23 February 2026
Electric Ballroom, London
Thursday 26 February 2026
Grandbrothers
Scala
Thursday 26 February 2026
London & Beyond
birdonthewire.net

“wE'rE FoUr fRiEnDs,
hAvInG A LaUgH AnD
wHaTeVeR HaPpEnS,
hApPeNs….”
- Sarah HarVey

yOuNg
hEaRtS
Born from messy nights out and pints down the pub, Panic Shack may have
started out as a bit of an in-joke, but as the quartet release their self-titled debut,
they’ve equally become a ridiculously fun breath of fresh air.
words: isabella ambrosio
or anyone who’s ever seen Welsh partystarters
Panic Shack, performing on stage
seems to just make sense for them. And
yet, the quartet didn’t grow up thinking that
music would be on the cards as a career.
“I didn’t ever think I would play music myself,”
confides guitarist Meg Fretwell, before vocalist
Sarah Harvey quickly agrees: “I also didn’t think
I’d ever get to be in a band, but I always wanted to
be.”
“It’s almost like a dream… but, now that I’m older, I’ve
realised not everyone has that dream,” bassist Em
Smith ponders, as they speak to DIY via Zoom. “So
then, I’d [think] ‘ah, maybe I’m supposed to be in a
band’, because I spent all my time thinking about it.”
Bawdy, aggressive, fierce - though Panic Shack
may self-describe as a “DIY pop girl group”, their
aesthetic is cut through with the fearlessness and
carelessness of riot grrrl, and the confidence of
punk. As such, their self-titled debut album shines
with mainstream influences amid more left-field
techniques and structures: almost a decade in the
making, it documents the growth of one group of
people, pulling from “little pockets of inspiration” that
span everything from Spice Girls, The Saturdays, and
Girls Aloud to Viagra Boys and The Slits.
From those early days as individual music lovers, the
band - completed by guitarist Romi Lawrence - soon
found their fates intertwined. Meg was hired and
trained by Sarah in the Cardiff branch of high street
mainstay Lush, before Em also found herself with
a position at the cosmetic store. Familiar with one
another from nights out and drunken DMCs, it wasn’t
long before the three spent their shifts “imagining
what else we could be doing if we could be in a
band,” Em half-chuckles. “It kind of started as a bit of
a joke… and then we just did it one day.”
The trio smile playfully, recalling the possible
preconceptions that people around Cardiff may have
had of the band at first. “[People] just knew us as
rUn
these party girls that were always out at gigs. But they
never knew we could pick up an instrument,” Sarah
illustrates, as Meg chimes in: “unbeknownst to me,
we’re actually really good at it. I didn’t think that we
wouldn’t be, but… it was a risk.”
She continues: “We would go to a pub in Cardiff
called The Queen’s Vaults to play darts and pool and
drink loads of pints. At the beginning, the rehearsals
were just an excuse for us to get together and go to
the pub, and that’s genuinely how it started.” She
laughs, before adding: “and you could do that on a
Tuesday night, you know?”
hose hangout sessions in pubs, coffee
shops, and each other’s homes slowly but
surely built the foundations of ‘Panic
Shack’ - a record with origins as far back as
2015. “It’s kind of been brewing since we
started,” Em begins. “There are some songs on there
that we started writing years ago and there are some
that are new, but I think we’re always in that creative
kind of mode when we’re together.” She grins,
becoming noticeably more animated when discussing
their friendship. “We’ll be voice-noting and having a
laugh, thinking up funny rhymes, and bouncing off
each other… we’ve just got chemistry, and we all think
we’re the funniest people in the world.”
For the band, the songwriting - and storytelling -
always stems from “a bit of a joke” or “a common,
shared lived experience” that will just “snowball” from
there, Meg explains. This element of the everyday is
vital to Panic Shack’s work, she continues, as such
mundane yet important moments - from bitching
sessions in the women’s toilets on nights out, to the
excitement of being with your friends, or even talking
about creepy men they face - are “not really reflected
in music”.
The band want their songs to be realistic; they want
the audience to feel as if they’re living through the
experience in question. The aim, Sarah notes, is to
make people “really put [themselves] in someone’s
shoes - and that’s quite powerful as well, because it’s
women’s shoes.”
However, to simply call a female artist or a band of
women ‘feminist’ and move on is a disservice. That
label doesn’t tell you what they sound like; it doesn’t
encapsulate their high-energy, free-spirited punk
sound, or the fun of their surf-rock and indie-pop
sensibilities, and lumping all female-fronted bands
together reduces their work to gender alone. Sarah
just shrugs at that kind of ignorance. “We’re four
friends, having a laugh and whatever happens,
happens... Even though we take it very seriously, it’s
not too serious.”
“I do also feel that, being a woman, you feel like
you’ve got something to prove [at first], so you kind
of put on a bit more of a front… [Now], I don’t give
a fuck,” Em nonchalantly smiles. This attitude helps
when the band are sometimes grouped with the
same group of artists - acts as sonically varied as
Lambrini Girls, Wet Leg, or Pale Waves - all because
of their gender. It’s a point met with a collective,
exasperated sigh. “We love them all, but there are
so many other bands that you could compare us to,”
Sarah all but rolls her eyes. “Why are you comparing
us [to them] just because we’re female-fronted? [Do]
men get compared to the [same] three bands in every
interview?”
Despite the bullshit, Panic Shack are more than
comfortable in their own skin, and those rehearsalsturned-nights
out are still a pillar of their four-way
friendship. Their carefree, fun-chasing spirits haven’t
dwindled throughout the process; rather, they’ve
become stronger. “It doesn’t really matter what day
of the week it is to me still,” laughs Meg. Nearly ten
years into being a band, they’re fundamentally no
different: piecing together a collage of influences that
scream with pop sensibilities in a post-punk setting,
they’re just four mates, having a laugh, and making
ferociously bold art in the process.
‘Panic Shack’ is out now via Brace Yourself. D
fReE
D 39

having carved out a reputation for cinematic
storytelling and immersive performance, black
honey are the script-loving stalwarts of the
uk’s indie scene. sometimes, though, fact is
stranger than fiction, and on fourth album ‘soak’
frontwoman izzy b phillips is ready to play her
greatest role yet: herself.
words: daisy carter
Izzy B Phillips - frontwoman of Brighton indie
mainstays Black Honey - is not one to waste
time. When DIY rocks up, slightly late (thanks,
TfL), to a London hotel for today’s interview,
we find her sipping on a latte while playing
around with an Omnichord; the vehicle, she
tells us, of all her writing of late. “Since that video of
Damon Albarn playing ‘Clint Eastwood’ on one went
viral, these are really expensive,” she laments. “And
the batteries are doing my fucking head in - I have to
change them every four days.”
And that, quite frankly, is the least of it: as well as
creative directing campaign concepts and fulfilling
press commitments in anticipation of the band’s
expansive fourth album, ‘Soak’, she’s also juggling
shifts as a tattoo artist and sketching out ideas for
another exciting TBA project. Really, though, this
packed diary is entirely unsurprising: anyone who
gives an interview as far-reaching and full as this [if
only we had the column inches - Ed] is hardly a onetrack
mind.
“I know categorically that, for me, this is our best
piece of work,” she nods, referring to bandmates
Chris Ostler (guitar), Tommy Taylor (bass), and Alex
Woodward (drums). “And I know that everyone says
that about whatever they’re working on at that time,
but the relief you feel when you’ve gratified a part of
yourself that you hadn’t touched yet… that’s huge.”
Indeed, ‘Soak’ comes in the wake of a series of big
shifts for Izzy, both personally and professionally.
Since the band’s last LP - 2023’s ‘A Fistful Of
Peaches’ - she’s received a long-awaited autism
diagnosis and fully embraced sobriety, while tattooing
and writing with other artists (including, most recently,
Savages’ Fay Milton) have opened up different
avenues for her unbounded artistic expression.
Characterised by newfound clarity and selfacceptance,
then, ‘Soak’ marks something of a line
in the sand for Izzy; lyrically candid and relatively
light on concept, it’s an album as much defined by
what it’s not as what it is. “I think I have been on that
journey, where I became something for other people,”
she muses, citing the cowboy character work of the
quartet’s early output and the “Debbie Harry sketch”
of her signature bleach blonde, dishevelled-glam look.
“When I came through there were a lot of tests to see
if you were a ‘real’ artist: ‘how much do you know
about Neu! and the krautrock scene?’” she says
witheringly. “I knew about all that shit, but then I’d
perform this idea of femininity - lipstick, hair, lashes -
for men. That was the identity the world wanted from
me; it was something I did to survive… this was a time
when people were still asking me how it was possible
to have platonic relationships with my bandmates.”
She reflects: “I kind of created a fantasy band - a
fantasy realm and a fantasy identity - and now I feel
like I’ve spent a while deconstructing that. Or at least
seeing what’s real within it. [Black Honey] is this
perpetual tug of war between fake and real.”
n place of the stylised aesthetics of albums past
(which took cues from the likes of Tarantino and Wes
IAnderson), here the band play it as straight as they
ever have. Of course, cinematic reference points still
abound - namely Kubrick, Tim Burton, and Danny
Elfman - but, rather than escapist fantasies of outlaws
and lovers, ‘Soak’ resides in an all-too-familiar
landscape of dystopic news cycles, doomscrolling,
and distinctly unromantic addictions.
It was the prowling ‘Carroll Avenue’, Izzy explains
- a relative outlier on the record - that proved the
keystone of this about-turn. “Loads of Black Honey
[has been] me going ‘I’m in a Western movie, but
really I’m Izzy B. Phillips from Crawley,” she begins.
“My version of this fantasy Americana was a view of
life through the lens of consuming film: it [was] about
the Hollywood glare, the lights and sparkle and allure
of this realm.”
The track in question, though - named after the
historic LA street on which she was staying when she
penned it - sees her reflect on this fantastical film
set and, ultimately, “burn it all down”. She pauses,
glancing into the middle distance to recite its lyrics:
“Old Hollywood signs kept romance alive / From
Calloway Drive the star killed the stripe / And the cry
40 D

“[black honey] is this perpetual tug
of war between fake and real.”
- izzy b phillips

turns to silence, bled out in the basement / You can’t
blame me now, this is our entertainment.”
It’s a sense of disillusionment or inevitable cynicism
that has, in the past few years, become endemic;
it’s hard to be whimsical when the world’s horrors
are being livestreamed in real time, and our brains
are exposed to a lifetime’s worth of input in a week.
“Everything is burning up,” says Izzy simply, “and it’s
all too much.” And yet, we can’t seem to look away:
‘Soak’ (and the album’s cover) and ‘Psycho’ (and its
video) speak to this idea of compulsive consumption
- a sort of forced voyeurism - that leaves us
simultaneously overwhelmed and uncomprehending.
“It’s a collective illness that we’re all going through,”
Izzy nods. “I feel like my brain is in overdrive trying to
process this bombardment of information, but then
at the same time it’s addicted to going: ‘if I just look
at so-and-so’s holiday snaps, I’ll escape from it’.”
The result? A reality that’s far more surreal than any
big-screen flick - one in which we’re desensitised
to violence, paralysed by fatigue, and increasingly
narcissistic. “We live in a movie that nobody else will
ever see,” she shakes her head, laughing at the irony
of her old ‘Corinne’ lyrics. “If that’s the case, then
what the fuck is this? This is a terrible plot.”
I
n paring back some of that thematic or aesthetic
artifice, on ‘Soak’, Izzy’s also dropped the act
on a personal level, too. “There’s definitely an
unmasking,” she asserts, considering how being
sober has informed her songwriting on this record.
“I think it has the most drink and drug references of
any Black Honey album, which is interesting. I was
constantly trying to create a soundscape that felt
like a woozy dream state, or being on medication -
something really out of focus. I wanted it to be like an
explosion, but underwater; a complete immersion of
senses.
“It was such an unconscious thing,” she continues.
“At first I was annoyed: I thought ‘I’m sober, why am I
writing this? It’s so annoying, so counterintuitive. It’s
not the messaging I want to project.’ But actually, so
much of that was about trying to access the states
that drink and drugs can take you to.” ‘Insulin’, for
example, takes its title from a hormone that alters the
functioning of your body and mind, and the bright
pop-rock of ‘Drag’ becomes increasingly distorted
over the track’s three minute runtime. ‘Psycho’,
meanwhile, nods to “the little twinkle in someone’s
eye when they decide to fucking send it… that evil
demon, that destructive voice.”
the institutional framework that I’ve been cultivated in,
and I’m now unpacking all of the frustrations of that
and realising: ‘oh for fuck’s sake, I’m just that bee.
And that’s allowed’.”
Album closer ‘Medication’ digs into this experience
most directly; stripped-back and sincere, it features a
crescendoing synth section bound by multiple vocal
layers - as if, we suggest, Izzy’s different sides are
all coexisting, quite literally, in harmony. “I love that,”
she smiles. “Or maybe each of the harmony splits is
the multitudinal voices in your head, or the textural
dynamic of how broad a feeling can be.” When
neurodivergence in women (who often mask it better
than men) is still so often overlooked or misattributed,
her visibility is invaluable. “It’s trending on TikTok to
be autistic right now,” she says. “I hate that people
might think that of me, and that’s why I don’t really
say about being autistic… even though I know it’s
important, because the talking I have done about it
has helped other women figure out their potential
autism.”
B
lack Honey are now four albums and over ten
years into a career in music; does ‘Soak’’s
lowered guard come from a sense that the
band - and Izzy specifically - no longer need to prove
themselves, or convince people of their worth? She
laughs, citing the very opposite. “I’m so traumatised
from my journey in this industry as a woman… the
chips on the shoulder become gouges, which become
limbs missing; that’s kind of how it feels. But yet I still
feel hungry to do it.
“I’m not stopping; I feel so defiant in that respect.
Another well-known female artist said to me once:
‘people just wait around for women to disappear. And
you have to refuse’. That really sits in my brain rent
free. I’m at that point now where it feels like [people
are thinking] ‘okay, you’re in your 30s - what’s your
relevance?’.” We segway into cosmetic surgery,
Madonna, and the insanity of X Factor’s ‘Over 25s’
category. “Patti Smith is the fucking outline, right?
You just carry on making art and showing up for your
work.” She grins, red lippie intentionally imperfect,
omnichord peeking out of her bag. “I thought I’d grow
out of my dress sense; I thought I’d become a normie
and wear beige. I don’t know why I thought this, but I
was convinced…”
‘Soak’ is out on 15th August via Foxfive. D
“the relief you feel when you′ve gratified a part
of yourself that you hadn’t touched yet… that’s
huge.”
- izzy b phillips
And in emulating these intoxication-fuelled fugues on
her own terms, she’s acknowledging - yet ultimately
asserting control over - the substances’ lure. “It’s
who you let drive,” Izzy shrugs. “There’s a fucking
demented toddler driving my ship all the time, and I’ve
had to go: ‘get off the reins, sit down, chill out, fuck
off - I’m driving’. And that’s how I have to deal with life,
because if I don’t, then it’s a deregulated mess.”
H
aving been diagnosed with ADHD aged 14, it
wasn’t until last year that she knew she was
autistic. Much as the milestone did throw up
some questions (“now I don’t trust myself very much
to communicate well”), it also helped Izzy connect the
dots of her identity to form a clearer, more cohesive
picture. “People do a great job of making you feel that
you’re wrong or naughty or bad for being different, but
being different is very important.”
She leans forward, excited, her mind already five
steps ahead of the conversation. “There was
this scientist who studied the behaviour of bees.
Obviously we know that bees mostly communicate
by doing that butt-wiggle dance. And there’s a
certain percentage of bees that didn’t conform to
the traditional standards of butt-wiggle dancing;
they didn’t have a typical communication style,
and didn’t follow the same pattern of work that the
‘typical’ bees did. So they studied these neurodiverse
types of bees, and they found that they were flying
in seemingly abstract directions and finding new
resources of pollen for the hive.
“The hive has to be diverse for it to function: if you
design an environment that supports that, you will
get the best out of everyone. Never has a metaphor
spoken to me more deeply. I feel so unsupported in
Frank Fieber
42 D

