Categories
Punk/Rock

Cowboyy: Britain’s Latest Bandits

If you’re a Londoner like myself who seemingly can’t stay away from the holy trinity of music venues, The Windmill, The Sebright Arms and The New Cross Inn,  you’d have certainly already heard about Cowboyy. The latest 4-piece lineup to come storming out of the UK’s woodwork has already rightly attracted the attention of music heads and BBC 6 DJs alike with their exceptional first single ‘Gmaps’

At first glance, the band’s lineup is a patchwork of secondary school stereotypes, each styled like the four kids in your class you’d never thought would interact, let alone form a band. But behind the athlete on drums and maths wiz on vocals exists a brotherly bond which has been essential in forming the band’s unique charm. We got to know a little more about Cowboyy when we spoke to them recently.

Hi guys, thanks for taking the time to speak with us. What has the reaction been to the new single?

Reubin: I think the response has been really good, so we’re excited to see what’s ahead, but for now, we’re just happy for it to be out and to see what’s next.

Tell us a bit about the process. When did you start working on recording the single, and how did you do it?

Stan: I wrote everything beforehand, and then I got a band together to record the songs. It was about 6/7 tracks in that day. We had a different drummer and an additional guitarist who joined to help but they weren’t permanent members and we then went back and recorded another track after meeting and playing with Rhys, making the forthcoming EP a five-track. ‘Gmaps’ is the first song from the EP. I recorded and co-produced it with the David Evans at the Old Chapel Studios, which is local to me. I mixed the songs with him and over-dubbed guitar round his house. I intentionally did this all beforehand as I wanted to do something by myself for myself. We then worked on the live set and playing together after this.

How would you describe your style? You mentioned the first time we met that you disliked being pigeonholed by today’s very broad stylistic labels.

Reubin: I think the idea of being forced into a category or compared is always gonna be a factor in music but right now I think we all know what we’re making and what we’re all proud of it regardless. 

Stan: Our musical style or personal? Either way, I’m just doing whatever I want.

Rhys: I don’t know, when people ask I just say experimental noise rock sort of thing.

How did your name come to be?

Stan: I’ve liked the sort of Hollywood idea of cowboys since I was younger. Before we started gigging, we went by my full name. Cowboyy kind of alludes to the solo artist thing but we are and will always be a band  

How did you all meet, and what were your different influences like?

Reubin: I met Stan at a party a few years back and we instantly got on because of our passion for music, especially hip-hop.

Stan: I then met Kai and Rhys through Instagram. we all like math rock, jazz, fusion, hardcore, funk etc.

Rhys: Tony Williams is a big influence, Chris Pennie from Dillinger Escape Plan and I like the drumming on a record called Scenery by Ryo Fukui

Have most of you played in bands before?

Stan: Yes I’ve played guitar, written music and been involved in production since about 16, but never done my own thing.

Kai: I’ve played in bands before this but only really at a local level.

Rhys: I’ve played drums in bands since I was about 16.

How do you think the music scene has responded to your music?

Reubin: I’m not sure but there definitely something brewing that got people talking.

Rhys: Sometimes it’s really good…sometimes not so much.

Who are some bands you’re excited about or could see yourselves playing with?

Reubin: None have really caught my eye for me or maybe it’s because I’m intimidated by their current status but I’m sure one day we’re gonna support some really cool bands.

Kai: Deathcrash are a band I really like at the moment and I could see us playing with them at some point.

Top three records of the year so far?

Stan: There’s not been a massive amount of music coming out this year I’m super into, I guess DOMi and JD BECK’s ‘NOT TiGHT’ and Palm have dropped a couple of singles, I’m excited about their new album.

Rhys: I really liked Island Of Love’s ‘Songs Of Love’ EP

Kai: As Stan said, Palm’s new singles are great and I’m really excited to hear their new album. For the other two, I’d say Return by Deathcrash and Badi Sabah Olmadan by Altin Gün

Reubin: For me, it’s Cheat Codes by Danger mouse, Gemini Rights by Steve Lacy and Arrangements by Preoccupations. Like Stan said there hasn’t been a lot coming out but there definitely some albums on the way I’m really excited for. 

What does the long-term plan look like for Cowboyy?

Stan: Have fun playing music and hopefully people like it.

Reubin: I’m looking forward to the journey ahead and the music we gonna create next!

Rhys: Space.

Kai: Moon first then Mars.

Along with the release of their first music video, the band announced their upcoming EP, ‘EPIC THE MOVIE’ coming March 6th next year.

Yeehaw.

Photo by Ele Marchant
Categories
Pop/Indie Pop Punk/Rock

Jessica Winter: “I Want to Find Something Real”

Magic lies purely in belief. Without belief, all magic and illusion crumble, but it’s a fine line between suspending disbelief and abandoning reason, and for that reason many people choose to block out the idea of magic entirely–their loss. I have always depended on finding magic in Jessica Winter’s music, and she has always provided it, so reliably that it sometimes seems like she might be a being from another planet. With a soaring magic carpet ride of a voice and a talent for writing pop hooks that rivals anybody on the charts today, her sound can’t be tucked neatly into any identifying genre but exists in a liminal space between electro-pop and indie goth, laced with jagged, searing punk rock rawness. Winter has called it “crance” (music for crying and dancing to simultaneously.) The Cure’s Robert Smith is a fan.

Besides performing as a solo artist, she’s produced acts such as Jazmin Bean, Gorillaz and Phoebe Green, and is currently scoring season two of the hit CBBC series Princess Mirabelle. She’s done countless collaborations with artists such as Lucia and the Best Boys, MADGE, Walt Disco, and Cid Rim. She’s also formerly one half of the cult favorite duo PREGOBLIN, her signature soaring vocals gracing all the hits. 

