Under the shadow of its jeering beneficiary, The American Dream has seldom seemed a more wilted ideal. As university funding comes under unprecedented threat and ICE raids populate news feeds, the optimistic faith in democracy of America’s not-too-distant past is becoming an ever fainter after-image. 

In such a time of crisis, escape would not seem an unreasonable impulse, but with their latest album, Sword II opted to dig their heels in.

Inside a bust-up Atlanta house, the rent of which was covered by their record label’s advance, the band set about creating their upcoming album, Electric Hour. Their 2023 release, Spirit World Tour, was recorded in similar circumstances just a short way down the road from the birthplace of Outkast’s early releases; a studio the band dubbed ‘the dungeon’.

“Starting the record just down the street from that house started this fascination,” says Certain Zuko, Sword II’s guitarist and singer.

“The idea that we can make incredible music in a basement or something, that’s kind of our M.O. We don’t go to a studio, we don’t necessarily need to do that, so we had the same mentality going into this house, but we kind of rushed it and didn’t realise the electricity was all fucked-up.”

The result of the property’s electrical malfunctions was that the band resorted to using more acoustic instruments than ever before. “We didn’t want to get shocked,” Zuko laughs. “It was kind of a freaky and gross place to be, but that really added to the vibe.”

Not all of the band’s surroundings were bleak, however. Beyond the dilapidated walls of their studio home, a small farm offered intermittent solace. “It was really beautiful — plants and trees everywhere. We would go outside, smoke cigs, the sun would be shining. I think that influenced the record, too. We were kind of cosplaying that we were country,” says Zuko. 

“We wanted to see what it would be like to write songs without starting with a beat or a loop,” adds Mari González, singer and bassist. “But another big thing in terms of writing the songs was that Certain got given a 12-string acoustic guitar when her grandma died.” 

“Oh yeah!” Zuko recalls. “I was already doing weird pitch-up stuff with pedals, and the 12-string has that extra octave anyway, so we ran it through the pitch-shift on quite a lot of the songs.” 

Such glitchy, off-kilter textures are scattered throughout Electric Hour, where the band’s DIY recording ethos has distilled into a potent, idiosyncratic essence. Arriving at that point, according to González, was the product of an extended and highly focussed effort, the after effects of which linger even as Sword II prepare for the album’s release. 

“I’m going through something now where it feels so hard to find new music,” she says. “I feel like because we were spending such long intensive days listening over and over again during recording, I just needed silence once the day was over. I got really out of practice listening to anything else. I would go to bed with those songs blaring in my ears. I think more space from the project would be beneficial next time around.”

At this remark, Zuko and the band's other guitarist and singer, Travis Arnold, nod along in somber agreement. 

But countering the intensity of the sessions was the fact the band were guaranteed accommodation for the 14–month recording period, allowing them, at least initially, to ditch their day-jobs. 

“It was a one-bedroom house,” says Zuko, “so my room was in the closet, but I only worked occasionally because I knew that I was always going to have somewhere to sleep.  So yeah, at least I didn’t have to worry about that… But some days we were just locked in there because it was like ‘okay, fuck! We have to work on this and finish it.’”

Functioning equally as songwriters, engineers, and producers, the trio abandoned personal borders in pursuit of Electric Hour’s sound. “A lot of the time we sung each other’s lyrics,” explains Zuko. “Most of the lyrics on the album that each of us sings was actually written by somebody else, which is kind of really fun. I think sometimes we would get in there and be a little embarrassed to be singing. We’d get in our heads and then someone else would be like, ‘No! You’re going to sound lit like this, you have to do it!’” She laughs, then gasps. “Travis was doing this vampire voice thing, I don’t think it made it in there in the end, but it was so sexy, I was begging to keep it in!”

A sense of honest vulnerability underpins the lyrics of Electric Hour. There is a closeness to the album, a human warmth, but it is rarely present without an underlying sense of threat. The encroachments are seemingly everywhere, whether in the form of state surveillance or systematic capitalism. 

“I think we feel like storytellers, just about our own lives.” says Zuko.

“We are just regular people going through the same things everyone else is going through. Everyone is dealing with the rise of the police state here, the rise of fascism. Everyone is seeing the atrocities in Gaza, and the horrific ICE raids. We have friends and family dealing with this ICE shit. So, you know, we are just trying to channel how it feels to look at those things.”

“It is terrifying, but it’s also a time to innovate our ideas,” she elaborates. “It’s a good time to be real about what we believe and to have an answer to things. Also, to be real about how things are affecting us, and not pretend that everything is fine.”

One track demonstrating Sword II’s ability to find joy in the face of hard times is ‘Passionate Nun’ – a song written as a rebuttal to trans bathroom laws through the lens of a lesbian love-affair. Discussing concepts for an accompanying music video, Zuko said: “We thought it would be cool if it was like a bunch of trans girls in a locker room, then the cops try to drag them out and they just start shooting the cops. There would be blood everywhere. That was my idea for it.”

“Blood everywhere,” González laughs, “whenever we are trying to put anything into an idea, it always ends with that. There’s either blood everywhere or it is in a dark dungeon.”

“The last album was a sex dungeon,” Zuko contributes to the spiralling bit, “but this album there’s blood everywhere.”

But for all the talk of blood and dungeons, in Electric Hour, Sword II have shown a softer side. Their hardcore influences remain palpable, but here they serve principally as a threatening bed beneath a multitude of sweet, pop melodies. 

“I hope people can see both sides of it,” Zuko says.

“I think some people might listen to the album and think, ‘oh, this is a pop record.’ But the point of it was to do the pop shit only to expose how dark and scary some of the things we are trying to talk about are.”

According to Arnold, their method towards achieving that stylistic goal was to focus on vocal arrangements. “The vocals have always been a big thing for us,” he says.  “Since Spirit World Tour we haven’t been trying to be, like, a shoegaze band. We didn’t want the vocals buried behind the instruments, but in the mix with them–”

“I think we all just love singing,” González interrupts.

“It’s just lit,” Zuko concurs. 

“I think the catharsis is what comes through the most with this kind of music,” González continues. “There was a lot going down for each of us in our personal lives during the making of this. I think just showing up for each other throughout, and being like, we’re still going to be there, even if we are exhausted and depressed and whatever the fuck is happening, was really important.

Having now left their ramshackle studio, Sword II seem unified by the work they completed there. During their time at the house, a friend of the band visited and painted a mural on one of the basement’s walls which can now be seen on the cover of Electric Hour.

“We’ve got a new spot now,” Zuko tells me when I ask about the studio’s fate, “but we saved the mural.”

Gonzalez nods along, a proud smile barely suppressed: “We cut it out of the wall.”

Photography By: Karo Melocra

“I think with this record, I really kind of realized what a romantic I am, and when I look back on how much, and how deeply I feel things when it comes to romance and heartbreak, I think this is a real reflection of that.” 

I recently sat down virtually with Harriette Pilbeam, the voice behind Hatchie, to discuss her new album Liquorice. Pilbeam reflected beautifully on the cinematic influences and romantic rhetoric that shaped the 11-track project, offering a peek into the creative decisions behind her latest work. 

Liquorice marks one of Hatchie’s most intentional and carefully curated releases to date, while still embracing a sense of ease, instinct, and fluidity. Moving organically through shoegaze, indie, and dreampop, the album finds Pilbeam returning to themes of romance, longing, playfulness, and imagination- territory that feels closer to home for Pilbeam. We dove deeper into the thematic mountains she’s scaled to create such a masterful body of work that dances in fictional dreamings. 

Australian native and lead singer of Hatchie, Harriette Pilbeam was born into a musically inclined family; parents pushing the use of instruments on her siblings, and singing three-part harmonies in car rides home with her mother. Pilbeam has always had a notch for music, specifically singing. After branching out from fleeting friend-made bands, the project Hatchie was born alongside her husband, and has been kicking now for eight years. Pilbeam expressed “I feel like I’ve found home”, with Hatchie, feeling like she's recording and writing only of things close to her identity and desires. 

Liquorice, Hatchie’s third full length album, was recorded over the course of a year in Pilbeam’s home base of Melbourne, Australia. She and I spoke about the concepts of time, rest, intentionality, and writing out of an inner-reflective nature, all in the context of her newest release. A prominent point made in Pilbeam and I’s conversation was the importance of careful, authentic creation. Prior/during the recording process, Pilbeam took some time to tend to her relationships with friends, husband. She mentioned “‘Okay, if I'm going to continue doing this, I need to do it in a way that’s emotionally and psychologically sustainable for myself. I can't turn around and realize that I've put my entire life into this project, and the rest of my life has been put on pause.’” Pilbeam took the time to hone herself, in order to later hone her true sound. She came back to what she loved most about making music, and you can hear this purposeful execution laced within her dreamy sonics and lyricism written for poets and lovers alike. “I've been able to listen to the entire album and be so stoked with every single part of the process. And yeah, so in that sense, it feels like a homecoming to me, and it's my real comfort zone” Pilbeam remarks about the making of Liquorice.

Although the project takes Harriette to a place deeply embedded in her identity, she expressed that Liquorice dabbled in fictional storytellings, and anecdotes that reflect the most romantic parts of her, without being autobiographical. Hysterically cry-laughing at romantic films (even given a perfectly stable love life) drove Pilbeam to create what she did; a conglomeration of intimate stories that paint the psychological landscape of a lover. “Anemoia” tracks the longing for memories never lived, “Only One Laughing” traces the maniacal thought process behind “why am I the only one here??”, while “Anchor” stands as a beautiful synth contribution to love’s drowning qualities. 

Feeding into the album's intentionality was the track sequencing. Pilbeam expressed “I’m always thinking about it like a sonic story…I do like the ebb and flows of the builds; the peaks and troughs.” Where track “Carousel” takes your ears in an orbit of sound, consciously mimicking the feelings of a fairground attraction, “Sage” picks up that cyclical nature and plummets you straight to the depths of desperation. Pilbeam remarked “All the extremities really, right?” And Liquorice really is that: The moments of mourning, pining, daydreaming, losing, and moving forward. Hatchie has captured moments that resonate so deeply with a romantic’s ear. I tasked Pilbeam with ruminating on what her past self would think of her newest project Liquorice and she told me this: “Great question, I think she’d be happy. There was a time when I set so many parameters and rules for myself, I think she’d be a little taken aback just by how I leaned into certain sounds, but I still think she’d be stoked. Yeah, yeah I think she would.” 

After the creation of the 11-track playbook to dreamy intimacy, Pilbeam feels she has landed herself in a spot where she’s found her flow. “I’m really paying more attention to having a balance of Hatchie and the rest of my life. There was a time where my entire life was dedicated to Hatchie, because I believed that was the only way it would be successful. But then I kind of had to turn around, and redefine what ‘successful’ meant to me.” Liquorice stands today, as Harriette Pilbeam’s (as well as Hatchie’s) success, and rightfully so. 