Songs of Innocence
After over a decade of working in the industry in various different guises and genres, Jessica Winter is
finally readying her long-awaited solo debut, and it’s a distillation of everything she’s been through so far.
Words: Hannah Mylrea

There’s a spark of magic in Jessica Winter’s music.
For the pop-pioneer’s fans, it’s in the brilliant
lyrics, luminous earworms and rich genrespanning
musical landscape she’s crafted; but
for Winter herself, her work hold a different kind
of magic. “Sometimes my songs know [things]
before I know them,” she reflects, her songs unveiling truths about
her own life that only come to light once she’s out of the creative
process.
This is the case for her recently-released debut record ‘My First
Album’. Calling in from Portsmouth, where Jessica has relocated
to for this summer, she’s talking to DIY less than a week before
it drops. The LP itself is a gorgeous thing, which pulls from
noughties nostalgia and the music that Jessica listened to growing
up, as much as it sees her innovating via modern pop trends.
It’s a project that took two years to create, but it was only when
she got to the record’s final song, the theatrical and earnest ‘To
Know Her’, that she knew in her gut the record was done. It was
also at this point that Jessica could pull out the clear throughline
that threads its way through ‘My First Album’.
“The throughline is that [the narrator] is trying her best, and she’s
just not quite getting it. She doesn’t understand, she keeps ending
up in these situations that are a bit messy or sad, or she’s got
heartbreak, or she’s distracted or she wants something and she
doesn’t know how to get
it; when she gets it she
doesn’t know what to do
with it, and she loses her
mind a bit, and then at the
very end [with ‘To Know
Her’] she realises all she
needed all along was what
she already had.” In short,
‘To Know Her’ is almost a
love story to oneself, built
around lush, cinematic
strings that enhance the
song’s message: “If you
can’t love yourself first,
you’re never going to get
there. So let’s start with the
Hollywood moment for yourself.”
‘My First
Album’ comes after over a decade in the music
industry for Jessica – the title a tongue-in-cheek
reference to the years the multi-hyphenate has spent
writing for other artists (like The Horrors), collaborating,
working on TV scores and beyond. “It feels like I’ve had a whole life
of music,” she muses, on the record’s title. “And when it comes to
my Jessica Winter project it’s been about five years, so it almost
serves as a reminder to myself and to anyone that’s interested that
it is actually my first album.”
Growing up on the South Coast of England, Jessica spent much
of her early years between home and the hospital, having regular
hip operations that required extended recovery, which ended
when she stopped growing at 16 (it was during recovery that she
discovered playing piano, encouraged by her mother). Her earliest
forays into performance came in the form of theatre productions,
after which she moved from Portsmouth to London and joined
punk and metal groups, before forming indie band Pregoblin with
Alex Sebley. 2019 saw the Jessica Winter project kick off, through
which she’s already shared an array of brilliant and bold releases
(including 2023’s stand-out ‘Limerence’ EP). As she reflects today:
“I’ve gone through all the different genres and eras and guises to
get here, finally finding who I am.”
Jessica’s entire, genre-defying musical journey has fed into ‘My
First Album’, a project that’s a “shinier” elevation of her solo work
to date, imbued with a confidence that’s grown over time. But, she
explains, early memories were also key musical touchstones. “I
was actually referencing and being influenced by the music that I
first experienced as a child. So there’s an innocence in the name,
and there’s an innocence in making the album, because I was
going right back to my roots.”
“If you can’t love yourself
first, you’re never going to
get there. So let’s start with
the Hollywood moment for
yourself.”
These roots include growing up listening to the full gamut of
popular music of the time: Korn, Kylie, Scissor Sisters, Robbie
Williams, and “this album I didn’t know anyone else had called
‘Chilled Ibiza’.” This was a compilation that she would listen to
every summer holiday. “There’s so many memories attached to
the school summer holidays, listening to that album obsessively.
I didn’t even know who the artists were, I just thought they were
random artists at times, but now it turns out it was Massive Attack
or whoever.”
You can hear these far-spanning influences throughout the record,
from the euphoric Kylie-styled electronics of synth-pop belters
‘Aftersun’ and ‘Feels Good (For Tonight)’, through to the rocked up
riffs of ‘All I Ever Wanted’ and ‘Got Something Good’, and the fullblown
theatricality of ‘To Know Her’.
There’s an element of nostalgia from these evocative musical
memories, which also comes through in the use of instrumentation;
after a period of making music “via a laptop for quite a while”,
Jessica made an active artistic decision to go as “warm and
analogue as possible” to enhance the feel of ‘My First Album’.
T
he
creative process
for the project was
similarly warm
and collaborative.
Recorded at a friend’s
university studio in
Portsmouth, Jessica would
bring all her collaborators
down on the train from
the capital, taking breaks
in between making tunes
to go and watch the
hovercrafts.
She also carefully crafted
the environment she
worked on this record in. While the live instruments were largely
recorded in Portsmouth, she’d then travel to Shed Studio in Brixton
to work with producer Krinks, who she describes as “incredible”.
Continuing, she explains: “[He’s] the only cis man I’ve actually
worked with who hasn’t tried it on, which is quite amazing. I was
really adamant to not bring in energies like that, because I’ve had
so much of that, and I’ve now built the confidence to just do it the
way I do it, rather than having to listen to engineers telling me how
to produce. It’s just nice that by the time I got to the point of doing
my first album, I’m at that point where I don’t take any shit at all.”
Every aspect of the record demonstrates a key moment in
Jessica’s career, one that showcases over a decade in the
industry, of grafting and genre-hopping and creating wildly creative
music. There are big plans for taking the record on the road, with
new musical pals joining her onstage and aims to imbue the set
with theatricality (inspiration has come from the likes of Lynks,
Scissor Sisters and Peaches).
But for now, she’s deservedly enjoying the moment of sharing
her album with the world, celebrating its release at home in
Portsmouth. “I’ve been working for 10 years straight, so I wanted
to relocate just for this summer, because the album’s coming out,
and then I can just enjoy it, you know?” Wherever you listen, you
don’t need to worry; ‘My First Album’ is an eclectic triumph of a
record, one that can be enjoyed from the South Coast and beyond.
‘My First Album’ is out now via Lucky Number. D
and
Experience
Ella Margolin

CUT
TO
THE
Four albums and 11 years in, if
you thought SHAME might be
losing their edge, think again.
On new album ‘Cutthroat’,
the South Londoners delight
in all things paradoxical, and
return to their urgent, basic
instincts.
Words: Louis Griffin
CHASE

“I
Italian festival. His sleep deprivation is self-inflicted, though:
had maybe three hours sleep, I think?”
Charlie Steen says, as he rubs his eyes
and lights a cigarette on the balcony
of his flat. It’s a swelteringly hot
afternoon in South London, the start of
yet another heatwave, and the Shame
frontman has been home for less than
an hour, having just flown back from an
“It’s my birthday, so I changed to an earlier flight. We didn’t
get back from the festival until 1:30AM, and then I couldn’t
sleep for two hours … but tomorrow I’ll celebrate.” He grins.
“It’ll be lovely.”
There’s still something of the eternally cheeky teenager to
Steen, four albums and over a decade on from his formation
of Shame at school with four pals - Sean Coyle-Smith,
Josh Finerty, Charlie Forbes and Eddie Green. You still
get a sense, above all, that he can’t quite believe that he’s
getting away with it, and that being in this band is how he
spends his time. The reason for our conversation is the
imminent release of the band’s fourth effort, ‘Cutthroat’, and
the ensuing 40-date European tour (to say nothing of their
commitments further afield).
The album itself is Shame at their most technicolour: dial
everything up, set off all the fireworks. The title track - and
first single - is a statement of intent, driving and bombastic.
We find Steen in the commanding, almost slapstick
American register that he so often loves to slip into. “Big,
beautiful naked women fall out the sky / Motherfucker, I
was born to die” is quite an opening line. “I think that whole
song in itself is a statement - I think it’s just fun, you know?”
grins Steen. “It’s been going down so well live, even before
it came out. It’s not super serious, it sort of does mean
something in some bits, and doesn’t mean anything in other
bits.”
“And why not?” It feels somewhat of a mantra, both for
the band and for the album, and it’s a phrase peppered
through Steen’s answers, a refrain for when it feels you’ve
overstepped the mark, and for when self-doubt creeps
in. “With some of the lyrics [the band] were like ‘I don’t
know…’” grins Steen. “I said ‘I know it sounds weird when
we’re sat chatting and listening back, but when you see this
live and we’re performing it, it’s not going to feel strange, it’s
going to feel good.’ And that’s kind of exactly how it’s been,
this kind of obnoxious, unashamed character who’s doing
what they want to do.”
As much as the album plumbs Steen’s psyche, and
reflects a band who have spent so much time in each
other’s company, someone else has fingerprints here too
- producer John Congleton. The band have had someone
“THIS [ALBUM] IS BASICALLY
GOING AWAY FROM ‘POOR ME’,
AND TRYING TO GO BACK TO ‘FUCK
YOU!’”
- CHARLIE STEEN
He hits, here, on something that Shame have always
delighted in - the freedom offered by parody. Knowingly
exaggerated writing affords them the luxury of taking the
piss out of something - including, at times, themselves -
walking the tightrope between astute cultural commentary
and self-aware silliness with gusto. “I knew, pretty much
ages before we did the record, what I wanted to write
about,” explains Steen. “Which was paradoxes, characters.
So much of it - ‘Screwdriver’, ‘Plaster’, ‘Lampião’ - is about
characters. Even with ‘Cutthroat’, it’s almost like I was
writing from the viewpoint of the character from when we
perform, which is me, but just heavily exaggerated.
There’s an amount of this self-inspection elsewhere on the
album, too. “With ‘Spartak’, I remember I had the chorus
before [the rest of the song]: okay, so “you’re no better than
me”, what’s that? What’s that kind of vibe?” Steen asks.
“And it’s someone - probably me - pissed up, walking back
from a party or something like that, pissed off at someone
there, talking to yourself.” Steen’s writing often seems
to be trying to pre-empt others’ judgement, finding the
strength in not taking yourself too seriously. “That’s another
sort of paradox to it, where I’m like ‘do whatever you want
to do, fuck judgement’ - but I’m also heavy with a lot of
judgement.”
He pauses. “Even with ‘One Rizla’ [which has a chorus of
“I ain’t much to look at / I ain’t much to hear”], or taking my
top off because I was insecure about my weight … all these
things come across with a bit of anger, and I think it’s sort
of a liberation from the feeling of rejection.” Steen does feel,
though, that ‘Cutthroat’ takes a different approach to soulsearching
than the band have done on previous albums.
“I love all of our records, but I think the last two were a bit
more melancholic maybe, and a bit more introspective. And
this [album] is basically going away from ‘poor me’, and
trying to go back to ‘fuck you!’”
This could all make these tracks sound somewhat
dreary, or dark, but they’re not at all. All of the
aforementioned self-knowledge is couched in
humour, and a smirk, and combined with the sound
of a band that have been hammering riffs together for
some time now. It’s quite the cocktail. “In a lot of those
songs, I was smiling while doing vocal takes,” says Steen.
“I am pissed off at things, but it’s just a sort of release. It’s
not ‘let’s all hold hands and sing Kumbaya’, but it’s not
melancholic.”
This feeling of release, of self-embrace, and of selfrealisation,
all feels summed up in the chorus of ‘Cutthroat’:
48 D

