I Write The B-Sides

This week, I’m very excited to welcome the wonderful Ailsa Tully to the show. The rising Welsh singer-songwriter has truly arrived with this year’s brilliant and beautiful Holy Isle EP. It’s a delicate collection of field recordings, basslines, and acoustic dreaminess that chronicle the end of a relationship and the start of something new. It’s a feeling we’ve all felt, a situation we’ve all been dealt, yet is unquestionably unique to Ailsa and her own experiences. In this episode, we dive in deep into the EP and the thought behind each track, as well as AIlsa’s journey through music to becoming the songwriter she is today, from Welsh churches to London universities. 

Before we get to it, I’d just like to say thanks to Ailsa for being so generous with her time, and to Paddy from Stay Loose for setting this up. Holy Isle is out now on Dalliance Recordings, so please do go and check it out and follow Ailsa where you can. Now, without further ado, this is Ailsa Tully’s episode of I Write The B-Sides. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, I’m super chuffed to share the hot seat with vocalists, multi-instrumentalists and producers Carlos and Jamie from shapeshifting indie-poppers Low Island ahead of the release of their masterfully wonderful debut album If You Could Have It All Again. Low Island hail from Oxford, the home of other genre-bending giants like Glass Animals, Radiohead and Foals; forming five years ago in 2016. They’ve been busier than most bands their age, sliding out a string of EP’s that blend the pop sensibilities of latter day Radiohead with the bombast of LCD Soundsystem and Talking Heads as well as the synthy grooves of Glass Animals. Disillusioned by the industry they indulge, they launched their own label Emotional Interference at the start of the first lockdown last year, splitting the duties between the band, fleshed out by bassist Jacob and drummer Felix. From their management to their live show to their production, they’re the living embodiment of twenty-first century DIY. The album is everything you could imagine a band fully in control of their creative freedom could bring to the table, and then some - each track takes a new shape or form from the last, whilst simultaneously flowing like one cohesive piece that takes you on a journey. It’s a lyrical adventure through the roaring twenties, focusing on the highs and lows of navigating love and loss in the modern age. It’s a modern classic. 

We dive in deep on the album’s creation, the influences and inspirations that have bought their forever-mutating sound to life, the emotional spaces they wish to send their soundscapes sweeping into, and so much more. I’d firstly like to thank Low Island for their time and their music, and I’d like to thank Lewis at Super Cat for setting it up. Enjoy! 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, I’m incredibly excited and honoured to welcome the wonderful Erik Bickerstaffe of Liverpool’s resident noise-makers Loathe. There’s no easy way to categorise a band who’ve been breaking down barriers and boundaries between genres since their conception in 2014. Not artists to back down from the challenges of the current climate, when Covid-19 tried to put a stop to their glory lap of touring following the release of I Let It In, they buried themselves in their studio once again to bring The Things They Believe to life. The album is a continuation of the universe they created on I Let It In, departing to unchartered shores as an album comprised entirely of instrumentals, think Olafur Arnaulds or the sensational soundtracking of Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross. It’s a mesmerising and beautiful record which really puts the idea of pushing just how far heavy metal can go in its various guides to the test, and then some. 

Erik and I discuss all of the above, diving in deep on their career from their days finding their feet in the soundscapes they wanted to shape to using their new-found confidence to create the music they want to make, regardless of any allegiances to genre fans might assume they’d have. I’d like to thank Erik for taking the time to have a chat, and to Claire at Sharptone Records for setting it up. Enjoy!

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week I’m super stoked to welcome one of my favourite bands that I’ve discovered in the last few years. This South-London based, Buckinghamshire-formed quartet specialise in the spaces in between, letting their soundscapes slip through the cracks, living and breathing amongst us inside our eardrums. They find solace in the shoegaze of cult artists like Mazzy Star and the Cocteau Twins, and find themselves at home in the heart-on-sleeve honesty and rawness of Julia Jacklin and Wolf Alice. They’ve only got a hand full of songs to their names, but through their own experiences of grief they bring us their debut EP - the thought-provokingly beautiful A Calm Sense Of Surrounding. Across it’s five tracks they explore the five stages of grief, curating an introspective experience unlike any other. They are known as Bleach Lab, and I was fortunate enough to spend a virtual evening in the company of vocalist Jenna Kyle and bassist Josh Longman, diving in deep on their experiences and influences.

There’s something so endearing about Bleach Lab, and the EP truly is something special. If you’re listening to this around the time it drops, then the EP comes out on the 19th March, so definitely go and check it out and give them some support. Before we get into the good stuff, I’d just like to thank Jenna, Josh and Bleach Lab for their time, and Paddy at Stay Loose for setting it up. Enjoy!