Photography By: Bianca Edwards

“You gotta love what you do” is an expression driven into cliche through overuse by self help gurus and LinkedIn influencers alike, but it remains pertinent for songwriting. You can tell when a record is trying too hard to be something it is not, attempting a tad too much to push the envelope and offer something they think audiences and the oversaturated market might deem as ‘fresh’. Likewise, a record created with earnestness, and more importantly, fun, has a sense of inviting life no matter its style or substance.

For Whitney, finding their joy was a priority. Following the mixed reception to more experimental offering Sparks (at least in comparison to the critical acclaim of previous records), the duo decided to park all thoughts about critical reception and expectation of what Whiteny should become, instead choosing to go back to the basics of what Whintey was and is. The result is a record that eclipses even the heady heights of their debut, the perfect distillation of what continues to make the band so endearing.

We meet the day before Small Talk is released to the world, yet even at this preliminary stage you can sense the excitement and confidence emanating from the duo. They’ve rekindled what made them want to make music together in the first place, and it shows. “It was a lot more fun,” as guitarist Max Kakacek succinctly puts it. “After the last record being a tougher experience in terms of critical and commercial acclaim, it was a bit of a challenge. We just needed to have fun again, and this felt like making a record with good friends.”

Although clearly a testing time for the band, it speaks to their endurance that they are able to be invigorated by the experience.

“Regardless of how Sparks was received, I think our writing method and creative partnership was strengthened from that record”

says Max. The pay off from that experience has become more and more evident, a point that isn’t lost on drummer and vocalist Julien Ehrlich. “It definitely feels like, not the polar opposite to the last record, but the response has been incredibly warmer” he admits. “Those who have really spent time listening to it are into it.” 

Instead of shrinking into their shells, it appears the tribulations of Sparks inspired the duo to strip things back to basics and place full faith in their own abilities. Small Talk is the first time they have self produced a record, the majority of which was composed over three weeks in an Oregon barn stockpiled with various musical bits and bobs accumulated over the years. 

“One of the things a producer brings in is the seriousness of the studio, and sometimes that makes things feel a little less charming,” Julian says. “Honestly the pace in which we recorded the foundations was pretty much the same as if we had a producer. We were all working a bit with a producer's brain, all trying to keep more of a perspective and trying things we wouldn’t instinctively try on our own.”

“That was one of the benefits of self producing,” Max adds. “The charm of being somewhat naive in the recording process, it feels a little less perfected from an engineering standpoint.” 

For a band that is instinctively drawn to pouring over the minutia of a track for days on end (“90% of the time” Max admits with a chuckle), those three weeks gave Whitney the time and space to follow the missteps and stumbles of writing without losing their critical edge. 

“If you’ve heard the pitch and tempo at which we recorded ‘The Thread’, you’d be like were y’all on drugs? It’s so slow it's insane, we really turned the tape machine up on that one,” says Julian. “We are so meticulous with what BMPs we are recording songs at,” Max adds. “Sometimes we’ll pitch the entire mix up a tiny bit at the end of the process, we always want to make sure the groove is never compromised.”

With the foundations of the record laid down in Oregon, the finishing flourishes were finalised in the pair’s home of Chicago, where their cavalier approach speaks volumes as to the warmth they managed to capture. Small Talk manages to be both intimate and lush, as well as sounding as expansive and epic as Whitney ever has in the past. The strings and horns, which at times sound as if they were taken from a hundred piece orchestra in a grand European Church, are all the more impressive given their modest origins.

“The funniest part is it was literally recorded in our dining room off a busy street in Chicago,” explains Max. “We used this $200 Soviet Union microphone from a guy in Indiana who has an in for all these old Soviet era microphones, and it literally looks like a hand grenade and sounds like trash, and that's how we recorded all the strings, and they sound incredible! But how we did them was in the most crude way possible.”

Despite the majesty these sections bring to the record, Small Talk still manages to carry the warmth of a group of friends making music they love, for the love of it, something which is very evident from the manner in which they brought the album to life.

“For the gang vocals [on the album], we just had a party in our apartment and put two microphones down and had all our friends sing as our trumpet player, Will Miller, conducted everyone,” says Max.

“It was Fathers Day, so my dad was actually there because we had dinner before, and he can't sing, someone told him to stop on that recording! But there was something about recording in that space; it felt like the first record. Having friends who can play violin just sitting in our dining room and playing strings was a nice callback to that.”

It makes sense that the creation of Small Talk came to a close in Chicago. The comfort of home is something Whitney has always appreciated, and for Max in particular, Chicago continues to provide the perfect surroundings for their work. 

“I grew up in the city, and my family has been in that zone forever, like pre-Chicago Fire! 

But I’ve also kinda found a new side of the city. I’ve picked up soccer, I found areas I'd ignored in my adult life, having only focused on the music community. But that community is really supportive, it functions like a small town. We played two hometown shows recently and every musician you kinda know is there, all the promoters and venue owners too, it feels very homely and wonderful honestly.”

To aspiring musicians with boundless hopes and dreams, the bright lights and promise of LA or New York can be too tempting to resist. But after a decade as a band and even longer as musicians, Whitney knows such allures aren’t always the golden ticket they seem.

“[In Chicago] There is a certain energy that the industry is less accessible, so people work a certain type of way to prove themselves to get out of the city,” explains Max. “To play in New York from Chicago, the bands have to have a little bit more musicianship and are a little tighter, because it's not just outside their front door; they have to work to get there. When someone does have a moment of success from the city, everyone is just rooting for them. It’s not competitive in the way LA or New York can be at times.”

“There isn't necessarily a ladder to climb in Chicago," Julian adds. “People aren't meeting up to network. It really is just more blue collar, everyone gets their work done and puts out the best work they can, and not try to game the industry.”

As alluring as the comforts of home are for Whitney, being in a band means a great deal of time away on the road. Not that this isn’t something they relish, particularly with the energy of Small Talk backing them up. 

“We have a propensity to write slower and sadder songs,” admits Max.

“Writing faster songs is a little more challenging for us, but there are some straight up fast heaters on this album that we haven't done before. Having these in the set makes it easier to write a set list, it makes for a more energetic set.”

“This time, we’re letting it have its own identity as a live show. People are stretching out a little more, some of the solo sections are completely different. The chorus for ‘Evangeline’ (a standout track from the record with guest vocals from the fantastic Madison Cunningham) is a different take on the song, it's been fun to do and something we’ve never really done before.”

Julian is quick to add, “We might have to call a homie to play timpani, which is not something I would have expected even a few years ago!”

“They pocket so nicely with the older material, it reinforces the record to me,” adds Max. “It makes me feel like this is in our strongest wheelhouse, and we can set ourselves up for a good show for the next two years.”

It’s a confidence that is fully merited. Whitney knows they’ve hit a sweet spot after a few years of being uncertain of who they wanted to be. It seems they knew all along, and are now ready to show it to the world in all its sweet and melancholic glory. 

Small Talk is out now, with a UK and Ireland tour starting in February next year.

Photography By: Alexa Viscius

Even as an American, the vastness of this country is hard to fully grasp. While its two coasts may have some shared political preferences, there’s as many miles between the two states spiritually as there are physically. For Skullcrusher, the difference in living on one coast versus another is best measured in how people express their isolation. 

“Darkness still exists in LA, but the way it manifests is less physical,” she relays to me in a Ridgewood coffee shop, with business in full-swing for the remote workers around us. “I felt physically better [there], but there’s a hallucinatory feeling to life.”

Helen Ballantine, the woman behind the moniker, suits the cold weather and physical darkness that weaves into everyday life here, whether it be the parade of honking cars in the city, or the hushed dread of upstate’s frigid winter gloaming. While it took some adjustment, she’s learned to weather them once again, after returning to life here for the first time since adolescence. After the dissolution of a long romantic relationship, she lived with her mother for a year in Hudson, NY, before living on her own in the greater Hudson Valley. Utilizing her new backdrop, she gradually built what would become her second album. 

“Darkness still exists in LA, but the way it manifests is less physical.”

And Your Song Is Like A Circle is not only her strongest work to date, but represents a fully-formed version of her image and mystique. The expansion into more intricate soundscapes brilliantly captures ephemeral hauntings born of the region’s long winters. And while many of the feelings that inform her work are the same as they’ve been previously, having a landscape that matches her own fluctuations in energy has been a source of comfort. That parade of cars requires less motivation to honk, and it’s difficult to walk down a street absent the huffs and groans from tired masses, but there is a respectable honesty to all of it that brings relief.

That same character of urban frankness, but importantly also its genuineness, sits within Ballantine also. We connect over a deep love of animals, as she discusses the impact of her cat Finn (an adorable ginger tabby) with me, considering how talking about a pet you love with a stranger requires an unexpected amount of trepidation. That bond can be equivalent to one she has with the closest of companions , yet it’s rarely discussed with the same level of respect.

He’s been a valued presence as she grapples with the insecurity that is inevitable to her  after releasing a project. While the process builds for her a stronger sense of self when it’s all said and done, it’s admittedly a bit weird having strangers perceive and comment upon this personal expression written and recorded in intimate bedrooms over the past two years. 

In Hudson Valley bedrooms, she worked in fits and starts through a particularly difficult writing process that “felt like an exorcism.” However, the actual recording process with producer Isaac Eiger proved remarkably smooth and focused. All tracks were recorded in Eiger’s Bushwick bedroom, starting with ‘Changes’, a moment that set the tone for the ambiance the album would pursue. His skills, synthesizer prowess and easy company seemed to provide the ideal working environment for Helen, who describes the process as feeling “[unlike] making a record. You’re just playing together, developing a friendship and giving yourself social structure.”

Long influenced by Grouper, she has often incorporated synthesizers and electronics in her distinctive ambient realms, but their collaboration yielded the greatest sonic divergence of her material to date. Of particular influence was the song ‘Touch Absence’ by Lenarc Artifax, which captures a profound sense of particularly digital alienation that bleeds into the unsettled fabric of And Your Song Is Like A Circle. 

She articulates that feeling as “following a path that was unravelling.” A difficult, and largely inevitable strain of discomfort that approaches alongside one’s 30s, which just happened to coincide with a complete change of environment. It’s been a moment of coming to terms with what she’s built to sustain her future, and what characters in the journey are now in the rearview, unlikely to return.

Ballantine’s family and new friends that built up this support system, both in the rural upstate and nearby metropolis, were essential in moving forward. After touring together, she’s developed a strong bond with the band Florist; members of a small, mighty scene of sensitive, soundscape-oriented songwriters in the city. The friendship brought not just musical influence, but a new partner, their guitarist Johnnie, who she’s been dating for the last two years.

While the life that brought forth her last album (2022’s Quiet the Room) is distant, she maintains that any sonic and lyrical evolution on And Your Song Is Like A Circle was mostly subconscious. For her, songwriting functions as a physical action that allows her to reflect without being critical to her own thoughts. While that is prone to change as the songs get fleshed out and recorded, her initial creation process thrives on spontaneity. 