different at the mixing desk for each of their four albums,
and they’ve credited John’s “no bullshit” approach as
essential to proceedings here. Steen nods. “We all love that
Mannequin Pussy album that he did [‘I Got Heaven’], and
that just sounds real - no bullshit. I’m sure he’s different
with everyone - he’s such a big producer, he’s worked with
people like Lana Del Rey. He’s American, we met up with
him in Brixton when he was over here, and we said ‘look,
as a band, some people are fine with engineers who just
sit back. We’re not like that, we’ve never been like that’. We
need a - in his case - paternal figure, to be like, ‘this is good,
this is shit.’”
“IN MY OPINION, THE BEST
SHOWS ARE WHEN YOU’RE
NOT THINKING. YOU’RE ACTING
PURELY ON INSTINCT.”
- CHARLIE STEEN
It’s easy to imagine that kind of feedback being difficult
to take. How did John’s paternal instincts manifest
themselves? “He sent three words over when we were
writing: ‘primal’, ‘dangerous’, and something else. It just
doesn’t feel that overthought, you know? I think we may
have been a bit partial to that in the past, and John just
really helped to … stop us thinking,” Steen laughs. “We
needed him to be brutal, and that’s exactly what he did.
Because otherwise, we’ve known each other for so long that
there isn’t a quote-unquote ‘leader’ of the band.” He grins.
“It’s sort of where democracy fails.”
Some bands, at the point Shame are at in their career,
form long-standing relationships with producers
- they feel almost as crucial as actual members of
the group. Steen and co.’s decision to instead keep
building new creative relationships feels telling, of a band
that are resolutely pressing ahead, rather than looking back.
“I think we still look at it as if each hour might be our last,”
he ponders. “And, why not? Why not look around and work
with different people? It’s proven to be really fun, and really
enjoyable. It’s just like, ‘okay, time to make a new mate’, you
know?”
The band also pursued a much more dynamic approach
to the songs themselves than previously - much of the
material was worked out while in the studio, with John
constantly pushing for a leaner, tauter record. “The thing
he was focused on was finding the identity of the song.
I was also doing the lyrics while in the studio, which I’ve
never done before. With some, the structure was there and
bang-on, like ‘To and Fro’, and then there were others, that
were quite long, had lots of different sections. He was like,
‘what is the root of the song? Don’t overcomplicate it’. That
really helped, especially with doing the lyrics as well. When
you find out what you think a song is about, it’s usually not
composed of that many elements.”
It feels odd, in some ways, dissecting Shame albums with
Steen - almost like pinning a butterfly to a wall. The band
may be on record number four, but it still feels, more than
anything, that they’re primarily a live endeavour. To be in
the audience for a Shame show is quite something; it’s
par for the course to witness bassist Josh Finnerty do a
front flip while still playing, while the frontman himself has
been known to rip his trousers off to reveal gold hot pants
(and he’ll inevitably have been topless almost from the
get-go). But don’t for a second think that they’re a band of
gimmicks: this is all underpinned by the kind of live chops
that evidence a career started in sweaty pubs and small
venues, an innate knowledge of how to hold a crowd in the
palm of your hand.
Despite all of this, he’s been quoted as saying that their
live shows “aren’t performance art”. It feels tied up in his
endeavours to “trim the fat” on ‘Cutthroat’, a pursuit of
cutting away the unnecessary, finding out what’s happening
at the core of them as a band. “It’s going back to the
primal and raw thing,” says Steen. “In my opinion the best
shows are when you’re not thinking. You’re acting purely on
instinct. I would hope that it doesn’t feel so pre-constructed,
that it feels more direct and confrontational, because that’s
what it’s supposed to be, you know? It’s not supposed
to be this ‘art’ thing, because I don’t think we want to put
ourselves in a bracket of ‘we are this, and you are that’.
There’s not supposed to be a separation between us and
the crowd, basically.”
“We’ve played shit, we’ve played terribly, had a great crowd
and been like, ‘that was fucking amazing’.”
Talking to Steen, it’s impossible not to get swept up in his
relentless love for what he does. There’s none of the jaded
cynicism you might expect from someone who’s been
around the block many a time. When Shame first started
out back in 2014, they were still in school. Their rise saw the
music press fascinated by the milieu of bands they hung
around with at Brixton’s Windmill, with contemporaries such
as Goat Girl and Squid. But it feels now that the band have
come out of the other side of that process - Shame have
outlasted any kind of ‘moment’, and have become a force
unto themselves, ploughing their own furrow.
‘Cutthroat’ is a slippery record. Brash and yet vulnerable,
playful but deadly serious. It’s a portrait of a band who still,
a decade on, are flying by the seat of their (gold) pants.
Somehow, that way of being seems to ensure that they go
on and on. And why not?
‘Cutthroat’ is out 5th September via Dead Oceans. D
They’re a proudly unrefined live proposition too. Steen
is keen to stress, again, that they view the crowd as
an essential part of the equation, even when the band
themselves don’t feel too hot. “I’ve never played a show
where the crowd weren’t into it and we’ve played perfectly,
and walked off and been like, ‘that was great’,” he explains.
Jamie Wdziekonski
D 49

REVIEWS
This issue: Wolf Alice, Lorde, Wet Leg, Alex G and more.
5
WOLF ALICE
The Clearing
Columbia
To run through the list of accolades that
Wolf Alice have racked up over the course
of their 13 years as a band feels a little
obsolete at this stage. But have no doubt,
on fourth album ‘The Clearing’, they’ve
built upon their already-stellar legacy to
once again create a record that feels entirely vital; it’s
another perfectly-pitched stepping stone to edge them
even closer to full-on legendary status.
The clues were all there on 2021’s ‘Blue Weekend’:
from the swooning ‘Delicious Things’ to the delicate
reflection of ‘How Can I Make It OK?’, ‘The Clearing’’s
predecessor possessed a gorgeous, emotion-fused
sense of composure that paired beautifully with Ellie
Rowsell’s evocative lyrics. This time around, though,
it’s as though any whispers of self-doubt have been
firmly banished, with the band instead leaning fully
into a no-holds-barred approach and creating an
album that is truly filmic in its scope. Take opener
‘Thorns’ - with its swelling string section and Ellie’s
showstopping vocal range, it feels at once sultry and
fierce, provocative and coy. That it’s immediately
followed by the bombastic, shapeshifting ‘Bloom Baby
Bloom’ - a true statement of intent, if ever there was
one - only heightens the drama, swerving from ecstasy
to fury and back in the blink of an eye. It’s this powerful
spirit that runs through the very veins of ‘The Clearing’.
Learning that inspiration for the album struck after
Ellie watched Peter Jackson’s epic Get Back Beatles
docuseries makes a lot of sense for ‘The Clearing’’s
sound and feel, too; not only do the band find
themselves leaning towards the warm hues of ‘70s
soft-rock (think Fleetwood Mac, or Steely Dan, all
with a dose of the Fab Four for good measure), but
the organic tones and tricks used across the record
add extra flourishes of delight (see the dreamy
transitions between acoustic and electric within
‘Leaning Against The Wall’,
or the satisfying switch
of audio on ‘Passenger
Seat’). Equally, Ellie is on
spectacular lyrical form,
with ‘Play It Out’ standing
out as a particularly poignant rumination on the
passage of time via the female experience (“I wanna
age with excitement / Feel my world expand / Go grey
and feel delighted / Don’t just look sexy on a man”).
Later on, drummer Joel Amey-helmed ‘White Horses’
transforms the complicated tangle of identity and
family into something altogether more celebratory,
quietening the questioning and instead choosing
contentment with his chosen family. And therein lies
the real beauty of ‘The Clearing’: after over a decade
growing together as a band, this fourth album sees
Wolf Alice fully embrace all facets of themselves, and
through this newfound acceptance and confidence,
they’ve produced their boldest, most striking record
yet. One for the history books. Sarah Jamieson
LISTEN: ‘Leaning Against The Wall’, ‘Play It Out’
Their boldest, most striking
record yet.
50 D

5
ETHEL CAIN
Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love You
Daughters of Cain
Willoughby, the title character of this
second album proper from Ethel Cain,
first emerged on the sprawling ‘A House
in Nebraska’ - a track featured on her
2022 debut ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, which
explored a troubled time gone by in the
twisted semi-autobiographical world of
creator Hayden Anhedönia. The cut set
the scene for Ethel’s colossal downfall: soon, her fictional
offshoot would meet her demise at the hands of a possessed
newfound lover, set to be cannibalised, rotted and lost in the
afterlife. By the end of album one, Willoughby represents a
volatile sense of innocence.
Here, following this year’s doom-laden ‘Perverts’ (perhaps the
musical accompaniment to Ethel’s time in hell), Willoughby
comes to life in the prequel to ‘Preacher’s Daughter’, taking off
the rose-tinted glasses of youth and painting an equally fraught
picture of personal demise. Where ‘Preacher’s…’ saw Ethel
running from her past, ‘Willoughby Tucker, I’ll Always Love you’
drags us back there kicking and screaming, a deeply sombre
and immeasurably powerful account of lost innocence.
Its formula is familiar: a complex mix of epic instrumentals and
hushed vocals, peppered with unexpected crescendos (not
least in ‘Fuck Me Eyes’ - a brilliant companion to breakthrough
track ‘American Teenager’, complete with a tantalising return
to ‘80s synths and warped nostalgia, albeit somewhat more
downbeat). ‘A Knock At The Door’ embodies an element of
childlike wonder in its playful vocals, which swirl downwards as
the final two epic compositions surge. “Please go easy on me,”
she implores on ‘Tempest’, before it erupts into a soft, soaring
wall of noise, both relying on and lamenting her youth. At ten
minutes in length, the track is an easy highlight in Hayden’s
growing repertoire of musical sagas, with ‘Willoughby…’
culminating in the title character’s departure, breaking the final
thread to reality and sanity in a wave of beautiful sadness, love,
longing and loss. As Ethel stands broken, forlorn and alone,
Hayden rises stronger as one of the very best in storytelling
and atmosphere. Ben Tipple
LISTEN: ‘Fuck Me Eyes’
ALBUMS
One of the very best
in storytelling and
atmosphere.
#
NOVA TWINS
Parasites & Butterflies
Marshall
Once again bringing together
electronica, industrial, grunge,
and aspects of metalcore, Nova
Twins infuse bouncy melodies
and unabraded energy into every
single track on their newest LP,
‘Parasites &
Butterflies’. Ricocheting between
these on-paper disparate elements, consumed purely
by what sounds good, ‘Parallel Universe’ and
‘Sandman’ showcase just how far Nova Twins are
willing to go in the pursuit of explorative sound.
‘Hummingbird’ brings their eccentric vision to life with
its mellow, synth-led tempo before bursting through
with vocals that would push the boundaries of any
vocalist’s range. The consecutive ‘Hide & Seek’,
‘Hurricane’, and ‘Black Roses’ embody the metalcore
ingrained in Nova Twins’ depths, honing in and refining
their work in a way that feels a little monotonous. This,
in combination with other slightly repetitive parts of
the record (such as ‘Piranha’, ‘Monsters’ and ‘Drip’),
can sometimes interrupt the world that Nova Twins
have created in standout tracks like electro-industrial
rap number ‘Soprano’, or adventurous opener ‘Glory’.
However, it’s unfair to compare what Nova Twins have
done on ‘Parasites & Butterflies’ to anything in their
back catalogue. The experimentation is there, yes, but
this sees Nova Twins pushing themselves even further,
incorporating even more, and doing anything to see
what will fit. While the record’s highlights - ‘Soprano’,
‘Glory’, ‘Sandman’, and ‘Hummingbird’ - are attentiongrabbing
shooting stars, some songs here feel less
dynamic. Still, the Nova Twins galaxy shines bright.
Isabella Ambrosio
LISTEN: ‘Soprano’
4
LORDE
Virgin
Universal New Zealand / Republic
There’s something telling about Lorde’s state of mind on ‘Hammer’, which breaks open the
world of ‘Virgin’. “I might have been born again / I’m ready to feel like I don’t have the
answers,” she sings between industrial slices of icy synths. Always presented as wise
beyond her years, it doesn’t feel like Ella Yelich-O’Connor ever had the opportunity to mine
the arrogance of youth and naivety, despite being just 17 when her debut was unleashed.
Across her fourth LP, though, she drills deep into that somewhat untapped well.
Predecessor ‘Solar Power’ was a whisker away from a misstep. It had its moments,
but the sunbleached recordings didn’t hold that Lorde DNA when you shook the songs
upside down. The sun-soaked hippy that skipped through this era felt more like cosplay - an unusual feeling
for somebody usually so distinctively herself. The rousing Charli xcx ‘Girl, so confusing’ remix that surfaced at
the height of last year’s brat summer proved she still had the chops, taking down music’s treatment of female
artists in one fell 40-second swoop. “It’s you and me on the coin the industry loves to spend,” she asserted,
imploding the illusions herself and Charli had been lured into themselves. This famed exchange seems to have
recalibrated Lorde’s confidence, pumping gas back into the creative tank.
The songs of ‘Virgin’ strike on first listen. There aren’t any layers to peel back here; the arrangements are
raw and stark. Searching for the sound she needed to accompany the unabashed lyrical material, for Lorde,
multi-million dollar recording studios just didn’t cut it - instead, a grubby backroom with producer Jim-E Stack
held the sonic bounty. It’s apparent in the chugging strings of ‘Shapeshifter’, which sounds like the stems of
a symphony set to a Burial beat, and the auto-tuned a cappella of ‘Clearblue’ (“After the ecstasy / Testing for
pregnancy / Praying in MP3”).
The lyrics paint vivid scenes with inexpensive language, their scattershot logic often snagging unfiltered
mundane moments and fleeting thoughts as she places gender dynamics under the microscope. From the
“Swish mouthwash / Jerk off” freedom of ‘Man Of The Year’ to the desire to be a “grown woman in a baby tee”
on ‘GRWM’, this ping-ponging charges the album - as does sexuality. The Pamela Anderson and Tommy Lee
sex tape is referenced on ‘Current Affairs’: “On the boat it was pure and true / Then the film came out,” she
sings, her voice mourning the loss of something innocent as a chopped-up sample rings out. It’s a glorious
tapestry of reference points to wade through.
And, just as she first sets out on ‘Hammer’, no answers are provided here. ‘Virgin’ gravitates around a sequence
of moments rendered through striking melodies and exhilarating production that sweep you from sparse
soundscapes to the sweatbox and back. It’s a reset that’s provided an almighty haul of tunes. You half wonder
whether lines such as “Since I was 17, I gave you everything / Now we wake from a dream” are posed to a lover,
or to a fan. The songs here are destined to linger on Lorde’s setlists for a long time, from the triumphant ‘If She
Could See Me Now’ through to the addictive, restless groove of ‘Favourite Daughter’. A thrilling comeback that
puts Lorde’s trajectory to the stars back on track. Sean Kerwick
LISTEN: ‘If She Could See Me Now’
Rachel Fleminger Hudson, Dollie Kyarn
D 51

