MUSIC PREMIERES
“This is the fuckin’ biggest show of our lives,” says English Teacher frontwoman Lily Fontaine to a capacity crowd at London’s Electric Brixton. “This is rock’n’roll,” she continues, with the spirit starting to take over. “That rock’n’roll, eh?” now with an Alex Turner drawl, “it just won’t go away…”
The Leeds art-rock champs have every right to carry a little of that swagger of their Yorkshire indie peers tonight. The final night of their tour also happens to be the biggest headline show of their career to date, a victory lap for their universally acclaimed Top 10 album ‘This Could Be Texas’ – certainly one of the definitive debuts of the year, and perhaps one of the best of this decade so far. “There are quite a lot of you,” notes Fontaine, with the air ripe with a sense of occasion.
The show starts with the singer tottering on stage wearing one of the giant papier-mâché heads from the music video for ‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’, accompanied by a fitting Lynchian soundtrack. Here’s a band that follow their own script. Their originality feeds their energy on all sides of the spectrum, from the jarring and rollicking ‘I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying’ to when Fontaine takes to the keys for the beautiful ‘Broken Biscuits’
‘Not Everybody Gets to Go to Space’ ironically takes Brixton beyond the O-zone layer, while the intricate meanderings of ‘Mastermind Specialism’ keep the crowd enthralled without a whiff of being self-indulgent. “This is a love song,” says Fontaine, introducing ‘You Blister My Paint’. “We don’t have many of those, so excuse me while I get emotional”. And she does. In fact, she sings the absolute fuck out of it. “It’s about to get lairy,” she offers before ‘The Best Tears Of Your Life’, seeing in a series of wild peaks, complete with a spot of crowdsurfing for ‘R&B’; the band’s eccentricities never getting in the way of a good time.
We spot a nearby fan wiping the tears from their cheeks during a magnetic performance of the tender ‘Albert Road’, before Fontaine finds again that “dreams can come true” for a confetti rainstorm during the frenetic first set close of ‘Nearly Daffodils’. Returning for the encore of a wonkily gorgeous spin on LCD Soundsystem’s ‘New York I Love You But You’re Bringing Me Down’. It’s been a journey in just over an hour, leaving you desparate to know the band’s next destination.
“Where do you holiday?” shouts someone from the audience at one point. “I don’t holiday, mate,” Fontaine smiles back. “I work. I’m a bad bitch”. English Teacher have been more than vocal in the never-ending battle for artists’ hard-work to be valued and compensated. They’ve put the hours in, and tonight it pays off. They’ll clean up at festival season and if there’s any justice they’ll be at least nominated for the Mercury Prize. The year could very much belong to English Teacher – the band keeping UK indie very safely out of that swamp.
‘The World’s Biggest Paving Slab’
‘I’m Not Crying, You’re Crying’
‘Broken Biscuits’
‘Not Everybody Gets to Go to Space’
‘Albatross’
‘Sideboob’
‘Mastermind Specialism’
‘You Blister My Paint’
‘This Could Be Texas’
‘The Best Tears of Your Life’
‘Nearly Daffodils’
‘R&B’
‘Albert Road’
Encore:
‘New York, I Love You but You’re Bringing Me Down’
MUSIC PREMIERES
Four years on from the ‘Actual Life’ series lifting him into the mainstream spotlight, Fred Again.. continues to feel unavoidable. The London producer and DJ born Fred Gibson has moved at a relentless pace, bouncing between sold out stadium dates in New York and surprise appearances at Sheffield’s 1,000 capacity Forge, while also making history as the first electronic artist to top the bill at Reading and Leeds in 2024.
Where the ‘Actual Life’ releases and his fourth album, 2024’s ‘Ten Days’, leaned into warmth and joy pulled from ordinary moments, Gibson has also sharpened his instinct for high impact club weapons rooted in garage, dubstep and jungle. That side of his output lives on ‘USB’, an “infinite album” first imagined in 2022 as a home for tracks that exist outside any fixed universe, including defining moments like ‘Rumble’ and ‘Jungle’.
‘USB002’, the second vinyl only chapter of the ‘USB’ project, brings together 16 recent tracks, many of which surfaced gradually on streaming services over a ten week stretch. The music was shaped live, in step with ten unannounced DJ appearances across the world from Dublin to Mexico City. Even with a Glastonbury style registration system in place, The Times reported that 100,000 people tried to secure tickets for the opening night in Glasgow.
Appropriately, ‘USB002’ feels alive and constantly in motion, helped along by contributions from close collaborators such as Floating Points and Sammy Virji. The rigid, techno driven pressure of ‘Ambery’ echoes elements of Floating Points’ 2019 album ‘Crush’, while Gibson’s take on ‘The Floor’ builds like the slow climb of a rollercoaster before dropping back to earth without warning.
The guest list stretches beyond the usual dance circles, with two Australian guitar bands popping up in unexpected ways. ‘You’re A Star’ reworks Amyl and The Sniffers’ ‘Big Dreams’ into a breakbeat driven rush, while ‘Hardstyle 2’ pulls the experimental post punk edge of Shady Nasty into an Underworld adjacent space alongside Kettama. Gibson’s real trick is his ability to connect with anyone. These tracks are not reinterpretations but full takeovers.
The visual world wrapped around the ‘USB002’ rollout reinforces the instinct behind the music. Phones were prohibited at shows staged in vast warehouse spaces under sweeping light rigs, while Gibson’s team shared striking black and white footage and created artwork for each single on site. Bottling that sense of urgency, the project is rooted in the thrill of the present moment, something Gibson seems able to summon simply by turning up.
If the ‘Actual Life’ series and ‘Ten Days’ captured passing snapshots of experience, ‘USB’ is defined by constant movement, a space where boundaries are removed entirely. Sitting somewhere between an album and a playlist, ‘USB002’ underlines why Fred Again.. feels so dominant right now, and suggests that his current run may only be the beginning of something much bigger.