This musical process started as an escape from the intensely competitive environment of the prestigious secondary school she attended. Surrounded by peers driven by academia and sometimes sensitive to the criticism her writing would get in this environment, her music allowed her to express her identity without the fear of a letter grade laminated on her thoughts. Yet, as her music gathered attention and garnered reviews, she has found old appraisals of her work return: “The criticism I got is kind of the same as now - I can have trouble completing my thought.”

However, the idea of a thought as an abstract concept and what it means for one’s self or one’s idea to be complete or incomplete, became defining themes of the songs that make up And Your Song Is Like A Circle. Indeed, she shares that the album’s title connects to this idea of incompleteness and pure emotional expression, rotating as a circle, through a perpetual ebb and flow. 

Whether or not her songs register as a complete thought to every listener, her fanbase has only continued to grow as she sets out on an extensive tour. She’ll be playing some impressive venues, including a headlining slot at the legendary Music Hall of Williamsburg. Yet, no matter the size of the place she’s playing, she feels comfortable as long as the crowd is listening with good intentions, which is rarely (if ever), in doubt amongst her supporters.

Having already achieved plenty at just 30 years old, she relays one final anecdote as we finish our coffee and end the discussion. Despite her having requested to change her birthplace on Wikipedia to Manhattan, she has been denied by the editors and questions what it’ll take to get it changed. Perhaps some day the vanguard of online knowledge will accept the edit, and with it make new fans aware that her new life in New York is a return, rather than a reset.  

Photography By: Adam Alonzo

If Grammy-winning Revealer introduced Madison Cunningham as a staple in the music and songwriting world, her new album Ace cements her place as one of its leading champions. Released on October 10, 2025, by Verve Forecast Records, Ace, her third album, embodies Cunningham's creative and personal evolution. The album combines raw lyricism with lush melodies, guiding listeners through a journey of heartbreak and reinvention.

Together with her long-time bandmates, Cunningham showcases a sharper vision, perfecting her sound while venturing into new sonic territories. She layers her signature guitar work with piano-based arrangements, strings, and woodwind textures, crafting a more intimate and immersive experience. The album also features a collaboration with Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, who lends his vocals to the track ‘Wake,’ where Cunningham's virtuoso finger-picking shines.

The album is raw and revealing, evoking the intensity of heartbreak and emotional turmoil, while ultimately assuring listeners they are not alone in the struggle.

I caught up with Madison Cunningham to talk about the album while she was driving on the I-5 returning from Big Sur (one of the most beautiful places in California).

When Ace finally arrived on October 10th, the moment felt strangely bittersweet for Cunningham. “It’s a mixed bag of relief,” they admitted, “and then also this sort of sadness that comes from the buildup being over.” After months of anticipation, releasing the record was both a release and a reckoning. A moment to let go of something deeply personal and hope it found its place in the world. “I’m not going to tour for a couple of months,” Cunningham said, “so that’s kind of a nice reprieve. But I also feel this dread of wondering what’s next,  you kind of just wish the album luck and hope you did everything you could to support it.”

It’s remarkable to think that Ace was written in roughly a month, or two, as Cunningham clarified, especially given the period of creative drought that preceded it. She said she was already working on a few songs but the turnaround began with a move to a new apartment, which sparked what Cunningham called “a real spiritual turn.” She added it was “a real breaking open of the language around what I wanted to say.” 

Coupled with being a part of a small, close knit songwriter group, Cunningham found some “high stakes” inspiration. “We were challenging each other to do a song a week. And the rule was like, if you didn't submit anything, then you would get kicked off of the group chat,” said Cunningham with a laugh, “So the stakes are pretty high, something about that pressure pushed me off the cliff in the way that I needed to be pushed.”

The first song to emerge from that challenge was ‘Skeletree,’ which ended up on the album. “I just felt like the whole thing was fully formed as an arrangement and as a concept,” Cunningham recalled. “It was the start of an avalanche of other ideas. I felt relieved that there were still words left, that there was still something to say.”

From there, things picked up quickly. Cunningham and her band began rehearsing weekly in bassist Daniel Ryan’s sweltering downtown Los Angeles practice room. “It was the middle of summer, so it was really brutal,” Cunningham said, “But for the most part, I was bringing in full arrangements. That was something I hadn’t done before, rehearsing with the same band I’d record with. It saved so much time because we had all this muscle memory.”

Musically, Ace draws from a wide range of influences, but Cunningham credits Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks and Iron & Wine’s Light Verse as the most formative. “I was really enamored by how Dylan dances around general, universal ideas and pairs them with intimate, specific details,” they said. “That marriage between those two things is staggering. I wanted my songs to feel that way too. Sometimes general, sometimes deeply intimate.”

The album also features Robin Pecknold of Fleet Foxes, who joined on the track ‘‘Wake.’ “I was so amazed by Robin,” Cunningham said. “He studied the harmony I’d written and came into the studio completely prepared. He wanted to match my exact cadence, tone, and volume. It really revealed how much of a vocal genius he is. The way he hears music and creates feeling from his voice, it’s very classic, very special. He made the whole thing fly for me.”

Not long after the album’s release, Cunningham took Ace to late-night television with a performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live! After watching the video, which looked seamless and colorful, I asked her about how the experience was. “There was no audience,” Cunningham said. “The clip doesn’t lead you to believe that, but it was strange. There were a lot of people moving around and talking while we were trying to make music, so it felt a little chaotic.” Still, the end result made Cunningham proud. The set itself was a creative collaboration with director Nick Steinhardt, inspired by live performance videos the pair had made earlier in the summer. “We collaged ideas from all three of those videos into that Kimmel stage set,” Cunningham explained.

Looking ahead to the upcoming tour, Cunningham spoke on what she’s most excited for on the UK/European leg. “I’m looking forward to Ireland and always Paris,” Cunningham said, “Europe very much excites me in general. I’m excited to be there and to have good food, good drinks.” After going on a short tangent, nerding out on guitars and describing the glorious amount of guitar shops in London, I had a final question for her. The one lyric from ‘Best of Us’, “I drive faster when the music’s good, it drives me open like talking never could” sparked a final question: what songs make Cunningham feel that way?

“‘Fast as You Can’ by Fiona Apple. That one really gets my blood flowing every time.” She describes a freeway near her house. It’s a rare Los Angeles road that’s never backed up and a perfect setting to listen to that song. To be free to go a little faster. Which I argue is somewhat synonymous with the themes of Ace. The rawness of struggle and then seeing the opening, the rapid ascent to self liberation. 

Though not on a rare empty Californian freeway overlooking the ocean, I listened to ‘Fast as You Can’ while on my Northern line commute to class the next day. Cunningham was right. It felt a bit faster I think. 

Madison Cunningham will be taking Ace on the road starting early 2026, with a stop at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush on March 4th.

Photography By: Sean Stout

London’s live circuit can be a brutal teacher, but for this seven-piece, it’s been the making of them. Emerging from the capital with a sound that’s “apparently quite hard to describe,” the band has carved out their own peculiar corner of modern rock. “It is essentially rock music but through some weird framing and strange lenses,” they explain.

“It can be confessional, sad or sometimes funny. Mostly it is honest and a real attempt at making interesting rock music.”

Their latest single ‘Hattrick’ is proof of that restless ambition. “Thank you! It was the hardest to complete on this EP, and upon receiving the initial demos our producer politely told us to rework it,” they say. “Hattrick bridges the gap between 75 and 76; it’s still loud and maximalist in places, but we strip back and are playful in ways we weren’t on the first record. Writing it was a long process, but ultimately it was a sequence of sections that we painstakingly stitched into this song which really should not exist, and yet, in spite of itself, does.”

That EP, Plan 76, arrives just months after its predecessor Plan 75, a decision driven less by industry logic than by momentum. “The simple answer is that we could,” they admit. “We work really hard and are constantly pushing for as many songs as possible, and it felt that Plan 75 asked more questions than it answered, so it made sense to address those before we started work on an LP. Also, it has bought us time for really nailing our next batch of material; we can kind of hide behind this release and perfect our first full length record. Which we are doing. To great effect.”

Much of that perfectionism can be traced to their producer, Balázs Altsach, who the band describe with genuine awe. “Once our songs are finished in our eyes, we take them straight to him and he comes back with these crazily ambitious arrangement ideas and helps form what the song will be in the studio setting,” they say. “Watching him work is quite daunting. Especially when you would go to bed at about 3am and, in his words, he was just going to finish ‘massaging’ the tunes before he slept, and then you would wake up around 8am and make a coffee and stroll into the control room and he was still, in his words, ‘massaging’ the tunes before a full day of tracking. In short, it was produced by magic.”

That mix of intensity and humour runs through everything they do. They’ve jokingly described their sound as “London prog,” a term that’s half self-deprecating, half sincere.

“We’ve taken inspiration from the world of prog; mainly its ambition, and I guess that naturally has slipped through our collective lens of living in the capital, hence the London part,” they explain. “In all honesty, that was a label we were rocking at the end of last year, and I guess it has stuck, but the next batch of material (beyond 76) would be hard to define as very proggy. It’s a means to an end. And that end is finding an accurate answer to the question of what music it is that we make. We do not know.”

Visually, their identity is just as thought-out, though handled with a lighter touch. “That’s all on Bill,” they say. “He takes a lot of pride in providing artistic direction. It is very much an auteur process; no one gets in the way and he’s left to do what he wants.”

If their visuals and recordings suggest meticulousness, their live reputation tells a story of scale and energy. Before even releasing a full EP, they had already played Green Man, End of the Road, and Latitude. “It showed us that (surprise, surprise) we enjoy big stages and big audiences,” they say. “It is where we want to be and those early experiences really focused us all into working towards that goal. It also taught us that our music can work in those environments, and it doesn’t need to be part of a niche scene or tucked away in pubs. That being said, we will always play in small spaces and pubs. Ultimately they are best shows.”

Thematically, Plan 76 is said to “complete the first story,” though they’re reluctant to give too much away. “It would ruin the experience if we, or mainly Joe, told all. But, without being too cryptic, it’s concerned with love and loss; and constantly plays with extremes - emotionally and instrumentally.”

That emotional range is born from a sometimes-chaotic writing process. “Joe brings most of the starting points; ideas at varying levels of completion, but normally quite a thorough sketch and we work together to make it a ‘band’ song,” they explain.

“A big part of these two records have been arrangement, and that’s what takes the longest. We can be ruthless about ideas and we’ve all had to learn how to deal with someone saying they’re not keen on something. It’s a delicate space.”

Living and playing in London has sharpened that collective edge. “London has shaped us insofar as it’s a place where you have to be incredibly ambitious to make it in the genres we aim for,” they reflect. “There’s an awful lot of good or even great bands kicking around and there is a constant feeling of flux (and gossip); you kind of know what everyone is up to, and that can be a source of impetus to push better music and outreach or sometimes it can make you feel pangs of regrettable envy. Musicians in any place should always be on the same team because, as much as people may dismiss it, they offer experiences that make human beings feel really good, and a lot of our industry uses that to extract wealth from performers and writers.”