ALBUMS
4
WET LEG
moisturizer
Domino
Cupid’s arrow has made its way to the Isle of Wight and hit their foremost indie band right in the forehead:
“I’m in love, and you’re to blame!” goes the final chorus of ‘CPR’, the opener to Wet Leg’s second album,
‘moisturizer’. Similarly, the rest of the record also sees love as a violent force that can’t be reckoned with,
but can only be embraced. ‘moisturizer’ is a gloriously breezy album, beautifully adorned with sincerity and
adoration. It still has the same laid-back slacker rock and eccentric witticisms of the band’s gargantuan hit
debut, but it also does away with a lot of the irony that ultimately held that one back. As such, lead single
and riotous punk stomp ‘catch these fists’ is an outlier, a transitional track that feels as if it could
simultaneously exist on both albums, its burning authenticity mixed with cheap chuckles about ketamine.
“Maybe we could start a band as some kinda joke” Rhian cheekily sings on closer ‘u and me at home’, yet with every layer Wet
Leg add, they stray further from the novelty they could easily have been accused of in 2022. ‘moisturizer’ is a wonderfully
crafted piece of work that cements Wet Leg’s staying power, an album to soundtrack hugging loved ones and spending the day
with them doing nothing at all. Cameron Sinclair Harris
LISTEN: ‘pokemon’
4
BLACK HONEY
Soak
Foxfive
Black Honey’s fourth continues on
their well-travelled path of taking
influence from the silver screen,
following the Tarantino-inspired
‘Written & Directed’, and the hints of
Wes Anderson that came sprinkled
across ‘A Fistful of Peaches’. This
time, the artwork for ‘Soak’ alludes to Stanley
Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, while ‘Psycho’ name
drops one of Alfred Hitchcock’s most famous
pictures. The track itself is a fizzing, synth-laden
number, buoyed by its huge hook and Izzy B. Phillips’
Gwen Stefani-esque intonations, before giving way to
a spoken-word interlude in which she denounces “the
big time producers who tear your scripts to shreds”.
Another recurring theme for the band is their blurring
of the lines between tell-all and fantasy. The Lynchian
‘Carroll Avenue’, with its foreboding, reverb-heavy
guitars, leans into the gothic romance trope; spacey
stomper ‘Shallow’, meanwhile, dabbles in industrial
sonics that nod to Björk’s ‘Army of Me’, with reverbdrenched
backing vocals elevating the track in its
outro. Softer acoustic numbers like ‘Vampire in the
Kitchen’ find Izzy leaning into temptation - “I think I
wanna dance with him” - before transforming into a
dazzling guitar breakdown that gradually fades to a
crackle.
Elsewhere, the contemplative closer ‘Medication’
finds her reflecting on personal growth atop a
transcendent synth tapestry: “Flashbacks killed me
awake, now I feel like a stray [...] Got an eight-page CV
with a meltdown guarantee.” Her multi-tracked vocals
reach celestial heights during the chorus, becoming
increasingly distorted, almost mimicking a state of
semi-consciousness. On ‘Soak’, Black Honey have
finessed their trademark cinematic sound, alongside
a renewed sense of clarity. Sarah Taylor
LISTEN: ‘Shallow’
#
CONAN GRAY
Wishbone
Island
With barely over a year since the release of
Conan Gray’s third full-length, to suggest the
benefit of hindsight may be somewhat of a
stretch. But with both a return to previous
collaborator Dan Nigro (with whom he worked
on 2020 debut ‘Kid Krow’ and 2022’s
‘Superache’), and not a slither of the ‘80s
electro sound that consumed ‘Found Heaven’ to be seen on this
swift follow-up, it appears momentarily that record acted as a
detour of sorts.
But, where his first two albums leaned heavily on synthpop for its
big moments, fourth time around Conan looks to ‘90s radio pop -
specifically, the strand which either borrowed popular alternative
rock tropes of the time, or formed an indie artist’s solo chart
hit. It’s on these tracks that Conan’s angsty melodrama pairs
brilliantly: take the hints of ‘Champagne Supernova’ that trickle
into ‘Nauseous’, where the song’s emotional crux is given full
bombast (“Your love is a threat / And I’m nauseous”); the grunge
inflections that elevate the wholly infectious ‘Caramel’; the soft
rock strum that saves classic pop opener ‘Actor’ from veering
into forced emotion; and the use of gang vocal on ‘4’, which bears
striking resemblance to later One Direction material, as well as
bearing audible hallmarks of the record’s producer (particularly in
the rhythm of its vocal line, and use of smirking spoken word).
Notable too, are ‘Class Clown’, on which a Beatles-esque whirl
pairs with vocal repetition in a sweet manner, and ‘Connell’, on
which Conan’s jealous streak is represented via a pained vocal
that cleverly becomes drowned in dark, layered guitar sounds.
But where these elements are missing, the songs threaten
mediocrity: see the dated, cloying ‘This Song’; ‘Eleven Eleven’,
which is too straightforward in its attempt at emotional climax
and thus wholly limp as a result; or ‘My World’, which may aim at
Bruce Springsteen in its use of saxophone sounds and twinkles,
but falls short into nothingness. If he’s trying things on for size
still, then most of ‘Wishbone’ fits Conan Gray rather well, his
not-quite-angst meeting its musical equivalent in its not-quitealternative
sound. Bella Martin
LISTEN: ‘Caramel’
4
THE HIVES
The Hives Forever
Forever The Hives
Play It Again Sam
Remarkably,
The Hives have
now existed for
over 30 years,
and during that
time the
Swedish
rockers have never budged an
inch from their mission: crafting
razor-sharp, accessible garage
punk that exudes fun, bouncy,
classic rock energy. This seventh
full-length, with its unwieldy title
‘The Hives Forever Forever The
Hives’, is the band’s second in
two years, and here their
continued passion and
songwriting élan is palpable.
‘Enough Is Enough’ features a
particularly exhilarating vocal turn
from frontman Howlin’ Pelle
Almqvist, ‘O.C.D.O.D.’ has all the
raw exuberance of early ‘80s
hardcore, while ‘Born On A Rebel’
oozes every bit of the bravado
and swagger its title suggests.
‘Legalize Living’ is a delight, an
earnest ode to living life to the
fullest: “See me ride into the
sunset / See my banishing the
sea / With explosions going off
behind me”. It’s far from The
Hives choosing to rip up their
well-thumbed rulebook, but it’d
take a cold, cold heart not to be
energised by this latest collection
of suitably raucous rock’n’roll
bangers. Tom Morgan
LISTEN: ‘Enough Is Enough’
4
THE NEW EVES
The New Eve Is Rising
Transgressive
It’s not often that you can
say with any authority that
a new band or artist truly
have no comparable
contemporaries, but, since
emerging onto the scene in
2023, Brighton-based
quartet The New Eves have stood as the sole
inhabitants of their ever-intriguing niche.
Standing - or, more likely, sitting astride a
horse - at the crossroads between ancient
folk traditions and experimental rock stylings,
the band are an emphatically multi-modal
proposition, bringing to mind The Wicker
Man and the work of Angela Carter as much
as they do Patti Smith, The Slits, or The
Velvet Underground. And as opening
statements go, you can’t get much more
evocative than this here debut. Pseudo-title
track ‘The New Eve’ is more incantation than
song, an arresting, preacher-like manifesto of
the multiplicities of modern womanhood: in
this framework, The New Eve “spits out the
seeds from the fruit of the forbidden tree /
And then she plants them, carefully”; she
also “eats baked beans”. From rich biblical
imagery and warped pastoral scenes (‘Cow
Song’) to screeching, string-led tension
(‘Highway Man’) and howling invocations
(‘Circles’; ‘Mary’), its nine tracks somehow
encode a considerable might without ever
feeling heavy. Quite the opposite, in fact - if
anything, ‘The New Eve Is Rising’ is a playful
exercise in boundary-pushing and
performance. If the title’s anything to go by,
it’s also very much just the beginning. Daisy
Carter
LISTEN: ‘The New Eve’
Alice Backham
52 D

¢
KAE TEMPEST
Self Titled
Island
There’s something utterly vital and
captivating about ‘Self Titled’ that
feels new - even moreso considering
it comes from an artist whose back
catalogue is already in an enviable
state. Easily Kae Tempest’s most
personal album to date, the core of
the record is formed around his gender transition,
existence as a trans person in the UK today - in an
increasingly hostile climate - and the bridges between
his past and present selves. “We’ve been here from the
start and we ain’t going nowhere,” he raps on the
invigorating and anthemic ‘Statue In The Square’, a
track that feels like a call-to-arms to his community to
live authentically and with passionate purpose. ‘Know
Yourself’ uses samples of Kae’s younger self, becoming
a duet that breaks the boundaries of time; it’s an
incredibly effective technique. What’s more, the album
also features his most immediate work yet: ‘Diagnoses’
and ‘Statue in the Square’ have the catchiest choruses
he’s recorded so far. “I’m alive,” he states on opener ‘I
Stand on the Line’, and his performance feels that way,
bursting with energy and vigour. He’s also captivatingly
intimate on the record’s quieter moments, such as the
gorgeous love song ‘Sunshine in Catford’ (which
features a guest spot from Neil Tennant), six-minute
centrepiece ‘Breathe’ (an intense piece that’s ironically
able to leave the listener breathless), and its exhale of a
coda ‘Till Morning’. In short, ‘Self Titled’ is a glorious
piece of work, easily Tempest’s best and most
unforgettable work to date. Cameron Sinclair Harris
LISTEN: ‘Statue in the Square’
5
ALEX G
Headlights
RCA
To suggest that ‘Headlights’ - this
tenth full-length from Philadelphia DIY
luminary Alex G - is an evolution
would be somewhat of an
understatement. Much of his work so
far has taken on a mercurial form,
weaving through arid lo-fi textures,
sharp-edged glitch-pop, and the lush terrain of countryfolk.
His approach allows him to create intricate worlds
for characters to thrive as vessels for patchy storytelling
and cryptic mantras.
Unlike most openers across his catalogue, in which
Alex camouflages his vocals with pitch-shifting
or layers of distortion, ‘June Guitar’ leads with
his voice at the forefront, quietly supported by an
uncomplicated acoustic melody and the gentle rustle
of airy percussion. ‘Real Thing’ continues with simple
instrumentation and a meandering curiosity, musing
“I went out looking for the real thing”. ‘Afterlife’,
meanwhile, stands in opposition to Alex’s often aloof
outlook, the track finding his vocal stronger, the
percussion heftier, the guitar pluckier. It carries the
exhilaration of running full speed down a hill, and could
easily be a fine-tuned deep cut from 2011’s ‘Race’.
‘Beam Me Up’, however, follows as a sobering return
to the present. The melody doesn’t find immediate
structure, but falls into an indelicate groove as Alex
admits: “Some things I do for love / Some things I do for
money / It ain’t like I don’t want it / It ain’t like I’m above
it”. It’s communicated somberly, but he doesn’t allow
this level of reflection to become too much. ‘Spinning’
soon returns to the buoyant energy of ‘Afterlife’, fronted
by electric guitar with the lower notes accentuated by a
rich cello line. ‘Louisiana’ and ‘Bounce Boy’ satisfy any
desire for exaggerated vocal effects, the former taking
on a grittier style while the latter is choppy, hyper and
chromatic. He allows time for a folk-tinged number,
too, with the trodding strum and rustic harmonies of
‘Oranges’. Never tiring from novelty, ‘Far And Wide’
plays as an elaborate waltz of cartoonish recitation
contrasted by tense lyricism and a string arrangement
that weeps to an unnerving climax. Before reaching
the closer, it’s clear that ‘Headlights’ is Alex G’s most
streamlined body of work yet – the culmination of fifteen
years of exploration, refined. Kayla Sandiford
LISTEN: ‘Beam Me Up’
#
PANIC SHACK
Panic Shack
Brace Yourself
¢
BIG SPECIAL
National Average
SO Recordings
ALBUMS
This self-titled album from Welsh punks Panic Shack can only really be described as a fun
time. It’s a record that has very much chosen its lane and stays in it - but it’s a lane the
quartet master with ease, the camaraderie between them so tangible it charms, where the
likes of ‘Lazy’ and ‘Tit School’ could threaten monotony. Opener ‘Girl Band Starter Pack’
includes field recordings of the group in the bar pre-gig and that sense of grounding is an
excellent vehicle to situate the songs within their specific environment. The best bits come
when they tackle the mundane and transform it into something epic: ‘Pockets’ is a riotous
lament rallying against the myriad of pocketless female clothing options, while ‘We Need to Talk About
Dennis’ is a fantastically murky post-punk strut about that one person who takes the party too far (“Order
means nothing when you’re out with me”). At times, the overly-clean production does the songs themselves a
disservice, but otherwise everything about ‘Panic Shack’ feels in its right place. Book-ended by two tracks
about friendship, this is a debut that presents its protagonists as a gang everyone’s going to want to join.
Cameron Sinclair Harris LISTEN: ‘We Need To Talk About Dennis’
BIG SPECIAL may have only released their debut, ‘POSTINDUSTRIAL HOMETOWN
BLUES’, just over a year ago, but there’s been no shortage of inspiration for the politically
astute duo in the time since. On this new full-length (and surprise release), ‘NATIONAL
AVERAGE.’, the Black Country pair once again paint a darkly comedic portrait of life in
Blighty, but this time, with even more sardonic bite. Much like the album’s launch campaign
- in which they projected the album’s egg and chips artwork onto various fancy monuments
- there’s a playfulness that runs throughout; whether in the funky, Yard Act-like stomp of
‘GOD SAVE THE PONY.’ or via an array of perfectly pitched, sarcasm-doused lyrics, their cutting humour is
spectacularly on the money for the nation’s current mood. “I don’t want to move, I don’t want to mingle / Is it
too much to ask for a Number 1 hit single? / A sponsorship or successful jingle? / Profit makes me tingle”
goes the stellar ‘SHOP MUSIC.’, before the priceless refrain of “We use fucks for commas, to make everything
sad sound fucking funny” kicks in for ‘PROFESSIONALS.’ Their gallows humour bears clout, though, with the
album doubling as a rumination on the homogenisation of regional identities, alongside the ever-growing list
of challenges faced in our everyday lives. A blistering, razor-witted record that sees the band expand their
well-honed sound into even more eclectic territory, it’s a striking, invigorating move. Sarah Jamieson
LISTEN: ‘SHOP MUSIC.’
4
BARRY CAN’T SWIM
Loner
Ninja Tune
Following up a Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut album in two years, as Barry Can’t Swim
- aka Joshua Mainnie - has done with ‘When Will We Land?’ successor ‘Loner’, is no small
feat. But with his second, the Edinburgh producer has at least triumphed on a human level,
the record sparking emotional response as much as offering dancefloor escapism. Sitting
roughly between peers Jamie XX - with whom he shares an affinity for cut-and-paste
production, marrying glitchy sounds with analogue euphoria (see the vocals cutting in and
out of ‘Different’, and the rapturous brass of ‘Childhood’ as cases in point) - and Fred again..
in taking lush, rich dancefloor sounds to mass audiences, ‘Loner’ both satiates that audience’s hunger for
communally-experienced bangers, and delivers a collection of songs that require neither nightlife nor crowds
to be explored. Opener ‘The Person You’d Like To Be’, with its spoken-word affinity to Baz Luhrmann’s 1997
‘Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen)’ (“Don’t look into someone’s eyes if you love them for too long / They
will see you as you are”) and baggy beat stands closer to Fontaines DC’s ‘Romance’ era than anything else,
while both ‘Like It’s Part Of The Dance’ and closer ‘Wandering Mt. Moon’ offer a warmth through their more
subtle take on euphoria. That said, it’s ‘About To Begin’ which is the clear standout here, its impeccable ebb
and flow suggesting more than a handful of pints-in-the-air festival moments, and its deeper, squelchy sound
and earwormy chorus echoing the creators of some of the most accomplished of epic dance moments, The
Chemical Brothers. In all, ‘Loner’ is a worthy follow-up to his debut that’s suited to soundtrack dancefloors to
come - and more crucially, other places too. Ed Lawson
LISTEN: ‘About To Begin’
5
CMAT
Euro-Country
AWAL
If her scene-stealing Glasto set or very own viral dance - the so-called ‘woke Macarena’ -
weren’t enough to convince you that 2025 truly is the summer of CMAT, then let this third
full-length be a definitive answer: ‘EURO-COUNTRY’ is the album that will see Ciara
Mary-Alice Thompson make the leap from cult country-pop favourite to bona fide star. From
its cover artwork to its tracklist (which boasts such choice cuts as ‘Tree Six Foive’ and
‘Coronation St.’), to the songs themselves, every element is knowingly referential, cheekily
self-aware, and impeccably judged, incorporating all the language - musical, visual,
thematic - established by her first two albums into a fluent thesis on national identity, fame, and womanhood.
At one end of the spectrum, there’s ‘Lord, Let That Tesla Crash’ - a moving distillation of all the complexity
and contradiction that comes with grief - and ‘Iceberg’, a Titanic-referencing account of a relationship’s slow
sinking. At the other, there’s ‘When A Good Man Cries’ - a quintessential CMAT hoedown that coins the
immortal phrase “Dunboyne Diana” - and ‘The Jamie Oliver Petrol Station’, a diss track-slash-philosophical
mediation on resentment that builds to a glorious crescendo of impassioned, deranged vocals decrying the
TV chef. ‘EURO-COUNTRY’ and ‘Take A Sexy Picture Of Me’, meanwhile, are surefire contenders for Song
of the Year, the former a reconciliatory love letter to her fucked up homeland, the latter a scathing indictment
of gender-specific ageism and female beauty standards. Never let it be said that pop necessitates simplicity:
here, CMAT is ripping up the rulebook and writing her own. Daisy Carter
LISTEN: ‘EURO-COUNTRY’
D 53

