Speedy Wunderground Rock & Indie 11 Items

London's Moreish Idols arrived fully formed a couple of months back with the frenetic "Speedboat", their debut single for tastemakers Speedy Wunderground. Following widespread support on that track, the band return today with news of their debut EP for the label "Float" set for release on August 12th, and a brand-new single in the insistent "Hangar".

Born from humble beginnings in a Cornish coastal town, the band recently relocated to the capital, expanding scope in the process to create something that not only stands apart from their peers, but also manages that aural diversity song to song within the same set.

Created with a strictly implemented manifesto: writing solely as a group so as to allow the blending of each member's widely divergent personalities and influences. This melded a sound that combines jazz, funk, krautrock, dub and punk into something decidedly... moreish.

In January 2022, Moreish Idols laid down the four songs that would make up "Float" over an intense five-day studio session spurred on by Dan Carey. The opener, "Hangar", started life as a mistake, a chord strummed on a detuned guitar. This happy accident gradually morphed and grew into a song about feelings of disenfranchisement and boredom that comes with the inescapable nature of late capitalism.

Beginning with an intro steeped in orange-sunshine psychedelia and led by a Swarmatron chordal drone, you’re lulled by the rhythmic arpeggiating melody before the revving Scalextric guitars kick in and the song takes off. It's an eclectic, thrilling cut that shifts sounds and shape several times across its duration, even switching vocalist between Lilley's verse and Kellett's chorus, it's a genuine highlight of an EP that is full of them.

The band's own Jude Lilley had the following to say about "Float" as a whole:

"The most exciting thing for us as a band is capturing our performances live, which something Speedy is renowned for. Everything you hear in the EP is us in the room working together as unit - apart from Dylan (sax) who recorded his take across the whole EP in one! There’s something really cool about listening back to the takes and realising ‘this is what the room sounded like 5 minutes ago… and that’s us making the noise’. To us "Float" is a collage, and a demonstration of the band putting everything in the mixer and seeing what comes out (lyrics included) and it’s exactly what Dan heard before getting us involved with the label."

Produced, as ever, by the label's own aforementioned Carey, "Hangar" and "Float" showcase more of the mercurial magic that is ever-present across the Speedy Wunderground catalogue.

Carey's most recent credits include Wet Leg, Kae Tempest and Fontaines DC while Speedy Wunderground have worked with the likes of Black Country, New Road, Sinead O'Brien, black midi, Jane Weaver, Squid and more.

Track List

Returning for the third time to the studio of Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, Hebden Bridge’s The Lounge Society are back; this time, with the mindset of crafting a debut album conceived out of desire, raised by collaborative muscle-memory, and kept beating, by the sacred-heart of emotional-spirit.

Recorded over two weeks in November 2021, Tired of Liberty is a stunningly ubiquitous snapshot of instrumental meltdown, and timeless adolescence. Keen to uphold the manipulated elasticity of a recorded event, the majority of the eleven tracks that make up the record (with the exception of ‘Generation Game’, which saw its beginnings as part of the Speedy Wunderground 7” series, and was subsequently re-recorded), were written either just before, or throughout the duration of those fortnight sessions.

Returning for the third time to the studio of Speedy Wunderground’s Dan Carey, Hebden Bridge’s The Lounge Society are back; this time, with the mindset of crafting a debut album conceived out of desire, raised by collaborative muscle-memory, and kept beating, by the sacred-heart of emotional-spirit.

Recorded over two weeks in November 2021, Tired of Liberty is a stunningly ubiquitous snapshot of instrumental meltdown, and timeless adolescence. Keen to uphold the manipulated elasticity of a recorded event, the majority of the eleven tracks that make up the record (with the exception of ‘Generation Game’, which saw its beginnings as part of the Speedy Wunderground 7” series, and was subsequently re-recorded), were written either just before, or throughout the duration of those fortnight sessions.

Stephen Fretwell is back and unveils his long-awaited third album Busy Guy via Speedy Wunderground/[PIAS]. Described by Fretwell as "a kind of songbook," the album examines the seasons of a lifetime by exploring themes like fatherhood, grief, and rebornness, always with the eloquence and wit that characterize Fretwell. Busy Guy was produced by Dan Carey, Stephen's close friend and boss of the Speedy Wunderground label.

With their first two singles under their belts – "Generation Game", the fastest selling 7" for the award-winning label, and "Burn The Heather" – plus a raft of Ones To Watch accolades for 2021, there is much anticipation for what lies next for the band.

In early 2020, "Generation Game" announced the band as artists shaping powerful narratives around a fast-fragmenting society. With the lyric “what will the US do?” they served up a painfully prescient prediction of American unrest.

Follow-up single "Burn The Heather" made a left-hand turn for the more punk-funk, sneering at culture wars and the damaging impact of a class divide.

New single "Cain’s Heresy" shakes with the propulsion of a nimble rhythm section, full of bite and scorn, simultaneously swinging angrily at a negligent political class ("The death of four souls is less than a kick in the teeth, for them"), the threat of misinformation ("Poisonous ideals on the screen breed a vicious way of thinking, off the screen") and the noxious follow-the-leader march of celebrity culture ("They’re servants to fame"). The EP title “Silk For The Starving” in itself probes at a society that routinely neglects the needs of the have-nots.

The Lounge Society sing about what they know then. Make no mistake, this is the sound of young England: articulate, enraged and energised. And – perhaps crucially - highly danceable too. It should give hope to anyone who has lost faith in the future, because here the future is in safe hands.