Now, as they prepare for their biggest headline show yet at Scala, they seem both grounded and hungry. “It’s going to be our greatest show yet. We’re putting a lot of work into it so for everyone there it’ll feel like an insanely special occasion,” they promise.

“They should expect something unexpected.”

As Plan 76 draws a line under the band’s first chapter, there’s a feeling that something bigger is taking shape. They’ve built their sound through patience, humour, and an instinct for controlled chaos, and that tension between precision and unpredictability is exactly what makes them so compelling. Standing on the edge of their biggest show yet, they sound like a band who know where they’re headed, even if the joy lies in not having to define it.

Photography By: Chloe Hancock

A shelter is a mid-journey place of rest, a temporary hideaway from the outside to restore the inside, and protection from something harmful, out of our control. Shelter is also the title of Alice Phoebe Lou’s new album. “I started writing it at a time when I stopped having an apartment, all of a sudden,” Alice says, “I had to deal with suddenly not having a home when touring life as a musician is quite intense. It's really important to have a base.” Finding herself without a solid ground under her feet, she had to create a home within.  

“It's a place to feel yourself and to be proud and happy with yourself and to give yourself love. I like how the songs ended up feeling like a release. A celebration in a way.”

The artist not only succeeded in building a sweet foundation rooted in past decades’ music but discovered the joy that comes with growth. "The point is to heal through looking into yourself and what you've been through and helping yourself go to the next phase in your life,” Alice explains. 

Starting with a radical self-care and revising archive, Alice collected new, runaway feelings and words of youth – songs she’d finish now, after years of storing them unfinished. “It became a reflective album, looking back on who I was, as a young woman starting my music busking in Berlin to now and reflecting on: What's the next step? What is home? Where do I want that to be next?”. 

Just before we get fixed on the future, let’s reflect with Alice. The South African, Berlin-based independent artist has been staffing tiny empty places in-between the everyday craze with invaluable moments of appreciation. Being consistently genius in her self-made indie-pop/folk magic, with every release she’d remind us that there’s beauty to be found in temporary bliss and lonesome battles. Ever since her 2016 debut album Orbit, followed up by 2019’s Paper Castles and two albums in 2021 – Glow and Child’s Play, Lou has been focused on what’s important. Instead of giving us the potential viral material without much thought, she chooses raw emotions and straightforward words. It means so much more. 

“I started with the last two records, writing very intuitively, just improvising the words and letting it really become a stream of consciousness, saying my innermost feelings unfiltered.” Shelter is a patchwork album, written in countless cities and recorded in six different countries on a tour. “I wouldn't do that again. But it was an amazing thing for the album then because it's talking about home while being so scattered and not really having a ground,” Alice says. 

‘Underneath the armour that I wear/There's something sweet and full of care,’ sings Lou in the first seconds of the title single, ‘Shelter.’ “I was having a hard time and feeling quite insecure. I needed to find ways of writing songs with a bit of hope and light in them.” Projecting your inner self on the public person that’s (un)voluntarily basking in the spotlight can carry its dangers. It’s not easy to revolt against the expectations and influence of the audience. “It's so important to come back to yourself and why you do what you do and not get lost in how it's perceived,” Alice states.

“I feel like I've reached places where I'm much more comfortable with myself and hopefully making decisions from the right place. Insecurities come and go.”

‘I'm done putting everyone in front of me, yeah/ I just have to look out for myself,’ the single leaves us with a life lesson – save yourself first, love yourself first. Another single from Shelter, ‘Open My Door’ is a cautionary tale of what can happen if you don’t listen. Yet, it doesn’t suggest stopping. ‘But I made my whole world safer for everyone but me’, is a turning point. 

“It all comes down to not really prioritizing your emotions, but feeling like you need to feel sadness and pain and love and all these things and to experience life in all its different colours. I've always found that dealing with your problems and being able to take yourself further means looking back and understanding what's come before.” In the early stages, Alice treated songwriting like therapy. Twisting together diary entries with spontaneous poems, the artist made each song into a little haven of intimacy. Though creating from deeply personal pieces, the bigger picture of an album is so relatable to the human experience. 

For this delicate dynamic to occur on the record, everything else must be kept strict. Every decision matters. “I've always just really enjoyed being completely in control of my music creatively and in the business. It's important to have people around you that support you. But it's wonderful to be able to just depend on yourself.” Alice always kept her finger on the pulse of her career and away from a bigger musical structure. It paid off.

“I've always wanted to be able to, at the end of the day, just rely on myself.”

Alice is still busker at heart. Despite the international recognition, playing impromptu shows in public is what keeps her grounded: “I just have myself to rely on. That's nice, having community and engaging, but also just knowing that you got your own back.” On warm Sunday afternoons lucky Berliners, led by a usually day-before social media announcement, have pleasure of witnessing Alice Phoebe Lou’s magic in its natural habitat. “I enjoy it on many levels. It's the symbol of my summer,” Alice adds. 

The music industry can be a relentless machine. Once put in motion, it’s tricky to stop it. Acquainted with this side of it, Alice learnt how to operate it so it’s a friend, not a foe. “I'm very fortunate with the band that I have and the sense of taking care of ourselves and each other that we have. We all don't really drink alcohol. Not to be square but it is quite a big thing on tour. There's always alcohol everywhere. It can get quite intense. I'm really happy that we just take it easy and are quite a cosy bunch of people,” she shares. Amid the touring chaos, different stages daily and fans that expect you to always deliver your best, Alice knows where to search for peace. “Really enjoying the cities that you go to and finding a way to get some time to yourself. Using the time to read, write, contact family and talk to people so you're not so isolated because the rhythm and the routine of it can make you feel quite disconnected from the world. Finding connection.”  

That’s what Shelter ultimately is about – finding connection. Let’s start with ourselves, then with the surroundings and lastly with one another. Alice Phoebe Lou shows us that prioritising self-care is not an act of selfishness but quite the contrary. Having already created a safe space for herself, she passes on her temporary home. We gladly accept it, grateful for the gift. Sometimes, a pre-loved shelter is what we need to save ourselves, scraping leftover hope from the walls, in the hidden spot where previous users left it.

Photography By: Miriam Waldner & Lexi Hide
Interview Taken from Still Listening Magazine ISSUE SIX: 31/06/2023

Snooper come across like a band that can’t sit still. Twitchy, restless, and bursting with ideas that move as fast as the songs they write, their energy spills out beyond the stage and the studio. Their new album Worldwide captures that hyperactive spirit but also pushes it further, stretching the raw, jagged immediacy of their debut into something stranger, more experimental, and defiantly hard to pin down.

“We are Snooper, a band based in Nashville, Tennessee. We make fast music that is hard to categorise into one specific genre,” they explain. “Having previously played in Hardcore and Punk bands, Connor Cummins, the guitarist and primary song writer of Snooper, draws musical influences from all over. We (Blair and Connor) like to play fast. We like to make music that makes people want to move. We like to bring a lot of energy to a stage and we like loud, punchy music. Currently, we have been drawing inspiration from electronic music. We care deeply about how the music is presented in a live setting and have created a world around the music by adding visual elements to our live shows.”

That world building, sonic, visual and conceptual, has been given new space to breathe thanks to legendary producer John Congleton, who worked with the band on Worldwide. “John allowed out these songs to have room to breathe. We demoed all of the songs at home, before going into the studio with John. At home, we record everything with Connor’s 8 track. This style of analog recording is inherently limiting, which is what we love about it. While loyal to this method of demoing songs, we were able to really experiment in the studio with John. Since the majority of these songs had never been played live, we felt completely free to follow them in whatever direction they ended up being taken. This was a completely new experience for us as the songs on our previous record, Super Snooper, were all rerecorded songs. We think of Super Snooper as being more of a live studio recording. Worldwide is a totally different story.”

That willingness to leap into the unknown shows up in tracks like ‘Pom Pom,’ a song that turns cheerleading into self-empowerment. “To be completely honest, this song was inspired by The Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders,” Blair says, grinning. “I don’t know anything about football, but I loved the recent docuseries about the team’s cheerleaders that came out this year on Netflix. I could go on and on, but I watched that docuseries at a time when I was home, redeveloping my own sense of self worth. I think it’s important to cheer for yourself. It’s also important to sit things out from time to time and to really take a close look at what you’re supporting.”

Snooper’s relationship with performance is rooted in connection, born out of the isolation of the pandemic and sharpened into something visceral once the world reopened. “I (Blair) originally saw Snooper as a recording project. I thought Snooper would be a great project to exist online. I hoped that Connor would write the music and I could make music videos and that we would create this weird niche internet art thing. Connor loves playing music live so it was inevitable that we would play live at some point, but Snooper started at the point in the pandemic when it really felt like it was never going to end. The world felt really weird (and scary and lonely) at that time and I think that’s important to note. I think when the pandemic did end and people could enjoy live music again, it felt really important to connect with the audience as much as possible because it had previously felt very difficult to do so. We have always cared to connect with the crowd, in fact I think it is the most important thing about being a band. We try to bring as much energy as we possibly can to our live shows.”

That manic energy is balanced by humour and a streak of self-awareness. “Snooper is very serious!!! Just kidding, but I do think it’s funny how serious some people take their music. Snooper is imperfect. We know that. It’s a creative project. It is a space for experimentation that we have carved out and invited others into. Snooper shows are an experience that we figure out together in real time. I love puppeteering at a Snooper show because that’s how I connect with the crowd. I personally love when bands perform instead of when they just play their instruments on stage. We take our music seriously and there is a difference between being silly and having fun. We have fun!”

Part of that fun comes from their visual universe, which has become inseparable from the music. “I think that creating a visual world around your band is so fun. I am actually pretty obsessed with the idea of world building and adding characters to this world. I like to think that different characters represent different eras of the band and I think as the band continues to grow, our visual world also continues to expand. It is fun to keep things fresh and exciting while remaining anchored to what we initially started by tying everything together with familiar visual elements. The bug has become a mascot of sorts for us and it’s fun to see how he changes with our music. Our music changes, but some elements of the band are timeless.”

What makes Worldwide so vital is Snooper’s willingness to embrace risk. “We used to only write songs that we felt could easily be reproduced and played in live settings, so we wouldn’t take risks or experiment too much in the studio,” they admit. This time around, the band pushed themselves far past that comfort zone. “On Worldwide we added more electronic percussion, different effects on vocals and instruments, creating two separate experiences instead of keeping the recordings limited to what could be reproduced exactly the same in a live setting.” The result is an album that treats the stage and the record as two different playgrounds, both chaotic but never bound by the same rules.

That spirit of unpredictability ties back to the artists Snooper are absorbing and reshaping into their own vision. “Personally I’m most inspired by what some people call ‘future music,’ which is basically artists who are blending multiple genres,” they say. “Yves Tumor, Machine Girl, The Garden, 100 Gecs, Jane Remover, TAGABOW… Turnstile as well. I think when someone says “this band used to be (genre) but aren’t anymore” and others say “no they are still (genre) it’s just different” then you have created something that is hard to classify, future music!” Worldwide doesn’t just take from these influences, it speaks the same hybrid language, existing somewhere between punk chaos and the disorienting sheen of electronic invention.