ALBUMS
1¡
HARD LIFE
onion
Island
The public goodwill that hard life - then known as easy life,
prior to the legal intervention of a certain budget airline’s
busybodies - garnered on being forced to change their
name could only arguably be beaten in current times by
RAYE’s label-based exasperation and the encouragement
of Lewis Capaldi on his return to the live stage. That is to
say, it was a lot. And yet, 18 months on from those final
shows as easy life is a lifetime in musical terms, the nearly three years from
second album ‘Maybe In Another Life…’ even moreso. Unfortunately, ‘onion’
does little to reignite those headline-making sparks that flew so fervently in
support of the outfit’s fight.
Their brand of soft pop remains resolutely fine. At its best, there are some
more interesting musical choices made: largely in ‘P1LOT’, with its use of
vocal effects and mid-song switch up suggesting late-night chaos, and
the peppy ‘p a n o r a m a’, with its guitar-led trip-hop beat. Yet, between
the songs are cloying interludes on which the outfit eschew the wisdom
of ‘show, don’t tell’ entirely, as if aware the songs themselves do little to
reiterate their protagonist’s mental state. The closing ‘end credits.’, in
particular, feels the need to underline how they worked really, really hard on
the album: a fact which one would imagine should be self-evident in having
produced a decent record, if not simply the bare minimum.
What’s more, the music - which on the whole offers little to grab hold of - is
repeatedly let down by jarring lyrical choices. ‘OCTOpus’ offers a pleasant
melody and earwormy chorus, but reeks of vain attempts to be deep: “I
can’t get myself out of bed / I blame the government,” mutters frontman
Murray Matravers, without ever explaining why. Similarly, the otherwise
breezy pop of ‘y3llow bike’ is interrupted by the choice “shower you like
April”. Amusing wordplay, perhaps, but also likely to induce reactions akin
to the kombucha girl meme. Therein lies the crux of ‘onion’, a title which
suggests multitudes, yet in reality - as with its edible namesake - just
repeats more of the same, with frequent pauses to wince. Bella Martin
LISTEN: ‘P1LOT’
4
AFRICA EXPRESS
Africa Express Presents... Bahidorá
World Circuit
Africa Express have spent the last 20 years putting
together great collaborative albums, with this latest one
assembled at Bahidorá Festival in Mexico. As such, the
list of acts involved is frankly head-spinning, with founder
Damon Albarn, Moonchild Sanelly and Suicide’s Alan
Vega working alongside numerous African and Latin
American artists likely less familiar among Western
audiences. A sense of joy and liberation courses through these sprawling 21
tracks; ideas clash and combine, interlocking in beautiful harmony. ‘The Sky
Above You’ fuses sparse reggaeton rhythms and Latin pop melodies into a
gorgeous, Albarn-led ballad, while ‘Seya’ - on which the numerous
collaborators include London-based collective Onipa - is a wonderful Afro
house track. Remarkably, these sonic shifts never result in any tonal
whiplash. In spite of its scale and relatively quick assemblage, the album’s
overall architecture is smartly plotted, allowing the myriad ideas coursing
through the collection to somehow collide in beautiful harmony. A vibrant,
messy epic with nary a dull moment in sight, this is a stellar celebration of
music’s ability to both celebrate and transcend global cultures. Tom
Morgan
LISTEN: ‘Seya’
4
DEBBY FRIDAY
The Starrr Of The Queen Of Life
Sub Pop
Track titles such as ‘All I Wanna Do Is Party’ and ‘In The
Club’ paint a pretty solid picture of the driving beat that
runs throughout underground electropop pioneer Debby
Friday’s second album. Yet, by taking inspiration from the
beating heart of the city, there’s a darker, luring
undercurrent that sweats to the surface on the likes of the
Anglo-French, talk-heavy ‘Arcadia’ and the distorted
vocal-led ‘Leave.’ - two tracks that lean into both ‘Ray of Light’-era
Madonna and late pop pioneer SOPHIE. ‘The Starrr…’ has clearly been born
of sweaty city nightclubs and subsequent comedowns, tying together
dancefloor escapism and the shock of hurtling back to the real world. It
speaks of hedonism in its opening power four; the stomping, industrial
‘Lipsync’ is destined for heady Berlin clubs, before the album pushes Debby
more towards melodic vocals than the violent discordance of her debut.
Because of that, it’s perhaps more cohesive than 2023’s shamefully
underrated ‘Good Luck’, an album that took home Canada’s coveted Polaris
Music Prize but failed to make the commercial waves it truly deserved. The
volatility that underpinned that record here twists with dark euphoria,
continuing Debby Friday’s twisted, raving fantasy. Ben Tipple
LISTEN: ‘Lipsync’
3
SIR CHLOE
Swallow The Knife
ONErpm
On debut ‘I Am The
Dog’, Sir Chloe’s
Dana Foote meshed
together ‘90s rock
influences and her
affinity with the
weird; the songs
were just as likely to conjure a ‘huh’
moment as the image of her
embracing a sheep on the record’s
sleeve. Two years later, ‘Swallow The
Knife’ continues largely with that
familiar indie-rock sound, from the
Pixies-esque ‘Complicated’ to the
lulling, emotive ‘Eyes’, via a selection
that never veers too far from her safety
zone but offers a range of sounds
nonetheless. Dana’s strength surely
comes from her vocal range, the lower
register of which is particularly strong
at emotion: ‘Passenger’, for example,
finds her channelling pain in her
delivery to perfectly mirror the song’s
glum sound. Better still, ‘Kiss’ bristles
with rage, a crunchy riff the cherry on
top of a song with an immediate
chorus and superb end refrain: “I don’t
want love / I want revenge”. It’s a bit
patchier elsewhere: opener ‘The Hole’
plays well with dynamics and flirts with
grunge, and ‘Take It’ is a rare
occurrence of spoken word not risking
cringe; ‘Forget It’, meanwhile,
suggests darkness but can’t help but
beg for more bass - a sound
immediately audible on ‘Holy’, which is
otherwise a wholly forgettable song. A
little safe in parts, yet still a satisfying
return. Bella Martin
LISTEN: ‘Kiss’
4
BILLIANNE
Modes of Transportation
The Orchard
For anyone familiar with Schitt’s Creek, the show’s stripped-back Tina
Turner cover (and Patrick’s declaration of love for David) marked a
wonderfully emotional moment - an opinion clearly shared by Canadian
singer Billianne. What she likely didn’t expect, however, was that her
tender 2022 take on that same ‘The Best’ would soon translate to over
70 million streams. Now, three years on from that huge turn, she’s taking
that same delicate warmth and channelling it into a debut album that’s
evocative and moving, dealing with the upheaval and changes that surround early interior
lives. From the finger-picked opening vignette of ‘Modes I’ through to the more breezy
indie-pop of ‘Baby Blue’ - via the harmony-drenched ‘Cassiopeia’ - her brand of
unguarded storytelling is gorgeous throughout. ‘Future Emma’ sees the singer’s range
reach new heights, lifting to an arms-aloft crescendo, before the flirty guitar pop of ‘Crush’
mirrors the addictive giddiness of new love. A relatable, engaging collection that
showcases her evocative musical range perfectly, ‘Modes of Transportation’ is a fitting
introduction to Billianne’s world. Sarah Jamieson
LISTEN: ‘Jessie’s Comet’
#
JADE BIRD
Who Wants To Talk About Love?
Glassnote
3
FOLK BITCH TRIO
Now Would Be A Good Time
Jagjaguwar
At a glance, of the three
descriptors in Australian trio
Folk Bitch Trio’s name ring true:
there are three of them, Heide
Peverelle, Jeanie Pilkington and
Grace Sinclair, and they
champion a folk sound
invigorated by rumbling Americana, classic rock
and balladry. Opener ‘God’s a Different Sword’
sets the atmosphere, instrumentally warm, with
dusky strums to accompany the threesome’s
converging voices. With quips like “Am I lucky? Or
am I just sane?” and “Can’t deny it, my body
keeps the score / But if you tell me that you need
it / I can get up off my floor,” they showcase a
mindful wit. Their fireside intimacy remains
consistent throughout, despite candid
storytelling, as they ask for respite in response to
an intrusive sex dream on ‘Hotel TV’, and endure
cyclical break-up-make-up tension on ‘The Actor’.
And even in their more minimal arrangements -
see ‘Moth Song’ and ‘I’ll Find A Way’ - the group
transmute emotion through their harmonic unison.
These shine most on ‘That’s All She Wrote’, where
an isolated, cyclical acoustic strum balances
melodic dips and modest string arrangements
to underpin the story. With lines like “My legs
are hanging all over the place / Your head down
my skirt, you really know me / But I can’t wait to
get back home / You’re right here with me / But I
feel so alone”, the dichotomy of sexual intimacy
and emotional dissonance is one of the record’s
peak expressions. Vulnerable closer ‘Mary’s
Playing The Harp’, on which an on-tour breakup is
detailed serves as a fitting endnote, open-hearted
and bruised, much like the record itself. ‘Now
Would Be A Good Time’ finds both power and
humour in the mess. Kayla Sandiford
LISTEN: ‘That’s All She Wrote’
It’s been four years since Jade Bird’s last album - 2021’s ‘Different Kinds
of Light’ - so it’s to be expected that some things will be a little different,
a few licks of paint here and there. While much of what has garnered the
singer-songwriter a following is still present third time around, this is a
record which most notably showcases the full extent of her vocal grit,
alongside the flecks of folk, indie and Americana that make up her
now-signature style. The vulnerability of her voice weighs heavy amid
the swirling harmonies of ‘Avalanche’, while during ‘Dreams’ we find her at a low point. But
even in desperation, she manages to pick out a perfect phrase to toast the moment: “Did
we stop laughing or did the punchline change?,” she questions on ‘How To Be Happy’,
less so a guide and more a retrospection. Following a trajectory of forgiveness and
unpredictable healing - in the time since her last record, Jade entered and exited an
engagement, while she wrote the title track aged 16 on witnessing the fallout of her
parents’ and grandparents’ divorces - ‘Who Wants To Talk About Love?’ arrives as a
collective and deeply-charged record of human experience. Emma Way
LISTEN: ‘How To Be Happy’
54 D