Once, while talking with one of Winter’s occasional collaborators, I asked him if he thought that Winter had out-of-body experiences when she sang. Her voice was capable of reaching such incredible heights, to use it must bring on a kind of mystical experience. Was that so? I asked. Could you see it when you watched her sing? He nodded, grinning. A voice like a magic carpet ride, indeed. (Winter described her style of vocal delivery in a Wonderland magazine interview in 2019 as “Julie Andrews singing Marilyn Manson.”)

With her pale teardrop-shaped face framed in delicate wire spectacles, she looks like Isabelle Adjani in the ‘80s, fine-lined sylphic beauty with a steel core. A childhood spent in hospital informed her worldview, as she developed an expansive imagination to cope with the isolation and confinement. That extraordinary imagination has translated into dark, elegant pop songs embroidered with poignant, sometimes deeply cutting observations. Her writing is defined by a remarkable honesty; she possesses a rare knack for telling universal truths without falling into the realm of cliché. (For example, the autofiction stylings of “Play,”the first track of her debut EP Sad Music: “I’m feeling famous/I’m feeling international/I got my money and my body/A miracle/I’m everything I ever needed growing up/I’m a fuck up/And I’m ok.”) 

Winter was born in the seaside town of Portsmouth, England, but spent most of her childhood on the neighboring outrider, Hayling Island, which she describes as, “…a tiny Victorian island…it’s bizarre, it’s just like everyone goes there to die. We weren’t very well off, and you could get a house there that was quite decent for the price of a flat in Portsmouth. The people there are either just druggy or pensioners. It was quite a bleak place to grow up.” 

She moved back to Portsmouth aged 15; it was there that she began writing her first fully formed songs. “I actually started writing song songs when I was about 16,” she reminisces. “But I’d always written little bits of music on the piano when I was growing up, because I’ve been playing piano since I was about two. So, I was writing (music) but…until I became a more mature person, I didn’t really write songs.”

“I used to use my uncle’s lyrics when I was 16. He would always write lyrics but he never knew how to do music so I would just take his lyric books and then start writing songs for him. Because I never really had anything to say at the time; I was just a child, figuring it out. I just thought life was how it should be, because you do at that age, and it’s not until recently that I’ve actually realized how messed up and traumatic my childhood was. I knew that I had a lot of pain, which is why music was a therapy and I always did it, but I could never put it into words until I got a bit older.”

Since then, Winter has written two EPs (2020’s Sad Music, followed by More Sad Music a year later) and several singles. She recently signed with the label Lucky Number Music, and her third EP, Limerence, is due to be released in the near future. 

“The EP covers similar things to what that word means,” Winter explains. “It’s basically an obsession or an addiction to love. There are three stages of limerence, and each one gets a bit more psychotic. I feel like the songs as well, each song gets progressively more psychotic…the way the songs have been picked and listening to it as a whole, I just thought it really makes sense to call it Limerence because not only is it an addiction to love, or an obsession with love, there’s also a song that covers just addiction in general, so I thought it was just a good word for the EP.”

Choreograph, the first single from the upcoming EP, was released on September 20th. The music video is a sly homage to the classic film, Singing in the Rain, featuring Winter in her signature wire-rimmed glasses and sharply tailored grey suit singing her heart out to the heavens in a thunderstorm. The lyrics are a commentary on the hard truth that love can’t be forced, and that picture-perfect ideals don’t always make for happy endings. It’s a joyous rejection of the over-marketed Hollywood fairytale: “real love/can’t be choreographed.”

Of the track, Winter says she wanted to express the feeling of searching for, “…something real in a place of very forced situations. People saying like, ‘this is love,’ by having the nature of a certain set-up…or just going like, “this is a good time,” because of the way things look… Even venues are just being created to look good on Instagram. ‘This will give you a good time, because you’re going to get loads of photos in this place,’ and it’s just like, whoa! Surely there’s more than that, surely there’s more to life than how things are on the surface. It was like, made out of desperation. Come on! There’s more to life than this. I want to find something real.”

Categories
DISCOVER

Steely Dan: pyncher

Dark, moody, and full of energy and electricity all describe Manchester’s latest underground gem, pyncher, perfectly. The young band exude that raw, dirty, yet artful aesthetic that the post punk space is known for while making it entirely their own – falling somewhere between the gap of post punk and grunge rock. Sam Blakeley’s often elegantly guttural voice, heavily reminiscent of Lux Interior of The Cramps, creates this rich feeling of longing throughout their discography, in a way that, although similar to other punkesque artists, established pyncher as a powerful contender in the scene.

Steely Dan, the band’s new single, released by Isolar Records on the 28th October, is a well-loved fan favourite often played at live shows. Opening with a raucously infectious bassline, a disturbing cackle and almost menacing “Hey Steely! What about me man?” from Blakely, the song is one sure to get you jumping along. Full of pent up anger and emotion, Steely Dan deals with complicated and heavy subject matter, “he took his life, alongside his wife,” in a way that demonstrates an often forgotten reaction, outrage rather than upset. Interspersed with the unusual vocable “CH CH CHU” the track is both impactful and enjoyable in a way that fills the audience with vigour, just as much as it makes them think.

You can catch them at their next live show in Manchester on the 12th November where they’ll be playing The Talleyrand alongside Tigers and Flies and ZOEB. Follow their Instagram @pyncher and @isolar_records to keep up to date.