Spend any time with Snooper and it becomes clear that their world is built not just on riffs and visuals but on the details of everyday obsessions. Blair lights up when they talk about “Freak Nature Puppets, Italian ice from Publix, thinking about the elaborate dinner parties I am going to host for my friends (only thinking about them), Feeble Little Horse, Sun Electric, getting my nails done with my mom, Abwarts, cool videos on YouTube.” Connor, meanwhile, reels off a list of his own current fixations: “N/A Lagers, Humbuckers, Memphis Rap, Steel City Dance Discs, Carpet Company socks, smokehouse almonds, Warp Records, Japanese cuisine, Country Teasers.” These touchpoints, at once trivial and profound, seep into the sound and personality of the band, feeding their energy with a sense of curiosity and humour.

But Snooper are just as clear-eyed about what they reject as what they embrace. “I.C.E. and how the US government is synthesizing division and weaponizing fear,” Blair says sharply. “I also hate the way women and trans rights are being threatened.” Connor echoes the frustration from a different angle: “Trump, inflation, everyone in small music scenes shit talking each other, public genocide becoming almost like a reality tv show, being sick, gear breaking on tour/at shows, Sweetwater only sending you the worst candy.” That balance between joy and fury, silliness and seriousness, is part of what makes Snooper tick: they move fast, they play loud, they connect with the crowd, but they never lose sight of the wider world they’re thrashing against.

On the road with The Hives, Snooper found a glimpse of their future selves. “Watching all of the Hives, particularly Pelle, go crazy on stage night after night was something that will stick with me. When you think about bands long term you sometimes wonder ‘will I be able to perform like this every night when I’m older?’ They are proof that energy transcends time!”

Worldwide feels less like a conventional punk record and more like an invitation into Snooper’s ever-mutating universe, where speed, humour, visual spectacle, and raw emotion all collide. They’re not interested in fitting into genre boxes or reproducing the same show every night. They want to create an experience that is alive, unpredictable, and impossible to stand still through. As they put it themselves, the mission is simple but powerful: “I hope Worldwide makes people want to move!!!”

Photography By: Emily Moses

I’m on a Zoom call with the lead singer of the New York-based band Geese, Cameron Winter. “Not quite as much dick and balls on this one,” he says in response to my praise of the video for the song Cowboy Nudes. He’s in a bowling alley in Yonkers, shooting a video for one of the tracks from their latest album 3D Country.

“It doesn’t make much sense financially at all,” he continues. “It’s really just throwing money in the toilet.”

I tell him how much I love the new album. “We worked hard on it, you know. It’s different from Projector. I think it was the best we could do over the last two years or so. It’s our best shot.”

I bring up the dreaded word: pandemic.

“Like everybody, we just couldn’t play shows. I mean, I guess the album was sort of pandemic related, but it’s more — it’s a little bit beyond the scope of the pandemic. In some ways, it was a blessing in disguise just because it gave us time to consciously develop ourselves as a band. We sucked at our instruments right about when labels were taking an interest. So, it was great that they couldn’t see us play live. It definitely was kind of a blessing.”

Up to this point, I hadn’t seen his face and none of his bandmates had joined yet. I was staring at a black screen.

What was the recording process like on this album? I ask, as a mop of hair appears briefly on the screen and then promptly disappears.

“We were listening to a lot of records when we were writing that are so tight. I think the biggest thing is we wanted to make the record musically as tight as we could, so we practiced the songs relentlessly before we went into the studio. It was two straight months of us practising the songs over and over again. So, by the time we went into the studio, we knew how to play them, which was good, because when we did Projector, we would learn the song right before we recorded it, record it, and that’s what you hear on the record. It was definitely a different process.”

I can see someone else is trying to join the call. It’s Max Bassin, the drummer. As he comes in, I ask what musically tight records they were listening to during the recording.

“Just a lot of old stuff, honestly, like just 70s studio smut stuff. A lot of Ween, which I feel emboldened us to give more of a sense of humour to the stuff. Projector was trying to be very serious — everything’s dark and reverbed out. But on this, I wanted more of a sense of fun.” He pauses. “I think the vocals definitely got a lot weirder on the album just because I discovered a love for weird vocal affectation.”

“I feel like Radiohead is one of those ones where all of us independently like grew up on it,” Max chimes in. “They’re in our DNA to a degree. I feel like I’m always really scared that we’re just going to sound like Radiohead because so many bands try to sound like Radiohead, and it doesn’t work. It was the same thing with the Beatles. I know when we were doing this record, everyone was rediscovering the Beatles simultaneously. That was also very important, I think.”

What about at the moment? I ask.

“Scott Walker. Max and I are listening to a lot of Scott Walker. A ton of Scott Walker,” Cameron says, just as Foster, the drummer, joins the call. They put him on the spot and ask what he’s listening to.

“I was just out getting coffee and talking to Cameron about this yesterday. I have been going through a bit of a Blonde On Blonde phase,” he says. “Bob Dylan’s so good at building a whole song around one lyric. It’s great,” Cameron adds.

I can sense these guys are close, so I’m curious how it all began.

“Cameron and I have known each other since lower school,” Max says. “We must have been going to school together since we were three or four. We became friends around third grade, and then we realized that we were really into music and then started a band. And we knew Emily our other guitarist, from middle school as well. And then they left and went to school with Foster. And then they made the grand ol’ connection, and everyone has been friends ever since.”

He continues, “But this band started as Cameron and I were going to record music or try to. I don’t know if we had definitive plans to play it live or anything. So, it just slowly evolved. Then Emily joined, Dominic joined, Foster joined, and then we recorded Projector in our senior year. So, we were like a full-fledged band for a couple of years before doing Projector. Not a good band, but we were a band.”

Any bitter ex-members who wish they were still in the band? I ask.

“I was going to say we’ve been pretty lucky on that front. I think we’ve only added, not removed,” Max says.

“Remember that first, first band that we had, Max?” Cameron pipes up. “We had that song Good Night Incarnations. What were we called, man? Oh, the Nine Volts. The Nine Volts.”

“Wait. I never heard about the Nine Volts,” Foster says, slightly surprised. “This is like prehistoric shit. I don’t know if we’ve brought this up in an interview yet. Deep, deep middle school. I had a freewheeling approach to songwriting at that point. It was some of my best work. Who doesn’t know the song Good Incarnations? I mean, it’s been played at every wedding since 2003,” Cameron jokes.

“Big fan of that name for a while,” Max adds. “That’s really waist-deep in sixth grade. Fifth grade was my year. I guess people say there are three Nine Volt members who are probably pretty upset.”

And the name Geese? I ask.

“We had played a show when we were in, like, eighth grade,” Max says. “We had formed the band and wrote a bunch of songs just to play this show. We played with the placeholder name of Opolis. As the show ended, someone in the crowd was like, ‘What’s your guys’ name?’ And everyone was like, ‘We don’t have one yet,’ and at dinner that night, we came up with the name Geese. That is a very, very long-winded answer. But yeah, Emily, our guitarist’s nickname in high school was Goose.”

I tell them I thought they liked geese or something.

“I’m not a big fan of the bird,” Max says. “Not a top-tier bird. A little devious.”

Cameron says he’s got to go and get back to the video shoot and logs out, so I ask Max and Foster how they feel they fit into the lineage of New York and Brooklyn bands.

“I checked out that documentary that just came out, Meet Me in the Bathroom,” Max says. “I was a big Strokes fan when I was in middle school and high school. And you know, same with Interpol and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and everything. I think my thinking with the New York ‘scene’ is — I heard Kurt Cobain saying something kind of similar about the Seattle scene. He was like, you know, there’s a lot of bands that are out right now, and there always have been, and there always will be. And I think it’s trying not to focus too much on what came before you or what’s going to come after you. We made a lot of friends with a lot of bands that are here, but I wouldn’t say that we’re part of any real scene, you know. People look at us like they did the Strokes or the Yeahs when they came out. I mean, it’s definitely cool because I grew up listening to that shit. But also, it’s not something that we focus on.”

Foster continues,

“I think the scene that we get lumped into in terms of bands that we get compared to is the Windmill scene. And, you know, a ton of people always compare us to Squid and Black Midi and all those bands. The Windmill scene — that is a scene, you know. There are these bands all living near each other. They all know each other. They play shows together, which is what you would think of when you think of, for instance, the Seattle grunge scene. All those bands knew each other, and all those bands played together. But back then, there wasn’t really this music streaming service that just lumped it all together. Because it’s like, we get lumped in with those bands, and they all know each other. And it’s just funny because we’re just sitting on the outside, on the other side of the ocean.”

“Yeah, we briefly talked to a couple of those bands,” Max says, “but don’t really have any personal relationship with them. Outside of the fact that I think all our debut records have a strong sense of post-punk. I remember the first couple of Black Country, New Road singles were just out. And I remember the original nine-minute version of Sunglasses was out, and we were in the basement, and Cameron was like, ‘Have you heard of this band Black Country, New Road?’ And I was like, no. And so, he plays Sunglasses. Initially, I was like, what the hell is this? Isaac’s voice was so strange to me the first time I heard it.”

I find this fascinating — that due to music streaming services they’ve found a virtual scene on the other side of the Atlantic, all the while being in New York. But what’s their experience of the UK been like?

“We love it, dude. I mean, it’s a lot of fun. I think UK music fans are insane and I love it,” Max says. “I think the first time we went to play London shows, everyone was a little sceptical still. So, you know, it was a lot of people with their arms crossed and, let’s see what these guys are about! And then the second time we went, all the shows were insane. So, I’m very happy about it. We’ve been playing shows in New York for years at this point, and we still don’t get an audience reaction like that.”

Geese’s new album, 3D Country, is out now.

Photography By: Kyle Berger
Interview Taken from Still Listening Magazine Issue SIX: 31/06/2023

It’s a blustery day outside of Alexandra Palace, the infamous venue my dad only knows for the raucous darts tournaments. Inside, Phoebe Lunny and Lily Macieira, the two forces that make up punk duo Lambrini Girls, are preparing to open for Idles. Tomorrow, they will fly to New York. Next month, their debut album – written in a blinding two week intensity – is released in the UK, as the world ushers in another year of climate change, global conflict and dystopian politics. It’s a crazy time to be alive. To top this off, I’ve dragged my little sister up the hill with me and she sits, blinking at me as we unearth the trials and tribulations at the heart of their record, using way too many expletives. Everything feels a little dreamlike.

Phoebe and Lilly are adorned in big fluffy coats and knee-high boots we fuss over as the cameraman finds the perfect shot. Lilly blinks, wide eyes, as Phoebe tells me of the meaty blisters she must endure to rage up and down the stage in them. “You never told me that,” Lilly remarks; then, to me, “she never complains about anything.” As I’ll find in the rest of the interview, when activism, empathy and thundering rage glues the two together, there are a lot of things they don’t know about each other. I’m charmed, left musing on what must be lost when great social responsibility overthrows the usual fashioning of friendship.