ALBUMS
#
THE BLACK KEYS
No Rain, No Flowers
Easy Eye / Warner
Drama stalked The Black Keys pretty relentlessly in 2024
and, if you kept abreast of it, you’ll have an idea of what
they were aiming for with the title of this, their 13th studio
album. If there was a silver lining to come out of last year’s
annus horribilis, it’s that they were able to cut another
record, keeping up a prolific streak that’s seen them put
out five LPs in the last seven calendar years.
Perhaps last year’s cancellation of an overly ambitious US arena tour - as
well as its subsequent legal fallout - has loosened the duo up somewhat.
Their gradual transition from scratchy Ohio blues outfit to bona-fide indie
rock anthem-peddlers has been well-documented, but their more recent
output had suggested a yearning to go back to their Akron basics: 2021’s
‘Delta Kream’ was a covers record of Hill Country blues, but ‘Let’s Rock’ and
‘Dropout Boogie’ both fostered rough-and-ready riffs, too.
Like last year’s ‘Ohio Players’, ‘No, Rain, No Flowers’ is formally playful,
incorporating hip-shaking groove (‘Babygirl’), slick, jazz-inflected nods to
breakout album ‘Brothers’ (‘Down to Nothing’), and breezy, hook-led rock
(‘Kiss It’; ‘Man on a Mission’). Plus, there’s space for them to embrace
their freewheeling of old, especially on the blissed-out ‘A Little Too High’.
The rapid rate of return that the band have embraced in recent years has
sometimes resulted in less-than-airtight quality control, but at least, on this
evidence, they’re having fun. Joe Goggins
LISTEN: ‘A Little Too High’
4
FRANKIE COSMOS
Different Talking
Sub Pop
A lovely sixth addition to the Frankie Cosmos-verse,
‘Different Talking’ positions itself as a thoughtful reflection
and ode to the gutsy nature of her twenties. Or, to put it
another way, Greta Kline is enjoying growing up. This time
around, her outfit present as a full band proper, the line
between Frankie and Greta further blurs, as the long-time
favourites of the genre help cement the renaissance of
bedroom pop. ‘Different Talking’ serves up sun-kissed syncopation,
arranged atop a bed of lush jangly guitars, delicate piano, and bouncy
baselines, while the production adopts a blissfully playful tone. Weaving in
the band’s new found optimism, it’s clear the aim was to trade in the
brooding angst of past work for earnest tracks embracing the quirks of the
maturing frontal cortex. Each song feels like an intimate journal entry; lyrics
are conversational, painting relatable moments of daily life and evoking the
strange limbo of embracing adulthood. ‘One Grey Hair’ - an upbeat cheeky
number - accepts the plans and activities that don’t materialise, concluding
with the line “The idea of growing up never crosses my mind”.
The album is packed with chilled, short songs, which reinforce its diary-like
feel. ‘Life Back’ reflects fondly on a craving to relive joyous days. Gently
strummed guitar carries it along, as quiet strings weave in and Greta
laments: “Yesterday, I felt like I would never have my life back / Today I
don’t remember ever feeling like that.” In contrast, sludgy closer ‘Pothole’ is
driven by a chugging bass, while a wry, twangy guitar line creates an almost
melancholic atmosphere; elsewhere, ‘Margareta’ and ‘Tomorrow’ make use
of clean, angular instrumental jabs which grow in intensity. Here, again, the
lyrics are open, vulnerable and reflective. On ‘Tomorrow’, Greta concludes
that “It’s not how I’d always imagined it” - on this evidence, though, “it”
appears to be going pretty well. With its clean, bright production, Frankie
Cosmos have found a fitting sound on ‘Different Talking’, via their new era of
lush, happier pop-rock. Millie Temperton
LISTEN: ‘Pothole’
#
JESSICA WINTER
My First Album
Lucky Number
‘My First Album’ arrives long after Jessica Winter first
emerged onto London’s circuit of musical misfits, often
accompanied by the flamboyant, the kitsch and the quirky
- and it’s a scene she injects heavily into her exuberant
art-pop. Across 13 tracks, Jessica flows between the likes
of the Kylie Minogue-aligned ‘Aftersun’, the camped-up
punk of ‘Got Something Good’, and the unapologetic
classic rock theatrics of ‘Worst Person In The World’. The sense of cabaret
that has characterised much of her live performances to date comes well into
its own here, never overshadowing the musical quality but diving headfirst
into its sheer randomness. At its best, it delivers some excellent off-kilter
pop, with singles ‘All I Ever Really Wanted’ and ‘Wannabe’ both showcasing
Jessica’s brilliant take on the mainstream. Together, they deliver a midpoint
peak on a record that sits somewhere between concept and reality, a piece
of arthouse work that could only emerge from a history as atypical as hers.
It’s jarring, unhinged and idiosyncratic, in part akin to a musical at its most
weird (not least on closer, ‘To Know Her’). Yet, for a performer as unchained
to convention as this, it was never going to be anything less. Ben Tipple
LISTEN: ‘Wannabe’
4
BILLIE MARTEN
Dog-Eared
Fiction
In the time since 2023’s ‘Drop
Cherries’, Billie Marten has
spent time on the road, making
journeys of exploration, finding
new connections, and
strengthening old ones; and
it’s that sense of restless
collaboration which infuses the singersongwriter’s
fifth album, ‘Dog Eared’. Introducing
the record with a jangly, hazy lo-fi lilt, ‘Feeling’
bonds trumpet, pedal steel guitar, piano and
percussion with Billie’s crisp, easy vocals.
‘Crown’ and ‘Clover’ continue the journey in the
same style, Marten singing gently but
generously. There’s a feeling of being included
and allowed to become part of the process here
- perhaps an echo of the open-studio policy
Marten embraced while recording ‘Dog Eared’
live in New York, welcoming numerous
musicians to contribute. The result is a record
full of richness and sparkle, layered over her
modern folk writing.
In ‘No Sudden Changes’, which heralds a
slight drop in pace, synths complement the
sound palette while Billie’s voice explains the
subtle hints which “tug at the sleeve” as life
unfolds. But it’s a plucked guitar which leads to
the song’s exit, providing a smooth transition
into ‘The Glass’, with its flute riffs and vocal
harmonies. Halfway through the song (the
midpoint of the album, too), there’s a whispered
count-in after a pause in proceedings - another
reminder of that open studio. From here, the
broad, expansive ‘Leap Year’ and similarlypaced
but jazz-infused ‘Goodnight Moon’ allow
a calm, careful transition to ‘Planets’, which
bubbles with lightly-spiced rhythm and poetic
lyrics. ‘You And I Both’ is equally picturesque,
with deft lyrical touches emerging from the
rootsy instrumentation. Billie saves the highest
drama and greatest joy for the end, though:
‘Swing’ sounds like a skilfully curated hoe-down.
With that, ‘Dog Eared’ takes its place as an LP
which brightly but undramatically shines with
a fresh confidence - a proficient collection of
songs, elevated by myriad guest musicians and
a seemingly freed spirit. Phil Taylor
LISTEN: ‘Planets’
4
HUMOUR
Learning Greek
So Young
‘Learning Greek’ opens with
the most almighty bludgeoning
affair, where the posthardcore,
mosh-pit-triggering
tirade that is ‘Neighbours’
finds Humour telling a rather
gloomy tale - that of our
protagonist in a paranoia-induced state,
believing that malevolent beings are out to get
them. This debut sees the Glasgow outfit
departing somewhat from their early art-punk,
hinting at more crossover appeal. It’s an album
that features some of its most interesting works
in its latter half - the caustic post-punk of ‘I Knew
We Would Talk’, for example, or ‘Aphid’, which
meanders between grunge, motorik goth-rock
and noise, with sinister sci-fi stylings. ‘Memorial’,
meanwhile, flirts with pop-punk to be the kind of
pint-spiller that wouldn’t be lost on a Tony Hawk
soundtrack. These same scuzzed-out stylings
also dominate ‘Plagiarist’, which coalesces
somewhere between the surf-rock influenced
sounds of Weezer and Pixies. The stand-out,
though, comes courtesy of ‘I Only Have Eyes’; a
track which encapsulates the outfit’s dynamism,
it intertwines jangly, ethereal dream-pop with
Andreas Christodoulidis’ colossal gnarl to find
Humour at their best. A solid first LP that aims
for dive bars and festival fields alike. Brad Sked
LISTEN: ‘I Only Have Eyes’
4
MAC DEMARCO
Guitar
Mac’s Record Label
Between his
prodigious streaming
numbers and
famously low-key
lifestyle, Mac
DeMarco could
probably get away
with not working again for the
foreseeable future. This newfound
place of comfort has freed him up, in
recent years, to pursue more esoteric
projects than we’re used to (see the
instrumental ‘Five Easy Hot Dogs’ and
the mammoth, 199-track ‘One Wayne
G’), and has also granted him pause
from a touring lifestyle that, by his own
admission, was beginning to push him
deeper into unhealthy habits. So why
return to conventional records?
Perhaps it’s because he once again
has something to say: he was audibly
running out of ideas on 2019’s last
album proper, ‘Here Comes the
Cowboy’, but on the simply-titled
‘Guitar’, he returns to lyrical form. He
has always been deceptively deep
underneath his class-clown persona,
and sure enough, here he riffs on
regret (‘Phantom’), mortality (‘Terror’)
and - perhaps most affectingly - the
yawning divide between his past and
current life (‘Home’). As the title
suggests, the stripped-back
instrumental palette leans on melodic,
often acoustic guitar lines. If there’s a
curveball in what is a charmingly lo-fi
release, it’s the higher vocal register he
settles into for most of these tracks
- something that might alienate fans of
his tighter, poppier work circa ‘Salad
Days’. Regardless, Mac’s back - for
real, this time. Joe Goggins
LISTEN: ‘Home’
4
BABYMETAL
Metal Forth
Capitol
BABYMETAL’s fifth
album finds them
exploring everything
metal as a genre has
embodied in the last
few years, unifying
seemingly disparate
styles via a series of guest spots, from
household names (Tom Morello,
Poppy, the rapidly-rising Spiritbox) to
those whose popularity hasn’t yet
crossed over (New Delhi’s
Bloodywood nailing their collaboration
on ‘Kon! Kon!’). And where it’s solely
the band themselves - on halfway
mark ‘KxAxWxAxIxI’ and ‘Algorism’ -
they still execute things with their
signature twist: the former is
tantalisingly paired with a hip hop
melody, while the latter is a pure
face-melter. The feature from Electric
Callboy on ‘RATATATA’ is upbeat, fun,
and even somewhat nostalgic, while
Slaughter To Prevail’s appearance on
‘Song 3’ balances meticulous
deathcore and technical metal. What’s
most impressive is the band’s ability to
incorporate so many different identities
and styles of metal into one record that
still feels harmonic and balanced. Yes,
years in the industry can teach you a
lot, but ‘Metal Forth’ feels like pure,
instinctual exploration. Isabella
Ambrosio
LISTEN: ‘Kon! Kon!’
56 D

EPS, ETC*
*anything they refuse to call an album.
4
NECTAR WOODE
Itʼs Like I Never Le
RCA
Christopher Connor
LISTEN: ‘Lose’
4
WESTSIDE COWBOY
This Better Be Something Great
Nice Swan / Heist Or Hit
Sarah Taylor
LISTEN: ‘Drunk Surfer’
#
GRETA ISAAC
Dolly Zoom
Kartel
Otis Robinson
LISTEN: ‘Soft Scoop Talking Dog’
4
KATIE GREGSON-MACLEOD
Love Me Too Well, Iʼll Retire Early
Last Recordings On Earth
Sophie McVinnie
LISTEN: ‘Chess’
COMING UP!
Your handy list of records worth getting excited for.
5th September
BIG THIEF
CARSICK - Tough Luck
CUT COPY
DAVID BYRNE
GRANDSON - INERTIA
HOT CHIP
LA DISPUTE
METRONOMY
SG LEWIS
SHAME
SUEDE
9th September
HO99O9
12th September
ADAM BUXTON
BAXTER DURY
DIE SPITZ
GRUFF RHYS
JADE
KING PRINCESS
MITCH ROWLAND
PARCELS
SOPHIE ELLIS-BEXTOR
SYDNEY MINSKY SARGEANT - Lunga
YAST
19th September
BLACK LIPS
BOO BOOS
LOLA YOUNG
MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK
NATION OF LANGUAGE
NEWDAD
NINE INCH NAILS
YOUTH SECTOR
26th September
ALEX E T
BIFFY CLYRO
CATE LE BON
COACH PARTY
DAFFO
EERA
GEESE
JOY CROOKES
NIGHT TAPES
OLIVIA DEAN
PURITY RING
SPRINTS
THE STARTING LINE
VLURE
ZARA LARSSON
3rd October
DEAF HAVANA
IDLEWILD
RICHARD ASHCROFT
SAY SHE SHE
10th October
JAY SOM - Belong
JERSKIN FENDRIX
MADI DIAZ
OTHER LIVES
17th October
BRÒGEAL
MILES KANE
SOULWAX
SUDAN ARCHIVES
THE LAST DINNER PARTY
24th October
CIRCA WAVES
HOME COUNTIES
THE LEMONHEADS
31st October
LUVCAT
WITCH FEVER
9th December
PROBLEM PATTERNS
58 D

NOVEMBER
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WAREHOUSE
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DEPOT
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BUILDING
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30 GLASGOW
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THU 18 SEPTEMBER
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20TH ANNIVERSARY ALBUM OUT 17TH OCTOBER 2025
WWW.THESUBWAYS.NET
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LIVE
An incendiary full circle
moment.
LIDO
Victoria Park, London
OUTBREAK FESTIVAL
13th June
To say that the weather this summer has been confusing is no understatement,
and never has it been truer than in Victoria Park for the inaugural London leg
of Outbreak Festival. Billed as part of the park’s first LIDO Festival - a series of
events curated by the big names topping them - the first edition of the hardcoreadjacent
fest outside of its Manchester home finds itself faced with a mindboggling
forecast that’s resulted in air so humid you could cut it with a knife.
Nevertheless, the acts on display today are on fierce form. Touted for its eclectic
and inspired bookings - previous Manchester lineups have nestled the likes of
Denzel Curry and JPEGMAFIA next to Converge and Have Heart - Outbreak’s
London edition continues that mission in earnest, with Danny Brown bringing
his razor sharp brand of hip-hop to the main stage in the early evening. The only
real downside is that his set overlaps with NY post-hardcore heroes Glassjaw,
who take to the fest’s second stage to a myriad of sound issues. Well-known for
delivering a mixed bag when it comes to their live shows, their turn today is no
different, and despite the promise of their set being a celebratory look back at their
25+ year career, they never quite manage to pull things back after the technical
difficulties are resolved.
The sun is doing its best to break through the thick cloud just in time for indie cult
hero Alex G to bring his warmly-hued wares to the main stage. Competing with
Kentucky troop Knocked Loose - who have packed out the second stage’s tent
across the site - the Pennsylvania songwriter has a attracted a dedicated throng
for his set, which sees him expand tracks from across his hefty discography,
TURNSTILE

LIVE
transforming them
from the more intimate,
scratchy solo cuts he’s
renowned for into bolder,
full-bodied offerings to
suit this kind of outdoor
environment.
It is, however, Turnstile
that most attendees are
here for. By the time the
sky grows dark and the
Baltimore band take to
the stage to the expansive
opening bars of ‘NEVER
ENOUGH’, the gathered
crowd stretches towards
the back of the site, all
eager to witness the
band’s biggest UK show
to date. What follows
is a mesmerising blast
through their back
catalogue, switching
from meandering flute
solos (courtesy of an
appearance from ‘NEVER
DANNY BROWN
ENOUGH’ collaborator
and former Sons of
Kemet member Shabaka Hutchings) through to breakneck guitar lines and frenzied
breakdowns (‘T.L.C. (TURNSTILE LOVE CONNECTION)’; ‘Real Thing’; ‘Drop’),
all with an accomplished ease. Elsewhere, the band mark the occasion with
another special guest, Blood Orange, who helps deliver a hazy rendition of ‘ALIEN
LOVE CALL’ before plunging the stage into darkness for an electrifying outing of
‘BLACKOUT’ - a clever trick to amp up the scale and stature of this slot.
What’s more remarkable is that the weather also seems to answer their call
for drama; after hours of threatening, the heavens finally respond with a hefty
thunderstorm, the lightning crackling above the stage almost in time to Daniel
Fang’s ferocious drumming. 12 years on from Turnstile’s first performance at
Outbreak (which they played in Leeds back in 2013), it’s the perfect final touch to
an incendiary full circle moment, which is sure to further mark them out as one of
modern hardcore’s greats. Sarah Jamieson
CHARLI XCX PRESENTS PARTYGIRL
14th June
It’s been almost exactly one year since the arrival of the lime green juggernaut that
took over mainstream culture, broke the internet (a few times over), and spawned
a whole aesthetic/movement/lifestyle in its image. 12 months on from ‘BRAT’’s
birth, Charli xcx now stands as THE pop star of the moment. But, given the sheer
ubiquity of her latest album last year, Charli’s 2025 festival season arrived with
an implicit question hanging over it: has the moment passed? If her speciallycurated
‘Partygirl’ day at London’s inaugural LIDO Festival is anything to go by,
the answer is that dedication to a good time never goes out of style.
For anyone who happens to be in the vicinity of Victoria Park today - or, actually,
anywhere on the TfL network more generally - it’s as if they’ve accidentally
stumbled into an episode of Skins, or the Berghain queue. A bastardised version
of Swifties sartorially honouring their fave ‘era’, or Beyoncé fans donning cowboy
getup, these partygirls pledge
allegiance to Charli’s Angels by
way of wraparound sunglasses, CHARLI XCX
lower back tattoos, and countless
Marlboro Golds.
The result is the sort of cult
atmosphere you usually only get
at huge arena or stadium shows
- not festivals, where the crowd’s
adoration is split between myriad
different artists on the bill. The
masterstroke of LIDO, though, is
that each day’s lineup is essentially
selected by the headliner
themselves; for Charli, this means
the likes of collaborators, electronic
experimentalists, and ‘BRAT’
contributors The Dare, Bladee,
and A.G. Cook - all artists who this
audience are already primed to go
wild for.
And go wild they do. A.G. and
offbeat alt-pop duo Magdalena
Bay bring the energy early in the
afternoon - no mean feat, given the
blazing sunshine - but it’s easily
The Dare who provides the day’s
first capital-M Moment, as he
swiftly shuts down the festival’s tented second stage. It’s a set which, on reflection,
would have been better suited to the Main Stage, but for those who have managed
to squeeze in, the enclosed space just adds to the fervour: by the time the indie
sleaze revivalist brings out PinkPantheress to perform their collab ‘Stateside’ (and
gallantly holds her handbag, to boot), the atmosphere is nothing short of feral.
Ahead of Charli taking to the Main Stage, then, things have reached fever pitch -
members of the crowd staunchly claim their spot in this neon-hued sea, proving
surprisingly resistant to any attempts to weave forward for a dance. Indeed, for
some, actually dancing seems to be the last thing on their mind, preferring instead
to document the whole performance on their Instagram Story. The woman herself,
though, is utterly in the
moment. Storming through
opening numbers ‘365’,
‘360’, and ‘Von dutch’,
there’s no sense of her
having played her trump
cards too early; anyone
who’s paid even the
slightest attention to her
‘BRAT’ tour knows Charli
always has some tricks up
her sleeve, and tonight it’s
Chicken Shop Date’s Amelia
Dimoldenberg who makes a
surprise appearance as our
‘Apple’ girl.
THE DARE
Obvious highlights come
courtesy of the huge ‘Girl,
so confusing’ and ‘Guess’
remixes, both of which
sound as jaw-dropping
and vital as ever (although, for canny fans who have noticed Lorde is currently in
London, it’s a source of minor disappointment that she doesn’t pop up to deliver
her verse in the former). Instead, Charli brings out Bladee - fresh from his headline
go on the second stage - and PC Music stalwart A.G. Cook, who together laugh off
a mis-start of ‘Rewind’ to conjure as close to a ‘house party afters’ atmosphere as
is possible in a 32,000 capacity park.
Though ‘BRAT’ might have been the album to launch the rocket, the fuse for
Charli’s astronomical trajectory was lit long ago. And this is something she seems
keen to recognise, too, mining her discography to finish with a fan favourite line-up
of ‘party 4 u’, ‘Vroom Vroom’, ‘Track 10’, and ‘I Love It’, revelling - soaking wet from
her on-stage shower - in this final, unabashed expression of euphoria.
“So tell me the truth… will you hate me if I stick around???” she asks via the stage’s
flickering screens, “because honestly I don’t know who I am if it’s over”. If tonight’s
LIDO headline - her biggest London show to date - has proved anything, it’s that
the appetite for her brand of messy, candid, markedly real pop hasn’t abated; in
fact, it might just be stronger than ever. In her own (digital) words: “It wasn’t just
a summer thing… it’s a forever thing xx”. The year of the brat may be over, but
Charli’s time as a festival headliner is only just beginning. Daisy Carter
The year of the brat may be over, but
Charliʼs time as a festival headliner is only
just beginning.
Emma Swann, Henry Redcliffe, Patrick Gunning