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, we had the pleasure of chatting to Austin Crane, aka Valley Maker, all about his wonderful new album When The Day Leaves, as well as looking back at some of his older material. Austin bought Valley Maker to life in 2010 with a self-titled collection of songs written primarily for his undergraduate studies at the University of South Carolina, tracing existential questions and biblical origins. This was followed by the ethereal existentialism of 2015’s When I Was A Child, before signing to Syd Butler’s Frenchkiss Records for 2018’s Rhododendron, where prophetic and apocalyptic language shapes his lyrics, using metaphors of faith to explore and navigate the intersection of belief, time, place and the political present. This year’s When The Day Leaves picks up where his past material left off, feeling like 46 minutes of observations about ur tangled thicket of hope and fear, aspiration and exasperation - an uninterrupted sequence of reflections about the generational limbo of being both awed, and worried, by the world. 

We deep dive into how the record came to be, following his move from Seattle to Columbia, and how this uprooting of his life seeped into his songwriting. We look at the relationship between his work as a songwriter, and his doctoral studies as a Human Geographer, and where the lines intersect, as well as looking deeply into his long-term creative partnership with Amy Godwin and the harmonies they create. There’s so much more behind the music of Valley Maker, so we truly hope you enjoy this one. Thank you firstly to Austin for taking the time to chat, and thank you to Amy at Prescription PR for setting it up.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, we're super excited to welcome the wonderful Tim Malkin, guitarist and songwriter for rising indie-poppers Talkboy, to the show. Unlike the handheld voice recorder of the same name, they weren’t conceived as a prop for Home Alone, but rather to make music that blends and blurs between genres. 

They hail from the land of Leeds, where they all met at Leeds College of Music, and have spent years together drifting in and out of different bands. They formed in 2017 when Tim and drummer Jake Greenway decided to merge the two projects they were torn between, thus bringing together the super sextet, completed by vocalists Katie Heap and Calum Juniper, keyboardist Charlotte Jones and bassist Tom Sargent. Since then, they’ve ploughed on through the perils of the UK music scene, pitching their wares and putting themselves out there for all to see, releasing their debut single Mother back in 2018, and released their debut EP Over & Under in 2019. Whilst Covid-19 put a bit of a spanner in the works, they were making a name for themselves as a live act to keep an eye on, having sold out a gig in 2018 for BBC Introducing before they even had any music out. 

As you’ll find out throughout the chat with Tim, they’re now releasing the excellent Wrapped In Blue EP, which whilst not necessarily written in lockdown, truly encapsulates the many emotions being echoed by so many of us right now. We talk about how sticking six songwriters all with completely different influences in a studio works, the challenges of writing for multiple vocalists, and how colouring outside of the lines is far more freeing than sticking to the rules. We'd like to thank Tim for his time, Talkboy for their music, and Matty at Super Cat PR for setting it up. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, we’re really excited to welcome the wonderful Andy Gibbs to the show - he’s the guitarist, songwriter and founding member of Louisiana's resident experimental metal sextet Thou.

They formed sixteen years ago in 2005, and released their first full-length effort, the blackened sludge outing Tyrant in 2007 following the recruitment of vocalist Bryan Funck. Since then, they’ve gone on to become one of modern metal’s most prolific bands, having released five studio albums, including 2018’s 75-minute post-metal opus Magus as well as a string of EP’s, split collections, and collaborative projects with the likes of experiment noise merchants The Body on 2014’s Released From Love and 2015’s You, Whom I Have Always Hated and more recently the spellbinding genre-bending crossover with the ambient, ethereal folk singer-songwriter Emma Ruth Rundle on 2020’s May Our Chambers Be Full and this year’s companion collection The Helm Of Sorrow. 

It’s this latter collaboration that we dive deep into throughout our conversation with Andy, exploring the differences between being at the helm of your own band and being part of a more dynamic songwriting structure when working with others, as well as how the process of merging two worlds of music you might not think possible to bring together worked for them. We also talk about coming to terms with opening up the songwriting process to others, sharing the responsibilities and creative freedom, as well as the struggles of reflecting on your work post-release. We'd like to thank Andy for taking the time to chat with us, and a massive thank you to Lauren at Rarely Unable for setting it up. We hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did making it, and if there’s anyone you’d like to see on the show in a future episode, please do get in touch with us!

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This week, we're very excited to welcome the fantastic Charlie Drinkwater, who is the vocalist of post-punk outfit TV Priest to the show. Currently signed to the infamous Sub-Pop label, and about to release their hard-hitting debut full-length Uppers, TV Priest have primed themselves as not only one of Britain’s most exciting up-and-coming bands, but also one of Britain’s most vital. The album is both deeply personal and defiantly political, acting almost as both a diary to the band’s thoughts as much as a socio-political commentary of the world around us. Inspired as much by literature as they are the events currently unfolding in our lives, the band take their cues from legends like The Fall and post-punk revivalists Protomartyr. The sound is very much a result of a collective need to create together again, having been in and out of bands as a foursome since they were in their teens. As you’ll discover through this chat, there’s something profoundly heartwarming about this band who are at times quite dystopic in their lyrics. We'd like to firstly thank Charlie for taking time out of his day to have a chat, and to Amy at Prescription PR for setting this up. We hope you enjoy listening as much as we enjoyed chatting to Charlie. 

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.