And yet, Lambrini Girls are accustomed to being packed together in the backseat of dilapidated vans, driving to and from gigs on long tours, so it’s no wonder they seem unfazed at a Saturday night London crowd. The duo live for the moment, an attitude that directly ties to their creative process:

“We wrote everything so that we can play it live, completely true to record.” 

Without the live shows to rally fans into a quasi-cult, Lambrini Girls told me, they wouldn’t be Lambrini Girls. This energetic, freewheeling rage is the Lambrini Girls flavour. But it doesn’t quite translate for some; in America, testing the limits of reactionary loyalty, Phoebe encouraged a crowd to chant, “fuck the constitution.” As it were, glorious circle pits spun out in hysterical fashion; in the middle of it all was one lady, scream-crying in resistance as if part way through an exorcism. This didn’t bother Phoebe and Lilly though: rather, they’re glad for the story: “We’re Crazy bitches with nothing to lose,” they laugh.

But with talk of their debut album, a fizzing anxiety enters the room, as they repeat to me the cautionary words uttered countless times by music execs: “Oh, your debut album. That’s a hallmark of your career. Once that’s out, there’s no going back.” There’s both fear and joy between them. “Apart from the crushing pressure, very excited and happy to have a full body of work out.”

It must be hard to fully back an album written so quickly, but to Lambrini Girls that’s part of their musical identity. Without the brash immediacy that comes from writing an entire album in two weeks, their trademark recalcitrance would be lost. “Every song sounds like the first time you fell off your bike as a child intentionally.” And how did they achieve that? Booze. The wetting of tongues, the release of barriers allowed a raw, unfiltered approach that slipped right on through to their sound. “The first week we didn’t get much done… So the second week we just got blasted, drank as much as we could and wrote as much as we did.”

Maybe this is one of the reasons the album is so funny. And sure, it’s easy to say now with the privilege of hindsight, but the girls had nothing to worry about: the album is a hit. Immediate crowd favourite is closer ‘cuntology 101,’ which they here tell me they wrote in a single day. It’s shocking, but not surprising – Doing a poo at your friend’s house (Cunty) /Stealing shit from chain stores (Cunty). Their humour is duplicitous – it draws us in, befriends us, but it also disarms us, making it a perfect tool for unsuspecting rallying that translates into activism. Think of those hilarious meme pages that, after a while, lead to your investment into a social cause. “I want to shag behind a bin, but the police are really bad, so I can’t,” Phoebe says. I laugh, she continues:

“If you scream in someone’s face for ten minutes, they might not listen. But if you tell a couple of jokes first, they might.”

Their awareness of political responsibility is carried over into their awareness, and commentary on, the music scene too. “We wouldn’t be doing this interview if it wasn’t for our label. We are Nepo babies now.” What Lambrini Girls don’t realise is that Still Listening is an independent, grassroots magazine and I’m losing money doing this interview. But I’ll let them off. In a way, it only heightens the point they stress to me: “The only way you can get anywhere is if you have money behind you.”

The conversation turns global: “As humans, it’s really important that we take action – join a union, go to protests, share resources, open discussions,” they discuss of their outspoken political angle.

“Number one, we’re a political band, so you have to put your money where your mouth is.”

I ask if that means we should all be as outspoken, politically riled up, but there’s still an empathetic recognition of the weight morality might bear on the soul, as “activism shouldn’t be a superiority contest.”

The tumultuous political landscape so evidently informs Who Let The Dogs Out, but our creative landscapes are changing, too.  We are in an era of creative stagnation. Popular culture repeats itself, trends exist in cycles, the cinemas are overrun with franchise after lifeless franchise. How does it feel to be a successful creative in a creatively void culture? For them, this is a fact they take in their stride.

“I don’t think there’s anything totally original anymore. Everyone has influences, and if you pretend you don’t, you’re a liar and a coward. Great artists steal. Not saying we’re stealing, but we have influences.”

Turns out acceptance of the here and now can lead to great, emotional works. Turns out creating quick, hard and fast, the funny and the ugly, still operates as something that can bring us all together despite the endless change. All that’s left to do is enjoy the music. You heard it from them: “Live, laugh, fuck. It’s a great album. Bon appétit. No regrets.”

Photography By: Gabriel Monteregge
Interview Taken from Still Listening Magazine Issue Twelve: 07/03/2025

Amyl and the Sniffers are a burning blend of Australian punk and pub rock. Renowned for their fiery energy, the four-piece quickly garnered international attention for their explosive live shows and fervent music.

Touring worldwide in 2018 and 2019 saw their success grow to new heights, gaining impassioned fans across the globe. From there, they went on to do a campaign with Gucci and win an ARIA award. Vocalist Amy Taylor even did a Coca-Cola themed cover of WAP. The band was only on the rise, with each release becoming tighter, more intricate, and well thought out. On their sophomore album, Comfort To Me, the band is tighter than ever, creating one of the most cohesive and effervescent punk albums of 2021.

Speaking with Amy and guitarist Declan Martens via Zoom, I got to hear more about Comfort To Me, their experience working with Gucci, and how their songwriting process has evolved since the early days.

Amy joins from “the bunker,” an art space she uses for writing and painting, while Declan joins from home slightly later, having just returned from a rehearsal. Finally able to speak about their new album, you can tell that they’re impressed with what they’ve achieved on the record. Declan shares that it’s “exciting to show people how we’ve changed and we’re also very proud of what we’ve done. So I’m really looking forward to people hearing it. We’ve just been conscious of every process in it being made, and some of it’s been a bit rushed, but a lot of it we’ve been able to put a lot of time into it. So I think that’s added for me, like, the excitement of the album — because it’s felt like a much bigger project than the last one.”

Unfortunately, at about this point in the call, Amy’s connection completely falls apart. Quickly sorting a hotspot, Amy returns to the call to delve into how the pandemic affected the album. “Well, pretty intensely, I reckon. I spent heaps and heaps of time on lyrics and what I wanted to say, what I wanted to think about. I feel like, for everybody, last year was such an introspective year and super isolating and pretty depressing.”

“It just changes a bitch I reckon is the best way to put it,” she jokes.

After their immense world tour, the band started living together in September of 2019, having not had a proper home in a couple of years. As a result, the band grew closer together throughout the pandemic. “When people ask me, like, ‘how was it doing lockdown with your band?’ — I’ve done small two-week lockdowns with other people and it’s so much better with the band. We’re used to being in each other’s hair,” Declan shares. “Yeah, if we’re honest I feel like we didn’t really do much at all. Like, you know, we got an album out of it, but we also spent a lot of time sitting around,” Amy adds.

Not being able to leave Australia had a direct effect on the album. Unlike their debut, restrictions pushed a situation where the band had to work locally. “So we recorded it over here in Melbourne and we did preproduction here in Melbourne and then we got it mixed by Nick Launay and he was based in L.A.,” Declan says.

“When we were getting it mixed, it was an interesting sort of thing. I had a few phone calls with him every now and then — sort of just like relaying back what the band thought and different philosophies on how it should be mixed,” he further explains.

The band, known for their live performances, haven’t had much opportunity to play in the past few years. “There’s a chance that if all goes well, we might get to come over to London in November, which is dope,” Amy hopes. Going from a crazy worldwide tour in 2019 to practically nothing was hard on the band but they found solace in their stability. She elaborates on this.

“I’ve kind of enjoyed being in one place and because we were so busy and going everywhere all the time and had no stability, it’s kind of been nice to, you know, have my own bedroom and put a poster on a wall and make a friend and spend time with people I care about and stuff like that. That’s been pretty nice in a way, even though it’s been absolute fucking hell. It’s also been pretty nice.”

“I think we matured so much quicker than other people around us our age because of what we’ve done. Like travelling for four months overseas when you’re 22 and 23. We just grew up really, really quickly. But at the same time, we’re still the young people that we are,” Interjects Declan.

Unlike on previous albums where the band had an opportunity to play the new songs live and develop them in a venue setting, this album was written mostly without playing any of the songs to a real audience. Amy jokes, reminiscing about their return to live performance. “I mean, fuck. When we played that first gig back after 14 months, it was truly like all of us, afterwards we’re like, ‘well, that was fucking impossible.’”

“Our managers were there and I was like, ‘Fuck that’s it. They’re thinking: how are they going to get rid of us?’ But then we played again the next night and we killed it.” Declan laughs.

“You know that song on the album? The one called ‘Don’t Need A Cunt?’ Like the first twenty times we tried practising it, the boys were like ‘we can’t do it, we can’t sing and play at the same time.’” Amy shares before Declan quickly adds “To do that song it is hard because it’s a call and response sort of thing, like one and then the other. So now we just all do it together, which is like our motto, you know? Stuck in the mud together.”

The band have a relentless work ethic; you can hear as much in their music. Each record, they have improved leaps and bounds as artists. “I’m a bit of a perfectionist, I reckon,” thinks Amy. Since the early days, the band have shown a deep passion to grow. Declan pitches in on their recent development: “I think Amy taking another step forward with her lyric writing inspired us as well. I think this one was a big challenge for the boys in the band because, you know, there wasn’t really that road tour tightness. So it was all hands on deck to be tight.”

Delving further into their work ethic, Amy goes on to explain:

“If it was up to me I’d be putting out a song every two hours, but it’s kinda fun to be patient. Because it makes it more exciting. If you ate ice cream every day it would be crap I guess. Sometimes if you wait for it, it will be nicer.”

In 2019, Amyl and the Sniffers partnered with Gucci for their #guccigig series. Originally receiving an email, much to the surprise of the band, Amy expands on this experience. “Yeah, literally, that’s it and then we got flown first class to Sicily, got picked up at the airport. Fuckin’ got in this really beautiful hotel. We got there like the night before all the models and stuff got there because it was like this really big crew of two hundred and then it was just us and then just a whole empty hotel, like The Shining. And we had our rooms to ourselves and it was just me and our manager who’s got a big beard and it was just us having a steak, in this empty kitchen hall, and the people who were working there didn’t know why anyone was there. So it just looked so fucking crazy.”

“It was big Shining vibes, ey? The whole hotel was empty because I guess it was Winter there. I guess it was like the off-season? So it was a lot like The Shining,” adds Declan. Amy reaffirms the surreality of the situation. “It was fucking pretty awesome though, such a crazy experience and shit — like people have their opinions on it. And it’s like this is fucking fun and crazy and weird and everyone was so nice and it was so fucking weird! But it was pretty special.”

Working with Gucci has had some backlash from the punk community due to their anti-capitalist ethos. “Oh, yeah. And I think it’s fair as well. I feel like I understand most of the time. You know, like some of it is just about people who care about other people; capitalism and consumerism don’t go hand in hand with caring for other people. So I can understand and be like, ‘well, this seems contradictory and this isn’t what punk ethos is about.’ All that kind of stuff — I understand it,” Amy pauses. “I think, in the end as well, it’s like the world’s so crazy and we’re not bad people. People are putting fucking tubes of flame into the earth to drink oil for breakfast. And we’re a crew who took up a sick job with a sick brand and, I don’t know, who cares? For anybody who makes money or has a job, there’s not any such thing as healthy, good money, you know? We’re all exploiting each other.”