LIVE
BEYONCÉ
Tottenham Hotspur
Stadium, London
DUA LIPA
Wembley Stadium, London
For a long time, it’s felt as though Dua
Lipa’s been simmering just below the
pinnacle of pop icon status. Perhaps
that’s because, between her book club
and accompanying podcast, lifestyle
newsletter, YSL Beauty ambassadorship
(there’s a pop-up for the brand set up at the foot of the
stadium’s front stairs), and non-stop run of globetrotting
holidays, music is just one of several projects
and side hustles she’s turned her hand to. Don’t be
deceived, though: like a very sparkly magician pulling
an endless string of silk handkerchiefs from her sleeve,
her second sold-out night at Wembley Stadium
delivers two hours of back-to-back hits to rival any pop this is a no-expense-spared spectacle in the truest
juggernaut.
sense.
Beyond a smattering of glitter, it’s true that this
tour hasn’t inspired the same cult dressing as
contemporaries who have passed under Wembley’s
arch. (That could just be a meteorological issue, to
be fair - it’s hard to serve an extravagant look when
a heatwave has turned London’s air to treacle-thick
soup). Dua more than compensates with her own
outfits, anyway - there are five, to be exact, each one
heavily bedazzled and two involving fur, which can’t
be fun in this temperature. On top of the costume
changes, she also has chair-ography, burlesque
feather fans, confetti, streamers, lasers, flames,
fireworks, and a levitating C-stage. Make no mistake:
A no-expense-spared spectacle in the
truest sense.
Possibly the biggest spectacle tonight, though, is the
reveal of her special guest. After last night’s somewhat
unexpected Jamiroquai duet, the crowd are on more
familiar ground - and predictably lose their minds -
when Dua welcomes “the biggest brat” she’s ever
met to join her onstage. Although Dua does feature on
Charli’s remixed version of ‘Talk talk’, they opt instead
for a storming rendition of ‘360’ that’s received with
utterly unsurprising fervour.
Despite admitting to feeling nervous, Dua has the
70,000-strong crowd in the palm of her hand from the
moment she appears tonight, performing like this is
her 20th headline show here, not her second. Debut
album singles ‘IDGAF’ and ‘Be the One’ receive just
as much love as newer favourites ‘Training Season’,
‘Hallucinate’ and ‘Levitating’, while everyone merrily
joins in with the mock fitness
video intro for ‘Physical’. The
hit parade slows down only
when she takes a walk along the
barricade - allowing her band to
set up downstage - to compare
nail art, hug, and take selfies
with the front row, most of whom
have travelled internationally to
be here.
As the marathon show
finally dances to a close with
shimmering dancefloor-filler
‘Houdini’ (accompanied by even
more fireworks, of course) it’s
hard to deny that, when she’s
not reading books or sampling
restaurants on holiday, Dua can
turn out a stadium-headlining set
like it’s the most natural thing in
the world. Caitlin Chatterton
To try and pretend that Beyoncé is
anything other than one of the world’s
greatest performers would be futile,
and the anticipatory energy that buzzes
through Tottenham Hotspur Stadium
tonight provides more than enough
proof. While much has been said about ticket sales
and empty seats ahead of this evening - her first
date in a record-breaking six-show run at the venue
- in truth, by the time the icon emerges centre stage
for her opening ‘AMERIICAN REQUIEM’, those
vacancies are impossible to notice, such is the
gravitas of her star power.
Unsurprisingly (for a tour titled the ‘COWBOY
CARTER’ tour), proceedings come heavily built
around her eighth, Grammy-winning opus, with the
show packing in all the bells, whistles, neon signs
and Stetsons to match. It’s also, by all accounts, an
near-exact replica of her recent run of dates in the
US; again, usual for a stadium show of this scale,
but with its Americana iconography and stars-andstripes
regalia, it hits a little different in front of a UK
audience.
Throughout, Beyoncé flirts with subverting the UScentric
cliches that haunt her most recent record
and its reception - whether through dedicating
‘Blackbird’ to those influential Black artists who
paved the way before her; weaving in Jimi Hendrix’s
infamous Woodstock performance to her version
of ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’; or blaring Gil Scott-
Heron’s ‘The Revolution Will Not Be Televised’
through the stadium’s speakers mid-set. But, in
light of the current political climate, it’s impossible
not to feel that she could push the dial even further:
a screen-high message of “Never ask permission
for something that already belongs to you” garners
many an excitable scream from fans, but feels too
artsy and vague (even in this context) to really punch.
At large, though, this is entertainment on a gigantic
scale. Split into seven separate acts and featuring
40 songs and many snippets aside (sometimes an
inspired feat, sometimes massively frustrating),
the songs come thick and fast, Beyoncé’s energy
unfaltering throughout. It’s her ‘REVOLUTION’
section that stands out most, with ‘AMERICA HAS

LIVE
Entertainment
on a gigantic
scale.
LITTLE SIMZ
Southbank Centre, London
A PROBLEM’ firing on all cylinders as she stands, clad in an outfit
embossed with garish newspaper headlines, all while conducting
her writhing dance troupe from from behind a conference podium.
A shortened ‘Formation’ midway through rapidly reminds us of her
phenomenal prowess as a multi-hyphenate performer (who could,
after all, forget the sheer power of her 2016 Super Bowl show?),
before the back-to-back stomp of ‘MY HOUSE’ into 2008’s ‘Diva’
feels about like an empowering battle cry.
Elsewhere, her ‘TEASE’ section does just that. Ushered in by a hefty,
rooting-tooting rendition of ‘TEXAS HOLD ‘EM’, she introduces some
of her most notable hits (‘Crazy In Love’, ‘Single Ladies’, ‘If I Were A
Boy’) in a dizzying, almost surreal succession. They’re greeted with
delirious delight from the crowd, only to be cut short just as they
get going, in a move that feels rather disappointing: this may be the
‘COWBOY CARTER’ tour but it’s not a revelation to suggest that a
little more time celebrating her back catalogue wouldn’t go amiss.
Granted, tonight is still hugely impressive; packing in many camp
moments (who, five years ago, ever dreamed Bey would fly around
a North London stadium on a neon horseshoe singing ‘Jolene’?)
as it does pitch-perfect vocals and impressive costume changes.
It’s just a shame that, while tonight undoubtedly sits within the gold
standard of pop shows, its scale is so ambitious and grand - the
setlist so bulging - that it’s almost too much to take in, and not as
harmonious a display as we might’ve come to expect from an artist
so exceptional. Sarah Jamieson
Midway through Little Simz’s
set at the Southbank Centre,
she reaches out to fist bump
Chris Cameron, conductor
of the Chineke! Orchestra.
He gives a thumbs up and
turns back around. “I’m trying to spud him but
he’s not getting it,” Simz says with a smirk.
It’s one of the many moments of joy tonight
between two musical forces.
A sense of occasion hangs in the air pre-show
as dry ice plunges onto the stage flooded with
the 42-strong Chineke! Orchestra; a collective
who champion Black and ethnically diverse
classical musicians. The evening also marks
the finale of Simz’s own Meltdown Festival
takeover, an honour typically reserved for
artists of a certain vintage - think David Bowie,
Grace Jones, Nile Rodgers, and David Byrne.
Despite being just 31, Simz feels entirely
deserving of the task. Not only has she worked
with an enormous pool of talent, making her
an ideal curator, but her journey from spitting
bars at school and cutting her teeth at the city’s
youth clubs to mainstream stardom is a London
success story; the historical Thameside venue
makes for a perfect setting.
Things kick off with the military snare roll of
‘Introvert’, and Simz slowly appears from stage
left as the crowd simmers in flashing red lights.
The song’s epic orchestral manoeuvres allow
the huge ensemble to flex its muscles, and
the results are impressive: here, the band and
orchestra mix fluently, giving enough room for
Simz to spit her statement of intent while the
song’s hook (“Sometimes I might be introvert”)
spells out the initials of her first name, Simbi.
She manages to rile the seated audience into
an arm bop, and it isn’t long until the theatre is
on its feet.
New material from ‘Lotus’ - the latest addition
to her already sparkling canon of work -
chronicles Simz finding light in the dark after a
dispute with close collaborator Inflo; Simz sued
the producer back in January after he failed to
repay a loan of £1.7m. Imagery of sharks and
snakes stalk the songs, which manifest in the
venom charging through Simz’s flow on ‘Thief’,
bleeding directly into the thrilling industrial
warble of ‘Flood’.
“I’m so pleased we can play this album for you
tonight,” Simz says. “But first of all, let’s throw
it back.” On her cue, the strings strike-up the
doe-eyed ‘Two Worlds Apart’ which holds the
audience accountable to some thrilling call
and response; then, ‘Marijuana’ and ‘Kendrick
Lamar’ are both belted out without restraint.
The set shimmies between the light and dark
at an expert pace. Pure joy erupts throughout
the cathartic ‘I Love You, I Hate You’ and the
double dose of guest Obongjayar on ‘Lion’
and ‘Point & Kill’. ‘Free’ and the hypnotic Latin
shuffle of newbie ‘Only’ offers oxygen to the
lighter moments, bobbing atop the orchestral
flourishes rising behind her. These songs feel
elegant, floaty and weightless in the live setting;
it’s pure bliss.
The Queen Elizabeth Hall is a seated auditorium
in practice, but the logic of a Simz show defies
its purpose. As the band reset after a fierce
rendition of ‘Venom’ - which starts off with Simz
in the conductor box - a ripple of people start
to nestle back into their seats. “What are you
sitting down for?” she laughs, shaking her head
as the groovy bars of fun throwaway ‘Young’
spark up. “Na na na, you’re not allowed to do
that.” Simz is gifted at riffing with the audience,
flitting between humorous and charming
asides like these, to open-hearted vulnerability.
“This song makes me uncomfortable,” she
says ahead of the delicate ‘Lonely’. “Sort of
like opening a letter in front of somebody it’s
addressed to - but I think I can trust you guys,”
she adds.
You catch the feeling that much of Simz’s
catalogue is built for this specific grandiose
set-up; a touch of theatrics always underpins
her work, as is evidenced on the back and forth
of ‘Blood’. Wretch 32 emerges from the corner
of the amphitheatre as the pair play out a phone
conversation between two siblings. They end
up back-to-back, centre stage, as Cashh sings
out the song’s hook and entrances the crowd
into a sea of arm waving.
Judging by the darkness surrounding the new
material (which drips with a loss in confidence,
pain, and betrayal), it’s a wonderful thing to see
Simz claw back what’s rightfully hers. The set
caps off with the confessional lullaby ‘Selfish’,
the anthemic ‘Woman’, and a thunderous
rendition of ‘Gorilla’ - a triple threat if there ever
was one. The latter sparks pandemonium, and
in referencing one of her earliest bars penned
aged 11 - “Sim, simmer, who’s got the keys…”
- it marks a real full circle moment. Each thread
loops back to the start of her career, sees her
back in the city she has conquered, and finds
her back at the top where she belongs. It’s a
spellbinding return. Sean Kerwick
A spellbinding return.
Sam Hussein, Parkwood Entertainment, Pete Woodhead.
D 63