Declan adds to this take. “And we were literally fucking starving before that. That was the first time we got money in so long, you know? Like, oh, if you like the band so much, don’t you want us to eat and stuff?”

“Yeah, that’s so true. Like, I’m pretty sure when we won that flight I had seven dollars in my bank account and I was like this is fucking dope. You got to take up jobs and do weird stuff to live and survive. It’s just the world; we don’t have any other kind of income. And music doesn’t make that much money for us at the moment,” explains Amy.

The honesty here is refreshing. There’s an authenticity that comes from the band that they’ve cultivated through their momentous climb to the top.

“I think just when people are authentically themselves or expressing themselves in a way, that kind of brings out the best in other people. It’s kind of contagious. If I read heaps of Dolly Parton books, I’d feel better about myself. Or if I watch Cardi B interviews, I’m like ‘Fuck yeah! Life’s worth living.’ So I feel like anyone who’s just themselves makes other people feel good too. So that’s what I want to try to do and that’s what I like doing anyway.”

This reflection from Amy marks a conclusive moment in our conversation. It’s around this time our zoom call comes to an end, leaving our conversation on a positive and uplifting note. Let’s hope that those late-2021 gigs come to fruition so fans can get an opportunity to hear the new album in the live setting it truly deserves.

Amyl and the Sniffers’ new album, Comfort to Me, was released September 10th 2021.

Photography By: Jamie Wdziekonski
Interview Taken from OG Still Listening Magazine Issue Five: 04/10/2021

The Lemon Twigs are back with their fourth studio album, Everything Harmony, which will be released on May 5th on Captured Tracks. The album is a remarkable culmination of brothers Brian and Michael D’Addario’s unique blend of retro pop vocals, intricate acoustic folk melodies, and rich textures, influenced by iconic musicians such as Simon & Garfunkel, Arthur Russell, Moondog, The Beatles and The Beach Boys.

Speaking to the brothers over Zoom perched in their living room in New York, I’m immediately put at ease with their easy charm and friendliness, no egos here. After some perfunctory questions, we got talking about their process and their experience of making their latest record. “It was fun,” Michael tells me, “We produced the last one too. But this was very much just us and an engineer friend of ours, Reese. We went to San Francisco. We did some initial recordings in Midtown at our old recording space rehearsal with some of our friends from the live band that plays with us. Then we went over to San Francisco and did some  mixing and recorded some new tracks. It was just us and Reese, which was awesome because it was the three of us with the run of a real studio, which we’d never had. We’ve never really been in a real studio other than to record other people’s stuff, and that was a minimal experience, really.”

I’m curious how they find using their home set-up versus these big studios. “I like both,” Michael says, “what’s nice about those places is that you can have an opportunity to use the highest quality equipment and figure out what is actually helping or not. There’s a lot of unnecessary stuff in the studios, a lot of bells and whistles that don’t matter. And then there’s a lot of things that you go, wow, if I had this, you know. And that helps because you can then say these are the essentials for my studio, right? So, I like the home recording, but going to all these different studios is great. You can find out what you like and everything.”

“We only use vintage and analogue equipment,” they explain. Brian adds that because they only had a string quartet, they decided to mix digitally because they knew they would be overdubbing the quartet eight or so times to get the lush orchestral sound they were after, though they make sure to point out that the vocals are recorded on tape.

As he brought up their vocals, I ask what the impetus was for making a more melodic record than maybe their last few albums.

“The last record before and the one before this one were very varied. There was a lot of rock stuff. There was a lot of uptempo kind of hyper material,”

Brian tells me. “That was good for playing live…I don’t know, there was no live stuff happening at the time, and we had a certain number of songs like ‘Corner of My Eye’ and a couple more acoustic tracks already written. And I think Michael and I both just got into a more delicate songwriting style”.

“I think it’s partly because of the things that we were listening to at the time,” Michael adds, “the likes of Simon and Garfunkel and Arthur Russell — stuff with delicate sounds and texture — a lot of pretty stuff. You can do whatever when…” his voice trailing off before Brian jumps in laughing, “when you have a certain amount of natural talent.”

Michael protests, clearly not what he was intending to say as Brian carries on the riff by quoting his namesake Brian Wilson, “God blessed me with some talent,” gently ribbing his little brother, “That’s from a Brian Wilson interview,” he adds so that I don’t think he means it about them. “No, I don’t know,” Michael says, lost in his thought, “you can do a number of different things. It’s just one of the avenues we decided to go down.”

Getting into the nitty gritty of their songwriting process I ask them how they divide the duties and who does what. Michael says it’s mostly separate, but then they’ll come together and hash it out together. “Little things like, should I use this chord or this chord?” Brian adds: “Very direct collaboration.” I’m curious about their approach to bridges in their songs, as their bridges are very good and not always the easiest thing to write, I say. “I’ll write the bridge after the initial impulse of the song,” Brian says matter-of-factly. Michael jumps in— “a lot of time when you write the first bit of the song, and then you think, Oh, this will be the next bit, but then it’s not quite catchy enough or something — It’s more of a tangent, and then you stick that in after the bridge. Then the thing with that is that they definitely fit because they were really right after the initial thought, you know what I mean?” He says this as though he has divulged a masonic secret, and maybe he has. Songwriting is a mercurial and intangible business, the good songs living in the esoteric realm, and you need magic to get there sometimes.

I push them for specifics on how they approached writing for their new album. “You know, we get excited about things,” Michael says.

“I suddenly started to like things that I had an aversion to before, you know? So, started to write a lot of songs that were coming from a place that I had never written from. I was trying hard to write melodies that would hold up to Brian’s melodies.”

Brian continues, “Yeah, it’s typically when I’m playing the guitar and am noodling around. I think I wrote the best songs on this album when I was playing and practising classical pieces on a nylon string guitar.”

“I did the opposite. I wrote a lot of my songs on the piano.” Michael adds, pausing before adding pensively, “There’s definitely a genetic component because our dad’s a songwriter”.

“He has similar tendencies as a melodist,” Brain concludes. As they brought up their family, I ask them what’s their earliest musical memory, “there’s a lot of them on video, so it’s hard to know what’s a memory and what’s just something we’ve seen,” Michael says. “But there’s a great video of Brian trying to play Strawberry Fields on the keyboard — he must have been like four years old or five years old. And he’s like trying to do it, but he can’t do it, and he starts sobbing, he goes, I can’t do it. But it was cool because he so badly wanted to be able to play it and couldn’t.” There you go, the Lemon Twigs’ origin story straight from the horse’s mouth.

As we’re on the subject of The Beatles, I ask if this album was a Beatles solo record which would it be? This starts a brisk debate between the brothers, and they settle on All Things Must Pass, mainly due to the amount of reverb they use on the album. “It’s not very zany, you know, like Ram or something,” Brian says before adding, “I’ll have to give that a lot of thought.” Michael lets out of howl of laughter as his brother says this. Maybe he’s laughing at the audacity of the challenge but I get the impression that Brian will think about it, not because of any illusions that they are The Beatles but because he loves their music and the nuances of what it takes to make a great record.

Favourite Beatle? “My favourite Beatle is John Lennon. My favourite Beatle is definitively John Lennon.” Michael says, “My favourite Beatles album is probably Rubber Soul or the White Album,” he says after a long pause. Solo John? “I guess it’s got to be Plastic Ono Band, but definitely would, you know, Walls and Bridges and Mind Games are up there.” Michael continues to list most of John’s albums and even throws in his demos, saying he probably listens to those more, but Plastic Ono Band wins the best solo Beatle record. Period. Brian agrees, “I would say Plastic Ono for solo and Revolver for Beatle album.”

“But what Beatle?” Michael insists. The brothers go back and forth for a bit, Brain saying he doesn’t want to say, Paul or John. Michael reminds Brian that his favourite song is ‘For No One.’ Brian concludes, “Paul was the master of being in The Beatles.” I feel that this is a debate that has been going on for a long time, and I can’t disagree with Brian’s conclusion; Paul certainly was the master of being in The Beatles. Throughout my conversation with them, I’m constantly struck by how dear they hold the music of the 60s and 70s, whether that be the awe they felt seeing Leonard Cohen perform or discussing their love of The Beach Boys (their favourite band) to the merits of each Beatle, they really take the job of making music seriously, and luckily for the brothers D’Addario, God has blessed them with some talent.

Photography By: Eva Chambers
Interview Taken from Still Listening Magazine Issue Five: 21/04/2023

As I try to convey the essence of Tennis’ beautiful music, I can’t help but imagine being whisked away to a serene seaside setting. The undulating rhythms of their sonic tapestry wash over like the gentle lapping of the ocean’s waves, their effervescence instilling an undeniable sense of euphoria and boundless wanderlust. Each note reverberates like the very heartbeat of the sea, its ebullience culminating in a mesmerizing symphony of instrumentation that ebbs and flows in perfect unison. It was in the company of Alaina Moore, the lead vocalist of this illustrious duo, that I was privileged to discuss their latest album, Pollen.

Beneath the surface of their resplendent soundscapes lies a deep-seated nostalgia, a wistful reminiscence of the magical aesthetics of yesteryear — an old photograph faded and worn with time, yet imbued with the warmth of cherished memories long-passed. As Moore regaled us with her thoughts on Pollen, she expounded on the deeply personal significance of the title, elucidating that, while it may denote small, insignificant particles or moments, it symbolized for her the immense power of something minuscule. A force that could either prove detrimental or positively transformative in one’s life. With regards to the song ‘Hotel Valet,’ Moore divulged that it was inspired by the small, seemingly inconsequential moment that ultimately led to her fortuitous encounter with Patrick Riley, her creative and romantic partner for life.

“On a personal level, I’m allergic to pollen and it fucks me up. It was the first song that I wrote, lyrically. It’s about the power of something very small. It could be a particle or a moment or a choice or a relationship, the way that it could undo you or just be a powerful force. For me, it was thinking about those really small things that have huge consequences in your life. Even the song, it’s about me serving Pat breakfast on my morning shift opening a restaurant at 6 a.m. as he got off the graveyard shift doing valet parking at a hotel. And that’s the first time we ever saw each other. But we didn’t meet then, that was just like a powerful dovetailing of a moment that allowed us to meet again later and he recognized me and then ended up being like the partner of a lifetime, creatively and romantically.”

Fascinated by Moore’s explanation of the title and the deeper meaning behind it, I could see why Moore found it difficult to describe the mammoth implications of these moments.

“Yeah, you write it for me, and if you nail it, then I’ll use it,” Moore jokes.

Discussing the process of recording and writing for the album, Moore admitted that the songwriting process for their latest album was difficult, especially as their standards continue to rise with each record. Despite this, the band managed to create a sound that stayed true to the Tennis vibe but still evolved in a new direction.

“Honestly, it was very hard. Pat and I were discussing that every album gets harder. When we first wrote Cape Dory, it was such a novelty to even record something that came from our brains that we were like “Oh my God, this is amazing! As time has passed, we’ve gotten to be much harsher critics of our own work.”

Curious as to what Moore meant by this, I dug deeper. “I’ve done some co-writes with friends and they’re like, “You just threw away 100 ideas that I would have made into a bunch of songs.” And I’m like, ‘I don’t know if I’m spinning out and I’m too critical.’ But yeah, it was a very slow process, but I’m very pleased with where it went. I always want it to sound like Tennis but be slightly evolved in a new direction, and I think that we managed to do that.” Moore explains.

As the music of Tennis unfolded over the years, it bore witness to an undeniable metamorphosis, evident in the intricate and captivating sonic tapestries they wove. Their initial recordings, fashioned within the humble confines of a cramped apartment, utilising only a limited range of instrumentation and GarageBand’s percussive offerings, have since blossomed into sophisticated arrangements that boast a wideranging musical diversity. Yet, as the group journeyed through time and space, they came to realize that capturing the emotional essence of their music was of paramount importance, transcending even the pursuit of sonic perfection.

Speaking to their earlier work, Moore spoke of the beauty found within the imperfections of their first-ever singles for Fire Talk Records, a testament to the power and allure of raw, unbridled passion.

“We, even now, think that those were the superior versions of the songs. But we got in our heads about it. And when we did the whole record in a studio with drums, we felt like we lost some of the magic of the first recordings. But that was something we didn’t understand. We were so new to the entire experience, and now we know that there’s something like magic in the first recording of something. And it doesn’t matter if it was GarageBand and it doesn’t matter if it wasn’t mixed properly. It’s like, did you get the feeling or not? And so now that’s something we’re a lot more aware of and I think we’ve spent our whole career, all the albums, trying to get back to what was special that we found by accident on those first demos that we lost by overthinking it, trying to be perfect. Now we’ve freed ourselves from that and now there’s a lot more spontaneity and we will preserve something we recorded in demo form that’s like an inferior recording if we felt like the feeling and the tone is correct. We won’t redo it and we’ll keep that in the final album version.” Moore shares.

“Richard Swift is the one who helped us tap back into what we were doing intuitively when we first made music.” Shares Moore. “But then we lost the plot because we felt like it’s not good enough, it’s not refined enough. It needs to be recorded better with proper mics and consoles and whatever. And Richard was like, it doesn’t matter how you record it, does it sound good? That’s the only thing that matters. And that helped us reconnect with our first intuitive understanding of music.” Moore further explains.

Despite their artistic vision and perfectionist spirit, there’s a sense of humility in Tennis’ music. They understand that perfection is not their true goal, that it’s the feeling and tone that matter most. It’s like a deep breath of sea air, refreshing and invigorating, reminding us to live in the moment and appreciate the beauty of life.

It’s no wonder that Moore and Riley are heavily involved in the creative direction of their music videos and visual aesthetics, having been completely independent for their last three albums. They understand that their music is more than just a collection of sounds - it’s an immersive experience that engages all the senses. Working with Luca Venter seems like another serendipitous moment for the band; having worked with him for over eight years on their videos and visual aesthetics, the band finally took the reins on their latest video.

“Luca has been very formative of our whole creative direction and has taught us so much. We’ve always worked together and been very DIY. He directed One Night with The Valet with us, our first video for this record, and from then on, Pat and I have done everything else. It’s been fun to step out and take everything we’ve learned from Luca and implement it. I want him to be proud of me, like my teacher or something.” Shares Moore.

In a music industry that often prioritises profit over artistic integrity, Tennis stands out as a shining example of what’s possible when musicians are given the space and freedom to create music on their own terms. “I didn’t start a rock band so that I could have 20 bosses.” Moore added that labels these days don’t give artists enough time to develop. Using Fleetwood Mac as an example, she explains that they would never have made it in today’s music industry because they would have been dropped after their first album, rather than given the opportunity to blossom into the band they became.

As our conversation draws to a close, I find myself awash with a newfound appreciation for the band Tennis and their exceptional creative process. Their music feels like a summer breeze: a gentle and effortless sound that brims with vitality and vivacity. Their style is a masterful amalgam of past and present, an intricate musical time capsule that transports the listener to a bygone era while still feeling refreshingly contemporary.

Tennis’ journey thus far has been one of profound evolution. They have come a long way from their early days of recording in a cramped apartment with sparse equipment. With each album, they have deftly cultivated and refined their sound while retaining their core essence. Their latest offering, Pollen, stands as a testament to their remarkable musical growth, their willingness to take bold risks and to experiment with the very fabric of their sound. It is unmistakably clear that Moore and Riley share a profound connection not only to one another but also to their craft. They approach the art of song writing with discipline, structure, and a complete presence of mind, their focus resolutely trained on the creative process. Their unwavering dedication to their craft is evident in the final product: a breath-taking album imbued with depth, emotion, and authenticity.

Photography By: Luca Venters
Interview Taken from Still Listening Magazine Issue Five: 21/04/2023

In the lush greenery of Asheville, North Carolina, an exceptional musician is poised to grace the world with her third album, All of This Will End. The name of this luminary? Indigo De Souza, whose creative brilliance is as captivating as the beguiling melodies she creates. It’s been quite a journey for De Souza so far: her debut album, I Love My Mom, earned initial critical acclaim in 2018, while her follow-up, Any Shape You Take, released in 2021, took her songwriting to new heights showcasing her artistic growth as she delved into themes of self discovery, healing, and finding one’s place in the world. With her latest release, All of This Will End, De Souza unflinchingly confronts the darkness that pervades our world, exposing its raw beauty and seeking solace in its depths. Indigo De Souza’s artistry and fearlessness uniquely capture the multifaceted nature of the human experience.

As the faint light of dawn creeps through the window of her cosy abode, De Souza is already settled comfortably in front of her Zoom camera, ready to share her thoughts on her forthcoming album, All of This Will End. Despite the cold March morning that surrounds her, Indigo’s words seem to warm the soul. De Souza speaks with a quiet intensity, about the optimistic nature of her upcoming album All of This Will End.

De Souza explains of the themes behind the new record:

“Optimism doesn’t exist without all of the other stuff too. Acceptance of the darkness doesn’t mean that the darkness goes away.”

“I remember looking back at the rest of my life and thinking about how much I’ve learned and feeling like I had a deeper acceptance for everything and the way that it has been and the way that it will be and I felt okay with existence and loss and everything. I think that the pandemic helped me a lot with that because it put a lot of things into perspective because so many things were lost and shut down and people were all experiencing a poignant thing together at once. It forced me into this place of introspection where I learned to accept all of the things that I’d been hurting so much over.” Shares De Souza.

“I’m not singing like: ‘Everything’s sooooooooo good, Everything’s going to be okay for us’. Jokes De Souza.

“It’s more that everything is brutal and it’s okay because the only thing that we can control is ourselves and our own small world. And so if we’re able to find acceptance there and also bring light into that space in small ways, then that’s all we can do.” De Souza further explains.

All of This Will End is a journey through the depths of self-growth, propelled by the force of De Souza’s introspection and artistic honesty. From a young age, De Souza was heavily involved in music. Her mother gifted her a keyboard and guitar, igniting the flames of musical passion within her heart. Her Southern roots and exposure to various genres of music imbued her style with a captivating emotive flavour.

“I was 11 years old and I was singing songs about how much I loved my mom and how sad it would be if she died, it was really heavy.” De Souza jokes. “I remember watching people cry in front of me and being like ‘That was so beautiful.’ and something just clicked where I realized that whatever that feeling was of bringing people together and sharing an emotion was important. So, yeah, I became dedicated to that. And my mom pushed me to play live all the time so that I could get over how shy I was because I was also deathly shy and scared of performing.” De Souza shares.

De Souza self-produced her album All of This Will End but worked with Alex Farah, who was both an engineer and a producer, to create the record. Dexter Webb, who played guitar, also had a significant role in the production process, bringing his specific language and musical mind to the table. Indigo typically creates demos on her computer using Logic and then practices the songs with her band before recording them live. However, in this album, they used a lot of stems from her demos in the final recordings, which felt authentic to the initial creative process.

“I love not only the sounds being slightly worse or grittier but the sounds having a lot of truth in them because they were the first thing you thought of.”

Shares de Souza on the recording process.

“Sometimes I’ll make a demo and think ‘this is a stupid demo’ and I don’t even care and then I’ll bring it to the studio and it’ll have grown on me and I’ll realize that I actually want to use some of the stuff that I thought was not going to be used, because of how free the place that it came from was.” De Souza explains.

Indigo De Souza esteems the veracity and genuineness of the original sounds ensnared during the recording process, which may not always be faultless but are imbued with the truth. Additionally, she concedes the malleability of her songwriting method as it transforms in tandem with her maturation. Despite her burgeoning prowess and triumph, De Souza retains her modesty and stays firmly rooted in her artistry.

“I think my songwriting is always changing just as my brain develops.” Shares De Souza. De Souza radiates an air of well-deserved confidence that is as warranted as it is awe inspiring. This illustrious artist’s songwriting abilities have surged in leaps and bounds since her early days of recording with a humble 4-track her mother had purchased for her.

A constant source of support and inspiration for De Souza is the community that surrounds her. She spoke with effusive praise about her band members, crew, and label, like a gardener extolling the virtues of the rich soil in which their precious blooms grow. Indigo’s music thrives when it is nurtured by a community that shares her vision and supports her every step of the way.

Of all the communities that have embraced her, it is Saddle Creek that holds a special place in De Souza’s heart. For her, the label represents a beacon of hope in a music industry that often chews up and spits out its artists with callous disregard. Robb Nansel, the label’s owner, is a veritable “total sweetheart” whose altruistic mission is to protect and nurture the artists under his wing. Indeed, it is this sense of community that infuses every note and lyric of Indigo’s music, like a tapestry woven from the threads of shared experience and mutual support. With her new album, All of This Will End, she takes this sense of belonging to new heights, exploring themes of love, loss, and the human condition with a depth and honesty as raw as it is beautiful.

De Souza seeks to establish a felicitous connection with her audience, fostering a communal bond predicated on the reciprocal experience of her music. She aspires to imbue her listeners with a fortifying sense of growth and empowerment derived from engaging with her craft.

“What I hope people get from listening is a strength, a courage to enter their own lives with a certain intention and fearlessness and self love. I hope they hear the songs and feel triumphant or feel things are possible for them and that they can take control of their lives and create boundaries and treat themselves well and choose themselves over the dysfunction.”

Indigo De Souza is an artist who values the authenticity of her music, from the grittier, imperfect sounds captured during the recording process to the evolving nature of her songwriting process. She hopes to build a community and positive relationship with her listeners through her music, inspiring growth and strength. In her latest album All of This Will End, De Souza expertly captures the duality of the title, offering both a bleak recognition of life’s fleeting nature and a call to seize the day and make the most of every moment.

Photography By: Angella Choe & Charlie Boss
Interview Taken from Still Listening Magazine Issue Five: 21/04/2023