LIVE
ROBBIE WILLIAMS
Emirates Stadium, London
are back, baby… it’s a Britpop summer!”
Robbie Williams’ tongue is placed at least
partially in cheek as the opening riffs of ‘Old
Before I Die’ hit, his delivery of overworked
cliché and ham-fisted pun skilfully skating the
“Guitars
paper-thin line between witty self-awareness
and a clamour for relevance. Tonight, it appears as if his place in pop
has been at the forefront of his mind, too; on one hand boastfully
declaring himself the ‘King of Entertainment’, on the other, donning an
oversized bright pink tulle boa to encourage the tens of thousands inside
the Emirates Stadium to “embrace their cringe”.
For anyone who watched his much-dissected biopic Better Man, caught
his Netflix documentary series, or have even seen interview footage
beyond the thirty-second soundbite clips, this push-and-pull between
the boastful and anxiety-ridden is nothing new; and, even as he jests
(“I’m shitting hits…”), it’s followed by an almost-caveat (“….aren’t I?”).
For what it’s worth, he’s not wrong, his enviable and practically peerless
back catalogue tonight split roughly into thirds. First, driven by the
recent announcement of thirteenth solo album ‘Britpop’, opener and
punky new single ‘Rocket’ (after which his stage setup took the song’s
title literally to eventually manifest in a nod to his ‘Escapology’ cover
and subsequent 2003 tour intro, as immortalised at Knebworth) is
joined by a selection of fellow guitar-led numbers. ‘Let Me Entertain
You’, ‘Monsoon’, ‘Old Before I Die’, ‘Rock DJ’ and ‘Strong’ all come
punctuated by a rock medley taking in snippets of anthems including
The White Stripes’ ‘Seven Nation Army’, Blur’s ‘Song 2’ and Bon Jovi’s
‘Livin’ On A Prayer’.
His outfit – a sequinned red sports jacket with complementing wide
joggers – also nods to his ‘90s era and the iconic image of him at
Glastonbury (30 years ago this month) that forms that new album’s
artwork. There, too, are requisite special guests for a show this size: this
evening, a reformed Five appear for a euphoric and no doubt cathartic
‘Keep On Movin’’ - the outfit’s first public performance together in 25
years - as well as Lulu, for a throwback to her feature on Take That’s
1993 release of ‘Relight My Fire’.
An acoustic run on the B-stage then references snippets of songs not
fully showcased, with ‘Sexed Up’ a popular but brief crowd favourite,
before a return to the main stage for a tick-list of Robbie favourites:
‘Millennium’ and ‘Kids’; ‘Come Undone’ and ‘She’s The One’; ‘Theme
From New York, New York’ and ‘My Way’; and a brief foray into the
Minder TV theme tune - for some reason known mostly to Robbie and
his band, and likely not at all to the younger half of the audience.
Arguably, each song’s era could’ve been given a greater focus, but time
is tight when you’re shitting hits. And, after all, this is “Britpop summer”.
As the satisfied masses leave, the refrain of inevitable closer ‘Angels’
ringing through the muggy North London air, it’s possible to spot other
artists’ merch on display: Fontaines DC; IDLES; Download Festival
2023. In short, there’s the inkling that his 2025 embrace of his 1995
self - while the scathing dialogue formed between him and the tabloid
press is increasingly forgotten - might well be perfect timing. ‘Cringe’ be
damned, tonight Robbie’s not only very much relevant, but (whisper it)
cool at that. Emma Swann
His 2025 embrace of his 1995 self
might well be perfect timing.
MASTER PEACE
BRIGHTEN THE CORNERS
Various venues, Ipswich
With half a decade under
its belt, Ipswich twodayer
Brighten The
Corners sees gigs split
across seven different
spaces, half of which
are owned by the organisers. “We all share
the same determination when it comes to
making Ipswich a viable touring destination
and rejuvenating the music scene in our
town,” the small team says. And from
folk to rap, punk to rave, there really is
something for everyone. Friday’s highlights
include Isle of Wight punk duo The Pill,
whose satirical lyrics and thrashing riffs
thrill those who manage to squeeze inside
the tiny Smokehouse; and indie-rapper JD
Cliffe, whose tireless energy turns nearby
swimming-pool-turned-venue The Baths
into a party.
On Saturday, Y MANDRAKE HANDSHAKE
prove an early
highlight. The
phrase genredefying
gets
thrown around
a lot these
days, but the
London quintet
genuinely
deserve the
title. Like O. but
more intense,
they tear
through wonky anthem ‘Ladies Who’ and
the psych-tinged ‘Marianne’, while the saxfuelled
‘Hate’ slows the pace, with founding
members - guitarist Adam Brennan and
singer Sophie Coppin - sharing vocal
duties. Set closer ‘Why’, which sits
somewhere between Madness and Black
Country, New Road, gets heads bobbing
along to the frenetic concoction.
Over at the larger Corn Exchange,
Mandrake Handshake’s feast of krautrock,
art-pop and psychedelia bursts forth with
kaleidoscopic colour (much like their floral
shirts). With each member of the Oxford/
London collective fully immersed in the
instrument they’re playing - one on maracas
and tambourine at the same time - it feels
like stepping back into the 1970s via Texan
trio Khurangbin; a second coming of the
summer of love, perhaps (indeed, the
older audience are certainly keen on the
throwback to hippy-er (and happier) times).
Later, indie’s next-generation star Master
Peace delivers cathartic energy during a set
that draws from his brilliant debut album.
Set closer ‘Home’ - which is chanted like
a football match - sees the Londoner jump
into the crowd and bounce with his fans
before he perches on the barrier to conduct
the room for one final singalong (and to
plug ‘Red Wine’, his new collaboration with
rapper AJ Tracey).
The festival’s most unique venue, the
recently-transformed St Stephen’s Church,
is well-suited to the maximalist, cinematic
drama of The Orchestra (For Now).
Performing
beyond the
arch, the
seven-piece’s
beguiling sound
adds cello
and violin to
a post-punk
blueprint; during
‘Skins’, vocalist/
pianist Joseph
Scarisbrick lets
out guttural
screams as
flashing white
lights and
searching strobes turn blood red. It’s
certainly one of the day’s less forgettable
shows.
Two equally-as-intense performances take
place at the city’s most intimate live music
space, the 70-capacity Smokehouse.
Despite not having any music out in the
world, SILVERWINGKILLER have built
a reputation for wild shows - including
at London’s Windmill - and their first
time in Ipswich is no exception. Melding
aggressive bass, pummelling breakbeats
and multilingual vocals (English, Mandarin,
Shanghainese) into industrial electro-punk,
their speaker-shattering barrage leaves ears
ringing and incites a fist-pumping sweatbox
rave. A fast and furious exhilaration of

LIVE
MERMAID CHUNKY
Mermaid Chunky, a DFA Records-signed
performance art duo, bring transfixing eclecticism to
St Stephen’s Church. With Moina Moin curtsying in
a regal dress while playing a recorder (or two at the
same time) and bandmate Freya Tate sporting a Druidlike
cloak (then a woollen, Marge Simpson-style yellow
headpiece), their outfits command as much attention
as their patiently-building maypole-dancing songs.
Alongside a table full of instruments including a tiny
maraca and, most obscurely, a teeth chattering toy, a
call-out for witches and mention of vampires and garlic
add an element of perplexing storytelling.
got time for one more tune? It’s only 15 minutes” Tate
laughs before the pair take a bow and bounce off the
stage to spiralling, laser-like synths.
With their fingers very clearly on the pulse, Brighten
The Corners continues to curate line-ups that are not
only diverse but daring. Ben Jolley
chest-pounding sounds, their sonic chaos is made for
the attention deficit generation.
Two hours later, BLACK FONDU proves heavily
compelling, the Ghanaian-born artist unleashing his
full-throttle electronic-rage-rap on an unsuspecting
room. Thrashing his body around the small stage
and shouting over glitchy synths and samples, the
apocalyptic production would be lapped up by fans
of Playboi Carti, a sonic exorcism that you can’t stop
watching.
Less abstract but just as powerful is the festival’s
official headline act, Bob Vylan, who incite mosh-pits
at the Corn Exchange. With a Palestine flag perched
on top of boxes that have the Mobo-award-winners’
name on it, frontman and rapper Bobby starts the
show with “some light stretching and meditation” as
blood red lights flood the room and white strobes
flash. “We’ll see you on the other side!” he adds, the
crowd following his every move ahead of ‘I Heard You
Want Your Country Back’. The grime-punk duo’s lyrics
don’t pull any punches, either: Bobby’s flow during
‘Get Yourself A Gun’, which takes aim at rent-rising
landlords, is an unflinching highlight.
‘céilí’s unique concoction of folk-y sonics gets an
ever-growing number of people dancing before, upon
request, strangers link arms, swing their partners
around, and pretend to ride a horse during the acidtinged
gallop of ‘Chaperone’. It’s all incredibly silly, yet
uninhibitedly fun and refreshingly unifying. “Have we
BOB VYLAN
Not only diverse but
daring.
LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
Brixton Academy, London
Photo: Emma Swann
For a band who have only released one new track
proper in seven years, LCD Soundsystem have retained
remarkable cultural cachet; be it their evident influence
on the 2020s’ so-called indie sleaze revival (we’re
looking at you, The Dare) or their feted live appearances at All
Points East and Glastonbury last summer, the cult New York
icons continue to be alternative music mainstays.
And, arriving at South London’s O2 Academy Brixton for the
first of the band’s eight-night June residency (a step up from
the stint of six they did here back in 2022), it’s not hard to
see why. To watch LCD - especially in a (relatively) intimate
setting such as this - is akin to embarking on a choose-yourown-adventure:
for some, it’s a fascinating opportunity to
witness James Murphy ringlead his maverick troupe of band
members, who between them command some five sets of keys
and synths, three drum kits, and one hell of a disco ball; for
others, it’s a chance to put matter over mind and be absorbed
into collective revelry, as this high-ceilinged ex-theatre is
transformed into a sweaty, strobe-lit basement.
With such a busy stage - set up such that Murphy can
meander between members, playfully supplementing the
band’s signature extended instrumental breaks - it’s evident that LCD approach
the core of their live shows with architectural precision; what’s gloriously ad-hoc,
though, are the finishing flourishes. Amidst the onstage melee, Murphy’s ‘BRAT’
green t-shirt becomes a guiding beacon, a neon-hued eye of the storm that brings
everything - and everyone - into his orbit. Any usual rules of engagement are
thrown by the wayside, as he wanders over to Pat Mahoney’s light-up kit during ‘Yr
City’s a Sucker’ to hit the snare with a maraca; elsewhere, Al Doyle can be seen
playing keys and drums simultaneously, one hand hammering each as he gleefully
stretches himself (quite literally) for ‘Time To Get Away’.
Equally enthusiastic are the crowd, be they those on the balcony (who, though
ostensibly seated, are unanimously on their feet from the off) or those on the
Academy’s famed sloped floor, who unite to move as one many-limbed swell
during ‘North American Scum’ and connect congregationally, arms outstretched
Sweat-soaked euphoria and nostalgic
hedonism.
stagewards, for the anticipation-loaded long intro of ‘Dance Yrself Clean’. And,
as Nancy Whang coyly initiates the iconic two-note refrain of perennial set closer
‘All My Friends’, you can tangibly sense a shared resolve to pull loved ones a little
closer, to sing a little louder and stay out a little later.
Beneath the sweat-soaked euphoria and nostalgic ‘00s hedonism there’s an
undeniable poignance to tonight, and few artists marry the two better than LCD
Soundsystem. Now two decades on from their self-titled debut, this returning
residency (at ‘The’ Brixton, as posters and merch proudly display) is an aptly
celebratory, joyous lesson in the indispensable art of a great night out. Daisy Carter
Leo Baron, Ollie Hosier, Rosie Gunning
D 65

AMY MACDONALD
HEADLINER: BRUCE
SPRINGSTEEN
I went with Bruce Springsteen!
For decades now, he’s
been proving why he’s
a headliner… he just
puts on such a great
show. He’s got so many
incredible records and
so many amazing songs
to choose from - and
he’d also be real value for
money, because he plays
for hours and hours and
hours on end! I’ve seen him a
few times, thankfully, and just
absolutely loved it. There’s a
reason why he’s been at the top of
his game for so long now, and I think
when you see him live, it becomes very
clear. ‘Thunder Road’ is one of my
favourite songs; I absolutely love
it, and it’s one of those that you
always think ‘Oh, I wish I’d come
up with that!’.
SUPPORT: DOLLY
PARTON
I’ve gone for Dolly Parton, because
she’s an absolute legend. I remember
seeing her slot at Glastonbury and it was
just the best thing ever! It seems like she was
the one who really cemented the ‘Legends’
slot and made it into a big thing. She’s
iconic, and seems like a great person
as well. Who doesn’t love a bit of Dolly
Parton?
VENUE: MONTREUX,
SWITZERLAND
I would be holding it in Montreux, in
Switzerland. There’s an amazing festival
there called Montreux Jazz Festival, and
I’ve been lucky enough to play there a
few times. They put the stage right on
the side of the lake, and a lot of the time it
has no backdrop, so your view is just the
lake and mountains; it’s such an incredible
place. Interestingly, Deep Purple’s song
‘Smoke on the Water’ was written about
Montreux when there was a fire and there
was actual smoke on the water there - clearly,
it’s a great musical place!
WHO ARE YOU GOING WITH?
I’m taking my two best friends, Kelly and Laura. We’ve spent
our entire lives going to gigs together and we have so many
crazy memories! When we were growing up we all loved the
same music, and our perfect evening was going to indie nights
at clubs, so we connected that way. They’ve been in my life since
I was about 11 years old, and we’ve been inseparable since then; the three
of us kind of come as a package, and so it would have to be us there in the
crowd having the time of our lives together.
WHAT ARE YOU DRINKING?
My friends and I have a terrible habit of sneaking alcohol into places so
we don’t have to queue and pay extortionate prices! The
best hack is these little slimline drinks containers
- they’re for people who go mountaineering,
I think they’re called Platypuses - and
we’ve perfected the art of filling them
with whatever concoction you like and
hiding them down our trousers, so
even if somebody searches our bag
or pockets, they’re never going to find
them. They’d be coming in with us -
especially because it’s in Switzerland,
and it’s quite expensive there!
IS THERE A PRE-GIG
ACTIVITY?
Me and my friends love taking ages to get
ready in a room together while playing the music
of whoever we’re going to see. So in this case, it
would be Dolly and Bruce tunes, spending ages
in front of the mirror, some drinks, some snacks,
chatting, and having a brilliant time getting
ready for the evening ahead! Getting ready can
make the best memories, so just spending
hours doing that would be the perfect warm
up for us!
IS THERE AN AFTERPARTY?
My dream after party would just be a bunch of
us with a guitar! That’s how our nights always
used to end - in somebody’s house with a
guitar, singing all the songs that we’d just
heard live together, putting our heart into it. I’ve
written so many songs in my life that have been
inspired by nights like that and it’s always the
best fun, so I think that’s the perfect ending for
it. Yeah… we’re those annoying people that
play guitar at a party! I don’t think I’ve ever
done ‘Wonderwall’ [the ultimate musical sin -
Ed], but then we are going to see Oasis soon,
so we might have to!
ANY ADDITIONAL
EXTRAS?
I love a confetti cannon! As a performer,
I love them because the crowd never
knows that it’s coming, so you’re
waiting to see them all get a fright.
I’d have loads of confetti cannons,
loads of streamers, loads of
sparks - just to make it a really
kind of fancy affair.
Amy Macdonald’s new
album ‘Is This What You’ve
Been Waiting For?’ is out
now via Infectious. D
Olivia Rose
66 D

the new album
29.08.25